Lo5R will be a LCG now

Almaz · Post by **Almaz** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 2:31 pm

No, it's not racism when a Western writer puts out a game about Japan, or China, ancient or otherwise. A few people will advance that argument, but I don't agree with them. I believe that it's racism when they do it in a shitty racist way. This is the majority opinion, more or less, on this subject, at least among people who care to articulate the matter. Someone is going to say "ah ah ah, appeal to majority!" but the funny thing about social contracts is they... actually are made by the majority's will. Funny that.

And L5R did it in a shitty racist way.

Your desperate attempts to twist the argument are hilarious. You so fail to understand racism, apparently, that you don't even get what the content of racism is. It's amazing. Do you enjoy walking around with your skull empty of most of its neural synapses? I don't mean to be prejudiced, if you are in fact a Virtual No Brainer, but I didn't know I would ever actually encounter the fabled functional hydrocephalic person. They're very rare. But I guess you aren't functional, except in the superficial manner, because it's apparent you can't mentally engage with subjects.

And nah, he's probably Chinese because he's at ACGHK, and the vast majority of its attendees are Chinese, such that the likelihood of guessing correctly by picking "Chinese" for any random person at the ACGHK, even not knowing what the rest of them looks like, is over 95%. That's a pretty good confidence level on that merit alone, and then you can factor in the "lookin' egregiously Chinese" there to bump it up a little bit.

shlominus · Post by **shlominus** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 2:51 pm

i think people should leave ghost whistler be. i'm not sure what's going on with him, but it stopped being funny some time ago.

he certainly won't (or can't?) stop, so i guess it's up to everyon else.

there's worse than being wrong...

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 3:35 pm

maglag wrote:Mechas are cool. That does not mean a game about samurai clans should make trying to build your own independent mecha organization as viable as running an organization of tiny men with pointy sticks that has to answer to a (perhaps insane) boss and then the government.

The game is called "Blood and Honor", not "Survival and Profit", neither "Machine guns and robots".

While I agree with what you say, and I agree that ronins are inappropriate for a game about being loyal to your clan to the death, the problem is with the way John Wick acts about it. And he acts exactly the way Gygax acted about playing monsters, i.e. "yeah, you can totaly do it. Only you'll suck and I'll fucking kill you if you dare. Now shut up and be a good samurai".

ghost whistler · Post by **ghost whistler** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 3:59 pm

Almaz wrote:I believe that it's racism when they do it in a shitty racist way.

Nice tautology: racism is racist because racism is racist.

This is the majority opinion, more or less, on this subject, at least among people who care to articulate the matter. Someone is going to say "ah ah ah, appeal to majority!" but the funny thing about social contracts is they... actually are made by the majority's will. Funny that.

And L5R did it in a shitty racist way.

You speak for the majority? What a burden for you!

L5R did what?

Your desperate attempts to twist the argument are hilarious. You so fail to understand racism, apparently, that you don't even get what the content of racism is. It's amazing.

Is it ncessary for you people to be such a bunch of arrogant patronising [EDITED]?

You still haven't established that L5R is racist. You've asserted it, nothing more.

Spare me your patronising bullshit you arrogant piece of shit

Almaz · Post by **Almaz** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 4:19 pm

ghost whistler wrote:You still haven't established that L5R is racist. You've asserted it, nothing more.

I have previously established it, as has just about everyone in the thread. I see no reason to revisit that establishment. We can resume this conversation when you have demonstrated the ability to understand that.

Judging by your current trajectory, however, I am pretty sure that means I will be bidding you a nice life, today. I suggest you sign up for the testing of implanted brain computers, when that happens, if that happens. You evidently direly need a bit more processing power.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 4:19 pm

maglag wrote:Mechas are cool. That does not mean a game about samurai clans should make trying to build your own independent mecha organization as viable as running an organization of tiny men with pointy sticks that has to answer to a (perhaps insane) boss and then the government.

The game is called "Blood and Honor", not "Survival and Profit", neither "Machine guns and robots".

Wow, how come you stayed off ignore for so long? Do you seriously not see a place for swordsmen boned by the Honor system in a game about swordsmen dealing with the Honor system? Not having ronin in a game about samurai is basically like not having injuries. (Theoretically, there can be a samurai game where ronin status is a game over, but we know Blood & Honor is not that game because of this exact sidebar.)

"But if you allow ronin, you must also allow hackers and magical girls!!!" Fuck you.

ghost whistler · Post by **ghost whistler** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 5:10 pm

Almaz wrote:
ghost whistler wrote:You still haven't established that L5R is racist. You've asserted it, nothing more.
I have previously established it, as has just about everyone in the thread. I see no reason to revisit that establishment. We can resume this conversation when you have demonstrated the ability to understand that.

Judging by your current trajectory, however, I am pretty sure that means I will be bidding you a nice life, today. I suggest you sign up for the testing of implanted brain computers, when that happens, if that happens. You evidently direly need a bit more processing power.

Priceless.

What a bunch of intellectual cowards.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 5:24 pm

ghost whistler wrote:Priceless.

What a bunch of intellectual cowards.

Tee hee. Ghost Whistler can't even compile a half-decent burn, let alone an amusing taunt.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 5:28 pm

Starmaker wrote:
maglag wrote:Mechas are cool. That does not mean a game about samurai clans should make trying to build your own independent mecha organization as viable as running an organization of tiny men with pointy sticks that has to answer to a (perhaps insane) boss and then the government.

The game is called "Blood and Honor", not "Survival and Profit", neither "Machine guns and robots".
Wow, how come you stayed off ignore for so long? Do you seriously not see a place for swordsmen boned by the Honor system in a game about swordsmen dealing with the Honor system? Not having ronin in a game about samurai is basically like not having injuries. (Theoretically, there can be a samurai game where ronin status is a game over, but we know Blood & Honor is not that game because of this exact sidebar.)

"But if you allow ronin, you must also allow hackers and magical girls!!!" Fuck you.

Counter argument: the game isn't about playing samurai, it's a game about playing a clan. And having a ronin in such a game would be detrimental, because he's a poor mercenary with questionable social status and questionable loyalty. Being a ronin in Blood & Honor is a failure condition, because you fucked up and got kicked out of the PC clan. Of course the book should have actually explained that, instead of throwing a fit.
You can totaly have a game about samurai and ronins bumming around Edo Japan. You just have to write that game yourself.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 5:30 pm

Starmaker wrote:Do you seriously not see a place for swordsmen boned by the Honor system in a game about swordsmen dealing with the Honor system? Not having ronin in a game about samurai is basically like not having injuries. (Theoretically, there can be a samurai game where ronin status is a game over, but we know Blood & Honor is not that game because of this exact sidebar.)

I'm all for giving maglag the benefit of the doubt (unlike ghost whisperer). And he might have been trying to motion toward your point that ronin aren't appropriate in an honor system because they represent being dead.

Couldn't Blood & Honor be such a system in practice, even if the author's sidebar shows their intent is closer to Gygax's distaste for monster PCs?

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 7:29 pm

Almaz wrote:And L5R did it in a shitty racist way.

I don't agree with this.

Just because L5R includes Eta in the game doesn't mean that the game itself is racist. It just means that it's about a part of history that was racist. You wouldn't call an American Civil War themed wargame racist, would you? Or a Westerns game set in Bloody Kansas? Even if the setting notes for either of those games talked about the status of slaves in the South and the discrimination faced even by free black people in the setting, that wouldn't make the game or the players racist. In order for a game to be racist, it has to advocate racism, or encourage racism. Not just discuss racism.

I don't think L5R has ever inspired anyone toward hating Burakumin. I mean, for one the game tells you that one campaign idea is a Sherlock & Watson setup where one player plays as a Kitsuki magistrate and the other player plays as an Eta mortician who handles the physical evidence. That section goes on to say that it is common for Samurai who deal with Eta regularly to realize that the way Bushido regards an Eta's work is wrong, but that individual Samurai generally have no meaningful way to change how society as a whole behaves. Does that sound like a game that advocates treating Burakumin like subhumans to you?

If L5R has had any meaningful effect at all on modern Japanese racism (which I doubt it has), that effect is probably a slightly positive one, if only by pointing out that the Eta caste existed. I mean, seriously, a show of hands: Who here in this thread honestly knew the Burakumin still faced discrimination in modern Japanese society before you googled the word Eta to find out what it meant?

Almaz · Post by **Almaz** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 8:06 pm

Grek wrote: Does that sound like a game that advocates treating Burakumin like subhumans to you?

Given that they are on one of the lowest ranks of the Celestial Order and stated to generally not be free of it even after reincarnation? Yes, actually. That's worse than Buddhism and Hinduism's worst. "Not only will they deserve it, they'll deserve it in the next life too, and the next and the next and the next and the next." Come on, that isn't even new data in this thread. No one should have to repeat that to you.

Just because one author disagreed with another doesn't make what the racist author wrote less shitty. Now put both sets of words in the mouths of the same thing (L5R) and I'm going to call that thing racist.

Grek wrote:If L5R has had any meaningful effect at all on modern Japanese racism (which I doubt it has), that effect is probably a slightly positive one, if only by pointing out that the Eta caste existed.

Given that it has ghost whistler and others (such as at least some of the authors) uncritically repeating racism as if it's justified, nah, it's definitely negative.

Grek wrote:I mean, seriously, a show of hands: Who here in this thread honestly knew the Burakumin still faced discrimination in modern Japanese society before you googled the word Eta to find out what it meant?

I've known this for a very, very long time. Almost like I'm a scholar of these sorts of things.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 8:40 pm

Grek wrote:I mean, seriously, a show of hands: Who here in this thread honestly knew the Burakumin still faced discrimination in modern Japanese society before you googled the word Eta to find out what it meant?

*raises hand*

There being burakumin or slaves doesn't make it racist. Handling it poorly does; though I'm of the opinion it's easier to botch a Civil War era game (even accidentally). Whether L5R is appreciably racist is difficult for me to gauge because I'm a white guy, but I'm cognizant enough to understand that, so I won't dismiss such claims out of hand. There are obviously degrees of severity, as something can be yellowface without being WWII propaganda. I'll even listen to arguments that L5R's racism is on the level of jokes about French loving their cheese.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 8:48 pm

I knew. I have family who have been involved in their civil rights movement.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 9:44 pm

Grek wrote:I mean, seriously, a show of hands: Who here in this thread honestly knew the Burakumin still faced discrimination in modern Japanese society before you googled the word Eta to find out what it meant?

*raises hand*
But I spent a lot of time reading about glorious Nippon. *tips katana*

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 10:23 pm

I mean, seriously, a show of hands: Who here in this thread honestly knew the Burakumin still faced discrimination in modern Japanese society before you googled the word Eta to find out what it meant?

*raises hand*

I watch a lot of documentaries and educational shows/channels.

I don't think L5R has ever inspired anyone toward hating Burakumin.

That's doesn't matter in determining if something is racist or not.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 11:57 pm

*raises hand*
This gets regularly referenced in discussions and "thinkpieces" on privacy, Google's evil, data availability, digital archivism and whatnot.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 2:50 am

Almaz wrote:Given that they are on one of the lowest ranks of the Celestial Order and stated to generally not be free of it even after reincarnation? Yes, actually. That's worse than Buddhism and Hinduism's worst. "Not only will they deserve it, they'll deserve it in the next life too, and the next and the next and the next and the next." Come on, that isn't even new data in this thread. No one should have to repeat that to you.

Just because one author disagreed with another doesn't make what the racist author wrote less shitty. Now put both sets of words in the mouths of the same thing (L5R) and I'm going to call that thing racist.

One of the major themes of L5R is that a society where everyone is armed at all times is a society where etiquette and noncontroversiality get put ahead of truth and justice, even in the face of glaring social wrongs. Just because Rokugan society requires everyone to publicly believe that the Celestial Order is real does not make the Celestial Order real. Just because society allows Samurai to kill non-Samurai without punishment does not make this just. Just because it is socially unacceptable to advocate for better rights for the Eta caste does not mean the Eta caste actually deserves their treatment.

L5R's neutral authorial voice doesn't say that Eta are filth. Not in real life or in game. Only that they are treated as such by the average Samurai, and that discussing the Eta or their living conditions is a taboo topic. And the reason for it being taboo is very unsubtly hinted to be that discussing Eta rights would lead to half the Samurai drawing their katana in support of Eta rights and sparking off a civil war. I honestly don't think any of the authors of L5R thought that Rokugan's in character treatment of the Eta caste was anything less than awful. Could they have handled it better? Yes. Is their handling of it bad enough that it hurts burakumin in real life and needs to be boycotted on those grounds? No.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 3:06 am

Grek wrote:I mean, seriously, a show of hands: Who here in this thread honestly knew the Burakumin still faced discrimination in modern Japanese society before you googled the word Eta to find out what it meant?

*raises hand*
Cultural Anthropology class FTW.

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 4:41 am

Starmaker wrote:
maglag wrote:Mechas are cool. That does not mean a game about samurai clans should make trying to build your own independent mecha organization as viable as running an organization of tiny men with pointy sticks that has to answer to a (perhaps insane) boss and then the government.

The game is called "Blood and Honor", not "Survival and Profit", neither "Machine guns and robots".
Wow, how come you stayed off ignore for so long? Do you seriously not see a place for swordsmen boned by the Honor system in a game about swordsmen dealing with the Honor system? Not having ronin in a game about samurai is basically like not having injuries. (Theoretically, there can be a samurai game where ronin status is a game over, but we know Blood & Honor is not that game because of this exact sidebar.)

"But if you allow ronin, you must also allow hackers and magical girls!!!" Fuck you.

Considering if you got boned by the honor system historically your option was pretty much to compose a nice poem on mortality and beauty then disembowel yourself. That's the vast majority of the time the only "exploring" that you do of the subject.

While Wick is kind of a douche for his approach, saying "ronin are antithetical to the mechanics built up in this system" is legitimate.

It's like the Song of Ice & Fire game. Half of it is that the PCs designed their own minor house, with holdings and shit. Yeah sure you can play sellswords without any holdings, but you're missing out on like half the mechanics of the game and one of the driving forces that the game is designed around.

There are other games better designed to make murderhobo a fun and entertaining passtime.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 5:28 am

TheFlatline wrote:
Starmaker wrote:
maglag wrote:Mechas are cool. That does not mean a game about samurai clans should make trying to build your own independent mecha organization as viable as running an organization of tiny men with pointy sticks that has to answer to a (perhaps insane) boss and then the government.

The game is called "Blood and Honor", not "Survival and Profit", neither "Machine guns and robots".
Wow, how come you stayed off ignore for so long? Do you seriously not see a place for swordsmen boned by the Honor system in a game about swordsmen dealing with the Honor system? Not having ronin in a game about samurai is basically like not having injuries. (Theoretically, there can be a samurai game where ronin status is a game over, but we know Blood & Honor is not that game because of this exact sidebar.)

"But if you allow ronin, you must also allow hackers and magical girls!!!" Fuck you.
Considering if you got boned by the honor system historically your option was pretty much to compose a nice poem on mortality and beauty then disembowel yourself. That's the vast majority of the time the only "exploring" that you do of the subject.

Because clearly you shouldn't have the ability to go "fuck that noise" and seek revenge on the people who you feel have screwed you out of honour. Or the ability to decide that actually you'd rather live long enough to kill the scum who took out your daimyo rather than die pointlessly.

I mean, these might not be "honourable" options, but this is a game, you can expect PCs to demand the ability to ignore social norms that are OOC wrong or even inconvenient. If the party archer has dishonoured himself and ought to commit sudoku? Fuck that noise, he's in the party and an essential asset on that basis. If Daimyo Steve bitches at us about this? Daimyo Steve dies and so does every mook he puts between him and the party. If that means we kill the Emperor, guess we're the new Emperor.

...None of the steps of that chain of logic are wholly reasonable, but it is also worth explicitly stating that PCs are very, very bad at fleeing from or de-escalating threats of any kind compared to real people or even book characters in the same situation.

TheFlatline wrote:It's like the Song of Ice & Fire game. Half of it is that the PCs designed their own minor house, with holdings and shit. Yeah sure you can play sellswords without any holdings, but you're missing out on like half the mechanics of the game and one of the driving forces that the game is designed around.

It's actually kind of schizophrenic about this, a lot of the functionality assumes you will be spending a meaningful amount of time as adventurers adventuring. Like, there's recommended loot drops and shit.

(Most of which are bullshit small if you want House improvements.)

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:19 am

A few years ago the PM of Japan (at the time) Taro Aso said "Burakumin can't become prime minister" and that was quite controversial. Referring to Hiromu Nonaka, a politician who's ancestry is from that background.

I had known about an 'untouchable' caste in Japan that handled the dead but didn't know the specific term until that news came up.

----

As for examples of how ronin fit into Blood & Honor's clan building game....

47 Ronin: At the capital, the shogun's master of ceremonies, Kira Yoshinaka, tries to extort a bribe from the visiting daimyo Asano Naganori. When Asano refuses Kira insults him in public, prompting Asano to draw his blade and attempt to kill Kira but is unsuccessful. For this he is ordered to commit seppuku, his clan abolished, and all of his men are now ronin.

They then plot for a year, successfully assassinate Kira, then turn themselves in to the authorities. The Kira clan then loses their heriditary position of "master of ceremonies", the Kira clan's successor is sentenced to death for failing to protect the clan head. The Asano clan is restored (with the brother of Naganori as the head) and their rank raised to "Bannermen of the Shogun".

This is actually a really good example of how people who are officially "ronin" can be more honorable than people who are officially "samurai", and through noble sacrifice restore honor that was wrongfully taken from them. It's a popular tale in Japan for that reason.

Sakamoto Ryoma: A real life figure from the 19th century, his ancestry was that of a sake merchant family that grew wealthy enough to purchase a low samurai rank (which meant higher rank samurai still discriminated against their clan). Ryoma was poor at academics so his big sis enrolled him in fencing, where he was good enough to be sent to the capital of Edo to train in the Chiba dojo, regarded as the best in that era. Around this time of his life Admiral Perry sails in.

Ryoma then gets involved in anti-foreigner movements and leaves his clan, becoming a ronin. One of his sisters kills herself to make up for the disgrace of his departure. Ryoma plots to assassinate the high ranking official Katsu Kaishū (who eventually becomes one of the first Japanese to sail to the US) who is pushing for reform and modernization, but is instead convinced to join Katsu in working towards a modernized Japan.

Ryoma then heads south and brokers a secret alliance between the long time rival clans of Satsuma and Choshu (because Ryoma was a ronin from far away they saw him as a neutral that would be fair to both sides) while building up a private 'merchant fleet' that was in reality a modern naval force. They are victorious against the Shogunate, part of a chain of events that leads to its overthrow. Ryoma is welcomed back to his clan and involved in brokering the surrender of the shogunate while representing his province's interests (pretty amazing for a man that was ronin from a low ranking clan). Forces loyal to the shogun though eventually find Ryoma at an inn and assassinate him (killing his sumo bodyguard first).

One of the very most important people in Japanese history that lead a life full of intrigue, and the majority of his accomplishments were done as a ronin.

...by the way is the creator of Blood & Honor also the guy who wrote into L5R "NINJA ARE STUPID CHICKENS THEY AREN'T REAL THIS IS A SERIOUS RAT PERSON JAPAN+MONGOLS SETTING" ?

Red_Rob · Post by **Red_Rob** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:23 am

Grek wrote:L5R's neutral authorial voice doesn't say that Eta are filth. Not in real life or in game. Only that they are treated as such by the average Samurai, and that discussing the Eta or their living conditions is a taboo topic. And the reason for it being taboo is very unsubtly hinted to be that discussing Eta rights would lead to half the Samurai drawing their katana in support of Eta rights and sparking off a civil war. I honestly don't think any of the authors of L5R thought that Rokugan's in character treatment of the Eta caste was anything less than awful. Could they have handled it better? Yes. Is their handling of it bad enough that it hurts burakumin in real life and needs to be boycotted on those grounds? No.

The point that Frank raised was that the use of the term "Eta" was blithely racist in the same way that a text today using the word "n*gger" would be. Regardless of the way it portrays the society or what point they are making, the word is now a derogatory term for a still-living group of people as described in the link Starmaker gave earlier:

Huffington Post wrote:One village in Tokyo was clearly labeled "eta," a now strongly derogatory word for burakumin that literally means "filthy mass."

An employee at a large, well-known Japanese company, who works in personnel and has direct knowledge of its hiring practices, said the company actively screens out burakumin job seekers.

"If we suspect that an applicant is a burakumin, we always do a background check to find out," she said.

Whilst Ghost Whisperer is waving around the term "racism" like a smoking gun that requires a hate crime to justify it's use, the accusation was actually that a bunch of white people doing "an Asian game" is almost guaranteed to treat some aspects of it's subject matter in an insensitive way. And this is one example brought out to shut him the hell up. It's like a game about the American Civil War explaining that "many people treat n*ggers as second class citizens, and that's wrong". Noone has a problem with the sentiment in the last sentence, but you would never see it actually reach print.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:57 am

...by the way is the creator of Blood & Honor also the guy who wrote into L5R "NINJA ARE STUPID CHICKENS THEY AREN'T REAL THIS IS A SERIOUS RAT PERSON JAPAN+MONGOLS SETTING" ?

Yes

As for examples of how ronin fit into Blood & Honor's clan building game....

47 Ronin: At the capital, the shogun's master of ceremonies, Kira Yoshinaka, tries to extort a bribe from the visiting daimyo Asano Naganori. When Asano refuses Kira insults him in public, prompting Asano to draw his blade and attempt to kill Kira but is unsuccessful. For this he is ordered to commit seppuku, his clan abolished, and all of his men are now ronin.

They then plot for a year, successfully assassinate Kira, then turn themselves in to the authorities. The Kira clan then loses their heriditary position of "master of ceremonies", the Kira clan's successor is sentenced to death for failing to protect the clan head. The Asano clan is restored (with the brother of Naganori as the head) and their rank raised to "Bannermen of the Shogun".

This is actually a really good example of how people who are officially "ronin" can be more honorable than people who are officially "samurai", and through noble sacrifice restore honor that was wrongfully taken from them. It's a popular tale in Japan for that reason.

Sakamoto Ryoma: A real life figure from the 19th century, his ancestry was that of a sake merchant family that grew wealthy enough to purchase a low samurai rank (which meant higher rank samurai still discriminated against their clan). Ryoma was poor at academics so his big sis enrolled him in fencing, where he was good enough to be sent to the capital of Edo to train in the Chiba dojo, regarded as the best in that era. Around this time of his life Admiral Perry sails in.

Ryoma then gets involved in anti-foreigner movements and leaves his clan, becoming a ronin. One of his sisters kills herself to make up for the disgrace of his departure. Ryoma plots to assassinate the high ranking official Katsu Kaishū (who eventually becomes one of the first Japanese to sail to the US) who is pushing for reform and modernization, but is instead convinced to join Katsu in working towards a modernized Japan.

Ryoma then heads south and brokers a secret alliance between the long time rival clans of Satsuma and Choshu (because Ryoma was a ronin from far away they saw him as a neutral that would be fair to both sides) while building up a private 'merchant fleet' that was in reality a modern naval force. They are victorious against the Shogunate, part of a chain of events that leads to its overthrow. Ryoma is welcomed back to his clan and involved in brokering the surrender of the shogunate while representing his province's interests (pretty amazing for a man that was ronin from a low ranking clan). Forces loyal to the shogun though eventually find Ryoma at an inn and assassinate him (killing his sumo bodyguard first).

You can totaly have a game about a group of mercenaries planning to overthrow the government. It's just that Blood & Honor is not that game. 47 Ronin don't have holdings, don't have underlings, don't have an open political agenda. Same goes for Ryoma, who is just a dude. The game just doesn't support PCs being landless hobos with an agenda.
You can play a game where PCs are fair maidens who plot to overthrow King Arthur and institute democracy. But Pendragon is not the game you would pick to do that.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Sep 24, 2015 1:07 pm

OgreBattle wrote:...by the way is the creator of Blood & Honor also the guy who wrote into L5R "NINJA ARE STUPID CHICKENS THEY AREN'T REAL THIS IS A SERIOUS RAT PERSON JAPAN+MONGOLS SETTING" ?

I can't tell you how much that sentiment cracks me up. It's just so pretentious. It's Identity Crisis-level of 'we're so MATURE and POSTMODERN, please shower our serious games with awards and money, especially awards'. I'd go so far as to say it's Chrono Cross-level. ... well, maybe not that bad. But still.