I had tried to not get involved in the L5R RPG just because it's hard enough for me to find time to play the LCG. But yesterday I broke down and got the core rule book for some "light reading".

A thing that really stood out to me was during conflicts NPCs have a military value and an INTRIGUE value.

I know it's just semantics but I wish they had called Political skill value Intrigue in the LCG. Intrigue could have encompassed political, subterfuge, trickery, stealth, a general "mysterious" use of skill, etc.

This would have made it a lot easier to explain to me that the Dragon Clan Volcanic troll is such a strong political character, as an example.

It's may be just me, but from now on, every time I see "Political" I'm going to say "Intrigue" to myself.

End Rant.

ya This is something that a lot of people get wrong. Political values in cards don’t actually mean the skill of the character in court as MIL values don’t mean their physical force.

Those numbers mean the possibility of using those characters/cards as political pressure.

Ningyo have a political value because a Phoenix courtier can bring in court the fact that Shiba married a Ningyo, and thus they descend from a Kami and one of the ancestral races. And trolls have political value because a Dragon can imply that if the negotiations go awry, maybe the trolls will start attacking Crab merchants on the road. “It’s not like we can control them, Yasuki-San. But if you give us a little more rice, we can certainly try...”

The new Utaku battle steed have a politic value because Utaku horses are highly valued, and offering one as a gift could be all that is needed to seal a deal. Also, having one just denotes your position as someone important

Even high military characters have a political skill because the threat of them using their military prowess in battle can be a deterrent to stop a conflict. “You sure you want to continue with your raids in our northern border? Matsu Tsuko happens to be near there, and she’ll be glad to join the fight”

A ninja like Sadako is not gonna debate in court, but can get rid of that one pesky courtier by planting false evidence in their room.

Doesn't GoT use intrigue?

I know it did during the CCG era of the game but I'm not sure if FFG kept it that way.

Political is likely used in the LCG because it is something that the old playerbase recognizes and makes it easier to connect to the new game.

If all the FFG games started using "intrigue" as the default term for anything non-military I would suspect there would be grumbling that all the games are the same, just with different IP skins.

They could call it "meat and potatoes" for all I care

Social conflicts are called Intrigues, just FYI. Calling them "political" conflicts would be limiting and potentially confusing, because the RPG is less structured than the LCG.