So, I've been playing Star Wars and Genesys for a long while now and I am interested in picking up a new system. I'm considering L5R but am not certain. There is a part of me that likes the "simplicity" of a d20 or similar system (by simplicity, I mean, roll the dice, add the numbers and pass or fail) but I also love the narrative openness of SW and Genesys. I have only glanced briefly at the rules so I know that L5R uses its own set of dice but beyond that I know next to nothing about this system.

What I'm looking for, is for someone to sell me on L5R for my next RPG adventures. Thanks in advance!

1 hour ago, A-A Ron said:

So, I've been playing Star Wars and Genesys for a long while now and I am interested in picking up a new system. I'm considering L5R but am not certain. There is a part of me that likes the "simplicity" of a d20 or similar system (by simplicity, I mean, roll the dice, add the numbers and pass or fail) but I also love the narrative openness of SW and Genesys. I have only glanced briefly at the rules so I know that L5R uses its own set of dice but beyond that I know next to nothing about this system.

What I'm looking for, is for someone to sell me on L5R for my next RPG adventures. Thanks in advance!

Stick with Genesys. Or search elsewhere.

IF you want to give L5R a shot, begin by reading all the fictions of the card game. Without this knowledge and style, the game will feel lacking.

Mechanically, this game is a bit all over the place and not very polished. Genesys wins hands down. But L5R setting and attitude is its big draw, without it, this game falls flat. And the best way to understand the setting is reading the fictions as the rpg doesn't really do a good job at it, but expect you to manage the game around the "social rules" of the setting.

So, if you read the fictions and start to get a grip of the setting and find yourself liking it. Then try L5R rpg.

Tdlr; a decent game for L5R fans, poor game for everybody else. The setting is the gem here, not the rules, which are a decent core idea burdened by overly convoluted and tediously executed layers of shoddy design.

6 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

Tdlr; a decent game for L5R       fans, poor game for     everybody else. The setting is the gem here, not the rules, which are a decent core idea burden  ed by overly convoluted and tediously exe  cuted layers of shoddy design. 

Disagree here. I've been a fan of the rpg since 1st edition with minimal experience with the ccg. The new players I've introduced to the latest edition are really enjoying it.

Sure there's a huge catalog of lore and books, but it's honestly there to pick and choose what game you want it to be. Running and planning an adventure doesn't have to be falling down rabbit holes, memorizing lore or mechanics, or "getting it right". Just play in your own Rokugani sandbox, have fun creating the adventures and stories that interest you. The new books also provide great advice to new GMs.

Well, let me tell you.

Do you like samurai movies, kids? Or maybe, you just like Star Wars which was originally heavily inspired by japanese cinema. Do you like Game of Thrones but think it doesn't have enough katanas (though, protip, A Game of Thrones was published a year after L5R originally)? Do you like anime, or japanese video games, or history - or just historical fantasy in general? Maybe novels about those things? L5R might be the game for you. Cause I like those things and that's what drew me to L5R. Princess Mononoke is my favorite Ghibli film, and maybe one of my favorite films period. I bought Okami like four times. One of the first anime I watched on Adult Swim which wasn't really butchered down for american kids was Inuyasha. And I have cassette tapes of the Tales of the Otori in audiobook form (I started audiobooks early, okay, this was pre the audible revolution). Like, I love history in general, but L5R is very much a mashup of japanese (and even wider in asia) pop culture transferred into the impressionable minds of the 80s and 90s. And I am a mind like that. Well, a little bit into the early Millenium anyway so mostly late 90s side. So with FFG (who I very much enjoy for their 40k and Star Wars work) taking over the direction and resetting the timeline (since I couldn't read when AEG started publishing L5R) their version is a great jumping on point.

What you get is a setting with a lot of history and passion heavily distilled down - it removes many major 90s-isms, manages to integrate later elements back earlier into the story and build a more cohesive and understanding approach to some of the lore while also having some new stuff (like the Kaito, which are just elements of real shintoism but also are thus very anime). The game is keyed around the fundamental conflict of Duty vs Desire, of maintaining your social status and propriety as the upper class of a feudal society, and living in a world where gods and demons still roam the forests. Also hitting people with 3-foot razor blades. It takes actual historical stuff and also then all the modern pop cultural ideals to build a setting where honor may be stronger than steel (but steel is also strong) and is deliberately built for lots of internal politicking, conflict and strife while also adding this mystical element which can exist within, beside or beyond those earthly concerns. With all FFG's usual subsystems and little narrative doodads and item keywords and what not. Definitely plays with the narrative openness, though I think some of their terminology blundered a little bit in trying not to scare off the old L5R crowd (I/E Range bands are primarily numbers not descriptors and something something a grid. I ran Star Wars for like two years on just theater of the mind). But the game is pretty married to the setting, so if telling stories in Rokugan (at least your own version of it) isn't to your tastes, it might not be for you. I'd recommend skimming some of the fiction freely available from FFG already (check out the LCG forums they have big collections of links to it, including letting you know the publishing order) or if you can find it browsing the setting book Emerald Empire.

Also look at this handy list of inspirations provided in the book and see if any of them jump out at you as something you like(d).

18 hours ago, Avatar111 said:

Stick with Genesys. Or search elsewhere.

IF you want to give L5R a shot, begin by reading all the fictions of the card game. Without this knowledge and style, the game will feel lacking.

Mechanically, this game is a bit all over the place and not very polished. Genesys wins hands down. But L5R setting and attitude is its big draw, without it, this game falls flat. And the best way to understand the setting is reading the fictions as the rpg doesn't really do a good job at it, but expect you to manage the game around the "social rules" of the setting.

So, if you read the fictions and start to get a grip of the setting and find yourself liking it. Then try L5R rpg.

Tdlr; a decent game for L5R fans, poor game for everybody else. The setting is the gem here, not the rules, which are a decent core idea burdened by overly convoluted and tediously executed layers of shoddy design.

I agree that the game is mechanically messy.

I disagree that the fiction does a good job of explaining the setting. It gives you a snapshot of what the movers and shakers in the setting are doing. PCs in the RPG are neither movers nor shakers. This, the fiction gives a false impression of what the game is like.

We need more fiction where nobodies do random investigations for lords they don’t know, since that is what 95% of all written adventures are.

1 minute ago, AndyDay303 said:

I agree that the game is mechanically messy.

I disagree that the fiction does a good job of explaining the setting. It gives you a snapshot of what the movers and shakers in the setting are doing. PCs in the RPG are neither movers nor shakers. This, the fiction gives a false impression of what the game is like.

We need more fiction where nobodies do random investigations for lords they don’t know, since that is what 95% of all written adventures are.

My players are movers and shakers. I allow them to be important heirs and such. But that is just me maybe. My PC are totally on the level of the average LCG characters (the young ones).

And no, an Emerald Magistrate, or a Topaz Champion, are not "nobodies"!

Mechanical mess, yeah, kind of. Mostly a question of a lack of polish once they started full blown production, and the more they release stuff and add stuff on top, the more it shows.

On 7/15/2019 at 8:24 AM, AndyDay303 said:

I agree that the game is mechanically messy.

<snippage>

We need more fiction where nobodies do random investigations for lords they don’t know, since that is what 95% of all written adventures are.

While I agree that we need more fiction from the POV of people who are not clan leaders, scions, and royalty, I would say that it's a bit of a missed opportunity if you don't run at least one adventure with PCs playing VIPs.

For me and mine, we're rolling into the 3rd generation of PCs that are scions of the clans and their extended families, patrons, and henchmen.

The rules? Yeah. I am torn on them. They do some things better than 4th edition and some things worse. It's kind of a wash to me. I have played all 5 editions of L5R (including the d20 iteration) as well as run it in Fate. For me, the 1st and 4th editions are the most chock full of flavor that is also supported by the rules. 5th has a ton of flavor, but the rules not as well tuned for a 'grittier' game. I say that as someone perfectly cognizant of how the 4th edition game shifts from samurai drama to damned near Exalted around Insight Rank 3.

Now, full disclosure: I only played a few sessions of 5e so I may not be giving it a fair shake, despite buying every stupid thing that comes out for it.