1 minute ago, Diogo Salazar said:

For one, duels instead of skirmishes when you have only two people fighting guarantees a quicker end of the whole conflict because someone will become Compromised. So that helps move the game faster for all the other players who are just watching.

No I think you are miss using the Duel mechanic. The duel mechanic is supposed to be used for more formal duel. not every combat that involves 2 people should be resolved using the duel rules. and I suspect that is causing your issue.

Well, you can say I had a different interpretation of something that was written in the book which says that duels should be used for one-on-one martial contests. From there saying, I am wrong because I interpreted something with an ambiguous value is just rude.

Like I said, we can all agree on disagree. I am pointing out how me and my group has been playing it and for my group, using duels whenever there are only two people fighting, speeds up the game considerably and gives a rush feeling of trying to defeat your opponent before you become Compromised yourself. I suggest you try it at least once.

1 hour ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Well, you can say I had a different interpretation of something that was written in the book which says that duels should be used for one-on-one martial contests. From there saying, I am wrong because I interpreted something with an ambiguous value is just rude.

Like I said, we can all agree on disagree. I am pointing out how me and my group has been playing it and for my group, using duels whenever there are only two people fighting, speeds up the game considerably and gives a rush feeling of trying to defeat your opponent before you become Compromised yourself. I suggest you try it at least once.

Well if you are using a rule meant for formalized duels for every skirmish what am i supposed to think?

My two zeni :

Intrigue
It's definitely not perfect, but it does "social combat" better than any other RPG I know of, so I feel like I shouldn't be too critical. I house rule some stuff (social objectives especially), but at least it's a pretty solid starting point.

Dueling
I'm not sure I'd say the dueling rules don't work , but I would at least say that they don't work the way I want them to. In 3rd and 4th, our table stopped to excitedly watch a duel happen. I haven't been able to recapture that with the FFG rules. They just don't seem as fun or suspenseful. I think reading the rules, it feels like you have a lot of options, but in actual play, most of those options don't seem very good. So to that extent, I agree with Diogo. To get the dueling experience I want, I'd basically be starting from scratch.

Skirmishes
I'm sort of mixed on this. In the first combat I ran, both the player and their opponent had a katana and lacquered armor. Because it was a brand new character (no bonus starting xp), she only had one or two ranks in Martial Arts (Melee) so she couldn't reliably get bonuses successes or enough success and opportunity to crit. So even when she hit, she just did the base 4 damage from a katana, which was absorbed by her opponent's armor. And vice versa. Eventually they were both compromised, so they couldn't even keep dice with strife, and it ended in a stalemate. Which felt weird.

I thought range bands seemed cool (if strange) at first, because they might support more narrative combat. In practice, I think they sometimes work but sometimes create weird, unclear situations. Last session a mounted character tried to retreat from combat. One of the combatants followed her. She rolled Maneuver checks to get away, and I had her move range bands away from her pursuer. When she failed the check, she only moved one range band. Even when she succeeded, she just moved 3 range bands (at most 10 yards). After a few rounds of this, she was still only within 4 range bands (up to 100 yards) from the main combat, which means opponents only had to move 3 range bands to be 1 range band away from her. So even though she was mounted and had a head start, with one good roll they caught up.

Mass Battles
This is the conflict that I think suffered the most. After a few sessions building to a mass battle, my table found these rules really anticlimactic. I think for most characters, there's really only one reasonable option, and you just choose it every round. Again, maybe part of my disappointment is because the AEG rules were super fun (if a little too deadly for my taste).

I really like L5R. It's not like the rules are so bad it's unplayable or anything. But I do think most groups are going to find that they have to do a lot more house ruling with L5R than with most other RPGs. And that those house rules are going to be related to core mechanics of the game, not just individual schools or techniques (though that may happen too). So I don't think an updated core rulebook is that crazy of an idea, if and only if it actually addresses the biggest, most common player concerns.

35 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Well if you are using a rule meant for formalized duels for every skirmish what am i supposed to think?

Well, that's my point, the way the book is written, the duel mechanic should not be used only for formalized duels. That was the one thing I liked about the new duel system, even if it is poorly designed.

29 minutes ago, MonCalamariAgainstDrunkDriving said:

I thought range bands seemed cool (if strange) at first, because they might support more narrative combat. In practice, I think they sometimes work but sometimes create weird, unclear situations. Last session a mounted character tried to retreat from combat. One of the combatants followed her. She rolled Maneuver checks to get away, and I had her move range bands away from her pursuer. When she failed the check, she only moved one range band. Even when she succeeded, she just moved 3 range bands (at most 10 yards). After a few rounds of this, she was still only within 4 range bands (up to 100 yards) from the main combat, which means opponents only had to move 3 range bands to be 1 range band away from her. So even though she was mounted and had a head start, with one good roll they caught up.

If she was mounted, she should have added the Water ring of the mount (probably 3) to the successes. Which, if you go strict by rules as written, if you are the only mounted person leading a cohort in mass battle, you can add the Water Ring of the mount as extra successes when assaulting another cohort.

5 hours ago, Tenebrae said:

N ot really a fan of range bands.

Honestly, me either. Give me a proper hexgrid any day.

However, my preference doesn't mean they're broken.

1 hour ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Well, that's my point, the way the book is written, the duel mechanic should not be used only for formalized duels. That was the one thing I liked about the new duel system, even if it is poorly designed.

but Duels also should not be used for every combat just because their are just 2 combatants

Forget it, Diogo is a lost cause on that. He's very entrenched in his weird little misinterpretation of those rules.

4 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

I agree. Duels now are supposed to be used whenever you have a martial conflict involving two characters. Not only the formal duels where someone issued a challenge and they had to go through all the paperwork for approval.

...not what I indicated at all..?

I was trying to say that I've had more success using the current dueling system for non martial conflicts than for martial conflicts.

4 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Zatoichi meeting the rōnin at night by the side of the road? Duel.
Two samurai meeting on opposite sides of a bridge too narrow for both? Duel. Granted in the story they both decide to depart. That's actually one other complaint I have with the duel system that it is impossible for a character to asses his opponent DURING the duel.
Any Kurosawa standoffs? Duel.

To me, for it to be a duel, the participants need to be fully focused on each other, and willing to essentially play mind games with each other.

"Willing" isn't actually the word I want here. Maybe ... "able to force each other to play mind games" would be more accurate.

Actually, that's not accurate either, but I find it very hard to explain.

4 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

My problem with Predict is that you know your opponent took a Predict action, so you just need to go Void and attack "for free". You won't incur in extra Strife and if you were lucky with explosive dice and opportunities you can deal a critical hit with no risk of becoming Compromised yourself.

How do you know that? We played it that you choose your action and stance, write it down, and then both reveal simultaneously. If your opponent chose predict and the exact stance you'd picked, you (probably) really will feel surprised and pushed off balance. Exactly how predict is supposed to work.

But then, I've had to patch duels in other ways, so I'm far from claiming the system is perfect as written.

5 hours ago, Tenebrae said:

...not what I indicated at all..?

I was trying to say that I've had more success using the current dueling system for non martial conflicts than for martial conflicts.

To me, for it to be a duel, the participants need to be fully focused on each other, and willing to essentially play mind games with each other.

"Willing" isn't actually the word I want here. Maybe ... "able to force each other to play mind games" would be more accurate.

Actually, that's not accurate either, but I find it very hard to explain.

How do you know that? We played it that you choose your action and stance, write it down, and then both reveal simultaneously. If your opponent chose predict and the exact stance you'd picked, you (probably) really will feel surprised and pushed off balance. Exactly how predict is supposed to work.

But then, I've had to patch duels in other ways, so I'm far from claiming the system is perfect as written.

Ha, that was another argument that I thought of making as well, but considering how my opinion is being seen as heretic I dropped it, but if you want to, the duel mechanics (of Strife clock) work beautifully for a chase scene as well, with one character trying to escape the other until one of them finally brakes (think Point Break chasing scene).

How won't I know the opponent took a predict action? Either, I won the initiative, acted first and then they acted, at which point they will reveal their action, or I lost the initiative, they acted and then I know their action and then I can choose my action.

Sure, you can house rule for duels, the one who lost the initiative has to declare it first and then the winner of the initiative then decides his action based on that and then acts first, or, as you house ruled it, both write their actions in a piece of paper and then show them, but then it begs the question why bother to win the initiative at all. And also, it points to another group that decided the rules as written don't feel right for them and they house ruled it.

5 hours ago, Daeglan said:

but Duels also should not be used for every combat just because their are just 2 combatants

On that, I will agree, but I still point out that it works faster for everybody involved if you use the rules for duels to speed up the game. Which, at this point, goes back to perhaps, if it's not such an important scene, you could use one roll duels but then we go back to how one roll duels are also poorly designed and as @MonCalamariAgainstDrunkDriving pointed out the feeling of duels in this edition had something lost from previous iterations.

I can't recall who was it that said that the particular example from Zatoichi that I posted here as well as in another thread didn't count as a duel which I pointed out that they even put a clear cinematographic example of predict (that failed, by the way). So clearly, there's a lot of people here that believes that the duel mechanics should be used exclusively for formal duels and I'm making the argument that it's not necessarily true.

I like @Tenebrae argument of what should constitute a duel. If you have two characters where they are solely focused on each other and trying to outmaneuver each other (psychologically or physically) and escape is not an option, that should be a duel.

So, a Yōjinbō protecting their defenseless ward from a Shinobi? Skirmish (the yōjinbō is worried about not putting his ward in harm's way as well).
Two samurai meeting on a narrow bridge and deciding that steel is the only way to decide who crosses first? Duel.
Two samurai in a sumai contest? Duel.
A samurai being caught by surprise in a dark alley against an assassin? Skirmish (because the samurai has the option of running away).

Anyway, I knew this was going to bring some heated debate and I warned it could take a while, but I hope I've made my point that the current system as it is, definitely needs some polishing and a revised edition wouldn't hurt. (For what is worth, WotC released DnD 3rd edition in 2000 and just 3 years later released 3.5, so EDGE deciding to release a revised edition next year, wouldn't be, at least, unprecedent).

Personally, while I find the the setting and lore and artwork great, I think the rules are incredibly convoluted and hard to follow, compounded by the raft of conditions, mechanics, and specialty dice. Opportunities, etc., just take a lot of time to figure out with respect to how they work with the other parts of the game. Another example are damage and deadliness for weapons. Then you add in strife and it gets more complicated. Like someone else said, it seems like they wanted to go more narrative, but decided to keep some tactical elements to appeal to the crowd for earlier editions. And the result is problematic on both levels, though that might not be the case if I played with experienced players for a few sessions. Just can't find anyone local, especially now with the FLGS not doing games.

I used to think the Modiphius Conan game was too convoluted and hard to grasp, as it also has levels of success, conditions, momentum, doom, etc., but it still seems more intuitive than this game. I appreciate that they are trying to make it a unique experience, but things could be written much more clearly. And I had played a bit of 1st edition about 20 years ago. I do think it really helps if you get in with a group that already knows the system and how it plays. That's a big reason I joined a PBP here with folks who actually understand the rules. Hopefully we'll start back up soon. I like the game enough that I've bought everything in the line thus far, despite my issues with grasping it all. So yeah, a clearer core book would be cool.

Finally, it's funny how so many "Narrative" games bury themselves in dice rolling mechanics when 90% of that stuff could just be role-played.

Just the observations from an outsider with big plans in development, but no real experience yet:)

16 minutes ago, Masakiyo said:

Finally, it's funny how so many "Narrative" games bury themselves in dice rolling mechanics when 90% of that stuff could just be role-played.

Just the observations from an outsider with big plans in development, but no real experience yet:)

Well, the one thing I like about the opportunity mechanic is that it can provide a way for a player to “fail forward”. But I agree that it can take some time for the players to figure out how they are going to spend their opportunities.

And I forgot to mention stances. Yet another thing to keep track of and stress over. On some levels it's cool that it encourages multiple approaches to problem solving beyond "Who has the best persuade skill? They talk to the guard." But it's another bit of clunkiness and noise when reading the rules.

I like stances. I agree it takes time to figure them out. But I’d say after 2 game sessions everybody will have it figured out. What I don’t like is how stance bonus don’t work in mass combat except for Fire and Void.

4 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

(For what is worth, WotC released DnD 3rd edition in 2000 and just 3 years later released 3.5, so EDGE deciding to release a revised edition next year, wouldn't be, at least, unprecedent).

AEG did it as well during the 2000s with L5R 3rd Edition, by releasing L5R 3rd Edition Revised a few years later.

6 hours ago, Diogo Salazar said:

7 hours ago, MonCalamariAgainstDrunkDriving said:

I thought range bands seemed cool (if strange) at first, because they might support more narrative combat. In practice, I think they sometimes work but sometimes create weird, unclear situations. Last session a mounted character tried to retreat from combat. One of the combatants followed her. She rolled Maneuver checks to get away, and I had her move range bands away from her pursuer. When she failed the check, she only moved one range band. Even when she succeeded, she just moved 3 range bands (at most 10 yards). After a few rounds of this, she was still only within 4 range bands (up to 100 yards) from the main combat, which means opponents only had to move 3 range bands to be 1 range band away from her. So even though she was mounted and had a head start, with one good roll they caught up.

If she was mounted, she should have added the Water ring of the mount (probably 3) to the successes. Which, if you go strict by rules as written, if you are the only mounted person leading a cohort in mass battle, you can add the Water Ring of the mount as extra successes when assaulting another cohort.

I'm still learning the system, so I for sure could have made a mistake, but I think we played with this correctly. Being mounted only adds bonus successes, so she doesn't get them on a failed check (hence only moving 1 range band). The Maneuver action only lets you move 2 range bands on a success, plus a band per two bonus successes, which is why mounted she was able to move 3 bands (2 + 1 from the horse).

1 hour ago, Diogo Salazar said:

I like stances. I agree it takes time to figure them out. But I’d say after 2 game sessions everybody will have it figured out. What I don’t like is how stance bonus don’t work in mass combat except for Fire and Void.

I am sure they do. it just may not be obvious

6 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

I am sure they do. it just may not be obvious

Well, let's see, shall we?

• Earth makes you immune to crits and conditions provoked by opportunities. So far, there's no ability that gives a condition to a cohort. So yes, you are right, Earth might be provide something in the future but so far? Nothing.
• Air makes your character harder to be attacked or schemed, so yeah, technically it works if you assume that once you are challenged in mass battle, you only play a single turn of a duel in the stance you chose for the battle this round. I don't know how everyone is playing their mass battle in this regard.
• Water gives you an extra action as long as it doesn't share a keyword with another action and doesn't involve a roll. So far, there are no mass battle actions that don't involve a roll. And again, maybe Fields of Victory will bring such action? But it's just guessing.

That's not to say that there aren't Shuji from Air, Water and Earth that are useful in mass battle, of course there are. I am just pointing out that for stance bonus alone, the only ones that provide any benefit whatsoever in Mass Battle so far are Fire and Void.

1 minute ago, Diogo Salazar said:

Well, let's see, shall we?

• Earth makes you immune to crits and conditions provoked by opportunities. So far, there's no ability that gives a condition to a cohort. So yes, you are right, Earth might be provide something in the future but so far? Nothing.
• Air makes your character harder to be attacked or schemed, so yeah, technically it works if you assume that once you are challenged in mass battle, you only play a single turn of a duel in the stance you chose for the battle this round. I don't know how everyone is playing their mass battle in this regard.
• Water gives you an extra action as long as it doesn't share a keyword with another action and doesn't involve a roll. So far, there are no mass battle actions that don't involve a roll. And again, maybe Fields of Victory will bring such action? But it's just guessing.

That's not to say that there aren't Shuji from Air, Water and Earth that are useful in mass battle, of course there are. I am just pointing out that for stance bonus alone, the only ones that provide any benefit whatsoever in Mass Battle so far are Fire and Void.

Well I dont think a mass combat should be a single roll. So air stance would make you harder to do deceptive tactics on. or allow you to make feints, and air approaches.

Water does not just give you an extra manuever. it allows you to make water approaches

Earth is what you would use to make or use fortified positions.

11 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Well I dont think a mass combat should be a single roll. So air stance would make you harder to do deceptive tactics on. or allow you to make feints, and air approaches.

Water does not just give you an extra manuever. it allows you to make water approaches

Earth is what you would use to make or use fortified positions.

I guess you misinterpreted my point. I apologize if I wasn't clear enough.

I never said Mass Combats should be done in a single roll.

I was not saying that you should not roll Earth, Air or Water in Mass Combats. I am saying that when considering the bonus that a stance gives, during a Mass Combat, the bonus for Earth, Water or Air are useless so that is something that might influence the players when choosing their approaches during a mass combat.

Of course there are moments that you will want to roll with these other rings. Slippery Maneuvers and Feigned Opening are such examples of Using Water and Air during mass combats and of course, if Earth, Air or Water are your best rings, you might decide to assault, rally, reinforce or challenge another cohort using one of these stances anyway. And it is worth to point out that nothing in the book says you must use Earth to reinforce only, with a good description you could argue to use Air Stance to reinforce a position or even to rally your cohort, or with any other Ring, really.

1 minute ago, Diogo Salazar said:

I guess you misinterpreted my point. I apologize if I wasn't clear enough.

I never said Mass Combats should be done in a single roll.

I was not saying that you should not roll Earth, Air or Water in Mass Combats. I am saying the when considering the bonus that a stance gives, during a Mass Combat, the bonus for Earth, Water or Air are useless so that is something that might influence the players when choosing their approaches during a mass combat.

Of course there are moments that you will want to roll with these other rings. Slippery Maneuvers and Feigned Opening are such examples of Using Water and Air during mass combats and of course, if Earth, Air or Water are your best rings, you might decide to assault, rally, reinforce or challenge another cohort using one of these stances anyway. And it is worth to point out that nothing in the book says you must use Earth to reinforce only, with a good description you could argue to use Air Stance to reinforce a position or even to rally your cohort, or with any other Ring, really.

do you worry about that for social encounters?

9 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

do you worry about that for social encounters?

For intrigues, you mean? Sure, it helps if the approach you want to use might give something else as well. Many times I chose specifically Water Stance just because it would give me an extra action. And in one particular case, where I chose Earth because I wanted to roll an Earth Shūji against someone. And of course, bonus stance only work during conflicts anyway, so it's not like it matters if I am rolling, let's say, Fire/Artisan if I am trying to craft a sword and I would choose the Strife to add extra successes (considering I had passed already) or use Void/Labor to try and make rations last longer during a moment of a trip where food is dwindling and there's no way to acquire more to prevent Strife of being accumulated on the roll.

2 minutes ago, Diogo Salazar said:

For intrigues, you mean? Sure, it helps if the approach you want to use might give something else as well. Many times I chose specifically Water Stance just because it would give me an extra action. And in one particular case, where I chose Earth because I wanted to roll an Earth Shūji against someone. And of course, bonus stance only work during conflicts anyway, so it's not like it matters if I am rolling, let's say, Fire/Artisan if I am trying to craft a sword and I would choose the Strife to add extra successes (considering I had passed already) or use Void/Labor to try and make rations last longer during a moment of a trip where food is dwindling and there's no way to acquire more to prevent Strife of being accumulated on the roll.

well water stance in mass combat is what you would use for cavalry because it gives you extra movement. it seems like you are trying to be too literal in a system not meant to be as literal as you thing

1 minute ago, Daeglan said:

well water stance in mass combat is what you would use for cavalry because it gives you extra movement. it seems like you are trying to be too literal in a system not meant to be as literal as you thing

You don't need movement in mass combat. The rules say that you can reach any point of the battlefield in a given turn. It's not me being literal, it's me reading the book as presented.

Quote

Assault
Description: You move your cohort to a particular position, attacking the cohort of a chosen enemy leader.
Activation: As an Attack and Movement action, you may make a TN 2 Tactics check...

Challenge
Description: You stride to the forefront of your force, bellowing a challenge to the enemy leader.
Activation: As a Movement and Scheme action, you may make a TN 1 Command check...

Rally
Description: You command your troops to regroup and support an allied contingent.
Activation: As a Support action, you may make a TN 1 Command check...

Reinforce
Description: You call for your troops to dig in and hold a position at all costs.
Activation: As a Movement and Support action, you may make a TN 2 Tactics check...

So, these are the four basic actions for Mass Battle they all share the Movement keyword with the exception of Rally and they all require a check, so, again, Water Stance won't give you an extra action and won't give you extra movement. And nothing says I can't use Fire Stance to lead a really scary cavalry charge or even Void if I am willing to lead a cavalry charge against a wall of spears.