I am theorizing that initiative is going to become very important at the higher levels. Whoever strikes first, gets a killing blow with all their successes, and game over. This is pretty vicious if that's the case.

Please don't let some of the anger impact certain things too much...Outbursts are an awesome mechanic, it's like my new favorite mechanic.
Thanks for all the info!

We have now done a couple skirmishes, and there's a few things I'd like to point out. I made a Doji with a kata (thanks to her ancestry), and took Strike as Air. Between that and her Air stance, she had a TN of 4 and never got hit.
Our Hida was hit, but was able to use his Strike as Earth to negate damage, and only ended up taking a little bit of damage.
We had a Togashi that took some damage, but he also dealt some good damage.
I had Lady Doji's Decree in waiting if I needed it, but never ended up needing it during the battle. I did decent damage against the NPC's presented to us.

So far, all the worries about defense and combat didn't really come into fruition for us. It took 3 rounds of combat.

We've now fought Goblins and regular Samurai NPC's. Seems to work pretty well when you actually test the combat instead of speculating about the nebulous possibilities.

Please don't let some of the anger impact certain things too much...Outbursts are an awesome mechanic, it's like my new favorite mechanic.
Thanks for all the info!

We have now done a couple skirmishes, and there's a few things I'd like to point out. I made a Doji with a kata (thanks to her ancestry), and took Strike as Air. Between that and her Air stance, she had a TN of 4 and never got hit.
Our Hida was hit, but was able to use his Strike as Earth to negate damage, and only ended up taking a little bit of damage.
We had a Togashi that took some damage, but he also dealt some good damage.
I had Lady Doji's Decree in waiting if I needed it, but never ended up needing it during the battle. I did decent damage against the NPC's presented to us.

So far, all the worries about defense and combat didn't really come into fruition for us. It took 3 rounds of combat.

We've now fought Goblins and regular Samurai NPC's. Seems to work pretty well when you actually test the combat instead of speculating about the nebulous possibilities.

Please don't let some of the anger impact certain things too much...Outbursts are an awesome mechanic, it's like my new favorite mechanic.
Thanks for all the info!

I am theorizing that initiative is going to become very important at the higher levels. Whoever strikes first, gets a killing blow with all their successes, and game over. This is pretty vicious if that's the case.

Please don't let some of the anger impact certain things too much...Outbursts are an awesome mechanic, it's like my new favorite mechanic.
Thanks for all the info!

My work has been a little busy, but I am going to look at this today, create a site, and then post an invite for everyone here who wants to participate. It might take a little setup time, so not everything will be there right off the bat. But I'll be working on it.
I'll update my original post to include the information too.

I created an epic words.com campaign. This will allow us to create forums, assign XP, and do other tasks. It makes for a lot of convenience. I am arranging to become a paid subscriber so I can pretty up the page some more, but for now it'll do.
Go to: http://epicwords.com/campaigns/5461
Password to join campaign: l5rbetapbp
You'll have to create a character to join it. Adding info to the top. I'll be working on the forums and other data through out the day.

Please don't let some of the anger impact certain things too much...Outbursts are an awesome mechanic, it's like my new favorite mechanic.
Thanks for all the info!

Greetings, L5R Open Beta testers!
First of all, the design team would like to express its gratitude and awe at the volume of response we’ve gotten so far. From posts on these and other forums to direct emails, we’ve been really impressed with how enthusiastic people are about Legend of the Five Rings roleplaying!
Overview of the Beta
We want to give people time to digest the content before we make any big changes—so keep those test reports coming in! In lieu of a large content update this first week, we’ll instead take the opportunity to explain some of the things we want to accomplish with this Open Beta, how you can help to guide its course, and the general shape of things to come in the Beta process.
Update Format
The Beta will run into the New Year (with a few unscheduled weeks around the December holidays because we assume people will be busy). Usually, updates will be sent out via the mailing list on Wednesdays, and then posted to the forum Thursday mornings. Additionally, the mailing list update will include insights like designer diaries, internal testing anecdotes, and other glimpses behind the scenes of Legends of the Five Rings roleplaying!
Focal Issues
From the third week forward, each week will have one or two focal topics, which we’d like to center the discussion around. Of course, feel free to bring up other issues, but we’ll be making a stickied thread for these topics each week. 
Surveys
We will also include a survey every odd-numbered week to help compile your feedback on key issues we’re examining. Sometimes, these surveys will also contain questions that relate to the next week’s focal issues!
Previews
L5R has always been very community-driven, and we want to keep you involved! In addition to using the surveys to gather feedback on the parts of the game that are already present, some weeks, we’ll be using them to get your input on one or two specific elements you want to see in the Open Beta.
These previews may include content such as families, schools, and weapons not in the Beta! Each time we include one of these questions about preview content, the top-voted response will be added to the Beta as a sneak preview of content that will be in the final game!
Open Beta Timeline
Week 1 (Oct 2nd) Launch
The Open Beta is released. You’ve already started to give great feedback, so we’re off to a great start!
Week 2 (Oct 9th) Reading Period
Another week for people to keep absorbing the material in the Beta (plus this update about plans for the test). If you can, try to get the game on the table this week, or at least build characters, so that you can start to give feedback on the sorts of experiences that only occur in play.
Week 3 (Oct 16th) Core Mechanics
This week’s focal discussion will be on Chapter I: Playing the Game.
Week 4 (Oct 23) Character Creation
This week’s focal discussion will be on the 20 Questions and related parts of the book.
Week 5 (Oct 30) Skills, Advantages, and Disadvantages
This week, we’ll be focusing on Skill, Advantages, and Disadvantages.
Week 6 (Nov 6) Conflicts Part 1
This week will be focused on testing and discussing Intrigues and Duels.
Week 7 (Nov 13) Conflicts Part 2
This week will focus on testing and discussing Skirmishes and Mass Battles, as well as weapons, armor, and other equipment.
Week 8 (Nov 20) School Abilities
This week will home in on school abilities, and how they have functioned in actual play, along with school advancement tables.
Week 9 (Nov 27) Techniques Part 1
This week will focus on Kata, Shūji, and more secretive arts.
Week 10 (Dec 4) Techniques Part 2
This week will focus on Invocations, Kihō, Mahō, and Rituals.
Week 11 (Dec 11) GM Guidance
This week will focus on the GM’s chapter, with special consideration for the sort of guidance people want to see in the final book!
Week 12 (Dec 18) NPCs
This week will focus on NPCs, assessing the encounter rating system, and related issues.
After this point, the winter holidays will be upon us, and we’ll take that time to evaluate the course of the Beta. After that, we’ll return with more information about the final issues to be researched and addressed in the Beta.
Additional Notes
Before we wrap up this update, there are a few issues that people have isolated that seem to be especially important to people. So that we don’t leave you completely in suspense, here’s a short, far-from-complete list of matters we’re currently reviewing based on your feedback so far:
Certain nomenclature has been a sticking point for people, particularly “Outbursts.” We have some ideas we want to put in front of the community to see what people think, so prepare to discuss this soon! Stances are under close evaluation—please try them out on the table in their current form and report back, but also know that we have some potential adjustments in mind if needed. The Medicine skill has been noted to be missing some fairly core functionality! Good job on that diagnosis—we expect to see it stitched up and back on its feet soon. Pending some consultation, Iaijutsu is getting a fairly substantial update. This might not come into effect until a few weeks down the road, but we know it’s a matter of great concern to many proud Crane duelists, and we want people to know it’s being treated with the gravity it deserves. Some samurai are concerned about not having their favorite armaments from previous editions. Fear not, the Open Beta list is not necessarily a full list of everything that will be in the final book. You’ll be able to slice down shuriken-wielding ninja with your nodachi in the final book, if not sooner! Due to the scale of the Open Beta, we will not be responding directly to individual queries on these forums. However, we are keeping track of all of it, so the questions and concerns you raise here are not being overlooked!

My work has been a little busy, but I am going to look at this today, create a site, and then post an invite for everyone here who wants to participate. It might take a little setup time, so not everything will be there right off the bat. But I'll be working on it.
I'll update my original post to include the information too.

My work has been a little busy, but I am going to look at this today, create a site, and then post an invite for everyone here who wants to participate. It might take a little setup time, so not everything will be there right off the bat. But I'll be working on it.
I'll update my original post to include the information too.

I just used it. I love it!!!
Thank you!

It's important to remember that the Technique list in the book is not even all what will be in the Core book. I used to worry about the lack of defense scaling in Edge of the Empire (which has even weaker ways a character without talents can upgrade their base defense.) But In practice the PC's get very durable to the point of ridiculousness.. Between health, soak and/or avoidance talents they add up to many different ways to survive in combat and 3 successes to hit someone in air stance is likely to always be a challenge. Even if opponents roll the successes, they are giving up other dice options 'just to' hit.
Since basically every character has access to Kiho, Kata and/or Invocation (Looking at you, Kuni) all but the most non-combat focused character will have defensive tech available to them at some point. And if PC's are expecting to go against Oni or Emerald Champions and not get hit, than they either will be robust XP wise, lucky enough they should head to Vegas, or not have a realistic expectation of what their characters should and shouldn't be able to do. 

If a DM understands Rokugan, absolutely. The book has a note that in combat, it should lead to more dangerous and crazy decisions in combat (see Battle Rage note pg. 17 of beta). Aside from that, someone watching the combat and seeing things relating to the world culture being ignored (attacking an opponent engaged with an ally, raging, crying) could have social impacts. Honor loss, glory loss, status loss, and NPC's treating you differently.

If a DM understands Rokugan, absolutely. The book has a note that in combat, it should lead to more dangerous and crazy decisions in combat (see Battle Rage note pg. 17 of beta). Aside from that, someone watching the combat and seeing things relating to the world culture being ignored (attacking an opponent engaged with an ally, raging, crying) could have social impacts. Honor loss, glory loss, status loss, and NPC's treating you differently.

I love the way the new system deals with rings, skills, and approaches. Every ring is potentially useful for every skill. No longer must every katana-wielding bushi have high fire/agility. Also, the fact that in 4e, virtually every social skill was governed by awareness was one of the great weaknesses of that system. It led to the proliferation of high-air duelist/archer/seductresses.
Now every ring is potentially useful for every skill, but there's still an incentive to diversify rings, and a disincentive to overly specialize.
Also, I love how there are multiple forms of intelligence (memory, creativity, cunning etc) so it isn't "inefficient" to make my scholarly character anything other than agile. 
Overall, it's a very elegant system that captures the spirit of the setting.

If a DM understands Rokugan, absolutely. The book has a note that in combat, it should lead to more dangerous and crazy decisions in combat (see Battle Rage note pg. 17 of beta). Aside from that, someone watching the combat and seeing things relating to the world culture being ignored (attacking an opponent engaged with an ally, raging, crying) could have social impacts. Honor loss, glory loss, status loss, and NPC's treating you differently.

I made changes to the original post based on feedback.
As per the suggestions, I have taken aesthetics as I apparently had an extra skill to pick. That fits her flower adoration better.
I put Dangerous Allure as a placeholder, I will probably make my own advantage. I totally missed step 13 so I also need to select another skill point, which will go into either aesthetics or one of the social skills. I will have the mentor be someone who taught her how to magnify her beauty. So that all works out.
I selected my starting Shuji finally.
Also, I rolled my ancestry trait, so that's been updated on the character sheet.
Thanks SO much for your feedback guys!

We have created a place to play on epicwords.com. You'll need to create a free account to join the campaign. I'll be updating the wikis and creating forums as we go. Thanks!
Go to: http://epicwords.com/campaigns/5461
Password to join campaign: l5rbetapbp
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Would anyone be interested in doing something like this? Do they have a subforum on here for that type of thing?
I think it could be potentially be a lot of fun. It's something I haven't tried in maybe 10 years. But it might help keep me excited for the game until it finally comes out!

So creating this character took me a few days because of work and schedules (also why did they release this the same week as the card game? I need more time digest both games ugh!). It's been quite the experience and here's some of my thoughts and feelings.
I love the Crane so I decided to go the Doji route. I usually make Kakita bushi, but wanted to be a little more political, especially after reading about strife and outbursts. That just seems like a lot of fun to deal with. So these are my thoughts for the character I'll play during the playtest.
Family, Clan, Class
She's your typical, gorgeous, Crane Doji Courtier.
Ancestry
I rolled Stolen Knowledge. My DM said that my secret knowledge is a scroll about Maho that has been passed down through the family after being discovered. So basically, I'm walking around with an immediate death sentence. I rolled a 1-3 on the D10, so now I need to pick a kata.
Ninjo and Giri
Her Ninjo is the desire to marry for love. I created a campaign around the idea of Iweko Miaka wanting to marry to love, so this is kind of a tribute to that character from before the reset. I didn't have any solid details for this when I initially selected it, but see advantage below for how this got fleshed out.
I am still working on details of the Giri, but it will definitely surround Diplomacy for the Crane clan. I'm going to talk to the DM about this one.
Selecting my rings
I'm obviously going to get Air to 3 right off the bat. The bigger question is Water 3, or use that point elsewhere. As for leveling up, it might be easier to put points into Void so I can more easily raise all my rings as I get experience, but the adventure won't last that long for now (I know, meta reasoning).
As I read more and more rules, I kept coming back to my decisions with the rings. As a character who might be arguing in the courts a lot, I didn't want to be outbursting all the time. But there are ways to mitigate strife. So I went back on forth on adding some points into fire/earth for Composure reasons. 
I settled on Air 3, Earth 1, Fire 1, Water 3, and Void 2
Skills
Skills weren't as difficult for my character. I do have some mild potential concerns with the Design and Aesthetics skills, as I think they can heavily overlap, but we'll see what happens in terms of gameplay. I plan to get some Sentiment pretty quick, maybe even first experience that is handed out. I decided on --
Aesthetics 1, Design 1, Martial Arts (Ranged) 1, Courtesy 2, Culture 2, Government 1.
Advantages and Disadvantages
I'm going to be honest, this is not what I was expecting from advantages and disadvantages, but I am quite happy about it. This actually helped round out my character a bit. I really dig how these helped shape my character's background and personality.
Subtle Observer distinction gives me a few ideas of her attitude in the courts. Observant, seeing what others are doing, and picking up information along the way. Her Ancestry is Stolen Knowledge, so combining the two, I imagine her family is raised to be careful when they speak, and to gather knowledge from others. So one kind of feeds the other, which I like a lot. And yes, the Stolen Knowledge was rolled, blah.
Bitter Betrothal is the adversity, which feeds into the reason she wants to marry for love. This ended up being too perfect. I had a character concept and was able to immediately pick an adversity that goes along with it. So this will feed her Ninjo.
Ikebana passion made me immediately realize my character is going to be obsessed with floral design, combining this with the Design skill. This will be a way for her to open discussion with anyone she wants, as many decorate their homes with such. And she'll always be seen wearing a freshly plucked rose. Except maybe during the Winter Court time...But I'll find a way.
Dangerous Allure still trying to decide on this one...as it's fire based and I don't use a lot of fire. But it would represent her beauty. Hmmmmmm.
Shuji
Cadence (thanks for suggesting this!), Lady Doji's Decree
I'm still working on Kata's and Shuji, but I want to read every one of them before I make a decision. I'd appreciate your input on those.

Guys, you can call the swords whatever you want. Their naming scheme doesn't impact the mechanics.

Guys, you can call the swords whatever you want. Their naming scheme doesn't impact the mechanics.