D&D 5E Adventures in Rokugan Arrives August 5th

Adventures in Rokugan is Edge Studios' official 5E version of Legend of the Five Rings, announced last year. Legend of the Five Rings is an East Asian inspired setting which goes all the way back to the 1990s, and was purchased by Fantasy Flight Games in 2018, before being moved over to FFG's sister company, Edge Studios in 2020 (which has taken over all the TTRPG operations from FFG, including Star Wars).

The 5E version includes new classes -- Shinobi, Pilgrim, Courtier, Ritualist, Bushi, Duelist, Acolyte -- and various new shapeshifting animal species.

It's coming out on August 5th and will cost $49.99.

Adventures in Rokugan brings the famous setting of Legend of the Five Rings to the ever-popular ruleset of the 5th Edition SRD. Players can explore this rich setting in a whole new light, and the familiar rules promise to engage an entirely new audience of roleplaying fans. Alongside a new focus on roleplaying activities such as dungeon delving and monster hunting, Adventures in Rokugan promises to provide something for all fans of Rokugan.

 

[Weiley31]

Shinobi = Ninja, right?

It’s another word for ninja, yeah.

Kunoichi is also the term for female ninjas while Shinobi can also be used for male ninjas as well.

 

[TheSword]

Because they so drastically change both Rokugan and 5E. That's what makes it complicated.

Less than before, but yes.

Except that not everyone plays a battlemaster or bard...every single class in AiR has similar resources to track. So going from one class and one subclass to literally every single class...yes, that's more.

You mean long-time fans of the setting.

Trying for more historical accuracy isn't offensive. Striving for historical accuracy then replacing Japanese culture with Chinese culture is. Confucianism is what replaced bushido. Bushido is Japanese. Confucianism is Chinese.

Ah. Typical insults. That's productive. Tschüss.

I noticed you didn’t give any examples of anything that changed the game for the worse at the table though…

 

[overgeeked]

I think I figured out who the target audience is.

It’s Matt Colville. Like him personally.

He loves the story of L5R (the card game), he’s a fan of a lot of 4E mechanics (judging from pics there’s a lot of minis positioning and conditions, a la 4E), and it uses 5E mechanics.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

"-Focus on what D&D 5e is good at. This means character-centric heroic fantasy. That doesn't mean it's all combat crunch, but combat is a major part of D&D and is an expected part of the play cycle, along with exploration, discovery, and what I will term "adventuring.""

One of the writers of the book says this.

What a lord of HORSESH*T! D&D is not only good at combat, but even if it is, they made a whole new suite of classes, spells, races, backgrounds, and sub-systems! They could have made D&D into anything they wanted it too!

I am so tired of developers buying into the meme that D&D can only be about fantasy combat adventure. Its so short-sighted and reeks of an inability to have a true vision for what the game could be. I haven't read the book yet, so I won't say its horrible, but this kind of design philosophy really irks me to no end.

Eh, I mean the system IS primarily designed for combat focused dungeon crawling though. It starts breaking down the further you get from that. You CAN do other stuff, but it isn't well designed for it, compared to other systems that have stake setting, in depth social conflict resolution systems, and a more narrative tone.

 

[TheSword]

Keeping the setting more or less the same as the other Rokugan RPG that they are currently making is an unreasonable standard? No.

They really have kept it more or less the same. They really have. I’ve been reading for most of the day and all the Rokugan stuff you recognize is there. Sure there are a few different naming conventions but potayto potahto.

By unreasonable expectations I mean fhe setting being identical to the one before. In the context of the feedback from well known Asian gamers to oriental adventures was always going to catalyze some development of the setting.

 

[Weiley31]

I think I figured out who the target audience is.

It’s Matt Colville. Like him personally.

He loves the story of L5R (the card game), he’s a fan of a lot of 4E mechanics (judging from pics there’s a lot of minis positioning and conditions, a la 4E), and it uses 5E mechanics.

 

[TheSword]

It seems to me that they basically that the L5R setting as a whole was not appropriate for a 5e book (perhaps for social reasons, perhaps not) but were unwilling to give up the temptation of brand recognition. So, they created a new setting in name only.

The thing is, the 2022 reasons why not to port Rokugan over to 5e would also apply to any current exploration of the setting, regardless of rule set. I really don't understand what audience they're expecting to buy this.

They’ve removed honour and replaced it with devotion, so instead of being unfeeling robots who slavishly follow instructions no matter how evil (a stereotype) they have a more nuanced approach.

They have slightly modified the Code of Bushido to be the Code of Akodo.

There are very few actual changes to the setting that we can see.

 

[Weiley31]

And plus, one can always bring back Bushido if you want it that bad. Or kit bash this together with Mists of Akuma.

 

[RangerWickett]

Yeah, I think the setting fiddling looks perfectly acceptable to me. The world still exists and functions the same as in existing lore. It seems like all that really got changed was some of the terminology, which was likely because many naming conventions were originally decided by people without a clear understanding of the cultures they were modeling. The new version seems less likely to lean into often-unknowingly-biased tropes.

I just wish my FLGS had a print copy.

 

[vilainn6]

Like said previously, it is the same setting with some change of culture like no seppuku or hard following of Bushido or the fact that now Naga, Demons and kitsunes or ghosts openly walk among the human.