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The comped review copy I received is indeed a thing of beauty, large, hardbound and lushly illustrated, with color pages and high-quality paper. However this copy has some rather blurry and double-printed text in the first section of pages, which reduced the utility of the book however great it looks.
The Welcome to Rokugan introduction goes over the basics for the new player, simultaneously emphasizing that while L5R is a game for Western audiences using fantasy material – and thus you are not required to be a stickler for Japanese historical detail- the game setting of Rokugan is a very, very different place than the typical fantasy RPG world and much of the point of the game is lost if the players do not accept this. There is also a one-page summary of important changes made in the new edition, mainly with regard to combat.
The Book of Air introduces the reader to the Rokugan setting. The creation myth greatly resembles real Japanese Shintoism and even uses some of the same names, but also combines with the Kronos-eats-his-children theme of Greek myth. The first two Kami (gods), Lord Moon and Lady Sun, had various children, and Lord Moon devoured most of them out of jealousy. Lady Sun saved the last, Hantei, and in his fight with Lord Moon, he managed to cut him open, and thus his siblings escaped, all except Fu Lung, who during the battle was thrown from Heaven to Earth, crashing so far that he reached the Realm of Evil beneath the surface. Thus as the children of Sun and Moon came to Earth (Ningen-do) and became patrons of the first Great Clans of the samurai, Fu Leng was corrupted by the forces of Evil and eventually rose up to challenge the Celestial Order. (I do find it a bit odd that a game that builds itself so much upon Japanese myth should give one of its gods a Chinese name, and have him be the main god of Evil at that.)
Again, I am actually not familiar with the prior editions of the game other by than word of mouth. There is also a prior timeline of events for the collectible card game leading up to this edition that was recently discussed in a Roleplaying Open Thread “So, um, the timeline?” But apparently the recent metaplot was based on Traveller: The New Era after everyone smoked footlong joints laced with acid. The Imperial dynasty, after an unbroken line of succession from the Kami Hantei, was overthrown by the Scorpion Clan. But for a good cause. I think. Eventually, after a succession of events culminating in Lady Sun and Lord Moon being overthrown by samurai, the other gods stepped in and decided the situation was too silly to continue, restoring divine rule in Heaven and a new Imperial dynasty on Earth.
After the historical review of Rokugan there is a broad description of the Emerald Empire of Rokugan, including the geography of the setting and the types of lands controlled by each great clan. There is also much detail given to the culture. While “Gygaxian” D&D like the old World of Greyhawk setting had the general tech level and political development of the High Middle Ages, its social development was much closer to the Swords and Sorcery influences on D&D, stuff like Conan or the Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser stories, where “kill them and take their stuff” was actually a valid attitude because local civilization hadn't progressed much beyond that point. Even 4th Edition D&D has a lot of this attitude in its “points of light” approach to civilized developments in the game world. For a game based on feudal Japan, or classical China, for that matter, things are going to be a lot different.
In L5R, much more so than in Sengoku or the old Bushido game, the description of culture centers on life within the samurai caste, and character creation options outside that caste are extremely limited. There are orders of fighting monks outside the caste system, but these are often sponsored by a noble house and members might actually be former samurai who were obliged to enter the monastery for some reason or other. Note I say “caste” and not class, given that the roles which RPGs normally define as character classes are all occupied by the samurai: The bushi warriors that we normally think of as “samurai”, the shugenja magician-priests, courtiers, and “infiltrators.” All are considered samurai and all get to own the daisho katana and wakizashi swords of the samurai. However non-bushi nobles usually do not wear the katana, given that wearing a sword implies that one is trained to use it and is therefore obligated to defend himself.
This also means that feudal Japan, not the Old West, is the culture that explains the phrase “an armed society is a polite society.” If you are not a samurai with the right to bear arms, you NEED to be on best behavior when dealing with the samurai or risk getting cut down with no legal repercussions. If one is a samurai, one still risks getting into a duel for insulting a fellow samurai, which DOES have legal and social repercussions. Thus Rokugan, like Japan, has developed a language and culture that goes to painful extremes to avoid giving offense or even stating anything directly. This requirement of respect also means that very few political agreements or business deals are written down, which leads to many opportunities for deception or blackmail. This is where courtiers are just as important to a Clan's success as warriors.
Then there's a section where each Great Clan gets its own two-page illustrated description for its origins, clan territory and purpose: The battle-hardened Crab, the graceful (and apparently, snobby as hell) Crane, the philosophical Dragon, the valiant Lion, the industrious Mantis (formed of several Minor Clans from common origins), the idealistic Phoenix, the deceptive Scorpion, and the adventurous Unicorn (formerly Ki-Rin). As with the original Vampire: The Masquerade clans or BATTLETECH Houses, each Great Clan of Rokugan has its own perspective, its own stereotype view of other clans and its own player fan base. Even more so than other games where “splats” are expected to display a certain behavior, L5R has its characters display greater-than-expected uniformity: All the Crane in the book are shown with perfectly-dyed white hair, wearing white-on-blue robes. All the Scorpion wear elaborate masks and robes of red and black. (As is pointed out at least once in text, it sort of defeats the purpose of being deceptive if you basically announce yourself as a bad guy.)
The Book of Earth deals with the grounding of game mechanics. L5R, like with the White Wolf games and the One Roll Engine, is based on adding your attribute rating to a skill rating and rolling the total on 10-sided dice. The system is called “The Roll and Keep System” because in addition to adjusting difficulty by Target Number (TN), you also only get to keep a certain number of the dice you roll. For instance, in this game, the damage code of a katana is listed as '3k2', or 'roll three dice and keep the best two.' As a melee weapon, you get to add your Strength rating to the first number, so a samurai with Strength 3 does 6k2 damage with the katana (roll six dice and keep the best two, add them together to get your result). Dice are usually “exploding”, that is, if you roll 10 on a die you can roll again and add the result to that die and keep doing so if you roll 10 again until you roll something other than 10. Certain circumstances and hindrances can limit or prevent “explosions”; for instance if you make an unskilled roll (using only attribute rating with no Skill points) your dice do not explode.
Attributes in this system are actually called Rings, for the five elements of Rokugan lore. Four of these are actually the Western magical elements (Air, Earth, Fire and Water) and the fifth is “Void”, the indescribable element that is both the absence and presence of everything else. In game terms Void is your Hero/Drama/Fate/Force Point resource; you have Void Points equal to your Void Ring stat, and can spend them for various benefits like adding 10 to Initiative for one round, add 1 Skill rank to an Unskilled roll (thereby meaning it is no longer unskilled) and so on. The other four traits are the bases of more typical attributes (Traits) and each has both a physical and mental stat; Air is the base of (social) Awareness and Reflexes, Earth is the base of Willpower and Stamina, Fire is the basis of Intelligence and Dexterity and Water is the base of Perception and Strength. Each character starts with all Rings at a base of 2, with some bonuses applied later depending on what Clan and School ('character class') a PC belongs to. In most cases PCs start off with 2 in each Ring and also get +1 in one sub-attribute for their family (a sub-group within a Clan) and another for their school.
In this system, combat (or a 'skirmish') proceeds with each character making an Initiative Roll of Reflexes plus Insight Rank (essentially your 'level') keeping a number of dice equal to Reflexes. The resulting score is used for each Round of the skirmish for its duration. In the first round of a skirmish, a character must declare what Stance he is using in combat, which affects both his attack and defense options. In combat characters will use a weapon skill (usually with Reflexes) and attempt to beat an Armor TN based on the opponent's Reflexes times 5, plus 5, adjusted by Stances and other effects (like actual armor). Each weapon has a damage code (as described above), with any resulting damage points on a successful hit going to the target's Wounds. Wounds are measured at “Healthy” at a level of 5 points times one's Earth Ring (10 for most people), with the default rating after that point being Earth x2 to fill up each rank of Wounds. As a character takes more and more Wound Ranks he gets more and more debilitated by combat, taking penalty difficulties to increase the TN of any actions he makes until he heals. Natural healing per night is twice the character's Stamina plus his Insight Rank. Again, each Wound Rank after Healthy is normally Earth x2; there is a sidebar giving the GM the option to increase this multiplier for the sake of character survivability. The book says: “Since the first edition of the L5R RPG, the game has been famous for how easy it is for a character to be killed. This is a deliberate design decision because, quite frankly, if a samurai gets hit with a katana, chances are he is either maimed or dead.”
Similar to some other games, L5R distinguishes between Free Actions, Simple Actions and Complex Actions. Generally a free action is a minor act like a move (up to 5 feet times Water Ring), speak up to five words or dropping a weapon. A Simple Action is somewhat more involved, like unsheathing a weapon. A Complex Action would be casting a spell or performing most missile or melee attacks. Usually in a turn you can perform a varying number of Free Actions (but no more than one of each type per turn) and either one Complex or two Simple Actions. It is mentioned in the Introduction that there are normally no such things as multiple attacks in this edition, but there are Techniques of the various Clan Schools that can allow some attacks to be performed as Simple Actions (effectively the same result).
Extra attacks, disarms and other advanced maneuvers normally have to be performed as Raises, where the player basically raises his difficulty/Target Number by 5 to achieve a certain result. The number of Raises required depends on the complexity of the maneuver; Disarm is 3 Raises and Extra Attacks is 5. Raises are limited mainly in that you can't declare more raises on a roll than the score of your Void Ring. Certain Schools allow “Free Raises” for specialized tasks. This section also contains short but detailed rules on Iaijutsu Dueling (which is usually decided by first strike and therefore requires certain mechanics for 'centering' and sizing up the opponent) and the effects of conditions like being Blinded or Fatigued.
L5R also has rules for Honor, Glory and Status. They are all important but not necessarily related. Honor is one's dedication to Bushido and samurai ideals. As in some White Wolf games it is a trait measured on a 1 to 10 scale and honorable acts (and violations of honor) are measured in decimals, such that an act gaining 5 Honor would raise one's Honor score by half a point. The scale of acts is also relative to how honorable the character is, so that “disobeying a lord's command” is -4 Honor to a character of average (5-7 Honor) rank but -10 (a full point) to a character of Honor Rank 10. Characters can use their Honor Rank as a bonus to attempts to resist temptations and fear-based effects. There is also an optional rule allowing a “roll again” on a failed Skill roll, using the Honor Rank for both rolled and kept dice- the catch is that if this roll fails, the character loses a full Rank of Honor for loss of self-confidence. Glory is a character's public perception and reputation for glorious deeds, while Status is one's rank within the caste system or another system. Again, these are not the same; the Emperor's Status is 10, of course, but his Glory is only 4.
In The Book of Fire one builds a character from these materials. Step One: Choose your character's Clan. Step Two: Choose your character's family line within that Clan. Step Three: Pick your School (bushi, shugenja, courtier, sometimes Monk). Step Four: Customize your character with experience (these are at the same value as XP granted during the game), buying up traits or picking up Advantages and Disadvantages. Step Five: Note derived attributes.
Each step proceeds from the next. Your choice of Clan in large respect determines the concept of your character, since as a Clan member he is expected to carry out its larger goals. Each family line provides a specific Trait bonus (e.g. the Hida family of the Crab get +1 Strength). Each family also has at least one “School” for training its samurai in certain endeavors; usually each Clan is varied enough to have at least one School for Bushi, one for Shugenja and one for Courtiers. Some may have more schools or different specializations, for instance the Dragon Clan sponsors the Togashi Tattooed Monks and the Scorpion Shosuro family are expert “infiltrators” (technically Courtiers, but really Ninja). One's choice of School is important in that it not only defines your “class” but has effects on character creation: Each School provides a Benefit (+1 to another Trait, usually not the same as your Family bonus), a list of Skills that all start at Rank 1, starting base Honor rating (Scorpions tend to have less base Honor than other Clans for some reason), and an “Outfit” of starting gear. Bushi and courtier Schools each have five Ranks of Techniques that grant them special bonuses or other abilities in their field (combat for Bushi, diplomatic or non-combat Skills for Courtiers). Shugenja Schools each get an Affinity with one element (use it as though one School Rank higher) and one element Deficiency (use it at one Rank lower) and a special School Technique for magic- for example the Dragon Tamori Shugenja can effectively use alchemy by placing a spell slot in an item or potion for later use by another person, until which time that spell counts against the shugenja's slots per day.
A character's Glory, Status and Insight Rank start at 1 by default. Some Advantages can raise the first two traits at character creation. Insight Rank is effectively character level; one cannot learn the advanced Techniques of his School above Rank 1 until he has reached the corresponding Insight Rank. In game, Insight Rank is determined by an arcane formula of adding all the points in the character's Rings together, multiplying by ten and then adding the total of the character's Skill Points. This is on a curve where 1 to 149 points is only Insight Rank 1, but Insight Rank 2 is 150 to 174 points, meaning you only need 25 more points to jump to Rank 3. Again, in Step Four you get a bank of 40 Experience Points to raise your various traits. Obviously these points along with the freebie adjustments from earlier steps can bring a character into Insight Rank 2 without much trouble. This is on a scale where raising one Trait of a Ring costs four times the new rating. A Ring is always equal to the lower of its two Traits, so raising both Traits by a point will also raise the base Ring score. Because Void has no Traits, it must be raised at a rate of 6 XP times new rating. Skills are one point each to buy the first rank of a Skill a character doesn't already have, while raising an existing Skill is XP equal to the new rating. You can also buy Skill Emphases (specializations) for 2 XP each, along with Advantages and Disadvantages (see below). At the end of all this, a character is not allowed to start with any Trait or Skill above 4.
After the main Clan Schools are listed, the book describes Skills. These are usually paired with Traits (although Traits can be rolled alone as 'characteristic rolls'). In this system, the Skill + Trait is the total dice rolled and the Trait is the number of dice kept (so Kenjutsu is normally rolled with Agility to hit someone with a sword, keep a number of dice equal to Agility). Skills are grouped according to the format: Sub-Type (either High Skills of the court, Bugei skills of the bushi and soldier, Merchant Skills and Low Skills that will lower most people's Honor, such as Ninjutsu), Emphases, general Description of the Skill, and Mastery Abilities. A Skill Emphasis allows a character to re-roll any 1s in that specialty- e.g. Kenjutsu (Katana) allows you to re-roll any 1s (once) when you attack with a katana. Many Skills have Mastery abilities that accrue at Ranks 3, 5 and 7. For example, with Kenjutsu, the Rank 3 bonus is +1k0 when using a sword, Rank 5 means you can ready a sword as a Free Action instead of a Simple Action, and Rank 7 means damage dice with a sword explode on 9 and 10.
Then you have a list of the Advantages and Disadvantages, which are much like similar concepts in GURPS and the World of Darkness games. Unlike those games, the points are bought or gained at the one-for-one rate, so a 3-point Advantage costs 3 XP at character creation (and in many cases can be bought with regular XP during the game). A character can gain up to 10 points of Experience through Disadvantages. For instance you have the Gaijin Name Disadvantage, for a character of outlander heritage. (For the player who actually did want to name his PC 'Bob the Samurai.') It's worth noting that in several cases you get a bonus if a certain character type takes a given Advantage or Disadvantage; e.g. with the aforementioned Gaijin Name, it's a 1 point Disad, but worth 2 points for a Unicorn character. Likewise “Dangerous Beauty” is a 3 point Advantage but only costs 2 points for Scorpion characters. To me, these “stereotype” trait bonuses seem a bit counter-intuitive; it seems like they should be worth less to certain characters because those traits are expected of them. However, the design philosophy here seems to be that the game gives these bonuses so as to encourage players to build PCs within a certain stereotype. For instance, if the Phoenix shugenja are supposed to be pacifist, and the “Soft-Hearted” (will not kill) Disadvantage is normally 2 points but worth 3 points to Phoenix characters, this encourages a Phoenix player to make his PC play according to what is expected of him.
After the Disadvantages, the Book of Fire gives us the rules for shugenja magic. This is on a system where each element (Ring) has 6 levels of Mastery and dice pool is the shugenja's School Rank plus Ring trait for the relevant spell (a Rank 2 shugenja with Fire 3 uses 5 dice in casting a Fire spell). Number of dice kept is equal to the Ring trait. TN is equal to 5 plus (5 x spell Mastery Level). Casting time is one Turn of Complex Actions per Mastery Level of the spell, so that a Rank 3 spell is 3 Turns of casting. One only needs to roll the casting roll on the first round, but if the spell is interrupted during the casting, it fails. “Spells” in this system are actually refined prayers to the kami, and if the spell casting roll fails, the shugenja has offended the kami and he has wasted that spell slot for the day. If he was interrupted in spell casting, he could use that slot later. A shugenja normally gets to use a number of spells per day in each Ring equal to his rating in that Ring, plus “floating” slots equal to his Void Ring (so the shugenja with Fire 3 and Void 2 normally casts 3 Fire spells per day, but could cast up to five by using his Void slots).
Finally, the Book of Fire gives lists of equipment used by characters, namely weapons and armor. Armor is built with both “Armor Class” bonus (adds to the Armor TN to hit the character) and Reduction (reduces damage). As with the rest of this setting, weapons are segregated by social class; Peasant weapons are sometimes effective (like nunchaku) but are dishonorable for use against samurai. Samurai weapons are their own class, and any commoner holding one is subject to the death penalty. Ninja weapons, of course, are completely dishonorable. Many of these items are low-quality compared to the katana, such that they might break after doing a certain amount of damage. The equipment section also gives a list of the mundane items that might be in the Outfit of starting gear that a character usually gets from his school.
The Book of Water goes deeper, much deeper, into the options for character background, starting with the “Great Clan” devoted to the evil Fu Leng, the Spider Clan, now composed largely of newer families who took on the legacies of Shadow clans destroyed in earlier wars, much like certain dead-and-revived comicbook supervillain agencies. There are also a large number of Minor Clans, including some that have been absorbed into Great Clans in the course of the history, or are now extinct, and there are rules for most of these family lines.
After this you get a few of the main monastic orders in the Brotherhood of Shinsei, with rules for creating a Monk PC – with a sidebar proviso that this is entirely at the option of the GM, since apparently having a character outside the samurai caste system is going to screw with the social dynamics of the setting. Monks start with Status 1 and Glory 0, and gain only half as much Glory as normal, since they are supposed to eschew fame. All monks start with Void 3, +1 to a certain Trait depending on order, and one Technique, like shugenja. All monks start with three Kiho (see below) and usually get two more with each School Rank. Then the book talks about Ronin, who are technically samurai but are either “clan ronin” (formerly members of a Clan) or “true ronin” (born ronin, either because the ronin is the bastard of a samurai or because one or both parents were ronin). Both types have to take the Social Disadvantage, but while the clan ronin usually has at least one School Technique from character creation, the true ronin will not get the opportunity to study at a clan dojo. The Social Disadvantage means that the character is at Status 0, and will not be able to train with any clans, who guard their knowledge. This means that over time, ronin have developed their own techniques. Five organizations are listed here, each with its own “Ronin Path” and Level 1 Technique for use by True Ronin. However, more advanced Ronin Techniques are to be listed “in a future supplement.”
Then the Book of Water gives a Mass Combat System, specifically for use with the field battles and ship engagements that a samurai is expected to engage in, as opposed to the player-scale “skirmishes” that most games call combat. This is on a scale where one Battle Turn takes 30 minutes and is assumed to involve two sides of 250 troops each, meaning that an engagement with 500 men on each side would be two Battle Turns. The Mass Combat System has a large table on page 240, where each commanding general makes a Battle/Perception roll with the margin on a contested roll determining whether a side is beginning to win or lose. It also has options for PCs to get into Duels or semi-random “Heroic Opportunities” that have certain chances to win extra Glory or Honor. And also Wounds. One significant difference from historical Bushido is the presence of shugenja on the battlefield; bushi are allowed to attack them to remove an enemy resource but are actually expected to offer them a chance to surrender, given their rarity.
Next there are rules for the special Ancestor Advantage, which greatly resembles the Werewolf concept of having a patron Totem or ancestor spirit. Each Great Clan (including Spider) gets a couple of major ancestors, who grant benefits to those clan members who venerate them, the main drawbacks being the steep cost of the Advantage (up to 14 points) and the fact that if you violate the ancestor's taboo, usually by disloyalty to his or her principles, you lose the Advantage forever.
There are also quite a few options for Advanced Schools (effectively prestige classes, with requirements usually dictating that a PC would not qualify for one before Insight Rank 4) and Alternate Paths, the latter being certain Techniques that are learned at a certain School Rank in place of the normal version, allowing more differentiation than normal. The Alternate Path mechanic is also used to represent certain titles like The Emerald Champion, the “Emperor's Hand” who is charged with enforcing Imperial decrees. Some of these extra options and Advanced Schools are especially important if PCs get past Insight Rank 6 and need to find new training.
There is a brief section on crafting items and then another fairly brief section on Kata, certain combat routines that a character can buy in addition to his School Techniques to increase his combat skills. Then there is a much more detailed section on Kiho, the monastic disciplines and powers developed by monk characters, namely the orders in the Brotherhood of Shinsei. Sidebars mention it is possible for some other characters (and Monks outside the Brotherhood, like the Dragon Clan's Tattooed Monks) to learn Kiho, but not as many as Brotherhood monks and not at as high a level. Each Kiho is based on an elemental Ring and has learning requirements based on a total of the Ring and one's School Rank; non-Brotherhood Kiho can use only their Ring rating to determine if they are eligible to purchase a given Kiho. Most Kiho require a certain centering ritual (Meditation/Void skill roll) to activate and are active for either a limited time or until “dropped”- the main limitation on their use being that they are organized into five types, so if one knows (say) two Martial Kiho, only one Martial effect can be applied to a target per Turn.
Finally, after all these new character options, you get the game mechanics for the major threats to the Emerald Empire. Maho (blood magic) is taught by spirits of Jigoku (the Realm of Evil) and is deliberately intended as a “Dark Side” option that lures mortals with the promise of more power than shugenja magic: There is no Insight Rank or Shugenja School Rank restriction on what maho spells a character can learn, so one could conceivably use the most powerful spells assuming he gained access to them and was capable of making the roll (based on Insight Rank/spell Element). The other restriction, of course is that the caster must shed blood to draw the spirits to aid him, 2 Wounds per Mastery Rank of the spell. Of course this need not be the caster's own blood. Maho is inherently corrupting, given the need to inflict pain and the destructive nature of the spells, not to mention the Rokugani taboo about touching blood. It also corrupts a caster with Taint, which is the other danger posed by supernatural evil. The mortal realm held by Fu Leng's original forces became known as the Shadowlands and is inherently Tainted; it is also possible to gain Taint from exposure to Shadowlands monsters like Oni. Taint is gained in points like Honor, and each ten points creates a full Rank of Taint, which causes a victim to feel sick, normally causes mutations, and will eventually make the character evil and/or insane. Going to Rank 5 in Taint usually makes a character “Lost” and an NPC, since his actions are now controlled by the forces of Jigoku. However there are also “call upon the Dark Side” advantages to a character who is Tainted but not Lost, in that he may gain certain occult powers, and can call upon his Taint to increase a physical Skill by +1k1, at the cost of gaining another point of Taint. Unfortunately, a character who is known to be Tainted is expected to sequester himself from public life and may be obliged to commit seppuku; with the exception of Crab soldiers who expect to be fighting in the Shadowlands anyway, Rokugani society generally frowns on using Taint for “powergaming.”
Last, you get the Book of Void, or the Gamemaster's section, appropriately behind the veil of players' material.
Given how the typical RPG group tries to “cover all bases” of character types available, one problem for the GM is how to build a campaign around a mixed group, especially one with different Clans. It is mentioned that L5R traditionally recommended making the party Magistrates under the command of the Emerald Champion- a more likely option for beginner samurai would be to assign them as Imperial cartographers, going various places in something like the adventure-of-the-week style of many RPGs. Conversely the GM might decide to run a “closed” campaign focusing on the events of one particular court, where characters would be exclusively of one Clan. One interesting option is the two-player campaign, which could be anything from a bushi-and-shugenja team to a forensic investigator character who has an eta (untouchable caste) assistant to actually handle the bodies and evidence he needs gathered.
The Book of Void describes how to create scenarios for characters (especially in a setting where characters are supposed to avoid greed as a motivator). The book goes over Polti's 36 Plots, and does a very good job of linking each to a samurai/Rokugan theme. The matter of how the plots are expressed in the setting leads to a discussion of “Asian Versus Western Storytelling”: The Book of Void states that the main difference between the Western hero and the Asian hero is that the Westerner is usually an individualist out for personal gain, while the Asian is trying to uphold the mores of his society. It stresses that this is the case even when the hero is a rogue individual against the collective- the example given is Lone Wolf & Cub. (I might also count the Chinese movie Hero.) There is a great deal of tragedy in the samurai life, not only because the samurai is expected to die in service at any time, but because Bushido demands a superhuman standard of behavior, especially in regard to romance and marriage- much like the Western chivalric period, but without even the safety valve of courtly love to express one's feelings. That may and does lead to secret affairs that would be disastrous if found out. Romance is only one example of how Bushido can lead to hypocrisy, secrets, and critical conflicts between feelings and duty. On the other hand, the ease with which samurai media translate to Western media (The Magnificent Seven) and back (Ran) indicate that there are some universal elements that can be used to sell the environment.
There is also an option to tweak the game to provide a certain style, like making the damage rules more forgiving for a “cinematic” game, making them even more lethal for a “realistic” game, and upping the power level for an anime game, which also requires a de-emphasis on face (since anime is based on the mores of modern Japan, characters tend to be a lot more... emotional than proper samurai).
After this there is a “GM's Toolbox” section, giving the game stats for major monsters, including useful animals like falcons and Unicorn war steeds. Most creatures (including monsters) have no Void stat, since they are either non-sentient or have no “harmony with the elements.” Some of these (like the Shadowlands monsters) are especially nasty in that they have an Invulnerability power which causes any attack to inflict only 1 Wound no matter how much is rolled. Certain banes like jade can bypass this defense, but jade deteriorates in the Shadowlands, so combat units there usually keep their jade items in storage to be used only when needed. Separate from the main equipment rules are two pages for the effects of poison, with the proviso that no true samurai would use such a tool. (Sure.)
Next there is a good long review of the major holdings of each Great Clan, with designations like [CB1] corresponding to points on the two-page map of Rokugan printed in both the back and front gatefold of the book. This section includes unaligned lands, Spider territory, and certain noteworthy geographical features like the Plains Above Evil and the River of the Unexpected Hero. After this there's a small section of sample plot seeds that could be used with either NPCs or PCs as the subjects of the main plot, depending on how the GM wants the PCs to get involved.
The main text ends with a sample scenario, in which an artistic competition hosted by a gracious samurai turns into a mystery that the PCs must investigate. There is intrigue, secrecy, and conflict between duty, passion and honor. As opposed to a field combat scenario or fight against Japanese folk monsters, this is the sort of story that is supposed to emphasize what L5R provides as opposed to a “Western” RPG. The drawback is that this emphasis on court means that the bushi characters may have little to do, although the investigators may end up needing a “champion” when they find the defendant.
SUMMARY
Mind, the Legend of the Five Rings RPG has enough points in common with other fantasy media- feudalism, castles, elite swordsmen, spellcasters and horrific monsters- that you could use it to run a game like a typical fantasy RPG, but the authors repeatedly stress that this misses the point of what makes the game unique. The Rokugan setting is also very much its own world; again, it emphasizes the samurai to the exclusion of all other walks of life, and presents the Clans in a fairly broad manner. In some respect the game walks a fine line between trying to appeal to the typical Fantasy audience and trying to present an authentic simulation of samurai drama.
Mechanically, I think the Roll-and-Keep system takes some getting used to, but the sidebar notes for veteran players indicate that many of the “fiddly bits” from earlier editions were removed for the sake of both balance and ease of play. Quite a few of the more exotic options were either pushed to the middle of the main book or promised “in future sourcebooks.” But the overall result is a focused yet richly detailed corebook that will allow a new GM and playing group to grasp the game and allow veteran players to continue the tradition of the Legend of the Five Rings RPG.
Style: 5
The Legends of the Five Rings RPG sells itself not so much on its rules and mechanics as the idea of adopting the role of a samurai in a unique fantasy world.
Substance: 4
The game mechanics are effective, and streamlined from prior editions “to ensure a balanced, thematically consistent game experience.”
