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Physically, it is very striking. The cover is dark, with the Legend of the Five Rings logo on the left and a Katana on the right. Red Kanji characters are in the background and the sword reflects the hard look of a samurai. I like this look much more than the third edition eras designs. It feels very sturdy and cover is a little soft to the touch. I worry a little that over time the edges will get compressed, but the overall package seems very sturdy and well constructed. The interior covers are a very nice map of the empire with notes to be applied to a key that consists of the bulk of a chapter later in the book. The art throughout the book is very nice, and is very evocative. Each major chapter is referred to as a Book and named after one of the five titular elements: Air, Earth, Fire, Water and Void.
We then have an introduction with the usual “What is Role-playing” fare. If this is your first visit to Legend of the Five Rings then you want to read this over, if you are returning you want to read this over. It’s a good overview of the book to come and it highlights some of the key changes from previous editions. For example, weapons no longer have special abilities. This is now relegated to proper training and school techniques. Good stuff to take a peek at if you’re playing any previous edition.
The Book of Air covers the setting material. A very nice, if truncated, timeline helps to get new and old players current on events of the empire century by century. I hope that they start putting out campaign books about some of the recent eras so we can get more details on the events, but that’s more of personal wish because I like the lore. This is immediately followed by an overview of the land and culture of Rokugan; its practices, its traditions, how the samurai society functions. It also discusses what is important to Samurai life, things like the code of Bushido and how Face works. This is followed up with an overview of the Great Clans: the Crab, the Crane, the Dragon, the Lion, the Mantis, the Phoenix, the Scorpion, and the Unicorn. Great care has been taken to ensure that each clan is presented in theme and with as little current events as they can get away with. This was intentional and is meant to create a baseline for each clan that can be re-interpreted or modified for whatever era of play the game is taking place in.
The book of Earth covers the basic mechanics of the game. At its heart it’s a roll and keep system, you roll your trait combined with your skill keeping your trait. There are two traits per ring, and there are five rings to your character: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. The fifth ring, Void, is somewhat more special: it has no traits and represents your ability to reach into something special. Each trait is rated from one to ten with your ring value equal to the lower of the two traits. Rings are important to everyone as they contribute to Insight, which gives most schools new abilities, or spells that a shugenja can cast. Skills also add to that value, but have less effect on the overall insight, and are rated from zero to ten. In addition to skills each also offer some emphasis, for example you can get an emphasis for Kenjutsu with Katanas which allows a samurai to re-roll 1s for better effect when using a Katana but not when using a No-Dachi. The basics of combat are reviewed, as are the rules for Maneuvers. Maneuvers allow you to voluntarily raise the difficulty of an action to target a specific effect. For example, if you raise three times you can target some ones head (of note: this does not increase damage like in previous editions, it only targets that part of the body for creatures that might take additional damage from such an attack). Of important note, you cannot raise more than your Void ring.
Another new concept is the idea of the five stances. In the past there has been an attack mode, an all out attack mode, a defense mode, and a dueling mode. Each granted advantages and disadvantages to actions taken when in that stance; this edition adds a new stance: Full Defense. Rather than normal defense, which is acting to protect yourself while doing something like making a skill check or casting a spell, you can now forgo any action except defending yourself. You get bonuses to defense but cannot do anything else.
After the basics of the combat system and Maneuver systems are reviewed we move on to the Iaijutsu rules. A key part of the setting is dueling to resolve issues, and the most common duel is the Iaijutsu duel. Even during major conflicts two samurai would seek each other on the battle field and duel to resolve parts of the battle! The dual takes part in several stages, first each duelist studies each other for insight into their abilities, and this is called an Assessment. This is followed by the Focus stage, hands on their handles they stare at each other and start making contested rolls. The winner of this roll gets to strike first, if there is no clear winner then a Kharmic strike happens and both strike simultaneously. This phase is referred to as the Strike phase. If the loser of the previous roll is still alive after the first strike then they strike. If both are alive after this happens then they square off to do it again unless the dual was to the first strike or first blood or whatever the conditions were if they were not to the death. Death is pretty common unless the samurai chooses not to kill their opponent for some reason or another.
The book of Earth then continues on to review the Grappling rules, conditional effects, fear, and the Honor/Glory/Status systems. Most of these are pretty straight forward except for the Honor/Glory/Status systems, which details how honorable, glorious, and how much status a character has. Honor is an internal quality; the more honorably the samurai conducts himself the more honorable he appears to be. Glory is more subjective, the more glorious you appear to the empire the more respected you become. Status is how influential you are, a solder in the Daimyo’s guard no matter what pedigree is not the same as a samurai who runs a village.
I feel that the mechanics are much tighter than in the Third Edition, it feels like they spent a lot of time play-testing and examining what works with the themes of this game and what does not. I like the new changes as a whole so far, it feels like a much more comprehensive and completed game.
The Book of Fire covers character creation. I am sure that there will be folks who will debate, eternally, the changes made to advantages and disadvantages or the new skill emphasis rules. That said- let us highlight the key points. First of all, most of this book is written for modern campaigns. The Book of Water will let you roll the clock back a bit to earlier times, but for the most part this is about the empire as it is. Second, each clan gets about four schools. A courtier, a Shugenja, a Bushi, and … something else depending on the clan, in most cases it’s another Bushi school. The makers have made it clear that they are trying to get away from the huge lists of various schools with a little twist here and there or for schools with very limited apparent application in a normal game. A Kaiu Engineer is incredibly important to the Crab on the Wall, but they don’t make for very heroic warriors. Third, the piles of “free raises” are gone. A free raise lets you get the benefit of a raise without actually raising the toughness number for the check. In versions past you got one for all sorts of things, making called shots for the eye a ridiculously easy option even for new samurai. Those days are gone, you may get one or two free raises in your school but that’s about it.
Another big change is multiple attack rules. In versions past you got a second attack around rank three, now the game makes attacking a simple action rather than a complex one around that point. That makes getting multiple attacks much harder, in the past you could take a school up the rank three for a few different schools and have 3-5 attacks per turn. With the new rule set, assuming that you can justify multiple schools to your storyteller, the most you will EVER have without making raises is 2, because you can only take two simple actions per turn. With a requirement of five raises to do multiple strikes, and the additional limits of being able to do this only once per turn, the most a samurai can strike is three times per turn. Of course, to do this you have to be beating a target number of 50 or so (most samurai in heavy armor will have a defense of 25 or so, 5 raises later…) so good luck!
The Shugenja schools are much more flavorful that in past editions. I prefer to play spell casters, though I have been playing a crane duelist recently, and I was very impressed by the schools in this edition. For example, the Tamori or the Dragon Clan are known alchemists and their school technique allows them to convert one of their spells into a potion anyone can use once for that day. Also of note, though I may have missed it from prior editions, is the ability to cast more spells using your Void. Shugenja can cast a number of spells for each element equal to their ring value, so a shugenja with an air of 2 can cast two air spells per day. The new rule allows them to use their Void as wild card spells, so the same shugenja with an air of 2 could cast 4 air spells by using their 2 bonus spells from their void ring value of 2. In addition there have been a lot of changes to the spells, some being rewritten and restructured extensively.
To be fair a lot of the schools have been restructured from the ground up to make them more balanced. The same has occurred to Advantages and Disadvantages as well as a consolidation of skills in a big way. The overall character creation process feels more balanced, and a lot of abused abilities have vanished. For example, the Strength of Earth advantage could allow a character to almost completely shrug off damage with high enough levels, now it can only be purchased one time and gives a minor reduction in penalties. It helps to reinforce the idea that these are humans, and the best way to avoid damage is to kill your opponents before they can hit you.
Rolling up a character did not feel terribly different from past editions. You still pick your family and school, you get discounts for advantages or bonuses for disadvantages that are common for your clan, and have a pool of points to raise traits and learn skills. As per past editions you get a standard set of gear from your school and a small amount of money. Honor is determined by clan and school, glory and status are set at 2 unless your advantages and disadvantages change it. Making a character did not take any more time than past editions, and that’s a good thing. The choices are not complicated, and aside from your school nothing you do is going to make your character play dramatically different from another who makes the same clan and school choices but different enough to stand apart.
The next book is Water. Water is full of optional rules and elements that individual Storytellers can apply or not as they see fit. It starts off with the Spider Clan, the clan founded by the last descendant of the Hantai and the champion of the fallen Kami Fu Leng: Daigotsu. Like the other great clans the families and schools are presented so a Storyteller choosing to involve the evil clan can choose to do so. From there the different minor clans from the ages are presented. Even the ones that will eventually form the Mantis clan and minor clans that were later destroyed, such as the lost Snake clan and Chuda family. There are also schools of the imperial families, True Ronin, and the Brotherhood of Shinsei along with some monk schools. Many of these are only useful in a niche game that allows for such unusual characters, but it’s nice to see them along with lost schools and minor families.
The next section of the book of water reviews mass combat, a system that captures the battles of the empire in an abstract way while allowing scenes of individual heroism that bends the flow of the battle towards or away from victory. The Ancestors section gives two ancestors for each clan, even the spider, to get started with but they will abandon you if you act out of character with their wishes. For example, Mirumoto will aid Dragon samurai (for 9 points!) by increasing the characters agility in general and more if they are using the Mirumoto School’s techniques. But he leaves you if you ever decline or back down from a dual with a Kakita dualist or ever lose a duel to anyone. Alternate schools and school ranks are also discussed, but with the new rules for schools make alternate ranks much less complicated to discuss and confusing to explain. Both advanced schools and alternate ranks for existing schools are discussed for each clan outlining the more complicated options available for those who push beyond the basic schools of the clans. This is followed by the crafting rules, again optional as the normal focus will be on war and magic but presented for those who choose a less martial path or for Courtier games.
Kata has undergone a major change, in the past the samurai wishing to enact a Kata had to go off and meditate for anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours for an effect that may only last for a few minutes. Now Kata is a simple action, and can be invoked at any time during the fight. They are now considered secret knowledge of the schools; each Kata has a Ring requirement and a short list of schools that teach it. This is followed by the Kiho rules for monks and others who might purchase these techniques. Sadly, I have never needed to use the Kiho rules in editions past so I don’t know if anything major changed here. As much as I love spell casters I prefer to play a hard core Kuni or out of touch Isawa than a Dragon who might have contact with monks with Kiho to learn from. I just never bothered to look into those rules more than just as a passing glance, but what I am seeing here makes a monk look pretty cool. Maybe create a tattooed Isi Zumi? It’s worth noting that these are designed for the Brotherhood of Shintai and using them with any other Monk order is strictly optional. But then the Brotherhood is optional too.
Next up in the book is the powers of Jigoku, the realm of evil. Maho is examined and it is strong. It will also eat your soul like candy, even Chuda Shugenja who are the best prepared to channel these evil powers are hard pressed to keep the taint from eating them. The spells are designed to be overpowered, the better lure your players into the tainted magics of the blood. There is also a nice sidebar on one of my friend’s favorite sayings: It does not need to be your blood to fuel Maho. This is followed by… The Shadow lands Taint. I don’t remember it being so virulent, it now pushes constantly to grow no matter what you do. As in previous editions there is no way to cure the taint, only slow it. As a character becomes more tainted, Jigoku starts offering you powers and mutations if they pull on the powers of darkness more often. The powers are as seductive as the Maho spells are, offering such things as eternal life and superhuman stats.
The Fifth book is the book of Void. This is the GM chapter. It contains a lot of details that even old hats at Storytelling should read. It discusses several campaign options and templates, from the old standby of Imperial Magistrates to playing Scouts and Cartographers for the emperor or an army. There is some great advice for two player games: how to balance adventures and how to build scenarios. There are some great essays on how to create stories, plot relationships for courtly intrigue; some great motivations and even an examination of the 36 plotlines some writers study as the basis of stories in general. These sections are followed by some adventure seeds; how to construct interesting villains and how to adapt the game to different play styles: A study of how Asian stories are constructed versus Western stories. We then get some sample monsters from the setting to tide us over till the inevitable Villains book. There are too many monsters and foes to reasonably expect them to all fit in the main book.
The book of the void wraps up with rules on poisons and a 35 page key to the map on the inside covers of the book. This is definitely worth your time reading, places like Toshi Ranbo and Otosan Ichi are vital places and the gazetteer gives a pretty good description of these places. The final bit of the chapter is a nice little adventure that presents some of the unique qualities of courtly life that dissolves into a murder mystery. I have not run it yet, but it feels very complete and it appears to be a good way to demonstrate some of the differences between the Legend of the Five Rings experience versus a game like Dungeons and Dragons. All in all I think this is the edition I have been waiting for. It feels right to me; the game feels more balanced than 3rd edition and feels very rich in the setting. The only thing I wanted and did not get is a detailed review of the various eras of the game and details about the structure of the empire at these times. It would be nice to know who was on the throne and which times; who’s the Emerald Champion and some hints on what is on the horizon for the setting. The next books out will be crunchy and full of rules but I am looking forward to books like the Four Winds. Anticipating a book full of stuff that was happening in the empire to give a look into who the major NPCs were at those phases.
There are no massive shakeups like when Dungeons and Dragons moved to their fourth edition; it feels like a very solid and balanced experience refining what has come before. If you’re into Samurai role-playing this is a straight up buy. If you’re looking for unique experience or a different style of play that is distinct from the western approach, this is your buy. The fans will debate its virtues and its faults endlessly but I think we have the definitive edition in our hands now.
And remember: Offer your gifts three times, its polite to be refused twice.
