OOC Discussion

[jemmus]

[ffilz]

I will be out of town Tuesday to Friday so less attentive and while I'll have internet, I'll just have my phone so it will be harder to do mechanical stuff or write long expositions.

[jemmus]

Sorry, I think I completely missed the point of the post about the Fog of War. And it looks like I may missed understanding the sequence of events too. Sorry about that. I never want to have a character act based on something he shouldn't know. Anything meta like that pretty much wrecks the fun of an RPG and the "temporary suspension of disbelief."

[Marullus]

No worries. I realized that, since the NPCs beat you on initiative, it was a moot point. Even if you hadn't heard them at the top of the round they would get to start yelling before you act in the round anyway. So, I just went with it in the end.

[Marullus]

FYI - I checked in with Enoch OOC - he's swamped IRL and can't keep up on all the games. With his permission, I'll NPC Eiji through the combat. (As a pacifistic buddhist, he has a limited role.) Hopefully things get better for him.

[jmacatty]

Looking at the rules, I notice that a katana is a 1.5 hand weapon. This means that to use it one-handed as in Nitokenjutsu, requires a strength of 19, and also entails a -1 to BCS.

[Marullus]

Nice catch!

[jmacatty]

Sorry Toshizo!

[jemmus]

LOL. Wow, I completely never saw that, or even anything about 1.5 handed weapons. Someday I need to read every word of the rules, front to back.

[jmacatty]

To be fair, the rules are exceptionally poorly organized.

[jemmus]

Thanks for the Budo calculations, GM. Sheet updated. Thanks also for the excellent organized and hyperlinked summary of events so far.

[Marullus]

I got really excited - I think Kentaro should have earned On for winning the writing competition in the Daiymo 's house.

[jemmus]

Agreed, low rank ronin Kentaro should earn On for effectively defeating a low rank samurai in what became a writing "contest." I'll refer to the rule quoted at the bottom.

The ninyo was trying to humiliate the rustic ronin, to distract attention away from his retainer Sawaguchi's embarrassing failure. I'm going to say "winning a contest" here gets On at the higher rate of "performances before a larger and more prestigious crowd." It wasn't a private "contest" at an inn or teahouse. It was before the much higher status ninyo and his samurai, Omi and Ito, and the kanunshi shrine priest. And, in case it wasn't obvious, Kentaro earned the shamed higher status ninyo's hatred and enmity. (Which, depending on what the group does along the way, may or may not come into play).

The value of the "artwork produced" is 10 silver. That was the ninyo's (somewhat) high price for having the letter delivered to Shinano was 10 silver. So the letter is worth 10 silver, and Kentaro gets 10 On. Please update your char sheet. (If you guys could maybe add another tab to your Excel char sheets with notes about your Budo/Shugendo and On awards, that would be nice. I'm tracking, but as the Japanese proverb says, "Even a monkey can miss and fall out of a tree."

1064.la Winning a Contest
Whether the competition is a flowery exhibition of Poetry at a
noble court, ora riotous drinking bout at the local tea house, winning
a contest of any kind is worth On. The Gamesmaster may award 1
point for spontaneous showings of talent among a limited audience.
Alternatively he may increase the reward for masterful performances
before a larger or more prestigious crowd. In this latter case, the
value of the presentation, as discussed in Book 2. under Artworks,
would be the amount of On awarded. The Gamesmaster may wish to
limit this opportunity to contests he puts in the Player Character‘s
way during the campaign, in order to prevent players from staging
constant little competitions among their own characters.

[jemmus]

My noob self messed up Toshizo during character generation. I really wanted to have 2 MNA, so I gave him good Speed. And I wanted him to have good Deftness for bugei BCS. That meant giving him only 15 for Strength, so he's Partially Encumbered at 30 lbs. So if he wears any armor at all (even partial light ashigaru), he's partially encumbered. That reduces his Speed by 25%, which knocks out his Secondary Action Phase. The only other choice is to go to AC 1 (clothing) or AC 2 (winter clothing) to get MNA 2.

When we get a chance to do Skill Study or Exercise to increase attributes, I know what he'll be going for.

[Samwell Turleton]

I would be interested in taking over the Satake no Take character as a second character. I would like to raise that with the group and see if there are any concerns about me trying to manage both at the same time.

[Marullus]

I support this. Taka is very limited as a background NPC and if I keep her in that state, she will depart at the next juncture.

[jemmus]

Sounds good to me. We have a player with two PCs in the other game and it's working fine.

[ffilz]

I'm good with that. I think Taka has potential to be an interesting character, she was just more than I could get into at this time.

[jemmus]

No way I could play Taka either. Female High Rank Samurai Shugenda. That's about as a complex, mysterious, and interesting character as you can get. Too much for me.

[Marullus]

That seems universal approval.

The character sheet seems janky and I'm not sure why. (It looks fine for most things, but as an earlier version I didn't incorporate the cover sheet that everyone else ended up using.) If you want to take a stab at it go ahead and I'll help tweak after?