House of the Jade Lantern

You may have heard; you may have noticed.

Legend of the Five Rings is being republished in its new Second Edition. The core rulebook – which has been sold out for some time – is being reissued in two volumes: a Player’s Guide and a Game Master’s Guide. The basic cover for the Player’s Guide is shown at the right (the only image on this site, we might add, which has been…ahem…liberated from AEG).

And, yes, the Player’s Guide has arrived. The Master – lucky monk that he is – picked himself up a copy only two days ago. The Game Master’s Guide is soon to follow (January, perhaps).

As befits a 2nd edition, there have been some changes … Read the rest of this entry »

Players spend a great deal of time detailing their characters; indeed, one could say that players know them intimately. In the Master’s humble opinion, it is the goal of most, if not all, players to create living, breathing characters with depth and detail. Some succeed; some do not…

NPCs (non-player characters) represent all the characters within your Rokugan other than those of the players’. Given the countless hordes of such NPCs in the average L5R campaign, how exactly does an ST ensure that they are all flavorful and distinct. And indeed, should they be? Couldn’t we just get tea from a plain old server at the tea house and be on with it anyway?

In short: no. Read the rest of this entry »