you lose honor, or lose honor

By Nagasadow81, in Rules Questions

If the PCs, a group of emerald magistrate find themselves in a village and discover that the local daimyo is cheating on his taxes to feed his people who are starving, do the PCs lose honor by breach of compassion for reporting him, or do they lose honor by breach of loyalty to the emperor by NOT reporting him?

I'm thunking, they lose honor either way... if I'm correct, how much would they lose?

33 minutes ago, Nagasadow81 said:

I'm thinking, they lose honor either way

Probably, yes.

They probably also gain honor either way and then it matters a bit what you lose and gain it for.

Remember that your gains and losses are doubled for the favoured tenet and halved for the less important one. So a Scorpion would possibly gain honor by reporting on him, because he'd gain more from Loyalty than he'd lose from Compassion.

A Unicorn would be the opposite, as she'd gain more from Compassion than Duty& Loyalty. Others may end up largely neutral.

very informative responses. I'm a long time GM but new to L5R. It's sometimes hard to think of situations where there are no right choices and opportunities for honor loses on the fly, so i try to have a few ideas written down that I use. I'm constently worried that my players' honor and glory are going to spike out of control...

On an added note, does anyone know if anyone has compiled a collection of situations like these to throw at players and if so, could you please share a link 😁

Most important choices do cost you honour either way.

Choices like " do you brutally murder the innocent and steal her stuff ....or not ?" are bushido on easy mode.

Also note that it's possible for a choice to cost you honour by one tenet, and give you honour for a different tenet.

So, in your example, exposing the Daimyo would be a violation of:

  • Courtesy (embroiling a higher-status individual in a scandal)
  • Compassion (if you believe no-one could step in and see to the heimin's welfare)

Meanwhile, covering up the crime is a violation of:

  • Duty (their immediate duty is to the Magistrature, who will ultimately carry the can for enforcing tax law)
  • Righteousness (because it's a violation of the social order and 'how the world ought to work')

Looking at examples, I'd say it's probably a minor breach of each. So clan perspectives:

Crab - expose (courtesy loss halved)

Crane - conceal (courtesy loss doubled)

Dragon - conceal (duty loss halved)

Lion - expose (compassion loss halved)

Phoenix - expose (righteousness loss doubled)

Scorpion - neutral (duty doubled, righteousness halved)

Unicorn - neutral (compassion doubled, courtesy halved)

It's an interesting situation and games like this often turn into mini ethics 101.

I've tried to assemble a list of ideas on conflicting bushido tenets here:

Edited by Magnus Grendel