I feel like FFG is going to have a hard time pleasing the fans of AEG's L5R. It won't be because the game sucks, but because it will be different. Many seem to want as few cahnges as possible, which would be a disservice to the game and the community as a whole. The current system has issues, everyone can point to at least one thing and say "that should be different". I don't advocate change for the sake of change, but I want the best L5R we can have. L5R, at its heart, is a game about magical samurai striving for dominance in one of 3 places: the field of battle, the political field, and the spiritual field. The only things required for that, mechanically, are personalities and the rings. Everything else should be looked and evaluated on what it adds to the game.

I feel like FFG is going to have a hard time pleasing the fans of AEG's L5R. It won't be because the game sucks, but because it will be different. Many seem to want as few cahnges as possible, which would be a disservice to the game and the community as a whole. The current system has issues, everyone can point to at least one thing and say "that should be different". I don't advocate change for the sake of change, but I want the best L5R we can have. L5R, at its heart, is a game about magical samurai striving for dominance in one of 3 places: the field of battle, the political field, and the spiritual field. The only things required for that, mechanically, are personalities and the rings. Everything else should be looked and evaluated on what it adds to the game.

It will take an open and forward thinking collective mindset from the community that is lead by cautious optimism.

Not everyone will like the new version of L5R. Take Netrunner, it took fans awhile to warm up to it.

I feel like I can trust FFG as they haven't changed how a game is played wholesale and only made tweaks so the game is more healthy.

I feel like FFG is going to have a hard time pleasing the fans of AEG's L5R. It won't be because the game sucks, but because it will be different. Many seem to want as few cahnges as possible, which would be a disservice to the game and the community as a whole. The current system has issues, everyone can point to at least one thing and say "that should be different". I don't advocate change for the sake of change, but I want the best L5R we can have. L5R, at its heart, is a game about magical samurai striving for dominance in one of 3 places: the field of battle, the political field, and the spiritual field. The only things required for that, mechanically, are personalities and the rings. Everything else should be looked and evaluated on what it adds to the game.

Yep, at this point it's all idle speculation. We could end up with a stripped down and streamlined version of the old game. We could end up with a reskin of some other LCG (barf). We could end up with a game that cherry picks mechanics from other LCGs they print (and draws from other sources). We could end up with some new, crazy, different thing that's both unlike current L5R and unlike anything else they publish.

Until we have a press release with hints, we're all shooting in the dark from some combination of the above assumptions.

Every player will have their own line in the sand. For some it was the company logo on the box. For some its their clans, or the two decks, or dueling. There's also the fact that many people who stormed out and slammed the door will think about it for two years, and come to terms with the new game.

After we get a press release with hints, there will still be rampant speculation, just with a little more meat for the sharks.

For me personally, I want a game in the setting I love, with a good amount of depth, and a decent storyline. My clan would be a huge plus, but I'm trying to keep from drawing that line.

I was merely making an observation. I don't neccassarily think FFG chasing the approval of all of the fans is goal they have. I doubt it, as they seem to be an intelligently run company. I have no lines, I love games, especially card games, too much to not give this one a fair shake when it comes out.

I have lots of ideas regarding this new iteration of the game, some of which I am delusional enough to think are actually great. I will gladly speculate for the foreseeable future. I also think we will have an some updates sooner than people realize, though not quickly.

I feel like FFG is going to have a hard time pleasing the fans of AEG's L5R. It won't be because the game sucks, but because it will be different. Many seem to want as few cahnges as possible, which would be a disservice to the game and the community as a whole. The current system has issues, everyone can point to at least one thing and say "that should be different". I don't advocate change for the sake of change, but I want the best L5R we can have. L5R, at its heart, is a game about magical samurai striving for dominance in one of 3 places: the field of battle, the political field, and the spiritual field. The only things required for that, mechanically, are personalities and the rings. Everything else should be looked and evaluated on what it adds to the game.

We can digress endlessly about what the game will be but, you're right, it will be different and I hope so!

It will be perhaps more tactical, or political, with personalities tagged with clan mon, with clan peeps interacting well together, without strongholds or differently operated, without two decks, etc.

In short, something dynamic that promote deck building and playability above anything else.

As I already stated 3 main aspects should be taken into account, let’s say the L5R atmosphere, the simplicity and the differienciators.

It’s quite useless to expect that the revamp of the game will stick to the present structure, it’s not suitable nor even smarter because it might be quite tricky to build up a new basic L5R set which contains enough cards to cover about 6 or 7 clans.

For me, the most important things in the new game are maintaining the multiple win conditions (or, even if the objectives are the same, having strongly differentiated means of achieving them), and maintaining the theme and tone of the setting.

My ideas on how a game could be constructed are not yet fully-defined, but run something like this:

The Five Rings start out of play. Each has conditions for attaining it, and a conferred benefit for having attained it- the Rings are not exclusive, in that both (or multiple) players can 'hold' each Ring simultaneously (probably marked with a token or something).

In addition to the Five Rings, the Imperial Favour starts out of play, and automatically belongs to the player with the highest Clout (discussed further below). It grants a once-per-turn benefit (most likely along the lines of the current Favour abilities).

Each deck starts with a Stronghold (which determines Province Strength, and grants a player ability), a Sensei (which defines your win condition: hold the Favour for [x] turns (political); destroy all opposing Strongholds (military); or attain all 5 Rings (Enlightenment)- and may or may not modify the Stronghold player ability, and/or grant an additional player ability), and one Champion (not necessarily the Clan Champion) of their Clan alignment (which has abilities of its own, and places restrictions on legal cards for the deck- a Lion Paragon Champion might not allow cards that cause honour loss, or personalities with 0PH, for instance, while a pragmatic Mantis Champion might not impose any restrictions at all, while having a weaker ability) in play.

Decks are single-deck, and contain Personalities, Events, Attachments (all of which have some kind of limitation on the personalities they can be attached to), and Actions. Personalities are not bought, but attached to an existing personality as a Retainer, to 'train' for a given number of turns according to their strength - determined as the highest value among their Strength, Chi, and Influence. So the first personality you put into play must attach to your Champion; once that personality is in play, you can attach other personalities to it until they 'activate' as well. While acting as Retainers, personalities contribute no Strength, but add their printed abilities (if any) to the personality to which they are attached. If a personality with Retainers is destroyed, the Retainers must reallocate to new (surviving) personalities, but do not lose progress on their 'training'. When Champions are destroyed, they are allocated to the Stronghold as a special Retainer for the duration of their retraining instead of going to the discard pile. Events are automatically played at the start of the first turn after they are drawn. Attachments can be attached for free after Events are resolved, but must satisfy the conditions of the attachment. Actions are played in the appropriate phase, according to the card.

Personalities have four statistics: Strength, Chi, Influence, and Personal Honour. Strength and Chi act much as they (or rather, Force and Chi) do in the current game. Influence is used in place of Strength for political conflicts (discussed below). Personal Honour is used for a variety of honour-based effects.

At the beginning of each turn, after Events are resolved and Attachments are attached, each player targets each of their Personalities, and assigns them to Court, Battle, or Seclusion. Once each personality has been assigned, the active player decides the order of resolution among the three spheres:

Court is used to do Courtly things, and is largely determined by Influence. As in current Attack Phases, the players take turns performing actions until both players pass. Typical Court actions might increase a player's Clout (or decrease another's), or inflict negative conditions (inability to use printed abilities, inability to attach Retainers, etc.) on the other player's personalities, with relatively little regard for location. Whoever ends Court with more Influence than their opponent(s) notes down the margin of excess.

Battle is much like the current Attack phase, except that it isn't divided according to Provinces, because Provinces don't exist. Players take turns until consecutive pass. Battle actions are generally harsher than Court actions, up to and including outright kill actions, but can only target personalities that assigned to Battle (though some groups, like Ninja, might broaden it a little). Whoever ends Battle with more Strength than their opponent(s) notes down the excess. Each victory in Battle reduces the opponent's Province Strength by 1; when it reaches 0, the Stronghold is destroyed.

Seclusion renders personalities immune to most actions, and can be useful for Enlightenment in one way or another, but also prevents personalities from targeting others with their own abilities, or contributing Strength/Influence.

At the end of the turn, the margins of victory in Court and Battle are added to the winning players' Clout totals, and control of the Imperial Favour transfers to (or remains with) the player with the highest Clout.

The game ends when one player achieves their victory condition.

***

Pros: New statistic to measure political power. Five Rings as integral to game setup, rather than randomly drawn cards. No gold/economy at all, with an alternative method of bringing things into play. Retains multiple paths to victory, while separating Honour from politics, but allowing for fluidity between spheres (so duelists could be useful for utility in both spheres, although they don't contribute as much of the 'win condition' stat to either). Potentially allows for radically different decks out of same Stronghold, based on Champion of choice.

Cons: Potential for 'parallel solitaire' - I have tried to incorporate some incentives for both sides to participate in multiple spheres, and that would presumably be addressed in more detail, but it's definitely an issue. Potential for lockout if a player's personalities get killed early- can be dealt with by keeping at least one or two personalities safe for Retainers to reattach to, and Champion death isn't permanent, but military/military match-ups could swing early and hard, and I'm not sure how to address this while keeping the rest of the system, which I quite like.

Thoughts? I'm not a game designer, and it probably shows, but I had fun turning the ideas over in my head nonetheless, and would be interested to hear feedback from people who know far more about this stuff than me.

Instead of making Imperial Favor be "something a person with highest Clout controls", I would make it a "benefit you can spend before next Political Battle, and if you don't you lose it and person who won this battle gets the control". Just to invite more proactive usage of it instead of currying it "for better times", and to reduce "political death spiral" of losing imperial favor once and never touching it during the session again.

EDIT

Basically, winning a Political Battle grants you Imperial Favor. Person who wins next Political Battle takes it, even if you didn't spend it or have bigger Clout.

Idanthyrsus, I like a lot of what you have there. I feel like their should be a mechanical difference between the forms of conflict. Because going to court and going to war should feel different. Maybe the difference is only in the possible actions, but it should feel different. I also think most action cards should have multiple actions, being useful for the different spheres, which would eliminate the old problem of not having actions for your "opponents phase". Balancing those multi-actions might be difficult but the pay-off would be worth it.

Yeah I really would love it if I final could get more open cards back and have something I can do in his pahse to sabotage his play. Until now I really felt like both played solitaire until we fight a battle and see who has the best hand. If this changes and it would become more interactive I would love it.

I REALLY would not like to see honor rolled up in a political victory. A political victory to handle politics (both dishonor and the political aspects design has been trying to foist on honor since forever) is fine. Personally, I'd actually be in favor of courtly politics as an alternate method of "taking provinces" (whatever the FFG equivalent is). Court is, after all, a battlefield.

But honor should remain its own, distinct thing. Doesn't have to be a victory condition (though I think it should), doesn'T have to be a -20-40 meter, but it needs to be an active, powerful force in the setting. More powerful than steel and whatnot.

The conflation of politics with honor/dishonor was a design mistake by AEG.

Himoto,

I agree that politics and honor should be seperate here. In doing that I don't know that it should be a victory condition, but rather the ultimate booster and tie-breaker. Action-window opens, highest honor has priority, stuff like this. Make an action better.

I have tried many times, but cannot articulate how I think honor is only ever a "bonus". No one in the setting does stuff expecting honor, they hope, but never expect as their actions were mostly ruled by duty. That is why I don't know if honor should be a win-condition, unless you we somehow tie it to all win-conditions.

I wonder if honor and dishonor could be boost kickers - like Kurohito basic. You get a bonus if your honor is over a certain amount, or after gaining a certain amount of honor (or causing dishonor). Again, idle speculation and thinking out loud.

I like the notion of victory by becoming the ultimate paragon of what it means to be a Rokugani (ie, the original thematic of the honor victory), but I can live without it, so long as honor is represented in the game as something distinct from politics.

It's the honor = politics mentality that I find completely devoid of any relation to Rokugan.

Himoto,

That is an interesting take. And I find it interesting because it parallels enlightenment. In the process of a military or political strategy, one would also have to take steps on the path of enlightenment, you should in theory be gaining in honor as your follow the tenants of bushido. hmmm... much to think on.

It's what honor was originally described as - victory by popular acclamation after becoming a paragon of everything it means to be Rokugani (not just bushido, but art, piety and culture too)

The whole idea of honor being associated with the political scene has more to do with dishonor and its common association with the court than anything else. Once you start messing a victory condition around honor and dishonor entanglements, the political side of Rokugan is a natural fit.

But yes, other ways to do honor should still exist. This can be during battle or simple constructions from artisans. Oh look! My artisan made an awesome statue of the Emperor!

Agreed, dishonor = politics make a modicum of sense, but honor is more than just the opposite of dishonor, and shouldn't be defined or limited by what dishonor is.

Agreed, dishonor = politics make a modicum of sense, but honor is more than just the opposite of dishonor, and shouldn't be defined or limited by what dishonor is.

Absolutely honor can be more, but with something like a core set, I lean more towards using it as the opposite of dishonor in a political victory scheme (with a few other cards to denote the flavor of honor outside of politics). Later, you can expand on the concept with the expansions.

I'd rather not - honor vs dishonor as opposites was a very, very, very bad game mechanism. Make politics (and dishonor) their own thing (and decouple it from the honor meter), and honor a separate thing.

I agree that Honour should be a different thing from politics, definitely, and remain a powerful aspect of the game. I had various thoughts for how Honour could be integrated, as a distinct win condition or as a power-booster- the problem is that some Clans will always find Honour-running easier than others - if they remain true to the setting, half the Clans really shouldn't have an Honour win condition at all - so I'm not comfortable making it a universal power-booster (though it could certainly boost the power of at least some Crane/Lion/Phoenix/Shiotome(?) cards), and the fact that Honour gain is generally uncontestable (whereas politics and battle are contested, and at least some of the Rings would require contests as well) makes it very difficult to balance effectively. The margin where the clock is neither so slow as to be irrelevant, nor so fast as to make other win conditions irrelevant (and the Clans with access to it OP) is very thin.

As a result, I eventually decided that it would be better not to track aggregate Honour at all- there's already enough tracking of training times and so on going on in my hypothetical system - and to have actions that trigger off personalities' Personal Honour instead. In exchange for access to this suite of actions, decks with access to higher-PH personalities would be restricted in other ways. But I'm certainly interested in hearing other ways in which Honour could be integrated into my, or any other, system, without being tied to politics.

Hi folks,

I'm an early L5R players, I'm playing from the imperial edition, and each time the game change it lost more players than gaining them.

Always changing rules, multiple tournament formats have commited L5R to its lost in my community. Why do you need to change those thing that makes L5R unique for 20 years now ? Two decks, multiple victory conditions, nine of more clans, ...

One of the best rules set i've ever played is emperor, yes it has some flaw but you can get rid of them without making a mess of the game.

The best thing that happens to L5R is becoming an LCG, by now nobody could complain that their deck miss some cards... Just begin to try this and then if it will not work THEN only change one more time again rules and so on. Now i have about 25 persons that await to know what happen to the game to consider playing it again.

The major thing also the game need is to support legacy format !

Your empress,

Bayushi Kachiko

I agree that Honour should be a different thing from politics, definitely, and remain a powerful aspect of the game. I had various thoughts for how Honour could be integrated, as a distinct win condition or as a power-booster- the problem is that some Clans will always find Honour-running easier than others - if they remain true to the setting, half the Clans really shouldn't have an Honour win condition at all - so I'm not comfortable making it a universal power-booster (though it could certainly boost the power of at least some Crane/Lion/Phoenix/Shiotome(?) cards), and the fact that Honour gain is generally uncontestable (whereas politics and battle are contested, and at least some of the Rings would require contests as well) makes it very difficult to balance effectively. The margin where the clock is neither so slow as to be irrelevant, nor so fast as to make other win conditions irrelevant (and the Clans with access to it OP) is very thin.

As a result, I eventually decided that it would be better not to track aggregate Honour at all- there's already enough tracking of training times and so on going on in my hypothetical system - and to have actions that trigger off personalities' Personal Honour instead. In exchange for access to this suite of actions, decks with access to higher-PH personalities would be restricted in other ways. But I'm certainly interested in hearing other ways in which Honour could be integrated into my, or any other, system, without being tied to politics.

Maybe have it tied to everything but remove the honor victory? Instead, we come up with an alternative way to do a political victory.

Maybe have it tied to everything but remove the honor victory? Instead, we come up with an alternative way to do a political victory.

Something would have to go, IMO.

4 victory conditions is already too many.

Maybe have it tied to everything but remove the honor victory? Instead, we come up with an alternative way to do a political victory.

Something would have to go, IMO.

4 victory conditions is already too many.

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

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.