Prospective Mechanics: General System

I'm still planning on designing a system around using Cards, they are faster and honestly more enjoyable to use than Dice. Most people are used to the cards and they have a tendency to work faster than dice do, by a good measure. It does makes the numbers hard to handle, but that is why I'm focusing on the most solid system I can design around converting the 4th Ed system to a card system. I think you all will like what I have, it's fresh and different, not just simply adding up 5 different sources of numbers now (more like 3 sources).

As for errata, I think its not a bad idea to include it while in the conversion process. The reason errata exists is typically because they are clarifying text or repairing horribly broken mechanics, and rarely but sometimes they just fix typos. It's a fix that should be taken into consideration, I believe.

Oh, that has been well taken into account. I feel the same way. When I get a chance to demo the system to you all it will make sense where I was coming from.

I'm not thrilled with the system for quite a few reasons:

1) This is a huge swing in randomness.

2) There is only a limited ability to add to the draw.

3) This makes School Techniques that give any kind of Static bonus a huge advantage.

4) Re-draws take a lot of time.

I'd highly recommend reviewing the 4th edition design diaries by Shawn Carmen that were published while developing l5r 4e at www.kazenoshiro.com/2013/01/28/l5r-4th-edition-designer-diaries/ (I recommend the 3e ones as well but I can't find them). The concept of the 4e skill system was that Traits should determine what a character is capable of while skills represent what they've learned and thus how they can achieve their potential. Mechanically Traits were supposed to be superior to skills and skills were supposed to be superior to school techniques (in other words, a high Void monk can out-duel even a trained bushi, but the bushi can still out-duel a wet-behind-the-ears Kakita).

I'm concerned that this system is too random, removing agency from the players. It also just doesn't feel particularly heroic. I like getting a big bonus to a draw.

Instead, I'd propose a very simple change to the card draw system: change the draw to Trait + Trait + Skill + card. This puts appropriate emphasis on the traits while still allowing characters who want to focus an opportunity to do so.

Alex,

The issues with the Trait + Trait + Skill + Card come to heed when you consider that its first of all already hard enough for people to count Trait + Skill + Card + Other. I have been witness to far too many people taking up too much time trying to count multiple sources of static numbers.

2nd: Static numbers are actually the problem with the numbers of the current LARP. Too many static numbers make it too easy for people to min max and cheese their way to total victory, case and point look at Mitch's current character in duels. He legitimately has a 1% chance of failure against any other build this game can throw at him, we ran the numbers. This isn't because the staff did a bad job in conversion, its because he has all of the static numbers possible with little effort.

3rd: When you take a step back and look at the purpose of Kept dice and Unkept dice you can see why I went with a concept like this. Kept dice are going to determine what you can achieve, which is represented by your trait. Only through explosion nonsense can you achieve greater than your kept dice. Unkept dice help even out your averages. The more dice you roll the better chance of you gaining your average number which you can of course only keep via kept dice. Unkept dice are almost always represented by the skill.

4th: There is a small miscommunication about how the redraws work. Lets say for example I have a skill at 5 and draw a 3, I then immediately draw a second card and can choose between the two (no shuffling the deck and wasting time). If I void and draw two and both happen to fall at my skill rank or below I can draw an additional 2 cards, and choose one of the 4.

5th: I've been running lots of numbers and I am convinced that we will need to have the draws changed to Trait + Trait + Card Draw. While I was trying to keep the numbers small, I want more emphasis on the Traits as well as when I logically pull back the conversion ratio a 5 in the tabletop becomes a 2 in the LARP (generally speaking) and thus if you have a TN of 15 in the tabletop and a trait of 3 you roll a 3k3 vs 15 which on average you should always be succeeding. With the pulled back LARP numbers we would be working with a TN of 6 which if you have a trait of 3 you will always succeed (Trait + Trait).

6th: This also gives us another avenue to "add" in bonuses from other sources such as schools and what not instead of the current method of "lets add more static numbers....". Its a fresh concept that is halfway out of the box from the norm.

Lastly I would like to mention of a new Mastery Concept I'm playing with. General Mastery. This boils down to being if you have any skill at 5 or higher, when you use said skill and draw equal to or beneath your skill you may immediately draw a second card (which is normal with the current proposed system), if your second draw is a card equal to your skill or below, you may immediately draw a 3rd card and choose from one of the three. That is the General Mastery 5. The General Mastery 10 will be that you gain a free raise when using the skill, which is a rule that currently exists in the tabletop anyways and for the most part will only confer a +2 bonus to the draw or a free raise that they may take for anything else they wish to do (extra attack action's and such, we all know the drill).

I hope everyone can give the concept system a chance and play around with it. I know it looks rough and is different from the norm, but I have a good feeling that it will work, especially after playing with it so much myself. I will post more details later after more testing is done, I'm still going through combat and dueling.

First, thanks for running the numbers.

Second, I'm about to go off on a bit of a digression. I appreciate the indulgence.

There are a lot of different larp systems out there but I'm just going to share my experience with l5r larps. My first l5r larp just used the tabletop game (3e had just come out) but since the game was almost entirely social interaction it never caused game to slow down. The few times we did need numbers were times we really needed to crunch numbers and we wanted something that was a tabletop game.

My second l5r larp was City of Stories which used the official AEG larp rules. These came about from the 2005 Gen Con larp. It was the first time AEG had ever run an RPG event that could affect official storyline, and so Shawn Carmen put together a very fast conversion of the second edition l5r system using card draw for expediency. It worked well enough for a single event but was never intended for a long-term game and broke down very quickly (in fact, when AEG heard we'd been using those rules for a five year game their response was basically, "Good lord, why?").

There've been a smattering of other one-shot larps through Heroes of Rokugan which basically didn't use mechanics, but when they were necessary went back to tabletop rules.

Finally, there's been Eastern Horizons. I think we all know the benefits and drawbacks of its systems. I will simply say that Ian has said on several occasions that he wishes he'd done Trait x 2 for tests.

There are chiefly two benefits to a card draw system. The first is that it is fast. There's a lot less math involved in calculating dice pools and adding things together, especially as much can be added in advance. If you think someone is a slow player with cards, I assure you they're three times slower with dice. The second advantage is that they're portable. We can run scenes literally anywhere people can stand. And while many people joke that a card system means you're just standing instead of sitting to play, the fact is that sitting to play out a scene does change the feel to a much more tactical situation rather than an immersive one.

There are two main benefits to a dice system. The main one is that it's detailed. The dice system models the world of Rokugan fairly well. It allows a lot of range and flexibility and is very well suited to the types of challenges inherent in the game. The second is that the material for it works (not that it's perfect, but at least its flaws and solutions are well-documented). Not only is there a core book for a proven game, but we have a dozen sourcebooks of material that doesn't have to be converted.

Now I'll admit that I'm partial to using the system as-is just because I like it. I'll also admit that for any kind of mechanics-based challenge this becomes disruptive ( #thingswefuckedupin7thsea ), but the proposed fixes are sounding more and more complex. A bunch of us here are mechanics-junkies and our instincts are to make a good system; when we come across flaws we try to modify the system but in doing so we make it more complex, which negates the entire purpose of a simple card-based system.

Now my ideal solution is probably not viable: I want to go dual-system. Cards (using Trait + Trait + Skill + misc + draw) for quick, simple challenges, and tabletop rules for more extended and complex scenes. The problems with this system are numerous and it's not a serious suggestion (ask me why it doesn't work!) but it's the only way I can think of to get a system that covers both eventualities. The real solution is going to be coming up with a system where we can accept its flaws, not one where we try and put more patches over them.

I'm willing to give the proposed system a shot but I'd like to do something that I think benefited the 7th Sea team before game started: let's get the ST team together and run through a one-shot using the proposed rules so we can all experience them in action.

I will happily leave the mechanics stuff to those of you who are happiest with them, but I did want to bring up the concept of Raises. I personally HATE raises, as I don't like that you can fail a roll you would have made handily, just b/c you tried to do a little more. I also don't see Raises being used well, if at all, in play at EH, but they still show up in school abilities and other rules areas. I vote for ditching them entirely, but I'm curious to know how you plan to handle them.

I love Raises but feel that most players don't. Most players would rather get a guaranteed or likely success, even if it's small, then they don't call Raises (there's also the issue that the perceived benefit often isn't that good). There are a few ways to make Raises more appealing to players: reducing the wild-swing nature of the draw is one such way. Increasing the benefit Raises deliver is another. The best way, however, is to get rid of blind TNs. Shugenja call more Raises than anyone else because they can reliably hit the basic TNs and they know what they can push for. Bushi rarely do since a wasted attack is about the worst thing that they can do with their turn.

I'd love to see Raises get more love; to me it's not l5r without Raises, but they're going to take a lot of work to use well and to educate players about how to use them.