The Crane clan article had the Sincerity keyword in it. Some people believe that one of the Crane cards from the showcase spread has Courtesy as a keyword. This implies that they are using the virtues as keywords.

For those who aren't familiar with them, the 7 virtues of Bushidō as presented in L5R are

• Compassion
• Courage
• Courtesy
• Duty
• Honesty
• Honour
• Sincerity

We already know that Sincerity is "Draw a card when this character leaves play." The suspicion is that Courtesy is "+1 Politics when defending." That was wrong With those in mind, these are my old ideas for the other 5:

• Compassion : Gain 1 Fate when this character leaves play.
• Courage : +1 Military when attacking Probably wrong
• Duty : +1 Military when defending Probably wrong
• Honesty : +1 Politics when attacking Probably wrong
• Honour : Gain 1 Honour when this character leaves play.

Imagine if someone were to master all seven tenets. What a monster they would be.

Courtesy is not " +1 Politics when defending". If you look at the too blurry text box of Political Rival (the crane personality on the far right) it's quite a lot of text.

In addition the character seems to have This/your characters have +1 Politics while defending.

I wonder if virtues appearing on personalities means we won't get them as conflict cards the way it was in the ccg. I like them being keywords, it feels so right, but I would also like them as events.

I also wonder if they plan to do the same thing if other tenets of conduct appear along the way (cough shourido cough).

Should Shourido be a benefit, though? Its influence is awfully corruptive of everything a samurai is supposed to strive for.

3 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

Should Shourido be a benefit, though? Its influence is awfully corruptive of everything a samurai is supposed to strive for.

It would be nice if somehow it was a trade-off. Like "Strength: +1 military while you have the highest military in the conflict, else -1 Military."

6 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

Should Shourido be a benefit, though? Its influence is awfully corruptive of everything a samurai is supposed to strive for.

Yeah, I would think that if they do include shourido tenets as keywords on characters, it would have to at least have some form of drawback (lose honor, gain some form of 'corruption points', etc).

4 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

Should Shourido be a benefit, though? Its influence is awfully corruptive of everything a samurai is supposed to strive for.

If all the bushido are positive ones for the controller, shourido can be negative ones for your opponent. For example Knowledge discarding a card from your opponents hand when this character enters play.

Also, if they do include it, hopefully it's done more 'organically' than having Garen Hawthrone giving it to a Crane. They could have the heretical group in the Dragon Mountains be Shourido followers, and / or have someone like Kokujin or a version of Daigotsu introduce it.

13 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

Should Shourido be a benefit, though? Its influence is awfully corruptive of everything a samurai is supposed to strive for.

I actually fail to remember a single case in the old canon when a samurai did something terrible because Shourido. But I can remember the Order of the Spider giving Kanpeki the middle finger when he went Onyx Empire because it wasn't Shourido-y.

I mean, it is like saying that Bushido's influence is awfully corruptive of everything a samurai is supposed to strive for because people like Hida Kisada exists.

On a very simplified basis, Shourido is to Bushido as Selfish is to Selfless. Following the tenets of Shourido could very well provide benefits to the individual samurai, but these won't necessarily translate to benefits for the family or Clan. On the other hand, folowing the tenets of Bushido certainly benefits the family and Clan, but can lead to problems for the indivudual.

We, as the players, actually represent a family within a Clan, which means that Bushido is to our advantage whereas Shourido is a double-edged sword* at best.

*obviously, this is only bad for those of us who prefer single-edge blades, unlike the filthy gaijin Unicorn

8 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

On a very simplified basis, Shourido is to Bushido as Selfish is to Selfless.

I think it is more like a difference of Introverted (Bushido) and Extroverted (Shourido). Bushido is about how to treat yourself in order to improve your world, Shourido is about how to treat your world in order to improve yourself.

Also, I would like to point out that Bushido can be a double-edged sword too, just ask Matsu Tsuko about that.

1 hour ago, AtoMaki said:

I think it is more like a difference of Introverted (Bushido) and Extroverted (Shourido). Bushido is about how to treat yourself in order to improve your world, Shourido is about how to treat your world in order to improve yourself.

Also, I would like to point out that Bushido can be a double-edged sword too, just ask Matsu Tsuko about that.

If they follow that bushido virtues could interact with the player, like sincerity, which lets you draw a card, and shourido would interact with the personality itself.

Her my suggestions what the virtues could do:

• Compassion: After you lose a conflict, you may ready cards with this keyword.
• Courage: When this character is assigned to attack, it gains one fate.
• Courtesy: You can reduce the cost of the card by one for allowing your opponent to draw one conflict card.
• Duty: If thes character gets discarded from the game, shuffle it back into the deck.
• Honesty: When this character leaves play gain one fate.
• Honour: If you claim the ring on defence, you gain 1 honour for each participating chracter with this keyword.

2 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

I think it is more like a difference of Introverted (Bushido) and Extroverted (Shourido). Bushido is about how to treat yourself in order to improve your world, Shourido is about how to treat your world in order to improve yourself.

That's just a positive way of rewording the selfless vs. selfish dichotomy. Shourido literally means "the Path of Conquest." The end goal of any paragon of Shourido is to gain control over his or her world. But the role of a samurai in Rokugan is not to control, but to submit.

1 hour ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

But the role of a samurai in Rokugan is not to control, but to submit.

The role of the samurai is to serve, not to submit. There is a big difference between the two.

3 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

The role of the samurai is to serve, not to submit. There is a big difference between the two.

It's both. And there is not that much of a difference: a samurai must submit to their lord's will; one must serve one's lord, one'sEmpire, one's subjects.

The problem with Shourido, put simply, is that it places the objective solely in the realm of one's own success and achievements. While it is admirable to achieve great things for one's clan, within Bushido there is no shame in failure, so long as one has given their utmost. We learn from our mistakes and grow with life's lessons; no more is necessary or desirable. Self-perfection is anathema: by seeking it you are saying your sensei's work was not good enough, or worse, that you favor a higher station than the one karma has judged most fitting for you in this life.

And let's be frank: it is often difficult to uphold all tenets of Bushido simultaneously, hence why different samurai prioritize one over another. Why further complicate matters by adding a second host of tenets, none of which benefit the Celestial Order in any real sense?

Does the recently revealed "Pride" keyword match with Courage or Duty or maybe nothing at all?

37 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

a samurai must submit to their lord's will

This isn't necessary true, despite it being an obvious (and very popular) shortcut to avoid the really hard part of being a samurai. Again, Matsu Tsuko's case is a good example of how this is a bad idea that only leads to destruction.

Quote

within Bushido there is no shame in failure, so long as one has given their utmost

Shourido goes the same way. It even has two whole virtues, Determination and Will, that work along these lines.

Quote

it is often difficult to uphold all tenets of Bushido simultaneously

The whole point of being a samurai is that you are playing Life on Nintendo Hard difficulty. If things get tough, you are supposed to thank the Fortunes for it and ask for more. Or at least not mess around and deal with it. This should stand for everything, from following all seven tenets to makign sense out of Shourido.

1 minute ago, Danwarr said:

Does the recently revealed "Pride" keyword match with Courage or Duty or maybe nothing at all?

IIRC, 'Pride' was originally a thing back in 1st Edition when the tenets of Bushido were Shinsei's invention.

45 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

This isn't necessary true, despite it being an obvious (and very popular) shortcut to avoid the really hard part of being a samurai. Again, Matsu Tsuko's case is a good example of how this is a bad idea that only leads to destruction.

This is fair. Granted, there is a lot of nuance that I'm glossing over in the interest of brevity—brevity that I've nevertheless fallen long of achieving.

Back to the topic, though, I should clarify that I do think Shourido should be a feature of the game and story, so long as its introduction is handled cleverly as Gao Shan-san suggested. Players should be allowed to make choices in deckbuilding as well as in storyline prizes, and being tempted by "bad" ones creates drama, so I don't think they ought to be objectively weaker than Bushido cards. But they should absolutely have a feel that is separate and distinct, so that the player feels something different when playing with Shourido versus Bushido (if that makes sense).

2 hours ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

And there is not that much of a difference: a samurai must submit to their lord's will; one must serve one's lord, one'sEmpire, one's subjects.

Maybe in the bushido system, there doesn't appear to be much difference, but to us in... *ahem* certain circles... there's a very important distinction between submission and servitude

Shourido means Way of Victory, basically. Which makes sense, because each tenet of Shourido is basically something like "In order to win, you need to think!", "In order to win, you need to control the situation!", "In order to win, you need to know yourself and your opponent!", "In order to win, you need to really want to win and understand what it takes!". I never liked it being a "dark side" and "corruption" and Shadowlands "counter part of Bushido". Shourido could exist pretty comfortably as a "dummies guide to be efficient at what you are doing", while Bushido is "dummies guide to WHAT TO DO".

Basically, give me a Shourido that's all about helping you "how to Bushido", not an alternative to Bushido and Evil Edgier Dark Color Swap.

EDIT
Temptation being, of course, that when you become Real ******* Good, you start asking yourself "why am I the one serving", but that doesn't necessarily mean that the Virtues themselves should be Evil Bad Satan. In RPG, we ditched the whole Shourido backstory of Garen and gaijins, and instead introduced it as a collection of Clan's answers to a question of "how to efficiently Bushido".

I find I like it as Darker and Edgier. If there's one thing I'm going to miss about the Spider Clan, it's the whole idea of them trying to subvert the Empire from within, and Shourido was a big part of that, thematically at least. If Shourido is to make a return, I would prefer it to do so in a way that mirrors that. I never viewed it as "the dark side" per se, but it's clear that the intent was for it to be antithetical to Bushido rather than supplemental.

I, on the other hand, found making it antithetical and antagonist pretty artificial and "engineered" to create artificial conflict. Mostly because the Virtues themselves aren't anything corruptive and bad; in fact, each of them arguably is "best and most unique" distilled trait of each Clan. And sure, these things in overabundance can lead to negative results, but by painting Shourido as Evil Bad Wrong you also paint Phoenix's thirst for Knowledge as evil, Crane's dedication to Perfection as evil, Dragon's desire to understand the universe as evil, and so on.

But also remember that I come from "RPG first and primarly" background, so I wasn't part of the "experience" of Shourido being introduced into the card game, where it probably focused less on the philosophy and more on providing powerful effects and appropriately dark graphics.**********!!!!

EDIT***!!!!
This isn't derogatory or supposed to be bellitling! During my short romance with the CCG during it's last year, I actually played Spider Clan, because I liked some dark edgy samurais.

Bushido tells you how to better serve your lord, clan, the Emperor... Shourido tells you how you do get YOUR way, regardless. A skilled follower of Shourido will be able to actually use the tenets of Bushido (that is, chose the ones that better fit his current objectives as he sees fit), and get the upper hand on some other bound by his own, sincerely-held version of Bushido. If played smart, and supported by might, his conduct will still be above question.

It's not Shadowlands-related, or that did not exist before Daigotsu and the Spider; samurai have been doing Shourido-y things all the time since the dawn of time; however, that self-serving, sneaky, rules-lawyery philosophy was embraced by the Spider, probably as a mockery, and even named and codified as a pragmatical approach that abuses bushido, using it as means to an end, and not and end in itself.

Or that's how I see it, YMMV.