Legend of the Burning Sands

Introduction
I was and is a huge fan of Legend of the Five Rings (L5R). I have read almost every supplement of the first edition. I bought the third edition a year ago, but haven't gotten around to reading it. I picked it up a few weeks ago and at the same time was made aware of Legend of the Burning Sand and decided I would read that one instead. What follows are my thoughts and opinions of Legend of the Burning Sand (LBS).

Legend of the Burning Sand
First off, the book is the same high quality print as the third edition L5R, with heavy glossy paper. Immediately one notice that the book is organized differently. It starts with a long section of game rules, whereas L5R starts with the setting and culture.

The rules are easy to follow and are very close to the original 1st edition. I never looked at the second d20 edition. They seem highly inductive of a good gaming experience.

The setting is not as unified as that of L5R. There are several nations, and several cultures presented in the book. This is, in my opinion, the first mistake. Even though they have far more information about each culture than the average fantasy setting they are falling way behind the masterpiece L5R.

The setting information and the history of the Jewel (the major city) is not very interesting and it did not fascinate me. When reading L5R I get ideas for stories to tell immediately, not so with LBS. Having said that, they have chosen a very nice way of telling the story. Instead of one huge section containing all the information on the history, as other games do, they have split it up based on faction. As each factions story is told pieces of the larger history gradually falls in place. This makes the history easier to read, even though it is a not very fascinating story.

Conclusion
The system is an abbreviated version of that in L5R and is well suited for any fantasy settings. There are a few factions and their history that could be used more or less as written in other settings. However, the setting as presented is not nearly interesting enough to be used as is.

Compared with other settings, LBS is better than your average fantasy game. However, as it is a spin-off of the great Legends of the five rings, I was disappointed because I expected it to hold the same high standards. So now I'll just take the original third edition L5R book off the shelf again. (I ended up buying a copy of the revised edition... I'll let you know what I think when I'm done with it).