There was a recent question in the Lore section of this site regarding vassal families and samurai social structure, and it made me curious about how connected to the bloodline of descendant families PCs should be when generating characters. Heritage tables are great and starting status can be informative, but is there other guidance for determining how directly connected PCs are to the influential families of Rokugan? Should we let PCs or GM storytelling determine this?

7 hours ago, T_Kageyasu said:

...snip... it made me curious about how connected to the bloodline of descendant families PCs should be when generating characters. Heritage tables are great and starting status can be informative, but is there other guidance for determining how directly connected PCs are to the influential families of Rokugan? Should we let PCs or GM storytelling determine this?

Generally yes. I think this is an area that needs to be worked out between players and GMs.

Personally I never try to insert my PC too closely into "leadership" at the start of a campaign (in L5R or really in any other system...). IME unless the GM is planning on running a game that requires extremely well connected PCs, it's better to be somewhere in the middle of the pack at start. Ideally just high enough that people know you are a person of potential and possibly a useful "trouble shooter." From there you can organically rise in prominence as you grow in skill and power. It also gives your PC some flexibility to be away from the most immediate and pressing concerns of your clan. I think its hard to justify galavanting around as an Emerald Magistrate if you're a Daimyo/Major Player of some kind, and there is famine and unrest around your Province...

I think it can also be a Temptation for players, especially in Rokugan, to want to be be super well connected as another form of power and maybe to escape some of the social conditions where you have to bow and scrape before your social superiors. But a big piece of the game IS dealing with social superiors, so i think this can be a bad idea. Or at least an idea to be cautious of. But that's me.

Other players or GMs may have different ideas...

If it's something that would be considered an advantage, it should arguably require GM approval. If you can keep namedropping bigwig Kakita So-and-so as a favourite uncle who is always looking out for you (and not as a bluff, but potentially get that backed up by others) to give your status a virtual boost, that is going to affect the gameplay significantly. I could see myself allowing something like that, but only if it's represented on your character sheet (for instance by making it an actual Advantage) or if everyone else gets something similar as well and I can incorporate it in my modules. If it's mostly just a flavour thing in your background, I probably won't make an issue of it unless you went nuts with the idea.

7 hours ago, nameless ronin said:

If it's something that would be considered an advantage, it should arguably     require GM approv  a   l.

I like this idea, especially since the advantage could be inverted depending on who you are interacting with. In previous editions you could allocate points for a more powerful ability, instead here maybe to be more connected you need to also purchase a disadvantage to go along with it?

9 hours ago, Void Crane said:

IME unless the GM is planning on running a game that requires extremely well connected PCs, it's better to be somewhere in the middle of the pack at  sta  rt.

Thanks Void Crane, I'm starting to imagine an optional heritage table for the parents of PCs during 20 questions. Higher probability to fall within middle status, lower probably to fall at the extremes (vassal family parents) or better connected (+5 status or better starting equipment) with added responsibilities and expectations (TBD). This might even tie into parent profession within the clan and their general class (bushi, courtier, shugenja).

1 hour ago, T_Kageyasu said:

I like this idea, especially since the advantage could be inverted depending on who you are interacting with. In previous editions you could allocate points for a more powerful ability, instead here maybe to be more connected you need to also purchase a disadvantage to go along with it?

I don't think this edition lends itself well to scaling advantages. The published ones are supposed to all be equally useful, even if it takes significant moderation from the GM to balance them all out in practice. The upside of that is that if the GM is balancing advantages in practice anyway, it's relatively easy to agree on adding a "Connected" distinction - it's probably not harder for the GM to adjudicate that than any of the others. The existing "Ally" distinction is also quite close to what this advantage would be like, so it can be used as a template.

That said, if you do want to create a character who has very influential ties to major bloodlines/families having to take an extra disadvantage could be a suitable way to balance that out. It'd be a bit tricky though, since disadvantages offer a way of replenishing void points - they're not all that negative in this edition.

Yeah, I'd probably handle this with advantages, either extant stuff like Ally, Blessed Lineage, Kuge Lineage, Well Connected, Blissful Betrothal, etc, or custom ones which suit the character and scenario. Somewhere in the homebrew thread I wrote "Extended Family", and in previous editions there was an advantage like "Imperial Spouse", etc.

If it's not a specific advantage but just a general campaign theme, we can leave it to storytelling and the slight Honor/Glory adjustments from the heritage table. Could even do that as a seperate adjustment if you want to do something specific in the story like say give a starting character some extra glory because their father was commander at the battle of Bad-Place Pass and super famous, but the glory increase also means they risk more if they screw up (stake Glory) because of higher expectations. High social stats (other than maybe Status) are not a pure positive, you have to work to maintain them and will take bigger hits if you lose some.