Remove ads

In Thunder's Echo (Legend of the Five Rings Quest)

Reader mode
gman391 said:
It won't. I fully expect it to end in a duel. The entire point of this is to make him look like a complete dick to Mariko so that when we lose we still win because we showed we cared about her feelings and thoughts while he didn't.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Okay. So your vote staves off an inevitable duel, or concession. And tries to make the dude who just flat out disregarded his boss and's orders to challenge her considerate boyfriend--who volunteered to defend her against a Matsu with no hesitation--to a duel look like a cock. The thing is that A) we've already shown that we're prime husbando material and B) There's not much lower Sekawa can sink.

I don't see the point of it.
e- I feel like I might be blowing things out of proportion to an extent, and surrendering the right to champion Mariko mightn't be as bad as I feel like it is. I suppose the Etiquette check will have to tell what's what.
 
Last edited:
gman391 said:
It won't. I fully expect it to end in a duel. The entire point of this is to make him look like a complete dick to Mariko so that when we lose we still win because we showed we cared about her feelings and thoughts while he didn't.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
What is the benefit to us to making him look like a dick? What do we win? Honestly, I don't see pissing this man off as a good thing. If he's angling for our woman? If he starts being reasonably successful at it? Fine. She'll almost certainly enjoy the competition, and if we can treat him respectfully enough he won't feel as inclined to come after us with a blade. In the meantime, we still have our in with the Crane, and if we can build something resembling a rapport with the man, we might get more useful insight into the Crane Conundrum.

Right now, wooing Doji Mariko is valuable. Winning her isn't actually all that important. If she likes and trusts us and feels torn between her affection for us and her affection for him, that doesn't hurt us at all... and it keeps all the duels to the death coming his way, which is *great*.
 
Last edited:
noliar said:
Typical Scorpion.

Luckily we're somewhere fairly private so there are no other witnesses to us backing down. Still, if someone comes up with a write in to save face it'd help. If I thought we could duel him and lose without being too badly injured I'd suggest that but it's not the sort of thing we can prearrange with an honorable non-Scorpion and he has too much motivation to hurt or kill.

Fact is, he's right. It is his job to be in that duel and he is much more likely to save the girl than we are.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Was actually thinking of the consequences of bowing out of the death duel, not of bowing out of this one specifically.


Sirrocco said:
@Maugan Ra I believe it's time for an etiquette check.

Let's suppose we run things exactly as he has suggested them. We agree to the duel. We fight as well as we can, and we live, but lose. Based on this, we acknowledge to the court in the morning that Kakita Sekawa has defeated us in an honorable duel for the honour of standing as Doji Mariko's champion, and that we yield to him that honor. What are the wider social implications of this?

...because, to the rest of you, if they aren't particularly dire, I personally cannot see a downside to this, if we accept it graciously. Kakita Sekawa is right. Getting into this duel will, in fact, lead to our deaths. Having Kakita-san challenge us for the privilege and win seems like a fantastic way out of the trap for all involved with honor intact. It even dings our glory a bit, which might lower our profile, which is a Good Thing. In the meantime, we're still showing just as much willingness to defend Doji Mariko, and not shaming ourselves in her eyes, so it shouldn't actually harm our chances with her or with the Crane Question.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

See, this is more what I was thinking of. If the court would accept this with minimal consequences, then I'm inclined to figure out a way to let Kakita dude take over the duel - preferably while giving him as little injury as we can get away with.
 
Benefit..eh not much but I'd rather get out of this with something. Instead of nothing, which is what I expect the whole
"MATSU CHARGE!" vote to end in.

I mean either we win and Mariko watches us kill her child hood friend (Which makes her sad and probably halts all our progress there)

Or we lose and he gets what he wanted anyways and we look like idiots, and he probably cripples us for good measure.
 
Sirrocco said:
What is the benefit to us to making him look like a dick? What do we win? Honestly, I don't see pissing this man off as a good thing. If he's angling for our woman? If he starts being reasonably successful at it? Fine. She'll almost certainly enjoy the competition, and if we can treat him respectfully enough he won't feel as inclined to come after us with a blade. In the meantime, we still have our in with the Crane, and if we can build something resembling a rapport with the man, we might get more useful insight into the Crane Conundrum.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That's the big question, isn't it? Sekawa won't kill us. This isn't to the death, even if he'll keep high most likely when he hits us. Do we want to shame him and make it that there's two people that dearly, dearly despise us? Or do we want to swallow our pride and hope that Sekawa will come around to like us?

I guess from the angle of "this will keep Crane relations better" the latter is the better choice, but it also necessitates that it will be a bigger boon to Crane relations than just stomping on him, and I am unconvinced that would be the case or that Sekawa would NOT hate us.
gman391 said:
Benefit..eh not much but I'd rather get out of this with something. Instead of nothing, which is what I expect the whole
"MATSU CHARGE!" vote to end in.

I mean either we win and Mariko watches us kill her child hood friend (Which makes her sad and probably halts all our progress there)

Or we lose and he gets what he wanted anyways and we look like idiots, and he probably cripples us for good measure.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I am not aiming to kill Sekawa.
 
If we just charge like a Matsu, he's certaintly going to believe we're trying to kill him and react appropriately.

Leaving aside that legit, Iaijutsu is the best shot at taking out the Matsu Badass we ended up dueling. So the better duelist should take it
 
If I'm reading this right the Lion will destroy us if we go through with that duel? Honor is important and all that but can't do our duty if we are dead.
 
gman391 said:
If we just charge like a Matsu, he's certaintly going to believe we're trying to kill him and react appropriately.

Leaving aside that legit, Iaijutsu is the best shot at taking out the Matsu Badass we ended up dueling. So the better duelist should take it
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Then I can alter the vote to include a nod. And I don't think it matters given that we're just going to try and knock each other out anyway.

As for the iaijutsu v. Matsu, and declarations, well. I'll be blunt: How we fight this guy doesn't matter for how we fight her. We could say kenjutsu now and do iaijutsu then and the only people to know we lied are him--who we don't care about--and Mariko, who won't give a shit because we just saved her life lol
 
gman391 said:
@Maugan Ra
How are called shots being handled by you?

(Actually not sure what happens if we die, reroll?)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Called shots? A variable number of raises would be required depending on where you're aiming to hit. Some locations would have additional secondary effects depending on specifics, likely adjudicated on the fly.

If you die... then Naoto is dead and the Quest ends. Maybe I run another quest in the same setting, but our lovable Scorpion is gone. In Rokugan, death is always a possibility.

Sirrocco said:
@Maugan Ra I believe it's time for an etiquette check.

Let's suppose we run things exactly as he has suggested them. We agree to the duel. We fight as well as we can, and we live, but lose. Based on this, we acknowledge to the court in the morning that Kakita Sekawa has defeated us in an honorable duel for the honour of standing as Doji Mariko's champion, and that we yield to him that honor. What are the wider social implications of this?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Depends how successful you are at, oh, probably a Courtier or Sincerity check at the announcement. Assuming a decent result, you could probably get the Court to accept it, and your public image wouldn't be badly tarnished. Spin it properly and you might even be able to gain Honour from it.

Matsu Heijiko would probably be called in to see if she consents to the new Champion, but assuming she does (and chances are she would), then you're fine.

Now, that's the general response. The opinions of individual NPCs would be tilted one way or another depending on their personal character and how you frame it.
 
Rook said:
Then I can alter the vote to include a nod. And I don't think it matters given that we're just going to try and knock each other out anyway.

As for the iaijutsu v. Matsu, and declarations, well. I'll be blunt: How we fight this guy doesn't matter for how we fight her. We could say kenjutsu now and do iaijutsu then and the only people to know we lied are him--who we don't care about--and Mariko, who won't give a shit because we just saved her life lol
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
How would we have just saved her life?
 
Maugan Ra said:
Depends how successful you are at, oh, probably a Courtier or Sincerity check at the announcement. Assuming a decent result, you could probably get the Court to accept it, and your public image wouldn't be badly tarnished. Spin it properly and you might even be able to gain Honour from it.

Matsu Heijiko would probably be called in to see if she consents to the new Champion, but assuming she does (and chances are she would), then you're fine.

Now, that's the general response. The opinions of individual NPCs would be tilted one way or another depending on their personal character and how you frame it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
For the sake of anyone arguing we step down, I would note here that our respective rolls here are both really really good.
 
OK, so we can probably manage the court. What about our two Crane. So how do we get him to be the duelist for the death duel, while leaving the best possible impression on the two crane. We can either duel him and lose - which I'm perfectly fine with, provided we don't get permanently injured - and then spin the loss to our advantage, or we can just skip the duel and concede now, while spinning it for max effect, and lying to the court that we lost in a duel. I'm thinking that actually losing the duel would be the better option, but I'm not good at L5R social-fu, so what's everyone else think?
 
cokerpilot said:
? Hm odd I read that as crane not matsu thought you were talking about the intimidate problem, but even still won't the duel be witnessed?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I was referring to any duel against the Matsu, and how the means thereof would not in any way meaningfully impact us if they differ from how we might duel Sekawa.

On that note, I'm going to let the thread run as it will until next update, since I feel I'm not thinking properly. Good luck guys!
 
Rook said:
For the sake of anyone arguing we step down, I would note here that our respective rolls here are both really really good.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm not arguing that because we can't beat the crane. I'm arguing that because I'm not confident in our ability to beat the lion. And besides, why risk our life against a Lion when there's another perfectly competent person who's willing to do the same, and who probably has similar - or better - odds of success?
 
Maugan Ra said:
Depends how successful you are at, oh, probably a Courtier or Sincerity check at the announcement. Assuming a decent result, you could probably get the Court to accept it, and your public image wouldn't be badly tarnished. Spin it properly and you might even be able to gain Honour from it.

Matsu Heijiko would probably be called in to see if she consents to the new Champion, but assuming she does (and chances are she would), then you're fine.

Now, that's the general response. The opinions of individual NPCs would be tilted one way or another depending on their personal character and how you frame it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Excellent. Given that...

[x] Very well, Kakita-san. Your point is well-taken. I admit that I may have been hasty when making my offer. Matsu Heijiko was just so *very* offensive to Doji-sama that I could not bear to simply stand by. I suspect you are the better duelist, and I will gladly give you a duel in which you may prove it, if that will lead to her having the best available defender.
[x] At the same time, I cannot help but notice that we are some distance from the city, up a winding rocky trail, with no Shugenja anywhere nearby. I suspect that a duel fought until one of us can no longer stand would be a duel to the death in truth, no matter what either of us might wish. That *would* require me to request permission from my Lord. Given that, might your honor be satisfied by an iajutsu duel to first blood, instead?
[x] If he accepts, then fight honorably, expect to lose, and try to learn something as you do. Burn void on reducing wounds if the wound would otherwise be severe or crippling, but having (for example), a nice large gash in a semi-visible place isn't bad. It'll be more satisfying to Sekawa, and make the whole thing look better for when we go to sell this to the court.
[X] If he insists that the duel be until one can no longer stand, and will not budge, insist that it be done in a more formal setting to avoid unintended consequences.
 
Last edited:
[X] Sirrocco

Seems to be a reasonably face saving way to get out of the death duel, and even contains something to ward off the possibility of us dying out here.

I would recommend that we put something like the following just in case, though it's not a make or break thing:

-[] If he insists that the duel be until one can no longer stand, request that we move closer to the city first to avoid unintended consequences.
 
Well, that's the possible best outcome then. The issue is if Sekawa doesn't agree to this terms... Or if he's willing to keep losing face since the only witness is Mariko herself.

It could be played to our favor, if Mariko is devoted to speak the truth of what actually happened, but what if we lose her trust and our in with the Crane? The Crane are masterful at court after all.
 
Sirrocco said:
[x] Very well, Sekawa. Your point is well-taken. I admit that I may have been hasty when making my offer. Matsu Heijiko was just so *very* offensive to Doji-sama that I could not bear to simply stand by. I suspect you are the better duelist, and I will gladly give you a duel in which you may prove it, if that will lead to her having the best available defender.
[x] At the same time, I cannot help but notice that we are some distance from the city, up a winding rocky trail, with no Shugenja anywhere nearby. I suspect that a duel fought until one of us can no longer stand would be a duel to the death in truth, no matter what either of us might wish. That *would* require me to request permission from my Lord. Given that, might your honor be satisfied by an iajutsu duel to first blood, instead?
[x] If he accepts, then fight honorably, expect to lose, and try to learn something as you do. Burn void on reducing wounds if the wound would otherwise be severe or crippling, but having (for example), a nice large gash in a semi-visible place isn't bad. It'll be more satisfying to Sekawa, and make the whole thing look better for when we go to sell this to the court.
[X] If he insists that the duel be until one can no longer stand, and will not budge, insist that it be done in a more formal setting to avoid unintended consequences.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Only problem I see here is that we might be addressing him to familiarly.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top