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Scorpion is really cool because of reasons I posted in another thread, but their backstory only got explored *after* the first bit of the CCG... Which didn't have them playable and featured the scorpion coup that turned them into laughable bad guys. They were only given a chance to be the shadow heroes of the Empire as backstory to how they got so close to the emperor, so every bit of writing from 1e of the rpg on technically took place after their betrayal. It wasn't until 4e decided to be setting neutral that it explored what it meant to be a Scorpion before the coup. And by then, writers had been writing them as antagonists for 16 years. The stuff about them selling opium and poisoning other clans for the lulz was all set post coup, when they were a fallen clan hunted by the other clans to be wiped out basically. Before that they basically controlled the underworld in a 'we allow this to happen, but anyone who starts trying to poison the Lion leadership happens to overdose on opium' way. They made peasent rebels and ronin uprisings quietly disappear without excess death, by removing the heads of the snake, and leaving the body to flee. They also did the jobs that no one else could do - if a powerful, renown samurai was found to be influenced by jigoku, they were the ones who answered this crime with death. They killed those who were too powerful, too influential, to be handled by the courts, because the Emperors understood that if their right hand man in an imperial family turned out to be tainted by maho, and imprisoned for it, it would shake people's faith in the Emperor and his court. Better for a well respected veteran samurai to be assassinated by vile peasants, or to pass away peacefully in his sleep, or to accidentally be killed by his son after a training blade was switched with a real one, or etc. A proper scorpion was never known to be an assassin. Scorpion are super interesting in a way that a Crab samurai breaking bushido isn't. Because Crabs (despite flanderization) still were supposed to be practitioners of Bushido, they still handled their grievances honorably, they just weren't required to act with honor against Jigoku (nor were any other clan). While you can say that Crab handled the only threat of Jigoku, plot said that Lots of Maho tainted people existed, who had spread Jigoku in the heartlands of the empire, that magistrates barely managed to keep from turning into a crisis (in post scorpion coup rokugan) They were also, until the scorpion coup, one of the main reasons stuff like the Clan War never happened. Whenever a Lion general got too war hungry to take nearby clans territories, the Scorpion would quietly work out a way to make him stop, be it through blackmailing him, killing him, or manipulating his underlings to steal his status. The Scorpion were why the Crab never started marching on the Crane in a war of obliteration despite the Crane provoking the Crab for 800 years. Minor scuffles were allowed, but all out war was contained and prevented. It's part of why the Jigoku manipulated the scorpion to do their Coup, and get them our of the way, which is why the coup lead immediately into the Clan War.
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Oct 8, 2017 02:52
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Also the Burakamin line is especially weird because I just went back to read the 4e line about eta and while it talks about testing swords on 'eta', it states that only the most vile ronin and honorless samurai stoop so low to test a blade, even if it's technically legal for any samurai, and that being known to kill them is like being known as someone who kills dogs or cats for fun, and will quickly get you removed from social circles, even if not arrested. The beta just makes it seem like the norm. Edit: later tables note that killing an innocent, even if legally, loses 10 honor, so maybe that's supposed to apply to Burakamin? Would make sense with previous editions going 'this is possible, but honorless scum do it and no one else' KittyEmpress fucked around with this message at 04:39 on Oct 8, 2017 |
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Oct 8, 2017 03:47
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Nessus posted:Perhaps the samurai can just be suspended without pay for two weeks and then sent to a different prefecture? I mean, I don't think it's a bad thing to say 'some samurai abuse their power and are utterly terrible people who are hated by other samurai'. One of the big points of previous editions was that every clan had some bad points, even if their flaws were often ignored by writers who liked them. A lot of these flaws related to how they treated those under them. Crane clan was vain to the point where they would have members who would permanently scar and maim anyone who made the slightest breach of etiquette, be they lesser samurai, peasants, or Burakamin. Their peasants trained each other in this ettiquete about as much as they did their actual trades, to survive these terrible Crane. The Lion clan view their peasants as little more than bodies to be used in war, and have a might makes right point of view where if you can't defend your land, you don't deserve it. They war with the other great clans more often than any other, and their peasants suffer for it. The Crab clan pushes and pushes their peasants to work harder and harder, but also refuses to let them have access to quality tools. Because of the need to constant rearmor and rearm their warriors on the wall, their peasants are expected to work with some of the worst tools in the empire. The dragon clan and its peasants live in the worst region of the empire (at least as far as great clans go). Their peasants subsist and most dragon clan samurai just say 'this will test you, and by enduring you will grow' because they are all about Zen and suffering to grow, at least the Togashi. Unicorn, Phoenix, and Scorpion actually all treat their peasants pretty well. Their flaws are all more or less focused outside of how they treat their peasantry. Unicorn have always been the least weird about stuff that would make you a Burakamin, and tend to treat peasants and Burakamin with respect (And also are known to do legal fuckery owing back to how long they were in self exile, to claim peasants and gaijin who are talented are 'long lost cousins' and this elevate them to samurai.) Phoenix ensures every peasant is educated, and basically forbids hurting peasants. They are the Clan that if you hurt their peasant, they will push to take you to the imperial courts, while most other clans are fine with Just some reparations for the cost to the Lord. Scorpion also treat Burakamin comparatively well compared to other clans, since they are samurai who work close with death, and thus don't see it as unclean. They keep their lands pretty crime free most of the time (since they control the underworld they can make their lands safe subtly), and whenever There s a big secretive scorpion meeting they host lavish parties in every village where every peasant and Burakamin can drink and eat like samurai, and party into the night. This allows the scorpion to have their secretive ninja meetings, and to not feel bad for killing peasant spies, since no non spy peasants would choose to go to the far homes of the Samurai on the day of celebration (so far as scorpion thinks, at least. Maybe some of them are innocent. It's left open ended). But even most of the clans with flaws related to their peasantry aren't complete assholes. It's only the worst examples that do the above bad things. Crane peasants are richer than any other peasants, to the point where they eat better than samurai from the Dragon clans, most of the time. They are the only peasants that can regularly afford to eat full meals including meat, and generally eat fish with every meal, and bird at least every week or two. Lion peasants are almost all trained to fight, and have no bandit activity in their lands. They are the safest of any clans peasants, and never experience the feeling of bandits killing villages for their goods. Crab peasants, despite being pushed to be tougher and work harder, are valued. The Crab know that without their peasantry, they wouldn't be able to hold the Wall, and Jigoku would kill everyone. They are like the Phoenix in that hurting their peasantry or lower is a huge offense. Even if directly disrespected by a peasant or spit on, a Crab samurai is supposed to never kill them, and instead train them for battle, where they will join the crab samurai on the wall, watching for Jigoku. Most peasants aren't dumb enough to do this. Dragon peasants can make the journey to a Togashi Dragon Monastery and be reborn as family of Togashi, becoming Samurai. And while they are the poorest peasants, this is because the Dragon clan is the poorest clan. Their samurai barely eat better than their peasants, because they also take the lowest amount as stipend. Where most clans take like 80% of what a village makes in a year, the Dragon take around 35% on average. They also take any crime, even that against peasants very seriously, and are the only clan that uses stuff like forensic evidence, instead of only taking the word of samurai as evidence. They tend to seek justice for any crime due to this, and manage it very often. Every clan is meant to be able to play a villain in L5R, and many of these villains have been people who kill those they are allowed to without thought. It's not a bad thing for the setting, in my opinion at least, to allow Evil people to exist. Now, if someone sits down at your table and says 'I'm that crane that kills peasants for looking at me' then maybe say no, but I think the game would be a lot worse if every Samurai was some Paladin, paragon of shining good who never ever do anything bad. It leads to stuff like people talking above about how the only evil thing in L5R is Jigoku 'which the crab clan handles. When in reality, Jigoku is a big outside threat, but any clan can play the villain of your L5R campaign and be believable. And unlike in D&D, it's intentionally something that society is kinda messed up about. An evil samurai who operates inside the laws as they abuse and twist things for their own pleasure is hard to deal with. You can't just murder them (unless you are a scorpion doing it secretly, which is another reason scorpions exist). You gotta get them disgraced, turn high rank lords and samurai against them, get people to openly testify against them (Or find physical evidence if you are a weirdo dragon clan), get them convicted, and then watch them seppuku. Or you can say "gently caress what people think about me' and challenge them to a duel and cut their heads off infront of people. I like the fact that a terrible person can even flourish as a samurai, and that ronin are talked about as sometimes being far, far more well loved by the common folk than samurai with lords. I like that there's nuance of samurai not being paragons of justice. And while it totally has lead to me getting That Guy once or twice who thinks everyone not a samurai should be a free kill, you get that in every system. I've had far more people who want to kill commoners in DnD than people who really wanna legally murder lower castes in L5R. And either way, you just talk to them about it and if they don't change you go 'okay, please don't come back '. But hey, it cultures in a game not being 100% morally good is a problem, I'm sure there's games that support the assumption that every One in power is a good person. But the only way you can look at the Empire and the lines of atrocities that happened in the old canon (entire family lines wiped our, villages burned to the child because one person was found to be jigoku worshipping, etc) and possibly think 'this is a morally good place' is because they are set up in opposition of a realm that believes turning everyone into murderous, cannibalistic psychopaths is a good plan. But over all, There s a lot of darkness inside of the Rokugan, and the game doesn't pretend it's black and white so much as black and grey, with some Pcs and NPCs happening to be much closer to white.
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Oct 8, 2017 19:58
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Joe Slowboat posted:So, to confirm, does this mean they all look Tainted, or they can all recognize Taint in others? The latter. It's a quick list of 'every CLAN person knows X, Y, Z'
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Oct 9, 2017 00:49
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Comrade Gorbash posted:I mean, "you can't teleport through shields" is literally how Star Trek does it, and because it's magic it'd need even less technobabble to justify. Just say shields are a specific application of magic circles or wards and that's why it messes with teleportation. Hell you could even pad your spell list with a high level teleport that can bypass shields, so players can salivate over it even though maybe one in a thousand campaigns will ever reach the level requirement for it. They kinda can't do that because iirc, teleport in starfinder is on a single classes spell list at the highest spell level as it is, meaning you need to be like 14th? Level to even access it. Can't really make a higher level version of it with that.
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Oct 14, 2017 02:48
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