Military, Political, and Enlightenment. There's no real need for Honor as a basic win condition if its tied to everything.

Acknowledging that in your model politics would replace both honor and dishonor, I'd honestly like to see a unified victory condition.

Like a new five rings enlightenment thing, where the different rings echo the old victory conditions, and it's first to 3 out of 5 wins.

2 of them Military oriented

2 honor oriented (or politics, whatever)

1 something else. Maybe reflective of enlightenment somehow.

That way pure mil decks can plan to win 2 and grab the enlightenment rings for the win.

Same for pure honor.

Balanced decks (perhaps known colloquially as "enlightened" decks) can grab any of them, but are not as good at Mil as pure military, and not as good at honor as pure honor.

I'm not sure if it would be best to have the rings be mutually exclusive in this model. i.e., once I get Fire, you can't get Fire, but I suspect it would be better if all 5 remain available to all players regardless. That way, the rules don't have to be different in multiplayer, and the Mil deck that gets its rings *first* doesn't auto-win.

I actually imagined the 3 out of 5 rings thing almost exactly this way. I think there's potential there. I really hope that FFG starts giving crumbs sooner rather than later.

I actually imagined the 3 out of 5 rings thing almost exactly this way. I think there's potential there. I really hope that FFG starts giving crumbs sooner rather than later.

They might be a little gunshy after what happened with the coop Star Wars LCG. I can't image they'll post anything concrete until they're really settled on the model they have and playtest has begun.

After

Military, Political, and Enlightenment. There's no real need for Honor as a basic win condition if its tied to everything.

Acknowledging that in your model politics would replace both honor and dishonor, I'd honestly like to see a unified victory condition.

Like a new five rings enlightenment thing, where the different rings echo the old victory conditions, and it's first to 3 out of 5 wins.

2 of them Military oriented

2 honor oriented (or politics, whatever)

1 something else. Maybe reflective of enlightenment somehow.

That way pure mil decks can plan to win 2 and grab the enlightenment rings for the win.

Same for pure honor.

Balanced decks (perhaps known colloquially as "enlightened" decks) can grab any of them, but are not as good at Mil as pure military, and not as good at honor as pure honor.

I'm not sure if it would be best to have the rings be mutually exclusive in this model. i.e., once I get Fire, you can't get Fire, but I suspect it would be better if all 5 remain available to all players regardless. That way, the rules don't have to be different in multiplayer, and the Mil deck that gets its rings *first* doesn't auto-win.

For some reason that gives me the impression of Rings as struggle points for the game.

I actually imagined the 3 out of 5 rings thing almost exactly this way. I think there's potential there. I really hope that FFG starts giving crumbs sooner rather than later.

They might be a little gunshy after what happened with the coop Star Wars LCG. I can't image they'll post anything concrete until they're really settled on the model they have and playtest has begun.

I understand the reasoning, but it doesn't make it easier to wait. I'm hoping that at least the time will go by quickly.

I would guess there is no information until GenCon 2016.

I was thinking about it and Honor/Dishonor could function like Bad Publicity in Netrunner: a token that essentially gives some minor effect during play and cards can key off of it.

I think that boiling the game down to military and political victories with some objective play over the rings would be interesting. But honestly much like i feel about the two deck system, multiple victories can probably go away, as long as the finshed product is actually fun to play.

Some of the stuff I have read here, looks like issues from 20 years ago. And I really hope the new game moves on from it. I want to be drawn back in after a long hiatus.

So to me, the core mechanics, the essence of the game, should be about fun. Is it fun to participate in. Will someone never exposed to l5r find that something they want to partake in. Is it fun to be a part of the new living story.

For instance, when we started playing (ha before net lists), none of the players were crane. My group made it to a Kotei where the meta was very different. And I think I nearly walked away in disgust. Sure dishonour was bad. But so too were the honour rockets.


Now in the quest for fun, bring out the knives and serve up the steaks.


I would like military to go the way of Magic the Gathering, where both sides trade blows to knock down walls and declare a winner. And those walls being constructed like Duel Masters would be great. Top four cards from your one deck. Easy.

If warfare goes the way of attrition, why not also do that too honour too. Instead of a race to 40, why not introduce honour tokens that operate like Burning Sands water tokens. So dishonor becomes the "water raiders", and spending honour becomes something critical to think over. But what of honour victory. Ah that could be done via political actions. All political actions when successfully used, go into a special discard pile, when that pile hits X cards you win.

Maybe even holdings could go the way of the dodo too. Instead of printed holdings, people just play cards face down as a 1 gold holding. With a handful personalities printed with an upside down field, "If played as a holding, can be play face up. Produce XX if you are a YY player". What would this do to armour smith like cards, well they would become personalities, fortifications too (in fact siege stuff were personalities in Warlord Saga of the Storm).

I think that boiling the game down to military and political victories with some objective play over the rings would be interesting. But honestly much like i feel about the two deck system, multiple victories can probably go away, as long as the finshed product is actually fun to play.

But what of honour victory. Ah that could be done via political actions. All political actions when successfully used, go into a special discard pile, when that pile hits X cards you win.

Again that would be conflating honor with politics when they aren't even close to the same.

I think that boiling the game down to military and political victories with some objective play over the rings would be interesting. But honestly much like i feel about the two deck system, multiple victories can probably go away, as long as the finshed product is actually fun to play.

Many people consider the game's multiple paths to victory to be one of L5R's most fun and attractive elements.

Which is great in theory... but in the first set of an LCG, there is likely no practical way to preserve all four victory conditions. As I mentioned before... I would very much prefer to start with only 2 (likely milirary and honor) and work up to 4 as the card pool expands. Perhaps 3 with the first deluxe expansion, and 4 with the 2nd deluxe box. Even more interesting would be to "hold off" on certain factions to coincide with those moments... but that would require FFG to accept a certain amount of backlash in favor of having fewer core set factions.

Thaddok

PS: Historically, rarely more than 2 victory conditions were ever viable at a time in any case... no reason to include crippled victory conditions just to pretend that it matters (in the core set)

I don't think there's a particular need to have a particular number of win conditions, either high or low (although additional win conditions must bring something to the table to justify their existence), especially since some win conditions are "virtual" - existing in theory, but not something you build a deck around (for example, while dishonor and enlightenment have been out there as win conditions for this history of the game, there are also time frames were one or both are not something one would build a deck around, including when the game launched).

I do think it's important that the concepts of honor and dishonor, and enlightenment, be included in the game somehow. These seem to me to be core thematic concepts of the game. But that doesn't mean they need to be win conditions in and of themselves (they could be, they just don't need to be).

I think that boiling the game down to military and political victories with some objective play over the rings would be interesting. But honestly much like i feel about the two deck system, multiple victories can probably go away, as long as the finshed product is actually fun to play.

I like the concept of the two deck system: one deck is all the visual information but the other is the hidden information that can ruin your day. While you can "bluff" with lands or creature cards in a game like MtG, having a hand full of action cards in L5R can be terrifying.

hmmm...

What if you populated your provinces at the beginning of the game, rather than having the deck set aside. You just deal it evenly to your provinces, face down in a stack, and turn them face up.

Burning down provinces mills them instead of destroying them, and a province is destroyed when it's empty?

Changes victory conditions obviously, but it's another way to really create the feeling of an invading force ravaging your land.

hmmm...

What if you populated your provinces at the beginning of the game, rather than having the deck set aside. You just deal it evenly to your provinces, face down in a stack, and turn them face up.

Burning down provinces mills them instead of destroying them, and a province is destroyed when it's empty?

Changes victory conditions obviously, but it's another way to really create the feeling of an invading force ravaging your land.

It does capture that feel but so does destroying holdings if the opponent wins a battle. I think just making the battle phases less severe (i.e. less instant death or the removal of the province death spiral) and keying more into a central victory condition would be the first thing to aim for.

I might have to look back at some of the earlier ccgs like Ophidian and see if there's anything different that can be exploited. ;p

It does capture that feel but so does destroying holdings if the opponent wins a battle. I think just making the battle phases less severe (i.e. less instant death or the removal of the province death spiral) and keying more into a central victory condition would be the first thing to aim for.

Totally agree. As far as changing victory conditions, I meant more in relation to the effect that a single military victory has -- i.e. mill a few cards, but don't destroy the province, so no death spiral. But you could get "credit" in other ways for a military victory (e.g. see my 5 rings proposal...somewhere).

I'm not sure I love destroying holdings after a won battle, because it's just another kind of death spiral (gold instead of dynasty "hand size"). Although I think FFG's gold scheme, if it's a thing, is likely to be very different anyway (more linear rather than geometric).

In order to make Defensive Military finally popular, they just need to make the rule that instead of losing a production slot when your province is destroyed, you lose a finger.

It does capture that feel but so does destroying holdings if the opponent wins a battle. I think just making the battle phases less severe (i.e. less instant death or the removal of the province death spiral) and keying more into a central victory condition would be the first thing to aim for.

Totally agree. As far as changing victory conditions, I meant more in relation to the effect that a single military victory has -- i.e. mill a few cards, but don't destroy the province, so no death spiral. But you could get "credit" in other ways for a military victory (e.g. see my 5 rings proposal...somewhere).

I'm not sure I love destroying holdings after a won battle, because it's just another kind of death spiral (gold instead of dynasty "hand size"). Although I think FFG's gold scheme, if it's a thing, is likely to be very different anyway (more linear rather than geometric).

Mechanic like 'insane' from Call of Cthulhu? The holding is flipped face down and counts as 'destroyed' till one is 'repaired' at the beginning of the next turn. It puts more of a controlling aspect to military but doesn't necessarily remove it. You'd have to balance how how much 'damage' you could do in a single turn. I think it's more likely that any damage, as killed personalities or holdings, will be minimized in the LCG. Gut instinct from looking at the current LCGs.

In order to make Defensive Military finally popular, they just need to make the rule that instead of losing a production slot when your province is destroyed, you lose a finger.

Haha, bring back the fortification cards ;P

Mechanic like 'insane' from Call of Cthulhu? The holding is flipped face down and counts as 'destroyed' till one is 'repaired' at the beginning of the next turn. It puts more of a controlling aspect to military but doesn't necessarily remove it. You'd have to balance how how much 'damage' you could do in a single turn. I think it's more likely that any damage, as killed personalities or holdings, will be minimized in the LCG. Gut instinct from looking at the current LCGs.

Something kinda like that might work.

I think if the old game is any guide (and maybe it isn't) it would result in *most* repair turns just being to repair the single damaged province, which means you're usually significantly worse off being the first attacker (because when oppoenent takes two back, you can only repair one). But maybe if the rule was that a repaired card still had to be readied next turn before it could be bought? Might work, but that seems like it would fit a very slow game.

I'm not sure the old game is a guide, though, so *shrug*. Could work!

Keep the setting.

Provinces/resources could be like SW LCG Objetives. Anyone who destroys 4 objetives, wins.

Multiple victory conditions.

I would like to have Military, Political and Enlightment.

Someone proposed to have 5 victory conditions, one for each ring.

For example:

Fire: Win 4 duels

Air: Win 4 political struggles

Water: Destroy 4 provinces

Earth: Win 4 economic wars

Void: Win 1 of each of the above.