The Inside Scoop on Gaming

I don't agree with the assertion that a review can not show any signs of bias. It is true that in professional magazines many reviews are rejected for not being objective. RPGs are by and large not very professional. Even though the one I am reviewing is professionally done I am not a professional. As such i will feel free to say that I don't like Legend of the five Rings(L5R). I really wanted to but I just didn't like it. the rest of the article will be spent discussing exactly why with the addition of a few things that i think they got right tacked on at the end. Please note that I am reviewing the GAME and therefore comments will not necessarily be restricted to the core book, though I will make it clear when talking about supplements.

Ready? Alright, let's do it.

Let's begin with the system.

Character creation is point based. For every X points you spend on something you gain Y quantity of it. You get linear benifit for point expenditures. Experience costs however increase according to a pyramidal scale. Since the point of point based character generation is to provide some semblence of balance we find that there isn't really a way to create character to fit varying levels oof experience since the point costs opperate according to two different scales! I've seen this before in games by a certain albino canine company and the system didn't work there either. Character classes are also used, the samurai class and the shugenja (mage) class. These also have levels that the characters advance in to gain nifty powers such as "secret techniques" and spells. Advancement is based on the number of skills the character has as well as their rank in "rings" (rings will be discussed later). Advancing levels works to increase your Renoun rather than the other way around which would seem more logical. After all do you become more respected because you have learned new techniques or does your sensei teach you these techniques because you are more respectable than the whelp who came into dojo demanding to know the secrets of dim mak? Oh, well. I guess either way works, but this way simply wasn't to my liking. On to the system of action resolution now.

The system is a Trait+Skill system, not unlike the example we've seen from White Wolf. Except here there is something called keep dice. The way that this works is that you roll a number of ten-sided dice equal to the character's trait plus their skill. Then add up a number of dice equal to the trait (ie if you are the superbeast with a four in agility and a six in kenjutsu you would roll ten dice and total up four of the dice). While it is laudable that traits and skills are not being treated exactly the same, this system puts too much weight on innate ability and not as much on how well trained a character is. Compound it with the fact that the same eight traits are used in all rolls while the skill list is rather long and contains skills that will most likely not be used... well, it's easy to see where the experience points are more likely to go. As a result increasing traits costs five times as much as increasing a skill to the same level, but it doesn't really balance well.

Example time. A brash samurai has sincerity(the skill used in almost all social rolls) at rank one. If this samurai was contemplating whether to increase sincerity or the trait it was based off of the player might look at the probabilities of success for various levels of difficulty from the new ranks. Since one rank of trait is better than one rank of skill in almost all cases let's look at one rank of attribute versus putting all the experience needed to increase that trait into the skill instead. Probabilities don't start to look better until the samurai already has rank four in the trait. By the way, the scale is one to five for everyone who isn't enlightened.

the basic point is that the system encourages characters to become supermen rather than well rounded warrior-artists witha variety of skills, simply due to the fact that defaulting to trait isn't that bad. I suppose the arguement could be made that the characters are already well rounded and skills that have ranking are simply more developed. one of my players actually presented this arguement to me. The rebuttal is that the fact that a samurai defaults to trait for poisoning someone the same way as defaulting to trait to write poetry says something to me. It either says that, according to how the mechanics apply to my player's assumption, murder and betrayal are part of what every well rounded samurai knows, or I am right in my assumption that the game encourages ubermenschen over the highly trained or well rounded. Either of these scenarios do not match my view of what samurai culture is.

Oh, and shuganja choose their spells from a big shopping list and only get new spells when they go up a level.

Now that I'm through with the mechanics I can focus on the setting. I know that the blurb at the beginning says that Rokugan (where L5r is set) is not Japan. I just thought that meant that a few historical inaccuracies would slide (like the ninja) so that the campaign world would be more vibrant. I was wrong.

The setting may contain samurai and ninja, but it is not at all Japan. This is where a little warning would have been nice. It is wrong of me to fault the game for not being Japan, when it says it is not Japan, but the use of (poorly roomanized) Japanese throughout the book and Japanese names causes me distress in a setting so NOT Japan.

John Wick admits that it is not Japan and even discribes the differences iin one his articles for gamingoutpost.com but I still feel robbed. The geography is like that of China. Across a mountainous border to the north is some faux-Arabian culture. The only islands that play a large part are the Islands of Silk and Spice, home of the merchants of the mantis clan which doesn't seem to fit despite being an analog of Okinawa. Why would any people as xenophobic as the Rokuganese take to the seas when they KNOW that everything worth having is produced by their culture and that culture is connected by land.

The clans are supposed to be representative each of a virtue the samurai value. Lion are honour, scorpion are loyalty, crab are strength, etc. The only problem is that Scorpion are always made out to be villains though they are presented as a viable clan for the PCs to belong to. In fact ninja are kept separate from the Scorpion, clan of stealth and loyalty, in the core book simply so that PCs will not know anything about ninja. This is later contradicted as the ninja are shown to be part of the scorpion. Sigh.

The bit about ninja brings me to my final point of contention. The three evils. In L5R these are the undead horde of the Shadowland, the scheming Kolat (or Qolat or Blood Red Tigers according to the souce) and the Living Shadow which empowers the ninja. Of these the Shadowlands is the most straightforward. They're big and evil and are Rokugan's neighbors to the south. The Qolat are a massive conspiracy that seeks to remake the Celestial Order to suit them. the Living Shadow is a fragment of nothing that despite existence was never given true reality or a soul when the universe was created. In order to become real and get a soul it seeks to consume and make everything like it in that it may be like them and breathe witha name and a soul. By stealing souls from folks he gives the the power to be unseen and unidentifiied for those it touches are truly nameless.

Wow. Three big menaces each trying to rip Rokugan apart, but they aren't cooperating. Aside from the Kolat wanting to shake apart the order of the universe that lets the Shadowlands exist they don't really oppose each other. And that's just the thing. It's like they're from three separate camapign worlds with the same geography and name. None of which i really care for.

It's a shame. I really wanted cool samurai rp, but this game is so un-Japanese that it's useless to me even if I could get patch the system, maybe with something like Orkworld's die mechanic.

Still the sourcebooks for each of the clans is cool. Too bad they couldn't make the core of the game much more enjoyable for me.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Legend of the Five Rings
Author: Wick, Wick, and Wilson Category: game Company/Publisher: Alderac Entert Line: L5R Cost: $30(Actually $29.95 but let's just round up by five cents, eh) Page count: 256 Playtest Review by Bailey Watts on 10/09/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Asian/Far_East	I don't agree with the assertion that a review can not show any signs of bias. It is true that in professional magazines many reviews are rejected for not being objective. RPGs are by and large not very professional. Even though the one I am reviewing is professionally done I am not a professional. As such i will feel free to say that I don't like Legend of the five Rings(L5R). I really wanted to but I just didn't like it. the rest of the article will be spent discussing exactly why with the addition of a few things that i think they got right tacked on at the end. Please note that I am reviewing the GAME and therefore comments will not necessarily be restricted to the core book, though I will make it clear when talking about supplements. Ready? Alright, let's do it. Let's begin with the system. Character creation is point based. For every X points you spend on something you gain Y quantity of it. You get linear benifit for point expenditures. Experience costs however increase according to a pyramidal scale. Since the point of point based character generation is to provide some semblence of balance we find that there isn't really a way to create character to fit varying levels oof experience since the point costs opperate according to two different scales! I've seen this before in games by a certain albino canine company and the system didn't work there either. Character classes are also used, the samurai class and the shugenja (mage) class. These also have levels that the characters advance in to gain nifty powers such as "secret techniques" and spells. Advancement is based on the number of skills the character has as well as their rank in "rings" (rings will be discussed later). Advancing levels works to increase your Renoun rather than the other way around which would seem more logical. After all do you become more respected because you have learned new techniques or does your sensei teach you these techniques because you are more respectable than the whelp who came into dojo demanding to know the secrets of dim mak? Oh, well. I guess either way works, but this way simply wasn't to my liking. On to the system of action resolution now. The system is a Trait+Skill system, not unlike the example we've seen from White Wolf. Except here there is something called keep dice. The way that this works is that you roll a number of ten-sided dice equal to the character's trait plus their skill. Then add up a number of dice equal to the trait (ie if you are the superbeast with a four in agility and a six in kenjutsu you would roll ten dice and total up four of the dice). While it is laudable that traits and skills are not being treated exactly the same, this system puts too much weight on innate ability and not as much on how well trained a character is. Compound it with the fact that the same eight traits are used in all rolls while the skill list is rather long and contains skills that will most likely not be used... well, it's easy to see where the experience points are more likely to go. As a result increasing traits costs five times as much as increasing a skill to the same level, but it doesn't really balance well. Example time. A brash samurai has sincerity(the skill used in almost all social rolls) at rank one. If this samurai was contemplating whether to increase sincerity or the trait it was based off of the player might look at the probabilities of success for various levels of difficulty from the new ranks. Since one rank of trait is better than one rank of skill in almost all cases let's look at one rank of attribute versus putting all the experience needed to increase that trait into the skill instead. Probabilities don't start to look better until the samurai already has rank four in the trait. By the way, the scale is one to five for everyone who isn't enlightened. the basic point is that the system encourages characters to become supermen rather than well rounded warrior-artists witha variety of skills, simply due to the fact that defaulting to trait isn't that bad. I suppose the arguement could be made that the characters are already well rounded and skills that have ranking are simply more developed. one of my players actually presented this arguement to me. The rebuttal is that the fact that a samurai defaults to trait for poisoning someone the same way as defaulting to trait to write poetry says something to me. It either says that, according to how the mechanics apply to my player's assumption, murder and betrayal are part of what every well rounded samurai knows, or I am right in my assumption that the game encourages ubermenschen over the highly trained or well rounded. Either of these scenarios do not match my view of what samurai culture is. Oh, and shuganja choose their spells from a big shopping list and only get new spells when they go up a level. Now that I'm through with the mechanics I can focus on the setting. I know that the blurb at the beginning says that Rokugan (where L5r is set) is not Japan. I just thought that meant that a few historical inaccuracies would slide (like the ninja) so that the campaign world would be more vibrant. I was wrong. The setting may contain samurai and ninja, but it is not at all Japan. This is where a little warning would have been nice. It is wrong of me to fault the game for not being Japan, when it says it is not Japan, but the use of (poorly roomanized) Japanese throughout the book and Japanese names causes me distress in a setting so NOT Japan. John Wick admits that it is not Japan and even discribes the differences iin one his articles for gamingoutpost.com but I still feel robbed. The geography is like that of China. Across a mountainous border to the north is some faux-Arabian culture. The only islands that play a large part are the Islands of Silk and Spice, home of the merchants of the mantis clan which doesn't seem to fit despite being an analog of Okinawa. Why would any people as xenophobic as the Rokuganese take to the seas when they KNOW that everything worth having is produced by their culture and that culture is connected by land. The clans are supposed to be representative each of a virtue the samurai value. Lion are honour, scorpion are loyalty, crab are strength, etc. The only problem is that Scorpion are always made out to be villains though they are presented as a viable clan for the PCs to belong to. In fact ninja are kept separate from the Scorpion, clan of stealth and loyalty, in the core book simply so that PCs will not know anything about ninja. This is later contradicted as the ninja are shown to be part of the scorpion. Sigh. The bit about ninja brings me to my final point of contention. The three evils. In L5R these are the undead horde of the Shadowland, the scheming Kolat (or Qolat or Blood Red Tigers according to the souce) and the Living Shadow which empowers the ninja. Of these the Shadowlands is the most straightforward. They're big and evil and are Rokugan's neighbors to the south. The Qolat are a massive conspiracy that seeks to remake the Celestial Order to suit them. the Living Shadow is a fragment of nothing that despite existence was never given true reality or a soul when the universe was created. In order to become real and get a soul it seeks to consume and make everything like it in that it may be like them and breathe witha name and a soul. By stealing souls from folks he gives the the power to be unseen and unidentifiied for those it touches are truly nameless. Wow. Three big menaces each trying to rip Rokugan apart, but they aren't cooperating. Aside from the Kolat wanting to shake apart the order of the universe that lets the Shadowlands exist they don't really oppose each other. And that's just the thing. It's like they're from three separate camapign worlds with the same geography and name. None of which i really care for. It's a shame. I really wanted cool samurai rp, but this game is so un-Japanese that it's useless to me even if I could get patch the system, maybe with something like Orkworld's die mechanic. Still the sourcebooks for each of the clans is cool. Too bad they couldn't make the core of the game much more enjoyable for me. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 3 (Average)

Legend of the Five Rings