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Saith posted:How do you find all this stuff? Is it in other sourcebooks or are you just going by the wiki? Emerald Empire mostly, that and "The great clans" sometimes has something on the clans in the modern era (with the noteable exception of the unicorn).
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Mar 8, 2012 22:10
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gently caress that, be a Monkey and literally shout out the names of all your school techniques as you use them. COURAGE ABOVE ALL! FORTUNE FAVORS THE MORTAL MAN!
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Mar 8, 2012 22:10
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ProfessorCirno posted:gently caress that, be a Monkey and literally shout out the names of all your school techniques as you use them. COURAGE ABOVE ALL! FORTUNE FAVORS THE MORTAL MAN! Yeah, its kind of embarrasing quite how much love the setting has for the monkey clan and its founder (even though they are both completly awesome).
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Mar 8, 2012 22:15
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Josef bugman posted:Yeah, its kind of embarrasing quite how much love the setting has for the monkey clan and its founder (even though they are both completly awesome). I like to think Clan Monkey is sorta their admittion that not everything has to be gritty and sorta-"realistic." It's ok to have basically a clan of shonen samurai heroes who do the impossible and never let poo poo get them down.
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Mar 8, 2012 22:19
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ProfessorCirno posted:I like to think Clan Monkey is sorta their admittion that not everything has to be gritty and sorta-"realistic." It's ok to have basically a clan of shonen samurai heroes who do the impossible and never let poo poo get them down. It is kind of nice, but you wouldn't want them in every campaign. If your playing "crab on the wall" you don't really want to have some shouty hero come along and do you job better than you.
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Mar 8, 2012 22:21
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Josef bugman posted:It is kind of nice, but you wouldn't want them in every campaign. If your playing "crab on the wall" you don't really want to have some shouty hero come along and do you job better than you. I'm admittingly sorta bad with the math and mechanics of L5R and not that hot at optimizing anything, but the way I always saw it, Monkey benefits mostly rely on spending void points, and basically make them sort of a jack of all trades type character who could theoretically be good at most things (especially if it's something challenging) but not as good or as often as the actual class built towards it.
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Mar 9, 2012 00:06
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ProfessorCirno posted:I'm admittingly sorta bad with the math and mechanics of L5R and not that hot at optimizing anything, but the way I always saw it, Monkey benefits mostly rely on spending void points, and basically make them sort of a jack of all trades type character who could theoretically be good at most things (especially if it's something challenging) but not as good or as often as the actual class built towards it. I know jack all about how the system works and tend to glaze over when told anything about most P&P systems. I just roll dice when I am supposed to and make use of my years of drama. I think thematically a monkey samurai putting in an appearence and beating up The Maw whilst flirting with the Daimyo's heir would suit, but would probably piss off the PC's.
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Mar 9, 2012 00:16
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In 3rd Edition they were probably the best school. They toned it the gently caress down for 4th Edition.
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Mar 9, 2012 01:28
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Josef bugman posted:It is kind of nice, but you wouldn't want them in every campaign. If your playing "crab on the wall" you don't really want to have some shouty hero come along and do you job better than you. Shouty samurai on the wall are encouraged. Crabs on the wall are trained to yell as loud and as long as possible while they're being savagely eaten by an oni. In order to wake as many people as possible.
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Mar 9, 2012 01:46
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Etherwind posted:In 3rd Edition they were probably the best school. They toned it the gently caress down for 4th Edition. They only have a strong first rank in 3ed now they are a good school.
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Mar 9, 2012 08:29
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Macdeo Lurjtux posted:Shouty samurai on the wall are encouraged. Crabs on the wall are trained to yell as loud and as long as possible while they're being savagely eaten by an oni. In order to wake as many people as possible. "That mans job is to scream", as it were? I more meant being happy and jovial and so on might be a bit out of place if your going for grimdark "kill all the shadowlands" campaign.
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Mar 9, 2012 10:21
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Chance II posted:My group is planning to run a Lo5R game in the next couple of weeks. I've never even looked through book but I have a general idea of the setting. What should I be looking at to build a kind of noble samurai character (cultured warrior rather than berserker sword fetishist)? Lion clan described to me as the big warrior culture clan. This is going to sound mean but "noble samurai character" is like 80% of the samurai in the setting. Even the Crab or the Mantis or whatever are noble in their own way, assuming "noble" to you isn't also "proper in ettiquette". Just pick whatever clan's fluff sounds the best to you.
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Mar 9, 2012 12:15
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Josef bugman posted:"That mans job is to scream", as it were? I think it's perfect. Makes the horror of the situation much more palpable when the Monkey finally sees too much and starts to crack.
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Mar 9, 2012 12:22
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Swagger Dagger posted:This is going to sound mean but "noble samurai character" is like 80% of the samurai in the setting. Even the Crab or the Mantis or whatever are noble in their own way, assuming "noble" to you isn't also "proper in ettiquette". Just pick whatever clan's fluff sounds the best to you. I meant specifically a noble lord type off samurai. A well rounded warrior poet kind of deal but I don't want to play some white haired caricature like those Crane clan dudes.
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Mar 9, 2012 16:08
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Chance II posted:I meant specifically a noble lord type off samurai. A well rounded warrior poet kind of deal but I don't want to play some white haired caricature like those Crane clan dudes.
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Mar 9, 2012 16:24
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Chance II posted:I meant specifically a noble lord type off samurai. A well rounded warrior poet kind of deal but I don't want to play some white haired caricature like those Crane clan dudes. Akodo or Mirumoto. The Mirumoto are literal warrior-poets, and in fact start with poetry as I recall, while the ideal of Bushido is to serve your lord and your vassals with sword in one hand and book in the other, and the Akodo are generally quite good at that. As for the well-rounded thing, the system actually encourages it, that's why you get full insight credit for rank 1 skills. The system is actively pushing you to drop rank 1 in a crapload of skills so that you will be well rounded.
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Mar 9, 2012 16:28
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NinjaDebugger posted:Akodo or Mirumoto. The Mirumoto are literal warrior-poets, and in fact start with poetry as I recall, while the ideal of Bushido is to serve your lord and your vassals with sword in one hand and book in the other, and the Akodo are generally quite good at that. As for the well-rounded thing, the system actually encourages it, that's why you get full insight credit for rank 1 skills. The system is actively pushing you to drop rank 1 in a crapload of skills so that you will be well rounded. Oh good, that sounds promising. Mirumoto and Akodo are Lion Clan right? I've been looking through the clan bios on the wiki and they sound familiar. I'll go look them up then.
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Mar 9, 2012 16:44
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Mirumoto is Dragon Clan - the Mystical Clan. If you don't mind playing minor, though, the Sparrow Bushi might be what you're looking for. They're about compassion and virtue in war, without being bloodthirsty or stupidly posh.
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Mar 9, 2012 16:53
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Saith posted:Mirumoto is Dragon Clan - the Mystical Clan. You misspelled "best" here. But yeah Mirumoto are pretty cool if you don't want to have white hair and use just one sword.
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Mar 9, 2012 18:04
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Are there any good pregenerated/published scenarios? I know there's the one in the back of the book (which we've done) and the one that came out on Free RPG Day - Legacy of Disaster? But I don't really have the time just yet to start making my own stuff up. Any ideas? edit - or failing that - how much of the older version's stuff is going to be compatible with 4th, in terms of both mechanics and story? Yoshimo fucked around with this message at 12:25 on May 2, 2012 |
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May 2, 2012 11:52
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If you're interested in pregenerated scenarios, I'd check out Heroes of Rokugan III at http://heroes-of-rokugan.com/. This is a 5-year living campaign set in the Spirit Wars, and the 3rd 5-year campaign to run. The first two were admin'd by one of the authors of 4th ed, and he passed the torch off to a few guys from Kansas to do this one. The admins are kinda (sometimes extremely) slow at responding to requests, but the mods are fun and full of Rokugani flavor.
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May 2, 2012 13:14
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Yoshimo posted:Are there any good pregenerated/published scenarios? I know there's the one in the back of the book (which we've done) and the one that came out on Free RPG Day - Legacy of Disaster? But I don't really have the time just yet to start making my own stuff up. Any ideas? I had some success with the 3rd Edition pregen, Tournament of the Emperor's Favoured, as an introductory scenario. It does require a bit of story adjustment depending on when your campaign takes place (as its set while the Kitsune are independent from Mantis), but its reasonably simple and a nice tournament. You should be able to find it in the RPG resources section of the main L5R site.
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May 2, 2012 14:01
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True, but I just ran the 4e Intro Scenario last week, which is essentially another (albeit less combat-oriented) Tournament 
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May 2, 2012 14:12
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Yoshimo posted:True, but I just ran the 4e Intro Scenario last week, which is essentially another (albeit less combat-oriented) Tournament Whoops, I misread your post. No other free ones come to mind, but then again I've only run a couple sessions of L5R. I have read through the pregen that came with the GM Screen, "Descent into Darkness", and it looked like a good scenario with the aftermath giving some good opportunities for future sessions involving the same village. Its not especially long though, and you can read most of it using the PDF preview on DriveThruRPG.
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May 2, 2012 14:24
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TheCommodore07 posted:If you're interested in pregenerated scenarios, I'd check out Heroes of Rokugan III at http://heroes-of-rokugan.com/. This is a 5-year living campaign set in the Spirit Wars, and the 3rd 5-year campaign to run. The first two were admin'd by one of the authors of 4th ed, and he passed the torch off to a few guys from Kansas to do this one. If you follow the links on the HoR3 page to the HoR2 page, the HoR2 Scenarios page has downloads for the entire campaign, basically. You'll have to do some conversion work, since it's in 3e, but the scenarios are mostly solid as long as you're willing to deal with the MMORPG roots of the campaign.
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May 2, 2012 16:53
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Yoshimo posted:Are there any good pregenerated/published scenarios? I know there's the one in the back of the book (which we've done) and the one that came out on Free RPG Day - Legacy of Disaster? But I don't really have the time just yet to start making my own stuff up. Any ideas? In the vein of older stuff, there are a trio of awesome old published adventures from a site called TastesLikePhoenix.com. They're all set pre-Scorpion Coup. The bad news is, that site is out of commission, the good news is that you can still get the pdfs of the adventures from Archive.org: Mirror, Mirror: http://web.archive.org/web/20050410022257/http://tasteslikephoenix.com/articles/mirror.pdf Mirror, Mirror Pregens: http://web.archive.org/web/20050410022257/http://tasteslikephoenix.com/articles/mmchar.pdf Fortunes Lost: http://web.archive.org/web/20050410005620/http://tasteslikephoenix.com/articles/fortunelost/fortuneslost.zip Pregens on this page: http://web.archive.org/web/20050410005620/http://tasteslikephoenix.com/articles/fortunelost/index.html Hindsight materials on this page: http://web.archive.org/web/20050410022300/http://tasteslikephoenix.com/articles/HindsightIntro.htm I think Mirror, Mirror should be fine run in the time period of 4th Ed -- it's a pretty intense Shadowlands-based adventure, which involves the Crab Winter Court. It prominently features Hiruma Kage, who was the Daiymo of the Hiruma Clan, but I think he could easily be written out and replaced with some other, similar Crab dude. It also features a prominent Shadowlands character from the overall metaplot, but if you're not elbow-deep in metaplot, it shouldn't matter. Fortunes Lost should be fine in the 4th Ed time period -- it features some metaplot NPCs, but there's no reason why they can't be transferred to the 4th Ed time period unless your players are sticklers for that sort of thing, or replaced with similar, modern NPCs. There are also some Shugenja that utilize a technique that was specific (I think) to 3rd Ed., but you just have to replace them with an equivalent threat. This adventure probably won't work as well if you're doing a lot of stuff with the Spider Clan, but I can't really say why without spoling the whole thing. Hindsight I've never run personally because it looks incredibly challenging to run properly, both in terms of what's required of the GM as well as the players. It involves time travel to a period of Rokugani history that's written up in the Imperial Histories book, so that could be a lot of fun and could ease the conversion process. The adventure is completely bananas, and is worth a read even if you don't plan to run it.
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May 2, 2012 21:16
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Any tips for running L5r? I am about to start up a new campaign, first time doing something this "roleplaying" heavy
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May 2, 2012 21:33
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^^^I'd honestly consider restricting player options, if it's your group's first game. While inter-party conflict is one of the charms of this game, it can very quickly get out of hand. Only allowing PCs of one Clan (or a bunch of allied Clans) gives them a shared motivation. Having a Lion and a Scorpion PC during the Gozouko era, for example, will quickly end up with one of them (the Lion) brutally murdered. A bunch of Schools, too, (though not so much in the Core game) are unsuitable for PCs - either they're drastically underpowered, have a very narrow and rarely useful gimmick (Kaiu Engineers), or they're just not suitable for group-play (Ninja). If you're all pretty experienced, though, and it's just your first time running it, then ignore everything I said. Start with, like, a tournament or something.
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May 2, 2012 22:18
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Well we are experienced with hack and slash RPGS. If I go with just the book of fire ((Major clans + bushi/magic/talky guy)) Ill be fine right? Also going to run the starter adventure.
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May 2, 2012 22:31
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If you are going to have a lot of different clans try and have the leader as a dragon and/or a monk.
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May 2, 2012 22:43
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Going to be playing a Matsu Bushi after five or six years since I last played 2nd Ed. of L5R. Messing around with a No-Dachi for fun. Somehow walked away with Honor 8 out of chargen. So my question is ..... How loudly should I be screaming about my honor? .. And how much honor can I expect to lose when the Crane duelist obstinately takes on every challenge for me?
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May 8, 2012 11:41
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The Chosen by the Oracles Advantage - it says it adds 1k1 to Ring Rolls of a Ring of your choice - would you say that includes spellcasting too?
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May 9, 2012 19:27
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Strength of Many posted:.. And how much honor can I expect to lose when the Crane duelist obstinately takes on every challenge for me? A Matsu bushi wouldn't let that poo poo fly. The Crane can only take on the challenge if you let him, and it's dishonourable for someone to just bust in on your challenge after you tell them no. Prepare to die a glorious death on the wrong side of a Kakita's katana, or take some ranks in Games (or argue that go falls under Battle) and turn it into Rokugani Yu-Gi-Oh. Remember: The challenged determines the arena of dueling. The single-stroke duel is tradition, not mandatory.
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May 9, 2012 20:35
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Yoshimo posted:The Chosen by the Oracles Advantage - it says it adds 1k1 to Ring Rolls of a Ring of your choice - would you say that includes spellcasting too? Alas, it does not. A Ring Roll is specifically "Ring" keep "Ring". So, a Void Roll is a Ring Roll that is Void keep Void. An Earth Roll is a Ring Roll that is Earth keep Earth. A spellcasting roll is Ring + Rank keep Ring, and therefore not a Ring Roll.
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May 9, 2012 21:53
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So what happens if you are chosen by the Oracle of Thunder?
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May 9, 2012 22:08
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Valgaav posted:Remember: The challenged determines the arena of dueling. The single-stroke duel is tradition, not mandatory. This was eliminated in fourth edition, see page 50 of the PG. Unconventional duels happen only on the battlefield or by mutual agreement (even if that agreement is coerced somehow). As far as I can remember, it was actually only present in third edition, and represented a big departure from John Wick's "Iaijutsu is everything because the Crane have been cementing its position for a thousand years." The challenged party DOES get to specify time and place, though, so if you want to put it off for a year and throw yourself into a training montage, that's doable, as long as the GM doesn't punch you. NinjaDebugger fucked around with this message at 22:11 on May 9, 2012 |
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May 9, 2012 22:09
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Yoshimo posted:Are there any good pregenerated/published scenarios? I know there's the one in the back of the book (which we've done) and the one that came out on Free RPG Day - Legacy of Disaster? But I don't really have the time just yet to start making my own stuff up. Any ideas? I ran my playgroup through 1st Edition's "Code of Bushido" in our 4th Edition game, and everyone had a blast! Just a few setting-related stuff needed tweaking for what we were playing, the actual adventure is mostly fluff and works just fine. There are also a ton of "Challenge/Focus/Strike" formatted adventure hooks on the AEG forums, as provided by fans. A lot of them are... well... not so great, but here's a thread with some decent hooks that give a GM a lot of leeway: http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=13670&start=3
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May 10, 2012 04:52
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The Book of Air is out this week, albeit in short supply. It's mostly a fluff book, but I still recommend it warmly, if only because an associate wrote chapter five (Rules for kite-fighting are yes!), and they finally spelled my name right in the credits as a play-tester. Unfortunately, it looks like the elemental books will be dividing up information that I'd rather have had all in one book into five small, hard to find sections, scattered over 5 books. As always, the art is amazing, but it's definitely not essential.
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May 10, 2012 16:41
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Valgaav posted:A Matsu bushi wouldn't let that poo poo fly. The Crane can only take on the challenge if you let him, and it's dishonourable for someone to just bust in on your challenge after you tell them no. Prepare to die a glorious death on the wrong side of a Kakita's katana, or take some ranks in Games (or argue that go falls under Battle) and turn it into Rokugani Yu-Gi-Oh. I do have ranks in Games and a not insubstantial amount in Etiquette and etc. Iaijutsu is actually my weak point.. But the character wouldn't avoid it if called out. NinjaDebugger posted:This was eliminated in fourth edition, see page 50 of the PG. Unconventional duels happen only on the battlefield or by mutual agreement (even if that agreement is coerced somehow). As far as I can remember, it was actually only present in third edition, and represented a big departure from John Wick's "Iaijutsu is everything because the Crane have been cementing its position for a thousand years." The challenged party DOES get to specify time and place, though, so if you want to put it off for a year and throw yourself into a training montage, that's doable, as long as the GM doesn't punch you. Strictly speaking if they (the GM) are not willing to meet other means by which to conduct the duel and won't let you training montage, its either something very plot important (understandable) or (likely) they are being a dick. In the former I would trust their direction, if the later I can find other people to play with. I trust my GM and I am in more of a lighthearted style of game so I don't see it being an issue. There is just something funny about competing the Crane to see who can be the most honorable. Strength of Many fucked around with this message at 19:21 on May 10, 2012 |
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May 10, 2012 19:14
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NutShellBill posted:The Book of Air is out this week, albeit in short supply. It's mostly a fluff book, but I still recommend it warmly, if only because an associate wrote chapter five (Rules for kite-fighting are yes!), and they finally spelled my name right in the credits as a play-tester. I preordered it from Amazon only to have it go immediately from "not out yet" to "out of stock" They need to print some more books.
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May 10, 2012 19:47
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