Legend of the Five Rings Gaming

Welcome back to the madness that is known as the Spacefaring Librarian!



Today I thought I'd ramble a little on the nature of Legend of the Five Rings, or L5R for short. What is L5R? How does it work? Can it bake cookies? Should it be taught in school?



L5R is a fictional setting used as a basis for several gaming methods, most notably role-playing (rpg) and card-playing (ccg). There are also several board games based on the setting, but they're much more low-key and only noticeable to those who are already steeped into either the rpg or ccg or both (like me). I first ventured into the L5R universe way back in 2006? I can't remember precisely. A college buddy and I went to Phantom of the Attic in Pittsburgh to browse the collection and maybe pick up some games or what-not. My eyes fell on L5R's ccg (oh, I should explain what 'ccg' means, shouldn't I? In a moment.) packs, emblazoned with samurai in action. I've not played a samurai-based game up to that point, and I'm also quite enamored with ccg and rpg games that have lots of cool pictures of characters, armor, weapons, and settings.



Before I go any further, 'ccg' is an acronym for two things: 'customizable card game' and 'collectible card game'. My personal definition sticks closer to the former, since the object of the game is to put together a deck consisting of at least 80 cards out of a range of possible cards, which are purchased either individually online or in packs of random cards. Got that? Good.

Back to what I was saying. My buddy and I purchased some packs and went back to his place and attempted to play a game as we went through the directions, which were at best murky. At that time, the online resources for the game were hard to locate and decipher. Fast forward 3 years later, another college buddy of mine who lives in Ohio, and of whom I visit on a regular basis, loves to play games of all sorts. When we get together, the range of things we do go from just catching up to watching movies to playing games. We had played several other ccgs in the past, games that are now no longer being produced and based on Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. I decided to take out a couple of L5R decks to his place with instructions printed from online. It was a hit. It happened that the production company, AEG, was creating the next edition for L5R a month after I introduced the game to my buddy, and we went in on the new set, inspiring him to get one of his buddies into the fray as well. We've gone to several tournaments in the last year and make it a point to get together when expansions come out.

Oh dear, this post is getting long, isn't it? I guess I better cap it off here, where there's a good seam in the topic. I'll take on the rpg aspect next time. Maybe I'll actually get around to discussing what I feel for L5R? I'll definitely answer the question of its cookie-baking abilities and educational value.

Stay tuned!