Review of Legend of the Five Rings 3rd. edition

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It’s been a long dark patch for Legend of the Five Rings, and I don’t just mean for the world of Rokugan, who since the first edition has seen emperors assassinated, a clan war, the ascension of Toturi to the throne, and the resurrection of a once dead emperor. I mean the last edition, and subsequent conversion to d20/ dual stat books. I have heard many gamers complain about L5r as an “incomplete” game. Which was perpetuated by the second edition showing off parts of the sourcebooks, in the corebook and using this to shill out additional sourcebooks. And to top it off, the new era in second edition, was a lot less role player friendly as the clans grew further apart through suspicion and war. However Alderac has definitely heard this and possibly felt it in their pocketbooks, anyway, the complaints with third edition, and seeming dislike of the d20 version has prompted Alderac to both cancel their d20 line, and produce a new edition of their classic roleplaying game. So is this game an improvement on the second edition, or simply more of what made people turn away after first edition?

On the outside, it’s a simply gorgeous book, 318 full color pages of beset with a full color map on the inside of both covers, this hardback tome sports a beautiful cover, using the same glossy/ flat printing technique as Ebberon, and Exalted, with a simple and iconic Katana in a sash design. But as we all know, you can’t judge a book by its cover, even an exceptional one like this.

The insides are as meaty as steak dinner with all the trimmings, reaching both back to the elements that made the original game great, while also updating elements that needed it in an intelligent and cautious way. The book itself is divided into 5 books (much as L5R, and the original book of the Five Rings by Mirumoto Musashi) The First book, (Earth) serves as a basic, sourcebook, defining the timeline, and basics of the world or Rokugan. Unlike the previous editions, which had plates with all of the character creation material per clan, this one spreads the material through the book more. The downside is that it lacks the one page how to generate per clan, on the bright side it means that there are a lot more options, as they are not limited to a two-page spread for each clan. In the end I think the trade off is worth it.

The next book (the Book of Water) is the main character generation guide. And in this version of the game your character starts with 45 character points to spend to up attributes, void, advantages, non-school skills, and of course to improve your school skills. Advantages and disadvantages have also had a slight reworking, adding signifiers to some to determine when they can be taken (Inherent means they can only be taken during creation) or if they can be taken, (granted means that the game/ back story must explain your having this). The skill lists have also been reworked, to simplify the list. Also new is the skill emphasis, which allows you to add your skill rank as a bonus to your roll if it applies. For example a samurai with a level 2 kenjutsu with an emphasis on Katana adds 2 rolls his dice and adds to his kept total). Also included is the heritage table (made more universal than the ones in the respective clan books. This works like the life path in cyberpunk to give your character a family history, which both fleshes out your character without being a tool for min maxing.

The book of Fire is the main rules section, offering the players the basics of the rules system, and yes the old roll and keep system is back fully intact. Resolution is based on rolling d10s equal to your stat and skill, and keeping an amount equal to your stat. This may make stats seem more important than skills but skills still offer more chance to do the job. This section includes full combat rules as well as mass combat rules, as well as an extensive equipment system, new to this edition in the core book is the inclusion of Katas, which are special maneuvers you can learned by bushi to accomplish special tasks kind of like a combat maneuver/ spell like effect. Most make perfect sense but are fantastic none the less, an obvious connection to martial arts here, not quite advantages, not quite feats they are a unique new ability type which is definitely a cool addition to the game offering flavor to an already unique game.

The book of Air presents the magic system, which has changed little since first edition. Sure there are some new spells and some have disappeared but then again don’t fix what ain’t broke, also they did a good job of going into the cosmology of Rokugan and including info on maho as well as traditional spellcraft. This also bring up the big central advantage of this book it is designed from the get go to allow you to run more than just a major clan samurai drama. This book makes the idea of playing the Shadowlands, or Kolat a lot more accessible from the get go which is a definite advantage over the previous editions.

The Final book, the book of Void is in essence the GM’s section, including the obligatory GM hints as well as a decent list of monsters and NPCs as well as a list of the major eras of play, including the very useful notes on which eras reflect which editions of the rulebooks. Also included is a guide to the map of Rokugan that is in the front and back of the book, giving you a nice and quick gazetteer to the main attractions of the world of L5R. and to top it all off there is a very thorough index, and a glossary of Rokugani terms.

The high points of this product are pretty obvious besides the beautiful outsides the insides give you a lot more than the previous editions at a price of $20 less than the second edition, There is very little fluff, both source and rules are printed concisely and clearly. And while the easy create template pages are gone from this book it’s probably a lot better starting book than the first two editions as it does learn from the mistakes of the last two editions and is probably one of the best new edition books I have seen that does not radically overhaul the system, (ala d20, or Paranoia XP) It’s instantly recognizable to the L5R veterans, and easy enough to make it a good starting point for players who have always wanted to try the game, also because the core elements are still there you won’t have to throw out the pile of L5R books and boxed sets that most L5R fans are holding on to. The biggest downside is that it didn’t come out sooner.