The Way of the Dragon Cena: 15.00 €

Way of the Dragon is the first Clanbook of the Legend of the Five Rings oriental fantasy game. It deals with one of the seven great clans, the Dragon.

A pretty bag..

The Book is the most beautiful clan book I have yet read, the art is diverse and exciting. Sure there are some so-so drawings, but some of the other clan books consist of so-so art only. Way of the Dragon is of the same standard as the first edition rulebook when it comes to illustrations.

…Of many Dragon things

Way of the Dragon is a mixed bag of all kind of stuff and so this review, in it’s effort to mention everything, will be somewhat long and messy.

Chapter 1 & 2 introduces us to the basics of the Dragon Clan, it’s secrets, its families and their schools. Here we learn that the Togashi family is not a family at all, but an order of monks, that the Mirumoto family runs the Clan in all but non-metaphysical matters, and we learn of the new Kitsuki family.

I bet it came as a shock to many players that Togashi is not a family. The core rulebook presents them like any other family, and there must be lots of lots of players who have made and played with Togashi bushi and shugenja. But you can only play a Ise zumi monk if you are a Togashi. I don’t know what AEG suppose these players should do about that. AEG obviously knew they were going to make Togashi a non family when they made the 1. edition rulebook, and they should have told the rest of us.

The Mirumoto family section contains a interesting bit about the Niten, the Mirumoto school described in the core book. No new rules, but nice background. This part also contains an treaty on Rokugan armies, focusing on unit structure and officer ranks. The rank breakdown seems to have a flaw in that the author may know his Japanese military structure, but not the military ranks of his own era. According to him I (the real guy writing this review), had a higher rank as a corporal, than my Asahida school rank 1 Doji shugenja (my PC). Well, I did get a special day long course in leadership, but I was still what a Rokugani would call a levied ashigaru. The correct breakdown of rank/glory 1 to 5 should be something like:

Rank 1 Hohei (Corporal or veteran warrior)

Rank 2 Nikutai (Sergeant or elite warrior)

Rank 3 Gunso (Lieutenant)

Rank 4 Chui (Captain)

Rank 5 Taisa (Major)

The Agasha is described as you average mysterious shugenja family. If you wish to play a Agasha you will have to bring most of the mystery yourself though, because they are not really up to anything as a group, beyond poking around in the lab and the library.

The Kitsuki is the only new family (which brings the number of real Dragon families to a swooping 3). They are quite interesting, in that they capture the dragon obsession with Truth, a concept the rest of Rokugan would much rather do without. They have a magistrate school, with detective powers and techniques, all well balanced. For a investigation game they are ideal, and the Kitsuki are one of the high points of the book.

Chapter 3 contains the character building rules. Here we find new advantages, disadvantages and skills, some of which should have been in the core book instead. But none of these are earthshattering, so don’t buy the book just to get them.

Here we also find another high point of the book: Ise Zumi, the tattooed men. They are 100% pure oriental coolness, and you can play each of them a myriad different ways, as they search for Enlightenment, in their own crazy or wise way.

Rules Technically, the Ise Zumi choose their magical tattoos, one to three at character creation, and gets one per rank thereafter. Each of these tattoos gives a special power, and a almost as big drawback, making their use a matter of timing. This is a interesting balancing tool, it looks fun to play, and sets the tattooed men nicely apart form bushi and shugenja. The collection of tattoos fills more than 5 pages. The rules for tattoos are quite simple, and I must say I find them more straight forward than the later Kiho rules from the Way of the Shinsei. If you would like monks in you games but are short on cash, or just prefer easy rules, you could simply make the tattoos into Kiho, and devise your own monk schools and “families” with the Ise Zumi as template.

Another new addition to the L5R rules are the Heritage & Fortune tables. They are a set of tables that the brave can use to create a character. Brave because when you roll these tables everything can happen: you can end up true Ronin or Imperial Magistrate (or both!), you can gain skills, glory, disadvantages, advantages, gear and koku. The GM should also nerves of katana steel for him to let the players roll the Heritage table – any preconceived idea he might have about the campaign will fly out the window as the characters shift families, gets rich, becomes the son of the Daimyo, ronin and the fortunes know what. And it all balances on that the rolls may turn out good as well as bad, so if the GM overrules a bad result he disrupts the game balance…

The heritage tables are filled with good ideas, but I would much rather have seen these ideas expressed as packages of advantages and disadvantages, instead of a brand new rule mechanism. An example on such packages could be:

Contested Land 3 Points

You must have Glory rank 2 to take this. You hold a village producing 1-10 koku surplus a year, but it is not a secure holding.. Choose one: The Peasants are on the edge of revolt due to the previous owners mismanagement. Your little brother is popular at court, and he is making his move to get your land.

Grandfathers Great Deed 3 points

Your Grandfather saved the Daimyo from an assassin! Gain Lore: Ninja 1, and 5 glory boxes.

Hard Times -5 points

Your parents is more or less bankrupt. All your gear is of poor quality, and you have no koku. You may use low and craft skills without losing honor.

Chapter 4 is a listing of some of the major characters in the Dragon Clan. They are pretty high powered both personally and politically, so your average campaign will have little use for them. A couple of them are interesting, but all they really have going is a couple of revenge plots against outsiders. It would have been nice if some of them were planing a coup against each other, or a raid against neighbors, the summoning of the Void Dragon, or anything at all to get those adventures going.

Chapter 5 has sample characters. They are well thought out, both as regard background and rules. I would certainly not be ashamed to play one of them.

Next comes the appendixes:

1: Dragons (the real ones). A short piece with no rules, because no mortal can stand up to a dragon anyway.

2: Kaze-Do, the unarmed combat form of the peasants. Gives L5R a grapple move and a sweep/throw move to supplement Jiujutsu’s strikes.

3: Magic stuff: A single new spell, 4 cool chemical inventions of the Agasha, magic items of the Dragon Clan, potions of the Agasha (most of them are quite dull, if they are the best alchemy in the oriental traditions AEG could come up with, they shouldn’t have bothered. And they are abusive: one potions and you are completely immune to all Fire magic. “Check, mister Shugenja. And mate, I believe.” Why are there both chemistry and alchemy rules and skills? Two different authors and a lazy editor, I would guess).

4: Miscellany. Adventure hooks (ok, but no more). The lands of the Dragon described (no map though). Map of Mirumoto Castle. Endfluff like CCG Dragon decks and commercials: 13 pages.

Sidebars

Throughout the book there are some suitable words of wisdom for monks to quote, and some dragon ancestors (ancestors are advantages, and like other advantages some are worth paying for, others not. Ancestors does have a higher coolness factor than your average advantage, however).

Overall

Instead of some of the new rules (heritage tables and potions) and the 13 pages of endfiller, Way of the Dragon would have been served with some more useful stuff. Like a map of the Dragon provinces, some new spells for Agasha (so their shugenja could fell a little more special), and some conflicts that the Dragon clan are or will be involved in – as it is now I just can’t see many adventures involving those high power characters that takes up 14 pages of the book. Sure, some of them spend their time doing nothing in a mysterious kind of way, as is a Dragon’s wont. But all of them?

On the upside the Ise Zumi and the Kitsuki are great, and the stuff on the Mirumoto is quite solid, giving a good feel of this family and its school.

Usefulness

GM’s and players into Kitsune, Mirumoto and monks: High.

For players who have already made a Togashi samurai: Rock bottom.

For people interested in the dynamics of Rokugan in general: Low/medium (The Dragon clan is heavy in metaphysics, but not active in other areas).

For players of other rpg games: low (this book have ideas of universal usefulness, but they are too few to justify the price).