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.

 

[doctorhook]

I thought the gender swapping was unnecessary on top of a rollback (there were plenty of strong female characters in L5R from the beginning), and the new system was too narrative-focused and fiddly for me to bother with. I'm very glad it seemed successful though, and I own everything from before FFG's turn at bat, so I can use the 5e rules with whatever lore I want.

I’m glad you mentioned this. I’ve got the old 3E Oriental Adventures book, and was thinking of picking up FFG’s L5R Starter Set just to see what’s new (and get some of the weird dice before they become impossible to find). But maybe I’ll just skip it.

 

[This Effin’ GM]

I’m trying to figure out if they will have copies at Gen Con or if I’ll have to ditch the con for a bit to track it down at a FLGS

 

[Jaeger]

It seems like a diluted version of the 3e setting. I don't like that Heroic Paths require your feats, so if you want one you don't get ASI or other feats.
I was hoping for an updated version of the Defender class and the Wildlander. Instead they have just opted to use the regular D&D classes, making spells and magic powers commonplace rather than rare. Then they made it almost impossible to play those classes in city Adventures by making Asterix sense Spellcasters, not just active spells/magic in use. They took a great setting and removed a lot of its uniqueness by saying use the regular classes (but they will be a major liability if you do play many of them, and we are not giving you alternatives).

From what I have seen, this is a result of every '5e conversion' taking the setting and mapping it to fit the 5e mechanics, rather than taking the 5e mechanics and modding them to fit the setting...

Dark Souls is the one 5e 'conversion' to take a real stab at the latter, but its release was botched so hard I don't think it will ever recover enough to gain a real following.

In my opinion it's a bit of a shame as 5e's bounded accuracy allows the D&D chassis to be easily modded to different gameplay paradigms much easier than past editions. But no one seems to be taking advantage of that - everything so far has been a safe-as-can-be straight across 5e D&D mechanics for a given setting. Which means things will get watered down in the process.

 

[overgeeked]

From what I have seen, this is a result of every '5e conversion' taking the setting and mapping it to fit the 5e mechanics, rather than taking the 5e mechanics and modding them to fit the setting...

Dark Souls is the one 5e 'conversion' to take a real stab at the latter, but its release was botched so hard I don't think it will ever recover enough to gain a real following.

In my opinion it's a bit of a shame as 5e's bounded accuracy allows the D&D chassis to be easily modded to different gameplay paradigms much easier than past editions. But no one seems to be taking advantage of that - everything so far has been a safe-as-can-be straight across 5e D&D mechanics for a given setting. Which means things will get watered down in the process.

Check out Doctors & Daleks. It’s not great about everything, but they do a lot to change and update and expand the mechanics of 5E to better fit Doctor Who.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Check out Doctors & Daleks. It’s not great about everything, but they do a lot to change and update and expand the mechanics of 5E to better fit Doctor Who.

Do we actually know anything about the mechanics for L5R 5e?

 

[overgeeked]

Do we actually know anything about the mechanics for L5R 5e?

I don't. People on the L5R discord seem to be completely in the dark as well. Whatever few tidbits have been mentioned in articles is all we know so far. Hopefully they'll start releasing teasers and such in the week between now and release day.

 

[Lycurgon]

From what I have seen, this is a result of every '5e conversion' taking the setting and mapping it to fit the 5e mechanics, rather than taking the 5e mechanics and modding them to fit the setting...

Dark Souls is the one 5e 'conversion' to take a real stab at the latter, but its release was botched so hard I don't think it will ever recover enough to gain a real following.

In my opinion it's a bit of a shame as 5e's bounded accuracy allows the D&D chassis to be easily modded to different gameplay paradigms much easier than past editions. But no one seems to be taking advantage of that - everything so far has been a safe-as-can-be straight across 5e D&D mechanics for a given setting. Which means things will get watered down in the process.

Not everyone does this though. Trudvang made their own classes and limited the game to level 10 to keep things from going too far outside the setting style.
Ruins of Symbaroum 5e created their own classes and their own spellcasting rules, changed rest rules and more changes to make the game better fit their setting.

So some publishers are willing to do bold/interesting things with the 5e rule set rather than just fit their world into the existing 5e model. So far I haven't seen that from Edge Studio, thus my hesitancy over their L5R. I hope they do it well, but I am going to wait and see once it is out before getting excited.

 

[Shardstone]

From what I have seen, this is a result of every '5e conversion' taking the setting and mapping it to fit the 5e mechanics, rather than taking the 5e mechanics and modding them to fit the setting...

Dark Souls is the one 5e 'conversion' to take a real stab at the latter, but its release was botched so hard I don't think it will ever recover enough to gain a real following.

In my opinion it's a bit of a shame as 5e's bounded accuracy allows the D&D chassis to be easily modded to different gameplay paradigms much easier than past editions. But no one seems to be taking advantage of that - everything so far has been a safe-as-can-be straight across 5e D&D mechanics for a given setting. Which means things will get watered down in the process.

Working on it!

 

[Jaeger]

Not everyone does this though. Trudvang made their own classes and limited the game to level 10 to keep things from going too far outside the setting style.
Ruins of Symbaroum 5e created their own classes and their own spellcasting rules, changed rest rules and more changes to make the game better fit their setting.

We disagree.

In my opinion: Making your own classes that follow the 5e class to subclass model is firmly within the "mapping the setting into the 5e mechanics" safe playbook. (And you can spot a lot of the re-skinned class and subclass abilities from 5e that were just moved around to different classes/subclasses.)

Capping at level 10 like Trudvang did is a total shortcut way to do a power cap; because they did not want to take the time to smooth out the 5e PC/Monster math at the power level they wanted over 20 levels.

I have Symbaroum 5e, and it is just 5e re-flavored. Just like AiME. Yes they reduced the hitdice, and reconfigured things so they have "custom classes". All the other changes are well within the 5e optional rules paradigms given in the DMG. Nothing is introduced that gives you a fundamentally different feel from standard low-level 5e play.

So some publishers are willing to do bold/interesting things with the 5e rule set rather than just fit their world into the existing 5e model.

Hasn't happened yet IMHO...

Outside of Dark Souls; and their issues have been gone over already.

Symbaroum was originally a fixed HP d20 roll-under system. If Symbaroum 5e was really willing to be bold/interesting - they would have done as straight a conversion into a d20 roll-high/AC based system as possible.

Fixed Hit Points. Your "level" would just be another name for how many advancements you have. No set subclasses after level one. More freeform ability selection as the hero gains XP. Players make all the rolls. Etc,...

i.e. A Dark souls style 5e mechanical re-write.

But they didn't do that - they followed the same cut this out here - reskin that there - but stay 100% just like 5e class/level with HP bloat system format as every conversion that came before..

In their defense, this is understandable as there is much less risk involved. Both from the game design, and marketing perspectives

 

[Shardstone]

We disagree.

In my opinion: Making your own classes that follow the 5e class to subclass model is firmly within the "mapping the setting into the 5e mechanics" safe playbook. (And you can spot a lot of the re-skinned class and subclass abilities from 5e that were just moved around to different classes/subclasses.)

Capping at level 10 like Trudvang did is a total shortcut way to do a power cap; because they did not want to take the time to smooth out the 5e PC/Monster math at the power level they wanted over 20 levels.

I have Symbaroum 5e, and it is just 5e re-flavored. Just like AiME. Yes they reduced the hitdice, and reconfigured things so they have "custom classes". All the other changes are well within the 5e optional rules paradigms given in the DMG. Nothing is introduced that gives you a fundamentally different feel from standard low-level 5e play.




Hasn't happened yet IMHO...

Outside of Dark Souls; and their issues have been gone over already.

Symbaroum was originally a fixed HP d20 roll-under system. If Symbaroum 5e was really willing to be bold/interesting - they would have done as straight a conversion into a d20 roll-high/AC based system as possible.

Fixed Hit Points. Your "level" would just be another name for how many advancements you have. No set subclasses after level one. More freeform ability selection as the hero gains XP. Players make all the rolls. Etc,...

i.e. A Dark souls style 5e mechanical re-write.

But they didn't do that - they followed the same cut this out here - reskin that there - but stay 100% just like 5e class/level with HP bloat system format as every conversion that came before..

In their defense, this is understandable as there is much less risk involved. Both from the game design, and marketing perspectives

Changing AC to something radically different means losing a fundamental cwhen trying to make a 5E conversation. Otherwise, why make a new game? You're basically making Symbaroum 2E instead of Symbaroum 5E-mode.