So as someone who as looked upon L5R with admiration for a long time, for it's deep setting and novel system, I've also wanted to run it. I have many ideas for characters, and I have a group of willing players I can trust.
The only problem is I know its a very fluff heavy system with a lot of splatbooks and the like. What would you consider mandatory intro reading, aside from the core rulebook, for someone to know enough to run L5R? What about to play it?
Hair Metal scorpion related.
>>43955510
Emerald Empire and Great Clans.
>>43955510
From most to least important, all 4th edition:
Emerald Empire
Book of X (Where X = Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Void, in any order)
Imperial Histories (Or IH2. Find the era you plan to run in. Or look through for historical context to fit your own era in the empty times between big events)
The Great Clans
Secrets of the Empire (Bump this up for a Minor Clan game)
Enemies of the Empire (Bump this up for a Ronin game)
Sword and Fan
Imperial Archives (Most of this is just fluff that didn't fit anywhere else, but there is errata in the back)
I'd say at least look at Emerald Empire and the Elemental books. Players can get by with just the core book (And Emerald Empire if you want them to really act out their characters), but they'll probably want to at least see the character options in Great Clans and the Book of X series.
>>43955788
Why put the element books so high? Most of them is just optional crap and fringe fluff, I'd put them well below EotE and Great Clans personally.
>>43955854
Because they give you a lot of details about many, many aspects of the setting that line up with that element. There's a lot of fluff in there for any kind of campaign.
>>43955510
The most important thing to remember is that Rokugani society is retarded and was written by a weeb with no idea how the culture he was unsuccessfully aping actually functions and is full of idiots who do not deserve to live, so the more damage you do to canon the better.
>>43955900
The details are neat but are nowhere near that essential to knowing the setting.
>>43955915
Rokugan is not and was never trying to be Japan.
It's society is more Imperial China than Japanese (With a heavy Feudal Japan aesthetic) and has some Mongolian, some Korean, and a significant amount of straight fantasy mixed in.
Complaining about Rokugan not being historically accurate to Japan is like complaining about Westeros not being historically accurate to Britain.
>>43956011
I'm more concerned about it being ruled and inhabited by people too stupid to live, rather than any historical accuracy.
>>43956057
That's what happens when Divine Right To Rule is objective, and the divine entities that established that Right were retarded.
>>43956057
Then the line "written by a weeb with no idea how the culture he was unsuccessfully aping actually functions" seems out of place.
>>43956091
Mostly because the social elements it does borrow from real life cultures are complete fabrication, stereotypes that are divorced from cultural context and reality. Rokugan is what would happen if someone made a setting based on what Ken-Sama thought Japan/China/Korea/Mongolia was. The author began from a place of ignorance and that translated into the setting.
Also the CCG is shit.
>>43956176
How can someone start from a place of ignorance if their intention isn't accuracy in the first place?
>Mostly because the social elements it does borrow from real life cultures are complete fabrication
Well, it's a roleplaying game. The entire thing is a complete fabrication. That's the point of the exercise.
I mean, D&D makes similarly egregious mistakes towards how medieval society worked, and yet nobody accuses Gary Gygax of the manner of crimes you seem intent on heaping upon L5R.
>>43956244
You make a good point, but I still feel there is a difference. Namely that in D&D, you're given free clout to completely change the setting if you like. Setting and Mechanics are divorced, and a multitude of settings within which to use the system exists.
In Rokugan, several mechanics are directly tied into the setting (Marriage, Honor, etc), so whatever you do you are still required to accept that the canon setting exists.
I would also argue that Gygaxian D&D portrays a much rosier, much BETTER version of Medieval society than was reality, a bastard vision of fuedalistic romance and the social advances of the reneissance combined with complete egalitarianism.
Rokugan meanwhile, has sexual egalitarianism but then also features "historical" xenophobia, isolationism, legalism, and other problems et all. It perpetuates negative stereotypes while D&D presents an idealized version.
>>43956358
The thing is that L5R as an RPG was made specifically for playing in the card game's setting. It's not supposed to be a semi-generic system that can be used for multiple settings.
>>43956358
> Namely that in D&D, you're given free clout to completely change the setting if you like.
D&D is but one of many systems with settings divorced from reality.
>It perpetuates negative stereotypes while D&D presents an idealized version.
I don't see how this is a point against Rokugan or L5R as a system.
>>43956358
>I would also argue that Gygaxian D&D portrays a much rosier, much BETTER version of Medieval society than was reality,
Wow life must have been SHIT then.
>>43955510
You sure that's not a Phoenix?
>>43956011
>Rokugan is not and was never trying to be Japan.
You know they only started saying that after getting called out on it, right?
Before then it was all "Japan inspired" this and "like Japan" that.
>>43957046
"Inspired" and "like" is not the same as "is historically accurate to". Even the new stuff that explicitly says Rokugan is not Japan say that it's "inspired by" Japan (Along with other Asian bits, mostly from China and Mongolia)
>>43956358
Speaking of Gygax, Kara-tur was a better depiction of Asian inspired fantasy than L5R in almost every possible way.
>>43958103
We get it, you don't like Rokugan. You don't need to repeat yourself every other post.
>>43958212
Guys I dont like your game setting
Stop not having my opinions.
>>43958259
I refuse. Something something honor, ancestors, et al won't allow it.
>>43958212
>>43958259
>stop disliking what I like!
So did everybody prepare their anus for when FFG finally releases their version of the RPG that requires $200 of preherphials and specialty dice in order to play at all?
I know I'm all lubed up.
>>43958505
Well, there's 4e for when that happens.
>>43958543
It'll be a shame to see a good IP just die like that, though.
>>43955510
You're gonna want to have Emerald Empire for its incredibly in-depth review on life in Rokugan and its culture and The Great Clans so you actually have some fucking options.
If you want a fair deal more depth get Sword & Fan; everything else is optional.
>>43956176
Tumblr please go.
>>43962394
Think about what you said. Think sharply. What reminded you of Tumblr in it? Is it that they used complicated words? Or maybe the word 'cultural'?
>>43963812
It's like a japanese person answering the phone with moshi moshi. The person on the other end PROBABLY isn't an oni, but you want to make sure.
>>43955510
Core Book is probably enough.
Emerald Empire is Excellent.
From there, it really depends on what you want to do.
>>43955788
Has basically the rub of it.
