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.

 

[TheSword]

I think that perhaps you are going too far on the opposite direction to imply that they were people who would read the legend of the Five Rings role-playing game and come away with that kind of stereotype.

They’re not causing it. The idea was embedded with the cultural mythology of the kamikaze, the suicidal tendency for the sake of honour. Which is a really destructive stereotype.

It wasn’t caused by Rokugan. But it was co-opted and used by Rokugan to enhance the cultural uniqueness of the game. I don’t even think it was a terrible thing. It wasn’t fully understood at the time. Now we know better you can’t blame a company for updating stuff.

Let’s be clear, this isn’t a company being censored. It’s the writers of the new edition wanting to be more contemporary.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

They’re not causing it. The idea was embedded with the cultural mythology of the kamikaze, the suicidal tendency for the sake of honour. Which is a really destructive stereotype.

It wasn’t caused by Rokugan. But it was co-opted and used by Rokugan to enhance the cultural uniqueness of the game. I don’t even think it was a terrible thing. It wasn’t fully understood at the time. Now we know better you can’t blame a company for updating stuff.

Let’s be clear, this isn’t a company being censored. It’s the writers of the new edition wanting to be more contemporary.

Using systems like this to play out the movie 47 Ronin is cool, just don't have rules that force the same ending as the movie. All of them killing themselves because of a blind devotion to some idiotic honor belief made me never watch the end of that movie again.

 

[vilainn6]

After reading the pdf from cover to cover, the only really insulting change to the setting I can see is the race chapter. Seriously, how many people have run L5R campaign with a party made of bushi, a ghost, a naga and an animal spirit?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

After reading the pdf from cover to cover, the only really insulting change to the setting I can see is the race chapter. Seriously, how many people have run L5R campaign with a party made of bushi, a ghost, a naga and an animal spirit?

Sounds like it would make a good anime series, though.

 

[RangerWickett]

Using systems like this to play out the movie 47 Ronin is cool, just don't have rules that force the same ending as the movie. All of them killing themselves because of a blind devotion to some idiotic honor belief made me never watch the end of that movie again.

Are you familiar with the classic tale of Chushingura? They actually did that. Forty-seven rōnin - Wikipedia

 

[TheSword]

Are you familiar with the classic tale of Chushingura? They actually did that. Forty-seven rōnin - Wikipedia

There were lots of things happening a few hundred years back that aren’t particularly great to act out now. For a host of reasons.

 

[MGibster]

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.

You think Honor in L5R encouraged PCs to be unfeeling robots who slavishly follow instructions no matter how evil? Or amy I missing something here?

 

[Dragonhelm]

Invocation are divided into 3 tiers and, depending of your level, the shugenja know certain number of those invocations. The character also has a pool of favor points that he use to cast or empower those invocations. Also the conditions where or when you use a certain invocation can grant you bonus favor points

Does it resemble the shugenja of the 3e Oriental Adventures or Rokugan books, or is this a totally different beast?

 

[overgeeked]

The strife mechanic is a huge part of the L5R 5E game, that’s one of the symbols on the funky dice. They’re on 3 of the 6-sided die’s faces (50%) and 3 of the 12-sided die’s faces (25%). So they come up a lot. When you get enough strife, your emotions break through and you lose composure. That’s a huge part of the game.

The only way you can come away with the impression that L5R 5E is about emotionless robots is to either never have read it in the first place or to have decided it’s true before you skimmed it. Even a bad reading of L5R 5E would prove that’s a complete nonsense take.

 

[Weiley31]

Sounds like it would make a good anime series, though.

And we do have a couple of monster girl options in DND too so....yeah sounds about right.

 

[overgeeked]

Are you familiar with the classic tale of Chushingura? They actually did that. Forty-seven rōnin - Wikipedia

It’s a great story.

If players have any interest in not appropriating Japanese culture or doing the same old tired Orientalism when they play, they need to include things like that…ahem…“blind devotion to some idiotic honor belief.” If you use the culture, treat it honestly, not romantically. Warts included or not at all.

 

[billd91]

There were lots of things happening a few hundred years back that aren’t particularly great to act out now. For a host of reasons.

It is a pretty unique story in the history of Japanese culture. Are you really trashing a valued story from a culture's history because it doesn't conform to modern moral standards?

 

[overgeeked]

It is a pretty unique story in the history of Japanese culture. Are you really trashing a valued story from a culture's history because it doesn't conform to modern moral standards?

It reads as closer to trashing the historical culture as a whole.

 

[Medic]

All of them killing themselves because of a blind devotion to some idiotic honor belief made me never watch the end of that movie again.

I wasn't even going to post in this thread, but I'll go ahead and bite this ginormous fishhook. Dismissing deeply-entrenched cultural attitudes (especially antiquated ones from an era and region that are far removed from our own) as "blind devotion" or "idiotic" beliefs is an egregious example of presentism. People are products of their time, and often their environment, and history should be evaluated from this paradigm. Practices such as hara-kiri and Bushido did occupy a place in Japanese feudal society, and the underlying ideas that birthed them still exist in various permutations across East Asia today, even though ritual suicide and warrior culture respectively have tapered off over the years.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

If people want to keep suicide in their fantasy Asia, then they have to keep colonialism in their fantasy Europe or slavery in their fantasy version of any part of Earth. Every real world culture/ethnicity has bad stuff in the past that has no place in the modern world or in our fantasy games or literature. But if you disagree, maybe Nu-TSR has products you would be more comfortable playing.

 

[cbwjm]

Just downloaded the pdf and am looking forward to checking this out. This and transformers in the same week, things are going great at the moment!

 

[RangerWickett]

If people want to keep suicide in their fantasy Asia, then they have to keep colonialism in their fantasy Europe or slavery in their fantasy version of any part of Earth. Every real world culture/ethnicity has bad stuff in the past that has no place in the modern world or in our fantasy games or literature. But if you disagree, maybe Nu-TSR has products you would be more comfortable playing.

I mean, that's kinda why I'm okay with books not foregrounding that stuff. Some people want to use the setting for heroism without interacting with traumatic elements. Others are okay with stories that touch upon the f'ed up parts of reality.

In the ZEITGEIST setting I worked on, we mention several instances of genocide, slavery, human trafficking, and tyranny. But the setting as a whole isn't focused on that, and I'd have no problem if someone wanted to play a version of the setting where none of that comes into the narrative.

 

[Shardstone]

Just downloaded the pdf and am looking forward to checking this out. This and transformers in the same week, things are going great at the moment!

Transformers is this week?! Oh naughty word!!!

 

[overgeeked]

I mean, that's kinda why I'm okay with books not foregrounding that stuff. Some people want to use the setting for heroism without interacting with traumatic elements. Others are okay with stories that touch upon the f'ed up parts of reality.

In the ZEITGEIST setting I worked on, we mention several instances of genocide, slavery, human trafficking, and tyranny. But the setting as a whole isn't focused on that, and I'd have no problem if someone wanted to play a version of the setting where none of that comes into the narrative.

If it's pure fantasy, do whatever you want. Create the world you want to play in. Make it as light or as dark as you please. For me, the problem comes in when you're dealing with a game that's even partially based on historical cultures. Ritual suicide was absolutely a thing in feudal Japan. To promote it is bad and to pretend it didn't happen is bad. So the best you can do is mention it (which calls attention to it), but then to note how damaging and harmful even bringing it up in game might be. Which is exactly what Edge did with AiR. Rokugan isn't feudal Japan. But it's heavily, heavily based on it. To leave it out entirely is to whitewash history. Same with any terrible bit of any culture's history. On that specific bit of historical fact, I think Edge did the best they could with a difficult situation.

 

[Shardstone]

Anyway, I like the idea of an action-oriented L5R. I have the book right now, and have begun my deep dive. So far, I don't understand why they had to dial back so hard on the social mechanics. I feel having the action adventure with light social mechanics be the opposite of the core game's heavy social mechanics with light action (depending on campaign) would have been a more sensible decision.

The removal of Japanese stereotypes and tropes is very inconsistent in this book, and some things historically wrong, like the City of the Khans, are still wrong, which is a headscratcher. It ultimately feels like the cultural consultant did an inconsistent and slightly sloppy job of modifying the setting in terms of names, paradigms, rules for using foreign languages, and so on.

That classes are super super super cool.