Legend of the Five Rings vs The Expanse Roleplaying Game
Compare Legend of the Five Rings and The Expanse Roleplaying Game side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Legend of the Five Rings | The Expanse Roleplaying Game | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Sci-Fi |
| Tags | Social Combat, Social Intrigue, Character-Driven, Drama, Character Building, Narrative, Tactical, Crunchy, Lore-Heavy, Strong GM Support | Licensed IP, Space Opera, Ship-Based, Crunchy, Social Combat, Investigation, Faction Play, Social Intrigue, Strong GM Support, Tactical |
| 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 three six-sided dice, two matched and one differently colored Drama Die, and add an ability score plus a focus bonus of +2 if applicable. The total must equal or beat a target number set by the GM or an opponent's result. Rolling doubles generates stunt points spent on combat, exploration, or social effects. The Drama Die's value sets the degree of success. |
| Dice | d6 + d12 custom dice | 3d6 |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Availability | Paid | Free quickstart |
| Runnability | 5 of 5 book tools | 5 of 5 book tools |
| License | All Rights Reserved | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Noncommercial only — Fan content policy | No verified route found |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Edge Studio | Green Ronin Publishing |
| Year | 2018 | 2019 |
| Languages | English, French, Italian, Spanish | English |
| Best For | Groups who want samurai campaigns where personal desires clash with sworn duties, with detailed court intrigue and tactical duels. | Groups who want a character-focused science fiction campaign of crew jobs, faction pressure, and danger across the Solar System. It suits tables that want structured action, investigation, and social encounters alongside ship travel. |
| 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. | Backgrounds, professions, talents, and focuses build characters with mechanical ties to their lives before the campaign begins. Action, exploration, and social encounters each use dedicated stunts, giving different kinds of scenes procedures beyond a single skill roll. The Churn turns accumulated complications into escalating story events, giving the Game Master a structured way to introduce setbacks. |
| 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. | Combat stunts are drawn from six separate category tables covering roughly sixty options, requiring both players and the GM to check charts mid-fight to keep pace. Ground and air vehicles receive no example statistics, leaving their combat rules almost entirely improvised. The forty-page setting guide summarizes the solar system's factions and history at a survey level, so groups wanting deeper political detail need outside reading of the novels. |