Roleplaying game

4
Introduction
Introduction
Welcome to the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game Beta Playtest
The Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game development team wel-
comes you to the open beta playtest! For over twenty years, Rokugan has 
been home to fantastical and dramatic tales featuring the samurai of the 
seven Great Clans. Now, we invite you to gather your friends, play the 
game of twenty questions, and return to the Emerald Empire to tell new 
stories of triumph and tragedy.
We here on the development team invite you to join us in the pro-
cess of creating the best Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying experience 
possible. This beta rulebook is a fully functional game that provides 
players and game masters with the tools they need to play countless ses-
sions of Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying. However, it is important to 
note that many elements of the beta are not representative of the final 
product. Many of the character options (including schools, techniques, 
advantages, and disadvantages), as well as game master advice, artwork, 
and setting information have been removed to provide a more concise 
playtesting experience.
Once you’ve finished creating characters, the fastest way to begin 
playing is to purchase the Legend of the Five Rings Dice App, available on 
the App Store and Google Play. The Legend of the Five Rings Dice App 
is a comprehensive physics-based dice roller that can be used to roll the 
custom six- and twelve-sided dice used in the game, as well as the ten-
sided dice occasionally used during character creation. The app allows 
you to manually change die faces, group dice, display total results, and 
explode dice, as well as create custom presets for any combination of dice. 
Alternatively, the Dice Sheet included on page 233 can be printed out 
on sticker paper and attached to normal six- and twelve-sided dice. If 
you don’t have sticker paper, gluing the paper die faces works just as well. 
You’ll probably want to create at least five of each type of die to get start-
ed. Spraying these with a bit of transparent dull-coat (found at most hob-
by stores and friendly local game stores) will help keep the stickers on.
After you’ve had a chance to try out the system (we recommend 
running through the included adventure, “A Rōnin’s Path” on page 207, 
to get a feel for the four major types of conflict scenes as well as the new 
paradigm for investigations), there are three main methods for you to 
submit your feedback. First, we have a public forum on the FFG website: 
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/forum/537-legend-of-the-five-
rings-roleplaying-game-beta/
. You can use this board to post questions 
and discuss the beta test with the other people involved. Second, you can 
submit any specific reports or feedback directly to the development team 
at the beta test email address (
[e-mail]
). 
When submitting your feedback via email, it is most helpful to us if you 
consolidate all of your questions and comments into a single document 
for your entire group, waiting to send it in until you have collected all 
related feedback into a single document. This will help the development 
team here more easily organize and process all of your comments. Third, 
the development team will occasionally post surveys to help us aggregate 
specific feedback and data points. You will also have the chance to vote for 
additional preview mechanics through social media!
The best way to get news updates from the Legend of the Five Rings 
RPG team, such as when updates are released or when new surveys are 
available, is to 
sign up for our mailing list
. In doing so, you’ll also have a 
chance to receive a signed copy of the final product!
We would like to include a note as to what constitutes useful feed-
back. The sort of information that is most useful to us is specific, well 
considered, and concise. Good feedback states the issue at hand and ac-
curately cites page numbers related. It can pertain to rules contradictions, 
typographical inconsistencies, or even experiential problems that arose 
in gameplay, but the more specific it is, the better we can implement it. 
Reports that include not just an overview of the problem, but also the 
circumstances and reasons that it might have occurred are most valuable. 
We will be adding weekly updates to our website as the testing progresses.
To close, we would like to extend our sincerest thanks to you for your 
enthusiasm and your diligence during the beta playtest. Your feedback is 
incredibly valuable to us, and we thank you for helping us in making this 
game the best it can possibly be. We hope you enjoy this document and 
have many great adventures in the Emerald Empire.
Happy gaming,
The Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game Team 
October 2017

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5
Introduction
Welcome to Roleplaying in the Emerald Empire
It is an era of sudden change and upheaval in Rokugan. Mortal schemes, 
natural calamities, and celestial turmoil alike have disrupted the political, 
military, and spiritual equilibrium of the land. Long-simmering rivalries 
and fresh betrayals ripple through the courts and on the battlefield. The 
Chrysanthemum Throne is beset by threats from without and within, and 
the honor of the seven Great Clans shall be put to the test. Who among 
the clans will prove strong enough to guide Rokugan in these tumultuous 
times? Will their names be lifted up beside those of the honored ancestors, 
or will they fall among the ranks of the Empire’s most infamous villains?
In the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game, players take on the 
roles of individual samurai whose honor and loyalty will be put to the 
test. These samurai serve their lords as warriors, courtiers, priests, or 
monks and embark on adventures filled with drama, suspense, humor, 
romance, and horror. All the while, they must grapple with their human 
emotions and choose between following their heart’s desire or doing what 
society—and the Code of Bushidō—demands of them. These personal 
stories of triumph and tragedy will reverberate across the Emerald Em-
pire and shape the very future of Rokugan.
The Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game provides players and 
game masters with the tools to tell stories of samurai drama within the 
Emerald Empire. The following pages contain rules for creating char-
acters sworn to serve one of the seven Great Clans and for running 
game sessions filled with intrigue and conflict. A wide variety of skills, 
techniques, passions, flaws, and more allow players to customize their 
character mechanically and narratively. The custom dice mechanics en-
able players to contribute to the unfolding story and determine whether 
their character succeeds, by how much, and how much it will cost them. 
And the fantastical feudal setting of Rokugan provides a rich tapestry of 
majesty and wonder where these stories can unfold.
The Code of Bushidō
The Way of the Warrior, or Bushidō, elevates samurai from the rest of so-
ciety while also chaining them to near-unattainable ideals. Samurai must 
embody righteousness and honor, loyalty and duty, and courtesy and 
compassion, as well as courage in the face of death. A samurai is expected 
to uphold these virtues in their every word and deed, even when these 
ideals conflict with one another. 
A samurai’s reputation for adhering to the Code of Bushidō reflects 
not only on the individual, but upon that samurai’s household, family, 
and clan. Should they prove unable to live up to these expectations, only 
ritualized suicide can wash away the stain to their honor. According to 
Bushidō, there is no room in a samurai’s life for anything that would get 
in the way of these ideals. Love and ambition, pride and greed—even 
happiness—are to be sacrificed for the sake of Bushidō. Yet, samurai 
are still human, made from the mingling of Lady Sun’s order and Lord 
Moon’s chaos. The tenets of Bushidō would not be ideals to strive to-
ward if they were easy to realize in daily life. Characters in Rokugan are 
measured by their own faith in, and devotion to, the Code of Bushidō 
through their honor rank.
The Samurai’s Struggle
Many Rokugani plays have been written chronicling the impossible choices 
facing a samurai as their human feelings, or ninjō, conflict with their 
obligations to society, or giri. Those things that would get in the way of 
Bushidō are real and meaningful forces in a samurai’s life, and it is the rare 
soul who can resist their call completely. The stories and the drama of the 
Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game revolve around the tension 
between these two conflicting forces. One of the fundamental choices a 
player must make during character creation is to select opposing ninjō and 
giri to represent a samurai’s inner desire and the external demands placed 
upon them by their lord and by fate. Whether a samurai chooses happiness 
or duty in a given moment has narrative and mechanical consequences not 
only for themself, but for all of the Emerald Empire. When they serve their 
lord with distinction, tales of their glories may spread to the corners of the 
Empire or even be recorded for the ages. A samurai’s fame and reputation 
for service is measured by their glory rank.
The Way of Five Rings
At the dawn of civilization, when humanity looked to understand the 
surrounding creation, the greatest philosophers determined that the 
world was composed of the five elements: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and the 
Void that holds the other elements together. These elements, also called 
rings, were represented in the sacred spirits of the land and the natural 
world, but also in society and the human psyche. Air is the weather and 
the wind, the invisible and the innuendo, and the swiftness of a bird of 
prey. Earth is stone, wood, and metal, as well as a donkey’s stubbornness 
and a tortoise’s patience. Fire is the gentle warmth of the sun or the rage 
of a wildfire, but also the spark of innovation, the passion of devotion, 
and the ferocity of a wildcat. Water is an octopus’s adaptability and flex-
ibility; it takes the shape of its container, be it a puddle, river, or endless 
sea. Void is the emptiness of the night sky or nirvana, at once present and 
transcendent. 
Sensei across Rokugan teach samurai-in-training to observe and ex-
press these different elements in all that they do. In the Legend of the Five 
Rings Roleplaying Game, characters are defined by their strength in differ-
ent elements. This strength is represented mechanically with a numeric 
value on a scale of one to six, called a character’s ring value. In every task 
they undertake, they must choose an elemental approach, and the suit-
ability of one approach over another can give them the edge they need or 
diminish their chance of succeeding.
The World of the Samurai
In Rokugan, it is said that honor is stronger than steel. While even the 
finest blade can bend and break or twist under the heat of the forge, the 
Emerald Empire’s society has been folded in the forges of politics and war 
for more than a thousand years, and it has not yet broken. The society of 
Rokugan follows a divinely ordered pattern set down by the eight Kami, 
who shared their celestial blessings with the mortal realm. Rokugan is a 
land of strict social stratification, where an improper look at the wrong 
time can mean death. On, or face—the concept of a samurai’s stoicism 
and outward self-control—is paramount in Rokugan. To lose one’s face is 
to lose one’s status and reputation in society, and potentially one’s life. 
The root of the word samurai is, literally, “one who serves.” The samu-
rai rule the Emerald Empire as nobles and lords, but they also serve 
others—whether the people of Rokugan below or those samurai who sit 
as lords above them. Most samurai fall into one of three broad catego-
ries: bushi, who train their martial skill; courtiers, who engage in deadly 
political games; and shugenja, who serve as priests and conduits between 
the mortal and sacred realms.
Government and Power
Rokugan is a feudal society: all of the land belongs to the Emperor, who 
bestows the rights of stewardship on champions and daimyō within the 
Great Clans, who in turn pass on the tasks of administration to lesser-
ranked samurai.

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