Give a shout out to Legend of the 5 Rings.

[DrunkonDuty]

I've never played L5R. What makes it tick? What are the coolest bits?

Hey Storminator. Here's my take on it. Note: I'm going to refer to the 3rd Edition, I've only glanced at 4th.

I'm going to start with what's bad about L5R. This is so I can finish on a high note.

The layout of the main book is craptacular. Seriously, if you want to draw up even a basic samurai you will find yourself flipping back and forth all over the place. Gets worse if you want to create a monk, a shugenja or a use any of the advanced kata rules. It seems the book has been split up such that the rules are all assigned to one of the chapters according to which of the 5 Elements is thematically correct for those rules.* What it looks like actually happened is that additional rules got written, slapped on the end and were called "Book of Fire" or whatever. It reminds me of the old 1E AD&D books: kinda haphazard.

In many places the rules are poorly explained and in some cases poorly thought out. You WILL need to go in and re-write/explain certain aspects. For instance when I was running my L5R game last year I eventually found myself going into the combat section and re-writing the rules there. I didn't change much in way of actual intent of the RAW but I did expand on the RAW and created a layout that set everything up so I (and hopefully my players) could look at it and know exactly what was possible in a given situation.

There has also been some power creep in the later supplements but, hey, that's normal for an RPG.

The good stuff.

The feeling of the setting is awesome. The books are lovingly written. Very glossy and very pretty. You really get a feel for playing a samurai in Rokugan. There's plenty of room to play a variety of campaigns. Be it murder hobos or loyal soldiers on the frontier or scheming courtiers or ninja spies or what ever.

Each character class comes with oodles of background info that really immerses them into the campaign setting.

Classes are based on Clans. Which Clan you are from (mostly) dictates what classes are open to you. But don't worry, every clan has bushi, shugenja, courtiers and some variation on the sneaky spy-type.

Don't want to be in a stuffy old Samurai Clan? Be a Ronin. Ronin have it tough but at least they are their own masters. Of course most Rokugani pity them for that.

Classes all have their own unique set of special Techniques. A Technique is a special ability that modifies something like: how a skill is used, or how much damage is done with an attack or that gives some unusual special power (like a Crane Courtier's ability to access great wealth.)

Each Clan represents a stereotype. For instance Crane are all elegant, courtly and artistic. They are also arrogant and soft. Lion are all noble warriors; brave, honourable and loyal. They are also loud and obnoxious. Players may create characters that either meet those stereotypes or not.

The game mechanics fit the style of the game.

I really enjoy the Roll and Keep mechanic. Basically using a skill one rolls X+Y in dice, keeps Y and totals them to achieve a target number; where X represents a Skill and Y represents it's complimentary Stat. e.g.: My bushi is attempting to hit a goblin. She has Kenjutsu Skill 4 and Agility Stat 3. I roll 7 dice and keep the best 3. I then total those 3 and determine what target number I've reached.

Raises are fun. Basically a raise is when a player opts to aim for a higher target number (with a higher chance of failure) in return for more spectacular results if successful. You can raise on any skill roll: combat, general skills and Spell Casting.

There are in-depth mechanics for social combat. And it really is combat. In the second session of my game last year we had ourselves on the edge of our seats as one of the PCs engaged in a battle of courtly manners with an NPC courtier. At stake was their whole scheme (to get a certain guest to attend a poetry competition) and their personal honour.

The Honour system is really good. (And pretty well explained and thought out too.) Honour is not just a number the players can try to increase. It can be used for re-rolls and such like. And many a samurai's special abilities are based on, or are effected by, their honour.

In combat initiative is fluid. This can lead to interesting situations.

Combat is also deadly. First strike can easily be last strike. (Or last effective strike anyway.)

Being wounded gives penalties to target numbers. There's no being 100% effective on 1 hit point in L5R. If you're on your last legs you will probably have a +20 penalty to target numbers. Combat can go down hill really fast. Hence my "last effective strike" comment above.

Mass Combat has a nice, elegant sub-system that is based around giving the players a chance to shine. The actually battle is largely abstracted with PCs each getting a chance to do something cool (or try to avoid combat altogether if they prefer.)

Void is a great stat. Basically it's a limited dice pool that can be added to other skill rolls.

Overall I really like the game. Yes it has it's flaws but the setting and general feel of it more than make up for them. I hope you get a chance to give it a go, it's worth the game time.

Cheers,
Glen.



*no, that doesn't make any sense to me either.

 

[dm4hire]

The layout of the main book is craptacular. Seriously, if you want to draw up even a basic samurai you will find yourself flipping back and forth all over the place. Gets worse if you want to create a monk, a shugenja or a use any of the advanced kata rules. It seems the book has been split up such that the rules are all assigned to one of the chapters according to which of the 5 Elements is thematically correct for those rules.* What it looks like actually happened is that additional rules got written, slapped on the end and were called "Book of Fire" or whatever. It reminds me of the old 1E AD&D books: kinda haphazard.

In many places the rules are poorly explained and in some cases poorly thought out. You WILL need to go in and re-write/explain certain aspects. For instance when I was running my L5R game last year I eventually found myself going into the combat section and re-writing the rules there. I didn't change much in way of actual intent of the RAW but I did expand on the RAW and created a layout that set everything up so I (and hopefully my players) could look at it and know exactly what was possible in a given situation.

Layout has been one of the main beefs I have with the game too. It is by far the worst part of the game design. Otherwise you are correct on all the good stuff.

 

[Stormonu]

[MENTION=54364]DrunkonDuty[/MENTION] is dead on about both the good and the bad of L5R. The rulebook layout is worse than Palladium, but the atmosphere of the game more than makes up for it once you get rolling.

If D&D is all you have played, it takes a bit of getting used to the deadlier combat. I've always told my play group in L5R "If you have to draw your katana, you've failed." Those who solve problems with weapons in this game tend to have short lives. You can certainly make a character who can kick butt with weapons, but you'll survive a lot longer if your first response isn't to whack a problem with your katana.

...And then, there is Rokugan magic. That's different enough from D&D magic to fill an entire thread.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

[MENTION=52734]Stormonu[/MENTION]

I started writing about the L5R magic system in my above post, realised it was getting far too long and deleted it. Suffice to say, Storminator, L5R magic is way cool.

I have to disagree with you on one thing though. I would say that a samurai who is drawing their katana has not necessarily failed. They may well die. But death is not failure. For judging whether or not it's a failure I'd say "It depends..." And again, that's a-whole-nother long thread.

Man, I have got me hankering to play some L5R now.

Cheers.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

One aspect of L5R that I greatly appreciate is that character advancement encourages diversifying your character's physical and non-physical attributes. Your school (aka class) has five tiers (aka levels) with a technique (aka class feature) in each tier. You calculate experience points needed to advance to the next tier by adding the points you have in skills and the points you have in rings (times ten). Your attributes are paired, one physical and one non-physical attribute, and the lower of those values is your ring.

For example, Strength and Perception are paired into the Water ring. If I spend character points to give me 4 Strength but leave my Perception at 2, I have a Water of 2. If you spend character points to give you only 3 Strength but increase your Perception to 3, you have a Water of 3. My Water of 2 gives me 20 XP for advancing to the next level while your Water of 3 gives you 30 XP. Continuing that trend, your character will advance in levels faster than my character. So while my character will be stronger than yours, yours will have more class features. In my experience, more class features makes for a more mechanically interesting, versatile, and powerful character. This usually translates to most players keeping small differences between their physical and non-physical attributes.

The fall out of this is that you have characters with more diverse capabilities. A bushi (fighter) might be hulking and strong but he'll also be perceptive. So in non-combat situations he's equipped with attributes that will help him contribute.

 

[biotech66]

Who are you talking to?

Sorry, I thought I was talking to one of the Living L5R players or them in general. I should have been more specific.

 

[Storminator]

Thanks all!

If someone is interested in spelling out the magic system I'm interested in hearing about it!

PS

 

[DrunkonDuty]

OK, L5R Magic System.

Shugenja are priests. They cast spells by praying to the Kami (spirits) of the Elements.

Spells are broken up by Element and Rank. There are 5 elements: Fire, Air, Earth, Water and Void. Ranks go from 1-6, more powerful spells are higher Rank.

Casting a spell is like using a skill. You do the Roll and Keep thing I mentioned in my first long post.

The TN for casting a spell is: 10+ (5xSpell Rank). So a Rank 1 Spell has a TN of 15; Rank 2 is 20; Rank 3 is 25, etc.

A spell takes 1 turn/ Spell Rank to cast. More powerful spell, more time to invoke the favour of the Kami.

A shugenja can only cast spells of a Spell Rank equal to or less than their School Rank. The exception being most shugenja specialise in one element, this is called an Affinity. They are considered to be 1 School Rank higher in respect to what spells they may cast and for casting rolls for spells of their Affinity.

The Skill for casting a spell is the Caster's School Rank; the Stat is the Caster's Ring of the same Element as the spell (Fire Ring for Fire spells, Earth Ring for Earth Spells, etc.) Wednesday Boy explained Ring vs. Stat in his post just above here if you need a refresher. So a Rank 1 Shugenja with a Fire Ring of 3 wants to cast a Rank 1 Fire Spell. They roll 4K3 (that's L5R shorthand for: Roll 4; Keep (best) 3 and total them) aiming for a target number of 15. I should maybe mention at this point that the game system uses D10s. So a 15 in this circumstance will come off most times.

Spells, like skills, can have Raises called for them. A Raise, as I outlined in my post above, is the player aiming for a higher target number in return for better results. The better results can include more damage, more targets, more area of effect, longer duration or casting the spell more quickly. Spells specify what their raises can be used for.

For 3 Raises a spell can be cast without using up a daily spell slot. So a high rank shugenja can cast low rank spells all day long if they want.

A Shugenja starts knowing a handful of spells depending on their school background (each Clan has it's own Shugenja School(s).) There are also a handful of Universal Spells that all shugenja learn. They learn 2 new spells every time they go go up a School Rank. A shugenja may also learn spells through play. There are no particular mechanics for this but the shugenja needs to be able to find a spell scroll and copy it. This is not necessarily easy. They may be taught one by a friendly shugenja but this is unlikely.

A Shugenja may cast a number of spells of each element/day equal to their Ring of that element. Fire Ring of 3 means 3 Fire Spells/day. They also cast another number of spells/day of any Element equal to their Void Ring.

When a character makes a skill roll (for casting spells or ay other skill roll) they may spend Void Points to gain extra dice. Generally a character can only spend 1 Void Point on a given roll. Note that Void Points are NOT Void Spell Slots. They exist along side and are separate to each other.

When a spell is cast the effects of the spell happen. In most cases no more rolls are needed (no to hit rolls, no saving throws.) There are exceptions to this, they will be listed in the individual spells. Spells are nasty, most folks have no sort of resistance to them.

Good examples of exceptions are the Rank 1 "weapon of element" spells such as Katana of Fire. These spells call into existence a weapon made of the named element. The shugenja then uses their usual skill in that weapon (or school rank if higher) to make attack rolls in subsequent rounds.

Extended Example.

So let's take a look at the Phoenix Shugenja I played for a bit last year. She had a special ability that allowed her to cast Void spells (most shugenja can't.) She was Rank 2 Shugenja with a Fire Ring of 4 and a Void Ring of 3. She could cast 4 Fire Spells/Day and 3 Void Spells/Day. If she wanted to cast more Fire Spells she could cast up to another 3/Day but with a reduction to her available Void Spells of 1 for 1. So she could cast: 7Fire/0 Void OR 6 Fire/1 Void OR 5 Fire/2 Void OR 4 Fire/3 Void in a given day. Note she could never cast more than 3 Void spells per day as you can't trade Fire (or any element except Void) for spells of another element. Instead of casting extra Fire spells she could use those Void slots for Water, Earth or Air spells.

She is fighting a Troll and decides to cast the Rank 1 spell "The Fury of Osano-Wo" - a lightning bolt. So she uses a Fire Slot (the spell is a Fire spell, not an Air spell) and casts the spell. She rolls 7k4 with a TN15.

Wait, what? 7k4? Yep, my character has an affinity with Fire spells so she is considered School Rank 3 for casting them.

She makes the roll easily and a bolt of lightning hits her target without any more to-do. No extra attack rolls or anything. Just roll the damage.

Unfortunately Sea Trolls are immune to electricity. Bummer. Also, that was her last available Fire slot for the day. Double bummer.

Not to fear, she has Void Slots left. So she uses one of them to cast Tail of the Fire Dragon, a Rank 2 Fire spell. This would normally take 2 turns to cast with a TN of 20. I need to cast it NOW, that Troll is getting closer, so I make 1 Raise to lesson casting time by 1. Now my casting TN25. I have 7k4 to roll as it's a Fire Spell (even though I'm using a Void Slot.)

My odds of making that roll aren't good so I spend 1 Void Point (note: Point NOT Slot) to add 1k1 to my casting roll. My roll is now 8k5. I reckon that's good enough and roll. I make it. (Hooray me!) my shugenja is now holding a 50' long whip of fire in her hand and can attack with it. This spell requires that she make attack rolls to hit targets.

Now here's a bit where the rules are vague. Basically the RAW says "the spell takes effect" or words to that end. Some spells would do their damage (effect or whatever) as soon as she cast them. Like the Fury of Osano-wo did. But this one requires an attack action. Does she get to do it NOW or does she have to wait for her turn next round and attack then with an attack action? In our game we decided that the shugenja can make an attack the same round as the spell is finished casting. Otherwise being a shugenja in combat is going to be a very bad proposition. Still, that was a house rule so be warned.

Phwew, that was a bit of an epic.

Any questions, please do ask.
Cheers.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

Another thing that's fun about L5R is that dice explode on tens. Your dice total is calculated, then all tens are rerolled and the new results get added to the dice total. It can happen multiple times, as long as you can roll a ten.

It's certainly not what draws me to L5R but it does make for some exciting skill checks.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Oh yeah. I totally forgot exploding dice. They is fun.