On 10/3/2017 at 9:46 AM, shosuko said:

I also run every game in a pre-coup era, and basically ignore the metaplot. How many other people don't involve the main plot in their games, using a base L5R world instead?

I ignore parts of the metaplot, except where it fits the story I want to tell. For example in the games we ran, Kanpeki never existed. The true son of Daigotsu was my character, Daigotsu Kai'Sen, which we created before Kanpeki was a thing anyway. As a player, my buddy ran the game as an "evil" campaign and I began as Isawa Tensen and did not know my heritage. The end of the campaign saw me claiming Akkuai-Uo, the Ancestral Sword of the Hantei and realizing my birthright.

The next game I ran continued in the same world but we went back to a more traditional game, but where our characters from the last game were the antagonists. Daigotsu Kai'sen had declared himself the true emperor of Rokugan at court in the Second City, and slaughtered those who opposed him in attendance. Through shenanigans and plot devices, the campaign ended strangely:

Kai'sen was killed - Daigotsu returned to Ningen-Do - The new incarnation of the Shadow Dragon now leads the Scorpion Clan - our Crab player became the new Lord of Jigoku - the Sacrosanct Lion (the true hero of the story who saved Rokugan) killed the Empress to stop Daigotsu's ritual and is now clanless and wanted for her murder.

Yeah...things took an odd but interesting turn. So in the world I use, the metaplot is pretty much thrown right the **** out the window...

Depends. I Used Iweko as an all seeing god empress (inspired from Paul Atreides), but set the adventure in 1200, so after the metaplot. in this setting I used the Spider as a surprise force coming back from the Ivory Kingdoms to crush the invading Yodotai in a pincer strategy, and used the Tortoise to start the Gunpowder militarization of Rokugan.

And I also disbanded all clans, displaced the families and redistributed the lands and repressed the budding samurai revols in tons of blood... For Iweko's legacy to make Rokugan an agressive militaristic power, the samurai system had to fall. Took a 10 years crusade to reach Octavion and submit the Yododtai, asserting the rule of the Emerald Throne over an empire on which the sun would never set.

Just taking what I want from the metaplot, but then taking distance from the fact that metaplots characters are marysueing the setting,

I let a PC kill Amaterasu. (He was a Bayushi, and he did have surprise and a Shosuro blade... )

Yes, I use the metaplot ... but not as a straightjacket.