On Character Creation (Disclaimer: most of this has been copied from thatkid's original post):
Player Name: Your username, please.
Character Name: Your character's name.
Profession: Please choose the closest approximation to your character's profession- Bushi/Samurai/Ronin, Courtier/Scholar, Monk, Spy/Ninja.
Clan: Please name your clan here. Just the name. You should further describe the clan with another app, if it's new.
Family: If you are part of a noble family within that clan, please name it here. You should further describe the family with another app, if it's new.
School: What school or temple were you taught at? Please name it here. If you weren't, simply put down “N/A”. You should further describe the school/temple with another app, if it's new.
Physical Description: A paragraph or so describing your character physically. How old do they appear? How old are they really? Are there any distinguishing markings or features such as scars, birth marks, or something more mundane like hair styling? Are they muscular or weak? Fat, skinny, or healthy? Ill?
Personality: A paragraph or so describing how you expect to roleplay the character. Are they hot-headed, or cool and collected? Callous or caring? Naive or world-weary? Likes and dislikes? Honorable? Are they a criminal? This need not be definitive, if in the course of play you find that you have completely contradicted yourself here that's perfectly fine (I do this myself frequently).
Skills: A paragraph or so describing what your character's skills and talents are. Have they been trained for quick-draw duels? Horse riding and commanding troops? Are they a skilled orator, or a brutish thug who favors intimidation tactics? If they frequently fight, what sort of fighting style do they use? How did they gain these skills? Were they instructed, are the skills innate, or are they self-taught?
Biography: Two or more paragraphs describing your character's life prior to the game's beginning. What sort of immediate family do they have? Where did they grow up? What sort of friends did they have? What do they want in life? Why have they arrived in Amemura?
Goals: What does your character want in life? What are their goals? This may be as simple as “To test their skills against the best swordsmen they can find.” Or it may be several paragraphs describing complex motivations and aspirations political or otherwise.
A Family is a noble lineage recognized by the Imperial government, headed by a Daimyo, his extended family, and their servants and retainers; While Families are also commonly known as clans, a Clan, in this context (and to avoid confusion), refers to a coalition of families, with the strongest or most influential family at its head; other Clan families might be their allies, vassals, or clients.
Name: The name of the family or clan. While a Clan commonly bears the name and mon of its principal family, this is not always the case.
Clan: This is only necessary for family applications: What clan are they part of?
Description: A one to three paragraph description of the family/clan and it's politics. This will be provided later in the thread so new players may get a quick idea of the family. If you want to go further in depth, simply add the information elsewhere.
Mon: The family/Clan's emblem. Allied families on equal footing sometimes combine their Mon for their Clan emblem in a show of solidarity, while powerful ones frequently impose parts of their Mon on that of their vassals as a sign of ownership, and weak, fledgling clans readily acept the honor of integrating part of a patron's Mon into their own, as it helps lend them legitimacy, much as marrying into their family would.
Name: The name of the school or temple.
Specialty: What is the school or temple known for teaching? A certain style of combat? Courtiers? A religion? Ideally, they teach whatever your character is.
Description: A short, one paragraph description of the school, its ideals/philosophy, politics, and members. If you wish to go into further detail, simply append the extra detail after the app- this portion will be used to provide new players a quick glimpse of the school.
We will be using flavor-stripped Legends of the Five Rings rules (though the Shadowlands do still exist). If you are familiar with the system, you may also construct your own character sheet. Homerules/bans are listed below. Otherwise, I will create your sheet for you based on the information in your application. If you make your own mechanical character sheet, please send them to me
via PM.
Similarly, if you are familiar with the system you may choose to tie your school or family (but not your clan) to L5R schools and families (which I'll be doing anyways when I make your sheet). Short descriptions of player-made families and schools (and related mechanics) will be listed in a later post. If/once this gets off the ground, we may get a wiki to compile further information.
You need not ask another player for permission to start as part of their family, clan or school. You do need to request permission to be directly related to them in some way (parent, sibling, best friend, mentor, student, etc.).
-Health is based on Earth x3, as opposed to the default x2.
-Starting exp and status (but not glory, honor, etc.) will be based on character applications. The max starting rank is 5, the minimum is -3. Max starting experience is 120, minimum is 40.
-Users of the Multischool Advantage may freely switch between any schools they have when they rank up.
-The Togashi Tattooed Order is still banned. While magic does exist in this world, sorcerers are extremely rare, reclusive, and generally feared and reviled... but magic ability is not a binary on/off switch set at birth. You may not start play as a Shugenja of any school, but you may be able to learn their skills later on given the proper circumstances. Other schools and things may be banned as we go, but I'll try to work with you.
-With proper plot reasoning, you may learn from a school that is not within your family/clan. Generally this requires an instructor who is willing to risk incurring the wrath of their Clan, and any other story-risks such an affront might incur.
-You may still take advantages/disadvantages that affect spell casting, but you won't gain any benefit from doing so unless you can find a practitioner to tutor you, or outside of very niche circumstances. Everyone has an affinity and a deficiency in certain elements, and these will be assigned based off of your character's personality.
-For expediency's sake, when rolling for you the GMs will always assume you keep your best rolls. If for some reason you want to keep lower rolls, please PM the GM before they roll for you.
FAQ
Q) Why the anachronistic setting?
A) Because of the Rule of Cool, mostly. Also because it means I don't need to worry about historical accuracy, and if I get lazy and decide to stop trying to come up with culturally correct names for NPCs I can just toss out a western name.
Q) Where can I get a copy of the L5R rules?
A)
http://bit.ly/J1nhGbQ) Will there be large scale warfare?
A) L5R allows for it, so yes. It could be a while before anyone goes beyond small skirmishes, though, depending on how people choose to play and the types of characters app'd.
Q) Is character death permanent?
A) Yes, of course. If you go around challenging everyone you meet to a duel to the death, or blindly charging into battle against multiple opponents with no thought towards tactics you could very well end up dead. Even a courtier might run the risk of being assassinated, and just because you're a monk doesn't mean you might not end up on the wrong side of someone's weapon. PvP should be expected, as well. In essence: Be prepared to die, but don't expect it.
Any other questions that you feel should be added/answered here? Just let me know.
In the interest of not being sued, I am going to be purposefully vague in some aspects directly copy and paste this segment. For this, I apologize.
Rolling
Essentially, the L5R system (which we will be using) makes use of the Roll-and-Keep system as well as two sets of stats: Rings, which each contain 2 attributes, and Skills which are exactly as they sound. Rolls are annotated as xKy, where the first number is the total dicepool and the second is the number of dice kept from that pool, and then added together to form your result.
All skills are tied to a particular attribute. The first number, x, in a skill roll is decided by the skill rank + the associated attribute. The second number, which is the number of dice kept y, is equal to the trait.
For trait rolls, both x and y are equal to the trait in question.
Contested Rolls are self-explanatory: All characters involved roll, the character with the highest score wins.
You may choose to Raise the difficulty of a particular roll in order to accomplish more difficult goals, such as disarming or tripping an opponent or targeting a specific body part. This raises the difficulty +5 per raise.
All 10s "explode", adding another die to the pool. Except on unskilled skill checks.
There are two types of cooperative rolls: In one, everyone adds their skill bonus to the primary actor's roll total. In the second, the person with the highest skill's skill is added to the total of everyone else's roll.
Cumulative rolls are self-explanatory, and exist.
Combat
In combat, a character may take a certain number of wounds. As they gain more wounds, they begin to progress through a series of states, each with negative modifiers to rolls in order to represent the injuries in question. The levels of each character's wounds are decided by their Earth Ring multiplied by 3. (A character with 2 Earth would be considered "Nicked" at wounds 6, and "Grazed" at wounds 12, for instance)
In a character's turn, they may take one complex action (attack, mount a horse, string a bow) and one free action (draw a small weapon, say =<5 words, etc.)
OR
One free action, and two simple actions (draw a medium/large weapon, move, dismount, guard someone, say =>5 words)
In combat, a character may shift between several stances:
Attack, the standard stance.
Full Attack, which sacrifices defense for better damage in melee.
Defense, which adds the Air Ring to a character's defense but may not attack.
Full Defense, which prevents a character from moving or attacking, but allows them to add the results of a Defense/Reflexes roll to their defensive stat.
And Center, primarily used in iaijutsu which prevents a character from taking any action but provides a bonus, modified by his Void Ring, to one roll on the next round. That same second round, they also gain a one time initiative modifier.
When attacking, a character rolls their weapon skill against a difficulty level decided by the opposing character's Reflexes Trait and Armor. If their skill check beats the difficulty, they hit.
Each weapon has a stat called DR, which essentially reads as 2k3 (a katana). They add their Strength trait to the pool for this stat. The dice kept decide the number of wounds dealt.
For every full night's rest, a character heals twice his stamina plus twice his insight rank. Skills may aid a character in healing faster.
There are specialized rules of Iaijutsu, but I will not go into detail about them here. Know that there are three rounds: Assessment, focus, and strike. One gives you information on your opponent, the other decides who attacks first, and the last is the actual attack.
Currency
1 Koku = 5 Bu
1 Bu = 10 Zeni
Void Points
You have a pool of Void Points equal to your Void Ring which can be spent for various useful effects, or to use certain Techniques. These can be recovered through rest or meditation, and represent those occasional flashes of inspiration or enlightenment where, just for a moment, everything makes sense, and anything is possible.
By spending a Void point, you may, once per Round:
-Gain a +1k1 bonus on any one roll excluding damage rolls, before I make the roll. If you're performing an action that you feel you absolutely must succeed, declare you're using a Void point then.
-Temporarily gain a rank in a Skill you don't know, avoiding the penalty for using it unskilled.
-Reduce the Wounds you take from a single source of damage by 10- you must declare this before the next Round is posted, and I will assume you do this automatically if the attack would kill you, unless you specify otherwise (or the attack would kill you anyway, even after damage reduction).
-Increase your Armor TN by 10 for one Round, making you harder to hit; declare this between rounds as well.
-Swap your Initiative Score with a willing target for the remainder of the current fight. Only one person has to expend the Void point, and you must do this at the beginning of combat.
-Increase your Initiative Score by 10 for the remainder of the current fight; declare this between Rounds.
-Activate a School Technique that costs Void Points: you may do this instead of or in addition to any of the above, bypassing the one-point-per-Round limit.
For more information on maneuvers, iaijutsu & grappling, skills+ rings + traits, glory/infamy + honor + status, advantages/disadvantages, equipment, and literally anything and anything else, please acquire the rulebook. Remember that you don't have to know the rules to participate!