New Mechanic: Strife, Stress Dice, Unmasking and Complex Social Conflicts

 

Uma versão em português desse documento pode ser acessada aqui.

Recently, I had a conversation in the Rokugan discord about taking more rules from L5R 5e to use with 4e, specifically Strife. I always liked this mechanic from 5e and have used it in 4e with mixed success once or twice. 

Here’s my latest attempt at making it work in a satisfactory way. Soon, I intend to playtest these rules with my own group. When I do that, I’ll post an addendum with the results and an example of play using our experiences here.

Here’s a Player Reference Sheet to help you and your group with the rules presented in this article.

Rules for Squads and a New Advantage: Squad Commander

 

Regras em português aqui.

Squads represent the faceless nameless masses of antagonists in any good action movie. These rules focus on allowing the GM to use these large groups of enemies against the player characters in a simple yet engaging way, simulating action scenes against dozens of foes who are defeated in droves.

Be aware that, while easily defeated, squads can still be quite lethal. One squad for each PC in a combat, plus one extra per bushi can make for a fun fight with real danger. When having actual NPCs with full sheets as opponents, maybe just a couple of Squads to round-up the action economy in favor of the NPCs can help create a more equiparable challenge.

These rules were originally created MANY years ago by a user from the old AEG forums that I unfortunately don’t have the name anymore. Since then, I refined them until they got to the present state.

Altered Combat Stances and Maneuvers

 Regras em português aqui.

These rules are supposed to be used while entirely removing the Simple Action Attack techniques from bushi schools out of the game. My group has being using these for a couple of years and we've found that it makes combats A LOT more tactical and interesting. PCs have being using different stances and maneuvers beyond Attack and Full Attack or Increased Damage for the first time since we started playing L5R.

Marriage and Legacy

In my games, once per year during Winter, the players have the opportunity to deal with several subsystems relating to their families and dynasties. As previously discussed, this is the moment samurai get rice from their lands, money from their lords and when they pay their dues to keep living like the nobles they are (or lose it all…)

This is also the moment they can arrange marriages for themselves, their relatives or allies.

Living Standards and Principles of Rokugani Samurai Economy

In my games, I find it useful to differentiate between two “classes” of samurai: the first is the Household Samurai, a landless warrior that lives on the generosity of their lord, receiving a small salary for their service. The second is the Landholding Samurai, those who received the right to own land, have their own servants and lives on the production of their lands. These rules are modified from the Pendragon RPG to delineate the difference between them and establish the Living Standards model of yearly economy for my games. Additionally, I use 1 Ryō = 4 Koku as a new monetary unit, as can be seen below.

Campaign Diaries 00 - Jade Crows Rising

This is the beginning of the campaign diaries for my game, following the exploits of a group of young samurai from the Kusanagi Clan, vassals of the Matsu branch of the Yamagata Province, the Matsudaira Clan. In this post, I’ll just introduce the background of the campaign, being the third in a series of interconnected games our group played over almost 20 years, and the PCs.

Be aware, our Rokugan severely departs from canon. The Clan Wars, Scorpion Clan Coup and Hida Kisada’s rebellion all happened roughly at the same time and ended with Bayushi Shoju on the imperial throne, becoming the first emperor of a new dynasty that rules for the last 30 years.

BACKGROUND

Status and Glory Rework, and a new skill (Lore: Samurai)

I’ve been preparing to post about my “Alternative 20 Questions” for character creation, but before I do that, I need to set some new ground rules that are used in my version of the game. Status has changed only slightly. Glory and Infamy, on the other hand, not only got the most changes, but also became a vehicle for character advancement and greater connection to their Household.