Anyway, stuff. The issue with the spider..... and perhaps issue is to strong a word. Thematic space. When designing a game you want each part to be thematic and feel unique. The spider exist to threaten the empire.... but they want to be included as part of it? The spider are there to be the foil to the more honorable clans.... but that's the scorpion. The spider is there to threaten the clans that are weak? But the lion is there specifically to knock down the clans that grow too powerful and ambitious.

They are a neat idea, and if the scorpion never came back they might even have a really good place for them to fit... but there are a lot of people who feel that having one clan of dishonorable bastards who do what they want for sketchy reasons is more than enough.

Shourido is kind of a neat idea, academically, but giving it the same mechanical weight as bushido is a mistake. Let people believe this new philosophy, but the get low honor scores, not something new in its place

And the thing you (and many people) are not getting is that the Spider players never really wanted the spider to be a great clan. The storyline choice that was presented to the spider players wasn't a choice at all...

So that just throws everything you just said out the window because we never wanted the spider to be there to begin with. We liked being the organized evil outside of Rokugan trying to corrupt it. We didn't want to go back to just being the unorganized horde monsters and let the spider go away so the only other option was for the spider to become a great clan. This 'choice' was forced upon us. Nobody (including players of other clans) liked this at all.

So, for the sake of my curiosity re: spider, since I played before and dipped in after, but wasn't playing when they actually became a great clan--

Was Shadowlands the only non-great clan being supported as a playable faction at the time?

In other words, was it, "Okay, Shadowlands, we have 8 great clans as playable factions, and you. So here's the choice: you can be a great clan, or stop being playable, because from now on, only great clans are playable?"

I'm all for the idea that only great clans should be playable factions. (And again, to be clear, I'm fine with Spider as a great clan if there's a version, new or old, that FFG can make fit in their take on the game.)

It was, "Okay, Spiderlands, you can either become a Great Clan, or you can go back to being the Horde, but it's Kali-Ma's Horde, and Fu Leng is out."

It really was a stinker of a choice.

It was, "Okay, Spiderlands, you can either become a Great Clan, or you can go back to being the Horde, but it's Kali-Ma's Horde, and Fu Leng is out."

It really was a stinker of a choice.

Got you, cheers. Obviously my impression that the idea was "Clan up or GTFO" was mistaken.

Anyway, stuff. The issue with the spider..... and perhaps issue is to strong a word. Thematic space. When designing a game you want each part to be thematic and feel unique. The spider exist to threaten the empire.... but they want to be included as part of it? The spider are there to be the foil to the more honorable clans.... but that's the scorpion. The spider is there to threaten the clans that are weak? But the lion is there specifically to knock down the clans that grow too powerful and ambitious.

The problem is that the thematic spaces that the Spider took were long abandoned by the Scorpion and the Crab. The Crab were originally the ambitious, less honorable military clan given a crazy duty in order to keep them to busy to overthrow the Emperor and the Scorpion were the scheming "evil" clan trying to be the power behind the throne. Post Clan Wars, the Crab went full Jade, Duty and loyal to the Empire neutering their threat to the Throne and the Scorpion were revealed to be schemers loyal to the Emperor giving their schemes far less teeth until Race for the Throne when they could have been Emperor (they went back to lacking threat once the Dragon won). The Unicorn temporarily got the ambition for the throne bug during the Khan's March, but the Spider pretty much took full hold of the "We want to be on throne or be the power behind the throne" motivation once they got great clan status from being lead by evil Hantei scions.

The Lion are concerned with correct actions.

The Crane are concerned with excellent actions.

Neither really worries about "right." Nor, for that matter, have the Dragon in quite the same sense I mean.

No, the Lion are concerned with honoring Bushido--a highly idealized version of it, in fact. It's what makes them occasionally short-sighted and narrow-minded, but it is an idealized pattern of behaviors. The same for the Crane, though I will give you that the Crane are more pragmatic when the chips are down.

And to say the Phoenix value knowledge purely for its own sake is to overlook why they do what they do- yes, they cracked open Black Scrolls (incidentally making Fu Leng's defeat possible), but only because literally no one but Togashi knew what was up. Likewise, their curiosity about certain knowledge (such as gaijin pepper, horse breeding, and Crab culinary traditions ) is all but nonexistent.

Knowledge is what they do; it's why they keep Gisei Toshi even though on a NUMBER of occasions their maintenance of the place has led the Empire to the brink of destruction. They can't stand to believe there is knowledge exists that they don't have access to or might actually need to be destroyed. It's part of what links the Twins--Shiba and Bayushi--together. They both, and as a consequence their followers, were obsessed with knowing things. The Scorpion like to believe all secrets should belong to them; The Phoenix like to believe that all knowledge should belong to them.

(And, lol, I do believe there has to be some Phoenix somewhere obsessed with keeping up to date with Crab culinary techniques.)

Amusing that you think I over-idealize the Isawa, since I actually think they produce he most compelling villains the Phoenix produce: they honestly are in tune with the cosmos, and this leads to insane levels of hubris, arrogance, and dismissive behavior.

lol ME? Idealize the Phoenix? Actually, though, once upon a time, when playing through The Bells, I did play a highly idealized Shiba who was killed by agents of Taka because she wouldn't turn a blind-eye to that blackmail business. Outside of that, though, no.

You clearly have a higher opinion of the Isawa than I do if you think the Asako should blindly share secrets with them- particularly since Lady Asako swore her fealty to Shiba, not Isawa.

See, the issue is not if the Isawa are worthy of the secrets, but how it reflects on the Asako that they were unwilling to share them. If right behavior is the goal of any good Phoenix, and the set-up of the clan is that the Isawa are in charge, then keeping secrets (particularly those you know your superior wants to know) from your superiors is not "right" behavior from any good samurai.

Re: the Mantis and the Agasha. The Mantis might have taken them in, but their reasons would have been far more mercenary

in both intent and execution.

I would never deny the mercenary aspects of the Mantis. But . . . your original response was no one else would taken the Agasha in, and you have to admit the Mantis would have been happy to do so. For their own purposes, of course, because that's what the Mantis do. They never pretend to be idealistic, but they would have taken in the Agasha.

In fact, I've started flirting with this for part of a future campaign set-up, since I had never considered that option until this conversation. It would mean the Dragon response gets to be . . . more extreme . . . about the deserters. Cause, I always thought part of the reason the Dragon were not more vindictive about the defection was there's always been a strong current of cooperation between the Northern Clans. Sending the Agasha to "safety" on the islands would put a different spin on things and might actually change the balance of power a bit along the coast. It could also be fun to actually have a reason for the Dragon and Mantis to go to war (the one time they tried it was just plain silly because they didn't even touch geographically).

No, the Lion are concerned with honoring Bushido--a highly idealized version of it, in fact. It's what makes them occasionally short-sighted and narrow-minded, but it is an idealized pattern of behaviors. The same for the Crane, though I will give you that the Crane are more pragmatic when the chips are down.

So you agree with what I wrote. Good. Moving on.

Knowledge is what they do; it's why they keep Gisei Toshi even though on a NUMBER of occasions their maintenance of the place has led the Empire to the brink of destruction. They can't stand to believe there is knowledge exists that they don't have access to or might actually need to be destroyed. It's part of what links the Twins--Shiba and Bayushi--together. They both, and as a consequence their followers, were obsessed with knowing things.

lol ME? Idealize the Phoenix?

Where did I even come close to saying that you did?

See, the issue is not if the Isawa are worthy of the secrets, but how it reflects on the Asako that they were unwilling to share them. If right behavior is the goal of any good Phoenix, and the set-up of the clan is that the Isawa are in charge, then keeping secrets (particularly those you know your superior wants to know) from your superiors is not "right" behavior from any good samurai.

But . . . your original response was no one else would taken the Agasha in, and you have to admit the Mantis would have been happy to do so.

With that said, Agasha to the Mantis is a far more satisfying campaign idea than what we got in canon, so go for it!

Simply incorrect. My original post stated that no one else would have done so purely out of compassion.

And, I don't think the Phoenix did it out of compassion, either. They did it because the Agasha had a form of magic they did not know how to do, and they wanted that knowledge.

That being said, some of us got sidetracked into Phoenix debates or Spider debates, the thread was supposed to be about what makes L5R cool.

It occurs to me that part of what made/makes it cool for me was the fact that no matter how convoluted or . . . downright bad . . . the mechanics and story could get at times, there could always be that moment when the combination of a tournament choice and the story point and the right writer could come together to make a real silk purse out of a sow's ear. Sometimes those moments were just pleasant, but sometimes they could be absolutely brilliant. I'm thinking something like Bayushi Paneki becoming the Disgrace or the end of the hunt for the Dark Oracles that produced the monster Handen out on that island somewhere just waiting to judge whoever lands there. Those work because all the signs were there that those stories could end that way, but only if you go back and look at them carefully.

And, truthfully, for me, many of the most brilliant moments were moments that other players screamed at as "poison pills" because they showed what the story could be if the writers were not handicapped by some misled ideal that everyone has to always come out on top for something to be successful.

For example, fairly early in the scheme of things, the Crab won a tournament that said their prize would be the Sword of the Hantei. In the fiction, the sword was given to the Crab--through the gut of Hida Kisada, one of their favorite characters. It became the iconic example of a "poison pill," where the player expectations of a choice result were not what the story result produced. There were many others over the years, but Kisada and the Sword always came up as the example. It was a wonderful twist (no pun intended) to that particular moment in the story/tournament schedule.

And, it was not the end of the character. The character took two years (in story) to actually die, became a Fortune, was resurrected and returned to the Empire, had another series of adventures, then was eventually assassinated and returned to Celestial Heavens and his role as Fortune.

But the fans never gave up on the Sword issue.

Twenty years later, they were still (and probably still are) complaining about it.

But they came back to play again ANYWAY.

From a pop culture standpoint, that's not just cool, it's BRILLIANT.

The biggest problems I saw with AEG's handling of L5R were not the card mechanics . . . cause . . . they were always awkward for someone, but people came back to play again and again anyway. The biggest problems were that, over time, the PtB at AEG forgot A) that if they told a good story, people would come back for a chance to be a part of it, and B) a good story does not have to mean everyone wins. In fact, in some of the best stories, nobody wins.

I guess, what I'm saying is that the further they got from the Clan Wars, the further they got from the real spirit of what they said their game was supposed to be. They marketed themselves as the interactive CCG--the game that changed according to what the players wanted/decided--but they were not willing to actually follow through on the idea that to do that, things were going to have to change, and someone was going to be upset about those changes.

They forgot that early on, they made lots of changes, and people still came back.

At one point, they not only knew that some choices would upset people, they counted on it. There's a Gold Encyclopedia book about how L5R came about, and in it, they detail a conversation between John Zinser and some of the other creative members. They were talking about who to kill off, and when they mention Matsu Tsuko, one of the guys gets real upset because she was his favorite character. Zinser says something like, "that's why we should do it," because of the level of emotion generated by just the idea.

Let's face it, as time went on, no one really believed that any choice was actually going to change anything in the setting. No matter what was decided, the status quo would be back with the next edition. And, I think that robbed the game of a lot of the passion people had felt for it.

Simply incorrect. My original post stated that no one else would have done so purely out of compassion.

And, I don't think the Phoenix did it out of compassion, either. They did it because the Agasha had a form of magic they did not know how to do, and they wanted that knowledge.

That being said, some of us got sidetracked into Phoenix debates or Spider debates, the thread was supposed to be about what makes L5R cool.

It occurs to me that part of what made/makes it cool for me was the fact that no matter how convoluted or . . . downright bad . . . the mechanics and story could get at times, there could always be that moment when the combination of a tournament choice and the story point and the right writer could come together to make a real silk purse out of a sow's ear. Sometimes those moments were just pleasant, but sometimes they could be absolutely brilliant. I'm thinking something like Bayushi Paneki becoming the Disgrace or the end of the hunt for the Dark Oracles that produced the monster Handen out on that island somewhere just waiting to judge whoever lands there. Those work because all the signs were there that those stories could end that way, but only if you go back and look at them carefully.

And, truthfully, for me, many of the most brilliant moments were moments that other players screamed at as "poison pills" because they showed what the story could be if the writers were not handicapped by some misled ideal that everyone has to always come out on top for something to be successful.

For example, fairly early in the scheme of things, the Crab won a tournament that said their prize would be the Sword of the Hantei. In the fiction, the sword was given to the Crab--through the gut of Hida Kisada, one of their favorite characters. It became the iconic example of a "poison pill," where the player expectations of a choice result were not what the story result produced. There were many others over the years, but Kisada and the Sword always came up as the example. It was a wonderful twist (no pun intended) to that particular moment in the story/tournament schedule.

And, it was not the end of the character. The character took two years (in story) to actually die, became a Fortune, was resurrected and returned to the Empire, had another series of adventures, then was eventually assassinated and returned to Celestial Heavens and his role as Fortune.

But the fans never gave up on the Sword issue.

Twenty years later, they were still (and probably still are) complaining about it.

But they came back to play again ANYWAY.

From a pop culture standpoint, that's not just cool, it's BRILLIANT.

The biggest problems I saw with AEG's handling of L5R were not the card mechanics . . . cause . . . they were always awkward for someone, but people came back to play again and again anyway. The biggest problems were that, over time, the PtB at AEG forgot A) that if they told a good story, people would come back for a chance to be a part of it, and B) a good story does not have to mean everyone wins. In fact, in some of the best stories, nobody wins.

I guess, what I'm saying is that the further they got from the Clan Wars, the further they got from the real spirit of what they said their game was supposed to be. They marketed themselves as the interactive CCG--the game that changed according to what the players wanted/decided--but they were not willing to actually follow through on the idea that to do that, things were going to have to change, and someone was going to be upset about those changes.

They forgot that early on, they made lots of changes, and people still came back.

At one point, they not only knew that some choices would upset people, they counted on it. There's a Gold Encyclopedia book about how L5R came about, and in it, they detail a conversation between John Zinser and some of the other creative members. They were talking about who to kill off, and when they mention Matsu Tsuko, one of the guys gets real upset because she was his favorite character. Zinser says something like, "that's why we should do it," because of the level of emotion generated by just the idea.

Let's face it, as time went on, no one really believed that any choice was actually going to change anything in the setting. No matter what was decided, the status quo would be back with the next edition. And, I think that robbed the game of a lot of the passion people had felt for it.

I disagree with most of what you said about what AEGs problem with how they handled L5R.

First off... you shouldn't say things that lump everyone in to your opinion on things. You can't speak for everyone. Your opinion is just that... YOUR opinion. You are entitled to it, of course, but you shouldn't throw your opinion around like it's everyone's opinion.

In fact, most players I know absolutely loved the 'careful what you wish for' approach that AEG did with the story interactions. In truth, that left the players wondering how the story would turn out rather than pretty much knowing how it would turn out. This aspect of the story, I believe was well received by most players. However, there have been (especially the last few years) very few great stories. There's been good ones, there's been a few great ones, but for the most part, the quality of the stories had declined tremendously. I remember when I was getting in to the game in the 2nd half of Samurai Edition and reading the stories then and being sucked in to the setting almost immediately. I wanted ALL the stories I could read at that time. It wasn't until midway through Emperor Edition that I started not caring as much about the stories. I would only skim through to see friends story influences and/or anything written in regards to the spider. Other than that, I couldn't care less about it. And I know it wasn't just me not liking the stories towards the end, there were many people complaining about it.

In truth, I think that L5Rs major downfall was being able to attract new players. I believe there are many reasons that the game couldn't attract new players, but here's a few that I believe was the reason:

1) The game had a HUGE learning curve. And even tho they tried making the game easier to learn in Ivory, it also made the game kinda bland or boring to most current players.

2) Marketing!!!! There was almost zero marketing going towards L5R. It's bad when a game has been around for 20 years and people come up to you while playing and ask what it is and then state they never heard of it before.

3) Major tournament prize support was lacking horribly. Most prize support that AEG gave out was product. Most players that do well in tournaments to win product already have the product. It was up to the Tournament Organizers to come up with any other kind of prize support and it had to come out of their own pockets and hope that you have the tournament numbers to reimburse that amount. And there were many tournament organizers (especially towards the end) who lost money.

And here's one major thing that was bad for AEG: Their relationship with gaming stores was not good at all. Part of it was how the game was distributed. If the store buys 2 starter boxes (2 clans), then they don't sell some of the starters because players already got what they needed, then the product just sits there collecting dust. God forbid there would be 3 players that play a specific clan! Also, part of the bad relationships was due to the direct-to-players sets that just bypassed the stores altogether.

But yeah... these are a few reasons I believe the game went under. There's others like bad design and/or bad stories, but I believe it all boiled down to these things in the end.

It was, "Okay, Spiderlands, you can either become a Great Clan, or you can go back to being the Horde, but it's Kali-Ma's Horde, and Fu Leng is out."

It really was a stinker of a choice.

Got you, cheers. Obviously my impression that the idea was "Clan up or GTFO" was mistaken.

for a lot of us, thats kind of how it felt. Kali-Ma's horde, even as a playable faction, felt like it might as well have been a GTFO, especially those of us who started playing gold or later and who association the shadowlands primarily with Daigotsu and not with just rando monsters.

Anyway, stuff. The issue with the spider..... and perhaps issue is to strong a word. Thematic space. When designing a game you want each part to be thematic and feel unique. The spider exist to threaten the empire.... but they want to be included as part of it? The spider are there to be the foil to the more honorable clans.... but that's the scorpion. The spider is there to threaten the clans that are weak? But the lion is there specifically to knock down the clans that grow too powerful and ambitious.

The problem is that the thematic spaces that the Spider took were long abandoned by the Scorpion and the Crab. The Crab were originally the ambitious, less honorable military clan given a crazy duty in order to keep them to busy to overthrow the Emperor and the Scorpion were the scheming "evil" clan trying to be the power behind the throne. Post Clan Wars, the Crab went full Jade, Duty and loyal to the Empire neutering their threat to the Throne and the Scorpion were revealed to be schemers loyal to the Emperor giving their schemes far less teeth until Race for the Throne when they could have been Emperor (they went back to lacking threat once the Dragon won). The Unicorn temporarily got the ambition for the throne bug during the Khan's March, but the Spider pretty much took full hold of the "We want to be on throne or be the power behind the throne" motivation once they got great clan status from being lead by evil Hantei scions.

i feel like if you still don't feel like Spider have a valid thematic space in the empire after Among Sparrow and the rest of the work that was done to make them the sword (katana?) of damocles, then you're in a functionally irreconcilable differences situation. which is, i think, a problem spider runs into a lot.

And here's one major thing that was bad for AEG: Their relationship with gaming stores was not good at all. Part of it was how the game was distributed. If the store buys 2 starter boxes (2 clans), then they don't sell some of the starters because players already got what they needed, then the product just sits there collecting dust. God forbid there would be 3 players that play a specific clan! Also, part of the bad relationships was due to the direct-to-players sets that just bypassed the stores altogether.

But yeah... these are a few reasons I believe the game went under. There's others like bad design and/or bad stories, but I believe it all boiled down to these things in the end.

the store i frequented named itself after l5r, but had such a bitter relationship with AEG that by the time the game was sold you literally couldn't buy the product without getting an earful from the owner about what a wretched company it was to deal with. it got so bad he ended up cutting ties and dropping their products. this was before the sale, mind you. he dropped a product he loved because the company treated his store so badly, and sold the product so unhelpfully, that it essentially forced him to lose money on it.

"2) Marketing!!!! There was almost zero marketing going towards L5R. It's bad when a game has been around for 20 years and people come up to you while playing and ask what it is and then state they never heard of it before."



there was a point where L5R had a HUGE marketing push...unfortunately it used real people that were getting back into the game as it's main selling point and not the iconic story.

AEG has always suffered from a strange mix of tunnel vision and a small staff, (Note I have some great ememories of playing their games and helping support them...so don't take that as me hating on them)

I truly expect great things from the rebirth at FFG...I do wish they would do a clean reboot and restart the universe (yes redo the clan war...with new mechanics and new story outocmes) but I know I am a minority in this thinking.

the store i frequented named itself after l5r, but had such a bitter relationship with AEG that by the time the game was sold you literally couldn't buy the product without getting an earful from the owner about what a wretched company it was to deal with. it got so bad he ended up cutting ties and dropping their products. this was before the sale, mind you. he dropped a product he loved because the company treated his store so badly, and sold the product so unhelpfully, that it essentially forced him to lose money on it.

This was one of the big problems I ran into when I was trying to build a local play group back in 2011. Took a lot of doing to get that game store to carry L5R again.

"2) Marketing!!!! There was almost zero marketing going towards L5R. It's bad when a game has been around for 20 years and people come up to you while playing and ask what it is and then state they never heard of it before."

there was a point where L5R had a HUGE marketing push...unfortunately it used real people that were getting back into the game as it's main selling point and not the iconic story.

AEG has always suffered from a strange mix of tunnel vision and a small staff, (Note I have some great ememories of playing their games and helping support them...so don't take that as me hating on them)

I truly expect great things from the rebirth at FFG...I do wish they would do a clean reboot and restart the universe (yes redo the clan war...with new mechanics and new story outocmes) but I know I am a minority in this thinking.

Ack! Your highlights make your post hard to read.

I wouldn't mind a reboot. As long as I got to play Fox along side Wasp and Mantis in the Minor Clan Alliance. (Throw in some Naga too. )

To me, the reboot idea seems kind of madness. you've got a ccg famous for its storyline that the players helped write through tournaments wins etc etc. you're rebuilding the game into an lcg so the ccg part is basically gone. that leaves you the storyline part. why would you throw the majority of that out? especially to go back to a point that only the oldest fans have a particular fondness for? i get that L5R's storyline is a dual edged thing. its the game's greatest asset and hinderance, its just from a practical standpoint if they wanted to make an lcg about samurai clans fighting why spend the money on l5r?

To me, the reboot idea seems kind of madness. you've got a ccg famous for its storyline that the players helped write through tournaments wins etc etc. you're rebuilding the game into an lcg so the ccg part is basically gone. that leaves you the storyline part. why would you throw the majority of that out?

Because it isn't universally perceived as good, and I'm quite diplomatic here. Unlike the part where they would roll back, that is indeed widely hauled as the "best" and remembered fondly. So it is safer to get back there and draw in new people with a story that already proved it can draw in new people, rather than try to reinvent the wheel only to preserve questionable content which can turn a "What is cool about L5R?" topic into pages-after-pages of "this-and-this sucks in L5R" argument.

To me, the reboot idea seems kind of madness. you've got a ccg famous for its storyline that the players helped write through tournaments wins etc etc. you're rebuilding the game into an lcg so the ccg part is basically gone. that leaves you the storyline part. why would you throw the majority of that out?

Because it isn't universally perceived as good, and I'm quite diplomatic here. Unlike the part where they would roll back, that is indeed widely hauled as the "best" and remembered fondly. So it is safer to get back there and draw in new people with a story that already proved it can draw in new people, rather than try to reinvent the wheel only to preserve questionable content which can turn a "What is cool about L5R?" topic into pages-after-pages of "this-and-this sucks in L5R" argument.

i take strong issue with your assertion that the clan war is widely regarded as the best of l5r. don't get me wrong, i'm not saying its bad, but i think if you polled the current fan base, a majority wouldn't be able to give you an accurate retelling of the details other than the clans fought fu leng, and i doubt they'd rank it #1. go check out the favorite arcs thread. clan wars is a minority of the favorites.

To me, the reboot idea seems kind of madness. you've got a ccg famous for its storyline that the players helped write through tournaments wins etc etc. you're rebuilding the game into an lcg so the ccg part is basically gone. that leaves you the storyline part. why would you throw the majority of that out?

Because it isn't universally perceived as good, and I'm quite diplomatic here. Unlike the part where they would roll back, that is indeed widely hauled as the "best" and remembered fondly. So it is safer to get back there and draw in new people with a story that already proved it can draw in new people, rather than try to reinvent the wheel only to preserve questionable content which can turn a "What is cool about L5R?" topic into pages-after-pages of "this-and-this sucks in L5R" argument.

It would be hard to sell the "this is a 20 year old story, filled with player interaction" when you erase the 20 years of interaction.

Besides, the magic of clan war during its golden time was just how unexpected the story was going, there were legit twists and plot points people didn't see coming in the slightest. You cant do that kind of stuff now. If they did Clan War again all it would have is everyone knowing the plot before it began, and diverting would easily be seen as purposely overriding the choices made in the past... bad ingredients for wining an old fanbase and drawing new players into the magic.

If you wanted a reboot, the best idea is to reboot slightly to the Brothers conflict again, set it right around the middle of emperor edition timewise, shortly after Pan Ku. It has the best potential for players, both new and old, to get drawn into a story that was so rushed, poorly implemented, and unexplored by AEG in their push for 1000 years of dankness pt 2 electric boogaloo.

The brothers conflict was a divide among traditional and non traditional clans, had a complex multiclan conflict and war, had an heir struggle that promised to lead to impactful changes based on the winning heir's philosophical ideals. Its everything that a reboot could want, and all it would entail is rewind only 1 and a half years of the games history, not 20 years. They could add their own twist and story to the Heir's conflict, make the story far more interesting and relevant and basically have clan wars 2.0 while also keeping the most players happy, since the older crowd mostly hated how quickly that plot was forgotten. What a perfect starting point...

It would be hard to sell the "this is a 20 year old story, filled with player interaction" when you erase the 20 years of interaction.

I think it's very, very likely that's not what they're going to be selling.

It would be hard to sell the "this is a 20 year old story, filled with player interaction" when you erase the 20 years of interaction.

Besides, the magic of clan war during its golden time was just how unexpected the story was going, there were legit twists and plot points people didn't see coming in the slightest. You cant do that kind of stuff now. If they did Clan War again all it would have is everyone knowing the plot before it began, and diverting would easily be seen as purposely overriding the choices made in the past... bad ingredients for wining an old fanbase and drawing new players into the magic.

I'm actually pretty sure that jumping back and retell the story with different twists and turns (obviously, as the different players would interact with the setting differently this time) would promote the interaction much better. Kinda like "See, those guys totally did it, you can read about all 20 years on the wiki - now it is your turn!" Then have stuff like Kisada not allying with the Shadowlands because the new Crab players do not choose that path, and the Scorpion Coup succeeding because the old Scorpion players do everything in their power to make it happen.

It isn't about erasing, but rebooting. The old players would retain their "knowledge of the future" as key points would remain unchanging. For example, Toturi would still marry Kaede, and his four children would be still destined for greatness - even if Toturi himself never becomes the Emperor. I think a race for the exclusive right of raising, say, Naseru or Tsudao would result in some pretty wild tournaments as old fans and more knowledgeable new fans try to get the super-courtier or the super-bushi for their Clan. It would be, like, Tomorrow's Prophet but without the actual time-travelling shenanigans.

They even can tell literally whole story again because:

1) as it's completely unknown brand so nobody even notice

2) they did it with AGoT 2.0 (and LotR and Star Wars...)

The problem is that the thematic spaces that the Spider took were long abandoned by the Scorpion and the Crab. The Crab were originally the ambitious, less honorable military clan given a crazy duty in order to keep them to busy to overthrow the Emperor and the Scorpion were the scheming "evil" clan trying to be the power behind the throne. Post Clan Wars, the Crab went full Jade, Duty and loyal to the Empire neutering their threat to the Throne and the Scorpion were revealed to be schemers loyal to the Emperor giving their schemes far less teeth until Race for the Throne when they could have been Emperor (they went back to lacking threat once the Dragon won). The Unicorn temporarily got the ambition for the throne bug during the Khan's March, but the Spider pretty much took full hold of the "We want to be on throne or be the power behind the throne" motivation once they got great clan status from being lead by evil Hantei scions.

i feel like if you still don't feel like Spider have a valid thematic space in the empire after Among Sparrow and the rest of the work that was done to make them the sword (katana?) of damocles, then you're in a functionally irreconcilable differences situation. which is, i think, a problem spider runs into a lot.

Gah... Didn't properly read/reread my own post before posting. I was trying to point out that the Sword of Damocles style threats that the Crab and Scorpion had at the beginning of the story were largely abandoned by those clans way before the Spider became a great clan leaving that thematic space free to be taken by the Spider.

It would be hard to sell the "this is a 20 year old story, filled with player interaction" when you erase the 20 years of interaction.

I think it's very, very likely that's not what they're going to be selling.

20 years of story is 20 years of things to remember/learn. I'm not a fan of metaplots, but I imagine even those who like them could at least be persuaded 20 years is a bit much. And that's without getting into a discussion about the actual quality of the story and prizes picked by winners (these were often bad).

I really liked some parts of the story of L5R under AEG, but rebooting the story for a fresh start could be really interesting.

I think it'd help reduce the gap between vets of the CCG and new players joining in through the LCG.

It'd be like having read the AGoT books and watching the series with someone who's never opened one of the books. At first, you can watch how they react on the events you know will unfold, but then, you get surprised by what the writers changed and from that point on, you're, like the newbies, sitting on the edge of your seat.

It would be hard to sell the "this is a 20 year old story, filled with player interaction" when you erase the 20 years of interaction.

Besides, the magic of clan war during its golden time was just how unexpected the story was going, there were legit twists and plot points people didn't see coming in the slightest. You cant do that kind of stuff now. If they did Clan War again all it would have is everyone knowing the plot before it began, and diverting would easily be seen as purposely overriding the choices made in the past... bad ingredients for wining an old fanbase and drawing new players into the magic.

I'm actually pretty sure that jumping back and retell the story with different twists and turns (obviously, as the different players would interact with the setting differently this time) would promote the interaction much better. Kinda like "See, those guys totally did it, you can read about all 20 years on the wiki - now it is your turn!" Then have stuff like Kisada not allying with the Shadowlands because the new Crab players do not choose that path, and the Scorpion Coup succeeding because the old Scorpion players do everything in their power to make it happen.

It isn't about erasing, but rebooting. The old players would retain their "knowledge of the future" as key points would remain unchanging. For example, Toturi would still marry Kaede, and his four children would be still destined for greatness - even if Toturi himself never becomes the Emperor. I think a race for the exclusive right of raising, say, Naseru or Tsudao would result in some pretty wild tournaments as old fans and more knowledgeable new fans try to get the super-courtier or the super-bushi for their Clan. It would be, like, Tomorrow's Prophet but without the actual time-travelling shenanigans.

I'll be honest, I'm not really interested in this kind of stuffs. I would prefer a time jump to a reboot. In fact, a reboot may mean that the Mantis will no longer exist, that the Spider will not exist until a while (Note that we just went through a few pages on why the Spider should or shouldn't be a Great Clan)... It would be very bad for some parts ot the community.

A time jump provides a better point of start, in my opinion. While it keeps the 20 years of story, where some parts could have been better, but overall, it's a good story. With that time jump, it will give the opportunity to start a brand new story, not some "We all know what's going to happen!" where some players could just want to troll to make the story even worst. Specially if "Key points would remain unchanging", it would be very hellish.

Also, because some people like playing tournament but don't care about the story, some stuffs like the actual stories will still happen, that's if the tournament still has impacts on the story. On another point, for the RPG side, it will be very bad, because you remove a lot of content for that side. Having a long story like L5R is actually a great starting point for a game. Sure, it might seem overwhelming for new comers, in particular from D&D players (since the core doesn't include a strong setting), but it's really great to have all those arcs for the RPG. Someday, you feel like playing in the Clan War, some in the Four Wind era, then in the Exploration era, etc. It allows a lot of different feeling and different gamestyle.

I barely played the card game, compared to playing the RPG, but I can say for sure that rebooting a story will not help the RPG communauty. And I'll repeat what I've said, it will also mean to remove the Mantis for a while and the Spider for even longer.

A reboot wouldn't affect your RPG. Make it set whenever and wherever you want. It's a RPG.

Having a long story like L5R is actually a great starting point for a game.

I dunno but I feel like the story of L5R is too confusing and inconsistent to give a good start to the setting. Unless you really want new players who think that allying up with the Shadowlands against the Empire is totally cool because Kisada did it.