D20 L5R is how I was introduced to Rokugan. Please do not mmake fun of my fond recollection. I would not do the same of yours.

Sorry to offend. I was able to introduce quite a few people to L5R through D20 and don't have anything against most of the books. I thought the Secrets series was quite good actually. I personally thought Oriental Adventures was the worst book in the D20 Rokugan series because it mashed it in with a lot of non-Rokugani things, but having said that it was a popular book that introduced a new wave of people to L5R at the time.

There was a page or two in it that suggested a way to play standard D&D races in Rokugan, where you had Crab Dwarves, Crane Elves, etc. So it was just a side note of a possible home-brewed Rokugan, not the base setting presented in Oriental Adventures. At least that's how I remember it, I sold my copy several years ago.

Ahhhhh, that is what I was attempting to remember; there was a book that had a suggested listing of D&D races and their "mirror factions" from L5R. I totally remember that as the RPG group at the B&M store were utilizing that during the early 2000-2002???

I had totally forgotten about that. Wow, talk about a walk through memory lane.

I am aware that we're not Magical Samurai. The issue is balance. I don't hate the spider. I do, however, dislike the logical inconsistencies within the setting that their implementation caused and also the preferential treatment they've received over the past decade. i don't see the story choices as cool. I see it as yet another example of a faction being given something they didn't earn, while everyone else has to fight for scraps.

As I noted elsewhere-- during one of the Spider discussions on the previous forums, some of us said, "Spider Clan, you can have your tea and kabuki in the courts of Rokugan, or you can have Jigoku. You can't have both. Decide."

The more the Spider are tied to Jigoku, the less justification there is for the rest of Rokugan to have anything to do with them, and the more it degrades the setting in terms of coherent worldbuilding.

This is why I want to nerf Jigoku ( and don't tell me 'you can't nerf Jigoku because it is too nice to the Spider' that was tedious and wrong), because Jigoku actually degraded the setting a LOT, and the things the Spider players wanted were good things to have, but you couldn't have them Because Jigoku. Every bad guy had to go down the same path Because Jigoku, and corruption could never actually be tempting Because Jigoku. And everyone was being hostile to Spider players, treating them as though the players were trying to harm the setting rather than playing in it just like them, Because Jigoku -- the playerbase had been trained to react in such an overwhelmingly hostile (and unproductive) manner to Jigoku, because of the degrading effect it had.

In a setting where honor is paramount and the rules of society are strict and Order is meant to be maintained against Chaos, having incredibly evil people who nonetheless follow The Rules and are supported by The Rules is a very, very good thing to have. Situations where you had to pretend everything was fine and sip your tea and make your niceties with a complete psychopathic murderer, because that was what honor and decorum demanded, are a thing you definitely want to have. But you can't have them. Because Jigoku.

The fact that Jigoku always corrupted you and always destroyed everything made stories with it not function well. The rest of the setting wants to be and very clearly is trying to work as a shades-of-grey conflict. But shades-of-grey conflict doesn't work Because Jigoku -- the overwhelming pure-black evil on the horizon that keeps attacking the setting makes all the other conflicts seem pointless. You couldn't get the player bases to fight each other without putting the throne itself up for grabs because We Need To Be United For A Strong Empire.

Not everything that threatened Rokugan was tied into Jigoku but almost all of it was, and the proper answer was always "resist Jigoku". AEG could not tempt non-Spider playerbases with power from Jigoku (and I cannot understand why they kept trying) because the way Jigoku was set up and would always work, no offer from Jigoku could ever be tempting. Every offer from Jigoku ended "Also, you will not get anything you want, and your brain will be burned out, and you will become a puppet of Jigoku who is barely a character. Zero percent of your goals will be met and the force attempting to undo your goals will get more powerful." In a conflict that claims it is about corruption and power, power and corruption could not possibly be tempting . That's, like, a genuine epic fail. And due to being cast in this mold, even conflicts that didn't come from Jigoku got everyone acting in the same never-compromise no-nuance purity-above-all way. That's cool for the Crab Clan, that is what they do -- but we shouldn't have everyone act the same way! The Khan's March might have resulted in something happening if the players hadn't been trained in how to interact with big conflicts by saying "Never compromise, it cannot possibly give us things we want!"

FFG can just reboot it. Jigoku was already completely retconned twice in AEG's hands but everyone was pretending that its current form was How It Always Was -- well guess what, now they can just say this new thing is How It Always Was, where either the natural state of things or due to the existence of the Spider Clan, Jigoku is a very dangerous thing that operates by knowable rules that human beings selfishly can choose to use to accomplish their goals. And everyone who leads an army of oni to threaten the Empire is someone who decided, of their own free will, that their needs are so much more important than everyone else's that it is excusable to use Jigoku to fulfill them.

I don't care if you think the Spider don't "deserve" to have tea and courts and Jigoku -- the entire setting is better and is better able to do the things it is able to do, if you set it up so that they can have tea and courts and Jigoku.

So change a fundamental part of the setting's cosmology so that the Spider can have their cake and eat it too?

So change a fundamental part of the setting's cosmology so that the Spider can have their cake and eat it too?

Just shift the story and world around so that its not this huge issue until the design team makes it so? There will most likely be an entire story arc (deluxe expansion and 6 monthly smaller expansions) if not more.

So change a fundamental part of the setting's cosmology so that the Spider can have their cake and eat it too?

Change a part of the cosmology that was made poorly and is damaging to the setting and prevents good and necessary stories from being told, in order to allow the antagonists to serve as better antagonists that uphold themes found in the rest of the setting and not only in the stories about fighting them, yes.

It is not a competition any more. Spider getting things is not your guys not getting things. Spider getting things that allow them to do their job for the setting is good for everyone.

Also, it's not really a "change", since we are starting at zero here. If you say that we should resist change, instead of making the setting to do what it needs to do regardless of whether it is a change or not a change, then you will end up with a bad relaunch.

So change a fundamental part of the setting's cosmology so that the Spider can have their cake and eat it too?

Change a part of the cosmology that was made poorly and is damaging to the setting and prevents good and necessary stories from being told, in order to allow the antagonists to serve as better antagonists that uphold themes found in the rest of the setting and not only in the stories about fighting them, yes.

It is not a competition any more. Spider getting things is not your guys not getting things. Spider getting things that allow them to do their job for the setting is good for everyone.

Also, it's not really a "change", since we are starting at zero here. If you say that we should resist change, instead of making the setting to do what it needs to do regardless of whether it is a change or not a change, then you will end up with a bad relaunch.

As I said elsewhere, I'm not concerned with "prizes", I'm concerned with coherent worldbuilding.

Part of that is not retroactively changing the established setting every time you think you have a "better" idea.

So change a fundamental part of the setting's cosmology so that the Spider can have their cake and eat it too?

Change a part of the cosmology that was made poorly and is damaging to the setting and prevents good and necessary stories from being told, in order to allow the antagonists to serve as better antagonists that uphold themes found in the rest of the setting and not only in the stories about fighting them, yes.

It is not a competition any more. Spider getting things is not your guys not getting things. Spider getting things that allow them to do their job for the setting is good for everyone.

Also, it's not really a "change", since we are starting at zero here. If you say that we should resist change, instead of making the setting to do what it needs to do regardless of whether it is a change or not a change, then you will end up with a bad relaunch.

As I said elsewhere, I'm not concerned with "prizes", I'm concerned with coherent worldbuilding.

Part of that is not retroactively changing the established setting every time you think you have a "better" idea.

This is not an "every time" thing. This is a "this is our one single opportunity that we have to do this and if we stick to an old model out of intertia we are hurting ourselves forever" thing.

So change a fundamental part of the setting's cosmology so that the Spider can have their cake and eat it too?

Change a part of the cosmology that was made poorly and is damaging to the setting and prevents good and necessary stories from being told, in order to allow the antagonists to serve as better antagonists that uphold themes found in the rest of the setting and not only in the stories about fighting them, yes.

It is not a competition any more. Spider getting things is not your guys not getting things. Spider getting things that allow them to do their job for the setting is good for everyone.

Also, it's not really a "change", since we are starting at zero here. If you say that we should resist change, instead of making the setting to do what it needs to do regardless of whether it is a change or not a change, then you will end up with a bad relaunch.

As I said elsewhere, I'm not concerned with "prizes", I'm concerned with coherent worldbuilding.

Part of that is not retroactively changing the established setting every time you think you have a "better" idea.

This is not an "every time" thing. This is a "this is our one single opportunity that we have to do this and if we stick to an old model out of intertia we are hurting ourselves forever" thing.

This isn't new.

We saw a lot of posts on the AEG forums pushing the idea of changing the fundamental cosmology of the setting, and the fundamental beliefs of Rokugani culture, so that the Spider could have their Kewl Taint Powzorz and be fully part of Rokugani society at the same time.

There simply isn't any narrative purpose served by rearranging the entire cosmology just to make an inherently villainous faction into something they're not.

So change a fundamental part of the setting's cosmology so that the Spider can have their cake and eat it too?

Change a part of the cosmology that was made poorly and is damaging to the setting and prevents good and necessary stories from being told, in order to allow the antagonists to serve as better antagonists that uphold themes found in the rest of the setting and not only in the stories about fighting them, yes.

It is not a competition any more. Spider getting things is not your guys not getting things. Spider getting things that allow them to do their job for the setting is good for everyone.

Also, it's not really a "change", since we are starting at zero here. If you say that we should resist change, instead of making the setting to do what it needs to do regardless of whether it is a change or not a change, then you will end up with a bad relaunch.

As I said elsewhere, I'm not concerned with "prizes", I'm concerned with coherent worldbuilding.

Part of that is not retroactively changing the established setting every time you think you have a "better" idea.

This is not an "every time" thing. This is a "this is our one single opportunity that we have to do this and if we stick to an old model out of intertia we are hurting ourselves forever" thing.

This isn't new.

We saw a lot of posts on the AEG forums pushing the idea of changing the fundamental cosmology of the setting, and the fundamental beliefs of Rokugani culture, so that the Spider could have their Kewl Taint Powzorz and be fully part of Rokugani society at the same time.

There simply isn't any narrative purpose served by rearranging the entire cosmology just to make an inherently villainous faction into something they're not.

Stop.

Stop doing this.

Every time you frame this as "you are only doing this so the Spider can have <Thing Rephrased To Be Insulting>," you are being wrong and you are being dishonest.

If you continue to address this as just about what the Spider is getting and how you can rephrase what the Spider wants or needs in an insulting way, you will not engage it in any kind of productive manner. If FFG acts the way you do, they will make a bad relaunch.

You are not making substantive arguments. You are not addressing points made. You are just going to back to "that is bad because it is beneficial to the Spider". That argument is wrong. It was always wrong. It will never not be wrong.

There simply isn't any narrative purpose served by rearranging the entire cosmology just to make an inherently villainous faction into something they're not.

There is a narrative purpose which is telling a good story. At the moment the story could be better with a change. There is also a very pragmatic point in making the spider players happy and let them keep their tainted powers which is it sells the game better cause you get more customers and a wider target group. So I don´t see why people should try to limit the people they coudl reach when stayin on a not really funtional system if they hust coudl adjust it to the time and preferences of the younger players and customers while trying to stay true to the core things of the setting and hey that are samurai drama inter clan conflicts and the supernatural and spiritual powers and threats.

This isn't new.

We saw a lot of posts on the AEG forums pushing the idea of changing the fundamental cosmology of the setting, and the fundamental beliefs of Rokugani culture, so that the Spider could have their Kewl Taint Powzorz and be fully part of Rokugani society at the same time.

There simply isn't any narrative purpose served by rearranging the entire cosmology just to make an inherently villainous faction into something they're not.

Stop.

Stop doing this.

Every time you frame this as "you are only doing this so the Spider can have <Thing Rephrased To Be Insulting>," you are being wrong and you are being dishonest.

If you continue to address this as just about what the Spider is getting and how you can rephrase what the Spider wants or needs in an insulting way, you will not engage it in any kind of productive manner. If FFG acts the way you do, they will make a bad relaunch.

You are not making substantive arguments. You are not addressing points made. You are just going to back to "that is bad because it is beneficial to the Spider". That argument is wrong. It was always wrong. It will never not be wrong.

Pretending to tell me what my argument supposedly is won't change anything.

I am not sure how much is accomplished, from a narrative standpoint, from nerfing Jigoku. Leaving Jigoku as it is, you can totally have an clan that is evil/villainous, and still follows the rules. And characters can be tempted to behave dishonorably, which certainly gets them somewhere, at a cost. And players are clearly wiling to embrace that sort of corruption. There are completely psychopathic characters who follow The Rules, but certainly not the rules. There is, literally, a completely psychopathic Clan Champion right now, who people sit down and have tea with. You don't need a nerfed jigoku to accompish that sort of storyline or have that sort of character.

So the question is whether you need a supernatural temptation ... and I'm not sure why you would.

I also kind of question the underlying assumption, which is that players reject Jigoku because it "always corrupted you and destroyed everything." Indeed, I would say that, if anything, there has been a steady (if not huge) string of complaints for years now that there really isn't any cost to teaming up with Jigoku (most often aimed at how almost all Tainted/Corrupt/Lost Spider characters are just able to function perfectly normally without any sort of downside from being Lost). The players who are stridently anti-Jigoku are generally so because it is Evil and against The Rules of the setting, not because of any practical consideration for their characters.

I am not sure how much is accomplished, from a narrative standpoint, from nerfing Jigoku. Leaving Jigoku as it is, you can totally have an clan that is evil/villainous, and still follows the rules. And characters can be tempted to behave dishonorably, which certainly gets them somewhere, at a cost. And players are clearly wiling to embrace that sort of corruption. There are completely psychopathic characters who follow The Rules, but certainly not the rules. There is, literally, a completely psychopathic Clan Champion right now, who people sit down and have tea with. You don't need a nerfed jigoku to accompish that sort of storyline or have that sort of character.

Speaking for myself, I'm much more interested in corruption stories within clans that are reputed for their honor, than in the "corruption" of a villainous clan dedicated to destruction. IMO, every playable faction should see themselves as heroes, and be able to be pitched as such.

"This clan just wants to see Rokugan burn," is boring compared to a more nuanced approach in which every other clan believes, "We are best suited to rule the empire, because [perspective]." I'm not interested in self-acknowledged villains as playable clans.

If Spider can be made to credibly work within that framework (or if they already do, but that's not the impression I get), great. If not, then they should go, except perhaps as a few unaligned cards. Probably better to make such cards Shadowlands, in that case.

In the later years the story was at it's most interesting when they brough back older characters like Mitsu, Toku and Kokujin.

I hope at some point they explore different timelines.

I would love to see a complete arc from when the Kami Fell to the original Day of Thunder, perhaps even beyond that. Also if you haven't read Rokugan 2000 I highly recommend it. It's not the best prose or anything but it is super duper cool.

I am not sure how much is accomplished, from a narrative standpoint, from nerfing Jigoku. Leaving Jigoku as it is, you can totally have an clan that is evil/villainous, and still follows the rules. And characters can be tempted to behave dishonorably, which certainly gets them somewhere, at a cost. And players are clearly wiling to embrace that sort of corruption. There are completely psychopathic characters who follow The Rules, but certainly not the rules. There is, literally, a completely psychopathic Clan Champion right now, who people sit down and have tea with. You don't need a nerfed jigoku to accompish that sort of storyline or have that sort of character.

So the question is whether you need a supernatural temptation ... and I'm not sure why you would.

I also kind of question the underlying assumption, which is that players reject Jigoku because it "always corrupted you and destroyed everything." Indeed, I would say that, if anything, there has been a steady (if not huge) string of complaints for years now that there really isn't any cost to teaming up with Jigoku (most often aimed at how almost all Tainted/Corrupt/Lost Spider characters are just able to function perfectly normally without any sort of downside from being Lost). The players who are stridently anti-Jigoku are generally so because it is Evil and against The Rules of the setting, not because of any practical consideration for their characters.

People form their sense of morality based on what benefits them. They complain that characters belonging to Bad Guy Faction are able to function with the taint just fine, but they never accept the offer to get some taint to get the things they want, because they know taint never leads to things they want. They're never tempted to support their faction breaking The Rules of the setting because breaking The Rules is not actually productive. Conflict in the setting is very much helped by factions wanting to break The Rules for their own benefit (while still pretending to follow The Rules enough to attack others for breaking them).

You seem to be making an assumption/conjecture about why players do or do not want something, but I have seen very little to support the conclusion you're jumping to. About the only discussion I recall along on those lines in the last decade was about the possibility of entire Clans going fully for Kanpeki in Onyx Edition for the purpose of benefiting the Clan, because the going belief was that it would pretty quickly go sour when Kanpeki likely lost the throne again. And even then it was fairly limited, and much outweighed by folks who just rejected teaming up with Jigoku on 'principle,' while those who favored teaming up with Jigoku mostly did so because they thought it would be better story.

Also, you didn't really answer my question - why would we need to dilute Jigoku to tell the sort of story you want? Doesn't the temptation to engage in dishonorable conduct (which characters frequently 'get away' with) fulfill that narrative desire?

You seem to be making an assumption/conjecture about why players do or do not want something, but I have seen very little to support the conclusion you're jumping to. About the only discussion I recall along on those lines in the last decade was about the possibility of entire Clans going fully for Kanpeki in Onyx Edition for the purpose of benefiting the Clan, because the going belief was that it would pretty quickly go sour when Kanpeki likely lost the throne again. And even then it was fairly limited, and much outweighed by folks who just rejected teaming up with Jigoku on 'principle,' while those who favored teaming up with Jigoku mostly did so because they thought it would be better story.

Also, you didn't really answer my question - why would we need to dilute Jigoku to tell the sort of story you want? Doesn't the temptation to engage in dishonorable conduct (which characters frequently 'get away' with) fulfill that narrative desire?

Because, for one, I think that it is always better when "Evil isn't something you ARE. Evil is something you DO." A story about fighting a person who decided who do something terrible is better than a story about fighting a person who got goo on them and stopped being a person.

The setting ORIGINALLY had a much more diluted Jigoku, and I thought it was one of the few things that it got right the first time. Jigoku was a tool that Fu Leng used because Fu Leng was terrible . Fu Leng was malicious and bloodthirsty and desired destruction and because he desired those things he employed his own agency to take Jigoku and use it as a tool in order to hurt people. The Crab weren't fighting the ceaseless hunger of Jigoku so much as the ceaseless hatred of Fu Leng. Jigoku had no will or sentience or desire. It just was, just like gamma radiation or arsenic just is. Fu Leng decided to use it to be terrible. (Yes, people were still Corrupted, which I generally dislike because it's an analogy that fails to be like the thing it's analogy for in any way, but it was a much weaker Jigoku than it became.)

It was only later on -- mid-Gold to Diamond, I think -- that Fu Leng was made to be the slave of Jigoku and not the other way around. While this story was more interesting as it regarded Fu Leng , it was worse for the setting as a whole, and the deforming influence of the sentient unstoppable depersonalized Jigoku started at the point and then just kept sliding out of control.

You could, indeed, have "dishonorable conduct" be the only temptation, but I think that only works if player choice is disconnected, because it's much harder to make "Do you guys act dishonorable?" memorable and high-impact enough to justify it being a player choice. "Do you guys dip into the dark side just this once" is -- but you need to make it so "yes we will" is a sensible answer.

It's also something that forces/allows the major antagonists to engage in courtliness, which I consider to be a good thing for all 9 of the factions and for the design of the LCG. I want a game where you cannot ignore courtliness, and courtliness is not totally disjointed from military like in the CCG. To do this, you cannot have a player faction who ignores courtliness, which rules out the Shadowlands Horde, which rules out high-pressure Jigoku, because otherwise you run into the Destroyer War problem of "this is important in the story but our games never reflect that because nobody ever plays them". So either you have the Spider Clan who engages in courtliness and has low-pressure Jigoku -- allowing them to serve their role while taking much less screen time and attention since they aren't as much an imminent existential threat -- or you have no big threat pure evil faction, which is probably more of a sacrifice in the long run.

So ... I was trying to address you on something other than the "you want to change the setting to fit the Spider" axis, but ... that seems to be what it boils down to. You discuss at length the question of whether Fu Leng or Jigoku was in charge at particular points in time, but that makes no difference as to what the relation of Jigoku to Rokugan is. Indeed, the "old school" time you seem to be saying you like better (when Fu Leng was in charge) lines up with the version of the Taint you say you don't like (the kind that is much more likely to much more quickly make you lose control). Contrary to your implication, the "new" and "unstoppable" Jigoku did not in any way translate to different mechanics for Jigoku that made it worse on those who had the Taint. I'm also not sure how to reconcile your statement that engaging in dishonorable conduct isn't high impact enough of a narrative choice with your desire to tone down Jigoku so that it isn't that high impact a choice. If the Evil of Jigoku is reduced to such an extent that it's the sort of thing that we would frequently see 'normal' samurai considering, then hasn't it been reduced to basically where dishonor is now? Maybe there's some separation there, but not much. Further, you talk about the absence of playable Destroyer cards as if that had anything to do with the role of Jigoku. What it boils down to seems to be that you want a faction (Spider) that is both a "normal" Clan and Jigoku-powered, rather than the Shadowlands Horde. Which is a personal preference you're allowed to have, but then you really are in the box of wanting to change the setting to make the Spider work.

And your way of achieving that is, again, based on a misunderstanding of why Jigoku-powered "normal" Clans aren't supported by most players/don't work in the setting. To achieve what you want you don't have to re-define the mechanics of Jigoku, you need to re-define the cosmological role of Jigoku in the setting. The taint now is as close at it could possibly be to what you want, and that hasn't helped a bit in making the Spider accepted.

So ... I was trying to address you on something other than the "you want to change the setting to fit the Spider" axis, but ... that seems to be what it boils down to. You discuss at length the question of whether Fu Leng or Jigoku was in charge at particular points in time, but that makes no difference as to what the relation of Jigoku to Rokugan is.

What is it that you think I want from Jigoku? Because, uh, the thing I am talking about makes a huge difference.

Before mid-Gold, the Empire fought the Shadowlands because Fu Leng was using Jigoku to try and hurt them. Jigoku did not want anything. Fu Leng wanted things and used Jigoku to get them. Jigoku was a tool. The Crab "allied with the Shadowlands", and while it wasn't a GREAT idea, and they were certainly not the Clan that should have been doing it, it was plausible for someone to see allying with the Shadowlands as a way to serve a goal other than "contaminate and befoul everything".

After the mid-Gold retcon, the Empire fought the Shadowlands because Jigoku, the realm itself, was willful and wanted to hurt them. It was sapient and could make plans. It was not a cosmic principle, it was an actor. Jigoku, itself, schemed to maximize the amount it could spread and the amount of damage it could do, and thus you could never ever ever get involved in any way because that would serve its schemes to contaminate and befoul everything.

Pre-Gold, emphasis is on how evil is what Fu Leng DOES. Post-Gold, emphasis is on how evil is what Jigoku IS. Pre-Gold, Fu Leng uses Jigoku as a tool. Post-Gold, Jigoku used Fu Leng as a tool.

We can't have the Spider or by extension whoever is serving in their role even if the Spider themselves are thrown into a dumpster fire at court because they are evil and mess with Jigoku, and evil can be excused (from the Scorpion) but Jigoku cannot. Jigoku cannot be excused because ever getting involved with it in any way only serves its schemes to contaminate and befoul everything. If that is no longer true, that condition no longer applies.

I keep telling you "this is not for the sake of the Spider" and keep telling you WHY and keep laying out the EXACT REASONING but people keep acting as though those words do not exist and keep saying "But you just want it for the sake of the Spider!"

IF Jigoku is an element of the setting THEN Jigoku has to pose a threat. Because otherwise it is pointless.

IF Jigoku poses a threat THEN the threat represented must be playable. This avoids the Destroyer War problem.

IF Jigoku representative is playable EITHER it does participate in courtliness OR it does not participate in courtliness.

IF a playable faction does not participate in courtliness THEN courtliness cannot be a core mechanic of the game that everyone participates in. I think that's a very bad option and want to avoid it.

IF Jigoku's faction participates in courtliness THEN the setting must be built such that it is not suicidal for the other factions to allow them to do this.

IF Jigoku is itself an endless hunger that seeks of its own agency to destroy all of the world THEN it is suicidal for other factions to allow Jigoku's faction to participate in courtliness.

The options are "No Jigoku", which is a respectable option but will probably end back in the same place as something else is built that fits the same place and the same questions apply to it, or "Shadowlands Horde" which means the taint stays as is but the Big Bad Guy cannot be interacted with via courtliness and courtliness cannot be a core mechanic all decks participate in, or "Player Faction That Does What AEG Attempted And Failed To Make The Spider Clan Do". I think of those, the latter is the best option. That option requires Jigoku to be a tool used by people, such that there are some quantity of people who are using it but can still participate in courtliness. If Jigoku uses people as tools, then none of the tools it uses can participate in courtliness, they are too dangerous. So I want the end-state of the new setting to be one in which people use Jigoku as a tool.

If you say no to this, then you are not just "making the Spider play fair", they can jump off a bridge for all I care and a Spider clan that isn't the playable representative of The Threat has a bunch of its own hurdles to clear to justify itself. You say no to this, then you say either the Shadowlands Horde is the player faction of The Threat, or there is no The Threat. And if you want the Horde instead, then the conversation is not about "doing things for the sake of the Spider" it's about what the tradeoffs and costs are of that option, and if you want no The Threat, then it's about how to make THAT work when the L5R story hasn't been any good at sustaining that kind of narrative for any time, and what changes to make to other Clans to make this work.

Everything I say about Jigoku and the Spider has been painfully explicit in how it is about accomplishing a goal for the overall setting. If you think it doesn't accomplish the goal, talk about that. If you think the goal isn't what is actually needed, talk about that. If you think there is a better way to accomplish the goal, talk about that. But it's not about "doing things for the sake of the Spider," it has never been, so stop pretending it is . That argument is wrong, it is functionless, it means nothing, it leads to no productive outcome, just stop it.

Jigoku is a threat at all times, but not necessarily The Threat that the story is focusing on.

Regardless, I want there to be a Shadowlands Horde style faction. But I don't see a need for it to engage in courtly politics. And if you have a faction that engages in courtly politics then it isn't a Shadowlands Horde style faction anymore, so you have, to me, defeated the purpose. At that point you can just roll with corrupt elements within a Clan or Clans.

But, in any event, you remain mistaken about why players feel the way they do about Jigoku. The Crab allied with Jigoku when the game started because that's how they set it up when the game started. And the game basically didn't have a fully formed cosmology when it started. But ... that didn't change with Gold (released in 2001). The notion of the Taint and how it was intrinsically corrupting was introduced in the first edition RPG GM Pack, which was released in 1996 or 1997. It was greatly expanded on in the Book of the Shadowlands, which I want to say was released in 1998. The whole "Jigoku is evil" thing is firmly established by this point. There is no Gold-era turning point in how players feel about Jigoku/the Shadowlands/Corruption. If there is a turning point, it comes well before that.

I will leave this discussion there. You think there can't/shouldn't be an Evil Faction unless it engages in normal courtly politics. I disagree, but our disagreement is really a matter of opinion. Additionally, you think the relationship is a big turning point in how players think about Jigoku and whether they are willing to accept a faction that is both a "normal" Clan and embraces Jigoku. From where I sit you are objectively wrong about this, but you also seem convinced of it despite a lack of evidence, so it seems a fruitless topic of discussion.

You are conflating multiple factors, then saying I am wrong because I conflated them -- Gold is not when players changed how they feel, Gold was when the mechanics of how Jigoku worked were retconned. And it was a retcon. Rich Wulf was the one who introduced the idea that Fu Leng was the slave of Jigoku and not the other way around, which he first floated in "Rokugan 2000". Before that, every single thing that would be referred to as "the will of Jigoku" was "the will of Fu Leng". Fu Leng was in the driver's seat. Jigoku had no will. Jigoku was evil and corrupting but primarily threatening due to its use by malicious agents.

There are two arguments against courtly Jigoku-Spider: "Rokugan should not allow it because it tacitly supports evil" and "Rokugan should not allow it because of how dangerous it is." I think the conflict created by the former is better for literally everyone involved because it allows us to have an Order that is not Good without actually making the sympathetic player factions unsympathetic. The latter is a valid concern, and I would rather have a Jigoku that does not raise that concern, because a playable Horde who does not participate in courtliness is worse for every faction in the setting who has courtliness as any kind of part of their identity. It ALSO allows corruption to be theoretically tempting, and corruption as offered by AEG was not tempting even in theory.

And "Oh well, you're completely wrong and stupid, but I'll let the conversation drop" is not actually letting a conversation drop, and is not actually showing any maturity.