What time period is the setting based on?

[KidChainsaw 1]

OK, that is a weird question when you are talking about a fantasy rpg.  But what period in Japanese history does this game draw from? 

[GM81 Protocol Droid 142]

The setting takes large inspiration from romanticized notions of the Edo period, with some elements of the Sengoku period, and writ large over a a dynastic China concept with a sprinkling of various other eras and East Asian regions. So Edo is the primary inspiration, but feel free to take from any period of Japanese history.

[DGLaderoute 897]

When I write stuff for the setting, I tend to lean on a broad strokes view of the Edo period (mostly the 17th-18th century part of it) as a (pretty vague and diffuse!) background...or maybe the better word is "flavor".  This covers the general social/cultural/economic/spiritual "flavor" of Rokugan. When it comes to war-fighting stuff, I switch gears and lean, instead, on the Sengoku Jidai period (late 15th and through the 16th century). But this is REALLY rough because, honestly, I've been immersed in the setting long enough to mostly draw on itself. I know what's come before, and I've come to know the readers'/players' expectations pretty well, so the real world stuff is more like, "a resource", rather than "based on".

Other writers in the setting probably have their own answers to this.

[AtoMaki 1,431]

48 minutes ago, KidChainsaw said:

OK, that is a weird question when you are talking about a fantasy rpg.  But what period in Japanese history does this game draw from? 

The Amerikainu Fantaizu period . 

[AK_Aramis 1,002]

There are a broad mix of pre-Tokugawa elements, a few  korean and chinese elements that didn't make it into Japan, and the Unicorn have a pre-Chengis Khan Mongolian influence.

Garments in the illos generally run all the way through the pre-meiji era (1860's)! Crab are prone to a later, "Town Samurai" look - the poor  warrior-in-name-only samurai of the towns that were Meiji-heika's exemplar of why Nippon needed to modernize, and abolish the samurai caste.

There are lots of good photos of the pre- and circum-Meiji period samurai, in a variety of modes of dress, including some in their jammies...  

[TheHobgoblyn 352]

I concur with those who say that it is primarily Edo period.

It is a period of peace with clearly delineated social caste roles and a prohibition on weapons because they would disrupt the social order. In addition, there are relatively clear boundaries between the different provinces of the empire and there is a respect for a central authority.

Certain elements aren't based on anything one could have found in real samurai culture

After all, there aren't any deserts, savanahs, steppes or foreboding mountain ranges in Japan. It is really more like Japanese culture transposed onto the landscape of China and Thailand/Vietnam got replaced by a demonic wasteland.

The Phoenix, Crane and Mantis are the only ones that live in landscapes that would be recognizable "Japanese", and the clans are heavily shaped by living in these different landscapes to have exaggerate the way these clans act in different ways.

The Dragon Clan is heavily influenced by Nepal, the Unicorn is heavily influenced by Mongolia, the Mantis are influenced by the Taiwanese.

There also isn't any demonic wasteland or magic in Japan, so obviously the Crab doesn't resemble anything realm.

Phoenix is very shintao, and I am given to understand some people see something of Korea in them, but I just see straight Shintao culture which-- well, that was never samurai culture.

The Lion and Crane are supposed to be very "samurai-like" and it seems like the most effort was made to make them into samurai, but both ended up with themes that make them such extremists and with so much of western ideas of their themes imposed into them wherever the original writers had gaps in their knowledge that neither really are that.

Moreover, the Samurai don't really act like Samurai because it is like they took the things that Miyamoto Musashi wrote about how a "samurai should be" (despite the fact that he famously didn't live up to any of these supposed values) and used that as the basis of their society and put serious penalties for not living up to these make-believe creeds, when real samurai used the examples of the heroes of Romance of Three Kingdoms and even then hardly felt it was necessary to live up to those examples, just that it was praise-worthy and exemplary when someone did.

Things that were pretty unusual and extreme (sepukku, for example) are made all too typical and common as a result of this fantastical exaggeration.

 

It is definitely NOT based on the Sengoku period, if it was you would have samurai using firearms and any other effective weapon they could get ahold of with no care about "honor", clans would be wiped out or divide left and right, random farmers would grab swords and even rising to the highest military ranks and armies would jump ship between clans at the drop of a hat. Those elements are essential to telling a sengoku period story, to even comprehending the major events of that period, but none of that exists and is expressly forbidden if not out-and-out impossible in this setting, even more so than it was in the Edo period.

Instead of the "victory at all costs, by any means, wipe out your enemy utterly and do not let a crying infant of their bloodline take another breath" mentality of pre-Edo "samurai", you really have the more "we will fight because that is what we are born and bred to do, but only by these very regimented rules that we both agree to adhere to, we will be polite to one another and after this conflict is over, we will try not to harm the non-combatants and the survivors will agree to bow and go on without a grudge" that was far more understood to be the proper way to act in the Edo period.

[GM81 Protocol Droid 142]

11 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Moreover, the Samurai don't really act like Samurai because it is like they took the things that Miyamoto Musashi wrote about how a "samurai should be" (despite the fact that he famously didn't live up to any of these supposed values) and used that as the basis of their society and put serious penalties for not living up to these make-believe creeds, when real samurai used the examples of the heroes of Romance of Three Kingdoms and even then hardly felt it was necessary to live up to those examples, just that it was praise-worthy and exemplary when someone did.

Things that were pretty unusual and extreme (sepukku, for example) are made all too typical and common as a result of this fantastical exaggeration.

The Book of the Five Rings was explicitly the major inspiration of the game back in the first edition RPG and early parts of the CCG. The originators of the game, for better or worse, were more concerned with a specific dramatic push than any historical accuracy. In a lot of ways, this is similar to how in  D&D  the codes of clerics and paladins had real world inspiration but focused on hearsay, stories and legends to end up with something very inaccurate that continued to evolve in its own direction.

That is a good way to look at L5R in my opinion. We take the nuggets, especially the fantastical and likely unrealistic elements, and create something fun that it is own beast. The game doesn't need to be historically accurate, or even achieve verisimilitude with real world history. I feel this is something the current writers are doing well at. They clearly are doing research and using that as inspiration, but I don't feel like L5R is pretending to be something it is not.

[TheWanderingJewels 226]

I have noticed some Heian period ism's here and there within the art

[Tonbo Karasu 2,606]

There's a certain pre-conquest Okinawan feel to the Mantis, with a touch of Chinese river pirates thrown in.

[Suzume Chikahisa 313]

10 hours ago, KidChainsaw said:

OK, that is a weird question when you are talking about a fantasy rpg.  But what period in Japanese history does this game draw from? 

None. The original concept was Lord of the Rings meets samurai, the concept of Samurai being very much based on their early 90s American Pop Culture depiction, ie mostly informed from Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune movies, James Clavell, and business world's macho obssession with the Art of War and the Book of Five Rings. It's creation myth is based on the Titanomachy.

Having said that lots of writers have come and gone most of them with different sensitivities, biases and preferences, each adding their own authorial voice to the setting. Over time you see clear Edo influence, but can also find Kamakura, Heian and Muromachi. Chinese influence are also clear, mostly from Wuxia, but also some historical Tang influence. Some very unfortunate pop culture Mongol as well. There might be some Korean in there too although I haven't noticed anything other than Crab turtle ships.

Rokugan has always been a mashup, really, and FFG inherited that, along with some very talented writers in the current reboot that in many ways is more informed by it's 20+ year history than by real world sources (other than those that inspire the various writers).

Personally I feel Rokugan works best when informed by late Heian sensitivities.