For Stu: Rokugan by GURPSlight!

[carrotandstick]

Oct 13, 2015 3:14:55 GMT -8 maxinstuff said:

I'm wondering if the GURPS Powers book might be helpful to you in this endeavour.

*makes "ooooOOOOOOOOoooo" face*

I will have to take a look. Thanks for smacking me in the face with the obvious solution, I needed it in this case. ;-)

[maxinstuff]

Oct 13, 2015 11:27:25 GMT -8 carrotandstick said:

Oct 13, 2015 3:14:55 GMT -8 maxinstuff said:

I'm wondering if the GURPS Powers book might be helpful to you in this endeavour.

*makes "ooooOOOOOOOOoooo" face*

I will have to take a look. Thanks for smacking me in the face with the obvious solution, I needed it in this case. ;-)

No worries m8

Also, I also have just come back after an offspring related life event that lasted longer than expected (damn those lil buggers are high maintenance).

[G.I. Joe]

This is a really interesting idea, but I have to say while it seems restricting for players to be locked into their "class" that is really only the school techniques; which are explicitly taught by the school. The individuality of characters comes from their skill/ring levels. Yes, there is an "optimal" build for each character that would result in the highest chance to succeed in whaterver they happen to be good at; but that would be boring. The fun of L5R comes from building characters with flaws that make following the Code of Bushido difficult. Also, not EVERY memeber of each school is alike. That is why there are alternate paths and separate skill ranks. I could play a Pheonix courtier, who kept his lore skills at 1, and kept Intelligence at 2, but then had 4 awareness, Courtier 5, Sincerity 3, and Ettiqute 3. The school techniques are there simply as a guideline, they do not define the caracter, simply the school.

That said, I love both systems, and since you are doing all the work, I would recomend looking at GURPS Martial Arts. It may help you with the techniques and making the different Bushi schools feel different.

[carrotandstick]

Oct 14, 2015 7:54:46 GMT -8 G.I. Joe said:

This is a really interesting idea, but I have to say while it seems restricting for players to be locked into their "class" that is really only the school techniques; which are explicitly taught by the school. The individuality of characters comes from their skill/ring levels. Yes, there is an "optimal" build for each character that would result in the highest chance to succeed in whaterver they happen to be good at; but that would be boring. The fun of L5R comes from building characters with flaws that make following the Code of Bushido difficult. Also, not EVERY memeber of each school is alike. That is why there are alternate paths and separate skill ranks. I could play a Pheonix courtier, who kept his lore skills at 1, and kept Intelligence at 2, but then had 4 awareness, Courtier 5, Sincerity 3, and Ettiqute 3. The school techniques are there simply as a guideline, they do not define the caracter, simply the school.

That said, I love both systems, and since you are doing all the work, I would recomend looking at GURPS Martial Arts. It may help you with the techniques and making the different Bushi schools feel different.

The schools (Bushi, Shugenja and Courtier) were intended to be "Styles" as defined in GURPS Martial Arts...I thought I mentioned that was one of the books I was using in post 1? But thank you for the very appropriate suggestion. =)

And while yes, it is quote possible to differentiate characters mechanically in Roll-And-Keep, even Pathfinder has better ability variety in their classes than L5R does in theirs. And in a system as utterly lethal as L5R, not optimizing your character (maybe not to min-max level but to a fair degree) is an invitation to a swift death. And I get rather attached to my characters! At the end of the day, it took too much effort to make characters feel different mechanically, and that frustrated me.

As for following the code of Bushido, that comes down to roleplaying. Both GURPS and L5R have robust merit/flaw systems that encourage such play but it's down to the players in the end.

[G.I. Joe]

Oct 15, 2015 1:31:58 GMT -8 carrotandstick said:

And while yes, it is quote possible to differentiate characters mechanically in Roll-And-Keep, even Pathfinder has better ability variety in their classes than L5R does in theirs. And in a system as utterly lethal as L5R, not optimizing your character (maybe not to min-max level but to a fair degree) is an invitation to a swift death. And I get rather attached to my characters! At the end of the day, it took too much effort to make characters feel different mechanically, and that frustrated me.

Well, L5R has only four classes: Bushi, Courtier, Shugenja, and Monk. Of those four, only the bushi (and Spider Monks) are supposed to be ready for combat. Shugenja can be combat effective, but most of their duties are religious. Courtiers are shit at combat, which is why they have Yojimbo. Monks can be VERY combat effective, but are usually pacifists, and only fight if attacked (with again the exception of the Spider Monks). So if you think of it that way, then L5R actually has a lot of variation in the classes. Each school is not its own separate class, but a subset of that class. I am not sure how you could represent this in GURPS except for styles and talents. I believe that Monks have the most variation between the different orders. For example, let's compare the Togashi (Tatooed order) and Spider Monks, as both of these orders are actually a part of a Great Clan, as opposed to an order like the Brotherhood of Shinsei, which is unaligned. The Togashi have some CRAZY OP abilities; Volcano tattoo alowing them to have their upperbody LITERALLY turn into lava, Centipede tattoo allows for insanely quick movement, and Pheonix tattoo that brings them back to life. However, the Togashi are strange, and rarely fight. To contrast this, the Spider Monks are the most Bushi of the monk orders; focusing only on becoming stronger through fighting. They have a very different feel to each of them. Similarly, a Mantis bushi is very different from a lion bushi. This is probably why inter-clan games are recommended in L5R. It allows for more variation between characters, but I still say that characters can be very different, even within the same school and still be very effective in combat, mainly because of advantages and disadvantages. Think of Savage Worlds, where (according to the podcast, as I have never played it and only skimmed the rulebook) mechanically a fireball and ice magic attack have the exact same effect, but the flavor text of the spell makes them different.

The reason systems like Pathfinder, D&D, ect have more variety to their classes is EVERY class is built for combat. So comparing L5R classes to those systems is unfair to L5R. Similarly, in a classless system like GURPS, if two people want to play swordsman --unless, or even if, they are using different types of swords -- they will end up feeling the same; at least in a combat situation and assuming that they are at least somewhat optomizing so as not to die because GURPS is far deadlier than even L5R. They will have a higher than average DX and quite a few points in their appropriate skill. However it is the advantages and disadvantages, non-combat skills, and characterization that differentiates them.

Going back to L5R for a minute, while two characters may be mechanically similar, that doesn't mean that they have to have the same feel. You can have Hida Bushi 1 who is on a personal quest to not just defend the wall, but drive the Shadowlands back to the Festering Pit! [Super unrealistic goal, but it makes for a really good motivation] Then you have Hida Bushi 2, who mechanically is identical to 1-san, but his motivation is that it is simply his duty to be the wall that protects the Empire from the Shadowlands; and he is in no rush to go galavanting off into the Shadowlands.

I guess that what I am really saying is, "So what if two characters are mechanically the same or similar? They definately don't have to be in L5R, but even if they are, so what? That doesn't by any means mean that they have to be played the same way. To quote you again: '[it] comes down to the roleplaying.'"

[carrotandstick]

Oct 15, 2015 13:11:02 GMT -8 G.I. Joe said:

Oct 15, 2015 1:31:58 GMT -8 carrotandstick said:

And while yes, it is quote possible to differentiate characters mechanically in Roll-And-Keep, even Pathfinder has better ability variety in their classes than L5R does in theirs. And in a system as utterly lethal as L5R, not optimizing your character (maybe not to min-max level but to a fair degree) is an invitation to a swift death. And I get rather attached to my characters! At the end of the day, it took too much effort to make characters feel different mechanically, and that frustrated me.

...

We are going to disagree here; I've stated my difficulties with the L5R schools system and its rigidity and constraints it places on character concept and execution in my posts. If you disagree, bully for you, but this discussion has no value in furthering the conversion. If you wish to contribute, very well. If you've come here to disagree then please be on your way and stop taking up thread space.