The Legend of the Five Rings – Way of the Open Hand d20

The Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game is a role-playing game originally written by John Wick and published by Alderac Entertainment Group, under license from Five Rings Publishing Group, in 1997. The game uses the Legend of the Five Rings setting, and primarily the nation of Rokugan, which is based on feudal Japan with influences from other East Asian cultures.

Like most role-playing games, Legend of the Five Rings is played by one or more players and a game master, who controls the events that happen during the game as well as the non-player characters (also called “NPCs”). Legend of the Five Rings features many courtiers and other non-combatant character types as valid player character types.

In 1998, Legend of the Five Rings won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game of 1997.^[2] In 2008 the L5R RPG 3rd Edition sourcebook Emerald Empire won the Scrye Players Choice Award.

Oriental Adventures was published originally in 1985 by TSR, Inc. as an expansion for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and was set in a land called Kara-Tur. In 2001, Wizards of the Coast released a new edition of Oriental Adventures as an expansion for the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons. It was decided to make this new version of Oriental Adventures a showcase for their recently acquired Legend of the Five Rings.

For the entirety of its Second Edition, with the exception of the Player’s Guide, Game Master’s Guide, Way of the Shadowlands, Winter Court: Kyuden Asako, and Time of the Void, books published for the Legend of the Five Rings RPG had two different sets of game mechanics: the mechanics from the Legend of the Five Rings Second Edition Player’s Guide and corresponding mechanics for d20 System, such as those presented in Oriental Adventures. Beginning with the Third Edition of the Legend of the Five Rings Role-Playing Game, and because of the lack of availability of the now out of print Oriental Adventures, the d20 System rules have been dropped from current Legend of the Five Rings Role-Playing Game books.