Hi, I was looking to get into Legend of the Five Rings. Anyone has experience with L5R5ed? Is it tainted by the rainbow or simply a leggit attempt at refreshing the game mechanics? Would you rather recommend playing 4ed?

thanks in advance for your input

I own several books for both 4e and 5e (the one with special dice), but I haven't played either of them. The last time I actually played L5R was a short 3e (revised) game.

It's one of my favorite RPGs, and one of the best 'special dice' RPGs out there, but runs into the problem of trying to be both narratively flexible and tactically specific at the same time, something I myself am struggling with in my own designs. Not sure how 'infiltrated' it is, but I do know the d20 version was so 'woke' it sanitized all the 'problematic' cultural elements from Japan and changed the cultural basis of the setting entirely.

I recommend 4th edition.

Roll & keep is pretty central to the identity of the game. Once they introduced the FFG fancy dice, that gets lost, and then at some point the setting got rebooted and the Second Day of Thunder was rewritten around gender swaps and rainbow representation.

Quote from: Corolinth on April 18, 2025, 11:01:26 AMI recommend 4th edition.

Roll & keep is pretty central to the identity of the game. Once they introduced the FFG fancy dice, that gets lost, and then at some point the setting got rebooted and the Second Day of Thunder was rewritten around gender swaps and rainbow representation.

yes, after a little investigation it appears that the soul of the game was put aside for inclusivity concerns... so I'll pass and go for 4ed instead.

There is also a D&D 5E version called Adventures in Rokugan.  I have it.  It's just a D20 game.

It does have about a page of woke thought police "advice".  Things like don't use Asian sounding gibberish, don't include sepuku/ritual suicide because it may trigger somebody, don't explain Asian culture to actual Asians.  I found it off putting to say the least.  I wanted to tell the author to get a life.  I'll play as I damn well please.

I don't knock it too much for that silly stuff.  It's annoying, but not a deal breaker to me.  Hell, I'm annoyed that my favorite RPG company, Palladium Books still puts an anti-satanic panic disclaimer in their books.  Can't live with them, can't slap some sense into them.  Just ignore it and move on.  Or not.  Your choice.

It's not for me.  It's because of the page count.  I prefer rules light games.  If I want to play in fantasy Japan, I picked Chanbara or Kogarashi.

I think a lot of people have had fun with this game. I just thought I should mention that the main author went super-woke a while ago (as in rambling about insisting on vaccines and hating Trump, "I'll fight you in the street if you disagree" woke). Not sure if he's calmed down or how much this affected his books.

Quote from: Adrien Sourdot on April 18, 2025, 02:43:11 AMHi, I was looking to get into Legend of the Five Rings. Anyone has experience with L5R5ed? Is it tainted by the rainbow or simply a leggit attempt at refreshing the game mechanics? Would you rather recommend playing 4ed?

Honestly, 4ed is so vast and comprehensive, I don't care how good the Genesys edition is, I'm willing to bet it leaves out a lot of fluff.  As is I still have an almost full run of 2ed I keep around, to use as fluff in 4ed.

"Is it woke?"

Done right, not much at all.  The Unicorn are looked at as weird for (among other reasons) having a lot of members who are "only half-Rokugani", and the Empire as a whole is violently isolationistic (except for the Imperial agents allowed to not be).  Gay?  That's wrong on multiple levels samurai!  Not only does it mean you'll fail your lord, your family, your Clan, and your Emperor by not having kids, but you aren't supposed to love anyone but your Emperor (and metaphorically at that).  Gay and having kids with your arranged spouse and hiding your same-sex love?  Good little samurai!  (I seem to recall there's even mentioning of gay samurai-ko sending letters to the women they like "from their brother" to keep appearances up, but that may have been on a forum or something.)

About the worst thing I can think of isn't so much that there's female samurai (I don't mind that), but that there's an all-girl group of Lion samurai-ko running around with some special abilities in 2ed (IIRC).  The Lion respect them, but outside the Lion Clan they're seen as kind of weird, but so are all the Lion by outsiders, just as all the Clans see each others' quirks as either wrong (too different) or snobbish (not wrong enough).  Still, it's a hold-over from 90s design mentalities, and a bunch of male authors making an all-girl's group in their game to virtue signal how inclusive they were was the trend of the time (now, Rokugan would have a surprising number of black people throughout the Clans "for reasons").  I think 4ed even recognizes how backwards this is from a playing stance, but it's literally been over half a decade since I looked at any of it.
 
But this is one of those games where you aren't really meant to be playing "good" as defined by modern Americans, but "good" as defined by a noble class serving an autocratic state, and said noble class is literally descended from supernatural beings (while warring with others).

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on April 21, 2025, 12:00:39 PMthe Genesys edition

For clarity, the 5e version is not a Genesys game; it uses special dice, but both the dice and the mechanics for resolution are very different from Genesys.

If we didn't have the roll-and-keep line culminating in 4e, L5R 5e would be a perfectly decent game. It does what it sets out to do mechanically, with the special dice, outbursts and successes. But a polished version of roll-and-keep, with schools and families baked into the mechanics, was hard to beat for me.

(Even 1e remains surprisingly fully playable on its own terms, but you wouldn't call it "polished.")

I didn't even find the woke elements of 5e intrinsically jarring, given L5R has always had bad-ass female samurai. (Have to remember the card game + card illustration origin of the setting.) And I played L5R with a few women way back in the day, so having everything be an option for them was entirely reasonable. But gender-swapping original canon NPCs made it very plain they were bending the knee on purpose, when they could have included all the same elements without the "screw you daddy."

Quote from: HappyDaze on April 21, 2025, 01:07:16 PM

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on April 21, 2025, 12:00:39 PMthe Genesys edition

For clarity, the 5e version is not a Genesys game; it uses special dice, but both the dice and the mechanics for resolution are very different from Genesys.

Fair enough.  My ignorant bad.

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on April 21, 2025, 12:00:39 PMAbout the worst thing I can think of isn't so much that there's female samurai (I don't mind that), but that there's an all-girl group of Lion samurai-ko running around with some special abilities in 2ed (IIRC).  The Lion respect them, but outside the Lion Clan they're seen as kind of weird, but so are all the Lion by outsiders, just as all the Clans see each others' quirks as either wrong (too different) or snobbish (not wrong enough).  Still, it's a hold-over from 90s design mentalities, and a bunch of male authors making an all-girl's group in their game to virtue signal how inclusive they were was the trend of the time (now, Rokugan would have a surprising number of black people throughout the Clans "for reasons").  I think 4ed even recognizes how backwards this is from a playing stance, but it's literally been over half a decade since I looked at any of it.

It wasn't 'virtue signaling' exactly because it wasn't presented as a universally accepted good.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan on April 22, 2025, 09:37:38 AM

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on April 21, 2025, 12:00:39 PMAbout the worst thing I can think of isn't so much that there's female samurai (I don't mind that), but that there's an all-girl group of Lion samurai-ko running around with some special abilities in 2ed (IIRC).  The Lion respect them, but outside the Lion Clan they're seen as kind of weird, but so are all the Lion by outsiders, just as all the Clans see each others' quirks as either wrong (too different) or snobbish (not wrong enough).  Still, it's a hold-over from 90s design mentalities, and a bunch of male authors making an all-girl's group in their game to virtue signal how inclusive they were was the trend of the time (now, Rokugan would have a surprising number of black people throughout the Clans "for reasons").  I think 4ed even recognizes how backwards this is from a playing stance, but it's literally been over half a decade since I looked at any of it.

It wasn't 'virtue signaling' exactly because it wasn't presented as a universally accepted good.

"I think 4ed even recognizes how backwards this is from a playing stance, but it's literally been over half a decade since I looked at any of it."

I don't recall 2ed thinking it all that awkward, hence the virtue signalling bit that seemes to upset you, but I do admit it's been years since I dug into it.

Are we talking about Lion Clan's Matsu Berserkers, which have been in the game for a long time, or something else?  I think the Unicorn Clan also had an all-female unit of cavalry. Again, they've been in the game for many years.

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on April 22, 2025, 08:14:40 PM"I think 4ed even recognizes how backwards this is from a playing stance, but it's literally been over half a decade since I looked at any of it."

Ah the 'ol "It's been a while so any bullshit I spew is excusable" excuse.

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on April 22, 2025, 08:14:40 PMI don't recall 2ed thinking it all that awkward,

It very much had the "every clan hates every other clan" thing every 90's game with a clan had at the time.

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on April 22, 2025, 08:14:40 PMhence the virtue signalling bit that seemes to upset you,

Implying I'm somehow upset is a very 'woke' tactic. How ironic, but then again ideologues aren't much different from each other once you get down to it.