I was actually quite excited when I heard of the third Edition L5R RPG. I did a little research, and I liked the look of the cover. Remember that old chestnut about never judging a book by it's cover? Screw that, the cover is actually very lovely, aesthetically pleasing. Mind you, the L5R books have always maintained a high standard of excellence on covers, with each edition of the game having it's own look.
I picked up the book in person, something I don't often get too do, and was immediately struck by just how nice a physical object it was. Relax, dear readers, I won't spend the entire review waxing lyrical over the exterior packaging, but will leave off with the simple note that this book was one of the most attractive RPG books I've ever seen. Sadly the Interior artwork was only on the high-average edge of the RPG art spectrum, though production values were high for the entire package. Glossy pages, plenty of color without detracting from the text.... a lot of loving care went into making this a good product. That is with the sole exception of the editing…
Let me cover my initial impressions for you before I get into a chapter by chapter break down. One thing I immediately missed was the full page clan sheets that covered the basics of character creation. There seems to be some debate if these were good or bad things, but I always liked being able to crack open the book right to the clan I wanted and have everything I needed to get started right there. A skim of the early chapters told me two things related to this missing goodness: One, that the layout for character creation was a bit scattered, and two, the pages were missing because the flexibility of the new clans, schools and families made the old design problematic. Well, I do love flexibility and options, and this book looked to provide plenty. The second half of the book seemed pretty slim, however, but I'll cover that in due time.
Now, for the nitty-gritty, deep down and dirty look, let's see where the meat truly is.
Chapter One: The Book of Earth
This chapter gives an overview of the setting. We are treated to a very detailed timeline for the world of Rokugan, not just the recent events from the CCG, mind you, but the entire history. Nice, but who wants to read a dozen pages of history? Still, it does give players and GM’s a resource to use in making the setting come alive. This is a first for the L5R games, at least for me, allowing me to understand where the events the Card Junkies keep talking about fit in the grand scheme of things. Of course, since it’s a metaplot, it’s bound to upset a few people. Metaplots don’t add or subtract from my game, so… On thing that fills up this chapter is an overview of the various clans. This is a layout issue to me, as the following book is ‘Character Creation’ yet the first step is in the ‘wrong’ chapter. You see, to make a character you generally start by picking a clan or faction. You get a bene for this, a bonus stat point, particular to each family. Putting the clan information in Chapter one means that the very first step in character creation is in the wrong chapter…
Chapter Two: The Book of Water
This is the character creation chapter. Page after glorious page of various schools, perfect for the man who want’s lots of choice. Perhaps the greatest change from the previous editions is the addition of all the minor clans and imperial families, expanding the original clans nearly threefold. Better still, instead of the sole choice between Samurai or Shugenga, now you have usually two Bushi Schools, the Shugenga school (sometimes two), and a courtier school per clan, making a minimum of four choices for each major clan. No longer can you say all Crab are the same… Advantages and Disadvantages received a bit of treatment as well, bringing in and unifying all the myriad tidbits published in the various splat books over the years. Let’s just say that the list has grown from previous editions, and done so well. I still personally disagree with the cost of having a ‘school’ from a different clan, but it is cheaper than it was before. I disagree because there isn’t a mechanical advantage gained, but there are RP disadvantages. Skills received a bit of an upgrade to make them more attractive to players under the new/old roll and keep mechanism, in that increased mastery gives you additional bonuses beyond more dice. This was greatly hyped prior to the release of the game, and it is a worthy addition. It’s a little bland however, with most high level skills gaining similar or even identical boosts, and most of the boosts are fairly minor compared to the effort to boost skills. Minor quibble, but given the rather generic types of boosts, rather than treat each skill separately, it might have been better to simply list the boosts by category. Rounding out the chapter is a very nice Heritage table, which is optional for the player to roll on. I like it. In general it gives minor boosts of skills or in game advantages or drawbacks. I wouldn’t have minded a few more possibilities, but then I like being spoiled for choice. It’s a great way to add character to a character… I wish more games included things like this.
Chapter Three: The Book of Fire
This is the basic, every day rules chapter. One of the important factors not dwelt on in detail, is the fact that the rules changes are minor enough that using your various splats from previous editions is possible with almost no effort. A great deal of what was in them, rules wise, is already in the main book, but for things like the Nezumi book, one that is not covered despite a handful of Nezumi drawing scattered in the pages, porting it over is almost idiot simple. For the uninitiated, L5R is a relatively smart dice pool game; where you add the best dice together against a target number. This hasn’t changed, though the rules for selecting your keeper dice have fluctuated over the years. Currently, you keep your attribute dice. Some factors either alter your pool of dice, or your kept dice. More commonly, however, modifiers alter the actual target number. There is a very nice, brief explanation for common conditions, a very slick treatment of poisons and diseases, and subsections for common ‘mini-games’ that might occur, such as Iaijutsu duels, which have their own systems. Somewhat strangely, equipment is found here as well. Armor is still ‘makes you hard to hit’ which puts it in a minority category for me. Rather nicely, weapons are now more than just a damage rating, as each weapon has it’s own special rules that influence your decision. For example, the maul (Dai Tsuichi) vs. the Club (Tetsubo): The Maul adds a die to your damage pool over the Tetsubo, but the Tetsubo is better at bypassing armor, reducing the target number to hit armor by five more than the Maul. Compare them both to the Katana, which allows you to spend more void points in combat. Personally, I feel this section would have been better served in chapter two, rather than buried in chapter three. There are mass combat rules here as well as individual combat rules and sub rules. L5R has generally earned praise for their handling of mass combat, and I see no reason to refute that, the entire section is about five pages long and is well written. Then another Layout issue. Katas, or techniques your character can learn, rather than in the Book of Water, are stuffed deep in the book of Fire, meaning that most players are likely to miss them the first few times they make characters. Also, the way Kata’s are handled strikes me as a bit wiggy. Spend X number of minutes doing the Kata, gain Y amount of time for a given boost, where X is generally 10-20 minutes and Y is general 1-2 hours. So, your character has to know in advance when he’s going to need a given Kata. Off the top of my head I could think of better ways to handle this, like having a specific bonus/penalty for adopting a Kata, which can be started or ended on your own turn at will, say. As it stands, the players and GM must spend a lot more energy tracking time and Kata’s in any situation where the players aren’t just prepping for the big duel to follow their cool beach-cinematic moment. Experience and progression: I’ve always had a beef with games that insist that players start out as punks, enforced by mechanics. L5R is one of them. It is possible, easy, and even necessary to raise your attributes during game to progress. It is all but impossible to start with Insight of two, which is a measure of your progress and skill. That said, it’s the way the game was designed. While I would have liked to see attributes given and mostly static, and school techniques tied to their core skills rather than a more generic Insight, this is a matter of personal taste.
Chapter Four: The Book of Air
This is the magic chapter. I won’t go into a lot of comparison depth here, as one of my long standing gamer flaws is a relative disinterest and even inability to really get into magic systems. As a result I recall only fragments of previous editions, so I will only talk about what is in this book. First, yet another layout issue: The possibility of playing a Monk, and by that I mean separate from the Dragon Clan Monks, is raised, complete with new creation guidelines for the first time here. Erg… put this stuff with the rest of the character creation, guys. Seriously. Back to the chapter itself: It begins with a nice cosmological overview, without swamping you. There is a very brief, too brief I think, overview of ‘magic items’ or nemuranai. Then the chapter is broken down into sub sections for each type of magic in the game. Shugenja are up first, with their five elemental schools, levels of mastery, and basic spell casting rules, which are similar to the combat and skill rules from the book of fire. Then the Monks have a section, including a bit on how non-monks can learn monk ‘abilities’ or Kiho. The Monks are followed by the rules for shadowlands, both generic taint rules and actual shadowlands abilities. The chapter ends with the Maho, or bloodspeakers magic, and their spells and rules. Nice balance there, the two ‘good guys’ magics followed by two ‘bad guys’ magics. I think this is the first edition of the game to have more or less complete rules for the evil magics in the main book. Of course, this is also the first edition of the game to include rules for making a Shadowlands character, so…
Chapter Five: The Book of Void
This is the shortest chapter, and the least complete. It’s basically the GMing chapter, with a few pages of advice, some very small entries on monsters, an overview on how to play in the different eras and some atlas level details of various regions. That’s it. I think it could have used a bit more attention from the designers, personally.
Overall tidbits:
One thing I’ve always frowned over in the L5R lineup is the utter lack of any guidelines or rules for making your own schools. Both as a GM, who might wish to flesh out a minor clan or introduce a new faction, and as a Player, who’s concept for a master swordsman includes designing his own style. This is appropriate to the Genre, and to historical Japan, where new schools cropped up all the time. While I could just look at the existing schools and ‘wing it’ it would be nice to have some sort of process or check sheet of ‘good and bad ideas for school design’. I can’t be the only player out there that has ever had that sort of concept, or the only GM that’s wanted to put his own touches on the setting.
On the other hand, L5R stands as the exemplar of making characters factions matter. Many many games and settings include things like clans or families or guilds or factions, and in general these are supposed to be important choices to the player, and very important to the character. Of all the games I’ve seen, the L5R line is the best at truly making you feel it. Mechanically there isn’t a huge difference between a Lion clan and a Crane Clan member. Their attributes are likely to be roughly equivalent, their skills are about the same. A Lion or a Crane could even have the same school, but in play, and more importantly, in the players minds there is a vast gulf between them. You are never just a Samurai that happens to be a Crane, or a Mirumoto. You are a Crane who happens to be a samurai, and that is how it should be for a setting like this. Choosing your clan and family is one of the first, and arguably most important decisions you make about your character, rather than a last minute thing you scribble in when the GM asks for it.
While I am not a fan of certain mechanical decisions, namely pools, limited starting characters, and armor as ‘hard to hit-ness’ I have to say that in each area L5R does excel at implementing those mechanics. They don’t hinder my fun in the least playing the game. I like the backwards compatibility to the previous splats, the rich world setting; despite the implied meta-plot.
One thing that makes this edition a step up, for me, was the increased attention to real Japanese culture and history. While still Rokugan, or a made up version of Japan, the additional influences add to the overall feel of the game to me. The recognition of the Kuge as above the samurai (the Imperial Nobles) makes the placing of Samurai into the Imperial courts a bit more realistic, the various games, complete with their real life names, allows even modestly knowledgeable players to ‘get into it’. Say ‘Go’ and most players know what is going on, they can picture it in their minds, adding to the immersion. I think that’s a good direction for the game line.
One thing I should add in, is that this game makes min/maxing a bit more challenging than most. You see, to advance in your school, you need to have insight points, insight points are summed up by your rings and schools. To start with a dedicated player CAN get to be ‘rank 2’ as a starting character, but he’ll suffer for it in not being as focused as other characters. More focused characters will have a harder struggle up the ‘insight ranks’ as raising ‘good’ skills and traits higher costs more xp/creation points. So, the more ‘powerful’ you are, the less likely you are to advance in your school, which is were all the cool funky abilities are.
Also, a note on the factions; this version of the game is the first that includes complete rules for playing the bad guys, the shadlowlands. While I am all for having options, the decision to include this particular set of rules over somewhat more compatible ‘factions’ such as the Naga and the Nezumi strikes me as a bit odd, especially as the Nezumi feature rather prominently in the artwork. Perhaps the designers felt that non-human cultures would be harder to condense into a page of text; still their absence is notable.
So: If you are interested in a Samurai mythic game, this is a good buy. If you’re interested in L5R, this is the Version to buy. If you are an L5R player, why don’t you have this book? GO NOW! Buy it, play it, enjoy it.
Style: This book is pretty, it’s chock full of art and color, most of it very nice. The stylistic choice to make the chapters after the ‘five rings’ of the game was slick, and well done. Sadly, for a few layout issues and other minor quibbles I’ll have to dock half a point, giving it a 4.5.
Substance: In spades. Somehow they managed to condense a complete rule book, and dozens of splats AND the CCG storyline into a single book. Impressive. However, again, they are missing out on something I think any game with ‘master swordsmen’ needs, namely how to create a style (in game, or out) and the very slim and hollow Void chapter would have been a good place to put it. Also, despite a handful of drawing and references to the Nezumi (a favorite of mine) and references to the Naga, there isn’t anything in the book directly useful for either. Add to that whole Nemurani issue (three pages and still nothing concrete…)and a few editing issues; I’ll dock a point overall. So a 4.
