City of Lies- Musings

So here are the thoughts that didn't really fall on any specific post or that only clicked after finishing the whole thing:

• Again Stolze introduces hitherto unknown families. The Jitsuyoteki, Shosuro vassals, whose sole representant feels quite interesting and could hae been developed further in my opinion. Were I to run City of Lies today I would place him in the place of Gate/Kado, and relegate a ronin to a bouncer role in one of the teahouses. The Hoji, Mantis vassals are also introduced and forgotten until I pointed out their existence and one of the notable L5R fans, Okuma, took a special liking to them, and managed to play one in the first AEG official Winter Court PbP. It goes without saying the Ashidaka were also introduced here.
• There are a lot of hints and tidbits. I disliked the handling of the Kolat, but we have Lord Moon's cult introduced and a Naga cult. Iwill be coming back to Asako Kinto when reading Way of the Naga.
• The rumor mill is an interesting tool from the location guide, and it can probably be used with little modification in any city setting.

All in all, this box set as passed the test of time well. It's an incrediby useful tool for the GM and one of the examples of how an adventure module should be done.

City of Lies- City of Green Walls

"Rokugan's most elegant cesspit; a monster of beauty, a seductive lie cast in limestone and gold,l atreacherous maiden whose loveliness is exceeded only by her brutality- that is my home. Ryoko Owari is a grand tombstone for dead honor, where decadent childrencaper and rejoice in their unholy freedom. I could live nowhere else."

This is the companion to the GM guide. If the GM Guide is the meat of the set than this is the skeleton.

Or maybe it's the other way around...

Anyhow, this is the location guide for Ryoko Owari.

It's divided in six chapters corresponding to each quarter, Fisherman's, Leatherworker's, Merchant, Temple, Licensed and Noble Quarter.

This is pretty much the continuation of the GM guide, and the only failing I found is one that will be repeated in later AEG books.

The included adventure Yemon's Legacy is divided thoughout the different chapters, und unlike in the later books it's not in order, ie part 1 is followed by part 2. It's not a serious flaw, but it is a needless burden placed on the GM.

City of Lies- GM's Guide to Ryoko Owari

This is where the meat of the box set is.

It starts by detailing the city power groups, like the Thunder Guard, the Opium Cartels, including rules for addiction and overdose, the firemen gangs, and the assorted threats from the player's guide as well as a few new one's.

The inclusion of addiction and overdose rules surprised me because at the time I droped L5R AEG was on a strict PG policy, and even earlier there were a few such decisions like Mirror, Mirror, not being published. Frankly, while I can understand the reasons for such policy I think they rarely work as intended if at all.

Example of a PG appropriate picture.

The worst problem is the double standard and lack of transparency often contained in those kind of policies.

Apparently serious, responsible discussion of such things as drug addiction or sex are verboten, however graphic depiction of violence, like the picture on the leftt, used extensively in advertising material at the time are ok, as are titilating cheesecake illustration.

Join the specific problems of Rokugan as a PG setting, with its highlighted xenofobia, Evil is Good factions

And we probably shouldn't mention the possibility of using inclusive language in the face of it's lack in 3rd and 4th editions. By the way, Shosuro Gobei the only known homssexual character in Rokugan also make is sole appearence here.

We move on to the secrets of the characters from the player's guide. Extensive and detailed, with some shockers along the way. If the players play their cars right in dealing with the NPCs they may gain acess to Ashidaka Noritoki's journal, which is a handout booklet. Suffice to say it shows the deceased magistrate was not a very good person. I'm still scratching my head on who J. is though. It's clearly not Shosuro Jocho, but I guess it's not important.

Of note is many off-track mechanical tidbits are included. In Kitsuki Jotomon we find the prototype for advanced school. Ample with his Two-Way Throw and Fade's Bushido's a Joke are proto-paths or maybe kata. The first two techniques of the Otaku Battlenaidesn also make their first appearence. Clearly L5R was on an intensive schedule at this point, something that Yeamon's Legacy also illustrates.

After NPC secrets we have the GM advice section. Detailed and effective, I have taken an inordinate amount of like for the attitude chart. It's the kind of tool that should be a part of any campaign where PCs are supposed to have some kind of social weight. There are also extra CFS on of which is developed nearly into an adventure outline.

Finally we have one of the complete adventures included, in this case the Opium War. It is an excellent adventure, except for a tiny detail which can't be blamed upon the author, but rather on the line editor, and which illustrates a problem that often affected L5R in the 1st Edition.

The Kolat.

Or rather the fact that Greg Stolze was clearly told to include the Kolat in the adventure, but was refused detailed information on what the Kolat was. Naturally what he hints at is completely incompatible with what was later revealed.

This was something that was very present in 1st Edition, with metaplot information, particularly on the Kolat and Shadow, being strung along the supplements so that if someone was interested in some part of the metaplot having to buy multiple books, with the ocasional bait and switch thrown in for good measure. If the info wasn't incompatible it wouldn't be so bad, for instance the other adventure includes a prop that is tie in to The Tomb of Iuchiban, but at some point one has to wonder why bother if there isn't going to be some overarching continuity?

The Opium War is an egregious case, because it works perfectly without the Kolat. In fact I would say it works better without the Kolat.

Having said that I would like to find out if the Knots of the Lawgivers are triumphant was something Stolze came up with himself or was something indicated from above. I'll be keeping an eye out for it when reading The Merchant Guide to Rokugan.

City of Lies- City of Stories

City of Stories is the player's guide to Ryoko Owari.

It is fully intended to be acessible to the player, so it is completely writen from an in-world point of view.

It can be roughly divided in five parts, altough the book only recognizes four; the charter of the Emerald Magistrates, wherein the privileges and obligations of the Emerald magistrates are detailed, general information on the city's history and organization, more detailed information on locations within the city, information on important NPCs, and a letter from Doji Satsume detailing the more pressing threats to order in the city.

The travelogue section themselves are a compilation "made" by Asako Anjo from four sources; a dossier prepared by former magistrate Matsu Shigeko for her sucessor, the pillowbook "Memoirs of an Opium Eater", "A History of Ryoko Owari" and "A Visitor's Guide to Ryoko Owari" (seriously).

I would have liked to see "Memoirs of an Opium Eater" as an independent book, organized chonologically, but this device works very well as it is. The entries are informative, but at the same time have enough meat to them to have the players second guessing them and fuel paranoia.

The charter of the Emerald Magistrates also had me thinking about some of the advantages of electronic publishing for some nich products.

As it is the charter is whitin the player's guide, but it could have been included as a detached book or sheet for ease of photocopying, and these day it is something that would make a superb web enhancement on PDF. I'd love to see it printed on scroll paper, specially those with coarser fibers that you can find in craft stores these days.

I'm expecting to reference this book alot while reading the GM guide of course, which will be next.

City of Lies- Overview

"In many ways, a reliable criminal is preferable to an unpredictable hero"

I come to the read through of City of Lies with two vivid memories:

1. City of Lies was the best L5R supplement ever.
2. City of Lies is one of the best RPG products ever.

The last time I picked it up was some 4-5 years ago, so it will be interesting to see how this changes things, if at all.

First of all, this is a boxed set, it come in a nicebox, altough a bit too small. The contents don't swim around in the box, but it is a tight fit.

The contents are the following:

• An introductory booklet.
• A black and white map of Ryoko Owari.
• A poster map of Rokugan. On one side in color with clan borders, but nothing else, and on the other side black and white, with location names and an hex grid.
• A player's Book.
• A GM Guide.
• A Location Guide.
• The Journal of Ashidaka Noritoki.

The  introductory booklet perfectly executs what it sets out to do. It gives an overview of the Box's content as well as of the design objectives behind it, gives an overview of the city, including the power-players, gives a summary of the included adventures, and suggest alternate campaigns. I'd be hard-pressed to find a better introduction to any product.

The map of Ryoko Owari is also a nice poster.

Finally we have the map of Rokugan. As far as poster map gos it's the prettiest map of Rokugan. I would like to see locations marked in the color section, or that it was a direct copy of the rulebook map, but it is my only quibble with it.

On the back of the color map is the black and white version with the hex grid. This one does have the locations marked.

Recently I've considered using it as a basis for a wargaming campaign, and I think it is certainly workable in that role.

The next few posts I'll make will detail the main books, with Noritoki's Journal being read along the most appropriate book.

Honor's Veil

Honor's Veil was the first adventure module published for the L5R RPG.

It consisted of two adventures and s small supplement on poison.

The first thing one notices is that this is not a standard book, but rather a paper booklet between a detached card cover.

I don't understand why this choice, because, despite the existence of a flow chart for each adventure inside the cover, they are layed out in a way which perfctly allows standard staple binding.

I suppose the cover might be used as an impromptu screen this way...

The first adventure Murder at Kyotei Castle is a tipical revenge tale. It's a fine adventure, altough I have a slight dislike on the set-up for involving the players. The Special Magistrate idea is workable, but in my opinion only if there is some kind of Imperial mediation going on for example. Or you can go with the standard Emerald Magistrate setup and be done with it. Murder of a Daimyo might be easily seen as a crime against the Emperor after all.

Of particular not is the fact that neither this adventure, nor the titular Honor's Veil require any combat to handle.

Other thing that caught my eye was how much freedom the writers had at this point to create or add families and clans. In the GM pack there were the Kochako, and I think the Hare clan was also a new creation. At Murder we have the Tsume (which Wick misnames as Asano in Honor's), the Damasu, the Goseki (misspelled as Goskei), and the Nasu as well. I don't know if this is the same Nasu family that was later made into a Phoenix vassal or if that was only a coincidence.

The second adenture is more labyrinthine but also very interesting. It is setup as a magistrate adventure from the get go altough I think it works bet if the PCs are already retainers of Matsu Ino or Crane representatives.

However I'm also afraid it might have consolidated that testimony is all that matters in Rokugani court.

Finally we have a section on poison creation and application, with five example poisons, that was to be included and expanded upon on Way of the Scorpion . It's elegant and complete which is a big plus in my book.

To round things up there 6 pages with portraits of NPCs and maps of the adventure areas.

Frankly I was always one that thought that art in RPGs was extraneous, but the more I think about it the more I realize it isn't. Sure that no art is better than bad art, and good art doesn't mean sparkly gloss color ilustrations.

The character portraits help bring the NPCs alive and the maps are just pretty.

 In hindsight I believe these are actually better starting adventures than Ceremony of the Samurai from the corebook.

The Scorpion

Like I've said a few days ago, I've aquired a few of the L5R novels I didn't had and I've been reading them all, starting with the Scorpion.

The Scorpion is the first of the seven novels dedicated to the Clan War.

It actually deals with the Scorpion Clan Coup rather than with the Clan War proper, with focus on Bayushi Shoju's character.

It's a fairly decent novel, but while I remember enjoying it it doesn't seem to have aged that well.

The writing flows, and characterization is well done. Manipulation scenes are, in my opinion, nearly impossible to do believably, but Kachiko's manipulation of Hatsuko works well enough.

As a bonus point, there is a new family mentioned, the Inoshiro. Unfortunately their affiliation is not explicited, but they seem to be Crane, or possibly Seppun vassals.

Where I think The Scorpion fails is in the managemento of time. The entire planning and execution of the coup feels like it has occured within a period of about 3-4 months which broke my ssupension of disbelief this time around.

I wasn't entirely happy on how the magical aspect of the setting was handled either. It's clear that Stephen Sullivan was trying to keep it toned down, and, to his credit, he was largely sucessful in it, but there were still a few instances where it was used to little narrative advantage.

Finally, why such fascination with natto? At one point it seems Rokugani eat nothing else but natto.

Overall though, it is an enjoyable novel to read, depending on your tolerance for gaming fiction, and L5R fans won't be disappointed.