Heroes of Rokugan I
- Plans and Storyline Development - A Discussion
- Satsume's Tournament
- Kitsuki Evidence
- A Chance Meeting
- Spiritual Presence
- Legacy of the Dark One
- Winter Court: Kyuden Asahina
- The Face of Fear
- Arrows From the Woods
- Evil Feeds Upon Itself
- A Mantis and His Rat
- The Falling Darkness, Soul of Iuchiban
- The Ties that Bind
- The People's Expense
- Occult Murders, Soul of Iuchiban
- Lies, Lies, Lies
- Drawing Out the Darkness, Soul of Iuchiban
- A Foreign Legacy
- A Magistrate's Duty, Soul of Iuchiban
- Fury of the Elements
- To Do What We Must
- Winter Court: Kanrinrin's Duty, Soul of Iuchiban
- The Fate of a Hantei, Soul of Iuchiban
- Smoke and Mirrors, The Lion and the Crane
- A Hidden Blade, The Lion and the Crane
- Treachery and Deceit
- Winter Court: Shiro Kyotei
- Ancestral Dictate, The Lion and the Crane
- A Heart of Vengeance, The Lion and the Crane
- Soul of Akodo, The Lion and the Crane
- Darkness Beyond Darkness, Shadow's Path
- The Chrysanthemum Festival, The Lion and the Crane
- Kuro's Fire
- Duty on the Wall
- Fist of the Earth, Shadow's Path
- Day and Night
- The Scorpion's Sting
- Flower's Kiss
- In Time of War
- Winter Court: Shiro no Kaiu
- Proposal of Peace
- Way of Deception
- A Walk Through the Mountains, Shadow's Path
- Narrow Ground
- Peasant Defense
- The Price of Loyalty
- Dark Eyes on the Wall
- Tao of the Naga
- The Cost of Duty
- Storm and Forest
- Stain Upon the Soul
- Command of the Kami
- The Jade Championship
- Twisted Forest
- Funeral Pyre
- Time to Pay the Price, Shadow's Path
- Damning Evidence, The Hidden Temple
- Test of Courage
- Winter Court: Kyuden Bayushi
- Corrupted Ground, Shadows of an Iron Citadel
- A Question of Honor, Shadows of an Iron Citadel
- A Last Wish, Shadows of an Iron Citadel
- Blood of Midnight, Shadow's Path
- Fires of Retribution, The Hidden Temple
- Faith in My Clan
- Along the Coast at Midnight
- Unmaker's Shadow, Shadow's Path
- The Dragon's Heart, The Hidden Temple
- Time of the Void
- The Day of Thunder
Heroes of Rokugan II
- Plans and Preparation
- The Topaz Championship
- Treacherous Terrain
- Writ of Justice
- Tears of a Fox's Heart
- Wrath of the Kami, Remorseful Seppuku
- Unrequited Love
- Devoured by the Sea
- Scholarship, Remorseful Seppuku
- Uncertainty
- Unquiet Graves, Remorseful Seppuku
- Way of Death
- The Sapphire Tournament
- Bloom of the White Orchid
- The City of Lies
- The Bon Festival
- Stolen Relics
- Forgotten Shrine, Remorseful Seppuku
- A Say's Sail, Shipping Lanes
- Charge of the Baraunghar
- The House of a Thousand Stories
- Winter Court: Shiro Hanagensai
- In Search of the Future
- Compassion, The Code of Bushido
- Bayushi Lineage: Fathers and Sons
- Unexpected Find
- Legacy of My Ancestors, Shipping Lanes
- Corrupt Officials
- Grave of Heroes, Ominous Portents
- Voice of the Emperor, Ominous Portents
- Imperial Funeral
- Test of Purity, Ominous Portents
- Essence of Yume-do
- Shadows on the Court
- Strength From Weakness, Twenty Goblin Winter
- City of the Lost, Twenty Goblin Winter
- Failure of Courage, Twenty Goblin Winter
- Kharmic Vengeance
- Sleepless Nights
- Honesty, The Code of Bushido
- Journey to the Burning Sands
- The Tortoise and the Hare
- Harsh Lessons
- A Champion's Heart
- Corrupted Region, Shipping Lanes
- Unexpected Betrayal
- Courage, The Code of Bushido
- City of Empty Dreams
- Campaign Fiction: Scenes from the Empire, Summer 1502
- Secluded Village
- Cursed Gift
- Touch of Obsidian
- ➔ The Siege of Shiro Usagi
- Campaign Fiction: The Seppuku of Bayushi Tenkai
- Retirement
- Shadows of Beiden
- Into the Darkness
- Heated Discussion, The Code of Bushido
- Campaign Fiction: Scenes from the Empire, Autumn 1502
- Broken Words
- Assigning Blame
- Winter Court: The High House of Light
- Winter Court: Shiro no Shosuro
- Duty and Honor, The Code of Bushido
- The Cherry Blossom Festival
- Campaign Fiction: Scenes from the Empire, Spring 1503
- Undignified Death
- Loyalty, The Code of Bushido
- Marriage Celebration
- Fall Before the Master
- Border Conflict
- Campaign Fiction: A Summer of War, Parts 1-4
- Nemesis of Justice
- Summoned to Justice
- Essence of Toshigoku
- Doom of the Crab
- The Hidden Heart
- A Long Journey, Shipping Lanes
- Allegiance to the Emperor
- Campaign Fiction: A Summer of War, Part 5 and 6
- Contest of Artistry
- Reverence for Chikushudo
- Masterpiece: Iron Crane Chef
- Mujina Tricks, Remorseful Seppuku
- Spider's Lair
- Words and Deeds
- The Final Interactive: Weekend in Rokugan 2010
- Campaign Fiction: Brother and Sisters
- A Fallen Friend
- Truth and Falsehood
- A Hard Rain Will Fall
- An Arranged Marriage
- Whispers of the Moon
- Fate of the Assassin
- March Unto Death
- Celestial Journey
- Words Cut Like Steel
- To the Last Breath
L5R Homebrew
- A Root Problem: Conflicting Themes
- Power Levels and Power-Creep
- Defense Versus Offense
- Raises
- Narrative Control Mechanics
- Wounds and Death Part 1
- Thugs Versus Characters
- Dueling
- Wounds and Death Part 2
- Schools, Techniques, and Kata Part 1
- Spells and Secrets
- Schools, Techniques, and Kata Part 2
- What's with these Shugenja, anyway? br>
- Unofficial 5th Edition
The Seige of Shiro Usagi
GenCon 2008 saw the climax of the “Hare War” storyline and the campaign’s first and only true Battle Interactive. I had actually been reluctant to try to use the 3rd Edition Mass Battle rules in HoR2 at all – I felt they were both poorly realized (they basically just force the PCs to fight a long series of skirmishes) and would be impossible to incorporate into a module, in contrast to the abstract and fairly quick-resolving Mass Battle rules from 1st and 2nd Edition. (I made sure we brought back an updated version of those rules for 4th Edition.) However, one of my players argued that the 3rd Edition format could work… not in a normal module, but as a one-time special event. He volunteered to supply the giant pile of NPC stat-blocs that would be needed to make it work. On that basis, I decided to go ahead and make the Battle of Shiro Usagi – the event that would finally shatter Miya Shikan’s peace for good -- into the centerpiece of GenCon 2008.
Of course, I knew that not all players would want to fight in a giant battle, and more importantly we needed to determine which clans would be supporting which sides. Going into GenCon, the “set” sides were Crab/Lion versus Hare/Scorpion/Dragon. All the other clans and factions were uncommitted, so I set up the event to run in two successive rounds – the first round would be a LARP in which the uncommitted clans and factions would have to choose sides, and the second round would be the battle itself. Characters could play in only one of these, although players could participate in both by running different characters in the two rounds. (Ronin were a special exception to this – they could hire themselves out in the LARP, then fight on the side that hired them for the Battle.) What this meant was that players who had strong feelings about which side their clan should join tended to play in the LARP, resulting in an interesting selection of PCs in that event.
A lot of maneuvering and scheming happened during the LARP, but the keys to all the negotiations were the decisions of the Crane Clan and the Phoenix Clan.
The Crane had negotiated a non-aggression pact with the Crab and Lion the previous year, and this put them in a bind – they were appalled at the Crab aggression against the Hare, but knew that siding with the Hare would breach the treaty. Many Crane felt that they must keep their word regardless of their feelings for the Hare, while others argued just as strenuously that the Crab aggression was an unconscionable crime and the Crane were therefore morally compelled to oppose it. As it turned out, the “fight the Crab” faction went heavily to the LARP and thus determined that their clan would break the treaty... setting up the wars of the following year. (Amusingly, a few players later tried to weasel out of this by claiming that the Crane “merely” took the field alongside the Hare, and it was the Crab who violated the treaty by attacking them. I was having none of that.)
The Phoenix had thus far remained loyal to their Lion allies in the face of all sorts of pressure. In fact, the “food LARP” the previous year had pushed them more closely into the arms of the Lion because the latter clan had cleverly decided to share its own inadequate food resources with them, in contrast to the opposing clans who had “frozen out” the Phoenix from Miya’s Blessing. Nonetheless, in the Hare War there was no question that the Lion were assisting the Crab in an act of aggression which contradicted the Phoenix Clan’s pacifistic principles. The other clans tried to use this to pressure the Phoenix into abandoning their Lion/Crab alliance, but ultimately the players of the Clan of Shiba insisted that Honor required them to stand by their allies; they attempted to maintain fidelity to their principles by focusing almost all their support on “humanitarian” efforts.
In the end, it came down to the Golden Alliance (Crab/Lion/Phoenix) against everyone else… however, while the Crane sided with the Hare out of compassion, others (Unicorn, Mantis) made a pragmatic choice to “balance” the sides and thus ensure the battle was as bloody and indecisive as possible. (The leaders of both clans wanted the Empire plunged into war in order to further their own ambitions.) The Battle Interactive wound up with twice as many Hare-allied tables as Crab-allied, but this was offset by the fact that the Crab general was superior, and in fact the Crab side was winning pretty much throughout the battle; we had to fudge things just to give the Hare-allied side a chance at pulling out a win at the end, but ultimately the Crab still prevailed. During the final round, we created some special encounters for the toughest tables on each side, and this resulted in a cool moment in which the Scorpion general (Bayushi Tenkai) failed a Fear roll while fighting a Crab PC named Hida Tango and fled the field. (Rather to my annoyance, some players later willfully misinterpreted this into meaning that the entire battle’s outcome was determined by this single event.)
Although the Crab won – complete with a dramatic scene of the Kuni magic bringing down the walls of Shiro Usagi – I made a point of emphasizing the extreme bloodshed of the battle and thus the somewhat Pyrhhic nature of the victory. This would have been true regardless of which side won, of course, since the real “winners” here were the villains who wanted the fight to be as big and bloody as possible, unleashing the storms of war to sweep across the Empire in the following year.
[Lengthy Side-Topic: The Race, Shiro Usagi… and Cheaters]
The importance of the Shiro Usagi event and the player turnout at GenCon 2008 overall were both magnified by the fact that the CCG storyline’s Race for the Throne event was still underway and indeed was approaching its climax. AEG wanted to give the role-playing side of L5R a meanginful voice in the Race, so at GenCon we were asked to award clan Race points for all of our tables (for both Best Role-Player and, where applicable, Best New Player) and also to award points for first through fourth place at both the LARP and the Battle Interactive. For the most part this was good, since it brought in many new players, some of whom would stick around and become regulars in the campaign. However, it also led to the campaign’s second and arguably most serious incident of cheating.
At the time, a hugely influential figure within the Scorpion CCG community was a player known as “Crankybolt” who had been caught cheating multiple times in CCG tournaments. The Scorpion Clan was one of two factions in the lead of the Race, and Cranky urged the rest of the Scorpion community to spam our tables with Scorpion PCs in order to win points. In principle, this would have been fine… except that he also sent in a “personal” group of four players he knew, all of whose characters were complete lies -- ridiculous over-powered twinks who violated numerous campaign rules. (They attempted to cover for the characters’ power-level by requesting 15 modules in the month leading up to GenCon… so, you’re playing a module every other night? Really?) As if that weren’t enough, they outright lied about die-rolls at their tables. I know this for a fact because I wound up GM’ing their table briefly during the Battle, and by the end of the single fight I ran, I was fully aware that they were running illegal characters and falsifying their rolls. Afterward, they went around GenCon that evening boasting about having cheated at the event… apparently unaware that some key members of the CCG community were also loyal HoR2 players. When word of their boasts got back to me, I decided to deliberately spread a rumor that HoR was going to disallow all Scorpion Race Points due to the presence of cheaters at the Battle Interactive.
The next day, Cranky himself showed up at the HoR room and desperately tried to spin a web of lies to protect his clan’s ill-gotten gains – claiming, for example, that his players simply had not known that their characters had illegal Advantages. We had a lengthy conversation that my wife (who was sitting nearby) later characterized as Scorpion-versus-Otomo: “I’m totally lying my ass off.” “Yes, I know you are, but we’ll both pretend otherwise to avoid a scene.” “Good, now I’ll pretend that we’re getting along.” “Yes, face must be maintained.”
Although I did not actually erase ALL of the Scorpion points as my rumor had threatened, Cranky’s cheating DID have consequences. I deleted all the Scorpion points specifically earned at the Battle Interactive, and halved the points they got for individual tables. I told AEG about my decisions and they supported them fully. I’d like to believe that this contributed to the Scorpion finishing just behind the Dragon in the Race’s final standings.
[End Side-Topic]