The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Welcome once more, friends, welcome. All are welcome here at the Church of Righteous Reviewing where the Holy Light of Truth is brought to bear on offerings from the RPG world. Take a pew, for the Reviewing Reverend Mao Chapman is about to begin….

Welcome to the second of my sermons on recent L5R supplements. Recently I brought the weight of Truth down upon The Winter Court and found it well to my liking and now I turn to The Way of Shadow, the eagerly awaited Ninja book for Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) RPG.

As regular comers to my Church will know, I claim to shine the Light on what I review so that you yourselves can judge for yourselves on whether a product is worthy of you. However, I feel I must fail you this once, brethren, for there are some places that even the Holy Light of Righteous Reviewing cannot shine. The Way of Shadow is one of those places.

For the sake of keeping the book's secrets I will not be covering any details that a GM would want to feed his players bit by bit. You see, brothers, Way of Shadow is quite definitely not a book for players. It is no secret to reveal that it finally provides the definitive word on the terrible ninja of Rokugan. Not the pasty Shosuro ninja that Way of the Scorpion gave us, but the one-hundred-per-cent, top of the pile, full-on Ninja with a capital 'N'. Nonetheless, I will review the book as I see it, but avoid the secret details.

Like the Book of Shadowlands, this book is presented as extracts from the diaries of an investigator, in this case the Magistrate Kitsuki Kaagi. There are four of his investigations in the book in which he bit by bit discovers the truth behind the ninja. Separating these diary extracts are explanation chapters in which the game-details of Kaagi's findings are explained. At the end of the book there is a final chapter which goes over aspects of the Ninja that Kaagi did not encounter and fills in the gaps in the parts that he did.

At first I found this format frustrating. The fictional diary entries seemed to be getting in the way of the cold facts of the Ninja, and when I tried to skip them to read the 'important' bits I found I couldn't. They made so many references to what had happened in Kaagi's diaries that I had to read them just to make sense of the source material stuff. So I did. And then I understood.

The book uses Kaagi's diaries to serve two purposes. The most important, dramatically, is to draw the reader into the world of the Ninja in the way an outside might encounter it. Instead of just presenting hard information, the reader discovers things bit by bit just like Kaagi and this is a very atmospheric way of getting a GM (I'm assuming players won't read the book) to think of the Ninja in the intended way. This effect is achieved well enough because the writing is good, though not brilliant. As a source material it serves its purposes excellently, but it wouldn't make a novel.

The second reason for this format is that the four investigations which Kaagi completes can be used as adventures for your PCs. As a piece of supplement design, I take off my Reverend's hat to Jennifer Wick. Very neat. By taking the PCs along the same route Kaagi took his investigations can become the PCs' investigations. The explanation sections at the end of each diary entry encourage this and offer advice on how to do it. It certainly shows that someone is thinking carefully about product structure, rather than churning out bog-standard fare.

Without giving anything away I cannot say much more, but there are some reservations I have about this product. For a start, the investigations are supposedly set 10 years before the 'present' Rokugan as described in the rulebook. While this actually has very little impact on the adventures themselves, I have to ask myself why this is. AEG is obviously very conscious of a certain time-line. The L5R CCG is set a few years into the future from the RPG, and according to The Winter Court, future products will advance the timeline. If they expect players to have the same awareness of the exact time, why produce a product that is far in the past? I see no reason why Way of Shadow should be tied to any particular time. To do so is asking for trouble.

Another reservation is to do with the format again. Because the book is so concerned with introducing the players and the GM to the Ninja through the four investigations, it does little to help those who want a different approach. Certainly the information is all there, but there is little advice on other ways to bring the Ninja into the campaign. This is but a minor quibble as the four adventures are a very good way of bringing in the Ninja.

My negative thoughts are but my reviewer's soul playing Devil's Advocate with me, brethren. Make no mistake, this is another gem from AEG. It is certainly refreshing to have an alternative to the Shadowlands to use against in Rogukan. The book is good quality, like other L5R products, the artwork is generally good and the layout is good. The mock-handwriting presentation of Kaagi's diaries got a little irritating after a while, I think a bit of variation goes a long way.

Final opinion? If you're a GM then you could do a lot worse than buy this book, and frankly I cannot think of many who would turn down the chance to learn the truth behind all those hints that have been dropped so far about the Ninja. With 160 Pages, you get pretty good value compared to other L5R products, too. If you're a player then don't read the book but begin to worry if you see your GM flicking through its pages cackling evilly…..

Remember these words on your cold walk home, brothers. The Reverend Mao Chapman works hard in the Church. The collection plate is being passed round for magazine offers, free products or words of thanks…..

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)

The Way of Shadow
Author: Jennifer Wick Category: game Company/Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group Line: Legend of the Five Rings Cost: $21.95 Page count: 160 Pages Capsule Review by Mao Chapman on 05/10/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Historical Asian/Far_East	Welcome once more, friends, welcome. All are welcome here at the Church of Righteous Reviewing where the Holy Light of Truth is brought to bear on offerings from the RPG world. Take a pew, for the Reviewing Reverend Mao Chapman is about to begin…. Welcome to the second of my sermons on recent L5R supplements. Recently I brought the weight of Truth down upon The Winter Court and found it well to my liking and now I turn to The Way of Shadow, the eagerly awaited Ninja book for Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) RPG. As regular comers to my Church will know, I claim to shine the Light on what I review so that you yourselves can judge for yourselves on whether a product is worthy of you. However, I feel I must fail you this once, brethren, for there are some places that even the Holy Light of Righteous Reviewing cannot shine. The Way of Shadow is one of those places. For the sake of keeping the book's secrets I will not be covering any details that a GM would want to feed his players bit by bit. You see, brothers, Way of Shadow is quite definitely not a book for players. It is no secret to reveal that it finally provides the definitive word on the terrible ninja of Rokugan. Not the pasty Shosuro ninja that Way of the Scorpion gave us, but the one-hundred-per-cent, top of the pile, full-on Ninja with a capital 'N'. Nonetheless, I will review the book as I see it, but avoid the secret details. Like the Book of Shadowlands, this book is presented as extracts from the diaries of an investigator, in this case the Magistrate Kitsuki Kaagi. There are four of his investigations in the book in which he bit by bit discovers the truth behind the ninja. Separating these diary extracts are explanation chapters in which the game-details of Kaagi's findings are explained. At the end of the book there is a final chapter which goes over aspects of the Ninja that Kaagi did not encounter and fills in the gaps in the parts that he did. At first I found this format frustrating. The fictional diary entries seemed to be getting in the way of the cold facts of the Ninja, and when I tried to skip them to read the 'important' bits I found I couldn't. They made so many references to what had happened in Kaagi's diaries that I had to read them just to make sense of the source material stuff. So I did. And then I understood. The book uses Kaagi's diaries to serve two purposes. The most important, dramatically, is to draw the reader into the world of the Ninja in the way an outside might encounter it. Instead of just presenting hard information, the reader discovers things bit by bit just like Kaagi and this is a very atmospheric way of getting a GM (I'm assuming players won't read the book) to think of the Ninja in the intended way. This effect is achieved well enough because the writing is good, though not brilliant. As a source material it serves its purposes excellently, but it wouldn't make a novel. The second reason for this format is that the four investigations which Kaagi completes can be used as adventures for your PCs. As a piece of supplement design, I take off my Reverend's hat to Jennifer Wick. Very neat. By taking the PCs along the same route Kaagi took his investigations can become the PCs' investigations. The explanation sections at the end of each diary entry encourage this and offer advice on how to do it. It certainly shows that someone is thinking carefully about product structure, rather than churning out bog-standard fare. Without giving anything away I cannot say much more, but there are some reservations I have about this product. For a start, the investigations are supposedly set 10 years before the 'present' Rokugan as described in the rulebook. While this actually has very little impact on the adventures themselves, I have to ask myself why this is. AEG is obviously very conscious of a certain time-line. The L5R CCG is set a few years into the future from the RPG, and according to The Winter Court, future products will advance the timeline. If they expect players to have the same awareness of the exact time, why produce a product that is far in the past? I see no reason why Way of Shadow should be tied to any particular time. To do so is asking for trouble. Another reservation is to do with the format again. Because the book is so concerned with introducing the players and the GM to the Ninja through the four investigations, it does little to help those who want a different approach. Certainly the information is all there, but there is little advice on other ways to bring the Ninja into the campaign. This is but a minor quibble as the four adventures are a very good way of bringing in the Ninja. My negative thoughts are but my reviewer's soul playing Devil's Advocate with me, brethren. Make no mistake, this is another gem from AEG. It is certainly refreshing to have an alternative to the Shadowlands to use against in Rogukan. The book is good quality, like other L5R products, the artwork is generally good and the layout is good. The mock-handwriting presentation of Kaagi's diaries got a little irritating after a while, I think a bit of variation goes a long way. Final opinion? If you're a GM then you could do a lot worse than buy this book, and frankly I cannot think of many who would turn down the chance to learn the truth behind all those hints that have been dropped so far about the Ninja. With 160 Pages, you get pretty good value compared to other L5R products, too. If you're a player then don't read the book but begin to worry if you see your GM flicking through its pages cackling evilly….. Remember these words on your cold walk home, brothers. The Reverend Mao Chapman works hard in the Church. The collection plate is being passed round for magazine offers, free products or words of thanks….. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 3 (Average)