20141010.0631

I recently received a copy of the Legend of the Five Rings (L5R) RPG supplement The Book of Void (ISBN 978-1-59472-073-4, MSRP US$39.99) and read through it. It is a relatively slim volume, approximately 200 pages, so it did not take me long to read through the six chapters ("The Void of War," "The Void of Magic," "The Void of Peace," "The Void Within," "The World Is Not the World," and "Nazo Mori: The Forest of Enigmas") and the appendix in which the mechanics introduced to the game are related. Throughout, the book makes a valiant attempt to relate the philosophical, cosmological, theological, and epistemological concepts associated with the Void--a "fifth element" in the traditional four-elements scheme--to the milieu of L5R as a whole. While it necessarily falls short of a full accounting--a gaming manual cannot serve as a deep investigation of such concepts and still do what it needs to do as a gaming manual--The Book of Void does admirably at suggesting the pervasiveness of Void in the physical, social, and spiritual settings of L5R.

It also does better than many L5R supplements at offering narrative. Any tabletop RPG is fundamentally an exercise in storytelling, and having exemplary narratives does much to foster continued tale-weaving. The Book of Void follows other L5R supplements in beginning its text and each of its chapters with a vignette; more than most of the other supplements, though, it provides narratives within the text, not only using them to illustrate aspects of in-game culture, but actually ascribing stories the vaunted mechanical functions prized by many gamers. (As a scholar of literature and a believer in its transformative power, I am pleased to see that stories within the game have life of their own, at least in a fashion, and can work transformative power upon their audiences.) It does have the effect of making the book something of a miscellany, but cultures are not neat and tidy; having a miscellany suggests an authentic messiness for the L5R milieu, easing Coleridgean suspension of disbelief and allowing for a better narrative immersion.

This is not to say that the book is perfect, however. The producing company has long-standing habit of not proofreading as well as it ought to, and while The Book of Void appears to suffer less from that habit than have other texts, it still has surface-level problems that distract and annoy. Too, Chapter Six seems to take a Lovecraftian tack which, if realized, would have profound implications for the theology and cosmology of the game. (The book motions toward, but does not fully engage, them in other places.) The authors seem unwilling to pursue the Lovecraftian overtones, however, or to do so fully; the text seems to shy away from presenting Cthulhoid imagery where it would work quite well. The reasoning presented is that the players should have options, and while allowing them means that players who own the text cannot be certain what they will face when they play the game, it also means that the narrative force is somewhat weakened. For a game that relies upon narrative for its play, this is a problem.

Even so, however, The Book of Void is a fine supplement. It refines earlier discussions in the game and adds new ones to be had, and it presents mechanics that are reasonably well balanced for play (as well as suggestions for how to keep them that way). It does both amid a number of smaller stories that illumine the milieu for the benefit of those of us who tell stories within it, and that is something to be appreciated.