Discussions of Honor (OOC Thread):

So this is for any out of character conversations.

Thanks for running this, Whistler. I'm excited for those "quick dips into the Shadowlands for easy xp" that my IRL gaming troupe always joke about.

All good mate, glad you're looking forward to it. All I ask is that everyone keep in mind its my first L5R game.

Everyone's got to learn sometime mate. I've found PbP to be a really good way of jumping into new games and learning at a steady pace

We shall see how it goes, well hopefully. I have found some really good DnD supplements recently that have helped a lot with campaign planning and villain crafting that is applicable to other systems as well.

Hey guys! Glad to be around and hopefully learn L5R. I am experienced in D&D but I am more than glad to try something new and starting from scratch and easy with this sounds awesome.

Quick question though, does any of you have the 5e to share? I could find up to 4e...

You can buy the L5R 5e version through DrivethruRPG here. I'll be buying my own copy next week. If you don't want to buy a copy of the book, I am happy to help step you through character creation and teach the mechanics once I have had a chance to read through it.

I'll wait so that you can help me in the character creation and the mechanics, I assume that reading some 4th Edition might teach me the lore and some of the mechanics and understand better the 5th edition. So I'll work with that in the meantime. Cheers!

The mechanics are completely different in 5e so I wouldn’t focus on those to be honest. The lore and background is mostly ok but FFG have rolled the timeline back a touch but the basic gist for how the clans interact with one another and their roles in the empire should hold up ok

From what I have heard they have binned the scorpion clan coup, which I am fine with but yeah, I will be using a lot of 4e source material for setting information and updating it when I buy the 5e version of Emerald Empire.

I have started to read through the 5e book and came across an interesting concept.

"Many samurai voluntarily become rōnin for a single year, typically in the year or the second following their gempuku. Considered to be a healthy outlet for a young samurai’s desire to prove themself, this allows them to sharpen their skills and temper their attitudes with experience. Having experienced hardship in the outer Empire, most return and swear fealty to the clan anew with true loyalty rather than an inculcated sense of duty.

While a rōnin is technically still samurai, they have no lord, no clan, and no family—and thus, no purpose. Rōnin are forced to find work as mercenaries or bodyguards, eating dumplings bought from foul heimin merchants and earning their straw bedding with the skill of their blade. Some resort to banditry or crime to gather the coin they need to live, but at least this is still an earning wrought by skill at arms. Even the lowest rōnin is higher than the bonge."

So the thought this spurred was that if you would prefer, we could do a game that centres around this type of Ronin, with you coming together to travel across the Empire. I like this idea since it wouldn't just restrict us to the Crab lands and is less restrictive. I'm happy to still run the Twenty Goblin Winter as part of this type of campaign, your characters just wouldn't join the Crab once you were done, you'd just move on with the respect of the Crab. If you would prefer to stick to the original game concept though, I am cool with that as well. I just wanted to float the idea out there.

I’d be happy with that, would mean we wouldn’t necessarily have to take the Ronin school as we’d only be dipping out from our clans/families

You can get the 5e Beta here to get the gist of the rules, but be warned: I don't know what has changed between this and the final published version. I've been reading this off-and-on all day, it's a cool system.

I do like this idea, and it says samurai usually go back to their previous clan, but one wouldn't necessarily have to. It is lacking that flavor of redemption, where these bedraggled and beaten-down samurai finally find their place again. But that could be handled in other ways, for sure.

Qralloq being the first player to join I shall leave you with the deciding vote. Mechanically speaking if we went with this option, I would have no problem with you stating up a beginning Samurai from your normal clan. In game though, you would just be recognised as Ronin.

There’s also nothing to say we couldn’t be a mixed group, some ‘pure’ ronin and some ‘part-time’ ronin if you get my meaning

Yeah I have no problem with that but Qralloq was sold on this as a Crab focused game and I don't want to pull the rug out from under anyone because another idea has occurred to me. So if they are cool with it, then we will alter what we are doing and if not, we'll keep the original concept.

No, no, don't worry about me. I'd be just as happy playing a Unicorn Battle Maiden! The temporary young adult rite of passage Ronin idea had a lot of appeal.

Cool, that will let us get out and explore the whole Empire and I definitely want to do a stint in the Shadowland with the Twenty Goblin Winter. I have also found a good character sheet here. I'm not sure how things work on this site but if you guys want to use it then feel free.

Also after a little more reading, I can see this whole Ronin journey thing being done to help you all hone your skills and increase your school rankings and once you have achieved an acceptable rank, you return home to pledge service to your lord and begin to represent your clan or at least that is the plan. In fact, I could see this being a standard practice across the entire Empire so that less skilled warriors don't shame the clan. So basically you train with your school, complete the Gempuku, become a Ronin, travel the Empire and hone your skills, return to your clan periodically to undergo additional tests and once you are deemed worthy become a fully fledged and well-travelled Samurai.

I have also updated the Character Creation board with the steps involved. For those that don't have the book, just give me your character concept and we can work our way through the mechanics of it.

Hello there people! I am finding myself slightly constraint in learning and reading what is requiered to even create the character. So I guess that I might drop to leave the space for someone that is used to L5R cause I am learning from scratch and I don’t seem to catch up with it as I wanted to... sorry...