Oct 6 2011
Review: L5R Enemies of the Empire
It’s been a while since my last review, but finally, I bring to you my take on Legends of the Five Rings: Enemies of the Empire for 4th Edition. This is the second book to come out for the L5R 4e. It kind of comes off as a Monster Manual of sorts; the book gives the GM a plethora of possible foes to ram up against the players, but the book isn’t just a bunch of stat blocks. It is so, so much more.
This book follows the example set by AEG with most of their books, especially the core rulebook for L5R 4e: it is extremely beautiful and makes it into my RPG Coffee table books category. I will point out that some of the art was carried over from the first book, not a lot, but I did find a few picture repeats. I kind of dislike it when companies do this with their books. It is likely something that can’t be avoided, but you see it a lot, especially with Wizards of the Coast and the many carry-overs from one edition to the next. The full color standard that L5R is setting right now with their stuff is setting the bar very, very high. This may of course seem very superficial, but when you are paying what they are asking for their books you want to make sure that you are getting your money’s worth.
When last we left our valiant adventurers, they had climbed Mt. Doom and were about to toss the Ring into the giant Volcano… wait… think that is a different story. Ah yes! Now I remember, last time, in the 
I was really, really surprised and excited to see the great response behind 
So my friends, I come to you in the very odd position of being married to a muggle. I don’t mean the non-magical kind, but rather the non-RPG-interested kind. I got married a couple years ago and my wife has never shown any interest in roleplaying games, or virtually anything geeky whatsoever. Actually, now that I think about it, she probably would have been one of the kids in high school that thought people like me were particularly weird (it’s odd how the heart works sometimes). I have, in the past, made attempts at remedying this OBVIOUS character flaw. Last summer, before I moved to Japan, the wife and I, attended several of the D&D 4e “Encounters”; that was a moderately good time, but my wife could never really get into it. She never really understood what was going on and the constant focus on combat-focused roleplaying simply didn’t work for her.
ll. I think I was about seven or eight years old. The movie was too long and I was totally bored by most of it, but I was utterly terrified by the scene with the decapitated horses head. That was some scary sh*t. Fast forward ten years later and I enjoyed the movie a whole lot more; who doesn’t? IMDB lists the Godfather as the 2nd highest rated film of all time (right behind The Shawshank Redemption). So, who wouldn’t want to play an RPG where you get to play the role of a fantastic version of the Don?! That’s right. Nobody.
Today, I’m proud to bring you my complete review of the 
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