Legend of the Five Rings vs Vampire: The Masquerade
Compare Legend of the Five Rings and Vampire: The Masquerade side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Legend of the Five Rings | Vampire: The Masquerade | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | Social Combat, Social Intrigue, Character-Driven, Drama, Character Building, Narrative, Tactical, Crunchy, Lore-Heavy, Strong GM Support | Social Intrigue, Faction Play, Urban Fantasy, Corruption, Drama, Character-Driven, Resource Management, Superpowers, Social Combat, Lore-Heavy |
| 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 attribute plus skill in d10s, counting 6+ as successes against a difficulty. Paired 10s add extra successes. Hunger replaces ordinary dice in most pools: a winning critical containing a Hunger 10 becomes messy, while a failed test containing a Hunger 1 becomes a bestial failure. |
| Dice | d6 + d12 custom dice | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | High | High |
| Availability | Paid | Free quickstart |
| Runnability | 5 of 5 book tools | 5 of 5 book tools |
| License | All Rights Reserved | Community Content Agreement for the Storytellers Vault |
| Third-Party Publishing | Noncommercial only — Fan content policy | Commercial publishing allowed — Community content program |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Edge Studio | Renegade Game Studios |
| Year | 2018 | 2018 |
| Languages | English, French, Italian, Spanish | English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Portuguese, Japanese |
| Best For | Groups who want samurai campaigns where personal desires clash with sworn duties, with detailed court intrigue and tactical duels. | Groups who want campaigns about vampire coteries balancing political ambition, predatory hunger, and relationships with the humans they still care about. |
| 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. | Using supernatural powers can increase Hunger, making the next hunt harder to postpone. Convictions and human Touchstones make moral compromise carry consequences beyond winning the immediate conflict. Coteries share hunting territories and social assets, giving political ambitions a foothold in the city. |
| 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. | Messy criticals and bestial failures can put predation or compulsions into scenes where players hoped to stay in control. Character creation requires choices across clans, powers, feeding habits, advantages, and human ties. Establishing the chronicle’s relationships and boundaries for mature themes takes group preparation even when using a published city. |