I have never played L5R, though I am interested in getting the new version (unless FFG continues the horrible practice of one copy of each card in the core, in which case I won't buy it.), and I kind of want someone to explain the whole thing to me. I get that there are a bunch of clans that try to claim power blah blah blah Japanese Game of Thrones, but can you explain the history of the game, why I see people saying that minor clans they created were added to the game, and why I see RPG writers posting in here, which is not a common practice for FFG. Also, what was the original game like?

Thanks in advance.

Legend of the Five Rings is a game where you play magical samurai in the Emerald Empire of Rokugan. Great Clans descended from demigods feud for supremacy, while dark forces lurk in the shadows to strike the Empire down. In Rokugan, the sword is the ultimate arbiter of justice, yet Honor is stronger than steel.

No, really, that is the best pitch for the game. The original game was a strongly Faction based CCG where players participated in a two year storyline called the Clan War. In the Clan War, the six Great Clans (and four other factions) battled it out in a no-holds-barred civil war while the Emperor lay dying on the throne. About halfway through, the Emperor suddenly recovered, only to be revealed as the dark god Fu Leng who would rule Rokugan for a thousand years of darkness. To stop him, the seven Great Clans (one had been "destroyed" before the start of the storyline, but was one of the playable factions) were united under seven heroes, called the Seven Thunders, who fought Fu Leng and killed him on the Day of Thunder. One of the surviving Thunders was crowned the next Emperor, and the game continued thence for 18 years of far muddier history and storyline.

And by interactive, we means LITERALLY interactive. The Thunder that became the next Emperor, Toturi, was the Thunder of the Clan that won GenCon 1997 World Championship. Over the twenty years of L5R's run as a CCG, players across the world won tournaments, participated in community votes, held charity auctions, and all sorts of things to influence the ongoing, interactive storyline to varying degrees. The combination of the interactive storyline and the strong Faction identity generated an active, vocal community of players who were immensely loyal to the game and brand.

The RPG was written by some of the people behind the CCG, and came out just before the Day of Thunder tournament in 1997. It brought with it a proprietary RPG system, the Roll & Keep engine, where people could play as the samurai they made cards about and tell the stories they would read about in the official fiction. It has since gone through three more editions, and has been a steadily successful RPG.

The reason you have been seeing a LOT of the RPG threads on this forum is that, unlike a CCG, RPGs have a very long shelf life. And while there has been literally next to nothing from FFG about how L5R is getting transformed into an LCG, there has been EVEN LESS about the RPG. AEG closed down their forums for L5R, and while all the CCG / LCG players are quietly waiting for news from FFG? The RPG players have kept on trucking, showing up here because they have pretty much no where else to go.

That, and if we are going to see L5R RPG survive the transfer to FFG? The best way of going about it is demonstrating that there is a market for it, by remaining active in the community. Hence efforts like Tomorrow's Prophets and Winter Court V.

What was the original CCG like as a game?

Thanks for your quick response.

The original CCG varied depending on when you played. Keep in mind, we're talking about a 20 year old game here. However, the core mechanics remained the same.

Players represented Daimyo who were vying for dominance against each other. Typically, this was two players, but earlier editions had multiplayer rules. Those vanished after a while, and the game was never really well-balanced for it.

Players would have two decks and a Stronghold. The Dynasty Deck contained Holdings (resource producers), Personalities (dudes who could do stuff), and other cards that changed from arc to arc. The Fate Deck contained Followers (armies and henchmen for your Personalities to lead), Items (toys to make your Personalities awesome), Spells (toys that your spell-casting Personalities could use), Strategies (cards that did stuff on their own), and Rings (unique cards that required VERY specific sets of circumstances to enter play, which then would give you special rules for the rest of the game). Your Stronghold would determine your Faction, your Province Strength, your Gold Production, and your Starting Honor.

You would fill your Provinces with cards from your Dynasty Deck, and most people started with 4. You can use Personalities on your turn to attack your opponent's Provinces, which they can defend. If you have a big enough army, you can permanently destroy a Province. How much you needed to destroy the Province was determined by Province Strength of the Stronghold. If all your Provinces are destroyed, you are eliminated from the game. If all other players in the game have been eliminated, you win.

Who went first was determined by which player had the highest Starting Honor. You could gain Honor through bringing Personalities aligned with your faction into play, along with certain Holdings produced Honor. Winning battles would also get you Honor, along with certain Strategies, Spells, Items, Followers, and a variety of other things. Other actions, like summoning demons, refusing duels, and other things your opponent could inflict on you, could cause you to lose Honor. If you started your turn with more than 40 Honor (you usually started between 0 and 7), you win the game. End your turn at -20 Honor or less, you were eliminated from the game. See the previous paragraph about being the last player in the game.

Gold Production was how much Gold your Stronghold produced to buy Personalities, Holdings, and everything else. Holdings could produce more money, and Personalities aligned to your faction were cheaper.

There was a third built in victory condition, which revolved around bringing five Rings into play under their own text. This was called Enlightenment, and never really was that competitive (except that ONE time, but that was the cheesiest cheese, and we don't talk about Jade Edition).

Being tied to a Stronghold meant being beholden to a particular play style with its own Personality base. Many Fate Decks, on the flip side, were virtually interchangeable. Not all factions were as good at the victory conditions as the others, and some factions simply were never truly competitive (I'm looking at you, Scorpion Clan, and my fellow Spider Clan players). Many players would find a faction they identified with, with a play style they enjoyed, and settled in there, riding the waves of competitiveness as they came and went. Some always tacked their sails to the prevailing winds, and would jump factions and styles to whatever was winning. Almost always, there was one dominant Military deck and one dominant Honor deck, and then usually a semi-dominant Tricksy deck (Dishonor! Enlightenment! Conspiracy Tokens! I am my twenty best samurai! Let's summon giant monsters!). Usually, Military would beat Honor would beat Tricksy would beat Military, so it was a rock-paper-scissors of match ups.

As a game, L5R was IMMENSELY tactical, with many moving parts interacting with each other to bring about victory along several fronts. You had to balance resource production with recruiting Personalities with equipping your Personalities with killing your opponent's Personalities, all while trying to destroy your opponent's means of production or simply sitting back and producing Honor. It was frequently compared to Magic in terms of "The Chess to M:tG's Checkers", and it is not an entirely inaccurate statement.

At its best, Legend of the Five Rings CCG was a tense back and forth battle between two opponents, planning half a dozen moves ahead of each other, coming down to a last single decisive play in the very last turn that leaves both players breathless and impressed with their opponent. At its worst, it was a one-sided fist-fight where your opponent was a freight train. Most games were genuinely everywhere in between.

What was the original CCG like as a game?

Thanks for your quick response.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG7WiGfdJJ4&list=PLXs8sV77EdBD_T6aJioMudNo77Z_NYbcT

What was the original CCG like as a game?

Thanks for your quick response.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG7WiGfdJJ4&list=PLXs8sV77EdBD_T6aJioMudNo77Z_NYbcT

This is an excellent tutorial. Very professional. The BGM is a nice touch, and I wish I knew how to find that as an .mp3.

unless FFG continues the horrible practice of one copy of each card in the core, in which case I won't buy it.

This seems to be the new standard for LCGs now, so prepare for that. I'm actually hoping for that, rather than having a growing collection of unused/unusable cards. I like it when the game mostly has cards anyone can use, in safe counts, like AGoT 2e (or Star Wars, Doomtown:Reloaded, Netrunner). I'm annoyed when up to 103 cards per extra core are a waste of space, like Conquest.

For L5R, with its absolutely massive number of clans by now, it's possible nobody will be happy with the core. If FFG keep the dual-deck mechanic and the same deckbuilding rules, you'll need 81(?) cards per player. Typically there are reduced training decks in the cores, or a need to use two factions, and FFG like diversity. I fear either a very limited number of clans, or a tiny selection of cards for each clan, and no neutrals. Again, see Conquest for the worst case scenario, with its 12 neutral cards (6 unique).

One copy of each card (or most of the cards) is in fact a very good option. To understand this, you have to compare the "formula" FFG used for Netrunner and the one used for AGOT 2E, released a couple of years later. For Netrunner, you had 3 copies of most cards, 2 of several, and just 1 of a few. This resulted in that you bought one set happily, and if you liked the game and wanted to get a full playet, a second set grudgingly, and the third one... more often that not, not at all, because there were literally just a handful of cards you needed and all the rest, like 95%, was pure waste... most people just split sets between them, but that meant you still didn't have a full playset; or waited for somebody else to leave the game to buy their playset for cheap, which is not a let gain for the game. For AGOT 2E, for most cards there is just one copy. So you still have to buy three sets for a full playset. So, what's the difference. For starters, almost no waste. Most of cards you get 3+ are generally useful cards (like money producers, or generic action cards) that will come handy if you have more than one deck running at the same time. In any case, even if you never use those 3+ cards AGOT 2E third box nets you a 5% waste, compared to Netrunner's 95%. So, same money, more buyer satisfaction.

If buying three cores, regardless of waste % is still not to you liking, consider this: 3 sets is still cheaper than one booster display of a standard traditional CCG release of L5R, which still didn't guarantee you a playset. Again, taking AGOT 2E as a model, that nets you a full playset (3x) of a 200 unique card pool for around $120 MSRP (probably under $100 in most stores). For comparison L5R traditional CCG releases were around 150 cards and some $144 one display. Even discarding the commons and uncommons (as you'll likely will have a full playset of them after just one box) you'd need around 4 displays to get a 50x3 amount of rares, with no guarantee of mix.

Finally, one copy of each card means more different cards to start with, for the same money. AGOT 2E core supported 8 different factions from the very start! The number of current factions on L5R is not far of that. Of course, you couldn't play a very good deck with cards of just one faction, and agendas cards (with allow you play with cards of a secondary faction, with restrictions) were a almost a requirement. However, after just one cycle of six chapter packs and one deluxe set, competitve single faction decks are now a reality.

In short, 3 core sets is still a big investment, but 1 of each card make it better, not worse, One bigger box with 3 of each card would either make it way more expensive and severely limit the people willing to try out new L5R to the depths of... well, lets say, people playing old, now dead L5R before the buyout, or would severely limit the initial card pool. Also, this investment is a one-time thing, and its dwarfed compared to the cost with traditional releases. Also, if you economy cannot afford to buy all three cores in one go, you can still buy one core the first moth, then another one the following month, and the final one whenever you can... (which you couldn't do if it was one huge, more expensive set).

Of course I'm taking AGOT 2E as a model, because it's FFG's latest release and evolution of their formula. They might do something totally different with L5R, like releasing one starter box for every clan, or split all clans in several sides and make two or even three different cores. Who knows? At this point everything is speculation but, frankly, I'd be happy enough if they followed the AGOT 2E model. I like that they are willing to evolve instead of sticking to one plan, While I disliked what they did with Netrunner (and never invested in that 3rd wasteful set, and that'ts probably why I don't play anymore), when I learned how they were doing in the AGOT 2E I went all in and I'm playing in tournaments, and I wasn't even planning to!

I think that if FFG release anything but 1x of every card at this point, it'll be because they split the core. But judging from every official post and interview on the subject I have read that doesn't seem to be something they're interested in. They want one diverse core box to put on the shelves.

Splitting would be nice, but then you have the token issue. It's an FFG game, so it's likely to have a hundred tokens. Which boxes do they go in? Do you split them across paired clan cores? I think it'll be more practical to have a big box with single cards and a playset of tokens.

AEG did release a mega box for Doomtown:Reloaded, so that's not entirely unheard of with these modern card games. Unfortunately it was a big, wooden collector's box that cost over $150 when it arrived in my country, so that was right out. Even with all-cardboard components (I think it had real poker chips adding to the weight) it would be a hefty price. I think there are 292 cards in a Doomtown core normally, so that's 584 in the deluxe edition. The average FFG LCG would be around 700 cards for a full playset, which with their pricing system would be about a Rebellion and a half

(Meanwhile even my FLGS sells Legendary:Predator and its 700 odd cards for only a little more than the tiny AGoT 2e box costs!)

Anyway, the best we can hope for is AGoT 2e/Star Wars-style distribution, which means X number of cores give a full playset with few wasted cards or components. I often find even the extra tokens useful (I'm running dangerously low on some tokens at times with just one core).

If you have a good group, borrowing cards shouldn't be a problem. This works even better when everyone has a different, favorite clan to play. At that point having a few core sets floating around for more neutral cards and counters is a definite plus imo. Other than the core set, there shouldn't any issue with monthly packs or deluxe expansions.

Back in the day, I'd always just trade or give away cards from other clans.

It's also highly likely, given the thematic similarity between the two settings, that the L5R remake will adopt the Thrones remake's Banner system, where you can splash non-loyal cards from a secondary faction, with certain deckbuilding stipulations applying if one chooses to do so.

One copy of each card (or most of the cards) is in fact a very good option. To understand this, you have to compare the "formula" FFG used for Netrunner and the one used for AGOT 2E, released a couple of years later. For Netrunner, you had 3 copies of most cards, 2 of several, and just 1 of a few. This resulted in that you bought one set happily, and if you liked the game and wanted to get a full playet, a second set grudgingly, and the third one... more often that not, not at all, because there were literally just a handful of cards you needed and all the rest, like 95%, was pure waste... most people just split sets between them, but that meant you still didn't have a full playset; or waited for somebody else to leave the game to buy their playset for cheap, which is not a let gain for the game. For AGOT 2E, for most cards there is just one copy. So you still have to buy three sets for a full playset. So, what's the difference. For starters, almost no waste. Most of cards you get 3+ are generally useful cards (like money producers, or generic action cards) that will come handy if you have more than one deck running at the same time. In any case, even if you never use those 3+ cards AGOT 2E third box nets you a 5% waste, compared to Netrunner's 95%. So, same money, more buyer satisfaction.

You know, difference is that in A:NR with 2 CS you could easily go 100% competetively becasue you're only missing 7 "one-of" cards, And additionaly you could easily sell all "twice" cards from 2nd CS to earn some money. As there're only 7 factions in CS all decks were much more synergied and you could easily build "mono" decks. It's all impossible with AGoT because of these 8 houses. I've read many casual reviews when people blaimed AGoT CS that they even can't create their beloved "mono" Lannister deck. And playing decks built in higlander (1 copy of each card) in so limited environment is nothing like a real game, it's just watching pictures and shuffling cards. 1CS in AGoT is just a "demo" game.

2CS of A:NR > 2 CS AGoT. Not mention DT:R where 1CS is fully playable and 2CS give you full playset.

Yeah, Netrunner doesn't really feel like it needs a lot of extra cores. After a lot of digging I've found all of two interesting decks where a second core would be necessary, and none that would absolutely require three (that I would want to play). Doomtown is just fantastic. Not even sure a second core is going to be necessary if you also have every expansion.

If FFG follow L5R's CCG rules closely there might be a lot of "Limit: One per deck" cards. If I read the online rules correctly unique cards are truly unique in a deck, right?

If buying three cores, regardless of waste % is still not to you liking, consider this: 3 sets is still cheaper than one booster display of a standard traditional CCG release of L5R, which still didn't guarantee you a playset. Again, taking AGOT 2E as a model, that nets you a full playset (3x) of a 200 unique card pool for around $120 MSRP (probably under $100 in most stores). For comparison L5R traditional CCG releases were around 150 cards and some $144 one display. Even discarding the commons and uncommons (as you'll likely will have a full playset of them after just one box) you'd need around 4 displays to get a 50x3 amount of rares, with no guarantee of mix.

Ok, on other side if you don't have time/need to play all these out-of-box houses three times per week and you focus on one clan then CCG like L5R was soooo cheap. Also if you buy 20$ Ivory / Twenty Festivals starter and you have ready to play full clan deck + 3 boosters and great metal tin as deckbox. Perfect for casual play. Buying 1 LCG CS you just got plenty of single cards you can't use to build something playable.

if you kill collector soul inside of you most CCG are much cheaper buying singles. C/UC cards you will receive mostly for free. Missing rares you buy online or from your friends.

Even in L5R if you focused one one clan you got 2-3 playable decks variant in much colourful environment. Remember that base set of L5R contained 350-500 different cards and every 3 month you received additional 150+. No, you don't have to collect all of them, but you must be ready to face them on the tables. It means that L5R as CCG was a bit more demanding in term of competetive play. Randomness of CCG format is a price for really much much much bigger game than every LCG. It's a fact people forget when comparing both formats and stick to boring "3xCS is still cheaper than box" argument. You pay less becasue you got smaller game. Not to mention when you want only a single card from LCG expansion you need to buy whole pack when in CCG this could be just a common you will get for free.

When CCG works MUCH better in organized playgroups (you know, trading stuff) whole LCG formula is just more "egoistic". You have all so there's no need to change it and there's no "surplus" cards you could give someone to help start this hobby.

Yeah, Netrunner doesn't really feel like it needs a lot of extra cores. After a lot of digging I've found all of two interesting decks where a second core would be necessary, and none that would absolutely require three (that I would want to play). Doomtown is just fantastic. Not even sure a second core is going to be necessary if you also have every expansion.

If FFG follow L5R's CCG rules closely there might be a lot of "Limit: One per deck" cards. If I read the online rules correctly unique cards are truly unique in a deck, right?

Personally i'd avoid Unique cards because many times designers decide to make them much powerful. Then many times having luck to got your powerful Unique card on the table was a source of fast win (extremely example was Moto Chagatai xp4 in L5R who won games himself). It's a problem of Conquest when one single Unique Warlord signature card played 1st/2nd turn makes game a horror to opponent.

In Ivory+ AEG learnt this lesson and they decreased number of power unique cards.

I never liked the Unique rule. Causes unnecessary variance.

The 1x per box is bad for me because I don't like having to drop so much money on a game all at once. Plus you can't really play with just one core, so why not make a big $60 box with 600 cards in it?

Yeah, Netrunner doesn't really feel like it needs a lot of extra cores. After a lot of digging I've found all of two interesting decks where a second core would be necessary, and none that would absolutely require three (that I would want to play). Doomtown is just fantastic. Not even sure a second core is going to be necessary if you also have every expansion.

If FFG follow L5R's CCG rules closely there might be a lot of "Limit: One per deck" cards. If I read the online rules correctly unique cards are truly unique in a deck, right?

Yeah, because Netrunner still gave lots of multiples, and you can live without certain cards. I'd like to play my Professor Pawnshop deck in real life and not just Jnet, but oh well, it's not worth buying more. I want them to do either the big bundle or a Netrunner style core with an option to buy the missing cards in a "tournament pack" or something like that. They wouldn't make as much money, but heck, I'm not dropping $90 on a game I don't even know if I like, and many others feel the same way.

You should be able to learn if you like a game's mechanics from one core, or from having a friend who already owns the cards teach you. (With the latter being the better option if possible.)

Yeah, Netrunner doesn't really feel like it needs a lot of extra cores. After a lot of digging I've found all of two interesting decks where a second core would be necessary, and none that would absolutely require three (that I would want to play). Doomtown is just fantastic. Not even sure a second core is going to be necessary if you also have every expansion.

If FFG follow L5R's CCG rules closely there might be a lot of "Limit: One per deck" cards. If I read the online rules correctly unique cards are truly unique in a deck, right?

Yeah, because Netrunner still gave lots of multiples, and you can live without certain cards. I'd like to play my Professor Pawnshop deck in real life and not just Jnet, but oh well, it's not worth buying more. I want them to do either the big bundle or a Netrunner style core with an option to buy the missing cards in a "tournament pack" or something like that. They wouldn't make as much money, but heck, I'm not dropping $90 on a game I don't even know if I like, and many others feel the same way.

You'll be able to find out if it interests you once we start getting the preview articles. FFG usually puts out the rulebook around the release date too. I'd expect lots of articles for L5R just to hook old and new players.

Thanks for the help guys!