An Open Book Facing Me (Eiji's Q&A)

[Soshi Eiji]

Now, my lords and ladies, there was a place that never was, in a time that never happened called Windrise. In this non-existent place, there were many, many smart and talented players who brought their stories to life under the guidance of two very noble (though some might argue whether they were wise to do this or foolish), GMs. And among the players of this game, was Soshi Eiji.

Now, Eiji's player was (and still is) struggling in life, and so when he was presented the challenge of building a character for an incredibly lore dense custom world, with a system he'd grown rusty in, in a few days after returning from christmas holidays, with the additional gm command, "Do something different! Move away from stereotypes!" His player was at a bit of a loss.

And so, fitting his internal mood with it's name, he turned to discord. "What delegation is the least populated?" he asked. "For an empty delegation is a sad one for a gm, and I wish to help."

"Play a Phoenix!" barked the Dog-bear. "Me and three others are going to!"

"Dog-Bear, I look forward to playing with you in this game, but I asked for the least populated delegation, not the most." Eiji's player replied.

"Ah, but I have not actually built my Phoenix, so technically the delegation is empty!" returned the Dog-bear.

"But what is the least populated delegation?"

"I am alone," quoth Yogo Kuichi's player.

Now this caused Eiji's player to pause. He had played in games where the Scorpion clan delegation had been the scum of the internet, and he'd played in games where they were an efficient, motivated team. But never had he seen a delegation of a lone Yogo.

"But surely you will not be for long. Did not obsidian dragon pledge himself scorpion? Have others not registered? The Scorpion clan delegation is always a draw." he asked.

"And yet he is alone" replied the GMs.

And so Eiji's player considered this. The Scorpion clan had been his first love when the delegation at Black Scroll broke his heart. But they were still a role he loved playing. But how could he 'Do something different!' as a gms commanded with the Scorpion clan? A highly honorable Scorpion would just be a junshin. He'd played a courtier, he'd played a Yogo, he'd played an actor, their bushi were just as likely to be smooth talking and sneaky. What could he do different?

Also, Eiji's player was troubled when it came to the topic of winter court romance. Sometimes romance went well for him in games, such as AEG WC 3 & 4, and sometimes it went very very badly, like AEG WC 2. This was going to be a game full of heirs, did he really want to put himself through that again?

So as he flipped through the rules, desperately trying to come up with a character, he stumbled upon the rules for court. Perform: Storytelling as a way to do court actions. Now as someone who had really come to love 5e's approach of taking an approach of your choosing, this stood out to him. And were Ikoma bards not considered the worst courtier school in the game? He had certainly never considered playing one. So what if, he were to marry one into the Scorpion. Would that not cover all the bases?

So to think is to do, and so he quickly wrote up Soshi Eiji, as the deadline for submissions was very close at hand. It was not a well thought out build, but it did make it to rank 3, and the rest, well you know the rest.

At least that's what I thought until someone asked me......

[Fukurokujin]

I am always glad to game with you, and I sorrow that matters have not improved IRL. They are rat bastards who do not know a good thing, they who do not offer to give you lots of money.

I also enjoyed your narrative approach to the game. Having the storytelling was great!

That much said, and true, a question: Of the non-Wind NPCs, which would you most like to see come back in future games, whichever of the fifteen emerge? (There are some who will be sure to appear in some games, due to their nature, but still...)

[Soshi Eiji]

I am always glad to game with you, and I sorrow that matters have not improved IRL. They are rat bastards who do not know a good thing, they who do not offer to give you lots of money.

I also enjoyed your narrative approach to the game. Having the storytelling was great!

That much said, and true, a question: Of the non-Wind NPCs, which would you most like to see come back in future games, whichever of the fifteen emerge? (There are some who will be sure to appear in some games, due to their nature, but still...)

Akodo-ke no kashin Shimomura Shigehiko

[Fukurokujin]

Akodo-ke no kashin Shimomura Shigehiko

I'll let Cear know.

[Soshi Eiji]

Akodo-ke no kashin Shimomura Shigehiko

I'll let Cear know.

Y'know, if you were to delineate which npcs were yours specifically gb, I think it's reasonable to change the question to 'which two npcs." You have to remember, I'm not nearly as literary as you are, I can't definitely pick out who is writing whom between you two

[Fukurokujin]

I'm honored!

[Kuni Shiori]

No questions here but thank you very much for sharing a bit of your mental space and how the character came to be! I always find those very fascinating.

Well, one question. Did Eiji really not know the source of Shiori's letter?

[Shiba Ryusei]

Please Fill Out Form Questions Blue through Twexl, and submit them in triplicate...

1. Did Eiji change much from concept to execution?

2. Biggest curveball the game threw you?

3. Biggest curveball Eiji threw you?

4. PC you missed interacting with that you wish Eiji had logged some time with?

5. You ended up essentially a delegation of one (so it's a good thing you went Skerp-a-Derp!), which I can.... kind relate to over stretches of this game Did it alter your willingness to take IC risks, knowing that a dead Eiji would basically be a torpedoed Team Skerp?

6. IRL-no_oni is a vicious bastard and I hope something comes up for you... but did the game help a bit in terms of being a distraction?

7. Storytelling ended up being a neat trick, but I also know it was labor-intensive. Which of Eiji's stories was your favorite?

[Soshi Eiji]

No questions here but thank you very much for sharing a bit of your mental space and how the character came to be! I always find those very fascinating.

Well, one question. Did Eiji really not know the source of Shiori's letter?

Of course I knew. But one does not comment directly upon the Game of Letters, that defeats the fun of it. But with the game over I can reveal the true culprit was:

Akodo-ke no kashin Shimomura Shigehiko!

Well, at least, that's who Eiji was trying to make it seem like it was. Early on I had had the idea of stirring up trouble with the Game of Letters. GMs had lobbed Akodo-san's plot at me, with a very nebulous outline of 1) Befriend him, 2) ??? 3) Profit. Then it looked like to me that the gms got disracted with, y'know *waves hands at entire rest of the game* when I didn't get a followup reply on the bar hangout with Akodo-san (Not even an Ohohoho! Very amusing Soshi-san).

So, when we met and you were talking about "Darn, I had hoped to have a winter romance" I was like "Hey! A Kuni looking for love, and a goofy npc whose plot seemed to have died out. I can use the game of letters to set up something really fun!"

And then well...you got distracted by *waves hands at rest of game* and the gms continued forward with the story they wanted to showcase with Akodo-san (Inter-clan feuding) and well, nothing happened. Our final talk was my last desperate chance to make it happen, and it didn't. Such are the perils with trying to set something up to happen without setting each party down and going, "Here's what I want to happen"

[Kuni Shiori]

There it is, Scorpion Keikaku! *shakes fist* Aha, thank you for sharing that. I was wondering if the letter actually was from Eiji himself (given the avatar of choice had a sort of moustache) but due to his marital status and politeness, he was never going to be the obvious suspect. Sorry that the plot didn't catch on with Shiori, who was trying to juggle her feelings between doom and gloom and her impending marriage. It would have been difficult to have her make the leap to winter romance so quickly.

[Soshi Eiji]

Please Fill Out Form Questions Blue through Twexl, and submit them in triplicate...

1. Did Eiji change much from concept to execution?

2. Biggest curveball the game threw you?

3. Biggest curveball Eiji threw you?

4. PC you missed interacting with that you wish Eiji had logged some time with?

5. You ended up essentially a delegation of one (so it's a good thing you went Skerp-a-Derp!), which I can.... kind relate to over stretches of this game Did it alter your willingness to take IC risks, knowing that a dead Eiji would basically be a torpedoed Team Skerp?

6. IRL-no_oni is a vicious bastard and I hope something comes up for you... but did the game help a bit in terms of being a distraction?

7. Storytelling ended up being a neat trick, but I also know it was labor-intensive. Which of Eiji's stories was your favorite?

1. So, originally I was looking at the four (not five) winds, and trying to figure out who to support. In my hasty reading to try and get myself put together for game start, they mostly read as "Ok, these 3 are all too polite to step forward, but are qualified. Here's the one who steps forward AND wants Rokugan to be a meritocracy." Alright, a meritocracy focused Rokugan would be a fun time, I thought. Glancing at the rules, I saw that glory gains to winds and their followers had an impact on the game. So my thinking was that I could actually use the Ikoma bard public bragging tech to have an impact on the game. I even asked the gms how many times I could use it, and they confirmed I could use it for 3 different people 3 times over the course of the game...but they said I had to actually have to witness something "noble/heroic" to use the tech yet I would get to see these things happen. So I forged ahead.

Then I actually met Gorobei, and he did not have the lean and hungry, 'i'm going to revolutionize the Empire with YOUR help" vibe I had really been hoping for. So I kinda tuned out of the winds aspect for awhile until Noriko stood up in court to defend Tomaru's honor. THAT was the kind of honorable person Eiji would follow. I even had something to publically brag about her the next day in court! But then...I didn't really encounter anything else that I felt would qualify that didn't already get automatically announced in court like the fight against the kill team. So, I tried to make Ikoma bards relevant and despite my best efforts It didn't work XD

2) I think the funniest one was that despite the only notable thing in my pc description being that I recently married into the Scorpion clan, and my sig having Ikoma bard, that absolutely everyone approached him with, "Hey Soshi-san! First time in Kyuden Ikoma? You're a sneaky boi, right?"

3) There was a post that ended up getting deleted in the duel between Lions. Deleted because I had to scrub it to go "Nooooo, drop the weapon!" But it was about how to Eiji, that moment when the second duelist tried to dishonorably kill her opponent, that was when he truly felt like he was no longer a Lion. Up to that moment, he'd really seen himself as a Lion. Yes a Lion in black and red robes and a funny mask, but honor! Lion clan! But when she did that, that was the first time he really thought of the Lion as "Them" rather than "We" So it was fun to watch the transformation of "Funny colored Lion" to "Dedicated (though still honorable) Scorpion"

4) Asahina Minase. They are a beautifull butterfly of talented player, constantly whippped out of my reach by the winds of rl no oni.

5) Not really. GMs said if we died, we could take over a npc delegation member. And I don't play my l5r pcs overly cautious these days. Meet up with NPC Lion at a sketchy bar when there's a kidnapping plot going on? Get approached in same sketchy bar by Thugs, Hired Thugs? Literally laugh at Lady Matsu to her face? (I really expected to get punched for that one). So I don't think I was overly cautious...but I also didn't do things that wouldn't make sense like charging into the kill team fight or trying to sneak into the imperial apartments for lulz.

6) Well, it did give me confidence in my writing, and it was nice to feel confident about SOMETHING these days. Of course, when I wasn't writing, I was lashing myself for not devoting that time to job hunting instead. But Windrise was temporary, grinding is forever.

7) Kami, was it labor intensive. One of the reasons I didn't use up more court actions was because I didn't want to write anymore stories XD I mean sure, I could've handwaved it as "Eiji tells a story to reinforce the point..." but professionalism! So the stories that credit Mikal the Ram are my l5r twists on a dearly departed SCA bard. I no longer have the tape of his work, but I still have a doc of his hornbook. The stories told in and around the Musubi festival are lifted practically straight from the ryoko owari box set (though I did edit the poridge stick one's dialogue a bit because wow has rokugan changed since then). The rest I wrote to try to fit the situation. I think probably the favorite one I did was the one I wrote for the arts festival to honor the Crab. At first I was like, "You can't brag about the Crab! The stories they like are all filled with shadowlands icky!" So as I tried to puzzle together something that work, and I was watching someone do a blind playthrough of the Ace Attorney series. theyre just getting into case 5 of the first game, and it reminded me of the story about the spear that could pierce any shield and the unbreakable shield. So I thought I could spin that into something (the siblings names are literally tip of the spear and little shield) At first, I wrote it as two brothers, and a sneaky scorpion lady, but then I was like, "Y'know what? There's no reason to gender these characters. if you
wanna imagine them as two sisters, or a sneaky scorpion guy AND two brothers, or whatever you like, it doesn't change the point of the story" so I took out all the gendered language. So it did kind of make me laugh when Hoshiko (whose player is kind enough to point out to me pointlessly gendered things), spoke of my 'tale of two brothers'

[Kitsu Sayomi]

Thanks for the game and our scenes. Eiji was an interesting character to bounce off of.

Seems like my questions had already been asked too! And some preemptively!

Do you think you'll bring Eiji back for a future game?

[Soshi Eiji]

Thanks for the game and our scenes. Eiji was an interesting character to bounce off of.

Seems like my questions had already been asked too! And some preemptively!

Do you think you'll bring Eiji back for a future game?

Huh.

I don't generally do repeats, preferring to start fresh with a character crafted for the game. Like if they go with a combat heavy game next, I definitely don't want him to go. But if the game made sense and there was a reason to bring him in, sure.

[Doji Shinnosuke]

I wish Shin had hung out with Eiji outside of court sooner, because I felt like those two storytelling, somewhat gossipy nerds clicked a lot more in a less formal setting. Also, OOC, I rather wanted to ask about Eiji’s marriage/family backstory, but that didn’t really seem like an “I just met you and we’re standing in court” topic as a character who didn’t dump social stats.

So… since this is not IC court, anything interesting you’re open to share in that there backstory? Is Eiji happily married?

[Soshi Eiji]

I wish Shin had hung out with Eiji outside of court sooner, because I felt like those two storytelling, somewhat gossipy nerds clicked a lot more in a less formal setting. Also, OOC, I rather wanted to ask about Eiji’s marriage/family backstory, but that didn’t really seem like an “I just met you and we’re standing in court” topic as a character who didn’t dump social stats.

So… since this is not IC court, anything interesting you’re open to share in that there backstory? Is Eiji happily married?

He's neutrally married XD Not wildly in love, not wildly in hate. Just two samurai who aren't particularly valued by their families being paired together to seal a treaty that was JUST important enough for a marriage to seal.

[Shiba Ryusei]

So Rokugani Normally Married

Was there anyone at Court he would have contemplated a Proper and Normal affair with, or is he still too much a Lion at heart to consider it?

[Soshi Eiji]

So Rokugani Normally Married

Was there anyone at Court he would have contemplated a Proper and Normal affair with, or is he still too much a Lion at heart to consider it?

Too much a Lion to consider. And all the candidates I would've liked found someone anyways.

[Yogo Kiuchi]

I just want to say a huge thank you for joining the Scorpion. You were incredible. I wish we would have had more of chance to play, but yeah, IRL BS.

[Asahina Hoshiko]

Thanks for hanging out here and there, and working a bit of trade on the side. Someday I'll have a game where I can get back into form with long threads that meander and have interesting courtierspeak overlays and all again. It was nice seeing you have time for more of that (even if the IRL reason isn't great, no sense not to use the time on tap).

And now Eiji's headed to Shiro Matsu, so we won't say hi to one another at the plague convention. (side note that I was surprised that tech was even still in play at the point we traded for it.)

Going to throw your own question back at you, because someone should.

Director's Cut Question: Think back on the game as a whole. If you could go back, and add just one more scene with our characters in it, what would it be? What are they doing/talking about?

[Soshi Eiji]

Thanks for hanging out here and there, and working a bit of trade on the side. Someday I'll have a game where I can get back into form with long threads that meander and have interesting courtierspeak overlays and all again. It was nice seeing you have time for more of that (even if the IRL reason isn't great, no sense not to use the time on tap).

And now Eiji's headed to Shiro Matsu, so we won't say hi to one another at the plague convention. (side note that I was surprised that tech was even still in play at the point we traded for it.)

Going to throw your own question back at you, because someone should.

Director's Cut Question: Think back on the game as a whole. If you could go back, and add just one more scene with our characters in it, what would it be? What are they doing/talking about?

I wasn't in a rush to trade off plague tech, because we only had the one. My thinking was that people would get very upset at not getting it, and I thought we were way worse off on trade goods due to the misreading of dye, so I was holding out for better. But the responses I got back were mostly, "Yeah, but we might not even have a plague, and trade goods are real." Crab wanted it, but at the time didn't wanna offer trade Goods, Dragon said they couldn't offer us enough trade goods to make it worth it, I thought I'd already gotten all the trade goods I could from Phoenix, and Lion offered us 0 trade goods. (Which looking at their starting position, wow, rice/copper...that would have been a much different set of negotitions to go with).

Then the day of presenting the trade with the Crane, Crab messages me with "Um, so yeah, we found out plague is really real, and uh, name your price?" And I told them, "Um, I'm trading it to the Crane, here's what they're offering. The only shot you'd have would be you'd either have to argue against the treaty with the Crane to make it fail or take the 'Close court NOW!" option, AND then somehow convince us to back out of our agreement with the Crane. And they were like, "....we can't give you as much as the Crane." And as you said, had other Crane trades gone through, you wouldn't have had the rice to offer like you did, so it was very much a right time, right place for you to get it (Note: I did not want the Crane treaty to fail, I was just being open with them, because I am still mad about how I got stabbed by the MoA at WC:KA via pm, and I will not sink to that level of gaming the system.)

You know, I've really liked this question. I've learned alot from people's responses

Honestly, there was a scene I wanted to have with you early game that we never did. Originally, I had the thought of talking to your character about recincarnation. Like if it was possible to get stuck in a loop of never advancing or falling, just stuck in the same unimportant position for all time. But we didn't have the right timing...It would have needed to be something like a tea very soon after the initial temple meeting, but before the art festival. Actually, right after the Empress's death could've been a really good time for that possibly. So that' what I'd go with