L5R Thread

Kitsuki Investigators are cool

Check out the ronin basic school in Secrets of the Empire. It's a full 5 rank school, but won't be overshadowing any clan samurai.

>Can we have a story thread where we talk about our favorite L5R characters and compare notes?

I'm hoping I'm reading the purpose of the thread correctly.

Matsu Katsumi was probably the longest-played L5R character I had. Here's her backstory (plus an addendum from the end of her first campaign; I didn't update the document after her second or third). Is this the sort of thing you were looking for?

>I've recently gotten a hold of the 4e L5R book

Get rid of it, buy 1e or 3e instead. Those are the only even passable editions. 1e's honestly the best, but 3e at least has interesting mechanics to keep the people who are sexually obsessed with NUMBERS happy.

That's an unusually edition warring post for L5R.

But he is mostly right. Though the goodness level of the various editions is pretty high with the exception of 2e, which I think was made intentionally shitty to increase interest in Oriental Adventures, aka d20 L5R.

Well, he's not *entirely* wrong. Insofar as 2nd edition was pretty mechanically terrible (Ring+Skill keeping *skill*, IIRC), and 1e had really, really in-depth and fluff hitherto-unspoiled by the card game metaplot. And 3e and 3eR really are much more mechanically complex than the previous editions, even if the underlying math was really bad and even the Line Dev (Shaun Carmen) admitted that they didn't really care about the numbers and just threw in "what felt about right." It was 3e that included magic that allowed you to teleport an opponent "Ringx100 feet" in any direction you chose as an instant-cast Mastery 2 spell, with no way to avoid the effect, and the devs outright admitted they never even *considered* that somebody would use a travel spell to teleport an enemy straight up and let them drop.

The d20 edition doesn't bear speaking of.

I can't speak for 4e though, since I haven't played it. And I'll also admit that the tone is unusually hostile for an L5R thread that isn't talking about roleplaying-related table differences or Ronin mechanics. But yeah, there are some pretty major edition differentials in L5R, and some of them produced pretty darn superior products, depending on what you want out of the game.

2e was Roll Skill/Keep Trait, so if you had a Kenjutsu of 5 and an Agility of 3, you'd be rolling 5k3. TNs were not adjusted downwards to reflect the lesser dice pools so it was more whiffy than Derp Hurresy.

I like 4th because it's pretty well balanced and the only things that are really, completely out of whack are high end Void shenanigans. Yeah, ronin suck compared to clan schools (And minor clans suck compared to great clans), but it's pretty consistent about telling you that straight out of the gate.

>2e was Roll Skill/Keep Trait,

RIIIIIIGHT...sorry, it's been a *really* long time since I touched any 2e mechanics. Thanks for the reminder.

But, yes, IMO the core point that it wasn't very good mechanically is still sound.

honorbump

>t was 3e that included magic that allowed you to teleport an opponent "Ringx100 feet" in any direction you chose as an instant-cast Mastery 2 spell, with no way to avoid the effect, and the devs outright admitted they never even *considered* that somebody would use a travel spell to teleport an enemy straight up and let them drop.

WAT

> It was 3e that included magic that allowed you to teleport an opponent "Ringx100 feet" in any direction you chose as an instant-cast Mastery 2 spell, with no way to avoid the effect, and the devs outright admitted they never even *considered* that somebody would use a travel spell to teleport an enemy straight up and let them drop.
But, due to the way magic works in the setting, it'd be easy for the GM to make that either not work at all or require extra effort to convince the kami (Who are actually generating the effect) to actually perform a teleportation that is directly harmful to someone. Remember that the prayer being used is supposed to be beneficial and is imploring them to move someone as a benefit, so using it for a more violent, harmful purpose could be seen as directly lying to the kami.

Sure, you can do that. But it's way outside the actual rules, and a player would be right to be upset at you if you sprung that on them with no advance notice that, "not using the spell as intended might upset the kami and make it fail".

It was just a terribly written spell. Masters of Magic and Masters of War both were chock-full of that sort of thing.

You don't have to spring it on them. A shugenja is supposed to be a religious authority (Particularly when it comes to the elemental kami). You can just straight up tell them that the kami don't appreciate asking for one thing and then actually doing something anathema to that, because their character should 100% understand that it works that way.

l5r is love....

One way to do that is that the Ronin goes up in insight ranks but just doesn't get any new techniques. That's basically what happens for any ronin that can't find a sensei willing to teach them. [spoilers]Why yes Ronin are fed endless bags of dicks why do you ask?[/spoilers]

The more kind option is something like this:
pixel-breath.com/imperial-registry-index-of-all-schools-in-l5r-4e/

Or you can work with the player to try and come up with some tech of their own. Probably best to leave that one be till you've both got some experience with the game.

Anyway as for your main points, they could all just be money grubbing bastards. It's not like there's a lack of materialistic samurai in the empire. Alternatively it could be some weird scenario where they've been attached to the Mantis because of politics. Be it some plan for gains, honouring a deal or even a punishment for the character or someone they are affiliated with.

>One way to do that is that the Ronin goes up in insight ranks but just doesn't get any new techniques
That's actually one of the reasons why Ronin eat shit. If you get to Insight Rank 3 without having found a rank 2 Technique, you can NOT fill that "slot" later. You've completely skipped over rank 2 Techs and have to hope you can find a Rank 3 Technique before you hit Rank 4 and lose that opportunity as well.

This man seems to have dunked himself in the Dead Sea.
Each of the editions has it's problems. For examples 3e spills free raises like most of us spill pasta, 4e has some classes that are just broken as hell, 2e is jank and 1e I dunno, it's old?.
Personally my group runs 4e and has a great time with it and on the occasions where we want to play a school that got broken we just sub in the 3e rules for that school and it works out fine.
Whether it's balanced, I dunno, but the group is all friends who're there to explore stories about our characters so it works out.

No sane DM would force that on a player.
That's the sort of thing you bring up at character creation and discuss to figure out how to run.
But yes poor ronin.

Shit why are there s's on those spoilers. HERPADERP

If you have a ronin who is working with the Mantis, he could also go Mantis Brawler, since that's one of the very few schools that still uses the old Master-Apprentice style of teaching and is one of the only Clan Schools that is entirely unregulated. If you can find a Brawler who is willing, you can openly be taught the Techniques of the Brawlers. You just have to have the willingness to degrade yourself by living like a dirty, barfighting pirate. The Crab would be all over it if they didn't already have similar Techniques (Kobo Ichi-kai) with slightly more credibility.

Shut up, Kachiko. You were only not the worst Thunder because Hitomi went on to become the worst.

See I can't help but look at that image and comment and think:
"Gee that's a nice looking Yogo honey trap."
This is what I get for playing a Yogo courtier/assassin.

Probably an Isawa then.
Non-Shugenja Isawa ARE morons.

So, that's pretty hostile and useless advice.
Truth is, 4E does a lot of stuff well, but I'm not a big fan of the changes to schools.
I have run a couple years-long L5R campaigns, and am running two different groups through campaigns at the moment and I run 4E for the system, and 3E for the schools.
Not a perfect fix, but it's what works.

OP.
When I was trying to set up my groups, I had to do a bit of shilling to find players, but they settled in, and love it.
Remember that a lot of the strengths of L5R is the ability to create a setting that has depth to it, with specific ways to engage with it.
Strong for first-timers as well as grognards.

Gift-giving is a great example.
It's a big important thing IC, so you have to tell your players about it, and ask them some basic questions. When they come up short, you have an in to explain some of the basic options they have (Make up a quick poem, or an illustration, never give something useful).

But once they come to grips with that, they start making interesting choices based around what they want out of it, when and how to give insult. How to curry favor.
So it's one of those settings that has good 'granularity'. It's got enough detail for most levels of specificity. You can have someone say "I give a gift and roll courtier" right alongside someone who crafts a poem that specifically shames the listener in a way that they can't be reprimanded for, all in fluff.

what a shitty art

Me again.

As to what story seeds you should go with, L5R has some really strong setting material around 'perception-versus-reality'.
Everyone knows that not EVERY Isawa is secretly a maho tsukai.
But, equally, everyone knows that the Isawa are all maho-tsukai, and if that wasn't the case, how come the rain of blood happened?

So there are these perceptions that pervade the whole universe, and everyone is aware of them, no matter how in-theme or off-message your character is, whenever other Samurai meet them, they are making those comparisons in their head.

Because of this, inter-clan groups can be a lot of fun, especially if you play up these tensions, and then help resolve them. A good way to build that into the above is to have something happen to all of them.
In the campaign I'm writing, I took the film Seven Samurai as my starting hook.
There's a crane lord. He's been a bastard to each of my Players. They get an opportunity to assassinate him, which brings them to the attention of an inquisitor who needs catspaws to investigate the Kolat.

From there, most of my campaign writes itself according to what my group does after we start, according to what I build into the Kolat, and how the Kolat responds.

Look to samurai drama for ways to bring together disparate groups. Play up their differences, but encourage them to solidify their identity together, and then it will start driving itself.

>4e has some classes that are just broken as hell
Every edition does.

3e had some crazy shit, like the ronin duellist that would study an opponent for hours before finally attacking, or the henshin dbz-style monk that would get rings to 10 as their first few combat actions.

I don't mean crazy shit like that or the Shiba infinite Void generator.
I mean "This is broke as hell and does not work. Tell me the warranty is still good." broken.
Things like a Daidoji using Guard to give his courtier +30 TN and then standing behind him.

Might say Kachiko, but we all know that is a ninja distraction.

3e had that, too. Mantis Whirling Dervish comes to mind.

It's a big fixture of setting that Five Ranks of school tech only come from Great Clan resources and Centuries of Honing (tm)

That's a fluff conceit.
It's certainly true that some schools pack more punch than others, and so you can feel confident putting five ranks of tech to a ronin school name, so long as you make it reflect their focus. Because of the realities of ronin life, that focus should be in different areas than a clan samurai, and from the perspective of a clan samurai, be weaker because it's focus is in areas "beneath" a samurai.
So, look at mantis schools. Build some powerful tricks that people might side-eye you for. Reliable ways to generate or manipulate money. Foraging tech, etc.

It's always possible for both the Ronin and the Great Clan Samurai to be satisfied with the Ronin's tech, remember that. You don't have to choose someone to leave unhappy.

Now Henshin are (only) crazy for their 10k7 base unarmed damage.....

>It's always possible for both the Ronin and the Great Clan Samurai to be satisfied with the Ronin's tech
Best way, still (imo), is not to start the ronin as a destitute, unlearned, poorly trained schmoe. Talk with the player, and encourage becoming ronin in-game.

RIght, so i'm just going to have him learn the techniques he wants. I'll probably have some old ronin sensei walk into the plot shortly after he gains insight or something. All he really wants are the hidden blade and sword of yotsu techniques, so i doubt he's going to break anything.

>It's a big fixture of setting that Five Ranks of school tech only come from Great Clan resources and Centuries of Honing (tm)
>That's a fluff conceit.
It's also poorly upheld in mechanics, which makes it more of an unsubstantiated claim of the clans.

Yeah. Maybe I should have said kappa instead of (tm)

well, kind of. The minor clans also manage to make 5-rank schools, but all of them are supposed to be weaker then great clan schools (save for the monkey, but that's because "monkeys are best").

However, i don't reallly see the difference in power in the crunch, and a good collection of 5 ronin techniques could also be an eaqual to a great clan school. Which is great for game balance of course, which was probably the reason for the current system, but the whole "great clans are the best" idea is kind of sinking this edition.

That is actually exactly what I was looking for, thanks.

But yeah, I've been talking characters with my players. So far the only one we have solidified is the dragon clan bushi. Basically his deal is that he was the third son of his family, and as such was never expected to lead or have any major role in the family's affairs. As such he was never groomed and trained as thorougly as his siblings. Instead he pursued art, poetry, and philosophy rather than military tactics and history. This was all well and good until a war with another clan broke out and all of his elder siblings perished, leaving him the heir. Now this free-spirited wandering artist has the entire responsibility of his house thrust on him, and he has to struggle to be the leader and preserve his family's legacy. I have no basis for what a strong l5r character would be like, but this seems pretty solid to me.

I think another player wanted to be the dude's uncle who is tasked with guiding the youth but in reality just wants to manipulate him for political gain.

Crab Clan Best Clan.

Sounds pretty legit.

Dragon can be fun for individualist stories, but it's nice to see people not going overboard.
If I have to play alongside another kungfu fighting, table-wielding tattoo-monk I will cut gut.

>a good collection of 5 ronin techniques could also be an eaqual to a great clan school
Ronin techniques are really good at what they were designed for. NPCs that aren't quite as good as PCs. Any book word otherwise should be reigned in by the core chapter of water - everything contained within is (extra warning given) optional and to be used at the behest of the GM. It's the same chapter that gives Spider schools, after all.

If talking about PCs, then their sensei should dictate their starting school. No sensei? Then there *is* a five rank ronin school to default to. Secrets of the Empire.

My favorite character that I played was Shosuro Soba, a courtier with an urchin as a ward (dependent flaw), one-eye (missing limb), a pet shitsu, a grandfather who was an asshole and kept using my money to support his opium habit (played by another player), and a mission to kill a Yakuza bosses eldest son so the youngest son could come into power when he dies.

Problem is, the elder son was so likable that no one took the mission seriously. To the point that he was alone in a room with the ninja, in a room with weapons on the wall. The elder son was grieving and praying about the loss of his wife...and the ninja walks out the room to let him have his moment.

At this point, I personally visited the magistrate, and bribe him enough that he'll agree to round him up and kill him if I can guarantee a public "attempt" on his life so that he has cause for murdering someone who was, at this point, very supportive and popular with peasants and nobles alike. I promise him results on the second night from then.

Anyway, Soba gets captured as he was caught snooping around trying to find evidence to have the local magistrate capture and kill him. So, cue a torture scene where they threaten to impale his other eye making him blind. The DM made this scene awesome as he played out the peasant apologizing for his actions as he slowly heats up the needle and approaches before cutting away to the party.

Rest of the party can't find me...and I know that I'm not tough enough to resist torture forever. so when it cuts back to me...I agree to talk. They unbind my mouth and I tell the table...

"My life for the Scorpion" then pass a will roll with like 120 over the TN and bite my own tongue out. Now, I am a useless courtier, but I defended my bros.

I barely survive. But the mission looks like it will fail. But I did not forget my promise.

I ambush the nearest member of the elder son's gang and steal his clothes, then steal a horse from the stables managing to fend of the monk (DM allowed one player to play a greedy monk so everyone had different schools). I ride past the magistrates guards. Ride my horse INTO his inn, killling it as I ride into a pile of running grills, roll in front of the magistrate and critically wound the servant next to him then using my acting skill convingly strike at while whiffing against the magistrate.

Magistrate stares at me and recognizes me. Remembers my promise and says, "I will never doubt the word of the scorpion," then cuts me down.

The campaign ended that night, as the GM claps his hands and declares me the best scorpion he's ever seen.

MFW I'll never get to play as Enpitsu, the urchin who now has no father figure and was resented by the grandfather for taking "his" money.

The DM asked us to make our own scorpion masks out of cloth or construction paper, and my mask was an eye patch that I cut and drew with my non-skill.

I'm actually getting ready to run an L5R game in a couple of months (using Savage Worlds instead of the base system, though). The characters are all going to be young samurai attending the Test of the Topaz Champion and competing to become the best and brightest up-and-comer in the Empire. Naturally, politics and the supernatural become a major impediment to their efforts. So far, it's looking like the group is two Scorpions, two Dragons, a Lion, and a Phoenix. It's going to be interesting, to say the least.

I'm currently playing through the Topaz Championship as a Kitsuki Investigator, it's going pretty well so far.

There's already a 5 rank ronin/generic school that is pretty balanced IMO.

Why would you drop the system? Its pretty straightforward and balanced.

If you let them sub out the rank 2 and 4 for other ronin paths it is.

Yes. Said that.

Any fa/tg/uys played FRO/planning to join the new one?

...

They say that, but then Tsuruchi and his best friends built a 5 rank bushi school in less than one generation. It is a mish mash, and I just kind of ignore it if it gets in the way of fun for the players.

piss off, Asami

go make babies w your husbando or something
oh wait,

that FAILED!!!

LOLlolololololllllooooooool!

That is the fakest looking crab I've ever seen. That tetsubo probably weighs more than she does. How is she going to smash an oni's head in with such thin arms? Shameful display.

...

Thanks user. I was tempted on writing out the story of Doji Sabu, the villain who got away with it, or how my brother started a war by not realizing explosives could be heard by the guards on the city wall.

That's because the story team had to shove all of their story into the lifespans of named characters due to the way event rewards worked. If they had actually waited the requisite centuries, the specific characters would be dead and not at all useful for the next CCG set.
That's why there are more important historical events within the 100 year period starting from the clan war than there are in the millennia before that.

Yeah, shit's stupid. I still have someone play a Tsuruchi Archer every time I form a game. Its one of those things we kind of have a tacit agreement to not speak of because it is an old scab.

I find it kinda odd that there aren't many bastards in the fluff, considering how common affairs are and how proving parentage works (If a dude says that it's not his kid, it's legally not his kid, end of story). I mean yeah, many ronin are bastards (Which is why they're ronin and not members of their parent's clan), but prominent ronin in the fluff are almost always ex-clan members whose parents were married or the children of two ronin who were probably married.

Because important people can't be fatherless dogs, user.

oh, there probably are a lot, they just aren't important.

...

Back in 1e all the Minor Clan Schools were 3 Rank Schools except for the Mantis who recently got their 4th Rank invented by Yoritomo.

RPG players have a giant throbbing erection for the Minor Clans so they all got 5 Rank schools in 3e onwards.

A lot of those minor clans are old enough for it.
The great clans universally started with 3 ranks at the founding of their Schools and it took them just a few hundred years on average to get to their 5th.

>A lot of those minor clans are old enough for it.
By fluff it's not just a matter of age - the clan samurai have leisure & study time to create new techniques, plus constant conflict to test them against worthy opponents.

Minor clans live(d - not sure if this changed at some point) more or less hand to mouth, as they didn't have the numbers to support full time clerks and bushi.

>Enpitsu
You want to name your character Pencil?

Better than Seppun Baka. Or Otaku [any personal name].

IIRC there was also a scorpion named "eat."

This is why you don't try to use a real world foreign language when your only knowledge of the language comes from looking up random words in a dictionary.

Not really, at least most of those words at least have other meanings because Japanese is full of homonyms (otaku is not just anime geek, it's also the very formal way of saying "house").

"Enpitsu" isn't even Japanese in origin, it's a katakana-iztion of a completely foreign word.

I mean. Have you seen western fantasy? Every fucking character is named GIBBERISH ADJECTIVENOUN.

Some of them are, some are comfortable enough but just small. I'm a fan of the five rank universal school progression myself, but I get why that would be an appealing idea to represent MC.

Good point. Doesn't make the practice right, but you've still got a point.

>some are comfortable enough but just small
Even the comfortable ones don't have anywhere near the free time great clans have. The ratio of land to samurai, even with a small parcel of land, skews one way for greats and the other way for minors.

Anyone know of the good scans for the 4th edition books? The few I've found through google have been shitty scans I can barely make out at times.

Except the Monkey, the Monkey have all the fucking time and resources in the world.

Fuck the Monkey.

The Monkey are a Kolat front.

I blame that on the ccg love for a 0/1 spud named Toku.

When we played a few years ago the whole group was minor clan. We played in the 1st ed time period with a Hare bushi, Fox shugenja, Tsuruchi bushi, Mantis courtier, and a wandering monk.

And Ox. They have a military enough they could probably actually fight a smaller GC if they wanted.

Another Kolat front. See the common theme.

And the Mantis before they became a GC? That's the last MC I can think of who has a history of a large military.

The boar had a large one. Still do kinda.

Best nemuranai are the real ones.

bumpo

Is it possible to make a badass crane? It seems like every crane I've seen is a waifish effeminate bishonen.

"What are the Daidoji?" for 500.

Doji Kuwanan

That's not true

Some of them are actual women. It's difficult to tell them apart, I know.

>hurr durr Crane r wimmenz