How much “cross-pollination” can happen with abilities? Are these techniques exclusive to certain clans or such? Also, are there in-game benefits for being a Magistrate? Maybe money or gear or certain techniques?

Oh! If I understand the whole “corruption from facing Evil” bit, I’m really enjoying the idea of a tragic samurai who’s desperately hiding their corruption, knowing they’re on borrowed time and wanting to hold on long enough to see a certain witch dead. After they slay the monstrous mastermind, they end their suffering, hopefully redeemed. Something like that.

22 minutes ago, Alderaan Crumbs said:

How much “cross-pollination” can happen with abilities? Are these techniques exclusive to certain clans or such? Also, are there in-game benefits for being a Magistrate? Maybe money or gear or certain techniques?

Traditionally, Clan techniques are their closest guarded secrets. In previous editions, you had to buy an advantage called "Different School" to take another Clan's school. The Beta didn't (I don't recall) address the "Can I be a Scorpion who takes the Isawa Elementalist School" question.

In previous editions, there were Emerald and Jade magistrate techniques you could learn in addition to your school (they usually replaced a rank technique from your original school). Gear and money/stipend would probably depend on the task/investigation/who your superior is (in other words, decided mainly by the narrative/GM).

31 minutes ago, Alderaan Crumbs said:

Oh! If I understand the whole “corruption from facing Evil” bit, I’m really enjoying the idea of a tragic samurai who’s desperately hiding their corruption, knowing they’re on borrowed time and wanting to hold on long enough to see a certain witch dead. After they slay the monstrous mastermind, they end their suffering, hopefully redeemed. Something like that.

That is definitely a storyline I've seen used.

Though... it doesn't always end well. Also, the Crab have the Barracks of the Damned, where Tainted warriors (who are still in their own mind) live for the sole purpose of being thrown into the fiercest fighting to die in battle. There's a special tea, Jade Petal Tea if memory serves, that suppresses the effect of the Taint. The Kuni Witch Hunters know the secret technique to brewing it, and you can only* get it by registering with them so they can track you.

* - legally speaking; if you're searching on the black market in the back alleys of Ryoko Owari Toshi, you'll probably find it as well.

50 minutes ago, Alderaan Crumbs said:

How much “cross-pollination” can happen with abilities? Are these techniques exclusive to certain clans or such?

Yes and no. Techniques fall into a couple of broad categories:

• General Techniques
  • Kata ('weapon' techniques), Shuji ('social' or 'leadership' techniques), Rituals (generally non-combat..well...formal rituals), Invocations (not exactly 'spells' but the label will do), Kiho (monk techniques) and Maho ('black magic')
  • Any school will let you have Rituals and generally two others (so Elementalist schools get Invocations, Rituals and Shuji whilst the much more combatitive Purifier school gives you Invocations, Rituals and Kata)
  • There is a big list of (for example) kata, which anyone can take if they meet the school rank requirements and their school lets them take kata.3
    • A few techniques do specify a clan affiliation as well as a rank prerequisite, such as Lord Hida's Grip. There are roundabout ways for others to get it but for the sake of simplicity, call it Crab-exclusive.
    • Certain schools also get to take specific kata earlier, ignoring the normal prerequisites - the Kakita Duellist gets anything iaijutsu related about a rank earlier than any other samurai, for example, but it's not exclusive to them; a (higher) rank lion samurai would also have access to the technique.
• School Techniques
  • Every school gets one school ability from day one (the Duellist's one, Way Of The Crane is a passive boost to the severity of critical strikes), and one school 'mastery ability' when you get high enough (the scary ones like Strike With No Thought)
  • These are exclusive to a single school, and the only way you get them is to study at that school. Under normal circumstances that means being of the clan & family associated with that school, but it's not unheard of for a school to accept out-of-family or in extreme cases even out-of-clan students, but it's the sort of thing you should have a good narrative background to explain because it doesn't happen often.

50 minutes ago, Alderaan Crumbs said:

Also, are there in-game benefits for being a Magistrate? Maybe money or gear or certain techniques?

The game has three 'stats' outside your rings (which are not exactly strength/toughness/charisma but serve the same function); honour, glory and status.

Glory is....how well known and famous you are. Winning a duel would increase it, losing a battle would decrease it.

Honour is rather more subtle and is almost an internal measure of how well you shape up to the principles of Bushido - it's internal in that if you murder someone in cold blood, you'll lose honour even if no-one ever knows you did it. By comparison to Glory, you don't necessarily have to 'win', and quite often being defeated - even 'throwing the fight' is the honourable course of action. Every clan has a slight bias in how honour shifts are calculated, with some principles being more important and some less, so the honourable choice may vary from clan to clan.

Status is the hardest one to change because it's your position in the social order. You are nominally subordinate to everyone above and superior to everyone below but you can only increase it with the say-so of your superiors (i.e. as a GM award, not bought with XP). Titles (like Emerald Magistrate) are the primary way your status increases.

The only Title we've seen so far is Emerald Magistrate. It gives you a skill rank and +10 Status, enough to put a great clan samurai about on par with a town governor, but also grants you some unique abilities as well.

50 minutes ago, Alderaan Crumbs said:

Oh! If I understand the whole “corruption from facing Evil” bit, I’m really enjoying the idea of a tragic samurai who’s desperately hiding their corruption, knowing they’re on borrowed time and wanting to hold on long enough to see a certain witch dead. After they slay the monstrous mastermind, they end their suffering, hopefully redeemed. Something like that.

One thing to bear in mind is that tragedy is almost assumed, so....yes. Killing the witch and then allowing yourself to kill yourself is appropriately bushido, but trying to hold it together long enough to do so (and maybe informing a trusted colleague who travels with you so they can kill you if you lose it and/or your judgement becomes compromised) is very samurai drama.

Rules for ancestors and disadvantages in the beta would allow you to start with a cursed item or the taint yourself, so it's perfectly doable.

Have a look on the L5R fiction page - quite a lot of the Crab stories (especially Better To Be Certain) deal with the taint and its impact on the morals of the clan.

Bit late so I might be reiterating, but typically our group plays L5R (4E currently) as less anime and closer to more high fantasy in style. Marco Polo mentiond above is an excellent example, as well as something more like LotR, where individuals can be significantly more powerful than most others (For example, my Crab Bushi handily destroyed an Ogre on his own), but aren't doing stuff obviously defying physics and instead are just that much more skilled (Ignoring Spells and Kiho), and one can be countered by another individual similarly powered. But we also typically fight monsters of some sort. Last campaign was against a lot of Oni, and this campaign, because we kept saying that every enemy turns out to be an Oni (except for the two Maho-Tsukai, one of whom summoned an Oni), has had zero Oni, but lots of spirit realms and Oni-like Shadowlands creatures that aren't quite Oni.

But we typically try to avoid anime cliches, and one of the things that appealed to a lot of my group was how the art was asian themed without being an anime style.

So much to chew on. I’m really digging the tainted samurai tragedy. Not sure if a player would go that route but it’s certainly a great NPC. Most importantly, this discussion has been phenomenal and has sold me on quite a bit.

As an example of where my head’s at, I imagined a witch-hunting ronin going to see their contact to get more Jade Petal Tea but when they arrive, the back alley shop is in shambles, the contact beheaded. Moments later, a Magistrate...their once-dear friend...arrives with a retinue of guards. The ronin isn’t finished with their quest to destroy the witch, Ten Irons Ima, and with deep regret slays the guards and gravely wounds the Magistrate, leaving them with one less eye and. Eventually, the witch lies dead and the ronin kneels in the rain as a one-eyed, one-handed Magistrate steps from the shadows. With a heavy heart the Magistrate ends the ronin’s cursed existence, weeping silently as the ronin smiles. Stuff like that.

Seems pretty awesome! That's a good drama story there.

Thank you.

19 hours ago, Mirith said:

one can be countered by another individual similarly powered

Oh, I'd like to underline this. Even if you're taking a 'wibbly magic zen rocks bounce off me blessed by the kami borderline force user' type archetype, an equivalent XP character whose sunk their skills into "this is a club. this is plate armour. I will now hit you." can still ruin your day....

I would expect no less!

On 9/18/2018 at 12:30 PM, Alderaan Crumbs said:

I’m going to break grammar rules even more than I usually do so replies can be easier. You may thank me through mind-hugs.

As written...

5th more wuxia friendly than prior, but not written as wuxia. The techniques don't describe wuxia style results as a general thing, but it's definitely possible to use the mechanics for a wuxia-style without changing anything but the descriptions.

On 9/18/2018 at 12:30 PM, Alderaan Crumbs said:

-Are such names even appropriate and/or are people ever named this way? If not, how detrimental is it to your social standing to use a name like “Ebon Tiger” or “Laughing Mountain”?

Names are more traditional - I was able to find modern examples of almost every personal name used in Old5R. Keep in mind that Japanese has at least two ways to read every kanji - On (pseudo-chinese) and Kun (Japanese native), and most have multiple Kun and many have multiple On. The ones used tend to be in the following categories:

• Real Japanese Names using standard pronunciation. Far and away the most common
• Japanese family names used as personal names
• real japanese names using alternate readings of the kanji. Sometimes mixing On & Kun. (a few japanese do the same in naming their kids.)
• real mongolian names (mostly for unicorn)
• Japanese readings of chinese names.

Very few are descriptives like "Ebon Tiger" would be. Emi Takashi (笑山) is a real name of a real person, which roughly translates as "laughing out loud mountain" — it's not one that has been used in L5R, but it's an example of a modern name — noting that 山 can be read as takashi, yama, sun, sen, sa, yano, or yan. 笑 can be read as Emi or Sho. So, kinda on the names front.

On 9/18/2018 at 12:30 PM, Alderaan Crumbs said:

-Can you be bad-*** without armor and do things like block a sword with your sleeve or bare skin, spin through a hail of arrows, throw a storm of shuriken or any other number of pimptacular moves?

L5R has always had bad-*** monks. They still died when you run steel through them, but doing so may take longer than them breaking you. The various wuxia moves you specify aren't the kinds of things that are standard reads of the techniques. Shuriken intentionally sucked in OldL5R... Ninjas in those editions were intentionally suckwad from ****. (They're shosuro cadets - school rank 0 - in canon.) The 5th ed rules show a little more love, but you're not going to see moves like those described in the techniques, but there are techniques that could be described that way. (If one were to try it at my table, however, <condescending David Spade impression> "buh-bye!"</impression>)

On 9/18/2018 at 12:30 PM, Alderaan Crumbs said:

-Can a game of two PCs be based around wandering monster hunters (Rokugani “witchers”?) and if so, is there that lovely stigma against monster hunters that certainly sucks for the PCs but creates such beautiful drama?

yes, witch hunters exist. No, there's not a huge stigma written in in prior editions.

Crab has an entire family dedicated to being witch hunters (Kuni), and are highly respected in the empire, if avoided as they are weird (mainly as they have an association with the Taint). And most clans have to deal with it to some extent.

But, knowledge of the Shadowlands or Maho is considered a taboo subject, and considered dishonorable (Why would an upstanding samurai know about such despicable subject? Only a Maho-Tsukai would know about how Maho works.) that hunting maho-tsukai or other tainted people is not really considered acceptable conversation in polite company. Accusing someone of being tainted is probably one of the most serious crimes you can accuse someone of (About the same as being a traitor to your clan, depending on the clan?), and the Rokugani legal system doesn't exactly work like modern western systems, so it can get pretty awkward and need to be resolved via a duel rather than evidence. Dealing with the spirit realms is probably a little more acceptable, though can be just as much of a social quagmire in certain situations if it involves accusing someone of not doing their duty to keeping up a holy site (See FFG's Phoenix Clan book).

Also, to note, at the end of AEG's L5R they started adding titles like "Ebon Tiger" and such to various major characters, but they also had their name. For example, each of the Clan Champions got a title: Doji Makoto, The Smiling Crane. Mirumoto Shikei, The Laughing Dragon. Hida Kisada, the Little Bear (AEG L5R's Kisada's Great Grandson). Additionally, they added a minor clan unique to each of the clans with something similar: Suzume Shindo, The Final Blade. This was at the end of Emperor/beginning of Ivory, and I believe they did it even more after I had stopped playing.

And of course there was the mess that was the Kolat, where you had Master Coin, Master Tiger, etc but again those were titles, not names, but their names were kept hidden.

On further consideration, two aspects to hunting tainted things, depending on how you go. Being a Ronin doing it would be weird, and you'd have the social stygma of being a ronin. Hunting taint on top of that would make people look at you askance, though depending on if they were a peasant or a samurai the social differences between them Peasant -> Ronin, or Ronin -> Great Clan Samurai is such that would create more of the drama than the "I hunt supernatural stuff". But, a Monk (Not Ise Zumi or the phoenix one (Ishiken?)) doing it would be a bit more socially acceptable. However, very few people would react via "No you can't stay here, you are a weird monster hunter, get out".

Another aspect that can create a social stygma isn't from the act itself, but your level of success. For example, if you fail to save the son of a minor Daimyo from his own terrible life choices, that can have some interesting, if mostly bad, consequences for the player character.

However, on the other side of things, hosting a Jade Magistrate (The official imperial monster/Shadowlands/Maho hunters that can come from any clan, and is a faction led by the Jade Champion, an Imperial appointee) would be considered a great honor, but also cause all sorts of quiet chaos in the background as people try to figure out why an Imperial representative is at their household. Its the whole "Why are the cops here? Are they here for me? Did I miss something in my household? Is my butler summoning an Oni?"

Not that Jade Magistrates exist any more/yet. The Phoenix do a perfectly respectable job of policing Shugenja and the position of Jade Champion was retired as superfluous,

1 hour ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Not that Jade Magistrates exist any more/yet. The Phoenix do a perfectly respectable job of policing Shugenja and the position of Jade Champion was retired as superfluous,

Nobody to catch their "maho-on-the-side" behavior...

3 hours ago, Mirith said:

But, a Monk (Not Ise Zumi or the phoenix one (Ishiken?)) doing it would be a bit more socially acceptable.

The Phoenix Monks were known as the Asako Henshin. Not sure if the Kaito the new monk family of the Phoenix is going to take on that mantle...

1 minute ago, Nheko said:

The Phoenix Monks were known as the Asako Henshin. Not sure if the Kaito the new monk family of the Phoenix is going to take on that mantle...

I devoutly hope the Henshin, drawing from Asako herself, are not replaced by the Isawa-descended Kaito.

I have nothing against the Kaito, but give them their own thing instead of stealing the ONE THING the Asako do...

23 minutes ago, Hida Jitenno said:

I devoutly hope the Henshin, drawing from Asako herself, are not replaced by the Isawa-descended Kaito.

I have nothing against the Kaito, but give them their own thing instead of stealing the ONE THING the Asako do...

Me too, my Hida Jitenno, me too...

I’m a Phoenix and I am happy that they added a new family, I’m crossing my fingers for a sohei type of school instead...

PS The Ishiken-do are the shugenja who had affinity with the Void.

4 minutes ago, Nheko said:

Me too, my Hida Jitenno, me too...

I’m a Phoenix and I am happy that they added a new family, I’m crossing my fingers for a sohei type of school instead...

PS The Ishiken-do are the shugenja who had affinity with the Void.

OOoh, I'm down for a Sohei. I really like the thematic "my body is a temple - no really, a kami might come live in my actual body" thing that was mentioned in the fiction. I'm picturing a monk school that gets one or two invocations in addition to kiho, and some epic "Become the Element" Rank 6 ability.

Kaito are shrine keepers, not true monks, and there are references to the Henshin in the LCG.

On 9/18/2018 at 9:30 PM, Alderaan Crumbs said:

I’m going to break grammar rules even more than I usually do so replies can be easier. You may thank me through mind-hugs.

-How “anime/wuxia” (yes, I know they’re not perfect fits, so hush!) can characters be? Can they dance atop the spear tips of an army as the soldiers look up in awe at their general fighting Ebon Tiger?

-Are such names even appropriate and/or are people ever named this way? If not, how detrimental is it to your social standing to use a name like “Ebon Tiger” or “Laughing Mountain”?

-Can you be bad-*** without armor and do things like block a sword with your sleeve or bare skin, spin through a hail of arrows, throw a storm of shuriken or any other number of pimptacular moves?

-Can a game of two PCs be based around wandering monster hunters (Rokugani “witchers”?) and if so, is there that lovely stigma against monster hunters that certainly sucks for the PCs but creates such beautiful drama?

1) i Guess that with using opportunities you could materialize this.

2) regarding names, with a little translation in japanese, u can chose anything if the pc IS ronin or from minor clan that does not have a family name. Otherwise, unless if you are a very talentuous and experimented pc, it s not a good Idea to not bé names with Ur family name; a shame for Ur family and Ur ancestors .. a good way for seppuku or ronin path.

3) be crab, or asako inquisitors, or Falcon minor clan. I do not invite u tout chose emerald magistrate althought it could be within their missions; magistrates are too involved in politics as "emperor voice" anywhere within the empire, and anywhere when among rokugani.