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L5R is steeped in culture to say the least. Although Rokugan is not Japan (a phrase that gets used so often in relation to L5R that I wonder if AEG should copy write it), it does draw heavily on an idealized version of Japanese samurai culture, with a few bits from the rest of Asia thrown in for good measure.
Run correctly, Rokugan is different from almost any other RPG setting because of this rich culture, not to mention over 1000 years of history, some of which has been decided by who wins major tournaments for the CCG. In fact, I’ve found that this enormous amount of cultural information is the biggest barrier for new players. After all, the GM saying, “A Crane samurai approaches you, his hand out as if to offer a gift,” doesn’t mean much to someone who isn’t well versed in the setting.
How a new book presents Rokugan is at least as important how someone rolls to put his katana through a rival’s chest. Unfortunately, 4th edition is hit or miss in this department. Some things it does really well, others not so much.
First, the good. Rokugan’s cultural conventions and customs are well laid out in the opening chapters. Tea ceremony, the daisho, gift giving, it’s all there. New players can get a good idea of what will be expected of them in the Emerald Empire, especially the need to respect one’s social betters (or they might cut your head off.)
On the visual side of things; 4th Edition’s art is a bit strange. About two thirds of it are stylistic ink paintings that remind one of old samurai era paintings from Japan. I like this art; it looks cool and gives the feeling of reading a book from Rokugan, even though I’m pretty sure Rokugan hasn’t figured out bound books yet.
But every once in a while, interrupting the subdued ink paintings are bright, photo realistic images of samurai doing absurdly badass things. A lot of these images come from card art, and they really clash. As if that wasn’t enough, a lot of them aren’t very good, or even representative of the sitting. Many of the women wear armor with bare midriff or visible cleavage, and this is after a section early on about how modest Rokugani are with showing skin.
Now for the really bad. Beginning on page 14 is a time-line of Rokugan’s history, and it doesn’t start the book off on a very good foot. First of all, there just isn’t very much there. The information is incredibly sparse compared to earlier editions. I was able to glean the Kami’s fall from Heaven, the war against Fu Leng, and then about one or two important events per century until the Scorpion Clan coup, which is incidentally when the card game’s story started.
That’s not a lot of information to illuminate a setting as massive as Rokugan, and it gets even worse. Most of the history described after Hantei Naseru takes the throne only makes sense to people who already have an in depth knowledge of L5R. For example: I stopped playing the card game right before Lotus Edition, so Naseru sacrificing himself in the shadowlands makes no sense to me. Why did he do it? Why was he there in the first place? Then it talks about the Jade and Obsidian Dragons fighting Lord Sun and Lady Moon and then becoming the new sun and moon, but it doesn’t explain any of the context that would illicit such extreme action.
Plus, and this isn’t nearly as big a deal but it is sadly hilarious, PG 16 has a paragraph explaining what happened to each of the Kami that completely leaves out Akodo. I guess he wasn’t a real god anyway.
As if the scarcity of information wasn’t enough, its not well written. Dry is something of an understatement. 1st Edition L5R had some of the best writing I’ve ever seen in an RPG. Reading the history of each clan was like reading a series of short stories. The information was subjective, slated to the point of view of whoever was writing it, with the occasional side bar for information that was absolutely vital.
Since then, L5R writing has dropped its suggestive nature, and I think that’s a detriment. The clan descriptions suffer from the same problem; too much filling, not enough flavor. Nowhere am I as inspired as I was by the old Way of the Clan books (I also used to have to walk up hill to school, both ways). 4th Edition tries to convey its information as clearly and quickly as possible, but that’s really boring. I still read Way of the Scorpion for fun, but I doubt I’ll ever look at the new history section again.
Game Master Resources
Running a role-playing game is a difficult job, and Legend of the Five Rings is a difficult system to run. The focus on Asian culture and values is jarring to many who are used to the Western nature of most fantasy RPGs. As such, a section on how to run an L5R campaign is vital to new GMs, especially those who are introducing the game to their group and don’t have a more experienced game master to take notes from.
4th Edition has such a section, referred to in the book as The Book of Void, and for the most part it’s pretty good. There’s a lot of sound advice on each page, and the chapter pushes some very healthy role playing philosophies; primarily that it is not solely the GM’s responsibility to entertain the entire group.
I can recall several times my group has gathered for a game, only to have the players stubbornly refuse to participate in the adventure, then blame their lack of fun on the GM afterwards. It’s as much the player’s job to invest their characters in the game as it is the GM’s.
Philosophy aside, 4th Edition offers plenty of practical advice as well. Borrowing Georges Polti’s theory of 36 fiction plots, the book provides ideas, potential story hooks and the challenges of running each one. Any GM running short of material can find inspiration here.
Unfortunately, not everything in The Book of Void is good. Pg 295 introduces a number of ambitious ideas for running unconventional games, but offers no real advice on how to do it. It’s very nice to suggest the GM run his game like it was a television show, but without more support it’s just wasted space.
There are also a few bizarre holes in the GM’s mechanical tools. Although there’s a good list of animal and most statistics, a list of stats for stock human NPCs is conspicuously absent, as is a suggestion for how many points to give characters in games where the GM wants the PCs to start at higher rank. Also, there are only four kinds of poison, down from eleven in 3rd Edition.
Even so, The Book of the Void is a good chapter, perhaps the best in the book. Even non-GMs should consider giving it a read; it’ll give some good ideas for character back-story if nothing else.
Mechanics.
4th Edition scores a lot points for the way they rebalanced the schools, advantages, and skill emphases. First, you’ll notice the Great Clan schools are actually balanced with each other. You can play a Tsuruchi archer without making the other players feel stupid that they can’t bombard targets at 300 yards with the force of five cruise missiles.
Even more importantly, they have reduced the bonus stacking that was rampant in 3rd Edition. My biggest problem with the previous edition was that I could never run a high rank game because the math was so intensive. Not only did it slow down the game, but it was another barrier to new players who didn’t understand the system very well. While the school techniques are still potent in 4th Ed, they give far fewer bonuses per rank than before, and most advantages now give new options rather than straight increases.
The Iaijutsu Duel has been slimmed down as well. It’s a lot more intuitive now, and requires a lot less rolling. I also like that certain schools have been consolidated. The Shiba Yojimbo and Mirumoto Swordsmaster schools in particular always struck me as unnecessary, and both have been folded into their Clan’s main bushi school.
Kata have been completely revamped from the awkward, almost nonsensical things they were in 3rd Edition. Now they are basically minor techniques that characters can take in addition to their main school. The new rules are cool for experienced players because they provide a way to differentiate two bushi of the same school.
A multitude of minor tweaks and improvements have been made as well. Honor now scales on a 1-10 instead of 1-5. Shugenja now get extra spells per day equal to their void ring. The traveling pack choices are now in the gear section instead of the Minor Clan schools like it was in 3rd Ed. It would take too long to list them all, but most of them are for the good.
Finally, the 4th Edition book deserves credit for how much mechanical information it contains. You can play a character from almost any Rokugani walk of life, and there are rules for it. While the setting info may be a bit lacking, experienced players will be able to run entire campaigns out of this single book without the need of ever buying a supplement.
Now for the bad. First of all, what is up with the new weapon rules? All balance has apparently been thrown to the wind. The tetsubo, besento, and nodachi are simply the best weapons in the game. There’s little reason to use anything else, unless of course you’re in an Iaijutsu duel and you have to use a katana. The fact that these enormously powerful weapons have no drawbacks is bizarre and unbalancing.
On the same subject: most weapon special abilities have been removed and turned into skill mastery ranks instead. This doesn’t work in a number of situations. A samurai with Kenjutsu and Heavy Weapons at 2 facing an armored oni would gain no benefit from uising his tetsubo over his nodachi, even though the former is specifically designed for getting through armor, because those bonuses don’t hit until skill rank 3. The disarm bonuses for jitte and sai, both weapons made for disarming, don’t kick in until skill rank 5.
Next, the combat stances need work. While the addition of Center Stance is really cool, Defensive Stance seems rather pointless. It’s basically a free Armor TN bonus for shugenja because while it does not allow attacking, it does allow spell casting. That doesn’t even make sense. You are spending so much time defending yourself that you can’t swing a sword, but you can read from a scroll and receipt highly detailed prayer? They also tried to tie the five stances to the five elements, but only Defensive and Center are mechanically dependent on their corresponding ring, making the others a pointless gimmick.
Speaking of pointless, the Feint Maneuver. Basically, you take two raises for extra damage. But there’s already a mechanic for that. It’s called raising for more damage. Why is there a second maneuver that does the same thing, except better? Why would we ever raise for damage the normal way now?
Moving on, 4th Edition’s crafting rules are a mess. There are no rules at all for crafting items of different quality. No matter how good a smith you are, your katana will always be the same as every other katana every other smith makes. As if that wasn’t enough, the TN charts have some very bizarre mistakes. Crafting an item costing 50 zenni (or 5 bu) is TN 25, while an item that costs 1-10 bu is TN 15… What? 50 bu (10 koku) is TN 30, 1-10 koku is TN 20. It’s called currency conversion guys! This is the sort of mistake I honestly wouldn’t expect from a professional game development team.
Honestly, the crafting rules are a waste of space, and would have been better served by a sidebar saying “We don’t have rules for crafting in this book. Look for them in future a publication.” They could even have made them a web supplement if they wanted to be really cool.
Finally, the rules for rerolling a failure on page 81 don’t make any sense. Basically, they allow a player to reroll most failures at a +10 TN (difficulty). That’s not how RPGs work! When a player rolls, he states his intent. If the roll fails, that intent is not carried out, the end. If a character is in a position to try multiple times, that should factor into the first roll. I cannot think of a single situation in which this rule is appropriate.
I could go on. In fact I’d really like to go on, but I’ve taken enough of your time. I hope this review has given you a better idea of whether or not 4th Edition will be right for your gaming group. Thank you for reading.
