There are a lot of ways that I could approach a description of Legend of the Five Rings, in terms of how the game plays, how the politics and fantasy setting interact, and what the experience of the game is like as an introduction for the uninitiated. This is a game that is heavily steeped in its internal culture, to the point that the original game books felt more like guides to everyday life in Feudal Japan. Fans of the older editions delved into the minutiae of the setting, to the point that they had memorized entire histories of certain lineages back into the mythical past of Rokugan.
For me, this is the reason that Fantasy Flight has opted to reset the timeline of the game to its base origins. By removing the complicated history that has built up over the intervening decades, they can bring new players in without forcing them to learn volumes of detail. That said, the genre of Eastern Fantasy is not as quick to grasp for the normal American RPG audience. Without steeping oneself in Kurosawa films or diving into anime set in the relevant periods, how would one set about creating a campaign for L5R quickly and simply? This is, after all, a game that requires both deep political scheming and supernatural fantasy.
The easiest way that I have found to introduce people to the setting of Rokugan and its complexity, in terms of both intrigue and fantasy, is to cheat and make the following series of analogues:
Take Game of Thrones, reskin it with slightly different geography and history, and line up the Great Clans with the familiar Houses of Westeros. Granted, there are some concessions that have to be made to allow it all to fit properly, but it’s not as far off as it might initially seem.
Let’s start with the easy and fairly obvious analogues and go down the line. (And mind you, these are merely my own interpretations of things. It’s not as though George Martin based his creation on this game. As best I can tell, it’s possibly taken from a Pendragon campaign, given his history as an RPG gamer.)
The Lion Clan matches up either with the House Baratheon or House Lannister with their proud warriors and strong militaries. This aligns more with the Lannisters as the series continues, given that their strategies and general military might are largely dominant throughout.
The Crane Clan could be matched with either the Tyrells or the Lannisters, given their manipulations and intrigues. There is no real analogue for the dueling mastery that underscores the Crane Clan’s general background, as that would more align with the Water Dancers of Braavos.
The Crab would be analogous to the Night’s Watch, given that they guard a wall that keeps out the supernatural horrors that would threaten Rokugan. The only real drawback on this analogy is that the brothers of the Night’s Watch aren’t strictly a house, but their function in the world is nearly identical.
With their culture of horsemanship and their foreigner ways, the Unicorn would translate into the Dothraki. The biggest difference in this is that the Dothraki are complete outsiders, where the Unicorn Clan are proper members of a Great Clan, despite their long exile.
The Scorpion Clan is less clear, given that the closest correlation would be the intrigues of either Littlefinger or Lord Varys, the Spider. While this weakens the comparison, given that neither of these individuals represent actual families or Houses, it still works, given the subtlety of the Scorpions.
The Mantis Clan would find a rough analogue in the Greyjoys, given that they’re the masters of the sea and otherwise isolated from mainland politics. While the Mantis are portrayed more as traders than as the reavers that the Greyjoys represent, their place in the Clan hierarchy is close enough.
Less perfect comparisons come with the Dragon and Phoenix Clans, but a case might be made for either House Stark or House Arryn being set into one role, given that their relative isolation is more or less in line with the Dragon Clan.
At best, the Phoenix Clan might be equated with the Faith of the Seven or the Maesters of the Citadel, but this is tenuous at best. The Citadel at Oldtown could be made to work for the Buddhist monastery vibe that the Phoenix Clan gives off, but it’s not perfect.
My past experience of the Legend of the Five Rings is that the game allows for heavy fantasy, but the campaigns and the players tend to center things more resolutely on the political aspect of things. The supernatural or fantasy elements are often de-emphasized in favor of the intrigues amongst the Great Clans. In much the same way, the fantasy elements of Game of Thrones have been pushed aside for the sake of the conflicts between the Houses.
The narrative of Game of Thrones (and Song of Ice and Fire, the book series that the HBO series is based on) concerns itself initially with the War of the Five Kings, an all-out war that pits many of the Houses against each other. While the setting of FFG’s Legend of the Five Rings has yet to descend into the time of the Clan Wars, it’s on the horizon.
Reuben Beattie
Latest posts by Reuben Beattie (see all)
- Legend of the Five Rings – Beginner Game - November 15, 2018
