This is particularly true where Clan/Family/School all increase the same Ring. Note that there are often limited ways to unbalance Rings for some character concepts. They will naturally favor approaches they’re good at, and get to roll those 3s a lot more than they have to roll those 1s. Plus, even if there wasn’t an xp benefit to starting unbalanced (6 bonus xp for starting 3/3/2/1/1 instead of 2/2/2/2/2), a character who is unbalanced will mostly end off more effective than one who isn’t. So starting with 3/1 will take 9 xp to raise to 3/3, while starting to 2/2 will take 12xp to raise to 3/3. Once experience points come into play, it is cheaper to raise lower rings. During character creation, the ‘cost’ of all increases is the same. From a min-max point of view, there is an advantage to starting unbalanced. There is also a maximum of 3 in any Ring at character creation, so the most unbalanced character will be 3/3/2/1/1.
Unbalance the Rings. Characters start with a value of 1 in all Rings, and will get five increases during character creation (1 for clan, 1 for family, 2 for school, 1 free choice). Some of the advice may assist in achieving a character concept, because it can help make sure that the character is actually competent at what the concept says they are – magistrate characters likely want the Government skill to know the law, while artisan characters likely want a high Fire Ring in order to be able to create their art. For example, if there are several interesting options for which Skill or Ring to increase by 1, it doesn’t hurt a character concept to consider the mechanical advantages of ‘stacking’ Ring and Skill increases during character creation. Some of the advice in this article is agnostic as to character concept. It’s another to end up with one who’s bad at something on accident. It’s one thing to create a character who is bad at a certain activity because that’s your concept. But, once you have a character concept to fit in that world, it can still be important that your character concept is embodied in the numbers that are on the character sheet. And that’s what really draws people to Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying. The world of Rokugan is saturated in flavor, with untold detail illuminating a distinctive culture.