r/l5r

The last time I played L5R was before the pandemic hit, and we only had gotten started. The same friend-group does not play anymore, and everyone else I know rather plays other games.
I’ve been yearning for years now, but I don’t even know where to look for a group?

When cribbing the affiliations for the custom school do I list them in historical context.

I.E. the Sparrow school affiliations would be Crane, Sparrow, Three Man Alliance, and Minor Clan Alliance depending on era. The Hida Pragmatist would be Crab, Badger, Scorpion(all hail the pinche alliance), and Boar.

Or is it just fluff?

Wondering if anyone has ever attempted to convert the Feast mini-game from Chaosium's Pendragon rpg into one appropriate for the Rokugan setting?

For those unfamiliar with Pendragon, during a Feast mini-game, the players can choose a variety of base activities (Flirting, Gaming, Indulge, Intrigue) each with their own consequences and rewards, or to risk greater rewards/problems by choosing to Draw a feast card. The cards are usually the highlight of the mini-game, as they introduce some wild events and great opportunities for RP. Some examples include "A Test of Strength" in which an NPC knight challenges one of the PCs to a contest or "A Love Poem" in which an NPC knight is trying (and failing) to compose for his lady and asks one of the PCs to help him out.

Obviously there are large differences between medieval European and Japanese feasts, but a bit of research opened up some interesting possibilities:

- Feasts began with Honzen Ryori which was a formal, structured, strict part of the feast. Sedate compared to the stereotypical European version. During this section, the shikisankon, a formal three rounds of drinks were served.

- Following the drinks, the host would announce bureiko or a time in which formal social rank was broken or ignored. This allowed samurai to be loud drunks with each other without fear of political issues. This usually devolved over the course of the night and ended up with a lot of loud entertainment like poetry battles, impromptu plays where samurai acted out the various parts in well known stories, etc.

In the Pendragon version of feasts, players can gain or lose Honor or Glory based on their activities during the mini-game. This seems just as appropriate for a L5R version.

Has anyone attempted this before? Thoughts? I've noticed a number of the published L5R adventures, including the Tournament of the Topaz Champion and Murder at Kyotei Castle feature a feast scene, but the adventure just basically says "the characters have a feast here and this happens", and leave it at that.

Thanks for any opinions or advice!

As I'm getting ready to start my own 4e campaign, I'm looking at the rules for Iaijutsu duels and I'm ... not impressed. I'm finding that I vastly prefer the 3e rules and want to use those.

Here's some context: I've run and participated in a number of 3e duels. I have yet to be involved in any way with one using the 4e rules.

The sticking point for me is mostly the rules for the 3rd round (focus/strike). As the 4e handbook itself states the rules have been "streamlined and simplified, doing away with the need to spend endless time rolling Focus attempts."

First off, I wouldn't describe the rolling of Focus attempts to be "endless". They're capped at least by one of the participants Void ring. I also find that the rolling of these Focus attempts simulates and builds the kind of tension that you see in other samurai media when two duelists are facing off and one flinches first.

It feels like the 4e rules just go "dueling is boring, let's break it down to a quick 3 rolls and be done."

Again though, I haven't run a duel with the 4e rules. Those of you with more experience between the two, please enlighten me if I'm not seeing it correctly.

So the castle of the wasp, prior to 1107 in the old timeline is a Scorpion clan holding, serving as their first bastion against Lion incursion, east of the Spine of the World mountain range.

The issue of Tsuruchi’s not being trained in a scorpion school, his heritage, and a number of other issues lead Bayushi Shogu to order the assassination of the entire family, possibly in collaboration with the lion.

1107 roles around, Tsuruchi’s parents die, his uncle betrays him, and the lion seize the castle for a few years.

My question is, did the Scorpion and Lion collaborate on the gempukku massacre, or did they both seize the same opportunity of the Gempukku as access and means to send a message? Because if they collaborated, I find it dubious if the Scorpion would
cede the castle, meaning the lion double cross the Scorpion, which would be a interesting twist, but one the Scorpion could easily also escalate.

This whole event is one of the catalysts of the Lion-Crane war that runs well into clan war era, so I am trying to parse out some of the motivations and details that the wikis do not have.

Thinking about trying to convert the old 1e Ancestor Doji Suzume ability of Rolling one more die on a lore/social/oratory skill check but the gm rolls a secret die on a 1 or a 10 the characters remarks will be interpreted in a way directly opposite to their intent (for example, a witty remark might lead to your expulsion from your clan). To make matters worse, at least half of the listeners will usually find the unintended meaning of the character's words extraordinarily brilliant. Either as the primary school ability(dinking around with the custom school creation rules for funsies) or as a passion/ anxiety hybrid.

Making it a school ability maintains the long tradition of the Sparrow Clan being delightfully bad.

As a passion anxiety thing i would just homebrew a rule that if you pick the passion you default to the anxiety.

Hello! I've been writing a blog on L5R 4e since earlier this year, focusing on new mechanics I've been using in my own games. My new blog post is about what the title says, removing all Bushi techniques that give Simple Action Attacks.

The link is: https://jadecrows.blogspot.com/2026/06/altered-combat-stances-and-maneuvers.html