OOC Chatter

[Kuni Yasu]

Took 11 Strife.

Tanked 10 for other people.

S H I B A

I need to remember that application of Earth opportunities here. Timing-wise, it's probably going to be a "helps after the event" because it's going to be a bit before I settle in to rolls.

[Shiba Raizo]

Actually to add an extension to this - Do people want to try and cobble together an alternative strife system after the game?

I'd mostly do what our kickass GM is already doing carefully- making it easier to get rid of the stuff.

And possibly beefing up EVERYONE'S composure.

'Cause Raizo, with the starting character maximum of 12? His strife gains and losses really aren't THAT big a deal. He didn't run any real risk of getting compromised until the Go marathon, and even then, it was mostly my choices that led to him reaching that state.

But... someone who pumped neither Water nor Earth could be wiped out in the span of a single roll, and that... makes event design very difficult.

Hell, it makes existing in a tabletop situation difficult.

[Kuni Yasu]

Actually to add an extension to this - Do people want to try and cobble together an alternative strife system after the game?

I'd mostly do what our kickass GM is already doing carefully- making it easier to get rid of the stuff.

And possibly beefing up EVERYONE'S composure.

'Cause Raizo, with the starting character maximum of 12? His strife gains and losses really aren't THAT big a deal. He didn't run any real risk of getting compromised until the Go marathon, and even then, it was mostly my choices that led to him reaching that state.

But... someone who pumped neither Water nor Earth could be wiped out in the span of a single roll, and that... makes event design very difficult.

Hell, it makes existing in a tabletop situation difficult.

That last bit. I dislike how hard it pushes a certain build. That's awfully rough for your Air courtiers. Been considering taking a page from Genesys/SW of something like 8 or 10+ a ring or pair of rings, giving everyone a reasonable baseline.

[Moto Mitsuki]

I'm not sure all writers had the same idea about the rhythmic of strife either.

For example, Chapter 6 of the core book seems to hint at that kind of structure for playing in a small group around a table:

1. Starting with some pure RP scenes where strife doesn't matter
2. One big conflict scene per session, that characters enter at zero strife, where turn order matters and strife will be received, healed, inflicted, tanked, transferred, manipulated, several times a turn in the absolute mess that all "fight" scenes are.
3. Concluding with pursuing one Passion/Ninjō as a Downtime (mostly off-screen) activity to fully reset to zero strife.

But then there are also a lot of rules pointing at a way slower strife recovery and as strife as a more long-term issue so...

[Kitsu Moshumaru]

The idea I that I had floating around was tying strife to some kind of raise system or threat system, so that it's either more of a gambling mechanic or thematically appropriate rather than something imposed on you at random.

[Moto Mitsuki]

A reminder that this table is very much official (Courts of Stone, 132):

[Kuni Yasu]

I'm not sure all writers had the same idea about the rhythmic of strife either.

For example, Chapter 6 of the core book seems to hint at that kind of structure for playing in a small group around a table:

1. Starting with some pure RP scenes where strife doesn't matter
2. One big conflict scene per session, that characters enter at zero strife, where turn order matters and strife will be received, healed, inflicted, tanked, transferred, manipulated, several times a turn in the absolute mess that all "fight" scenes are.
3. Concluding with pursuing one Passion/Ninjō as a Downtime (mostly off-screen) activity to fully reset to zero strife.

But then there are also a lot of rules pointing at a way slower strife recovery and as strife as a more long-term issue so...

And that structure sounds very much like what they did with Strain in Genesys/SW. Which also means I sort of expect tech/equipment creep in the arena of Strife recovery. Which is a reason to be a bit careful of adjusting it too far in a game where nobody has spent much xp. I haven't really dug around with the various tech interactions a lot yet to know how justified that caution is though.

[Bayushi Mitsu]

But... someone who pumped neither Water nor Earth could be wiped out in the span of a single roll, and that... makes event design very difficult.

That last bit. I dislike how hard it pushes a certain build. That's awfully rough for your Air courtiers. Been considering taking a page from Genesys/SW of something like 8 or 10+ a ring or pair of rings, giving everyone a reasonable baseline.

From the perspective of an Air/Void focus with a Composure of 4, it does make things interesting. I have to manage the in-game daily schedule to know how much strife I can afford to take in any single thread. The silver-lining is that I can reset to zero with a single timeslot (auto-drop to 50%, then -3 for pursuing a passion), which would work for Composure up to and including 6. With all that, it hasn't been too bad. The character has limits to what he can do, but careful use of timeslots and tactical decisions on which dice to keep can get him through.

I think the point about being in early days with barely any advancement yet makes sense. I would suggest seeing how things play out over the longer term before making any changes.

One thing to look at once we reach that point is how the rings affect the derived values. Earth, Air, FIre, and Water each affect two of the four derived values: Endurance, Composure, Focus, and Vigilance. Focus and Vigilance haven't played a role yet here, so we have to wait for the long term picture to see how to weight their worth, but if it ultimately seems like Endurance and Composure are more important then Earth and Water might be favored too heavily.

Additionally, as a Void build, all the points spent in Void don't help with the derived attributes at all. I do always start at 2 void points when we reset, which is useful, and have a maximum store of 3. But if Void could play more of a role in the derived attributes that might help.

Taking the last two points altogether, maybe Endurance = (Earth + Fire) x 2 + (Water + Air) + Void / 2, and similar for Composure. Basically have all the rings used in each of the derived values, keeping the current rings as x2, the other rings helping a moderate amount, and Void adding just a little bit to everything.

[Susaki Tanabe]

I think attaching derived stats to void makes void much too strong. Having a higher void than someone already offers significant advantage I don't think we need to add more advantage to high void.

I do think everyone having a base level then added to by Rings would make sense so people have realistic minimum

[Suzume Senseki]

Vigilance and Focus do work as TNs for some things, so I suppose they might be more important in some scenarios. But yep, Composure does make Earth and Water very important... especially for games like this.

But then again, with Passions being used automatically in one free timeslot, it only becomes an issue for those who are active enough to have their days fully taken with activities otherwise... and even then, threads dealing with Passion are also a thing. So I don't know, it doesn't sound too bad?

Also worth remembering that *not* taking dice with strife is very much a possibility. That means less hardy and flexible people are less likely to succeed (or may succeed with less opportunities, or succeed by less) to avoid going over, but... that might be fitting?

Then there's also what Yasu said about techs interacting with Strife (and Wounds), so I guess waiting to see how things work over a few games before going for large changes might be a good call