Geography
This section of the book is quite long and probably should have been put into another book entirely, one that covered Rokugan’s geography and history. This chapter consists of pages and pages of locations keyed to a map, with a few NPC statblocks to break up the monotony. These locales are simultaneously too long and too short; too long because it covers irrelevant crap no one cares about (several hundred years ago, X happened!) but at the same time it doesn’t go into enough detail for a DM to actually run an adventure (no population sizes listed for towns, no encounter charts, etc.).
Each clan has at least two statblocks listed but exactly what role those NPCs play seems entirely random. Sometimes you get stats for the clan champion or a general and other times it’s just some guy. Most of the clan champions hover around CR 10 and the daimyos are all CR 15+ but the worst have to be the quartet of NPCs vying for the throne (the current emperor died recently). Every single one of them is level 20, without exception. The first penis extension NPC is notable for having most of his levels in Courtier and less HP than his Shugenja brother. This fucker has 146 hit points! That’s low enough to be vulnerable to Power Word Stun! The other two NPCs are a straight level 20 Samurai and a Fighter/Samurai. That should give you an idea of the general quality of optimization on display here (the aforementioned Shugenja specializes in fire) but I was also amused to find at least two Shugenja NPCs with Rings of Wizardry. That item only works for arcane casters, Shugenja are divine casters, they don’t benefit from wearing them. Stupid fucks…
But the takeaway from this is most named NPCs are level 9+, with a couple that are level 7, and
very few that were lower than that. Obviously, someone didn’t want any dirty, nasty, players interfering with their precious
penis inserts NPCs. Of course, this makes overthrowing the bastards in charge (nominally) difficult. But I strongly suspect anyone on this board could easily put together a caster that mop the floor with these assholes, no problem.
Another problem is there are very few villainous NPCs for the party actually fight and by that, I mean people that were
intentionally designed to be antagonists. I really only saw two suitable villains, an evil Maho caster called the Dark Daughter (CR 18) and the current Oni Lord of the Shadowlands (CR 25). Who exactly are the PCs expected to be fighting? Monsters? Maho cultists that the DM is probably going to have make statblocks for? All these high-level NPCs only make it harder to justify why the party should be going after anyone threatening instead of one of these DM penis inserts. This is doubly the case since I strongly suspect that the authors made the bad guys so high CR is because they wanted their pet NPCs to kill them in a story event rather than actual players. This shit is toxic and plagues the TTRPG industry.
Deities and Cosmology
Rokugan’s cosmology was obviously not designed with the spell Plane Shift in mind because they advanced the idea that some realms are “jealous” and therefore difficult to leave. Of course, no mechanics are given to explain how this is supposed to work. The way you’re supposed to enter these planes is via walking to a section of the material plane that’s connected to them. Flavorful? Yes. Compatible with the high magic of D&D? Not in the fucking least. This chapter is short and largely useless. Would it have been so difficult to provide an encounter chart for each realm? As it is, I feel like that ten planes (including the prime material) seems kind of excessive. D&D is worse, sure, but that’s no excuse for Rokugan to fuck up.
The next part of this chapter covers religion but a lot of it is just repeated from other chapters. One cool aspect of Rokugan is the setting is animist, so spirits inhabit just about every object in the world, no matter how big or small. Then the chapter goes into its creation myth, which is basically just the myth of Cronus and I can’t bring myself to care… The only thing of interest here is the evil god of evil, Fu Leng, creator of the Shadowlands. But Fu Leng is dead at this point in canon and he doesn’t get a statblock. In fact, none of these assholes get statblocks, which seems like a missed opportunity to me.
The next section talks about sin. Okay, I’m curious, does anyone know if sin is an inherently western concept? I honestly don’t know. The “sins” in Rokugan’s religion are fear, desire, regret and doubt.
The last two sins are taint and being unclean. The only example given of the latter is touching a dead body. The book then talks about penance and aside from a jab at superstitious peasants, there’s little of interest here. The last part of this chapter talks about dragons but mostly just rehashes what the previous section on religion told us. There are elemental dragons, they’re badass, they don’t get stats. The usual bullshit.
History of Rokugan
This chapter is nothing but a summary of major events occurring in the setting, stretching back over a thousand years. Given my unfamiliarity of
Legend of the Five Rings, this comes off most as just gibberish to me and I couldn’t tell you much about the accuracy of the lore here. I did want to call attention to this bit, though.
Rokugan Campaign Setting wrote:Master of the Water Isawa Kaiyoko magically teleports eight Shiba bushi into the war tent of the Lion to kill general Matsu Uniri and his wife Yunaki. The Phoenix failed fail to account for the couple’s daughter, however, and ten-year old Matsu Tsuko save her mother’s life by crushing the throat of the final Phoenix Assassin with a wooden practice sword.
Stuff like this reinforces the impression that Rokugan is a rather low powered setting. It fundamentally is a setting where relatively normal people swinging around sharpened pieces of metal can have a huge impact on the course of history. Am I wrong?
Organizations
This is the last proper chapter in the book but there are also five appendices. I tend to find organization chapters really boring in RPG books, at least this one is short. Most of these organizations have been covered in one form or another, but they also give typical example statblocks of each.
The Emerald Magistrates, the ones who enforce laws, are given a CR 10 character as an example of a typical member. To me, this translates as, “Better keep in line motherfucker, or a squad of level 10 dudes will fuck your shit up!”
We finally get a write up about Bloodspeakers, a Maho cult and their typical member is a level 3 NPC. That’s more reasonable and I expect any low-level campaign in Rokugan would be centered around fighting these assholes. Of course, the listed NPC can’t cast magic, despite being in a blood magic cult…
The section of Ronin Brotherhoods browbeats us with the notion that being a ronin is a bleak, nihilistic existence of woe. Which seems pretty strange, since the archetype is, as far as I can tell, pretty damn popular for protagonists. Maybe this supposed to be emo bait or something? A typical Ronin is a level 4 Fighter. Not awful.
The Kolat are a group that apparently thinks the aristocracy are assholes and want to overthrow them, replacing them with a meritocracy. Naturally, the book has to assure us they’re all horrible, mean, poopy heads who can only survive via extreme secrecy. A typical member is level 7.
The chapter then covers monks (a typical monk is level 4) and then talks about ninjas. Ninjas are needlessly complicated in Rokugan. Because while we do have traditional ninjas and your more realistic depiction (AKA spies), there are also ninja monsters that were spawned by the Lying Darkness. These ninjas had no names and no faces. We get little in the way of detail besides that, probably because they’re supposed to all be dead at this point. Or something, the text isn’t that clear.
So, what does this chapter tell us? My takeaway, at least, is that if you’re level 1 in Rokugan, you’re a chump. We don’t get stats for typical bandits or anything but the weakest NPC I saw in this entire book was level 3. This only convinces me more that the people who wrote the Rokugan Campaign Setting were more interested in their pet NPCs than providing appropriate challenges for players. I’m getting a distinct, “Don’t you
dare try to do anything important, you munchkin!” vibe from this book.
Appendix 1: Magic Items
All the magic items here are unique and almost universally weaksauce. The first one listed is a +2 Keen dagger. We established that Rokugan is a low magic setting and this appendix does nothing to dissuade that. In all honesty, the approach to magic item design here reminds me more of Call of Cthulhu than D&D. Or maybe they’re intended for better than you NPCs…
Appendix 2: Monsters
There are a grand total of three monsters in this section. Speaking as someone who loves monsters, this annoys me greatly. Especially given how important they are to D&D as a whole, having so few is inexcusable. The first monster is the Kansen, AKA the fuck you ghost you can accidently summon. This thing is basically a slightly weaker Allip but instead of babbling, it has a weak Charm Person effect (DC 10). Of course, a CR 2 incorporeal monster that can deal WIS damage is fucking horrible, but don’t worry, the
Rokugan Campaign Setting outdoes itself with the Mujan. A CR 1 incorporeal monster with DR 50/+5!!! I think this might be one of the most overpowered monsters in all of d20, good fucking god! The only other monster here is the Free Ogre, which is just a CR 5 beatstick.
The next appendix is about converting L5R characters to d20, the one afterwards is a reading list and the last is a glossary. I feel no need to cover any of them.
Final Thoughts
Rokguan has to be one of the worst RPG settings I’ve ever seen. It’s not as bad as
Exalted, but that’s damning it with faint praise indeed. The grimderp, the in-fighting between the clans, the high-level NPCs, the low magic and low power level… It’s just the perfect cocktail of awful, especially for a D&D setting. Like a lot of intended settings for D&D, Rokugan cannot handle the insanity that is mid to high level play. Not an uncommon problem, by any means, but it’s a problem all the same. Even the Shugneja class can easily crack Rokugan open like an egg, to say nothing of the Sorcerer.
Which is a shame. Because I like the
idea of Rokugan. Fantasy Asia is a cool concept. I like the idea of a giant wall to keep out Mordor. I like the idea of a Crab clan that mans said wall and everyone thinks they’re rude because they spend all their time learning to fight instead of tea ceremonies. I like the Shugenja, they’re a really flavorful class. I like the animism. But Rokugan as it is in L5R is beyond fixing, all that’s worth stealing is the broad strokes. The setting itself is too toxic to justify doing anything more than burning it down and starting over with the fundamentals.
But this book also suffers from bad crunch, at least some of which is the result of the authors not understanding the system they’re writing for. I’m honestly not sure if it’s worse than
the Kingdoms of Kalamar book I did an OSSR of, but for sure it’s in the same category of terrible.
