Err... um.... now I have to look through the book...
So, this is fantastic timing, I know, but I have some IRL stuff going on (funnily enough, I need to make preparations to move to japan) and so I won't be able to keep up my pbp games with any real consistency. Happy rolling, guys.
Hope you have a great experience there Derz. Take advantage of it!
And hey, one of the best things about PbP games is that timezones don't matter.. you're welcome to rejoin us when you get settled in over there. Have a safe journey!
Good luck derz. So I can not find the scroll thingy... may have most likely possibly sort of kinda a hold over from old edition. *shuffles feet*
Good luck derz. So I can not find the scroll thingy... may have most likely possibly sort of kinda a hold over from old edition. *shuffles feet*
Yeah I know one of the things they changed from 3rd to 4th is an "in general" purging of most free raise mechanics. But not all.
Let's play with it that way (with the free raise) to see how it works in practice. If I think it ends up being abusive I'll reserve the right remove it.
And of course if you do end up finding a place where the rules still mention it, then there we go :)
A couple of words of advice for Hideyoshi's benefit, but a reminder wouldn't hurt the rest of y'all :)
Combat is deadly in L5R. Full attacking almost guarantees you'll hit, but in turn it also nearly guarantees you'll be hit as well. The Matsu berzerkers survive because of teamwork: they cover each other. (well, that and the Matsu army is the biggest in Rokugan.. there's alot to be said for just swarming with numbers :)
The "guard" maneuver is a big deal. It can make turn the powerful Full Attack option from "one shot wonder" to "juggernaut". The podlings don't have the best of attack rolls but they do potentially get two attacks per round.. leaving a teammate at TN5 or 10 is easy pickings even for those little guys.
Another potentially awesome combat trick is spending a void point to up your initiative score by 10 during one round. If you're within 10 of the bad guy this trick will give you a 2 to 1 action economy edge, and with L5R's combat lethality, that's devastating. Unfortunately here and now the Podlings got an uber initiative roll thanks to an exploding 10.. but it's still a trick you should keep in mind in general.
Thanks for the advice GM, I've done the usual 'make sure you have a backup character', but had forgotten/not really 'clicked' with how not to have your PC die in the first place ^.^
A couple more tips:
Don't forget that you can spend a void point to reduce damage taken. Healing in L5R is relatively harder to come by than in stock fantasy like D&D. Spending void for "proactive healing" is often a good spend, especially if it prevents you from getting crippling wound penalties.
I also discovered a neat find.
It's especially useful for those new to the L5R game mechanics.. it allows you to get a feel for how the probabilities specific to the Roll-N-Keep system work for or against you on any given TN you're faced with.
There's absolutely no question you just insulted his retinue by rubbing their noses in the mess. Whether or not the hatamoto takes offense will rely on how your awareness/sincerity check comes out. (which is directly applicable to your Failure of Bushido flaw, btw.) You can roll it yourself or I'll roll it on your behalf when I post resolution on that. You did make a lovely, tense situation that's ripe for roleplay from the rest of the party. I'm holding off on posting resolution of your backhanded "acceptance" of the hatamoto's gift to allow everyone else the chance to roleplay their involvement in or reaction to the situation that has arisen.
There's absolutely no question you just insulted his retinue by rubbing their noses in the mess. Whether or not the hatamoto takes offense will rely on how your awareness/sincerity check comes out. (which is directly applicable to your Failure of Bushido flaw, btw.) You can roll it yourself or I'll roll it on your behalf when I post resolution on that. You did make a lovely, tense situation that's ripe for roleplay from the rest of the party. I'm holding off on posting resolution of your backhanded "acceptance" of the hatamoto's gift to allow everyone else the chance to roleplay their involvement in or reaction to the situation that has arisen.
Upon reflection, I think awareness/etiquette is the better skill for this situation. Sincerity would be for "I didn't mean to offend you!".
The flaw still applies.
I'm not going to call it an opposed roll, so that means I should give you a TN. I am curious however if you want to insult the bodyguards but not the hatamoto or if you were just proactively roleplaying the penalty :D
If you want to offend noone, your TN will be 10.
If you want to take a dig at the bodyguards but not offend the hatamoto, that'll be TN 15. If you succeed you'll deal them an honor hit for being made to endure your insult. (these TNs don't include the penalty raise for no effect)
Just read the minefield Katsuyoshi gave us. I'll try and have a diplomatic response up in the morning.
Whatever happens in the current scene, it's been a very neat roleplaying opportunity for everyone. I'm going to award Mirumoto Katsuyoshi an experience point for giving us all this scene to play with :)
...offer my blade to your service and the defense of your daughter, till such time as your people have been restored and this threat has been slain....
I want to be clear so I can have the NPCs react based off what you meant..
Is Katsuyoshi offering the katana to keep, offering to loan the katana, or offering his oni-killing services as the gift?
I presumed the gift was the katana to keep, but now I'm not so sure after that post. Based on your roll Katsuyoshi's intentions should be clear to NPCs.. but I just want to make sure I'm understanding what you meant.
I also presume his father's wakizashi is not part of the offer.. if it is now's the time to clarify :)
OK, the lions thoughts is my mistake. Thought that was bolded for some reason, clearly italics. Should not read on phone at work. His original intent was to offer the blade in place of the golden one that was lost until it could be retrieved. As he has gotten himself in so deep he had to dig himself out, hence the new terms that can be interpreted as an extension of the original gift. He is attempting to sincerely offer his fealty to the lord for the duration of the time it takes to slay the creature, not a thing to be taken lightly.
got it. wanted to make sure I didn't mis-format something
Nope, just my brain not registering formatting correctly.
Hmm that's interesting, is Katsuyoshi's fealty his to give? I thought he would owe his life to the emperor through his daimyo, is there precedence for this or has he just declared himself ronin!?
The question of whether it's his to give or if it belongs to his daimyo is one I was pondering as well.
At any rate, this moment in the scene is generating more discussion than roleplay so I'm going to go ahead and compose a post to move us on.
There is precedent, the same as when a samurai of one clan is trained in the dojo of another clan. You have fealty to your original daimyo, but you have a form of fealty to your dojo as well, the no spreading of dojo secrets and such. Fealty is a multi layered thing, and there are plenty of cases in which a samurai has conflicting loyalties that he or she is forced to sort out. As long as the hatamoto does not command me to go against my daimyo, my clan, or the Emporer I should be fine.
Hey guys as a heads up... the only way I can connect to paizo atm is via my phone. Hopefully they fix the forum so I can log back in again on my computer.
Edit: Ah, my computer is still logged in. I fat-fingered "sign out" on my tablet and now it can't get back in.. I can still access my account on my computer but I'm scared if I hit signout here too I won't be able to get back in.
Hope they fix this soon. :(
Hey guys. On vacation sans internet until the 6th. Sorry for the hiatus.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Enjoy Olmek :) Going anywhere exciting?
To everyone else: I am having a blast playing this and wanted to tell you all that too. Katsuyoshi... I was genuinely tense when I was reading that exchange you initiated!
:D
System is down. Back up on Monday
With this being a big holiday weekend for many of us, I'll go ahead and hold off expectations of moving the scene ahead until the 6th or 7th. Those who can post in the meantime: feel free to roleplay with one another.
I'm going to provide some fresh material later this evening... I'm for now holding off to give a chance for the people returning from the long holiday weekend a chance to get settled and respond to the existing roleplay opportunity before I move us ahead.
I'm back! Catching up now.
Adding emphasis katana as well as meditation and tea ceremony to katsuyoshi.
I had stuff come up today and didn't have time for gaming stuff. I'll get the next update up tomorrow for sure, sorry guys and gals.
All good GM :)
So I'm a bit confused on how one gains Honor points. I've reread pages 91-93 in the rules, and I thought I was sort of going for that as part of talking to the young guard. There is a line item noting 'showing kindness to someone of lower station'. It does fit in with Hideyoshi being Idealistic - the Courtesy part of Bushido, even though some may not approve of him talking to guard, taking time from the investigation, etc. The RP part of gaining Honor is tricky, finding it in combat is simpler!
Let me know if that's how you are judging it, I'm raw with this game - not even new!
So I'm a bit confused on how one gains Honor points. I've reread pages 91-93 in the rules, and I thought I was sort of going for that as part of talking to the young guard. There is a line item noting 'showing kindness to someone of lower station'. It does fit in with Hideyoshi being Idealistic - the Courtesy part of Bushido, even though some may not approve of him talking to guard, taking time from the investigation, etc. The RP part of gaining Honor is tricky, finding it in combat is simpler!
Let me know if that's how you are judging it, I'm raw with this game - not even new!
The rules of L5R in general don't go for firm delineations.. what attribute is linked to what skill is left to the GM's discretion given the context of what's being attempted, and even what skill is appropriate is often (intentionally) nebulous as well.
So it's not surprising that something that is as hard to define in the real world as honor is also not very black and white under the game rules.
There are general paradigms at work.. one is that (generally speaking) it's easier to lose honor than gain honor. another is that its easier to gain honor when you have little than when you have a lot. You can't take the chart literally, because if you do one might be able to rocket to 10 honor in an afternoon just by helping every little old peasant you meet. A paradigm that I add in is that honor gains generally occur when you make some sort of sacrifice.. you could have picked an option that would have given you some benefit, but you choose the honorable route instead.. that's when I see honor gains as most appropriate.
So, in the case of giving a pep talk to encourage the kaisatukan.. I'll think out loud for you here:
On one hand, he is indeed lower status than you because the rank and file of the Thunder Guard are up-jumped peasantry or very low ranking samurai (bastard sons of Geisha and so on). As I hinted, he is suffering from the immediate aftermath of a scolding from high ranking samurai- If I had to stat that kaisatsukan out fully he's taken some degree of a glory hit for the admonishment in front of his peers and superior (counts as public in my book), and an honor hit for the glory hit.
On the other, what is the consequence of giving you an honor boost for that action? I'm setting a precedent that honor can be gained with virtually no cost to achieve. Maybe it's better to say Hideyoshi's action was appropriate roleplay.. he's already a soul purer than most in the Empire, and certainly purer than most in this particular city. Maybe it's better to say that's what's expected of him, rather than above and beyond what is expected of his honor rank as is a normal benchmark for honor awards. I certainly approve of your roleplay; maybe some sort of other award is more appropriate than an honor gain to encourage more of it.
It's been a while since I gave out honor or xp, and I said I wanted to be liberally sprinkling character opportunities for character advancement in this adventure/campaign. So I'll continue to think on this. But now you know what the shoulder kami/oni are whispering in my ears as I do so :)
Got it, thanks! I did read the table, but I did see it as more difficult than 'any peasant'. I can't see stopping to say 'have a nice day' to every farmer I walk past. The table does seem to scale: its harder to advance as you get higher in rank. If I read it right, 10 points of Honor equals one rank, so if Hideyoshi is 6.5, then just a pep talk for the guard probably isn't enough. At 6.5, it is expected of him. The RP was more for fun than reward, but I wanted to get a grip on some system/GM things, so I asked.
Again, thanks!
Sorry folks. State revue going on, I will be kind of flaky for the next week. Will try to post as often as I can.
Speaking on a metagame level, this scene in the Unicorn warehouse exists to finally give you guys some solid clues about what the heck is going on in the adventure storyline. Doji Oruku isn't supposed to boss you guys around and despite being the ranking magistrate in charge, he's not supposed to be in charge.. he's an NPC that exists to facilitate your navigating through your PC's heroic investigation :) I thought you guys were a little too reliant on his directions, so I let you guys off his leash there to come up with your own ideas about what to look into and theorize what your next moves should be. So I empathize that it kind of feels like you suddenly went adrift.. I cut you loose there!
I'm ready to have Oruku come get you and plot with you about what your next moves should be, but I want to give Katsuyoshi some extra time to execute whatever idea he has involving the spirits.
If we don't hear from him by tonight I'll put something up to provide some more impetus.
Thanks GM O. I don't want to sound like I'm not appreciative, I'm really enjoying the game! This just seems to be a hard thing to do in pbp - the mystery. I'm currently running Book 3 of Carrion Crown which has the PCs in a similar situation, and they are struggling as well. I think its because at the table you can bounce ideas back and forth in real time. This allows you to work through it as a group all at once. In pbp, its MUCH harder to get a flow of ideas going.
I've taken what I'm learning here and using to help move things along in my game!
Glad to hear you're still having fun :)
I did get home tonight later than I anticipated, so no gameplay update tonight. I'll get us tomorrow morning.
Let's see if I have successfully figured out how to post some pictures w/o letting any secrets out of the bag :)
Ew that Oni is horrible!
I think it's the spindly limbs that really convey how vile it is!
I got a PM from Doji Himeko that he's too busy RL and dropping out. I want to at least give the others still active a chance to post before I move the story on.
Sorry to hear Himeko is dropping out :s
I will see if I can find another player!
So who is left besides Xiaoxing and myself that is actively posting? I think Katsuyoshi, and he said the week was going to be rough so understandable.
I'm motivated to keep the game running so I don't want this suggestion to come across as an early warning of GM burnout.
But what if we give the game a hiatus over the weekend? We're down to three players at this point, and come Monday hopefully we'll have all three back. If we can find any more interested players in the meantime, it'd be better to work them in during a moment like the one we're in that is the segue between two scenes.
If you'd rather not do a short hiatus over the weekend, say so and we can keep the game running and move on to the next scene.
May be best. Just got our deficiency free inspection over so my stressful crazy period is over.
I'm happy to do whatever to support both players and GM so this can keep going, until we started playing I hadn't realised how much I missed playing in Rokugan!
Well, I just bought a rulebook to be in this game, and am enjoying it thoroughly, so you can guess where I stand.
I've come to learn that sometimes the players will come up with plans that the GM never anticipates. But sometimes they also fail to think of routes that the GM did anticipate, as well. Without the chance in a PBP to talk as freely as in a face-to-face game, I'll offer a few suggestions and reminders about courses of action available to you:
As a Magistrate, Doji Oruku has the authority to commandeer some Thunder Guard to help provide muscle/numbers to your party.
The sliding cargo door is within line of sight of the guards at the smaller personnel door, but it's potentially possible to sneak in that way.
The oiled rice paper windows on the 2nd story aren't going to physically keep you out either. You can surely find some safely outside the view of the guards outside, but getting up to go through presents a physical challenge regardless.
You have some magic at your disposal other than Katsuyoshi's spells.
If the Crimson Sunset Cartel truly is involved in selling stolen goods as Oruku said he suspects, it'd be useful for the warehouse to have secret ways in and out. Maybe you can find one, if one exists.
Perhaps you can glean some information about what's going on inside without actually having to get inside.
Maybe there's more options as well! Of course the downsides to many creative ideas is that skulking about like a common criminal comes with an honor loss :(
Katsuyoshi has two earth slots and two void slots left just so it is known. I do not possess many spells that could help in this situation, but i may be able to talk a kami in to doing something.
I'll have a post up tonight with that retroactive attempt to be useful.
If this scene feels kind of a bait and switch, it sort of is. You were scripted to meet Ikyoto upon leaving the Scorpion warehouse.. but I figured that since I'm hoping we'll get some new players, I thought I'd kick the can on executing the raid and give any potential new players a handy in-story explanation for their sudden arrival: they were rounded up to help!
I have to confess i am thoroughly lost on what to do next, so I am going after the first lead - the Crimson Cartel warehouse. Hideyoshi figures we are here to investigate the plottings of an evil plan, and this where we were supposed to start. The monk just confused things for me, so to action.