Isn't the oportunity spend for removing strife from the current roll too strong?

I am having some issues with it, because it's the main oportunity use for my players by a huge margin. This leads to:

- Most of the other oportunity spends almost don't see play in our table.

- They almost never have issues with strife or unmasking. This is probably the worst problem I have, because the interesting part of the dice in this game is the addition of strife, and when this mechanic is cancelled by oportunities I feel like the system loses the main purpose of their dice.

First I tried talking about this with them, but since unmasking seems too negative on the PCs they obviously would do anything to avoid it. And in this case they simply lose the oportunities, which they don't see as a big deal.

I have been thinking on making it a non-repeatable oportunity use, increase the cost to 2 or simply forbid this use for oportunities here...

Do you have the same problem, or it's just my players? How would you solve this?

Well, if they are taking lots of opportunities to remove Strife, I am assuming somehow they are have huge dice pools, because I don't see how they are not using the opportunities for everything else. I mean, I can understand not want to become Compromised in the middle of a duel, and unless your game has a duel every other scene, I really don't understand what they are so afraid of about Unmasking, it's not mandatory and if they want to, they will lose a bit of Honor or Glory (if any).

I mean, just taking a look at the general uses like finding out the demeanor and strife of an NPC or using opportunities to act subtler (which means that even if you succeeded at doing something sneaky or even you failed, it will make it harder to notice you), or finding out an advantage or disadvantage of an NPC are all excellent uses. Same for the general uses of the other rings. Opportunities are about adding flavor to a roll. Say you have two characters competing in a haiku competition. They both roll their Composition/Fire with TN 2. Character A gets 3 successes and Character B gets 2 Successes and 2 Opportunities and decides to use the opportunities to make his poem flashy, attracting attention to himself. Even though Character A got more successes, Character B also succeeded and I would be hard pressed to give THEM the victory because of the way he used his opportunities.

In the end, I guess, if you want to make your players use opportunities in other ways, I guess your house rule of incremental increase is a good one.

I think it really depends on the players and the table.

Some of my players always try to avoid Strife with their Opp. Some others are looking at the list I gave them in order to take the right pick. Also, PC with Composure 10 allows to take a bit more Strife than Composure 6...

Try maybe to make other Opp valuable to your players. Flashy effects, some nice bonus, this should be attractive.

Characters should be cautious about unmasking, but it's definitely not something they should never do! The societal rules of Rokugan are one of the chief obstacles to overcome. Part of the fun is working around them, but every so often, don't you just want to smash through them? Unmasking is how you do that. That obnoxious courtier keeps blocking your every move with a polite word in the right ear, and that smug little grin? And now he's here in your favorite sake house, telling amusing stories about you to your drinking buddies? How they all laugh at you, while he smiles at you, and says, "Oh, my old friend! It's all in jest!" After all, you wouldn't want to make a scene, would you?

To Jigoku with that! Make a scene! Unmask, shove that twerp to the ground and challenge him to a duel, right here, right now. If he's afraid of your blade, fists will do fine! He can try to delay it, or insist on seeking permission from his lord, or ask for a second, but by doing so, he shows himself for a coward.

Unmasking is supposed to be a way to move the story forward. There are plenty of examples in movies and TV where entire stories come out of such loss of face. In one episode of Firefly , Captain Reynolds gets angry and punches a rich snob at a fancy party, and as such, is expected to fight him with a sword the next day. Unmasking!

Any secret love affair needs to have an unmasking! Nobody wants a well-reasoned, stoic declaration of sturdy affection from your Earth Ring. You roll that in Fire, and you keep every Strife symbol you can get! Someone on these forums once lamented that you run the risk of unmasking any time you kiss a pretty girl. I say, if you can kiss a pretty girl without unmasking, you're doing it all wrong!

3 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:

Someone on these forums once lamented that you run the risk of unmasking any time you kiss a pretty girl. I say, if you can kiss a pretty girl without unmasking, you're doing it all wrong!

I would argue that kissing the pretty girl IS unmasking. Wanting to kiss the pretty girl is becoming compromised. The one thing I would change in the rules though, is that you should be able to unmask once per scene freely, without having to become compromised first.

4 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

[...]The one thing I would change in the rules though, is that you should be able to unmask once per scene freely, without having to become compromised first.

Wait I have to be compromised first?
We have always allowed for volunteer unmasking as a venting option, under the stipulation that it would require an audience.
I.e you cant run from a scene without someone to run away from and such.

I'd allow it, but according to RAW, you have to be Compromised first. One could say that if you're not Compromised, that you're putting on an act. Just breaking decorum isn't unmasking, it's being uncouth. Hida bushi tend to have high Composure, so they have great self-control, they just don't much care if people see them act out.

39 minutes ago, Chilitoke said:

Wait I have to be compromised first?
We have always allowed for volunteer unmasking as a venting option, under the stipulation that it would require an audience.
I.e you cant run from a scene without someone to run away from and such.

Exactly, that's my point. You should be able to.

5 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

I would argue that kissing the pretty girl IS unmasking. Wanting to kiss the pretty girl is becoming compromised.

No. Wanting to kiss the pretty girl is biology.

Wanting to kiss her to the point where you find it hard to focus on anything else, or not think about her for a while, is being compromised.

1 hour ago, The Grand Falloon said:

I'd allow it, but according to RAW, you have to be Compromised first. One could say that if you're not Compromised, that you're putting on an act. Just breaking decorum isn't unmasking, it's being uncouth. Hida bushi tend to have high Composure, so they have great self-control, they just don't much care if people see them act out.

Yes, but RAW also say that you're allowed to apply strife to yourself if you think it makes sense (P29, Strife from other sources), so if a player really wants to unmask, they can voluntarily take enought strife to be compromised and just do it anyway.