I think one important point has been raised - big bad introduced early. THAT has been the fault of many of the less memorable arcs - the Big Bad coming in too strong, too early, and then just bogs down into more of the same waiting for the story arc to end. Iuchiban and Kali-Ma readily come to mind. Kanpeki may well have ended up being more of the same if Onyx had gotten off the ground.

The best "Big Bad" story arcs (Imperial, Gold) had the big bad maintain a lot of mystery as to their identity and goals for at least half the arc - they sowed discord and weakened the empire in preparation for their master stroke (taking over the empire as Hantei XXXIX/Releasing Fu Leng to assault Tengoku).

It,s okay to have a big bad, but in a setting like L5R, you just can't have the Big Bad keep up momentum for an entire story arc like Iuchiban or Kali-Ma would have needed. Not with story tournaments getting in the way - once the Big Bad tip their hand there WILL be a rallying effect.

Its the fault of many franchises with multiple factions.

"Together we must fight the evil big bad! .... and then we return to squabbling among ourselves until some other big bad comes knocking at our door."

Yet as a Catch-22, one needs a big bad to put a face and a name to. Even AGoT has a big bad in the form of the White Walkers and that franchise tries to make all conflict appear as gray as possible. As without a big bad, what real reason do we have to care about a fictional world's plight from one year to the next if it is same-stuff-different-day? Why one think MTG has to keep raising the stakes with each new block? And as part of this Catch-22, one can't rely on "gaijin" or outsider influence all the time as a source of Big Bad all the time. Which means one have to maintain the internal drama and keep "gaijin" influences to a bare minimum.

Is MTG raising the stakes with each new block? I mean, from 2009 to 2013, the stakes got lower with each block, from the world-devouring unstoppable Eldrazi, to the corruption of the Phyrexians who aren't quite as bad and were beaten once, to the monsterpocalypse on Innistrad that only menaced Innistrad and got cleared up with the return of Innistrad's own angels, to Ravnica just being Ravnica. If you remove RtR from the curve, it continues to trend downward, with the conflict on Theros only being relevant to its gods and never having the destruction of the world or civilization as a possibility, to Tarkir block where everything in every set was "business as usual for this plane", the source of conflict was "one guy thought there wasn't enough dragons", and practically nobody else in the story even knew the story was happening. The only time the stakes have been raised with a new block in recent memory is... going back to Zendikar to fight the Eldrazi, who have been there since 2010.

And "gaijin" are not the problem now nor have they ever been the problem. The ferocity with which Rokugan WANTS to hold off foreign influence and the success at which they DID do so is another irrational thing John Wick baked into the setting, and whenever it becomes relevant, it causes things to stop making sense and characters to be harder to like.

You just hit a lot of the things that I felt about the story too. Great points.

The sad part is, inter-clan conflict is easy to generate and justify... except that every time we've gotten a new emperor/empress, they've forbidden conflict between the clans,blah blah blah, unity with political sniping and the odd border dispute, blah blah blah, then whoops, here comes Evil McEvil!

You don't even need a weak or absent ruler to allow the clans to go to war- you just need an emperor who goes, "let 'em fight, it keeps them busy and off-balance."

Kanpeki may well have ended up being more of the same if Onyx had gotten off the ground.

Kanpeki was always written horribly and seriously ineffective. Just so much wasted potential.

Same goes for Nitoshi by the way...

Perhaps we should make a time jump and put his daughter in charge. And then we get a flashback expansion... The Spider Clan Coup or something along the line...

An interesting way of handling the game post relaunch:

Launch the LCG with Kanpeki on the Throne, having been placed there through the power of Jigoku. The Empire he rules is a dark, twisted mockery of itself, where honor struggles to survive. The Great Clans in the Empire struggle under the yoke of an evil Emperor, and gather their forces in secret.

The first tournament at GenCon 2017 lets the top of each Clan decide who in their faction will be central hero in the fiction of the next arc, and if they support restoring the Iweko dynasty or not. The winner of the tournament is the one whose choice matters and will be reflected in the story.

The first six Chapter Packs cover the gathering of the Great Clans and the starting skirmishes against the Onyx Chrysanthemum. You see no storyline impact here (dev cycle is too small). At the first deluxe Pack, the fiction features each of the heroes nominated at GenCon 2017. The second six Chapter Packs builds the narrative until they overthrow Kanpeki and reveal in the last Chapter Pack whether they restore the Iweko or not, with public results printed in that Chapter Pack.

GenCon 2018 or European Championships 2018, they showcase the next year's story line, and do a similar vote as in the first tournament. The second Deluxe Pack features the setup for that story arc, the fiction in the game follows the heroes chosen during GenCon 2017. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The main advantage to this is that your primary source of interaction with the storyline is reflected in the Rule Book fiction, and somewhat in the art or flavor text, but to a lesser extent.

The problem with *any* big bad being a major element of story in most card games is that it's frequently a mismatch between the "skin" of the game and what happens when I actually sit down to play.

Unless you do something like Star Wars or Netrunner, where one player is obliged to play each side, but that would probably not be a good fit for L5R.

Whatever level FFG decides to do story on, I really hope it's something that supports what actually happens at the table, rather than conflicting with it.

Launch the LCG with Kanpeki on the Throne, having been placed there through the power of Jigoku. The Empire he rules is a dark, twisted mockery of itself, where honor struggles to survive. The Great Clans in the Empire struggle under the yoke of an evil Emperor, and gather their forces in secret.

Launching anything as a "dark, twisted mockery of itself," is not a good way to pull in new players. Even if it does appeal to them, it's setting them up for a bait and switch.

I really hope for a return to the core of the game and setting, something that supports the ethos that honor can be a force more powerful than steel, and that presents a setting in which it makes some kind of sense for the clans to be constantly struggling against one another for dominance.

Going with an evil empire/emperor that the clans (eventually) need to unite to struggle against actively works against that, IMO.

The core conflict of the game has almost always been clan versus clan so the core set story arc sound reflect that. Mix in some hints and portents about the evil surrounding the emperor, then start doing a "big baddie" thing in the second or third arc.

I agree, tentatively, that there needs to be some kind of overarching plot, and progression in the narrative. But it's not actually that hard to provide an overarching plot without introducing any kind of big bad. The Traditionalist/Progressivist tensions could have kept stories going for years if they'd been milked properly. Increasing tendencies towards Colonial independence, and differing attitudes towards it from the metropole, could similarly have run for years as a plot arc, whether linked to Traditionalism/Progressivism or not. In some cases, tournament results can feed into or create, rather than obscure, potential plot points- the rise of the Crab as a political force, and the rebalancing of Crane/Scorpion courtly positioning as a result; the increasing dominance of the Unicorn as premier military Clan (they've had the last two Shogun, the previous Ivory Champion, the Commander of the Ninth Imperial Legion, etc. etc.) forcing a response from the Lion- all of these could have been used to form the basis of plot arcs without ramming yet more Greatest Threats Rokugan Has Ever Faced down our throats. The setting is rich and deep enough already to provide plenty of narrative potential without constant Diabolus Ex Machina.

Disagreed that most of these could have been the basis of a driving plot arc. The overarching plot of a story arc should be something that concerns and affects every clan. "The Lion respond to the Unicorn's growing military might" isn't that. "The Scorpion and Crane react to the rise of the political Crab" isn't that, because one is meaningless to seven out of nine clans and the other to six. Even stretching and forming alliances, ultimately it's hard to get the entire Empire involved in a conflict between two (or three) clans.

They can be elements within a bigger plot arc, but a collection of unrelated conflicts does not a plot arc make.

I agree traditionalism/progressivism could have worked. The Colonial independence machine could have worked. The Otomo plotting to keep everyone against each other would have worked. Lots of things that can work, but you got to have some kind of arc that ties all those conflicts together, not just "oh yeah samurai drama conflicts happen".

Disagreed that most of these could have been the basis of a driving plot arc. The overarching plot of a story arc should be something that concerns and affects every clan. "The Lion respond to the Unicorn's growing military might" isn't that. "The Scorpion and Crane react to the rise of the political Crab" isn't that, because one is meaningless to seven out of nine clans and the other to six. Even stretching and forming alliances, ultimately it's hard to get the entire Empire involved in a conflict between two (or three) clans.

They can be elements within a bigger plot arc, but a collection of unrelated conflicts does not a plot arc make.

I agree traditionalism/progressivism could have worked. The Colonial independence machine could have worked. The Otomo plotting to keep everyone against each other would have worked. Lots of things that can work, but you got to have some kind of arc that ties all those conflicts together, not just "oh yeah samurai drama conflicts happen".

I take your point- I could contest the specific examples, but it would be quibbling and beside the point. The larger point I meant to make, and which we seem to agree upon, is that you can have a meaningful story arc that is driven by the Rokugani themselves, without having to constantly introduce external (whether gaijin or supernatural) elements on a massive scale as a narrative device.

I'm going to agree with those folks that think 'Big Bads' need to be fewer and farther between.

Starting from about the War of Spirits on, the story became absolutely ridiculous. Every arc there was some major villain, costly conflict, catastrophic event, etc. And until just recently, the Story Team was unwilling to do a time jump. It got to the point where I know many people were left going 'How is Rokugan even standing?'/wondering when folks had time to gather rice, have babies, etc. etc. when the world was constantly exploding around them. The ongoing joke amidst my tabletop group was that the Story Team was working their way up to an alien invasion arc.

There does need to be an overacing narrative; no question about it. There should be a powerful villain/villains to offer a legit threat and to make the heroes look good. As they say, a great hero needs a stronger villain. That said, that can easily be done without each and every conflict needing to be more EXTREME than the last. Power-hungry diplomats, ruthless lords, bully duelists, and other things of that sort can easily become excellent recurring, memorable villains that make sense. Having a new, bigger, badder, 'cooler', threat every few months is both lazy and, ultimately, unsustainable.

A big bad not need be this ubermench of a threat. It could just be simply that the emperor, although spider, he himself doesn't cast spells, do any form of swordplay at all... he just this cruel and greedy emperor that over-taxes the public with little regard to the lives of the peasants. Roll with that.

In order to make a compelling story which involves all the Great Clans on some level WILL require a team of Story developers. So, even if you remove the pre-planned Onyx plot, and you just pick it up with a post Evil Portents Rokugan with the Daigotsu in rebellion / exile, and the rest of the Clans trying to adjust to life under Iweko II, who has completely dismantled the Imperial Bureaucracy, and you have three full blown wars going on (Spider vs Crab, Scoprion vs Lion, Phoenix vs Unicorn).

Post-Kotei season, you'll see the Mantis and the Scorpion at war as well, and if we use the Clan Dinner Votes for direction, there may soon be conflict between the Dragon and the Phoenix, and the Lion vs the Dragon.

I'm going to agree with those folks that think 'Big Bads' need to be fewer and farther between.

Starting from about the War of Spirits on, the story became absolutely ridiculous. Every arc there was some major villain, costly conflict, catastrophic event, etc. And until just recently, the Story Team was unwilling to do a time jump. It got to the point where I know many people were left going 'How is Rokugan even standing?'/wondering when folks had time to gather rice, have babies, etc. etc. when the world was constantly exploding around them. The ongoing joke amidst my tabletop group was that the Story Team was working their way up to an alien invasion arc.

I can't say I agree with you on the "everything has to be more extreme than the last!" being a common trend since the Spirit Wars. Or, for that matter, with it NOT being a common trend before that.

War Against the Shadow was clearly an attempt to top the Clan War (a thousand years of darknesss -> Villain will unmake reality!), but Gold scaled things back down a lot (Fu Leng attempt to attack Tengoku. Ok.). Diamond started with a big bang, sure, but then quieted down and became an arc of (badly written) political intrigue while Iuchiban sat down and did nothing. Lotus was mostly political intrigue too ending in a simple coup. Samurai was probably the single calmest arc to date. Celestial gave us the Destroyer War, definitely an extreme arc (but one that pales compared to Clan War and War Against the Shadows), but that was followed by Emperor, where the "extreme threat" was people going insane and Kuni Renyu's machinations. Ivory toned it down even further to "people take side between two brothers" with very little actual fighting.

In short, my list of the most extreme story arcs would be:

1. War against the Shadows (Jade-Pearl)

*. Kanpeki's Empire (My guess where Onyx would fit, had it happened)

2. Clan War (Imperial-Obsidian)

3. Destroyer War (Celestial)

4. Madness of Pan Ku (Emperor)

5. The Liberation of Fu Leng (Gold)

6. The Return of Iuchiban (Diamond)

7. The Age of Enlightenment (Lotus)

8. The Race for the Throne (Samurai)

9. Iweko's Heir (Ivory)

Ypu forgot the "Most Extreme!" Celestial/Emperor edition where the setting falls flat on it's ear.

Celestial and Emperor are both there, and I stand by their being less extreme than that time the Shadowlands were basically one sword strike away from controlling the empire for a thousand years ; and that one time the empire had to send whatever armies it had left deep into the Shadowlands losing half of it to taint along the way to save the world from being unmade. :-p

I'm going to agree with those folks that think 'Big Bads' need to be fewer and farther between.

Starting from about the War of Spirits on, the story became absolutely ridiculous. Every arc there was some major villain, costly conflict, catastrophic event, etc. And until just recently, the Story Team was unwilling to do a time jump. It got to the point where I know many people were left going 'How is Rokugan even standing?'/wondering when folks had time to gather rice, have babies, etc. etc. when the world was constantly exploding around them. The ongoing joke amidst my tabletop group was that the Story Team was working their way up to an alien invasion arc.

I can't say I agree with you on the "everything has to be more extreme than the last!" being a common trend since the Spirit Wars. Or, for that matter, with it NOT being a common trend before that.

War Against the Shadow was clearly an attempt to top the Clan War (a thousand years of darknesss -> Villain will unmake reality!), but Gold scaled things back down a lot (Fu Leng attempt to attack Tengoku. Ok.). Diamond started with a big bang, sure, but then quieted down and became an arc of (badly written) political intrigue while Iuchiban sat down and did nothing. Lotus was mostly political intrigue too ending in a simple coup. Samurai was probably the single calmest arc to date. Celestial gave us the Destroyer War, definitely an extreme arc (but one that pales compared to Clan War and War Against the Shadows), but that was followed by Emperor, where the "extreme threat" was people going insane and Kuni Renyu's machinations. Ivory toned it down even further to "people take side between two brothers" with very little actual fighting.

In short, my list of the most extreme story arcs would be:

1. War against the Shadows (Jade-Pearl)

*. Kanpeki's Empire (My guess where Onyx would fit, had it happened)

2. Clan War (Imperial-Obsidian)

3. Destroyer War (Celestial)

4. Madness of Pan Ku (Emperor)

5. The Liberation of Fu Leng (Gold)

6. The Return of Iuchiban (Diamond)

7. The Age of Enlightenment (Lotus)

8. The Race for the Throne (Samurai)

9. Iweko's Heir (Ivory)

I'm not saying that the extremeness went up with every arc, in some steady progression. I'm not saying the story didn't have quiet moments mixed throughout. However, it wasn't until around the War of Spirits where, according to a lot of players Ive talked to and my own personal opinion, the constant stream of Big Bads, Empire-shaking events, etc. really took off, eventually getting ridiculous. For as epic as the Clan War was, it made sense. The clans geared up for it and things culminated in the 2nd Day of Thunder, with foreshadowing set up in early 1st Edition. The Lying Darkness threat had at least been there on slow burn for a long time, culminating in the war against the shadow.

The War of Spirits was the first real instance, I think, of shoehorning in a villain just for the sake of trying to have a big, epic villain. Here you had Hantei XVI, a part of the setting's history and already defeated, coming back and being the arc's supervillain.

Then you had Daigotsu and the Onisu, leading to Toturi I being offed, and the 4 Winds Era. As much as I like villains and the Shadowlands, Daigotsu got the Mary Sue treatment, a lot getting done purely to make him look like the 'greatest threat evar'!!!

Then Iuchiban came back- another villain that's part of the setting history that had already been beaten, twice, causing an Empire-wide, madness inducing blood rain.

Then you had Naseru himself head off into the Shadowlands, for all the sense that made. Because the story isn't epic enough unless the Emperor himself is out adventuring.

Then you had the Race for the Throne, where all the clans got to fight for who gets to run the entire civilized world.

Then you had the Destroyer War, complete with Kali-Ma showing up, because the stakes aren't high enough with just some rakshasa, an army of muli-armed beast men, a god-beast, and the Ebon Daughter... none of which ended up getting as much detailing as they probably should've.

Then the upcoming storyline featured Kanpeki and hell itself seizing the throne and all that would've come with that.

That doesn't even go into the War of Dark Fire/conflict with the Dark Oracles, the rise of the 2nd Gozoku, Empire-wide peasant revolts (in multiple instances), the Night of Long Knives, Fu Leng's trip to Tengoku, Pan Ku, and other events that were either literally massive, or massive from a storytelling perspective.

Oh and most of that, all the pre-time jump stuff, took place over the course of less than 40 years.

You're right that there were some moments mixed in there that were quiet. You're right that some of the stuff that occurred prior to the War of Spirits was very epic. But, IMO, it was in/around the War of Spirits where it stopped feeling like a coherent, sensible narrative and more like a constant stream of attempts to up the ante.

I think the general consensus we are reaching here is that we, the player community, would be happy with smaller stories for the Chapter Pack Cycle than we are currently seeing, so long as all the Factions are receiving some cards and storyline?

Less world shaking disasters. More "War of the Rich Frog" or "Third Yasuki War"?

I think the general consensus we are reaching here is that we, the player community, would be happy with smaller stories for the Chapter Pack Cycle than we are currently seeing, so long as all the Factions are receiving some cards and storyline?

Less world shaking disasters. More "War of the Rich Frog" or "Third Yasuki War"?

That sums it up for me. Something like the War of the Twins at the start of Ivory should get story treatment rather than a couple lines of flavor text. Once that is wrapped, the results of that can trigger or impact the next medium/small scale event. If the Phoenix beat the Scorpion, the Scorpion might not be effective at supporting their ally in the next chapter because they are busy regrouping and licking their wounds. As the arc progresses, an underlying Bad can be revealed, but doesn't need to be the focus of much if any of the conflict right out of the gate. (The Bad can be a Clan Champion or even family daimyo. It doesn't need to be The Worst Evil Ever).

I think that'd be a good way to go. A war is a big deal. Even if you're clan isn't directly involved in it, it'll impact politics, economics, etc. for the Empire as a whole. There's a lot going on there.

Look at some of the epic samurai drama in movies and literature. A lot of it doesn't involve angry gods, spirit armies, the Emperor, empire-wide warfare, blood falling from the sky, etc. Tell some stories that are a bit more grounded, eventually culminating in more pivotal events.

Look at some of the epic samurai drama in movies and literature. A lot of it doesn't involve angry gods, spirit armies, the Emperor, empire-wide warfare, blood falling from the sky, etc. Tell some stories that are a bit more grounded, eventually culminating in more pivotal events.

And then Hollywood releases its own version of 47 Ronin...

Look at some of the epic samurai drama in movies and literature. A lot of it doesn't involve angry gods, spirit armies, the Emperor, empire-wide warfare, blood falling from the sky, etc. Tell some stories that are a bit more grounded, eventually culminating in more pivotal events.

There is something of a "more epic than epic" quality to the whole "Which extistential threat can Rokugan struggle against this edition?" cycle, isn't there?

However, I get the impression that there was a lot of blame that could be laid at the feet of the Brand team, and that the Story team always had to work with what Brand gave them. Heavy turnover in creative staff is one of the surest ways to end up with a random, incoherent, disjointed narrative.

Look at some of the epic samurai drama in movies and literature. A lot of it doesn't involve angry gods, spirit armies, the Emperor, empire-wide warfare, blood falling from the sky, etc. Tell some stories that are a bit more grounded, eventually culminating in more pivotal events.

Modern Samurai movies do this more often and I for my part like my rokugan with some Wuxia and Anime flavor in it. So if the supernatural stuff would completly go away I would be not very happy.