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Post by yojimbohawkins on May 25, 2018 7:18:49 GMT -8
I posted the following in the G.I. Joe thread about the court game he's planning: So, let's talk about the oni in the room: Honour. I have seen more arguments at an L5R game over whether a character's actions are honourable or not than I'd like (which is why I like to have the Honour table to hand). Flippantly, I used to have a rule of thumb whereby if you needed to justify how honourable your character's actions are, you can pretty much guarantee that they aren't! However I feel that it's important to set the tone honour-wise as soon as possible.
Try not to use Honour as a reward for the players at the end of a session. Making it a reward in that way can make it as important as gaining XP to some players in a purely meta-game sense, and that's not really what it's for. Imagine if you took away some earned XP from a player in the next session; there's probably going to be a discussion (and perhaps a robust one!) as to the why's and wherefores’ of that GM decision, and I feel that a lot of similar discussions about losing Honour can be headed off by trying to avoid Honour rewards. I like to award XP at the end of the session, maybe even Status or Glory, but not Honour if I can help it. I prefer to talk about it in game, referring to the Honour table if necessary for new players, and award or remove Honour as I go. My main reason for this is that talking about it puts it right up front (which is a central tenet of the game for me), and it gives the players the chance to weigh up their choices; just because an action is dishonourable doesn't mean that the player shouldn't do it, but is it worth your, and by association your daimyo and Clan's, honour? Sacrificing your Honour is as big a deal as sacrificing your life in this setting, so it should be something L5R players have in the back of their minds during the game. Keeping Honour present in game allows those choices to be meaningful, even for the more 'dishonourable' Clans, and hopefully it will eventually become something everyone acknowledges without having to talk through it, which is largely (for me anyway) the ideal way to deal with it.battlematt suggested having a separate thread to talk about Honour in L5R, after posting the following: I'm happy to see you bring this up, because IMO Honor is possibly the most problematic element in L5R's mechanics, and I'm seriously considering not tracking it at all. But a discussion about this would probably be better left for its own thread.So here it is. I feel your pain, battlematt. The only thing I would say to not tracking it is that there are some school techniques that are affected by Honour, so I feel that you would need to ensure that any players running charaters from those schools were adequately compensated in another way. It would also make the Lore:Bushido skill irrelevant, which may not be a problem if no-one uses it. I generally play courtiers, so I use it all the time, but YMMV obviously. Finally, I like to use the Honour roll (but as it's optional, that might not be a problem), and of course it helps with Fear checks. Are you planning on trusting the players to RP it out?
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battlematt
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Post by battlematt on May 26, 2018 7:01:42 GMT -8
Well, I'm a special case since I'm considering doing a hack on the game, so I'm not shy about changing things up. I can cut or remake Skills as I go along. But here we go:
Honor was one of the features that I really liked at first, because it forces the players to learn the basics of Bushido. Then I slowly started to take a disliking to it.
No matter which way you look at it, Bushido isn't a universal truth, so Honor becomes relative to your perspective (since the stat itself is meant to portray how your character feels about itself and Bushido). It is not a problem if you are an "honorable samurai" in an "honorable clan", but once you get into a clan that views Bushido in a different light (or play a Ninja or a Monk for that matter), the Honor system kind of breaks.
(Unless I'm misremembering, the 5th ed beta attempted to correct this, but that the solution was pages and pages of tables?)
I feel that any feature in a game should (ideally) have a clean and elegant implementation. Honor isn't that. It needs to be addressed in some fashion. I get the feeling that the scope of L5R over time has grown beyond what it initially was built to do, and that playable Crabs, Scorpions, Ninjas and Spiders are an afterthought. Dropping Honor entirely /might/ be the easier way if we're going to keep all the options.
And then again; hack enough things off and change things around too much, and it's no longer L5R.
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fredrix
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Post by fredrix on May 26, 2018 8:41:34 GMT -8
Or, drop the ninja and spiders. They have no honor.
Personally one of the reasons why I love L5R is the in character discussions we have about what the honourable path is. (And it’s not being a Ninja or Spider)
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battlematt
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Post by battlematt on May 27, 2018 5:46:06 GMT -8
Or, drop the ninja and spiders. They have no honor. I agree. It get the feeling that elements that were meant to be bad guys in the setting were promoted to "playable" status at a later stage. Personally one of the reasons why I love L5R is the in character discussions we have about what the honourable path is. (And it’s not being a Ninja or Spider) I like that part of the game as well, but sometimes I feel like having Honor implemented as a stat just creates a lot of book-keeping. Btw, does anyone here know how Honor and "dishonorable" characters were handled in the very early editions of L5R? Has Ninja been a playable class all along or not? How about Scorpions and Crabs? (I don't consider either Scorpions or Crabs dishonorable, but they are a clear example of clans that have their own take on Bushido, and the Honor rules don't exactly encourage them to play that way.)
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Post by yojimbohawkins on May 28, 2018 13:22:17 GMT -8
The thing about Honour is that it isn’t just about the samurai and their view or relationship with the version of Bushido represented in the game.
I believe there are three parts to it: internal, external and metaphysical.
Internal is how the samurai view themselves and the Honour table in the 4E corebook reflects that. This is why, for example, a low honour samurai gains honour from carrying out a dishonourable act on the orders of their daimyo, but a high honour samurai would lose honour from the same act.
External is how others view the samurai’s honour. This is represented by the lower starting honour of samurai trained at, for example, the Bayushi Courtier school, when compared to a school like the Doji Courtier one. Everyone expects the Scorpion to be dishonourable, and everyone expects the Crane to be honourable. It’s also why the Lore:Bushido skill exists, as it allows a character to gauge an opponent’s honour (which in turn can be a useful indicator as to the character of the samurai in question), and why the Perceived Honour advantage exists, so that skill can be fooled.
Metaphysical is represented by the Honour mechanics in game, but also by the fluff. I’ve had players try to talk me round when they have committed a dishonourable act with no witnesses, and assume that if no-one knows, then there’s no dishonour. Apart from the fact that the samurai themselves know, the world of Rokugan knows, as do the honoured ancestors who are affected by everything that happens in the world. The Celestial Wheel is real, the other spirit realms are real, and the actions of everyone reverberate through them all. There’s a reason why only the most honourable samurai get into Tengoku, after all, and everyone knows this; if there were any doubts, the War Of Spirits provided cast-iron proof of it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the way Honour works in L5R, because I’ve been tinkering with an L5R GeneSys hack (there is one already out there on the FFG forums and it’s not bad). I actually started mine based on the Star Wars RPG, so I began creating talent trees for the schools and when GeneSys came out, I started trying to translate school techniques into talents that were only available to the school in question. As far as Honour goes, I quite shamelessly stole the Morality system from Force & Destiny and applied it to L5R. So Honour would now on a scale from 1 - 100 and the starting Honour for the schools is just the 4E starting Honour multiplied by 10. The same effects and thresholds of Morality apply, but affect GeneSys story points instead of Destiny points. I haven’t play tested it yet; I’m still working out some of the kinks, but I have played and ran a lot of FFG Star Wars games, so I feel that Morality as Honour might work quite well.
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battlematt
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Post by battlematt on May 28, 2018 23:15:51 GMT -8
At work now, so I don't really have time to process this properly. Will read through again later.
Lots of good and interesting points there though! Looking forward to contemplating this.
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battlematt
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Post by battlematt on Jun 4, 2018 8:13:39 GMT -8
(Long and excellent post.) Lovely explanation of how the different sides of Honor work Hawkins! That text should have been in the 4E book, instead of the way they just brushed it over there. The idea of Honor having a metaphysical aspect is one that had not even occurred to me before, but it makes complete sense. I had not considered the external aspect much either, but your explanation makes it work for me. Thank you! I still feel that the implementation of Honor in the game is kind of broken though. Firstly since it grants an advantage to some clans over others. (I understand that this comes from the external aspect of Honor (i.e. that some clans are held in higher regard than others), but with how the rules are written, it would mean that a Scorpion or a Crab generally is easier to seduce or intimidate than a Crane, which just seems ridiculous. And it becomes especially skewed if you're going with the optional rule to reroll failed Skill rolls using Honor.) And secondly, the multifacetedness of Honor actually makes it difficult to make a good, cleanly cut stat out of. Ideally, I think stats on a character sheet shouldn't be vague, as to not cause confusion about what they actually mean. I feel like I should come with a suggestion here, of something better to do with the Honor stat, but so far I haven't had any ideas that didn't seem unfair. And I would not want an Honor stat that is divided into even more stats, as this would be the last thing L5R needs. To me, Honor feels vague enough that I keep questioning its use, other than a carrot for the players to at least try and follow Bushido.
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Post by Stu Venable on Jun 18, 2018 19:47:03 GMT -8
I see Honor as an analog to the Samurai's self-esteem, within the context of the tenets of Bushido.
There is absolutely no "getting away with" a dishonorable act, regardless of who sees it. I'm pretty remiss about adding and taking away honor; however, my players engage in a lot of internal and external dialog about what the honorable thing to do is.
It's always wonderful when two or more tenets of Bushido come into conflict, but to be perfectly honest, I would feel like a dick if I took honor away from a character when the player has spent so much time agonizing over the right choice. I like that inner agonizing, and to punish it with an honor hit seems counterproductive if I'm trying to encourage it.
If my players were acting like murder-hobos with katanas, yes, I would inflict honor losses, but that doesn't happen very often. And the only time a character did something that I thought definitely deserved an honor bonus, the character died, so the point was moot.
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battlematt
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Post by battlematt on Jun 19, 2018 12:10:43 GMT -8
I see Honor as an analog to the Samurai's self-esteem, within the context of the tenets of Bushido. There is absolutely no "getting away with" a dishonorable act, regardless of who sees it. ... If my players were acting like murder-hobos with katanas, yes, I would inflict honor losses, but that doesn't happen very often. And the only time a character did something that I thought definitely deserved an honor bonus, the character died, so the point was moot. U said "analog". (snicker) Thanks for weighing in on the discussion Stu! So, judging from your first two paragraphs, you are basically using the internal and possibly the metaphysical aspects of Honor (that is at least how I interpret the "not getting away with it" comment, which also is reinforced by the presence of "Ghost Dad" in the latest installment). I know you have a nice and casual style to GMing, and in L5R it seems your players are more concerned about Honor than you are. I like that. I'd love to hear more about how often other L5R GMs adjust Honor. Are your players like Stu's, so you don't need to? Or are they cold-blooded munchkins, so you have to do it all the time?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2018 23:29:04 GMT -8
With past groups I think I could have taken the same approach as Stu as they weren't murder hobos but generally I take the approach of updating honour at the start of each session. Part of the reason I've maintained it was due to always having at least one character who had a school ability that was impacted by their honour.
The other reason is that I find it helps players keep in sync with their character session to session. I always like to stress that the samurai of rokugan are just human (which seems to insult a lot of old school l5r players) and I find that having their honour fluctuate helps reinforce that.
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Post by yojimbohawkins on Jun 21, 2018 0:59:08 GMT -8
I found this blog post whilst doing some research into Shourido (the game I was playing in had bushido vs shourido as its central theme, so I created a Susumu Courtier for it. Yeah, I know). It's possibly one of the best analysis of both bushido and shourido I've read, as they pertain to L5R and Rokugan. I'd urge anyone playing L5R to give it a read.
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battlematt
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Post by battlematt on Jun 24, 2018 6:49:48 GMT -8
I found this blog post whilst doing some research into Shourido (the game I was playing in had bushido vs shourido as its central theme, so I created a Susumu Courtier for it. Yeah, I know). It's possibly one of the best analysis of both bushido and shourido I've read, as they pertain to L5R and Rokugan. I'd urge anyone playing L5R to give it a read. This blog post finally convinced me that I have to keep tracking Honor. Thanks JimboH! I will just have to figure out how I should do it. However, on the topic of Honor, here is another interesting thing: I recently dug up an old Swedish "samurai fantasy" game, called "Drakar & Demoner Samuraj" to see how they handled Honor there. The game itself is based on the generic fantasy game "Drakar & Demoner" and uses a version of the BRP system. The setting is strictly influenced by feudal Japan alone, and most of the things occurring in the setting is lifted directly from Japanese history and/or folklore. In "DoD Samuraj", Honor is treated as sort of a cross between what L5R calls "Glory", and the external aspect of Honor, as discussed previously in this thread. Additionally, the GM is encouraged to keep the Honor table secret, which I found interesting. The players should only know the following basic things: - Honor is very important to both the individual and the family.
- You usually pay a lot of attention to what other people think of you and your family.
- Someone who dishonors himself is also dishonoring his family.
- Things like money, power and influence matter not without Honor.
- One of the worst things you can do is to break a promise or an oath.
Then the GM-only part describes Honor like this: - Honor is a measure of your moral qualities in the eyes of others.
- Honor is ALSO a measure of how well your family has behaved over the centuries.
- Tell the players what is considered honorable and what is considered dishonorable, but do not let them know how they have done until after the adventure has drawn to a close. They should not act just to gain Honor Points.
- You should let the characters' Honor Points reflect in how they are treated by others. A person with high Honor will generally be shown more respect, and be offered better opportunities.
- For Ninja and Yakuza characters, Honor represents the Honor they have inside their clan. They do not get an Honor penalty for carrying out an assassination, unless they assassinate someone in their own clan without sanction.
- Ninja and Yakuza characters use an alias that has its own Honor Points. This will have to be regulated separately.
- If a samurai's Honor goes into negatives, he should immediately commit Seppuku to save the honor of his family, or prepare to adapt to life in the lower casts.
After this, the rule book introduces the concept of Karma. It turns out that this is what Honor Points are used for in DoD Samurai; they just go towards building your next character. When a character dies, the player can use Honor Points to: - Raise Stats.
- Get more Skill Points.
- Raise their starting Honor.
- Raise their starting Wealth.
If a character dies with negative Honor points, the next character will have a penalty when rolling its Social Status (which will affect starting Honor and Wealth). Then there is a really interesting section about Seppuku (though they weren't able to spell it correctly). What I took away from it were these points: - Seppuku is a way of preserving the Honor of your family. It does only rarely affect your own Honor Points.
- Seppuku is a privilege that is granted to only samurai (usually by your Daimyo).
- Seppuku is not a way to "put things right", but a way to stop yourself from committing the same mistake again. If you have committed a dishonorable mistake, you correct that mistake, and THEN you commit Seppuku; "To make a mistake without making it right is an even bigger mistake."
- It would be dishonorable to commit Seppuku to get out of a duel, or to get out of administering vengeance upon someone.
- Kanshi is a type of Seppuku that is done to make your Daimyo aware of problems with his administration of the prefecture, without dishonoring him by pointing out his flaws or mistakes. This may be done without your Daimyo's permission.
- Funshi is a type of Seppuku that you commit in order to throw blame and dishonor upon someone that you are unable or unallowed to harm otherwise. You begin by boldly calling out every misdeed that person has done, after which you proceed with your Seppuku.
- Junshi is a type of Seppuku that is committed by loyal subjects who would rather follow their master in death than live on without him.
- Jigai is a type of Seppuku that is exclusive to women. She will not slit her belly open, but cuts her own throat with a knife.
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