I would sort of agree but would rather say on the subjects most likely to be an issue to the players; since the average game has the PCs all being rokugani-born samurai.*

So the fact that a player would be told a character they can self-identify with wouldn't "fit the setting"** when it's a completely artificial setting (let's be fair, it isn't and has never been an especially accurate portrayal of feudal Japan, has it?).

By comparison, the whole hiemin thing is less of an issue; just by existing and expecting the standard of life the rules tell them they should be accustomed to the PCs are consuming a huge amount of the economic activity of a vast number of heimin families somewhere and in practice they're not giving anything back***. Westerners are quite good at not thinking about where the labour that makes their cool T-shirts and electronics comes from, and as long as they're not playing said characters and hence stuck at the wrong end of the 'violence inherent in the system' themselves, I don't see

* though watch this space for the Path of the Waves supplement and/or the PDF release of the Highwayman adventure.

** as a complete aside, if someone does want to try an 'accurate' historical/mythological setting but has an issue with gender/sexuality impact on their player base, look at Mythos/Heroic age Greece. Seriously, that lot (divine as well as human) would go for anyone and anything if it was gorgeous enough.

*** okay, 'protection'. But since the main thing they're protecting against is other samurai, lost or otherwise, that's not really offering anything that couldn't be achieved by the entire samurai caste buggering off. Which observation is basically how some branches of the Kolat got started, thinking about it.

I would say that samurai protect from bandits and crime lords as well. They are not samurai.

Inheritance, land ownership and gaming the legal system are usually the reasons for a variety of marriage arrangements. For example in Tibet it was not uncommon for a woman to marry two or more men (usually brothers) legally. The motivation seems to be the desire to keep the family farm land intact. The land would normally be required to be split between the brothers when they married thus potentially ruining the viability of the farm. The practice is now illegal for new marriages but evidently it still occurs (off the books) in rural areas of Tibet.

14 hours ago, phillos said:

The motivation seems to be the desire to keep the family farm land intact. The land would normally be required to be split between the brothers when they married thus potentially ruining the viability of the farm.

Less of an issue for Rokugan; they don't seem to subscribe to a specific 'firstborn' or 'firstborn male' primogeniture (because Toturi was superceded by Arasou, his younger brother) but they do seem to have the standard policy of " this one is the heir and the rest get nothing ".

Toturi was forcefully sent to a monastery in the original setting, so he couldn't inherit...

On 10/4/2019 at 2:58 PM, RafaelNN said:

But why would you arrange a same gender political marriage? It makes no sense. If they cant breed offsrping, the purpose fails. Having characters with different preferences makes sense. having same gender political marriages does not

+1

In the haste to treat different things equally, some basic logic fell by the wayside here. The basis of the concept of arranged marriage is the belief that, regardless of personal feelings (or attraction), men and women should be bound together socially for the purpose of procreation and child-rearing. Same-sex romantic relationships form the starkest contrast to arranged marriage, as they would logically be entirely the fruit of personal preference and individual feeling. There is no logical purpose for a same-sex arranged marriage because the same result could be achieved through adoption or even ordinary contract. Please note, I am not against same-sex marriage in Rokugan; partners of the same (or opposite, for that matter!) sex marrying each other for romantic reasons doesn’t seem impossible, just improbable.

On 10/7/2019 at 10:53 AM, RafaelNN said:

Its politically correct on the most polemic subjects only

That’s a pretty fair comment.

Although one wonders whether the samurai are only OK with same-sex marriage among themselves but apply draconian anti-homosexual laws to heimin. After all, samurai are likely to view them as having more in common with livestock than themselves, as a general matter. It would be politically and economically important for commoners to breed prodigiously.

I could also see anti-homosexual taboos being well established in smaller samurai families or those suffering from low fertility and/or high infant mortality.

I'm all OK with same sex relationships, and I believe it has always been this way in Rokugan.

It's a game about violence, emotion, love and desire. It was pretty inclusive at its time, despite Rokugani's xenophobia 🤔

You could love whoever you wanted, yet had to marry because as a Samurai, you have to make Samurai babies for the clan.

That's the key, samurai caste survive by reproducing, cases of ascending heimin were low in old5r.

It seems adoption is more lax now if you can adopt heimin children as dragon does.

It's all good if new5r is implementing same sex marriage so people can explore this avenue in RPG and be comfortable. Needs to be shown in the cards and fiction then.

Yet I'm not sure it was needed as an enhancement to the setting.

2 hours ago, Manchu said:

The basis of the concept of arranged marriage is the belief that, regardless of personal feelings (or attraction), men and women should be bound together socially for the purpose of procreation and child-rearing.

Or as the 'glue' to hold a political treaty together. Childless political marriages are far from unknown, both in the setting and historically. Adoption might not be an option because adoption implies one party is much further 'down' the social scale where a marriage is more a pairing of equals (even if the couple ends up taking one family name rather than the other).

I guess an interesting test, is - where there are two same-sex heterosexual heirs in rival clans/familys/whatever, would you potentially get an arranged marriage between them for political purposes if the wedding-for-treaty was seen as a diplomatic imperative?

I did explore that in a 3rd edition campaign I ran a long time ago. One of the driving arcs was a political same sex marriage between two PC's to solidify a political alliance. Though we also wrestled with how that would work in the setting so we settled on one of the PCs was publicly raised male for inheritance reasons (since feudal Japan did practice primogeniture). I would be interested in understanding how that all would work in the new setting.

11 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Adoption might not be an option because adoption implies one party is much further 'down' the social scale where a marriage is more a pairing of equals

Not sure why you would think so. This has not been the case historically, whether in the West or in East Asian cultures. There is nothing particular to Rokugan that would imply the adopted party’s family is inferior, either, at least no more so than would apply to arranged marriage.

We are also trivializing the “heteronormativity” of Rokugan here. Same-sex romance is not particularly offensive (to the nobility, I guess) in this setting* but the magical samurai are nonetheless overwhelmingly concerned with unions that will, at least potentially, produce issue, not least of all because they structure their social institutions around procreation. And this is, after all, the main point of arranged marriage as an actual practice, as @RafaelNN correctly pointed out. The romantic or sexual preference of the parties to an arranged marriage do not matter precisely because the matter to hand is making babies and the getting along better part is assumed to be the natural consequence of the families’ joint interest in the offspring.

*I want to emphasize that this is entirely logical, from a certain perspective. Since romance generally is merely tolerated as a matter of day-to-day living rather than celebrated as socially important, the sex of the parties would not necessarily be a significant issue.

3 minutes ago, Manchu said:

We are also trivializing the “heteronormativity” of Rokugan here. Same-sex romance is not particularly offensive (to the nobility, I guess) in this setting but the magical samurai are nonetheless overwhelmingly concerned with unions that will, at least potentially, produce issue, not least of all because they structure their social institutions around procreation. And this is, after all, the main point of arranged marriage as an actual practice, as @RafaelNN correctly pointed out. The romantic or sexual preference of the parties to an arranged marriage do not matter precisely because the matter to hand is making babies and the getting along better part is assumed to be the natural consequence of the families’ joint interest in the offspring.

There are other reasons for marriage in Rokugan than strictly procreation - the status of your spouse-to-be can be the whole point or, as Grendel has highlighted, demonstrating how committed both parties are to a treaty or alliance. In this light, the marriage becomes a statement and furthermore, given the emphasis on familial loyalty in Rokugan, such a statement implies that wronging one party will wrong the other in a way that a mere contract does not. This is a setting where 'blood' doesn't always matter (past a certain point anyway - Samurai, ho!) and heirs can be adopted into your family.

On a similar point, marriage is not necessarily about procreation. 'Marriage' is a legal mechanism through which inheritance is justified and property transferred and protected. I would argue that Rokugan doesn't have any inherent heteronormativity, in that there are no strictly delineated gender roles (and on top of that their understanding of gender seems fluid).

24 minutes ago, Manchu said:

Not sure why you would think so. This has not been the case historically, whether in the West or in East Asian cultures. There is nothing particular to Rokugan that would imply the adopted party’s family is inferior, either, at least no more so than would apply to arranged marriage.

Given the emphasis on loyalty to one's parents, being adopted by someone makes you inherently 'lesser' in that you are expected to defer to your new parents. Offering marriage might be seen to be the more egalitarian (and therefore more respectful to your potential spouse (and therefore not insulting them )) method of having them join your family.

As an interesting aside, in Winter's Embrace, one of the NPC's romances could end with a secret marriage, which creates a whole new set of conundrums if we're trying to figure out exactly how Rokugan society views marriage.

Marriage in Rokugan is assuredly about procreation. Even the ever-vaunted political dimension of marriage (which is hardly that important in the vast majority of cases) is logically secondary, inasmuch as the political structure of the setting is entirely framed as an extended metaphor of the natural family. Arranged marriage only has a political dimension in the first place, whether in actual history or in this fantasy setting, because this kind of marriage is presumptively about procreation above all else. Same-sex arranged marriage, barring some very particular circumstances, really makes no sense at all.

There is certainly room in Rokugan for same-sex relationships (perhaps including love marriages!) and gender fluidity. There is, however, no actual indication that either is common; whereas, to the contrary, binary/static gender and heterosexuality are obviously overwhelmingly prevalent.

Marriage in Rokugan, with a few notable exceptions, also seems to be patri/virilocal and wives are routinely expected to leave their own families to join their husbands’ families, which is not really considered disrespectful to the wives’ families or parents. Adoption would similarly imply no disrespect, all things being equal (i.e., where one’s parents had no other heirs, one would probably not be a good candidate to be adopted out).

BTW societies that emphasize filial piety also strongly emphasize one’s own duty to produce offspring.

5 hours ago, Manchu said:

Marriage in Rokugan, with a few notable exceptions, also seems to be patri/virilocal and wives are routinely expected to leave their own families to join their husbands’ families, which is not really considered disrespectful to the wives’ families or parents. Adoption would similarly imply no disrespect, all things being equal (i.e., where one’s parents had no other heirs, one would probably not be a good candidate to be adopted out).

BTW societies that emphasize filial piety also strongly emphasize one’s own duty to produce offspring.

Actually everything we've seen seems to indicate that the norm for marriage is that the lower ranked party joins the family of the higher ranked, unless specifically negotiated to the contrary. Its one of the reasons that the Lion/Unicorn war kicked off because the Unicorn were blindsided by the Ikoma "tradition" that they never marry into the brides family. But in the case of Hotaru her husband married into the Crane. We also had Akodo Makoto in the second pack fiction who confirmed her Daidoji husband had married into the Lion and left her after the fighting at Toshi Ranbo ramped up.

“blindsided”

... as if we had not discussed this already at great length.

Please consider my reply to such bad faith posts in all cases from now on as “agree to disagree.”

20 minutes ago, Manchu said:

“blindsided”

... as if we had not discussed this already at great length.

Please consider my reply to such bad faith posts in all cases from now on as “agree to disagree.”

I know it sucks when people counter your gut based "narrative" with documented facts.

14 minutes ago, Manchu said:

“blindsided”

... as if we had not discussed this already at great length.

Please consider my reply to such bad faith posts in all cases from now on as “agree to disagree.”

Okay, 'differences of opinion' on the event aside, there does seem to be a catalogued tradition within Rokugan of the lower status spouse joining the higher status' family (with familial exceptions, of which one clan seem to have the... Lions', share).

6 hours ago, Manchu said:

Adoption would similarly imply no disrespect, all things being equal (i.e., where one’s parents had no other heirs, one would probably not be a good candidate to be adopted out).

BTW societies that emphasize filial piety also strongly emphasize one’s own duty to produce offspring.

That's kind of the point, all things aren't equal in an adoption - if you attempt to adopt someone of similar or higher status than yourself, that can and probably would be construed as an insult as you are implying that they are (or should be) lower than yourself. Furthermore, you are assuming that marriage is the only way to produce offspring - Rokugan has an established 'institution' of mistresses and concubines.

Not to get all Altansarai again, but the narrative clearly states that the father of her children is explicitly not her spouse. There is a whole host of implications, references and mentions of a disconnect between 'marriage' and 'procreation'.

All this talk about same sex marriage and nobody even points out that the Crane clan is all female.........wait a sec....that's a dude?

#ninetiesl5rtrashtalkisback

3 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

I know it sucks when people counter your gut based "narrative" with documented facts.

What is actually documented, to the extent of dozens of pages of discussion, is that the Ide are either trying to remove Altansarnai or incompetent beyond belief (or the story was just really poorly conceived). I won’t belabor the point further here. The idea that the Ikoma tricked the Unicorn is just another forced meme, like the Yoshi hastag nonsense.

3 hours ago, Hydraxus said:

Okay, 'differences of opinion' on the event aside, there does seem to be a catalogued tradition within Rokugan of the lower status spouse joining the higher status' family (with familial exceptions, of which one clan seem to have the... Lions', share).

I genuinely love the pun

It may be true that the lower status partner marries into family of the higher status party (although this is an inference at this point) BUT just in terms of what seems more prevalent as to what we have seen one would suspect there is also a preference for marrying lower status women to higher status men, whereas the reverse is a special case for very high status women (although Makato may be a counterexample).

4 hours ago, Hydraxus said:

That's kind of the point, all things aren't equal in an adoption - if you attempt to adopt someone of similar or higher status than yourself, that can and probably would be construed as an insult as you are implying that they are (or should be) lower than yourself.

Whoa now, don’t misunderstand a turn of phrase (“all things being equal”). As I explained, my caveat was that there may be a problem with adopting someone who is their parents’ sole heir. I’m not assuming that the relative social statuses of the adopting and adopted parties are equal, although (exactly as with arranged marriage) they would be more likely to be closer rather than farther apart barring extraordinary circumstances. Adoption poses no offenses not already potentially posed by arranged marriage. Just as they would avoid proposing arranged marriages of inappropriate status differentials, people would avoid proposing inappropriate adoptions.

4 hours ago, Hydraxus said:

Not to get all Altansarai again, but the narrative clearly states that the father of her children is explicitly not her spouse. There is a whole host of implications, references and mentions of a disconnect between 'marriage' and 'procreation'.

Altansarnai is a very poor example because she is powerful enough to be able to indulge her own character flaws and, as a Unicorn, she can leverage cultural arguments as moral cover for doing so.

As an aside, but I think a meaningful one, it is actually shocking that so many characters seem to be unmarried. This is partly accounted for by the relative youth of many main characters but can’t account for this strange issue entirely.

2 hours ago, Manchu said:

Whoa now, don’t misunderstand a turn of phrase (“all things being equal”). As I explained, my caveat was that there may be a problem with adopting someone who is their parents’ sole heir. I’m not assuming that the relative social statuses of the adopting and adopted parties are equal, although (exactly as with arranged marriage) they would be more likely to be closer rather than farther apart barring extraordinary circumstances. Adoption poses no offenses not already potentially posed by arranged marriage. Just as they would avoid proposing arranged marriages of inappropriate status differentials, people would avoid proposing inappropriate adoptions.

Altansarnai is a very poor example because she is powerful enough to be able to indulge her own character flaws and, as a Unicorn, she can leverage cultural arguments as moral cover for doing so.

As an aside, but I think a meaningful one, it is actually shocking that so many characters seem to be unmarried. This is partly accounted for by the relative youth of many main characters but can’t account for this strange issue entirely.

In that vein, I doubt that an adoption with the parents still living would be common, unless the parents were ill/assured of their death and the adoptee was very young - or the status difference was so great that the honour that would be gained (minor clan samurai/peasant that is skilled being adopted into a major clan) would outweigh (or make refusal an insult) the loss. The offense lies, as most things do in Rokugan, in the potential for insults to lie underneath seeming propriety.

That is a good point on Altansarnai, though I question your wording (is it a character flaw? What does morality have to do with her decision? Why is it immoral?). It could be an anomaly, however if it was I would still argue that her social capital (position/ex-position as Champion) allows her to 'create' or influence the social norms that the Unicorn operate under.

I do agree with the idea that very few people (The Emperor, for sure could but who else?) could legitimately call her on her actions if they were to be unrepresentative of either broader Rokugan or Unicorn society.

I think it has to do with you requiring your Lord's permission to be marry - your Lord is the one who is expected to organise your marriage if I recall the lore correctly. Given the political aspect to marriages, it makes a degree of sense that any given Lord may wish to keep their options open in that regard. Furthermore, I think that a lot of emphasis is made on 'good' matches arranged by/through professional (and politicised) matchmakers. For most Samurai (Jizamurai, for example) their Lords' approval is a mere formality but for the 'important' Samurai they're almost a political commodity, a finite resource for their Lord to spend with established rules on how to spend them.

Furthermore, a Samurai is a significant investment of time and materials, with the lower-status spouse expected to effectively manage their new, shared household. It may be seen as prudent to delay marriage if possible to ensure you gain more 'use' from them.

Perhaps that, in a way, provides a practical reason for the prevalance for same-sex marriages, in that there would presumably be a high mortality rate for Samurai (though for some clans this would be less of an issue). It could be possible that two potential spouses approach a marriage with existing children.

There must also be differences of opinion on marriage and child-rearing between the clans - I can't imagine the constantly fighting Crab or the diminishing Dragon (who both have an imperative to produce offspring (and indeed to recruit/adopt/have marry into the clan) to keep their numbers up, though for different reasons) to share, say, the Crane or Phoenix's opinion.

Now we have come full circle. Yes you are right that samurai families would have infrequent recourse to adoption — thanks to the offspring produced by arranged marriage. Not only the Crab and Dragon, but every clan and family can only persist by conceiving the next generation. Thus, the primary purpose of marriage in Rokugan is procreative; an extinct line cannot engage in politics, after all.

No, we really haven't - kindly state exactly why marriage is so necessary to the creation of children. That's the thing, you're approaching this entire conversation with that (marriage=children) as your basic starting point and ignoring or downplaying all the other ways that marriage is treated within the narrative in order to fit with your pre-constructed ideas surrounding marriage.

Again, why are Altansarnai's actions considering her family 'immoral' - a value judgement you are making, given the lack of other supporting evidence within the source material - within the society in which the events are placed? No-one within or without the Unicorn seem to be suggesting that her children are not Samurai, and I cannot imagine the Lion or the Phoenix leaving that avenue of attack alone.

In much the same way that you seem to refuse to actually engage with any of the points raised that don't fit with your own ideas, or appear to concede the argument. The continuation of their line is one of many, many different factors that any given Lord considers and is not the sole over-riding imperative you appear to believe it to be;

"While commoners and samurai of lesser station more often marry for love, sentiment rarely plays a part in the selection of a match for the samurai of the Great Clans, for marriages are political opportunities far too valuable to pass up. The clans view such unions as contracts between allies, rather than as bonds between lovers" (pg 79, Courts of Stone. Emphasis added).

"Hisatsugu furrowed his brow. Uniting the houses of two merchant lords meant unifying their holdings. Together, they would be a significant economic power in a region otherwise dominated by the Yasuki. The proposal named a war-orphaned Doji child to be adopted by the pair, ensuring that these unified holdings would be inherited by the Crane." (pg 5, Courts of Stone.)

"Theirs had not been a marriage of love, convenience, or station. Theirs had been a marriage of power. He, a ferocious strategic mastermind, and she, a brilliant political architect. As the two most formidable Scorpion born in the last generation, they had been joined by their clan in the hope that their combined strength would raise the Scorpion like a hidden wave to its apex in the Empire." (pg 1, Behind the Empty Throne).

"Because Doji are chosen for Imperial spouses more often than members of any other family, the hand of a Doji is especially prestigious. A Doji spouse has become a sort of political bargaining chip as a result. Doji rarely marry out of their clan, preferring to have other families marry in, even if it runs counter to the social convention that a lesser-ranked samurai marries into the family of the greater " (pg 57, Courts of Stone. Emphasis added.)

The Adventure at Castle Kyotei, where the entire debacle revolves around a marriage and the political legitimacy it would give to the Damasu and their claim on the castle should they usurp it.

I could go on.

Altansarnai’s own son and heir criticized his mother for putting her personal preferences above her duty to the clan. To be clear, this is not about her refusal to marry his father but rather the abrogation of her word and honor as Champion to preserve her own personal happiness. She justifies her choice by equating her decision to Unicorn culture. But again, Shono (who kills his own love match in battle as a matter of duty) sees through this. The real reason she can do what she does is that she is the most powerful person in her clan and has plenty of political support thanks to anti-Lion sentiment. From Shono’s point of view, this is just corruption. This is why she cannot be used as a representative example of anything.

For the samurai of Rokugan, marriage is the institution by which natural family and legal family become coextensive. Samurai might well conceive children outside of marriage but this is clearly non-normative. The primary purpose of marriage is to produce the next generation of one’s family, which also happens to be the most basic political unit of society in Rokugan. And that is why marriage is inextricably political. The extinction of a family is synonymous with the demise of a political faction, which every faction logically avoids. Conceiving natural heirs is the lifeblood of nearly every political faction in Rokugan.

5 hours ago, Hydraxus said:

"While commoners and samurai of lesser station more often marry for love, sentiment rarely plays a part in the selection of a match for the samurai of the Great Clans, for marriages are political opportunities far too valuable to pass up. The clans view such unions as contracts between allies, rather than as bonds between lovers" (pg 79, Courts of Stone. Emphasis added).

It should be noted that the example of a same-sex marriage is not exactly low status - yes, they're Tortoise clan, rather than a Great Clan, but Kasuga Mikoto is the Magistrate of the clan's capital, Slow Tide Harbour - and hence logically one of, if not the highest ranking magistrate in the clan.

So it can be assumed to have been at a social status where politics would have featured, and was still considered the best match.

We don't, sadly, know anything about the origin of Mikoto's late wife - or indeed anything about her other than that she was killed in a duel by a Crane samurai (which, if you ever play the RPG, is a big issue if your character is a Crane).

15 hours ago, Manchu said:

As an aside, but I think a meaningful one, it is actually shocking that so many characters seem to be unmarried. This is partly accounted for by the relative youth of many main characters but can’t account for this strange issue entirely.

Part of it may be that in some cases spouses simply haven't been mentioned. Running round the Clan Champions:

• Shinjo Altansarnai was betrothed (let's not rake over the details; she was betrothed)
• Bayushi Shoju is married
• Doji Hotaru is married
• Akodo Toturi is married
• Hida Kisada - not known. We know he has a son, Hida Sukune, but surprisingly even the Crab RPG sourcebook Shadowlands doesn't mention his spouse's name. We haven't had the Crab novella yet, though.
• Togashi Yokuni - he's functionally an Ise Zuma abbot, and the succession passes through the Ise Zuma, so there's no logical reason to assume the Dragon Clan champion ever marries.

There's been no indication of Shiba Tsukune and Yoritomo being married - though in her case she really is young and was NOT expecting to be clan champion. We know Yoritomo has a niece but that's the extent of our knowledge of the Mantis' ruling family other than the fact that somewhere it contained a female shapely enough to catch Kakita Toshimoko's eye and susceptible to the rascal's charms.

12 hours ago, Hydraxus said:

I do agree with the idea that very few people (The Emperor, for sure could but who else?) could legitimately call her on her actions if they were to be unrepresentative of either broader Rokugan or Unicorn society.

A clan champion's liege is the Emperor. Which is why (again, let's not rake over the debate again as to whether it was done right) when breaking the engagement the Unicorn had to send representation to the Imperial Court, which was covered in Flying Chariot, Standing . Granted they saw the Imperial Herald, not the Emperor in person, but in a formal diplomatic setting, the Imperial Herald can be assumed to speak with the Emperor's voice unless one or the other says otherwise.

So the same principle even applies there; Whilst the emperor actually calling a clan champion on their behaviour requires some serious trouble, the whole 'permission of your lord' applies even there; presumably an imperial approval was probably required for the betrothal, too - it being refused would be almost unthinkable but that doesn't mean you don't have to ask .

On ‎10‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 9:16 PM, Matsu Kenshin said:

I would say that samurai protect from bandits and crime lords as well. They are not samurai.

Agreed in theory, but again, a lot of that sort of protecting at the level that peasants ever see tends to be done by 'drafted' ashigaru and budoka.

I'm not saying that the argument is flawless, but it's defensible enough that it's one big plank supporting the Kolat's 'Kami Go Home' doctrine.

It's not universal - it's a nebulous and cellular enough organisation that suggesting there's a single Kolat belief is probably flawed; plenty are probably fine with the Empire structured the way it is aside from the specific issue of whose backside is parked on the big green chair.