OK, so, for those here who, like me, are Gamers always on the look out for new and different RPGs,
or just like to try out different things, I figured I would goahead and post up a review of the latest(came
out June 14th) edition of the Legend of the Five Rings, or l5r, RPG.
First, a little history. L5r started as a collectible card game with a story line that the tournements and
special events would actually influence. The people making it realized that people really wanted to
do more, and so made an RPGs out of it. The property is a venerable one, with the CCG being 15
years old, and, as I understand it, the RPG being only a little younger. Not going to go into the differences
between the editions, but, until the 4th Edition(the current one), the editions rules were driven by the
story line.
The setting for L5R is Rokugan, the Emerald Empire. 1200 years or so ago, 9 spirits, or Kami, fell from the
Heavens to the mortal world. One was cast out from their number for being corrupted and evil, one, after a tournement
fought between the remaining 8, became the first Emperor of Rokugan, and the other 7 were each assigned a duty for them, their descendants, and their followers. Each of these 7, with their descendant and followers, formed one of the Great Clans. Each Great Clan would have a number of families as part of it. These would be the family of the founding
Kami, as well their early lieutenants and advisors. The society formed is very Japanese-like, with Samurai, ninja, geisha, and all that. However, it also incorporates elements from China, India, and Korea into its culture, so that it is actually a
little different at times.(One major difference is that, in the current era, anyway, there is no difference between a male or female samurai, though there are historical notes, and even a sidebar for the less egalitarian times periods). One Great Clan left for a few hundred years to explore the lands around Rokugan, and came back very different from the rest of
Rokugan, having become more like the Mongols(heck, they even call their Clan Champion their Khan).
The 4th Edition is a major departure from previous editions in that AEG went for "Timeline Neutrality."
What this means is that, they put things that would not previously have been included because they
were dead in the setting into the corebook as options incase someone wanted to run a game in an older
era then the current time frame. There are some little oddities in this, like some Minor Clans included that had
been absorbed into one of the Great Clans.
The system keeps AEG's "roll and keep" system, where you roll a certain amount of dice, choose which dice rolled
you are going to keep, and add their totals together. When you roll a 10(the system uses d10s), you reroll it and
add the second roll to the 10. This can, of course, keep goings(previous editions, I remember a time I rolled
a 43 on a single die), and, in this edition, they added that certain conditions can make die "explode" on numbers
other then 10.
Layout of the book is actually a bit different from many RPGs. First, of course, it goes by the the use of their
five elements(Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Void) for their chapter headers. Each Chapter covers alot. The first chapter
covers the setting, starting with the history, then going into the culture, including giving each of the 8 great Clans
(the 7 original, plus one that earned its place through alot of effort) a two page spread, with one page covering
the basic over view of the clan's culture, a 3/4 page picture of a member of the clan, and their views of the
other 7 clans. The second chapter is where all the standard mechanics are: Combat, skill checks, honor and glory
rewards/loss. The third chapter is where everything related to character is located. Thus, you have character
generation, the mechanical aspects of the Great Clans, skill descriptions,advantages, disadvantages, shugenja
spells(shugenja are sort of a combination of shinto priest and wizard). The fourth chapter is the Advanced Rules,
for stuff like Shadowlands Taint(remember the Kami who was cast out from the others? Yeah...guess where he went!),
the Minor Clans(one or two family Clans that exist solely by decree of the Emperor, and either perform very, very specific
tasks, or did some great service for the Empire in the past), advanced schools(esentially: where one trains after mastering
your Clan's basic school), Paths(little divergences in your training that replace one technique from your basic school
with a different technique), Monks, Kiho(the mystical abilities Monks and some Shugenja use), Kata(special maneuvres
Bushi train in), and the Spider Clan(in essence, the Great Clan equivalent of the bad guys). The last chapter is all about
game mastering, with essays on different game master related subjects, styles of GMing, storytelling, etc. This last chapter is a great resource even if you are NOT running an L5R game.
Overall, I am finding L5R 4th Edition to be a wonderful book. The art is evocative, and you can even, as a player, get
character inspiration from just the art. Layout is almost intuitive. The moving the character generation to after the
mechanics is a great choice, as it means that you get to look through the mechanics and so are making a character
that can, indeed, function within those mechanics, rather then just going straight to chargen and making a character, then
realizing you messed up and made an ineffective character. And, as in previous editions, the system is both elegant and straight forward. I have not seen many typos or grammatical errors that made it past the proofreaders. The pages are a high gloss paper, and the cover is black with an unsheathed katana and blood read kanji down the front, making an attractive book. The only sticking point is the 60 dollar price tag. However, the quality of the production, and the sheer
beauty of the book, to me, makes it worth it. The only criticism I have is more at AEGs technophobia in not having a PDF
of the book released yet , but that could just be me having been spoiled by CGL's eager adoption of electronic distribution
methods.
