3 hours ago, Kuni Katsuyoshi said:

please elaborate

With tremendous pleasure.

Let's take the example that you quoted earlier in this thread:

5 hours ago, Kuni Katsuyoshi said:

AND parts of Leadership were banned as heretical (I have this strange feeling we've had this conversation before)

Leadership is a deeply pragmatic, deeply sensible book. It explains how to win wars, emphasising both the minimisation of casualties and the avoidance of collateral damage. It also stresses that a warrior needs to be more than just a killer, giving opinions on being a rounded human being and on using diplomacy and nonviolence wherever possible.

Certain parts of Leadership explain that it can be necessary to utilise deception and other underhanded methods on the battlefield. It explains that these methods may seem dishonourable, but can be worth it if they're used for a worthy cause (and if you aren't fighting for a worthy cause, why are you fighting at all?)

It is, in short, a sensible book full of good ideas. The fact that it was originally written by a deity is a nice addition.

As you remind us, parts of this book were banned. This means that at some point, some leader said to themselves, "These passages teach us how to be victorious and humanitarian via the application of intelligence; however, they contradict the inflexibility of our warrior code. This inflexibility is more important to us than victory, humanitarianism or even the will of a deity; therefore we must ban these passages."

1. How did this person get to be in charge of anything?

2. Why is anyone following this person?

3. How has anything commanded by such people managed to survive?

Freely available versions of Leadership change by the perceived whims of the current emperor, and likely the origin of the copier. Not all copies of famous texts are written by a samurai from the same clan of origin.

I also imagine that the Otomo quickly discredited the bits that made it harder to control the Lion.

1 hour ago, Kitsu Seinosuke said:

1. How did this person get to be in charge of anything?

2. Why is anyone following this person?

3. How has anything commanded by such people managed to survive?

That person was Hantei III (or IV?) as per the old canon, so yeah, questions answered .

2 hours ago, Kitsu Seinosuke said:

With tremendous pleasure.

Let's take the example that you quoted earlier in this thread:

Leadership is a deeply pragmatic, deeply sensible book. It explains how to win wars, emphasising both the minimisation of casualties and the avoidance of collateral damage. It also stresses that a warrior needs to be more than just a killer, giving opinions on being a rounded human being and on using diplomacy and nonviolence wherever possible.

Certain parts of Leadership explain that it can be necessary to utilise deception and other underhanded methods on the battlefield. It explains that these methods may seem dishonourable, but can be worth it if they're used for a worthy cause (and if you aren't fighting for a worthy cause, why are you fighting at all?)

It is, in short, a sensible book full of good ideas. The fact that it was originally written by a deity is a nice addition.

As you remind us, parts of this book were banned. This means that at some point, some leader said to themselves, "These passages teach us how to be victorious and humanitarian via the application of intelligence; however, they contradict the inflexibility of our warrior code. This inflexibility is more important to us than victory, humanitarianism or even the will of a deity; therefore we must ban these passages."

1. How did this person get to be in charge of anything?

2. Why is anyone following this person?

3. How has anything commanded by such people managed to survive?

Oh good, I thought you were trying to say somthing else.

In my own defense,I was trying to be ironic.

I agree with what you saying.

On 24/06/2017 at 4:42 AM, Kuni Katsuyoshi said:

For magic guns I politely point you towards the Iron Kingdoms rpg

I don't have any cogent arguments againts guns in L5R (yet), that isn't just personal bias.

BTW; That bias says 'no thank you'

I am very familiar with with the Iron Kingdom setting. At least since the original Lock & Load and the Witchfire Trilogy campaign, since they where first translated to my lingua mater.

I would also like to point out that the Iron Kingdoms setting does not have samurai in it (the Skorne notwithstanding).

I think you would also like to know that at least once I made a crossover of IK and L5R settings during a campaign, as well as made a full conversion of the IK setting to the Roll & Keep rules.

On 24/06/2017 at 8:17 PM, Yogo Gohei said:

While that is a fine setting idea, it is not Rokugan.

Guns do not belong in a "Swords and Sorcery" setting, for what I hope are obvious reasons.

...nor is Rokugan "Sword and Sorcery"? At least not from any definition I saw. Also, the "This is not Rokugan" argument is very close to a "No True Scotsman" fallacy, isn't it? Specially when you consider what is Rokugan from the variety of official sources we got over the years. If the introduction of perfectly time-appropriate matchlocks in the setting makes you so uncomfortable, it must give you conniptions reading The Iron Empire, The Empire of the Emerald Stars and Rokugan 2k...

=================

Now, as my last "Guns in Rokugan" contribution to this topic, I would very much like to point out the existence of, in our own very much not magical planet Earth, the existence of "matchlock-tested" (or Tameshi Gusoku) armor. It is of the Tosei Gusoku style, a more modern one, I give you that. But the rokugani armor presented in art looks a lot like this anyway. It also helps in killing the "temporal stasis" sacred cow.

Consider that, in our real life history, samurai trained to charge a matchlock formation with their kote and the front of their kabuto facing their opponent, because it gave them actual protection. Now, samurai armor is definitely not my specialty, but I remember hearing that it could resist shot like that because it had a layer of soft iron over the actual hard steel plates, so the bullet lose a lot of momentum before hitting the plate and stopping. Now, I'm not sure about the physics of it, but this explanation seems at least good enough for a fantasy setting.

And that's before we even start considering magic! I mean, the Crab Clan has a way to make literally indestructible sword blades, just imagine what they could do to armor! And then a shugenja make a few prayers before combat and there you have it, hero samurai that is not made irrelevant by firearms.

I was really hoping that they might take this opportunity to correct all the broken, mangled, or simply awkward Japanese, but I guess that was never going to happen... I understand that it's too late in the history of the game now to change
a name like Otosan Uchi or Ryoko Owari Toshi, but at least the purely grammatical mistakes (Shiro no Yojin, Mori Kuroi) would have been an easy fix.

Another, but this is less card game and more community/fictions :
"The assumption that people always wear their clan colors all the time". Mostly in the playerbase and some fictions.

Again, there is a need to understand that different media have different ways of communication, often relying on certain quirks and techniques to get their point across. "Every Crane in the Card Game wears Blue" is such a technique - in a card game, you have to make sure that it's clear what clan the character belongs to just by looking at it. Color-Coding is extremely useful for that.

This doesn't mean it had to be directly translated to RPG or fictions, where you are not relying...no, where you are not BOUND to a single frame of art to communicate everything about the character.

17 minutes ago, WHW said:

This doesn't mean it had to be directly translated to RPG or fictions, where you are not relying...no, where you are not BOUND to a single frame of art to communicate everything about the character.

Indeed... in the fan-run Winter Court 5, my Spider wore a sky blue kimono fairly often... and had a fairly diverse array of others.

Another:
Samurai are super experts in one thing and are allowed or even expected to be utterly incompetent in everything that doesn't belong to their focus. So a sword or yari master apparently should not be able to shoot a bow (looking at you, Hotaru), etc.

Samurai archetype is of a warrior poet scholar. Samurai were supposed to be *versatile* and *well educated*. Just because your designated duty is cutting mens with swords doesn't mean you shouldn't - can't - be a good scholar, origami artist or that you don't know how to talk at the court. Specialization is one thing, crippling laser focused hyperspecialization is another.

1 hour ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Indeed... in the fan-run Winter Court 5, my Spider wore a sky blue kimono fairly often... and had a fairly diverse array of others.

A Spider fashion plate eh? Scary

Whil I agree the Clan Color Coding is egregious. As long as it's an art staple it'll trickle down to everything L5R to some extent.

Agreed about the colour coding. Bleached Crane hair is a similar thing, at least for me. It shouldn't be a uniform, especially not a courtier uniform.

While I'm complaining about art, I'd like to quickly mention the way that female samurai are often portrayed as showing more skin than the men do. Matsu Satsune is probably the worst offender in this regard, wearing the Rokugani equivalent of a chainmail sports bra, but she's not even close to the only one.

It makes me uncomfortable, and it's made me hesitant to pitch the game to my friends in the past.

To be fair, there are WAY more male characters showing lots of skin than female characters in the old artwork.

Keyword search Togashi (all those monks...)
Or heck, just "Crab Clan" (there's a LOT of torso showing for the clan of heavy armor specialists...)

The thing is you just don't consider them "revealing" because of how our society treats nudity, but a nipple is a nipple, and the only "nudity" shown in L5R is male-centric.

Sexy samurai for everybody! Cant see the problem...

3 hours ago, WHW said:

Another, but this is less card game and more community/fictions :
"The assumption that people always wear their clan colors all the time". Mostly in the playerbase and some fictions.

Again, there is a need to understand that different media have different ways of communication, often relying on certain quirks and techniques to get their point across. "Every Crane in the Card Game wears Blue" is such a technique - in a card game, you have to make sure that it's clear what clan the character belongs to just by looking at it. Color-Coding is extremely useful for that.

This doesn't mean it had to be directly translated to RPG or fictions, where you are not relying...no, where you are not BOUND to a single frame of art to communicate everything about the character.

Actually, I think they could stand to loosen this up in the LCG as well. It's fine to associate light blue with Crane, but that should not preclude more muted kimono for the clan... So long as it's relatively identifiable. Sure, you don't want to start cross up clearly Lion colours with Crane personalities, but something akin to Kakita Amakuni's kimono would do:

This works fine. Of course, the bleached hair is another overtly prevalent theme for Crane. Then again, it didn't stop Kakita Noritoshi from being recognized as such.

Your point is a salient one though. Round out the characters please.

----------------------------------------------------

Another sacred cow I hope they do away with is the one that mandates near every shugenja be shown to have over the top wizardly powers. In card depictions, it's especially prevalent. If Isawa Masahiro was seen to have fire in his eyes and a hint of flame coursing over his hand, would he seem any less intimidating than the showy fireworks conductor he is depicted to be? I don't think so. In an inverse relationship, reducing the power of these priests (not wizards) in card form actually makes them more relatable (as much as one could relate to a fantasy-based priest). It grounds or anchors the character, IMO. (I could be wrong, others may prefer such depictions, but I actually think it holds Phoenix back from gaining more of a following, just IMO).

1 hour ago, Anemura said:

of these priests (not wizards)

Thought of another one!
Can we stop insisting that Shugenja are totally not wizards because they're totally priests?

L5R does not have that kind of direct correlation to D&D thematics. The Shugenja of Rokugan are significantly more like the Shaman of Warcraft, with the "kami" of Rokugan acting much like the "elements" of Azeroth. They can speak to those who have the gift of understanding and they are very predictable in their nature (ie: fire kami are always passionate, air kami are always capricious, earth kami are always stoic, etc.) But when a shugenja is praying to the kami to cast a spell, he/she is decidedly not politely requesting a kami fulfill their spell-request, please and thank you; that's more how the Henshin and their Riddles work, not how shugenja spells work, which are typically cast from scrolls because the same prayer works all the time, every time, assuming something isn't wrong with the kami... (kinda like... a wizard... )

The reason they're called priests is because that is their role in society (which, based on most of the past lore, usually gets relegated to monks anyway, since shugenja always seem to have "something more important" to be doing than blessing babies and praying for healthy crops). Priest, as a title, speaks in no way towards their ability to speak to, and influence/control, the elemental kami that fuel their spells.

Re: Clan colors-

I totally agree.
We didn't see any deviation in the Lion or Crane previews, which was disappointing, but the Dragon are showing some people breaking from this tradition, which is great! (Mirumoto Raitsugu and, to a lesser extent, Niten Adept)

I wouldn't mind further removing Shugenja from being priests and focusing more on "they can skip the priestly protocol and do the thing directly", with a caveat that there would be other ways to interact with spiritual manners available to non-Shugenja (i.e. above mentioned spiritual protocol, rituals and overall, monkly/priestly stuff) with Shugenja being simply really good fit for it because they are close to elemental kami anyway.

Like: anyone with proper purity and knowledge can perform ritual purification, exorcism, enchant a weapon or do alchemy, but only Shugenja can do it directly, without having to go through hoops, and often doing effects that don't happen to have their priestly equivalent (so no "fireball" ritual, yes fireball spell)

16 minutes ago, WHW said:

I wouldn't mind further removing Shugenja from being priests and focusing more on "they can skip the priestly protocol and do the thing directly", with a caveat that there would be other ways to interact with spiritual manners available to non-Shugenja (i.e. above mentioned spiritual protocol, rituals and overall, monkly/priestly stuff) with Shugenja being simply really good fit for it because they are close to elemental kami anyway.

Like: anyone with proper purity and knowledge can perform ritual purification, exorcism, enchant a weapon or do alchemy, but only Shugenja can do it directly, without having to go through hoops, and often doing effects that don't happen to have their priestly equivalent (so no "fireball" ritual, yes fireball spell)

Like this, from The Rising Wave:

"He poured a dipper of water from the fountain over his hands and shaved head, then sought out a monk to take the impurity of death from him with a paper wand."

?

Exactly. You don't even know how many times I have been yelled at in internet communities for suggesting that a non-shugenja could do even the first part (water ablution) and make it somewhat matter...

• Dishonor as a clan superpower. If you assassinate someone, blackmail someone, just cheat in a fight, or whatever, there are consequences to that that you don't get out of just because your clan 'doesn't care about honor'. Some writers/GMs do play that out, some don't, but there should be kharmic consequences as well as the possibility of consequences for retribution, etc, in a world where 'honor is stronger than steel'.
• Super shugenja. If Shugenja really are as strong as they look from their card effects, the world would have magic plumbing and spaceships already. The ratio of super power shugenja to samurai is too high and the shugenja effects (by description) are so strong that wars would all basically be won or lost by the battlefield impact of a handful of shugenja. A combat-focused shugenja and a bushi of similar ranks should have similarish level of power in combat actions, not just in dice damage done, but in the effect that do the damage. A non-combat shugenja and a courtier of similar ranks should have similarish levels of power in a court setting. And get rid of all spells that let shugenja increase their ranks of their attributes flat out for a specific task. A shugenja in L5R will always be Stronger than the most body-built Hida, smarter than the most scholarly Asako, more aimiable and empathatic than the most affable Doji....If I want a door broken down, I want the Hida to say 'I'll do it'. Not be begging the shugenja to make him even stronger or letting the wimpy shugenja do it himself. (Sorry, pet peeve. Buffs are fine, but in L5R RPG that gets a little ridiculous)
• Agreed with letting priests/monks/others do purification and so on totally. Introduction of kuji-kiri/rites as a skill so that all classes can do these sorts of activities if they want the skill in it (as a school skill for many Dragon and Phoenix schools, as well as for all shugenja). It might not be able to get it as 'good' as a shugenja...maybe not pure enough to go in a temple or to see the Champion except in an emergency, but enough so you can go to sleep at night.
• I would like to see more Samurai in different stages of their life. More aged samurai, more children, more parents with children, more couples. The world must be peopled.

5 hours ago, Kitsu Seinosuke said:

Matsu Satsune is probably the worst offender in this regard, wearing the Rokugani equivalent of a chainmail sports bra, but she's not even close to the only one.

I see you have little familiarity with the proud Phoenix Tradition of Miniskirt Invention... or the Moshi Bikini Brigade...

6 minutes ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

I see you have little familiarity with the proud Phoenix Tradition of Miniskirt Invention... or the Moshi Bikini Brigade...

Well fire magic and tropical islands don't always mix well with restrictive clothing.

7 hours ago, WHW said:

Samurai are super experts in one thing and are allowed or even expected to be utterly incompetent in everything that doesn't belong to their focus. So a sword or yari master apparently should not be able to shoot a bow (looking at you, Hotaru), etc.

This bit is fairly important to keep alive, because it is one of the building blocks of the warrior elite and thus the feudal society. If you make samurai legitimately versatile, then they will stop being a "warrior elite" in the strictest sense, and you will quickly end up with some sweet-sweet neo-feudalism. And while I'am all ready to redesign the whole Rokugani society, I'am also fairly sure that the majority of the other players are not exactly up to this task.