Currently I am running a game of Legend of the Five Rings, 4th Edition that is an extension of my 3rd Ed campaign. The current setting is a courtly endeavor, which dredges up certain problems. When I was closing the arc in the 3e campaign, they were in a massive war so when I asked my players what they wanted from the new arc, they all said "more social" because even though only two (maybe three) of them lost characters of the six character table, (and one was because they had to leave the game so i gave that character a heroic death) the game was still quite tough.
So my answer was that the characters were given custodianship of a small castle because of their status as war heroes. Their varying clans are to make the castle a hub for any diplomatic activity, and them responsible for the goings on (although there is a lord that they must answer to if things get out of hand).
My Problem
The table has shifted some, and one of my players can only play every other session. They want a social game but L5R's social strata is complex and while I can weave machinations and things that I think they can manage, the characters are mostly bushi and thus have low social skills (enough not to make fools of themselves when visiting someone), so even low level Courtiers outclass them in this element and my players sometimes don't catch on to the way the system works. The table all love their characters, but I worry about having a railroaded plot.
My Current Workaround
The game itself has been off and on due to personal emergencies and i have put 7th Sea as a filler game in the meantime. Just last week I ran a bit of a tutorial to show the players a little more of what they can do since it was the first time after char gen. I almost want to switch to 7th because the social system is something that's easier for them, but that means entirely scrapping the ideas I have been working on since last year.
What would you recommend as a way to keep L5R healthy?
EDIT: I've said this in a couple answers below but will reiterate for new readers. The players are, on average, Insight Rank 4 so they are extremely capable at what they already do. Because of the Emerald Empire rule book I have some extra rules to make them the head honcho of their respective fields of specialty.
Best Answer
Ah, here we clearly have part of the problem. They're in a situation where they would fail most of the time if you weren't engineering things for them to succeed, so they should fail some or most of the time. If you feel bad for railroading them or for removing the challenge from the game by ensuring that they don't fail, stop doing that.
PCs don't need to succeed all the time, especially when the danger isn't lethal. Failure can be instructive and even fun! (Even, dare I say it, . . . "character building"?) Honor is so important in that setting that a moment of lost honor, a recognition that they aren't perfect in all things, can do wonders in terms of future character motivation. Plan for the characters to fail.
That is not to say that they should never succeed or not learn anything, though, but there are ways of doing that without having direct social-roll confrontations or even after failing at all direct confrontations.
First, don't worry about giving them a loyal subordinate with the social skills to take on the courtiers some of the time, and don't worry about fudging the rolls for him up or down if you have to . . . maybe he's talented but new and prone to rookie mistakes or getting rather old and not as fast or perceptive as he used to be. Also, don't worry about having him advise the PCs. However, his advice shouldn't just be "do this"; have him offer multiple options with pros and cons and let things play out from there. Heck, let him be wrong sometimes just so the PCs don't rely on him too heavily. (A sufficiently deep intrigue will have elements he couldn't expect, or that were expecting him. . . .)
Second, give them plots where their bumbling or social weaknesses are strengths. Have enemies overestimate them and plan for the wrong reaction from the PCs, have their bumbling somehow convince everyone that they know more than they do (spooking the enemy into making mistakes), have them accidentally round up all the right people for all the wrong reasons and someone confesses to the plot and then asks how they knew, or just plain have things come to a point where the villains are expecting some nuanced social reaction they can parry and the heroes decide to just charge in and take care of things the old-fashioned way.
There's one more option: The overestimated idiot at the center of a backstabbing circle. In social politics, this is where everyone tries to curry favor with the lord by telling on everyone else. As a result, the lord is spectacularly well-informed about everyone else's secrets and develops a reputation for being an omnicient badass when all they had to do was sit there and look stern and knowing. If your players can handle that kind of information effectively, they'll find ways of taking care of business without ever having to make a social roll they don't like.