I was wondering if I had missed anything. I haven't played the rpg since the 1st edition and I never played the card game. When looking at the various schools listed for the Great Clans I was somewhat surprised that the Scorpion clan has no Bushi option. Part of me doesn't really care but it seems like an odd exclusion since I would consider the Bushi to be the most standard role to play (as much as I consider anything to be a standard). But maybe there's a reason for that. One of the reasons I didn't stick with the game was that I was irritated at the notion of having an rpg universe based on the results of play from a ccg (that I was never going to play). So I get that there have probably been zillions of changes that I've never been aware of and 1st edition was quite a while ago. Also, of course, you can't fit everything in a core book that you might like but it still seems weird that a great clan wouldn't have a starting Bushi option. What's the reasoning for this; does anyone know? Thanks!

Rather than rehashing the topic, I'll just refer you to the main thread on this topic:

If you want a very short recap: nobody knows for sure, but the most likely reason seems to be an unspoken 1 school per family rule and a courtier school being a better representation of the Bayushi family than a bushi school.

Also, there's the situation that

1. any school with access to Kata can function as a bushi
2. any school with access to Shūji can function as a courtier

So, the lack of a bushi school isn't that big a deal.

The only issues of note:

• Functioning outside the school curriculum may require skills and techniques outside the curriculum
  • this slows school rank advancement down.
  • this does not slow down increases to skills, rings, nor techniques.
• The school may not provide access to the relevant skills in character generation.
  • You can get a rank in a relevant skill in CGen by correct choices.
  • The skills can be bought later anyway.

37 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

• Functioning outside the school curriculum may require skills and techniques outside the curriculum
  • this slows school rank advancement down.
  • this does not slow down increases to skills, rings, nor techniques.

Technique access is based on school rank (next to other requirements). So, yes, I think it does slow down techniques. It's one of the reasons the Shosuro Infiltrator is considered the go-to school for Scorpion bushi.

1 hour ago, nameless ronin said:

Technique access is based on school rank (next to other requirements). So, yes, I think it does slow down techniques. It's one of the reasons the Shosuro Infiltrator is considered the go-to school for Scorpion bushi.

It doesn't slow down the rate of acquiring techniques - it merely changes which ones are available.

53 minutes ago, AK_Aramis said:

It doesn't slow down the rate of acquiring techniques - it merely changes which ones are available.

It does, depending on which ones are available from the ones you actually want.

There are relatively few rank 1 kata I'd consider essential (possibly none, depending on the character), but for every kind of bushi there are several rank 2 and 3 kata that are indispensible. If acquiring rank 1 kata doesn't get me to rank 2 and 3 any faster and I can take or leave those rank 1 kata, it's going to be leave most of the time. If they do give me the full benefit towards increasing school rank on the other hand, I might be less inclined to prioritize skill ranks over kata early on. Then by rank 2 I do pick up the out of curriculum rank 2 kata I want, which delays access to rank 3.

Also consider that titles work like a sort of psuedo-school, allowing you to fairly easily cross-train into bushi,

Sure, it isn't great (certainly not as good as belonging to a bushi school), but if you're playing an emerald magistrate campaign (since that's the path the learn-to-play takes, it's an obvious example) then the Emerald Magistrate title gives any character access to level 1-2 kata, and whilst XP spent on them may not help with school rank, they will help you complete the title.

1 hour ago, gareth_lazelle said:

Also consider that titles work like a sort of psuedo-school, allowing you to fairly easily cross-train into bushi,

Sure, it isn't great (certainly not as good as belonging to a bushi school), but if you're playing an emerald magistrate campaign (since that's the path the learn-to-play takes, it's an obvious example) then the Emerald Magistrate title gives any character access to level 1-2 kata, and whilst XP spent on them may not help with school rank, they will help you complete the title.

School rank itself isn't that big a deal (unless you expect to continue to play into school rank 6, then it can be a really big deal), but delaying your access to rank 3 techs by 24-36 xp is pretty significant. In most cases it's probably better to hold off until rank 3 to start filling a title.

More to the point though, a title is not a curriculum. As far as I can tell it does not give privileged access to techniques. You can't buy an iaijutsu cut (which are rank 2 techniques) as a character with school rank 1 based on pursuing the Emerald Magistrate title. You can't even buy kata in general unless your school allows you to.

33 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

More to the point though, a title is not a curriculum. As far as I can tell it does not give privileged access to techniques. You can't buy an iaijutsu cut (which are rank 2 techniques) as a character with school rank 1 based on pursuing the Emerald Magistrate title.

Check out the Emerald Magistrate from the core rules, or better yet the Yoriki from EE,

Both list items with the "privileged access" icon as discussed in the core rules on page 56,

Core rules, Page 305 describes titles as being functionally like a school curriculum and discusses splitting XP between the two.

I mention the specific examples above as Magistrate gives access to Rank 1-2 kata and Yoriki gives access to rank 1-3 kata (which also addresses your first point about rank 3 kata)!

As printed, both cases give access to iaijutsu cut from rank one (whether this is useful or not is another question - if you don't have the skills and rings, some techniques are next to useless),

Quote

You can't even buy kata in general unless your school allows you to.

Agreed - except in cases where the privileged access icon is noted - this is even the same mechanism used for schools when granting you access to something you wouldn't normally have access to (it's how the shosuro get ninjutsu techniques for example),

Which is all to say that while having a Bayushi Bushi isn’t strictly necessary, the curriculum of the Manipulator discourages spending too much time as a bushi in disguise if you want access to higher level techniques. I think this leaves enough room for the school in future supplements.

big deal... a Kata is 3xp... 3xp toward you school advancement. if it isn't in your curriculum, it is 2xp toward advancement...

OOF.

BIG.

DEAL.

1xp difference toward school advancement per Kata bought.

Bayushi can totally be an ok bushi.

40 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

big deal... a Kata is 3xp... 3xp toward you school advancement. if it isn't in your curriculum, it is 2xp toward advancement...

<snip>

1xp difference toward school advancement per Kata bought.

Bayushi can totally be an ok bushi.

Actually, that's a really good point - if you have a title ongoing giving you access to kata, you can totally still push the XP towards your school whilst milking the title for all the kata you want (this prevents you from losing access to more kata by completing the title)...

Sure, it isn't quite as efficient as getting it through your school, but then again, how many kata are you expecting to need? if you buy a half-dozen kata you're still only 6 XP behind everyone else (and that assumes that they buy everything in-curriculum, which depending upon the nature of your campaign, is far from a certainty),

1 hour ago, gareth_lazelle said:

if you have a title ongoing giving you access to kata, you can totally still push the XP towards your school whilst milking the title for all the kata you want (this prevents you from losing access to more kata by completing the title)...

If the rules don't allow this explicitly, I could see GMs ruling that "privileged access" means you have to spend that XP in the curriculum giving you the privileged access. The logic behind would be that your Yoriki/Magistrate sensei is teaching you, and has nothing to do with your school... (or vice-versa for Kaito invocations, if you try to purchase them in a title to stall and get access to more...)

That said, my GM trashed the "you lose privileged access once you moved on" rule, since he doesn't believe that sensei "disappear" or "refuse to take advanced students", and doesn't like the "forced to learn now or never" gameplay that comes with certain schools (like Kaito and ninjutsu schools). So I don't know how he would deal with this, once the title is completed. Maybe only then would we be allowed to place XP in school, to avoid getting behind the group? Or else the XP would not count towards any curriculum?

As a side note @Sir Jolt , while this setting is once again in hock to a card game, things aren't quite as bad as before

1. They rolled back everything to the time of the 1E setting, and things have proceeded differently from there.
2. The people running the setting are giving much more restricted choices to the LCG winners.
3. They're also letting RPG players affect the universe - the canon outcome of one of the scenarios they have released so far is based on what the players who participated at Gencon did.

10 minutes ago, Agasha Kanetake said:

If the rules don't allow this explicitly, I could see GMs ruling that "privileged access" means you have to spend that XP in the curriculum giving you the privileged access.

Yeah, I could see that, and indeed, that's probably how I'll run things, but if you're going by the letter of the rules then I don't think it's supported.

17 hours ago, Agasha Kanetake said:

That said, my GM trashed the "you lose privileged access once you moved on" rule, since he doesn't believe that sensei "disappear" or "refuse to take advanced students", and doesn't like the "forced to learn now or never" gameplay that comes with certain schools (like Kaito and ninjutsu schools). So I don't know how he would deal with this, once the title is completed. Maybe only then would we be allowed to place XP in school, to avoid getting behind the group? Or else the XP would not count towards any curriculum?

I kind of see that as being more like the "life long learning" schemes you get with professional bodies,

After character generation you don't "go back to school" to learn new techniques (unless that's your campaign concept of course),

But your progression within the "professional body" (i.e. Your school) will be determined by a demonstration of your advancement in knowledge of your field. You are expected to go out into the world and learn. And if you do so you gain rank within the school (kind of like chartership or whatever).

The reason you lose the benefit of XP in certain things is that when you reach a certain stage in your career, knowledge of those things is assumed , and is no longer impressive. Instead they expect you to demonstrate breadth of knowledge by learning more advanced techniques, different but related skills, etc.

For example, by rank 4, the Akodo Commander school thinks you should already be pretty handy with a sword. Learning more melee at that point doesn't impress them any more because you should already know it (indeed, it is more likely that demonstrating a lack of ability would likely hamper your progress at this point).

Instead they start pushing you to learn skills that make you stand out as a commander, which is why social becomes the key skill group. If you can't pursue that goal then your progression within the school is likely to stall.

*Edit: though I will agree that this doesn't explain the "now or never" talents

On 2/14/2019 at 1:18 PM, Sir Jolt said:

I was wondering if I had missed anything...snip... it still seems weird that a great clan wouldn't have a starting Bushi option. What's the reasoning for this; does anyone know? Thanks!

So as you can see by the electronic ink being spent on your question this is still something of a hot topic.

In addition to everything said above I would note that Worldly Ronin works very well as a flexible platform to create a Bushi character. Talk to your GM, and just call it "Worldly Scorpion" for a Bayushi in good standing. Also...If the Imperial families are not going to an option for PCs in the campaign you are playing in, then you could cannibalize the Seppun Imperial Guard school from Emerald Empires to use as a Bayushi/Scorpion Bushi.

I have never really liked the scorpion clan much ( Duty first! And our duty to the Empire is ... to get everyone hooked on opium!?! ) so the issue isn't that important to me. But you are not the only person who finds the lack of a Scorpion Bushi weird.

14 minutes ago, Void Crane said:

So as you can see by the electronic ink being spent on your question this is still something of a hot topic.

In addition to everything said above I would note that Worldly Ronin works very well as a flexible platform to create a Bushi character. Talk to your GM, and just call it "Worldly Scorpion" for a Bayushi in good standing. Also...If the Imperial families are not going to an option for PCs in the campaign you are playing in, then you could cannibalize the Seppun Imperial Guard school from Emerald Empires to use as a Bayushi/Scorpion Bushi.

I have never really liked the scorpion clan much ( Duty first! And our duty to the Empire is ... to get everyone hooked on opium!?! ) so the issue isn't that important to me. But you are not the only person who finds the lack of a Scorpion Bushi weird.

Yeah, no need to rehash the old thread... everyone knows where they stand and is unlikely to be convinced otherwise, and it seems all was said in there (I have not seen any new argument in the posts above).

Just worth noting that there has been some more fine-tuned efforts to make up a curriculum that works by Daigotsu Max:

I really don't like the Wordly Ronin as a substitute... nothing really screams Bayushi other than the starting honor. The school technique of the Seppun's guardsman is more spot on (in keeping with old edition's main defining trait at Rank1, but some parts in the curriculum and starting techniques, ring increases and honor don't sit very well.

Best solution by far is to wait and see, when an actual Scorpion school gets published.

On 2/16/2019 at 4:52 AM, gareth_lazelle said:

*Edit: though I will agree that this doesn't explain the "now or never" talents

I fully agree with all you've said. To be clear, my GM still fully enforces the half XP worth for anything outside the current school rank curriculum.

Let's say I'm a Shosuro Infiltrator. By RAW, I would have to pick Skulk during rank 1, or else it becomes unattainable once I get to rank 2. But my GM would allow me to still pick it up in a later rank if I want, although it would be worth half XP for progression at that point since it's not part of that school rank. This both follows your analogy of "it's not as impressive anymore" while going around the weirdness of "now or never" which could hardly be explained in a "realistic" scenario.

In pure strategy games, "pick between mutually exclusive choices" can be good gameplay. In RPGs, it's better to have "prerequisites" and let players chose the order they want to acquire these upgrades. L5R's privileged access system is very nice, but my GM doesn't like that it become it's own limitation. Which is unfortunately what currently happens in RAW any time a school gives access to techniques outside the 3 technique groups available to that school.