Converting L5R to a Westeros setting

[ninja_penguin]

Even money on if this is homebrew or just Roleplaying games in general, so I guess I'll pitch it here.

So me and another guy in our gaming group were both talking about how we've always wanted to try out the L5R system, but nobody in our group was really big on it. one guy irrationally hates anything 'Japanese', and the others probably would not be able to get into a good samurai mindset.

Cue conversation the other day where we were jokingly comparing the houses of Rokugan to the houses of Westeros from A Game of Thrones. We then got the idea that we could port over the majority of the mechanics over and just reflavor everything in a Westeros manner.

So I was curious for people who are familiar with either (or both) about which houses would work best for being an analogue. We're planning to set this up as during the war against the Targaryens that happens before the books, so we can mess with causality and handwave why people from various houses might be working together.

Stark: Crab or Lion. They're high honor, but I think that their duty and wall duties would put them more on the Crab end of things.

Greyjoy: Torn between Mantis and Crab. Mantis because boats, Crab due to general rudeness/borderline barbaric behavior.

Lannister: I'm thinking that they're going to be the Scorpion. They just are too cunning and making plans all the time to really be anything else.

Targaryen: Well, I think that they're weird/mysterious, so I was leaning Dragon or Phoenix for them. I don't know which one would fit them better, thematically.

Baratheon: I feel like these guys should probably end up being the Lion, especially if the Stark end up being the Crab.

Martell: Probably crane. good at political manipulation, and dueling.


Unicorn are up in the air. Everybody went 'oh, those are the Dothraki', but we also have to think about possibly moving them into other places because people in Westeros actually use horses frequently.


Thoughts? Better ideas? Minor clans I should take a look at including?

[DracoDei]

Quite frankly I would re-build the clan stat bonuses from the ground up. I would port over the schools, but be prepared to tweak them. Basically, you want to forget the fluff of L5R but keep the mechanics.

[ninja_penguin]

That was the general idea. We were planning on either going 'choose your great house, now pick any family from it, now find out Westeros analogue'. Possibly ditching families and doing a quasi-ronin on it. I was wondering if people agreed with analogues or not, as I'm weaker with L5R fluff.

[DracoDei]

No no NO!
That ruins half the point!
Homebrew up the Westeros analogs directly, and chose from those directly! The only reason I said to keep the schools was because homebrewing a bunch of new schools would be a very large project.

[ninja_penguin]

Hum, I'd better make sure that I'm not missing something: Choosing a family from a house doesn't do anything more then '+1 Stat', right?

[DracoDei]

Correct, which is why they should be easy to homebrew.

[horngeek]

I assume you're dropping the spellcasting entirely, then?

[ninja_penguin]

Our current plan is handwaving it as 'things still work until the Targaryens bite it'.

And or pyromancers, or Maesters who have their valerian steel link.

[Knaight]

I really wouldn't reccomend this. L5R is intended for a somewhat different genre than the one A Song of Ice and Fire is set in, particularly as regards the differences in capabilities between heroes and normal people. The very notion of those that are innately special simply isn't there in ASoIF, the closest notion is that of the nobility, and as soon as they can't use their noble status they are yet another mere mortal. L5R really doesn't have this.

Now, that's not to say it couldn't work. It simply needs to be set in the mythologies of the world, somewhere between Sansa's beliefs and the realities of the setting.