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Legend of the Five Rings is an Oriental RPG set in the mythic world of Rokugan. In L5R, players take the part of samurai warriors and shugenja mages in the struggles between the clans of Rokugan and against the fell creatures of the Shadowlands.

L5R is framed around the five rings of Miyamoto Musashi's Go-Rin-No-Sho: earth, air, fire, water, and the void. The rings are used to describe attributes, schools of magic, and other elements of the game.

Earth

The culture of Rokugan is based on Japan, but its geography is more akin to China. The backstory is that more than a thousand years ago, the divine children of the sun and moon fell to earth. These children became the Emperor of Rokugan and the heads of the seven clans: the Crab, Crane, Dragon, Lion, Phoenix, Scorpion, and Unicorn (notice that its Unicorn and not Kirin). One of the children, Fu Leng fell into a deep crevasse in the Shadowlands west of Rokugan. When he finally returned to the surface, he was corrupted by black magics. Fu Leng lead the creatures of the Shadowlands against Rokugan. With the help of the monk Shinsei, the Emperor and the Clans were able to defeat Fu Leng, but the war against the creatures of the Shadowlands continues.

L5R emphasizes the struggle between the clans and the fell creatures of the Shadowlands. The Shadowlands are the domain of Fu Leng and the lair of countless oni, bakemono, and other creatures. The Emperor is the political and spiritual leader of Rokugan, but the Clans hold all of the temporal and military power, which means that there plenty of political infighting and jockeying for position. The history of Rokugan is mix of Asian, Greek, and Tolkien mythology. In many ways, Rokugan reminds me of Middle Earth, with samurai in place of elves.

Water

For each of the four elemental rings, there are paired physical and mental attributes. The Void Ring serves as a unifier or balance with its attribute points spent to modify die rolls and target numbers.

Characters may be from one of the seven major clans or may be ronin. Each major clan has three or more families and one bushi (warrior) school and one shugenja school. Each family has its own background and an increase in one attribute. The bushi school for each clan has special techniques that a character learns as she advances in rank. The detailed descriptions of clans and schools is one of L5R's greatest contributions. AEG has lavishly supported L5R with supplements, including books for each of the major clans. AEG's website also has additional supplemental material for L5R (http://www.alderac.com/l5r/).

Characters are defined by clan, family, school, school rank, and advantages and disadvantages. Families provide Trait bonuses. Schools provide Trait bonuses, skills, and spells. Rings are based on the lower of the two Traits. Character points are used to purchase additional traits and skills. Certain advantages can be purchased by individual clans at a discount. Shugenja start with three basic spells and six spells divided between three elements.

Characters begin at School Rank 1. Rank increases through experience, and as characters increase in Rank, bushis learn special fighting techniques and shugenja learn 3 new spells. That's right, shugenja only learn new spells when they go up in Rank. Also, the system of providing special abilities by school and rank is neither flexible nor does it allow for variation among samurai within a clan. One Rank 3 Crab bushi is much like any other. The okuden and ki powers used in Bushido and the Feng Shui's fu schticks offer much more flexibility for developing skilled warriors and varied characters.

Because ronin do not belong to a clan, they do not learn any special techniques as they increase in rank, and there are no advantages to offset this considerable disadvantage. There are also several minor clans mentioned in the rulebook. Supplements have described two of the minor clans, but a GM is otherwise on his own if a player is interested in being from a minor clan.

Fire

The game mechanics are fairly straightforward. For each skill, a number of d10s are rolled equal to the governing attribute plus skill ranks, but only dice equal to the attribute may be counted, or kept. The kept dice are then counted to see if the target number is reached. Weapon damage is done in a similar way: Strength plus x dice for weapon, keeping y dice. Thus, damage for a katana (3 keep 2) wielded by a Strength 3 character is 6k2.

In many instances, players may choose to raise the target number in order to increase damage, reduce the time required, or otherwise alter the result of the skill test. The target numbers are similar to those used in Star Wars. The "kept" dice limit the inflation of successes that occur in Star Wars and White Wolf. This system offers the flexibility of the White Wolf system without the ambiguity of multiple successes.

Like Bushido, L5R offers a system for resolving the course of battles and a character's participation in a battle.

Air

L5R's magic system is based on the four elements. Each clan shugenja school has a distinct area of specialty with individual benefits. For instance, the Crane Clan school specializes in Air spells and receives a free raise in these spells, increasing the spell effects.

Although shugenja in L5R are described as being both priests and mages, all of the spells and character descriptions portray shugenja as mages. L5R offers little information on the shugenja's priestly responsibilities or how to play a shugenja as a priest.

Religion in Rokugan is based on Seven Fortunes (i.e. the seven fortunate gods) and the philosophy of Shinsei, which comes across as bastardized Taoism. Missing from L5R is any real sense of the role religion plays in the life of the people of Rokugan. Also missing is the tension between Buddhism and Shinto that is a major part of Bushido and other Japanese-based roleplaying games. L5R also overlooks the origin of Musashi's Book of Five Rings in his practice of Buddhism.

Void

L5R finishes up with descriptions of ninja, creatures of Rokugan, building diagrams, an annotated map of Rokugan, and a starting adventure. The building diagrams are great, illustrating a large inn, a temple, a priest's house, a geisha house, a tea house, a fortified village, fortified city, and the donjon of a large castle. The map is two full color pages done in medieval style backed-up with 16 pages of annotations (155 entries), unfortunately many of the notes on the map are difficult to read.

There is also little discussion of relations between the clans. Sure, there are descriptions of how the clans view each other, and there is much discussion of battles between the clans, but there is no context for how the clans interact with one and other. Are the battles between the clans local skirmishes? Fights between individual families? All out war between clans? What is the Emperor's role in these clan wars? Does he allow them to take place or intervene to stop them?

The largest omission from L5R is any provision for playing yakuza, martial artists, or other commoner characters (despite numerous illustrations of irezumi painted gangsters). There is only a brief description of the relationships between the samurai and the common classes. There is no discussion of class interactions. Is there a need for unarmed martial artists and yakuza to protect peasants and merchants from unruly samurai?

Part of Rokugan's history is that before the coming of men, Rokugan was ruled by the naga. There is little direct information about the naga, but there are several illustrations of creatures with human torsos and serpent bodies. We can only guess that these are the naga. One of the things that White Wolf does very well is provide enough information so that GM's can play with all of the elements of a setting. The information may be brief and sketchy, but at least White Wolf provides a GM with enough statistics to play with. L5R drops lots of hints, but comes up short on the details.

L5R is based on a collectible card game of the same name. On one hand, this adds to the richly detailed world of Rokugan. But on the other hand, many pages are wasted describing characters from the CCG and on a serialized story about one of the characters that does little to enhance your understanding of Rokugan or running an L5R campaign. Although the 250 page length sounds substantial, there are enough wasted pages dealing with live action L5R, not bringing swords to the gaming table, color plates for each clan duplicating the process for generating characters, and other matters that L5R comes up lacking.

While L5R is, in part, an extraordinarily detailed game, you get the sense that, like many linearly designed campaigns, if a GM and players stray off of the defined path, they can quickly get lost in the fog that is thick in the undefined areas of Rokugan. Or, you can go buy supplements until your curiosity is slacked, your brain fatigued, or your wallet exhausted. Consistently missing throughout L5R are any provisions to assist a GM in making the game his own. Omitted are suggestions for designing spells, describing minor clans, or developing individual fighting techniques.

L5R is not designed for playing the classic master swordsman and loyal samurai as featured in the 47 Ronin, Yojimbo, Hara Kiri, the Seven Samurai, and countless other movies. While liberally adapting Musashi's five rings, L5R forgets that Musashi was a ronin who developed his famous two-sword technique on his own.

L5R's attribute and skill system provide a nice base for game play, but the limited and inflexible system of ranks and schools would require extensive modification before a GM could use them in another campaign setting.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Legend of the Five Rings
Author: John Wick Category: game Company/Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group Line: L5R Cost: $30 Page count: 250 ISBN: 188795300-0 SKU: 3001 Playtest Review by Jeb Boyt on 07/25/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Asian/Far_East	Legend of the Five Rings is an Oriental RPG set in the mythic world of Rokugan. In L5R, players take the part of samurai warriors and shugenja mages in the struggles between the clans of Rokugan and against the fell creatures of the Shadowlands. L5R is framed around the five rings of Miyamoto Musashi's Go-Rin-No-Sho: earth, air, fire, water, and the void. The rings are used to describe attributes, schools of magic, and other elements of the game. Earth The culture of Rokugan is based on Japan, but its geography is more akin to China. The backstory is that more than a thousand years ago, the divine children of the sun and moon fell to earth. These children became the Emperor of Rokugan and the heads of the seven clans: the Crab, Crane, Dragon, Lion, Phoenix, Scorpion, and Unicorn (notice that its Unicorn and not Kirin). One of the children, Fu Leng fell into a deep crevasse in the Shadowlands west of Rokugan. When he finally returned to the surface, he was corrupted by black magics. Fu Leng lead the creatures of the Shadowlands against Rokugan. With the help of the monk Shinsei, the Emperor and the Clans were able to defeat Fu Leng, but the war against the creatures of the Shadowlands continues. L5R emphasizes the struggle between the clans and the fell creatures of the Shadowlands. The Shadowlands are the domain of Fu Leng and the lair of countless oni, bakemono, and other creatures. The Emperor is the political and spiritual leader of Rokugan, but the Clans hold all of the temporal and military power, which means that there plenty of political infighting and jockeying for position. The history of Rokugan is mix of Asian, Greek, and Tolkien mythology. In many ways, Rokugan reminds me of Middle Earth, with samurai in place of elves. Water For each of the four elemental rings, there are paired physical and mental attributes. The Void Ring serves as a unifier or balance with its attribute points spent to modify die rolls and target numbers. Characters may be from one of the seven major clans or may be ronin. Each major clan has three or more families and one bushi (warrior) school and one shugenja school. Each family has its own background and an increase in one attribute. The bushi school for each clan has special techniques that a character learns as she advances in rank. The detailed descriptions of clans and schools is one of L5R's greatest contributions. AEG has lavishly supported L5R with supplements, including books for each of the major clans. AEG's website also has additional supplemental material for L5R (http://www.alderac.com/l5r/). Characters are defined by clan, family, school, school rank, and advantages and disadvantages. Families provide Trait bonuses. Schools provide Trait bonuses, skills, and spells. Rings are based on the lower of the two Traits. Character points are used to purchase additional traits and skills. Certain advantages can be purchased by individual clans at a discount. Shugenja start with three basic spells and six spells divided between three elements. Characters begin at School Rank 1. Rank increases through experience, and as characters increase in Rank, bushis learn special fighting techniques and shugenja learn 3 new spells. That's right, shugenja only learn new spells when they go up in Rank. Also, the system of providing special abilities by school and rank is neither flexible nor does it allow for variation among samurai within a clan. One Rank 3 Crab bushi is much like any other. The okuden and ki powers used in Bushido and the Feng Shui's fu schticks offer much more flexibility for developing skilled warriors and varied characters. Because ronin do not belong to a clan, they do not learn any special techniques as they increase in rank, and there are no advantages to offset this considerable disadvantage. There are also several minor clans mentioned in the rulebook. Supplements have described two of the minor clans, but a GM is otherwise on his own if a player is interested in being from a minor clan. Fire The game mechanics are fairly straightforward. For each skill, a number of d10s are rolled equal to the governing attribute plus skill ranks, but only dice equal to the attribute may be counted, or kept. The kept dice are then counted to see if the target number is reached. Weapon damage is done in a similar way: Strength plus x dice for weapon, keeping y dice. Thus, damage for a katana (3 keep 2) wielded by a Strength 3 character is 6k2. In many instances, players may choose to raise the target number in order to increase damage, reduce the time required, or otherwise alter the result of the skill test. The target numbers are similar to those used in Star Wars. The "kept" dice limit the inflation of successes that occur in Star Wars and White Wolf. This system offers the flexibility of the White Wolf system without the ambiguity of multiple successes. Like Bushido, L5R offers a system for resolving the course of battles and a character's participation in a battle. Air L5R's magic system is based on the four elements. Each clan shugenja school has a distinct area of specialty with individual benefits. For instance, the Crane Clan school specializes in Air spells and receives a free raise in these spells, increasing the spell effects. Although shugenja in L5R are described as being both priests and mages, all of the spells and character descriptions portray shugenja as mages. L5R offers little information on the shugenja's priestly responsibilities or how to play a shugenja as a priest. Religion in Rokugan is based on Seven Fortunes (i.e. the seven fortunate gods) and the philosophy of Shinsei, which comes across as bastardized Taoism. Missing from L5R is any real sense of the role religion plays in the life of the people of Rokugan. Also missing is the tension between Buddhism and Shinto that is a major part of Bushido and other Japanese-based roleplaying games. L5R also overlooks the origin of Musashi's Book of Five Rings in his practice of Buddhism. Void L5R finishes up with descriptions of ninja, creatures of Rokugan, building diagrams, an annotated map of Rokugan, and a starting adventure. The building diagrams are great, illustrating a large inn, a temple, a priest's house, a geisha house, a tea house, a fortified village, fortified city, and the donjon of a large castle. The map is two full color pages done in medieval style backed-up with 16 pages of annotations (155 entries), unfortunately many of the notes on the map are difficult to read. There is also little discussion of relations between the clans. Sure, there are descriptions of how the clans view each other, and there is much discussion of battles between the clans, but there is no context for how the clans interact with one and other. Are the battles between the clans local skirmishes? Fights between individual families? All out war between clans? What is the Emperor's role in these clan wars? Does he allow them to take place or intervene to stop them? The largest omission from L5R is any provision for playing yakuza, martial artists, or other commoner characters (despite numerous illustrations of irezumi painted gangsters). There is only a brief description of the relationships between the samurai and the common classes. There is no discussion of class interactions. Is there a need for unarmed martial artists and yakuza to protect peasants and merchants from unruly samurai? Part of Rokugan's history is that before the coming of men, Rokugan was ruled by the naga. There is little direct information about the naga, but there are several illustrations of creatures with human torsos and serpent bodies. We can only guess that these are the naga. One of the things that White Wolf does very well is provide enough information so that GM's can play with all of the elements of a setting. The information may be brief and sketchy, but at least White Wolf provides a GM with enough statistics to play with. L5R drops lots of hints, but comes up short on the details. L5R is based on a collectible card game of the same name. On one hand, this adds to the richly detailed world of Rokugan. But on the other hand, many pages are wasted describing characters from the CCG and on a serialized story about one of the characters that does little to enhance your understanding of Rokugan or running an L5R campaign. Although the 250 page length sounds substantial, there are enough wasted pages dealing with live action L5R, not bringing swords to the gaming table, color plates for each clan duplicating the process for generating characters, and other matters that L5R comes up lacking. While L5R is, in part, an extraordinarily detailed game, you get the sense that, like many linearly designed campaigns, if a GM and players stray off of the defined path, they can quickly get lost in the fog that is thick in the undefined areas of Rokugan. Or, you can go buy supplements until your curiosity is slacked, your brain fatigued, or your wallet exhausted. Consistently missing throughout L5R are any provisions to assist a GM in making the game his own. Omitted are suggestions for designing spells, describing minor clans, or developing individual fighting techniques. L5R is not designed for playing the classic master swordsman and loyal samurai as featured in the 47 Ronin, Yojimbo, Hara Kiri, the Seven Samurai, and countless other movies. While liberally adapting Musashi's five rings, L5R forgets that Musashi was a ronin who developed his famous two-sword technique on his own. L5R's attribute and skill system provide a nice base for game play, but the limited and inflexible system of ranks and schools would require extensive modification before a GM could use them in another campaign setting. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)