AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I don't know if anyone else is actually following the progress on the beta, and there isn't an L5R RPG thread that I can see.
So here's the latest rules update. Katrina remains awesome, but I don't know if unmasking will translate properly. They are trying out another set of rules, and explain the new character creation process.
Greetings, Legend of the Five Rings Open Beta Testers!
We’ve just put the finishing touches on the first update to the beta! According to our most recent survey, almost half of you still haven’t had a chance to put the system through its paces in play, so we hope you can get the beta on the table soon and try out the first wave of updates! This update addresses several issues you’ve already spotted and tweaks some of the mechanics to reinforce the themes of the setting while making the game more fun. You can find a summary of the changes later in this email!
We’re also excited to preview character creation options for our very first minor clan: the Mantis! Yoritomo’s fleets from the Islands of Silk and Spice led with a majority showing, with the Fox coming in second at 33% and the impoverished Suzume family at a mere 15%. (It’s okay, Suzume-san, at least you still have your yams!) Thank you to everyone who voted, and we’ll have some more polls for you to participate in going forward.
The Game of Character Creation
This week, we want the focus of your playtest feedback to be the character creation process. I’m one of those players who enjoys making new characters almost as much as I enjoy actually playing the game. I’ve learned better than to inflict my GM with ten-page character backstories (and I don’t have as much free time as I used to), but I still love to flesh out my characters’ relationships, histories, hopes, fears, strengths, and weaknesses, with the hopes that the GM will eventually highlight them during a session. In the campaigns that I’ve run as a GM, I’ve often handed out supplemental questionnaires to get my players thinking about these narrative elements for their character—and to help me create a campaign that’s truly driven by the characters. The Legend of the Five Rings RPG stood out because it’s had a questionnaire since the very first edition: the Game of Twenty Questions.
When I had to opportunity to design the new edition of the L5R RPG with Max, I wanted to bake these story choices into character creation from the very start. I was reviewing the old Game of Twenty Questions when I realized many of the answers had mechanical implications, although those mechanics were actually recorded during the steps of an entirely separate character creation process. They didn’t have to be separate, I thought. The Game of Twenty Questions could serve as the main vehicle of character creation—the questions could become prompts for defining both the narrative and mechanical elements of a character at the same time, so that they would be considered together.
In the fourth edition of Legend of the Five Rings RPG, the bulk of that separate character creation process included spending forty experience points on whatever the player liked. In theory, this allowed players to tailor their character to reflect what they wanted narratively, but in my experience, players (myself included!) tried to wring every last mechanical edge they could out of those 40XP. It’s the Law of the Instrument rearing its head: because mechanics were the tools we had to build our characters, we were thinking mechanically first. Often, I wrote my character backstory second, basing the details on the build I was able to create.
When designing the new edition, I didn’t want to feel as much a slave to the mechanics. So we made the decision to remove XP expenditure from the base process.
The other reason we moved away from the free-spend XP model was to make the game more approachable for new players. In the old editions, there were a lot of different ways players could spend that XP, and some were much more powerful mechanically than others. For players who have never played the game before, that’s a lot of choices to process all at once! Moreover, it’s hard to know precisely how you want to play your character, and what you should invest in, until you’ve tried the game and walked around in your character’s shoes for a while.
Now, we’ve tried to narrow the focus so that players are considering one aspect at a time. You aren’t filling up an entire scrap piece of paper calculating what this mechanical combination costs compared to another in terms of XP. Now, in one question the player is defining an element of their character that is represented by an advantage, something that provides the player with a concrete narrative hook for their character while at the same time giving them a mechanical way to stand out during play. In another question, they can focus on choosing an additional skill or not. And so on.
We’re eager to hear from you whether character creation is achieving that goal and the goals of your group, and what we can improve to make character creation more intuitive and story-rich. In this update, we’ve also included guidelines for how and when to bring back experience points to the character creation process for advanced players or particular campaign concepts. The characters you can build with the Twenty Questions method are designed to represent samurai who have just come out of their coming-of-age ceremony, their gempuku. Importantly, these options still build on the existing Game of Twenty Questions meant to marry narrative with mechanics.
Week 4 Beta Update
This week marks our first major update! We’ve made a number of updates, some of them larger than others. While many are small corrections and revisions, there are a few topics for which we made notable changes!
Strife and Unmasking
“Unmasking” is the new term for “outbursts,” and it functions in a slightly different way. We want people who were enjoying the outburst system to be able to play it almost exactly the same way—but we also want people who feel their samurai should be able to remain stoic to have that flexibility. As such, when a character’s strife exceeds their composure, they become compromised. While compromised, a character cannot keep dice with strife symbols.
Now, their player has a choice. They can try to find ways for their character to shed strife during this time (essentially the equivalent of the old “Shut Down” option). Or, they can choose for their character to unmask, dropping their facade briefly (in what was an outburst before) to express their emotions outwardly. They clear all their strife, and must resolve the narrative and mechanical effects of unmasking (which are slightly modified from prior outbrusts, but fill largely the same functions). This means that unmasking is always a choice, and if a player really feels it would be inappropriate for their character to show emotion at a given time, they don’t have to.
We hope that this system will have greater flexibility, helping to underscore player agency while still offering all the roleplaying cues and interesting mechanical interactions around emotions that others like about the previous outburst system!
Wounds become Fatigue
Based on the poll and a lengthy internal discussion, wounds are being re-themed as fatigue—reflecting exertion as a character grows more vulnerable to a hit that causes a serious injury (still represented by critical strikes). Mechanically, this is very similar, but it does open up certain thematic avenues—for instance, it makes more sense for characters to intentionally suffer fatigue to get extra effects, and also for a character to recover small amounts of fatigue over a short period of time with certain abilities.
Duels
Duel objectives have been reframed and reworked to better fit into the lore of the setting! This includes closer guidance on what constitutes an iaijutsu duel, but also various other forms of duels, including no-holds-barred battles between warriors, sparring bouts, and Taryu-Jiai, the supernatural contests fought between shugenja.
Stances
Several stances have received a bit of a retuning. In light of the modifications to strife and unmasking, we wanted shedding strife to be a bit slower during conflicts. As such, two stances have been somewhat overhauled:
• Water stance now provides additional action that can only be used to perform an action that does not require a check. This could include taking a minor narrative action, drawing or stowing an item, moving further, or even catching your breath to heal a bit of strife or fatigue.
• Air stance now increases the TN to hit you by half your school rank (rounded up). This means that it scales as you (and your enemies) grow stronger—which all other stances do, directly or in effect. Previously, it provided only a small benefit for high-rank characters, but now it provides a fairly static benefit across your character’s lifespan.
Iaijutsu Technique
Instead of being represented with a single technqiue, Iaijutsu has been split into two techniques, with a few more to come in the future. These techniques have been rebalanced to provide more benefit—they also are somewhat better based on some of the action economy changes that have been implemented (see below).
Action Economy Revisions
This set of alterations is subtle, but important. The previous version allowed very free movement and drawing/sheathing of weapons, but it did make abilities that improve weapon drawing /mobility somewhat weaker. However, this wasn’t the only model we had experimented with in Alpha. Thus, before the Beta gets too far along, we’d like to try another way of handling this aspect of the game.
In short, during a conflict, movement (beyond one range band) and weapon manipulation are more restricted, often requiring an action. However, the Water stance now grants the ability to perform an action without a check. Further, certain abilities help to mitigate these restrictions (such as Iaijutsu Cuts).
This is a change that has a fairly substantial effect at the table despite seeming potentially insignificant on reading (as compared to some rather obvious changes, like the update from outbursts to unmasking or the rewriting of duel objectives as dueling terms), so we ask that people pay close attention to it to make sure that it’s working well. If it becomes too restrictive in encounters, please let us know!
Thanks again for participating, and we look forward to hearing from you soon!
I had a flash of inspiration, so now I've put together a one-shot for Tales from the Loop for tonight.
The starting conceit:
There's a spooky old house that, in 1983, was used as a haunted house attraction.
Jenny Abernathy went missing, it was shut down. Police investigated, didn't find anything.
It is All Hallow's Eve, 1984, one year to the day later than the original disappearance.
Would anyone be interested in playing a 13th Age game over Discord and/or Roll20 on the weekends? I'm thinking maybe Saturday nights but I'm flexible. I think I'm waiting to try to run the Warehouse 13th Age game that's been in my head for a while now.
So I'd been soliciting for players in some sort of game using the Meet Up boards and Facebook pages of a few gaming stores but not having any luck until today. I convinced a few of the facebook acquaintance to show up in store, and while we started chatting about forming a group we gained enough momentum to get six people to commit. That's the good news. The bad news is that while we decided on Age of Rebellion as our game de jour, I don't think that system is a good fit for most of the players. Only one player created what I would consider a roleplaying character with actual personal goals and motivations. The others created vehicles for them to execute specific actions, usually of the ranged and melee sort. I have a feeling that with this crowd the narrative portion of FFG's dice mechanic is going to be wasted at best and confusing at worst. Two of the group are actually experienced with and excited about Age of Rebellion, but they were the two that I've got the least interest in actually playing with; neither of them committed to making their character with the group, instead asserting that they'd make one before the next game. I'm not afraid of a little confrontation, but I do try to be polite, and they just weren't picking up on language like "I think it's best if we all make the characters together" and "It's important for me to understand what kinds of relationships all these characters have with each other." To be fair, changing the system wouldn't eliminate that problem, but I will be perturbed if the 'experienced' players the others have to learn from are that disinterested when we start playing.
I'm seriously considering contacting everyone and seeing how amenable they'd all be to play D&D instead. At least I've got experience in managing murderhobos with that system.
飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
0
WACriminalDying Is Easy, Young ManLiving Is HarderRegistered Userregular
edited November 2017
DM'ing, non-rules question. Not sure where I fucked up.
From the start, I laid down a rule for the group that it was OK for characters to be uncomfortable, but that if anything I or a player did made another player uncomfortable in a way they didn't want to deal with, we would rewind and basically do a Clue-style, "That's how it could have happened. But instead, here's what actually happened!" I thought this was a good, consent-based rule, especially given that I know how visceral roleplaying can be, and didn't want to plunge anyone into PTSD triggers or anything.
In the first two sessions, our paladin made it very clear that he wasn't just a black-and-white moralist, but served a deity that demanded order and righteousness through violence if necessary. Basically, if he thought you were doing something evil and you wouldn't stop, he would straight up kill you. Near the end of the second session, this culminated in an intense argument between him and another character, in which the other character decided to back down.
I tried to point out to the group that, you know, you can do things to deal with this, like distracting him before you do a thing, or even just slitting his throat while he sleeps if you're that kind of person. Not that I wanted him dead, but I just wanted the group to realize that they didn't have to let him run the show all the time.
Anyway, we were supposed to have our third session yesterday.
On Thursday, my partner (who is in the party) came to me and said that some of the other players had been expressing concerns about the group dynamic, saying that the fun was going out of the game because they 1) felt like they had to either do what <Paladin> said, or kill him/die trying, and that 2) the constant threat of death-by-party-member was unsettling to them personally. Before going to bed that night, I instituted a blanket rule for the party via our Facebook group that party conflict was still OK, but that you aren't allowed to kill another PC without that player's permission.
Friday morning, <Paladin> objected by saying that he felt targeted, and that that wasn't how RPGs work, that the other players had many tools at their disposal to work around his character, etc. I referenced the rule we started with, and clarified that this was simply an extension/consequence of that rule. I acknowledged that I knew the rule was going to impact him more directly than others, and offered to workshop with him on ways to either get his character to a point where he was more willing to engage in non-lethal justice, or even to allow him to completely re-roll a different character if he wanted. He said no, and quit the game. Immediately afterwards, my sister and her husband quit the game as well, saying it sounded "in no way enjoyable" anymore.
We ended up having to postpone the session because that brought us down to four players, two of whom were unable to attend this particular session. 2 out of 7 isn't a big deal, but 2 out of 4 is completely unworkable.
Basically I just feel like shit. I keep going over it in my head, feeling like there must have been a way to make everybody happy and keep the game going for all of them, and I was just too stupid to see it. <Paladin> is starting his own game with sister+husband, and I'm apparently invited to play if I want, but I just feel like I failed here.
Some people enjoy role-playing inter-party conflicts and having clashing personalities of their characters, but it needs to be clear to all parties involved that any disagreements being made are solely in-game.
A player's right to have fun ends when it negatively impacts the ability for other players to have fun.
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
The glib answer is that if someone looks at the D&D Paladin and goes "you know what? This isn't violent or extreme enough for me" run the other way as fast as you fucking can.
The less glib answer is that there are games that support direct player-on-player conflict, D&D is not one of them. There are conflicts your group will get into where the group can come to a comfortable agreement at the cost of one side compromising their ideals, and that was not one of them. And you gave this player every chance you could to take a different path and he chose none of them.
Plus, now you have a four-person group which is (assuming at least three can show up on time) the perfect amount.
Yeah, the cardinal rule for my tables, for all created characters, is essentially a follow-on from the scene in The Gamers where one player's character is getting introduced to the party, and the DM is, like, "Okay - so you're meeting this guy in the wilderness for the first time. I want you to really roleplay this ..."
And the players say, more or less verbatim, "Hello, stranger. You seem a trustworthy fellow! Want to come adventure with us?" And the other player says, "Okay!" And they're off.
Being a PC, controlled by another real human being (and probable friend) sitting across the table from you, gives your character a whole lot of undeserved leeway. Things that would merit summary execution, if encountered in an antagonistic NPC, a grinned at and borne. You would cut off the hand of any thief caught purloining your valuables, or catch-arrest-and-imprison-them, and you sure as hell wouldn't be bringing them into a life-or-death situation with you, but when it's Bob's character doing it, well, you don't want to ruin Bob's fun, so you kinda let it go and settle for some snarky comments.
So, with that in mind, my rule is that every character must be continually capable of working together, peacefully, with the rest of the party, and that only in extraordinary circumstances is PC-on-PC violence allowed. Violating the first earns you an opportunity to retire your character and make a different one with no hard feelings. Violating the second gets the character NPC status - and you a chance to make a different character with quite a bit more oversight on it.
People will (successfully!) argue that this cuts down on all kinds of roleplaying possibilities, like never running "evil parties." I will truthfully tell them that I don't particularly care.
This rule does not necessarily apply to one-offs, where the express purpose might be to have the players and characters at odds with each other, but it applies basically everywhere else.
Yeah, inter party tension can be very rewarding for roleplaying, but creating a character that is so inflexible that it might lead to a PC killing another PC? That's too much, in my opinion. I like party tension, not outright conflict, there's a significant difference between characters arguing over moral or philosophical differences and threatening to murder each other over said differences. A character with a rigid moral structure could fit in a party and provide some great tension, and can even grow to realize that not everything is a simple 'black and white' situation. But to have them start that extreme, threatening violence on anything deemed immoral? I just can't see that as anything but a problem.
If it were me, I would've nipped that in the bud immediately. I would've asked the Paladin player to either make the character more flexible or, barring that, had them play something else. Is that extreme? Maybe. But I have to think of how the party will interact and how it'll effect the course of the game and the group's enjoyment.
I'm sorry about what happened with your group, but try not to feel bad. Given what you described, you had to make a call that would effect the group's overall enjoyment of the game, and I think you did the right thing. You thought you could make it work with the Paladin's characterx and when that turned out to be the case, you were decisive and more than fair.
The Paladin player was taking advantage of the social dynamics of the group of players by being an asshole. They bet that the basic social niceties and desire to not cause a fuss would let them be a goose to the rest of the play group while hiding behind the cover of "My character would do...". They bet wrong and axed the group. The fact that they complained when it was brought to their attention they were making it unpleasant for the other players pretty much means the only winning play for you was to not include the Paladin player at all.
Here's a quick test: If the other characters can't state a reason why they don't just all leave behind the problem character in the middle of the night then the player is trading on player relationships.
Some players get their rocks off by being this terrible anti-social character. My experience has been that anti-social players do this to enact their own power fantasies, which is why I'm super hesitant to go forward with this Age of Rebellion game and the player who literally wants to play a psychopath with a fuck-off huge gatling gun.
WACriminal, without knowing any more it doesn't sound like the paladin player leaving was a big loss. Your sister and her husband on the other hand might have left out of frustration, and if it were me I'd give it a good college effort to reengage with them and see if you can reach some sort of compromise. As for where your mistake was, it was probably during group formation when not all the players were on the same page about what was expected and acceptable at this game. Don't berate yourself over it though: that's where 90% of these mistakes are made. I'm pretty sure I'm in the process of making that same mistake myself. Some players just don't listen. That psychopath player of mine was there as I was explaining what kinds of characters I wanted the players to make, about how I wanted to test the characters' motivations and morality, but even with a bunch of work shopping I'm not sure that the character he made has any greater motivation than to kill a bunch of people, and certainly no sense of morality I can detect. If he ends up derailing my game it will be my fault for allowing him in, but the lesson I'll take away is to better trust my own feelings. At the end of the day you just need to ask yourself if you were clear when setting the expectations and if the players understood them.
...With that I think I answered my own question.
italianranma on
飛べねぇ豚はただの豚だ。
0
AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I cannot picture a guy out to just kill people as a part of the Rebellion. Yeah, Rogue One flirted with it, but they were conflicted characters -- and an outright terrorist.
For me, it's just:
You don't make other players uncomfortable without their permission. If anyone says stop, you stop. If you are not ok with this, you cannot play with me.
I cannot picture a guy out to just kill people as a part of the Rebellion. Yeah, Rogue One flirted with it, but they were conflicted characters -- and an outright terrorist.
There's a pretty cool Inglorious Rebels campaign I've seen. The d20 Radio guys put it together.
Yeah, if it were the right kind of player it could work. If the leader keeps a tight reign on his violence, and the character is (mostly) controllable then it could be a pretty fun dynamic. But when he steps out of line one too many times and finds himself abandoned or spaced because of it, is that player going to be understanding? Is my leader willing to be that heavy handed? It’s a difficult position to put a bunch of strangers in, so I think the responsible thing to do is to avoid it.
I can totally see vengeance consumed murderous thugs working for the Rebellion. What do you think Saw Guerra and his crew are? I actually appreciated that take in Rogue One. Galaxy wide rebellions really would need callous men and women working for them, not blinking when taking out a munitions factory also means murdering 100's of civilians and likely ruining the livelihood of 1000's more. Or when a spy like Cassian stabs his contact in the back and kills him because he's getting to squirrelly and is no longer trustworthy. My appreciation for the nuances of the Star Wars universe had grown considerably as I've aged...and I like it!
But that's not relevant to the issue. The issue here, as has been discussed, is the Paladin player was using his class/role as license to be a jerk. That's uncool and the other player had legit reasons to be upset by it. The DM is not a fault here.
So religious zealots arent really good guys. If anyone's offer as a character concept is "total zealot, obey my character's religion or they kill you" I'll steer them to a different character or table immediately. Mostly because, at last to me, that's a villain description, not a hero description.
And like not a good villain that can bend to work with the party because they have intertwined goals (Like John chriton and scorpius working together), but a bad villain that will just oppress everyone around them unquestioningly.
You need a party that is equally bloodthirsty to work with that Paladin. Without them, he's just a dick and shallow character.
+3
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Or you need a righteous Paladin that realizes he needs the rest of the party in order to accomplish his goals, and is capable of compromising his zealotry to keep that going.
Perhaps it’s because I play and run stuff like Apocalypse World, but in that situation I’d expect the characters to leave them behind or worse, and I’d equally expect that player to laugh and get over it, then make a new character viable for the group by the start of the next session.
If it serves the story and everyone is in character why not bury the evil Gunlugger up to his neck in sand? I don’t expect anyone to have to deal with a character (and so often just the player themselves) when they’re up to goose-work.
Endless_Serpents on
+1
JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
Perhaps it’s because I play and run stuff like Apocalypse World, but in that situation I’d expect the characters to leave them behind or worse, and I’d equally expect that player to laugh and get over it, then make a new character viable for the group by the start of the next session.
Well, the issue isn't really anything to do with character classes or game systems or any of that. The player is making other players uncomfortable. PvP can be fair ball but it requires the players of antagonistic characters to draw a really hard, clear line between what their character is doing or feeling and what they, themselves, are doing at the table. One super easy way to do this is for the player of a problem character to, OOC, offer solutions to the issues his character causes the group, like: "hey, everyone, fyi, my guy is a douche so he's going to try to steal the jewel from your guy's backpack tonight but he's also a coward, so if Torg puts a scare into him, he won't try it."
Instead it sounds like he's using the character as a vehicle to hold other people's enjoyment of the game hostage and forcing a violent confrontation that the other players aren't interested in having.
+8
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Perhaps it’s because I play and run stuff like Apocalypse World, but in that situation I’d expect the characters to leave them behind or worse, and I’d equally expect that player to laugh and get over it, then make a new character viable for the group by the start of the next session.
Well, the issue isn't really anything to do with character classes or game systems or any of that. The player is making other players uncomfortable.
I agree with this in a sense, but player discomfort is very much defined by the game that they're playing. D&D players realize that the expected consequences of conflict in D&D are
(a) death
(b) death where you can't be resurrected
and they know that the whole fucking point of D&D is to avoid dying. So you throw in this paladin and now not only do they have to worry about those stupid orcs, but they also have to worry about Dickhead McGee flipping out and murdering them over some slight to his fucked-up morality. Of course they're uncomfortable.
Just buy some poison and put it in his drink. Or smash the whole bottle in his mouth and hold his nose and mouth. Problem solved.
Not that I know from personal experience...
That's a severe way to deal with a problem player, but it's hard to fault the results.
It is easier to do that than drop him in a dragon's mouth.
0
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Is it a dick move to want to throw away a love potion one of the characters in my party got because I consider them to be basically magic-roofie juices? I'm not making a Rick and Morty joke either, I genuinely think they're fucked up.
Even if you don't do the implied thing with a "love" potion, it's still a purple man style situation of removing the dignity and control from another being. It's treating them like an object to be used. I'm okay with knocking someone out with a drug or a truncheon to say, rob a dick nobleman, but to do that with a love potion and have them allow it is still incredibly fucked up to me. To rob them and have them like it is a 1984 situation of the secret police making the main character love Big Brother and then killing him. That robbing example was given by my GM in defense of love potions in other ways than the obvious way.
Is it a dick move to want to throw away a love potion one of the characters in my party got because I consider them to be basically magic-roofie juices? I'm not making a Rick and Morty joke either, I genuinely think they're fucked up.
Even if you don't do the implied thing with a "love" potion, it's still a purple man style situation of removing the dignity and control from another being. It's treating them like an object to be used. I'm okay with knocking someone out with a drug or a truncheon to say, rob a dick nobleman, but to do that with a love potion and have them allow it is still incredibly fucked up to me. To rob them and have them like it is a 1984 situation of the secret police making the main character love Big Brother and then killing him. That robbing example was given by my GM in defense of love potions in other ways than the obvious way.
Its a charm or enchantment correct?
Yes it most definitely removes the agency of the person drinking it. As does friends, or dominate person. It's mind control pure and simple.
Depends what system you’re using, how light-hearted the story is and the scale of the magic involved.
If it was some D&D “lasts for 1d4 rounds” or “you cannot compell them to do stuff out of their alignment/morale code, lasts one hour” then I’d let it slide. But if it was narrative only and long lasting? Ick.
Oh! I’d totally request to the guy running the game to secretly make it a two-way thing because that could be funny!
You gave the orc chief the love potion? Great, now you’re both madly in love, forever.
But yeah, steal it, pour it down a drain and gain the affections of several rats and a sludge elemental.
Is it a dick move to want to throw away a love potion one of the characters in my party got because I consider them to be basically magic-roofie juices? I'm not making a Rick and Morty joke either, I genuinely think they're fucked up.
Even if you don't do the implied thing with a "love" potion, it's still a purple man style situation of removing the dignity and control from another being. It's treating them like an object to be used. I'm okay with knocking someone out with a drug or a truncheon to say, rob a dick nobleman, but to do that with a love potion and have them allow it is still incredibly fucked up to me. To rob them and have them like it is a 1984 situation of the secret police making the main character love Big Brother and then killing him. That robbing example was given by my GM in defense of love potions in other ways than the obvious way.
Without knowing more about your group, if it's in character you should totally do that. Characters have morals too and can draw the line wherever they like. But more importantly if you think it will provide good interaction and ultimately fun for the group as a whole then you absolutely should.
Just be prepared for a good counter argument like, 'whether it be through magical or mundane means, coercion is the same. Does the edge of the knife provide more free will to the throat's owner? Will he feel less keenly the loss of his property? Being robbed either way and offered the choice of a broken heart or broken skull I imagine most would choose the former.'
Is it a dick move to want to throw away a love potion one of the characters in my party got because I consider them to be basically magic-roofie juices? I'm not making a Rick and Morty joke either, I genuinely think they're fucked up.
Have you also expressed your deep reservations with the sleep spell?
Is it a dick move to want to throw away a love potion one of the characters in my party got because I consider them to be basically magic-roofie juices? I'm not making a Rick and Morty joke either, I genuinely think they're fucked up.
Have you also expressed your deep reservations with the sleep spell?
Sleep spell would be equivalent to knocking someone out. It allows for violations of consent, but does not alter their minds to make them want violations.
If you have an issue with a Love potion, then there are a whole host of other options in D&D that have the potential to be creepy and inappropriate and should trigger the same feelings as a Love potion. If you can make peace with Charm Person, then the same should apply to a Love potion.
If the player, to draw a tangent from the other conversation of the day, is using Charms to be Purple Man...then that's a separate issue with a RL person rather than a issue with a spell or potion, IMO.
+1
admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
Mind-altering spells are pretty horrifying and are arguably only accepted in D&D because of its already extreme views of good-and-evil. Mind controlling an creature is not morally questionable of the creature is objectively evil.
Is it a dick move to want to throw away a love potion one of the characters in my party got because I consider them to be basically magic-roofie juices? I'm not making a Rick and Morty joke either, I genuinely think they're fucked up.
Have you also expressed your deep reservations with the sleep spell?
Sleep spell would be equivalent to knocking someone out. It allows for violations of consent, but does not alter their minds to make them want violations.
It allows for murdering people in their sleep. Or, with hold person, while they stand there helplessly, watching you.
It's only less squicky than a "love potion" because you're less likely to be playing a game with a murder victim.
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So here's the latest rules update. Katrina remains awesome, but I don't know if unmasking will translate properly. They are trying out another set of rules, and explain the new character creation process.
We’ve just put the finishing touches on the first update to the beta! According to our most recent survey, almost half of you still haven’t had a chance to put the system through its paces in play, so we hope you can get the beta on the table soon and try out the first wave of updates! This update addresses several issues you’ve already spotted and tweaks some of the mechanics to reinforce the themes of the setting while making the game more fun. You can find a summary of the changes later in this email!
We’re also excited to preview character creation options for our very first minor clan: the Mantis! Yoritomo’s fleets from the Islands of Silk and Spice led with a majority showing, with the Fox coming in second at 33% and the impoverished Suzume family at a mere 15%. (It’s okay, Suzume-san, at least you still have your yams!) Thank you to everyone who voted, and we’ll have some more polls for you to participate in going forward.
The Game of Character Creation
This week, we want the focus of your playtest feedback to be the character creation process. I’m one of those players who enjoys making new characters almost as much as I enjoy actually playing the game. I’ve learned better than to inflict my GM with ten-page character backstories (and I don’t have as much free time as I used to), but I still love to flesh out my characters’ relationships, histories, hopes, fears, strengths, and weaknesses, with the hopes that the GM will eventually highlight them during a session. In the campaigns that I’ve run as a GM, I’ve often handed out supplemental questionnaires to get my players thinking about these narrative elements for their character—and to help me create a campaign that’s truly driven by the characters. The Legend of the Five Rings RPG stood out because it’s had a questionnaire since the very first edition: the Game of Twenty Questions.
When I had to opportunity to design the new edition of the L5R RPG with Max, I wanted to bake these story choices into character creation from the very start. I was reviewing the old Game of Twenty Questions when I realized many of the answers had mechanical implications, although those mechanics were actually recorded during the steps of an entirely separate character creation process. They didn’t have to be separate, I thought. The Game of Twenty Questions could serve as the main vehicle of character creation—the questions could become prompts for defining both the narrative and mechanical elements of a character at the same time, so that they would be considered together.
In the fourth edition of Legend of the Five Rings RPG, the bulk of that separate character creation process included spending forty experience points on whatever the player liked. In theory, this allowed players to tailor their character to reflect what they wanted narratively, but in my experience, players (myself included!) tried to wring every last mechanical edge they could out of those 40XP. It’s the Law of the Instrument rearing its head: because mechanics were the tools we had to build our characters, we were thinking mechanically first. Often, I wrote my character backstory second, basing the details on the build I was able to create.
When designing the new edition, I didn’t want to feel as much a slave to the mechanics. So we made the decision to remove XP expenditure from the base process.
The other reason we moved away from the free-spend XP model was to make the game more approachable for new players. In the old editions, there were a lot of different ways players could spend that XP, and some were much more powerful mechanically than others. For players who have never played the game before, that’s a lot of choices to process all at once! Moreover, it’s hard to know precisely how you want to play your character, and what you should invest in, until you’ve tried the game and walked around in your character’s shoes for a while.
Now, we’ve tried to narrow the focus so that players are considering one aspect at a time. You aren’t filling up an entire scrap piece of paper calculating what this mechanical combination costs compared to another in terms of XP. Now, in one question the player is defining an element of their character that is represented by an advantage, something that provides the player with a concrete narrative hook for their character while at the same time giving them a mechanical way to stand out during play. In another question, they can focus on choosing an additional skill or not. And so on.
We’re eager to hear from you whether character creation is achieving that goal and the goals of your group, and what we can improve to make character creation more intuitive and story-rich. In this update, we’ve also included guidelines for how and when to bring back experience points to the character creation process for advanced players or particular campaign concepts. The characters you can build with the Twenty Questions method are designed to represent samurai who have just come out of their coming-of-age ceremony, their gempuku. Importantly, these options still build on the existing Game of Twenty Questions meant to marry narrative with mechanics.
Week 4 Beta Update
This week marks our first major update! We’ve made a number of updates, some of them larger than others. While many are small corrections and revisions, there are a few topics for which we made notable changes!
Strife and Unmasking
“Unmasking” is the new term for “outbursts,” and it functions in a slightly different way. We want people who were enjoying the outburst system to be able to play it almost exactly the same way—but we also want people who feel their samurai should be able to remain stoic to have that flexibility. As such, when a character’s strife exceeds their composure, they become compromised. While compromised, a character cannot keep dice with strife symbols.
Now, their player has a choice. They can try to find ways for their character to shed strife during this time (essentially the equivalent of the old “Shut Down” option). Or, they can choose for their character to unmask, dropping their facade briefly (in what was an outburst before) to express their emotions outwardly. They clear all their strife, and must resolve the narrative and mechanical effects of unmasking (which are slightly modified from prior outbrusts, but fill largely the same functions). This means that unmasking is always a choice, and if a player really feels it would be inappropriate for their character to show emotion at a given time, they don’t have to.
We hope that this system will have greater flexibility, helping to underscore player agency while still offering all the roleplaying cues and interesting mechanical interactions around emotions that others like about the previous outburst system!
Wounds become Fatigue
Based on the poll and a lengthy internal discussion, wounds are being re-themed as fatigue—reflecting exertion as a character grows more vulnerable to a hit that causes a serious injury (still represented by critical strikes). Mechanically, this is very similar, but it does open up certain thematic avenues—for instance, it makes more sense for characters to intentionally suffer fatigue to get extra effects, and also for a character to recover small amounts of fatigue over a short period of time with certain abilities.
Duels
Duel objectives have been reframed and reworked to better fit into the lore of the setting! This includes closer guidance on what constitutes an iaijutsu duel, but also various other forms of duels, including no-holds-barred battles between warriors, sparring bouts, and Taryu-Jiai, the supernatural contests fought between shugenja.
Stances
Several stances have received a bit of a retuning. In light of the modifications to strife and unmasking, we wanted shedding strife to be a bit slower during conflicts. As such, two stances have been somewhat overhauled:
• Water stance now provides additional action that can only be used to perform an action that does not require a check. This could include taking a minor narrative action, drawing or stowing an item, moving further, or even catching your breath to heal a bit of strife or fatigue.
• Air stance now increases the TN to hit you by half your school rank (rounded up). This means that it scales as you (and your enemies) grow stronger—which all other stances do, directly or in effect. Previously, it provided only a small benefit for high-rank characters, but now it provides a fairly static benefit across your character’s lifespan.
Iaijutsu Technique
Instead of being represented with a single technqiue, Iaijutsu has been split into two techniques, with a few more to come in the future. These techniques have been rebalanced to provide more benefit—they also are somewhat better based on some of the action economy changes that have been implemented (see below).
Action Economy Revisions
This set of alterations is subtle, but important. The previous version allowed very free movement and drawing/sheathing of weapons, but it did make abilities that improve weapon drawing /mobility somewhat weaker. However, this wasn’t the only model we had experimented with in Alpha. Thus, before the Beta gets too far along, we’d like to try another way of handling this aspect of the game.
In short, during a conflict, movement (beyond one range band) and weapon manipulation are more restricted, often requiring an action. However, the Water stance now grants the ability to perform an action without a check. Further, certain abilities help to mitigate these restrictions (such as Iaijutsu Cuts).
This is a change that has a fairly substantial effect at the table despite seeming potentially insignificant on reading (as compared to some rather obvious changes, like the update from outbursts to unmasking or the rewriting of duel objectives as dueling terms), so we ask that people pay close attention to it to make sure that it’s working well. If it becomes too restrictive in encounters, please let us know!
Thanks again for participating, and we look forward to hearing from you soon!
Katrina and Max
L5R RPG Development Team
COME FORTH, AMATERASU! - Switch Friend Code SW-5465-2458-5696 - Twitch
The starting conceit:
There's a spooky old house that, in 1983, was used as a haunted house attraction.
Jenny Abernathy went missing, it was shut down. Police investigated, didn't find anything.
It is All Hallow's Eve, 1984, one year to the day later than the original disappearance.
I had a lot of fun running Tales. It ended on the same sort of "I wish this wasn't a one-shot" as the other session I've run.
Rolling 6s is hard but the group managed to pull it off with a pretty remarkable frequency.
Teenagers are great at being shitty people.
Apparently I have a number of unresolved issues with respect to highschool.
Vampires are never a bad thing to include in your games.
I'm seriously considering contacting everyone and seeing how amenable they'd all be to play D&D instead. At least I've got experience in managing murderhobos with that system.
In the first two sessions, our paladin made it very clear that he wasn't just a black-and-white moralist, but served a deity that demanded order and righteousness through violence if necessary. Basically, if he thought you were doing something evil and you wouldn't stop, he would straight up kill you. Near the end of the second session, this culminated in an intense argument between him and another character, in which the other character decided to back down.
I tried to point out to the group that, you know, you can do things to deal with this, like distracting him before you do a thing, or even just slitting his throat while he sleeps if you're that kind of person. Not that I wanted him dead, but I just wanted the group to realize that they didn't have to let him run the show all the time.
Anyway, we were supposed to have our third session yesterday.
On Thursday, my partner (who is in the party) came to me and said that some of the other players had been expressing concerns about the group dynamic, saying that the fun was going out of the game because they 1) felt like they had to either do what <Paladin> said, or kill him/die trying, and that 2) the constant threat of death-by-party-member was unsettling to them personally. Before going to bed that night, I instituted a blanket rule for the party via our Facebook group that party conflict was still OK, but that you aren't allowed to kill another PC without that player's permission.
Friday morning, <Paladin> objected by saying that he felt targeted, and that that wasn't how RPGs work, that the other players had many tools at their disposal to work around his character, etc. I referenced the rule we started with, and clarified that this was simply an extension/consequence of that rule. I acknowledged that I knew the rule was going to impact him more directly than others, and offered to workshop with him on ways to either get his character to a point where he was more willing to engage in non-lethal justice, or even to allow him to completely re-roll a different character if he wanted. He said no, and quit the game. Immediately afterwards, my sister and her husband quit the game as well, saying it sounded "in no way enjoyable" anymore.
We ended up having to postpone the session because that brought us down to four players, two of whom were unable to attend this particular session. 2 out of 7 isn't a big deal, but 2 out of 4 is completely unworkable.
Basically I just feel like shit. I keep going over it in my head, feeling like there must have been a way to make everybody happy and keep the game going for all of them, and I was just too stupid to see it. <Paladin> is starting his own game with sister+husband, and I'm apparently invited to play if I want, but I just feel like I failed here.
Some people enjoy role-playing inter-party conflicts and having clashing personalities of their characters, but it needs to be clear to all parties involved that any disagreements being made are solely in-game.
A player's right to have fun ends when it negatively impacts the ability for other players to have fun.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
The less glib answer is that there are games that support direct player-on-player conflict, D&D is not one of them. There are conflicts your group will get into where the group can come to a comfortable agreement at the cost of one side compromising their ideals, and that was not one of them. And you gave this player every chance you could to take a different path and he chose none of them.
Plus, now you have a four-person group which is (assuming at least three can show up on time) the perfect amount.
And the players say, more or less verbatim, "Hello, stranger. You seem a trustworthy fellow! Want to come adventure with us?" And the other player says, "Okay!" And they're off.
Being a PC, controlled by another real human being (and probable friend) sitting across the table from you, gives your character a whole lot of undeserved leeway. Things that would merit summary execution, if encountered in an antagonistic NPC, a grinned at and borne. You would cut off the hand of any thief caught purloining your valuables, or catch-arrest-and-imprison-them, and you sure as hell wouldn't be bringing them into a life-or-death situation with you, but when it's Bob's character doing it, well, you don't want to ruin Bob's fun, so you kinda let it go and settle for some snarky comments.
So, with that in mind, my rule is that every character must be continually capable of working together, peacefully, with the rest of the party, and that only in extraordinary circumstances is PC-on-PC violence allowed. Violating the first earns you an opportunity to retire your character and make a different one with no hard feelings. Violating the second gets the character NPC status - and you a chance to make a different character with quite a bit more oversight on it.
People will (successfully!) argue that this cuts down on all kinds of roleplaying possibilities, like never running "evil parties." I will truthfully tell them that I don't particularly care.
This rule does not necessarily apply to one-offs, where the express purpose might be to have the players and characters at odds with each other, but it applies basically everywhere else.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
If it were me, I would've nipped that in the bud immediately. I would've asked the Paladin player to either make the character more flexible or, barring that, had them play something else. Is that extreme? Maybe. But I have to think of how the party will interact and how it'll effect the course of the game and the group's enjoyment.
I'm sorry about what happened with your group, but try not to feel bad. Given what you described, you had to make a call that would effect the group's overall enjoyment of the game, and I think you did the right thing. You thought you could make it work with the Paladin's characterx and when that turned out to be the case, you were decisive and more than fair.
Here's a quick test: If the other characters can't state a reason why they don't just all leave behind the problem character in the middle of the night then the player is trading on player relationships.
WACriminal, without knowing any more it doesn't sound like the paladin player leaving was a big loss. Your sister and her husband on the other hand might have left out of frustration, and if it were me I'd give it a good college effort to reengage with them and see if you can reach some sort of compromise. As for where your mistake was, it was probably during group formation when not all the players were on the same page about what was expected and acceptable at this game. Don't berate yourself over it though: that's where 90% of these mistakes are made. I'm pretty sure I'm in the process of making that same mistake myself. Some players just don't listen. That psychopath player of mine was there as I was explaining what kinds of characters I wanted the players to make, about how I wanted to test the characters' motivations and morality, but even with a bunch of work shopping I'm not sure that the character he made has any greater motivation than to kill a bunch of people, and certainly no sense of morality I can detect. If he ends up derailing my game it will be my fault for allowing him in, but the lesson I'll take away is to better trust my own feelings. At the end of the day you just need to ask yourself if you were clear when setting the expectations and if the players understood them.
...With that I think I answered my own question.
You don't make other players uncomfortable without their permission. If anyone says stop, you stop. If you are not ok with this, you cannot play with me.
There's a pretty cool Inglorious Rebels campaign I've seen. The d20 Radio guys put it together.
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
But that's not relevant to the issue. The issue here, as has been discussed, is the Paladin player was using his class/role as license to be a jerk. That's uncool and the other player had legit reasons to be upset by it. The DM is not a fault here.
And like not a good villain that can bend to work with the party because they have intertwined goals (Like John chriton and scorpius working together), but a bad villain that will just oppress everyone around them unquestioningly.
If it serves the story and everyone is in character why not bury the evil Gunlugger up to his neck in sand? I don’t expect anyone to have to deal with a character (and so often just the player themselves) when they’re up to goose-work.
Well, the issue isn't really anything to do with character classes or game systems or any of that. The player is making other players uncomfortable. PvP can be fair ball but it requires the players of antagonistic characters to draw a really hard, clear line between what their character is doing or feeling and what they, themselves, are doing at the table. One super easy way to do this is for the player of a problem character to, OOC, offer solutions to the issues his character causes the group, like: "hey, everyone, fyi, my guy is a douche so he's going to try to steal the jewel from your guy's backpack tonight but he's also a coward, so if Torg puts a scare into him, he won't try it."
Instead it sounds like he's using the character as a vehicle to hold other people's enjoyment of the game hostage and forcing a violent confrontation that the other players aren't interested in having.
I agree with this in a sense, but player discomfort is very much defined by the game that they're playing. D&D players realize that the expected consequences of conflict in D&D are
(a) death
(b) death where you can't be resurrected
and they know that the whole fucking point of D&D is to avoid dying. So you throw in this paladin and now not only do they have to worry about those stupid orcs, but they also have to worry about Dickhead McGee flipping out and murdering them over some slight to his fucked-up morality. Of course they're uncomfortable.
Not that I know from personal experience...
That's a severe way to deal with a problem player, but it's hard to fault the results.
It is easier to do that than drop him in a dragon's mouth.
Even if you don't do the implied thing with a "love" potion, it's still a purple man style situation of removing the dignity and control from another being. It's treating them like an object to be used. I'm okay with knocking someone out with a drug or a truncheon to say, rob a dick nobleman, but to do that with a love potion and have them allow it is still incredibly fucked up to me. To rob them and have them like it is a 1984 situation of the secret police making the main character love Big Brother and then killing him. That robbing example was given by my GM in defense of love potions in other ways than the obvious way.
Its a charm or enchantment correct?
Yes it most definitely removes the agency of the person drinking it. As does friends, or dominate person. It's mind control pure and simple.
If it was some D&D “lasts for 1d4 rounds” or “you cannot compell them to do stuff out of their alignment/morale code, lasts one hour” then I’d let it slide. But if it was narrative only and long lasting? Ick.
Oh! I’d totally request to the guy running the game to secretly make it a two-way thing because that could be funny!
You gave the orc chief the love potion? Great, now you’re both madly in love, forever.
But yeah, steal it, pour it down a drain and gain the affections of several rats and a sludge elemental.
The greatest stat of all... is confidence
I believe the children are our future...
Teach them well and let them lead the way...
:whistle:
Without knowing more about your group, if it's in character you should totally do that. Characters have morals too and can draw the line wherever they like. But more importantly if you think it will provide good interaction and ultimately fun for the group as a whole then you absolutely should.
Just be prepared for a good counter argument like, 'whether it be through magical or mundane means, coercion is the same. Does the edge of the knife provide more free will to the throat's owner? Will he feel less keenly the loss of his property? Being robbed either way and offered the choice of a broken heart or broken skull I imagine most would choose the former.'
Have you also expressed your deep reservations with the sleep spell?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Sleep spell would be equivalent to knocking someone out. It allows for violations of consent, but does not alter their minds to make them want violations.
If the player, to draw a tangent from the other conversation of the day, is using Charms to be Purple Man...then that's a separate issue with a RL person rather than a issue with a spell or potion, IMO.
It allows for murdering people in their sleep. Or, with hold person, while they stand there helplessly, watching you.
It's only less squicky than a "love potion" because you're less likely to be playing a game with a murder victim.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]