Maybe keep the broad strokes of what has happened? My main concern is A) FFG sitting astride 20 years of history and being expected to honor and contribute to a massive volume of writing they had nothing to do with and, B) new players being told to "Start reading," if they want to know what the heck is going on.

If ever there was a time to start fresh in any way it's now. I think Disney was very smart when they created the "Legends" brand for the old Star Wars EU and I think FFG would be smart to follow suit with L5R.

Keep some of the broad strokes but don't be beholden to details that keeps them from making L5R their own.

You can keep the backlog of history without forcing newbies to read too much of it.

Fall of the Kami happens.

Hantei dynasty bops around until it falls.

Toturi Dynasty has its flash in a pan existence.

Iweko dynasty changes old policies and has the Empire look outward for a change.

In terms of stuff people absolutely NEED to know about the setting, that's...more or less it. And if a name drop of Doji Hoturi catches someone's eye and they CHOOSE to read up him, great, but not required by any means.

We can know the Phoenix are respected spiritual leaders and skilled in magic without going "and of course, Shiba Bob's noble death at the Battle of the Broken Daisho is absolutely pivotal to what's going on right this second."

You can like the Crane without having to read "Private Lessons."

And so on.

You can like the Crane without having to read "Private Lessons."

You can also eat spaghetti without sauce or drink decaffeinated coffee.

It is possible, but frankly, what's the point?

Edit: By which I mean that I absolutely LOVE "Private Lessons."

Point is that some people simply like lightning blade duelists, other really like white hair, and some enjoy powder blue kimonos, and their liking of the Crane isn't in any way inferior because they don't like, never read, or simply don't care for some piece of fiction.

Point is that some people simply like lightning blade duelists, other really like white hair, and some enjoy powder blue kimonos, and their liking of the Crane isn't in any way inferior because they don't like, never read, or simply don't care for some piece of fiction.

I get it. I just think Private Lessons is mandatory reading. The single piece of fiction every Crane should have to read

Honestly, the easiest step in regards to FFG handling the canon history of the Rokugan setting is to push it forwards.

Go to the time of Iweko III, Seiken's son and heir. Set the situation up that Iweko III is a weak Emperor who has put too much power in the hands of the Great Clans. Fold the Susumu into the Imperial Families, and remove the Spider Clan entirely. Reset back to the radioactive Taint like it used to be, and resolve the pending wars in a series of stalemates (the Phoenix and the Unicorn seek peace, Nitoshi dies at the hands of Dairuko and redeems Shoju's soul by bringing peace to their war, the Crab kill all the Daigotsu they can find but Kanpeki's loyalists vanish by and large).

Put the Empire balanced on a razor's edge with centuries of old grudges between the Great Clans, who have too much power, with a weak Emperor who does not dare to tell the Great Clans no because he literally has no one backing him up (because Seiken destroyed the Imperial bureaucracy, and the Imperial Legions consist solely of the Seppun's forces).

You bring the game back to the balance of power seen during the Clan Wars, the Great Clans can be iconic again, and you have a setting that can provide years of conflict on a smaller scale. It is accessible to new players, and welcoming to old players. There is nothing that rebooting it can do that this does not, save stroke the nostalgia feels some people have for certain characters. It is, simply, the better choice.

If the canon is being reset back to zero, that means even Mantis won't be part of the game at launch. The Unicorn shall not be forgotten! I sincerely hope we come back to that standard as a fan of the game's first edition.

This is one of those things that could be done well regardless of the approach, so long as the product is quality I can live with a reboot. However, I would like to say that one does not need a reboot to garner the interest of new players. By their virtue of being new, so long as you hook them with something cool they don't/won't need to worry about the history. Leia mentioned the Clone Wars offhandedly and for 20 real-life years it was only due to hardcore fandom that it was expanded upon. Existing players, largely I would think, would not prefer a reboot. I mean, we can even continue from exactly the point we left off with AEG really.

This is one of those things that could be done well regardless of the approach, so long as the product is quality I can live with a reboot. However, I would like to say that one does not need a reboot to garner the interest of new players. By their virtue of being new, so long as you hook them with something cool they don't/won't need to worry about the history. Leia mentioned the Clone Wars offhandedly and for 20 real-life years it was only due to hardcore fandom that it was expanded upon. Existing players, largely I would think, would not prefer a reboot. I mean, we can even continue from exactly the point we left off with AEG really.

I'm very much of this bent. I don't believe that all needs to be right with the world at the point of the relaunch. There's a reason why a lot of fans prefer the Original Trilogy, and would even if the Prequels had turned out okay. In media res storytelling just WORKS.

This is one of those things that could be done well regardless of the approach, so long as the product is quality I can live with a reboot. However, I would like to say that one does not need a reboot to garner the interest of new players. By their virtue of being new, so long as you hook them with something cool they don't/won't need to worry about the history. Leia mentioned the Clone Wars offhandedly and for 20 real-life years it was only due to hardcore fandom that it was expanded upon. Existing players, largely I would think, would not prefer a reboot. I mean, we can even continue from exactly the point we left off with AEG really.

I'm very much of this bent. I don't believe that all needs to be right with the world at the point of the relaunch. There's a reason why a lot of fans prefer the Original Trilogy, and would even if the Prequels had turned out okay. In media res storytelling just WORKS.

Well, in media res storytelling has to be carefully structured on many levels to work. It's harder than it looks. You still have to go in and backfill relevant information in later scenes. It's just a question for FFG of whether it's easier to backfill the relevant information, ignore it, or wipe it away in favor of something different. Whether or not the story starts in media res doesn't resolve that question.

Leia was able to mention the Clone Wars in the way she did because the details didn't matter, just that it was a war in which Kenobi was a hero. Arguably, the fact that we don't know that backstory preserves some of Kenobi's mystery, as well as that of Luke's father. I would say this is very different from L5R, where the conflicts featured in the story have been pretty exhaustively detailed.

Kids watching Star Wars beginning with the prequels experience it very differently than those who saw the original films first, even though they've all watched the same six films.

I do agree though, that handled well, any approach could work. Still, I think FFG needs to go with the approach that's likeliest to produce the best work, in consideration of who they are as a company and who they have working on the line.

Honestly, the easiest step in regards to FFG handling the canon history of the Rokugan setting is to push it forwards.

Go to the time of Iweko III, Seiken's son and heir. Set the situation up that Iweko III is a weak Emperor who has put too much power in the hands of the Great Clans. Fold the Susumu into the Imperial Families, and remove the Spider Clan entirely. Reset back to the radioactive Taint like it used to be, and resolve the pending wars in a series of stalemates (the Phoenix and the Unicorn seek peace, Nitoshi dies at the hands of Dairuko and redeems Shoju's soul by bringing peace to their war, the Crab kill all the Daigotsu they can find but Kanpeki's loyalists vanish by and large).

Put the Empire balanced on a razor's edge with centuries of old grudges between the Great Clans, who have too much power, with a weak Emperor who does not dare to tell the Great Clans no because he literally has no one backing him up (because Seiken destroyed the Imperial bureaucracy, and the Imperial Legions consist solely of the Seppun's forces).

You bring the game back to the balance of power seen during the Clan Wars, the Great Clans can be iconic again, and you have a setting that can provide years of conflict on a smaller scale. It is accessible to new players, and welcoming to old players. There is nothing that rebooting it can do that this does not, save stroke the nostalgia feels some people have for certain characters. It is, simply, the better choice.

I'd say go forward rather than backwards. Make up something like a sudden death of the Emperor and the clans are poised to attack each other for dominance or to determine a new Emperor/Shogun/whatever. It's generic enough for a first arc so that you can expand upon the new setting in the usual ways.

It's seems important to some people here that, for the sake of the game, major changes and eventually a reboot is a necessity, so to have a clear situation, why don't start it to the beginning at the imperial with the 7 original clans crab, phoenix, crane, scorpion, dragon, lion,unicorn and some unaligned/ronin one and set the story where it was then ?

It In this way FFG can do everything they want to the game, settings and so one ...

And then build their own rokugan... and may include or not some stuff of the good ol' L5R...

Because the Clan Wars are the ultimate "been there, done that, even AEG cashed in on the nostalgia before the end" default for the setting.

I think FFG could pull off some sort of generic power vacuum plot thing to draw in the old and new before heading on a new story thread.

Just let the story fail forward with a time-skip. Give in a couple-of-hundred years of "Dark Ages" with dubious history. Then nobody gets to complain about continuity holes / retcon and you can move on to developing a games worth playing and stories worth telling.

Marty Lund

Monkey Clan * Random * Grognard

Just let the story fail forward with a time-skip. Give in a couple-of-hundred years of "Dark Ages" with dubious history. Then nobody gets to complain about continuity holes / retcon and you can move on to developing a games worth playing and stories worth telling.

Marty Lund

Monkey Clan * Random * Grognard

I hate this so much, but probably the best way to go at it. The two year wait till GC 2017 will serve a similar time skip method.

Because the Clan Wars are the ultimate "been there, done that, even AEG cashed in on the nostalgia before the end" default for the setting.

The Clan Wars era is to L5R as the Battle of Hoth is to videogames set in the Star Wars universe.

Because the Clan Wars are the ultimate "been there, done that, even AEG cashed in on the nostalgia before the end" default for the setting.

The Clan Wars era is to L5R as the Battle of Hoth is to videogames set in the Star Wars universe.

Meaning that everyone remembers it being better than it actually was.

I think part of the issue is the difference between a Canon Reboot and a Thematic Reboot. Doctor Who vs Star Trek is a good example of this. The JJ Abrams reboot of Star Wars was a Canon Reboot, while the new Doctor Who (starting with Eccleston) was a Thematic Reboot. Both of them start the story from the beginning, but the Doctor Who does not make the past history of the show obsolete. By making the history obsolete, you have Star Trek: Into Darkness, which horribly handles the entire character of Khan, the most iconic villain of the series. Doctor Who, however, does not mire itself in its previous plotlines, and instead moves forward with a re-imagining of the Doctor, updated for modern audiences. The Doctor gets to be iconic, as do the Companions, the monsters, and the show, without needing to retread over the old ground of the storyline. The history of the show has been mined for new ideas and new adversaries. Look how it handled the Master and the Daleks.

Even the most diehard Doctor Who fans I have encountered do not advocate returning to the first Doctor. Why return the story line to the Clan War when you can move the story forwards, shape it to something that channels the original energy of the Clan War without the baggage of a Canon Reboot?

In the case of L5R, by and large the Clan Wars was the apex of the story... And it was all downhill from there. The game started off with an amazing story but following in its own footsteps was a feat it struggled with. I mean... At this rate do we move forward to the third day of Thunder?

I disagree, I find that the apex of the story was middle of Gold edition. Such delicious samurai drama, such a possible civil war outcome...aah, good times.

Then Tsudao was killed, Daitgosu survived because of course he did, Naseru got lobotimized and neutered , Kaneka kept on existing only to die an ignoble death and Sezaru went nuts. Yeaaaah, I pass

Because the Clan Wars are the ultimate "been there, done that, even AEG cashed in on the nostalgia before the end" default for the setting.

The Clan Wars era is to L5R as the Battle of Hoth is to videogames set in the Star Wars universe.

Meaning that everyone remembers it being better than it actually was.

I think part of the issue is the difference between a Canon Reboot and a Thematic Reboot. Doctor Who vs Star Trek is a good example of this. The JJ Abrams reboot of Star Wars was a Canon Reboot, while the new Doctor Who (starting with Eccleston) was a Thematic Reboot. Both of them start the story from the beginning, but the Doctor Who does not make the past history of the show obsolete. By making the history obsolete, you have Star Trek: Into Darkness, which horribly handles the entire character of Khan, the most iconic villain of the series. Doctor Who, however, does not mire itself in its previous plotlines, and instead moves forward with a re-imagining of the Doctor, updated for modern audiences. The Doctor gets to be iconic, as do the Companions, the monsters, and the show, without needing to retread over the old ground of the storyline. The history of the show has been mined for new ideas and new adversaries. Look how it handled the Master and the Daleks.

Even the most diehard Doctor Who fans I have encountered do not advocate returning to the first Doctor. Why return the story line to the Clan War when you can move the story forwards, shape it to something that channels the original energy of the Clan War without the baggage of a Canon Reboot?

The only reason that Doctor Who worked the way it did was because they already didn't care about internal consistency; they didn't need to reset canon because they'd already done so within the show so many times it may as well have not existed. Hence, "wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey ball."

Into Darkness sucked because it was a reboot of a property by someone who didn't understand why the property was beloved, and because J. J. Abrams isn't actually very good. All of the Marvel Comics movies are a continuity reboot too, and you know what? That is what makes them work. If they adhered to comics continuity they would be impenetrable.

Because the Clan Wars are the ultimate "been there, done that, even AEG cashed in on the nostalgia before the end" default for the setting.

The Clan Wars era is to L5R as the Battle of Hoth is to videogames set in the Star Wars universe.

Meaning that everyone remembers it being better than it actually was.

I think part of the issue is the difference between a Canon Reboot and a Thematic Reboot. Doctor Who vs Star Trek is a good example of this. The JJ Abrams reboot of Star Wars was a Canon Reboot, while the new Doctor Who (starting with Eccleston) was a Thematic Reboot. Both of them start the story from the beginning, but the Doctor Who does not make the past history of the show obsolete. By making the history obsolete, you have Star Trek: Into Darkness, which horribly handles the entire character of Khan, the most iconic villain of the series. Doctor Who, however, does not mire itself in its previous plotlines, and instead moves forward with a re-imagining of the Doctor, updated for modern audiences. The Doctor gets to be iconic, as do the Companions, the monsters, and the show, without needing to retread over the old ground of the storyline. The history of the show has been mined for new ideas and new adversaries. Look how it handled the Master and the Daleks.

Even the most diehard Doctor Who fans I have encountered do not advocate returning to the first Doctor. Why return the story line to the Clan War when you can move the story forwards, shape it to something that channels the original energy of the Clan War without the baggage of a Canon Reboot?

To continue on the Doctor Who riff... I think there might be some signposts to watch for in that example beyond this one thing. Problems can arise when you end up with fans running the show, and fans demanding specific content. It doesn't matter how often the Daleks or the Master or the Cybermen are beaten, they keep dragging them back out. It doesn't matter how much The Doctor experiences, how much he should learn or grow, he keeps retreading the same ground as a character, making the same sorts of mistakes, having the same tortured interactions with the compansions. The "iconic strangeness" of The Doctor gets played up more and more with Smith and then Capaldi, which gets silly when not tempered by the inherent humanity of the character. Why? Because the fans want to see more "classic Doctor Who stories" just like they watched as kids, or when they first started watching the relaunched series.

The terrible irony is that Doctor Who is trapped by the very love that makes it such an enduring success.

I think this is a perfect opportunity to do a reboot of the whole story, like what Marvel and DC did to their entire lineup.

I played L5R on and off since 1996 but kind of lost track of what happened through the years.
Now I just play Legacy and haven't really followed the story except when something really major happens.

Doctor Who, Star Trek, Marvel and L5R. These are my people!

Doctor Who, Star Trek, Marvel and L5R. These are my people!

Welcome to the fold.

So, as per one my posts in another thread, what would people's feelings be on L5R LCG continuing forward with the living storyline of Rokugan, while alternating with "historic" cycles to flesh out the history of the world? Have your interactive story arc with a momentous decision at the end, then have your less interactive story arc which takes place in L5R's history. Use the development time provided by the less interactive cycle to showcase the impact of the big decision in art, flavor text, and fiction of the next "Current" cycle.