Gift Giving in Court

[Kardayel 10]

Hi

 

A small question came to my mind about gift giving and the 3 refusals. I started a court game and my court start with presentation of each delegations gift to the local Daimyo. Is he supposed to refuse in this case? (in the same order of idea, if i play one day a Winter Court, is the Emperor suppose to refuse gifts in this sort of "official ceremonies"?)

 

If someone with a better understanding of Etiquette can help me.

[DGLaderoute 897]

If we're talking about one or just a few gifts, then the ritual would almost certainly happen as we all known and love it, being offered to and refused by the host per the "ritual". However, in large courts with many gifts being given, this can get impractical. Accordingly, there are three ways you could approach this, all of which would work in the canon and all of which come down to the host's preference. First, the daimyo (or the Emperor) could accept and ritually refuse all the gifts themselves. This could be a tedious and time-consuming process, but it would be the most "correct" approach. It would really come down to whether the daimyo or Emperor has the time and interest to invest in this.

Second, your daimyo (or the Emperor) could delegate someone to receive the gifts being presented, and go through the refusal ritual on their behalf. This is probably the best solution, as it's an honorable job, which shows confidence in the delegate's etiquette, courtesy, ability to speak in a suitably courtly manner, etc. It also means that the daimyo/Emperor could engage in other business in the meantime (or at least not have to sit there repeatedly refusing, and then finally accepting gifts, over and over). In other words, this wouldn't be a s**t job, but a task bestowed on someone favored by the daimyo or Emperor.

The third approach would be for whoever is running the court to simply stipulate, "We acknowledge that the gifts you bring will offered and refused as is customary, so there is no need to go through the actual ritual". This is certainly the most expedient solution, but it's also fraught with some "image politics" issues. This one would probably be reserved for specific situations when, for some reason, time just wasn't available to go through the whole process.

When we used  to run the AEG Winter Court forum games, we kind of defaulted to approach two from an in-character perspective, but also specified that, in the interests of roleplaying time and effort, we wouldn't actually game out the ritual of refusal and just let everyone focus on describing their really cool gifts...so we kinda also blended in approach three, at least in an OOC sense.

Edited June 29, 2019 by DGLaderoute

[Kardayel 10]

thx a lot.

 

This is a good way to handle that, and will probably help to introduce lesser officials to the game for my player interaction with npc.

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

9 hours ago, Kardayel said:

thx a lot.

 

This is a good way to handle that, and will probably help to introduce lesser officials to the game for my player interaction with npc.

Agreed. It would make sense to have flunky #3567 refuse then accept the gift, and then potentially present the accepted gift to the lord - so you can still have a face-to-face interaction....if you want....and if you can talk the flunky into it....which may require a second gift discretely handed over with the first one.

[JBento 229]

The more obvious answer is "depends on what your players are into." If your players like it, then do it, even if canonical lore says the Emperor is too high above them in status to go through the process. If they don't, then even if thrice-refusal would be appropriate you're probably better off just saying it happens. The process takes a fair amount of table time, especially if each character is presenting their own gift and/or if not everyone involved is capable of quick-thinking through it. If no-one involved cares much about it, don't waste table time on it and get it out of the way so you can get to something people DO care about.

[Scrivener Spills 122]

In situations where you are expected to present a gift, for example, the presentation of gifts to the Samurai running the topaz championship, I don't believe the three offerings is expected. 

 

this begs the question though, when using the shuji Well of Desire, is that glory loss and strife for EACH refusal, or just refusing it at the end?

[UnitOmega 2,818]

I think the intent of Well of Desire is to actually refuse the gift. The ritual refusal is the polite thing to do even if you are taking it, Well of Desire is if you actually wanted to turn it down, you'd risk glory and strife because the bribe is just that good. 

[Kardayel 10]

On 6/30/2019 at 6:26 PM, JBento said:

The more obvious answer is "depends on what your players are into."

I asked with a "ok, if i go full ettiquette you'll have me monologing for 45min to do the full course with the delegations, your opinion?"

 

they answered "go for it"

 

I don't know if i must love or hate them

[Magnus Grendel 11,673]

13 hours ago, Kardayel said:

I don't know if i must love or hate them

"Yes."

[JBento 229]

13 hours ago, Kardayel said:

I asked with a "ok, if i go full ettiquette you'll have me monologing for 45min to do the full course with the delegations, your opinion?"

 

they answered "go for it"

 

I don't know if i must love or hate them

porquenolosdosgirl.jpg

[Void Crane 189]

This sounds like something that is long, and to my western thinking, tedious and pointless. But as GM you can use that to dress the scene in a couple of sentences, unless the people or the gifts are important in some way to the story. At least that's probably how I'd handle it.

"A line to present gifts to the daimyo/"official/samurai present receiver" snakes around the left side of the room. And you can see, over and over, the ritual of presentation and refusal. Three times. For each guest. You get in line? Good. The line inches forward ... slowly. Until ..."

Maybe someone of higher status tries to jump ahead. Maybe someone "important" wants to chat with the PCs while waiting. Maybe two NPCs start bickering and are about to challenge each other to a duel. Or maybe you just jump ahead to "... you finally get there."

Gaa-Blam! You're done. On to interacting with the NPC and/or the next thing. Its plenty okay for my character to be bored. As a player I never want to be bored...

My 2 cents.

[Mirac 34]

If planned thoroughly, the gift giving can be effective way to introduce number of characters, their personalities and relationships. Someone is rich but out of touch, someone else whispers nasty comments about gifts, etc. Like the tournament scene in start of Game of Thrones, it may seem pointless at time, but sets a lot of information for later story.

[Suzume Chikahisa 313]

7 hours ago, Void Crane said:

This sounds like something that is long, and to my western thinking, tedious and pointless. But as GM you can use that to dress the scene in a couple of sentences, unless the people or the gifts are important in some way to the story. At least that's probably how I'd handle it.

"A line to present gifts to the daimyo/"official/samurai present receiver" snakes around the left side of the room. And you can see, over and over, the ritual of presentation and refusal. Three times. For each guest. You get in line? Good. The line inches forward ... slowly. Until ..."

Maybe someone of higher status tries to jump ahead. Maybe someone "important" wants to chat with the PCs while waiting. Maybe two NPCs start bickering and are about to challenge each other to a duel. Or maybe you just jump ahead to "... you finally get there."

Gaa-Blam! You're done. On to interacting with the NPC and/or the next thing. Its plenty okay for my character to be bored. As a player I never want to be bored...

My 2 cents.

The pratical reality is that of course when gift-giving is so ritualized everything gets formalized and streamlined.

 

From Constantine Vaporis' Tour of Dutiy:

Quote

At the ofcial level, messengers were dispatched to the shogun’s castle to report the Tosa lord’s arrival to the shogun and a number of shogunal ofcials, including the senior councilors. Domain representatives also presented them with gifs; in Tosa’s case this typically meant a long sword, one hundred pieces of silver, and sheaths of crepe silk, black satin, or sometimes orangutan hide for the shogun; twenty pieces of silver and ten rolls of crepe silk for the shogunal heir.Nanbu domain ofen presented some local specialties such as katakuriko (a type of starch), iron kettles, horses, and hawks, in addition to the more standardized gifs of a sword, silver, and rolls of cotton.

On different occasions during the year the domains bestowed other gifs on the shogun and his ofcials. As one would expect, larger domains gave more frequently than smaller ones. Satsuma, for example, offered gifts at eleven different times during the year; a smaller domain such as Matsue gave on seven occasions. The gifs were largely token and were perhaps a remnant of the ancient practice of subjects presenting local produce to the sovereign as tribute.
The shogunate did not gain monetarily by the tribute, as it gave the daimyo gifts of equal or greater value upon departure. Ofcial gift giving in all its various forms provided a mechanism by which local material culture was circulated around the country. The shogunate sold the gifts bequeathed by the daimyo and others to merchant agents who specialized in these goods.

Much the same procedures were followed when a daimyo prepared to depart from Edo. In the case of a distinguished lord such as the Yamauchi, a senior councilor (rather than a messenger sent by the ofcial, as in the case of a lesser lord) came to the main compound to relay the shogun’s order granting him a leave of absence and informing him of the date on which his predeparture audience with the shogun would be held.

Gifts from the hegemon were presented at this time, most commonly twenty rolls of silk gauze, thirty pieces of silver, and a sword. Similar gifts from the shogunal heir were presented as well. All retainers at the main compound assembled, dressed in formal attire, to receive these items. On the actual day of departure, a horse from the shogun was delivered to the main compound, though occasionally it was presented at Edo castle itself.
 

TL;DR Court functions have procedures in place so that the Big Wigs offload the busywork unto underlings.