The Five Rings (L5R)

[Gandalf970]

I am trying to figure out how to represent the 5 Rings from Legend of the Five Rings in Fantasy Hero.  The five rings are Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Void.

 

Air represents graceful, cunning and precise personality.  They are subtle or layered with nuance.  Eloquent, physically and socially deft and shrewed.

Earth represents a steady thorough and grounded approach to problems.  Cautious and considerate with lack of risk.  Physically tough, mentally resilient and reliable.

Fire represents a ferocious, direct and inventive personality.  There approach is explosive and intense.  Passionate, curious, physically quick, brusque and quick learning.

Water represents an adaptable, powerful and perceptive approach.  Balanced and reversible.  Naturally affable, physically flexible, observant and easygoing.

Void represents and unflinchable personality.  Spiritually sensitive, wise and introspective.

 

I am wondering if I make a ring a multipower and allow players to invest in a ring with powers, skills and abilities with limitations when facing opposite rings.  

I look forward to your thoughts on how YOU would bring these rings to add on to characters skills and powers.  Thank you in advance.

[zslane]

Why not start with the game effects of these rings in the original game and translate them roughly into Hero System terms?

[theinfn8]

6 hours ago, zslane said:

Why not start with the game effects of these rings in the original game and translate them roughly into Hero System terms?

 

I haven't played L5R and my sysyem exposure to it is limited. I just pulled out my 2e book, then gave it and the 5e beta a once over. It does leave me with some initial thoughts.

 

If all you're aiming for is emulating the magic system, then multipowers with an element skill might be the best way to go. From what I can see, in the older version, the only time rings are used directly is in magic, where it substitutes for a characteristic. That would make this approach the most similar.

 

If you're more interested in flavouring heavily toward L5R Beta, you could consider dropping the normal Hero characteristics and using the rings instead. That would require a lot of remapping though; 4 rings (and 1 that might be basically ignored), 6 Hero characteristics. I see a lot of downsides to this approach that might not make it worth the time it takes.

 

The world has an awesome setting though (which is mostly the reason I got the book back when). I don't know that I would want anything more than the magic system above and normal Hero. Most of the strength is in the roleplaying potential, not the mechanics.

[massey]

I played 1st edition L5R a very long time ago.  Like 1997 or so, I think.  Running with the assumption that absolutely nothing has changed, and that my memory is flawless, I'd suggest something like this:

 

I'd give each "ring" a set of Hero stats that best represent what that ring does.  I'd make sure they cost the same.  I might even give some sort of bonus for people who purchased a complete ring as opposed to min-maxing for Hero.

 

So, you might say that the Ring of Air represents Dexterity and Presence.  Depending on which version of Hero you're using, that may include figured stats or it may not.  But I'd tie those stats together in some way.  Some normal jerk with 10 Dex and 10 Pre might have an Air Ring of 2 (I think people started at 2).  Maybe a 15 Dex and 15 Pre gives you an Air Ring of 3.  For pure point efficiency, you'd want a 14 Dex (assuming 5th edition and figured stats) and a 13 Pre.  But to get to the higher Ring rating, you have to buy the full amount.  Tie certain abilities to your Ring rating.  Maybe you can only buy 1 combat level with your weapon for each Ring rating (so a guy with a 14 Dex and 10 Pre has a 5 OCV, but he can only buy 2 levels with katana).

 

Earth Ring may be Str, Con, and Body.  Water Ring might be Ego and Intelligence.  Fire might be Speed and, I dunno, something else.  Void could be a combination of D6s of Luck, Power Defense, and maybe combat levels or something.

[drunkonduty]

Re. the OP: I thought about doing something like this with my own L5R homebrew. But in the end I've gone the route that theinfn8 suggested: just gonna use it for magic. 

 

Still haven't fixed on a definite idea but I'm thinking that each element is its own multipower. Or maybe one MP for all magic with a different skill for each element. Allow the MP (or skill) of the favoured element to be higher than the other elements.

 

Or... just riffing here so bear with me... One magic MP & One magic skill. Charges (Boostable maybe?) are bought as a Naked Advantage for each element.