Welcome back! I hope you’re as excited to be here as I am. If you’re new to the column, then just be aware that one of our goals here is to share the design philosophy we employ in the creation of new mechanics for the Legend of the Five Rings Role-playing Game, 4th Edition. Today we’ll start out with the two books that we already have in the pipeline. If you’re unfamiliar with these particular books you can get a lot more information on them in our previous installment, Clearing the Saya.

The Great Clans

The Great Clans has a tremendous amount of mechanics in it, intended as it is to fill any gaps existing in the mechanical portfolio of the new edition. Speaking personally, one of the things I was the most excited to include in the book was the completely reinvented Matsu Beastmasters, which is something I’ve enjoyed tremendously in past editions. It didn’t hurt that we had lots of requests for them! So here is the basic information on the School as well as its Rank 1 Technique, after which I will discuss the philosophies of design that we put into play when creating this.

New Basic School: Matsu Beastmasters [Bushi]

• Benefit: +1 Agility
• Skills: Animal Handling 2, Battle, Defense, Iaijutsu, Kenjutsu, any one Bugei Skill
• Honor: 5.5
• Outfit: Light Armor, Sturdy Clothing, Daisho, any 1 weapon, Traveling Pack, 4 koku

  Techniques:
  Rank One: Name

You have trained in the highly secretive dojo of the Matsu Beastmasters and have forged a bond with one of the legendary Lion warcats. The lion will accompany you wherever you go and follows basic commands without question. No lion will ever attack you without being compelled to do so in some way. You may direct one of your warcats to Attack as a Complex Action. Any one warcat who is not attacking will use the Guard Maneuver to protect you.

First of, the natural question is why are the Beastmasters a basic School? In all their previous incarnations, they have been alternative rank progressions, usually an Advanced School. To me, the art and the theme of all the Beastmasters we have been introduced to over the course of the CCG and the RPG has been so vastly different from the themes of the Lion families as a whole, that the decision to make them their own School seemed an obvious one. It doesn’t hurt that the Matsu are the largest family in the Empire, and they can maintain multiple Schools, but we’ve rarely seen any outside the standard Matsu Bushi School. But really, what’s more thematic and dynamic when you think about the Matsu family than their Beastmasters?

With the Beastmasters, balance is difficult because the concept of your character revolves around an external entity that can and will be killed independent of you. To compensate for that somewhat, we gave them a valuable Agility boost as well as a strong set of Skills. The Technique is still somewhat dependant upon a lion, of course, but come on… it’s a lion! Before you ask the question, yes, there are stipulations in place for what happens if you lose one of your warcats. As you might see from the listed Technique, the idea is to allow the Beastmaster to move toward a sort of battlefield control role, using not only their own attacks and weapons, but those of the warcat as well. At the start it requires the character to use Complex Actions to direct the warcat, but this diminishes over time to increase the School’s versatility. And of course the ability to place the warcat in Guard allows the character to take the spotlight without opening him up to a sucker punch from some sassy foe!

The Imperial Histories

The Imperial Histories is just now entering layout, so you won’t be seeing it until much later this year, assuming we don’t run into any nasty printing issues. So this is one of the first previews for that book that you’ll be seeing. From the chapter on the pre-Coup era, may I present to you the Kitsuki Justicars:

The Kitsuki Justicar

The justicar tradition is an old one, one that has its roots in Imperial history that predates even the establishment of the magistrate system by the Emerald Champion and his associate, Soshi Saibankan. In Rokugan’s earlier days, communication among the clans was less extensive and the lands between their holdings were wilder and more dangerous. This often resulted in criminals from one region fleeing to another and completely escaping prosecution. The lack of a strong Imperial network for the exchange of information only exacerbated this situation. However, Bushido demanded a solution to the problem, for a criminal fleeing the Lion lands might prey upon the Crane, bringing great dishonor to the Lion Clan (even though the Crane were hated enemies). The Dragon were thus not the first to establish a tradition of justicars, but they are the only ones to develop and maintain a fighting technique built on the tradition.

A justicar is essentially a magistrate trained in the art of dueling. The duty and purpose of a justicar is to travel in search of fugitives, sometimes hunting specific individuals and other times merely generally searching for anyone who may have escaped the justice of his clan. When he locates such an individual, the justicar challenges him to duel to the death. The death of the criminal retroactively proves his guilt and thus eliminates all problems. Of course, the possibility that the justicar may be killed (and thus the criminal exonerated) is somewhat of a problem, but even in this case the clan is freed from any dishonor since the victor was clearly not a criminal before he arrived at his new home.

Since the Kitsuki family’s founding, their strong emphasis on justice has led them to embrace the justicar tradition and they have developed a technique to support it. Kitsuki Justicars typically hold a post as a Dragon Clan magistrate, and the clan often goes to considerable effort to get them appointed as Emerald Magistrates as well, thougb success in this depends on the relationship between the Kitsuki family and the Emerald Champion of the time.

New Alternate Path: Kitsuki Justicar [Bushi]

• Technique Rank: 3
• Replaces: Kitsuki Investigator 3
• Requirements: Iaijutsu 4, Investigation 4
• Technique: The Purity of Justice – A justicar is a master of both the hunt and the kill. You may add your Investigation Skill Rank to the total of any Assessment roll made as part of an iaijutsu duel. You also gain a bonus of +1k0 on all Focus and Strike rolls made against an opponent who has been decreed guilty of a crime by an Imperial or Dragon Clan authority higher than you. Finally, you gain a bonus of +1k0 to any Hunting or Investigation rolls made to hunt such guilty targets.

Okay, so first off, I included the introductory text for this particular Path for purely selfish reasons: the playtesters loved it so I wanted you to have a look as well. The Justicars fall into the same issues that you find with any dueling-based mechanics, which is to say that you need to find a way to make them attractive without dumping all over the Kakita, as has happened in previous editions. In this case I think it works out nicely because the primary abilities build upon the Kitsuki theme of increased perception, and offer a very clear advantage in duels without being overpowered in such a way as to unseat a character constructed to be a dedicated duelist. It still feels a bit like the Technique has a lot of advantages, but considering that it’s adding combat to a courtier, in the grand scheme of things it’s not that overwhelming.

And now, for the main event, I turn you over to my partner in crime, Rob Hobart!

The Book of Air

As you doubtless recall, one of our goals in this column is to open up the design process and give everyone a peek “behind the curtain,” as it were, to show how the mechanics for the L5R RPG are developed. For this initial entry, we'll showcase the new Courtier Paths we're developing for the Book of Air. In the final book, of course, each of these will be accompanied by extensive supplemental text explaining the history and traditions behind them.

First up we have the Doji Innocents, an alternate path for those Crane whose focus on Bushido (and especially the virtue of honesty) makes it difficult for them to embrace more conventional political methods. The Innocents were first introduced to L5R in 3rd Edition, where they were initially shown as a “modern” Path associated with personalities like Doji Ayano; however, the Crane have always grappled with the clash between the ideals of Honor and the realities of politics, so extending this Path across a larger portion of Rokugan's history seemed appropriate.

The Doji Innocents are a Rank 3 Path, replacing Doji Courtier 3 and requiring the character to have Sincerity (Honesty) 3. Their Technique forgoes the traditional Crane method of building favor networks through gifts and favors. Instead, they win allies by speaking the truth in all cases. In any situation in which the Crane could gain advantage or protect their interests by lying or concealing the truth from a specific person, the Innocent may choose instead to tell that person the truth, then roll Sincerity (Honesty) / Awareness against the target’s Investigation (Interrogation) / Perception. With a success, the target realizes what the Crane has just done and is deeply impressed by the Innocent’s devotion to honor and truth. With the GM’s permission, the Innocent may take the target as an Ally with 1 point of Devotion. The Technique may be used multiple times on the same target, with each success increasing Devotion by 1 point (to a maximum of 4 points).

This is a fairly strong Technique, in some ways stronger than the normal Doji Rank 3, so it has a bit of counterbalancing: any time an Innocent knowingly tells a lie, he loses 2 points of Honor over and above any other circumstantial Honor loss that might apply. This is a bit harsh, but given the nature of the Innocents it seems appropriate.

The flip side of Crane courtly methods are the more ruthless Daidoji, and for them we're bringing back a classic Path that's been around since the days of L5R 2nd Edition: the Daidoji Trading Council. The Trading Council handles the commercial side of the Crane Clan’s interests. This is considered a somewhat embarrassing and unpleasant duty, but the Trading Council accepts this task just as the rest of the Daidoji accept the duty of protecting their Doji and Kakita cousins – even at the cost of their own honor. The Trading Council is a Rank 2 technique, and can replace Doji Courtier 2, Doji Magistrate 2, Daidoji Iron Warrior 2, or Daidoji Scout 2 (the Council recruits the most likely members from all through the family). It requires Commerce (Merchant) 3 and either Gentry or Wealthy, although we're considering the idea that the Advantage requirement can be waived if the individual has distinguished himself in other ways (GM’s discretion).

The Technique of the Trading Council is based on other commercial Paths and Advanced Schools such as the Mantis Kobune Captain: once per month he can roll Commerce (Merchant) / Awareness at TN 25, earning a number of koku equal to the amount by which the roll exceeds the TN. However, the Daidoji are also masters of economic warfare, so we're letting them use the same roll to inflict that much of a loss on a commercial rival (e.g. another merchant patron). Some of the playtesters have suggested that allowing this technique to “auto-succeed” may be too strong, suggesting a Contested Roll against the rival merchant instead.

The Trading Council can also purchase certain Advantages more cheaply after character creation, such as Gentry, Wealthy, and Servants. It will probably also award Station Points for those using the "Way of the Daimyo" materials we introduced in Emerald Empire.

So, while the mechanics from Great Clans and Imperial Histories are already in the can, as it were, what thoughts do you have on the Book of Air? This book is still in development and changes can be made if there are points that need to be addressed. Is the counterbalancing for the Innocents sufficient to compensate for the strength of their Technique? Do you share the opinions of our playtesters with regard to the successfulness of the Daidoji Training Council? Perhaps more comprehensively, what effect on campaigns do you feel introducing the commercial aspect of Rokugan has? Do mechanics such as those possessed by the Kobune Captain and the Daidoji Training Council add to the game or do they introduce unnecessary complication? Should our mechanics continue to incorporate the Way of the Daimyo update from Emerald Empire, given that those mechanics are optional and that many people may choose not to employ them in their campaigns?

I can’t wait to hear what you think!