A Throne Betrayed

I’m a gamer. I love playing games. Pretty much all kinds of games. Board games. Card games. Video games. Tabletop miniature games. Simple games. Complex games. Doesn’t really matter. But I really love role-playing games. The more story and character focused, the better.

I started playing Dungeons and Dragons back in the late 80s (cue creaking bones and old grognard comments). I branched from there to Palladium to White Wolf and out into the countless worlds, settings, and mechanics that exist in the RPG community. But one game always stood out to me: The Legend of the Five Rings.

Billed as a samurai drama, L5R took the deep roleplaying and complex political machinations I loved from games like Vampire and put them alongside deadly duelists, noble samurai, and wielders of powerful magic, all set against a backdrop inspired by Japanese culture and mythology.

The first time I played, I was hooked. Through the various editions (warts and all) it has remained at the very top of my favorite games.

Which is why I was so damn excited to be part of a project involving my favorite game intellectual property. Enter A Throne Betrayed.

The Clan Wars saga is well known for those familiar with the Legend of the Five Rings, and it was both daunting and humbling to have a chance to put my own stamp on it. Working in this world I love so much has been a dream come true, though.

I know that we will have done things that some diehard fans might not agree with. Some characters have changed. Some people might think certain aspects aren’t getting the treatment they deserve. You’re probably right. The world and lore of L5R is so vast, so deep, that it’s impossible to get it all down on the page (at least, if you’re going to have a book that isn’t a million words).

But for those fans, I say this… we’re you. We get it. We love this property as much as you do. We’ve shone the light where we thought it best fit the story we were trying to tell, but we wish we could have shone it everywhere. We wish that every idea and nuance could be fully explored. But to get a story out the door, sometimes you can’t get all the details.

If nothing else, think of this as “our Rokugan, our way” and know that your version of the Emerald Empire is still out there, waiting to be explored. So grab your pack, daisho, and best courtly apparel, and get to it!