L5R Roleplaying: Second City Boxed Set

I finished off my fourth session of my Legend of the Five Rings campaign earlier this week, and so far it’s going pretty well.  Since my players are a mix of people who know Rokugan very well and those who are brand new to it, I’ve tried to build an initial storyline that takes them through a lot of aspects of the setting – court intrigue, duels, skirmishes, and now a full-on battle.

In my work getting the campaign off the ground, I finally convinced myself I should pick up the newest L5R book – the Second City.  I initially decided against it at GenCon since I would be running the game in the pre-Scorpion Clan Coup timeline.  But after playing the game for a while, I decided I should go ahead and pick up the new boxed set.

I have the old first edition boxed sets of City of Lies (Ryoko Owari) and the Otosan Uchi.  Both were great purchases and I’ve enjoyed reading through them.  Second City feels similar to both of them in some parts.  It has been divided into three book, one for the City, one for the Campaign, and one for the Characters.  Mixed within those books are some new rules, but by and large they’re all fluff.  Which is good by me.

After the books, they had a map of the city (which is largely useless since it’s pretty generic).  I was hoping they’d provide a map of the area around the Second City.  They talk a lot in the fluff about Journey’s End Fortress to the north of the city, and they talk about the area surrounding it, but there’s no map to show what is out there.  I guess since a large part of the feel of this campaign setting is the exploration and discovery, they didn’t want to hammer things down like that, but I was more curious about the surrounding area than how the city itself looked.

They also have two small journals written from various NPCs.  They had similar things in the City of Lies boxed set, and they were fun as props for the campaign.  Beyond using them for that, though, I can’t see ever needing the journals.  They’ll make good reading, but that’s about it since I won’t be playing in the setting itself.

There’s a GM screen provided.  I don’t generally use GM screens, but usually because I don’t like to spend money on them separately.  I’ll be taking advantage of this one since I have been struggling to find someplace to put my notes that others can’t see while I’m running.

A fair portion of the boxed set came with character sheets.  Lots of character sheets.  An entire pad filled with empty character sheets.  I was not expecting these at all.  Usually I just print sheets off from the printer, so that’s not a huge deal, but if my playgroup decides to stick with L5R for a while, it might come in handy.  Or if I start killing off characters more often.  L5R is a bit more gritty than other games.

Also, there were six “deluxe” character sheets.  More like character books.  There are about 8 pages of different things you can write down for your character, taking notes about his progress and the like.  They used to sell small books that could be used as character sheets back in the first edition, and I bought a couple for the characters I used most often.  Not sure what I’m going to do with these ones yet.  They may sit looking pretty, or I may pass them out to my players if they want to take advantage of the bigger book-version of their character.  Some may, others may not.

Finally, there was a set of dice with the Otomo flower on one of the pips, and then four decks of cards that give the abilities associated with each rank of each school.  Honestly, I could have done without either of these.  I don’t know that I’d ever use the cards – they’re just not very convenient, and the dice… I just bought a couple sets at GenCon to use for L5R.  But they’re part of the boxed set, so that’s that.

Overall, it was a pretty hefty price-tag (almost $80).  The actual book-part of the boxed set could have fit in a single hardcover book and been a third the price.  The extras that went along with it were hit-or-miss for me.  A lot of them I’ll go ahead and use since I now own them, but if they had been sold separately, I wouldn’t have picked them up.

My verdict: a lot of random stuff packed in the box to bump up the price.  The story and fluff all are worth it and I can’t wait to read through the campaign.  I could have done without the map, journals and cards.  The dice, character sheets and GMs screen, while I probably would not have chosen to get them given the opportunity, will all get used.  And the books are the same high quality as the other 4E books.

The Resser of My Heart

The past couple weeks, I shelved my new 10 Thunders models and got a few games in with my neglected Ressers.

In my experiences with Ressers, I’ve determined there are two masters I really enjoy using and two that just don’t do it for me: McMourning was always my favorite, and Seamus took my second spot.  I played a little with Nicodem, though I didn’t enjoy using him much, and I played quite a bit with Kirai.  Kirai felt too much like an easy-button, which was not what I was looking for out of Ressers.  I had Neverborn if I wanted to walk in with a good shot of winning.  Ressers were supposed to be there for a fun game for everyone.

After taking a long break from them, and then getting a few more games in, I’ve found that Seamus is more my favorite than McMourning now.  I enjoy his tricks more – the terrifying-based abilities, the huge hand cannon, and the avatar’s shenanigans.  It might be that I’m seeing more living crews out there with the advent of 10 Thunders (a good thing in itself), or it might be that McMourning is more similar to other melee-centric masters I have (like Lilith, Lady J, Vikis, and now Misaki).  Whichever it is, Seamus takes the front spot for me in the Resser crews now.

I managed to play two games with him last night – one against a Kaeris crew with a Rail Golem, some Union Miners, Kang and Iggy, and another game against Hoffman, a couple Watchers, the Peacekeeper, Guardian and a Large Steampunk Arachnid.  Out of sheer laziness, I used the same list in both games: Seamus, Avatar, Grave Spirit, Dead Rider, two Crooked Men and a Belle.

Both games went well for me.  I lucked out against Kaeris and got every important initiative check except one, which let me keep my Dead Rider engaging Kaeris pretty much the entire second half of the game.  He would attack her for a few wounds, then she would be stuck facing him and knock him down low.  Next turn I would win initiative and heal back up and attack her some more before she knocked me down low again.

My favorite Seamus moment of the first game came when I manifested into Avatar Seamus and was facing down against Kang (yeah, so I couldn't find a good picture of the new Kang... you'll have to deal with the one I got).  He was near one of the last objective markers, and I had just bumped my Anathema to 17.  I went ahead and used a (1) to drop Kang’s WP by 2, meaning he’d need a 13 not to run away, then hit him in the face twice, dropping him to his Hard to Kill.  The second hit forced him to make a Terrifying duel or flee and he failed the check, booking it.  aSeamus used Wicked to smack the guy in the face and killed him off.

The second game, I was able to whittle down Hoffman’s crew (killing his Guardian in the mix) as I lost a few of my own models.  He brought the Peacekeeper around to face me and Seamus leveled his Hand Cannon and focused a shot, hitting and dropping the Red Joker for damage.  I flipped a moderate for a total of 13 wounds, reduced to 11 from the armor.  Hoffman was Protecting the Peacekeeper and took the wounds himself, spending a stone to prevent.  Fortunately he hit moderate and was alive with one wound remaining.

The thing I love about Seamus is that he’s a tough, but not one of the powerhouse masters but he’s still a lot of fun to play.  When people put Pandora, Zoraida, Kirai, etc. down on the table, unless you’re looking for a head-scratching, very involved game, you’re going to walk away a little disappointed.  Seamus provides a good challenge for people to take down while still experimenting and playing unusual things themselves.

Moving Through Subterra Bravo

I ended up playing a few more games of Level 7 over the weekend.  We have been going through, one level at a time, trying to beat them missions before moving on to the next one.  With seven missions in the game, plus one in the most recent No Quarter magazine, we have a total of eight missions to climb through.  To keep the suspense, we’ve been holding off reading the new missions until we’re ready to play them so they’re all new to all of us.

We started with Level 5 this time through.  We had four players, the maximum the game allows.  During this mission, we had to find suits from guards and use those to bypass the security checkpoint to escape.  The only way we could get suits from guards was to have the Hybrid aliens go to town on a couple of guards, then sneak in afterwards and hope the suits were not too ripped or bloody to use.

We started by splitting up to try to explore as much of the board as we could.  Laura managed to peak ahead and find one of the Hybrids early in the game but was in a tight spot.  The Hybrid was being escorted by two guards, and unless the Hybrid got jacked up on Fear, it wouldn’t try to kill the guards.  Laura pumped her fear up high, but that also had the unfortunate side-effect of luring a Clone right on top of her as well.  The Hybrid went crazy and killed the guards, triggering Lockdown.  Meanwhile, Laura fought back against the Clone in her corridor.

We tried to get to her to help her, but weren’t able to do so.  Laura ran in to grab the two suits and found only one was useful still.  Before she could use it, though, she got cornered and mauled.  As Lockdown had already started, she was out of the game.  Mary was still recovering from being sick, so she bowed out and let Laura take over her character.  We had three characters left to get off the board.

We started exploring farther away, trying to build out the facility a bit more and get a useful network of vents.  Brian discovered a second Hybrid and it killed off its two guards as well, dropping two more suits.  Rather than run for the suits, he jumped into the vents and ran to a far side of the hall and let the Hybrid start hunting the guards and the rest of us.

I took a trip through the vents as well, dropping in behind the first suit and grabbed it, pumping up my speed to get back into the vents after grabbing it.  Fortunately with my Flashlight I wasn’t afraid of the vents and my fear stayed under control.  I dropped out back by the elevator and escorted Laura off the map (each suit could account for two characters).

Alone, now Brian had more activations between the Hybrids going and could more easily lure them where he needed them.  He ran along, dragging the Hybrids after him, until he found a vent and jumped back to the two suits that had dropped when he unleashed the second Hybrid.  One of them was safe and he dove back through the vents and found his way to the elevator up.

Three survivors out of four.  Not too shabby.

We racked up another game, moving on to Level 4.  This time we had finally moved out of the lower levels where the aliens were more powerful.  Here, the guards held the advantage, but at this point they were already wary of the attacks going on below.  It seems the guards and aliens were already going to start by attacking each other.

We had to explore the facility to find the way to the Incinerator Control Room.  Unfortunately the Control Room was not attached to any of the rooms we could find.  The only way to reach it was through traveling through the vents.  We had to find a map of this level of the facility and use it to drop into the Incinerator Control Room and use that to activate the Incinerator room, opening the shaft there to allow us to reach the next level.

To make matters more interesting, as we went through the facility, Hybrids would be coming up from the lower levels.

We were lucky in that the Clones were not quick in coming out, and in how quickly we were able to find the map.  Shortly after I grabbed the map, a guard found me and started shooting.  I ducked away and jumped into a vent to escape.

I used the map to get to the Incinerator Control Room while Laura found the Incinerator itself.   She got cornered by a Hybrid and a few guards.  While the guards and the Hybrid were fighting each other, she snuck away and joined me in the Incinerator Control Room.

I tried to flip the switch to turn on the machine, but with seven dice, I couldn’t roll six successes.  Laura tried and also failed.  Brian jumped into the vents and joined us, finally flipping the Incinerator on.  Lockdown was triggered, and the vents became a dangerous place to travel.  Every time someone went through the vents, they took two dice of damage.

I looked at my hand – I had three cards and one armor.  The only way I would die going through the vents to get to the exit (the Incinerator Control Room was not attached to the rest of the board, so I had to go through the vents or spend a long time trying to link up the parts of the map) was if I rolled two double-fists.  No problem.  I picked up the dice and tossed them… bringing up the exact roll I needed to kill myself in the vents.

Laura and Brian were better off, both heading through the vents and dropping into the Incinerator and escaping that way.

Two survivors out of three.  Not bad.

I’m getting a little nervous about the game’s replayability.  There are eight missions (including the extra one from No Quarter) and we’ve successfully finished four of them.  While it would be fun to redo some of the old missions, my favorite part is coming in to a mission blind and trying to feel out how to solve it the first time.  It fits the feel of the game to be coming in to these missions blind, and I’m worried that once we get through all the missions, their appeal is going to drop.

I hope they continue to release new missions from time to time.  There’s a lot of potential with this game.  Atmosphere-wise it’s fantastic.  The game-play is pretty high too.  Just need more missions!