L5R Character Generation

Creating a character in Legends of the Five Rings

This seems to be quite difficult in the 3rd edition book, not so much because it's complicated, but because the process is spread out all over the book. For my sanity and for the sake of my players, I've put together this small cheat sheet of pages, which is another complaint I have of the book, nothing is on the page the book says it is. So I'm attempting to simplify matters.

The Basics First

20 Questions

All characters are required to have at least 15 of the 20 questions answered on pg.82-84 of the 3rd edition core book.

1. What Clan does he belong to?
2. What Family does he belong to?
3. How would others describe his appearance?
4. Is he a Bushi, Shugenja, Monk or Courtier?
5. What is his main motivation?
6. Who is the person he trusts most?
7. What is his greatest strength? Greatest weakness?
8. What does he think of Bushido?
9. What is his opinions of his own clan?
10. Is he married?
11. Does he have and prejudices?
12. To whom does he owe the most loyalty?
13. What are his favorite and least favorite things?
14. Does he have any recurring mannerisms?
15. What about his emotions?
16. How would he handle a subordinate's improper behavior?
17. How would his parent's describe her?
18. What is his highest ambition?
19. How religious is he?
20. If you could, what advice would you give him?

For further explanations, one would have to reference the book.

Clan and Family

This is a very important step of character creation process, it pretty much tells you who your character is, this is half the dirty work of figuring out the character's personality because each clan and family have their own teachings and outlooks on Rokugan and the various aspects of it.

There are eight major clans to belong to, a character also has the option to belong to one of the nine minor clans, four imperial families or even be a ronin. Here is some additional Clan Information. To each clan there are a number of Families to belong to, each will have it's own advantage specific to those family members. With the family name comes a general appearance, out look, and sometimes superstitions. It's wise to read up on the families before choosing one.

School

Schools can be the easiest part, but also very crucial. Once you have your family and clan chosen, there's generally only three or four choices for school without the advantage of learning from another clan's schools. Generally there is a Bushi School, a Shugenja School, a Courtier school, and sometimes a specialty school, these are the monk teachings, the scouts, or the battle maidens. Some clans offer them, some don't. Each school then has a set of Techniques, and shugenja schools get spells. There's generally no customization when it comes to techniques, you take them in order, and as a starting character you generally only get the first choice. Each school comes with a set of skills it teaches, standard honor for being a student of the school, standard equipment, and each school gives a specific trait bonus also.

Customization Second

Character Points

Each character starts with 45 Character Points that may be spent at any time through character creation. One spends their character points on and of the five areas:

Traits

To raise a trait with character points it costs the rating you want to buy times four.
I.E. Raising a trait to 3 would cost 12, raising it then to 4 would cost 16 more.

Void

Similar to traits, void is also raised at the next rating, but instead of multiplying it by four, it is multiplied by six.

Skills

To purchase additional skills with character points is cheap and easy, it's the cost of the next level.
I.E. to raise a skill from 2 to 3 it will only cost 3. Raising a skill from 2 to 4 in this manner is going to be seven points.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages are beneficial tags added to your character, their costs are listed with the advantages. Disadvantages are generally less than helpful tags attached to your character that will give you a certain amount of character points to spend up to a maximum of 10 points.

Glory, Honor and Status

Lastly one's character points may be used to raise one's glory, honor or status. These are attributes that generally reflect one's respect gained from others, respect for themselves and where they stand in society. All characters start with 1 glory and status, and their honor is based upon school. A character may increase their honor by 1 whole point for 3 character points, or reduce their honor 1 whole point to gain 3 character points. Glory and Status may be altered through advantages and disadvantages.