Again, 2.3 says you pick the singular approach based on their description of what and how they want to do, which means it was a multiple approach roll, and you+they are picking the final ring they are using. " Then, the GM selects which of the five elemental approaches corresponds to the methods the player described. " The GM is literally picking which of the five rings match which means it was a multi approach roll and that's the default status. There are only 5 instances in the entire adventure that don't allow any ring and two of those are optional side notes when dealing with the mass encounter.
 
At least for me, the problem is it kills the systems core principle of rewarding well rounded characters. A 4/4/1/1/1 character is much better off as far as making rolls goes than a 3/2/2/2/2. I like that if I have a weakness as a character it comes up and hinders me in game play. I don't want to be great at everything because then there's not time for my other players to shine. This ties into my other grief at the rank advancement tables where you're now punished in advancement for deviating from the norm and further rewarded for over specialization.

No, really, they aren't.  Not with depth in skill.  The central 50% is a good measure
Let's look at 2d10 kept vs 1d20... 
1d20 has a flat distro: 5% for each. The central 50% is 6 to 15 =50%
2d10 has an 10% chance of 11, 9% ea of 10 and 12, 8% each for 9 and 13. We've got our central 44% right there, with 9-13.
3d10k2 ( a typical skill 1 with ring 2) is heavily centered on 14. 10%; the central 50%... 47.3% for 12-16, and  63.2 for 11-17
11    7.50    
12    8.80    
13    9.60    
14    10.00    
15    9.90    
16    9.40    
17    8.40    
Yes, the extremes get wors, but the more dice, the narrower the central 50% becomes.
4d10k2 is centered on 16, 14-18 is 55.85% 
13    8.32    
14    9.97    
15    11.16    
16    11.95    
17    11.84    
18    10.93    
19    8.68    
3d10 centers at 16 & 17, with 14-19 being 43.4%, and 13-20 being 56%. Range of results is 3-30.
4d10k3 centers at  20, with 18-22 being 38.38% and 17-23 being 51.94%
5d10k3 centers at  22, with 21-25 being 42.44%, and 20-26 being 56.8%.
So, if the TN is 14, you have a 71.7% chance, ignoring open ending, on 3d10; you have considerably more on 4d10k3... 88.44%.  on 5d10k3, it's 95.35.
The only element making them swingy, really, was the open ending, and even that not bad. Other wise, more dice = more strong central tendency, and the more over kept, both the higher the centroid and the narrower the centroid.
D20, however, by using only 1 die, and adding modifiers shifts the central 50% smoothly; up 1 TN is down 5%, up one skill is up 5%.

Performance at higher levels in D&D is best measured against comparable foes. A "properly balanced" encounter is going to be just as swingy at first and  at 20th.
L5R, the swing reduces massively with more dice Rolled,. At high levels, a 10k5 is not unreasonable, the central 50% range is 37-43 (50.96%). Half the rolls in about 10% of the range (5-50, ignoring explosions).
37    6.54    
38    7.15    
39    7.59    
40    7.80    
41    7.74    
42    7.39    
43    6.75    
My play experiences also show the same - L5R performance is more consistent than D&D, and without the wild swings of a 1d20 roll.
Adding the explosions does make it swing more, but still doesn't much affect the central 50%.
Further, while R&K d10 does allow for failure even by the very skilled and success by the fairly inept slightly skilled (2k1), it doesn't do so very often.

Anyway, just checking in this week.

Game so far - Not enjoying it. 
It has many positive qualities and some rules and systems that I'm straight up going to adapt in to 4th ed for future campaigns. I like the idea of Ninjo and Giri a lot, just not as they are implemented here. I like the ideas about where skill and trait advances come from during character creation, and a lot of the 20 questions I found enjoyable and useful. Even the career advancement tables (which helped to ruin 40k RPGs for me) work quite well here, because your characters would be literally in school learning specific things to graduate so it makes sense.
The problem is the entire system. Approaches based on bizarre semi-open-ended keywords turns immediately in to a quagmire. There are too few skills / ring / approaches to adequately describe the infinite types of things you can do in a game run by imagination. Almost every actions the players took wound up being shoehorned in to a skill / ring keyword that vaguely fit. The nightmarish layout of the book didn't help to mitigate this. The strife system could be interesting if it wasn't worked in to every single roll for anything. Duels didn't get past 2 rounds, as (in a duel to the first blood) after four successful katana strikes our players were too embarrassed to continue the slapfight their characters somehow gotten involved in.

TO BE HONEST: I've run this for a good handful of people. Most of us came in open minded and excited for a new edition of L5R, one of our absolute all-time favourite games. Some came in pre-grumpy, but willing to give it a shot. All of us left muttering / exclaiming about how the system is unwieldy and the design is arcane and unplayable.

Even as a standalone system I've got little reason to seek this out and play it. After checking out the pdf cheatsheets that AK_Aramis benevolently put together I realized that I have very little interest in a RPG with this much micro-managing. As an L5R system...

I love L5R to death, and I love a lot of FFG games, but nah. There's so much better out there, and while this game has some great ideas so much would have to change to make it worth investing in.

The irony, it burns.

I know what insult I'm using for dragon for the rest of time.

The irony, it burns.

The irony, it burns.

The irony, it burns.

The irony, it burns.

The irony, it burns.

The irony, it burns.

The irony, it burns.

I'm still trying to grit my teeth and find the good parts, and see if I can get improvements to smaller things I don't like even if I won't change the core problems since I'm likely to have to play in this system regardless of my preference for it. As it stands for anything of my own preference it's easier to just port over the improvements I like from this edition to 4th ed.

I'm still trying to grit my teeth and find the good parts, and see if I can get improvements to smaller things I don't like even if I won't change the core problems since I'm likely to have to play in this system regardless of my preference for it. As it stands for anything of my own preference it's easier to just port over the improvements I like from this edition to 4th ed.

I'm still trying to grit my teeth and find the good parts, and see if I can get improvements to smaller things I don't like even if I won't change the core problems since I'm likely to have to play in this system regardless of my preference for it. As it stands for anything of my own preference it's easier to just port over the improvements I like from this edition to 4th ed.

This has kind of been my experience. I want my characters skill at dueling to be more important and not my abilities at playing paper rock scissors.

DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH HONOR I GAINED FROM QUITE LITERALLY DEFENDING THE MIRUMOTO'S NAME
UGH

I know what insult I'm using for dragon for the rest of time.

Yeah, I just don't like forcing people out of sections of systems if they're not themselves skilled at something.  The character is the one who's good at the task, punishing duelists who don't like guessing games seems punitive. At least for me the engagement was always the fact that my characters reputation, honor, and often life were on the line. I've never once had a problem of not being engaged in a duel.

Yeah, I just don't like forcing people out of sections of systems if they're not themselves skilled at something.  The character is the one who's good at the task, punishing duelists who don't like guessing games seems punitive. At least for me the engagement was always the fact that my characters reputation, honor, and often life were on the line. I've never once had a problem of not being engaged in a duel.

I like both Intrigues and Duels, but their resolution seems weird.
- Intrigues : the more people you have sharing an objective, the faster they can accumulate enough rhetoric points. Either a character has the right ring/skill, and they use Persuade, or they don't, and they use Support.
I think each group should have only one attempt per round to generate rhetoric.
- Duels : the "Center until someone has too much Strife" game is no fun. But going "Strike, strike, strike" doesn't look better.
Duelling should be a nerve game for the characters, not for the players. They should involve the characters' skills, not the player's skill to bid right during staredown and guess the other player's Ring.

Minions, since update, can use stances. 
It's not advantage - it's a no-roll action, from the update. In Water stance, you can do it twice.
2 minions using fire is 3r+0S k3. See the rules on assisting.
You're dead wrong about squads.
Given facts in the box on 191:
Squads use only one NPC template That template may be either a minion one or an adversary one. Squads share an initiative slot and act in any order desired within it. Squads share a stance.  "If you want to reduce the number of rolls the  squad makes, simply have all members of the squad but one take the Assist action targeting the one member who performs a different action. "  Note the lack of must, and the big qualifier at the front. Combined with the any order... it's clear to me that it's an option, not a requirement. Strife explicitly may be tracked individually Group Strife may be used, using 2x or 3x the composure of a single member The limit on squads is very soft - it doesn't actually preclude larger squads, but notes that anything more than 6 is a problem in terms of number of dice Since goblins in Fire stance have a ring of 2, and have Martial 1, Scholar 0, the 5 assisting limit seems appropriate, and results in 7 ring 1 skill, keep 7 for the max... A larger squad should be making two separate attacks...  there's no requirement for them to gang up, either - a squad of 6 can make 6 attacks, or less, as desired, with those not attacking doing other actions, possibly  As for why not go after the 1? you definitely render him unconscious if you hit him again, but the other 7 now gang up. The assist limit is weakly implied to be  5 - larger squads should probably make two slightly smaller attacks. So, if he moves to put injured guy above threshold + 10... not that easy unless using a big weapon ... Also note: goblis are skilled help on attacks; 7 minions is likely to be split into two attacks - 2r+(2+3)s k(2+3) and 2r+(2+2)s k(2+2) ... 2 black, 5 white, keep 5, and 2 black 4 white keep 4. That is almost assured to hit even an air stance target. If you don't go after the downed one, and the GM is the type to recycle, you've only got 5 paying attention - 2 are helping the downed bakemono, 1 is the downed, and those two helpers stay busy the whole time... as you carve them down to size.
Also - Assist is a no-roll action. Thus, You can assist while incapacitated. And in a squad, there's no chance for others to end the helper before the roll is made. And when the other guy rolls, if you have the skill, he keeps an extra die while rolling an extra skill die... that's pretty potent. (see p 15)
Squads are powerful, and may explicitly be all adversary instead of all minion. 
Given that the way your objections reads matches up with expectations from Star Wars... it's a different game, and the terms may be the same, but the rules are definitely not. Minions in the RAW are REALLY potent.

I mean, you need to know everything that's reasonable or you're going to make poor choices. Not understanding the different weighting of criticals on minions vs adversaries or understanding that you don't need to counter play minion stance opportunities will cause problems. I didn't say it was a gazillion rules, but every additional exception and every type that doesn't play by the rules adds to the overhead.

My character can't make reasonable decisions if he doesn't understand his opponents, which means knowing minion, adversary, and other rules.