Quote from: Claudius;389052The impressions I got from reading the corebook are just the opposite, that is, I felt it is very difficult to divorce the system from the setting. But if you did and had fun, what do I know? More power to you.

Well, I did have to add the proviso of "as long as you're going to use a Japanese pastiche, and not, say, a Chinese one."  L5R is very Japanese-ish, and not very Chinese-ish at all.  So likening it to out-of-the-box D&D, which generically covers most of fantasy medieval Europe adequately, isn't particularly accurate.

But, to the point, dividing the Japanese archipelago among the L5R clans, then plopping them all into place and running with the mechanics as-is was pretty much a no-brainer.  Doing the same with, say, the Chinese mainland and expecting verisimilitude wouldn't have worked.

!i!