I wanted to offer this to the broader L5R RPG community. This is a kind of "missing link" for the RPG: a way to allow a GM to easily put together and structure a period of time spent in a court, let the players choose what to do during that time, initiate and resolve social combats to achieve goals in that court, and then win favors to advance their own and their group's story. It uses the currency of court-specific influence which players can earn, spend, or trade, in order to achieve their ends. It is compatible with both 4th and 5th edition L5R, and I provide TNs for both. It's only been extensively playtested in 4th Edition, though, so TNs may need to be adjusted. It allows PVP social combat for larger courts as well as cooperative PC play. It is not the actual structure of individual social combats, but is instead the framework within which social combats can be prepared to make a social game or portion of a campaign. Feedback, as always, much appreciated, and let me know if there are any questions.

https://craneclan.weebly.com/the-influence-game.html

Kaori:

This is awesome! I am running Winter's Embrace soon, and this is exactly the kind of resource I was looking for to give my intrigue more shape.

I am not familiar at all with Old5R. Are Raises something out of 4e or did I miss it in your guide somewhere? Assuming the former, does 5e have an equivalent? Some of the actions seem like they could ignore the Raises and be fine, but others look like they will fall apart without them.

Again, thanks for writing this—it is an abundance of good ideas and ways to think about an intrigue.

The equivalent (sort of) to raises in 4th edition is opportunities.

Looks really good.

I'm not sure I'd use influence simply because I already tend to use Glory as 'court currency' (albeit staked rather than spent - would you consider that staking influence should be a thing?) But the structure of the court and some of the example intrigue ideas are great.

I'm not too sure about the honour influence loss. Tying influence loss to the clan's perception if bushido makes sense, but at the same time a lord can be very influential and demanding of his or her court and ready to shun perceived infractions without being especially honourable themselves.

I like the use of Influence here. I was going to use "momentum points," but, like I said, this provides more shape than I originally envisioned, which I like in planning the structure, personnel, and goals of the winter court. My group wants some courtly PvP, and I want them to have to make tough choices among all their goals and promises, including personal goals (Ninjo/Giri). For me, that doesn't mean they have to stake their personal Glory.

Staking Influence is already included in the Wager action, but I don't see why it couldn't be worked into other actions.

I am not adopting the Honor-loss-for-a-Low-Action part. I don't have any qualms with it, it's just not how I'm going to run it. I also will not be using the honor-Influence loss. I've never run a full-blown Winter Court before (plenty of small intrigues), so generally, there are certain parts of the guide I won't use until I get a little more experience running it. But I think it's well-developed, but more important for me, it was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for as a supplemental guide.

The Raises = Opportunities (sort of) is interesting. I'll reread with that in mind.

The Low action with risk of honor lost/consequence gives you that 'dangerous' feel.

So, if you are playing it straight, honorable, and completely by the book, you take 1 action/sequence

If you're willing to risk yourself and do something shady, that gives you 2 actions/sequence, but at a risk of being caught.

That risk/reward for doing shady things is the thrill and the cost of getting to do 2 actions/sequence.

As for the honor losses, the influence lost when you are caught doing something dishonorable is related to the lord's PUBLIC honor rank.

The lord can be as shady and dishonorable as he likes in private...but if he is publicly really honorable, then you doing something dis honorable is going to reflect worse on you than if you were doing something that the lord himself is doing that is dishonorable.

For example:
Swearing a foul curse is a breech of courtesy.

If you swear in the court of Kakita Yoshi, you're going to lose a lot of influence, because everyone knows you do not do that there...Kakita Yoshi would not swear! OK, he might cuss up a storm in private, but his public honor rank is high and you are expected to behave the same.
If you swear in the court of Hida Kisada, its still inappropriate, but its not nearly as a big deal because everyone expects he would be cursing too, even if he doesn't publicly. He's not as fussy as Yoshi.

But of course, you can adapt as you need for your games! Just remember influence can be earned back...it's just $$, not a stat.

Glad you like it.

Kaori