Legend of the Five Rings plz!

Well FG just lost the Warhammer license, so they'll need a new product soon.

Unless they think they can live off Star Wars

they can until Disney dicks them. But Runewars is coming and just about direct competition to warhammer. Only like 300 days to the lcg release

Bumping with Moshi waifu

I really hate how the card game art conflicts with the setting. :\

I really hate how Yoritomo-washed all the other Mantis are.

But it's the MANTIS clan, baka. Now they're like all the other clans. Each family is mostly but with a small quirk.

>implying that it does

It unquestionably does.
Aside from the fact that the clothing almost all clashes with what's written about clothing, even character descriptions don't match, with stuff like hair color and distinguishing features not lining up with official descriptions.

>with what's written about clothing

What is written about clothing is that samurai wear modest clothing... except when they don't, Literally this is all it. Two fooking sentences (4th edition RPG rulebook, page 32, at the end of the first column).

From page 32
>Considered inappropriate and barbaric to show one's limbs or torso in public.
>Some clans do violate this rule to a certain degree... but even they do not presume to dress immodestly while in court or visiting a daimyo.

And then go down three pages to 35, where it goes into great detail about clothing.

Older editions had similar levels of detail. The cards never matched it.

As someone who has only ever played MtG, how would you sell this to me? It looks interesting but I know nothing about it except that it's very Asian.

Oh wait I always thought this was a card game. Huh. Nevermind then.

I wouldn't, because the CCG is dead.
If you're interested in LCGs, then you can wait for Fantasy Flight to release it next year like the rest of us.

Card game is dead until August 2017

It was a card game, but there's also a long running RPG.
And since the card game was discontinued, there's nothing left to talk about aside from the RPG.

I'm not excited for the card game to launch and this place turns as chaotic as the Star Wars general. They have like 8 different products everyone is talking about.

This always reminds me how 2nd/D20 Edition and the Secret of the... books were the best shit art-wise.

we miss you, Cris Dornaus. she could have been amazing, and they burned her out.

...

Bumpu

Emerald Empire goes into even more detail IIRC.

It's been a well known fact that the CCG art has more often than not been a poor representation of the setting as presented by the RPG, and sorry but anyone saying otherwise doesnt know what they're fucking talking about.

Okay how do we fix dueling so not every duelist is basically a courtier

Duelling now uses a different Ring per roll.

You can't really, since that would destroy some important core parts of the setting and system. Sword and Fan, one and the same and all that.

Then you just make duelists even more useless outside of dueling, since they're spread so thin that they can't do anything else.

>Then you just make duelists even more useless outside of dueling
The key of it is that you don't set which Rings go with which rolls, only that you have to a different Ring each time.

Obviously it's important to revamp duelling so that there is no longer a single roll that decides the duel. (looking at you, Focus)

Scrap specialized dueling mechanics entirely. Make it a subtype of skirmish where duelists get a specialty bonus.

Oh yeah, I went there.

...But dueling doesn't use normal Rings, it uses two stats and Void, which is a special case.
If anything, I'd change assessment from Awareness to Perception, so pumping the Air Ring isn't such a brainless choice.

It already kind of is. Dueling is broken down into rounds that correspond to regular skirmish rounds. If a duel happens in the middle of a fight, it happens over the course of three rounds within that fight, and could be disrupted.

>...But dueling doesn't use normal Rings
No shit. The question was, "How do we fix duelling?"

Gotta change something if you don't think it's fixed already.

Well changing what rings it uses doesn't make sense if it doesn't use rings to begin with is my point.
And making it too hard to be a duelist isn't a good thing either. You kill off a lot of character concepts (And sometimes more importantly) render certain schools worthless overall if you make dueling a "bad" choice mechanically.

But then you just make it harder for non-Kakita duelists to keep up, since it's harder to be good at dueling, but just as easy for the Kakita to get their high bonuses.

The problem with dueling isn't in the dueling mechanics themselves.

You have to fix the root of the problem: that traits and rings are fucking retarded.

I think they work just fine and they're a good flavorful mechanic.
Why do you think they're retarded?

I preferred it when duelling wasn't clarified to not be two rounds (Assessment/Focus, then Strike/Damage); you only get one centre stance bonus per round, and it just worked for me that you have a choice of where to put it.

> changing what rings it uses doesn't make sense if it doesn't use rings to begin with is my point
I can't help it if your brain problems prevent you understanding that shifting duelling to Rings is the fundamental part of making duelling with Rings open choice.

Yeah, you said this. I still don't agree. You might as well say that, as it exists now, Attributes make it harder for non-Kakita duellists, because the Kakita can buy Attributes.

Also;
>Obviously it's important to revamp duelling so that there is no longer a single roll that decides the duel

You both went blind or something (stop masturbating while typing) and ignored this.

I didn't mention the single roll thing because I'm not contesting that.
But making it harder for all duelist means that the Technique bonuses of dedicated duelists have more value because they're relatively higher bonuses, making the dedicated duelists even better.

It's not the idea, it's the execution. The way Rings are calculated isn't very well thought out. "Perception" and "awareness" being two different things has caused all kinds of confusion and has reeked been desperate reaching for an even number of traits since day 1. The constant reshuffling of what traits go with what ring in every edition.

There's something fundamentally wrong with the way the mechanic is executed even if the idea is solid.

The name of Awareness is kinda poor, but what it represents is very different from Perception. Awareness could be renamed to "Charisma" and it would be mostly accurate. It's only really "awareness" in the sense of "social awareness". Someone who is blind can have a high Awareness, but would have massive penalties to Perception related to sight.

That's a valid point. BUT. This way opens options for duellists that aren't Air/Void. Assuming it's still three rolls, a typical Crab could decide to use Fire/Earth/Void, for example.

>"Perception" and "awareness" being two different things has caused all kinds of confusion
Mainly for people who don't read, as I've found.
>The constant reshuffling of what traits go with what ring in every edition.
Wat. No.

But then you have the problem of a duelist with low Reflexes. A slow duelist is not a good duelist.

>On the first Round of the duel, both characters enter the Assessment stage on the Initiative Turn of the faster duelist.

>During the second Round of the duel, both characters enter the Focus stage on the Initiative Turn of the faster duelist.

>On the third Round of the duel, both characters enter the Strike stage on the Initiative Turn of the slower duelist

Initiative means nothing in a duel, and I see no reason to change that. ATN is slightly important, but a good focus roll will blow right through your ATN if you lose. So now I think you're just quibbling for the sake of it.

I dunno, I don't think a typical character should be good at dueling without putting the points in. Reflexes are worth it for pretty much everyone, Void is worth it for pretty much everyone, even a little bit of Awareness can pay off with Insight (For increasing the Air Ring). Every clan has duelists, and every samurai is "expected" to be good at a wide variety of activities, so you don't need to especially justify it either.

It's not super well balanced, but the Crane having rigged things in their favor is part of the setting.

I didn't say initiative, I said Reflexes. On the third round, you attack with your Reflexes. Outside of mechanics, it's reflexes and twitch response that you use to do the draw cut. Being fast should be important to iaijutsu dueling.

Being fast is one thing, but correctly reading the opposition striking to meet their speed will beat it every time.

>If one duelist beats the other’s (Focus) roll by 5 or more, that duelist earns the right to make the first strike.

And outside of mechanics, you can't meet your speed if they're faster than you. So you have to be fast.

Basically what I'm saying is that I think dueling is just fine as an Air based thing, other than Awareness being the only thing you can use for assessment. Making the Focus step less critical is well and good, but changing Strike from Reflexes doesn't work for me.

If Focus is the most important part of a duel, then it being Void is probably a good idea. Literally any character can (And probably should) have a decent Void and it's never a wasted investment. It's hella useful for any sort of character.

>you can't meet your speed if they're faster than you
It's not about matching their speed; you're trying to twist what I said to suit your perspective. It's about knowing what they're going to do and pre-empting it. That's Focus, and that decides who strikes first.

>Basically what I'm saying is that I think dueling is just fine [short of ...]
Then we basically disagree.

No, that's literally what you said.
>but correctly reading the opposition striking to meet their speed will beat it every time.
>to meet their speed

>Then we basically disagree.
I guess so.

>The constant reshuffling of what traits go with what ring in every edition.
Unless you're talking about the d20 version, this never happened.

AIR
Reflexes
Awareness
EARTH
Stamina
Willpower
FIRE
Agility
Intelligence
WATER
Strength
Perception
VOID

It's been like that since 1e, the only thing that changed was the order they listed the rings in (1e put Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Void, while 4e puts Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Void).

>No, that's literally what you said
Just 'literally' using the same words in incorrect context doesn't make you correct.

Moving faster loses to someone that puts themselves in the correct place to hit you first.
That's reading the opposition and striking to meet their speed.

This gif made me smile.
Now I need to go watch Sanjuro.
Thanks, user.

Heh. I wanted to go watch Sanjuro after posting, too.

Rework the whole combat mechanics for an Action Points system and then just put everything (skirmishes, dueling, social combats, mass battles) under that umbrella with some flavor-specific modifications.

So you would duel exactly like you skirmish, the only difference is that you roll Iaijutsu (Focus) / Air for Initiative (an to an extent, number of Actions Points) instead of Insight / Air, and you make Iaijutsu (Strike) / Reflexes rolls to attack instead of Weapon Skill / Agility.

Duelists would have gimmicks based on their dueling styles. For example, a Kakita Bushi would be all about killing people with a single super-powerful strike - an ability that is super-good in duels but pretty darn sweet in skirmishes too.

Before you ask, been there, done that, and it is cool, though duelists doing duelist stuff in a skirmish is somewhat annoying.

>Ikarukani

My nigga.

>implying the L5R general ever talked about the CCG even when it was still alive.

I intend to talk about the card game when it launches. So prepare your anus, courtier-san

Why should I play this game /l5rg/?

Been mostly playing WFRP2e, and wondering how this experience could differ.

Because one of the major character archetypes is lawyer.

WFRP2e has toll booth workers.

Because one of the lawyer classes operates exclusively on blackmail.

How many courtiers are actually get Lore: Law in their school skills? They're mostly more like diplomats.

You got me.

Etiquette and Courtier is also pseudo-lore skills, since they require knowledge of social rules and norms, as well as natural charisma and wit.

Right, exactly: social norms. Courtier is all about being persuasive, and Etiquette is all about being polite, but all of the rules of behaviour they cover are social instead of legal. Lore: Law is the skill for actually knowing the law, and none of the courtiers in core have it named as a school skill-- not even the Kitsuki. At most they have "any one high skill" or "any one Lore skill".

So while it's certainly easy to for them to pick up, and while many courtiers certainly do become or act as lawyers, it's by no means their default state or role.

Probably looking at the word lawyer too literally... ironically.

Actually understanding the law is tertiary (At best) to being a Rokugani lawperson. Many magistrates don't even have Lore: Law because their positions were gained from political favors and there's a general assumption that if you got the position with your current training (Regardless of what that training was), then your current training is good enough. Being too open about not knowing the law will shame the people who sponsored and hired you for the position, and that's not something any samurai wants to do, since those people are probably his lord and a higher ranking magistrate (Or even the Emerald Magistrate).
The legal system is seriously a mess, since so many magistrates don't really understand it, but can't be called out without crashing huge chunks of the system.

Just keep in mind that the big 7 School Skills are not the only skills taught by the school. They're just the core curriculum that everyone gets. There's electives and extra classes on almost every topic. Even courtier and shugenja schools will have combat instructors, and even bushi schools will have courtly instructors. Schools are like universities that you join in kindergarten.

Of course schools teach other subjects, but the School Skills are the ones that the sensei make mandatory as stuff you can't do your job without. If a courtier learns law, it's because they wanted to, and the reason they don't typically have to is that "lawyer" is not their primary role. They're diplomats and ambassadors and governors and functionaries before they're lawyers, and while they can be called on to act in a lawyerly capacity, they typically get it done not by having any actual knowledge of the law, but by doing the equivalent of having the case settled out of court because they did someone a favour and/or blackmailed someone. To call courtiers "the lawyer class" like is a gross oversimplification. They typically do their best work BEFORE anything becomes a matter of law, and stick to those methods even if it does becomes such a matter.

Bumping with modest Moshi waifu.

So what was the least honourable thing you're character has done?

*your
Shit, I should do better than this.

Forgot to use an honorific for someone higher rank than me.

I'm very careful with my honor most of the time.

Let a more honourable PC take responsibility over the group meeting someone important, then not have their back when it turned out the important guy is an asshole, and well informed enough to want us to call in our blank cheque favours for him.

One? Nah, more like three or so. One is an absolute dick about it, one kills you with kindness and makes you pay it back, and the last >>implies that it is going to ruin you.

Ide is pure. Ide is flawless.

Kitsuki and Asako are also fairly okay. Ikoma is bro-tier.

With my last character? Slapping an important Otomo NPC during the last day of summer court, right in front of Suikihime, due to him triggering my Brash disadvantage (thought it would be an interesting disadvantage to roleplay on a kakita bushi). It lead to the duel that meant his death, and i've told the story before in this general.

My current character is a monk of kaimetsu-uo, and i guess the least honourable thing he did was indirectly calling the yoritomo clan champion a fool for not heeding my kawaru prophesizing, that staying on our current course would lead to darkness, a storm, opportunity for courage, and great loss of life. We ended up fighting in the rain against several ghost ships filled with zombie gaijin sailors, and the ship carrying the corpse of my previous character, to be laid to rest along my ancestors, was lost to the storm.

fuck the mantis

I'm listening to the RPG Academy L5r podcast, and it's heartbreaking. They're all fantastic roleplayers getting hip-deep into character, but the whole thing is centred around Spider drama, and ill-conceived Spider Drama at that. The main antagonist has very obviously committed illegal acts in concealing evidence of Taint and refusing the jurisdiction of a Kuni, but an Imperial magistrate specifically chosen for impartiality has ruled that there's been no crime. I'm pulling my hair out.

That means either the GM is spiderwanking, clueless as to the actual laws, or has made the guy not impartial for plot reasons.
66% chance of bad times ahead.

I'm pretty sure it's a combo of number two and not so much Spiderwank as grimwank.

>concealing evidence of Taint
Does anyone know this for sure?

>refusing the jurisdiction of a Kuni
That's hardly uncommon in Rokugan. Kuni are unliked by many; they're gruff, uncouth, and tend to stare.

It's not uncommon, but it is illegal (Assuming by "kuni" it's meant "Kuni Witchhunter").
Witch hunters are on the same level as Phoenix Inquisitors, the Scorpion Blackwatch, and Jade Magistrates. Regarding the Taint, they're pretty much absolute. The Kuni should have just rallied people and killed the fucker right then and there.

>Spider
Found the issue.

Besides, half of inner city set L5R is maneuvering around incompetent/corrupt/both superiors.

We are talking about a Witch Hunter, yes.

Everything and nothing is absolute in Rokugan. Laws, traditions, and precedents are as ubiquitous as loopholes to work around them to your advantage when working against the system, or without everything grinding to a halt when working with the system.

This I don't get. Was in a game where the DM had us set up against gangs of very obviously tainted ronin, who had been around long enough to earn a reputation.

I was flabbergasted that no one had lynched them yet, let alone informed a member of the aforementioned taint busters squads.

Taint is a little different than most things, since it's not just illegal, but also culturally and religiously abhorrent. Even clans that don't want to even think about the Taint (Looking at you Crane and Lion) will take up arms to destroy it once it's unquestionably found.

Part of the reason the Spider is such a dumb idea is that the taint is straight up blasphemy.
Also, in this case, there's a direct imperial decree that says all the tainted spider are supposed to fuck off to the colonies, so this is double illegal and the witch hunter would have been 100% in the right to demand seppuku, exile (to the colonies), retirement (To a jade petal monastery) or execution.

That cuts both ways, of course. Part of the reason for the witch hunter's bad reputation is their habit of rolling in, testing for taint (Which is usually quite an insult) and then resolving the taint without consulting or asking local authorities for permission.

>Taint is a little different than most things, since it's not just illegal
Taint isn't illegal. Concealing it is.

>That cuts both ways, of course
Of course. The Kuni in question needs to be able to force access first, though.

That's what I meant yeah.
Point is, it's illegal in three ways, and the magistrate claiming that no law has been broken can only mean that the GM either doesn't know the relevant laws, is a spider wanker, or is doing this for Plot reasons.

So that's the question.
Is this turn of events presented as a problem for the PCs to solve, or the actual truth?