Legend of the Five Rings: The End of an Era

             On September 11, Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) announced that they had purchased the license for Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) from Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG).  For fans of the L5R card game, this was apocalyptic news.  The L5R CCG had been in production since 1995 and had built an enormous and devoted following thanks to its multiple clans – with which players would strongly identify – and its emphasis on a storyline that the players could affect through tournament play. 

            Two more products remain to be released for AEG’s version of L5R, Evil Portents the final expansion for the CCG and the Atlas of Rokugan for the RPG.  AEG’s sale of its L5R licenses represents a massive change to the gaming landscape.  The L5R CCG has remained unchanged since its release 20 years ago, even when it was owned by Wizards of the Coast (WotC).  However, the end of AEG’s production of the L5R RPG is of greater importance. 

            AEG has been producing RPG products since 1997, and over the course of the last few years, AEG has cut back on the development of RPG products.  L5R was the last RPG license that they were developing.  Now, L5R is gone, too.  Once they were a strong competitor in the RPG market with a large slate of great RPGs:  L5R, Brave New World, 7^th Sea, and Spycraft.  They also produced licensed RPGs for Farscape and Stargate SG-1.  They even released a number of supplements during the D20 open license glut in the early 2000’s including the World’s Largest Dungeon and World’s Largest City supplements.

            FFG’s purchase of L5R is not the first time that the license has changed hands.  Shortly after it was first published, Five Rings Publishing Group took over the production and development of L5R as a joint venture of AEG and their publishing partner ISOMEDIA.  In 1997, Five Rings Publishing Group became a subsidiary of WotC until 1998 when WotC subsumed Five Rings Publishing Group completely. 

            The addition of L5R had an enormous effect on D&D 3.0.  Rokugan became the default setting for D&D’s Oriental Adventures campaign replacing Kara-Tur in the Forgotten Realms.  Under WotC’s stewardship, the L5R CCG’s mechanics and emphasis on story remained the same.  However, AEG re-acquired the property in 2001, and WotC released the Japanese themed Magic:  The Gathering Kamigawa block.  One might guess that once WotC sold L5R, they were stuck with a large amount of art for the game that they then re-purposed for Magic:  The Gathering.  (This is purely conjecture on my part but the sale of L5R in 2001 and the release of the Kamigawa block in 2004 certainly points to that as a possibility.  Perhaps someone with better understanding of Magic:  The Gathering’s history will correct me if I’m wrong.)

            L5R has had a tumultuous existence not even counting WotC’s purchase and sale back to AEG.  While owned by WotC, the original five interlocking rings logo used on the back of the CCG’s cards and on the covers of their RPG books was the focus of a lawsuit by the International Olympic Committee.  The IOC claimed that the interlocking rings infringed on their trademark and the settlement required that L5R change its logo.  They choose to use five coins instead.   The change occurred when WotC released the Spirit Wars expansion in 2000.  The change to the card backs forced players to sleeve their decks with opaque-backed card sleeves to avoid cheating.  WotC included sleeves in the starter decks for Spirit Wars as an apology to upset fans who didn’t want to spend extra money on card sleeves. 

            WotC’s ownership of the L5R RPG also led to the production of many L5R RPG 2nd Edition books which included the rules for both the D20 system and L5R’a original D10 system.  Both companies hoped to keep fans of the L5R RPG happy whether they preferred the new D20 system or AEG’s system.  Soon after AEG reacquired the license they released the third edition of L5R returning it to its D10 roots in 2005. 

            The L5R CCG, which many loved including myself, is no more.  FFG has announced that they will update the rules and begin releasing the game as a Living Card Game similar to Star Wars:  The Card Game and Warhammer Conquest.  In and of itself, this transition from random booster packs to pre-packaged expansions is exciting.  FFG has proven that this style of game is extraordinarily successful.  They have also shown that they are excellent stewards for licensed products.  Role playing games such as Star Wars: Edge of Empire, Star Wars:  Age of Rebellion, Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, miniatures games like Star Wars Armada, X-Wing, and board games like Battlestar Galatica and Eldritch Horror are all excellently designed and managed properties.  Star Wars:  Edge of Empire is the best Star Wars RPGs since West End Games Star Wars, Revised system.

            Although many fans of L5R are sad today that AEG and FFG have decided to end a game with 20 years of history, FFG is undoubtedly the best stewards for this license moving forward.  Yet, AEG no longer makes RPGs which is a great loss to the tabletop RPG hobby.  The mechanics developed for L5R’s RPG remain excellent and were great for representing the culture of a fantasy Far East medieval civilization.  These mechanics allowed players to create a variety of characters that could be sneaky, deadly ninjas, katana-wielding duelists, powerful magic-using shugenja or sharp-tongued courtiers.  All were equally playable and viable within the system.  The back story of Rokugan, the setting for L5R, was so well developed – both deep and broad – that game masters had an endless supply of eras in which to set their game, NPCs to introduce, and story hooks for adventures. 

            As sad as fans are about this change, no other company is better suited to restart and redevelop L5R as both a Living Card Game and an RPG.  FFG has scheduled the re-release of the L5R CCG for GenCon 2017.  Currently, they have not made an announcement regarding the re-release of the RPG.  However, FFG should consider keeping the current L5R RPG as it is and release an updated and improved edition without significantly changing the rules.  Unlike when FFG acquired the license for the Star Wars RPG from WotC, L5R does not need a completely new system.  Regardless of whether or not FFG changes the system, a new L5R RPG developed by FFG will be a must buy. 

GenCon 2000 and GenCon 2015

I’m planning my first trip to GenCon since 2000, and a lot of things have changed in 15 years.  GenCon has grown much larger, more expensive, and even changed cities.  I’ve changed as well.  I have different priorities now, and maybe I’ve matured a little too.  Maybe. 

            My first trip to GenCon was a spur of the moment decision.  I’d just graduated college, and I’d just quit my first post-college job.  I didn’t have much going on, and when some of my friends said that they were going to GenCon, I decided to use some of the money I’d received as a graduation present to go to GenCon.  Those were much different times, and I was obviously an irresponsible twenty-something.  I was playing RPGs, but I was much more interested in TCGs, especially Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) and Decipher’sStar Wars CCG.

All of my friends played L5R, and of course, that meant I played as well.  I was never as invested into the game as my friends.  I’d already spent way too much money on Star Wars CCG, and after I became disillusioned with that game, other TCGs had lost their luster.  My closest friends, however, wanted to go to GenCon to compete in the L5R World Championship tournament.  The mechanics of L5R were different enough from Magic or Star Wars that I was interested too, but I refused to invest heavily into another TCG.  Nevertheless, I was able to build a “competitive” deck thanks to help from my much more competition-oriented friends. Those quotation marks are important as you'll find out soon enough.   

At that time, GenCon was located in Milwaukee, WI, and I remember dreading that long drive from Alabama.  My friends and I really didn’t have any plans for the convention other than playing in the L5R World Championship.  This was GenCon 2000, however, and it was a pretty big year for RPGs.  Wizards of the Coast had just released Dungeons & Dragons 3^rd Edition, and they had recently purchased the rights to L5R TCG and RPG from Alderac Entertainment.  WotC would use that license to create their a new version of Oriental Adventures based on L5R’s Rokugan setting. 

At that time I wasn’t playing D&D, and I really didn’t consider playing RPGs to be my “primary hobby” even though I bought a ton of books.  I was mostly playing L5R's tabletop RPG and of course, Vampire:  The Masquerade.  I was spending far more money on comic books and TCGs.  I just wasn’t interested in playing RPGs at GenCon or doing much that involved roleplaying.  In hindsight, it’s a shame, especially, because I really couldn’t have done much else at GenCon because I was playing in the L5R tournament. 

The L5R World Championship at GenCon 2000 was a two day affair.  L5R was probably at the height of its popularity in 2000, and the number of people who entered that tournament was astounding.  I’d never seen a tournament so large, and it was probably only rivaled in size by Magic the Gathering’s Pro Tour Qualifiers. With that many people competing, the tournament took the entire day just to determine who would make the cut for Sunday.  Most TCG tournaments are not single or double elimination; instead they use the Swiss Format.  A single round usually takes between 45 minutes and 1 hour to complete and with that many competitors playing in the tournament, the tournament lasted nearly 8 hours, if not more, due to the nature of the tournament format. 

I would like to say that I did exceptionally well in the tournament or at least made a good showing, but that’d be a lie.  My first round match is most likely the fastest tournament loss in the L5R's history.  In Magic the Gathering and some other TCGs, winning on the first time or even the second turn isn’t uncommon.  In L5R, winning on the second turn is nearly impossible due to the mechanics of the game.  For those of you who are familiar with L5R, you’ll be astonished to hear that I lost on my opponent's second turn.  A series of province destroying events and very fortunate draw helped my opponent destroy me before I got to take my second turn.  I’d add more details, but I don’t want to bore my audience with the rules, card descriptions, and interactions that led to my greatest defeat.  Even fifteen years later, that loss still hurts! If you're interested in the details let me know and I'll write a full version of that loss.  

My only souvenir from that GenCon was an L5R t-shirt that Wizards of the Coast gave out at one of their events.  The t-shirt is something of a collector’s item as it has both the revised L5R logo with the coins (after the Olympics claimed trademark on any design that incorporated 5 interlocking rings) and the WotC logo.  For a free t-shirt it’s held up well, and I’ll probably be wearing it at GenCon. WotC would later sell the rights to L5R back to AEG a few  years later.  

It’s 2015, and I’m going to GenCon again.  I can’t even begin to explain how excited I am to be able to go.  So much has changed for me!  I’ve grown up, as strange as that is to admit.  I’ve given up collecting comics and playing TCGs, and my bank account is most thankful for that!  This trip to GenCon is far better planned, and I’ve got so many things to do while I’m there. 

My priorities have changed so much!  RPGs are more than a hobby for me.  I’ve been working on this blog for several years now. Although my updates have been sporadic, I enjoy writing about my gaming experiences and reviewing Classic World of Darkness books.  I’ve also started working as a freelancer for Onyx Path Publishing.  GenCon is more than just a vacation and a chance to game.  Now, it’s an opportunity to further my goals as a writer and network with other freelancers and game developers.  More importantly, GenCon is where I can play new games, meet podcasters, bloggers, and other freelancers.  My girlfriend and I are huge fans of the Underdiscussion Podcast, and we’ve been looking forward to meeting them at GenCon for a while.  My girlfriend even has one of their t-shirts that she won in a contest that she wants them to sign. 

I’m not going to GenCon to just play in one tournament; instead, I’m going to explore the variety of offerings available.  But I haven’t left L5R behind either.  The only RPG game that I’ve signed up for so far is an L5R RPG game.  I’ve never had a chance to play the 4^th Edition version, and GenCon is the perfect opportunity to try out a new system.  I’ll also be looking for pickup games and pretty much any kind of demos for new games.  My girlfriend is coming with me, and she is just as excited as I am.  We’ve been talking about this trip for nearly two years now.  It’s a perfect year for us to visit GenCon too, Tony DiTerlizzi is the Artist Guest of Honor this year and we are both huge fans of his artwork, especially his work on the Planescape campaign setting. I've been a fan of DiTerlizzi's work since I played the Blood Wars TCG way back in 1994 before I'd ever played one session of an RPG.  

Not everything has gone perfectly.  Event registration, which was this past Sunday, was a nightmare.  When my girlfriend submitted my wish list on Sunday, the system didn’t process it correctly, and we had to sit down later that night to work through our events again.  Every time we tried to build a wish list and submit our events, the system lost our order.  It wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened, but the frustration and anxiety caused by the website’s problems made the event registration process a lot more painful than it should have been.  I wasn’t too thrilled that I had to pay to attend some events, especially after paying $80.00 per badge. 

Once my girlfriend and I registered for our events, the excitement returned.  Maybe it was easier back in the day when I could just go to a convention with no more thought than whose floor I was sleeping on.  I’ve changed too much and have too many responsibilities to be able to go to a convention at a moment’s notice.  Yet, the planning and buildup to the convention has added to my excitement.  I’ve picked out the events that I want to try.  I’m going to meet with both my colleagues and many of the people in the RPG industry that I’ve admired.  I’ve changed and my expectations for GenCon have changed as well, and other than the event registration system, I think both GenCon and I have changed for the better.  

In Response to John Wick's "Chess Is Not an RPG"

             John Wick, probably best known as the Origins Award winning lead designer for Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) First Edition RPG and his work as the Continuity Editor for the Legend of the Five Rings TCG, recently published an article, “Chess Is Not an RPG:  The Illusion of Game Balance” in which he defines what an RPG is and denounces the importance of game balance in tabletop RPGs.  Wick also expresses several controversial opinions about fan favorite games such as earlier editions of Dungeons & Dragons and has caused a bit of a stir amongst the gaming community.  From the beginning of his article, Wick has set out to slay two of the sacred cows of gaming:  Weapons Tables and Game Balance. 

Taking aim first at a feature that nearly every RPG has in common, the weapon’s table, Wick’s article uses two examples from cinema to make his point:  Riddick’s use of a tea cup as a weapon in The Chronicles of Riddick (2004) and Sean Connery’s speech about how he can kill a man with only his thumb in the Presidio (1988).  Wick then questions how a Dungeon Master or Storyteller would adjudicate the use of those kinds of weapons within a particular system?  “Does [Sean Connery’s thumb] do megadamage?”  is an apt question.  Although that particular situation may not arise during a game, Wick is aiming at a fundamental problem with creating weapon’s lists for an RPG.  Just how much granularity does a list of weapons need?  Should the game system account for every possible weapon and variation on a weapon or merely offer a basic list of possible weapons? 

Vampire:  The Masquerade has probably the shortest weapon’s chart of any modern RPG.  Instead of trying to differentiate amongst an enormous number of handguns, assault rifles, shotguns, knives, and swords, the designers chose to simply use archetypal examples for their weapons.  In VtM, a 9mm Glock has the same stats as a .45 Heckler and Koch pistols or a 9mm Smith & Wesson.  A sword, regardless of its shape or origin has the same stats.  Katana, scimitar, and medieval long sword all do Strength+2 damage.  The player’s imagination and her description of her character’s actions fill in the blanks.  Dungeons & Dragons, conversely, offers a variety of swords:  rapiers, scimitars, long swords, great swords, short swords, and so on.  Each weapon offers different damage types and in earlier editions a character’s weapon even had an effect on her initiative roll, the infamous speed factor trait. 

            Wick calls for the DMs and GMS to remove the offending tables from their games, later recommending taking a Sharpie and obliterating the tables from the page beneath thick black ink.   Is Wick merely being hyperbolic and denouncing weapons tables to draw attention to one of the great dilemmas of game design and game mastering:  simulation versus abstraction?  In other words, how realistic should a game system or a particular campaign be?   Wick’s example of weapons tables stirs controversy which was undoubtedly his intent since that controversy will lead to greater discussion of his point. 

            For a less controversial example, consider how important it is during a D&D campaign for the adventuring party to keep track of their stores of food and water.  Should the players be responsible for tracking their consumption of food and water as they progress in their travels or is that just one more level of bookkeeping that detracts from the overall enjoyment of the game?  The answer to that question is “It depends.”  In a typical medieval fantasy setting such as Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk, tracking food and water is just bookkeeping.  Replenishing their stores is as easy as saying, “My character stops in town and buys food and water and spends 10 gp.”  Does that increase or improve the drama during a session?  Probably not.  In atypical settings such as games set in hostile environments such as Dark Sun’s deserts or an ocean voyage, maintaining stores of food and water add an element of drama to the characters’ travels.  However, if managing food and water doesn’t improve the drama of the game and provide interesting encounters, then that element should be dropped. 

            Wick’s most controversial statement, however, is “the first four editions of Dungeons & Dragons are not role playing games” but rather, “a very sophisticated, intricate, and complicated combat simulation board game that people were turning into a roleplaying game.”  The history of Dungeons & Dragons supports that assertion.  Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons from their medieval war game, Chainmail; whereas most war gaming focused on units, Gygax and Arneson’s contribution was to change the scale of the game and focus on an individual character controlled by a single player.   Yet, D&D retained its combat simulation roots, especially in more recent editions such as D&D 3.0 and D&D 4^th which had many game elements that necessitated the use of a grid mat. 

            Wick offers a simple litmus test for whether or not a game is a “role playing game”:  Can you play the game without role playing?  Or, can players advance through an adventure without actually taking on the roles of their characters and instead simply move their pieces around the board or grid mat no different than games like Dungeonquest?  Wick uses chess as his example for this argument.  Of course, he offers, one could take on the roles of the individual pieces, whether it is a pawn or rook or queen, and make decisions based on the imagined thoughts and feelings of the piece.  Using pieces in this manner would lead to sub-optimal decisions and most likely cause the player to lose the match. 

            Many players and gamemasters have encountered players who approach roleplaying games in the same way that players approach a chessboard; these players seek to make the most optimal decisions:  character creation, leveling up, tactical movement, etc.  They never take into consideration the role and the character that they are playing.  Optimizers, such as these players, research every aspect of the game seeking a way to ensure victory no different than studying books on chess strategy.   Since the advent of the internet, character optimization has exploded with forums offering guides, no different than videogame strategy guides, for how to create the “best” character and ranking character classes based objective power levels.  D&D 3.0 and 3.5 offer the worst examples of this kind of optimization with the continual stacking of base classes and prestige classes without questioning what sort of sense they make or how a character would gain the training in those classes. 

            If Dungeons & Dragons isn’t a roleplaying game, then what is?  Wick has created a working definition of a roleplaying game:  “a game in which the players are rewarded for making choices that are consistent with their character’s motivations or further the plot of the story.”   The definition is system neutral, but Wick doesn’t offer any examples of how players or designers can implement that definition in a game.  The key word in the definition is “reward” but a better word choice might be “positively reinforced.”  The gamemaster or the system reinforces the choices of the players.  The core reward systems for D&D are experience points and treasure which are rewarded when characters defeat monsters or overcome a challenge such as a trap.  Vampire:  The Masquerade rewards players with experience for taking part in the session, playing their character, having their character learn something new, and acting heroically.  Two very different ways of reinforcing the players’ choices. 

            Wick, however, stated that D&D was not a roleplaying game, but he goes on suggest that gamers should modify their preferred system to create an environment that rewards roleplaying rather than skill at a tactical combat simulation.  Here is the paradox at the heart of Wick’s argument.  Any game could be an RPG by simply modifying its rules to reinforce role playing or simply to offer opportunities for roleplaying.  Wick’s examples include changing the initiative system for Vampire the Masquerade which many consider clunky due to its method of requiring players to first roll initiative, then the starting with the person whose initiative is lowest each player declares their action, and finally, actions are resolved starting from the player whose initiative is highest.  D&D Second Edition had a similar system. 

            Wick’s argument stresses the positive reinforcement of roleplaying over maintaining game balance.  Anything that hampers or impedes roleplaying, therefore, should be removed.  Game balance is the most sacred cow of modern gaming.  The days of weak low level wizards slowly outclassing their fighter brethren are gone; now each class, tribe, clan, or archetype must be balanced against all others.  That game balance must be upheld. 

            Anyone familiar with John Wick’s work, especially on Legend of the Five Rings, can see this philosophy in his game design choices.  If you played the first edition of L5R, you’re probably familiar with just how unbalanced the Void Shugenja school was.  The various schools of each clan were not especially well balanced either.  Instead Wick’s design goal with Legend of the Five Rings emphasized the particular flavor of a clan or school which led to some wild imbalances but created opportunities for players to roleplay those clans and schools.  Some schools were extraordinarily powerful, such as the previously mentioned Void Shugenja or just Shugenja in general, and some were comparatively useless (at least terms of optimization, damage potential, etc.).  Other schools, such as the Crane Clan’s Kakita Bushi school were overly specialized in one area, in this case dueling, at the expense of general usefulness. 

            Wick’s final point is probably the most important, and the one big takeaway from his article that should be applicable to everyone who reads it.  In order to get good at roleplaying, you have to roleplay.  He doesn’t mean building characters or generating optimized builds or spell selection or even rolling dice.  He is defining roleplaying as only “the act of taking on the motivations and goals of the player’s character and acting in accord with those goals.”  Like any other skill, whether it is a physical task like throwing a football or something mental like solving a differential equation, only practice improves the skill.  Unfortunately, Wick does not offer any suggestions on how to improve one’s roleplaying skills, but perhaps that is asking too much in an article that Wick later describes as “something I spent about an hour writing, edited quickly, and the put it up for public consumption.”

            I am not quite ready to slay “Game Balance” along with John Wick, but I do agree that role players, myself included, put too much emphasis on game balance when the real goal of an RPG is not to build the best, most powerful character, but to go on a journey as that character, to live vicariously through the character and write collaborative stories with the other players.  Often this point is missed, and by pointing it out, Mr. Wick has written more eloquently than I have about the same points that I have tried to emphasize in this blog. 

            In the future perhaps players shouldn’t look for the best weapon that does the most damage, but instead finding opportunities “kill a man with just a thumb.”  Creating those opportunities requires collaboration between the player and the DM.  The DM must be receptive to the weird and strange ideas of creative players and not punish players for creating a “character” rather than building optimized characters.