L5R: Clan of the Year All Years

>Favorite clan
I like the Lion because it's implied that they actually do fuck lions.

I'm gonna be running my first l5r game this thursday. What's a good encounter to draw all the players together? I plan on running the Delicate Negotiations module as their first adventure, but I feel like a practice session to learn all the rules would be nice. I kind of want to start the game off in a classic samurai movie fashion. Like, three men gather under an abandoned shrine to escape the rain, shit happens, and they have to fend off some attackers or some such.

Unlike Shinjo, who we're told upfront about.

Who doesn't like horsecock?

Is there any reason to take Mirumoto Taoist Swordsman over Mirumoto bushi?

Unicorn men could probably do with less of it in their lives.
...Or in their wives.

It gets +1 Void and most of its Techniques are on the better end of the scale, either of which would give it the edge over most schools, while the normal bushi school is strictly middle of the road in terms of power and doesn't come with +1 Void.
Also if you want to be a special snowflake. That's the more common reason to take it over the normal school.

If you fuck a Kitsu there's a good chance you are.

> What's a good encounter to draw all the players together?

That will depend on where you want the weight of your encounter to lie.

If you want to keep it light on politics and courtly manners (but still introduce the concept) and mainly focus on actin, you could have the characters meet in a small village, hiding in a small temple/shrine from the rain. There they meet the monks who manage the shrine, some heimin from the village who offer to bring them something to eat, and an imperial messenger who is also hiding from the rain. You talk, exchange backstories, eat and then go to sleep. Then suddenly, in the middle of the night, ASSASSINS! CUT THE DISHONORABLE BASTARDS DOWN! As it turns out, they were going after the messenger, trying to intercept her critical message to clan (X).. As it turns out, one of the assassins was one of the freindly villagers earlier today. After the fight, the messenger politely asks you if you could acccompany her for the time being, at least as long as your paths are entwined, as she expects more assassins.

If you are going for a more courtly game, you can say all your players are (working for) delegates who are sent ahead of the clan daimyos to the winter court, and have to arrange the proper accomodations for their masters for the winter.
Start with their arrival, the proper welcome and the gift-giving, and then let them work out all the different demands of their daimyo with eatch other and the other delegates, From there, you can layer on the intrigue and affairs as thick as you want. Maybe your daimyo wants a room next to a mostly unknown but very pretty courtier form another clan. Maybe there are a few samurai that should be kept as far apart as possible, for fear of an old feud coming up again. Maybe you have orders to get any chef the scorpions recommend (or even find acceptable) off the kitchen staf, by any means neccesary. The possibilities are endless.

You what?

Even the Shinjo aren't as bad as the Utaku. Why do you think they are that uninterested in men?

Akodo genocided the original Kitsu race and let the 5 remaining men of the species shack up with his daughters, thus creating the Kitsu family. Any direct descendant of a the original Kitsu progenitors are copulating with IRL Lion.

What do you think happened between Shinjo & the kirin? Flaming horse cock.

...uh. What?

You can play a Dragon Bushi who doesn't follow the Niten school, but if you're a member of the Niten school, you've been trained to use two weapons. That's just... how it is. That's how they're trained. I do not understand your complain or where it is coming from (especially since you seem to be implying that this was a thing that developed over time, and not the original basis for the Mirumoto's distinct style of fighting from literally Clan Wars/1st Edition).

THIS SAMURAI RIGHT HERE. THEY GET IT.

The Lion. Destroying beautiful and irreplaceable things since time immemorable.

My favourite of the major clans are the Crab and Scorpion. Carapace bros for life. LIFE I tells you.

My least favourite are the Lion and Crane.
The Lion because each of the clans have two focal points; war and something else. The Lion just so happen to have 'more war' as their something else.
The Crane because you have to go far out of your way to find one that isn't a stuck up asshole.

>be a scorpion
>bayushi bushi, groomed to be a competent duelant
>accolades and important weapons heaped upon him
>just wants to cook

How do I communicate that with my daimyo?

Haiku.

Are they though? I'll agree, the +1 Void is a pretty good deal, but the rank 5 technique is pretty mediocre, and overlaps with the rank 3 one. The grappling technique is nice, but requires a jiujutsu investment. And you have a lot less access to kata to boot, plus your duelling which is boosted by your probably high Void, gets no further attention whatsoever. Atleast the Mirumoto Bushi still has their rank 2 technique to up their iaijutsu beef.

Get exceptionally good at masquerading the taste of poison with delish food.

You mean ... I should poison my daimyo with his favorite sushi?

Every samurai is allowed, evn kind of expected, to have a hobby. Just keep working on it in your free time, and request a chance from your daimyo to cook for him once, if you think you are good enough. No daimyo say no to a good cook.

Of course, you will still be expected to serve as a duelist. Because you have a talent, the clan needs that talent, and how you feel about that is inconsequential. Duty comes first.

I didn't imply such. That would be your interpreting failing you.

Look at the Niten techniques.
> You can world a second sword without the penalty everyone else faces
No one else need wield two swords.
Drawing both is an impediment at the start of combat.
Being disarmed of one is a greater drawback to the Mirumoto - anyone else could simply draw their wakizashi and carry on at 1k0 damage less, rather than without techniques.

Mah Honourable Brethren.
That's disgusting, but I'm intrigued.
Explain yourself.

this is good advice.

If you want to emphasize the spiritual aspect, have them as guests of a lord who has a prized relic stolen, who was about to give it as a gift.
To hide any hubbub over having their security bypassed they reach out to the PCs who are each of them reliable enough and unknown enough to smooth things over.
In the course of recovering it, they find out it's cursed.

>What do?

Throw in some gaki, and you're set.

What's that Skip?
The guys who've trained all their lives to wield two swords need to wield two swords?
Stone the crows Skip, who'da guessed?
Seriously that's the whole point. Do you know what the Scorpion Sensei said to his pupil about beating a dragon?
"Take away one of his blades."

Also, how are you any more disadvantaged by needing to draw your weapon than literally any other samurai?

You know, i'm looking at the core book right now, and the only techniques in the MIrumoto school that require using two swords for anything are the rank 1 and rank 5 techniques.

Of these, the rank 1 takes away the penalties involved and gives you a minor boost to armor TN, and the Rank 5 let's you make a third attack. Good, but not crippling to lose. In other words, the idea that the Mirumoto bushi are somehow helpless without two weapons is rather silly.

So you're saying if I wanted to scoop the pool I should make a Kitsu with Alternate School into Utaku Battle Maiden?

Still stands; where most other schools focus on doing better in combat, the mirumoto get an entry focus on not doing worse.

>how are you any more disadvantaged by needing to draw your weapon than literally any other samurai?
You need kenjutsu 5 & iaijutsu 3 to draw both immediately. Unless the gm rules they aren't separate free actions. Either way, you can't start with both - at least one ready weapon action will be a simple action for a while.

The rank 1 is controversial in any case, for being exactly as you said - a minor bonus at every rank.
Multiple attacks is their big thing in dealing damage, so yes, losing the rank 5 is a big deal.

So I'm hearing a lot of people say that the rank one bonus is negligible.
I don't think that's so.
If I recall correct, it's +schoolrank to your TN, which is pretty small on its own, but that's on top of the baseline TN bonus you get from having an item you can parry with in your offhand which is, yes, +insightrank to your TN.

I think it's poor design because it's boring, not because it's weak, though it does reflect the -strength- of the niten style as affording defense as well as offense. the mirumoto school is intended to allow powerful offense and defense, and this is shown in their fluff, and the mechanics of their kata. Nightingale wings and such.

All of this, as well as reminding you all that TN is cripplingly hard to raise. It's much easier to get better at hitting, than it is to get better at being _-Generally-_ harder to hit. Outside of stance bonuses, TNs tend to cap out at around 20-30 before armor, and not hit more than 45 even with armor and armor tech.
With the defense bonuses from rank 1 of Mirumoto bushi, the mirumoto get to be ahead of the curve on the TN of most bushi schools.

+2 isn't much at rank 1, and +10 isn't much at rank 5. It's been admitted that the school suffered by way of not wanting to make it as powerful as 3e.

I just feel that the difference of +10 tn versus a traditional school who won't be benefiting from duel-wielding isn't trivial?
It's true that a number of schools got overnerfed from four though.
My shiba bushi straight up do not function anymore.

Dragon seem to be pretty defense-focused in general, the Kitsuki rank 1 technique is also a TN bonus, and Tamori are Earth Shugenja, the most defensive element.

Ah yes well there's your problem.
Using the jumbled mess of 4e instead of using the 3e school in your 4e games.

> You need kenjutsu 5 & iaijutsu 3 to draw both immediately.
...you have encountered a GM that doesn't believe that a Niten swordsman can draw a swords with each hand?
Mate I'm so sorry, I didn't know.

>The Lion. Destroying beautiful and irreplaceable things since time immemorable.

And this is why I love the Lion. We'll ruin your shit, we'll conquer your lands, we'll brutalize your peasants, and we'll get away with it too, because we're more honorable than you are.

> I just feel that the difference of +10 tn versus a traditional school who won't be benefiting from duel-wielding isn't trivial?

Don't forget the +5 from dual wielding in the first place, which actually adds up pretty well in total.

And yes, the Shiba school is rather meh. Unfortunately, since i like them, but the only useful trick they have is be better and more efficient at using Void.

...

I will probably never get to play in an L5R game again, but, goddammit, one of these days I should finish homebrewing some Sparrow bushi rank skills that aren't utter shit.

>and we'll get away with it too, because we're more honorable than you are.

Also, I now have a mental image of a Lion and a Sparrow having an honor-off in a neutral court that offered to mediate to avoid a war. They're just... just kind of JoJo-posing at each other, but honorably, if that makes sense.

For some reason they're also both wearing sunglasses.

I... I don't know.

As I discovered in the l5r game I was in, sparrows make the best wingmen.

>sip your tea a bit too loudly
>sparrow does it even louder to take the heat off you

This reminds me of the court game that's about passive-aggressively insulting your opponent, and the loser is the one who either loses their composure or comes up with an insult that isn't subtle enough.

Sparrow techniques, huh?

>Rank One: Open Beak, Closed Guard
A Suzume bushi carries his natural gregariousness into battle like a second set of armor, knowing how to recite whatever story will best distract and baffle his opponent.

As a simple action you may begin recounting a story to your oppenent. Add your ranks in Perform (Storytelling) to your Armor TN for a number of rounds equal to your School Rank. While this bonus lasts you are also immune to fear effects.

I thought you might be in this thread, littlest-crab cranebro. I'm between jobs at the moment, if I find the time I might GM a new game myself. I'll try to look you up if I do!

D10 is a funky and swingy-as-fuck system, and I know on an intellectual level that L5R is a horrid mishmash of poorly-appropriated cultural concepts that make native Asians laugh like mad, but... there's just something appealing about how the game blends political sniping, strong cultural rules and mores and gritty, bloody combat and conflict. Can't get my mind off it. I'm sure I could do something with it.

I kek'ed. I kekk'ed a *lot.* The funny thing is, the 2nd edition "way of the minor clans" had a skill that worked just like that for Sparrows, just out-of-combat. "Conversation." They could avoid a fight altogether by striking up a friendly chat about just the right thing (the example given was avoiding a fight with some bored, surly Crabs by asking them their opinion about what sorts of armor are the most durable, which suckers the Crabs into a lengthy conversation that they honestly enjoy.)

Little cat roaring
Sheds hair claws art yowls for food
Time to put it down

To be honest, they aren't that bad, not much worse then they should be (keep in mind, the sparrow don't have a great school because they don't have the time and resources to build one). I like the concepts of slowing down to hit harder on one side, and using honour to boost their defence on the other. And even the random performer technique thrown in makes sense if you remember that they don''t have their own courtier school, so bushi have to do double duty.

The mechanical side does need tweaking though. the bad parts are the rank 3 (which does not do what it should, i.e. leverage their storytellling into an advantage) and it's rank 5 (which relies on you fucking around for one round of combat before you can hit something. And then makes it useless for the one situation where it could help.) Also, the rank 2 is a bit weak, you could probably double it, or even base it off your school or honour rank.

It is nature's rules
That the cat hunts and kills birds
Can't fight nature, Jack.

Paws bat at stone shells
Tap tap 'til you find the sting
Flail in agonies grip

>Because you have a talent, the clan needs that talent, and how you feel about that is inconsequential. Duty comes first.

One thing I like about L5R is that it's heavily implied, if never outright stated, that the many privileges of the Samurai class are not free - they're the rewards for shouldering the duty and burden of leadership. In practice, of course, that very often isn't the case, and many, if not most Samurai have at least some egotistical investment in their innate superiority over the filthy peasant scum, but *strictly* speaking that superiority is supposed to be gifts bequeathed for the sole purpose of guarding and guiding the peasantry more effectively.

Asian chivalry, you could say. Because if you look at classic Western chivalry, it always seemed to me to be "check your privilege" cira 1350AD. The mark of a true Nobleman was recognizing their privilege as synonymous with duty, instead of taking advantage of it to be a gigantic heel.

Sadame? Sadane?

Can't remember the name properly, but I was a rat-thing hanger-on to a pair of crab clanners and some other honorable so-and-sos. I was pretty vile and the moment I learned of this game, I was all in, any time, day or night. I ripped open one Lion so hard in a 'game' they turned into a major villain that would later go on to kill me. Good times.

>This reminds me of the court game that's about passive-aggressively insulting your opponent, and the loser is the one who either loses their composure or comes up with an insult that isn't subtle enough.

L5R: the only game where "bantz" is an actual thing in the setting. Glorious.

>One thing I like about L5R is that it's heavily implied, if never outright stated, that the many privileges of the Samurai class are not free - they're the rewards for shouldering the duty and burden of leadership.

This is pretty much stated in the rulebook as part of Rokugan's class system. Samurai may have perks, but they are also required to do their part in the celestial order, i.e. manage and protect the heimin and hinin doing their duties, and serve those samurai above them, in a chain running up to the emperor.

It's also the reason why ronin are considered so lowly, despite being samurai. They are no longer part of the celestial order, and therefore, the reason for the normal privileges has falllen away. They sometimes still enjoy some of it, either because they have a temporary master, because it's ingrained in the peasants, or because they have swords and the peasants don't, but for the most part, they are no longer part of society, despite their birth.

Very sound advice
Tell that to your new recruits
Watch them soil themselves

It's just this shy of becoming a full on rap battle. All you need to do is have the courtiers' yojimbo start beatboxing.

I tell them stories
They all grin behind their On
My recruits can swim

You're a funny guy
I like you, Scorpion-san
So I kill you last.

> implying 3e wasn't a jumbled mess
Those are some rose tinted gaijin baubles, user-san.

>It's just this shy of becoming a full on rap battle. All you need to do is have the courtiers' yojimbo start beatboxing.

Perform (Vocal Percussion)

>That's disgusting, but I'm intrigued.

I enjoy the guardians of culture aspect. They invented basically all the good things in life and were the ones who designed a system of courtly romance because they also are the worst at keeping it in their pants/out of their pants as appropriate for what they are hiding under their kimono. I like how the Kakita are pretty much obsessive artists (even the ones with the swords, because sword is art) and have had good times playing that aspect before with a character. And the Crane who do fight are amazing. Their bushi characters in setting history are tight, and the Iron Warriors are just cool period. Plus their scout school is a personal favorite mechanically.

I think there's a lot to love and play up if you wanted to. Though as a GM I also have indulged in the ponce uptight Crane stereotype before, I try not to resort to that too much for any clan. Keeps things from being boring.

Shouting Matsu my
Glorious sensei will you
Please come back to us.

>mfw never played before
>mfw I desperately want to play
>mfw all my IRL friends are either not interested in RPGs, flakes or can't make a character sheet in a whole month the one time I actually got players
>mfw everyone I've ever played other games online with is either a flake, an ass or with completely different wishes for where campaigns should go
>mfw I don't want to GM for randoms because I have no idea how to properly evaluate if one is actually a nice player, see above
hold me, teeg

wat do

Honorable seppuku

There's an online sort of roleplaying community that's supposed to be decent called (unimaginatively) Legend of the Five Rings Online that you can try out. Alternatively, there's an unofficial Winter Court in the make, they have a post on FFGs forums and will be starting by the end of the year.
Or if you're up for running a game online and are looking for players I'm up for it sempai~

>if you're up for running a game online and are looking for players
See my last point :(

Well, you make your wishes for a campaign known well in advance, start out with a larger party so it doesn't collapse when one or two flake, and be proactive in setting game dates? There's no way to guarantee a good online game, as there is none to a real life game, but with some trial and error there's a significant chance it'll work out, especially with a relatively obscure system like l5r, where everyone's game-starved as it is. But if you've some bad experiences I can't blame you for not trying

I just might.
I didn't like the idea of larger parties in general, and especially in roleplay and intrigue heavy games such as L5R, but needs must, I suppose.

What do you think about running a magic-less variant of L5R, perhaps set in feudal Japan?

I've been reading A LOT of Usagi Yojimbo lately, and it's making me want to try L5R.

You can't really make a magic-less version of L5R, because the system is designed to let you play the inherently divine humans of the setting, represented by Void points and all the silly things that a person can do with void points if they train right.

Also, trying to use it for a historical game isn't a very good idea. It's a fantasy setting and the system is purpose built for that specific fantasy setting.
I honestly wonder why there are so many people who think that this is a good system for historically realistic games. It hasn't been marketed like that for literally decades and even a passing knowledge of feudal Japan should tip you off that Rokugan is a fantasy setting, not a historically accurate copy of Japan.

Say, when would prodigy be worth taking, aside from the bragging rights and roleplay reasons?

Less a realistic game and more of "no mages or spirits" kind of deal.

From a strictly mechanical point of view, it's worth it as a substitute for taking all of your school skills to 2, but no higher, because it costs 12 and taking your school skills all to 2 costs 14 (or 15). That's not great though, since it stops being mechanically efficient if you want to take those skills to rank 3 (And you almost certainly do, eventually, if not from the get go).
From a fluffier point of view, it's a very good choice for anyone aspiring to be a sensei or develop their own alt rank technique.

when you got plenty of school skills at rank 10. So, basicly only in a game with an insane starting exp.

It's doable. Most of what shugenja do in the setting can still be done without actual spirits. Lots of crop blessings and marriages and whatnot.
The problem is stuff like the Shadowlands and other supernatural threats. The setting would look very, very different if there was no supernatural elements.

No shadowlands, no shugenja.

Of course the setting would look different, that was why I suggested a faux feudal Japan.

Mantis. Love me some not!wako pirates.

Also obligatory

>Crane clan worst clan OP has shite taste

How do you justify a whole bunch of misfits from different clans forming a party?
What are they doing that requires such inter-clan cooperation?

Imperial assignments are a pretty standard go-to. Make them all Emerald Magistrates, or Legionnaires, or Imperial Cartographers. Otherwise, they could all be attending the same court when something happens that requires their collective attention.

Rolled 3 (1d6)

Pretty much what said.
You could also make them the setting's tiniest inter-clan conspiracy.

You can also make them all cousins having a get together, since people marry into other clans all the time and their kids would be raised in that clan. They could could all share a grandparent from one clan, several of whose children married into other clans, and they're all attending the grandparent's funeral when something happens.

One way of looking at it is not seeing it as inter-clan cooperation, but as interpersonal cooperation. Family ties and promises mean a lot to these people, and can tie together people from different clans with different personalities without issue.

Let's say for instance you have a party of a Kakita bushi with artistic aspirations, one very pragmatic yoritomo marine with a lust for koku (and other things) that wishes to captain his own ship someday, and an introverted isawa shugenja with void powers. Not a very homogenous group. However, that changes when you say they share a grandfather, the daimyo of a trading port on the southern crane shore. One daughter was married to a influential Mantis trading family to strenghten the ties to that family, and another turned out to be shugenja with the power of the void, and was married into the Isawa family, who will offer outrageous marriages in their ongoing efforts to monopolise void magic. His only son married in the clan and had a son of his own, trained in the traditional kakita ways. Even for those relatives no longer part of the clan, honouring their family and ancestors is a big deal, so if grandfather wishes them to spend the winter in his court, of course they accept.

Why grandfather wants to gather all his grandchildren in one place is something you'll have to come up with, of course.

You can also use favors owed for those sort of things.
One of my favorite characters was a wallcrab who ended up as a yojimbo for an Ide because there was a debt owed from a few generations ago and they called it in for some muscle.

>because there was a debt owed from a few generations ago
Oooooh, I like that.

Well in the module I'm running the goal of the players is to convince a number of minor clan lords to either be for or against a trade deal. Depending on what clan the players are from, they will either try to sway/bribe/blackmail the lords into opposing or supporting the trade agreement.

I suppose they could run into an assassin who wants to make sure they don't interfere with the proceedings, or perhaps another influential diplomat who is the target of the assassin.

taoist is bad

rank 5 erase rank 3 technique, should have been an incremental rank 3 and another effect at rank 5. even then, not a great school

It doesn't erase it.
The rank 3 lets you use a single void point for damage whenever you want.
Rank 5 lets you dump as many void points as you want into a single damage roll, but only once per skirmish.
The real problem with it is that it doesn't have any way to gain or preserve its void points and will quickly run out if it actually uses these abilities too much.

first ed devellopper where huge fans of the crane, thats why so many awesome npc where crane.

they even ressurected a crane nobody liked because they loved the crane so much

A lot of schools and techniques that are heavily based on using void points (the most famous are the Shiba bushi, but many other schools and even ronin techniques also rely on them) run into this problem. Even a character with maxed out void only has 10 points, and regaining them takes time, time you may not have. Very few ronin bandits/maho sorcerers/ Kolat revolutionaries will agree to a tea break in the middle of a fight. Meaning that these characters always have a limited number of "shots" before they are effectively useless.

and a void can be spent to negate 10 wounds, that saved me so many times

>before they are effectively useless.
I wouldn't go that far. Techniques aren't so powerful that someone who can't fully utilize theirs is completely useless.
Rolling 10k6 to hit and 8k3 to damage as a Simple Action is more than enough to be useful, and most high end bushi are somewhere in that range or better without benefiting from any technique whatsoever.