Not...really. unlike conquest, the clans are not inherantly opposed to working alongside each other. In conquest, all the factions are seeking just about all others' destruction with the Space marines and IG working together. The wheel was forced for sake of what made more sense in an otherwise non compatible set of factions.

Even Spider has allies in other Clans (less so in Scorpion and Crab)

Alliance and Oath of Fealty were more synergy cards for people splashing personality to obtain rare ebenfits that were clan exclusive.

Some of the 40k thing with allies is depend on the factions themselves. Lore wise, the Eldar could work with Space Marines, IG, or Inquisitors depending on what's going on. This is to a lesser extent with other factions (i.e. the Tyranids just want to eat everyone or that Khorne hates Tzeentch).

With L5R, whoever can "ally" with who was based on the story at the time. That's why we see someone like Kitsuki Akito or Kitsu Asato . These tend to be exceptions though and having some clans go better with other clans could work with both story and game situations. Putting story reasons above game reasons is preferable to me because of the whole story prize situation that the game has. I'd much rather have players have a large say, but not the only say, in which clans they can be allied with.

You could have default alliances (easier to "deck together") and rivals (harder), and then also have event-specific alliances that only apply during a certain event series or tournament or "story arc" or whatever.

You could have default alliances (easier to "deck together") and rivals (harder), and then also have event-specific alliances that only apply during a certain event series or tournament or "story arc" or whatever.

Might be better if those penalties were innate within the game (rule book wise) like the old rules of Discounting, or Blood Money or the current rules of recruitment. Events that generally alter this like Alliance are good enough. There are enough silly useless events lying around, will just add more clutter if things like events also become clan/family specific. Except perhaps for Victory Condition ones.

Uh...wow.

Yeah... when you say "multi clan decks" that's the first thing a lot of us think of. "Oh, you mean a deck that you put all the good Spiders in. Gotcha."

Teruo

Kageto

Neya

Tairao

Kumoru

^ these see a lot of play in various non spider decks

You could have default alliances (easier to "deck together") and rivals (harder), and then also have event-specific alliances that only apply during a certain event series or tournament or "story arc" or whatever.

Might be better if those penalties were innate within the game (rule book wise) like the old rules of Discounting, or Blood Money or the current rules of recruitment. Events that generally alter this like Alliance are good enough. There are enough silly useless events lying around, will just add more clutter if things like events also become clan/family specific. Except perhaps for Victory Condition ones.

I wasn't thinking of events that limit viable play to a few clans, just things that let the story fit in and offer some alternatives to the default +/-.

With L5R, whoever can "ally" with who was based on the story at the time. That's why we see someone like Kitsuki Akito or Kitsu Asato . These tend to be exceptions though and having some clans go better with other clans could work with both story and game situations. Putting story reasons above game reasons is preferable to me because of the whole story prize situation that the game has. I'd much rather have players have a large say, but not the only say, in which clans they can be allied with.

Problem with this is who can ally with whom can have a huge impact on game balance and warp the environment. I desperately don't want which alliances are allowed (if limited) to be subject to the whim of the player base. It *really* needs to be in the hands of design, it it's going to be changing periodically.

Better, I think, that it be up to individual players when designing their decks, in any case, as in the banner system. Alternately, always limited to specific other clans. Variable alliances just leave too much room for a shift to destroy balance by making specific combinations viable, unless *everything* is always designed with any possible alliance in mind. And if that's the case, then limiting it because of story is an intrusion of story into game.

With L5R, whoever can "ally" with who was based on the story at the time. That's why we see someone like Kitsuki Akito or Kitsu Asato . These tend to be exceptions though and having some clans go better with other clans could work with both story and game situations. Putting story reasons above game reasons is preferable to me because of the whole story prize situation that the game has. I'd much rather have players have a large say, but not the only say, in which clans they can be allied with.

Problem with this is who can ally with whom can have a huge impact on game balance and warp the environment. I desperately don't want which alliances are allowed (if limited) to be subject to the whim of the player base. It *really* needs to be in the hands of design, it it's going to be changing periodically.

Better, I think, that it be up to individual players when designing their decks, in any case, as in the banner system. Alternately, always limited to specific other clans. Variable alliances just leave too much room for a shift to destroy balance by making specific combinations viable, unless *everything* is always designed with any possible alliance in mind. And if that's the case, then limiting it because of story is an intrusion of story into game.

It wouldn't just be subject to the 'whims' of the players base, but the players, game designers, and story writers.

It wouldn't just be subject to the 'whims' of the players base, but the players, game designers, and story writers.

Leave out two of those three.

Alliances, if included as an element of deckbuilding -- and who can ally with whom, if restricted -- is a *major* game balance, card pool, and meta issue. Not many things would be deal breakers for me, but this is one of them.

The only people who should be determining deckbuilding restrictions are design. Story can follow it with fiction to justify it if if they wish. Players can stay far away from the decision process.

Yeah, if you're going to have serious faction mixing (of the sort that L5R has not typically had, with the exception of some All-Stars decks), you can't be changing how that works all the time. Taking two sets of cards that previously couldn't work together, and then suddenly they can work together, would be a giant deal. I wouldn't even want it in the hands of the designers, really, because it's asking a lot to balance that sort of thing shifting all the time. They would, IMHO, just be better off coming up with a fixed system, and leaving it as is.

Note that this would, to me, make the Conquest system unworkable. Because how different Clans work together (or not) is something that shifts with the story. It's fine to have a non-specific system where anyone can work with anyone regardless of what the whims of the story are. But I think it's problematic on the thematic/flavor front if you have a specific rule saying that a particular faction can or cannot work with another specific faction, and then that doesn't match the setting/story, in a game like L5R where the story is so important. So I think that faction-specific alliance structures would not be a great idea (at least for the normal faction; you could still have special rules for Shadowlands).

Really, I just want more options than, "pick your clan, your deck is predominantly that clan." With appropriate restrictions built into the game, that should be quite easy to balance with pure clan decks. The specific means of achieving it really doesn't matter much to me.

Not wanting to sound pedantic here, but when I was playing the game, the majority if not outright all players were simply a mono-Clan deck, with some thrown in goodies. Maybe my memory doesn't serve me well here, but this is what I remember.

Having lost contact with the game for nearly 12-13 years does mean that a good number of changes must have occurred, to which I cannot speak to. But this format of deck building (single Clan, with a few 'outside' cards) was the favored method of gaming, no?

Really, I just want more options than, "pick your clan, your deck is predominantly that clan." With appropriate restrictions built into the game, that should be quite easy to balance with pure clan decks. The specific means of achieving it really doesn't matter much to me.

Not wanting to sound pedantic here, but when I was playing the game, the majority if not outright all players were simply a mono-Clan deck, with some thrown in goodies. Maybe my memory doesn't serve me well here, but this is what I remember.

Having lost contact with the game for nearly 12-13 years does mean that a good number of changes must have occurred, to which I cannot speak to. But this format of deck building (single Clan, with a few 'outside' cards) was the favored method of gaming, no?

And remains so because of the way Personalities are/were costed.

Yes, most decks remain mono-clan by default (or with just some unaligned Personalities). The 2 gold upcharge on out of clan Personalities meant that a run-of-the-mill Personality was only rarely going to be viable out-of-clan. So Personalities who got played out of Clan were typically either kind of broken and just so good that they were still a tournament-level option even when you paid two more (Ninube Shiho, whose image has been posted on these forums, and who was clearly a Mistake when printed in Ivory Edition) or, less commonly, had some outstanding synergy with another Clan that did not exist with his own (for example, Yamazaki was playable out of Dragon because his ability to straighten a Holding as an Open worked well with the Dragon Stronghold's trait that made attaching Weapons an Open).

One option I think to help with the card counts in the base sets and add ons.

Take all the personalities that do not have abilities, that are just force\chi and keywords and make them minor clans. That way, there is a pool of say 3/2 samurai or 2/3 shugenja that any clan could use. Each clan would still have its meat, but the potatoes would be neutral.

If you wanted, you could make a minor clan personality cheaper for someone playing an allied clan, say for example , there was a 3/2 Sparrow clan samurai, he could be used in any deck, but maybe Mantis could get him for 1 gold cheaper, or maybe proclaim him.

This would reduce the number of clan specific cards needed in the base set or add ons

Really, I just want more options than, "pick your clan, your deck is predominantly that clan." With appropriate restrictions built into the game, that should be quite easy to balance with pure clan decks. The specific means of achieving it really doesn't matter much to me.

Not wanting to sound pedantic here, but when I was playing the game, the majority if not outright all players were simply a mono-Clan deck, with some thrown in goodies. Maybe my memory doesn't serve me well here, but this is what I remember.

Having lost contact with the game for nearly 12-13 years does mean that a good number of changes must have occurred, to which I cannot speak to. But this format of deck building (single Clan, with a few 'outside' cards) was the favored method of gaming, no?

I'm confused as to what you're saying? That was my experience with the game as well. I'm hoping the new game allows more flexibility than the old game.

A few thoughts:

1) There are a couple things that are so iconic that they alone identify and separate L5R from the rest of the card-game crop: the dual-deck system is one. The other is the faction loyalty.

2) Plenty of people have kept playing the game for over a decade because of faction loyalty. These rabid fans are the ones that recruit more people (to their faction), that publicize the game (and their faction) for free, and generally are an added value to L5R's IP. Multiclan decks would most certainly alienate them.

3) It is nigh impossible to shift the game to a multiclan model, while keeping the story both relevant and interactive. Let's keep in mind that in the story the clans are, at the core, rivals and that alliances are very shifty and short-lived... but (again, in the story), the character's loyalty to their clan borders on the fanatical. This is represented perfectly by the "One deck, one clan" approach.

4) If you need to add extra layers of complexity to a game in order to slap an extra feature to it, then that feature is likely one that the game does not need.

A few thoughts:

1) There are a couple things that are so iconic that they alone identify and separate L5R from the rest of the card-game crop: the dual-deck system is one. The other is the faction loyalty.

2) Plenty of people have kept playing the game for over a decade because of faction loyalty. These rabid fans are the ones that recruit more people (to their faction), that publicize the game (and their faction) for free, and generally are an added value to L5R's IP. Multiclan decks would most certainly alienate them.

3) It is nigh impossible to shift the game to a multiclan model, while keeping the story both relevant and interactive. Let's keep in mind that in the story the clans are, at the core, rivals and that alliances are very shifty and short-lived... but (again, in the story), the character's loyalty to their clan borders on the fanatical. This is represented perfectly by the "One deck, one clan" approach.

4) If you need to add extra layers of complexity to a game in order to slap an extra feature to it, then that feature is likely one that the game does not need.

1) I really don't think either of those things are indispensable to the brand. Even if they are, dual-deck doesn't seem relevant here, and you can still be clan loyal to your main clan while also recognizing that another clan can aid your interests. Also, in a well-designed game, nothing would prevent pure clan decks being just as competitive as alliance decks, so players who prefer to be clan loyal in the sense you mean would still be free to do so.

2) Given the game's dwindling following under AEG, FFG needs to cast a wider net than clan loyal players, or even brand loyal players. That includes their own extensive player base, which is generally used to games that allow easy multifactioning.

3) "Alliances are very shifty and short-lived," seems like an argument *for* allowing alliances in decks regardless of what's happening in story. As noted, systems like AGoT's banners prevent you from just dropping in 3 copies of one specific card, and require that you include a minimum count of the allied faction if you want to include any of that faction. The implication being that it's not just some single rogue samurai riding with another clan, but that the alliance actually serves that clan's wider interests in some way. Obviously different possible alliance systems would reflect different thematic elements depending on execution, but there's really nothing that makes adding a suite of 12 cards from another clan to your deck some bizarre departure from the world of Rokugan, just because it's (generally) a departure from the game as it's existed to date.

4) "Now you can play cards in your deck that you wouldn't have been allowed to before," doesn't, IMO, qualify as an extra layer of complexity, provided those rules are straightforward. Again, see AGoT's banner system, where the alliance rules aren't even in the rulebook (or don't need to be, at any rate), but instead exist as a couple of simple lines of text on specific examples of a card type that begins in play, agendas. Which basically operate like Sensei, with fewer things to keep track of (like stronghold stat modifiers).

More often than not, you know you're in a L5R tournament because you can see "samurai" holding brightly colored cards Folks love their faction/clan so much that they actually cosplay it. For a niche hobby such as card gaming, that's huge.

I might get some hate from saying this, no doubt, but... I wouldn't rely that stupendously on current FFG customers. No one is going to magically get an extra 100 or 200$ per month to spend on cards. The current customer-base might pick L5R, sure (I sure hope they do!), but a sizable portion of it might actually stop purchasing their current product of choice in favor of L5R. That's a net gain of zero for the company, and a situation that is likely to be a sizable one because, as I mentioned.... money doesn't grow magically on people's wallets. So I would say that the smart move is to try to bring over -more- customers, instead of thinking primarily of your existing ones - because new customers mean new wallets, wallets that aren't already attached to FFG's products. And the easier customer to bring is the current L5R one.

And yes, alliances are short-lived and shifty.... making them rather irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Everyone was already allied and at war with everyone else. What matters in L5R, in the setting, is not who your Clan is allied with.... but just which one is your Clan. Going back to the CCG, I'm sorry, but any new rule adds complexity. Even if it's a very simple one, if it means a new mechanic, a new element that needs to be accounted for in the game, that's added complexity. And with every layer of added complexity, you get a game that is harder to balance, and harder to playtest, because more and more variables need to be taken in account. Likewise, you get a game that is harder to explain to new players (which is already a flaw of L5R, its logarithmic difficulty curve)

More often than not, clan loyal players actually do the most work out there.

More than normal players as they have an insane passion for the game... (and also the need to test their skills on)

@Karyudo

The game's difficulty was definitely a barrier, however through the past decades we've seen the game get simpler.

It also allows us to weed out those bad players that we don't want playing the game.

And yes, alliances are short-lived and shifty.... making them rather irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Everyone was already allied and at war with everyone else. What matters in L5R, in the setting, is not who your Clan is allied with.... but just which one is your Clan. Going back to the CCG, I'm sorry, but any new rule adds complexity. Even if it's a very simple one, if it means a new mechanic, a new element that needs to be accounted for in the game, that's added complexity. And with every layer of added complexity, you get a game that is harder to balance, and harder to playtest, because more and more variables need to be taken in account. Likewise, you get a game that is harder to explain to new players (which is already a flaw of L5R, its logarithmic difficulty curve)

As said, Sensei as a card type already exist. There's no new mechanic if they do banner style alliances as sensei, as one example. It's actually simpler than Sensei, due to the lack of stronghold stat modifiers on banners, and the banners with alliance abilities are stated in two lines in AGoT: "You may include non-loyal [House] cards in your deck./You must include at least 12 [House] cards in your deck." I defy you to compare that to the vast majority of L5R sensei and claim the L5R sensei are simpler. It's a trivially easy rule to explain to most gamers. "Here's a card that says I can do this thing. I did it."

Your House doesn't change when you play an alliance card in AGoT. Nor would it in L5R. If it's irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, what does it hurt?

Also, I would point out that if what matters in the grand scheme of things is "which one is your Clan," then explain mirror matches in a way that doesn't also allow the possibility of alliances on the same principle. Yes, a mirror match is an intraclan power struggle, possibly between families. But they don't always reflect the current story, nor are they required to. There's no reason alliances should be different if they make for a more interesting game with more options. And they do.

And as noted above, those options do not increase complexity, unless you assume that in order to teach a new player the game, you also have to teach them every deck in the meta. Which is silly.

It also allows us to weed out those bad players that we don't want playing the game.

Wow. Just wow.

More often than not, clan loyal players actually do the most work out there.

More than normal players as they have an insane passion for the game... (and also the need to test their skills on)

Players who want opponents will recruit new players just fine. And alliances don't forbid you from being clan loyal; they just mean that other players don't have to. The more players who can play the game and a deck that appeals to them, the more players the game will draw.

Alliances allow both. Pure clan only, no alliances doesn't.

All the other arguments. "It's too complex!" "It doesn't fit the story!" etc. etc. dim in light of the advantages, and very little is lost. People can still play straight clan if they wish, and straight clan decks can still be competitive.

What people are really saying isn't, "I want to play XX way, and I want to be clan loyal!" They're saying, "I want *you* to play XX deck, chosen from a limited subset of decks I consider "Clan loyal." And in LCGs, you generally don't get to make that choice. That's kind of the point.

I would say that the focus on clans and clan loyalty is something that's pretty ingrained in L5R. When you talk to a L5R player, you usually ask which clan and those people typically stick with their favorite.

I would say that the focus on clans and clan loyalty is something that's pretty ingrained in L5R. When you talk to a L5R player, you usually ask which clan and those people typically stick with their favorite.

This is not incompatible. I think people should be able to do this if they wish.

I would say that the focus on clans and clan loyalty is something that's pretty ingrained in L5R. When you talk to a L5R player, you usually ask which clan and those people typically stick with their favorite.

This is not incompatible. I think people should be able to do this if they wish.

That entirely depends on the balance of the specific cards. There should be some leaning towards more clan based decisions with stuff like sensei (which we have) giving very interesting twists on deck building.

You know, if you use "Sensei Slot" as a "thing that allows me to pursue an Alliance", you can make Mono-Clan decks ~Special~ by "freeing up" the Sensei Slot for them, allowing them something that allows them to potentially stay competetive. Basically, you either play a sensei (special ability empowering your mono claniness), or you play an alliance (ability to use different clan and maybe weaker special ability).

As you get all of the cards anyway, it's better to encourage people to try out different clans and decks instead of pidgeonholing them into clan loyalty, imho .