53 minutes ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

Okay. Those are the same things.

Heavily anecdotal. My buddy played Unicorn because he likes the color purple...

Which of these characters had "issues with their art?" These are all cards from the original AEG days in the 90s... What was wrong with any of their characterizations? If anything, most of them were treated as equals to their male counterparts. Which meant they had strengths and weaknesses, victories and defeats... You're just making this stuff up, aren't you? You're going to say "But, but Kachiko!" aren't you? Because a female character can't be allowed, ever, to have sexuality or be a villain. Like I said, trite window dressing to grab at certain demographics. Maybe you're just one of those demographics. Aren't you worried about Orientalism? Just trying to figure out what is on your short-list for problematic depictions.

ITT: presumptive cis man sneers at the experience of women and LGBTQA+ folks, cherry-picks evidence to invalidate their experience, finishes by complaining about ~*~identity politics~*~; film at 11.

We had this thread about a million times already. You could find it in the original AEG forum, you can find in the FFG LCG forum and doubtless many other L5R fora.

I also said L5R was not bad, you know. That means there are positive examples, for the artwork as well. But even in the 90's they did not go out of their way to actually be inclusive compared to other companies.

I will address the question of characterization at the start of the game a bit however, as that is more interesting than retreading the art discussion. You say the women were made as the equal of the men in the story, but I disagree. It certainly did not start out that way, though it got better over time, it definitely did . Just putting emphasis on the last before you go and make my position more extreme than it actually is.

Of the one's mentioned above, once they actually got story time Matsu Tsuko, Isawa Kaede, Mirumoto Hitomi and Ikoma Tsanuri were very strongly defined by the men in their lives, and it did not go both ways. To elaborate, for the longest time Hitomi's story was just about Yakamo. Actually, I will put it stronger, she was just a side character in Yakamo's story, and it was similar for most of the women in the story back then. The other three women above belong in Toturi's story/harem. No, the boys were very much the stars of the show, and it really took time before the women were developed into actual, stand-alone characters.

Otaku Kamoko was better I believe, but I was never into the Unicorn I must admit and I don't quite remember when her story started getting interesting. Hida O'Ushi, who was also named, came into her own later on as well. A Good Little Wife was from the Ree Soesbee period, I believe. You'll certainly get no hate from me about Kachiko (except her art, most of it was horrid, but whatever). The story of Kachiko and Hoturi was actually fairly balanced, and she had other things going on beyond being hung up in one way or another on her man of choice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EGCAVDPs7E

The game designers themselves explained a few things like their attitude to the reboot, the design philosophy of the RPG and representation in L5R. I found it an hour well spent to listen to.

2 hours ago, Doji Meshou said:

ITT: presumptive cis man sneers at the experience of women and LGBTQA+ folks, cherry-picks evidence to invalidate their experience, finishes by complaining about ~*~identity politics~*~; film at 11.

There you go trying to invalidate my opinions as opposed to presenting any kind of valid argument about why I am wrong, as is tradition. They don't even bother putting that one on the news anymore though, it's so tired.

Duped

Of the one's mentioned above, once they actually got story time Matsu Tsuko, Isawa Kaede, Mirumoto Hitomi and Ikoma Tsanuri were very strongly defined by the men in their lives, and it did not go both ways.

This is so wrong and superficial that I'm not sure it's even worth a response demanding you actually provide some support for it. I mean, Tsanuri was Tsuko's protege, and was chosen as her replacement as Champion, lol. Which men in her life was she very strongly defined by? Is she not allowed to interact with any men for fear of weakening her story? They give Hitomi a character arc where she wants revenge, but because the target of her revenge is a man, you call it "Yakamo's story" (though don't really provide any evidence of that). Good lord the dishonesty, lol. Guess what the reboot really needed to do for you was have Hida Yamamoko so Hitomi could hate a woman that killed her sister. She progresses her way through the story, ending up as the daimyo of the Mirumoto family, has a Fall, then a Redemption and neither plotline really involves Yakamo, then he's never really a part of her story again until they become the Sun and the Moon (which was years after the original AEG storyline was written and well into the "A lot of this stuff is crap" era).

If that's really how you interpret those stories, I have a feeling that in any story with male characters in it, you would choose to see them that way. Was Rey from Star Wars a weak female character even though they basically made her invincible and gave her no challenges to overcome. After all, she's going to have to learn to improve her Force Powers from a man, and the voice in her head that made her suddenly learn to lightsaber fight was a man's. Too strongly defined by men.

Is Wonder Woman the only good female character ever, because she was raised on an island of women?

But even in the 90's they did not go out of their way to actually be inclusive compared to other companies.

There's just no substantiation for this claim. You named one company that added sexuality into their story, but that doesn't really affect a war story like L5R. I mean, I get it, you need characters to be explicitly LGBT to enjoy a property. Maybe as a straight person I don't look at my war stories and wonder who is banging who back home and it's my privilege. But, c'est la vie. I recognize cheap story elements when I see them. Doji Hoturi was an amazing character. Donji Hotaru is already starting off poorly with that nonsense of her being the one to personally kill Arasou. That's a cheap, simplistic narrative dilemma and weak character building. For that reason alone, Hotaru is already a failure of a character. Let alone that she destroys other plotlines. As I've said elsewhere, I don't really care if the gender-flip characters in a setting where there's no real distinction between male and female. But if you do it with one the few characters whose gender mattered in the original storyline, it's automatically going to be met with skepticism because it's now potentially making the story worse (and it already has in the Lion fiction). If they made Otaku Kamoko a lesbian, or Isawa Tadaka a woman (could even have Tsukune with the unrequited love story still), it wouldn't make a shred of difference.

I'm sorry that story and characterization matters to me. It's why I still love L5R 20 years later and it doesn't sit in the Dustbin of Hobbies Past like all the other quaint things I liked as a kid. You'll just have to deal with that. Hopefully you can do it with some dignity as opposed to poor irrationally angry Doji Meshou.

Good god man who hurt you?

But seriously all you've done for like two pages is say the same thing "your feelings are more correct than other people's". We get it, you're right, they're wrong.

Hotaru is trash because you didn't like ONE story that was admittedly one of the weaker to come out thus far. Cool. LGBTQ people can't have nice things without ruining the game for you, we get it.

LGBTQ people can't have nice things without ruining the game for you, we get it.

I didn't say that at all. In fact, I quite clearly said the opposite. My problem is with Hotaru individually as a poorly-written, poorly conceptualized reboot of one of L5R's better characters, not the inclusion of a character with a lesbian story arc. What perverse joy do you get out of making baseless character assassinations on the Internet? It seems to be fairly common behavior for you when faced with conflicting opinions, and a reflection of your poor character. I have a feeling you're one of those irrationally angry people like Doji Meshou (oh look, they've already liked your post) who can't really ever explain why they are angry, only that they are angry and you should respect that and if you don't you're an (insert Internet slur here).

I merely contested the obviously incorrect assertion that L5R was not inclusive from the beginning, supported the fairly substantiated idea that there were strong, well-written female characters, and I asked for some real, concrete examples to back up claims to the contrary. So far, none have been forthcoming.

My version of L5R stories (much like feudal Japan) is chock full of LGBT characters. My first character ever was a gay Crane duelist hellbent on killing his Ikoma ex-lover. He was also married to a woman and had kids, because honour and life in Rokugan demands it.

I've always been under the impression that a samurai can be whatever sexuality they want and basically do whatever they want - as long as they don't disregard their duty of providing the empire with more samurai children and more acquisitions through marriage. Nothing a little Bitter Betrothal doesn't solve. Samurai don't marry for love anyway, even the straight ones. Everyone is equally unhappily and dutifully married to whomever their lord says - and also often pursuing secret affairs behind their spouses back (or in front of them, as the case may be.)

Marriage has always been an awesome source of samurai drama. I mean, you generally get force-arrange-married at 13 right after your gempukku, right? Some samurai aren't even finished puberty by the time they're married. Unless both parties are 100% honourable it's a setup for complete disaster - but no one is 100%, that's the whole thing. So it's a setup for great stories.


Also, for the record, I've basically always treated the sexes as completely equal in L5R. It's more fun that way. I've had more than a little fun putting some of my 'MEN ARE STRONGER' players up against Matsu samurai under Empress Iweko.
It's like "Homeboy that is a MATSU samurai. You'd better show her WAY more respect than you think necessary, because she WILL end the life of your character without thinking about twice if you step an inch off the path of bushido. Face to the ground, pal."

I'm a huge fan of Hoturi and my opinions about Hotaru are 100% different than yours. I'm not angry, just find it annoying that any time a decent point is made you deflect it because in your opinion it's a weak point. They're all subjective points when it comes to inclusion. I'm a straight white dude, I don't find it hard to feel included in just about anything. Other people struggle, it's not my place to tell them what is and isn't inclusive just because I feel like Tsuko was a strong female character or that Hoturi and Kachiko's romance was one of my favorite stories from clan wars.

I don't need to assassinate your character, you've been doing it all morning.

14 minutes ago, GhostSanta said:

My version of L5R stories (much like feudal Japan) is chock full of LGBT characters.

This, plus not just feudal Japan but human history. "Get married and have kids and we don't care what you do in your off-hours" is as much pre-Christian Roman and Christian European as anything else.

Just now, Doji Meshou said:

This, plus not just feudal Japan but human history. "Get married and have kids and we don't care what you do in your off-hours" is as much pre-Christian Roman and Christian European as anything else.

lol, "THERE IS WAR AND PLAGUE, WE NEED MORE HUMANS. GIVE US MORE HUMANS, THEN WHATEVER MAN."

Just now, GhostSanta said:

lol, "THERE IS WAR AND PLAGUE, WE NEED MORE HUMANS. GIVE US MORE HUMANS, THEN WHATEVER MAN."

MAN SLASH WOMAN SLASH BINARY GENDER IS A PRETTY RECENT SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, JUST DO WHATEVER, WE ARE LITERALLY EATING ROCKS

Ok intresting. Why is it important that the fantasy world of others has the same sexual realtionships than your own`? If you want to stick with Hotori do it. If you want that Hotaru is a lesbian all the power to you. See while FFG publsishes one verion of the story they don´t force you to agree with it or even play in the same storyline. You are free to go and change the fluff as needed so have fun.