30 Years of Legend of the Five Rings Episode 1

“30 Years of Legend of the Five Rings” is a series of interviews celebrating 30 years since the debut of L5R at Gen Con 1995. This second series of the Play to Win podcast from Aconyte Books explores the perspectives of the people who had a hand in the franchise’s making, past and present; the lasting impacts L5R had on their lives; and what about L5R has made it an enduring force in the tabletop games industry after all these years.

In Episode 1, we start at the beginning of Legend of the Five Rings. Katrina Ostrander is joined by two of the people responsible for the game’s creation, John Zinser and Ryan S. Dancey. She asks them about the game’s origins and inspirations, what it was like launching a collectible card game when the bottom dropped out of the market, and what they did to survive. She also got to ask them about their plans—or perhaps lack thereof—leading up to the game’s supposed end at the Second Day of Thunder at Gen Con 1997.

John Zinser and Ryan S. Dancey at a gaming convention to promote the Legend of the Five Rings collectible card game in 1997. This image is courtesy Ryan S. Dancey under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.