>>97902272
I've been reading a lot about l5r lately, it seems cool as fuck but I don't think I could ever get either of my groups into the samurai mindset.

>>97902272
I hope the Scopion book gets done.
It would be the end of the game line either war but it sucks a good version ends because EDGE went through a buy out.

I'm the anon who posted his story in what I think was the last thread, I can post it again if there's interest, but honestly I think it's better not, it's not that great and doesn't deserve to become some posting ritual every time there's a thread.

Anyway,
>Is anyone in any campaigns?
To my surprise, yes. After a rather long hiatus we started playing again and are now 3 sessions in. I was planning on running exalted, but I had to wait for some books to arrive and we had some new blood in the group, so in order not to overwhelm the new players and start playing right away L5R was quickly mentioned. 5e is rather good to start because the action flows well and the system is rather simple, so I jumped at the opportunity.

I already had hooks for the future from the end of the previous campaign so it was quite easy to get it all down, I spent most of my "prep" time studying rules to refresh my memory, and now basically run with little to no prep.

I can put together a summary if anyone is interested.

>>97902548
I don’t see a reason not to. I’m doing a solo game myself, and still personally hoping to run a group game in the future with my friends.

>>97902364
Doing the voice is key.

>>97902576
I will start working on it, it's also a chance to rework my session notes. For now the quick summary is:
>first campaign starts at funeral of the lord's firstborn
>stranger from the mainland arrives
>the lord wants his only son left back but he is hostage of the rival family
>rivalry has been going on for a while, imperial court wants it to end
>marriage is proposed and arranged
>future bride is not that happy, wants a duel, wins, but still accepts the marriage to honor her father
>now one of the pcs is technically daimyo but has the two fathers in law still "counselling"

The second campaign
>stranger from the mainland introduces one of his shinobi assistants, saying he's going back to the mainland and leaving her here as a test
>start at the docks, pcs have been called to check on an unidentified crate
>shugenjas explicitly called, so the other new player is involved
>turns out there's something going on with the monks, will explain better
>oni are roaming inside the forest, a kirin must be found

The players wanted more supernatural stuff compared to the diplomacy and intrigue or mortals of the first one, and boy am I gonna give it to them.

>>97902606
Your table is really diving into the deep end of the spookiness, I see. Good luck with that, anon.

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>>97902606
>>97902548
I still fully believe that the guy yelling "/pol/f*g" at everyone is himself a tourist who only knows about D&D and just kept yelling about purity testing to hide that, although that's neither here nor there. Lol

Actually™ related to your post, that sounds super fun. I've done more spooky stuff before. My setting is much less magical, a lot of the time "magic" is a more supernatural thing that happens *to* the players and isn't necessarily a thing that happens *for* the players, if that makes sense.

Probably the most 'supernatural' thing I had my players do: An ally of theirs from the Topaz Championship died, and when they went up to investigate and get her notes on things, they found a mysterious servant with white hair, aided by another servant who was noticed to have hidden ears and tail. They were told there was a party happening recently they could meet to find the thief, who was having a wedding ceremony soon and retrieve the notes their ally had made about the threat they were facing. They were told it was a masked wedding, and were given a bunch of bird masks. Then given a path to walk to get to that manor--they walked right into Chikushudo, where all the animals who were invited wore masks and saw them as invited guests of a very high ranking kitsune. There was also a friendly woman who arrived late and asked to be their servant.

It ended up being a kitsune wedding that they needed to pretend to be animals for. They fought and killed the Penanggalan that killed their friend and was looking to kill the thief, found out that the manor itself was a magical maze of the exact same room (pic related). Afterwards they suddenly woke up in the grass. It rained while sunny, and as they walked the road back they saw two foxes watching them from the roadside, one young and the other with snowy white fur.

>>97902364
Make them watch a samurai movie or two and then run a short scenario, that will help get them into the mood.

>>97903064
>"magic" is a more supernatural thing that happens
That's how we ran the first campaign, more focused on drama, handling diplomatic matters and dealing with humans, but when a second player wanted to be a shugenja I felt the need to shift to another approach. It's a fantasy setting, if all the fantastical elements are subordinate to human magicians doing things it stops being fantastical and it can quickly feel like "naruto but only a couple guys do cool shit", and that's not what I want for the game.
I may find a more balanced result for the future, depending on what the players want to focus on, but for now this gives me the chance to show that there's a living, breathing world of unnatural beings around them, tie up some lines and have potential for a greater variety of topics we can tackle.

>>97903093
Yes that's my thought and also why shugenja are allowed to do "weird" things no one else can get away with like use non-binary pronouns (which a lot of people don't understand but shrug at). Everyone else has to "forrow the rurus" when it comes to your societal position. In my game, Doji Hotaru is currently knocked up despite her obviously preferring Bayushi Kachiko, because she's a woman who needs to get the future heir on the way regardless of her personal feelings.

Having soft magic vs hard magic just feels (to me) more fun and in a sense makes magic that much more impactful. A wizard casting fireball becomes mundane. Your Shugenja ally (who has to ritualistically purify himself regularly and eat vegetarian food) calling upon your ancestors to purify you and you seeing apparitions in the corner of your eye/hearing voices whispering in your ear feels like it would leave more of a statement, especially if magic is otherwise rare.

Magic generally being passed down by lineage and not skill, and the Kami also being these blue-and-orange morality little beings you need to wheedle with to do their magical things, (and they're only listening to you because you kinda look like your ancestor from 100 years ago) makes the presence of magic that *doesn't* require you to be born into something, like maho or gu magic, feel more important and choice driven.

Hello I am gaijin from faraway land where are the fox ladies and naga ladies

>>97902272
I still have no idea how to run it without becoming a Japanese history weeb

>>97903662
Watch 47 ronin

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I'm not playing Legends of the Five Rings, but I have been running a homebrew TTRPG based off of Anima Prime. And from all the ritual suicides and generation shame that has been inflicted in that game, I can only say one thing...


FEUDAL JAPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN

Bumping

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Have your characters ever been threatened with or wanted to commit seppuku before?

there is some guy selling a good condition core rulebook of L5r third edition for a decent price (25 euros). i have absolutely no connection to the game. is it worth it to get it or not?

>>97908220
25 bucks for a core book is a steal these days, don't know about 3rd ed in the specific but if it's anything like 5th ed one content-wise it should be well worth the price.

>>97907906
Had a few do seppuku before. One was in protest since he couldn't lie and was forced into a situation where his orders required him to lie for retard reasons, so seppuku in protest was a better option. Had one who did it to prevent the progression of the Shadowlands Taint. And had another who did it to keep responsibility and shame to himself rather than his family.

>>97908220
Everything I've read recently leads me to believe that 1st edition and 4th edition are the "good" ones, and apparently 2nd and 3rd are kind of shit.

>>97903662
>>97903688
There's also Zatoichi, Lone Wolf and Cub, and the Kurasawa flicks.

Ok, so here we are with the second part, time will tell how long the campaign goes. I expect this "arc", if we want to call it that, to be short, but I already set a few hooks for a next one focused on the mainland, if needed. And I can always come up with something else to do on the island I guess.

So, here is the situation: after the marriage between Morikawa Daisuke (a PC), and Asakura Saneyuki, secondborn of lord Asakura, Daisuke is healing from the wound he got during the duel with his wife-to-be. He is still in shape enough to govern from behind the throne (his wife attends to meetings, his fathers-in-law act as counsellors, even if they still hold a measure of power and loyalty, also due to him losing the duel). The player is unavailable for playing at the moment, so I keep him up to date on happenings and ask if he wants to do something specific at the government level. The first thing he did was changing the family name to Asamori, to show unity after the marriage and as courtesy to his wife.

Other players that can't attend are an Isawa courtesan, due to him recently having a child, and the Shinjo Outrider, because the player wasn't really feeling the japanese setting; he said it before starting, and I proposed to play something else, but he insisted to get the game going. To his credit, he attended until the very end.

cont.

>>97910508
The party now is made by the good old Isawa Kaminari, a shugenja, and Neyuki Moeru, the Matsu Berserker with a penchant for calligraphy, both from the first campaign.

The new party members are Yogoro, a shugenja (can't remember the school name for the life of me, but the scorpion one that uses shikigami), Kitano Nana, a shinobi assistant that the stranger Kagetsugu introduced, and Shi Faxian, a tattooed monk from Sadane Temple. The temple is referred to both as temple and monastery because I'm a retard that thinks that if there's monks it's a monastery, but people go there to pray like it's a temple anyway.

So, things start in the city, bustling with activity after the newly found unity and stability encourages business from merchants and the family itself wants to leverage the official authority to send a signal to its neighbours. Most of the activity is of course centered around the port, and this is where the PCs are, after being called to investigate a mysterious crate that is not supposed to be there. Shiroto, a low rank samurai responsible for the port, welcomes them and quickly explains that the crate coming from the mainland wasn't registered. Shugenjas were explictly asked for, but the PCs don't press the issue with Shiroto, and quickly move to see the crate in question at the docks.

cont.

>>97910521
The first thing they see there is Shi Faxian, a monk from the Temple. They question his presence there and he explains that he was checking the crate because he found some symbols on it that remind him of Temple scriptures. No one is able to decypher them, unfortunately, but admittedly they didn't look into it that hard, preferring to check the crate itself. Yogoro has a shikigami squeeze inside the crate, and it comes back reporting that it's full of sticks.
Once opened, the crate turns out to be full of bos, and Yogoro immediately can sense that these are not mere walking aids, but they are made for violence above all else.
Nana takes one bo, and after a quick glance activates a device that springs a hidden blade, turning it into a naginata. All bos are hidden weapons, and the monks are somehow involved.
Shi Faxian says he doesn't know anything about this. Some characters get suspicious but he's not lying, although some of them can remember that he used to be seen during ceremonies, but stopped attending some time ago.

The characters decide to replace the fake bos with real ones and then leave the crate there, pretending everything is normal, and see what happens. Yogoro plants a shikigami inside the crate and they move away to keep an eye on it from afar.

cont.

>>97910525
After a while some good for nothings show up and take the crate, bringing it outside of town in what looks like a practiced routine. Just outside of town there's a shrine, and Yogoro, as spiritual guardian of the island and castle (while Isawa is First Shugenja) recognises it as one of the shrines the monks have jurisdiction over. There's a number of shrines around the island, and it's an old agreement that they are divided between the monks, nominally uder the lord's authority but actually semi-independent, and the shugenja. Shugenja shrines are focused around the city and castle, while monk shrines are along the roads and a few places in the wilderness.

The criminals leave the crate near the shrine, and pick a smaller one up, going back to the city. The monk and shinobi follow them back, while the others stay to keep an eye on whoever shows up.

The criminals keep the small crate in a port warehouse for a few hours, where they waste their time until sunset. Then, they get off their asses and reach the docks, giving the crate to a sailor guarding a merchant ship coming from the mainland. Nana easily infiltrates the ship and checks the crate, finding it full of strange objects she can't identify but that feel strange and cold to the touch.

cont.

>>97910528
She puts the content inside a bag, closes the crate and leaves, showing the objects to the monk: they are relics, but the sacred aura they should have has been corrupted. Alarmed by this the two go back to the others.
Meanwhile, at the shrine, three figures arrive soon after sunset. They look like monks at first glance, but they are quickly revealed to have rather dishevelled appearances, and move in an almost feral manner, communicating apparently without speaking. When the foremost figure turns around to check the surroundings before taking the crate, his eyes reflect light like those of a cat.

And here the first session ended. On to the second.

The monks move away with the crate, the shikigami still inside it. The two shugenja share opinions and quickly realize that the figures are oni in disguise. This is most disturbing, like the fact that these oni shouldn't have been able to approach the shrine in the first place. The others arrive and they all move to inspect the shrine.

cont.

>>97910533
After a thorough inspection, two things are out of the norm: first, the characters used in a votive prayer to refer to lord Asamori are wrong. Instead of the ones meaning "Guardian of Dawn", the are the ones for "Pale Forest". This is clearly a nod towards the Mitsuhara forest, where the Sadane Temple is. The second and most troubling fact is that the sacred aura the shrine is supposed to emit has been countered with foul powers. It is not fully corrupted, but the power that should keep evil spirits away has been negated.
Isawa quickly begins a ritual to reconsacrate the shrine, while Neyuki corrects the inscriptions by carving the right characters over the wrong ones.

The moon is high by the time they're finished, so they go back to the castle, where the united family retainers moved, with the new allies in tow. Some tea is served and everyone can finally relax. Events have been most troubling, and several characters were on the verge of breakdown at the end of the day.

cont.

>>97910537
The next couple of days are spent preparing. Isawa informs his courtier cousin of the situation, asking him to inform the lords and lady, as the group has no time. It is clear that oni are involved, so the monk and shugenja assist Neyuki in modifying and blessing their weapons. They come out a little rough. but they are now infused with sacred energy.

Meanwhile Nana looks around the castle to check if anything out of the ordinary is happening, just to make sure no one here is involved in this. She sees Shiroto, the docks overseer, handing a message to a worker that's not his retainer, clearly meaning he wants to keep it secret. She follows the worker and sees that he's meeting with another one of Kagetsugu's assistant shinobi. Nana is complimented for her skills in uncovering the link, and reading between the lines she understands that Shiroto had summoned the PCs under Kagetsugu's suggestion. You may remember that Kagetsugu is a samurai from the mainland that came to visit the island during Lord Morikawa's firstborn's funeral, claiming to be an old friend and colleague.
The shinobi assistant informs Nana that she can't reveal any details, but Kagetsugu and his other assistants are returning to the mainland soon, leaving Nana behind. They performed an investigation surrounding the firstborn's death, uncovered the truth, then nudged the characters in the right direction. Nana is going to be tested to see if she can manage to see things through without assistance from her comrades.

After this is done, the party approaches the forest, and here ends session two.

cont.

>>97910541
The forest is dark and deathly still, an evil aura permeates everything, no sound of animal or rustling of leaves can be heard, the air is heavy and thick. A long shot from the serene peacefulness that used to be. There is a main road leading to the Temple, but despite the footprints betraying heavy traffic, no person is seen. The characters follow the road until the most recent footsteps take a turn away from the road, into the deep of the forest. Yogoro sends his shikigami forward to scout, and the party is right after them.

The forest takes its name from the Three Origins, referring to the different creatures that dwell there: a kirin, the tengu and the oni. Every faction lives in the forest in some form of balance where the human element of the monks was tolerated, and no major incident occurred the past few years. Basically, the humans kept to the road and Temple, and nothing happened. The kirin lives in the deep of the forest, the tengu make their occasional travels to the mainland, leaving the island for a while, and the oni are inside caves. The footsteps being followed lead to such a cave.

The crate containing the bos is outside the cave, showing signs of having been opened.
The corrupted energy is obviously stronger here, and corrupted votive knots of rope, red with sacrificial blood, spread the same taint the shrine had. Yogoro seals the entrance to the cave with a barrier for one hour. The magic informs him that three powerful evil spirits entered some time ago. He is unsure if the barrier can actually keep them inside, but at least he will know when they get out. Isawa starts summoning the spirits to ask them what is happening inside the forest.

cont.

>>97910544
The spirits, in their usually cryptic way, urge him towards the Temple, but as soon as the party makes ready to go back to the main road, they spot a group of scrawny figures walking towards them in a dishordered mob. They are Gaki, the embodiment of humans that died enslaved to their passions and appetites. Weak alone, but dangerous in numbers. That said, the characters are strong and between two shugenja using fire, a shinobi and the berserker, the Gakis are quickly dealt with. While their bodies disappear in black vapour, the shugenjas come to realise that the weak spirits are not the source of the problem, but merely a consequence.

The party gets back to the road and move towards the Temple, the air getting heavier by the minute, until they come in sight of the Temple complex. All is silent and dark, no light is lit, every candle has been extinguished. A few careful steps inside the main building have the characters find recent signs of struggle: scratches on the walls, scrolls have been torn from the walls and, of course, there is plenty of blood spilt in anger. No bodies can be found, but the inside of the building is very dark. One of the torches on the walls is lit by Shi Faxian, but as soon as he does, Nana sees a monk's face over his shoulder, right behind him.

The monk appears rather nonchalant about the situation, remarking that he thought he was the only monk left alive. The shugenja aren't taking any chances, and they cast a spell to see hidden objects, making it so that even magically hidden things come to the light, and the truth is revealed.

cont.

>>97910553
The newfound monk is now showing animal ears and tail, and when asked about them quickly drops the illusion. The monk turns into a beautiful woman. Yogoro immediately asks the important questions and inquires about her bust size. I roll to make sure, and it was a good roll, let's leave it at that. She is still wearing monk robes anyway. The woman is instantly recognized as a fox spirit, a kitsune. She introduces herself as Shimiko. She's a bit of a free spirit, not quite an airhead but you get the idea. She has no reason to lie or keep things hidden, as she states immediately that she is here to check things out and then find a way off the island because everything interesting already happened, and she is now getting bored.

Almost as an afterthought, she mentions having fun in the past months by pranking some boy, but sadly he died because of that. Isawa immediately catches on and starts asking questions, revealing the truth: the boy was Moritono, Lord Morikawa's firstborn. Shimiko had been using her powers to cast illusions to spook him, under request from the oni, who basically bribed her with food and entertainment. This alone would have been a nuisance at best, but the rising turmoil from the illusions (based on his fears), proved to be fatal because he had been cursed by the Kirin. Shimiko didn't know this at the time, and she makes it clear that she learned of it after the fact by talking to the Kirin about it. She also says that the Kirin hasn't been seen for some time, and gives directions to find its den, a clearing deeper into the forest. She wonders about its health, as it looked very troubled and reluctant to speak.

At this point Shi Faxian reveals why he had been away from the Temple.

cont.

>>97910557
A few days before he had trouble sleeping during the night, so he resolved to get ahead with his work for the following day, and walked to the nearby river to get water. There he saw the head monk, on the other side, but soon after he was replaced by a dark figure walking away towards the forest. He started suspecting there was something sinister at work, and began investigating. That's what led him to the docks where the party found him.

After this new piece of the puzzle is put in place, the group starts arguing about their next course of action. Shimiko snatches the opportunity and disappears, nothing of interest happening. Shi Faxian leads the others to the head monk's small residence. Inside there are scrolls and other amenities, but the juiciest thing to be read are a series of letters that reveal the head monk/oni had been keeping in touch with a mysterious N.

The party has several callygraphy and composition enthusiast, and both Nana and Yogoro know their way around codes and encription. Every check made reveals a new bit. To cut it short, the oni masquerading as the head monk has been keeping some sort of agreement where he received weapons in exchange for sending corrupted relics that contained a fluid used in dark rituals to turn people into evil spirits. This was done to research an elixir of immortality, and by the way N's letters are written it can be surmised that he is involved with the Imperial Court itself. Lord Yoshimura, the rival lord in the mainland, is involved and is acting as link between the parties.

After learning of this, the group resolves to try and find the Kirin, and here the third session ends.

>>97910466
Why would that be? I just played 5th so I'm curious about how the older ones are.

>>97910681
This is someone who has not actually played the game, mind you, just doing research to see if it's something I want to play. The consensus I've seen is that 1e has a pretty open, gamable version of the setting, and the mechanics are sort of sketchy and simple, but good. 2nd and 3rd fucked with the setting a lot (of, more accurately, interested a setting fucked by the ccg) which was becoming more and more Byzantine, and I believe that they added a lot of unnecessary mechanics (but I'm less sure if this point.) 4th edition cleaned up the setting and the mechanics somewhat (I've seen people say that it's the best version of the roll and keep system) but it's incredibly out of print (core book seems to run 100-150 dollars).

I'm down with a more old school game and I don't want to spend 150 dollars, so if I was going to run l5r I'd probably just use the first edition book. But, again, this is all second hand opinion corralted from research, not actual first hand knowledge, so take everything I said with a grain of salt.

>>97907906
Last campaign I was in I would say it was always a threat over our heads. Our group was:
>Crane Harrier
>Scorpion Ninja
>Scorpion Seductress
>Crab Berserker
>Unicorn bushi
As the Lion guy it was difficult being surrounded by so many dishonorable and uncivilized people. There were many times my max honor ass got Chewbacca puppeted. If my character knew half of what the party was doing behind my back I would have killed them and then myself due to the stain of association.

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>>97910466
Third isn't shit per say it is just the high powered anomaly that has a several really broken options. 2e is outright shit though. 4e is the best the edition of L5R, 1e has a lot of really really dumb shit in it.

>>97910781
The setting and meta-story was always card game first back in the original AEG days. The thing 4E did to help with setting related stuff was being timeline agnostic, with it even eventually adding alt settings in the Imperial Histories books.
Also yeah, the 4E books are super expensive these days. I should have links for downloads of all the 4E books somewhere, my old mediafire uploads from 2013 to 2017 look like they all got nuked by DMCA but if I can't find any good links otherwise I may just do a reupload of them all in one rar file or something.

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>>97902272
I've never played L5R, I made one character and that was a wife for someone else's character. I've given my fumbling attempt at a build some thought since then and I'd like to ask the experts; how good at swordfighting, stealth and courtier skills can you get as a Kaiu shugenja?

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>>97911306
Going only on my time with 4E since I haven't gotten to play FFG's 5E or any pre 4E AEG editions, as a shugenja you'll lose any swordfight to most anyone from any bushi school and depending on interpretations of the setting would have to use a non-katana sword but there is a specific option that could let you get an occasional win in a fight, lose nearly any social conflict to someone from most courtier schools but would be well off for keeping yourself from getting pressured into things, and be less sneaky than any scout or ninja.
But as I remember Crab clan Shugenja schools are Earth focused, so you would be good at enduring hits with lots of wounds per would level and would mostly have access to Earth spells while losing out on Air spells giving you some solid buff and debuff spells with some options for attack magic like Earth Becomes Sky or anti-Shadowlands Tainted ones like Jade Strike. The School Techniques for Crab shugenja also focus mostly on finding and destroying anything related to the Shadowlands and its Taint. Having gone with Kaiu as your family you would have a bonus to starting Intelligence which is Fire ring related, and since Fire isn't the opposing element you'd have okay use of Fire spells if you also boosted Agility which also would help with the sword fighting skill otherwise and when combined with the Rank 1 Fire spell Katana Of Fire would let you get some good hits in with your Kenjutsu skill to hit and Honor as a flat bonus to damage.
>>97911197
Couldn't find any good links for the 4E books so just decided to make an upload for a .rar of all the important books, which should be nearly all of them minus one or two premade adventure at least, plus some fan made extras and a fillable PDF character sheet. They're all worth a read even if you're just interested in the setting. It should be around 1.65GB. https://www.mediafire.com/file/lm5q7zkjqupispm/L5R4e.rar/file

>>97910466
I never played 1st, but you're right that 2nd wasn't great. 3rd was ok though, at low xp. But of the editions I've played (2,3,4) I'd choose 4th if I were to play again today.
The 1st ed clan books were fun for setting info though. I'd recommend those even if you won't use the rules in them.

>>97910781
The setting stuff I can use for inspiration but I hardly take it as gospel, in the majority of systems I play I end up doing my own thing, or changing a lot of stuff/going to a place in bumfuck nowhere where I can basically do my own thing anyway. The mechanics being interesting is a good plus, but if older editions still use the rings and the roll and keep, what changes between editions?

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>>97903688
>picrel
I mean I get we aren't normies here but damn
>Carl Erik Rinsch (born 1976 or 1977)[1] is an American film and commercial director. He made his feature directorial debut with the 2013 film 47 Ronin.

>In 2018, Netflix hired Rinsch to produce a 12-episode series called Conquest and spent $55 million on the project, but it fell apart after production milestones were missed and no episodes were completed. In 2025, he was arrested and charged in a seven-count federal indictment: prosecutors accused Rinsch of defrauding Netflix of $11 million, and spending the money on personal expenses.[2][3] He was subsequently convicted on all charges, including money laundering and wire fraud.[3]
what the fuck

>>97911925
What has any of this got to do with l5r, dude?

>>97911925
I'd assume anon was suggesting one of the older 47 Ronin movies, like the 1941 one.

>>97911980
The new one with the fantasy shit sprinkled in is good for L5R, it gives examples of how to insert that stuff into a historical anecdote. The thing is, we all like to watch good movies, and then we want to use what we gained in the game, but let's face it: we're not writing a screenplay, we're playing a game with a bunch of guys that have a good chance of not being that into it, or have different ideas about how things should go. So the quality of the movie is inconsequential, you take the premises and reelaborate them.
>honor duel incoming
>clan champion is poisoned
>someone has to take his place or the clan loses honor
>turns out the rivals were behind the incident

How does this not work as the premise for a session or campaign?

>>97911980
Ah I didn't realize there was older ones
Thanks anon, (2013) should have clued me in

>>97912073
The samurai films thread over on /t/ has a link for the 1959 version which was pretty good.
>>>/t/1130883
>>97912005
That works for a session or campaign, yes. Though the points of watching a good movie are for good ideas, personal enjoyment of the time you're spending, being able to pay attention to it better, and getting in the right kind of mindset or mood for the kinds of stories you'll likely end up doing.

>>97912084
>are for good ideas
Like using fantasy elements that the historical movies lack. You can watch kurosawa all day, but that would only help with the human side of things. It helps broaden your perspective. Then, if you want you can watch some other media that focuses more on the fantasy side.

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>>97911800
Here's 4E's core book's list of what the major changes from 3 to 4 were.

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Speaking of movies, here are the suggested reading/viewing lists from corebooks 2E onward since I couldn't find a 1E one.

Scorpion clan wearing masks 24/7 always felt so silly to me.

Something I did was recycle Lot5R for my D&D game, but broke all the great clans into families and renamed all families/minor clans into generic clans of varying status (GCs being more prestigious ancestors).
That gave me about 40+ rival families I scattered over a different map, each with a speciality.

>>97913360
That's a nice trick. L5R provides a nice tapestry if you file off the serial numbers so to speak.

Bring back the Kakita Artisan.
I want to manipulate luck with a flower vase, a storyteller that can create phantom kami, or a painter that can teleport using their art.

I really like this system and setting and would love to run it, but I feel like I'm not nearly weeaboo enough to pull it off in spite of actually being a pretty big weeaboo. Is there a trick?

>>97914249
The trick is to not overthink it. If you're thinking you're a weeb because you approach something oriental, you already lost.

>>97914275
What I mean is that in spite of consuming Japanese media for 20+ years and making the traditional token weeb effort to learn Japanese, I feel like I don't actually know nearly enough about feudal Japan to do it justice. I feel like I'd need a very well done prewritten adventure to get anywhere.

>>97914298
Anon, that's why I mean you're overthinking it, and I mean that you're probably thinking about it more that the game devs. You are not playing a game in the historically accurate version of feudal japan (for starters, feudal is usually the sengoku period, and L5R borrows from themes that developed much later under the shogunate), you are playing in Rokugan. And not only that, you are playing in YOUR version of rokugan, because the moment you start playing, you're deviating from established lore one way or another. So just dive in.

>>97914311
Maybe you're right. It's just that with generic western fantasy settings I have so much more experience to draw from, so Rokugan feels unfamiliar and scary. Guess I'll just try it for my next campaign.

>>97914492
Well that's the thing, isn't it? Any generic western fantasy is deviating from the established historical roots in a number of ways, and we don't even think about it. That unfamiliarity you feel is like the one you feel when starting to drive a car compared to riding a bicycle, but it will go away over time as you get more confident. The way to build up confidence is doind things.

>>97914492
NTA, Rokugan is not Japan. It's vaguely inspired by Japan in the same way d&d is vaguely inspired by early renaissance Europe. Furthermore it's written to match cliches, not to actually match Japanese fantasy literature. Just read the main book and try it.

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>>97914492
Having played in many many games of L5R from 4 GMs and having ran it with a heavily deviating storyline loosely rooted in what the current metaplot of the day was once even if the game fell apart due to scheduling and some retard shit between some of the players, you're good to just kind of fly by the seat of your pants with it. Read thru the corebook of whichever edition you want to run, including the bits of lore, and you'll be able to piece together something fun.
The one I ran was in 4E and loosely based on the period of Ancient China when fucking everyone was making a little kingdom and trying to take over combined with a bit of Japan's Sengoku era, and started with the player characters who were young members of various families and clans who had been given the honor of attending a big event at Imperial Court. The Scorpion character in the party had picked a disadvantage that gave him a secret Scorpion ninja sleeper cell activation code, so I used that combined with a bit of the lore for the, at the time mid Emperor Edition in the card game, Scorpion Clan Champion Bayushi Nitoshi card pic related being the one who had set it up to get a part some magical artifact into court for a suicide attack on the Imperial family, killing the rest of the Clan Champions and every family daimyo in attendance. So just remember it's fine to kill canon characters off for the sake of making the game more fun and/or interesting for you and your players.
>>97914780
There was the occasionally used saying back in the older days of L5R threads here "John Wick watched half a samurai movie, remembered half of what he saw, and liked half of what he remembered", but it always felt more to me like he was really mostly influenced by the 1980s Shogun TV mini-series. Added to that over time were inspirations and influences that were more China and Korea anyway too.
But yeah, it's cliché and stereotype heavy in a fun way.

>>97914492
It's Rokugan *your* way for a reason. I personally removed gay marriage/tranny references, made the Phoenix more Korean, the Lion more Chinese, and the Crab more SE Asian (not the Hida though, the Hida were the OG "Rokugani", while the other families came from humans who had to flee north following Fu Leng's arrival)

Remember, clan loyalty and uniform is strictly enforced.
If you are playing a crane you can only dress in kimono of white a blue, cranes better be embroidered on everything you wear. Lions in earth tones, Scorpion in Red & Black, and so on.

>>97902272
Been running a 4e campaign for about three years now, though it's pretty heavily houseruled at this point. We're about a year into the players serving as magistrates for the City of Lies, and it's been an absolute blast. I got my issues with 4e, but it really is a solid system.

>>97915336
lol
and lmao maybe

>>97902272
so much of the deserved frustration with the status of l5r as a franchise these days is that we know none of it is the fault of the license itself. it was just bought and sold by a succession of ever increasing money grubbers and retards
>aeg?
made the license what it is in the minds of so many people, made a lot of money from it too. then proceeded to sell their biggest money maker so they could make letter writing games... and...
>ffg
made a reboot rpg which changed some fundamentals but was still successful, but butchered the established card game format into their "living card game" format and completely nixed the story-from-tournament style that made the game so engaging and provided a thoughline for all fans
>asmodee
completely disemboweled ffg after causing product delays for years in order to build their own studio just for that studio to struggle with producing even a fifth of the rate
>embracer
bought the biggest board game provider in europe and a bunch of other shit on the promise of money from saudis, get ghosted, killed studios and sold of franchises to offload debt, made shell companies to offload debt, including asmodee with the gigantic debt bill and an expectation to keep making games at minimum profit just to one day possibly escape the retarded situation they'd all been forced in
fuck

>>97916555
It is regrettable but at this point I just want them to be done with the line by releasing the scorpion book, hoping they get translated here as well. I guess asking for a collated bestiary, arsenal and maybe a school/technique index would be too much.

>>97916272
And what's so funny?
I speak the truth - all clan samurai must be matchy-matchy with their clan colors.

>>97916855
What minor clan could be in it?
I think it would be the Neko/Cat Clan or the Usagi/Hare Clan if they aren’t somewhere else.

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Im currently rewriting Curse of Strahd into an L5R campaign, because a friend wants to try other systems, but has always wanted to play CoS.
Funny enough, it really hasn't been that hard to do and I'm excited to work on it.

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Would you survive the night?

>>97922416
What are the minor clans represented here? I'm guessing one of the green ones is mantis.

>>97922527
I think it's seven great clans plus mantis and spider.

>>97922527
At the time it was drawn, sometime during Celestial Edition for the CCG, Mantis was a Great Clan and Spider wasn't a real clan until they were recognized as a Great Clan at the end of the Celestial Edition storyline as it moved into Emperor Edition's storyline.
As for which one represents which clan: darker blue on the left is Crab, purple is Unicorn, glowing eyes in black would count as the Spider but may be Shadowlands in general, red with a mask is Scorpion as you'd expect, lighter blue in back-middle is Crane, green in the far back is Mantis, green laying in the middle with tattoos is Dragon, yellow with fur is Lion, and red/orange on the right is Phoenix.

>>97922818
Pretty much what i imagined, yeah, spider was obvious by the legwear, the tattoos made it clear who the dragon was, mantis was my first guess for the last onebecause it was important enough that they immediately added it to 5th ed.

>>97922841
If I remember correctly the Mantis, with their leader at the time being Yoritomo, were a popular group early on in the original CCG and ended up bumped to Great Clan status from CCG tournament rewards back in the day, and then they stayed very popular up thru the IP transfer from AEG to FFG. So it makes sense they were quickly back in after the reboot for 5E too. In the old timeline they had also adsorbed the Centipede and Wasp clans while becoming a Great Clan and then later also adsorbed the Fox clan, which I'm assuming never happened in the 5E/FFG timeline

>>97902272
just when you thought it was safe to order books online...
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/560361/white-feathers-crimson-leaves-legend-of-the-five-rings?src=newest_recent
a fucking scorpion shows up with your delivery and tries to make you buy her new book