No more D20 Legend of the 5 Rings?

[Dark Psion]

According to AEG's website, The Hidden Emperor will be the last D20 L5R product.

They will be releasing a new 3rd edition version of the previous L5R game. See Here.

Personally, having played both the D20 and the previous versions, I prefer D20. Plus, I already have 3 versions of this game on my shelf and buying yet another version of the game would be a waste of money. Especially since I can hijack aspects of the D20 version for my other games.

There are still several areas of L5R that could be explored in D20;
Way of the Gaijin: The Burning Sands, the Ivory Jungles and the invaders at the Battle of the Stag.

Way of the Courtier: Pull together all the bits from the secrets of the clans books and expand this class into new areas.

Strange Ways: How to use other classes in Rokugan. The Bard can be used as a traveling monk, like Moroku on Inuyasha. Psionics was introduced as an advantage back in the original Way of the Crane and some of the new core classes can work in L5R.

The Shadowlands: The previous Book of the Shadowlands I & II would be a great resource in D20.


The Bloodspeakers book by Wolfgang Baur was released by Paradigm Concepts. Could someone else continue to release D20 L5R?

 

[Treebore]

Personally, even though I liked D20 Rokugan, enough to play a super epic level Samurai, I feel that the L5R D10 system did a much better job of getting the "flavor" across. I do not like the D10 mechanics as well as D20, but I had a much greater feeling of being in an "oriental" world when I played L5R versus Rokugan.

Then again it could have just been the DM's ability in one game system versus the other, but I am pretty sure it is the difference in game mechanics that did it for me.

What bothers me most is that it was hard enough to get a D20 Rokugan game going, which in turn got us to play the D10 L5R. Now it will be even harder to get new people to try it out.

 

[FCWesel]

I am happy to see the game go back to its more original roots.

I always hated that WOTC stole Rokugan for D&D when it HAD a Oriental world to play with already.

L5R, like it was said above, was FAR, FAR better at getting the world and getting INTO the world then Rokugan could wish for. As for getting players to try it, I always suggest running a 1-3 session one-shot (mini game) of any game as a trial run, and letting the players get to see it for themselves. In most cases people are willing to try a game IF there's a end in sight at the start of it, if you know what I mean. At the end of the night, if everyone hates it don't play it again.

 

[Ranger REG]

I always hated that WOTC stole Rokugan for D&D when it HAD a Oriental world to play with already.

Correction: WotC didn't steal Rokugan. They acquired the IP through the purchase of Five Rings Publishing Group (Ryan Dancey's company), the owner of L5R IP.

As with TSR purchase, they owned all IP assets from FRPG. They continued to honor the RPG license granted to AEG.

I do agree WotC made a terribly bad business decision to use L5R/Rokugan instead of the staple Kara-Tur setting for the new OA. Even worse, they sold the L5R IP to AEG. WotC could have still profit from the outsourcing license, well after AEG stopped publishing OA/Rokugan supplements (their problem is trying to make OA/Rokugan have the R&K feel).

It would have been better off if WotC leave it alone and let AEG launch their own d20 Rokugan without OA label.

Ooh. I feel an "I told you so" jig coming on.

 

[Gomez]

Oh Wonderful!

I whole new set of books to buy! AGAIN!

no thank you!

 

[Blue Prism]

I don't think of it as new books, but rather as a compilation of everything they've made recently. No more need to flip through all those product books to find what you need. Hopefully they'll provide some downloadable rules update for those of us who don't want to buy another book.

 

[Stone Dog]

I haven't played L5R in many many years. It has reached the point where 3rd edition might as well be a new set of books for me and so far I like what I am hearing.

Check out www.l5r.com/rpg for more, but I really don't think this is the right forum for talking about the changes between 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions.

 

[Dark Psion]

I do agree that the AEG books have the best flavor. They are among those rare RPG books that I will just read again for the hell of it. One aspect of the original L5R that made it so good was that it was set before the events of the collectable card game. You didn't have to worry about events of the CCG upseting you game since they had not happened yet.

But when it comes to playing, I like the options of D20. The "Secrets of the Clans" books are a treasure trove of 5 level Prestige classes that can be adapted for almost any setting.

One book that would be very nice would be a conversion of the best of D20 L5R to a more generic D&D format.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Oh Wonderful!

I whole new set of books to buy! AGAIN!

no thank you!

Ditto, I'm sticking with my Rokugan D20 books.

 

[Ranger REG]

Oh Wonderful!

I whole new set of books to buy! AGAIN!

no thank you!

Meh. Should've gone with the Roll-n-Keep.

* dances the "I told you so" electric slide *