L5R- Legend of the Five Rings General

I think I saw it in this general once, yes.

sourceforge.net/projects/l5rcm/

Shit, forgot to add link.

Not the one I had in mind, but it looks promising. Going to test it now. Thanks, user.

Well, it had the entire "lost" clan school to it, and the Anachronism disadvantage for those born and raised there.

Adding too many advantages and disadvantages leads to system bloat. Keeping it relatively simple was a design goal for 4e after the complicated mechanical mess that was 3e.

>what happened to Legend of the Five Rings threads?
We've been having them daily for like a month but yesterday's 404'd early.

As for a 5e? I don't want a 5e. I would like a 4e Revised though. Clean up and clarify some of the rules without using the bullshit "l5r your way!" bullshit AEG kept throwing around any time someone asked a question. Nothing major, just fixes.

Though one major change I'd like to see is nerfing earth shugenja tanks. I get the logic behind tying wounds to the earth ring but that also means you inevitably end up with beefy earth shugenja who can tank hits from anything.

So with the release of Nioh's beta demo and upcoming full release, and the inevitable "I want to run a campaign like *insert current popular media here*" that accompanies every game like it, think we're going to see a resurgence in L5R's popularity?

>Any fluff related changes?
I'd actually be so bold as to suggest making the card game and RPG different alternate universes, and rewrite the RPG universe from the ground up to get rid of all the old CCG silliness and open the plot to take different directions.
Make the RPG setting an RPG setting instead of an RPG set in the CCG setting.

Maybe also take a page from Harnworld and write the metaplot to be more like potential campaign hooks, and never write beyond a certain date, the assumed year campaigns start, and assume that GMs will take the reins from there.

How's the card game doing?

It's about to be picked up fantasy flight games.

The thing is that if you change things so that Earth doesn't increase wounds, it becomes the weakest ring by far.
Reflexes alone affects your initiative, how hard it is to hit you, and your ability to hit at range, while Awareness governs almost everything social. Agility alone affects your ability to hit in melee and Intelligence controls all Lore skills and memory (If it ever becomes relevant). Strength alone adds directly to your damage, and Perception is, well, your ability to perceive things that others would miss.
Stamina alone doesn't do anything in combat, and Willpower is only your passive mental defense (And Intimidation if you use errata). You have to raise the entire Earth Ring to get any combat effect. The effect is strong, but it literally costs twice as much as every other combat affecting trait, which balances it out some.

You don't have to have the earth ring not affect wounds, you could do something like say all Bushi get +# wounds per rank by default or something, that way an earth shugenja is still tough as nails but not outclassing Bushi as easily. Or something. Just something to shake up the math.

But maybe I'm putting too much value on earth shugenja and their insane amount of wounds.

Well, part of the setting is that samurai (Of all three archetypes) are supposed to be well rounded. Even the wimpiest of courtiers is expected to have *something* to contribute to a fight, and even the thickest of dumb bushi is expected to be able to spit out a poem or two. Shugenja cannot simply focus on mental attributes. It just doesn't work in the fluff and the crunch reflects that.

Almost everything you said is wrong.

No it isn't. There's a reason why skills are not locked to specific schools.

The key words are "supposed" and "expected".

>sublime system

Let's not go overboard. R&K is neat, and can be used well. 7th Sea is a demonstration that it can be fucked up easily by the people who should know it's strengths and weaknesses best.

How much would dracheneisen be worth in Rokugan? Would they make a new school to use the sword and gauntlet, or would they reject the barbarian weapons out of hand?

I want to be clear. When a samurai comes of age and completes his training, he takes the name of his family, and not the name associated with his dojo, correct? One can potentially be born to one family, trained in a dojo, and remain part of that family.

Also, family means something different to the large Family names, correct? There are a number of different branches of each family, and they intermarry freely because they're so large. Are there other, vassal families within the great clans that provide more rank and file samurai or are they just considered to be part of the branches of big families. Like, if you grab a random samurai off the Wall, is he going to be named Hida or some literally-who name?

When you come of age, you choose your personal name-- before that you have a child name. But you're never not a member of the Family you were born into-- the child of two Hida parents is a Hida from birth.

There are families within a Family, which intermarry freely since all they really share is name and possibly a common ancestor from a few hundred years ago. Vassal families have their own names, but are only referred to by these names by fellow members of their Clan, and otherwise use the name of the Great Clan Family that commands their allegiance.

So a samurai of the Moshibaru vassal family of the Hida would be referred to as Hida Joe by most samurai, but Moshibaru Joe by any members of the Crab.

Capital F Family is closer to what is traditionally called a clan. It's a very large group made of many, many unrelated bloodlines. Your Family is the one you were born into. Someone who marries away from their Family becomes a full member of their new Family (Although mechanically, they'd keep their original bonus).
The reason why the Families are all very similar is because the founders universally selected people like themselves to take their name, and many families tend to arrange marriages so other similar people join them. The Hida family is generally large and tough because Hida himself picked the biggest, toughest people he could when he founded the Family and there's a tendency to marry big, tough people into the family when politics aren't a huge problem.

There's also some supernatural influences. The blessings of Ancestors and the founding kami will have effects on how children develop.

>Like, if you grab a random samurai off the Wall, is he going to be named Hida or some literally-who name?
Yes.

There's the main bloodlines of Hida, who get to be called Hida, and then there are the vassal families of Hida, who get to be called Hida when dealing with other clans, but use their vassal family name amongst the Crab.

>(Although mechanically, they'd keep their original bonus)
Sometimes, when you dig really deep, this isn't the case. That's when the lore threads between Nezumi name magic, Lying Darkness corruption, and the power of the emperor to name fortunes start to look like they revolve around the same forces.

Yeah, where you train has no bearing on your Family name. Most Schools can and will easily extend invitations to children of their own clan, and ideally kids end up in the school most relevant to their aptitudes (although the reality is that politics and trading favors is a big part of how you get invitations to schools run by other Families). The three emblems a samurai wears (Traditionally one big one on the back and two smaller ones over the chest) are their Clan mon, their Family mon, and their School mon.

>many families tend to arrange marriages so other similar people join them

This ensures stereotypes in both directions, since the Family bringing in similar outsiders has its theme reinforced, but those people are also being taken out of another Family where they may in fact be oddballs getting deliberately married out somewhere they'll fit in better.

It's also worth noting that the families within a Family probably do all have some degree of blood-relationship even with initial founding based on unrelated followers and disciples, just because of the ongoing intermarriage thing-- early enough in a Clans's history, the pool for intermarriage is a lot smaller, and the children or grandchildren of that original founder and their disciples are very likely to marry right off the bat. The eventual relationship is probably pretty tenuous however many generations down, but ongoing intermarriage keeps it from being utterly overwhelmed, and even it was, it would still never disappear completely.

I've always wanted more interesting school mons from the official lore-- so many of them are too-small variations on the family mon.

>It's also worth noting that the families within a Family probably do all have some degree of blood-relationship even with initial founding based on unrelated followers and disciples
Usually not; most of those initial followers' family lines are kuge, and there's almost no crossover between kuge and buke.

The only time I've seen characters actually change their family bonuses are people who found Minor Clans and Toturi I, and there's an argument to be made that they didn't actually change their family bonus so much as they always had it due to Fate and it only became official after they changed over.

I actually think it's the other way around-- a person's family bonus gets changed hen they found a new clan is strictly for the sake of conforming to existing game mechanics. Lore-wise, your Family Bonus is an aptitude you inherit from your ancestors, a trait your bloodline has selected and bred for. By the time you found a new clan, you've developed some other great aptitude that has become your defining mark, and which will be the trait your descendants will now inherit and the thing your family will select for.

But even as the head of your new minor clan, the bonus you got at birth doesn't change; it's just the bonus your children will now get that has changed.

Are there any lists of these vassal families anywhere?

Great Clans has a comprehensive list of the canon ones. At any given time, there's maybe 6 or 7 notable ones that have significant history in every great clan. Some of them are as old sa the very founding of their clan, and have been quietly performing their duties for the entire history of the Empire. Stuff like the Raikuto of the Crab (The OG Crab courtier family), or the Ashidaka of the Crane (The smiths that create Kakita Blades).

I really like the Crab vassal families. Kakeguchi was the best 5th wheel.

People who could get gaijin pepper weapons going quickly:

Mantis, they can get together an expedition to go buy some in their boats.

Tortoise, they've been hording that shit for years and keeping eyes on the foreign countries.

Crane, Harriers probably have a thousand teppo sitting in a bunker somewhere.

I'm thinking about this a lot, because in a succession war with multiple "Emperors," one might decide to reverse the Imperial decree in order to get an edge... which would probably lead to the rest saying yes to guns as well, to avoid being overwhelmed by superior firepower.

What do you think the different clans would be like with arquebuses in play?

Crab: Gun lines with bamboo spikes, Nagashino style, Kaiu building cannons.

Mantis: GUNBOATS

Unicorn: Dragoons and pistoleers.

Most material ps a more mundane spin on family bonuses, when they're even mentioned at all.

We all know when AEG decided Rokugan banned black powder, they shot themselves in the foot and had to write in that fireworks are made with a different explosive made with a secret recipe of herbs and spices, so what's stopping the clans from weaponizing non-black powder explosives?

Exactly whether firework powder and black powder are different, or simply a misdirection for the purposes of bypassing imperial law, is left open.
Most of Rokugan isn't knowledgeable enough to know.

...

Mantis go.

No.

someone please photoshop this to be a pepe.

>nipples don't stay behind the bar
>one flies off and gets stuck in her armpit

One of the things that I liked about the 3rd Edition rulebook is that it explained unequivocally what constituted a breach of honor when using Low skills. In this case, it's still dishonorable to use fireworks as weapons regardless of their chemical composition.

I'm actually surprised Unicorn didn't bring over more tech than just war-steeds.

They did - knowledge of glass and other eccentricities.

Can I find 1st Edition books somewhere? Neither link has them. I feel like going down the memory lane.

Shouldn't be too hard to find a torrent for the full four editions.

Yeah, I'm an idiot. I found it TBP of all things.

I don't know how authentic Nioh is compared to L5R. Also, latter is by default more about inter-samurai relationships and less about fighting monsters, although that's certain an element of the setting.

...

Is the use of wardogs considered dishonourable? What about hunting hounds to find the enemy?

The Unicorn use dogs in battle, so it's probably not too dishonorable. The Matsu have a school that relies on vicious attack lions, too. Starts at 5.5 honor.

man, it's so weird to go back and read the first edition. probably the most grounded l5r ever was, even before scantly dressed samurai-ko took over.

Spider won the setting, conquering the empire with the surviving members of the great clans fleeing to the colonies after the new emperor openly and intentionally broke the peace agreement with Jigoku.

The sad part is I'm not even joking you.

FFG bought it right at that point and everyone is waiting, and hoping, they ret-con the story to something less stupid when the game comes out 2017.

The only good part of that story was Mantis being destroyed with their islands.

>first edition
>probably the most grounded l5r ever was

Well... you can probably put that way...

Of course it's the most grounded. A Kakita Artisan folded a planet out of origami, and made all of the ground the edition would ever need.

>Spider won the setting, conquering the empire with the surviving members of the great clans fleeing to the colonies after the new emperor openly and intentionally broke the peace agreement with Jigoku.

bumpan

That's not going to stop anyone from suggesting L5R anymore than D&D being about heroic fantasy stops people from suggesting it for Dark Souls.

Plus Nioh is pretty much what most people have in mind for all-Crab campaigns anyway. Just replace all the bandits with maho cultists and the main character with a party of Crab samurai.

>Nioh
Damn. I had forgotten about that. Time to get my ass kicked in the demo.

I can't beat the boss in the boat, every time I try to fight it I just get rekt. I've just been grinding for the past two days and have gotten to the point where I can easily run the whole map and slaughter everything without taking a hit, but the boss still rapes my ass.

...

I never thought about it like that.

As someone who's never played L5R are same Clan campaigns common? I mean, wouldn't it make sense to vary up the Clans for stats and shit?

Very common, there are more than enough Families and schools within any given clan to have plenty of variation for the average L5R group.

Plus, marriage into/out of clan while still learning your original school is often handwaived.

because of how the clans operate l5r is a game where you need a REALLY good reason for them to work together. like, something truly major is going down like a shadowlands incursion or something. you don't usually see a mixed clan group that often. each clan does have three families, usually covering bushi-shugenja-diplomat roles in some degree, and it's not like you choose from a bunch of classes, just bushi (martial samurai) and shugenja (mixture of priest and mage, all in one) so it really comes down to how you build your character.

And also the Crab are cool with hanging out with anyone who wants to help them fight Jigoku's influence on the mortal world.

I think that actually gets you a disadvantage. Or at least it did back in the day.

It doesn't in 4e, or at least isn't required. The designers decided that having more reasons to excuse a mixed party is a GOOD thing.

it doesn't surprise me considering the overall trend of easing things up over the years and decades. not to mention l5r was pretty rigid by default.

Some of that rigidity provides good roleplaying challenges and an interesting setting, others made sense for the CCG but were just not conducive to a roleplaying game at all (and a few others still just made no fucking sense what-so-ever, but that's for another discussion).

Stupid sexy Unicorn shugenja.

I liked how large came with a social penalty for standing out, and the other little details whose reasoning was MIA by third edition, and were removed as 'making no ducking sense' by fourth.

>and the other little details whose reasoning was MIA by third edition, and were removed as 'making no ducking sense' by fourth.

Really? That sucks. Isn't 3E unanimously seen as bad, though?

That's 2nd Edition.

Any buildfags around? I could use some help making a melee god in 3rd edition L5R

Mirumoto Bushi, base character gen (45bp) then 95 exp to spend on top of that. Character idea is a never-say die blender who seeks glory through combat.

Any advice on advantages? Bishamon's Blessing seems like an obvious choice. Any others? Is Strength of Earth worth the point investment to ignore wound penalties?

Should I focus on rings or skills? Raising Earth and Fire are obviously useful since school bonuses are tied to them, but how much Reflexes and Strength and Stamina should I shoot for to be a combat monster?

What Kata should I get?

TLDR: 3e Mirumoto Bushi melee-blender build help please.

By the time you hit 4e, there's at least 4 major families in each Great Clan, and somewhere between 6 and 9 schools per clan.

I was thinking that as well, but I think they meant everyone had 3 Families at minimum who each specialize in the base 3 roles of bushi/shugenja/courtier, then there's all the other Families/schools in addition. Maybe.

I think in 1e, the courtier schools are implied to exist, rather than concrete things that players can actually be part of.

Your family gives you a stat boost for free, but it's only by one point, so variation depends a lot more on spending your starting points/XP. You could have two characters from the same family/school combination and have them be very different depending on what other stat(s) they bought up and what skills and Advantages they got. Allowing all the different alternate rank options can also change things up a lot.

To be fair, the choice was either the Spider or Yodotai as far as things were concerned.

The Yodotai were prepared to march on Rokugan by that time and would have easily fucked everyone up anyway.

Hell the story team even said that only the Onyx empire of the Spider would even be strong enough to challenge the Yodotai. Legelus, with merely trained peasant farmers and only 100 real legionnaires almost kicked the Lion clan's face in. And he wasn't even real Yodotai at that point.

So it was dying to shadowlands now or having their culture and society erased by the Yodotai in the short future.

God I fucking hate late AEG's Spider wank.

So glad FFG got the property away from them, I hope they retcon all the stupid shit of the last couple of storylines out.

There is literally no reason for the Spider's empire to be more ready for the Yodotai. Bog standard Rokugan is already militaristic and able to muster very large armies at short notice, and the Kansen of Jigoku are no more able to break the Yodotai's anti-magic effect than the small kami.

The Spider are less bound by Rokugani tradition, and can explore avenues of technology previously unsought or banned.

No, they really can't. They wouldn't have any reason to do that until the Yodotai are literally rolling halfway through the country, and at that point it's far too late to import anything, let alone millions of muskets.

Like what, gunpowder? They wouldn't bother, since the power of Jigoku is "all they need".
And the Yodotai don't exactly telegraph their attacks. They just show up and wreck your shit. The spider would probably see them coming, assume it's a fight they can win as-is, and then get their shit stomped when they try to pull some Taint shenanigans and find it doesn't work.

To be fair, a single expansion army of the Yodotai empire was once mentioned to number half a million in number, and this is before their spirit legions materialize and shut off the magical powers of their enemies.

Spider clan could throw that many zombies at them easily after killing off the remaining ivory kingdoms during their time as conquerors. When Kanpeki marches on Rokugan in the last few expansions of the CCG it is made perfectly clear that all of the wars and death in the colonies, the age of expansion wars, the Pan'ku madness outbreak and the war of succession were feeding into a massive undead army. Then we get to the fact that with the McGuffin seals broken Spider would be able to merge Rokugan and Jigoku and summon more stronger and numerous oni then any time earlier in history. Finally, Spider had a large army even before the undead legions thanks to the demands of conquering, all of them now supercharged tainted bushi.

Of all possible outcomes it IS true that an empire with Kanpeki at the head would be able to adapt and best bring the Yodotai to battle. On top of that, the Yodotai are planning based on scouts observing Lion and Unicorn forces, they wouldn't be planning for the shadowlands out the gate.

A proper Yodotai invasion of normal Rokugan would royally fuck the clans to their core.

With a Yodotai victory everything would be erased, the Rokugani culture dies completely for not-rome as the Yodotai purposely change the cultures of lands they conquer... unless they gave a bigger bs story then the destroyer war...

Only the Lion, because of their studies, the Unicorn, due to their travels, and the Spider, due to their closeness to the burning sands, had any idea what they were up against, the rest of the clans would be fucked big time.

Overall they wrote the Yodotai so big, so powerful, that they became the off-screen boogie man that would one day rise and wipe everyone out.