It has always been the case in L5R that you could play with cards representing characters who had died in the story. As it has pretty much always been the case for games that have a world alongside them. Or was the Star Wars LCG supposed to ban Han Solo when The Force Awakens came out?

Spoilers!

Obligatory Kali-Ma reference.

On ‎1‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 6:53 AM, Builder2 said:

The argument isn't that dead characters will get new versions. It's that characters featured in non-rotating product will, by definition, be permanent fixtures of the cardpool. And in order for the game to run parallel to the ongoing storyline, those characters either need to have plot armor, or be generic, non-unique characters who could appear regardless of the timeline (e.g. "Tsuruchi Scout").

Or, one could just create an entirely new character and call it the "Soul of..." a previous character.

3 hours ago, JJ48 said:

Or, one could just create an entirely new character and call it the "Soul of..." a previous character.

This. It is my understanding the core set is always legal, while expansions expire after a year or two. You could always reprint new editions of the Core set everytime there is a significant time jump, with new art and new ''names'' for characters. They have the exact same mechanism, share the same restrictions of play (can't have both versions in play if unique, for example), and they replace the old characters when it comes to story choices (if FFG continues this L5R tradition).

In both tournament and casual play, both versions of the cards are legal, and you are able to sell a brand new box to avid players without having to go through playtest again. Win-Win. (And I expect the ''old'' versions to become some sort of vanity items to players. Owning them will be some sort of proof you are an early player)

This begs the question: Where do y'all think mechanics should intersect flavor/setting, in regards to the LCG? Should one trump (pun acknowledged) the other? What's more important to you? Give some context: my sense is that rpg and casual players lean toward flavor/setting while competitive players lean toward function/mechanics. But I'd love to hear thoughts.

On 1/27/2017 at 9:54 AM, sndwurks said:

L5R CCG did a lot to help stabilize play by introducing "Gold Pooling" in Ivory, and allowing you to Cycle during your first turn. While it was still possible to get Gold screwed or Personality screwed, it happened much less frequently in the tournaments that were happening AFTER the introduction of Cycling than before. And that is, basically, a public Mulligan on your Dynasty.

Also, I feel that Gold pooling was a much more beneficial effect to the economy of the game than the Legacy style holdings (Gifts & Favors, Border Keep, Bamboo Harvesters, Forgotten Legacy).

I'm sorry, gold pooling crapped all over game balance. It was one of the worst changes ever put into the game, they'd have been better off putting corrupt gold back in than allowing pooling.

Example:

Your sh gives 4, you flip 2 clan holdings and 2 dudes. Gold pooling doubles your T2 gold compared to older editions, accelerates your game and did things like give T3 2 guys and a holding. To quote an older l5r player. Thats far too blitzz.

15 minutes ago, McDermott said:

I'm sorry, gold pooling crapped all over game balance. It was one of the worst changes ever put into the game, they'd have been better off putting corrupt gold back in than allowing pooling.

Example:

Your sh gives 4, you flip 2 clan holdings and 2 dudes. Gold pooling doubles your T2 gold compared to older editions, accelerates your game and did things like give T3 2 guys and a holding. To quote an older l5r player. Thats far too blitzz.

I wouldn't mind removing gold pooling. It would help 5 gold for Unicorn be slightly less ridiculous.

I'm sure some of the more tournament-focused players prefer a faster-paced, blitzing game, but I'd like a change that favored a longer build-up.

1 hour ago, McDermott said:

I'm sorry, gold pooling crapped all over game balance. It was one of the worst changes ever put into the game, they'd have been better off putting corrupt gold back in than allowing pooling.

Example:

Your sh gives 4, you flip 2 clan holdings and 2 dudes. Gold pooling doubles your T2 gold compared to older editions, accelerates your game and did things like give T3 2 guys and a holding. To quote an older l5r player. Thats far too blitzz.

It wasn't gold pooling's fault, it was the fact that AEG decided to leave in the clan holdings. AEG realized this screw up and even admitted it in a podcast. And said clan holdings weren't gonna be around in Onyx. Your statement blames gold pooling on the accelerated start when you should have said 'Clan holdings doubles your T2 gold compared to older editions, accelerates your game and did things like give T3 2 guys and a holding'.

1 hour ago, McDermott said:

I'm sorry, gold pooling crapped all over game balance. It was one of the worst changes ever put into the game, they'd have been better off putting corrupt gold back in than allowing pooling.

Example:

Your sh gives 4, you flip 2 clan holdings and 2 dudes. Gold pooling doubles your T2 gold compared to older editions, accelerates your game and did things like give T3 2 guys and a holding. To quote an older l5r player. Thats far too blitzz.

I'm not fan of gold pooling as well, but have to say this idea was devastated by some wrong gold cards in IvE.

As AEG sometimes tried to correct their mistakes you have to know there were meant no Clan Holdings in Onyx (also that's why lack of them with black bugs in base 20F). Also there're no free gold cards, really small amount of cost reducers at least in base set. Unicorn Stronghold was reduced to 4GP on both sides.

Gold boost was only on "corrupted" Holdings, but all "ignore honor loss" senseis were at -1GP as well.

Things just looked and played much fair.

3 minutes ago, Sparks Duh said:

Your statement blames gold pooling on the accelerated start when you should have said 'Clan holdings doubles your T2 gold compared to older editions, accelerates your game and did things like give T3 2 guys and a holding'.

But you also know, that such "gold boost" didn't have such impact like in gold pooling editions. On your second this additional gold in MOST cases didn't helped because you were still buying another 2 holdings or Personality + Holding.

1 hour ago, Sparks Duh said:

It wasn't gold pooling's fault, it was the fact that AEG decided to leave in the clan holdings. AEG realized this screw up and even admitted it in a podcast. And said clan holdings weren't gonna be around in Onyx. Your statement blames gold pooling on the accelerated start when you should have said 'Clan holdings doubles your T2 gold compared to older editions, accelerates your game and did things like give T3 2 guys and a holding'.

Haven't clan holdings been around practically forever?

While having clan holdings in addition to gold pooling may have exacerbated the issue, I'm not sure that removing them would really fix the issue, either.

Gold Pooling speeds the game up while making the economy more sustainable. What broke it was the card base, not the mechanic.

For example, in previous rules sets, you either had free Holdings which produced Gold (Small Farm, Corrupt Holdings, Forests for Naga), or you just bought 1 holding turn 1. Then 2 holdings turn 2. That requires seeing 3 affordable holdings in your first 8 Dynasty cards (20% of your Dynasty Deck). This is how you got all decks to have 15 gold producing holds, by the way, being your minimum. You were fragile at less than 18, however, and falling behind the curve of economy was devastating. And why would you ever run a gold producing holding that was not a 4G for 4G? Which meant, late game, your deck could get clogged by revealing too many Holdings. In general, it was a lot more volatile and less reliable.

Post gold pooling, you could safely run 16 holdings each of which cost 2G for 2G (save your Clan holding), and you had both the flexibility to run holdings with Actions on them and cards which were not multiples of your Stronghold gold production. It led to more options in deck designing and gold schemes, and led to less games decided by a late game Holding Flush.

30 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Haven't clan holdings been around practically forever?

While having clan holdings in addition to gold pooling may have exacerbated the issue, I'm not sure that removing them would really fix the issue, either.

It did. Remove Mantis-like Stronghold from environment, remove 5GP Stronghold, remove clan holdings, remove cards like The Blessing and trust me, gold system works equal for everyone without brutal consistent gold boost these card allowed. As far i played over hundred Onyx games i'm sure what i'm talking about.

Personally I did not like gold pooling because I have a weird pleasure from paying with exact change. So designing a curve just right with clumpy gold was pleasing to me.

I do however completely agree with kempys and sndwurks. It was good for the game and the mechanic itself wasn't not bad, just the cards enabled around it.

3 hours ago, BayushiCroy said:

It was good for the game and the mechanic itself wasn't not bad, just the cards enabled around it.

this was practically the l5r motto for the last few years. there was a lot to like about the evolution of the rules towards the end, but those efforts were pretty consistently betrayed by bonkers decisions in card design, leading to seesawing balance, bans, errata, etc. one of the reasons formats like modern are so much fun, i think, is that the wider card pool dilutes the ability of specific cards to be the monsters they were in their native environments, while using the "best of all possible rules", so to speak.

6 minutes ago, cielago said:

this was practically the l5r motto for the last few years. there was a lot to like about the evolution of the rules towards the end, but those efforts were pretty consistently betrayed by bonkers decisions in card design, leading to seesawing balance, bans, errata, etc. one of the reasons formats like modern are so much fun, i think, is that the wider card pool dilutes the ability of specific cards to be the monsters they were in their native environments, while using the "best of all possible rules", so to speak.

I may not be remembering right, but I was very excited to start playing modern once Emperor cycled out completely. That was supposed to happen with onyx, I think. Too bad ivory was just boring and ended at 20f.

Just now, BayushiCroy said:

I may not be remembering right, but I was very excited to start playing modern once Emperor cycled out completely. That was supposed to happen with onyx, I think. Too bad ivory was just boring and ended at 20f.

Sparks runs modern tournaments online via sun and moon still. its a really solid format. i highly recommend it if you still wanna get your ccg on. http://l5rmodern.roku-mart.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2&sid=f09d0eb978521318d143de4ce632b906

11 minutes ago, cielago said:

Sparks runs modern tournaments online via sun and moon still. its a really solid format. i highly recommend it if you still wanna get your ccg on. http://l5rmodern.roku-mart.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2&sid=f09d0eb978521318d143de4ce632b906

I don't run the tournaments for Modern anymore. Kempy took over those duties for me. I'm just the creator of the format!

@BayushiCroy: Emperor wan't going to cycle out for a long time, actually. The arc after Onyx was when Samurai Edition was going to rotate out and then the arc after that, Celestial Edition, then the arc after that, THEN Emperor. Modern was going to be a 5 arc long format.

Its pretty dumb to blame cards that had been staples for the entirety of the games existence without issue rather than the poorly thought out new rule that screwed everything sideways and added a whole clear your gold pool issue to keep track of.

7 hours ago, cielago said:

this was practically the l5r motto for the last few years. there was a lot to like about the evolution of the rules towards the end, but those efforts were pretty consistently betrayed by bonkers decisions in card design, leading to seesawing balance, bans, errata, etc. one of the reasons formats like modern are so much fun, i think, is that the wider card pool dilutes the ability of specific cards to be the monsters they were in their native environments, while using the "best of all possible rules", so to speak.

Its also a little bit strange to talk about how it was "good for the game" when it was the arc that literally killed the game. Clearly it WASN'T good for the game.

2 hours ago, McDermott said:

Its pretty dumb to blame cards that had been staples for the entirety of the games existence without issue rather than the poorly thought out new rule that screwed everything sideways and added a whole clear your gold pool issue to keep track of.

Clan Holdings (and any other with best cost/production ratio) in goldpooling ruleset worked much, much better than in old days. That's why reprinting them in IvE was wrong. As i wrote above, removing all trouble gold cards and introducing 2 for 2 Legacy Holding made Onyx gold system nearly perfect. Only gold boost was available from corrupted holdings OR if you went second, by permanent weaking your Stronghold by fliping it on side A, but as dishonor was a THING again you should think twice before puting Slave Pits or Lane of Immorality in every gold scheme around.

6 hours ago, McDermott said:

Its also a little bit strange to talk about how it was "good for the game" when it was the arc that literally killed the game. Clearly it WASN'T good for the game.

Well... I was going to engage you with more serious debate, but I can see now that you are only trolling people and actually have no clue what you're talking about.

1 hour ago, Sparks Duh said:

Well... I was going to engage you with more serious debate, but I can see now that you are only trolling people and actually have no clue what you're talking about.

Yeah. Clearly what actually ended the game was AEG foolishly deciding to try to get rid of Mantis. Take heed, FFG...

16 hours ago, Sparks Duh said:

I don't run the tournaments for Modern anymore. Kempy took over those duties for me. I'm just the creator of the format!

@BayushiCroy: Emperor wan't going to cycle out for a long time, actually. The arc after Onyx was when Samurai Edition was going to rotate out and then the arc after that, Celestial Edition, then the arc after that, THEN Emperor. Modern was going to be a 5 arc long format.

Fair enough. I must not be thinking of the correct format name. There was strict, modern, and wasn't there one inbetween those formats? Or am I just misremembering entirely.?