I guess it just bugs me when, in fiction or in a game, "the physics" of the reality seem to change depending on the character or the circumstances.

So, I've only really been reading this board very recently and can't claim to have read everything. However, a couple of comments in different threads mentioned the concept of Three Pillars, which I think is about giving Bushi, Courtiers and Shugenja all their own niches. Also, there was discussion of abolishing the Low category of skills.

It occurred to me that you could possibly do a bit of a category re-organisation to fit with this three pillar approach. I have used the social skills in Kinzen's overly ambitious thread. This is the idea:

Courtly skills are mostly the province of the samurai caste. They are the skills one would typically see in use at a daimyo's court. The below skills are considered Courtly

Artisan, Etiquette, Influence, Perform, Politics, Sincerity, Tea Ceremony

Bugei skills are the domain of the bushi. These are the skills of the warrior,although the Samurai are not the only ones to use them. The below skills are considered Bugei

Athletics, Battle, Defense, Horsemanship, Hunting, Iaijutsu, Weapons

Scholarly skills are often practised in the temples of Rokugan. They typically require considerable education in order to attain. The below skills are considered Scholarly

Calligraphy, Divination, Investigation, Lore, Medicine, Meditation, Spellcraft

Peasant skills represent the knowledge of various practices that are not normally the domain of the Samurai. The below skills are considered Peasant

Animal Handling, Commerce, Craft, Engineering, Sailing, Sleight of Hand, Stealth

It occurred to me that you could possibly do a bit of a category re-organisation to fit with this three pillar approach. I have used the social skills in Kinzen's overly ambitious thread. This is the idea:

Courtly skills are mostly the province of the samurai caste. They are the skills one would typically see in use at a daimyo's court. The below skills are considered Courtly

Artisan, Etiquette, Influence, Perform, Politics, Sincerity, Tea Ceremony

Bugei skills are the domain of the bushi. These are the skills of the warrior,although the Samurai are not the only ones to use them. The below skills are considered Bugei

Athletics, Battle, Defense, Horsemanship, Hunting, Iaijutsu, Weapons

Scholarly skills are often practised in the temples of Rokugan. They typically require considerable education in order to attain. The below skills are considered Scholarly

Calligraphy, Divination, Investigation, Lore, Medicine, Meditation, Spellcraft

Peasant skills represent the knowledge of various practices that are not normally the domain of the Samurai. The below skills are considered Peasant

Animal Handling, Commerce, Craft, Engineering, Sailing, Sleight of Hand, Stealth

This is a really interesting suggestion, and I might well adopt it! My arrangement of them, prior to seeing this post, was slightly different; I had kept Calligraphy under the courtier group (though I could see it going either way), and Stealth under Bugei, plus I had previously just glossed Sleight of Hand as a Perform skill (which can lose you Honor depending on the use to which you put it). But yeah, for the most part I broke it down the same way. Once the High/Low groupings are gone, there's a lot to be said for viewing it through the three pillars instead.

Edited to add: because I was thinking in terms of "spiritual skills" rather than "scholarly skills," I had also put Investigation under the Merchant/Peasant category (which ought to have a less judgy name, if I wind up putting that vital of a skill in there -- Common Skills, maybe?). Not sure yet which way I'll go.

Courtly skills are mostly the province of the samurai caste. They are the skills one would typically see in use at a daimyo's court. The below skills are considered Courtly

Artisan, Etiquette, Influence, Perform, Politics, Sincerity, Tea Ceremony

Bugei skills are the domain of the bushi. These are the skills of the warrior,although the Samurai are not the only ones to use them. The below skills are considered Bugei

Athletics, Battle, Defense, Horsemanship, Hunting, Iaijutsu, Weapons

Scholarly skills are often practised in the temples of Rokugan. They typically require considerable education in order to attain. The below skills are considered Scholarly

Calligraphy, Divination, Investigation, Lore, Medicine, Meditation, Spellcraft

Peasant skills represent the knowledge of various practices that are not normally the domain of the Samurai. The below skills are considered Peasant

Animal Handling, Commerce, Craft, Engineering, Sailing, Sleight of Hand, Stealth

Well, I'm not too happy about the regrouping. For once I don't see why it would be necessary and on the other hand it feels like each group was forced to have 7 skills.

Which skill is meant with "Influence"? What is this skill about? At first it reads like a mix of Courtier, Temptation and Intimidation...what happened to these three?

Why is Calligraphy, one of the most important Courtier-Skills, grouped with the Scholarly-Skills?

Also I wouldn't say that Investiagation is a typical Shugenja or Monk-Skill. It is less about learning and more about asking the right questions and logic.

And I would rephrase the "Peasant"-Group into "Common"-Group or something else.

But I have a different idea. Why not skip the grouping completely and use Tags like with the weapons and spells?

So those Tags could be:

1) Courtier, Bushi, Shugenja, Ninja, Peasant, Merchant, Artisan

2) Body, Mind, Soul

3) Air, Earth, Fire, Void, Water

4) Social, Fighting, Arts, Academic, Spiritual, Common

Just to post some ideas how the Tags could be named.

We could even use two Tags per skill, like one Tag "describing" the group using this skill often and one Tag for the Element.

So the list could look something like this:

Acting TAG: Arts, Air

Artisan: ... TAG: Arts, Air

Craft: ... TAG: Arts/ Common, Fire/ Earth/ Water (depending on the Craft-Skill)

Commerce TAG: Academic/ Common, Fire (yes, I would count Commerce as Academic, because it is not that easy)

Courtier TAG: Social, Air

Divination TAG: Spiritual, Fire

Ettiquette TAG: Social, Air

Horsemanship TAG: Fighting, Fire

Intimidation TAG: Common, Earth

Stealth TAG: Common, Fire

or

Acting TAG: Artisan, Air

Artisan: ... TAG: Artisan, Air

Craft: ... TAG: Artisan/ Merchant, Fire/ Earth/ Water (depending on the Craft-Skill)

Commerce TAG: Merchant, Fire (yes, I would count Commerce as Academic, because it is not that easy)

Courtier TAG: Courtier, Air

Divination TAG: Shugenja, Fire

Ettiquette TAG: Courtier, Air

Horsemanship TAG: Bushi, Fire

Intimidation TAG: Ninja, Earth

Stealth TAG: Ninja, Fire

This is just an idea which came to my mind. There are many ways the Tags can be placed and I like it more than grouping the skills. Also it may help in Char-Creation to see which skills might be used for which archetype/ job.

I admit I didn't read Kinzens various ambitous threads...

The answer to a lot of your questions is in my threads, yeah; this doesn't entirely make sense without having read those. :-) (The very short form is that I eliminated Low Skills as a separate group -- as with Deceit, they are now Low emphases of other skills -- and rearranged the social skills a bit in order to make a clearer distinction between what effect each one has.)

To my way of thinking about it, if you don't have a High/Low division anymore, there's something to be said for grouping things in a way that draws attention to the spheres of activity for the three major samurai types (courtiers, bushi, shugenja). It has no mechanical effect, but it does have a psychological one; it primes the player to think of those three spheres as being of equal importance to one another. But I agree there's no reason to artificially constrain the groupings to each have the same number of skills; I lean toward calling the fourth category "Common" or something like that (except that implies those are skills almost everybody has, which isn't true -- so some word other than common, probably), and putting Investigation there.

But I have a different idea. Why not skip the grouping completely and use Tags like with the weapons and spells?

I've been using tags a lot more in my redesign, yeah, because it helps to be able to just have an Artisan tag to slap onto Calligraphy, rather than writing out a whole thing about how it counts as an Artisan skill for the purposes of etc etc etc. The Elemental ones you suggest look to me like they'd basically just be replicating the information you already get from the listed Trait for a skill; if something is usually rolled with Awareness, I already know it's associated with Air. The Courtier/Bushi/Shugenja/etc and Social/Fighting/etc tags would more or less have the same effect as putting them into groupings like Karasu suggested, just in a different way; whether it's easier to see what you're getting into at char gen or harder would depend, I think, on the individual player. (Me, I would find groupings to be easier, but it sounds like you feel the opposite.)

My own inclination is mostly to use tags in a way that is mechanically significant: a skill with the Social tag benefits from spells or techniques or whatever that affect Social Skills (which overlaps largely with, but is not identical to, Courtly Skills), etc. That's how they generally work with weapons, as far as I can think of; they define what weapons you get Simple Attack Actions with and so forth.

To be honest, the fact that all of the groups ended up with 7 skills was mostly luck. I put the skills where I thought they ought to go, then realised that if I just put 'Weapons' instead of listing all of them it would end up being equal like that, and I liked symmetry. It's not a must.

As for Calligraphy, I actually looked at which schools it appeared in out of the basic set. From the 8 great clans, 9/9 Shugenja schools have it as a core skill, but only 3/8 Courtier schools.

Investigation only appears in Kitsuki, Tsuruchi and Bayushi, though,schools more well known for not quite proper samurai than anything else. It still strikes me more as a mental scholarly skill than a social courtly one, but maybe it doesn't belong to any of the three pillars. Kitsuki investigators are considered weird for depending on evidence; Tsuruchi Bounty Hunters actively reject Bushido; Bayushi Courtiers are willing to do whatever is needed for their Clan. So maybe put it into the other category: things most Samurai don't do. Would Heimin be a better term? Are their terms similar to Bugei for court and scholars?

I absolutely agree with the idea of tags. I remember being very keen on chasing down tags for schools in earlier editions where they were a bit spotty.

The obvious ones are Artisan and Crafts as you say, and Social for spell effects. I prefer Bugei/Courtly/Scholarly to Bushi/Courtier/Shugenja to avoid confusion when referring to them. If an advantage gave a bonus to your Bushi skills, would that be the skills you learned at your Bushi school, or the skills with the Bushi tag?

Would it be worth saying that the family of groups Bugei, Courtly and Scholarly is considered Samurai skills? Then, rather than having to say "One High or Bugei skill" in many of the schools, it could say "One Samurai skill".

Are their terms similar to Bugei for court and scholars?

Bugei means "martial arts." "Social skills" = shakaiginou, which I'm betting is a little more complicated than most players want to deal with. :-) "Scholarly ability" is gakuryoku, ditto.

Are their terms similar to Bugei for court and scholars?

Bugei means "martial arts." "Social skills" = shakaiginou, which I'm betting is a little more complicated than most players want to deal with. :-) "Scholarly ability" is gakuryoku, ditto.

Hmm, yeah.

Although I will point out that the only reason I know and understand the term Bugei is because L5R used it. Not to mention Kyujutsu, Subojutsu etc. Actually, I'm torn between whether words for skills should be consistently English, Japanese or a mix. Especially with the way the Empress is veering more towards a Chinese "Mandate of Heaven" style thing.

I . . . may have written out the character sheet for a major NPC entirely in Japanese. >_> And I don't just mean writing things like "Shodou" for calligraphy; his sheet actually says 書道.

(Hey, it's one way to expand my vocabulary.)

So.., does that mean you have the Japanese for all of the skills? I would be interested in seeing those, transliterated since I can't read kanji or kana.

Actually, I'm torn between whether words for skills should be consistently English, Japanese or a mix.

In my opinion, it is up to the importance of the skill and thus how it would be commonly referred in-setting. For example, skill of using a sword would be called as 'kenjutsu' rather than 'swordsmanship' because the people who would use this word are refined people; on the other hand, using a knife is simply "knife fighting" as commoners and other unsophisticated folk would refer to it more.

But I have a different idea. Why not skip the grouping completely and use Tags like with the weapons and spells?

I've been using tags a lot more in my redesign, yeah, because it helps to be able to just have an Artisan tag to slap onto Calligraphy, rather than writing out a whole thing about how it counts as an Artisan skill for the purposes of etc etc etc. The Elemental ones you suggest look to me like they'd basically just be replicating the information you already get from the listed Trait for a skill; if something is usually rolled with Awareness, I already know it's associated with Air. The Courtier/Bushi/Shugenja/etc and Social/Fighting/etc tags would more or less have the same effect as putting them into groupings like Karasu suggested, just in a different way; whether it's easier to see what you're getting into at char gen or harder would depend, I think, on the individual player. (Me, I would find groupings to be easier, but it sounds like you feel the opposite.)

My own inclination is mostly to use tags in a way that is mechanically significant: a skill with the Social tag benefits from spells or techniques or whatever that affect Social Skills (which overlaps largely with, but is not identical to, Courtly Skills), etc. That's how they generally work with weapons, as far as I can think of; they define what weapons you get Simple Attack Actions with and so forth.

Well, I have my reasons for not reading your series of ambitous-changes. Mostly because you plan to change stuff in a way I don't agree with and it may result in arguing about stuff and therefore "spaming" your post unnecesarrily. But if you are interested in a discussion about those changes we could handle this via pms.

But regarding the idea on how to handle the skills:

Yes, it may help to group the skills fitting to the various archetypes but it may also give the players a "wrong idea" if it would be handled with the terms suggested by you.

Why "wrong idea"?

Because a Bushi is not only about fighting, a Courtier is not only about the Court and a Shugenja is not only about religion.

And there are a few mechanics which adress a specific sort of skill set, like the use of Low skills having an impact on your honor and the advantage Crafty which is also adressing the Low skills. And I'm pretty sure that there are some spells affecting specific-skillgroups too.

So I'd prefer to stick with Highskills and put in all skills an educated Samurai should have, except for the fighting skills, since those are found under the term Bugei.

An educated Samurai, be it a Bushi or not, should know a little about some creative-skills like Origami, Painting, Singing, Storytelling or the like. Also should an educated Samurai have at least a little knowledge about History and spiritual or religious things.

And I take the freedom of assuming that most people who are new to L5R and just know a little about Samurai would build a Bushi just with Bugei-Skills if there weren't the mixed Schoolskills and the feeling of "you know you should take Highskills because you play an educated Noble and not a brute warrior". (Yes, I know that there is little reason to build a Bushi the way he should be built from a story-point-of-view even in the 4th Edition)

I'd prefer a grouping which suggests that a Bushi might as well take up some of the Highskills (let's stick with it for now) and not only build the character around being awesome at fighting. And for me it sees this can't really be done through grouping but rather with Tags.

Also I don't really like the idea of fusing some of the Low skills into other (non-low) skills and making them Emphases. It seems to me that it may complicate the way of handling the use of unhonorable behavior and it's impact on the Honor-Rank. Except of course you plan on dropping the whole Honor-stuff...

Yes, the Element-Tags "just repeat" what the Trait says, but it shows in a more obvious way which Elements are important for which style of play and may help new players to better understand the effects of Advantages like "Chosen by the Oracle" and the like.

As for Calligraphy, I actually looked at which schools it appeared in out of the basic set. From the 8 great clans, 9/9 Shugenja schools have it as a core skill, but only 3/8 Courtier schools.

Investigation only appears in Kitsuki, Tsuruchi and Bayushi, though,schools more well known for not quite proper samurai than anything else. It still strikes me more as a mental scholarly skill than a social courtly one, but maybe it doesn't belong to any of the three pillars. Kitsuki investigators are considered weird for depending on evidence; Tsuruchi Bounty Hunters actively reject Bushido; Bayushi Courtiers are willing to do whatever is needed for their Clan. So maybe put it into the other category: things most Samurai don't do. Would Heimin be a better term? Are their terms similar to Bugei for court and scholars?

I absolutely agree with the idea of tags. I remember being very keen on chasing down tags for schools in earlier editions where they were a bit spotty.

The obvious ones are Artisan and Crafts as you say, and Social for spell effects. I prefer Bugei/Courtly/Scholarly to Bushi/Courtier/Shugenja to avoid confusion when referring to them. If an advantage gave a bonus to your Bushi skills, would that be the skills you learned at your Bushi school, or the skills with the Bushi tag?

Would it be worth saying that the family of groups Bugei, Courtly and Scholarly is considered Samurai skills? Then, rather than having to say "One High or Bugei skill" in many of the schools, it could say "One Samurai skill".

Yes, Calligraphie is more often found in Shugenja Schools than in Courtier Schools, still it is more important for Courtier. Or how else would a Courtier be able to understand an intercepted letter? The hidden message in a poem? The diary of a deceased victim which might contain a clue to the culprit?

The Shugenja use the Cipher only for their Spellscrolls andy maybe sometimes for hidden messages, but it is more of a diplomatic-skill.

Heimin may be a better term than peasant, but I'm still not really satisfied...and I can't come up with a better suggestion than common.

And yes, I think it would be worth saying that most Bugei, court and scholarly skills are considered Samurai-Skills. Still there are some exceptions like Ninjutsu, some Weapon-Skills and other less honorable or educated skills.

But thanks for liking the idea of using Tags instead of groups.

Investigation only appears in Kitsuki, Tsuruchi and Bayushi, though,schools more well known for not quite proper samurai than anything else. It still strikes me more as a mental scholarly skill than a social courtly one, but maybe it doesn't belong to any of the three pillars.

I'd argue that skills such as Investigation, Stealth and few emphasizes are more skills tied to a secondary Espionage "support" pillar. A pillar that Scout, Ninja and Magistrate Schools are intended to primarily participate in.

I think Economics would be another "support" pillar that is underutilized in play, but often given to various schools in order to make them more distinct.

We may be over-focusing on the current skill list instead of figuring out how we want all the various pillars (both primary and support) to play.

What should play in the Battle/Combat pillar be like? (this may be very easy or incredibly hard to answer)

What should play in the Courtly/Social pillar be like?

What should play in the Supernatural pillar be like?

What should play in the Espionage pillar be like?

What should play in the Economic pillar be like?

Are there other support pillars (such as possibly Crafting)? What are they? How should they play?

Well, I have my reasons for not reading your series of ambitous-changes.

That's fine -- I don't expect you to read them! I was just providing a bit of context for what Karasu had posted here.

But regarding the idea on how to handle the skills:

Yes, it may help to group the skills fitting to the various archetypes but it may also give the players a "wrong idea" if it would be handled with the terms suggested by you.

Why "wrong idea"?

Because a Bushi is not only about fighting, a Courtier is not only about the Court and a Shugenja is not only about religion.

The terms I was thinking of using were the ones Karasu suggested: Courtly, Bugei, and Scholarly. That's actually more flexible than your suggestion of tagging them Courtier, Shugenja, and so on -- it says to me "these skills are relevant to this sphere of activity," not "these skills are designated for this school type only."

And there are a few mechanics which adress a specific sort of skill set, like the use of Low skills having an impact on your honor and the advantage Crafty which is also adressing the Low skills. And I'm pretty sure that there are some spells affecting specific-skillgroups too.

Right, which is why I said I like using tagging in a way that has mechanical relevance.

And I take the freedom of assuming that most people who are new to L5R and just know a little about Samurai would build a Bushi just with Bugei-Skills if there weren't the mixed Schoolskills and the feeling of "you know you should take Highskills because you play an educated Noble and not a brute warrior".

I'm not sure why you think anything here is incompatible with that. Nothing in this way of grouping stuff says that school skills would not still be mixed, or that the descriptions for the skills would not still talk about how all samurai are expected to be well-rounded individuals with knowledge not only of fighting but also of civilized matters. (Heck, to my way of thinking this approach would *aid* that goal, because it no longer treats bushi and their activities as a special case compared to everybody else.)

I'd prefer a grouping which suggests that a Bushi might as well take up some of the Highskills (let's stick with it for now) and not only build the character around being awesome at fighting. And for me it sees this can't really be done through grouping but rather with Tags.

You really have me confused now, because the way you say that, it sounds like you think the 4e approach (where the stuff bushi ought to be learning apart from fighting is all conflated under High Skills, rather than being tagged) is incapable of creating the effect you desire.

Also I don't really like the idea of fusing some of the Low skills into other (non-low) skills and making them Emphases. It seems to me that it may complicate the way of handling the use of unhonorable behavior and it's impact on the Honor-Rank. Except of course you plan on dropping the whole Honor-stuff...

What??? Uh, no, no I don't. I have no idea where you got that notion, but it is 100% inaccurate.

So.., does that mean you have the Japanese for all of the skills? I would be interested in seeing those, transliterated since I can't read kanji or kana.

All of them, no; only the ones that the NPC has ranks in. But for those who care, these are the words I've been using:

Athletics - Tai-iku

Calligraphy - Shohou [sorry, I typed in the wrong word in my previous comment]

Courtier (Manipulation) - Teishin (Sousa)

Defense - Shubu

Disguise [i house-ruled a split in Acting] - Kamen

Etiquette - Girei

Horsemanship - Bajutsu

Hunting - Shuryou

Intimidation - Ikaku

Investigation - Ginmi

Knives - Shoutou

Medicine - Igaku

Meditation - Zazen

Perform: Poetry - Enjiru: Shi

Sincerity (Deceit) - Jitsu (Giman)

Stealth - Shinobi [yes, really]

Tea Ceremony - Chadou

Temptation - Yuuwaku

Craft: Poison - Waza: Doku

Sleight of Hand - Tejina [yes, really]

Commerce - Baibai [not actually a transliteration of "buy-buy," though it looks like it]

So now you can stat out a ninja in Japanese. ;-) If it helps with pronunciation, any "ou" combination can just be written as "o" -- L5R tends to simplify the long vowels.

(If any of my word choices look odd to other Japanese speakers, feel free to propose emendations. Some of them are hard because the game uses a word in a sense that is not really its normal dictionary definition, like "courtier" or "investigation.")

Thankyou

Investigation only appears in Kitsuki, Tsuruchi and Bayushi, though,schools more well known for not quite proper samurai than anything else. It still strikes me more as a mental scholarly skill than a social courtly one, but maybe it doesn't belong to any of the three pillars.

I'd argue that skills such as Investigation, Stealth and few emphasizes are more skills tied to a secondary Espionage "support" pillar. A pillar that Scout, Ninja and Magistrate Schools are intended to primarily participate in.

I think Economics would be another "support" pillar that is underutilized in play, but often given to various schools in order to make them more distinct.

We may be over-focusing on the current skill list instead of figuring out how we want all the various pillars (both primary and support) to play.

What should play in the Battle/Combat pillar be like? (this may be very easy or incredibly hard to answer)

What should play in the Courtly/Social pillar be like?

What should play in the Supernatural pillar be like?

What should play in the Espionage pillar be like?

What should play in the Economic pillar be like?

Are there other support pillars (such as possibly Crafting)? What are they? How should they play?

This reminded me of a comment (in third?) about how they decided that they needed to arrange the social skills as a bit of a mirror to the combat skills.

A bushi, at the very minimum needs 2 skills: 1 weapon and Defense.

A Courtier, previously, just needed the Courtier skill. They added Etiquette as the Defense of social.

So, as mentioned above, what does a Bushi need? Is a Weapon of choice plus Defense the minimum, with the option to add Horsemanship, Battle, Iaijutsu or Athletics to taste, or additional weapons?

What's the Courtier equivalent? Using Kinzen's social skills, Influence is the weapon and Etiquette the defense. Politics, Sincerity, Artisan, Perform can be useful as well.

And the Shugenja? Calligraphy and spellcraft appear to be the mandatory skills, but when are they actually used? Shosuro points out that Courtiers possibly roll Calligraphy more than Shugenja, while the casting rules don't involve a skill at all.Is rolling Ring + Rank for casting really the right thing? What if it was [Mental Trait] + Calligraphy? While Spellcraft was used to identify and counter spells?

It's possible that we're maybe trying too hard with the skill groups. Maybe there doesn't need to be a group of 'skills that aren't in another group'. Possibly Stealth just doesn't have a tag and Calligraphy has both

Animal Handling

Artisan [Courtly], [Creative]

Athletics [bugei]

Battle [bugei]

Calligraphy [Courtly], [scholarly]

Commerce [Magistrate]

Craft [Creative]

etc

The terms I was thinking of using were the ones Karasu suggested: Courtly, Bugei, and Scholarly. That's actually more flexible than your suggestion of tagging them Courtier, Shugenja, and so on -- it says to me "these skills are relevant to this sphere of activity," not "these skills are designated for this school type only."

Well, I did suggest 3 variotions and the elemental Tags:

1) Courtier, Bushi, Shugenja, Ninja, Peasant, Merchant, Artisan

2) Body, Mind, Soul

3) Air, Earth, Fire, Void, Water

4) Social, Fighting, Arts, Academic, Spiritual, Common

And I don't see the grouping being more flexible than the tagging variant. There can always be used more than one Tag.

Right, which is why I said I like using tagging in a way that has mechanical relevance.

So...why are most of the Low Skills "down graded" to Emphases in your variation?

I'm not sure why you think anything here is incompatible with that. Nothing in this way of grouping stuff says that school skills would not still be mixed, or that the descriptions for the skills would not still talk about how all samurai are expected to be well-rounded individuals with knowledge not only of fighting but also of civilized matters. (Heck, to my way of thinking this approach would *aid* that goal, because it no longer treats bushi and their activities as a special case compared to everybody else.)

I think so because the suggested grouping says Court/ courtly/ Courtier and scholarly/ spiritual/ Shugenja (or whatever else you may call those groupings) as a group .

And this suggests that those are skills which are not used by Bushi or just used by Courtier or Shugenja, except for the view skills which your School gives you (which may result in confusing the new-to-L5R-players). At least to someone who is not familiar with L5R or medieval Japan. The Highskill-group doesn't divide the social, creative, educated and spiritual skills to put an Emphases on "those are all skills every Samurai should have".

Also, what happende to the Game-Skillgroup?

You really have me confused now, because the way you say that, it sounds like you think the 4e approach (where the stuff bushi ought to be learning apart from fighting is all conflated under High Skills, rather than being tagged) is incapable of creating the effect you desire.

Sorry for not having been more clear on what I wanted to say.

I actually wanted to say that the 4th Edition approach is more able to create the effect I desire or wish to have than the proposed approach would be.

With the way the 4th Edition handles the skill-grouping new players see that all the skills listed under Highskills are skills which should be taken for a Samurai, they are sometimes confused why there are skills like Acting, Games:... , Artisan:... and Perform:... because those skills don't show up in most RPGs and some players simply ignore them for a while or ask the GM during Char-Creation "wtf are those skills for?", but most realise that those are all "Samurai-Skills".

(Yes, I'm a somewhat experienced L5R-GM and play oneshots with newbies (both new to RPG and new ro l5r) on a regular basis)

And all players understand that if they wanted to play a merchantile Samurai they should take up the Merchant skills, if they want to have a Bushi who can fight with "everything" they could take up all skills under Bugei and than are shortly confused what Low skill means and why they are not really allowed to do some sneaking or intimidating (but this is cleared up after explaining the Bushido again).

So, to be honest and more clear, I don't really see a reason nor a need for changing the way of the skill groupings.

What I do miss is a clear explanation of most listed Lore-skills.

What??? Uh, no, no I don't. I have no idea where you got that notion, but it is 100% inaccurate.

You don't what? You don't plan on dropping the Honor-mechanics or you don't make the handling on the "how to lose honor"-stuff more complex?

Assuming we keep the suggested list in this thread:

Courtly skills are mostly the province of the samurai caste. They are the skills one would typically see in use at a daimyo's court. The below skills are considered Courtly

Artisan, Etiquette, Influence , Perform, Politics, Sincerity, Tea Ceremony

Bugei skills are the domain of the bushi. These are the skills of the warrior,although the Samurai are not the only ones to use them. The below skills are considered Bugei

Athletics, Battle, Defense, Horsemanship, Hunting, Iaijutsu, Weapons

Scholarly skills are often practised in the temples of Rokugan. They typically require considerable education in order to attain. The below skills are considered Scholarly

Calligraphy, Divination, Investigation, Lore, Medicine, Meditation, Spellcraft

Peasant skills represent the knowledge of various practices that are not normally the domain of the Samurai. The below skills are considered Peasant

Animal Handling, Commerce, Craft, Engineering, Sailing, Sleight of Hand , Stealth

So this list contains 2 of the Low Skills from the Corebook and I assume that Influence is a mash up from Intimidation and Temptation. So with this list 2 Low skills are "upgraded" to be part of the courtly-skills which mostly consist of Highskills. So new players may get the idea that it is ok for a Samurai to be a bully and go aroung intimidating or temptating other Samurai, Heimin or Hinin/Eta.

Except, of course, it was planned on tagging the Low Skills with a fitting Tag, at first glance it would seem to not conflict with the principles of Bushido to use this skill called Influence. And, at first glance, for me it seems to get more complicated to keep track of the way to handle Honor.

Up until now I just shortly look to the GM-Screen under the section Low-Skills and then look to the table for Honor "using Low Skill" and I can tell my players you may loose X points of Honor if you do that. And there are little to no discuccions, but with Influence seemingly not being something dishonorable (especially since having influence is not really a bad thing in Rokugan) it may result in more discussions.

Or at least so it seems.

So, as mentioned above, what does a Bushi need? Is a Weapon of choice plus Defense the minimum, with the option to add Horsemanship, Battle, Iaijutsu or Athletics to taste, or additional weapons?

What's the Courtier equivalent? Using Kinzen's social skills, Influence is the weapon and Etiquette the defense. Politics, Sincerity, Artisan, Perform can be useful as well.

And the Shugenja? Calligraphy and spellcraft appear to be the mandatory skills, but when are they actually used? Shosuro points out that Courtiers possibly roll Calligraphy more than Shugenja, while the casting rules don't involve a skill at all.Is rolling Ring + Rank for casting really the right thing? What if it was [Mental Trait] + Calligraphy? While Spellcraft was used to identify and counter spells?

Well, I really hope that Influence will not be the "offensive Court-Skill" since from what I understood it is the replacement for Temptation and Intimidation.

From what I understood Politics would be the replacement for the Skill Courtier which was the offensive-courtskill.

And why would you use Calligraphy for casting spells? Spellcraft would be the more obvious choice since it is about how "magic" works, how you talk with the kami in the right way and it is used for creating new spells. At least those were the uses of this skill in 4th Edition.

So for me the mandatory skills would be Spellcraft and Lore:Shugenja.

Spellcraft for everything regarding the prayers used to do stuff like "Never alone", "Legacy of Kaze-no-Kami", "Jurojin's Balm" and "Path to inner Peace", as well as identifying and countering spells. And Lore:Shugenja for the blessings used for crops, spiritual cleansing of places or persons, wedding ceremony and all this stuff.

Influence, as described by Kinzen, is the skill of getting someone else to do what you want. The emphases were Persuasion, Manipulation, Temptation and Intimidation IIRC. It covers some of Courtier, some of Politics, Temptation and Intimidation.

Politics is then the skill of managing things on a large scale, more like Battle. Emphases were things like Trade Agreements and Matchmaking.

One of the things which is trying to be done by the elimination of the Low skill group/tag is the idea of dishonourable practices being possible with all sorts of skills. A courtier who is skilled in Influence (Manipulation) finds himself stumped by a wily merchant with no real political ambitions. Now, if he just tried to bribe him or pull rank it would be simple. If Temptation and Intimidation are separate skills, the character won't be competent at it and the player won't even try. If it's just a different application of a skill that the character already has, it's much more tempting for the player.

Does that make sense?

Games? I just forgot about those entirely...

And I don't see the grouping being more flexible than the tagging variant. There can always be used more than one Tag.

My point is that if you tag something "Courtier," a player is likely to think "oh, this is a skill for courtiers, not my bushi PC." (Since you're unlikely to tag with both of those -- unless I'm misunderstanding you.) Whereas if it's in a group titled Courtly, and the other groupings are Bugei and Scholarly, it seems less like a school-based straitjacket -- or at least it seems that way to me, though apparently for you it's the reverse.

But you proposed a bunch of different ways to tag, and it isn't clear to me whether you intend all of them to be used, or only some of them. For what it's worth, the tags I would be inclined to use are Social, Mental, maybe Physical, and Artisan/Lore/Perform, along with the usual asterisk to mark Low applications. The groupings would tell the player "what sphere of activity is the place you'll most often use these," while the tags would tell them "any mechanic that affects X tag affects this skill."

Right, which is why I said I like using tagging in a way that has mechanical relevance.

So...why are most of the Low Skills "down graded" to Emphases in your variation?

Because then players will be tempted to actually use them. I've seen my PCs lie, because they have Sincerity; they never intimidate, bribe, or seduce, because their dice pools for those would be terrible. Since I don't think those behaviors are really separate from other kinds of emotional manipulation, I feel it makes both more sense and better story if the characters are just putting abilities they already have to dishonorable use.

And, as I said above, I'm still using the asterisks to mark those, as 4e already does with Deceit.

I think so because the suggested grouping says Court/ courtly/ Courtier and scholarly/ spiritual/ Shugenja (or whatever else you may call those groupings) as a group .

And this suggests that those are skills which are not used by Bushi or just used by Courtier or Shugenja, except for the view skills which your School gives you (which may result in confusing the new-to-L5R-players). At least to someone who is not familiar with L5R or medieval Japan. The Highskill-group doesn't divide the social, creative, educated and spiritual skills to put an Emphases on "those are all skills every Samurai should have".

But all samurai, whether bushi or not, are also supposed to be physically skilled -- with Athletics/Defense/Horsemanship/Hunting, if not with a weapon skill. And yet those are off in the Bugei group, instead of being put in with the High Skills along with everything else that's considered admirable in samurai. If players can already wrap their heads around the notion that they should be looking in both places, I don't see why this approach would make it suddenly impossible to understand -- especially when, as I said, I'm assuming there would still be the same kind of explanatory text the current corebook already has.

re: Games, I hadn't noticed that Karasu left it out. I've waffled as to where I think that should go, because a lot depends on which game it is. Courtly, maybe -- but some of the ones on the current list are martial (Go), some of them are much less formal (Fortunes and Winds), and some, in my opinion, shouldn't be grouped under Games to begin with (I treat sadane as a facet of Courtier and kemari as a facet of Athletics).

What I do miss is a clear explanation of most listed Lore-skills.

I agree that this is an issue, particularly there, but maybe also with the macro skills more generally.

You don't what? You don't plan on dropping the Honor-mechanics or you don't make the handling on the "how to lose honor"-stuff more complex?

I don't plan on dropping them. I seriously do not know where you got that notion. Heck, I've got a thread (well, a single post) on this board that's all about figuring out how to expand the Honor chart to cover stuff the setting says ought to be in there but isn't.

So this list contains 2 of the Low Skills from the Corebook and I assume that Influence is a mash up from Intimidation and Temptation. So with this list 2 Low skills are "upgraded" to be part of the courtly-skills which mostly consist of Highskills. So new players may get the idea that it is ok for a Samurai to be a bully and go aroung intimidating or temptating other Samurai, Heimin or Hinin/Eta.

Except for the part where the text would say "anything marked with an asterisk will lose you Honor as per the chart." (Which I realize you can't really know if you haven't been following those threads, but I figure I should explain, rather than let the misconception stand.) Influence includes the Manipulation emphasis, which isn't dishonorable; it's comparable to how Sincerity can be used honorably (Honesty) or otherwise (Deceit). As I said above, I think that makes for better story than firewalling those things off into their own ghetto; now a good manipulator can use their ability to lure someone into an indiscretion or accepting a bribe, and may -- this is the key point -- be tempted to do so, meaning they have to make an ethical decision.

Does it make the whole situation slightly less clear-cut? Sure. But I *want* that, because I don't want to be telling stories where it's easy to avoid doing the dishonorable thing.

Well, I really hope that Influence will not be the "offensive Court-Skill" since from what I understood it is the replacement for Temptation and Intimidation.

From what I understood Politics would be the replacement for the Skill Courtier which was the offensive-courtskill.

If you want to know how the skills are actually intended to be used, you can check out the thread -- Karasu's explanation is not quite correct. (And we should probably take any further discussion of them over there, because otherwise we'll really end up derailing this thread.)

First of all, I'll make it clear, I don't like any redesign that Kinzen did. There, it's said. It's nothing personal, it just don't fit with the way I'm seeing the system. Kinzen and I barely agree on these subjects and that's why I just barely talked in her redesign thread, because she's in the right of doing it. No point for me to keep saying how much I don't like her redesign, it wouldn't help anything. However, is it possible to keep her redesign idea in her threads?

Now, as for the grouping, I still think that High, Bugei, Merchant and Low is the best way to group the skills. Why? Because the essence of the skills is made to understand the different caste.

High skills are exclusively the province of the samurai caste. These are the Skills one would typically see in use at a daimyo's court, or even among the attendants of the Emperor's court. They reflect sophistication and nobility, and typically require considerable education in order to attain and practice.

Bugei Skills are the domain of the bushi. These are the Skills of a warrior, and while the samurai are not the only ones who practice them (since ashigaru and budoka learn some of these as well), they are unquestionably the masters of the craft.

Merchant Skills represents knowledge of certain practices that are not the domain of the samurai. While it is not inherently dishonorable to practice these Skills, it is somewhat questionable, and those who do so openly and regularly are looked upon with mild disdain by their more sophisticated kinsmen.

Low Skills represents deplorable crafts and practices that no honorable soul would even imagine taking up. Practicing any of these Skills will usually result in a loss of Honor for a samurai who does so, and if done in public, quite possibly Glory as well.

In the current way of grouping the skills, we know that Samurai would want to learn skills in the High Skills, because it's exclusively to the samurai caste and reflect nobility. The Bugei skills for the warriors should be mainly to the samurai caste too, since it's their duty to protect their lands from enemies. Then comes the Merchant and Low skills where the player has to take the decision if he wants to take some skills in these groups, it's clear it's not how a samurai should act.

Then, from the peasan side, we know that Low and Merchant are the skills that a peasant caste will mostly have and if he's using Bugei skills, it may be questionable and I wouldn't even think about a peasant to use a High skill...

Now, when I take a look at the suggestion of how to regroup these skills, I honestly don't see the same things (specially since it's based on Kinzen's redesign), since Temptation and Intimidation are in Influence which are outside of the Peasant Skills, so I wouldn't know that the peasant caste would rely on this to solve their own problems. I'm not talking about Forgery, which seems inexistant in the regroup. Then, as Shosuro said, comes the skills that are forgotten (Games, Performs, Crafts, Lore, etc.) which are really hard to classify if you want to place them outside the current groups. I'll just take craft as an example, since it's a huge macro skills with a lot of possibilities:

Craft: Weaponsmithing would go in Bugei

Craft: Caligraphy would go in Scholarly

Craft: Cooking would go in Courtly (I see this craft as the exquisite cooking where the meal is made in fashion way to impress in a court diner)

Craft: Tailoring would go in Peasant

Yes, I agree that the current grouping method reclassifies some sub-skills, but the skill as a whole is mostly well fit. So if I would have to re-imagine the L5R Skill classification, I would keep it as it is, because it's easier to know what skills should be taken by which caste type.

One of the things which is trying to be done by the elimination of the Low skill group/tag is the idea of dishonourable practices being possible with all sorts of skills. A courtier who is skilled in Influence (Manipulation) finds himself stumped by a wily merchant with no real political ambitions. Now, if he just tried to bribe him or pull rank it would be simple. If Temptation and Intimidation are separate skills, the character won't be competent at it and the player won't even try. If it's just a different application of a skill that the character already has, it's much more tempting for the player.

Does that make sense?

To me, it doesn't make sense. Here's why I really prefer to see Temptation and Intimidation being different skills, because they aren't the same thing at all. I don't think that a Hida Bushi is as good in seduction (which is what temptation is) as he's good at intimidating people and the same goes for a Bayushi being as good in intimidation that he's good in seduction. By grouping those skills, it creates this. Is it really better?

As I've said in my last post, the elimination of the Low Skill isn't a good idea because it would be harder to know what is dishonorable to what is not. A Samurai should never rely on Intimidation or Temptation to do his duty, it isn't honorable at all. It should be as clear as that and right now, it's pretty clear since it's a Low Skill.

If you think it makes sense for a Hida Bushi being able to seduce as well as he's able to intimidate someone, it's up to you, but it's really don't in my book. This would also causes a hard time to new players who would see: "Intimidation and Temptation" inside Courtly Skill and probably think: "It's not a bad skill" and then he'll start seducing in court as a Doji Courtier... Sure, you can add a star as a note for the player that "This may be considered a low skill" as it is now, but I feel like there will have a lot of stars everywhere, just because the point is to eliminate the Low Skills.

One of the things which is trying to be done by the elimination of the Low skill group/tag is the idea of dishonourable practices being possible with all sorts of skills. A courtier who is skilled in Influence (Manipulation) finds himself stumped by a wily merchant with no real political ambitions. Now, if he just tried to bribe him or pull rank it would be simple. If Temptation and Intimidation are separate skills, the character won't be competent at it and the player won't even try. If it's just a different application of a skill that the character already has, it's much more tempting for the player.

Does that make sense?

To me, it doesn't make sense. Here's why I really prefer to see Temptation and Intimidation being different skills, because they aren't the same thing at all. I don't think that a Hida Bushi is as good in seduction (which is what temptation is) as he's good at intimidating people and the same goes for a Bayushi being as good in intimidation that he's good in seduction. By grouping those skills, it creates this. Is it really better?

As I've said in my last post, the elimination of the Low Skill isn't a good idea because it would be harder to know what is dishonorable to what is not. A Samurai should never rely on Intimidation or Temptation to do his duty, it isn't honorable at all. It should be as clear as that and right now, it's pretty clear since it's a Low Skill.

If you think it makes sense for a Hida Bushi being able to seduce as well as he's able to intimidate someone, it's up to you, but it's really don't in my book. This would also causes a hard time to new players who would see: "Intimidation and Temptation" inside Courtly Skill and probably think: "It's not a bad skill" and then he'll start seducing in court as a Doji Courtier... Sure, you can add a star as a note for the player that "This may be considered a low skill" as it is now, but I feel like there will have a lot of stars everywhere, just because the point is to eliminate the Low Skills.

In this example, the Hida Bushi will most likely be terrible at seduction because it runs off Awareness, which he has no use for, while Intimidation runs off Willpower. If our Hida Bushi happens to also have high Awareness for some reason, I see no problem with him being good at seduction. I likewise see no problem with a Bayushi being good at Intimidation if he happens to have high Willpower; blackmail is an iconic Scorpion technique, and it is by definition a form of intimidation. Fear in both general and specific forms is integral to how the Scorpion get things done.

I'm also not clear on what "a samurai should never rely on Intimidation or Temptation to do his duty" has to do with whether it's better that they be separate skills or categories of other skills.

For Skills, I would go with the following:

High Skills (Skills for samurai and similar cream-of-society people) : Acrobatics (obvious), Acting (Disguise, Role Play and Theatrics are separate emphases), Artisan, Calligraphy, Courtier, Divination, Etiquette, Games, Instruction (commanding/teaching social skill), Logic (thinking skill for enigmas, math and common sense), Lore, Meditation, Performance, Spellcraft, Subtlety (formerly known as Sincerity but without lying), Tea Ceremony

Bugei Skills (Skills for warriors): Athletics, Battle, Defense, Demolition (obvious), Horsemanship, Hunting, Iaijutsu, Jiujutsu, Weapon Skills

Common Skills (Skills for everyone): Animal Handling, Bureaucracy (obvious), Commerce, Craft, Engineering (Construction and Mechanics emphases), Investigation, Medicine, Navigation (obvious), Sailing, Streetwise (this last one is not necessary as it is a setting-dependent skill)

Low Skills (Skills for the bad guys): Deception (lying and misguiding), Forgery, Intimidation, Sleight of Hand (knot-work goes here), Stealth, Subterfuge (conceal, gambling), Temptation, Witchcraft (evil!Spellcraft)

Each character would start with the following nine Basic Skills (the skills every samurai learns, without exception): Athletics, Etiquette, Jiujutsu, Kenjutsu, Kyujutsu, Lore: Bushido, Lore: character's Clan, Medicine, Spears. The character also starts with one Clan Skill (a skill that is integral to the Clan's identity): Acting for Scorpion, Battle for Lion, Defense for Crab, Intimidation for Spider, Investigation for Unicorn, Logic for Dragon, Meditation for Phoenix, Sailing for Mantis, Subtlety for Crane. Then, each character gains five School Skills depending on his chosen School.

In this example, the Hida Bushi will most likely be terrible at seduction because it runs off Awareness, which he has no use for, while Intimidation runs off Willpower. If our Hida Bushi happens to also have high Awareness for some reason, I see no problem with him being good at seduction. I likewise see no problem with a Bayushi being good at Intimidation if he happens to have high Willpower; blackmail is an iconic Scorpion technique, and it is by definition a form of intimidation. Fear in both general and specific forms is integral to how the Scorpion get things done.

I'm also not clear on what "a samurai should never rely on Intimidation or Temptation to do his duty" has to do with whether it's better that they be separate skills or categories of other skills.

You would have to define what's terrible. I'll take the Meta for Hida O-Ushi in the Way of the Crab as an example. In her meta, she's a rank 3 Hida Bushi with an Awareness of 3, Willpower of 5 and Intimidation of 5. This would mean that she would have 10k5 in Intimidation and 3k3 (and no 10s explode) in seduction. If we fuse Intimidation with seduction, her seduction would become 8k3 (10s explode), which isn't terrible at all. Yes, she's the same in her intimidation but she's now a competent in temptation, which doesn't fit her at all.

As for Blackmailing, yes, it's their iconic technique and they are using it using Courtier (Manipulation or Gossip). It would be pointless for them to rely on Intimidation in addition, because it would expose their technique too easily. Just take a look at the very first technique of the Bayushi Courtier: "You gain a Free Raise when using the Courtier skill to spread gossip, and need not Raise in order to conceal that you are the source of that gossip." it's pretty clear to me that the Scorpion don't rely on intimidation for their blackmailing technique.

As for the "I'm also not clear on what 'a samurai should never rely on Intimidation or Temptation to do his duty' has to do with whether it's better that they be separate skills or categories of other skills." it was toward the idea of the elimination of the Low Skill, not about fusing them or not. As an answer to "One of the things which is trying to be done by the elimination of the Low skill group/tag is the idea of dishonourable practices being possible with all sorts of skills."