Rules Discussion

[jemmus]

The HP-based shugendo would only apply to Buddhist gakusho, correct? And they would always get a minimum of 1 shugendo per successful healing? So at 1st level they'd be on a par with Shinto gakusho for healing shugendo. At 2nd level and higher, they'd earn more shugendo. So Shinto gakusho would be at a disadvantage for shugendo for healing. Which is what the rules intend.

[jemmus]

The ninja Katsumi may have stretched and embellished the truth aI couple of times so far. I don't find that Bushido has the equivalent of D&D 5E's Deception (for example) skill roll. I think, given the way Bushido does things, there should be some sort of BCS for convincing other characters about untruths. I'm thinking it be like the rules' example of a game of Go. The competing lying character and the being lied character get a Wit BCS roll. The characters' Effect Numbers (1051.4) are compared. The difference between the two Effect Numbers guides the GM in determining whether the prevarication was successful, suspected, highly suspected, or outright spotted.

Basically, an Effect Number is derived by subtracting the BCS die roll from the Adjusted BCS.... A “Haiku” poem, one improvised on the spot by the poet, which has an Effect Number of 9 or 10 is obviously superior to one with only a 1 or 2. The relative merits of competing products can be determined in this way, comparing Effect Numbers to see whose was better. The many contests and games popular in Nippon can be inserted into the BUSHIDO campaign by using this rule.

Either character with the Acting skill (Wit + Deftness) could choose to roll on that skill's BCS instead. (For the one being lied to, "You can't bullshit a bullshitter.") The rules say ninja's hensu-jutsu skill is a more advanced form of the Acting skill. So ninja can choose to roll on their Hensu-Jutsu BCS instead.

I don't think all characters should equally be able to deceive or be deceived. That puts too much weight on GMs' judgment calls. And this may become important as PCs get more On and become more influential in wars and politics. And as PCs encounter non-human characters who may be more skilled at duping, or more susceptible to being duped. (There will be some high Wit humans and beings along the way). So, a proposed house rule. Thoughts?

[Marullus]

Old School games often deliberately don't have social rules. The roleplay is supposed to handle that. (I prefer robust social resolution systems of newer, small press RPGs, usually, so I can compensate for my lack of RL spontaneity.)

Bushido is novel in that it DOES have social resolution. Base BCS from status, modified by social arts and Rhetoric. I don't think "Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation" a la 5e maps here. I think social resolution as written works, and whether it is truth or lies is not imperative.

Mongaku is used in framing official petitions, legal cases, and in
religious preaching and debate. As it governs the ability to "dispute
well," skills associated with the subject of the debate modify the
Mongaku BCS roll, but are not averaged with it. Thus, knowledge
can add to the strength of one's argument, but pure eloquence can
carry the day.

Rhetoric explicitly allows winning by bullshit over substance.

The separate rules for hensu-jutsu address "maintaining cover" which is a special category of lies for a Ninja (and perfectly appropriate for his introduction in this scene).

If you need a system to take pressure off of GM Fiat (which I also appreciate) then I would just say to compare Wit Saves, or a victims Wit save against an intentional Rhetoric, hensu-jutsu, or acting. But I really like the as-is system for social resolution being the basis whether the argument is true or false.

[Marullus]

Simpler thoughts:

D&D thinking is about Means. How you are achieving is the focus.

Bushido focuses on Ends. Status is base, all social means contribute, but the focus is on the degree of success at your objective.

[jemmus]

An interesting discussion. I did a simulation of a PC with Personal Status 21 and none of the "lying" skills (hensu-jutsu, etc.) telling untruths to our ninyo. He had a BCS of 4, -1 for difference in status. And then, rather generously, -3 for "no benefit to character being asked." That was for the inyo knowing that it was in the PC's interest to present false facts. So BCS 0. The PC rolled a 15, so -15 effect number.

So just using the straight Using Status system, PCs will most cases have low odds of successfully prevaricating. Even if speaking to an NPC of the same rank who is not suspicious of lying, this PC's BCS would be 4 (20% chance of success). So I think I'll use some combination for Personal Status, Wit and Will for BCSs for the liar and the one lied to. In this example, the inyo looks down on the lower ranked character and has a prejudice against someone of his station's truthfulness. So maybe -1 per 10 points status difference would apply. But the characters' comparative Wit and Will can still influence the outcome (effect numbers). Maybe use the calculations for Mongaku ((2 x Will) + Wit) or some variation, with the other modifiers from the Using Status table.

Any thoughts?

[Enoch]

Given how carefully crafted this system seems to be, I wonder if that's intended to reflect cultural prohibitions against lying? Just spitballing- I have no idea whether it was considered culturally acceptable to lie to strangers.

Even with hensu-jutsu, a starting character doesn't have much of a chance, simply because beginning BCS is so low. Katsumi got really lucky with his roll.

[Marullus]

Given how carefully crafted this system seems to be, I wonder if that's intended to reflect cultural prohibitions against lying?

Yes - This was my assumption as well. I read the system as being based on the Ends, not the Means. Degree of honesty is a component of successful rhetoric - it is clear in this system that having honor means saving face, which means not having "pure honesty" as the highest ideal.

As for the low BCS, it is accurate if you're walking into a situation and making a request based on your status alone. If that's what we are doing, we are foolish.

The BCS for social arts are higher (particularly suiting the role for our Gakusho and Shugenga PCs) and the rules are generous in how they apply, their Effect adding directly to the overall effect, and with multiple arts possible before resolution. Our Bushi should be able to get to a "yes, but you must provide me a service" which is a totally reasonable response for wandering Bushi that want things, and having our non-combatant PCs to argue on our behalf may achieve certain concessions directly.

[Enoch]

Definitely saw that in the other game, where Eiji's use of social arts gave him a huge boost. This is an old-school game: you have to prepare for rolls carefully. There's no "winging it" and walking in and going "I'm just going to RP and roll the dice".

[jemmus]

In modern Japan, I don't think situations of needing to lie come up very often. You're usually interacting with other members of your in-group (nakama) (your friends, your co-workers, teammates, etc. The members all support each other, so there's no need to lie. If you dealing with someone else, often it's because of a being introduced by someone, and a long-term relationship is expected. In that situation, people are nervous about later being caught in a lie. It will catch up to them eventually. Or if it's just a brief and casual encounter (for example, waiting someone's table), there's no motivation to lie.

What makes it harder is Bushido's Nippon is more "Wild West" than modern Japan. But in any event, it looks like we've decided to base interactions on social status, rather comparative guile and gullibility. Except for in cases of skill in "deceptive arts" such as henjutsu and rhetoric.

[jemmus]

(Jumping to another topic, which doesn't necessarily mean discussion of the previous one has to end).

I don't see that the rules have any provisions for NPC morale. That is, I don't see anything about an NPC or NPCs retreating from a combat with it becomes obvious that they can't win. The rules about Battles on p.38 of the second book do have rules for Retreat by an army. I'd like to be able to use GM discretion about morale breaking and NPCs not necessarily always fighting to the death. For example, if PCs kill four of five bakemono-sho, the fifth could flee. Or, have some percentage chance of its morale breaking so that it flees.

An issue is depriving the PCs of budo points. Another example. A tiger has been reduced from 20 + 2d10 HP to 8 HP. It's still facing four PCs attacking it. It gets no benefit for fighting to the death and be killed, so its morale breaks and it flees. The PCs don't get the 3 budo for killing a tiger. Unless, we made a rule that wounding and driving away (defeating) an NPC counts as a kill for budo purposes.

I don't like messing around with Bushido's pretty "scientific" rules or modifying them. But it doesn't make sense to me that every person and creature in Nippon would always fight to the death. Even samurai don't always do that, according to the Battles rules (and history). Any thoughts?

[Marullus]

Yeah, I just went with a "reasonable response" ruling, given the lack of morale rules. For example, two guards discovering they're facing a party of five who obviously just bypassed the LAST two guards turned and started running back towards the building and you guys are now in chase-mode rather than slaying-the-suicidal.

Edit:
After searching the PDFs again, I see...

• A note that the Boar fights to the death (as an exceptional characteristic)
• No references to general fear, morale, or fleeing. Just the results of specific creatures' special abilities.

...if I were to add a roll to resolve ambiguity, it would be a WILL ST. I'm fine also just adjudicating things that are sensible, without assuming ambiguity.

[Marullus]

I think we've been doing Blessing wrong. A Gakusho can only bless one character per level. So only one person for level 1 Taisho.

I disagree - Enoch and I looked at that previously for the other game. I think one character per level is per use of the ability. The limitation per day is based on Power Points. If you're casting in a hurry (i.e. in detailed time) then you can only bless a limited number of people based on level. Taking time to cast proactively (after dawn, held for the day) before we're in detailed time would be based on how much Power they want to invest and the fact that a character can only hold one blessing at a time except for the Faithful.

[jemmus]

Ah, OK. So much ambiguous text in the Bushido rules. But they're still easier to make sense of than some of the text in D&D 5E's rules.

[Marullus]

Where does the +3 in [4d6+3] come from? If from Strength, I think the bonus applies to handheld weapons only. Because the Strength bonus for archery is accounted for in the bow's Man Rating. Open for discussion, of course.

So, here's my take:

1043.1b Damage Bonus (DAM) specifies "weapons" and distinguishes from "unarmed." It makes no distinction between handheld or ranged weapons, which implies it should add to both.

Unarmed Damage is handled distinctly and also scales according to Strength, increasing die-size instead of adding +1s or adding multiples of dice. Unarmed isn't using a weapon, so wouldn't add the bonus damage. However, the Sumai skill has as its specific benefit that it DOES add the Strength Damage Bonus to the scaled unarmed damage. This means that it both scales up die size and also adds the bonus damage simultaneously.

So, I think the bows are weapons and so add the bonus damage, and they both scale up the man-rating and the added damage like Sumai. The scales are slightly different, so the bonuses alternate: you add a +1, then you add a man-rating die, then repeat. I suspect that's intentional.

[jemmus]

OK, that makes sense. So we're going with:
-Do the per Man-Rating die rolls first
-Then and the Strength modifier.

I'll update the house rules thread.

[Marullus]

Making PoHT rolls every round seems harsh... They're not even moving one yard (because they'd lose the cover entirely if they did). I'd say that once you see something, you can continue seeing it unless they succeed on something that changes the situation, maybe? Considering it is a primary action to "observe situation" and would prevent doing anything else, I don't think the actions are meant to be stacked like that.

I'm really not sure what it makes sense for Taisho to continue doing... It doesn't seem like trying to observe from a good position is worth anything. Not sure what else Taisho can do though other than bumble around in the rocks.

I'm pulling these out for us to discuss them.

What I think is supposed to happen:

• Under the "Observe the Situation" action, it says the default is for people to only know what's immediate to them.
• The "Observe the Situation" action is a Primary Action and so a big deal. It also supplies a critical role for the non-combatant or less-combatant Gakusho/Shugenja, who have a high Wits and also primary actions to spare.
• It makes sense to me if we think of this like a minature tabletop board.
• Once things are revealed (i.e. we spotted the two dudes and their prisoner) we can act upon them. When it is time for new things to show up on the board, someone needs to Observe them if we're going to have forewarning and not get jumped.

In practical terms, that means we don't do PoHT rolls in conjunction with every action. Especially if also are having "partial cover" penalties to our BCS. Normally, a -2 for partial and -4 for full cover takes into the account of sighting them. We don't need to "spot" and then also take a penalty for hitting around the obstacle because the BCS penalty accounts for both. So, Kentaro spotted the guy, who then hid behind the bush. As long as he's still shooting that guy he can take a penalty to his kyujutsu BCS for the amount of cover but doesn't need to "percieve" ever again. It also preserves the crucual role of Taisho as the Gakusho - instead of trying to be a spotter every round for Kentaro's shot (which is leaving Ffilz and I frustrated), he's observing the rest of the battlefield and trying to notice the other groups of bandits sneaking up on us from behind.

In the other game, Souta spotted foes, Eiji failed, and Toshizo wasn't looking (he was contemplating the flames). I opted to waive all this and let Toshizo jump into action the same turn -- If we were going by the book, it looks like Souta or Eiji should have used the Give Orders primary action to tell the others about a threat they couldn't see. (I really dislike Give Orders action and prefer speech actions be free, I think.) If we were applying the same system to that combat as is happening in this combat, Toshizo would have needed to wait to act a number of rounds until he passed a PoHT check and then also taken the -2 penalty for cover afterwards for shooting the bakemono in the hole.

Just my thoughts for the night.

[jemmus]

I wish there were a Bushido 3rd Edition that resolves these things!
a) Agreed, the combat rules are very much like tabletop miniatures rules. It's best to thing of combat as happening on a miniatures wargame board.

b) Are the -2 and -4 to BCS for partial and full cover something we agreed on as a house rule? I remember the topic coming up. And I don't see anything about cover in the rulebooks. I think this should be flexible and GM's call. For example, in the current combat, Kentaro and Taisho looking over obstructions from a height is different than Omi and Ito looking at obstructions from the same height. But GM should announce any custom modifiers before players announce their actions, of course.

c) (Already stated in the IC thread). We need to decide whether a PoHT roll is an Action. Before we started this combat I read the rules again, and from the examples to me it seemed that they don't consider it an action. It seems similar to Passive Perception in D&D 5E. Maybe the designers didn't want to alert players that a Hidden Thing exists by making them actively spend an action.

d) I don't like Give Orders as requiring a Primary Action either. But as I think it through, we have to remember that a Turn in Bushido is six seconds. If the first action is at 15 and the last at 2, that 6 seconds divided by 13. (Our former ninja Katsumi had BAP 15). Less than half a second countdown per step from 15 to 1. The current fight in this game has 23 possible actions in 6 seconds. Very quick action. So I think even yelling "He's on the rock!" is an action. Yelling that and also moving, shooting, attacking, observing, etc. within a second might be too much.

e) I'm starting to think of secondary and tertiary actions as kind of throwaways during the 6-second round. Unless the char is a master with high zanshin, unless he/she somehow got into a perfect situation. (For example, when our former ninja Katsumi had stunned NPCs on the ground). In most cases, the things a character can do after the Primary AP are really limited. For example, (Notable exception-- han-kyu second shot!)

This post probably raises more questions than steers toward decisions. Most important thoughts from the crew are about b). Then I think c).

[Marullus]

b) Are the -2 and -4 to BCS for partial and full cover something we agreed on as a house rule? I remember the topic coming up. And I don't see anything about cover in the rulebooks.

Oh... no, you're right. I don't see it in the books. -2 for partial cover and -4 for full cover is the standard in other OSRs and even 5e and I find it works mechanically well on a d20 attack roll system. I'll use it as a baseline but think GM's discretion is totally appropriate.

c) (Already stated in the IC thread). We need to decide whether a PoHT roll is an Action. Before we started this combat I read the rules again, and from the examples to me it seemed that they don't consider it an action. It seems similar to Passive Perception in D&D 5E. Maybe the designers didn't want to alert players that a Hidden Thing exists by making them actively spend an action.

I think it's only relevant as an 'action' if we're in a Detailed Turn. I see it for game balance purposes - Bushi all have low wits and are bad at noticing things but are using their actions for attack rolls, Gakusho/Shugenja have high wits and need a valid purpose on the battle map, which can be noticing and communicating new things. Forcing Bushi to make PoHT rolls every turn before they're allowed to make a combat action is unnecessarily crippling. If my rolls weren't more than four standard deviations above the norm in this fight, he would have never fired a shot yet, especially with the -4 and -6 penalties applied on top of it.

d) I don't like Give Orders as requiring a Primary Action either. But as I think it through, we have to remember that a Turn in Bushido is six seconds. If the first action is at 15 and the last at 2, that 6 seconds divided by 13. (Our former ninja Katsumi had BAP 15). Less than half a second countdown per step from 15 to 1. The current fight in this game has 23 possible actions in 6 seconds. Very quick action. So I think even yelling "He's on the rock!" is an action. Yelling that and also moving, shooting, attacking, observing, etc. within a second might be too much.

You make an decent point. Communicating combat-important information and orders could make sense as an action, but it might be a good use of a Secondary Action instead of a primary.

e) I'm starting to think of secondary and tertiary actions as kind of throwaways during the 6-second round. Unless the char is a master with high zanshin, unless he/she somehow got into a perfect situation. (For example, when our former ninja Katsumi had stunned NPCs on the ground). In most cases, the things a character can do after the Primary AP are really limited. For example, (Notable exception-- han-kyu second shot!)

First, a correction: Han-Kyu requires multiple Primary actions, it isn't an allowable secondary action. (Dai-Kyu is a basic action, so is only once per turn, period.) With current stats, Amano Souta will be the first to reach Zanshin 2, and she won't reach it until 3rd level. (I think Katsumi would have gotten it at second.)

Secondary actions have two potent uses in melee (which hasn't come up yet).
Attack - even a half-BCS attack roll is still an attack roll. It mattered for the bandits, who each were pounding on you twice a turn.
Parry - Basically a guaranteed +1 AC with a chance at +2 or more, which lasts until your next action. Timed for it to cover your foes Primary Action, that's a big help. (So, Amano Souta or Kentaro could do this with her third action/his second action and it would cover the foe's attacks coming before their first action of the next round.)

I think allowing Give Orders and Observe Situation as secondary actions could really help if you wanted a house rule to keep them an investment but not at the expense of primary moves. (Though a half BCS perception roll is even tougher.) At least Give Orders doesn't require rolls.

[jemmus]

I checked and you're right, a han-kyu shot is a Primary Action. So no second shot per turn unless the character has Zanshin at 2.

I think -2 for partial cover and -4 for full cover (with GM discretion to modify) sounds good. What do people think?

Regarding Give Orders and Observe Situation as Primary Actions:
Observe Situation
This Option allows the character to make observations of events
and circumstances surrounding him. Without choosing this Option,
a character is only aware of what is immediately in front of him or
what has been communicated to him by another character using the
Give Orders option.

"Convey Information" might be a better name for this option than "Give Orders." I suppose the rules intend to force characters to spend a Primary Action to inform a comrade of something they can't see ("Shiro! The archer is on the rock!"). Or, a character has to spend a Primary Action to look around on their own. Otherwise they only know what they can see directly ahead. We haven't really been implementing this rule that I know of. (Because we weren't really aware of it. )The players can see what's on the map, so they know where everybody is. Players would have to really RP and have their PCs act on what only they can see in front during Detailed Time Scale turns.

Maybe we should experiment with this a little, then see what everybody thinks about making a house rule for allowing Give Orders and Observe Situation as secondary actions?

BTW, the bandit who yelled "The archer is on the rock!" did use a Primary Action for that. That was a little painful for me as GM, I had other plans for that Primary Action.

[ffilz]

Hmm, these actions might be interesting, but observe then convey information as separate actions means the situation may have totally changed... Certainly over the 2 detailed turns it would take Taisho to accomplish this...

The more I play, the more I feel like playing a Gakusho is pretty limited, at least if the scenario is combat heavy. They have pretty limited options and at least Taisho's best contribution is prophesy and blessing, both of which are done out of combat (the prophesy could be of great value if a combat goes sideways). Shugenja with their spells have more options to contribute to a wider array of activities. The Gakusho should be decent in non-combat situations where they may have some skills to contribute.