I decided to take a crack at the ritsuryo-based hierarchy TheWanderingJewels posted and see if I couldn't abstract it into a status system that would integrate well with the canonical hierarchy, such that people could opt to use it in their campaigns. Results are below!

In order to do this, I first went through and figured out what the underlying structure was for the types of organization and the titles that appear in them. (For example, anything translated as "bureau" is a ryou in Japanese, and tends to have the following positions listed: chief, assistant director, senior bureau secretary, junior bureau secretary, senior officer, and junior officer. Certain bureaus have additional positions unique to their purview, but that appears to be the basic framework for what constitutes a bureau in this system.) I then altered some terminology for clarity, so that the difference between, say, a senior officer in an agency and a senior officer in a bureau is more readily apparent, and the head of a bureau is not called a kami (different characters than the one used for spirits, but for English speakers the homophone is more distracting than useful). Finally, I rearranged the actual structure a bit to reflect the nature of Rokugani society; there are now three major divisions within the bureaucracy, to reflect the "three pillars" idea of court (courtiers, artisans), religion (shugenja, monks), and war (bushi, ninja -- not that ninja really show up in this arrangement, but you know what I mean). Since I'm treating this as the bureaucracy of a Great Clan rather than the Empire as a whole, the structural rearrangement also included expanding the role of dealing with stuff outside the clan.

On to the actual system!


STRUCTURE

The highest officials serving a Clan Champion are called the Daijou-kan or Great Council of State. These usually include the major family daimyo, plus individuals who are almost always either close relatives of the Clan Champion, or close relatives of the Champion's spouse, though occasionally a truly close companion attains this rank. Often called hatamoto, they hold Status 6.5. [Note that this is a 0.5 boost from what the book says; I did that to make room for the officials below them.] Many of them also serve as controllers (see below), but not all.

Controlling Boards (Kyoku)

Most of the bureaucracy of a Great Clan is divided into three Controlling Boards, one for each of the "three pillars" of Rokugani society. The Controlling Board of the Left handles matters of civil administration; the Controlling Board of the Center handles matters of religious and scholarly administration; the Controlling Board of the Right handles matters of military administration.

Appointments to even menial Controlling Board positions are usually reserved for scions of highly influential lineages.

Controlling Board positions:
Controller (Ben)* -- 6.3
Counselor (Nagon)* -- 5.9
Board Clerk (Geki) -- 4.3
Recorder (Shi) -- 3.3

*These titles are never used in their unmodified form; they always carry one of the prefixes mentioned below, in the Status section. If there is only one gradation of that rank, as is often the case with controllers, the prefix used is "dai" (daiben, dainagon).

Ministries (Shou)

A ministry position is the highest office to which an ordinary samurai can generally aspire. Attaining an appointment to one of these positions is still not easy, and rising through the ranks generally requires great political skill, influential connections, or truly glorious deeds.

Within each Controlling Board there are usually two to four Ministries, each overseeing a more specific realm of activity. A Ministry is composed of Offices, Bureaus, and Chambers, plus occasional units with less standardized names.

Ministry positions:
Minister (Kei) -- 6.0
Assistant Minister (Fu)* -- 5.5
Ministerial Secretary (Jou) -- 4.8
Ministerial Recordkeeper (Roku) -- 3.8
Ministerial Clerk (Sakan) -- 3.2

*When differentiated into gradations of seniority, the sounds change slightly; a senior assistant minister is a taifu instead of a daifu, and a junior assistant minister is a shoubu instead of a shoufu.

Offices/Bureaus/Chambers (Shiki/Ryou/Tsukasa)

Within a Ministry, an Office is considered more prestigious and important than a Bureau, and both surpass a Chamber. Both Offices and Bureaus may contain Chambers within them, but some Chambers report directly to the minister.

Office positions:
Commissioner (Daibu) -- 5.0
Assistant Commissioner (Daibu no Suke) -- 4.5
Official Secretary (Jin) -- 3.8
Official (Soku) -- 3.3
Official Clerk (Shoki) -- 2.6

Bureau positions:
Director (Kou) -- 4.0
Assistant Director (Kou no Suke) -- 3.5
Bureau Secretary (In) -- 2.8
Bureaucrat (Kanryou) -- 2.3
Bureau Clerk (Kanri) -- 1.8

Chamber positions:
Head (Shou) -- 3.0
Aide (Yuu)-- 1.5

Provincial Bureaucracies

The governmental structures of the provinces within a Great Clan's lands do not fall under the authority of a Controlling Board, but rather report directly to their provincial governors and through them, to the Daijou-kan. Lower levels of a clan's bureaucracy have their own structures, in simpler form: since a provincial governor is Status 6, he cannot be served by a minister (who is also status 6). All provincial bureaucracy is therefore organized under Offices, Bureaus, or Chambers. Likewise, a city governor (Status 5) oversees Bureaus and Chambers only; he cannot promote anyone to higher rank than that.


CONTENT

The specific details of any bureaucracy have varied a great deal across the Empire and throughout history. What follows is a "generic" bureaucracy, detailing a sample of organizations common to most of the Great Clans, but a GM is more than free to alter this to suit a given circumstances.

Controlling Board of the Left

Ministry of the Interior -- deals with the civil administration of the clan; this is usually the largest component of this Board. Examples of units within this ministry:
Office of Trade
Office of Land Records
Bureau of Clan Roads
Bureau of Forestry
Bureau of Heimin Affairs
Bureau of Music and Books
Chamber of the Censors
Bureau of Ports
Bureau of Scattered Ranks
Geneaological Chamber
Chamber of Precedence (settles questions of rank precedence)

Ministry of the Exterior -- deals with matters outside the clan, such as other clans and imperial affairs. Examples of units within this ministry:
Office of Imperial Contact
Emerald Chamber
Jade Chamber
Bureau of Foreign Affairs (often one for each Great Clan)
Chamber of Minor Clan Affairs
Bureau of Visitors (tracks non-clan samurai visitors)
Chamber of Travel Papers

Ministry of the Champion's Household -- in its strictest configuration this only deals with the domestic affairs of the Clan Champion and associated family and hangers-on. In practice, the ambit for this ministry is often much wider, as it takes responsibility for everything related to the residence of the Champion.
Office of the Consort's Household
Office of the Palace Guards
Left Division of the Inner Palace Guards
Right Division of the Inner Palace Guards
Left Division of the Middle Palace Guards
Right Division of the Middle Palace Guards
Left Division of the Outer Palace Guards
Right Division of the Outer Palace Guards
Office of the Palace Table
Chamber of Sake
Office of the Wardrobe
Chamber of Embroidery
Bureau of Carpentry
Bureau of the Champion's Attendants
Bureau of the Palace Kitchen
Bureau of Palace Equipment
Bureau of Palace Upkeep
Bureau of Skilled Artisans
Bureau of the Stables
Chamber of the Champion's Family
Chamber of the Champion's Table
Chamber of the Palace Physicians

Controlling Board of the Center

Ministry of Ceremonial -- deals with scholarly and ceremonial matters that are not directly spiritual in nature. Although some of its officials are shugenja or (where applicable) clan monks, many are courtiers with a more scholarly bent. Examples of units within this ministry:
Office of Education
Bureau of Divination
Bureau of Festivals
Chamber of the Calendar
Bureau of Medicine
Bureau of the School (one per dojo tradition in the clan)
Bureau of Tombs and Memorials

Ministry of Religion -- deals with spiritual matters that are generally the province of shugenja or monks. Courtiers or bushi may be assigned to minor positions within this ministry, especially if they hail from shugenja families, but the higher-ranking officials within any given organization are almost always shugenja or (where applicable) clan monks. Examples of units within this ministry:
Office of Shintao
Office of Fortunism
Office of the High Priest/ess of the Founding Kami
Bureau of the Ancestors
Bureau of the Brotherhood
Chamber of Itinerant Monks
Bureau of Temple and Shrine Construction
Office of Temple and Shrine Guards

Controlling Board of the Right

Ministry of War -- deals with the clan's military affairs, both the standing army and the recruitment and training of ashigaru. In clans such as the Crab, the Lion, and the Unicorn, this is by far the largest ministry of the Right. Its chief official reports directly the clan's rikugunshokan, who is a member of the Daijou-kan. Examples of units within this ministry (not including the standing army):
Office of Ashigaru
Office of Military Storehouses
Office of Weapons and Armor
Bureau of the Border Patrol
Bureau of Couriers
Bureau of Fortifications
Bureau of Horse Breeding
Bureau of Military Honors
Falconry Chamber

Ministry of Justice -- deals with law and order outside the army structure. Most of its officials are bushi, but courtiers are well-represented within its ranks. Examples of units within this ministry:
Office of Magistrates
Doshin Chamber
Bureau of Assessment (levies fines)
Bureau of Imperial Coordination (Emerald/Jade)
Bureau of Judicial Records
Bureau of Prison Oversight
Chamber of the Executioner

Ministry of Taxation -- because money requires protection, this ministry customarily falls under the purview of the Controlling Board of the Right, rather than the Left. Certain elements within this ministry are occasionally the focus of a power struggle with the Ministry of the Interior. Examples of units within this ministry:
Office of Tax Collection
Land Assessment Chamber
Bureau of Coinage
Bureau of Statistics
Chamber of the Census
Bureau of Storehouses
Chamber of Weights and Measures
Mining Survey Chamber
Chamber of Weaving (sample; other productive industries have similar chambers)


STATUS

[Taking my cue from the ritsuryo system, I'm going to backpedal on what I said in Imperial Archives: no, actually, samurai really do think of their status in numerical terms. :-) ]

In conversation, Status Ranks are designated with poetic adjectives, as follows:

Rank 9 -- Bright
Rank 8 -- Pure
Rank 7 -- True
Rank 6 -- Straight
Rank 5 -- Diligent
Rank 4 -- Earnest
Rank 3 -- Following
Rank 2 -- Advancing

Samurai below Status Rank 2.0 are simply ji-samurai. Within a given rank, gradations are spoken of as degrees, so that an assistant minister (Status 5.5) is referred to as occupying the fifth degree of the Diligent Rank.

Any position other than the top one in a given organization can be subdivided into either senior and junior grades, or senior, middle, and junior. This is noted by adding a prefix to the relevant title: dai (senior or "greater"), chuu ("middle"), and shou (junior or "lesser"). Subdivision of this kind is common in large organizations, but it can also be used to convey social nuance; a samurai from a particularly important lineage or one who has served especially well may be distinguished with a senior grade, while a samurai new to the organization or one who meets with disfavor from their superior may be marked as junior. A senior bureaucrat gains 0.1 Status over a middle or unmarked one, whereas a junior bureaucrat is 0.1 Status lower. For example, a senior assistant minister is Status 5.6, a middle assistant minister (or just "assistant minister") is 5.5, and a junior assistant minister is 5.4.

Among touchy samurai, failing to accord a senior bureaucrat their distinguishing prefix can be grounds for a duel.

I've made a spreadsheet of the expanded Status chart . It purposely doesn't include everything (because copyright), but I included most of the middle ranks to give context for the new positions, so you can see how different titles compare.

I once collected every canonical social position ever created, you are missing a lot of them. Maybe you would be interested in the list I made ?

You shared that list with me a while ago, but it wasn't really what I was looking for. This is mostly an effort to integrate the ritsuryo system with the list in the 4e core book.

Ministry of the Champion's Household -- in its strictest configuration this only deals with the domestic affairs of the Clan Champion and associated family and hangers-on. In practice, the ambit for this ministry is often much wider, as it takes responsibility for everything related to the residence of the Champion.

Isn't this supposed to be covered by the seneschal/karo? I think the third section should be the Ministry of Taxation, because a monetary office in the Board of WAR looks a lot like a troll section (just imagine a young samurai, all fired up for being assigned to the Board of Right because it means WAR - then he spends the rest of his life bickering with peasants and merchants about taxes... what a letdown ).

Isn't this supposed to be covered by the seneschal/karo? I think the third section should be the Ministry of Taxation, because a monetary office in the Board of WAR looks a lot like a troll section (just imagine a young samurai, all fired up for being assigned to the Board of Right because it means WAR - then he spends the rest of his life bickering with peasants and merchants about taxes... what a letdown ).

I think that this is a reference to how, canonically, collection of taxes was originally the purview of the Emerald Champion - and as such, the Imperial Treasurer is technically allowed to stand on the Emperor/Empress' right.

Ministry of the Champion's Household -- in its strictest configuration this only deals with the domestic affairs of the Clan Champion and associated family and hangers-on. In practice, the ambit for this ministry is often much wider, as it takes responsibility for everything related to the residence of the Champion.

Isn't this supposed to be covered by the seneschal/karo? I think the third section should be the Ministry of Taxation, because a monetary office in the Board of WAR looks a lot like a troll section (just imagine a young samurai, all fired up for being assigned to the Board of Right because it means WAR - then he spends the rest of his life bickering with peasants and merchants about taxes... what a letdown ).

You can put it there if you want; as I said, this is just a template. But historically speaking, running all the palaces/castles that a person like that lives in, keeping them maintained, making sure everybody under that purview is fed, overseeing the VAST wardrobe of the Champion's family, and so forth, is actually a far more important position than L5R has acknowledged in 4e (and one with some major opportunities for graft and corruption, but that's another matter . . . ). And under the ritsuryo system, the sovereign's household was indeed a ministry-level organization.

As for taxation, well, for starters, calling the Controlling Board of the Right solely the Board of WAR isn't accurate: there's a Ministry of War within it, but it also governs other things, just as the Controlling Board of the Center does more than just talk to the elemental kami. And frankly, I know there's that whole "samurai think money is icky" thing, but I personally feel L5R takes it too far. (I can't remember whether the line stayed in one of the 4e books about how two samurai diplomats from different Great Clans would have tea and then leave a pair of HEIMIN to decide exactly what kind of trade deal their clans were going to make, but I find that so wildly implausible, I don't even have words to describe it.) The Ministry of Taxation requires a lot of armed guards; therefore it's handled more on the bushi-flavored end of things.

But -- to repeat -- you can rearrange the components of this however you want. My main goal was to provide a sense of the scope a government like this would have, the kinds of organizations your average player or GM might not realize would really be a thing in that kind of society, and what kinds of Status numbers you can put on it so that you can run more flavorful court politics and when your courtier or artisan or shugenja PC has impressed somebody enough to earn a promotion, they have options other than "become a magistrate" or "go into the army."

Well, it was just an observation on my part. Personally, I prefer organizational complexity (like a four dimensional matrix structure) over fancy titles .

Well, it was just an observation on my part. Personally, I prefer organizational complexity (like a four dimensional matrix structure) over fancy titles .

Human nature has historically driven people to seek fancy titles. :-P Pretty much every aristocratic society is stuffed to the gills with them -- even the meaningless titles that carry no actual power or pay.

Neat. I would probably pull bits of this for flavor at relevant intervals rather than drop big chunks of it on to a playgroup, but it could be useful!

I'd just add as a side note that one needn't necessarily imagine that holding a bureaucratic title in a society like Rokugan's entails spending forty hours a week at regularly scheduled times behind a desk at the office. A post entitles you to a certain level of status and a stipend (which may or may not be even remotely equal to the expense of keeping up appearances in the job!), and it gives you an excuse to hang around at court, get through doors you otherwise couldn't, and gain introductions to people in positions of influence. There are generally going to be commoner scribes and such around who can and should fill out the TPS reports while you stick to making the big decisions. Some people holding a particular title may be overly dedicated bureaucrats who spend a lot of time working diligently to personally micromanage their corner of the organization; others may treat the post as a sinecure and spend most of their time doing their own things while their ji-samurai subordinates and heimin scribes work pretty independently; still others may be good delegators who successfully offload much of the day-to-day work to trustworthy underlings while keeping a hand on the reins (and those, not the first kind, will probably be viewed most positively).

So a) a PC who gets a promotion should still have time for adventures! and b) one can play around with NPCs who are any of the above types of administrators, as adventure hooks, obstacles, allies, etc.

Neat. I would probably pull bits of this for flavor at relevant intervals rather than drop big chunks of it on to a playgroup, but it could be useful!

Oh, god no -- why would you ever drop the whole thing on your players in a lump? <lol> Put it somewhere they can see it, sure. But this is the kind of resource you pull from as needed, so you can say an NPC is an Assistant Commissioner in the Office of the Consort's Household rather than a generic "official" (so that the PCs know that he probably can't help them obtain better horses for their patrol, or track down an ashigaru who may have witnessed something important).

I'd just add as a side note that one needn't necessarily imagine that holding a bureaucratic title in a society like Rokugan's entails spending forty hours a week at regularly scheduled times behind a desk at the office. A post entitles you to a certain level of status and a stipend (which may or may not be even remotely equal to the expense of keeping up appearances in the job!), and it gives you an excuse to hang around at court, get through doors you otherwise couldn't, and gain introductions to people in positions of influence.

Absolutely. Even the people who do actually bother to work hard won't be doing so on a modern-looking schedule, and that certainly won't be all of them. As a general rule, the higher the Status Rank, the less "office" work they're doing. :-P

There are generally going to be commoner scribes and such around who can and should fill out the TPS reports while you stick to making the big decisions.

I disagree on them being commoners, unless you're running a Rokugan small enough that samurai are relatively few in number. Peasants are too untrustworthy (and generally too illiterate) for them to be given that kind of responsibility for samurai affairs. Most of those scribes are going to be Status 1.0 ji-samurai doomed to a life of obscurity, unless they get extremely lucky and find a way to distinguish themselves for promotion.

I disagree on them being commoners, unless you're running a Rokugan small enough that samurai are relatively few in number.

... I guess I do tend to do that, then? Or one in which "samurai" are a sufficiently small fraction of the population, at least, and have enough other duties to handle relative to their numbers. To each her own, however, definitely. I'll freely admit to drawing on the model I know the most about, which isn't Japan at all anyway,* to get a picture in my head which hangs together and makes sense for me personally.

Surprisingly (well, it was kind of a surprise to me to figure it out first-hand, though maybe it shouldn't have been...) you actually don't even need an enormously high level of literacy to do a lot of the stuff that goes into premodern paper-pushing! The more routinized the tasks, language-wise, the more that's true. Just a couple of hundred words/kanji under your belt and you're more than ready to do budget or land transaction records, for example. Judicial records dealing with commoner issues are going to have a bigger but equally formulaic vocabulary, one you could still probably be fully capable of scribing out without having nearly enough education to produce or fully comprehend, say, a court letter or philosophical treatise. That doesn't get to the trust issue, but we do know Rokugan has peasant village headmen, merchants employed to handle parts of the wealth of samurai houses, magistrates' doshin and so on, so there's definitely at least some stuff samurai are willing to delegate. Management when any of those underlings take advantage of their positions probably is an issue sometimes, but hey, that's where plot comes from!

*Rather, China, in the final couple of dynasties, where you've got a relatively small set of imperially-qualified officials who freely depend on local help of various sorts to get it all done... anyway, Rokugan Is Not any of those places, it's bits and pieces of all of them sewn together with European romances, so.

Yeah, it depends heavily on which period you're looking at for your comparison -- the definition and role of 士 changed quite a lot over the centuries. But I mostly figure, if the vast bulk of samurai are supposed to be Status 1.0, then they're occupying grunt roles in both the military and the bureaucracy. Better grunt roles than peasants get (they're part of the bureaucracy too, but their job is to carry messages and material and tidy up and so forth), but unexciting jobs all the same . . . which makes it cooler when the PCs get promoted. :-)

The scribe advantage is a commoner and we know most of the Crane heimin population is litterate.

Peasants are too untrustworthy (and generally too illiterate) for them to be given that kind of responsibility for samurai affairs.

I'm pretty sure that locust shell didn't think about samurai recruiting scribes from the rice fields. The heimin scribes are most likely their own sub-caste, being roughly equal to artisans or maybe the budoka (well, the Servant advantage puts them on equal footing, so there is that).

My take on Financial skills goes a bit like this: it is actually no dishonorable to know the skills per se, but it is frowned upon socially to go on about financial matters unless a) you are handling Clan business (usually done in a private environment) or b) negotiation between clans. any of the various spy schools for the clans will have passing familiarity of monetary skils when they are checking up shenanigans of the other Clans or the peasantry. You can have the skill, but don't bring it up unless appropriate.

Based on what I know of history, my take is: it's seriously declasse to carry cash around with you and haggle over the price of things you buy (you should just waltz in, point at what you want, and know that it will be billed to you later), and you should never let yourself be seen to worry about your personal finances (dress and entertain visitors as if you have all the money appropriate to your station). But managing your estate sensibly or negotiating on behalf of your lord is just fine: doing that well is admirable, albeit not gloriously so.