FFG dropping news bombs edition

This; EotE was the best thing to happen to SW RP since the D6 system. People who say otherwise haven't actually played it.

I've played it, d6 is still better. Begone, thot.

You guys are worried over nothing. FFG bought the rights to L5R, obviously the last thing they'll want to do is piss off fans by ripping out the dice system that the game's known for. You guys seem to forget that a company actually wants its product to sell, and as we saw with AEG, if people in this community don't like where a product's going they won't buy it.

Besides; The fact the roll and keep system's already there means their job is a lot easier. Instead of thinking up a basic system framework, they've got one that works and just fell into their laps. Keeping it, all they'd need to do for a new edition is figure out new mechanics for schools, equipment, etc. Why would you waste time and money inventing a new framework when the current system already works -and- is loved by the fans?

And lastly, even if they did go full retard and rip out the roll and keep system, so fucking what? 4e is a solid system with plenty of content out for it already, just stick to using that and don't bother buying the new edition. It's not a problem unless you make it a problem.

Way to co-opt a thread to bitch about something, you sure derailed it good.

Jesus fuck would they stop faffing around with new IPs and just reprint the goddamn Twilight Imperium expansions already?

I can't really blame them on this one, L5R is a really big deal that they've acquired - I'd say at least as big as the bits they had of 40k, so it's understandable that almost everyone else (other than SW, for obvious reasons) has to be 2nd string

Also no, reprints can get to the back of the fucking queue.

>Why would you waste time and money inventing a new framework when the current system already works -and- is loved by the fans?
So you can sell new books. Switch it around; if you make your rules system directly compatible with the old sourcebooks, no one's motivated to buy any new sourcebooks; you've screwed yourself out of sales.

>D6
>better
>cybernetics make you evil
>Force-users are broken as shit
Bitch please.
I had great fun playing d6, but don't even try to pretend FFG's system isn't leagues ahead

See now, that's not really the case. 3e L5R and 4e L5R only really differ in that 4e is more balanced than 3e. The schools work differently, some of the faulty mechanics from 3e got scrapped, but if you stop and take a hard look at the differences 4e really didn't change much outside of making it more balanced.

You want to know how they can sell new sourcebooks? Make new clans and schools, add to the lore and invent mechanics for them. You won't find mechanics for a new clan's school in an old book, so there's nothing to convert. And also, add new ronin schools. FFG doesn't have the raging hateboner for ronin that AEG did, and people have been asking for better ronin mechanics for the longest time; I'd buy a ronin themed splatbook in a heartbeat. Hell, on that side of things, they could change the mechanics of minor clan schools to make it so they're not intentionally weaker than great clan schools, could maybe even sell a splatbook focused entirely on minor clans and their schools.

There's a ton of ways FFG could go about making and selling splatbooks without ripping out the roll and keep system. Again, not an issue.

>100000000 2 page splats
This hurts me on a molecular level. I hate how much they fractured and piecemeal'ed the splat for Star Wars.

L5R Descent like game WHEN FFS !!! ???

You know for the LCG they've rolled back the timeline a bit, right?

Dungeon crawler? No. Skirmish system (like in Imperial Assault)? Oh hell yes.

So fuckin glad I got into the Gencon events.

The sheer amount of prizes from these events is ridiculous.

Thursday (Kiku Matsuri):
- Deckbox (registration)
- Clan pin (registration)
- 6 various Way of's, one of your clan, 5 others based on who you played against (participation)
- Commemorative GenCon First Player Token (participate for 3 rounds)
- Up to 2x of full art Keeper Initiate (winners on rounds 2 and 3)
- Up to 2x of full art Seeker Initiate (winners on rounds 4 and 5)
- Plastic Clan SH (win at least 3 matches)
- Hatamoto title and its associated prizes (win all 5 matches)
- Undefeated players get to cast a vote for the first story prize

Hatamoto prizes, regardless of awarded on Thursday or Friday:
- Hatamoto pin
- Hatamoto playmat of their clan
- If you earn the Hatamoto title twice in one year, instead you get an engraved Hatamoto token box (possible in GenCon if you earn it on both Thursday and Friday)
- A reserved seat at the Winter Court World Championship
- Lots of shenanigans and recognition at Koteis as well

Friday (Competitive tournament):
- Commemorative GenCon First Player Token (registration)
- 6 various Way of's, one of your clan, 5 others based on who you played against (participation)
- Up to 3x of full art Keeper Initiate (winners on rounds 2-4)
- Up to 3x of full art Seeker Initiate (winners on rounds 5-7)
- Plastic Clan SH (win at least 4 matches)
- Hatamoto title and its associated prizes (top 2 of each clan by standings)
- Top of each clan gets to determine that clan's role card until the next Winter Court World Championship and also receives an etched stone role card to match

Saturday (Competitive tournament top 16 cut):
- Engraved and painted acyrlic honor dial (make top 16 cut)
- Full set of each clan's plastic stronghold cards (top 8)
- Engraved wooden Imperial Favor card, plus the Hatamoto title if not already earned (top 4)
- Finalist plaque (2nd place)
- Champion trophy (1st place)

Sunday (Casual tournament):
- Commemorative GenCon First Player Token (registration)
- Full art Way of the Clan card of their clan (registration)
- Full art Keeper Initiate (win on round 2)
- Full art Seeker Initiate (win on round 3)

Or even better, an L5R skinned version of Twilight Imperium.

>Also no, reprints can get to the back of the fucking queue.

I'd normally agree with you, but the TI expansions are fucking GOAT tier user

Yes please, just make it play a touch faster.

Also getting the stats on the last 2 champs and the 2 strongholds

>Shinjo

5/4 with a 2 swing is....not great. Must have a good ability

>Shoju

Pol master at 3/7, so he's the opposite of Kisada. Could only be toppled by a well-voltron'd Crane or Tsukune, so goddamn.

>Unicorn Stronghold

+0 will not be kind

>Scorp Stronghold

Might b cool....

Dangit, can't find a dang download of Imperial Histories 2 that isn't linking me to a bunch of trashy sites where I need to register to get!

We can read the Scorpion stronghold's ability. Technically a tiny bit of it is obscured, but there's like a 98% chance it is this:

Action: If you are less [honorable than your opponent, bow]
this stronghold -- take [1 honor from your opponent.]

Obscured text in brackets. Reason being, nothing in the came compares you to your opponent with the word "are" except honorable (see: Blackmail), and the only things you ever "take" from your opponent are honor and fate and taking fate would be bullshit.

I'd be so up for the dungeon crawler.

Legend of the Five Rings: Chrysanthemum Imperium

It probably wouldn't take much to reskin just the politics deck - you could elect players to Jade Champion etc.

I think the problem would be the lack of a modular board like TI

There aren't a lot of dungeons to crawl in Rokugan.
There's the tunnels underneath the Crab Wall, and then there's Iuchiban's Tomb.
One is relatively short unless you're headed into a very well engineered death trap, and the only "reward" to passing through is to reach the other side of the Wall, and the other might as well be Tomb of Horrors and no sane person would want to go there anyway, since the only thing in it is Iuchiban himself.

I'm gonna be devastated if I don't get into the Honored event in London

If they did multi-hex board pieces like Runewars it could work, what with Imperial cartography is hot shit on a stick and all. Just make a "Home Provinces" piece for each clan, 10-12 other provinces to make the rest of the map, and then a single hex Otasan Uchi/Toshi Ranbo as the stand-in for Mecatol Rex.

So? Imperial Assault wasn't legitimate dungeons. You could have the party set up as jade magistrates from each of the clans fitting an archetype
>Lion Damage Bushi
>Crab Tank Bushi
>Phoenix Shugenja
>Dragon Monk
>Crane Support Courtier
>Unicorn Ranged Bushi
>Scoprion Ninja

Then you'd have things like "Rescue this informant and get him off the board" leading up to the Kolat or someone trying to instigate a clan war.

Personal missions might be "Help Matsu Bitch recover her families blade from her dead brothers corpse. SHe gets to use it later if you do."

Yeah that works. but has to be Otosan Uichi, Toshi Ranbo is only wanted by the crane and the lion for whatever reason.

Toshi Ranbo became the Imperial Capital after Otosan Uchi was destroyed late in the Four Winds Arc.

snowflake dice are bad because they are terrible to roll and interpret, not because they cost money

good strawman tho :^)

>the only other system in the world that uses Roll&Keep is Dungeons The Dragoning
Seventh Sea.

What said; plus said *SINCE* D6, not that it was better than D6.

>FFG doesn't have the raging hateboner for ronin that AEG did
If you think that was a hateboner, then you woefully misunderstood ronin as they exist in L5R.

I'd really like to see R&K kept, but with techniques streamlined in the fashion of Legends Of The Wulin / made easier to create your own techniques.

I don't want to play a game in which the setting is dominated by great clans of samurai in the fluff, but dominated by ronin in the crunch.

>FFG doesn't have the raging hateboner for ronin that AEG did...

Yeah, Ronin only had the most powerful school in the longest lasting edition of the RPG...The Ronin Duelist was broken as fuck in 3E from R2 onwards.

>They ruined Warhammer that way. They ruined Star Wars that way.
Neither of these things is true.

Or they may make it a Genesys setting.

Star Wars is objectively terrible, primarily due to the dice system. If you enjoy it, that's fine, but it is an awful system.

>And lastly, even if they did go full retard and rip out the roll and keep system, so fucking what? 4e is a solid system with plenty of content out for it already, just stick to using that and don't bother buying the new edition. It's not a problem unless you make it a problem.
The hope is always that a new edition will fix some of those particular niggles one has with the current system, release new and exciting mechanics to play around with, and provide new lore.

Dropping R&K would be killing off one, possibly more, of those hopes.

>Most powerful school
I think you've forgotten just how good the Mirumoto bushi school was if that's honestly what you think was the most powerful school.

Well for starters, why -wouldn't- ronin have decent schools? A lot of them live off of how good they are at fighting, they have even more reason to git gud than clan samurai. Though that said, clan samurai still have way more money and influence, plus armies, so there's really no harm giving them schools that are as good as everyone else's. I'm not saying make them -better-, I'm saying make it so the guy playing a ronin isn't in a rush to find a new teacher and learn a new technique before he hits the next insight rank and is forced to have an empty rank because ronin rules are stupid and try to dissuade you from playing one, even in a game where the party is playing all ronins.

Again, there's still not really a problem. Of course, it's a bummer if they did rip out R&K, and I still don't think they will, but even if they did there's still 4e, which works perfectly fine. If you like the RPGs, odds are you like 4e and if that's the case and you don't like the next edition, just stick to it. It's really no skin off your nose if you think about it.

"Oh no, this new edition is awful and I don't like it! I guess that means I can't throw money at FFG for another book and I'll just have to stick to the edition I already like that has lots of splatbooks and that I already liked anyways. The travesty!"

It worked for 3.5 grognards when 4e and 5e came out, hell it worked for 2e grognards when 3.5e came out. If they can stick to the edition they like when they don't like the new one, why can't you?

My issue with "snowflake dice" is that it feels unnecessary sometimes. I don't mind buying buying stuff for the games I enjoy, I'd just rather they don't feel so gimmicky.

>objectively terrible
>MY opinion is the correct one!
I'd place a bet on you never having played it before. You should.

>Well for starters, why -wouldn't- ronin have decent schools?
Because while Great Clan bushi are training under the most experienced and venerated war veterens, your average ronin's sensei is just some guy, if they have one at all.

>A lot of them live off of how good they are at fighting,
When you usually only have to deal with bandits, that's not a high bar

>they have even more reason to git gud than clan samurai.
Ronin deal with bandits, typically. Clan samurai have to fight clan samurai, and a lot more is at stake in the Great Clan's wars than some coin to keep you fed.

I've played two campaigns of FFG's SW and ran one. It's an objectively shitty dice system. For one, the numbers in general are too low, making things extremely swingy on good luck. Second, even on good luck, you can just flub a roll entirely. Third, the results can be a puzzle for the GM to interpret, and having the game grind to a halt while someone tries to figure out what 3 Success, 4 Advantage, 2 Despair should actually do on a coercion check is utter nonsense. And that's just the shortlist of issues.

>numbers are too low
>what is destiny point use and not being a fucking retard at low levels
>you can just flub a roll entirely
Like every other fucking game ever if your GM's a spacklord or just hates you enough to crank up the difficulty number in d6/d20
>the results are a puzzle
Only if your GM is, as mentioned before, a spacklord.

I can make up your hypothetical check result right now:
>the guy is terrified of you to the point of wetting himself, gives you more than you actually need and a few details that will be really helpful, but he holds a grudge and will show up for revenge later, or tip off Imperials if you have any outstanding warrants

You're so dumb you literally can't help yourself from cherrypicking text.

And you're so dumb you apparently can't wrap your head around what is, when you get down to it, a pretty simple system. Or when your argument has been comprehensively BTFO.

No one ever called the system complex. What do you mean that it's simple?

The problem doesn't sound like the dice.

Ronin Duelist was capable of generating effectively unlimited dice with its R2. For every minute of observation it would create +10k0 vs that target. Get into a position to observe the target for a few minutes then one shot him. Build Reflexes to get the initiative and then nuke the target.

No matter how much ATN the target gets you can bypass it with Ronin Duelist. The same applies to damage, keep observing and you'll eventually accumulate enough Free Raises to generate enough damage dice to kill anything that doesn't have Great Destiny/Dark Fate/Hida Bushi 5 in one hit.

>Well for starters, why -wouldn't- ronin have decent schools?
The base premise of technique-to-technique ronin advancement in L5R is masterless samurai with little to no support, living hand-to-mouth, lacking quality sensei and dojo, and next to zero access to a thousand years of battle-tested refinement.

>A lot of them live off of how good they are at fighting, they have even more reason to git gud than clan samurai.
Most 4e ronin technique ronin are not good at fighting. They survive by being better than your average bandit, not by being better than clan samurai.

They're not even good at being ronin - for that you have musha shugyo ronin (aka not!ronin), ronin who were kicked out of home years after their teens (and thus have clan school techniques), full school (aka generic) ronin, and advanced school ronin.

That's a lot of ronin who are pretty good to decent, and yet every time someone complains about ronin, they focus on who? Ronin technique ronin. Who are, at best, good at just scraping by after a life of shitty living. If they were decent at anything in particular, then a clan or solid otokodate would offer them a better life and scoop them up. They're not, though.

>Again, there's still not really a problem
That there's subjectively never going to be a problem for you does not mean there can or will never be a problem for anyone else.

Despite 4e being quite good, it's effectively dead with nothing new coming out and no new material to draw new interest or officially fix old problems.

What more material does it need? It has all the clans and schools done, a bunch of monsters, what else is there?

>the best dice rolling system ever
L5R never used fudge dice though.

Let's just hope things turn out well...

I'm looking forward to it either way.

But I enjoy both RnK and FFG Crazy Dice so win-win to me

What if it has RnK Crazy Dice?

Amazing. Will pre-order immediately!

Killing the sacred cows that 4e could not. Fixed weapons, new takes on schools, etc etc.

I've been waiting for this thread. Friends and I have been printing and playing to get a handle on things, and we finally got a win in with Lion last night. It was vs Crab, I went for military at first and quickly realized that wasn't going to go anywhere, so I switched to honor run partway though and pulled it out. He had 2 honor at the end. It was by far the longest game we've played, most end by turn three. I ended up having to defend my stronghold with Totori all the time, and he had honor blades, and that started to add up pretty quick.
Highlights
>Turn one he Way of the Crab'd my only personality, attacked militarily, popped a province, vengful oathkeeper from hand, he has no defenders, attack, put spearman from hand, pop province with Kisada.
>Turn 2 morale was low for me, so I all out attacked with Totori with honor blades. He did some crab nonsense that pulled Kisada (yes, he saw Kisada two turns running) from a province to battle. Fuck it, all in. Way of the Lion, Bonzai for four. Totori is now rocking 20 force, Kisada or no, province popped. Greater glory afterword so Totori stuck around. Ring of Fire trigged twice, Totori is now 13 force just hanging out.
The rest was a terrible, slow grind, but Honor won the day. Tinkering with the deck helped a ton. We had crane in there (Admit Defeatx2, Voice of Honorx3), swapped to Pheonix (Pacifismx3, Seeker of Enlightenmentx3). Crab players get kinda buttmad when Kisada is pacified, and Seeker on the attack always lets lion grab honor. We thought about Dragon for Ancestral Daisho and Let Go, but I dig the Pheonix pairing.

Then I won with Dragon v Pheonix, to the surprise of nobody. There was a cheecky first turn where I had their holding out, bought nobody, he bought a personality. She lost fate off the bat, attacked a province, and got hit with Mirimoto's Fury and bowed out. End of turn rolled around and she blipped off the table, and I started the next round with 14 fate.

So you want 5e, not more 4e stuff.

So, /l5rg/, what are your most and least liked schools? Any reason, rules, fluff, whatever.

>Well for starters, why -wouldn't- ronin have decent schools?
The real reason is that a lot of John Wickisms remain in L5R, and one of those is passive aggressiveness against ronin because Wick did not want D&D style roaming rootless adventurers, but again in Wick style he deliberately made ronin a mechanically unpleasant choice rather than simply disallowing them. See also: Blood and Honor.

That's what we've been talking about. Glad you're catching up, kinda.

You're half right, but steering off into full wrong.

See .

If you want to play a capable ronin, the means exist. It doesn't involve using the Enemies Of The Empire bandit ronin / otherwise poorly trained ronin techniques. That's for potato-grade ronin to throw at the PCs. If you don't want to be a potato-grade ronin, then you use all the other ronin options that exist, from Social Disadvantage on Clan Samurai to Advanced Ronin Schools that are available at rank 2 - right after you step out of the core book ronin techniques.

Oh, don't get me wrong later editions have crawled out of that hole, but they're not completely out of it yet.

However, when you get to things like
>The base premise of technique-to-technique ronin advancement in L5R is masterless samurai with little to no support, living hand-to-mouth, lacking quality sensei and dojo, and next to zero access to a thousand years of battle-tested refinement.

is where people are making post-facto justifications. Ronin aren't lesser fighters because clan dojo are peerless, they're lesser fighters because the first edition of the game didn't want you to play them in the first place. Later editions started to acknowledge that hey, wandering masterless warriors are an actual thing in fiction and shouldn't get shafted beyond what the setting already shafts them with (food, gear, social support network, etc)

>is where people are making post-facto justifications
It really isn't. That's how the ronin techniques you so badly want to champion have been defined.

So again. See (You).
>musha shugyo ronin (aka not!ronin), ronin who were kicked out of home years after their teens (and thus have clan school techniques), full school (aka generic) ronin, and advanced school ronin.
There are the ronin that are not lesser fighters and equals to bandits.

...

Personally I'm pretty buttmad about just about every Organized Play thing announced yesterday. The Roles are a terribad idea. They will make sure keeping the game balanced will be impossible and they will limit the deckbuilding options tremendously. I hope FFG is not retarded enough to let the winner pick their Clan's role first because that will be absolute nonsense - best Clain picks the best role to make themselves even better. Nice snowballing there. I hope my local group and people on OCTGN will reject this shitty idea entirely.

Second, the Hatamoto business goes against the ideology of L5R. It's a game about Clans, not pro players. Intoducing them by name before events is a retarded idea. Making story prizes based on their decisions, instead of involving the entire Clans based on overall standings or whatever, is also retarded. The only non shit thing here is it kinda encourages and rewards Clan loyalty.

>He did some crab nonsense that pulled Kisada (yes, he saw Kisada two turns running) from a province to battle.
Charge is a neutral card, not a Crab card.

Got you covered: pastebin.com/n0nm0ne4

Also, as far as RPG is concered: 4E has some of the best source out there. Across all systems I can think of. Between Enemies of the Empire, The Great Clans, The Emeraldn Empire and Imperial Histories 1/2 you can do so many fucking things you'll never really run out of campaign ideas and things just don't get stale. Roll and keep is a good system and if you're aware what exactly is broken and poorly balanced - homerule it. I'm not the least bit worried about FFG fucking up 5E because I can always stick to 4E with my group if things go wrong.

>I'm not the least bit worried about FFG fucking up 5E because I can always stick to 4E with my group if things go wrong.
My issue is that I don't often have that luxury, and if I'm lucky enough to find such, it may disappear just as quickly. My groups are online, and frequently involve playing RAW or with minimal house ruling.

Not any more.

I don't think the roles will limit deck-building options, they both seem like things than can be essentially ignored. My only worry is the +3 influence off Keeper seems way better than anything on the Seeker card. Either way they're only mandatory for sanctioned tournaments - your play group is free to do what they want.

Secondly the Hatamoto are introduced by name /and clan/. And they immediately lose their Hatamoto status is they rock up to a kotei with a different clan. The clans (and the players) are still front and center here. Sure, wheeling them out and introducing them to everyone is a bit cringey, but so is dressing up in a kimono and having a giant Banzai shout.

It always seemed to me that John Wick's knowledge of Japan and China was severely lacking when he created the setting

>It always seemed to me that John Wick's knowledge was severely lacking when he created

Fixed for you.

I don't believe it was an ignorant lack of knowledge. You don't pick Seppun Baka or Utaku or Otosan Uchi or Hida O-Ushi or any number of other in-jokes and oddities, with the aid of numerous capable writers and whatevers, without knowing you're not putting together anything faithful to the parent language.

They even said as much, with examples of Toturi/Hoturi starting out as Toyoturi/Hoyoturi (sic) and changing it to be roll off the tongue as easily as the big names of the time in MtG.

>I don't think the roles will limit deck-building options, they both seem like things than can be essentially ignored.
I disagree. For Keepers, maybe. For Seekers you'd be silly not to make a deck that will make full use of the ring type you're a Seeker for.

>My only worry is the +3 influence off Keeper seems way better than anything on the Seeker card.
Funny because I think Seeker's ability to generate Fate, the single most important resource, is more powerful.
That being said I'm not worried about the Seeker-Keeper balance being poor (although adding Seeker/Keeper exclusive further unbalances it even more), just that the best Clans will him the ability to make themselves even better. That, and that it'll serve to make the meta even more bland and monotone, because not only will it suffer from the stanrd LCG syndrome of 'everybody has all the cards so there's nothing stopping them from netdecking' but also 'the best decks will fully utilize the Seeker role and anything that deviates from it will be less efficient by definition'.

>Sure, wheeling them out and introducing them to everyone is a bit cringey
There's more to it. You get stuff by beating them too. And most importantly they get to make story decisions. Handing that power to individuals rather than trying to hand it to a Clan as a whole is dumb.
Anyway, I strongly dislike the idea but it's not like my bitching about it will fix anything so I might as well shut up.

I just saw that the new Unicorn fic is written by good old Ree Soesbee. How much should Brace myself before reading it?

Both the Seeker and the Keeper cards generate fate, though I'll grant the seeker might be a bit more consistent. Seeker allows you to take an additional [element] province, but I don't see it as anything to radically alter your deck round.

>Most importantly they get to make story decisions. Handing that power to individuals rather than trying to hand it to a Clan as a whole is dumb.

Hatamoto status goes to the top two players for each clan at a Kotei right? Assuming a kotei is a regional tournament that's a lot of potential individuals. But I guess we'll see how it plays out in practice.

Since L5R will be at the World Championships in Novemeber, should we expect a September release so people have a month to play the game? I think this also guarentees FFG announcing the release date at Gen Con.

I also don't think it was about lack of knowledge, (though I also believe Wick knows way less about Japan and China than he wants to believe) but rather that his original vision for L5R was a samurai coat of paint over a very specific game style, one where severely flawed people must grow hard because they are in a world of shit and trapped by draconian social conventions they can't get away from with any ease. Houses of the Blooded is the ultimate evolution of the concept, one that isn't bound by the trappings of samurai fiction.

..Is that a person we're/I'm supposed to know?

Hatamoto goes to anyone who goes 5-0 in swiss

Rokugan midgets confirmed.

Too bad the mechanics are shit and the card design even worse.

...

She wrote a lot of early stuff for l5r, and is responsible for a lot of nonsense, second only to Wick himself.

It's a lot more "classic" L5R than the other ones, but it's not terrible. Also, apparently they're going with the Utaku name from the getgo. Altansarnai is confirmed to be 63'd Shinjo Yokatsu.

Green Ronin's A Song of Ice and Fire game used a Roll&Keep system with d6s.

Are they still gonna pull the "you need three core sets in order to preform optimum deck building" bullshit?