Forums closing down.

[Forums closing down.]

This is a BS move.  I'd be a bit more understanding if the Edge Studios website was anything more than the placeholder that it's been for, what, 6 months? "We love roleplaying games!" "We don't know the title of our own game!" (There's no "the" at the beginning of Legend of the Five Rings, guys). 

[Creating characters with prior carreers]

Most character concepts can fit pretty well among an awful lot of careers, so I don't see why this is necessary.  One of my players has a would-be Jedi Knight, who was formerly an Imperial Officer.  There's no real reason why he would need to take a career or specialization from Age of Rebellion to reflect that.  He made a Guardian with the Peacekeeper spec (or was it Warleader?).  That doesn't sound much like an Imp, but he took ranks in Leadership and a few other key skills, and it works out just fine.  He also could have easily taken the Warrior career, if he imagined himself a ruthess Aggressor or leading a squadron of TIEs as a Starfighter Ace.

Choose your Career and Specs based on what you want your character to become. Toss in a few skill points to show who he used to be.

[Solving the Great Problems of this Game]

On 10/14/2020 at 5:00 AM, Diogo Salazar said:

Oh, okay. That’s a horrible house rule then. It takes away players’ agency (when they lose initiative) and most players will try to get kata as generic as possible (by generic I mean kata that are not fixed to a particular Ring).

Also, even when PCs get to choose their own stance, most Kata are better against specific elements.  Water is strong against Fire, which I think is strong against... Air?

[Bleeding condition, Defending against damage and critical strikes]

On 10/3/2020 at 6:31 AM, Diogo Salazar said:

I mean, I can see the dramatic sense of someone bleeding to death. And a high stamina character can be seem as someone who, by all rights, should have stopped fighting but goes on despite his wounds until the body literally drops dead

Oh, I get the reasoning, and it's not wrong, I just think it overcomplicates things, and has a "gotcha" potential that's just going to tick a player off.

I know it's kind of a weird edge case, because you don't usually make a lot of rolls while Incapacitated, but I just don't see the point of even having it. As far as I'm concerned, "bleeding to death" is already covered by the Dying condition.

And as some have pointed out, if you are Bleeding, but have very little Fatigue, and choose not to Defend against that damage, your armor can become Damaged and then Destroyed by the low Crit.  

These are all things where, if I were a player, I could accept the GM's reasoning, perhaps with a little eye roll, "Okay, whatever."

But I'm usually the GM, and my players will know darn well I'm not buying my own argument, so why even have it?

[Bleeding condition, Defending against damage and critical strikes]

Gotta be honest, all this rigamarole is why I just say, "Bleeding causes Fatigue, not Damage. There's no Defending against it, and it won't cause a Crit."  It also means the Incapacitated bushi with high endurance won't just suddenly die when he botches that Artisan roll because a shugenja showed him a Token of Memory.  It's simpler, and being tough doesn't turn into a weird liability.

[Tokens, counters, dice - what player aids/gadgets do you find useful?]

It seems DojoCreativeDesign (and several other URLs that I think used to be long to them) are down. Anyone know what happened?

[Alternate Method for Triggering Morality]

My campaign is kinda on hold, but I decided to switch things up by triggering a Morality event when the characters cross certain thresholds (like Light Side Paragon).

You've been here a long time, OP, you know darn well that everyone has a fix for Morality. I've got a complicated one sitting around here somewhere, but it's not great. So I decided to keep it simple, and hew as close to RAW as possible while still addressing the issues a lot of people have.

The issues: Sleepwalking to Paragon, which happens easily if you don't go nuts on Force Powers, and are fairly moral.

Tumbling to the Dark Side: can also happen if you're reckless and use a lot of dark Force Pips. Yes, recklessness should be a path toward the Dark Side, but I don't think it should push you over on its own.

Those are the usual complaints, but honestly, I haven't had much of a problem with them.  My biggest issue is that Morality switches happen outside of the episode, when Morality gets rolled.

So, I've renamed Morality to Serenity, and characters will never become Paragons or Dark Siders just from the roll at the end of the session.  However, if they cross a threshold (the numbers of which may need some adjustment), they will be tested by the Force.  How they manage that test will determine if they become a Light Side Paragon, fall to the Dark Side, or wiggle back towards the center.

[Use Your Illusion]

I'm far less concerned with the narrative of the illusion itself. I'm fine with Light pips generating something that's scary, but it's not going to have the same psychological effect as using Dark pips.

I think I'll kinda divide it up, based on mechanical effect. A "soft" effect like Setback dice will be a normal Force roll. A "hard" effect that directly affects the target's actions will need a skill roll as well.

So a "reinforcements" or "mirror image" type of effect could mean two things. Without a skill roll, the targets are a bit distracted and suffer Setback. With a successful skill roll, the targets will probably need to deal with the effect, by attacking the false images, or perhaps fleeing from the reinforcements.  Of course it will depend on the nature of the conflict.

[Use Your Illusion]

One of my players loves the Misdirect power. I don't mind it, but I often am reminded why so many GMs hate illusions in all sorts of games. Man, they can be tough to rule on.  Many of his effects are distractions during combat, and I’m not always sure what the effects should be.  I should really come up with some guidelines, as I have a Nemesis to throw at him that I think would make heavy use of the same power.  A “Dueling Illusions” situation could be fun.

 

As an example, a trick he likes to pull is “Pants on fire.”  His enemies suddenly perceive that their pants are on fire. Hence the name.  Now, if he uses black pips, they’ll suffer Strain. That’s a nice easy mechanical effect, which I interpret as the enemies feeling the flames blistering their skin, causing agonizing pain.  Sort of like in Dune, when Paul sticks his hand in the box.  However, this player generally tries to avoid spending black pips.  So his targets still see their pants as being on fire.  The illusion is no less convincing, maybe a bit painful, but it would be more of a “Yow! Hot hot hot!” than screaming as they feel their flesh boiling.  I’m not quite sure how to represent that mechanically.  Throw setback dice at the targets?  What about if he goes for a “Mirror Image” effect, so that his enemy sees a bunch of him?  Or he could always just have a bunch of reinforcements appear for his side.

 

I don’t mind him making heavy use of the power, and I want to make sure he gets a nice bonus, but I really don’t want to give him an “I win” button. Anyone else dealt with a lot of illusions in their games? How have you handled it?

[Removing strife from oportunities]

I'd allow it, but according to RAW, you have to be Compromised first.  One could say that if you're not Compromised, that you're putting on an act. Just breaking decorum isn't unmasking, it's being uncouth. Hida bushi tend to have high Composure, so they have great self-control, they just don't much care if people see them act out.

[Removing strife from oportunities]

Characters should be cautious about unmasking, but it's definitely not something they should never do!  The societal rules of Rokugan are one of the chief obstacles to overcome.  Part of the fun is working around them, but every so often, don't you just want to smash through them?  Unmasking is how you do that.  That obnoxious courtier keeps blocking your every move with a polite word in the right ear, and that smug little grin?  And now he's here in your favorite sake house, telling amusing stories about you to your drinking buddies?  How they all laugh at you, while he smiles at you, and says, "Oh, my old friend! It's all in jest!"  After all, you wouldn't want to make a scene, would you?

To Jigoku with that!  Make a scene! Unmask, shove that twerp to the ground and challenge him to a duel, right here, right now.  If he's afraid of your blade, fists will do fine!  He can try to delay it, or insist on seeking permission from his lord, or ask for a second, but by doing so, he shows himself for a coward.

Unmasking is supposed to be a way to move the story forward.  There are plenty of examples in movies and TV where entire stories come out of such loss of face.  In one episode of Firefly, Captain Reynolds gets angry and punches a rich snob at a fancy party, and as such, is expected to fight him with a sword the next day. Unmasking!

Any secret love affair needs to have an unmasking!  Nobody wants a well-reasoned, stoic declaration of sturdy affection from your Earth Ring.  You roll that in Fire, and you keep every Strife symbol you can get!  Someone on these forums once lamented that you run the risk of unmasking any time you kiss a pretty girl.  I say, if you can kiss a pretty girl without unmasking, you're doing it all wrong!

 

[Earth Stance too strong?]

On 7/14/2020 at 7:31 AM, Diogo Salazar said:

The way @Avatar111 did was to copy from Air Stance and make it so that any critical strikes or conditions applied because of opportunities require one extra opportunity (2 if Rank 4+).

This is quite a bit worse than the standard Air bonus.  As it stands, Air is pretty good for protecting against crits (and many conditions) because it increases the number of symbols you need to keep.  For a starting character, trying to hit TN 3 and 2 Opportunity is very difficult, and against a standard Strike, Air will always reduce the damage by 1, since they had to spend that success just to succeed.  Modifying Earth this way does make it pretty tough to Crit you, but it's as easy as ever to succeed at strikes against you.  Air protects you from success and the crit pretty well, but this version of Earth would only protect you from the crit, and only a bit.  With either version of Earth, your opponent is better off just switching to Fire or Water and trying to push you over your Endurance, either by lowering your Resistance or by keeping Strife to deal extra damage.

[New GM. What's broken or OP?]

On 7/9/2020 at 6:14 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

The fact that a one-time duel defaults to the finishing blow effect is a pain in the fundament for duels to first blood, for example.

Make the increased Deadliness of a finishing blow optional. Problem solved. If you use that increased Deadliness, it's pretty obvious to everyone that you were striking to kill. That also solves the issue with Deceitful Strike, which is that there's no mechanical "trying to kill" vs "not trying to kill".

Unless that increased Deadliness becomes optional or you add some houserules to the Iaijutsu techniques, it's basically impossible to have an Iaijutsu duel to first blood.

[2 Custom talents I use to make tougher minions]

Either way works.  Mostly I just think it's a bit much to pile on the hits to one person, probably better to spread it out.

[2 Custom talents I use to make tougher minions]

I would modify Linked to some sort of "massed fire," and rule that they can only hit each target once.  Make them dangerous to the whole group, but they can't focus-fire multiple hits to one PC.

[Corusca Gem stats?]

Are there stats anywhere for a Corusca Gem? I was going to send my Force and Destiny players into The Jewel of Yavin (heavily modified). They're trying to establish a remote Jedi training ground, and they have a mentor and a number of younglings. I think with the Jewel, one of a Padawan's tests would be finding a shatterpoint in order to break off a piece for a lightsaber crystal.

I've read the Wookieepedia entry on the gem. It's apparently very hard and can make a rather powerful saber. But I don't recall seeing game stats for it. Do they exist? If not, how would you stat it?

[Saber Crystal quests for Higher-XP PCs]

 

On 6/16/2020 at 5:16 AM, SufficientlyAdvancedMoronics said:

I can give you some examples of things I wrote and how they hang together with characters motivations and future plot?

Man, I'm always down for examples.

I'm thinking that the Arizona boys should face a vision of the Inquisitor that trained and tormented Jr (who is a bit closer to the Dark Side than a young fella should be). A fight ensues (mostly narrative), Sr is clearly overmatched and downed, but Jr is able to back the Inquisitor up to the edge of a Bottomless Pit ™, where he has him helpless and is clearly about to kill him.

This would be the main decision point. Sr can either let his son unleash his rage, moving toward the Dark side, or he can tackle the Inquisitor off the edge, and they both fall together. Both of those would be pretty much automatic, but he could try to do something else with a skill check. Perhaps talking the boy down or holding him back. I figure the best possible outcome is talking the boy down, the worst is letting an 11-year-old kill out of revenue and hatred. Tackling the Inquisitor off the edge will give Sr some Conflict, but I think doing the "bad" thing so others don't have to is kind of a Sentinel schtick anyway. He's also going to take a nasty fall, so we'll see how that goes.

[Question about Racing/Chases]

I basically do an accumulation of points.  On a success, you gain points equal to your Speed plus your successes.  On a failure, you reduce your speed by one, then  gain points equal to your speed, perhaps subtracting net failures.  Each racer only has to roll once on each "zone," a failure just represents someone who slid out or something.  At any point of the race, whoever has the most points is in the lead.  That simple, really.

[Saber Crystal quests for Higher-XP PCs]

When we started out, only one of my players really wanted to follow the "Jedi/lightsaber" path.  After much adventuring, we've had a bit of a player shuffle, just wrapped up Chronicles of the Gatekeeper (SPOILERS AHEAD!), and now we have two fairly experienced PCs who would like to build their own. I'd like to do some personal sessions with each PC, so they can each have a cool thing they do.  The group successfully rescued Suljo Warde, who has agreed to teach them.  He isn't free of the Dark Side, so he feels he would cause more harm than good if he were to directly join their struggle against the Empire.  The PCs are as follows, though I'm mostly struggling with adventure ideas for the last two.

• Ara'Sul Mithran, the would-be Jedi who has had his saber for a while.  Guardian: Protector/Niman Disciple.  Definitely the goody-two-shoes of the group. I was going to send him on a search for a safeworld where their Rebel cell could hide their civilians.  They could also establish a nearby Jedi training sanctuary for a half-dozen Force-sensitive youths they rescued from an Inquisition training program.
   
• Gel Marcolf, the villain from Act 1 of CotG. When introducing new players, I like to hand them an established NPC for a session or two.  They can learn the game, and THEN learn to make a character.  In this case, the player liked the NPC, we rebuilt him as a PC, and here we are.  Marcolf is a dark-sider, but he's trying to back away from the eeeeviil. The player is unsure if he wants to go for redemption, more that he wants the character to have control over himself while still being self-interested. He has the crystal of Jiv Durael, one of the Jedi companions that Warde killed.  I was thinking he could have a journey to a Vergence somewhere to commune with Jiv Durael's spirit. The spirit would want to guide him away from the Dark Side, as part of healing the damage of Warde's fall.  Of course there would be a choice between the Dark path and the Light.  If he chooses Darkness, he can "bleed" the crystal, driving out the remnant of Durael's spirit.  If he chooses the Light, the path will be a little tougher.  He'll have a spirit guide, but the crystal won't really be his until he reaches some level of harmony with the spirit.
  
  Of course, I'm kind of at a loss for where this vergence should be, and I'm not great at moral dilemmas.  If anyone has some ideas, I'd love to hear 'em.
   
• Nathan Arizona and his son, Nathan Jr.  Before becoming a rebel, Nate Sr. was an unpainted furniture salesman with a checkered past.  Then his son was kidnapped by Lenno the Small, a Gammorrean bounty hunter commonly called "The Warthog from ****."  Lenno was working on behalf of the Inquisition, and Nate Jr was one of the kids rescued from the training program.  The player wants to train alongside his kid, and have like a Father-Son road trip to find their crystals.  I like the idea, but man, I'm stuck on this one.  Is there a Coen Brothers movie that could be adapted to this? Because that would be just perfect.

 

[Stealing data from a Player's Brain Implant]

5 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

CL1-PI is actually the invader, trying to trick Dave into opening the memories.

Ooh, that's even better. Introduce him as the character starts to figure out he's in his own mind. "I'm CL1-PI, a security routine for your brain implant! Someone is trying to access secure data, I'll help you protect it!"

Heck, get the other players involved. Give them each a weird avatar to play in this guy's mindscape.

[Stealing data from a Player's Brain Implant]

I like the dreamscape idea. I don't think a brain implant should be hackable by traditional means. This is me taking some creative liberties, but I think the brain would act almost as an encryption key.  If Dave's brain wrote the data, you need Dave's brain to interpret it. So you need some way to scan his thoughts, and then get his brain to actually access that data.

Hence the dreamscape. Basically start the session with him already in a weird situation. Have occasional weird glitches in reality. But also a little droid that shows up to help out, and drop hints that something is wrong.  This droid is the representation of his brain chip's security, which is super weak until he gets it upgraded.  I'm basically imagining Clippy, from Microsoft Word. Just an annoying little droid with googly eyes that pops out of nowhere and asks if he needs help with something.

"HI! I'm CL1-PI! It looks like you're trying to open The Lost Temple of Darth MacGuffin, can I help you with that?"

"What? No, I'm not trying to do that, I need to give a speech, but I'm naked!"

"Are you sure? What do your notes say?"

"'Professor Dave: a Dissertation on Opening the Lost Temple of Darth MacGuffin.' Why would I give a speech on this? And where was I keeping these notes?"

"It sure is a mystery!"

[Reasons for changing schools]

Okay, I don't think changing schools is a good idea, but I also believe in finding the ways something could work.  I've had a lot of harebrained schemes that get pooh-poohed, but, dangit, I'm gonna try anyway.  So here's my thoughts:

Changing schools should be exceedingly rare.  A Kakita marrying into the Akodo family is still a duelist, not a general.  In most instances, you would want to just learn a few skills or techniques consistent with the family you joined.  That's fine.  Actually changing schools should require a complete commitment to their ways.

I would do this by just switching to the new school's curriculum.  A rank 2 Bushi who completely commits to the new school would begin using their curriculum at Rank 3.

Now, a few notes.  I don't think I would ever allow someone to become a shugenja.  I may allow a shugenja to become a courtier, but probably not a bushi.  Monks are a whole new can of worms that I would be very leery of.  For "available techniques," it's a little tricky.  The GM should decide if they keep their original techniques, or if they must switch to the new ones.  The player should not be allowed to choose (but should be informed).  For example, most Shugenja have Rituals, Shuji and Invocations, while most Courtiers have Kata, Rituals and Shuji.  A shugenja who became a courtier would never be able to learn another invocation if they had to switch to Kata, so they should probably keep their original techniques available.  They might pick up a stray Kata from their new curriculum, but that shouldn't be too troublesome.  Of course, without Invocations on their curriculum, they'll advance very slowly each time they take one.

As to School Abilities, I would never, ever, EVER allow a single character to have two of them.  Absolutely out of the question. Most school abilities come in two parts.  The first is not rank-dependent, the second is dependent, but usually comes with diminishing returns.  Consider the Hida Defender.  He ignores the Cumbersome quality of armor he wears, and may reduce the severity of crits by his Armor+Rank.  Both cool abilities.  As he goes up in Rank, that Crit Resistance goes up slowly.

Now consider the Hiruma Scout.  After Attacking, he can change stances, which is considered by many to be a broken technique.  If he does so, he can raise the TN to hit him by large critters by his school rank.  Potentially very helpful, but also extremely circumstantial.  So a Hida who became a Hiruma would wear heavy armor without penalty, could switch stances after attacking, would be extremely crit resistant, and if fighting something big, could raise his TN to be hit. That's too much.  Far too much.

[Removing Stims]

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

So what is your solution to tracking damage? While hit points are weird i havent seen a better way to handle it. 

I've been a big fan of Savage Worlds for... yikes, I just realized it must be almost 15 years now.  I really like their system, which has Shaken 1-3 wounds, and Incapacitated.  The Apocalypse games usually use something a bit less hit-pointy.

While I can't speak for Whafrog, I really appreciate L5R's distinction that Fatigue is NOT the same thing as being wounded. Star Wars Wounds and D&D Hit Points have always been a combination of fatigue and wounds, and the line between them changes a lot from table to table.  I've played in numerous D&D games where someone takes a lot of damage and the DM says, "the dark knight runs you through!" Nevermind that the guy with a sword through his guts still has half of his Hit Points remaining.

So I try to say that anything that only causes "damage" isn't really a serious wound. Taking 15 damage from an orc doesn't necessarily mean he cut you, it means his axe slammed into your shield hard enough that your arm nearly gives out from the impact. A Stormtrooper causing 12 damage with his blaster rifle didn't shoot you, but the blaster bolt passed close enough to your skin that it managed to burn you, or hit the wall next to you, exploding and showering you with sparks.  When Leia took that shot to the shoulder on Endor, that was a Critical Injury, not just "taking damage." Vader and Obi-Wan's duel on the Death Star caused them both to take a lot of "damage," but no Crits as far as I see. I would say that the characters in the movies take a lot of "hits" and "damage" that don't really look like much on screen.

One of the reasons I like Whafrog's take is that it reminds me of The Angry GM's "fighting spirit" rules (not a big fan of his writing style, but I like his ideas). It gives a space between "I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm down." There's a clear point at which the player knows that if he keeps fighting, his character may die. If my PCs all get knocked out, I'm not just going to kill their characters. That feels cheap.  However, if a character is over his WT and wants to keep pushing, now it's on him and the player.  He knows the risk, and he's taking it rather than surrender or retreat.

It also gives us a way to kill Nemeses without GM fiat or murdering an unconscious person. We just finished Chronicles of the Gatekeeper (spoiler alert), and part of the final conflict is supposed to be choosing whether to pull your punches and not kill the boss, or to go ahead and finish him.  Which means the GM needs to call out to the players, "Oh, by the way, if you defeat him with Wounds, he'll die, because that's just how we're playing this fight." With Whafrog's rule applied to a Nemesis, the boss is taking a Critical Injury every time he gets hit past a certain point, which means killing him through Crits becomes a distinct possibility.

[Removing Stims]

Gotta say, I really liked Whafrog's take on the whole thing. I ran it by some of my players, added some stuff and tweaked some others. Here's my current take on it. I'll see how it goes. I should mention that I don't normally require a Destiny flip for using Dark Side pips.

 

Stimpacks: Gone. Replaced by…

Rallying Surge: Once per encounter, as a maneuver, make a Simple (Difficulty 0) Resilience Roll.  Heal a number of wounds equal to 3+ Net Successes, and recover Strain equal to Advantage. You may spend your Rallying Surge on an Engaged ally, instead rolling either Leadership, Medicine, or Coercion.  Each use of Rallying Surge on a given character increases the Difficulty by 1.

Heal/Harm Power: TBD

Stimpack Specialization works basically as written. Your Rallying Surges heal 1 extra wound per rank of Stimpack Specialization. 

Exceeding Wound Threshold: A PC or Nemesis who exceeds his Wound Threshold is no longer immediately Incapacitated.  Instead, he upgrades the Difficulty of all checks by 1, and will become Incapacitated when he exceeds his WTx2. Note that every time he suffers wounds above his Threshold, he still suffers a Critical Injury.  Such a character is advised to retreat or surrender.

Exceeding Strain Threshold: As with wounds, a PC or Nemesis who exceeds his Strain Threshold is not incapacitated, but will become so when he exceeds STx2.  However, while above ST, he may not willingly suffer Strain, and is Disoriented (suffers 1 Setback die to all rolls).

A Character who exceeds both WT and ST becomes Incapacitated.

Force Pips: Using the Force while over Strain Threshold is difficult.  A Light Side Force-user may still use Dark Pips, but instead of suffering Strain, they must flip a Destiny Point and take two Conflict for each Dark Pip used.
A Dark-sider who wishes to use White Pips must flip Destiny, and suffer a Wound for each White Pip he wishes to use.
 

[Why did I lose interest in RPGs for 20 years?!]

7 hours ago, Mandalore of the Rings said:

This one sounds interesting but I haven't read up much on it.  Is there magic?  Or is it a more grounded RPG in a fantasy "Asia" setting.  Are the mechanics like Genesys or EotE?

Quite a lot of magic, though much less than D&D.  The setting is awesome, the new game is pretty great, but it's got some wonkiness. I would have trouble recommending it to people who don't study game rules.

7 hours ago, Mandalore of the Rings said:

This one and Deadlands sound interesting. 

Deadlands is fantastic, and Savage Worlds is a great system. I'm not sure if I would say it's better than Genesys, but it is so easy to pick up and run with. Deadlands is basically cowboys and zombies and sorcerers and demons and steampunk all rolled into one.