I've never seen the dice mechanics get in the way of the story for L5R, because the DM can always do with the dice what he needs to do. I mean, I guess if you don't like rolling dice its a problem, but if I didn't like rolling dice, I wouldn't be playing RPGs in the first place. The thing with the R&K system, the DM simply keeps what he needs to. If you need the players to have a rough time, keep your highest dice. If you want the players to succeed at something, keep the lower value dice you roll so they win. Adjust what dice you keep as needed.
If you're deciding the outcome of the checks rather than the dice, why are we involving dice again?
I've never seen the dice mechanics get in the way of the story for L5R, because the DM can always do with the dice what he needs to do. I mean, I guess if you don't like rolling dice its a problem, but if I didn't like rolling dice, I wouldn't be playing RPGs in the first place. The thing with the R&K system, the DM simply keeps what he needs to. If you need the players to have a rough time, keep your highest dice. If you want the players to succeed at something, keep the lower value dice you roll so they win. Adjust what dice you keep as needed.
If you're deciding the outcome of the checks rather than the dice, why are we involving dice again?
Perhaps the player has simply chosen to do something that would be incredibly awesome if they pull it off, and you don't want to waste the awesome idea? Perhaps the antagonist wants the player to succeed to set the player up for something much worse down the road. Perhaps you just rolled incredibly well and don't want to make it a hopeless check for the player. There are plenty of reasons to not select the best dice to keep on a roll.
I've never seen the dice mechanics get in the way of the story for L5R, because the DM can always do with the dice what he needs to do. I mean, I guess if you don't like rolling dice its a problem, but if I didn't like rolling dice, I wouldn't be playing RPGs in the first place. The thing with the R&K system, the DM simply keeps what he needs to. If you need the players to have a rough time, keep your highest dice. If you want the players to succeed at something, keep the lower value dice you roll so they win. Adjust what dice you keep as needed.
If you're deciding the outcome of the checks rather than the dice, why are we involving dice again?
Perhaps the player has simply chosen to do something that would be incredibly awesome if they pull it off, and you don't want to waste the awesome idea? Perhaps the antagonist wants the player to succeed to set the player up for something much worse down the road. Perhaps you just rolled incredibly well and don't want to make it a hopeless check for the player. There are plenty of reasons to not select the best dice to keep on a roll.
That really didn't answer my question.
To be clear here, while it was a bit glib it was an entirely sincere question. If we're going to rig the dice results to get the outcome the GM wants, why are we bothering with the dice? Just let the GM dictate the results without the fiction that it was dice driven.
I've never seen the dice mechanics get in the way of the story for L5R, because the DM can always do with the dice what he needs to do. I mean, I guess if you don't like rolling dice its a problem, but if I didn't like rolling dice, I wouldn't be playing RPGs in the first place. The thing with the R&K system, the DM simply keeps what he needs to. If you need the players to have a rough time, keep your highest dice. If you want the players to succeed at something, keep the lower value dice you roll so they win. Adjust what dice you keep as needed.
If you're deciding the outcome of the checks rather than the dice, why are we involving dice again?
Because sometimes you don't want to be as much of a jerk to the players as the dice say you should be? I mean, that's basic DM perogative, and it's kind of a silly goose argument to make against it.
To be fair, we're talking here more about DM prerogative rather than the benefit of a particular dice mechanic/system. It seems the point @AspectVoid is making is simply that the dice system can't get in the way of the DM's storytelling, since the DM can always fudge rolls.
As a player, I never saw the dice mechanics of L5R get in the way of my character doing what he wanted to do, but that was just my experience. It's possible that @DevoutlyApathetic had a different experience. Can you give an example of something in L5R that you had a hard time resolving with the R&K system, and/or the way it was implemented?
Err, that's actually the opposite of what I'm saying, at least in this case. If the dice routinely have to be "massaged" that to me is a clear indication that the system governing the dice is not producing the desired outcomes and is suspect. If you're routinely fudging it then why is it there in the first place?
Fudging rolls for player survival is a different discussion and for me entirely depends on the tone of the game. If you have to do it often it indicates a mechanics/thematic mismatch that should be addressed. Edit: "it" being changing a system driven death to something else.
Edit: With the sneaky change there. I'm watching you tzeentchling.
I've never seen the dice mechanics get in the way of the story for L5R, because the DM can always do with the dice what he needs to do. I mean, I guess if you don't like rolling dice its a problem, but if I didn't like rolling dice, I wouldn't be playing RPGs in the first place. The thing with the R&K system, the DM simply keeps what he needs to. If you need the players to have a rough time, keep your highest dice. If you want the players to succeed at something, keep the lower value dice you roll so they win. Adjust what dice you keep as needed.
If you're deciding the outcome of the checks rather than the dice, why are we involving dice again?
Perhaps the player has simply chosen to do something that would be incredibly awesome if they pull it off, and you don't want to waste the awesome idea? Perhaps the antagonist wants the player to succeed to set the player up for something much worse down the road. Perhaps you just rolled incredibly well and don't want to make it a hopeless check for the player. There are plenty of reasons to not select the best dice to keep on a roll.
That really didn't answer my question.
To be clear here, while it was a bit glib it was an entirely sincere question. If we're going to rig the dice results to get the outcome the GM wants, why are we bothering with the dice? Just let the GM dictate the results without the fiction that it was dice driven.
I am big on the idea that the most important aspect of a game is fun. For some groups, keeping the game fun means the DM has to fudge some dice rolls from time to time. OptimusZed said that in L5R, the dice got in the way of the Roleplaying. If the Roleplaying is what his group finds fun, then the Roll and Keep system offers a way to help keep the dice from getting too much in the way, by letting you roll the dice and then decide which ones to keep, adjusting the difficulty of the check on the fly and making an opposed check easier or harder as needed just like you can by setting normal target numbers. If that's what's needed to keep the game fun for players, then its an option on the table.
The dice provide the randomization of difficulty and give the players a physical interaction with the system. The fact that you can adjust that randomization higher or lower on the fly (by keeping higher or lower dice) doesn't remove the randomization from the system. You could select the low dice of a 5k3 roll and get a TN of 9, and the player could still roll a 4k3 and get a high roll of 8 failing the check. The possibility of failure is not removed, simply reduced or increased by the dice you decide to keep.
The system you laid out still seems like a lot of complication for what could be functionally replaced with "GM Picks a number". I guess there is something to be said for the showmanship, presuming you roll open to your players, but if that's true they'll know when you sandbag the dice as well. Though at that point it's just another avenue of communication.
When someone tells you that they had problems with the roll and keep mechanics of L5R, I find that your answer of "but you can fudge inconvenient dice rolls" is a flimsy justification for the whole thing. You can always fudge rolls. Or never. Independently of the system.
I too have problems with the RnK system. And they are not about the actual rolling and keeping dice. That part is fine. Likewise, my problems with d20 mechanics are not that a d20 is used.
Also, I've litterally never seen someone not keep the highest rolled dice.
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tzeentchlingDoctor of RocksOaklandRegistered Userregular
I guess my point is more - Roll and Keep, or any system, cannot hinder a GM from telling his story. If the dice say something and you want it to say something else, then fine. If you find yourself ignoring the dice more often than not, then either you were probably rolling dice when it wasn't needed, or there is an issue between what the story side is trying to do and what the mechanics are determining is the best way to resolve this. In this specific case (which likely doesn't come up much), then yes, one could argue there is a flaw in the game system.
I think there's a more specific (and interesting) argument here, which is if the dice system keeps the players from enjoying the game in the way they want to. That speaks to me as more of a problem than anything the DM does to resolve something. I'm saying I never saw that in L5R with their R&K system when I played, but it's possible that some stories had that.
When someone tells you that they had problems with the roll and keep mechanics of L5R, I find that your answer of "but you can fudge inconvenient dice rolls" is a flimsy justification for the whole thing. You can always fudge rolls. Or never. Independently of the system.
I too have problems with the RnK system. And they are not about the actual rolling and keeping dice. That part is fine. Likewise, my problems with d20 mechanics are not that a d20 is used.
Also, I've litterally never seen someone not keep the highest rolled dice.
I find your complaint of "I've had problems with the mechanics" without actually saying what these problems are to be rather flimsy as well. Its hard to discuss a topic when the other person doesn't give any actual details about what their complaints are. I can continue to toss darts at the wall trying to hit your actual complaints, but this would be much more interesting if you actually provided details beyond just "Me too".
I don't actually want to debate about the RnK system with you. It seems to fit you and your group, whereas it doesn't fit me at all. On the other hand, I LOVE MCing Apocalypse World, which some people just loathe. I just found your argument weird and intervened, maybe in a more confrontational way that I'd wish I did.
If you want to know where I have problems with the RnK system (for 1st edition 7th Sea), I posted about it last page. I don't know if any of my criticisms apply to L5R. I've played it a little years ago and don't remember at all if I liked the mechanical aspect of it.
i think it bears mentioning that some people have higher Fiddly Shit tolerances than others and different folks will find different mechanics more Fiddly than others
for anyone who has played Legends of the Wulin (@destroyah87 ) that is a very high Fiddly Shit game when it comes to the dice
some people may find the idea of calculating a formula for how to pick certain numbers of dice out of other rolled dice more work than it's worth
So, does anyone have any interest in playing a PbP of Fragged Empire? Kinda got a few ideas I want to put to table but my real life group is kinda unweidly to organise for reliable timings.
There 600 Stars Without Numbers games running on roll20? Man I guess d20 really is a huge advantage.
A lot of this lumping together is weird, of course. All Warhammer lumped together is, of course, going to seem like a very healthy property. I am willing to bet there are less than 500 games of RT, DH, Fantasy, and DW when you break them all out.
I'm not really surprised to see Fate with 600ish games being run. I figure 400-600 is fairly typical for "not D&D."
Stunned to see 200 Dragon Age RPG games running. It's a pretty good system, but the setting is super boring.
~125 games split between L5R and 7th Sea. Yikes.
More games of Maid RPG than Exalted. Which really makes me want to see what that 1100 White Wolf block looks like broken out (because I figure most of the settings are running below 300 games).
Now I'm kind of curious how much they'll offer Dresden Files FAE GMs to run open to the public.
Exalted is a fucking nightmare to run is why
I say this as I am running Ex3 right now and christ they said they'd make it easier on GMs, and maybe they did, but it's still several times harder to run than any other game I've ran ever, and I've done more planning for this campaign than any other I've run as well.
Oh, I know. I'm running Ex3 (not on roll20, natch) and it's non-stop garbage. "Is trying to convince people I'm cool and trustworthy Socialize or Presence?" is one of those questions that has no fucking answer. (I mean you kind of look at it like it's an Instill roll, but then you're like...but Socialize specifically says it deals with things like this...) It blows my mind because my answer to questions about what should be rolled now boils down to "whatever you think" and it's like why even have rules if you're going to make the mechanics so damn irrelevant?
Writing a good, coherent, and clear system that's as complicated as Exalted "must" be is probably beyond human capabilities. But then on top of that, let's be polite and say that the forte of the Exalted writers has never been system design.
And, yes, it's fucking terrible to be asked to spend money buying unusable rules and then hours of my life carefully reading hundreds of pages just to realize that they're crap.
re: 7th Sea and L5R
It's a little surprising. Both of those games need to be torn down all the way back to their basic concept and given a clean-sheet redesign, but they're still the leading names in some pretty popular genres.
Yeah I told people I stopped reading the charms entirely and they're like "How can you run the game if you don't know the charms?!" and I'm like "...I trust my players?" Quelle surprise.
Exalted is like a hangover when you don't remember the drinking you did for it. Mostly suffering with vague assurances a good time was had by all.
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
Over the years, I've increasingly decided to just let dice do whatever they want and go with the narrative flow regardless of the desired result for me. This has ended up with ebbs and turns I've definitely not expected, but I've begun to work with that really well. Star Wars in particular, in the first session on Monday, was extremely good to me with dice. It gave me plenty of opportunities for extra threat, advantage and similar results to make interesting initial turns in the story. Same with other games with 5E and similar, I've just decided to let dice go where they want if the core game system is good, it will always end up working out.
In the past few years, the only times I've fudged actual die rolls I can now count on one hand. Generally speaking, I have a very strong attitude that unless failure has an interesting consequence or that success has some kind of degree that makes sense (EG Star Wars), I don't bother having PCs roll die if I want a specific outcome.
I don't ever fudge dice rolls when GMing, because I consider doing so to be robbing my players of the uncertainty that comes with the dice.
I definitely agree with the position that you just shouldn't ask for dice to be rolled in the first place unless there's a consequence for failure.
The easy example is not asking the rogue to roll to pick a lock if the only outcome if she fails is to roll again until success. Now if you're going to make the lock jam and a new approach will have to be taken after a failure, then you roll. Any time I'm considering whether or not to ask for a dice roll, I just think about what will happen if the check fails.
Conversely, don't let somebody roll if there's no chance of success. It's pointless, and you're just asking for the person to roll a nat 20 and be annoyed that you let them roll when the best possible roll couldn't do anything anyway.
That's why pools of dice, held +1s, limit-break-and-get-hurt and like are the best. Let your players fudge the result when they just really, really got to do this thing.
Maaaan really tempted by these TMNT and Other Strangeness books on eBay. Why can't they be on a legal PDF, dagnabbit
Mostly because the TMNT license costs stupid amounts of money now so palladium likely can't get the rights to create the TMNT books into new media any more.
Maaaan really tempted by these TMNT and Other Strangeness books on eBay. Why can't they be on a legal PDF, dagnabbit
Mostly because the TMNT license costs stupid amounts of money now so palladium likely can't get the rights to create the TMNT books into new media any more.
When someone tells you that they had problems with the roll and keep mechanics of L5R, I find that your answer of "but you can fudge inconvenient dice rolls" is a flimsy justification for the whole thing. You can always fudge rolls. Or never. Independently of the system.
I too have problems with the RnK system. And they are not about the actual rolling and keeping dice. That part is fine. Likewise, my problems with d20 mechanics are not that a d20 is used.
Also, I've litterally never seen someone not keep the highest rolled dice.
Actually I've got the opposite opinion:in d20 and the RnK systems I think the dice are the limiting factors in their mechanics. With d20, although it's really fast and easy to interpret, the linear spread of results is just too random. It lets characters punch way above their belt sometimes, but other times has them fail simple tasks. That's why HP is vital to d20 because you need to have the ability to create lots of rolls so that the average result evens out. Of course you really don't have that with skill checks, other than in a system that The Sauce was working on, so those results seem really fiddly, and it's why save or die effects too are unsatisfying.
The RnK system has defenses/difficulties that are the "average" result of XkX, but as you roll more dice you increase the average value of what you're keeping. I think this is supposed to balance out with taking raises, but in practice hitting is just so much more important and deadly. I like that the system is highly lethal, but I think it gets the wrong idea of how the samurai fought.
Defense (Reflexes)
The Rokugani understanding of battle does not permit things such as parries and ripostes, but does instead involves positioning one's blade and body so that the katana and armor deflect incoming blows.
Considering I spent about 2 hours yesterday practicing "oji-waza" (counterattacks) at my kendo class, the above just isn't true. It does capture a part of the philosophy though; in kendo we strive to eliminate the four sicknesses: Surprise, Fear, Doubt, and Hesitation. The thought process is that if you are so worried about self preservation that you don't commit yourself wholly to the attack, then your attack will be weak and either fail to incapacitate or be open to counter-attack. And while it's really difficult to capture all the nuances of combat in a tabletop game, I just don't see the randomness of the RnK or d20 system do it justice. I think a dice pool system with it's extreme bell-curve of results is a lot more realistic, but then you run into the problem of boring, predictable results. So you need some other kind of thing to shake up the results like Edge or whatever.
Basically what mechanic you use for resolution has tremendous effects on the flow and feel of the game, and as the designer you need to fully think these things through.
fake edit: And I realize that Rokugani is not-Japan and maybe their samurai just never decided to adopt oji-waza, but that's kinda dumb in my opinion.
You're forgetting that L5R was originally written by a complete goose.
Of course it's not going to be accurate. It's also not a really good gamist simulation.
For what it's worth I *have* taken lower values on War rolls to move through the lines because I don't want to fight a pair of oni. So it's not like there's zero point to the mechanic. It's just wildly situational. I could see taking lower values on Maho rolls too.
When someone tells you that they had problems with the roll and keep mechanics of L5R, I find that your answer of "but you can fudge inconvenient dice rolls" is a flimsy justification for the whole thing. You can always fudge rolls. Or never. Independently of the system.
I too have problems with the RnK system. And they are not about the actual rolling and keeping dice. That part is fine. Likewise, my problems with d20 mechanics are not that a d20 is used.
Also, I've litterally never seen someone not keep the highest rolled dice.
I played a Crane Duelist who, when forced to duel in court situations, would purposefully keep the lowest damage dice to prevent serious injury against his opponents. These, of course, were "first blood" duels and not duels to the death, so my character didn't want to injure or, potentially, kill his opponent. No reason for someone to lose their life over a relatively minor dispute.
I'd also make called shots while doing so, aiming for potentially lethal areas. After "pulling the punch", so to speak, it sent a very clear message to the other clans. My guy was that good with a sword, he could've straight killed your guy but he didn't.
We never found the dice "getting in the way" in L5R, and it just seems like an empty criticism used to justify not liking the system. You can dislike the system all you want, it doesn't bother me at all, no game or system is perfect and people like what they like. Play whatever you enjoy.
I will say, though, that the basics of L5R's Roll and Keep system is not complicated, it's one of the easier systems I've learned and played. Raises and the like get a little more complex, but the straight forward roll XkY is simple
Personally, I have no problem at all with occassional fudging. In fact, in general, if a GM starts talking of never fudging and always letting the dice fall where they may as a point of pride, that's generally when I start slowly backing away. Call me weird.
Some systems are such that they almost require dice fudging unless your players are cool with the possibility of their character dying suddenly and ignobly based on a bad roll. (Warhammer, I'm looking at you.)
Some systems encourage too much die rolling for tasks that aren't actually that interesting. (See; any instance of picking locks in D&D before "take 10" was invented.)
Some systems just can't make up their damn mind what kind of dice get rolled to resolve anything, with dozens of unrelated subsystems using different sizes of dice in different ways. (My relationship with Rifts is based on this sort of a system.)
Different stuff works for different groups. Just because someone else doesn't appreciate your special beautiful snowflake system of choice the way you do doesn't mean you're wrong or they're dumb meany-pants that don't know what they're talking about.
As I get older I find myself drifting away from crunch heavy games toward things that I can run on the fly with people who don't have hours of spare time everyday to pour over rules minutiae. That doesn't mean that the younger me that loved systems full of moving parts to rub together was an idiot with terrible taste, just that he had very different priorities in his gaming choices.
I have fudged dice many times when it benefits the players and keeps the story going. Like in a 4E game I ran years ago, the very first battle, the group of 5 when up against a group of 5 goblins lackies and 1 goblin leader. They didn't roll horribly, but I rolled 6 crits in a row during the third round and would have dropped 3 of them (and 1 of them would have dropped below -half health and would have died), and it was a new group with new players so I did two crits and the rest missed. Sometimes you have to do things, in order to protect the game.
As long as the GM keeps the game going, I don't care what method the GM uses. Fudging dice? That's fine. Declaring target numbers that are wildly off? Sure. Just saying "That's a better idea, so that's what happens."? That's great! Keeping the dice roll as is, but figuring out a way to "fail forward"? Awesome. I personally keep all dice rolls, but I try to make failure just as interesting as success. What is adventure without a bit of adversity, after all?
As long as everyone is having fun, you are doing your job.
Personally, I have no problem at all with occassional fudging. In fact, in general, if a GM starts talking of never fudging and always letting the dice fall where they may as a point of pride, that's generally when I start slowly backing away. Call me weird.
I don't have pride about not fudging, it's just not what anybody at my table wants. If I fudge dice to save players from bad outcomes or to make enemies hit them when the dice said they miss, then why am I rolling dice at all? Why not just play a game where we all take turns narrating actions without the dice?
I'm much more likely to use a 13th age style house rule where players can't permanently die to "non named enemies" if I'm trying to protect low level parties from death, but I'm not going to just ignore what the dice say. I don't even roll behind a DM screen.
Being dropped doesn't have to mean death. The players wake up in a goblin jail cell, and now must escape! If only they could reach that warg holding the key...
Being dropped doesn't have to mean death. The players wake up in a goblin jail cell, and now must escape! If only they could reach that warg holding the key...
Unless the crit table says your head explodes like a watermelon at a Gallagher show.
Being dropped doesn't have to mean death. The players wake up in a goblin jail cell, and now must escape! If only they could reach that warg holding the key...
Unless the crit table says your head explodes like a watermelon at a Gallagher show.
If it was Eclipse Phase where death doesn't matter much, watermelon head would be my go to. And you can grab their cortical stack easily and go on.
I never fudge. I just don't involve the dice unless it makes sense for the stakes to be high.
The flip side of that is that if you get completely wrecked on a roll your character is probably going to suffer. Possibly a lot. You always (ALWAYS!) have the option of not rolling. Sometimes that means you don't get the outcome you wanted, sometimes it just means you need to find a better way.
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If you're deciding the outcome of the checks rather than the dice, why are we involving dice again?
Perhaps the player has simply chosen to do something that would be incredibly awesome if they pull it off, and you don't want to waste the awesome idea? Perhaps the antagonist wants the player to succeed to set the player up for something much worse down the road. Perhaps you just rolled incredibly well and don't want to make it a hopeless check for the player. There are plenty of reasons to not select the best dice to keep on a roll.
That really didn't answer my question.
To be clear here, while it was a bit glib it was an entirely sincere question. If we're going to rig the dice results to get the outcome the GM wants, why are we bothering with the dice? Just let the GM dictate the results without the fiction that it was dice driven.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Because sometimes you don't want to be as much of a jerk to the players as the dice say you should be? I mean, that's basic DM perogative, and it's kind of a silly goose argument to make against it.
To be fair, we're talking here more about DM prerogative rather than the benefit of a particular dice mechanic/system. It seems the point @AspectVoid is making is simply that the dice system can't get in the way of the DM's storytelling, since the DM can always fudge rolls.
As a player, I never saw the dice mechanics of L5R get in the way of my character doing what he wanted to do, but that was just my experience. It's possible that @DevoutlyApathetic had a different experience. Can you give an example of something in L5R that you had a hard time resolving with the R&K system, and/or the way it was implemented?
Fudging rolls for player survival is a different discussion and for me entirely depends on the tone of the game. If you have to do it often it indicates a mechanics/thematic mismatch that should be addressed. Edit: "it" being changing a system driven death to something else.
Edit: With the sneaky change there. I'm watching you tzeentchling.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
I am big on the idea that the most important aspect of a game is fun. For some groups, keeping the game fun means the DM has to fudge some dice rolls from time to time. OptimusZed said that in L5R, the dice got in the way of the Roleplaying. If the Roleplaying is what his group finds fun, then the Roll and Keep system offers a way to help keep the dice from getting too much in the way, by letting you roll the dice and then decide which ones to keep, adjusting the difficulty of the check on the fly and making an opposed check easier or harder as needed just like you can by setting normal target numbers. If that's what's needed to keep the game fun for players, then its an option on the table.
The dice provide the randomization of difficulty and give the players a physical interaction with the system. The fact that you can adjust that randomization higher or lower on the fly (by keeping higher or lower dice) doesn't remove the randomization from the system. You could select the low dice of a 5k3 roll and get a TN of 9, and the player could still roll a 4k3 and get a high roll of 8 failing the check. The possibility of failure is not removed, simply reduced or increased by the dice you decide to keep.
The system you laid out still seems like a lot of complication for what could be functionally replaced with "GM Picks a number". I guess there is something to be said for the showmanship, presuming you roll open to your players, but if that's true they'll know when you sandbag the dice as well. Though at that point it's just another avenue of communication.
I too have problems with the RnK system. And they are not about the actual rolling and keeping dice. That part is fine. Likewise, my problems with d20 mechanics are not that a d20 is used.
Also, I've litterally never seen someone not keep the highest rolled dice.
I think there's a more specific (and interesting) argument here, which is if the dice system keeps the players from enjoying the game in the way they want to. That speaks to me as more of a problem than anything the DM does to resolve something. I'm saying I never saw that in L5R with their R&K system when I played, but it's possible that some stories had that.
I find your complaint of "I've had problems with the mechanics" without actually saying what these problems are to be rather flimsy as well. Its hard to discuss a topic when the other person doesn't give any actual details about what their complaints are. I can continue to toss darts at the wall trying to hit your actual complaints, but this would be much more interesting if you actually provided details beyond just "Me too".
If you want to know where I have problems with the RnK system (for 1st edition 7th Sea), I posted about it last page. I don't know if any of my criticisms apply to L5R. I've played it a little years ago and don't remember at all if I liked the mechanical aspect of it.
for anyone who has played Legends of the Wulin (@destroyah87 ) that is a very high Fiddly Shit game when it comes to the dice
some people may find the idea of calculating a formula for how to pick certain numbers of dice out of other rolled dice more work than it's worth
Exalted is like a hangover when you don't remember the drinking you did for it. Mostly suffering with vague assurances a good time was had by all.
In the past few years, the only times I've fudged actual die rolls I can now count on one hand. Generally speaking, I have a very strong attitude that unless failure has an interesting consequence or that success has some kind of degree that makes sense (EG Star Wars), I don't bother having PCs roll die if I want a specific outcome.
I definitely agree with the position that you just shouldn't ask for dice to be rolled in the first place unless there's a consequence for failure.
The easy example is not asking the rogue to roll to pick a lock if the only outcome if she fails is to roll again until success. Now if you're going to make the lock jam and a new approach will have to be taken after a failure, then you roll. Any time I'm considering whether or not to ask for a dice roll, I just think about what will happen if the check fails.
Conversely, don't let somebody roll if there's no chance of success. It's pointless, and you're just asking for the person to roll a nat 20 and be annoyed that you let them roll when the best possible roll couldn't do anything anyway.
I definately don't want to push you into spending money, but I love my TMNT stuff so much.
Transdimensional TMNT may be my most read RPG book of all time. Mutant dinosaurs are the greatest thing.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Mostly because the TMNT license costs stupid amounts of money now so palladium likely can't get the rights to create the TMNT books into new media any more.
This is no place for logic!
Actually I've got the opposite opinion:in d20 and the RnK systems I think the dice are the limiting factors in their mechanics. With d20, although it's really fast and easy to interpret, the linear spread of results is just too random. It lets characters punch way above their belt sometimes, but other times has them fail simple tasks. That's why HP is vital to d20 because you need to have the ability to create lots of rolls so that the average result evens out. Of course you really don't have that with skill checks, other than in a system that The Sauce was working on, so those results seem really fiddly, and it's why save or die effects too are unsatisfying.
The RnK system has defenses/difficulties that are the "average" result of XkX, but as you roll more dice you increase the average value of what you're keeping. I think this is supposed to balance out with taking raises, but in practice hitting is just so much more important and deadly. I like that the system is highly lethal, but I think it gets the wrong idea of how the samurai fought.
Considering I spent about 2 hours yesterday practicing "oji-waza" (counterattacks) at my kendo class, the above just isn't true. It does capture a part of the philosophy though; in kendo we strive to eliminate the four sicknesses: Surprise, Fear, Doubt, and Hesitation. The thought process is that if you are so worried about self preservation that you don't commit yourself wholly to the attack, then your attack will be weak and either fail to incapacitate or be open to counter-attack. And while it's really difficult to capture all the nuances of combat in a tabletop game, I just don't see the randomness of the RnK or d20 system do it justice. I think a dice pool system with it's extreme bell-curve of results is a lot more realistic, but then you run into the problem of boring, predictable results. So you need some other kind of thing to shake up the results like Edge or whatever.
Basically what mechanic you use for resolution has tremendous effects on the flow and feel of the game, and as the designer you need to fully think these things through.
fake edit: And I realize that Rokugani is not-Japan and maybe their samurai just never decided to adopt oji-waza, but that's kinda dumb in my opinion.
Of course it's not going to be accurate. It's also not a really good gamist simulation.
For what it's worth I *have* taken lower values on War rolls to move through the lines because I don't want to fight a pair of oni. So it's not like there's zero point to the mechanic. It's just wildly situational. I could see taking lower values on Maho rolls too.
maybe 75%
I played a Crane Duelist who, when forced to duel in court situations, would purposefully keep the lowest damage dice to prevent serious injury against his opponents. These, of course, were "first blood" duels and not duels to the death, so my character didn't want to injure or, potentially, kill his opponent. No reason for someone to lose their life over a relatively minor dispute.
I'd also make called shots while doing so, aiming for potentially lethal areas. After "pulling the punch", so to speak, it sent a very clear message to the other clans. My guy was that good with a sword, he could've straight killed your guy but he didn't.
We never found the dice "getting in the way" in L5R, and it just seems like an empty criticism used to justify not liking the system. You can dislike the system all you want, it doesn't bother me at all, no game or system is perfect and people like what they like. Play whatever you enjoy.
I will say, though, that the basics of L5R's Roll and Keep system is not complicated, it's one of the easier systems I've learned and played. Raises and the like get a little more complex, but the straight forward roll XkY is simple
Some systems encourage too much die rolling for tasks that aren't actually that interesting. (See; any instance of picking locks in D&D before "take 10" was invented.)
Some systems just can't make up their damn mind what kind of dice get rolled to resolve anything, with dozens of unrelated subsystems using different sizes of dice in different ways. (My relationship with Rifts is based on this sort of a system.)
Different stuff works for different groups. Just because someone else doesn't appreciate your special beautiful snowflake system of choice the way you do doesn't mean you're wrong or they're dumb meany-pants that don't know what they're talking about.
As I get older I find myself drifting away from crunch heavy games toward things that I can run on the fly with people who don't have hours of spare time everyday to pour over rules minutiae. That doesn't mean that the younger me that loved systems full of moving parts to rub together was an idiot with terrible taste, just that he had very different priorities in his gaming choices.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
As long as everyone is having fun, you are doing your job.
I don't have pride about not fudging, it's just not what anybody at my table wants. If I fudge dice to save players from bad outcomes or to make enemies hit them when the dice said they miss, then why am I rolling dice at all? Why not just play a game where we all take turns narrating actions without the dice?
I'm much more likely to use a 13th age style house rule where players can't permanently die to "non named enemies" if I'm trying to protect low level parties from death, but I'm not going to just ignore what the dice say. I don't even roll behind a DM screen.
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Unless the crit table says your head explodes like a watermelon at a Gallagher show.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
If it was Eclipse Phase where death doesn't matter much, watermelon head would be my go to. And you can grab their cortical stack easily and go on.
The flip side of that is that if you get completely wrecked on a roll your character is probably going to suffer. Possibly a lot. You always (ALWAYS!) have the option of not rolling. Sometimes that means you don't get the outcome you wanted, sometimes it just means you need to find a better way.