Legend of the Five Rings

I'm starting a campaign for this game on Tuesday and going over the guide book, I'm very interested in this. Anybody else ever use this system before?

Courtesy Link to the trope page.

Not-So-Badass Longcoat had a number of posts about it a while back.

Which edition?

4th Edition.

Count me out, it confused the shit out of me.

Why did 4th edition confuse you?

Changing the rules ONCE AGAIN? Not to mention further bullshit stacking in the metaplot?

Thread necromancy! So, why isnt this system more popular? I am starting to play in a couple of days as a duelist.

Edits: My mistake.

edited 7th Feb '14 3:49:30 PM by Funden

No, this was a good thing.

I really don't know, I think it's pretty good on the basic fluff side and it works well. Granted in my personal opinion the Toturi dynasty never ended because the plot went full retard stacking on crises in a way that makes one wonder how this society managed to absorb the repeated shocks without collapsing.

But just in terms of the basic setting, I like it a lot.

edited 7th Feb '14 8:16:55 PM by Night

Well, it's unpopular due to the metaplot being dictated by the Trading Card Game that is the other part of the franchise. Any bullshit that goes at the official TCG tournamets gets reflected in the metaplot. Unicorn Clan decks relying on combos involving lot of Kolat Agent cards? Boom, majority of Unicorns turn out to be Kolat. Some schmuck wins the tournament? He has a say about how the goddamned metaplot proceeds. Sheer dumbassery of that idea is staggering.

Personally I think it's hilarious.

Anyway you always have the option of going:

The problem is, it doesn't necessarily mean things have to go completely off the deep end. And for a good period of time it didn't.

Well, in my case, I simply refuse to support the company's writing staff any further. I still have my 3e books, but why the hell would I advance to 4e when it means buying material that includes the Spider Clan?

Though to be fair to the writing team, it's not as if they had a choice. After the Clan War, there was simply no reasonable way to go up from there, and so the writing pretty much descended into self-parody.

edited 20th Feb '14 9:56:42 PM by Ramidel

Does anyone remember how scouts work?

It also happens to be the edition that bluntly states "You know what? We understand why people hate metaplot, he's tips on how to ignore it and spare settings that do. The Spider Clan need not exist if that's your thing."

So that objection is already answered.

edited 22nd Mar '14 8:09:58 PM by Leliel

Not really. It means more work for me to cut out the annoying bits, and it means I'm still paying the salaries of the people who write about the Spider Clan (which is irritating for purely irrational reasons). Not worth it unless it's an excellent enough game to ignore these flaws.

So some local friends are starting up a home group on Sundays. It has been a while since I have played.

We are going into 4th Ed to run official modules.

In the past I have played mostly Crab Clan. My first was a very unfortunate Hiruma Scout. The second was my Hida Hida Crab Bushi.

This time around I am thinking of being a Mantis Clan aimed at the archer family that folded into the Mantis.

Thoughts?

Lion Clan 4lyfe.

No thanks. My wife was a Lion. We are going for something different this time around.

If we are lucky we get to test some of Hobart's mods before the go out to everyone else.

The Archers were easily the single most broken "class" in 3rd Edition. Not sure how they translated to 4th, though. Still, fluff-wise I love the minor clan, and Mantis is always great fun to play.

This is a bit of an off-the-wall question, but now that I know this thread exists I have to ask: When watching Kung Fu Panda, does anyone else, after hearing Crane say "Property of Crane" to get Po out of his room, think to themselves "Lion takes it every summer, but I get it back in winter?"

...cause I do.

Lol.

The Mantis are a Great Clan now as are the Spider Clan. The Tsuruchi Archers of course carry blades now and can be dueled. I don't know if the other Tsuruchi schools are in the Mantis Splat Book or if they just did away with them.

Archers have to have some decent strength to fire the two best bows. The Horse Bow needs a 4 str and the Yumi a 3. One is good on foot the other on horse back.

The arrows are all still nasty. The AP arrows go right through armor, flesh cutters mangle people, then there are the rope cutters and standard arrows. There is also the whistling bulb arrow still.

Speaking of Minor Clan the Badger are interesting. They are all heavy weapon types. They do for the Deserts and Mountains what the Crab do on the wall.

Tsuruchi of the Falcon Clan, thank you. I couldn't remember what they were called for the life of me, and I couldn't look it up as my work's filter won't let me access any L 5 R sites.

Badger used to be some of the premier unarmed combatants of any Clan. Not that they were intended to be, mind you, but their abilities translated far too well to ripping something apart with their bare hands. Seriously, they could fuck up a Hida Bushi in a couple rounds they were so good.

But the single greatest Minor Clan of them all were the Monkey Clan. Their lands were situated in the middle of Scorpion territory with the intention that the Scorpion would take them over and the peasant-who-would-be-samurai clan founder returned to his rightful place. Unfortunately for the other Great Clans, the Scorpion decided to take the young clan under their wing and protect them instead. From that day forward, anyone who fucked with a Monkey found a Scorpion's tail pointed at their throat.

So I have a Tsruchi Tsruchi Archer which is part of the Mantis clan now.

Greedy, Fascination Hunting, and I think head strong for flaws and two benefits. Really a typical Mantis Archer.

Things have been going well for Mantis archer. With roll 7 keep 4 for archery I usually get one explosion per shot. I need to raise my earth ring though. Last module I nearly bit it.

So far the living campaign 3 has been going fairly well. Hobart promises 4 will be a big thing.

We have an amusing group story about boar that looks like it escaped from Princess Mononoke. Those buggers hurt when they maul you.