Question for the community, Old or New L5R?

[Spikenog 79]

I have a fair amount of experience with previous editions of L5R (mostly 1st & 2nd) and own nearly all of the books for the 4th Edition of the game. Also, I'm a big fan of FFG's Star Wars RPG and enjoy the narrative dice a great deal.

Looking to start an L5R campaign and find myself torn between FFG's new game (of which I only currently own the starter set) or simply rolling back the timeline and using the 4th Edition ruleset. 

Would anyone be able to provide some insight into the workings of the new version compared to previous? 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

[AtoMaki 1,431]

After playing like, a dozen plus games I can safely say that the only really noticeable change you as a player will experience in the new edition compared to the old edition is that you are now rolling and keeping Raises rather than "bet" for them before the roll. That's all it, plus a slight increment in bookkeeping because there are now a lot of stuff your character can suffer from. 

It takes some time to get used to this "Raises are now on the dice" thing tho. Also, if you are a GM then you must accommodate yourself to some pretty funky pacing because the action is suuuuupeeeeer sloooooooooow when no dice is rolled but gets super fast super quickly when one grabs some dice and the game has a tendency of being heavy-handed with its themes. 

5R5 is nothing like FFG's Star Wars RPGs, I'm gonna warn you about that. But my gaming group very much like it and prefer it over L5R 4th Edition. 

[AK_Aramis 1,002]

I must rebut some of AtoMaki's assertions. Most especially the flat-out wrong "[L]5R5 is nothing like FFG's Star Wars RPGs"

Comparisons to FFG SW in italics

Dice 2 kinds, not one; d6 and d12, custom marked, instead of standard d10's.. One kind for attributes, another for skills.

L5R 5, unlike FFG SW, has only good dice, no bad (opponent/difficulty) dice. Opportunity spends are more integral to the action taken than FFGSW threat and opportunity; thematically different in role. All rolls made vs a TN.

Keeping: Now has teeth. It's become a meaningful choice which dice to keep. Especially when 

Raises: Now made after rolling using Opportunity instead of before hand an increasing TN. If declaring doing something requiring an opportunity spend, you need the successes + Opportunity to succeed.

This is similar to a few edge cases in FFG SW; it's much more common in L5R5 than in SW.

TN's about 1/5th as high, but dice provide 0-1 success and possibly that is an exploding success, so it balances,

Shorter skill list than L5R 1E-4E or FFG SW

Rings: rescaled down one from 1E–4E. No underlying attributes.

Damage: fixed plus excess from attack roll, rather than a separate roll (exactly like FFG SW).
Criticals: 2 opportunity (uniform, where FFG SW is a variable number by weapon) and may cause conditions or negative qualities, or even disadvantages. 

Character generation: yes, still has the 20Q... but everything mechanical is tied directly to specific questions. (nothing even close to SW)

Bookkeeping: 6 tracks instead of 4-5. Breaking that down: All 5 editions have Honor and Glory, 2–5 have status, all 5 have a hit-point equivalent, only 5 has a psych stress track. (Enduance and Composure are direct comparisons to Wound Threshold and Stress Threshold; Fatigue and Strife to Wounds and Stress. Criticals work similarly, too.)

There are around 2 dozen conditions; almost half are simply criticals. L5R 1E–4E have only a handful (prone, unconscious, etc) and they aren't labeled as conditions per se. (There is great overlap between FFG SW and L5R 5E in conditions, but L5R's is more concrete and used more). 10 of the conditions are wounds - whcih can be put on a sheet as "Light Wound in ⒶⒺⒻⓋⓌ" (fill in the correct oval.) (FFG SW has more individual critical hit results, and randomizes the critical; L5R 5E crits are determined by the weapon used, and a few conditions without randomization). 

Penalties From Damage: L5R 5, FFG SW: none until criticals, and vary by crit; L5R 1E–4E by hit point loss, progressive.

[AtoMaki 1,431]

What I meant was that playing 5R5 will feel nothing like playing FFG's Star Wars, despite the mechanical similarities that might or might not appear throughout the game. 

There are obviously a lot of actual changes but we haven't felt them striking enough to warrant special attention. Thinking of it, the way Rings work does have a kind of initial shock value, but nobody will bother after the first 2 or 3 games. 

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

13 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

Keeping: Now has teeth. It's become a meaningful choice which dice to keep.

Very much. You can assume that 90% of the time you'll want to keep enough successes to pass. After this point, though, you have a choice between:

• Keeping bonus successes (most commonly extra damage in a strike action, but generally most 'do better' effects like getting more detailed information)
• Keeping opportunities (often techniques, and most 'this also happens' effects like finding something unexpected and unrelated during enquiries)
• Not keeping strife (the systems general purpose stress/fatigue mechanic, which is almost universally bad outside a conflict and generally more bad than good even in one)

And there are some occasions you'll voluntarily choose to fail a check. Slamming a katana repeatedly against plate armour does no good whatsoever to the blade and isn't going to hurt the bushi inside. Better to pull or withhold your blow and try to find a weak spot.

[nameless ronin 706]

Samurai drama is supposed to be at the core of 5th edition. Giri vs ninjo, dealing with strife from both internal and external pressure. The narrative should be key. Personally I'd choose based on wanting that or the more straightforward simulationist approach of older editions, because whether the system works does hinge a lot on addressing that consistently.

(as an aside, if going with a previous edition and 3rd is an option I'd pick that one over 4th. No major issues with 4th, 3rd just feels more robust as long as you ignore or don't care too much about the option bloat)