13 minutes ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Our first intrigue scene that we made was with us, the 3 players trying to convince our daimyo that it was best to trade the new found vein of Jade in our province to the Crab in exchange for Kaiu Steel.

The GM started reading the rules (which took 10 minutes) and realized that it would be extremely broken with all 3 players contributed to the same momentum pool so each one would have its own. We argued that it made sense if it was a skirmish of 3 against 1. The lone one should be at a disadvantage. In the end, we all agreed (after talking for 10 minutes) that the daimyo would try to convince one of us to agree with him and hoard the Jade and if he convinced one of us before he was convinced otherwise, that would be the end of the scene.

We, as the group, came together, but the fact that we had to spend 20 minutes (of a 2h30 game) just to agree on how to play a scene because the book doesn't tell us, extremely frustrating.

The fact now, if one player decides, for a good reason, to play as a treasure hunter, pretty much makes him immune in intrigue conflicts, extremely annoying.

I think we play similarly to you.

Separate momentum tracks. 3pc vs 1npc is still easy win, 2pc help/assist 1pc who is the one "leading" the conversation (usually the courtier).
But a shared momentum track is just ridiculous. I think.

Also, I do "attack" with the NPC, and if one NPC "win" well, the targeted PC will be forced to be "persuaded".
Which makes it interesting for us.

So in the case of the Treasure hunter... well the NPC would simply target another PC. Sure, the treasure hunter is immune... (and it is so-so design) but at least not all the party is. Or I would be nasty, and use all my NPC with high Fire and Strife dumping abilities and compromise the Treasure hunter (which is how L5R plays at higher rank, cheese vs cheese).

33 minutes ago, Diogo Salazar said:

The GM started reading the rules (which took 10 minutes) and realized that it would be extremely broken with all 3 players contributed to the same momentum pool so each one would have its own. We argued that it made sense if it was a skirmish of 3 against 1. The lone one should be at a disadvantage. In the end, we all agreed (after talking for 10 minutes) that the daimyo would try to convince one of us to agree with him and hoard the Jade and if he convinced one of us before he was convinced otherwise, that would be the end of the scene.

In a situation like that, I'd just have it be a check with a TN. Intrigues, as a rule, require two detectable sides; where all the PCs are trying to persuade a single NPC of something, there isn't really an active opposition.

It's much like skirmishes versus abstract martial arts checks - actually killing someone takes a bit of doing in the system, but if you're a shinobi sneaking up on a guard with the Dagger of +1 Shivving People In The Back , playing it as a skirmish doesn't make sense - a martial arts melee (air) check to see if you manage to stab the fool before he can scream as a single roll.

6 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Intrigues, as a rule, require two detectable sides.

Not necessarily. You can have a "timer" like what they do in Winter's Embrace. The NPCs doesn't need to make a roll at all.
But for a simple "convincing" (very binary outcome) I do agree a full Intrigue scene is not necessary.

Intrigues are a really, REALLY weird beast to tackle. There are so many ways to use them..
hey kind of work the best as a full on PC vs NPC if you setup a huge encounter, with multiple NPCs and locations, and have the PCs not be all in the same spot and also have different agendas.
But this is extremely difficult to setup as a GM. And usually is the whole session in itself (more of less).

With a "timer" they can work in more situations, and are easier to setup, but, if the goal is very binary they tend to make all the party focus fire on just getting momentum points and not really caring for all the shuji and stuff.
The best way is to do like in Winter's Embrace, basically different outcomes are possible and the Intrigue itself is not a simple matter of "party trying to convince someone", but more like the PCs trying to navigate a social situation in whatever way they feel they want to. Still, all the defensive Shuji are kind of useless for those scenes in which the NPC don't "attack".

I mean.. It is so all over the place. So complicated to figure out on the spot. That yes, most of the time you just do a simple TN check, and add your "opportunity usage shuji" and call it a day.

22 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

I think we play similarly to you.

Separate momentum tracks. 3pc vs 1npc is still easy win, 2pc help/assist 1pc who is the one "leading" the conversation (usually the courtier).
But a shared momentum track is just ridiculous. I think.

Also, I do "attack" with the NPC, and if one NPC "win" well, the targeted PC will be forced to be "persuaded".
Which makes it interesting for us.

Yes, that's exactly how we did, the two bushi offered assist to the courtier who led the conversation and the daimyo was trying to convince me to drop the matter because I was the one with lowest vigilance.

19 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

In a situation like that, I'd just have it be a check with a TN. Intrigues, as a rule, require two detectable sides; where all the PCs are trying to persuade a single NPC of something, there isn't really an active opposition.

It's much like skirmishes versus abstract martial arts checks - actually killing someone takes a bit of doing in the system, but if you're a shinobi sneaking up on a guard with the Dagger of +1 Shivving People In The Back , playing it as a skirmish doesn't make sense - a martial arts melee (air) check to see if you manage to stab the fool before he can scream as a single roll.

Well, sure, except there are techniques exactly to make sure a guard is dropped/killed silently that might evolve to a duel/skirmish if the ninja , sorry, shinobi doesn't one hit the guard.

And again, that kind of goes with what the book says

We were trying to persuade our daimyo that doing the opposite of what he wanted was actually better for him (and therefore to the clan).

The rules tell you what takes to complete the objective but doesn't say, for instance, that if one of the many parties involved, achieves first, the scene ends. Or that should have a timer.

Although, that is indeed what our GM did, he decided every roll would be roughly one hour and we had around 5 rolls (an entire afternoon) to achieve our objective or the daimyo achieves his.

Again, the new system has a lot of narrative potential but it's poorly edited/written. Getting a revised core would be a blessing.

14 minutes ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Yes, that's exactly how we did, the two bushi offered assist to the courtier who led the conversation and the daimyo was trying to convince me to drop the matter because I was the one with lowest vigilance.

Well, sure, except there are techniques exactly to make sure a guard is dropped/killed silently that might evolve to a duel/skirmish if the ninja , sorry, shinobi doesn't one hit the guard.

And again, that kind of goes with what the book says

We were trying to persuade our daimyo that doing the opposite of what he wanted was actually better for him (and therefore to the clan).

The rules tell you what takes to complete the objective but doesn't say, for instance, that if one of the many parties involved, achieves first, the scene ends. Or that should have a timer.

Although, that is indeed what our GM did, he decided every roll would be roughly one hour and we had around 5 rolls (an entire afternoon) to achieve our objective or the daimyo achieves his.

Again, the new system has a lot of narrative potential but it's poorly edited/written. Getting a revised core would be a blessing.

Your GM sounds like how I play...

I do the same even with Narrative Scenes; I set a timer with a set amount of rolls (more or less, sometimes I throw in an extra round or two, depending).

Agreed it is written/edited super confusingly (the Conflict chapter especially is just a headscratcher...) and some techniques and abilities or opportunity usage are a bit busted or overlap with other options.
The game is confused and lacks polish, hard to deny, but if the GM can navigate through the hoops and find their own rythm in there, and that the players are cooperative, it can work to tell interesting stories.

They won't do a revised/patched edition anytime soon... I'm pretty sure they won't... Especially now that many books are out, it would be too difficult and too costly of an eadeavor.

Wizards of the Coast took 3 years to launch the 3.5 after the 3rd edition release. So the 3 years mark is just around the corner. And of course, it’s better to do it sooner than later.

Mostly, it’s the conflict chapter that needs a re-haul and the skills chapters with examples of which rings to use and TNs to assign could use some polish.

If they went that route then having some update to the core rules that still supported 90% of the source books would be preferable rather than jumping in on a new iteration of the rules IMO. MCG has done that in the past with some of their systems. They release a new core book, but arrange it so mostly the other books in the line are unaffected.

22 minutes ago, phillos said:

If they went that route then having some update to the core rules that still supported 90% of the source books would be preferable rather than jumping in on a new iteration of the rules IMO. MCG has done that in the past with some of their systems. They release a new core book, but arrange it so mostly the other books in the line are unaffected.

Definitely. Fix the core (and screen?) the other books can probably just get a few erratas.

Not only relevant to RPG, although they are discussed, briefly.

Here is an Interview with the president of Asmodee USA talking about the recent shuffles at FFG.

Basically, FFG will do a lot of miniatures games (and star wars) focused, while still keeping card games and a sprinkle of what they made their name with; narrative board games.

RPG will continue and a lot of the freelancers will come back.

It really all depends what are the budgets and skills (and commitment) of the new Edge studio.

They just did a bunch of great interviews from GAMA including Colby from Plaidhat which also just broke off from Asmodee and Christian Petersen. It was nice to see what that guy was doing.

Ok so, let me get this straight. The books will still be printed and reprinted for all game lines {not including warhammer so in this case Edge of the empire, age of rebellion, force and destiny, etc}

But my question is, will these new books still possess the FFG logo on them ?

18 minutes ago, Ni Fang said:

Ok so, let me get this straight. The books will still be printed and reprinted for all game lines {not including warhammer so in this case Edge of the empire, age of rebellion, force and destiny, etc}

But my question is, will these new books still possess the FFG logo on them ?

I can't see how they would have FFG on them any longer since Asmodee has moved RPG's to Edge. Once the old stock is gone, new prints will at least have the logo and legal statements swapped from FFG to Edge.

3 minutes ago, Sturn said:

I can't see how they would have FFG on them any longer since Asmodee has moved RPG's to Edge. Once the old stock is gone, new prints will at least have the logo and legal statements swapped from FFG to Edge.

Didn't AEG sell L5R to FFG.. making FFG the actual owners of the IP?

Yeah I'd think FFG still needs to be credited for at least L5R. As far as I know it's just the RPG that's moving development. They still have the card games and board games in house. Also they still control the story line. Nobody from the story team is moving over and they all still work for the company.

On 3/12/2020 at 12:31 PM, Diogo Salazar said:

Wizards of the Coast took 3 years to launch the 3.5 after the 3rd edition release. So the 3 years mark is just around the corner. And of course, it’s better to do it sooner than later.

Mostly, it’s the conflict chapter that needs a re-haul and the skills chapters with examples of which rings to use and TNs to assign could use some polish.

On the other hand, Of the 7 Major clans, only the Crab, Crane, and soon Phoenix will have had books to hi-lite them in this edition. Personally I expect a book focusing on warfare in rokugan, which would also be "The Lion Clan book". That book will probably contain modified skirmish and mass battle rules. I expect another book will be focused on law/crime in Rokugan.. this will be "the scorpion clan book" and will have modified rules for intrigue (and maybe duels). The "Dragon clan book" would be another good place for improved dueling rules, but I would expect that book to focus on "science" and rational thought in the empire. So there are still books which need to be released which could easily and sensibly address the issues with the conflict system. On the third hand, it would be nice if the core rulebook actually contained all the core rules.

31 minutes ago, Sturn said:

I can't see how they would have FFG on them any longer since Asmodee has moved RPG's to Edge. Once the old stock is gone, new prints will at least have the logo and legal statements swapped from FFG to Edge.

Asmodee alkso owns Days of Wonder do they not ?

12 minutes ago, phillos said:

Yeah I'd think FFG still needs to be credited for at least L5R. As far as I know it's just the RPG that's moving development. They still have the card games and board games in house. Also they still control the story line. Nobody from the story team is moving over and they all still work for the company.

L5R makes since as AEG sold FFG the IP directly, so even if the star wars games get moved to Edge, L5R will still retain the FFG logo ?

28 minutes ago, Black_Rabbit_Inle said:

Didn't AEG sell L5R to FFG.. making FFG the actual owners of the IP?

But Asmodee owns FFG, so they get to make the big-brain decisions. Genesys and L5R are IP owned by FFG as part of Asmodee, so they may get similar notes to how Lucasfilm is plastered (and will continue to be plastered) all over the Star Wars lines, but I don't know if they'll have to slap FFG's logo on the outside. It's all technically the same "owner" though, in the same way that people automatically now ascribe everything made or related to Star Wars to Disney corp.

I am happy to read that the RPGs will be continued and I've read the name Edge before in context to other RPGs and from what I remember, they have high quality standards. So I am a happy little klatschi0212.

And look, Avatar111 immediately uses this threat to complain about the rules, what a surprise, haven't seen that around here before 🙂

From my perspective, they can simply go on producing the books, me and my gaming group are not in need of a revised edition - maybe we just implicitly play around certain problems others have (and we somehow do not), I don't know. We are happy with the system and how it turned out.

I am really looking forward to other clan books, for someone getting to know this system with this installment, I really enjoy the amount of detail they've put in the clan books so far. Not too detailed with lots of open space for own ideas but with a good scaffold (thinking about details, I have flashbacks to two popular German RPGs, that are nuts in terms of detail. The last session, the GM and a player discussed whether the GM's decision is feasible because the postal system in that fictional country works a certain way that wouldn't enable it. After that session, I dropped).

1 hour ago, klatschi0212 said:

I am happy to read that the RPGs will be continued and I've read the name Edge before in context to other RPGs and from what I remember, they have high quality standards. So I am a happy little klatschi0212.

And look, Avatar111 immediately uses this threat to complain about the rules, what a surprise, haven't seen that around here before 🙂

From my perspective, they can simply go on producing the books, me and my gaming group are not in need of a revised edition - maybe we just implicitly play around certain problems others have (and we somehow do not), I don't know. We are happy with the system and how it turned out.

I mean, can you blame him?

The rules are written poorly enough that if some people, for some reason, decide to start playing RPG for their first time and they decide to pick L5R, they are in for messy game sessions, with the group not having experience enough on how to handle anything ad hoc.
And woe be them if they try to come here to ask questions. I joined at the beginning of the month and started joining threads and they would all show a message saying that I needed moderator approval before posting. I had to pester 3 members of the staff until one of them finaly answered my PM and allowed me to post freely, after 6 days...
The game has potential, I totally agree with that, but it needs so much polishing that it’s not funny.

28 minutes ago, Diogo Salazar said:

I mean, can you blame him?

The rules are written poorly enough that if some people, for some reason, decide to start playing RPG for their first time and they decide to pick L5R, they are in for messy game sessions, with the group not having experience enough on how to handle anything ad hoc.
And woe be them if they try to come here to ask questions. I joined at the beginning of the month and started joining threads and they would all show a message saying that I needed moderator approval before posting. I had to pester 3 members of the staff until one of them finaly answered my PM and allowed me to post freely, after 6 days...
The game has potential, I totally agree with that, but it needs so much polishing that it’s not funny.

Funny, I've never had these problems with the rules and I have two players at my table that never played Tabletop RPGs before. So maybe, we are a strange bunch of people or we have a different approach to playing this game or we simply overlook certain things? 🤷‍♂️ I really do not know, however, trumpeting out one's frustration repeatedly does not help either. Just play with the rules you like (adpat the game to Savage Worlds or keep playing 4th) or walk away. But hijacking topics to repeat the same complaints over and over is not doing anything.

Concerning the moderation approval: seems as if things were running a bit chaotic here the last weeks - I've got mine pretty quick "back then" (a year ago or something like that)

4 hours ago, klatschi0212 said:

Funny, I've never had these problems with the rules and I have two players at my table that never played Tabletop RPGs before. So maybe, we are a strange bunch of people or we have a different approach to playing this game or we simply overlook certain things? 🤷‍♂️ I really do not know, however, trumpeting out one's frustration repeatedly does not help either. Just play with the rules you like (adpat the game to Savage Worlds or keep playing 4th) or walk away. But hijacking topics to repeat the same complaints over and over is not doing anything.

I can take the blame. I complained way too much, and still do. But I toned downed a bit if you check around the last few weeks.

You are right that I should have just walked away instead of voicing my opinion over and over. Nothing will change with the game. Even if I was right, what would it change? Nothing. That is basically like a madman that keeps hammering complaints about any situation or product (political, or corporate, or whatever else) over and over, nothing will change. At least not in the short/medium term.

I'll keep making efforts to tone down plastering my critical opinion everywhere, especially not in threads that do not deserve it, which right now is mostly the general section as I am not really taking part in the lore and story sections. I'll limit those opinions to the rules and houserules sections which are more appropriate for such opinions and discussions.

Hopefully you see improvements and your experience with the forums improve!

Honestly, I am with @Avatar111 on how busted the rules of the RPG are, though I am not quite on the same page as them on just how to solve it. But if you are having fun with the game, more power to you.

Just put me in the boat of hoping that Edge Studios decides to go the route of "Genesys Foundry". I literally have eight L5R RPG projects sitting in my "game design" queue I would love to work on, but unless they come up with a way to get it to pay, I cannot in good conscience move them in front of game design (and other) projects that pay me.

In terms of the RPGs divisoon of FFG going to Edge Entertainment, then things are going to go fine I feel we're in for a good source of RPGs and even reprints in the future should it come to it {Wow, really ? Path of Waves already sold out entirely ?!}

In terms of RPG rules, quirte personally I dont mind complaints myself. I never had to worry of being moderator approved for posting, I just joined up back when Rogue Trader and Warhammer RPGs were the mainstream for FFG. To me, the rules for L5R's newest edition feels more like the old World of Darkness, Storyteller rules wherein everyone makes a die pool, and rolls it. But they added in the roll can keep system from the 4th edition of L5R to the mix and that kinda makes it messy {Thankfully my Storyteller and group as a whole prefer the more storytelling side of things over dile rolling}

I don't mind discussing things that could be improved with the system, but I absolutely object to every thread that a couple of people post in ending up with them complaining about the system, even when that wasn't the point of it in the first place.

As a note, the roll and keep system was invented for L5R, first edition. If they hadn't kept it in some way, there would have been even more discontent amongst fans. Witness what happened to John Wick's 2nd edition 7th Sea when he claimed that 'rolling all the dice and keeping them' was just an expansion of the system. I also think that the updated system in FFG L5R RPG actually makes choosing which dice to keep meaningful, adding to the game.