Legend of the Five Rings vs RuneQuest
Compare Legend of the Five Rings and RuneQuest side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Legend of the Five Rings | RuneQuest | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Social Combat, Social Intrigue, Character-Driven, Drama, Character Building, Narrative, Tactical, Crunchy, Lore-Heavy, Strong GM Support | Crunchy, Tactical, Lore-Heavy, Deadly, Character-Driven |
| Core Mechanic | Choose a skill and elemental approach. Roll custom d6s equal to the ring value and custom d12s equal to the skill rank. Keep up to the ring's value in dice. Count successes on kept dice against a target number. Explosive successes can add rolls. Spend opportunity symbols for extra effects. Strife symbols on kept dice build emotional pressure. The core includes a conversion table for ordinary d6s and d12s. | Roll d100 under your skill percentage. Criticals at 1/20th of skill, specials at 1/5th, fumbles at 95+. Seven characteristics (STR, CON, SIZ, DEX, INT, POW, CHA). Combat uses hit locations (d20) with per-location HP and armor. Strike ranks determine action order. Runes are percentile-rated cosmic affinities that fuel magic and shape personality. Passions (Love, Hate, Honor, Loyalty) augment skills when invoked. |
| Dice | d6 + d12 custom dice | d100 |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Availability | Paid | Free quickstart |
| Runnability | 5 of 5 book tools | Book tools not listed |
| License | All Rights Reserved | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Noncommercial only — Fan content policy | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Edge Studio | Chaosium Inc. |
| Year | 2018 | 2018 |
| Languages | English, French, Italian, Spanish | English, French, German, Spanish |
| Best For | Groups who want samurai campaigns where personal desires clash with sworn duties, with detailed court intrigue and tactical duels. | Groups who want deep mythic fantasy where characters are embedded in cults, clans, and cosmic forces: with tactical hit-location combat and a world steeped in decades of lore. |
| Highlights | Choosing an elemental approach changes how a skill tackles a problem and which opportunities a player can spend. Strife turns emotional pressure into a mechanical limit, inviting characters to reveal desires they are expected to conceal. Intrigues and duels give courtiers and warriors distinct tools for pursuing their goals. | Glorantha is one of the most detailed settings in RPG history, Rune and Passion mechanics tie characters to the mythic world, hit-location combat adds tactical detail, skill-based advancement through use, three distinct magic systems |
| Considerations | Players track emotional pressure and social standing alongside the action. Keeping dice and choosing opportunities can slow checks until the group knows its options. Clan duties and Bushidō shape character creation and consequences, so campaigns in other settings require adapting those assumptions. | Very steep learning curve, tightly coupled to Glorantha setting, combat bookkeeping is heavy, expensive to collect all sourcebooks, dense lore for new players |