Let's talk about your characters

Right beside Saintes, barely an hour's drive from you

Wow indeed, we're neighbours :o

That's great :)

@mcneils5
How is Toshi going ?

@Eyeofskadi
Do you want to answer and take the real initiative of the battle to come ?

I'll answer tonight, after work.

Hey, still need to get the last couple of bits with them polished off. Works been crazy the last few weeks but I'm off next week so should have a bit more clear time to get finished and up to speed with everything.

And whilst I think on I need to do you some rolls......

Just a note about my katana. I did mention in my background that I left my original katana with my family when I left the Crane. The katana I currently carry was gifted to me by the Dragon clan and is very plain.

Oh right. I'm sorry.

I'll correct after a bit of sleep. Do as if I didn't write that.

First: i've updated my post so that the katana is not from the Crane Clan. Thanks for the call here Kalajel.

Second: one question after reading Itsumi's post. I wouldn't want to appear quibbling here, but does it seem consistent to you all, given the battles waged so far, that a single series of passes is enough to kill 5 militarily trained opponents, at once ?
I more or less remember that Reiko and Suzume struggled to defeat more than two opponents in the same action, and a lot of times it was only temporary for the second opponent.

We'll go with the flow for that round, as it is currently written, but I would like your opinion for the next posts, please ?

It would depend on the roll really, what I used as a rule on the first fight, was that every +10 increment on my roll above the difficulty set was a definite kill, and that the last, incomplete +10, i'd leave the action open for your decision on the result. On a really good roll that was 2 kills and a maybe. Then the difficulty of the roll had a bit of influence on the result of the fight beyond just success or failure. That was my rule of thumb, you could make it every +5,or every +difficulty/2 or whatever, or decide o' something else entirely

This seems to be one of those games where story telling trumps rules mechanics. Seems whatever helps with making a cool story would work, within reason.

For example, during my combat, I was fighting mostly unarmed against armed peasants, so it would make sense for me to be able to knock out or hamper about up to two opponents at most per round as I would have had to dodge and weave inside the reach of their weapons.

Finally, you are the GM as well as the creator of the game system. If you feel a PC is giving himself too much liberty in narrating his results, you are free to intervene and tone it down a bit: "You killed 5 trained enemies at once? Let's just say you killed 3, and the remaining 2 are now hesitating to attack you after seeing their 3 buddies fall to your blade instead..."

You know what the spirit of your system is meant to incapsulate, and after all, we are playing L5R and not Exalted...

Oh I didn't imagine a single series of anime style passes. But a fight. I just chose more brevity in the description than to describe each individual combat, describing instead the start and end result like how Tolkein wrote the Battle of Helms Deep in Two Towers (he just jumps straight to the after math! and obviously im not comparing myself to Tolkein in talent)

So, he got ahead of his people, got surrounded, used the momentum of his charge to engage and came out victorious. By the end of it his people had caught up and begun to engage the enemy before he could be overwhelmed again.

This, too, could be me not understanding the rule book when you describe the scales of success. Because my rolls met the difficult +3 then I "succeed, no more, no less." so I interpret that as "whatever you were trying to do you succeed at but you don't gain a particular advantage". Is that right?

Maybe a clearer "this is roughly what success looks like, this is what failure looks like with such and such parameters" would help. Examples in the rule book might illustrate the bounds of each better.

In this combat it seemed success was dealing with the enemies, larger success was dealing with them and then something like the smoke shifted in such a way to give advantage to the Crane clan somehow. Then absolute failure would be mortal or severe injury, partial failure wounded or disarmed, meeting the target struggling to fend them off through a series of parries.

Where did the +10 come from? on page 40 it only shows +3 and +6 and -3 and -6.

It's what I imagined would be good increments of the original difficulty, as we are using d10. At that time there was no +3 or +6 anywhere in the rules, and I had to imagine how well I was doing in the fight from a single roll and the difficulty setting. It allowed me to roleplay the fight to an extent. I knew a 36 for a difficulty 12 allowed me to kill at least 2 of the 3 guys I was against, if not all three of them, I left that to the judgement Delio.
From what I understand though, the +/- three indicates a kind of stalemate, and if you reach +/- 4 then you have truly succeeded or failed. What I would understand for a I fight is that on a difficulty 18, if I roll 21 I manage to keep everyone at bay, and maybe injure one or 2 guys, but not kill anyone. I'm not saying I'm right mind, just that that's how I understand the rules.

I've been trying to decide whether to voice my opinion here or not... my concern isn't so much about the mechanics, but the consistency and flow of the character development.... While I will concede to each his own, I am alarmed by Itsumi's transition from the disgruntled commander who was rushed and hyperfocused during the first night, into a man who looks at members of a rival clan as little more than animals. Arrogance is one thing... abject racism and reveling in violence against a dehumanized "other" is quite a different matter. It is chilling to read, and deeply disturbing to me as a player.

Play your character as you want, I will not ask anyone to cater to my worldview here. But Delio has encouraged me to voice my concerns, so... there it is. I am concerned by the sudden transition I saw in Itsumi, and worry about what will happen when he must interact with the other PCs further into the game if he is to remain consistent in his... ah... racial prejudice.

They are different clans, not different races. Mocking the/a symbol that represents the/an enemy is entirely normal. "Othering" them, is too. It's the furthest thing from a racism. Now, it might be interesting to ask where these thoughts/actions fall in line with Bushido and the Honor system (was there a foil to the honor system? I don't see one in the custom rules). Does this system apply to explicit actions witnessed or to ones internal private dialogue as well?

I am pleased that my writing gave you chills though :)

I see that you misunderstood the tone of my comment completely, so let me be clear. It was not a compliment. And the fact that you, the player, take pleasure in my discomfort only proves the point I made.

Ok, thank you all for your feedback.

A bit of explanation for the system then.

The Resolution Table was created in order to emulate the actions to be taken and the obstacles to be overcome, as well as the opponents to fight, both solo and in groups.

In general, when you manage to overcome the given difficulty, you will decrease the tenacity of a rank, until you have completed the task (if the latter requires an effort over time) or defeated the opponent. In the case of opponents, if it is a group, tenacity also represents the number of members of the group you face, they are certainly thought to be second knives and not heroes, but a rank of Tenacity represents an opponent, not the whole.

Taking this into account, eyeofskadi's description is noticeably too advantageous for Itsumi, all the more so that, from a technical point of view, a difficulty of 18, overcome at 21, only makes a margin of 3, no of 6 (which is required so that a success offers advantage too). This implies that the situation should not also become advantageous for Itsumi, which is the case with the return of his men.
However, as I said, we will do with it, it is written that way, and I'll deal with that in my next post.

Yes, I know, the book lacks concrete examples (but on the other hand, the Resolution Table is supposed to address the GM).

Still, Varian raised an important point, and for her part, it is clearly a Red Flag. After rereading, I would tend to agree with her, the comments made by Itsumi are, at the very least, borderline.
This is not "othering" as you may want to. I would agree if we were talking about one corrupted by the magic of Fu Leng, but that's not the case here.
And so, it's dehumanizing, clearly, and not only does it completely disagree with the basic respect I demand in my games, but it also disagrees with the way the characters think and act in Rokugan, and ESPECIALLY in what concerns the obsequious Crane clan.

So I'll ask you to change only that part, only the "pathetic creature". And for the next posts, be careful not to confuse arrogance with pure hatred.

And just to be perfectly clear on that. Next time I read something like that, there will be no mechanics used to vary the character. It will be a direct ban from the game to the player.

That being said, topic closed, thank you all again for your feedback and understanding, and I'm looking to see you soon in game (mcneils5 you can join the game, on invitation of BAYUSHI Akami).

Yes, Varian, you should be challenged by writing. Not that I intended such a challenge. It's quite the compliment to receive, though. Especially over such a hackneyed post.

I fear, though, that you have been adversely influenced (as many have) by the cultural constructionism taught in schools and academia. You are victim to the inane, irrational ramblings of critical theorists and post modernist thought. When you first levied the complaint I had to go back and re-read, "did I write a racial slur? Did I comment on skin color?" I wondered. Why would I do that? But instead I see the most banal description which you found "deeply disturbing."

That ought concern you. That words so banal and common place shakes you to your core.

When I wrote, "What a pathetic creature." I was clearly referencing the animal. Not the people. The way you would make fun of someone who used a worm as a mascot. Or a flea. Perhaps the language barrier created such confusion.

Regardless, I will not make any changes or edits. You will delete or edit as you see fit. I will bow out as we fundamentally disagree on nebulous terms such as "racism" and what is considered "dehumanizing language" and I will not kowtow to such loose restrictions.

I urge you to become "unwoke" for the sake of your sanity and mental health, though. I like you, Varian, and think you're a great and interesting writer but I fear you have been conditioned to feel so strongly about nothing. It's very likely you do not know the origins of these philosophies and so I recommend you this to read.

good night! Good luck! And thanks for all the fish!

I'm going to put my grain of sand in, as there seems to be little point in treading soflty anymore. I'll address the issue of racism and of good writing in the mentioned post because I feel they both need to be adressed. As I've mentioned before, I, like Delio, am from France, so I look at what happens over the Atlantic with an outsider's eye, and at a different angle perhaps than anyone living there. While there is no denying that the US are in dire need of social justice (something France has striven for for as long if not longer than the US, while not achieving it completely either), and prejudice and plain old bigotry (be it racism, homophobia, or any other bigotry) are on blatant display (well, more blatant than usual what with the white house's current tenant), I also feel... Perplexed, let's say, by some of the lengths activists are going to lately in the name of that selfsame social justice. One example among a few is this cultural appropriation shenanigans. In today's world, where the Internet is the great spreader of cultures around the world, and where love and appreciation for someone different than oneself becomes in pretty rare supply, jumping on everyone for any perceived cultural appropriation seems bizarre to me. I get the uproar over blackface, and monetization of another cultures items, but Beyoncé disguised as an Egyptian in a video clip does not remotely ring any alarm bell for me. Another example is Adele's weight loss. Because she was a role model for plus size women, it felt like she wasn't allowed to lose weight if that's what she wanted. I could go on for a while (don't get me started on Rowling's late controversies) but my point is, I feel fairly, well, fair, with both sides of this type of argument. Now to get back to eyeofskadi post.
The text in itself is not stirring. It's fairly confused and while you understand that it's about the Lion as an animal, it's not clear if that's an analogy for the soldiers.
If it is, it's awkward, in the fact that it implies relying on women is bad, while it's a pride of the Lion clan that it's women are equal to their men in everything. If it's not an analogy for the soldiers, while it's less dehumanizing, it makes little to no sense to call pathetic an animal considered as the king of animals by most cultures on earth, that is proud and strong and, well, not pathetic at all.
In any case taunting a man because of his birth (in a specific clan or ethnic group, or because of a physical or mental deformity) is still bigotry if not racism.
As for the second part of the post, good old "bits of viscera flying everywhere" does nothing for me. It's not graphic enough to shock me, and it's generic enough to bore me.
So, was the post "challenging" in the sense of well turned out prose? Nope.
It was awkward to read because it made no sense from a character point of view, or it was racist, or both. What disturbed me though was your first answer to Varian where you were weirdly proud of it, while denying what Varian felt was disturbing him could be disturbing. You could have claimed the character was in fact a bit prejudiced against lion clan for any character development reason, but were instead denying it was prejudice, while being proud that it was disturbing.
When you add to that your attitude of the first chapter where you were ignoring Delio's attempts at storytelling (and at including you in the story) because you had decided you were going to an ambush, eager for some bloodletting (and we've seen what happened at first blood) it feels like you only care about your opinions and view those of others as worth less than yours (either another form of bigotry or sociopathy, by the way)
So like you said, goodbye and good luck.
PS: It's "so long and thanks for all the fish"