L5R Advice and General

>finally the murderhobos and the minmaxers will remain standing
Only if you white room the combat and don't apply the setting.

In fact, the setting will keep them alive through their Glory/Status that will come from all the fighting and them dueling through every problem. The minmaxers are worse because they probably has good social thingies too, so they will meta the setting into shit and never look back. As the GM, the best you can do is to raise your own murderhobo/minmaxer NPCs, but that's a good way to utterly derail the adventure, so you will still ruin your own game in the end.

If you are looking for players online, I would love to join to get more familiar with the game and setting for my own future game.

>In fact, the setting will keep them alive through their Glory/Status that will come from all the fighting and them dueling through every problem.
No it won't. John Wick was onto your shit before you even began. While duelling is the legal recourse for settling otherwise unresolvable disputes, the clans don't like samurai who can only use that final resort to resolve their disputes.

Well, "my Clan doesn't like me" is usually little concern for these kind of players and it is extremely hard to turn the situation against them in any meaningful way. Unless you want to go full Antagonistic GM at which point you will just trash your game and/or lose your players.

All things considered, it is easier to deal with murderhobos and minmaxers in a combat-only vacuum and bring them down through in-game attrition. They will even enjoy it if you are lucky. But trying to fuck them over with the setting is kicking shit into the fan because the fluffy player is dead anyways, and nobody else will enjoy you going full spergmode on the party.

My clan doesn't like me is a pretty dis problem. Hell, it's a whole disadvantage that will mechanically keep them from getting better. Just letting them do whatever without consequence is just as bad if not worse than being antagonistic

Characters doing whatever they want without consequence is a running theme in the setting. In fact, it might be even more prevalent than actually suffering some sort of (relevant) consequence.

But again, the point is that L5R can't handle murderhobos and minmaxers, neither on a mechanical nor on a fluff level. The best way to avoid this whole ordeal is to ban these two types of characters altogether or at least seriously limit optimization.

It really feels like you havent read the fluff. Like you have to get permission to duel in the first place. And if you piss off your lord with that shit too often, he can order you to kill yourself. Remember there are pretty heavy cultural taboos, honor, gods and spirits are very real things, and the GM determines if you're fucking those things up. Going full murder hobo, just as an example, can result in Gaki-Do coming to claim your murderous ass and no priest is gonna protect your ass if the celestial realms have determined you deserve it.

Yeah, this is the "Antagonistic GM" route I was talking about. You can make up shit to screw over the player, but in the end, you are still making shit up to screw over the player no matter how hard you try to meta-justify it. Canon characters got away with lot worse Scott free (or even got randomly rewarded for being bad), after all.

That's not antagonistic, that's cause and effect. Not applying consequences in universe that the lore says will and should apply is not a weakness of the game, it's the GM being weak and incapable of handling the players. Aka you are a shitty GM.

Duelling requires the permission of the lords of both participants.
Someone hoping to duel their way out of everything is going to hit the roadblock of "I don't want my servant to dirty their blade on your asshole's blood." and then they have little recourse.

Canon characters also got completely destroyed for minor lapses in judgement, or even things entirely outside of their own control.

Not OP, but it's bullshit like this why I ended up taking the outline of the setting and just advancing the timeline 400 years into the future just so I could run a storyline that wasn't pre-approved by John "I Am Exactly the Kind of Stuck-Up Antagonist Neckbeard Fuck That I Look Like" Wick.

And since THAT game has actually been ongoing for three years, clearly I've been doing something right. I can't even claim that I'm the only RPG game in town, because my town is fuckin' filled with nerds.

The point is that the lore does not says anything like that, and even if it does, it also gives plenty of Get Out of the Prison Free cards. Like, you raise your Gaki, and the player will raise his fuck-high Glory Rank (and probably a similarly high Status he has accustomed from the Glory) and point out that any priest will gladly save his ass (and probably lick it clean too) because of those. And you can't just say "no" because that's how the setting works - the same way your Gaki comes, it leaves the story, and the murderhobo keeps murderhoboing. Just another boring day in Rokugan, really.

And this is only if your murderhobo doesn't decide to just simply kill the Gaki. At which point we are back to the "white room combat" situation.

Using the canon setting as is doesn't require going full Wick.

And yet, everytine everyone argues for it it they go Full Wick, in ADDITION to the main setting being horseshit these days what with all that Spider Clan nonsense and Kali bullshit.

Part of the setting is also that priests actually have to be mindful of the spirit world if they want to actually keep their powers. Indiscriminately banishing all the problems and curses a murderhobo accumulates is a good way for them to lose their powers. And monks can condemn anyone short of the Emperor himself for being shits, which anyone pious will know about and take into consideration.

The entire point of playing in Rokugan is that there are strong social conventions that actually matter. There's ALWAYS someone higher ranked who can fuck you if you fuck them.

Jesus.
Does he seriously wear that hat?

Except people can detect your honor, and a priest can tell if your ass is tainted or otherwise 'claimed' by the realm. Any GM who is letting all of his player's actions occur in a vacuum is a shitty GM

I've been GMed by him personally twice at Kotei, and yes, he had it with him both times.

>Dueling requires the permission of the lords of both participants.

Only to-the-death duels need permission from your lord. And, of course, even if the lord turns down the challenge it is still a net win to the challenger because the challenged character now has a serious case of shramefur dispray.

>Canon characters also got completely destroyed for minor lapses in judgement

Like? I can remember the dude who invaded Rokugan at the head of a daemon army and became the Fortune of Persistence in return. And his son, who accompanied his daddy, turned everything he touched into shit, and ultimately became Lord Sun (well, at least this didn't last too long).

Applying the setting as it is isn't going full Wick. If you slaughter a village for shits and giggles, there will be consequences that you can't duel your way out of. Legally binding duels only happen when there's a question about whodunit, and it requires the permission of a lord who might just be sick of your shit or may be getting a nice kickback for declining.

Murderhobos have to temper their murderhoboness. Minmaxers who actually follow social conventions can get away with it, but that's self limiting, so it's fine.
Applying consequences for actions is not being ThatGM. It's standard practice.

As for the metaplot characters who get away with things, they're almost universally Clan Champions who have enough political pull that they can just make people look the other way. Even a high ranked PC is below that level of influence, which means they do have to face the consequences of stupid actions.

>Only to-the-death duels need permission from your lord.
Nope. All legally binding duels require permission. The best you can do without permission is a "friendly test of skill" with no long term consequences. And not getting permission is not the same as losing the duel. It means that the duel never happens.

That dude still had one of the largest armies in the country at the end. The Emperor made him a Fortune to get that army to back up his claim to the throne.
His son was in a similar position and got to be the sun because of a fluke.

An average PC is not in that kind of position. They don't command an entire Clan. They don't get to be overlooked for political reasons.

Trust me, I don't encourage murderhobo behavior in my games either.
I just think a lot of the conceits of the setting are exactly that; conceited bits of horseshit written by a man who saw precisely one samurai movie back in the 1980's and forgot most of it anyway.
I could just go with the whole "Rokugan is not Japan", but then why even the fuck would I play in his "special" setting at all if it's just random generic western fantasy dressed up in a bad 90's Mortal Kombat version of Japanese stuff?

If I wanted a bad pastiche of huge factions with ridiculous stereotypes being literally all they are while wearing only their favorite faction colors all the time I could just play Game of Thrones instead.

All duels need permission. Page 49 of the core book.

>Regardless of whether it is to first blood or to the death, a truly honorable duel must be authorized by bigger authority.

On a side note, I'm not even sure if randomly unleashing a Gaki on a murderhobo can be justified. Having an itchy sword-hand is not an emotion, after all.

Now I'm kinda interested on what people can make up against a murderhobo. Killing shit is glorious in Rokugan, people traditionally won't be against this - they will only avoid the character least they will taste his wrath. Like, at the very worst, they will talk shit about him behind his back or something, but for every "He is a murderous brute!" you will hear two "He can also bite an oni in half!" So the overall result should be... I dunno... a few Ranks of Infamy I guess? You can't really get a lot at him because what he is doing is perfectly in line with the general base values of the setting (being a hardcore warrior in a warrior culture and all that).

>An average PC is not in that kind of position.

He will not do that kind of super-serious shit either.

It depends on how itchy their sword hand is. Fighting other samurai won't get you much. Slaughtering peasants who can barely fight back is a good way to get Toshigoku'd or Gaki'd.

Being a hardcore warrior is only seen as a good thing when you clash with other hardcore warriors who follow the same code. That's why the rest of Rokugan doesn't really care that Hida Whoever fought an oni one v one and came out victorious. It wasn't a glorious fight because it wasn't a glorious enemy. In fact, it's an enemy that most Rokugani don't even want to know existed. Fighting a bandit isn't particularly glorious either for the same reason, although that will at least get you a lot of grateful peasants and recognition as a lawbringer, which can be a form of glory.

You need to remember bushido. If you're an honorable samurai you're going to have to take actions through those lens, of which compassion is a virtue. Also, cursed by the realm is a disadvantage where it literally says Gaki are after your ass. They might not just spontaneously appear, but they will come after him. It's a natural result of being a murder hobo where you can literally be cursed by the blood you spill.

Dueling a bunch of people in tests of skill because you want to be the best duelist? Absolutely nothing bad will happen.

Dueling a lot of people to cover up repeated murders? Eventually, someone will catch you in the act, or a high ranking samurai will lie about witnessing it and your lord will be sick of protecting you. Also, Toshigoku has taken people for less, although that won't happen until you die.

Slaughtering peasants? You'll start attracting magistrates and justice driven hunters, Gaki, Toshigoku, maybe even Kansen. If there's any real evidence that it was you (Evidence mostly being witnesses who are samurai) they'll skip straight to execution once they catch up. The gaki might just hang around and eat your filth, or they might attack directly. Slaughter spirits aren't likely to come directly for the character, but the slaughter itself might weaken the barrier between worlds and draw them through, in which case they'll attack everyone they see and then go looking for more. Kansen will try to tempt the person into doing it again and again, and offer maho to help them along. This is a damnation spiral that will attract Jade Magistrates, Inquisitors, Blackwatch, and Witch Hunters, who will all skip straight to execution if they catch you.

None of the canon murderhobos had to deal with any kind of curse, not even the berserker dude who randomly killed his own comrades from time to time, so I would call BS on this.

It seems like Gaki-do only preys on the weak or something, but leaves you alone if you have the balls for some serious action.

I can't remember the names, but there are absolutely cursed murderhobos
There was a Kakita who was literally constantly attacked by gaki. All the time, every day.
There was some Lion who created crop blights just by existing in an area.
One guy attracted every offensive spell cast even remotely near him, and positive spells rolled right off him like a cool breeze.
There are probably many more that I can't think of off the top of my head.

The problem is that dueling a lot for whatever reason (and winning) as well as killing lots of stuff other than peasants will give the character shitton of Glory (really, killing stuff is the best way to rocket boost your Glory), and if Glory is in the game then Status is not far behind. So the murderhobo will passively make himself better in-setting without actually willing it... at which point he will just acquire Hida Kisada heights of being able to get away with everything.

By standard Rokugani logic, the player needs to elevate murderhoboing to a whole new level to get the shorter end of the stick. But yeah, if that happens then your game is already at its death-throes.

>The problem is that dueling a lot for whatever reason (and winning)
Only legal duels. Being known for illegal duels is just asking for serious trouble.

>and if Glory is in the game then Status is not far behind
Nope. There's no correlation. The Emperor is Glory 5 or so, Status 10. Great Heroes can be Glory 10, Status 2 or 3. Most positions are hereditary. Even if they're based on merit, being famous isn't the merit they're based on.

The murderhobo *might* passively make himself more famous if he murderhobos in productive ways. He won't be getting promotions through it.

Except it has to be glorious to earn glory. Winning duels will get glory yes, but only if it's a real duel you have a chance to lose. And that's assuming you win the duel; you could lose and possibly even die.

Killing peasants brings no glory. It in fact will cost you glory and thus status even informally, and most likely will bring down infamy was well as the wrath of a lord who is pissed you're breaking his tools.

>user says you cannot deal with murder hobos unless you go John Wick on them
>Other user says you can deal with murder hobos if you go John Wick on them
>They now have an argument about this

Never change /l5rg/

Applying consequences that are spelled out in the setting is not going Wick.
Going Wick would be to turn their Advantages against them, or have them killed for random things that they didn't do because they didn't specifically go out of their way to declare that they didn't do them to the right person.

>Killing peasants brings no glory.

Original quote from :
>killing lots of stuff other than peasants will give the character shitton of Glory

Now the question is: if the character kills a squadron of enemy samurai and attains 4 Ranks of Glory (~1 point for each samurai killed), then how much peasants he can kill before losing even 1 point?

What happens to widowers? Do they remarry?

You don't lose Glory, you gain Infamy. They're two separate scales.

Depends if they already have kids or not. If they do have kids, then usually no. Marriage is entirely to get the next generation out, and inheritance law is designed to be straightforward.
If there's a compelling political or trade reason to get married again, then they can, but without one of those, they generally won't.

Don't know the number desu, it's up to the GM. But going on the rules for family dishonor, it's a rank if you kill enough to piss off a lord or be considered a blasphemous act.

Any advice on creating custom schools?

I'm prepping to run a Minor Clan game. Our last L5R game had the PCs trapped in the Spirit Realms after failing at the end of the Second City campaign. They adventured through each of the spirit realms hunting down escaped rakshasa who were causing havoc in each realm. Eventually they reached Tengoku and stopped the last rakshasa from assassinating the Empress and fucking up heaven. They were lauded as heroes and granted permission to create their own minor clan (the Beetle Clan).

The founders were a Yoritomo Courtier who had a subplot of trying to build his own sake commerce empire and a dragon Void Shugenja.

I'm trying to wrap my head around making a new courtier school inspired by the Yoritomo, without copy/pasting the already existing school. Focused on stuff like intimidation, commerce, obtaining glory, and seeing through disguises/lies.

Can you have affairs, and is it considered dishonorable if it's found out if neither are married.

You can have affairs (Most samurai do), and it is dishonorable if it's found out no matter what your marital status is. Chances are good that it won't be found out unless you're really, really obvious, because it's a romanticized situation.
Casually letting it slip that you are in an affair can actually benefit you in court, but namedropping is where it counts as being "found out".

>Applying consequences that are spelled out in the setting is not going Wick

Sorry to say but it is one of the trademark Wick moves

Well, minor clan schools are usually weaker than Great Clan schools, but if it's a custom one that you want to actually focus on, ignore that. Look at the bonuses available among the existing rank 1 courtier Techniques and make something similar for their rank 1. Then do the same for 2, 3, ect. Commerce not affecting Honor or Glory is something they should have at rank 1.

No, that's a standard move for all GMs who don't let themselves get pushed around by players. Actions have consequences. Wick gives you consequences for things that aren't Actions or for things that shouldn't have consequences.

>Actions have consequences.

Normally this is not the GM picking on a player because he does not like what the player is doing, compromising the whole party with his crazy ideas like throwing a japanese ghost vampire at them. This is typical Wickism.

A player going full murder hobo when that doesn't fit the setting and being punished for it isn't bullying.

If you think it is you're a shit gm or a troll

>because he does not like what the player is doing
Wow, that's one hell of a strawman you've got there.

Rokugan is an established setting with established social mores and supernatural effects. Those supernatural effects include attracting spirits and getting cursed for doing certain things.

So basically nothing can ever be different outside of these things no matter what and anything outside of these things is incorrect and bad, with the few exceptions not withstanding?
I'm new to the setting and want clarification, not the user you'd arguing with.

Your strawman isn't any better, supposedly new user.
But no, someone acting like a murderhobo and just indiscriminately slaughtering people on flimsy or no pretense is not going to get away with it in this setting.

What a flimsy trolling attempt.
Try harder next time.

Those GMs planning new games, in what timezones are you in? Should I get my hopes up?

>A player going full murder hobo when that doesn't fit the setting and being punished for it isn't bullying.

It is if your first idea for "punishment" is to throw a fucking Gaki at the party. What can possibly go wrong, after all... right?

If you have a murderhobo at hand then give him murderhobo stuff to do. It isn't that hard, Rokugan likes murderhobos. Just don't insert some overblown antagonistic approach into your game, that's something Wick would do.

>Rokugan is an established setting with established social mores and supernatural effects.

It is also a setting where these things change with every take on them, and you can make everything and its exact opposite true depending on your point of view. And even if you have something consistent, chances are high that people in-setting make a sport out of bypassing and/or violating that rule.

Still with the strawmen. You should start a farm.

And if you want to talk about another take on the setting, go right ahead. We're talking about the default setting as it is written.

>But no, someone acting like a murderhobo and just indiscriminately slaughtering people on flimsy or no pretense is not going to get away with it in this setting.

What? No, you idiot.
I don't HAVE any murderhobo players in my group; why the fuck do you even keep them in yours that you're so worried about it? My players wanted a fucking samurai game and L5R was the most notable so I went on here to ask about it because I never played the CCG and know fuck-all about it even as I order the core book off of Amazon. All the other samurai games I saw looked like horseshit.
I'm trying to figure out what is okay to houserule and what isn't okay and how flexible the setting is you knee-jerk reactionary dickwad.
Jesus, is EVERYONE who plays L5R such an unwelcoming asshole? No wonder the goddamn CCG fell apart.
Apologies if it fell apart due to internal company bullshit like Shadowrun did.

>So basically nothing can ever be different outside of these things no matter what and anything outside of these things is incorrect and bad, with the few exceptions not withstanding?

Technically, this is the case, but the exceptions are many, and nobody takes the rules seriously. So it is, like, it -should- be the case, but it isn't.

And this is why the whole murderhobo argument stupid.

>Apologies if it fell apart due to internal company bullshit like Shadowrun did.

Thank god, no. Nothing in the gaming industry is quite as bad as the bullshit that happened at Catalyst Game Labs.

Again; I don't have any murderhobos in my group. What I DO have is five guys who are really into classic samurai movies and love stuff like Usagi Yojimbo.

> don't HAVE any murderhobo players in my group; why the fuck do you even keep them in yours that you're so worried about it?
I don't have any either. We're talking about what happens to murderhobos, not giving advice about what to do with yours specifically.

>Jesus, is EVERYONE who plays L5R such an unwelcoming asshole?
You literally just wrote a response that is speaking in absolutes and clearly fishing for responses just to make arguments against. Even this right here is speaking in absolutes and fishing for responses. If you really, actually weren't trying to troll, you're doing a bad job of it.

GMT +2, you?

>implying that's the first punishment.
No, socially he's going to get fucked up first. But gaki is a thing that is a possible example of what could happen.

Sorry user if you're getting caught up in this. L5R is actually a really fun setting.

I mean, all I HEAR on this thread are absolutes and all this primer stuff I read online suggests not much setting flexibility or grey areas.

So explain it to me; where is the flexibility and grey areas of the setting? Are there any? If there are some, how flexible is it? Is there any room for any stories beyond what the CCG appears to be about, namely Ravinca-like interfaction warfare? Is there a way for Clans of individual samurai to work together or is everything REALLY as tightly enforced as all this arguing implies?

And finally, is this thread going to be helpful or should I just fuck off and tell my friends we're not playing a samurai drama game anytime soon?

With all this talk of peasant abuse, what happens if you romance or alternatively rape a heimin? Obviously either way a child eould be a ronin, but on what scale of a social fuck up is it if you're caught. If you can murder peasants if they insult you, so is rape considered a crime too since it doesn't break your lord's tools?

Same.

Tell me more what happend to Catalyst Game Labs?

>What I DO have is five guys who are really into classic samurai movies and love stuff like Usagi Yojimbo.

Then L5R as-is is probably not your game. Luckily, overhauling the fluff is easy. Just get stuck in and cut off what you don't like. 90% of the fluff is expendable in the greater scheme of things.

The setting itself is super flexible because you can cut shit and fill the holes up with your own stuff with impunity. After a while, the fluff will just write itself if you put some thought into it.

Gmt-5 here, was considering running a game of emerald magistrates over voice

I mean....in actual feudal Japan terms? It's technically not illegal, as they are only "sort of" people. That said, people still knew some of the difference between laws of the land and laws of reality as the entire caste system had no religious element to it at all in real life, so most people would think it kind of an extremely fucked up thing to do even if it's not technically illegal.
That said if you abuse someone ELSE'S peasants then you're gonna cause trouble because that's not cool in two fronts.

Wouldn't be a bad fit then. You can play ronin but they'll get their shit kicked around socially. Samurai out to kill bandits and out to hold up bushido though works great. Just got to remember east vs west values.

Rokugan terms, since we're on the topic. Mainly kind of interested in how samurai and heimin can interact. I know hero of the people is an advantage for example but never seen it used.

Long story.
Short version; company CEO embezzled close to a million dollars to build his house, and when people found out they discovered that they couldn't so him because that would lock up the money he owns in a legal case which given the overhead costs of the company and the expense of printing today meant that the entire company would go under during the court proceedings and everyone would loose their jobs, so the CEO was allowed to both keep the money AND his position rather face any real penalty for what he did.

I'm getting conflicting messages here.
One is that it's terrible for it without modification, and one where it isn't.

So which is it?
And I won't have much problem with East vs Western values at all for a number of reasons. The

>And I won't have much problem with East vs Western values at all for a number of reasons.

Ooooh....uuuh...I'm neither of those posters, but are you a person with actual knowledge of that kinda stuff or something? Because the setting plays....very loosely with that sort of stuff. To the point of sort of getting it halfway wrong a lot of the time.

The game was kinda invented pre-internet and was based more off of what people THOUGHT everything was like, and by people I mostly mean RPG gamer nerds who played Oriental Adventures in the 1980's....

>where is the flexibility and grey areas of the setting?
Mostly where nobody and nothing can see you, in moderation. Spirits aren't actually all seeing. There are loopholes in the law, but they cut both ways. Being higher ranked than everyone else in the room also helps a lot.
>Are there any?
Yes.
>If there are some, how flexible is it?
Usually it's not very. Get caught doing something bad, and you're fucked. If you're higher ranking than everyone else, you're less fucked until they go above your head.
>Is there any room for any stories beyond what the CCG appears to be about, namely Ravinca-like interfaction warfare?
Absolutely yes. PCs in the RPG aren't even remotely close to the level where they could influence events like that, and most eras you could play in don't have massive overarching wars that overshadow literally everything else.

> Is there a way for Clans of individual samurai to work together or is everything REALLY as tightly enforced as all this arguing implies?
Working together is easy. Most of the time. Tensions can run very high, and all of the clans have reasons to fight each other. RPG characters are not on the level of daimyo or Champions, so it's more down to their individual situations and what's going on immediately around them.

Having an affair with a heimin might actually be safer than having an affair with another samurai, because your word trumps their word 100% of the time, although it's also harder to discretely rub it in everyone else's face. Male samurai who are important enough can have concubines, who can be peasant women. Officially, this is just to make more heirs, but many of them are just girlfriends that can now openly have a relationship.

Raping a peasant... Well, the peasant basically has no legal recourse and a samurai's word trumps their word 100% of the time. Another samurai might take up their cause if they believe the story, but chances are that they'll have to fabricate something else or catch you for a crime against a samurai if they want to *legally* get you for something. Raping a merchant's daughter or other well off or well respected peasant might get you a low grade assassination attempt.

>Usually it's not very. Get caught doing something bad, and you're fucked. If you're higher ranking than everyone else, you're less fucked until they go above your head.

Thanks, I know how a generic aristocratic heirarchy works already.
I meant in terms of setting fluff; is everything about the setting REALLY rigidly defined and has lots of "this thing means THIS thing and ONLY this thing" and you're basically having to do everything by not just THE book but THEIR book and ONLY their book?

I'm curious if I can tell my players about being members of these animal Clans about them and there's enough leeway to make variances from the CCG-like archetypes I'm seeing here.

Yeah, but I expected some differences what with the demons and vaguely Warhammer-like Mordor Chaos Taint thing the bad guys have going in from what I've read.

Nah. There are plenty of variances. The CCG is not a great representation of the setting if you're trying to get into the RPG.
There are stereotypes, and the mechanics of Schools and Techniques encourage following the normal line in what you specialize in, but how you actually act is not that rigid. A Hida bushi doesn't have to be loud, rude, and uncouth, but mechanically, he's better off using a tetsubo and wearing heavy armor, because his Techniques are built for that.

Okay, and Schools are basically D&D character classes to a certain degree?
Like a "this is what abilities and gear you have" thing?

Pretty much.
There are three large archetypes for schools, Bushi, Courtier, and Shugenja, that share basic mechanics with others in their archetype. There are also some rarer ones, like Ninja, or Artisan, but those are more like subtypes.

A Character's school dictates starting equipment and basic skills, along with their starting Technique, which is usually some kind of flat bonus to certain rolls, or enables special actions, or removes certain penalties.

Charaters start with a significant amount of XP to customize on top of the set bonuses they get from their Family and School.

user from here. I was referring to what said. The dude who invented the setting had... strange ideas and it shows pretty darn dominantly in every aspect of the game.

There is a reason why "Rokugan Your Way!" became the official guideline for 4th edition.

Can these oddities still be removed and still keep the samurai drama and yokai and stuff without just abandoning the game?

>yokai
This poster here.
There's....uh...no actual yokai in Rokugan. At least not like you're probably thinking of.

If you acknowledge the child as your own, then it's a member of your family. If you refuse to acknowledge it, then it isn't even a samurai. And unless you're caught in the act, your word against the word of a peasant means they rape never happened.

It would be shameful to romance a peasant on purpose, but ''drunken mistakes'' are a thing that happen and no one cares too much.

Of course! In fact, removing/reshaping them will improve your game a lot.

>then it isn't even a samurai
But it might be a ronin, depending on what else happens. A lot of ronin are bastards who couldn't be fully acknowledged. Rape babies probably need extra outside help, but it's personally dishonorable for a lot of samurai to leave something like that alone if they know the truth.