36 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

AFAIK, this happened because the Chinese were up against the mongols who in turn had plenty of common sense, the greatest bane of primitive firearms. It is easy to see firearms as a dead-end tech if you are up against the guys who have the wits to counter them. In Europe, the dumb knights just rode straight into the gunfire, so there was a reason to work on the tech.

I can't say whether that's true, but it's worth bearing in mind that early firearms are really not that awesome -- except in the sense that they are awe-inspiring. They're inaccurate, slow to reload, finicky to maintain, and occasionally prone to blowing up in the user's face . . . but man, they scare the ever-living crap out of the people you fire them at, because there is noise and fire and then something tears into you leaving a really messy wound. Their initial value as a shock weapon is great, but it's only much later that you get enough improvement for them to be terrifying on pragmatic as well as psychological grounds.

1 hour ago, Kinzen said:

I can't say whether that's true, but it's worth bearing in mind that early firearms are really not that awesome -- except in the sense that they are awe-inspiring. They're inaccurate, slow to reload, finicky to maintain, and occasionally prone to blowing up in the user's face . . . but man, they scare the ever-living crap out of the people you fire them at, because there is noise and fire and then something tears into you leaving a really messy wound. Their initial value as a shock weapon is great, but it's only much later that you get enough improvement for them to be terrifying on pragmatic as well as psychological grounds.

This is quite funny if you know what was the purpose of fireworks:

To scare the evil spirits away and make them flee in terror!

24 minutes ago, WHW said:

This is quite funny if you know what was the purpose of fireworks:

To scare the evil spirits away and make them flee in terror!

makes me wish Kinzen could have found a way to slip a Agasha hanabi reference into the Dragon fiction.

4 hours ago, Eugene Earnshaw said:

You don't even really need to make people cultish or secretive about it. Remember that there is a nearly exact historical precedent for this in China: they had a powerful centralized government and invented gunpowder in the 9th century, and it was used in warfare but never dominated it. Why? Lack of innovation. Why? Nobody really knows, and it is one of the biggest questions in the history of technology, but it is a historical fact.

FWIW, my preferred explanation is that European style innovation is a weird outlier and the Chinese experience is pretty much the normal case.

Long story short, there can be guns in Rokugan and lots of social change related to that, or guns in Rokugan and minimal or no related social change, and either no or very little development of the technology.

The lack of innovation with firearms happened again in Japan, too. The Portuguese sold them guns during the Sengoku period, and the Japanese quickly copied them and started producing more. However, they never really improved on them, and the same (or at least very similar) style of matchlocks were still the primary firearms in Japan for over three hundred years, until the United States forced them to open their borders and trade.

And historically, the development of firearms did change warfare, but it didn't immediately obsolete all other arms. Guns were very inaccurate, slow to reload, prone to misfiring and injuring/killing the wielder, created a thick smoke that severely reduced visibility, couldn't be used well during rain (and not at all if the powder itself got wet), and created logistical issues of having to supply and store huge quantities of material which could do significant damage to your own camp if fire got to it (intentionally or unintentionally). Add to that the expense and special skills required to make them (being able to fashion a perfectly round tube out of steel strong enough to contain an explosion is no mean feat!), and I could easily see them becoming a very niche thing rather than taking over the entirety of warfare, especially if there were a social aspect discouraging their use.

Another interesting idea for firearms in Rokugan is what if the rokugani inventors "outdid" gun tech and jumped over matchlock because of it obvious shortcomings, making the first working rokugani firearm a wheellock. This could shake things up to the good direction because wheellocks are effectively impossible to mass-produce, so we could eliminate the "ashigaru musketeer" problem from the get-go.

Just imagine; Rokugan skips guns entirely, doubling down instead to develop the hwacha and explosive rocket arrows. Eventually they make something portable enough to carry more than a few rockets comfortably.

6 minutes ago, BitRunr said:

Just imagine; Rokugan skips guns entirely, doubling down instead to develop the hwacha and explosive rocket arrows. Eventually they make something portable enough to carry more than a few rockets comfortably.

I would love to see the rockets from Mulan in Rokugan:

I'm not a military engineer, but I'd have thought that the presence of gunpowder weaponry would utterly change siege warfare. Instead of tall castles like the ones depicted in the game art, they'd need star forts with large, low earth embrasures. Anything else could be knocked down by cannons or demolition charges.

As such, the non-taboo presence of gunpowder would make for a very different Rokugan. I'm not saying that a samurai version of pike-and-powder wouldn't be cool, but it also might not be the L5R we're used to.

Mr Earnshaw might get his wish though: no more medieval stasis.

Or you go the Grunts way, and say that firearms are quite powerful, but easily countered by magic. I'm pretty sure that there's a very simple Fire spell called extinguish, or something similar. Your line of ashigaru musketeers with their matchlocks line up preparing to fire. A group of shugenja casts an extinguish ritual across the whole battlefield, then the Samurai charge...

Again, gunpowder existed and was used in warfare for a long time before cannon was invented and it changed siege warfare. Seriously, it's a technology that hast multiple levels of advancement, and "can fire arrow", "can fireworks", "can cannon" are all different levels of it that all existed on a time as a spectrum. It's not a binary tech that instantly enables all the weapons. While we are "sure" that gunpowder was invented at least in the 9th century, there are reasons to believe that taoists figured it out as fast as ~200ad. The formula was perfected over time, allowing - among other things - better weapons.

1 hour ago, WHW said:

Again, gunpowder existed and was used in warfare for a long time before cannon was invented and it changed siege warfare. Seriously, it's a technology that hast multiple levels of advancement, and "can fire arrow", "can fireworks", "can cannon" are all different levels of it that all existed on a time as a spectrum. It's not a binary tech that instantly enables all the weapons. While we are "sure" that gunpowder was invented at least in the 9th century, there are reasons to believe that taoists figured it out as fast as ~200ad. The formula was perfected over time, allowing - among other things - better weapons.

Yeah, this reasoning makes me feel like it could make sense in the world. We know that explosives exist in the world anyway, it's just the "cultural setting" that keeps it out of focus. Personally I feel that most of the "honor" talk is fluff, as most samurai were quite ambitious and practical. I think every general would find a way to use gunpowder if they could get away with it.

I like the idea that it is rudimentary. Maybe it's less reliable, and less powerful. No one has to have guns or cannons, but they could use it for fireworks, and bombs easily enough. If guns were introduced later they could go, as @AtoMaki says, passed the type of gun that could be mass produced to a type of gun that needs a skillful artisan to craft. It could be introduced through trade, to explain why it skipped the more basic tech - and then with the xenophobia it could be something that maybe 1 craftsman in Rokugan can make so they are very rare, similar to Utaku steeds.

I'm not attached to gunpowder becoming more prominent, but these arguments are pretty sound. I'd accept them if FFG played them into the story.

Most of the problems people have with gunpowder would disappear if it wasn't advanced gunpowder from the Battle of White Stag.

Which is yet another reason to pretend it never happened :P.

1 hour ago, Kitsu Seinosuke said:

I'm not a military engineer, but I'd have thought that the presence of gunpowder weaponry would utterly change siege warfare. Instead of tall castles like the ones depicted in the game art, they'd need star forts with large, low earth embrasures. Anything else could be knocked down by cannons or demolition charges.

As such, the non-taboo presence of gunpowder would make for a very different Rokugan. I'm not saying that a samurai version of pike-and-powder wouldn't be cool, but it also might not be the L5R we're used to.

Mr Earnshaw might get his wish though: no more medieval stasis.

You're assuming that sieges in Rokugan work similarly to the way sieges worked in Medieval Europe. In Rokugan, it is quite possible that military leaders would prefer to ride out to meet their foes honorably, or perform seppuku, rather than sit and wait in their castles for months until the enemy decides to just destroy the whole thing.

In essence, Rokugan castles could be palaces and military strongholds, but not really built for sustained sieges.

...that kind of behavior isn't really what honorable mean.

Cannons aren't required for gunpowder to spell the end of Rokugani-style castles (although by 1453, the Ottomans were using some pretty hefty siege guns)

Sapping just requires manpower, basic mining engineering, and sufficient quantities of gunpowder. Forging or casting gun barrels can wait.

1 hour ago, shosuko said:

Yeah, this reasoning makes me feel like it could make sense in the world. We know that explosives exist in the world anyway, it's just the "cultural setting" that keeps it out of focus. Personally I feel that most of the "honor" talk is fluff, as most samurai were quite ambitious and practical. I think every general would find a way to use gunpowder if they could get away with it.

I like the idea that it is rudimentary. Maybe it's less reliable, and less powerful. No one has to have guns or cannons, but they could use it for fireworks, and bombs easily enough. If guns were introduced later they could go, as @AtoMaki says, passed the type of gun that could be mass produced to a type of gun that needs a skillful artisan to craft. It could be introduced through trade, to explain why it skipped the more basic tech - and then with the xenophobia it could be something that maybe 1 craftsman in Rokugan can make so they are very rare, similar to Utaku steeds.

I'm not attached to gunpowder becoming more prominent, but these arguments are pretty sound. I'd accept them if FFG played them into the story.

Again, there you go thinking like a Scorpion

And again I think the Lion would take exception to your characterization of Bushido as 'fluff'.

1 hour ago, JJ48 said:

You're assuming that sieges in Rokugan work similarly to the way sieges worked in Medieval Europe. In Rokugan, it is quite possible that military leaders would prefer to ride out to meet their foes honorably, or perform seppuku, rather than sit and wait in their castles for months until the enemy decides to just destroy the whole thing.

In essence, Rokugan castles could be palaces and military strongholds, but not really built for sustained sieges.

The Crab do fairly well at siege resistance.

2 hours ago, Kuni Katsuyoshi said:

Again, there you go thinking like a Scorpion

And again I think the Lion would take exception to your characterization of Bushido as 'fluff'.

Don't forget that Akodo said “On the battlefield, all actions are honorable”.

1 hour ago, shosuko said:

Don't forget that Akodo said “On the battlefield, all actions are honorable”.

Don't forget "Honor is stronger than steel.' -l5r ad slogan (free plug)

AND parts of leader ship were banned as heretiical (I have this strange feeling we've had this conversation before)

I feel that I must speak against your Dark Rokugan and its hordes of honorless samurai poseurs.

Thanks WHW and others, for the infodumps.

Bringing the discussion back around onto the original topic, the whole honour-before-reason thing is one of the things I'd like to see abandoned.

I mean, I get it. L5R's setting is a mashup of different times and places in Japanese history. It takes its clan-on-clan-warfare elements from the Sengoku Jidai (which ended in 1603) but its swordsmanship from Musashi's Book of Five Rings (1645, after the fighting had long ended) and its view of bushido from Tsunetomo's Hagakure (1716, during a prolonged era of peace), with many of the other trappings being from that later period as well. This causes a great deal of confusion: the brutal, pragmatic warlords of the Sengoku Jidai certainly didn't act according to the dictates of Hagakure any more than they fought according to the style of Book of Five Rings. These elements are mashed up stylistically because they're very cool, and also because Japanese people frequently do this too.

However, it creates an environment in which leaders behave like fools, and their followers look like fools for following them. We can do better.

Add the court life from Tale of Genji (1008) and stuff from other east asian countries.

8 minutes ago, Kitsu Seinosuke said:

However, it creates an environment in which leaders behave like fools, and their followers look like fools for following them. We can do better.

please elaborate

3 minutes ago, Kuni Katsuyoshi said:

please elaborate

He's kidding, we can't possibly do better ;p

Just now, shosuko said:

He's kidding, we can't possibly do better ;p

No Jell-o in Rokugan.

There is always room for improvement.(and Jell-o)

1 hour ago, Kitsu Seinosuke said:

Bringing the discussion back around onto the original topic, the whole honour-before-reason thing is one of the things I'd like to see abandoned.

Well, technically speaking, honor = reason in Rokugan as far as the quotes from Leadership go. It just doesn't lend itself too well for Standard Rokugani Samurai Drama(tm).