History YMMV / LegendOfTheFiveRings

* CompleteMonster: [[TheCaligula Hantei XVI]], known as Otomo Okucheo before his ascension and also known as the Steel Chrysanthemum , is the most violent and tyrannical Emperor that Rokugan ever had. He was [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]] even as a [[EnfantTerrible young child]], when he [[CainAndAbel arranged for the murder of his brother]] to prevent him from being made Emperor. His atrocities ranged from the disastrously grand, such as creating a SecretPolice force to hunt down traitors and political dissidents; to the [[EvilIsPetty disturbingly petty]], such as torturing a woman to death for protesting his widespread use of torture, and then naming her as a minor goddess of torture. He ruined a political opponent's reputation and career, just so he could claim the man's daughter as a concubine. When that daughter refused to bear Hantei XVI a child, he had her imprisoned in her own room and [[BreedingSlave forced the matter]]. The final straw, however, was [[{{Matricide}} ordering the execution of his own mother]], because she dared to protest him killing all of his siblings so they couldn't contest his claim to the throne. This final act was enough to make his entire guard, horrified by what he had done, turn on him, assassinating him in spite of the fact that they would all need to commit seppuku afterwards. BackFromTheDead more than 500 years later, Hantei engineered the 12-year-long War of Spirits in order to try taking back the throne. After the War, as one of the conditions of the treaty, Hantei [[SadistTeacher tutors]] the son of an opponent. Planning to attack his student in order to cause the treaty to be broken and war to break out again, Hantei, while beating this student, is killed by his own fiancée, who has grown to care for this student.

* CompleteMonster: Hantei XVI, known as Otomo Okucheo before his ascension and also known as the Steel Chrysanthemum, is the most violent and tyrannical Emperor that Rokugan ever had. He was [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]] even as a [[EnfantTerrible young child]], when he [[CainAndAbel arranged for the murder of his brother]] to prevent him from being made Emperor. His atrocities ranged from the disastrously grand, such as creating a SecretPolice force to hunt down traitors and political dissidents, to the [[EvilIsPetty disturbingly petty]], such as torturing a woman to death for protesting his widespread use of torture, and then [[{{Jerkass}} naming her as a minor goddess of Torture]]. He ruined a political opponent's reputation and career, just so he could claim the man's daughter as a concubine. When that daughter refused to bear Hantei XVI a child, he had her imprisoned in her own room and [[BreedingSlave forced the matter]]. The final straw, however, was [[{{Matricide}} ordering the execution of his own mother]], because she dared to protest him killing all of his siblings so they couldn't contest his claim to the throne. This final act was enough to make his entire guard, horrified by what he had done, turn on him, assassinating him in spite of the fact that they would all need to commit seppuku afterwards. BackFromTheDead more than 500 years later, Hantei engineered the 12-year-long War of Spirits in order to try taking back the throne. After the War, as one of the conditions of the treaty, Hantei [[SadistTeacher tutors]] the son of an opponent. Planning to attack his student in order to cause the treaty to be broken and war to break out again, Hantei, while [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beating him]], is killed by his own fiancé, who has grown to care for this student.

* CrowningMomentOfFunny: "A Good Little Wife" - the story of how [[TheToblerone Hida O-ushi]] found her husband.
* CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming:

** Iuchiban, one of the setting's [[BigBad big bads]], had twice suffered crushing defeats when the clans discovered his plans early. Upon his third rise to power, he decided the best route to power was to announce his return by making the [[RainOfSomethingUnusual sky rain soul-corrupting blood]] over the entire empire.

* CompleteMonster: Hantei XVI, known as Otomo Okucheo before his ascension and also known as the Steel Chrysanthemum, is the most violent and tyrannical Emperor that Rokugan ever had. He was [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]] even as a [[EnfantTerrible young child]], when he [[CainAndAble arranged for the murder of his brother]] to prevent him from being made Emperor. His atrocities ranged from the disastrously grand, such as creating a SecretPolice force to hunt down traitors and political dissidents, to the [[EvilIsPetty disturbingly petty]], such as torturing a woman to death for protesting his widespread use of torture, and then [[{{Jerkass}} naming her as a minor goddess of Torture]]. He ruined a political opponent's reputation and career, just so he could claim the man's daughter as a concubine. When that daughter refused to bear Hantei XVI a child, he had her imprisoned in her own room and [[BreedingSlave forced the matter]]. The final straw, however, was [[{{Matricide}} ordering the execution of his own mother]], because she dared to protest him killing all of his siblings so they couldn't contest his claim to the throne. This final act was enough to make his entire guard, horrified by what he had done, turn on him, assassinating him in spite of the fact that they would all need to commit seppuku afterwards. BackFromTheDead more than 500 years later, Hantei engineered the 12-year-long War of Spirits in order to try taking back the throne. After the War, as one of the conditions of the treaty, Hantei [[SadistTeacher tutors]] the son of an opponent. Planning to attack his student in order to cause the treaty to be broken and war to break out again, Hantei, while [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beating him]], is killed by his own fiancé, who has grown to care for this student.

** ''Goddesses IV'' and its aftermath, the end to The Destroyer War arc, ended with massive CharacterDerailment across all clans but the Lion, with everyone just meekly accepting Iweko I accepting the Spider as a Great Clan, and the Spider Clan winning far more than the announced prizes for their tournament wins in the process.

** Well it goes without saying that the supporters for each of the factions (even ones no longer active in the game) are pretty passionate and will defend their faction [[SeriousBusiness with great zeal]]. One can even find intense debates and divides within a single clan (the Shinjo vs. Moto flame wars among the Unicorn player base have been going strong for over a decade) to say nothing over the debates about which CCG ruleset was best, First Edition vs. Third Edition RPG, CCG vs RPG (judging just from this page), etc. etc. etc...

* CompleteMonster: Hantei XVI, known as Otomo Okucheo before his ascension and also known as the Steel Chrysanthemum , is the most violent and tyrannical Emperor that Rokugan ever had. He was [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]] even as a [[EnfantTerrible young child]], when he [[CainAndAble arranged for the murder of his brother]] to prevent him from being made Emperor. His atrocities ranged from the disastrously grand, such as creating a SecretPolice force to hunt down traitors and political dissidents; to the [[EvilIsPetty disturbingly petty]], such as torturing a woman to death for protesting his widespread use of torture, and then [[{{Jerkass}} naming her as a minor goddess of Torture]]. He ruined a political opponent's reputation and career, just so he could claim the man's daughter as a concubine. When that daughter refused to bear Hantei XVI a child, he had her imprisoned in her own room and [[BreedingSlave forced the matter]]. The final straw, however, was [[{{Matricide}} ordering the execution of his own mother]], because she dared to protest him killing all of his siblings so they couldn't contest his claim to the throne. This final act was enough to make his entire guard, horrified by what he had done, turn on him, assassinating him in spite of the fact that they would all need to commit seppuku afterwards. BackFromTheDead more than 500 years later, Hantei engineered the 12-year-long War of Spirits in order to try taking back the throne. After the War, as one of the conditions of the treaty, Hantei [[SadistTeacher tutors]] the son of an opponent. Planning to attack his student in order to cause the treaty to be broken and war to break out again, Hantei, while [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beating this student]], is killed by his own fiancé, who has grown to care for this student.

** When Hida O-Ushi's uncle Tsume scornfully asked her (formerly Unicorn) husband Hida Yasamura whether he would have the resolve to cut O-Ushi down if she was slain and raised as a zombie. Yasamura replied that it would be impossible for him- because if O-Ushi was slain, he would already be dead.

*** It's pretty uncommon to find someone who liked the Destroyer War, as the Spider were the only clan that came off as even slightly competent. Subsequent developments (the Spider becoming a legitimate Great Clan, Fu Leng taking over Jigoku and joining forces with Daigotsu to save the Empire, taint only affecting the willing) have been similarly poorly-received.

** The Ivory Edition era was so poorly received that AEG's staff were begging people to stay. it didn't work, and AEG sold the game.

* FridgeBrilliance: The First Day of Thunder resulted in the deaths of six out of the Seven Thunders but the Second Day of Thunder only had two die. It is actually stated in the Thousand Years of Darkness storyline that when Fu Leng is at his full power with the Twelfth Black Scroll unread, he is essentially undefeatable and mows down the Thunders like so much chaff. ''That was the Fu Leng that the original Thunders fought.'' Their successors fought a mortal Fu Leng, one who could be killed by stabbing him repeatedly with a sword rather than a demigod who could only be stopped by a desperate delaying action while Isawa binds him with the Black Scrolls.

** The build-up to Onyx was like this, relying heavily on the clans in general (and the Crab, Dragon, and Scorpion in particular) not paying attention to what the Spider were up to barely a generation after the Spider were responsible for multiple emperors' deaths and a coordinated assassination campaign.

** It's now only worth 8 points, and only prevents you from using the common Void Point expenditures. You can still use Void Points to activate Techniques that require them.

* IdiotBall: Why, in the name of all that is holy, would the most vehemently anti-Shadowlands Clan in Rokugan ever ally themselves with the Shadowlands during the Clan War? Ask Hida Kisada, who apparently thought it was a good idea, and [[LaserGuidedKarma paid for it dearly...]] like pretty much anyone else in the Clan should have been able to tell him.
** CharacterizationMarchesOn: It made slightly more sense before the setting was entirely fleshed out, before the Shadowlands was revealed to be a literal geographic location as well as the ultimate evil in the setting, and before it was established that the Crab Clan's duty to guard against it. Until the game's first expansion, it was really the Crab Clan itself that had been the bad guys.

* BaseBreaker: Like the Spider, the Scorpion have engaged in enough treason that some players argue that PlotArmor alone keeps them playable as a faction. Unlike the Spider, the Scorpion don't have a god blackmailing the Empire on their behalf.

*** ''[[http://l5r.wikia.com/wiki/Tale_of_the_Scorpion_and_the_Frog "I can swim."]]''

* BaseBreaker: The Spider Clan's official clan status proved to be this. Within the clan, Kanpeki's return to embracing the taint as the cost of his wife was either Kanpeki finally becoming as cool as he should have been all along, or removed everything interesting about him in the first place.

* PlotArmor: While all the clans still in the game have this to an extent, the Spider Clan in particular usually suffer little to no fallout for their actions, even when that fallout is specifically mentioned as part of the story prize.

** RPG versus CCG gets special mention, because the {{Metaplot}} is the chief draw of the CCG: the ability to affect the story of Rokugan through tournament victories and behavior. However, the current consensus among RPG players in general is that metaplot is absolutely toxic to a game line and hinders [=GMs'=] ability to tell their own stories. In addition, many of the RPG players consider the Story Team's endless rearrangement of Rokugan to provide [[CrackIsCheaper new cards to buy]] and new tournament prizes to be detrimental to the lore, if not outright CanonDefilement. The writers for the Fourth Edition of the RPG are very GenreSavvy about this, and do their best to make sure that there are rules for playing in any era that the GM wants to run a story in, avoiding being drawn into the metaplot.
** When the [[TokenEvilTeammate Spider Clan]] was [[HeelFaceTurn formally accepted as a Great Clan]] after the events of the Destroyer War, many samurai (particularly the Lion and Crab) committed seppuku in protest. Many fans [[InternetBackdraft shared the sentiment.]]

* [[ScrewedByTheLawyers Screwed By The International Olympic Committee]]: During the game's tenure at Wizards, the IOC sent legal notice to Wizards that the logo for the game (five interlocking gold rings in a pentagon shape) was a violation of the IOC's treaty-protected copyright of their logo ([[AsYouKnow five interlocking rings of different colors in a "W" shape]]) on the grounds that the treaty claims ''any'' design with five interlocking rings, regardless of orientation or color. Wizards changed the card backs (which prominently featured the logo) to a new design that instead incorporated five independent gold discs. This had the unintended effect of essentially banning any cards produced before the change (for the simple fact that they'd be easy to spot in a hand) unless the player invested in opaque-backed card sleeves.

** Including at least one Scorpion-trained Emperor (Toturi III), and current Emerald Champion, Shosuro Jimen.

** The Ivory Edition era is so poorly received that AEG's staff are begging people to stay.

*** ''[[http://www.eatliver.com/i.php?n=2758 "Scorpions are jerks"]]''

** Dark Fate. When the GM feels like it, you will betray everything your character holds dear, most likely including the other players, and probably become an NPC, if not dead (or a FateWorseThanDeath).

* TheyJustDidntCare: More or less WizardsOfTheCoast's attitude during the entire period where they had joint rights to the game along with AEG. They day that AEG bought exclusive rights back from them was a day of great rejoicing. Though some critics also say that this is the attitude towards Japanese and Samurai Culture of the post Wick Story Team as the setting has drifted further away from that over time.

* CompleteMonster: Hantei XVI, known as Otomo Okucheo before his ascension and also known as the Steel Chrysanthemum , is the most violent and tyrannical Emperor that Rokugan ever had. He was [[AmbitionIsEvil ambitious]] even as a [[EnfantTerrible young child]], when he [[CainAndAble arranged for the murder of his brother]] to prevent him from being made Emperor. His atrocities ranged from the disastrously grand, such as creating a SecretPolice force to hunt down traitors and political dissidents; to the [[EvilIsPetty disturbingly petty]], such as torturing a woman to death for protesting his widespread use of torture, and then [[{{Jerkass}} naming her as a minor goddess of Torture]]. He ruined a political opponent's reputation and career, just so he could claim the man's daughter as a concubine. When that daughter refused to bear Hantei XVI a child, he had her imprisoned in her own room and [[BreedingSlave forced the matter]]. The final straw, however, was [[{{Matricide}} ordering the execution of his own mother]], because she dared to protest him killing all of his siblings so they couldn't contest his claim to the throne. This final act was enough to make his entire guard, horrified by what he had done, turn on him, assassinating him in spite of the fact that they would all need to commit seppuku afterwards. BackFromTheDead more than 500 years later, Hantei engineered the 12-year-long War of Spirits in order to try taking back the throne. After the War, as one of the conditions of the treaty, Hantei [[SadistTeacher]] tutors the son of an opponent. Planning to attack his student in order to cause the treaty to be broken and war to break out again, Hantei, while [[NoHoldsBarredBeatdown beating this student]], is killed by his own fiancé, who has grown to care for this student.

* CompleteMonster: Hantei XVI, AKA [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast the Steel Chrysanthemum]], bears the dubious honor of being one of only two Emperors to have been the victims of assassination, and for a ''very'' good reason (the second Emperor was killed to [[spoiler: prevent Fu Leng from possessing the Emperor and taking over Rokugan]]). Among many, ''many'' other horrible crimes, he had all of his siblings killed (including one [[EnfantTerrible when he was just a child]]), formed a SecretPolice force to root out imaginary conspiracies against his throne, destroyed a man's reputation so he could take that man's daughter as a [[SexSlave concubine]], purged an entire region of samurai after its daimyo [[DisproportionateRetribution asked for an extension on the deadline for collecting taxes]], and ''[[YourHeadAsplode had his mother's head crushed like a grape]]'' after she tried to confront him about his crimes. That was TheLastStraw, and the Emperor's entire personal guard ganged up at once to murder him and put an end to his madness.
** To put this into context: anyone who betrays their lord, particularly the Emperor, must commit seppuku to preserve their honor. In others words, the ''entire'' personal guard of the Emperor decided that dying in dishonor was preferable to letting Hantei XVI continue to live.
** Unfortunately, this was not the last we heard from Hantei XVI. His spirit was able to return to the mortal realm through [[{{Hellgate}} Oblivion's Gate]] during the reign of the Toturi Dynasty. Realizing that he was the last "surviving" Hantei, he naturally concluded that [[InsaneTrollLogic he had the right to rule Rokugan.]] His plan to recapture the throne ''started'' with [[WouldHarmAChild capturing all of the Pheonix Clan's children,]] and only got more insane from there, resulting in what became known as the War of the Spirits.
** Special mention should also go to the man who did the head crushing in the above example- Hida Tsuneo, then the Crab Clan Champion. He was Hantei XVI's friend since childhood, and was named his Right Hand when he took the throne (rather than the Lion Champion, as was tradition). One might think he was simply supporting his friend and/or following the orders of his Emperor, until you see his character sheet and notice he has a Technique [[BullyBrutality that specifically give him bonuses]] [[LudicrousGibs to hurt people with physical disadvantages,]] because he just loves [[{{Sadist}} hurting the weak that much.]]

! Crab Clan

! Scorpion Clan

!The Shadowlands/Spider Clan

!Rokugan in General

* BlackHoleSue / GodModeSue / VillainSue: Daigotsu was killed and barely slowed down, and not only extorted clan recognition from the empire, he also rewrote the cosmology of the setting to allow for dark fortunes. What'd he do for an encore to this? He dragged the Empire into Jigoku in retaliation for the Empire "betraying" his openly antagonistic son.

* CanonSue: Iuchiban. For others, Daigotsu. Kaneka was also accused of being this during the Diamond/Lotus Era.
** The Monkey catch a lot of flak of this sort, too, as they're a minor clan started by a peasant who claimed samurai status, have a very potent bushi school, haven't really had much happen to them in the timeline, and have the patronage of the Scorpion Clan.

* GodModeSue: With the possible exception of the Spider/Shadowlands (and then, almost entirely limited to Daigotsu himself), the Scorpion wildly fluctuate between this and the AntiSue. Examples of the former include such ridiculously over the top moments as leading a political revolt against Toturi III, previously a ChessMaster without equal, that was done with so great an ease that it occurred mostly off-camera and without explanation, while examples of the latter include the entire clan holding the VillainBall against the Crab so tightly that an entire army walks right through both clans' territories without either the wiser, allowing the Spider to infiltrate Rokugan unopposed. A common player complaint is that Scorpion victory is either a certainty, regardless of who actually won, or it's doomed to fail, even if the Scorpion actually won the storyline tournament. Other clans are subject to this, too, but it's been outright stated by the story team that the Scorpion have to do both to an extent to appear plausible at all.

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Daigotsu Kanpeki, the Spider Clan Champion and one of the most dangerous men in the Empire, nonetheless genuinely cares for his wife.
** Becomes something of an InformedAttribute when he sacrifices her before she gets much characterization.

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Daigotsu Kampeki, the Spider Clan Champion and one of the most dangerous men in the Empire, nonetheless genuinely cares for his wife.

** By and large FFG's procurement was met with celebration of the fanbase, but discussions of what FFG could - or even ''should'' change or take out of the game have to many, many heated arguments from all corners of the playerbase.

** The legendary Kaiu engineers of the Crab Clan spend most of their time building and maintaining the armor, weapons and siege engines that the Crab rely on for survival, and that's when they're not working on the Great Kaiu Wall that separates Rokugan from the Shadowlands. When they have spare time or need a break from the ceaseless grind of war, however, they [[FriendToAllChildren make toys for children.]] People may not like the Crab Clan, but ''no one'' turns down a gift of a Kaiu toy.

** CharacterizationMarchesOn: It made slightly more sense before the setting was entirely fleshed out, before the Shadowlands was revealed to be a literal geographic location as well as the ultimate evil in the setting. Until the game's first expansion, it was really the **Crab Clan itself** that had been the bad guys.

** CharacterizationMarchesOn: It made slightly more sense before the setting was entirely fleshed out, before the Shadowlands was revealed to be a literal geographic location as well as the ultimate evil in the setting. Until the game's first expansion, it was really the *Crab Clan itself* that had been the bad guys.