It can get pretty ugly, though. The statement I posted assumes the merchant is being nice, and the samurai is being civilized. With a powerful patron, the following adventure nugget below can happen:

“Bitter World of the Samurai” Adapted from a story from ‘Samurai Executioner’

From an inscription drawn in blood on a wall in a merchants house:

“This is the Bitter World of the Samurai. The arrogance and extravagance of the merchant class is intolerable. They make a living through unproductive thievery. Moreover, ignorant of their proper place, they exploit their samurai superiors. That is truly unspeakable.

“The Suffering of the Samurai has but one root: The hideous union between government and commerce.

“First, the posted price of rice is unreasonably low so that merchants can make vast profits. This is truly proof of the collusion between the government and the merchants.

“Second, what is with this ‘seal money’? As if the unprecedented 15% the rice merchants squeeze out of us wasn’t enough, they use seal money as and excuse to get even more out of us. Such evil is intolerable.

“Third, they rip the Farmers off with ‘surcharge rice’.

“We shall rectify the shady dealings of officials and merchants with the white blades of warriors.

“Alas, This is The Bitter World of the Samurai.”

Some context to the above:

The government (Clan or Imperial) paid Gokenin (lower ranked retainers such as Gi-Samurai ,etc.) in unpolished rice. The ‘Posted Price’ determined the exchange rate for turning rice into cash and vis versa. The Accounting Office (Office of the Imperial Graineries or Clan offices charged with the same duties) examined the prices for the three classes of rice : High for the Kuge , Medium for the Buke , And Low for the Gi-Samurai and bulk of the merchant caste) and used the average between the three to determine the value of 100 bags of rice.

The Prices would be displayed on gates of castles and within merchant sections of cities. But the prices would drive Hatamoto (middle ranked samurai) and Gokenin into poverty.

Merchants would keep an eye on when prices were posted, typically the Second Month of Spring, the Fifth Month of Summer, and the Tenth Month of Winter – rice merchants would cause the prices to decline. When the market fell, typically when stocks were plentiful, the merchants would sell rice cheaply. Later, when stocks were low and demand was high, they would raise prices to maximize profits. Also, Large government donations to the merchants in the form of rice stocks or additional monies allowed the posted prices to be 20%-30% less than actual market value.

This forced the Hatamoto and Gokenin had to borrow huge sums of money from the rice merchants at a fixed interest rate of 15%. For additional insult to injury, rice merchants would exploit them further by using ‘seal money’ as pretext to raise the interest rate. Rice merchants would borrow their own money from others. When they received rice, they would use seal money as poof of payment. A bit like a deceptive sublessor, really. They would demand this ‘seal money’ on every transaction. While the interest rate was fixed at 15%, the seal money added another 20% Fee. Every three months. So Call it 80% at years end. A 100 Ryo loan becomes 195 ryo to pay back over a year. And the Government would do nothing about it.

Now you know why samurai really didn’t like merchants.

Note: The above shenanigans is really not that far off from what happened historically. Reprisals against the merchant class were more common is spoken off and tales of arrogant merchants were pretty common in Japanese folklore. This should spur ideas for aspiring GM’s want to handle some economic themes.

Yes, historically, the struggle between the warrior elite and the merchants was a real deal. But in Rokugan? Merchants have literally negative leverage against samurai, they can't toy around with money or offer loans because the samurai can retaliate immediately without fear of repercussions. Well, maybe the patron will go "He was my favorite merchant, you kinda offended me Samurai-san!" but that won't magically grow back the merchant's head if you know what I mean.

I think in the old canon the Great Famine leader chick had a backstory where her merchant dad was killed by Lion samurai like this. No loans or anything involved, the samurai kicked in the door, told the guy to show them the money, and when he couldn't do that they killed him and left like nothing happened. But then it was kinda forgotten that this was a thing.

This isn't a setting where a merchant can increase interest to 20% because then the samurai will decrease the merchant's height by 20%. So to speak.

5 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

Merchants have literally negative leverage against samurai, they can't toy around with money or offer loans because the samurai can retaliate immediately without fear of repercussions. Well, maybe the patron will go "He was my favorite merchant, you kinda offended me Samurai-san!" but that won't magically grow back the merchant's head if you know what I mean.

It's slightly more complex. Aside from possibly having a patron, a merchant does his trade in a lord's domain and pays taxes to said lord. That doesn't necessarily earn him any protection from that lord, but if his profitability suffers that goes against the lord's interests (less taxes). In a sense, the merchant works for the lord and he sells his wares on behalf of his lord. Taking them without offering something in return (not payment, that would be crass and uncouth and unworthy of a samurai, but a reward or a token of gratitude) is an offense to the local lord and thus dishonorable.

From a GM perspective, if I were to run a commerce-centric scenario, I would go with the following assumptions about the merchants - samurai relationship.

First of all, merchants do something their lord, or the lord of the province they trade in, desperately needs: provide goods and services that samurai cannot, dont want to, or dont know how to provide. Taking out a merchant can be a SERIOUS blow to the infrastructure of supply to villages, towns, maybe the favorite tea of the lord.

Second, especially in 5e, a handful of thugs with half-decent stats and bo staves can be dangerous to a samurai. If interacting with samurai, its not implausible for a merchant to have some security. And is a samurai, provided he survives the beating, really going to admit he wanted to kill the merchant for his money but got beaten up by thugs?

Third, if you kill a merchant and take their stuff, that stuff doesnt rightfully belong to you. I would rule that any claims to that stuff is, at least in part, to the local daimyo .You just stole his rightful cut. Not a smart idea ...

Fourth, you kill a merchant, and non-samurai will know. You better not need any help, drink any tea at an unknown tea house, you better check your rice for some nasty stuff. Samurai are notoriously incapable of actually managing their own life, relying on the other castes for that - so crossing one of the most influential ones is going to cause trouble.

Fifth, a doshin will know, and chances are, for a few koku a ronin or two can be hired to take out that problematic murderous samurai. And who is to know? Who is going to report a dead samurai in the forest? As long as there is no samurai witness to that death, there is a good chance its going to be "forgotten".

Sixth, if that STILL doesnt prevent murder hobo behaviour, consider that there is likely something like a sales or income tax. Killing a merchant is actively reducing the income of the local daimyo. Who will at the very least demand the stuff you took as repayment, and then some.

I think all of these are reasonable within the confines of the lore established. However, if all that doesnt sound good enough, there is one thing I will establish in my rokugan:

As a merchant, you can basically pay a samurai as sort of an attorney to accuse the murderous/violent bastard who took down your dad and stole his koku. This is a great way for impoverished petty samurai to make some money in the community they live in, a way for merchants to get legal representation that not everyone can afford (thus killing peasants might be less problematic than merchants), and actually sets up a bunch of cool "courtroom drama" scenes if you need it.

for more fun and games

Much of this information is k ibbled/ modified from The Samurai Archives Wiki as supplementary material for the information provided with the current line of L5R books

H an (n): The feudal domains ruled by daimyô are most commonly throughout Rokugani history referred to as han . During the age of Exploration, the term as fallen into relative disuse, and domains are instead referred to by a number of terms including:

kuni ("country", "state") ( M uch to the Crabs amusement)

ryô or ryôbun ("territory", "portion of territory") (the play on the term for coinage is often used in jokes)

shiryô ("private territory") ( Typically used to refer to Samurai residences )

ie (“ house” ) (used to refer to peasant housing, usually farming housing )

zaisho ("place where one is resident") (often used interchangeably when referring to Merchant housing and places of business)

fu or seifu ( "government") (used to refer to governing clan residences or governmental buildings),

and kôgi ("government", "public affairs") (typically used when referring to Imperial Holdings) , among others.

T he use of these terms was often governed by omote and uchi (or "external" and "internal") concerns; a term such as kuni might be used in internal domain documents to refer to the domain, but when speaking to the Emperor about one's domain, kuni would be used to refer to Rokugan as a whole, and another term, such as zaisho , would be used to the daimyô's humble appointed territory

The han are largely autonomous in terms of their internal affairs, but were subject to numerous strictures originally imposed by Hantei III , as well as taxation and ritual obligations. Hantei XVI , officially acknowledged (for tax purposes and control) 185 major domains during his reign; by the reign of Hantei XX , the number of major domains stabilized around 260, but the total number of distinct domains that existed at one time or another over the course of Rokugani History exceeds 540.

Though many daimyô continue to hold their ancestral territory as their han , in theory all han a re fiefs granted by the Emperor of Rokugan . The Emperor reserve s the right to give and take away lands from daimyô , and often ma kes use of this power, reassigning a given territory to a different samurai clan, and assigning the former lords of that territory to a different domain elsewhere in the archipelago, or simply denying them a territory entirely during political turmoil or as a possible reward for service . This occurred particularly frequently in the Reign of Hantei XVI and during the Heresy Era , with 281 instances of clans being moved from one domain to another, and 213 instances of clans losing daimyô status, and their domains, entirely during that fifty-year period. The latter was most often due to the absence of an heir; though Imperial policies were relaxed in l ater eras , initially, deathbed adoptions were not permitted.

The power or status of each han (and of their daimyô ) was determined by its kokudaka , normally a measure of agricultural or commercial production in units of koku ; in some cases, domains were assigned a kokudaka out of proportion to their agricultural production, in recognition of their importance strategically, diplomatically, or otherwise. The smallest domains, by definition, had a kokudaka of at least 10,000 koku , while the largest domain s , boast a kokudaka of 1,000,000 koku o r better . The vast majority of domains were closer to the lower end of this range, and only a handful of domains were assessed in the hundreds of thousands of koku .

On the Kokudaka:

Kokudaka (n): a measure of the agricultural production of a daimyô domain, or " han ," expressed as a measure of koku of rice. As a representation of the domain's wealth, kokudaka determined the amount of the domain's tax obligations to the shogunate, and the domain's status relative to other domains.

The smallest daimyô domains, by definition, possessed at least 10,000 koku , while some samurai retainers were granted sub-domains within a han , with a much smaller rating in koku . The majority of han were officially assessed at a kokudaka in the range of 10,000 to 200,000 koku , though the kokudaka of the most powerful domains exceeded 500,000 koku .

This figure, though ostensibly based on the actual agricultural production of the domain's territory, often did not change over the course of the period. A domain's kokudaka might be changed as a political reward or punishment, but the Empire does not engage in regular surveys of agricultural production, and did not update domains' kokudaka on the basis of their production.

Multiple different figures for the kokudaka thus often existed simultaneously for a single domain. The official figure determined and recognized by the Empire and used as a marker or indicator of the domain's wealth and status can be referred to as omotedaka , using the character omote , meaning "official," "surface," or "outside." Meanwhile, nearly all domains maintained their own internal figures for agricultural production, called uchidaka , using the character uchi , meaning "inside" or "internal."

The uchidaka was often a higher figure, more regularly assessed and more accurately reflecting increases and expansions of agricultural productivity within the domain. It was generally in the best interests of the domain to not report the higher figure, and to allow the omotedaka recognized by the Empire to remain at a lower figure, since this mean s lower tax payments owed by the domain to the Empire ; though this seems deceitful or deceptive, such behavior i s widely condoned by the Empire , as part of the philosophy of omote and uchi , allowing internal matters to remain relatively private, so long as a domain's obligations on the official, external are properly observed.

Ok, be careful with ie. It means household and is very much a social, even at some points corporate, entity, rather than a strictly physical place, and what we think of samurai clans would actually be ie. You may consider that the samurai clan are uji instead of ie, but that would open a huge can of worms.

Also, over 100% of the rice crop? The Tokugawa rarely went over 50% and that's because they had other taxes. The Toyotomi never went above 75% and charged no other tax. And of course, samurai payed no tax, their obligation were met either through Sankin Kotai or other forms of attendance... Not that it's even possible to gather more than 100% of something that is physically finite.

10 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

It's slightly more complex. Aside from possibly having a patron, a merchant does his trade in a lord's domain and pays taxes to said lord. That doesn't necessarily earn him any protection from that lord, but if his profitability suffers that goes against the lord's interests (less taxes). In a sense, the merchant works for the lord and he sells his wares on behalf of his lord.

This is actually a good reason for the lord or patron to put pressure on the merchant to just give up on the money. You can regenerate your lost koku, but you cannot regenerate your lost head. At this point it is also worth noting that the murderous samurai did nothing wrong as per the Celestial Order, the real offender was the merchant all along for not paying proper respect to the samurai. A commoner violating the Celestial Order like this is not something anyone should take very lightly, economic considerations aside. We are not living in the Perfect Land Sect (yet) where merchants can talk back to samurai and get away with it.

8 hours ago, Kaiju said:

Second, especially in 5e, a handful of thugs with half-decent stats and bo staves can be dangerous to a samurai. If interacting with samurai, its not implausible for a merchant to have some security.

This one is extremely dangerous for the merchant. Killing a merchant over some koku is cool according to the Celestial Order. The merchant retaliating against the samurai is not . Not to mention that paying the thugs might chew up the same money the samurai would take anyway. With ronin in the picture, the latter is essentially granted (and ronin is samurai, so the merchant is guarding his sheep with wolves).

8 hours ago, Kaiju said:

Fourth, you kill a merchant, and non-samurai will know. You better not need any help, drink any tea at an unknown tea house, you better check your rice for some nasty stuff. Samurai are notoriously incapable of actually managing their own life, relying on the other castes for that - so crossing one of the most influential ones is going to cause trouble.

Killing the local money shark will most likely make the samurai more popular among the commoners, not less.

8 hours ago, Kaiju said:

As a merchant, you can basically pay a samurai as sort of an attorney to accuse the murderous/violent bastard who took down your dad and stole his koku.

What can the merchant pay the samurai can't just take for free? As I said, the merchant has no leverage, he can't offer anything that would be worth the fuss unless the samurai already has a major grudge against the killer.

9 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

This is actually a good reason for the lord or patron to put pressure on the merchant to just give up on the money. You can regenerate your lost koku, but you cannot regenerate your lost head. At this point it is also worth noting that the murderous samurai did nothing wrong as per the Celestial Order, the real offender was the merchant all along for not paying proper respect to the samurai. A commoner violating the Celestial Order like this is not something anyone should take very lightly, economic considerations aside. We are not living in the Perfect Land Sect (yet) where merchants can talk back to samurai and get away with it.

This one is extremely dangerous for the merchant. Killing a merchant over some koku is cool according to the Celestial Order. The merchant retaliating against the samurai is not . Not to mention that paying the thugs might chew up the same money the samurai would take anyway. With ronin in the picture, the latter is essentially granted (and ronin is samurai, so the merchant is guarding his sheep with wolves).

Killing the local money shark will most likely make the samurai more popular among the commoners, not less.

What can the merchant pay the samurai can't just take for free? As I said, the merchant has no leverage, he can't offer anything that would be worth the fuss unless the samurai already has a major grudge against the killer.

You are assuming all samurai are happy murder hobos for a few koku that they are not supposed to care about, according to the same concept of belief that the celestial order rests on. IE, more theoretical. Maybe you simply see the celestial order as being an absolute belief, whereas the tenets of bushido and the disregard for koku is more malleable?

I think the celestial order concept is one of those theoretical things that everyone kind of claims is important, but in fact most people do not REALLY adhere to it if it becomes inconvenient. I am going by historical precedent here, and what we can already see in the Lore, both old and new, with people seeing this more as guidelines.

In the Emerald Empire book, in the part about court proceedings and law, there is a clear indication that the word of a samurai can frequently be found questionable by evidence and counter-testimony. Basically, if Samurai A says he didnt do it, but merchant B says he did, and the evidence convinces the Lord, there will be at least a hefty fine or some sort of public disgrace.

I think you have narrowed your understanding of the entire social system down to "my samurai is immune to the law. Yay lets murderize" when the setting clearly allows for that idea to be much less concrete in play.

Regarding the thugs as security in particular: thugs are cheap. Incredibly cheap, because labor is incredibly cheap. 1 koku is a year of wages for a commoner! And the merchant has normal legal protection from the thugs he hires. So in that way, he is guarding sheep with wolves the same way any security guard is protecting anything today - yes they could beat up their employer and steal the cash register.

It comes down to what your GM wants the practical application of the law to be. Purist "celestial order" belief would entail a lot more than samurai being murder hobos for money, and a samurai with no honor or glory from repeatedly stealing and murdering would not get legal protection from anyone, much like a ronin.

Also, the way the whole society seems to work, I am really sure its reasonable to assume even an unpopular merchant is more popular with the simple folk than any samurai, especially one who murders and steals. At least with the merchant you get something in return for your koku, and he doesnt drain the ressources of your village with uncertain repayment in the future.

So to sum it up, I think the idea of the Celestial Order, as evidenced by official lore, is akin to the idea of any religious set of values being the foundation for how a society is structed and a law written. In theory we should still crush infidels, stone unfaithful women or do all kinds of other old testament stuff, but in practice the influence of these values is much less literal, otherwise society would not function. Its a nice excuse to set up a feudal system, but in fact that feudal system is preserved by a clear balance of power and duty between the castes, and breaking that social contract towards the lower castes has more real repercussions than the minimalistic reading of the celestial order idea would indicate.

21 minutes ago, Kaiju said:

You are assuming all samurai are happy murder hobos for a few koku that they are not supposed to care about, according to the same concept of belief that the celestial order rests on.

Well, if samurai weren't happy murderhobos then Rokugan would look quite differently. Same with taking the Celestial Order less seriously: if this was the case then the Perfect Land Sect would be just a slightly stranger spin on the existing society rather than the blasphemous cult the Phoenix of all people wants to kill with fire.

And again, killing the loan shark merchant is not dishonorable or inglorious, it is not even murderhoboism by Rokugani standards, it should be essentially expected retaliation against a disrespectful commoner. Taking a commoner's property is not theft (since it belongs to the samurai via the feudal wealth distribution system), taking a commoner's life is not murder (it is canonically vandalism). The merchant has no right to ask for such thing as return, let alone interest. The most he can do is to report the incident to the daimyo who in turn might or might not care about the woes of the lowliest form of half-people. Everything else can backfire on the merchant so spectacularly it is at least questionable whether it is worth it over just handing the money to the samurai and getting it back in some other way like raising prices.

4 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

This is actually a good reason for the lord or patron to put pressure on the merchant to just give up on the money. You can regenerate your lost koku, but you cannot regenerate your lost head. At this point it is also worth noting that the murderous samurai did nothing wrong as per the Celestial Order, the real offender was the merchant all along for not paying proper respect to the samurai. A commoner violating the Celestial Order like this is not something anyone should take very lightly, economic considerations aside. We are not living in the Perfect Land Sect (yet) where merchants can talk back to samurai and get away with it.

The samurai also didn't pay proper respect to the local lord. It's a minor thing and probably won't help the merchant in this instance, but it is a dishonorable act that can become public. Also, the possibility exists that next time this samurai comes around looking for something either from that same mecant or another one he might be told all the available wares are regrettably promised to someone else already, or some such unfortunate mishap.

The merchant is out of his money if he doesn't want to be missing his head probably, yes. That doesn't mean there are no consequences whatsoever for the samurai.

37 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

The samurai also didn't pay proper respect to the local lord.

Again, here the merchant was wrong first, because by offering a loan to a samurai instead of giving to him what they wanted they disrespected that samurai, violated the celestial Order, and brought great shame to the lord. An argument can be made that if the samurai declines the loan, keeps the merchant alive, then reports the whole thing to the lord then the merchant will get executed for blasphemy or face other serious repercussions.

Possible future inconveniences for the samurai doesn't really matter for this argument because they can't realistically influence the plausibility of money-lending. A samurai who accepts a loan to keep it cool with the merchant is maintaining a connection rather than making a sensible financial transaction. Heck, it is not a sensible financial transaction for the merchant either, provided how it can readily misfire in a myriad ways.

Welp. No wonder the Yasuki has such a bad name. Loan sharks might be katana food in Rokugan... unless they are samurai themselves!

1 hour ago, AtoMaki said:

Again, here the merchant was wrong first, because by offering a loan to a samurai instead of giving to him what they wanted they disrespected that samurai, violated the celestial Order, and brought great shame to the lord. An argument can be made that if the samurai declines the loan, keeps the merchant alive, then reports the whole thing to the lord then the merchant will get executed for blasphemy or face other serious repercussions.

Possible future inconveniences for the samurai doesn't really matter for this argument because they can't realistically influence the plausibility of money-lending. A samurai who accepts a loan to keep it cool with the merchant is maintaining a connection rather than making a sensible financial transaction. Heck, it is not a sensible financial transaction for the merchant either, provided how it can readily misfire in a myriad ways.

Welp. No wonder the Yasuki has such a bad name. Loan sharks might be katana food in Rokugan... unless they are samurai themselves!

I agree the loan offer is just not correct. I thought we were talking about the possible consequences for samurai taking things from merchants without compensation. My mistake.

19 hours ago, Suzume Chikahisa said:

Ok, be careful with ie. It means household and is very much a social, even at some points corporate, entity, rather than a strictly physical place, and what we think of samurai clans would actually be ie. You may consider that the samurai clan are uji instead of ie, but that would open a huge can of worms.

Also, over 100% of the rice crop? The Tokugawa rarely went over 50% and that's because they had other taxes. The Toyotomi never went above 75% and charged no other tax. And of course, samurai payed no tax, their obligation were met either through Sankin Kotai or other forms of attendance... Not that it's even possible to gather more than 100% of something that is physically finite.

There are some historical estates where the tax was in rice, but the production taxed was not. Kokudaka has a grounding in rice, but isn't actually expected rice production, but "expected production expressed in equivalent value of rice"... So, yes, there were places taxed more rice than they grew... typically, they had to either trade for rice or accept the suboptimal valuation of the collector on their other produce and wares.

1 hour ago, AK_Aramis said:

There are some historical estates where the tax was in rice, but the production taxed was not. Kokudaka has a grounding in rice, but isn't actually expected rice production, but "expected production expressed in equivalent value of rice"... So, yes, there were places taxed more rice than they grew... typically, they had to either trade for rice or accept the suboptimal valuation of the collector on their other produce and wares.

Cool. Was that in the Tokugawa period? I though the few places that had additional taxes above the customary 50% were actually taxed on the goods in question (I'm thinking dyes in some kanto regions) or coin.

26 minutes ago, Suzume Chikahisa said:

Cool. Was that in the Tokugawa period? I though the few places that had additional taxes above the customary 50% were actually taxed on the goods in question (I'm thinking dyes in some kanto regions) or coin.

I think so - most of the sources I can find run 1600-1800. Definitely survived into Meiji's reign. And most of what I've read said the customary was more like 60% of the Kokudaka. 50% was the lowest I saw referenced. But I don't have access to Japanese language sources.

Likewise, the gokenin/lesser daimyō line was 10,000 kokudaka... (it's worth noting that that's 一万 石高 = 1 man kokudaka... be the equivalent of saying 1k in English... as the Japanese use 4 decimal places, rather than 3, per grouping/naming house for numerals. If you had 1 or more man kokudaka, you were a daimyåo.)

On 3/30/2019 at 3:38 PM, TheWanderingJewels said:

This forced the Hatamoto and Gokenin had to borrow huge sums of money from the rice merchants at a fixed interest rate of 15%. For additional insult to injury, rice merchants would exploit them further by using ‘seal money’ as pretext to raise the interest rate. Rice merchants would borrow their own money from others. When they received rice, they would use seal money as poof of payment. A bit like a deceptive sublessor, really. They would demand this ‘seal money’ on every transaction. While the interest rate was fixed at 15%, the seal money added another 20% Fee. Every three months. So Call it 80% at years end. A 100 Ryo loan becomes 195 ryo to pay back over a year. And the Government would do nothing about it.

Now you know why samurai really didn’t like merchants.

Note: The above shenanigans is really not that far off from what happened historically. Reprisals against the merchant class were more common is spoken off and tales of arrogant merchants were pretty common in Japanese folklore. This should spur ideas for aspiring GM’s want to handle some economic themes.

Which is not a million miles from today; whilst people rail against 'merchants' or 'bankers', what they really tend to mean is 'moneylenders', because debt is any always has been a poisonous political tool.

17 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

Again, here the merchant was wrong first, because by offering a loan to a samurai instead of giving to him what they wanted they disrespected that samurai, violated the celestial Order, and brought great shame to the lord. An argument can be made that if the samurai declines the loan, keeps the merchant alive, then reports the whole thing to the lord then the merchant will get executed for blasphemy or face other serious repercussions.

Depends on how it's phrased, I guess. A merchant should not be declining to give a samurai something "of theirs". But a merchant managing providing a loan "on behalf of their lord" (who doesn't want to muddy their hands with commerce) might be more socially acceptable. After all, someone's got to do the finances and accounting to keep the estate ticking over; not necessarily out of greed but because efficient financial management means the rice stores are full, the peasants don't starve in bad years, and the ashigaru auxiliaries who give the samurai the numbers they need to keep the place safe get paid.

The key thing in the initial post was:

On 3/30/2019 at 3:38 PM, TheWanderingJewels said:

And the Government would do nothing about it.

A 'legal' financial racket that's so pervasive as to be effectively or actually unavoidable requires the active or passive participation of the government of the day. Merchants just being loan sharks by themselves wouldn't work if they didn't expect the government to take their side if the samurai attempted to default on their loans violently.

Car insurance for drivers is an example in a lot of modern countries; you pretty much have to have it to drive, and knowing you don't have a choice, insurance companies can charge faintly ridiculous sums for it. But if you're making some financial element legal (in this case loans, which - well managed and responsibly done are a good tool for boosting an economy), then you also have a responsibility to see it's being done ethically and that no-one's gaming the system too badly.

The problem is that the law-makers in Rokugan - the ultimate authorities, at least - aren't informed or even interested in finance (see Akodo Toturi just signing the taxation edicts whilst waiting for the Emperor because 'someone must know why we're changing them'); indeed their whole culture teaches them to shun anyone who is.

On 3/31/2019 at 12:20 AM, Kaiju said:

Third, if you kill a merchant and take their stuff, that stuff doesnt rightfully belong to you. I would rule that any claims to that stuff is, at least in part, to the local daimyo .You just stole his rightful cut. Not a smart idea ...

This. Whilst - in a feudal setting - everything belongs to the person up the chain from you, and you're just holding it on their behalf, that's not the same as "I can decapitate anyone I meet and take their stuff". If you're the lord of a city in which the merchant's business is registered, and you want their stuff, then you can just tax them into oblivion anyway; specific imperial taxes aside, the tax code is what you say it is, and if you want to re-write it with sufficient exemptions and punitive critetia that you basically tailor it to say " this one merchant is responsible for the entire city's tax bill " then no-one above you is going to argue as long as their revenues turn up on tim.

If you're not in a position to do that, then you're not the merchant's lord and therefore you're murdering someone else's vassal and stealing their stuff. It may not be a sworn samurai vassal but it's still murder.

9 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

If you're not in a position to do that, then you're not the merchant's lord and therefore you're murdering someone else's vassal and stealing their stuff. It may not be a sworn samurai vassal but it's still murder.

Actually, it registers as a minor offense even if the lord is really into it:

Quote

For example, a samurai lord may be the patron of a particular artisan, craftsperson, or merchant. If a crime is committed against such vassals by another samurai, and the lord in question is sufficiently influential, the matter may be taken more seriously by the magistrate. It is still unlikely to be considered more than a minor offense, however.

Here I'm not even going into the case of the samurai being the same lord's vassal as the merchant. That one bodes for the merchant even worse.

57 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

Actually, it registers as a minor offense even if the lord is really into it:

So just to put this into perspective: Samurai goes to merchant and says, "I need koku and you will give it!" The merchant refuses based on that it is stealing. Technically nothing illegal has happened yet as the samurai has no real claim on the money and therefore the merchant isn't technically required to give it. Now, the samurai kills the merchant for his arrogance or what not. This is illegal as the samurai just killed someone who is technically part of the celestial order... over money. Now because it was higher status on lower status crime it is considered minor. The standard punishment is to repay the local lord an amount deemed satisfactory. Who decides what is satisfactory you may ask. The highest status person wronged in the crime probably... so the local lord technically. Well he says that the merchant brought in good money to the land and was never unfair (To the local lord that is). The local lord decides to make the payment required 40 koku. That's insane the samurai says! Well the samurai haggles down to 30 koku saying that there is no way the merchant was worth so much. Local lord finds this satisfactory but also tells the samurai that he must leave this province immediately after payment. Well the samurai scrapes together 30 koku and leaves the area after paying. He now goes home and is asked to commit seppuku because he was unable to finish his mission in the province.

The moral of the story? It is illegal to murder merchants and minor crimes can easily snowball into suicide.

31 minutes ago, P'an Ku said:

So just to put this into perspective: Samurai goes to merchant and says, "I need koku and you will give it!" The merchant refuses based on that it is stealing. Technically nothing illegal has happened yet as the samurai has no real claim on the money and therefore the merchant isn't technically required to give it.

Actually, the samurai does have a very real claim on the money. It belongs to him on the grounds of him being a samurai. The merchant has no right to withhold the money unless he pulls the "My Lord Card" at which point he better pray for being a local (or a Yasuki) and not a wandering merchant on the other side of the Empire. In fact, he better pray for the samurai not having a lord more powerful than the merchant's lord, or that the merchant's lord will actually care (not like it would matter from the merchant's standpoint, being vindicated won't return him to life, after all), or the samurai doesn't have a few tricks up in his sleeve, etc. At which point even the merchant's lord might ask the inevitable question of why the merchant didn't hand over the money and be done with it.

So my initial impression still stands: if samurai have no real inclination to take loans or even bother about the whole concept (since they can take the money one way or another), and merchants have no leverage to enforce loans (neither as a transaction nor as a concept), then how are loans even a thing in Rokugan?

12 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

Actually, the samurai does have a very real claim on the money. It belongs to him on the grounds of him being a samurai. The merchant has no right to withhold the money unless he pulls the "My Lord Card" at which point he better pray for being a local (or a Yasuki) and not a wandering merchant on the other side of the Empire. In fact, he better pray for the samurai not having a lord more powerful than the merchant's lord, or that the merchant's lord will actually care (not like it would matter from the merchant's standpoint, being vindicated won't return him to life, after all), or the samurai doesn't have a few tricks up in his sleeve, etc. At which point even the merchant's lord might ask the inevitable question of why the merchant didn't hand over the money and be done with it.

So my initial impression still stands: if samurai have no real inclination to take loans or even bother about the whole concept (since they can take the money one way or another), and merchants have no leverage to enforce loans (neither as a transaction nor as a concept), then how are loans even a thing in Rokugan?

Emperor technically owns all money but that rarely actually matters. Also being a samurai gives no grounds for owning anything above normal law. Normal law being that taking things from other people by force is illegal in polite society which Rokugan is. The Emerald Empire book even states that stealing from a merchant is illegal for a samurai. You would have to give a pretty good reason for stealing from a merchant. Also many magistrates would out right arrest you for murdering anyone unless you were a local and therefore probably trusted. One of the stated penalties is having to make apologies to the wronged party. No samurai wants to have to make apologies to a merchants family. It would be humiliating. Commoners have rights in Rokugan. Not many but still some.

Being a samurai makes getting away with murder much easier but it still has consequences. Samurai only own what their lord gives them (Which includes what they buy with their koku that their lord gave them) and to seek more would be dishonorable and seen poorly by every other samurai. Samurai have less claim to owning things than most peasants because they aren't supposed to want for things.

The only kind of merchant this should hit is a traveling merchant who doesn't have a magistrate around to enforce the law.

13 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

Here I'm not even going into the case of the samurai being the same lord's vassal as the merchant. That one bodes for the merchant even worse.

In that case you're probably into the realm of " shouldn't the lord be taking what he needs from the merchant via tax and giving what the samurai needs as a bursary or directly provided equipment? "

Any irritation from the lord wouldn't be " why did you kill the merchant " (I agree, you demanded something you had a nominal right to and were refused) so much as " why didn't you ask me for the money if you needed it? " - because if it's for your duty on behalf of that lord, then it would (or at least should) have been forthcoming, and if it's just to go into the theatre quarter and get wasted on sake.....yeah. I can see the lord getting annoyed with you; more because you wanted to spend more money than you had on personal indulgance than for any other reason.

On a related note, the comment about fines is also relevant here; yes, a merchant is a (very low-ranked) peasant and hence killing one means at best fines to retitute the peasant's lord. But fines are still a big deal if the reason you were there is that you needed money in the first place....

11 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

if samurai have no real inclination to take loans or even bother about the whole concept (since they can take the money one way or another), and merchants have no leverage to enforce loans (neither as a transaction nor as a concept), then how are loans even a thing in Rokugan? 

I'm not sure if loans have really been mentioned in the current version; simply that merchants are looked down on because "they make nothing themselves".

I'm curious...where did the idea that a Rokugani samurai can simply take whatever they wish from a commoner come from? I suppose that would be true for any samurai regarding their own vassals (because it is, in such a case, actually THEIR money or stuff). But with respect to commoners that are vassals of other samurai lords, that would be theft; they would be stealing from another samurai. That would make it at least a minor crime under Rokugani law. Now, the extent to which such a crime will be pursued by the magistrates of the clan in question is wide open--what was taken, what were the circumstances, what is the respective status of the alleged perpetrator and victim, how well connected are they, what is the relationship between the respective families or clans, and so on. It would still be a crime, however. All commoners are vassals to a samurai somewhere (unless they're outlaws or bandits or the like); anything done to them is effectively being done to their lord. That's why it's really NOT a good idea to walk around Rokugan slaughtering peasants for lols or otherwise trivial reasons; regardless of the status of the peasants, a samurai is suffering harm because of it.

Now, of course, in a particular game, a GM and players can approach Rokugan however they like. But the above is certainly how I'd approach it.

1 hour ago, DGLaderoute said:

I'm curious...where did the idea that a Rokugani samurai can simply take whatever they wish from a commoner come from?

It is literally in the core rulebook (page 11):

Quote

As a being with a higher social and spiritual status, a samurai may demand anything from heimin who belong to their lord without recompense, and can kill any heimin who disobeys or fails to show respect.

This is why the merchant is totally shot if the samurai belongs to the same lord: he canonically can't do jack against the "theft".

19 hours ago, P'an Ku said:

Also being a samurai gives no grounds for owning anything above normal law. Normal law being that taking things from other people by force is illegal in polite society which Rokugan is.

Merchants are not (full) people tho.

23 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

It is literally in the core rulebook (page 11):

This is why the merchant is totally shot if the samurai belongs to the same lord: he canonically can't do jack against the "theft".

Okay...but as I said, if the commoner is a vassal to the samurai--which, if they have the same lord, the commoner certainly would be--then it's not theft, no. BUT...in the case of having the same lord, the samurai is then answerable to their lord regarding why they took money or stuff from the commoner in question. Their lord may very well take a dim view of this, if the samurai doesn't have a good reason, but that's between the samurai and their lord. As for the merchant, they do have a recourse--simply ensuring that their lord is informed of the matter. This assumes whatever was taken represents significant value, of course...if the samurai took a chamber pot, the merchant probably won't bother, but if he took the equivalent of a bunch of koku, the merchant certainly would report it. The merchant, after all, is going to be answerable to that lord for the money they handle (well, except for anything "off the books", of course, but that wouldn't be reported anyway!)

Where we would tend to see samurai taking out loans from commoners is across clan boundaries. For example, in the Dark Tides module, there are samurai who owe money to commoners (which is all I'll say, to avoid any spoilers for the module.) So a Crane samurai with an interest in gambling in, say, Ryoko Owari may very well end up borrowing money from commoners, who are themselves vassals to Scorpion lords. That would probably be a bad idea in the long run, but a samurai with a gambling or other addictions, or who have otherwise made complicated life-choices, generally aren't the type to necessarily avoid bad ideas...

1 hour ago, DGLaderoute said:

BUT...in the case of having the same lord, the samurai is then answerable to their lord regarding why they took money or stuff from the commoner in question.

That's not a whole lot if you ask me, especially considering how the samurai can shoot himself in the foot for actually taking a loan. Heck, pissing off another lord over a dirty merchant and his handful of koku should be essentially a non-issue. After all, the samurai can spin a good story too, and then it is his word against a lowly merchant's and if your (or anyone's, really) lord rather believes a merchant then you should really think about your life because your problem is much greater than a wronged merchant.

1 hour ago, DGLaderoute said:

So a Crane samurai with an interest in gambling in, say, Ryoko Owari may very well end up borrowing money from commoners, who are themselves vassals to Scorpion lords.

Now imagine this Crane samurai explaining the situation to his lord. This kinda makes me think that loans are for "special" samurai but that doesn't lend a whole lot of viability to the concept.