The Inside Scoop on Gaming

This game started out with two strikes against it, as far as I was concerned. First, it is based on a collectable card game, and I am heartily sick of CCGs. Second, the cover art gave me the impression that this was a combat heavy thud- and-blunder game, which is not my idea of fun.

However, the game won me over by the time I had gotten twenty pages into it. While there are likely to be plenty of opportunities for combat, there are also plenty of opportunities for intrigue, romance, and good role-playing. And, while the game is based on the CCG, I did not find my lack of knowledge of the card game to be a hindrance in understanding the background of the RPG.

The game is broken into five sections, corresponding to the five rings or elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Void. Each section begins with fiction from Rokugan, the world of Legend of the Five Rings. The Book of Earth introduces readers to the background of that world. Rokugan is based on several oriental cultures, with the Japanese culture being an obvious influence. I do not know what someone more knowledgeable than I about oriental culture would think of this, but I it delightful, since it allows Rokugan to have a culture very different from the usual Medieval Europe fantasy rpg, while not shackling the authors to the history, geography, and culture of any particular country. The Book of Earth closes with a brief overview of the rules.

The Book of Water contains the character creation system. All characters are assumed to be of the samurai class, whether male or female, bushi (warrior) or shugenja (wizard priest). Characters start out with the same basic stats, modified depending on which clan, family, and profession they belong to. Players have 25 character points to distribute among traits, skills, Honor, Void, advantages, and disadvantages. They also have an Insight rating, which determines their school rank. This allows the character creation system to be a cross between a skill system and a level system, one of the few I've seen that seems to work. However, the rules for calculating beginning Insight could be clarified: It would be easier to simply say that each skill point is worth 1 and each Ring point is worth 10 then to spend a paragraph explaining that you multiply all your Rings by 10, then add 1 for each Skill you have, and then add another point for each point of skill beyond the first in each Skill that is higher than 1.

The five elements play a part in the character creation system. Earth, Water, Air, and Fire are each linked to two traits, such as Stamina and Willpower for Earth, and Agility and Intelligence for Fire. The playtesters found that most traits were well balanced, although Strength and Perception, the traits linked to Water, seem less globally useful.

The Void element or ring serves a function similar to the Force Points of the Star Wars system. When attempting a task, players roll a number of d10s equal to the appropriate Trait plus Skill (but never more than 10). However, they keep only a number of dice equal to their traits, dropping the rest. Using a Void point allows players to roll and keep an extra die. The numbers on the dice are added together, tens are re-rolled, and the total must equal or exceed a Target Number (TN). The system is straightforward and fairly simple.

The Book of Fire explains the system further, expanding on the basic rules. When trying to beat an opponent, your TN is your opponent's Trait multiplied by 5, despite a typo in the rules implying that the Trait is multiplied by 3. Several important concepts are covered here, including Glory, which is one's reputation, and Honor, which is personal. The Book of Fire also introduces the concept of raises. A player may choose to raise the TN by intervals of 5 for a greater effect, but if he does not make the new TN, he fails completely. Raises allow for greater damage, hitting specific target areas, and so on.

The playtesters and I all liked the raise system, but we did not like the fact that the player has to decide she wants a raise before the dice are rolled. There should be a way to surprise the player, as well as the PC, and do better than one had expected. Perhaps raising after the fact should be more expensive, requiring 10 more points, rather than 5, but it should still be possible to take advantage of unexpected good fortune.

There are rules for three types of combat: Skirmishes, Iaijutsu duels, and Battles. The skirmish rules are straightforward, and the battle rules are blessedly simple, although the playtesters and I found it hard to believe that the size of the armies has absolutely no effect on the outcome of the battle. Only the skill of the generals matters. In other words, an excellent general facing a medocre general will do no better when his forces vastly outnumber those of the mediocre general than when his forces are equal to those of the mediocre general.

Iaijutsu duels work differently than general combat. Both combatants begin with sheathed weapons. They may size each other up, rolling to determine their opponent's skill. At this stage, it is possible for one duelist to concede defeat without every drawing a weapon.

If the duel proceeds, the TN begins at 5 and may be raised in intervals of 5. If one player cannot or chooses not to raise any more, he calls "Strike". His opponent strikes first, at the highest TN reached. If his opponent misses, he strikes at the TN before that, which is 5 lower. In other words, if you do not strike first, you have a better chance of hitting if your opponent misses.

However, you also do less damage, since you roll an additional d10 for each raise you made. This means that if your opponent strikes first and hits you, you may well not survive to strike back. Should both duelists survive each other's strike and wish to continue the duel, they use the Kenjutsu skill and the skirmish rules.

At first, the playtesters assumed that Void was the most important factor in Iaijutsu, since one can only raise a number of times equal to one's Void rating. However, they soon discovered that Agility is equally important, since that is the trait rolled with the Iaijutsu skill to determine whether one hits. They also noticed that it is not possible for opponents to strike simultaneously or to kill each other in a Iaijutsu duel. Double kills should be possible, especially since only the Unicorn clan bushi know how to parry (and even they do not seem to have any understanding of the parry-riposte, as my fencing playtester pointed out).

The Book of Air contains the rules for magic. Shugenja, as one of my playtesters noted with amusement, are both the wizards whom ordinary people fear, and the priests to whom they go when they fear magic. Shugenja cast spells from scrolls, but as they increase their abilities, they can dispense with the scrolls. If I am reading the rules correctly, even beginning shugenja can start with a spell or two that they do not need scrolls for, something I approve of.

There are spells for all of the elements except Void, and there are four basic spells which all shugenja learn first: Sense, Commune, Summon, and Counterspell. However, according to the clan sheets supplied for quick character generation, no beginning character starts with Counterspell. This is probably an accidental omission.

The Book of Void is intended for GMs and has a lot of good advice. Here, as elsewhere, Legend of the Five Rings owes a clear debt to White Wolf, although it is certainly not an imitation of a WW game. The section on running a live action L5R game stresses the two rules WW stresses: No Touching and No Weapons. Please stick to these rules. RPGs are under enough fire from the media as it is.

The Book of Void also lists important people, accompanied by illustrations from the CCG. No stats are provided, but these are not NPCs that beginning PCs should be able to take on. I would have liked to see a list of names of all of the clan daimyos and their important relatives in one place, however.

Also present are descriptions of nemurani, or enchanted weapons, supernatural creatures, but not normal animals, such as horses, the every popular ninja, whom everyone in Rokugan knows do not really exist, a probability chart, a spell list, maps, and an introductory scenario. This last is ideally suited for beginning players and GMs, as well as for reviewers and playtesters.

The layout is clean, although a couple of the sidebars are duplicated, and the page after the Afterword is a copy of one of the pages of spells in Book of Air. The art, with the possible exception of the cover, is excellent throughout. It is all culturally appropriate for Rokugan. Best of all, there is no bimbo art -- no scantily clad women (or men) fighting or being threatened by monsters. Both men and women from all walks of life are shown in garb appropriate for their station and situation. Weapons, armor, and other items which players may not be familiar with appear in illustrations, accompanied by detailed keys. There are also many illustrations of the exteriors and interiors of buildings, and one gorgeous two-page color map.

The Playtest

I used the introductory adventure, "Ceremony of the Samurai," written by Andrew Heckt. On the whole, it is a good adventure to introduce players and GM to Rokugan, but we had several nitpicks.

The PCs should be beginning characters who have some reason to like each other and travel together to a Gempukku, or coming of age, ceremony. The first part is the journey to the town where the ceremony will take place. It is intended to introduce players to situations where their PCs deal with NPCs of various social levels. However, one of my playtesters commented that this section is designed so that the players have little to do but listen to descriptions and say "Yes" or "No." There are situations where the PCs have no choice of action because the author wants to illustrate a certain point of Rokugan society. Nevertheless, there was opportunity for good role-playing, which the playtesters were not slow to seize on.

The Gempukku is a three day contest of several tests. Contestants must pass five in the first two days to come of age and to be eligible for the Topaz Championship on the third day. The scenario includes a chart of all the contests and the NPC contestants, with spaces for the PC contestants and instructions to drop one of the NPCs if there are an even number of PCs (there were) to ensure that there will be an even number of contestants.

It is also suggested that cards from the CCG be used to represent each contestant, and that the GM shuffle them and draw them at random to decide who will face whom. I used Tarot cards, which worked just as well, and we had the same excitement the author described in his playtesters. I used simplified rules for contests where two NPCs faced off, but it would be nice if the author had given some indication of what would happen in the various contests if specific NPCs faced each other, or at least made suggestions for quick ways of determining the winner if the players and GM did not want to play out each contest between NPCs in great detail.

We quickly noted a few omissions from the skill list, as certain tests called for skills like Bushido, which certainly should be in the skill list, but is not. Also, we were extremely confused by references to an Empathy trait until we realized that this should have been Awareness.

One of the contestants in the ceremony is from the Scorpion clan, and he is intended to be the PCs' nemesis. This raises the question of what happens if the PCs are Scorpions themselves, as my playtesters almost decided to create Scorpion PCs.

The author should have given some indication of what happens in that case, but I was able to duck this, since the playtesters ultimately decided to create Unicorn PCs, a bushi and a shugenja. The bushi, but apparently not the shugenja, can add her Horsemanship skill to any roll made while on horseback. Does this include skills such as Heraldry and Courtier? Does it include Horsemanship itself? For that matter, how does one determine whether Horsemanship is added to Agility or Awareness? In the playtest, we decided to use the higher Trait and to add Horsemanship to itself, so the player rolled Agility plus Horsemanship plus Horsemanship. But I am not sure if this is what was intended, although it makes sense, or why shugenja of the Unicorn clan cannot add their Horsemanship to all rolls made on horseback, since they are practically raised on horseback, just like their bushi relatives.

Some contests were made against a particular TN, with the winner being the one who succeeds. If both succeed, the one who raised higher wins. The scenario doesn't say what happens if neither succeeds, or if both succeed and raise by the same amount. I presumed that the contest was repeated, but it would be nice to know for sure. The scenario also does not say whether the test of arms on the second day of the contest involves Iaijutsu or Kenjutsu, although I guessed the latter. For the haiku test, the players are expected to write a haiku in two minutes. One playtester begged off this, and I allowed him to roll his PC's skill instead. My other playtester is a poet and easily wrote a better haiku than I did. (The scenario gave no indication of whether GMs were expected to write haikus.)

On the evening of the first day of the contest, the Scorpion nemesis of the PCs kills a minor daimyo. Everyone knows that he has done it, but since there is no evidence, tradition demands that the matter be dropped. However, a Unicorn NPC foolishly accuses the Scorpion of murder and is cut down by him in a Iaijutsu duel intended to remind PCs and players of "the importance of perception over truth."

As I knew it would be, this was where my playtesters nearly broke the scenario, and if they had realized how important Agility was, they would have broken the scenario. Remember, my playtesters created Unicorn PCs, and these PCs had no intention of standing by while a Scorpion killed one of their kinsfolk.

The Unicorn shugenja cast a spell to loan her his Void. She couldn't spend the extra Void points, but she could raise the TN in the duel. I pointed out that the Emerald Champion who was the arbitrator in this matter was unlikely to allow the shugenja to pull out a scroll and cast a spell. The playtesters said that the Unicorn NPC would ask for time to prepare for the duel and the possibility of her death. I was left with no guidelines for what might either be a perfectly reasonable request or an utterly unheard of one -- I am still not sure which. I pointed out that if I allowed the request to be granted, the Scorpion might also get magical aid, but the players did not think he would, as he had no reason to expect the Unicorn to get such aid.

Now, the Scorpion still won the duel, although whether he would have killed her if I had rolled for the blow is an interesting question. Her stats are comparable with his, and the Scorpion bushi technique is not, as far as I can tell, usable in a Iaijutsu duel. If the players had a clearer realization of how to manipulate the game mechanics, it is extremely likely that she would have won the duel. This whole episode is clumsy and presumes more passivity than the average PC has.

The death of the Unicorn NPC means that there is now an odd number of contestants. How are GMs supposed to deal with that? We decided to rule that a student of the school where the contest was taking place filled in for the deceased Unicorn, and that the student's stats should be all 2s. However, since the author has created the situation, insisting that it -will- come to pass, he has a responsibility to give GMs guidelines on how to deal with the obvious aftermath.

To no one's great surprise, the PCs both made it to the final contest for the Topaz Championship. (Their Scorpion nemesis did not.) So did four NPCs. The final contest is a Iaijutsu duel, with no rests allowed. There is no indication of whether it is single elimination or double elimination. Unless there are precisely eight finalists, it is probably inevitable that you will wind up with three contestants. Do they fight each other round robin? If not, one person is going to have to fight one more duel than seems fair. Now, that may be how it is done in Rokugan, but there is no indication either way, and the playtesters were understandably annoyed when they thought one of the PCs had to fight an extra duel.

Nevertheless, the PC Unicorn bushi won the Topaz Championship, a great deal of money, and a fine katana, which raised another question. There is a side bar, printed twice, that explains that samurai only carry two weapons: his grandfather's sword and wakizashi. To choose another weapon is to dishonor one's ancestors. Yet, one of the PCs was given two katanas during the adventure, one by a Fortune disguised as a peasant, and one as the prize for winning the Topaz Championship. How does one reconcile this with the sidebar?

All participants in the Gempukku ceremony get a minimum of 8 experience points, and the winner gets 16. However, the recommended award is closer to 3 experience points. Now, it makes sense that the award is large, as this is the capping event of the contestant's life to date, but there should be a comment on the discrepancy between the award for this adventure and the usual award.

The Verdict

Despite all reservations, problems, editing quirks, and nitpicks, this is a fine game. For all of the minor problems with the scenario, the playtesters and I had a wonderful time developing friendships and rivalries at the Topaz Championship, experiencing stunning victories and humiliating defeats, and finding subtle ways to deliver a cutting insult.

While the system could be improved, it is relatively simple and easy to pick up. The background is rich, allowing opportunities for battle, intrigue, and romance. I am looking forward to the supplements for Legend of the Five Rings.

Style: 5 (Excellent!)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Legend of the Five Rings
Author: John Wick with additional writing by Dave Williams, John Zinser, Greg Stolze, D. J. Trindle, Ed Bolme, Andrew Heckt Category: game Company/Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group Cost: $30.00 Page count: 256 ISBN: 188795300-0 Playtest Review by Lisa Padol on 01/12/98. Genre tags: none	This game started out with two strikes against it, as far as I was concerned. First, it is based on a collectable card game, and I am heartily sick of CCGs. Second, the cover art gave me the impression that this was a combat heavy thud- and-blunder game, which is not my idea of fun. However, the game won me over by the time I had gotten twenty pages into it. While there are likely to be plenty of opportunities for combat, there are also plenty of opportunities for intrigue, romance, and good role-playing. And, while the game is based on the CCG, I did not find my lack of knowledge of the card game to be a hindrance in understanding the background of the RPG. The game is broken into five sections, corresponding to the five rings or elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Void. Each section begins with fiction from Rokugan, the world of Legend of the Five Rings. The Book of Earth introduces readers to the background of that world. Rokugan is based on several oriental cultures, with the Japanese culture being an obvious influence. I do not know what someone more knowledgeable than I about oriental culture would think of this, but I it delightful, since it allows Rokugan to have a culture very different from the usual Medieval Europe fantasy rpg, while not shackling the authors to the history, geography, and culture of any particular country. The Book of Earth closes with a brief overview of the rules. The Book of Water contains the character creation system. All characters are assumed to be of the samurai class, whether male or female, bushi (warrior) or shugenja (wizard priest). Characters start out with the same basic stats, modified depending on which clan, family, and profession they belong to. Players have 25 character points to distribute among traits, skills, Honor, Void, advantages, and disadvantages. They also have an Insight rating, which determines their school rank. This allows the character creation system to be a cross between a skill system and a level system, one of the few I've seen that seems to work. However, the rules for calculating beginning Insight could be clarified: It would be easier to simply say that each skill point is worth 1 and each Ring point is worth 10 then to spend a paragraph explaining that you multiply all your Rings by 10, then add 1 for each Skill you have, and then add another point for each point of skill beyond the first in each Skill that is higher than 1. The five elements play a part in the character creation system. Earth, Water, Air, and Fire are each linked to two traits, such as Stamina and Willpower for Earth, and Agility and Intelligence for Fire. The playtesters found that most traits were well balanced, although Strength and Perception, the traits linked to Water, seem less globally useful. The Void element or ring serves a function similar to the Force Points of the Star Wars system. When attempting a task, players roll a number of d10s equal to the appropriate Trait plus Skill (but never more than 10). However, they keep only a number of dice equal to their traits, dropping the rest. Using a Void point allows players to roll and keep an extra die. The numbers on the dice are added together, tens are re-rolled, and the total must equal or exceed a Target Number (TN). The system is straightforward and fairly simple. The Book of Fire explains the system further, expanding on the basic rules. When trying to beat an opponent, your TN is your opponent's Trait multiplied by 5, despite a typo in the rules implying that the Trait is multiplied by 3. Several important concepts are covered here, including Glory, which is one's reputation, and Honor, which is personal. The Book of Fire also introduces the concept of raises. A player may choose to raise the TN by intervals of 5 for a greater effect, but if he does not make the new TN, he fails completely. Raises allow for greater damage, hitting specific target areas, and so on. The playtesters and I all liked the raise system, but we did not like the fact that the player has to decide she wants a raise before the dice are rolled. There should be a way to surprise the player, as well as the PC, and do better than one had expected. Perhaps raising after the fact should be more expensive, requiring 10 more points, rather than 5, but it should still be possible to take advantage of unexpected good fortune. There are rules for three types of combat: Skirmishes, Iaijutsu duels, and Battles. The skirmish rules are straightforward, and the battle rules are blessedly simple, although the playtesters and I found it hard to believe that the size of the armies has absolutely no effect on the outcome of the battle. Only the skill of the generals matters. In other words, an excellent general facing a medocre general will do no better when his forces vastly outnumber those of the mediocre general than when his forces are equal to those of the mediocre general. Iaijutsu duels work differently than general combat. Both combatants begin with sheathed weapons. They may size each other up, rolling to determine their opponent's skill. At this stage, it is possible for one duelist to concede defeat without every drawing a weapon. If the duel proceeds, the TN begins at 5 and may be raised in intervals of 5. If one player cannot or chooses not to raise any more, he calls "Strike". His opponent strikes first, at the highest TN reached. If his opponent misses, he strikes at the TN before that, which is 5 lower. In other words, if you do not strike first, you have a better chance of hitting if your opponent misses. However, you also do less damage, since you roll an additional d10 for each raise you made. This means that if your opponent strikes first and hits you, you may well not survive to strike back. Should both duelists survive each other's strike and wish to continue the duel, they use the Kenjutsu skill and the skirmish rules. At first, the playtesters assumed that Void was the most important factor in Iaijutsu, since one can only raise a number of times equal to one's Void rating. However, they soon discovered that Agility is equally important, since that is the trait rolled with the Iaijutsu skill to determine whether one hits. They also noticed that it is not possible for opponents to strike simultaneously or to kill each other in a Iaijutsu duel. Double kills should be possible, especially since only the Unicorn clan bushi know how to parry (and even they do not seem to have any understanding of the parry-riposte, as my fencing playtester pointed out). The Book of Air contains the rules for magic. Shugenja, as one of my playtesters noted with amusement, are both the wizards whom ordinary people fear, and the priests to whom they go when they fear magic. Shugenja cast spells from scrolls, but as they increase their abilities, they can dispense with the scrolls. If I am reading the rules correctly, even beginning shugenja can start with a spell or two that they do not need scrolls for, something I approve of. There are spells for all of the elements except Void, and there are four basic spells which all shugenja learn first: Sense, Commune, Summon, and Counterspell. However, according to the clan sheets supplied for quick character generation, no beginning character starts with Counterspell. This is probably an accidental omission. The Book of Void is intended for GMs and has a lot of good advice. Here, as elsewhere, Legend of the Five Rings owes a clear debt to White Wolf, although it is certainly not an imitation of a WW game. The section on running a live action L5R game stresses the two rules WW stresses: No Touching and No Weapons. Please stick to these rules. RPGs are under enough fire from the media as it is. The Book of Void also lists important people, accompanied by illustrations from the CCG. No stats are provided, but these are not NPCs that beginning PCs should be able to take on. I would have liked to see a list of names of all of the clan daimyos and their important relatives in one place, however. Also present are descriptions of nemurani, or enchanted weapons, supernatural creatures, but not normal animals, such as horses, the every popular ninja, whom everyone in Rokugan knows do not really exist, a probability chart, a spell list, maps, and an introductory scenario. This last is ideally suited for beginning players and GMs, as well as for reviewers and playtesters. The layout is clean, although a couple of the sidebars are duplicated, and the page after the Afterword is a copy of one of the pages of spells in Book of Air. The art, with the possible exception of the cover, is excellent throughout. It is all culturally appropriate for Rokugan. Best of all, there is no bimbo art -- no scantily clad women (or men) fighting or being threatened by monsters. Both men and women from all walks of life are shown in garb appropriate for their station and situation. Weapons, armor, and other items which players may not be familiar with appear in illustrations, accompanied by detailed keys. There are also many illustrations of the exteriors and interiors of buildings, and one gorgeous two-page color map. The Playtest I used the introductory adventure, "Ceremony of the Samurai," written by Andrew Heckt. On the whole, it is a good adventure to introduce players and GM to Rokugan, but we had several nitpicks. The PCs should be beginning characters who have some reason to like each other and travel together to a Gempukku, or coming of age, ceremony. The first part is the journey to the town where the ceremony will take place. It is intended to introduce players to situations where their PCs deal with NPCs of various social levels. However, one of my playtesters commented that this section is designed so that the players have little to do but listen to descriptions and say "Yes" or "No." There are situations where the PCs have no choice of action because the author wants to illustrate a certain point of Rokugan society. Nevertheless, there was opportunity for good role-playing, which the playtesters were not slow to seize on. The Gempukku is a three day contest of several tests. Contestants must pass five in the first two days to come of age and to be eligible for the Topaz Championship on the third day. The scenario includes a chart of all the contests and the NPC contestants, with spaces for the PC contestants and instructions to drop one of the NPCs if there are an even number of PCs (there were) to ensure that there will be an even number of contestants. It is also suggested that cards from the CCG be used to represent each contestant, and that the GM shuffle them and draw them at random to decide who will face whom. I used Tarot cards, which worked just as well, and we had the same excitement the author described in his playtesters. I used simplified rules for contests where two NPCs faced off, but it would be nice if the author had given some indication of what would happen in the various contests if specific NPCs faced each other, or at least made suggestions for quick ways of determining the winner if the players and GM did not want to play out each contest between NPCs in great detail. We quickly noted a few omissions from the skill list, as certain tests called for skills like Bushido, which certainly should be in the skill list, but is not. Also, we were extremely confused by references to an Empathy trait until we realized that this should have been Awareness. One of the contestants in the ceremony is from the Scorpion clan, and he is intended to be the PCs' nemesis. This raises the question of what happens if the PCs are Scorpions themselves, as my playtesters almost decided to create Scorpion PCs. The author should have given some indication of what happens in that case, but I was able to duck this, since the playtesters ultimately decided to create Unicorn PCs, a bushi and a shugenja. The bushi, but apparently not the shugenja, can add her Horsemanship skill to any roll made while on horseback. Does this include skills such as Heraldry and Courtier? Does it include Horsemanship itself? For that matter, how does one determine whether Horsemanship is added to Agility or Awareness? In the playtest, we decided to use the higher Trait and to add Horsemanship to itself, so the player rolled Agility plus Horsemanship plus Horsemanship. But I am not sure if this is what was intended, although it makes sense, or why shugenja of the Unicorn clan cannot add their Horsemanship to all rolls made on horseback, since they are practically raised on horseback, just like their bushi relatives. Some contests were made against a particular TN, with the winner being the one who succeeds. If both succeed, the one who raised higher wins. The scenario doesn't say what happens if neither succeeds, or if both succeed and raise by the same amount. I presumed that the contest was repeated, but it would be nice to know for sure. The scenario also does not say whether the test of arms on the second day of the contest involves Iaijutsu or Kenjutsu, although I guessed the latter. For the haiku test, the players are expected to write a haiku in two minutes. One playtester begged off this, and I allowed him to roll his PC's skill instead. My other playtester is a poet and easily wrote a better haiku than I did. (The scenario gave no indication of whether GMs were expected to write haikus.) On the evening of the first day of the contest, the Scorpion nemesis of the PCs kills a minor daimyo. Everyone knows that he has done it, but since there is no evidence, tradition demands that the matter be dropped. However, a Unicorn NPC foolishly accuses the Scorpion of murder and is cut down by him in a Iaijutsu duel intended to remind PCs and players of "the importance of perception over truth." As I knew it would be, this was where my playtesters nearly broke the scenario, and if they had realized how important Agility was, they would have broken the scenario. Remember, my playtesters created Unicorn PCs, and these PCs had no intention of standing by while a Scorpion killed one of their kinsfolk. The Unicorn shugenja cast a spell to loan her his Void. She couldn't spend the extra Void points, but she could raise the TN in the duel. I pointed out that the Emerald Champion who was the arbitrator in this matter was unlikely to allow the shugenja to pull out a scroll and cast a spell. The playtesters said that the Unicorn NPC would ask for time to prepare for the duel and the possibility of her death. I was left with no guidelines for what might either be a perfectly reasonable request or an utterly unheard of one -- I am still not sure which. I pointed out that if I allowed the request to be granted, the Scorpion might also get magical aid, but the players did not think he would, as he had no reason to expect the Unicorn to get such aid. Now, the Scorpion still won the duel, although whether he would have killed her if I had rolled for the blow is an interesting question. Her stats are comparable with his, and the Scorpion bushi technique is not, as far as I can tell, usable in a Iaijutsu duel. If the players had a clearer realization of how to manipulate the game mechanics, it is extremely likely that she would have won the duel. This whole episode is clumsy and presumes more passivity than the average PC has. The death of the Unicorn NPC means that there is now an odd number of contestants. How are GMs supposed to deal with that? We decided to rule that a student of the school where the contest was taking place filled in for the deceased Unicorn, and that the student's stats should be all 2s. However, since the author has created the situation, insisting that it -will- come to pass, he has a responsibility to give GMs guidelines on how to deal with the obvious aftermath. To no one's great surprise, the PCs both made it to the final contest for the Topaz Championship. (Their Scorpion nemesis did not.) So did four NPCs. The final contest is a Iaijutsu duel, with no rests allowed. There is no indication of whether it is single elimination or double elimination. Unless there are precisely eight finalists, it is probably inevitable that you will wind up with three contestants. Do they fight each other round robin? If not, one person is going to have to fight one more duel than seems fair. Now, that may be how it is done in Rokugan, but there is no indication either way, and the playtesters were understandably annoyed when they thought one of the PCs had to fight an extra duel. Nevertheless, the PC Unicorn bushi won the Topaz Championship, a great deal of money, and a fine katana, which raised another question. There is a side bar, printed twice, that explains that samurai only carry two weapons: his grandfather's sword and wakizashi. To choose another weapon is to dishonor one's ancestors. Yet, one of the PCs was given two katanas during the adventure, one by a Fortune disguised as a peasant, and one as the prize for winning the Topaz Championship. How does one reconcile this with the sidebar? All participants in the Gempukku ceremony get a minimum of 8 experience points, and the winner gets 16. However, the recommended award is closer to 3 experience points. Now, it makes sense that the award is large, as this is the capping event of the contestant's life to date, but there should be a comment on the discrepancy between the award for this adventure and the usual award. The Verdict Despite all reservations, problems, editing quirks, and nitpicks, this is a fine game. For all of the minor problems with the scenario, the playtesters and I had a wonderful time developing friendships and rivalries at the Topaz Championship, experiencing stunning victories and humiliating defeats, and finding subtle ways to deliver a cutting insult. While the system could be improved, it is relatively simple and easy to pick up. The background is rich, allowing opportunities for battle, intrigue, and romance. I am looking forward to the supplements for Legend of the Five Rings. Style: 5 (Excellent!) Substance: 4 (Meaty)