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.