The Truth

The Truth

By
Dace

Rokugani law is an interesting beast. But before I get into the bulk of this conversation I think we should watch this video.



There is a lot about Rokugan we can walk away from watching that scene. And not just Scorpion players, or Crab players or even Lion players, Jack speaks to several elements that are thematic to L5R in a matter of a few minutes. But what we are going to walk away with today is the point that Rokugani don’t want the truth.

Now this is partially true. They do after all value Honesty, but the tenet of Honesty is not the same thing as being truthful and a guileful person can uphold Honesty without being 100% truthful. That’s why Rokugani worry so much about their On, they desire in some regards to hide the truth.

Thus Rokugani law isn’t about the truth. Well not in a straightforward Perry Mason, Law and Order or CSI kind of way. That’s not to say that games run on the idea of getting to the bottom of it all and finding out who really did it and thus punish them is wrong. I love a good mystery, and that kind of adventure has its place in a game. It’s the Kitsuki’s strong point and it makes them the king in a magistrate game.
However that’s just a tiny fraction of how Rokugani law works. After all the Kitsuki method is considered a joke by most clans.

Ultimately what Rokugani want from their law is accountability. A crime was committed and someone has to pay. Honor demands it. Because Rokugan is a land where honor is stronger than steel it is assumed that the guilty party will be found out. Because the honorable thing to do once confronted with the fact that you committed a crime is to admit it and to ask for seppuku. Honor is the reason why someone can’t be punished for a crime till they confess to it. The honorable mans guilt will eventually weigh him down enough that he will give in and seek redemption. That or he gives into the torture.

In either case because honor is such a central key to how law is prosecuted in Rokugan, things like Investigation skills or techniques become secondary to the individuals with in the setting. Good magistrates get the job done because honor will guide them to the right person and honor will cause said person to admit his guilt.

Now the reality is far far worse and more bleak than that. People lie and cheat and abuse the system all the time. Innocent samurai get accused and are convicted of crimes. But even the possibility of a wrongfully prosecuted case has hope. Rokugani believe in karma after all and if a magistrate knowingly convicts the wrong person then he’ll get his in the end. There is also the possibility that the wronged samurai’s spirit will find a way to get revenge from beyond the grave. After all spirits and ancestors influence Rokugani life and getting ones family to clear your name is right up the alley for their beliefs.

The wonderful thing about this though is that it opens up more avenues for rp. Being a magistrate after all is as much a matter of political ties as it is a matter of skill. And because it’s not an evidentiary based system it gives both players and GM’s wiggle room on how to be a good magistrate.

You’re not required to have more ranks in Investigation than the Kitsuki to be good at being a magistrate. You can approach the magistrate game in your own unique way based on how you see law in Rokugan.

Do you want to trade favors to catch the “right” crook? Do you want to blackmail the guilty or the innocent? Or someone close to an innocent or guilty person? Do you see it as a means to more power and prestige? Do you want to right the wrongs of society? Avenge a family slight?

For the GM you can test a player’s resolve. Is he going to back down to political pressure? Is he going to accuse people regardless of whether or not they actually did it? How long can someone with high status protect themselves from the law? Are the PC’s going to build a group of allies to help take down a well placed criminal? Is an ugly truth that does more damage to one’s family, clan the Empire worth punishing the guilty?

It’s a rich field that opens up the more and more one considers that Rokugani law ultimately cares about accountability than it does truth. That it makes a very large assumption that honor will win out in the end. And it gives characters who aren’t Kitsuki more to do than being back up dancers :)

Naked Steel 5

This is a bit late. School and all :(. But Naked Steels has been up for awhile. Anyone who hasn't checked it out should. You can find it here.

Shawn gives us another sneak peak into mechanics of Imperial Histories and the Book of Air. Though I'm far more interested in what he shows us of the prize winning setting that will be apart of Imperial Histories. Great stuff.

Kokujin Tattoo's

Kokujin Tattoo's
By

Okuma

Hello everyone,

Dace asked me to tell you a bit about the Order of Kokujin tattoos, since the family is now available with the release of Great Clans. Mechanically, players should consider tattooed monk and order of the spider monk schools to create characters from this family.

I would go myself for an order of the spider monk 3 then multi school in the tattooed monk : Kokujin didn’t had as much power in his blood neither as much quantities as the Togashi (since he was the only one providing, while they were a couple providing for the Togashi). As such, his students had to prove themselves through his Dark Lotus sect training before being granted any tattoos. In truth, most of the original members of the Order of Kokujin had ranks in other schools before joining and were granted tattoos to enforce loyalty through the Shadowlands power Blood domination but those who joined his Dark Lotus sect (after Kokujin joined with Daigotsu) had to undergo many trials before being granted tattoos.

Now that we cleared the question of which school to use, let’s see about the tattoos in question. I would use quotes from the story The Mad Dragon by Shawn Carman ( http://www.kazenoshiro.com/kazenoshiro/8/h8e02p25.php ) to illustrate the tattoos in question. Those tattoos will have the same mechanical effects, but much darker visual effects. A good thing to throw your players off-balance wondering what those tattoos do !

Matsuo unleashed a devastating cone of frost from his mouth. The cone washed over Kokujin, who disappeared in the blinding sheet of white. The cone gave way to a hissing cloud of steam, however, and Kokujin re-emerged, his body wreathed in red fire, a tattoo of a boiling pit of pitch blazing on his shoulder.

So our first tattoo is the boiling pit of pitch. One of the most visual tattoo ever described, covering the whole body in red fire, his effect is protection. I would use the Crab tattoo, who provide reduction, to simulate this tattoo.

Kokujin's fists grew like stone as the tattoo of obsidian on his back surged with power.

An martial art tattoo, this one can easily be duplicated by the Blaze tattoo.

A Tsuburu no Oni tattoo crawled up Kokujin's back, and the mad monk leaned forward and bellowed. It was a riotous sound, accompanied by a tempest of unbelievably foul-smelling wind. Matsuo was lifted from the ground and dashed against the cavern wall.

An interesting effect for this tattoo : the creation of a cone of wind. Difficult to really imitate that with another tattoo, but you can get it close with the Dragon tattoo. The main difference is going to be in the way damage is dealt (wind instead of fire, which can have different effects regarding to some protection, most likely spells) and the DR of the spell. As a fire-damage tattoo, the Dragon tattoo uses the fire ring. As a wind-damage tattoo, I would use the air ring for the damage rating of this tattoo.

the form of a brilliant white dragon on his chest. The tattoo had not been there only seconds before, and as he rose, Matsuo unleashed a devastating cone of frost from his mouth

Following on my suggestion on making a Dragon tattoo using the air ring, here is a normal Togashi tattoo : the frost dragon tattoo. The Frost Dragon is the wrathful aspect of the fortune Inari, and punishes those who offended him by icing their rice paddies. The Frost Dragon tattoo creates the same effect as the Dragon tattoo, but with frost instead of fire. Using the same basic idea as for the Tsuburu no oni tattoo, the Frost Dragon tattoo would use the water ring for his damage rating instead of fire but works otherwise like the Dragon Tattoo.

Shikibu no Oni tattoo: this tattoo show a representation of the oni lord that stole the bodies of the dead.

A tattoo who isn’t actually described directly in the stories, from the bits of description I assumed it was Shikibu no oni and that the tattoo allowed healing abilities. A dark twist, I would use the Phoenix tattoo to simulate it. The visual of the deadly oni lord moving from one body to another would be quite a scary tattoo.

Here we go, I hope those few lines helped you with ideas about how to turn your Togashi tattoos into scary Kokujin tattoos with little rule changes. There is a lot of possibilities ( Kyoso for Wind, Akuma for Blaze, Yakamo for bamboo…) now open, just take a list of scary shadowlands monsters and you are set to go.

The Persona

Persona
By
Dace

While I feel the Shosuro Actor is a good school, as with anything in life, there are some area’s that I feel it could be improved upon. Or things I would have done differently. Nothing major mind you just some personal taste that I think makes more sense to me.

First things first, breaking the persona. Now I’m of the opinion that doing such should be a hard task. It is after all a technique here that we’re talking about, not a mere use of the Acting skill. Thus I do agree with the side bar on Dealing With Shosuro Actors in a Game, with one minor exception.

In my opinion the strength of a Shosuro Actor isn’t so much in his acting as is it’s his knowledge of the clan in question. For me no amount of acting is going to help you preserve your persona if you simply don’t know what you’re talking about. The book calls for two rolls in certain situations for covering up a mistake. The first roll is for when you say something wrong and you are attempting to ally fears, thus a Sincerity (Deceit)/ Awareness roll vs Investigation (Interrogation)/ Perception works. And if you’re displaying skills or attempting to “fake” it Acting/Awareness vs Investigation (Notice)/ Perception is called for.

But sometimes the character clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Or simply forgets to do something that anyone from that clan would otherwise know to do. In these situations I recommend a Lore (Appropriate Clan)/ Intelligence roll vs Investigation (Notice)/ Perception. The reason for this is that ultimately you have to know something about the clan you’re attempting to infiltrate.

On the flipside, if you don’t really feel like adding more rolls but feel as I do that you can’t fake your way through something you have no clue about I would recommend limiting the number of dice added from the skill by the characters rank in that particular clans lore. So if you’re pretending to be an Akodo Bushi and you need to cover up for not knowing something about the Hall of Ancestors or faking a ritual you just now learned about you would roll either Sincerity or Acting and limit the dice from those two skills by the Lore skill in question.

Another concern comes in the form of the Persona skills themselves. Now during PT I tested it with the idea that the Persona skills never raised or that you weren’t using the higher of the two (your skills or the persona). In some regards it makes sense. You haven’t really learned all those skills. And of course you don’t want a character who uses his persona’s to become a jack of all trades with free skills.

But it also presents an interesting problem in that Ide Tang obviously was a skilled diplomat and his skills were likely higher than just the basic beginner. So here are a few options.

The first and easiest method is to merely allow the character to use the higher of his persona vs non persona skill. Thus if the persona has a Courtier of 1 and the Actor actually has Courtier 3 then use 3. Another method that one might consider is persona stacking. So instead of gaining a new persona at IR 3 and 5 you stack them onto your current persona and thus raise your phantom skills.

But the method I prefer to use is to simply reduce the TN adjustment for the use of skills that both you and your persona knows. Thus if your persona is a Doji Courtier and you want to use Courtier and your normal roll has it at 4 then I would have them roll and require +5 raise in the TN.

The reason for this is that at the end of the day you kinda have to balance the phantom skills against spending real xp on real skills. I think it would be less difficult to “break character” to do something both you and your persona can do than it is to “break character” to do something only you know how to do. But as I mentioned initially the balance between providing PC's with a jack of all trades character with phantom skills that are better than his real skills vs what the character truly knows is a though one to strike. With this method you maintain that it is in fact hard to "break character" even for something you already know and still encourage the character to learn real skills instead of always relying on phantom skills.

Naked Steel # 4

Naked Steel #4 is up. In this update Shawn talks more about Imperial Histories, dropping a note about some extra web content that we'll see :)

Also more on the Book of Air

Naked Steel #3

The third issue of Naked Steel is up. It gives you another sneak peek at Great Clans (which should be availbe soon), Imperial Histories and Book of Air.

Link

Great Clans Preview: Kakita Artisan

by
Dace

You know there are plenty of reasons to hate the Crane. They have good duelist. They have good courtiers. Their bushi are fairly decent as well. So, yeah I can understand why people would hate the Crane. I suppose the Kakita Artisan will just be one more reason to hate on the Crane.

The Yang to the Shosuro Actor's Yin, the Kakita Artisan makes a strong addition to most parties. They will sign extremely well when backed with a Kakita Bushi or a Doji Courtier. But in general for a school whose primary focus isn't politics but art it's got some very good political teeth. Having a Kakita Artisan can make some aspects of an adventuring party easier (gift giving for the win).

The game has its fair share of schools that allow for more artistic pursuits. The Shiba Artisan, Tsi Smith, Shosuro Actor all let you be artistic for your clan. But in the realm of art the Kakita is king. At least to me anyway :).

The Kakita Artisan also gets some very nice support in the form of Paths and Advanced Schools. Overall I expect Crane fans to be very pleased with what is offered.

Kakita Artisan (Artisan)

Unlike their occasional rivals among the Shiba, the Kakita Artisans do not confine themselves merely to the creation of physical art such as paintings or books of poetry. The Artisan Academy devotes itself to the study of every sort of art, whether it is performance-based or creation-based, and studies not only the ways of art but also the ways in which such art may be turned to the service of the Crane Clan.

Rank Four: Undying Name
Your art is now so magnificent that you can make and break the reputations of others by depicting or referencing them in your work. You may create a piece of art referring to another person by rolling [chosen art]/Awareness at a TN equal to 20 plus 5x their Glory Rank. With a success,
you may either increase (if your art is complimentary) or decrease (if it is critical) their Glory by up to 5 points, plus an additional 5 points for every Raise you make on the roll. You may call two additional Raises to inflict a gain of Infamy on the target instead of a Glory change.

You may not target the same person with this technique more than once every six months. Furthermore, persons of high station cannot have their reputations damaged by artists lacking in prestige – the target’s Status Rank cannot exceed your Glory or Status Rank (whichever is higher).

Sample NPC

Kakita Naomi – Crane Storyteller

Kakita Naomi is said to be one of the best storytellers alive. The wit and humor in her poems and stories are the stuff of legends. Her tales have even moved the Crab Champion to tears, though many do not remind the Champion of this.

Naomi is a favorite in the courts of Rokugan, being sought after each winter to entertain and enthrall the host guest. She even has a standing invitation to the Emperors imperial court each winter. She even holds the position of honored guest when visiting the Imperial City.

Her rivalry with the Scorpion playwright Shosuro Sakuya is notorious. While the source of their animosity is unknown it is rumored that in their youth the pair were lovers until Naomi was bethrowed to another.

Naomi does not like her husband. She feels he is barely above being a barbarian. His only saving grace was that he came from the Ide family and not the Moto. She spends as much time as possible away from her husband, touring the empire and giving stirring performances to honor the Crane and its allies.

Naomi’s favorite stories and poems focus around the conflict between love and duty. She has also captivated many a court with gripping tales of honor in the face of great adversity. Naomi is sharp witted and equally sharp tongued. When not entertaining a court she can often be found deeply involved in a conversation of some nature.

Kakita Naomi
School/Rank Kakita Artisan 5
Air: 5
Earth 2
Fire 3
Intelligence 4
Water 3
Void: 4
Glory 4
Honor: 5.0
Status: 4

Skills: Calligraphy 4, Courtier 4, Games: Sadane 6, Etiquette (Conversation, Courtesy) 4, Sincerity (Honesty) 4, Artisan: Poetry 6, Perform: Oratory 6, Perform: Storytelling 6, Perform: Song 4 Tea Ceremony 5, Lore: Heraldry 4, Lore: History 3, Lore: Crane Clan 4

Advantages: Fame (3) Kharmic Tie (3 Shosuro Sakuya) Voice (3)
Disadvantages: Contrary (3) Sworn Enemy (5 Shosuro Sakuya) True Love (3 Shosuro Sakuya)
Techniques: Soul of the Artisan, The Souls Dreams, Free the Spirit, Undying Name, A Gift Beyond Price