at first i was very what the whaa with your primary and secondary clans thing, but i get it i think. in addition to being thematically central, they also line up most closely to the basic mechanics. the secondaries, as you say, are variations, so out of the gate they aren't the focus. my question: are they secondary as far as the game is concerned or as far as the core box is concerned? and would being secondary mean they aren't solo playable?

Regarding the original topic line, this is what I would expect in the core set:

4 core factions with 20 cards each, and 4 secondary factions with 15 cards each, all single print

30 Neutral cards with 2x copies, 10 Neutral cards with 1x copies

Core set: 210 cards, and you need to buy 2 Core Sets to be able to build a legal, semi-competitive deck

Tokens: Honor tokens which serve as a means of tracking VP, Koku to track available gold, and an Imperial Favor token

Stronghold / Faction Alignment cards for each faction, along with an Alliance card for each secondary faction.

The Core factions: The Lion Clan, The Crab Clan, The Dragon Clan, The Crane Clan

Why? They are you most iconic factions for L5R. Honorable bushi! Pragmatic bushi! The enlightenment guys! The honor guys! Also, they are what you need to start the Clan War (Lion vs Crane, Dragon vs Crab).

The Secondary factions: The Scorpion Clan, The Unicorn Clan, The Phoenix Clan, and someone else (Mantis Clan, Naga, Spider Clan, Imperials)

Why? Because each of these factions introduce a special mechanic which they will be good at, and can modify one of the three paths to victory. Scorpion have dishonor, Unicorn have calvary, the Phoenix have magic. The last faction would need to be Neutral heavy, similar to the Nightswatch in AGoT 2nd Edition.

Mechanics:

The Iconic - These are the mechanics which I feel are NEEDED for the game to "feel like L5R"

1) Two Decks - Dynasty (Resources) and Fate (Actions)

2) Four Provinces - Put your Dynasty Cards here

3) One hand - Put your Fate Cards here

4) Multiple Paths to Victory - See below

5) The Imperial Favor - Separate this from Honor (see below), but have this be a mechanic which interacts with all aspects of the game.

The New - These are the mechanics which I feel L5R LCG would benefit from

1) Central Victory Mechanic - Make Victory ALL about Honor, but make it so you can score Honor through different means. You need a means to make Military and Enlightenment to both gain Honor points, and then Victory is achieved by ending / starting your turn with enough Honor.

2) Eliminate Followers - Take a nod from AGoT. Have Personalities and Armies. Move Followers over to the Dynasty Side, and make them central to the Military strategy. Personalities cannot achieve the Military strategy independently, but Armies cannot be destroyed outside of a battle.

3) Dueling - Personalities MUST DUEL. Why? Because this is a game about Samurai, and how many samurai depictions come down to the epic, one on one sword fight?

Just my thoughts.

I would just like to point out that actually dueling is VERY different from the one-on-one swordfighting that occurs during battle.

at first i was very what the whaa with your primary and secondary clans thing, but i get it i think. in addition to being thematically central, they also line up most closely to the basic mechanics. the secondaries, as you say, are variations, so out of the gate they aren't the focus. my question: are they secondary as far as the game is concerned or as far as the core box is concerned? and would being secondary mean they aren't solo playable?

All 8 would be playable (more or less) with just the core set. However, your non-Core factions would be limited and not principally competitive. They would also rely heavier on Neutral cards than the Core factions. As Chapter packs were released, however, this would gradually change. To play one of the factions, you would need 3 full Core Sets. Doing so would allow you to run any of the 4 Core factions a Neutral light, and the 4 secondary as Neutral heavy. As a note, there are no Alliance cards for the Core factions, so you cannot run non-Loyal Crab cards in a Lion deck, though you could run non-Loyal Dragon cards in a Crab deck, with the Dragon Alliance Sensei.

I would just like to point out that actually dueling is VERY different from the one-on-one swordfighting that occurs during battle.

And the game would need to handle both. One on one fighting in a battle field, and one on one fighting in a court. However, there is no reason the mechanic has to be different. Just the location of the Personalities before the fight.

Regarding the original topic line, this is what I would expect in the core set:

----

Koku to track available gold

If Gold carries over from phase to phase and turn to turn, then that would be a very good reason to have Koku Tokens.

1) Two Decks - Dynasty (Resources) and Fate (Actions)

2) Four Provinces - Put your Dynasty Cards here

As long as Military equates to Resource Denial, I can't support two decks being a good thing for the game. It also poses a barrier to all those new players we'll need to make L5R huge again.

I would just like to point out that actually dueling is VERY different from the one-on-one swordfighting that occurs during battle.

And the game would need to handle both. One on one fighting in a battle field, and one on one fighting in a court. However, there is no reason the mechanic has to be different. Just the location of the Personalities before the fight.

Before any of that, we'll need a Dueling mechanic that isn't NPE or a waste of time. I'd like to hear how Dueling can be done that is fun for Dueling and non-Dueling decks.

Before any of that, we'll need a Dueling mechanic that isn't NPE or a waste of time. I'd like to hear how Dueling can be done that is fun for Dueling and non-Dueling decks.

That's a good point. I know when I had a dueling Crane deck, most of the time my opponent would just strike to get it over with. Since he didn't have a dueling deck, he knew he was unlikely to beat me; and since I had lots of focus effects there was little point in focusing just to get me to waste cards, either.

Regarding the original topic line, this is what I would expect in the core set:

----

Koku to track available gold

If Gold carries over from phase to phase and turn to turn, then that would be a very good reason to have Koku Tokens.

1) Two Decks - Dynasty (Resources) and Fate (Actions)

2) Four Provinces - Put your Dynasty Cards here

As long as Military equates to Resource Denial, I can't support two decks being a good thing for the game. It also poses a barrier to all those new players we'll need to make L5R huge again.

I would just like to point out that actually dueling is VERY different from the one-on-one swordfighting that occurs during battle.

And the game would need to handle both. One on one fighting in a battle field, and one on one fighting in a court. However, there is no reason the mechanic has to be different. Just the location of the Personalities before the fight.

Before any of that, we'll need a Dueling mechanic that isn't NPE or a waste of time. I'd like to hear how Dueling can be done that is fun for Dueling and non-Dueling decks.

I really like the knife fight mechanic they used in Legend of the Burning Sands. If L5R dueling was like that, it would be awesome!!!

Hence why I put Dueling as a New Mechanic. Because it would sorely need one, and it would need to be a "High Risk, High Reward" where neither side is guaranteed a victory.

Regarding Military and Resource Denial, I do not see the need to "destroy provinces" as part of the Military strategy, if Honor is a central victory mechanic. You gain Honor by winning battles. You gain more Honor by winning unopposed battles, or you lose Honor for losing unopposed battle. I think an element of forced Dynasty discard for military victories would also work.

I would just like to point out that actually dueling is VERY different from the one-on-one swordfighting that occurs during battle.

And the game would need to handle both. One on one fighting in a battle field, and one on one fighting in a court. However, there is no reason the mechanic has to be different. Just the location of the Personalities before the fight.

Before any of that, we'll need a Dueling mechanic that isn't NPE or a waste of time. I'd like to hear how Dueling can be done that is fun for Dueling and non-Dueling decks.

i'm truthfully not convinced that this is even possible. i think you might have to eliminate dueling as a standalone mechanic, as much as i love dueling decks, and have built a LOT of them, and did a real and hyperbole free happy dance when spider got a dueling theme right at the end there, its kind of a garbage mechanic as far as balance is concerned. by its very definition, it exists to control or kill your opponents personalities by being good at something most decks aren't designed to do. its not like battle, which every deck must handle to some degree, or honor, which is built into the game and thus every deck has some built in defense against. dueling is this weird little island mechanic that a few decks are designed to abuse to destruction. dishonor is a bit like that, except that DH is countered by honor most of the time.

any dueling mechanic you create will result in decks built specifically to abuse it. unless dueling is not as good as it used to be, or every deck can do it or there is some way to automatically compensate for dueling specialization, it will remain problematic.

Hence why I put Dueling as a New Mechanic. Because it would sorely need one, and it would need to be a "High Risk, High Reward" where neither side is guaranteed a victory.

Regarding Military and Resource Denial, I do not see the need to "destroy provinces" as part of the Military strategy, if Honor is a central victory mechanic. You gain Honor by winning battles. You gain more Honor by winning unopposed battles, or you lose Honor for losing unopposed battle. I think an element of forced Dynasty discard for military victories would also work.

I really like the knife fight mechanic they used in Legend of the Burning Sands. If L5R dueling was like that, it would be awesome!!!

Remind me how that worked again?

My only worry with honor being the only way to win with many avenues to gain honor or force opponent to lose honor, especially with gaining for through unopposed battle, is that sounds a whole lot like AGoT2

I pushed for a revamp of dueling going into Ivory, but we thought there were already enough changes. Briefly revisited it in Onyx design, but it ended up not working out. I really wanted to switch it over to some variant of the LBS system.

Hence why I put Dueling as a New Mechanic. Because it would sorely need one, and it would need to be a "High Risk, High Reward" where neither side is guaranteed a victory.

Regarding Military and Resource Denial, I do not see the need to "destroy provinces" as part of the Military strategy, if Honor is a central victory mechanic. You gain Honor by winning battles. You gain more Honor by winning unopposed battles, or you lose Honor for losing unopposed battle. I think an element of forced Dynasty discard for military victories would also work.

I really like the knife fight mechanic they used in Legend of the Burning Sands. If L5R dueling was like that, it would be awesome!!!

Remind me how that worked again?

From the rules:

Challenges and Duels

Some cards permit one Hero to challenge another. When you play a card that creates a challenge, select an unbowed Hero you control and a Hero controlled by another player. The other player can decide to refuse the challenge; if he does, nothing happens. If the challenge is accepted, a duel ensues.

Once a challenge is thrown down, it is too late to use any actions (other than appropriate Reactions) to increase or decrease a Hero's stats. Like any other action, the challenge must be completely resolved before any other actions can be taken.

Once the challenge has been issued and accepted, a duel begins. This is the only point at which Reactions referring to a Hero who "is entering a duel" can be produced.

Both players announce their Heroes' Ka values. A Hero's Ka is the value in the upper right corner of the card, plus any effects in play, plus Ka bonuses added by any attached cards with "+X" bonuses. If a card becomes involved in a duel for which it has no printed stat, it is considered to have a 0 in that stat.

Thrusting

The challenged Hero begins the duel by thrusting. To thrust, place a card from your hand face-down. You do not have to thrust in a duel. If a player does not thrust, he passes and his opponent can thrust.

Parrying

When a thrust is played, the opposing player must parry by drawing and playing face-up the top card from his deck or playing a card from his hand face-up. Parries played from your deck are Buried, unlike parries from your hand or thrusts, which are Saved after use. Although you can parry from your deck, you cannot thrust from it.

Resolving a Round of Dueling

After the parry card is played, reveal the thrust card. Compare the Fate value of the parry card to that of the thrust card. If the parry value is different than the thrust value, the Defender subtracts the difference from his Hero's Ka. (If the parry value is greater than the thrust value, the Defender over-extended his defense). The loss of Ka lasts until the end of the duel. If the parry value equals the thrust value, the defending Hero takes no damage.

After a parry card is played and both cards are discarded or Buried, the Defender now becomes the Attacker and can play a thrust card or pass. The Attacker becomes the Defender, and so on. When a Hero is reduced to 0 Ka, that Hero loses the duel.

If neither Hero has lost the duel by the time both players have consecutively passed their opportunity to play a thrust card, compare the Heroes' Kas. The Hero with the higher Ka wins the duel. In the case of a tie, both Heroes suffer the loser's fate. Unless otherwise noted on the card, the loser of a duel is destroyed and the winner is unaffected. Ka lost in a duel is restored after duel resolution.

Example:

Round 1 Rashat, with 4 Ka, challenges Nemet, with 3 Ka. Nemet begins the duel by playing a 2-Fate-value thrust card face-down. Rashat parries blindly from his deck and pulls a 2-Fate-value card. When Nemet reveals her card, Rashat takes no damage, but his parry card is Buried. Rashat now plays his thrust card, with a Fate value of 3, face-down. Nemet defends by playing a 4-Fate-value parry card from her hand. Because her parry card's Fate value is 1 greater than the thrust card, she loses 1 Ka.

Example:

Round 2 Rashat now has 4 Ka, Nemet 2. Nemet plays a 5-Fate-value thrust card face-down. Rashat takes a gamble and parries with the top card from his deck instead of using one from his hand. He pulls a 1-Fate-value card and takes 4 points of damage. He loses and is destroyed because now has 0 Ka. The duel ends and Nemet's Ka returns to its usual value of 3.

The fact that it can be refused at no cost is a glaring issue to me. The rest of it seems okay.

The fact that it can be refused at no cost is a glaring issue to me. The rest of it seems okay.

Yeah, but that was the base rule for it. However, if I remember correctly, a lot of the duels were unrefusable according to the card.

But I liked it. There were more factors than having high Ka (Chi) and high focus value cards in order to duel. You had to think of hand size and other things before issuing challenges. So there was more of a risk for the dueling deck and also not a guaranteed win.

by its very definition, it exists to control or kill your opponents personalities by being good at something most decks aren't designed to do. its not like battle, which every deck must handle to some degree, or honor, which is built into the game and thus every deck has some built in defense against. dueling is this weird little island mechanic that a few decks are designed to abuse to destruction.

I'd like to point out that this was mostly the result of a poor design scheme that "balanced" card power with Fate Values but FVs were only important to a limited amount of decks (primarily dueling and tacticians, and dueling was the only deck that cared about the other deck's FVs). This lead to a situation where a properly build deck not designed to duel had an average FV of around 1.5 because of all the powerful 1 and 2 FV cards in it.

If non-duelling decks had a more even spread of focus value so that they ended up with an average closer to 2.5 then dueling would have been less of a NPE versus dueling deck that tending to have average FVs of around 3.

Focus Values were very poorly handled as the game aged. They are a good idea for balancing cards out, but only if you actively design around them, and consider the impact of giving different cards different FVs. There is no universe in which Creating Order should have been a 4FV card (or existed), but design seemingly tossed darts at a board to determine FV on cards (with "is Rare" often being a +1FV modifier on generic battle actions).

The difference between running a 3FV and a 2FV card was pretty huge when Merchant Caravan was legal (not that I consider that card a good example of balanced card design, by any stretch of the imagination).

Another game that made decent use of a "focus-value-like" mechanic was Decipher's Star Wars CCG, where you'd get a random Focus off the top of your deck added to your army's total force (using l5r terms) after all actions were taken in a battle. That kind of system made their version of focus value matter to everyone, not just a limited range like L5R's duels and tacticians, which in turn makes it a better tool for balancing the power of individual cards, since you care about in more than just niche situations. Star Wars CCG also used Focuses off the top of the deck for their version of ranged attacks (So imagine a Ranged 4 instead being a Ranged 1+(Focus).), which added additional weight to FVs, especially once "Dude+Gun" style character cards started being printed with built-in weapons.

Duels in particular are awkward because at some point people got the weird assumption that a duel had to be "fair." You don't play fair cards. Fair cards suck. You are *using* a card to do something, at (often minimal, sometimes high) risk to your own resources, if it was "fair" it wouldn't be worth doing. If dueling was a rulebook ability, then sure, try to set up a fair plateau since it's a cost-free action that both players are risking something on, but as long as you have to invest cards/resources into getting a duel in the first place, folks shouldn't expect a 50/50 shot at winning. When I bow a 0F Token Follower to Peasant Vengeance your clan champion, nothing "fair" is happening there, and no one expects it to be.

My only issue with dueling, conceptually, is that it feels super lame when it's something that happens 10+ times per game. Iaijutsu Challenge and Iaijutsu Duel were broke as a joke, risk VS reward-wise, but in a world where they were often the only duels that happened in a game, they had a style and gravitas that couldn't be beat. The game was turning on the edge of a blade, and it was *cool*. It wasn't balanced, or "fair." but it was sweet, and captured that romanticized image of the duel. Fast-forward to modern L5R, and Mirumoto "Gain 1 honor when you win a duel" has dueled 12 times before breakfast got cold. There should never have been a world where "decking yourself due to dueling rules" was a concern. They're just normal red kill actions with extra fiddly text now, the mystique is drained by commonality. Seeing a re-usable duel printed on a 15 gold cost unique champion badass was "oooooooo!", seeing that same duel repeated multiple times across a handful of non-unique 7 gold cost doofs is eyeroll.

But then, I also enjoyed Dishonor Bomb far and away more than the modern "Limited: Lose 1 honor" poke-fest, so I might just have an unhealthy love of 'exciting' finishes, vs 'punch the time card' ones.

I especially agree about Focus Values being used to balance out cards. One card I was always rather upset about was Archer's Position , because it was a complete upgrade of Higher Ground . It did everything Higher Ground did, plus being able to be played as an engage, plus it had a FV of 3 against Higher Ground 's FV of 1! There was absolutely no reason to ever play Higher Ground if you had Archer's Position ! Had the FVs been reversed, I feel it would have been much better (or, since Higher Ground existed long before, Archer's Position should have been a 0, maybe).

I agree that I thought it was weird people wanted balance for those exact reasons. I am using resources and letting you engage with me. That's more than practically any typical action gave.

Just to say though, if melee, ranged, and fear were fv based I think that would have been pretty cool. I never thought of that.

Just to say though, if melee, ranged, and fear were fv based I think that would have been pretty cool. I never thought of that.

Poo-flinging Monkey is! (Ah, the looks on peoples' faces I've seen....)

I especially agree about Focus Values being used to balance out cards. One card I was always rather upset about was Archer's Position , because it was a complete upgrade of Higher Ground . It did everything Higher Ground did, plus being able to be played as an engage, plus it had a FV of 3 against Higher Ground 's FV of 1! There was absolutely no reason to ever play Higher Ground if you had Archer's Position ! Had the FVs been reversed, I feel it would have been much better (or, since Higher Ground existed long before, Archer's Position should have been a 0, maybe).

These cards were meant to be part of same tournament arc for less than 6 months. Archer's Positions was probably specially modified Higher Ground for incoming superior Naga shooters in Onyx. So someone's decided that losing tempo (classic) Higher Ground is coaster and should be replaced with similiar card but Engage stuff bring more surprise effect. As both were commons that was not real problem i think.

It's not the first time where nearly similiar cards are printed. More controversial was doing something like that:

Samurai/Celestial:

Emperor:

I think that the main reason Burning Sands dueling was better than Five Rings dueling was that using a card in a duel did not take them out of the game: it went to the discard pile, and the discard pile was reshuffled into a draw pile if you ran out of cards.

I think that the main reason Burning Sands dueling was better than Five Rings dueling was that using a card in a duel did not take them out of the game: it went to the discard pile, and the discard pile was reshuffled into a draw pile if you ran out of cards.

LotBS was better becasue it was designed as L5R revised and tried to correct some original L5R faults. L5R CCG should took this way years ago, but it was hard/impossible to change later i think.

I like the back and forth of the Knife Fight mechanic, and I think it could go a long way to improving Dueling. However they handle it, there needs to be a Dueling mechanic of some type, however, that all people WANT to participate in, which means that doing so requires a significant chance for anyone to win and rewards that are worth it.

I think that the main reason Burning Sands dueling was better than Five Rings dueling was that using a card in a duel did not take them out of the game: it went to the discard pile, and the discard pile was reshuffled into a draw pile if you ran out of cards.

That's how Edge battles work in the Star Wars LCG. Each card has a number of Force icons on it, and you can place a card face down alternating between the players until both pass. Then the player with the highest number of Force icons gets the Edge for that battle.

I think that the main reason Burning Sands dueling was better than Five Rings dueling was that using a card in a duel did not take them out of the game: it went to the discard pile, and the discard pile was reshuffled into a draw pile if you ran out of cards.

LotBS was better becasue it was designed as L5R revised and tried to correct some original L5R faults.

I'd agree with that as well. The water mechanic for your city spaces also put a lot of desperation into your combat assignments.

Of course, it also helped that the LBS rules team had a really spiffy hat.

I think that the main reason Burning Sands dueling was better than Five Rings dueling was that using a card in a duel did not take them out of the game: it went to the discard pile, and the discard pile was reshuffled into a draw pile if you ran out of cards.

That's how Edge battles work in the Star Wars LCG. Each card has a number of Force icons on it, and you can place a card face down alternating between the players until both pass. Then the player with the highest number of Force icons gets the Edge for that battle.

Well, yeah, but LBS dueling didn't care about the sum total of the focus values. You only cared about the absolute difference between one card and another. Therefore, in general, a 0 was as strong as a 5 for stabbing, while 2-3s were best for parryings. Also, you don't recycle your cards in Star Wars LCG. You do (did, I guess) in LBS.