Legend of the Five Rings vs Shadowrun
Compare Legend of the Five Rings and Shadowrun side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Legend of the Five Rings | Shadowrun | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Cyberpunk, Fantasy |
| Play Style | Social Combat, Social Intrigue, Faction Play, Drama, Career-Based, Crunchy, Lore-Heavy | Crunchy, Tactical, Heist, Character Building, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Skill-Based, Mission-Based, Urban Fantasy |
| Core Mechanic | Roll-and-keep with custom dice. The player picks a skill and an elemental approach (Air, Earth, Fire, Water, or Void): the approach determines how the action is attempted, so a Fire approach to combat is a reckless overwhelming strike while a Water approach redirects an opponent's force. The pool is Ring dice (d6) equal to the chosen ring's value plus Skill dice (d12) equal to skill rank; after rolling, the player keeps up to ring-value dice. Kept faces show some mix of successes, explosive successes, opportunity, and strife symbols: successes meet a target number, opportunity spends create narrative effects, and accumulated strife eventually drives the character into Compromised. | Roll a pool of d6s equal to attribute + skill, counting 5s and 6s as hits. Meet or exceed a threshold to succeed. Situational advantages generate Edge points rather than modifying dice pools directly; Edge is spent on tactical effects like rerolling dice, adding successes, or imposing penalties on opponents. |
| Dice | d6 + d12 custom dice | d6 dice pool |
| Complexity | High | Very High |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | No open license |
| Cost | $$ | $$$ |
| Publisher | Fantasy Flight Games | Catalyst Game Labs |
| Year | 2018 | 2019 |
| Best For | Groups who want samurai drama where internal conflict between sworn duty and personal desire matters as much as the sword, with structured rules for court intrigues and duels alongside skirmish combat. | Groups who want cyberpunk-fantasy heists with deep mechanical subsystems for hacking, magic, and combat. |
| Highlights | Approach choice means the same skill check resolves differently depending on which ring drives it, mechanizing personality and method instead of relegating them to flavor. Strife accumulates from dice rolls and triggers Compromised when it exceeds composure, turning emotional pressure into a tracked resource without a separate sanity subsystem. Ninjō (personal desire) and giri (sworn duty) are written into each character sheet, and the conflict between them is the engine of advancement and downtime scenes. | The setting fuses megacorporate intrigue with magic and metahuman races, so a single team mixes street samurai, mages, and deckers. Distinct subsystems model Matrix hacking, spellcasting, drone rigging, and astral space, each carrying its own rules depth. The Edge economy converts situational advantages into a spendable resource for rerolls, extra hits, or penalties on opponents. |
| Considerations | Custom dice are required and not easily substituted: physical sets must be purchased separately or the official dice app used. Honor, glory, status, strife, composure, void points, and conflict-specific resources all track separately, so social bookkeeping is heavy outside of skirmishes. The mechanical structure is tightly bound to Rokugan's clan system and Bushidō expectations: reskinning to other settings unwinds large chunks of character creation and technique progression. | Matrix hacking runs on its own timescale and can leave non-decker players idle during a run. Character creation spreads across attributes, skills, magic or resonance, gear, and lifestyle, making the first build long. Dice pools grow large at high skill, so counting hits on a fistful of d6s slows resolution. |