And there's little reason to think that the people on the top of that structure, even if they were generally good folks, would have not only disliked, but actively opposed, a codification of their power and status.

There is actually a very good reason to think this: none of the Kami needed any sort of codification of their power and status. These things were beyond question from the beginning, and those who disagreed were eventually forced to flee. Their sheer existence was enough, the caste system was completely redundant in this regard.

This, in an extent, applied to all the samurai at the dawn of the empire. They were literally the only people who could protect Rokugan from Fu Leng, and that alone showed that their status and power was absolute. Again, it was all about deeds - samurai did not become the rulers because of some obscure birthright but because they were undeniably the best people available for the job. So this route isn't good either in my opinion.

As much as I agreed with you on the general issue that there are kinks and inconsistencies in Rokugan as presented...

I think you might be expecting a human culture, particularly a pre-modern culture, to maybe make a bit more rational and empirical sense than is fair. Real-world human cultures have believed things far more "nuts" by our standards than the general concept of the Rokugani caste system. The Indian caste system is still clinging to bits of its existence in that country, even now, and at one time it was FAR harsher in ways than the system we see presented in L5R.

And while the Indian caste system had the weight of human belief on its side, it never had the actual weight of literal walking talking demigods behind it.

Now, that said, I do think that perhaps the caste system of Rokugan is actually more strict and harsh than the Japanese example on which it's based, and could use a little work if presented anew in a 5th edition setting.

No, my problem is that the setting doesn't follow any reasonable rule with its build-up and doesn't fit together into a complete whole. It is "complex" because there are conflicting elements in it, but these conflicts make absolutely zero sense in relation of what the setting wants to be. The whole thing is in fact very easy to comprehend (because it is really shallow if you think about it), but it is a very unrewarding experience .

Maybe you should define "what the setting wants to be", it might help get to the root of our disagreement.

The setting wants to be fantasy samurai adventures, themed around a highly romanticized feudal japan. Effectively it wants an all-paladin party in not!japan fighting the good fight and looking cool while doing it. It also wants to do tragedy but it heavily skews towards idealism versus cynicism, making said tragedy awkward/hilarious or just plain edgy.

There are also paladin-wizards who might or might not be priests too. There is, like, a 26-pages long thread about this on this very forum .

I think you might be expecting a human culture, particularly a pre-modern culture, to maybe make a bit more rational and empirical sense than is fair.

This can be the case, but I think "fairness" is not really a deal in a world that was shaped by gods in the most literal sense.

No, my problem is that the setting doesn't follow any reasonable rule with its build-up and doesn't fit together into a complete whole. It is "complex" because there are conflicting elements in it, but these conflicts make absolutely zero sense in relation of what the setting wants to be. The whole thing is in fact very easy to comprehend (because it is really shallow if you think about it), but it is a very unrewarding experience .

Maybe you should define "what the setting wants to be", it might help get to the root of our disagreement.

The setting wants to be fantasy samurai adventures, themed around a highly romanticized feudal japan. Effectively it wants an all-paladin party in not!japan fighting the good fight and looking cool while doing it. It also wants to do tragedy but it heavily skews towards idealism versus cynicism, making said tragedy awkward/hilarious or just plain edgy.

There are also paladin-wizards who might or might not be priests too. There is, like, a 26-pages long thread about this on this very forum .

What about the people who say it "wants to be" tense samurai drama? Or that it "wants to be" dark/horror fantasy with not!Japan flavor?

No, my problem is that the setting doesn't follow any reasonable rule with its build-up and doesn't fit together into a complete whole. It is "complex" because there are conflicting elements in it, but these conflicts make absolutely zero sense in relation of what the setting wants to be. The whole thing is in fact very easy to comprehend (because it is really shallow if you think about it), but it is a very unrewarding experience .

Maybe you should define "what the setting wants to be", it might help get to the root of our disagreement.

The setting wants to be fantasy samurai adventures, themed around a highly romanticized feudal japan. Effectively it wants an all-paladin party in not!japan fighting the good fight and looking cool while doing it. It also wants to do tragedy but it heavily skews towards idealism versus cynicism, making said tragedy awkward/hilarious or just plain edgy.

There are also paladin-wizards who might or might not be priests too. There is, like, a 26-pages long thread about this on this very forum .

What about the people who say it "wants to be" tense samurai drama? Or that it "wants to be" dark/horror fantasy with not!Japan flavor?

The former is already included if you combine the 'samurai' and the 'tragedy' aspects. For the latter, you have the 'fantasy' part with 'tragedy' plus the edge-o-meter turned up to eleven. Though, I think doing real dark fantasy with Rokugan is impossible because there is too much inherent heroism in the setting.

The setting wants to be fantasy samurai adventures, themed around a highly romanticized feudal japan. Effectively it wants an all-paladin party in not!japan fighting the good fight and looking cool while doing it. It also wants to do tragedy but it heavily skews towards idealism versus cynicism, making said tragedy awkward/hilarious or just plain edgy.

There are also paladin-wizards who might or might not be priests too. There is, like, a 26-pages long thread about this on this very forum .

Rokugan certainly presents itself that way. But I would argue that, past the propaganda, it's not highly romanticized at all. It's an unpleasant place, at least by modern, real-world values. There's a huge amount of injustice in that universe, much of it done by the good guys. And there's nothing contradictory about that. After all, no one's 100% good, and a lot of the injustice is arguably necessary anyway.

Regarding the shugenja thing, yeah, they're thematically conflicted, and divorced from their cultural inspiration. But the same could be said of armored wizards, friendly dragons, and a lot of the other stuff you see in western fantasy settings, and no one complains about those.

So yeah, there's really no way to fix problems in the setting without upsetting people, simply because everyone has different ideas of what those problems are. And there's no way to measure which "problems" are considered such by the majority, and which are considered such by only a few.

The point is that one shouldn't care about upsetting people with a change. The goal is not to appease the already existing fans, but to draw in new blood. And let's be honest here: it is easier if the setting has sensible and easy-to-understand rules - it helps immersion and simplifies introduction.

While I'm generally one finding issues with the setting as given and with mismatches between setting and system, there's no way I'm on board with the idea of ditching existing customers for hypothetical new customers.

There are not enough existing customers to keep the game alive. Period. Any choice to keep existing customers at the expense of new customers is probably a bad idea!

There's a substantial difference between "what would I change about this game" and "what would I change about the setting." The former is (within the context of internet forum land, at least) pertinent because they are going to make a new version of the game and will be changing things. The latter? No indication that's going to change at all, except with the passage of time.

If they don't change the setting, they are wasting a hugely beneficial opportunity that will never come up again.

I don't really buy that. I do generally buy the notion that they should be willing to look deeply at all sorts of things about the brand. But there still has to be a particular reason to change a particular thing. And there is very little, if anything at all, to be gained by just *poofing* things to be different about the setting, especially given that they've indicated that this is not going to be some sort of reboot of the setting (if you were rebooting then, sure, go ahead and change stuff, because that's kind of the point of a reboot).

So let's assume for the sake of argument that at some point our another in the history of the story they've written some terrible, awful, no-good stuff. Probably everyone who's been with L5R for any length of time can point to something they think is in that category, although we may all point to different things. But let's assume there was something lousy, and let's assume that we can identify what that was (note: I'm pretty sure that turning the Lying Darkness into Cthulhu is not it).

Assuming that, what's the point of some sort of big formal retcon? If you don't like the presentation of some old villain? Just don't bring them back. Or if you bring them back, adjust the presentation when you do it? You want a different flavor of Lying Darkness? Have the Shadow Dragon get consumed and go away, then just do whatever you want with the Lying Darkness, and justify whatever tweaks you're making by the changes wrought by that experience (and if the changes are more than tweaks, then why are you calling it the Lying Darkness instead of just making up a new cosmic force?). You don't like the idea of the Spider? Have them wiped out and then time jump and present any references to them as an evil the empire had to face. Don't like the mayfly Toturi Dynasty? Just don't mention it. There's no point in going back and pretending like the past never happened. Just don't emphasize those elements going forward.

I think this is particularly true for the notion that somehow there is too much history for new players, a notion that I think is mostly a red herring. Historical complexity is largely invisible to a newcomer. If you pick up the RPG and you read the brief history of Rokugan, and a description of the setting today, and it just doesn't get into every single aspect of the soap opera, then a newcomer won't even know it's missing. A super-complex long history only overwhelms the new player if you actually present it to the new player up front. Which would be dumb.

In sum, explicitly throwing out existing setting elements (outside of the context of a reboot) accomplishes little, if anything, and alienates some portion of existing players. The passage of time can take care of pretty much any adjustments you'd need to make, especially given that they'll be able to have the Spider's attack on the empire have whatever outcome they want (want to get rid of a family? have them die off in this war).

Except tamashii. They should totally and explicitly get rid of them, which I justify by noting that they were themselves a retcon anyway, so it's just a question of picking which version of Togashi's immortality you want to use.

I want a reboot. A reboot is the thing I want. A reboot is exactly and explicitly the thing that I want, and I believe that this game will not be successful without a reboot. If you are going to skip ahead a bunch of time so that the old cruft-encrusted, meandering, haphazard story won't be blocking new players' ability to relate... why not just reboot the thing? What is served by hanging on to a story that you acknowledge you need to push away from in order to get people invested? Why not build the thing from the ground up to be good at what you are trying to do, using your one and only opportunity to do so? If they say "We don't need a reboot, we can just do a time skip", and they release the game in the same setting X-hundred years later, and then it turns out that they are still being tripped up by setting baggage they either have to route around or retcon and it is just making hassles for them, then they have lost the chance to fix all that and it will never, ever, ever come again.

And I do not believe they have said anything indicating they will or will not reboot the setting. They haven't laid out any detail that specific. And why is everyone acting like "alienating existing players" is such a bad thing? Not only is it known that there are not enough existing players to maintain the game, period, but because L5R had been imploding for a while, the group of "existing players" is going to be one who are so invested in everything they don't want anything different. Everyone that wanted anything different left. It's like how doomsday cults get more fanatical when they prophecize the end of the world and it doesn't come -- all the less-crazy people leave at that point, so everyone who's left is super super crazy about their doomsday cultery. L5R was in its death throes, and drove off a lot of people, and the ones that were left are not a representative sample of the gaming public.

Even if they rebooted, rebooting is still going to find folks sitting here on forums complaining about supposed inconsistencies about the setting. Rebooting to avoid that would possibly be the most foolish thing ever.

They should be concerned about new customers. They should also be concerned about the existing L5R base. They are going to need to expand for the brand to be successful from FFG's perspective. They are also unlikely to get that sort of expansion if they just blow up the existing playerbase. Completely alienating the existing players spells doom. Doing nothing to attract new players spells doom. But it isn't like this is some sort of either/or situation, like it's somehow impossible to attract new players without alienating all of the existing ones. And you're just assuming that new players will like your rebooted Rokugan better. You seem to think that the mere fact of lots of existing history is somehow antithetical to attracting new players. Despite the fact that FFG paid for Rokugan. If they wanted their own samurai setting without any existing backstory or playerbase, they could have just made up their own instead of shelling out for Rokugan. You can't base things on the views of just the most fanatical of the existing playerbase. That would be foolish. But you also can't base things on the views of people on forums who apparently don't like the existing L5R at all.

I don't "acknowledge that you have to push away from" the story. You don't. I do acknowledge that you can't try to force two decades of story on new players at once. Story complexity is a problem for new players, if it all matters and it all gets dumped on new players at all once, and especially if they have to get all of the existing story to understand what's going on now. But just having a rich history out there that people have an ability to explore if they want? That's a positive.

And the supposed "issues" that are being harped upon continue to be things that new players will never see or consider.

And why is everyone acting like "alienating existing players" is such a bad thing?

Probably because those are us.

Okay, a more serious response: it's not just about the number of customers, it's about their passion as well. The people who've stuck with L5R all this time could be considered the hardcore fans. These types can be vocal, demanding, and sometimes unreasonable. On the other hand, they also spend the most money on the franchise, and more importantly, they're the ones who talk to their friends about the setting. They set up playgroups and tournaments, they GM campaigns: in short they spread the word. This is especially important with an intellectual property like L5R, which has much less name recognition than a lot of FFG's other games (Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Warhammer, Lovecraft).

If FFG completely alienates the existing fanbase, they lose all of that passion. That would be a huge gamble on their part. Sure, they might be able to rebuild it gradually with a new fanbase. But there's no guarantee that'll happen, and even if it does they'll be losing sales in the meantime.

Finally, losing the existing fanbase will slow the game's sales at launch. And if it doesn't sell at launch, stores may not restock.

There are not enough existing customers to keep the game alive. Period. Any choice to keep existing customers at the expense of new customers is probably a bad idea!

[...]

I want a reboot. A reboot is the thing I want. A reboot is exactly and explicitly the thing that I want, and I believe that this game will not be successful without a reboot. If you are going to skip ahead a bunch of time so that the old cruft-encrusted, meandering, haphazard story won't be blocking new players' ability to relate... why not just reboot the thing? What is served by hanging on to a story that you acknowledge you need to push away from in order to get people invested? Why not build the thing from the ground up to be good at what you are trying to do, using your one and only opportunity to do so? If they say "We don't need a reboot, we can just do a time skip", and they release the game in the same setting X-hundred years later, and then it turns out that they are still being tripped up by setting baggage they either have to route around or retcon and it is just making hassles for them, then they have lost the chance to fix all that and it will never, ever, ever come again.

And I do not believe they have said anything indicating they will or will not reboot the setting. They haven't laid out any detail that specific. And why is everyone acting like "alienating existing players" is such a bad thing? Not only is it known that there are not enough existing players to maintain the game, period, but because L5R had been imploding for a while, the group of "existing players" is going to be one who are so invested in everything they don't want anything different. Everyone that wanted anything different left. It's like how doomsday cults get more fanatical when they prophecize the end of the world and it doesn't come -- all the less-crazy people leave at that point, so everyone who's left is super super crazy about their doomsday cultery. L5R was in its death throes, and drove off a lot of people, and the ones that were left are not a representative sample of the gaming public.

First of all, I would like to know how many "existing customer" there is, you speak like you know the current numbers, so I would really like to know about this. Also, you speak like you know the number of people that would want to play L5R but don't because they don't like the story. I would also like that. I don't know those numbers, so I can't say things like that.

Second, I think we all know that you want a reboot, as far as I see, there's not a lot of people who agrees with you. Most request a few tweeks here and there or a time skip, which basicaly works as a reboot in a certain way. The time skip is, in my opinion, the best solution between the idea of story wipe and keeping the storyline. Why? Because the time skip takes the current story as a background, just like the background when it was started, which is at the Clan War. Then, the few things that was very questionning may not being said as if it was forgotten, solving most problem that some people are annoyed by. This gives a lot to the current player base and the new old. Why? Because the current player may keep using the current story by using a time period they like with passion and the new one will just keep up with the new story after the time skip. Best of two worlds right there. I don't know why they should let down everything for the sake of letting down everything.

Third, alienating the existing players is a bad thing because it's a lack of respect to them. It's like saying: "Ok guys, you were with us all this time, now it's time to move on, GET OUT!" and it's pretty bad for making a reputation. This will also prevent new players because they won't know if they will be get the same treatment in the future. I'll join up with Fumi on this, it's all a question of passion. Remove the passion from the existing player and it's basically a game that will need a huge marketing pressure to be able to be successful. You already said it, there's not a lot of players, I agree with the fact that there's not a lot of players but from what I know, it's not a question of setting, it's a question of visibility. It would be a bad marketing decision to alienate the current player because they will probably just give bad reviews when they will need good review.

In my opinion, if I would buy an IP just to reboot it, I think it would be even better simply creating a new IP instead. Why would they waste money on something they would just dump in the garbage can? I would certainly not buy an IP for the system, since a system can be done in several ways, sure they might not have some specific things like the Five Rings, but it can be replaced by other stuffs easily. Which leaves to the most important question, why buying an IP? For the setting, of course. With this in mind, that's why I really doubt that a reboot will be done.

Third, alienating the existing players is a bad thing because it's a lack of respect to them. It's like saying: "Ok guys, you were with us all this time, now it's time to move on, GET OUT!" and it's pretty bad for making a reputation. This will also prevent new players because they won't know if they will be get the same treatment in the future. I'll join up with Fumi on this, it's all a question of passion. Remove the passion from the existing player and it's basically a game that will need a huge marketing pressure to be able to be successful. You already said it, there's not a lot of players, I agree with the fact that there's not a lot of players but from what I know, it's not a question of setting, it's a question of visibility. It would be a bad marketing decision to alienate the current player because they will probably just give bad reviews when they will need good review.

As a parallel, there are video game franchises that go down that road, and it causes a lot of bitterness.

1) A game will be a moderate success and have a deeply invested group of dedicated players... and then when it comes time for a sequel, the developer/publisher treats those customers as "given" and starts chasing after a broader market, changing key features that the existing players love but that the makers feel "hold the game back" from "big time sales".

2) Many MMOs continually change things over time, until the game is hardly recognizable and the most-invested players can hardly recognize the game.

Unlike the market for video games, however, I don't think there are many tens of millions of potential customers to chase when it comes to a tabletop RPG. Once a company has a customer, they really need to keep them coming back. Tossing out someone you KNOW is willing to buy your RPG books for some other people who MIGHT be willing, who you HOPE are willing, if you just change everything, is a giant and IMO foolish gamble. People don't like having the rug pulled out from under them, and they will develop "change fatigue" if you keep doing it.

I don't think a full reboot of Rokugan is necessary or advisable -- and I say that as someone who is a compulsive "problem finder", who keeps findings things that I would have done differently. On good days, I try to restrain myself from saying "this should be changed" too much, out of respect for the people who have been invested in this setting far longer than I have.

Now, all that said, I do think that there are ways in which the setting and history and the game as a mechanical entity can be made far more accessible to new players, and to some of the existing players who are being asked to buy Yet Another Edition.

1) Avoid book-spam. Having key bits of the spellcasting system (counter-magic, etc), and signature Schools, and the setting history, and so on, all spread out across more than a dozen books isn't welcoming -- at all. I understand that the idea is to make each book appeal in some way to as many customers as possible, but speaking as a customer , it gets really old really fast.

2) Make the mechanics clear, and present them in an organized fashion. Don't hide the mechanics for PCs to do something many of them are going to want or need to do at some point in the rules for the one School "known" to do that. Don't keep adding new bits to the game for "splats" that don't have an existing framework within the rules for those who aren't part of that "splat" or who haven't bought that new book. Kinzen's work on social and artisan mechanics is a good indication of where to go. Schools should build on the existing mechanics and provide ways to make characters better at a certain thing, not appear to be the only road by which to be any good at that thing.

3) The fact that Rokugani "history" is a convenient ficiton, is in this case fictionally convenient. If there's anything that really needs to be changed for the sake of solid worldbuilding or resolving an outstanding contradiction or oddity, then the change can simply be chalked up to how Rokugan handles its "history". The official story changed, "new" facts were "discovered", whatever.

4) When it comes to the RPG, don't try quite so hard to emulate the card game. Personally, if I wanted to play the card game, I'd play the card game -- and when I'm looking to play an RPG, I'm looking for it to be the best RPG it can, not to "capture the feel" of an entirely different sort of game. The balance issues are different, the worldbuilding considerations aren't the same, and so on. In a card game, it's fine for the "wizards" to throw natural disasters at each other in the fluff text for "magic attack" cards, as long as the cards are balanced between decks and by cost. Trying to include the same thing in an RPG just causes a lot of problems.

5) Details can be fixed or cleaned up without ditching the basics. Using a recent discussion as an example -- the problem with the caste system isn't that it exists in a setting like Rokugan, it's just in the details, in the harshness and strictness that seems to take more from other cultures than from Japan, and the lack of things like a Chōnin class pushing for power and tied into the strain between deeply traditional factions (Lion families) and others (Yorimoto, Yasuki, etc). We read that some families are very "mercantile", but we see little in the way of how to handle commerce, at least in the books I actually have.

6) Perhaps re-examine some of the elements that originate with rather face-palmy American myths and exagerations about Japan.

And so on. There's more, but it's REALLY getting into my personal tastes, I think.

In general, I think there are some who are too willing to keep the bathwater to save the baby, and some too willing to ditch the baby in order to get rid of the bathwater.

Here's an open question, and I really don't know the answer.

Is a separate Iaijutsu skill, distinct from Kenjutsu , necessary?

I use Iaijutsu a little differently, so yes, for me it is. :-) (Short form: you can use it to make a swift attack from a sheathed position, i.e. more or less what iaido is in real life. Good for responding to ambushes, or cutting people down without warning.)

But by the canon mechanics, I suspect the main reason to split it off is to make it so that not every good swordsman is automatically a good duelist, too. How important of a distinction that is will vary from player to player: if duels aren't a huge thing in your campaign, you could probably get by with letting Awareness and Reflexes vs Agility measure the difference.

Whereas I'm a bit perplexed by a setup that says to someone with Kenjutsu 5 but no Iaijutsu... "You're very good with a sword... unless you're dueling, and then you're clueless."

They apparently suck at getting their swords out of their sheaths. :-P

(Shhhhhhhhh, don't ask what that means for Mirumoto who supposedly start their "iaijutsu" duel with their swords already drawn.)

My interpretation is that iaijutsu refers more to one's ability to read the opponent and tap into the Void, to find the perfect moment to strike, as well as pure speed. After all, you don't need to be particularly accurate to hit a stationary, unarmoured, target, nor do you need to worry about leaving yourself open and so on- you just need to know when to strike, and be able to do so faster than your opponent. Kenjutsu, by contrast, is about accuracy and positioning, and it's entirely plausible that someone who is otherwise very good in a swordfight might not be so good in a formal duel (eg, Lady Matsu). That, for me, is why kenjutsu and iaijutsu are separate skills. But there are certainly alternate interpretations.

Well, technically, Matsu was just fine at dueling; she was very good in fact. She was just not quite as good as Kakita. She would never have faced him at the end of the tournament if she had not been good at it.

I always looked at the skills as Iaijutsu as being reflective of the ritual business--it has all the "courtly" trappings to go with it, making it more showy than the functional Kenjutsu. When you are using Kenjutsu, you are in a scuffle of some sort--either personal or mass combat-wise--but Iaijutsu means you are involved in the rituals of the societal conflict.

Well, technically, Matsu was just fine at dueling; she was very good in fact. She was just not quite as good as Kakita. She would never have faced him at the end of the tournament if she had not been good at it.

Actually, the first Emerald Tournament didn't feature formal iaijutsu, except that it was approximately the style used by Kakita himself- Matsu won all her previous fights on pure 'kenjutsu'. Imperial Histories , p. 30:

Oh Jaijutsu is something that needs accuaracy. The reason is that in a formal non death duel you also don´t want to do to much dmg to the person. Also you display you skill through hitting smal targets on the body so it is speed combined with accuracy and tapping into the void to get a clear head and focus.
Also Jiajutsu is what displays these destinied face ofs at a brige, where both people just look at each other and than both strike and one dies. While Kenjutsu is more for the actuall battle field.

Here's an open question, and I really don't know the answer.

Is a separate Iaijutsu skill, distinct from Kenjutsu , necessary?

In my current L5R RPG (4th Edition) tabletop game, I have removed the Iaijutsu Skill entirely, and replaced it with an Iaijutsu Emphasis for Kenjutsu. All references to Iaijutsu in the rules is (roughly) replaced by Kenjutsu or Kenjutsu (Iaijutsu) where appropriate (Kakita Bushi Rank 1 adds twice your Kenjutsu to your Initiative, Mirumoto Bushi Rank 2 lets you add your Kenjutsu Skill to all Kenjutsu (Iaijutsu) rolls).

So far? My PCs have been very happy with the change. It removes the "Skill Tax" to be a duelist, and made dueling more accessible to all the bushi. It just requires different Attributes (i.e. NOT Agility) to be good at it.

Here's an open question, and I really don't know the answer.

Is a separate Iaijutsu skill, distinct from Kenjutsu , necessary?

In my current L5R RPG (4th Edition) tabletop game, I have removed the Iaijutsu Skill entirely, and replaced it with an Iaijutsu Emphasis for Kenjutsu. All references to Iaijutsu in the rules is (roughly) replaced by Kenjutsu or Kenjutsu (Iaijutsu) where appropriate (Kakita Bushi Rank 1 adds twice your Kenjutsu to your Initiative, Mirumoto Bushi Rank 2 lets you add your Kenjutsu Skill to all Kenjutsu (Iaijutsu) rolls).

So far? My PCs have been very happy with the change. It removes the "Skill Tax" to be a duelist, and made dueling more accessible to all the bushi. It just requires different Attributes (i.e. NOT Agility) to be good at it.

That's what I was thinking -- that it would take away some of the "specialist, or loser" feeling that a seperate Iaijustsu skill, stacked on both the dueling-focused Schools and with the need to broaden the character's Traints, gave the system.

In a setting where the formalized duel is SO important, it makes little sense that only specialized warriors would have any real ability to deal with a challenge or answer the call to stand in for a non-warrior.

The dueling-focused Schools still get their advantages, and Bushi who put extra into their non-Agility traits (Awareness, Void, Reflexes) would still have a noticable edge in formal duels.

Well, technically, Matsu was just fine at dueling; she was very good in fact. She was just not quite as good as Kakita. She would never have faced him at the end of the tournament if she had not been good at it.

Actually, the first Emerald Tournament didn't feature formal iaijutsu, except that it was approximately the style used by Kakita himself- Matsu won all her previous fights on pure 'kenjutsu'. Imperial Histories , p. 30:

Contrary to later popular mythology, iaijutsu had not yet been formalized. Although the idea of resolving disputes with duels already existed, these were simply battles of martial skill without the elaborate traditions and rituals of the iaijutsu duel that developed later on.

Your interpretation of iaijutsu skill including the cultural/ritual aspect as well is interesting, though!

As many people have pointed out, fourth edition is not the only source for many items in the Rokugan setting, and even if it were, it's immaterial to the here and now as whatever the previous editions said, the NEXT edition will be the canon edition.

But the truth is that the entire "feud" between Matsu and Kakita cannot happen as presented in canon without the core rules of Iaijutsu already being in place. Otherwise? Why is it an insult for Kakita not to bow to her when he finishes? If it was not expected as part of the ritual, then . . . why would it matter to her that he did not do it? (And 1000 years of sniping between Lion and Crane would not have happened.)

And, Iaijutsu is not the only form of dueling there is. You can have skirmish "duels" in the middle of mass combat, which do not strictly speaking follow the entire ritual of Iaijutsu. Shugenja can have duels, etc...

I've always looked at Iaijutsu as the formal, ritualistic, duel that has to have all the "production values" attached to it. You have to have permission from superiors; there are scheduling issues that have to be accounted for, blessings given, NOTICE given to the event, etc . . . In short, I've always seen it as the "court duel."

But the truth is that the entire "feud" between Matsu and Kakita cannot happen as presented in canon without the core rules of Iaijutsu already being in place. Otherwise? Why is it an insult for Kakita not to bow to her when he finishes? If it was not expected as part of the ritual, then . . . why would it matter to her that he did not do it? (And 1000 years of sniping between Lion and Crane would not have happened.)

I... don't really want to comment this .

Otherwise, striking with a sword is literally just a moment in most duels. Iaijutsu is meant to represent the lengthy process of building up the strike (and then execute it), not the capability of striking itself. Even with duels, you continue fighting with Kenjutsu if the first strike wasn't enough.

But the truth is that the entire "feud" between Matsu and Kakita cannot happen as presented in canon without the core rules of Iaijutsu already being in place. Otherwise? Why is it an insult for Kakita not to bow to her when he finishes? If it was not expected as part of the ritual, then . . . why would it matter to her that he did not do it? (And 1000 years of sniping between Lion and Crane would not have happened.)

He had bowed to every single opponent he faced up to that point. It was apparent he was showing each of them respect. Suddenly, in the final match, against an opponent who was clearly stronger than everyone else he had defeated and bowed to, he refused to bow? It was clear he did it to show her, and her specifically, the disrespect she had showed her opponents. To someone with as much pride as she possessed, the defeat, followed by such a specific, targeted disrespect, would be unforgivable.

Also there is Iaijutsu (Iaido) and Kenjutsu (Kendo) in the real world and they are different too. Not only regarding the equipment you need for training, Kendo requires you to have armor and a Shinai (bamboosword) while Iaido only use a Katana, but also in terms on what techniques you learn.

Almost every Kendo technique begins with your sword already drawn and you strike for the head, throat, hip or hand:

Iaido on the other hand starts with your sword not yet drawn and unlike in Kendo you learn to hit and stab your enemy.

So, if there are different sword arts for different usages in the real world, why should it be different in Rokugan? Just because it is a fantasy-world? I don't think so...

And yes, if you are a master in Kyujutsu and your opponent too is preffering the bow, then you'll both have a duell using your bow instead of your Katana.

And the Taryu-Jiai is a duell between Shugenja using their magical skills, but it follows the same phases and rites as Iaijutsu.

I prefer a bit of abstraction when it comes to things like this -- I get tired of systems that have 18 skills for the same basic thing and try to split them all up in some pseudo-technical manner.

And in a world where the formal duel is a constant presence and risk, no one planning to wear a katana would learn the one without the other.