You Know You're Playing Legend of the Five Rings When...

By Magnus Grendel, in Your Stories

  • When a Kolat assassin keeps trying to attack a Mirumoto, failing due to guard actions and way of the dragon, and using an opportunity ability and 1211841275_OpportunitySmall.png.acf41343 1211841275_OpportunitySmall.png.acf41343 to throw shuriken at a second opponent, consistantly doing far more damage to them than their nominal 'target'
  • When the PCs are told their first assignment is "purely ceremonial duties" and their first response (being used to RPGs) is trying to figure out how to get their lord to provide them with plated armour and naginata for the occasion.

When the Kitsu shugenja flirts with an Utaku battle maiden by saying, "Hey gorgeous. I heard your people like eating horse meat. I've got something horselike for you to put in your mouth."

1. Stealing the enemy commander's underwear to fly as a battle standard is not an opportunity in Mass Combat.

2. No, you cannot make a character based off the witch from Hansel & Gretel who is a Maho-tsukai and has Hotei's Blessing!

3. Calling the lion magistrate you meet, "Simba," is not considered an honorific.

4. Calling their Boar and Hare clan Yoriki, "Pumba and Timon," is also not an honorific!

5. Creeper is not a type of Shinobi, and creeping up behind the evil daimyo with a hissing gaijin powder bomb is not their secret ultimate technique.

6. There is not a secret Unicorn family who brought home riding battle bears, the family is not the Kerenski and they don't have Russian Gaijin names, and they definitely don't call their bears Yogi, or Gentle Ben, or any other celebrity bear name!

7. The dragon don't secretly revere Eris "kami" of Chaos, nor do they meditate on their belly buttons or worship a sacred Chao this is actually a cow named, "Bessie."

8. Mr. is not an honorific prefix to all Crab NPC's, nor do they all like hamburgers.

9. The turtle clan are not all named Crush, and they do not have SoCal surfer accents.

10. My monk's lips are not allowed to be out of sync with what they are saying. Nor is their Tiger style more powerful than any Crane NPC's fighting style.

  • When the Mirumoto Niten Master lets rip with two swords, the response from the other players is a Deadpool impression: " that guy in the red suit just turned that other guy into a ****ing kebab !"
  • When a visit to Slow Tide Harbour becomes an exercise in how-many-breaches-of-bushido-can-you-commit-in-one-day? (hint; since 'the plan' starts with hiring criminal thugs from Boss Kizo for extra muscle, the answer is "many")

When your character has a crush on one of your fellow pc's nemesis, and you write them love poetry suggesting that you'd enjoy looking at their hair spread over your bed. or their blood spread over the ground. Whichever, both would be beautiful.

Ah, wait, i remember this one!

When the scorpion poisons the child of a fellow party member, and during honor gains and losses, ends up arguing why it was for the greater good, and actually GAINS honor for the action.

"I can't believe you gained honor from poisoning her kid!"

"I can't believe you gained honor from poisoning my kid!"

Scorpion player turns to DM. "How the **** did you let me gain honor for poisoning her kid!?"

  • When you get asked to act as impartial mediators in a minor political dispute and decide you'd rather volunteer for a detachment to the kaiu wall instead.
  • When getting near-fatally stabbed with a katana in order to get a chance for actually (rather than theoretically ) private conversation seems like a genuinely sensible trade.
  • When your masterplan to defuse a political scandal involves telling stories over tea.
Edited by Magnus Grendel
  • When no matter what you do, you can't convince a certain proportion of your player base that the ruler of Rokugan is not " the Emperor Hentai ".

Your monk asks “if i’m wearing shoes, can I count my feet as unreadied weapons?”

On 7/14/2019 at 8:13 AM, Magnus Grendel said:
  • When no matter what you do, you can't convince a certain proportion of your player base that the ruler of Rokugan is not " the Emperor Hentai ".

I fear the day when the dreaded Octopus Clan becomes a real thing. AHH THE TENTACLES!

Another thing Ni Fang cant do in a RPG

Somehow when in a local market simply trying to find a blacksmith to help repair some weapons or even apraise the recently found werapon becomes more of a battle of survival as the whole place is Kolat filled {Asami had fun}

Calling the Lion Clan Bushi, Simba, is not a good idea, {Hana nearly got decked}

When the Scorpion says "Of course I burnt that document we found proving this samurai's heresy against the empire", what he really means is he burnt a scroll that looked like it, and sent the original back to his Daiymo.

When your character who has the "irrepressible flirtation" anxiety, as well as the "Gaijin appearance" disadvantage (short, dark skinned, hairy looking desert nomad) and has already flirted with several important NPCS, and the Crane Clan Champion walks in, said Scorpion player mutters, "If you hit on her, I swear, I will cut you down here and now myself"

  • When the whiteboard in our dining room has NEVER TRUST THE SCORPION CLAN EVER written on it in rather large text. This is somewhat difficult to explain to random dinner guests.

The worst part is, because of their twisted sense of duty, they manage to do the right thing often enough that you can't even trust that you can't trust them. To many times not trusting the scorpion bites me when they were actually trustworthy for once!

Another thing Ni Fang and her group cant do but did anyway

Getting the Scorpion Bushi in the party hammered, to which our hunting cat Scorpion was challenged to a drink off.

Memo: red Pull is not a proper substitute for actuak alcohol free Sake

Another "What Ni Fang cannot suggest to the GM in a RPG"

... Your Scorpion Courtier has a bounty on his head, and the bounty hunter wont let him off, so Hana has an idea, nobody likes it but the Lion and the Scoprion Courtier hates it. But it somehow works. The bounty hunter works for the party now and Hana is upset because her opium is gone and the hunter is loaded

"Let's challenge this guy to a duel.." is one of your player's first thought when they mess up and the local Magistrate shows up.
A dead body in a barrel is NOT the worst thing the players find in that alley...
Porcelain masks lead the players to debate burning a district of the city they are in down "to be safe."

Don't let the Unicorn leave his horse alone with a "restrained" Tainted shugenja.

When the Mantis smuggler mistakes the Dragon Duelist's literalism as flirting, and invites him into the hold of her ship to "check that all her paperwork is in order" while the rest of the party sits on the pier.

When running a one-shot intro at a local game store:

"So...the city gates aren't locked down, and people are coming and going, but they're being questioned a bit more closely than ususal. If the Lion Clan realise specifically who you are, things could get interesting very quickly. I'll call it a TN2 deceive/skulduggery or deceive/government for you and your attendants to get past the town watch without drawing too much attention to yourselves."

  • Kakita PC
    • [Rolls]
    • "An Air ring check, you say? All good..."
  • Bayushi PC
    • [Rolls]
    • "A Skulduggery check, you say? All good..."
  • Asako PC
    • [Rolls]
    • "A Government check, you say? All good..."
  • Shinjo PC
    • [Rolls]
    • "....Erm. So, not drawing attention, you say?"

Edited by Magnus Grendel

When the Scorpion's "mother" comes into town to make sure her son is getting properly married, and proceeds to flirt with the rest of the party, with him present.

  • When one member of your party becomes this guy.

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  • Which is kind of an issue when everyone else's character is trying to sleep and the GM enforces the "after 'A full night's rest' you recover Fatigue" rule.

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Only in L5R?

- A PC dies in the very first adventure. By literal suicide.

- A PC dies because he bowed to a ghost.

- The group gains the equivalent of a magic item (kakita pattern katana) and the shugenja destroys is as an offering to the kami.

- When the most powerful one in the party is the Utaku's horse.

Happened in L5R, but it REALLY shouldn't have?

- The Emerald Magistrates PCs using Courtesy (Air) checks to spread false rumors on the hinin bride of a guard they killed, to force her to flee from the town.

On 5/1/2019 at 9:34 AM, Magnus Grendel said:

It does leave the character disturbingly made of wafers with respect to Endurance and Composure, but Void 3 also means 2 Void points at the start of each session instead of 1.

If I may point that out here: No, you only get half Void Points at the start of the game = campaign, not every session.

  • When one of your players says "If I wasn't listening just then when you told me the TN, can I have a void point?"