(Admittedly Lazy) Question about Ronin

[WildKnight 59]

I just got my book yesterday and I'm reading it cover to cover, but my son has been kicking around an idea for a character ever since the Beginner Box came out, and I'm just looking for someone to indulge my laziness and tell me where I can direct him to find his answers before I make my way to it organically by reading the book.

In past editions there was a "Clan Ronin" concept where you started with the School benefits of your original Clan for Rank 1, but couldn't gain more ranks because you were currently Ronin.  Is there an equivalent in this system, or do Ronin simply continue to rank up in their school anyway, OR do they have to take a Ronin school from the very beginning, etc?  If there's a specific page that references this that I could point him to, that would be deeply appreciated.

Thanks in advance for any help!

[TheHobgoblyn 352]

You could by all make a character just like you were making a clan samurai and then impose upon them that they had become a ronin.

Losing one's place within a clan seems a far more likely path towards becoming a ronin than being born as one as I have trouble imagining how a ronin would maintain a household, find a spouse and carry forth their bloodline.

I suppose one would represent this by a deduction of status and glory (and likely whatever caused them to become a ronin in the first place might indicate a loss of honor). I don't think this would nor probably should confer any mechanical bonus, though the non-mechanical bonus of not having to answer to a particular master could be considered a fair trade-off.

However, there is no good way of imposing the restriction "they cannot advance in their original school" to my understanding.

I suppose I could imagine, for instance, someone humiliatingly failing the Topaz championship in a way that made their whole clan look bad and caused them to be exiled. In such a case, it isn't like their training would go away and be replaced by some other training.

[nameless ronin 706]

The problem with this concept in this edition is that there is no multischooling mechanic. There's no official way of starting as, say, an Akodo bushi complete with a rank 1 school tech and all the other perks of being an Akodo, and then continuing to advance in a ronin school instead of going for rank 2 in the Akodo school. By the book, clan ronin get family and clan benefits but they start and stay in the Worldly Ronin school (p. 87, the sidebar comment explains the clan/family stuff).

Now, p. 87 also refers to p. 306, which is a page in the GM chapter that outlines a campaign style with characters from more humble beginnings. According to p. 306, a "fallen samurai" starts with the normal school package but with a lower honor than normal (which is silly, it doesn't make sense that a fallen samurai would keep his family's glory - a measure of his reputation as a worthwhile retainer - yet lose honor - which has no link whatsoever to a character's unfortunate circumstances). However, I assume this is still a samurai who can further his training in his clan school since there's no explanation there about becoming ronin and training as a ronin instead of continuing in your clan school either.

So, to sum up: by the book, ronin start in and stay in the ronin school (p. 87). If they were part of a samurai family from a clan at first, they do get the clan and family package; if they were born outside such a family there's an altenative package for that on p. 306. Going from regular (clan-trained) samurai to ronin is not supported (sadly, as this makes musha shugyo characters something a GM will have to adjudicate on an ad hoc basis). You can also play a fallen samurai (see p. 306), but that is not technically a ronin.

 

13 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Losing one's place within a clan seems a far more likely path towards becoming a ronin than being born as one as I have trouble imagining how a ronin would maintain a household, find a spouse and carry forth their bloodline.

Sexual urges don't care whether you maintain a household or have a spouse.  

 

[WildKnight 59]

The problem with all of that being; his concept relies on his character being a trained Shinobi, who is also ronin, and the ronin school offers zero access to Ninjitsu techniques 8(

[UnitOmega 2,818]

I'm pretty sure anybody trained in Ninjutsu would not be allowed to leave the clan. the back of the Scorpion Novella Whispers of Shadow and Steel suggests similarly (but not clearly) as Shinobi do not get a retirement, they must accept death before they go senile. You might be able to rig something with the new "Spy" title in Emerald Empire, but clans would not want anyone running around with knowledge of their technically illegal activities. Except maybe Crab. "Yeah we ambush and poison goblins. Nobody cares about them".

[nameless ronin 706]

2 hours ago, WildKnight said:

The problem with all of that being; his concept relies on his character being a trained Shinobi, who is also ronin, and the ronin school offers zero access to Ninjitsu techniques 8(

In similar vein to @UnitOmega's comment: that's an very unlikely concept in the first place. You're either born ronin, in which case you can't be a trained shinobi unless your father teaches you and he's a ronin shinobi; or you are made ronin by your lord, which really is not going to happen to a shinobi who knows altogether too much to be allowed to run loose without clan ties; or you become ronin in a 47 ronin kind of way when everybody you would owe fealty to gets killed, which is nearly unimaginable in Rokugan's clan setup (I assume there were a bunch of this type of characters after the Scorpion Clan Coup in the AEG timeline, but that's beyond exceptional); and the latter two mean it's very improbable for the father-was-a-ronin-shinobi clause to happen.

That said, the Worldly Ronin is not a bad school at all for a ronin who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty and happens to be good at it too. Make Skullduggery a bonus curriculum skill, maybe Martial ¨[ranged] too, to get the school benefit; keep up your social skills to be able to blend in and deceive; and just generally look for sneaky, backstabby approaches to solve your problems.

That also said, I personally would not like such a character at my table. A thoroughly dishonorable character with no ties to a lord to keep him from going haywire is pretty much the opposite of what makes the setting tick - especially in this edition, where the game is supposed to revolve around the giri vs ninjo dichotomy - and is borderline impossible to fit into a larger group. If you and him can make it work then more power to you, but for myself I'd probably  pitch switching to a different RPG altogether or at the very least to a previous edition of this one if his mind is set on that character concept.  

 

[WildKnight 59]

Its funny that you assume a character without a lord is thoroughly dishonorable.  Honor is the exact reason the character is where he is.  As a Scorpion, he was trained that the purpose of his underhanded deeds was to serve the greater good of the Empire at large, and it was coming to the realization that his Daimyo was using his skills for strictly selfish reasons that caused him to choose to assassinate his Daimyo in the first place.  The character has honor (admittedly, the typical somewhat warped version espoused by the Scorpion clan, but do you just flatly disallow Scorpions in your games?)

Second of all, the reason he is ronin is because his public court position was personal guard to his Daimyo, and the fact that his Daimyo died on his watch resulted in him becoming ronin (which I have always understood to be a relatively common reason for someone becoming ronin...).  The whole world doesn't know he was secretly a spy and assassin.  Its not to say that someone who does know won't be looking for him, but in the immediate sense, there's no reason he couldn't have been forced into the life of a ronin.

You seem to be making a lot of assumptions about a concept and the kind of game I run based on very little information.  I would actually say that this concept falls very much within the boundaries of a character torn between duty and personal desire.

[Waywardpaladin 419]

Just use the Kolat school shinobi from Emerald Empire. 

[nameless ronin 706]

6 hours ago, WildKnight said:

Its funny that you assume a character without a lord is thoroughly dishonorable. 

I'm assuming a shinobi is dishonorable. Because they are. Being ronin doesn't enter into this particular equation. It's your table, do what you want, but choosing to murder your own lord and not owning up to that act is way down south of the border on the honor-dishonor scale according to bushido - including for the Scorpion.

[Franwax 386]

46 minutes ago, nameless ronin said:

including for the Scorpion

Especially for the Scorpion  !!

[nameless ronin 706]

13 minutes ago, Franwax said:

Especially for the Scorpion  !!

Duty and Loyalty can be conflicting in this case. Killing your lord and not taking responsibility for it though, that's pretty clear-cut.

[In the middle of the night 7]

the only way out for a "honorable" samurai that keep to his loyalty and duty (as every scorpion should as they are the real values that keep a scorpion from becoming just a selfish, self indulgent, backstabber) is to actualy refuse to obey his lord and committing seppuku (that way he will also give a public demostration of his dissent with his lord's way and may even end up atracting the attention of some higher up that actualy have the power and the moral/honoroble high ground to rectify his lord behavior)... assassinating one lord may be the "right thing to do" but not the honorable thing to do.... that is the key dicotomy of a samurai... and is also what this edition focus on...

So... if the shinobi (that is to say a samurai who is willing and trained to trade every other form of honorable conduit only in order to keep up his duty and loyalty) chose to forsake even those 2 values in order to follow what he think is right... than YES he certainly is a disonohorable character deep to the bones...

[nameless ronin 706]

I did not intend to step on anyone's toes, so I'm just going to explain my position a bit more and then bow out of this topic.

An untied samurai with a the-end-justifies-the-means attitude and a certain set of skills is not a bad character concept. In fact, it could be great fun and very cool. Let me stress that: I think this concept, in general, can be awesome. However, I don't think it fits the setting, the system supports it poorly, and it can put a lot of strain on the party dynamic if this involves more than one player. That last one is not a concern if this is supposed to be a solo campaign, so maybe it's not relevant here. The other two though are fairly large issues.

Unlike feudal Japan, Rokugan has a highly organized structure - you are part of your immediate family, your extended Family, your clan, and finally the empire. If your daimyo is not the worthy lord who deserves your loyalty, that's something the layer upon layer of higher ranking lords above him should address - and if they don't, at least not that you can tell, it's not up to you to deal with it instead. They are your superiors, and that means you defer to them pretty much absolutely. You might express your dissent in the most rigourous manner possible by committing seppuku, but you cannot disregard their authority. If you look at p. 300 and following, which detail honor in the game, assassinating your lord is at least a handful massive breaches of various tenets of bushido. It's unthinkable for anyone with the merest shred of honor. Walking away from this instead of trying to save what little honor you can by falling on your blade is an equally unthinkable next step after that.

If you also happen to be a trained shinobi, it's almost as unthinkable that the superiors of your lord are unaware of this. Even if your lord were to want to try and keep this from those above him in the family and clan hierarchy (improbable in itself), he'd have a very hard time succeeding in doing so. And as a trained shinobi, you'd be on the radar. It would be discourteous not to let your lord manage your duties, but if he falls away the question of what to do with you will be raised immediately higher up the command chain.

This is Rokugan. If you're a member of a clan, it's next to impossible to be a lone wolf. Your duties are to that what is larger than you - your family, your clan, your empire. And everything is organized according to this principle. I get that we're talking about player characters, who are by definition exceptional, but it would take an utterly improbable confluence of exceptions to become a ronin shinobi who murdered his own lord.

Aside from the setting, the mechanics of this edition are no help either. You can be a ronin, you can be dishonorable, and you can be a shinobi, but the system doesn't like any of that. The design implies it's better if you want to be a good samurai, if you want to be at least decently honorable, and of you let the rules of society guide you. And that's not some inconsequential design idea: there are lots of mechanics throughout the entire system that heed this principle, from ninjo vs giri over virtues and flaws based on your honor rank to having to stake/forfeit honor, and so on. There are also no mechanics for having had formal training in a school in the past but training as something else now aside from titles, and those that exist now really don't fit the ronin concept (probably in large part because "ronin" is not exactly a title to aspire to). Finally, ninjutsu is extremely limited so far: only four techniques even exist; no school offers training in ninjutsu in general, these techniques are all privileged access and there is at most one in any curriculum rank.

Thus my suggestion to look at previous editions (it'd still be Rokugan, but you'd at least have a rule for switching from a clan school to training as a ronin and more conventional mechanics for ninjutsu) or at other RPGs (you will likely have to establish a more amenable setting, but you'd get to make something that really suits what you want to do).

 

[Void Crane 189]

Hi WildKnight. I have some thoughts:

MECHANICALLY: As already mentioned there is no official way to jump schools at present. There’s a thread on home brewing solutions that has interesting ideas. Without going down that road I see two mechanical options with how things are written right now for a Ronin with Shinobi techniques. (A) Worldly Ronin school with “Stolen Knowledge” on page 96 for your samurai heritage. That gets you Skulk. Shinobi light. Or (B) just let your son’s PC progress as a Shosuro Infiltrator (or other Shinobi school) despite the fact that they are Ronin. If you don’t like those options then I think you are stuck with the relatively labor intensive option to (C) home brew something on your own...

STORY-WISE: I share some of the reservations mentioned about a PC samurai who has assassinated their lord. And escaped relatively unscathed to Ronin-hood. With secret techniques that the clan would desperately want to keep concealed. I think a PC like that has a hard time fitting in anywhere near “polite society” and is actively being hunted by the Scorpion. Most of the other Great Clan could make “good use” out of the PC if they learned of him ... and might seek to capture them. That would logically include ording other PCs to betray him.

Its your campaign, but might I suggest the knowledge comes from somewhere in the PCs history? Shinobi Knowledge could be handed down generations by Ronin used by the Imperial family, often at contested crossroads between the Great Clans. A great example of this is mentioned in EE in the City of the Rich Frog (located at a crossroads originally claimed by the Dragon, Lion & Unicorn). There Miya Imperial Governors uses a lot of Ronin because they are independent and (hopefully!) impartial. The Ronin there have even started using the House name of Kaeru and potentially take new Ronin in regardless of their past if they are competent. The Great Clans grumble. But the Ronin are “less bad” than their enemies taking over. And they can’t directly buck a Miya family Governor....

Such a PC lives a dangerous life and potentially becomes a deniable asset. But hey ... that’s still better than being a dirt farmer somewhere in Rokugan.

What ever you do, Good luck with your campaign!

Edited December 27, 2018 by Void Crane

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

Can't you get access to skulk via a family bloodline result?

[Void Crane 189]

7 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Can't you get access to skulk via a family bloodline result?

Yes. It’s called Stolen knowledge. You essentially get a technique of your choice.

[MamoruK 23]

for making a clan ronin at CC I would go through all the steps until you get to the school and then just pick the ronin school.

[TheHobgoblyn 352]

On 12/25/2018 at 9:47 PM, nameless ronin said:

Sexual urges don't care whether you maintain a household or have a spouse.  

Given the social constraints that samurai are under, if Ronin are going to be having random sexual liasons with anyone-- it would be with peasants.

In fact, I am surprised that there isn't quite a lot more indication in the setting that samurai are screwing peasants-- and not exclusively geisha.

Oddly, one of the recent Scorpion stories though indicated that samurai can marry peasant women and they would be elevated to the rank of samurai, but that was a case in which it was the younger non-heir son in the family and that particular peasant was chosen because she could pass as a body-double for the Champion's wife, so I don't know if that could be taken as normal.

But-- given the number of peasant boys who likely get conscripted and die in pointless inter-clan skirmishes, I could certainly imagine there would be enough additional peasant girls that ronin would couple with them. But because a ronin wouldn't have an officially assigned or designated home, no claim on any lands at all-- those children would likely be considered part of the baby mother's family rather than the ronin's family in terms of official census and documentation. Thus the rank of samurai would not be passed onto them.

A ronin can't really build a household since they aren't considered to belong to the society enough to have claim on any land on which they could build a house.

So children of ronin would almost always not be considered ronin, but would instead be considered peasants-- or at least within a certain gray area.

[Agasha Kanetake 49]

53 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

In fact, I am surprised that there isn't quite a lot more indication in the setting that samurai are screwing peasants-- and not exclusively geisha.

As far as I know, a geisha is not a prostitute. From what I understand, they are women firstly trained in the arts of entertaining through pleasant and erudite discussion, as well as performing arts such as dancing, singing and playing musical instruments. My knowledge is limited and I will let others more knowledgeable explain if sex and/or nudity is a part of what they do, but I wanted to bring up this common misconception.

[TheHobgoblyn 352]

Just now, Agasha Kanetake said:

As far as I know, a geisha is not a prostitute. From what I understand, they are women firstly trained in the arts of entertaining through pleasant and erudite discussion, as well as performing arts such as dancing, singing and playing musical instruments. My knowledge is limited and I will let others more knowledgeable explain if sex and/or nudity is a part of what they do, but I wanted to bring up this common misconception.

I didn't say they were and agree with your sentiment.

But whenever in L5R there has been a suggestion of a samurai having a child or even relations with anyone from the peasant class, in every single L5R book or story ever it has ALWAYS been a geisha. In fact, every time anything about geisha has ever been written in any L5R book ever, one need not get very many sentences deep before it is not-so-subtly indicated that they have sexual relations with samurai on a regular basis.

[Agasha Kanetake 49]

2 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

But whenever in L5R there has been a suggestion of a samurai having a child or even relations with anyone from the peasant class, in every single L5R book or story ever it has ALWAYS been a geisha. In fact, every time anything about geisha has ever been written in any L5R book ever, one need not get very many sentences deep before it is not-so-subtly indicated that they have sexual relations with samurai on a regular basis.

It's very possible that geisha has this meaning in Rokugan, and in this context your post makes perfect sense. I'm new to L5R with this FFG edition, and I have not read anything that came out before FFG took over.

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

10 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

So children of ronin would almost always not be considered ronin, but would instead be considered peasants-- or at least within a certain gray area.

Very much a grey area. Ronin are still considered samurai, after all, and higher status than a peasant.

So I could see a ronin's child wanting to claim (or at least considering claiming) samurai status and go off "on a life of adventure" (we are talking from the perspective of a young teenage child here!) rather than wanting to claim the safety and security of the clan membership of their peasant heritage.

 

 

Geisha, by comparison, are technically Burakumin and sub-peasant, despite their wealth, influence and social cache*. So there's very much a pressure to take the samurai half of the heritage, especially since that's far more likely to be a clan samurai.

It's been mentioned before in previous editions that some of the more accepted Ronin in society are the children of samurai (often by geisha) where "everyone knows" at least one of the parents, and possibly both of the parents, but it's socially or politically impossible to recognise them as such and adopt them into a clan openly.

 As a result they'll be ronin (because they're clearly of samurai birth even if no-one-knows-their-parentage-even-them-isn't-that-right-thank-you-for-confirming-that) who aren't members of a clan but nevertheless find themselves at least given a decent education and initial start-out in life, possibly even actively provided for by employment by a clan family as an aide/mercenary/whatever.

 

* Merchants are much the same, if without the glamour. In fact the Whispers of Poverty disadvantage's 'flavour text' specifically talks about a phoenix referred to as 'Empty-Purse-San' who ended up picking up a well-off merchant's daughter as a bride to solve his money problems.

 

9 hours ago, Agasha Kanetake said:

As far as I know, a geisha is not a prostitute. From what I understand, they are women firstly trained in the arts of entertaining through pleasant and erudite discussion, as well as performing arts such as dancing, singing and playing musical instruments. My knowledge is limited and I will let others more knowledgeable explain if sex and/or nudity is a part of what they do, but I wanted to bring up this common misconception.

They are not and absolutely don't.

Except when (very, very discretely) some of them do.

Of course getting caught doing so, and it becoming publicly known that any specific geisha does, is a career-ending scandal; certainly no-one would ever admit to doing so.

 

Basically, welcome to Rokugan, discrete hypocrisy comes as standard issue in many parts of society.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Magnus Grendel

[nameless ronin 706]

On 1/4/2019 at 12:47 PM, Magnus Grendel said:

They are not and absolutely don't.

Except when (very, very discretely) some of them do.

Of course getting caught doing so, and it becoming publicly known that any specific geisha does, is a career-ending scandal; certainly no-one would ever admit to doing so.

 

Basically, welcome to Rokugan, discrete hypocrisy comes as standard issue in many parts of society.

Sex is not on the menu. But if you pay enough or have enough influence, you need not order from the menu alone. As long as it's clear what is on the menu and what is not, and everyone knows better than to look at what's in someone else's bowl.

[Isawa Miyu 46]

On 12/24/2018 at 3:52 PM, TheHobgoblyn said:

You could by all make a character just like you were making a clan samurai and then impose upon them that they had become a ronin.

Losing one's place within a clan seems a far more likely path towards becoming a ronin than being born as one as I have trouble imagining how a ronin would maintain a household, find a spouse and carry forth their bloodline.

I suppose one would represent this by a deduction of status and glory (and likely whatever caused them to become a ronin in the first place might indicate a loss of honor). I don't think this would nor probably should confer any mechanical bonus, though the non-mechanical bonus of not having to answer to a particular master could be considered a fair trade-off.

However, there is no good way of imposing the restriction "they cannot advance in their original school" to my understanding.

I suppose I could imagine, for instance, someone humiliatingly failing the Topaz championship in a way that made their whole clan look bad and caused them to be exiled. In such a case, it isn't like their training would go away and be replaced by some other training.

The easiest way to do this is make a clan samurai, and then count all purchases as outside of curriculum, and use the Worldly Ronin's capstone ability for when they get that far. There is no multi-schooling, as mentioned above, so there's currently no way that makes sense to start with one clan school ability, but use another curriculum; but using another capstone to represent where the bulk of someone's training has ultimately come from (in this case, the school of hard knocks) makes perfect sense to me.

On 1/3/2019 at 7:38 PM, TheHobgoblyn said:

I didn't say they were and agree with your sentiment.

But whenever in L5R there has been a suggestion of a samurai having a child or even relations with anyone from the peasant class, in every single L5R book or story ever it has ALWAYS been a geisha. In fact, every time anything about geisha has ever been written in any L5R book ever, one need not get very many sentences deep before it is not-so-subtly indicated that they have sexual relations with samurai on a regular basis.

This was somewhat true in older editions, but there's no hint of it in 5th. Geisha are definitely GEISHA now, and not prostitutes.