We got two. One is basically finished and the other sent in his question answers, so I am looking over those tonight.

Nice! Would be really cool to see this continue.

Any preview of clans/families potentially joining us? :D

Matsu and Yogo

A Lion bushi? That's good, we probably needed a bushi since Mei's gone.

And another Scorpion, >D *evil cackle*.


In other news, I'm not sure we're gonna get any more movement from the most recent GM post. Ichiko's probably swamped with work, maybe we should keep moving?

Or will our new characters be introduced here?

*smoke bomb* I have arrived! IC post is up.

Yay! Shinobi! Go Team Sinister ppl!

What's your history? Are you starting as part of the Detective Club?

Collab? XD

Yuki comes from a long line of Yogo Preservers and Ward Masters. She loves art especially in physical form such as calligraphy, origami, fashion, and painting. These she sometimes combines with some of the Performance arts such as using origami animals to illustrate a story. She is very inquisitive and just recently joined the Detectives Club to hone her detective skills. She has a keen eye for figuring out what sort of gifts people desire and is a devout follower of Benten. Collaboration is always welcome.

Should I just move on with just Yuki interjecting here? No one else had anything to input?

There are a couple more glaringly obvious issues with Ichiro's deduction that I gave out to wholly idle players that one of you could come up with.

I figured Hiruto already had his contribution, but I can jump in if it will help.

Sorry, I got really busy after the US Independence Day. My family's going through some summer cleaning after the holidays and that's consumed all my time after work. I'll try to get something up tomorrow.

I haven't posted in for about a month here. Sorry about that-- it really seems like by the time we got to the whole mystery/investigation aspect, no one was really engaged with that.

I think I did far more work in the world building and reinventing the setting, but I really screwed things up by trying to play through a whole schoolday filled with uninteresting things rather than assuming you are all starting off investigating the core mystery that I promised. And, honestly, I wasn't really nearly prepared enough to have NPCs giving big lectures.

I did really hope there would be more player-to-player engagement here, but the only real flare-up we had was between Akiro and Ichiko and I am not sure that was particularly constructive. Shino in particular has done a good job behind the scenes trying to create background ties with other characters, but it might have been better if more of that had been done publicly.

Anyway, there are certainly lessons to be learned here. But I am not sure if it would be better to try skipping forward and engaging with the originally intended plot or dropping the whole "children" aspect and trying to run through the standard adventure modules with the twist of this reinvented world.

Either path is fine with me. I’m ready to jump back in.

I'm not sure how many people are still left; I see Akiro logged on yesterday too, so that's 3 total so far.

I really like the setting, so I advocate continuing in some form or fashion, but I'm not sure skipping to the investigation would salvage the game at this point. As much as I like my character, I also feel like either restarting the game and recreating our PCs (including new people) to include more relatability to each other, or just running a more standard grown up game would be more sustainable in the long run.

Whatever you decide, I'm down to be a part of it.

For my two cents, you are more likely to get more dependable applicants if doing a full grown up module. Topaz Championship is a classic one that is a rite of passage for samurai and eases players new to 5e into the system.

Yeah, the Topaz Championship really is the default way to kick off an L5R game typically as it gives you an excuse to have a brand new character from every clan all gathered up together. Although run dry, it really amounts to no more than making a bunch of skill rolls and seeing who gets the highest.

I think the changes I made to the setting do open up more reasons to have a group from different clans all together without it having to be that or some imperial randomly summoning a bunch of rookies to assign to some mission that doesn't specifically have to do with a conflict between two clans-- so regardless of what clan they choose, the players can be presumed to be pretty neutral in the whole affair.

Honestly, a good third of the people who were interested in the game were turned off due to using the FFG ruleset. It does feel like trying to track the strife was making things a bit complicated. We only did 1-2 rolls and it felt a bit sloppy.

Maybe the players could all be attending some sort of festival or some big empire-wide competition or attending a Noh play. But there also needs to be a willingness on the part of the players to engage in whatever hooks go out there-- are they going to talk to each other if they meet even though it would be super unnatural to do so? Like-- some sort of recognition of "my character is subconsciously genre savvy enough to notice that you are a main character" or are they going to actively get involved if something goes amiss?

If they are in a crowd and someone drops to the ground choking, are they going to rush in to help or just keep walking and think "its not my problem" and if, upon examination, it is clear the person has been poisoned-- are they going to try to figure out who did it or try to cover it up so whomever poisoned the person gets away with it?

If you make the later choices, then you can't really have a story that goes anywhere. If you character just wants to sit in their shadowy corner and not help anyone and just continue their day-to-day life unless a manic pixie appears, takes an unnatural interest in them and literally drags them into the adventure by their hand... then the story is just going to be them going on with their normal life.

I was also initially surprised when you mentioned using 5e's ruleset. I also first got the game in 4e and I loved the Spider and the Mantis and the overarching plot involving all of them. I wouldn't have expected a setting that used so much of the old setting material to use the new ruleset. Fortunately, I was tied to the story and the clans more than I was tied to the rules, so here I am.

And yeah, I guess my total avoidance of helping that bullied kid and convincing Hiruto not to step up really was totally sidestepping the plot hook, huh? :P Oops.
I had an active plan in mind though, it just involved letting the Mantis kid get beat up first. XD

I think with a more balanced party, like we might’ve had originally, that problem isn’t as pronounced, as usually someone like Sanjiro’s character or Mei's character would’ve taken the charge and roped the rest of us into it. We each get to express our characters and respond to plot hooks stylistically but still go along for the ride.
Similarly, my character might've roped them into plot hooks about gossip and drama like discovering two of the teachers were having a love affair or something.
Not that passivity is not a problem that needs to be addressed by us players. I will definitely RP with more savvy in the interest of a continuing game from now on.

If you’re looking for ideas though, I actually had an idea a long time ago when I thought I had the time to GM games. Now it seems like that will never happen because I’m busy every day of the week, but I still think it was an interesting premise:


A Crab daimyo is holding an annual Wall ‘security council’ event that he’s invited all the clans’ defenders and the Empire’s heroes to attend. (Basically a TED talk)
Although the Crab have always respected this old daimyo, he is getting on in years and he usually just rants about the need for constant vigilance of the incoming Shadowlands threat and maho tsukai/tainted demons among them. The Crab sorta just humor him at this point, as his lands are relatively far away from the actual Wall and the Shadowlands (and they have more pressing investments to make). The rest of the clans, who already think the Crab are too paranoid, usually send inexperienced, misbehaving, or unpopular samurai to attend the seminar out of courtesy. (Excuse as to why it's just noob PCs)
When the PCs arrive, the daimyo is indeed old and cranky and sorta losing it, but there are also subtle signs of corruption in the lands that are supposed to be the most vigilant and vehement about defending against corruption. (Mystery)
The heir to the daimyo and the second son are also causing drama within the household, both eyeing their ailing father's position of power. (Politics)
It's sorta like LotR's Rohan with the king being weak and Saruman's corrupted influence everywhere.

So I came up with this premise because it gives the best of both worlds. It had a courtly aspect, a potential for fun combat, mystery, politics, secrets and plots, and finally, the subject of whether the need to invest more into Shadowlands defense was a good political argument that the various characters could each hold their own opinions and expressions on (disagree with each other about) but would also push them into allying and helping each other when push came to shove (defense of the Empire/common enemy).

Feel free to use it or just hopefully let it inspire you towards a great premise of your own.

I suppose something like that could work. I don't know about the whole "security council" angle. Perhaps it could instead be the more simple and straight forward "got sent to the Crab lands to train".

The reason they get sent there could have anything to do with perhaps they had some experience with supernatural forces that might make others feel they have been cursed or maybe they have a keen interest in fighting the shadowlands due to a personal tragedy and so requested to be sent here to train or maybe they did something incredibly embarrassing or shameful and their family is just trying to get them out of the way until things blow over-- and the Crab are always looking for bodies to serve on the wall.

Then maybe they get there and find that instead of serving on the wall or under some witch hunters or anything that would get them within a stones-throw of the Shadowlands, they instead get sent out to some remote, mean stretch up almost barren land out near the plains above evil.

I just thought of the security council idea because I love courtiers and the social system, so I tried to include a Court in the premise for them to argue in. The training angle seems more for bushi or shugenja, more combat sounding.
Still,I guess it works either way as long as some internal politics are at play. The courtier sent to train might only be there grudgingly.

Well, a courtier wouldn't really be sent to a military training seminar either. Not unless they were in a position where they would be commanding troops.

Although now that you mention it, I wonder to what degree people in-universe ought to really be identifying themselves as bushi or courtiers. If I think back across major L5R characters, while there were certainly those who fell to either extreme it was only to the degree that a person might put a lot of focus into one aspect of their life or another.

But for many more characters, just because you could fight well didn't mean you should be expected to be wholly inept at politics (Shoujo, Toturi, Hotaru/Hotari, etc.) and simply because one spent a lot of time in court didn't mean they should be wholly unable to defend themselves in a scrap.

Now maybe that is because the focus of the story were these clan champions who were expected to be the pinnacle at almost everything except when compared among one another-- but I kind of got to wonder if maybe the whole division isn't game mechanics intruding into the story and altering it until characters in-world begin referring to the game mechanics as though aware they are in a game.

Just like everyone in D&D seems to be keenly aware of what class, level and alignment they are.

Anyway, regardless of the reason the ultimate result would still be that you are trapped out on the edge of the empire where nothing of importance happens and you start to notice that something is not quite right (or is it just a trick of your mind because you are so bored you begin fixating on things that maybe you would dismiss otherwise) and the characters know they are going to be stuck there for an indeterminable amount of time unless something in the situation dramatically changes.


Although this still runs the risk of creating a situation where someone will just exploit whatever ruleset is offered up to make a combat god and feel totally entitled to scream duels to the death over every minorly abrasive interaction they have with anyone. Which makes it impossible to present a situation where people act bristly and suspicious and treat the PCs with disregard so that they then later become suspects.

I'm around as well.

I don't know why things seems to not gather a lot of momentum. I felt like I was responsive to your posts GM, and that I had a good relationship with Sanjiro before he took off, and that the teacher interaction was neat. I felt the premise was really creative and fun.

Slower paced games always seem to suffer a bit. People waiting for other people instead of pushing ahead.

I would be up for another try, but will admit that I have no interest in 4e or 5e myself.

I think Pathfinder would be neat if we are looking for a d20 based system personally, but I know lots of people like the newer D&D editions.

Posting speed is huge, although I know I can't do a faster game at this time. I feel if people had still communicated with us that they were still following along and just got too busy or something, we could've either waited for them or pushed ahead without waiting for them.

I personally think, especially for a setting that draws so heavily on feudal Japan, that those roles would be a very clear distinction in-universe. The distinctions are schools after all, not artificial classes, like rogue or fighter. A bushi (or a courtier) trains his or her whole life to fulfill this one role after all. And shugenja, monks, and shinobi are each already an entirely different class of society.

I think the expected crossover skills comes from the idea of a sophisticated samurai following the virtues. If you're sincere, what's the need to be good at politicking? If you're courageous, you'll be of value in any fight. Also, an idea in Chinese martial arts (and probably other Asian cultures) is if you've mastered one thing, you have all the tools necessary to master almost all other things because of how you've cultivated your mind. Training martial arts just becomes the vehicle to inner perfection, then everything else becomes easy.
I think it's embodied in the 'All Arts are One' Void Shuji.

Since that's such an intrinsic ideal to the culture, of course a bushi would be expected to be good at politics and a courtier would be expected to know how to fight. But no one can truly live up to lofty ideals, and then when politics and large scale clan management are factored in, it becomes where can we use this person most effectively to achieve the best results.


I also think you did marvelously in avoiding full combat duel screaming maniac characters when you did our character sheets for us and worked with us on our individual backstories so closely. I think the best way to screen out those types is just by weeding them out in the application phase.

^^^ Definitely agree with the last paragraph.

I'll agree with that as well!

Well, I felt from the beginning that Hiruto was the one character that was most clearly on the ball in terms of getting engaged with the plot. Although everyone neglected to "visit the questgiver" on the way to school. I probably should have signposted that NPC a whole lot more clearly-- that really veered everything off course.

I don't think the d20 system is ideal either. The D20 system is just built solely around combat. 90% of the ruleset and character sheet are dedicated solely on how you kill stuff or how long you can survive something killing you and then everything else is resolved simply through a very simplified skill roll.

Literally all social aspects is handled through a single attribute and a single skill-- well, two attributes and two skills if you count defensive. And its much the same with anything that has to do with investigation.

And then the D20 version of Rokugan was underpinned by a "samurai" class designed at the height of irrational katana worship. One of the nice things about the revised L5R setting FFG did was that they really stepped down that whole focus on katanas. In reality most of the really famous samurai are generally depicted with polearms, bows or even firearms.

The focus on katanas was more of an edo-period fad-- when the wars were over and those descended from samurai had sold off their armor and horses and weapons of war, and the only thing they had left that could be held onto and carry around as a symbol of their family lineage, even if they were running around in hand-me-down rags and begging for food, was a katana.

I suppose one might think that it started earlier with Miyamoto Musashi's popular books. But even if one were to believe any of his tall tales, most of his famous book for which the setting is named after was about fighting with weapons other then katanas, as much as the whole "two sword style" he claimed to have developed (yet never actually used) is what gets so much attention. But even in his stories of his supposed duels-- he didn't use a proper katana and the people he fought against often weren't using katanas either. It was always something like "I fought the greatest spearmaster in the region and killed him using a stick I whittled down into a wooden sword the day before and with my back to the sun so he couldn't see me after keeping him waiting for 6 hours, then ran away as his followers shot arrows at me."

So where is this whole "a katana is a magical super rare sword passed down through generations and can never be replaced and all of your levels go into enhancing this sword into a magic item" come from? Its perhaps the silliest misinterpretation I have ever seen. Of course katanas can get bend and warped beyond use and replaced with new ones that can be produced. And anyone who is actually using one regularly, whether it be in battle or practice, is going to get new ones periodically. Maybe they might hang one that got used in a particularly notable battle on a wall and keep it there as a trophy, but... its just weird.



Anyway, if we are looking for a more simplified ruleset, but one that respects the more social, investigative and craftsmanship aspects of the setting and decreases the focus on combat, perhaps reworking the World of Darkness system would be an approach. Obviously many of the skills would need to be changed out or expanded, maybe even changing up some of the attributes.

Of course there is no way to turn Physical, Mental, Social so there is some Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Void theme. Not unless I were to say... make 2 attributes each for Air, Earth, Fire and Water then void is an attribute that costs twice as much as the others and covers the weird supernatural stuff.