My friend is using Edge of the Empire as a base for a Call of Cthulhu conversion and it got me thinking about what FF might do with L5R, what with the Christmas in July sale, and i had a thought that Force and Destiny actually has almost all the mechanics you'd need for a pretty decent L5R conversion. You'd want to splash in some of the political stuff from Age of Rebellion, but hear me out:

The high level thinking is: Careers map basically into Clans, and Specializations into Families. The mechanic for double dipping into specializations even works here. Force powers provide the framework for a somewhat less blastery version of shugenja, and the dark side mechanic gives you a framework for taint (though this would need a big of work). The lightsaber mechanics built into the various specializations are a good start on classic l5r duels, but theres some work to do there too. Probably the biggest mechanical difference here is that the stats don't link to the careers, instead careers and specs focus on skills, and skills associate to stats. i think theres an argument to be made that by jimmying around the skills you can make the ring associations though.

to me the biggest strength of fantasy flight's star wars system is the advantage/threat mechanic, which augment success and failure and can be used both mechanically and narratively by both the players or the GM. This makes for some great scenes and i think it would really lend itself well to L5R, where things often aren't purely black or white when it comes to task resolution. particularly in courtly situations i think this mechanic would be solid gold.

anyway, this is just kind of a larky thought, i don't know if i'll end up putting the effort into doing it, i just thought it was an interesting thing to think about. for all i know theres another thread on here i wasn't able to dig up that had the same idea.

First things first, yes, it's fairly possible to do the conversion you're talking about. There's already different L5R conversions into different systems. Is it a good idea? Sure, a fan conversion is always a good idea, that's the kind of stuffs that tells the setting is a setting of quality. A great setting like L5R, even with his flaws as said in other topics, usually has fan-made stuffs. It's pretty rare to see a lot of fan-made stuffs about a bad setting. So the idea is great by itself.

However, here's my thought on why it should only be a fan conversion and why I think that FFG shouldn't change entirely the system. I prefer they keep the distinct identity of L5R than trying to do a rubbish conversion. Why? Simply because L5R needs to feel like L5R, not another game. In my opinion, we can take any game setting and convert it to any game systems, so why should FFG do that instead of keeping the unique game setting with its unique game system?

In other words, L5R already has been converted into other systems. There's a L5R for BESM, there's L5R in d20 system, there's a L5R to Savage Worlds and so much. Why? Because fans like a system and L5R setting, then wants to adapt their favorite system for L5R setting. Your thoughts are the same. However, if FFG does it, how will L5R will feel like after that? When I see a game as big as L5R turning into an "alternate setting" for another system, it falls into lesser games or a supplement for another game. This is why I do think that L5R should keep up his true identity with his very own system, not a "copy/paste/adapt" system from another game.

That being said, I don't like much FFG's Star Wars system because L5R already has the same "Advantage/threat" mechanic with Raises and Free Raises. It is the very same and a Storyteller can uses the R&K system and improve it to have the "Success but", "Failure but", etc. that the Star Wars system provides. I already did that kind of stuffs in my L5R games before even knowing FFG Star Wars system and my players really enjoy that kind of stuffs, specially since they don't know the TN. That being said, I can see why some people don't like R&K and prefer another system, that's a matter of taste, which is why fan-made stuffs were made in the very first place, to adapt/tweek/changes stuffs that we don't like on a complete game.

So yeah, it's a great idea for a fan conversion, but I feel like if FFG does it, it places L5R into a lesser RPG game for not having his very own unique system.

F&D is a good place to start with a conversion, but there is a lot that would need to be worked out regarding the subsystems. I've considered trying to do a conversion almost exactly as you suggest, reworking careers to represent clans and specialities to represent schools. Individual families can be represented by the race mechanics, allowing the Kaiu family to have some benefit to crafting, for example. Obviously, skills need to be gone through and reworked.

I don't think force powers are a great way to represent shugenja magic, but it would be something of a stopgap, at least.

I do think FFG will be going more in this direction than continuing with roll and keep, if they bother with the rpg at all. They've struck gold with their unique dice system, and I expect to see a variant of this for L5R, which would be at least as unique from Star Wars as Seventh Sea is from L5R.

What the heck. While we all wait patiently for FFG to tell us anything about anything, I figured I'd try my hand at a conversion. I'll actually mostly be using Edge of the Empire and Age of Rebellion resources (though Force and Destiny might come in, too) since I feel those are better for the majority of the characters involved. Shugenja and magic will probably be the last thing I get around to, if my interest in this lasts long enough.

Before I can get started on the really interesting stuff (Clans, Schools, etc.), I need to figure things out at a more basic level. The dice mechanic is already there, so I can jump right into adapting the Star Wars characteristics and skills to be more L5R appropriate.

Right now, I think we can do well with only 5 characteristics (traits), down from L5R's 10 and even SW's 6. These will be Brawn, Agility, Intellect, Willpower, and Awareness. Rings will have to find some other way to fit into the system, or they can map to the characteristics on a one-for-one basis. There were simply too many traits in L5R, and I am comfortable with the eliminations I have made.

That brings us to skills, which I have put into a Google sheet here . I included only the names of the skills and the characteristic they will primarily use. I understand some more information might be necessary. For melee, I grouped everything together in what I hope is fairly obvious. Heavy will be mostly weapons that require two hands, including tetsubo, spears, and polearms, while light is most things like knives and tonfa. I was going to call Melee (Swords) Kenjutsu, but I avoided using Japanese names for every other skills, so I opted against it. I'm curious how people feel about how I split up the combat skills. Do I have too few and need to split some up further? Do I have too many and need to condense?

Let me know what you think about the skills. I already have some thoughts on Families, Clans, and Schools. I'll see how much I can come up with for Families. The mechanics for them will likely be kind of cookie cutter while I try to get comfortable designing them.

i've started doing some of my own bits and pieces on the spider, because thats relevant to my interests. if you send me your thoughts on the format of schools/families/etc we can collab on that.

I'm treating families as if they were species, with each one providing a boost to a particular characteristic and providing a rank in one of two skills. I have the characteristics sorted out, but am trying to figure out skills for all of them. There's probably another, more interesting way to do it, but this is the base I've started with. Here's what I have so far for Families . They are separated on different sheets according to clan.

Clans and schools I had thought to treat as careers and specializations. I'm contemplating whether it should be eight clan skills and four school skills (like in EoE), or if it should be flipped, with four clan skills and eight school skills. I'm leaning toward the latter, since clan represents something wholly different than career does.

I've started drawing up some thoughts on what some of the trees should accomplish, starting with crab because 1) they come first alphabetically and 2) I kinda like the big lugs. Haven't gotten anywhere close to spider or figuring out what they should look like, because tackling them involves making decisions about how involved I would want the taint to be with their mechanics, and that would in turn mean tackling the taint.