Flaw Disadvantage...

[TheBoulder 124]

Am I missing something? Is there only disdain for Bushido?

 

This is in reference to a low honour score.

Edited November 15, 2018 by TheBoulder

[Ikiry0 26]

So far, yes. Though that is actually several disadvantages, as each tenant is a separate disadvantage.

[TheBoulder 124]

Ok gotcha. My issue with this is that the scorpion character in the group is slowly devolving into, Bushido is dumb, I don't care about Bushido, and losing the flavour of the setting.  Any thoughts on how to subtly encourage him to still participate in that uniqueness?

 

Edited November 15, 2018 by TheBoulder

[AtoMaki 1,431]

That's kinda fluffy for a Scorpion. 

[MirumotoOrashu 51]

Agreeing with AtoMaki. 

Not caring much for Bushido and using that to your advantage (using others adherence to it, or allowing oneself to do dishonorable actions no-one else would) is very much the Scorpion flavour. 

If you do want to make sure the Scorpion doesn't get TOO off the rails, try to find ways to award him honour for Duty/Loyalty as it gives double for Scorps.

[TheBoulder 124]

The way I interpreted it is the scorpion often choose to break Bushido to commit acts to allow others to follow Bushido, but that they still hold it in high regard. 

But I'm new to the setting, maybe I've got that wrong...

[Avatar111 553]

Having high "honor" is purely narrative in the edition.

You are mostly only weaker mechanically for having low honor (lose initiative).

But it is all about how other perceive you, i guess.

Edit: the warrior's resolve kata is decent too. So theres that to bait combat focused players.

Edited November 15, 2018 by Avatar111

[omnicrone 159]

12 minutes ago, TheBoulder said:

The way I interpreted it is the scorpion often choose to break Bushido to commit acts to allow others to follow Bushido, but that they still hold it in high regard. 

But I'm new to the setting, maybe I've got that wrong...

That's the case, but it is easy for scorpion samurai to fall down into the "Bushido is dumb" when they start with that perspective. As long as they are loyal, the clan will not care much if a scorpion samurai truly holds Bushido in high regard or not, but if "Bushido is dumb" devolves into "Duty and loyalty is dumb", that scorpion is gone. He'll be considered lucky if the clan just kills him off.

Edited November 15, 2018 by omnicrone

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

49 minutes ago, omnicrone said:

That's the case, but it is easy for scorpion samurai to fall down into the "Bushido is dumb" when they start with that perspective. As long as they are loyal, the clan will not care much if a scorpion samurai truly holds Bushido in high regard or not, but if "Bushido is dumb" devolves into "Duty and loyalty is dumb", that scorpion is gone. He'll be considered lucky if the clan just kills him off.

This.

Scorpion don't care about Honour. They do care about honour.

That is....honour - as an overall score of how well you follow all the bushido tenets - is still important, because Duty (Chugi) is one of those, and Scorpions are expected to place Duty above everything else.

By comparison Honour (Meiyo) the specific bushido tenet called Honour - the one about not touching dead flesh or not persuading someone else to act dishonourably, can get knotted. "Persuading someone to act in a dishonourable fashion to further your own goals" is pretty much "you did see the Bayushi heraldry on my Kimono, right?"

 

That distinction between honour (bushido overall) and Honour (that one tenet of Bushido) is something people (including in-story Scorpions - Bayushi Aramoro and Bayushi Kachiko look to be prime examples) often lose sight of.

 

Because of those double award/half penalty, it means the Scorpion can be honourable - but can do so by being "scorpion honourable" which doesn't look a lot like "crane honourable" or "dragon honourable" or whatever.

Take a ninja assassin  shinobi  totally legitimate courtier with a climbing hobby  with honour 20 or so, who's been ordered to frame a close friend by withholding the testimony they've promised to provide so they are disgraced rather than the person who's actually responsible:

• Refusing to commit an act of disloyalty to your lord despite your significant personal feelings for the people involved - Chugi +3 (+6 for this Scorpion)

• Abetting or covering for a comrade’s massive breach of honour - Gi -Honour Rank x 2 (-2 for this scorpion)

• Breaking your word to someone of equal or higher status - Makoto -Honour Rank (-2 for this scorpion)

For a Scorpion, therefore, that act is a net +2 honour, where for other clans it would be the reverse - for a Dragon, for example who revere Sincerity over Duty, the same act in the same circumstances would be a -4 honour shift.

 

52 minutes ago, Avatar111 said:

Having high "honor" is purely narrative in the edition.

You are mostly only weaker mechanically for having low honor (lose initiative).

But it is all about how other perceive you, i guess.

That and your ability to influence people. Low honour means you pick up an appropriate number of flaw disadvantages - which, as noted, are (at the moment) all generally going to be Disdain For [tenet] flaws unless the GM chooses to create a custom disadvantage which they define as a flaw.

Generally - aside from Warrior's and Courtier's Resolve (don't ignore the latter; being able to dump off a load of strife as a support action is a nice ability, especially in a water stance free action), it's more significant in intrigues and non-conflict scenes than skirmishes or duels.

 

 

Essentially, it's a negative reinforcement loop for 'bad behaviour'.

If - for example - your Scorpion keeps lying to and manipulating people and losing honour for violating Makoto (Sincerity), the GM is likely to stick you with the 'Disdain For Sincerity' flaw.

Which means that after that point you start getting hit with negative rerolls on courtesy checks in court when trying to get people to believe you because you have a 'naturally untrustworthy air' and people start to assume you're lying until proven otherwise (and sometimes not even then).

By comparison, a 'Paragon Of Sincerity' Dragon would get positive rerolls to the same check, because people are predisposed to believe they are telling the truth. They probably won't understand what the unnecessarily cryptic northerner means, but they're more likely to accept that it would be true, if they did.

Edited November 15, 2018 by Magnus Grendel

[omnicrone 159]

It really need to be stressed how much Scorpion are strict with Duty and Loyalty. No clan is as adamantly strict and requires a blind adherence to a tenet of Bushido as the Scorpion are with Loyalty, maybe only Crab and Courage comes close. Not even Lion with Honor or Crane with Courtesy are as strict: a Lion/Crane samurai is usually forgiven by their peers to commit a trifling/minor breach of their main tenet to avoid making a massive breach of some other tenet.

A Scorpion is dead (or worse than that) if he ever shows disloyalty to his lord, family, clan or (worst yet) to the Empire, however minor, for any reason whatsoever. There is no noble reason for a Scorpion be disloyal in the eyes of the clan and his fate is probably sealed as soon as any palpable sign of disloyalty from him becomes known.

Edited November 15, 2018 by omnicrone

[Avatar111 553]

4 minutes ago, omnicrone said:

It really need to be stressed how much Scorpion are strict with Duty and Loyalty. No clan is as adamantly strict and requires a blind adherence to a tenet of Bushido as the Scorpion are with Loyalty, maybe only Crab and Courage comes close. Not even Lion with Honor or Crane with Courtesy are as strict: a Lion/Crane samurai is usually forgiven by their peers to commit a trifling/minor breach of their main tenet to avoid making a massive breach of some other tenet.

A Scorpion is dead (or worse than that) if he ever shows disloyalty to his lord, family, clan or (worst yet) to the Empire, however minor, for any reason whatsoever. There is no noble reason for a Scorpion be disloyal in the eyes of the clan and his fate is probably sealed as soon as any palpable sign of disloyalty from him becomes known.

Try telling that to Kachiko.

[AtoMaki 1,431]

10 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Which means that after that point you start getting hit with negative rerolls on courtesy checks in court when trying to get people to believe you because you have a 'naturally untrustworthy air' and people start to assume you're lying until proven otherwise (and sometimes not even then).

You are getting the penalties when you are actively trying to uphold the disdained virtue, not when you do something in accordance of it in general. Say, Disdain for Sincerity only triggers when you try to press your version of the truth by invoking the Tenet of Sincerity (aka "This is true because samurai shouldn't lie!"). Also, people will sometimes feel that you are not cool with the tenet when you specifically express it but it is not a "naturally untrustworthy air" by any means (that would be Whispers of Insincerity or something like that). 

The Disdain for Bushido disads are more about triggering honorable characters (see the example quote for them and how it ended in the story) and being a shameless nihilist. It does not make you worse at doing things for the sake of them, only when you give up your principle of having no principles. They are a pretty disappointing bunch of disads in my opinion . 

[omnicrone 159]

1 minute ago, Avatar111 said:

Try telling that to Kachiko.

If you are as powerful as her you are off the hook. 

[Avatar111 553]

2 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

You are getting the penalties when you are actively trying to uphold the disdained virtue, not when you do something in accordance of it in general. Say, Disdain for Sincerity only triggers when you try to press your version of the truth by invoking the Tenet of Sincerity (aka "This is true because samurai shouldn't lie!"). Also, people will sometimes feel that you are not cool with the tenet when you specifically express it but it is not a "naturally untrustworthy air" by any means (that would be Whispers of Insincerity or something like that). 

The Disdain for Bushido disads are more about triggering honorable characters (see the example quote for them and how it ended in the story) and being a shameless nihilist. It does not make you worse at doing things for the sake of them, only when you give up your principle of having no principles. They are a pretty disappointing bunch of disads in my opinion . 

Im ok with them.

I just find that there arent many mechanical advantages of having high honor.

But it is probably the whole purpose; honor shouldn't be something everybody wants for power, it should be a sacrifice, mostly.

So i'm fine with it.

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

1 minute ago, omnicrone said:

If you are as powerful as her you are off the hook. 

The problem there is that she probably thinks she is loyal - she certainly sees herself as loyal to the Scorpion (after all, trying to ensure the Scorpion's primacy is what fixing the Emerald Championship was all about).

Her loyalty to the Empire as a whole....is more a matter of perspective. I put it in another thread as a perception that "what's good for Bayushi Kachiko & the Scorpion Clan is good for the Empire." - how she'd react if put in a situation where the two were clearly and unambiguously opposed to one another will be a test of that particular tenet, and it's a situation she's yet to be placed in (in the new L5R, anyway). Watch this space around Shoju's regency.

By comparison, messing around with Hotaru isn't technically violating loyalty. It's improper, it's scandalous, and lots of other things like that and a violation of a whole swathe of tenets (I'd say Rei, Meiyo and Gi?). But unless her duty is compromised (as in 'you complete all the tasks you are set by the clan and the empire without regard to the impact on your lover') it's not a violation of Chugi.

Of course, some senior scorpion are starting to think her judgement and loyalty is compromised by the relationship.... and if that becomes a majority opinion, then yes, she's basically a dead woman.

 

 

[sidescroller 137]

13 hours ago, TheBoulder said:

The way I interpreted it is the scorpion often choose to break Bushido to commit acts to allow others to follow Bushido, but that they still hold it in high regard. 

But I'm new to the setting, maybe I've got that wrong...

This is one of the principles of the clan's foundation. But individual samurai are tools of the clan. It benefits the clan to have agents that believe bushido is pointless and that adherence to it is foolish. 

[Dathsa 4]

I'd argue that violating Bushido enough that you sink into the territory of Flaws also makes the "Whispers of..." flaws an option. A samurai who who lies and betrays to the extent that their honor is destroyed is likely to have that noticed and assigning "Whispers of Treachery" as their honor flaw seems very justified. On a humorous note, the character in that flaw's flavor text is a Scorpion who's only response to being accused of treachery is, "Would you believe it's for a good cause?"

[UnitOmega 2,818]

"Whispers" is for Glory, typically I think which if you're openly not following Honor will also suffer. But basically low Glory isn't "people don't know you" it's "the only thing people know about you is the bad stuff". 

[Dathsa 4]

I don't see why you couldn't use it for both.

[AK_Aramis 1,002]

1 hour ago, Dathsa said:

I don't see why you couldn't use it for both.

Both "don't know you" and "what they know of you is bad"???

Because Glory isn't really about who knows you. And because what gains or loses glory mechanically isn't about stealth.  The sidebar on p. 304 is clear that Glory is "how my Lord perceives me"; the unspoken corollary is that  instant glory change is a game artifact to reduce the paperwork.

Essentially, a glory loss that goes unnoticed causes no loss. "A character must forfeit glory to undertake certain actions publicly." (p. 305, emphasis added)

In prior editions, and I'm certain it will eventually get mentioned, doing a task for one's liege that no one but the liege knows is still worth glory... even if the act itself was a glory-loser… if the liege ordered it.

The Scorpion told to kill the local geisha house's obasan would stake glory for the murder. His liege would know. If anyone else comes to know, he loses glory for that murder. When the lord finds out you succeeded, his public praise over a private matter, "Ah, Batu, you are so loyal and make me so proud" is all others know... but that alone is the glory for the deed in the public

[Dathsa 4]

No, I'm saying I don't think it's a stretch to use the Whispers flaws for low honor, not that low glory makes you unknown.

[UnitOmega 2,818]

"Because honor is internal to the character, this occurs no matter how few witnesses there are to their fateful decision."

So yeah, Honor is entirely personal, so it doesn't make sense to suddenly gain other people's whispers when you do something which hurts your Honor - it is entirely about your outlook on Bushido. Now, you can say "what if you do something dishonorable publically?", sure, but then you're also almost assuredly losing Glory, as AK_Aramis notes because you're doing something which changes people's outlook on you as "a good samurai" which includes your lord. Because even if your lord is a scumbag scorpion, you're not supposed to be doing dishonor in public, that's not how this works. 

[Myrion 528]

I'd argue that while the individual actions you took weren't witnessed and the Honor loss purely internal, people will start noticing that you are not behaving according to Bushidō. Once your Honor goes low enough, it will begin to show in all sorts of little ways - and that's where Whispers can come from. On top of that, in this world, it might also show in other ways. Not as extreme as the changes in the game Fable (if you know it), but in the same vein. 

[AK_Aramis 1,002]

6 hours ago, UnitOmega said:

"Because honor is internal to the character, this occurs no matter how few witnesses there are to their fateful decision."

So yeah, Honor is entirely personal, so it doesn't make sense to suddenly gain other people's whispers when you do something which hurts your Honor - it is entirely about your outlook on Bushido. Now, you can say "what if you do something dishonorable publically?", sure, but then you're also almost assuredly losing Glory, as AK_Aramis notes because you're doing something which changes people's outlook on you as "a good samurai" which includes your lord. Because even if your lord is a scumbag scorpion, you're not supposed to be doing dishonor in public, that's not how this works. 

Except when said "scumbag scorpion" happens to order you to take one for the team clan. But at least you get double honor for duty... and a hefty one at that.

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

2 hours ago, AK_Aramis said:

Except when said "scumbag scorpion" happens to order you to take one for the team clan. But at least you get double honor for duty... and a hefty one at that.

Indeed. You can sit there all smug at receiving Paragon of Duty at the same time as the Magistrate's interrogators are kicking the crud out of you and you get Whispers of Treachery.

High honour, low glory is kind of the ideal of 'Scorpion honourable' - almost the exact reverse of Crane & Lion. "I will be your villain" and all that.