Flavorwise, it seems to me that any kind of political theme for the Spider Clan ought to have been about undermining the other Clans' beliefs, subverting the Seven Virtues of Bushido with the Spider's own Dark Virtues, thereby slowly becoming more "honorable" in the eyes of the Empire at large.

7 hours ago, Builder2 said:

Flavorwise, it seems to me that any kind of political theme for the Spider Clan ought to have been about undermining the other Clans' beliefs, subverting the Seven Virtues of Bushido with the Spider's own Dark Virtues, thereby slowly becoming more "honorable" in the eyes of the Empire at large.

hard disagree. to me, the spider shouldn't interested in being honorable by rokugan's standards. they should want to own or corrupt the empire. i liked the susumu theme because it was favor manipulation, which is to say that the susumu worked by leveraging things to gain imperial favor, rather than straight up honor rocketing, but if i had my druthers, i'd have built a theme that was a kind of backwards dishonor. it handed out shadowlands taint, and then gained honor off of your personalities having said taint. basically, it wasn't that they were behaving honorably, its that they were forcing others, via the taint, to do their bidding, and gaining advantage in court as a consequence. i'd also have put a greater focus on favor manipulation than on straight honor rocketing, as i liked that about the susumu. its not that they were all about gaining glory, it was about using what honor they could scrabble together for practical purposes.

Mmm. Make that Shourido tokens and it could work! Also, Shourido tokes would confer powerful abilities to the other player cards, so it would be tempting to use them, but each time they'd do, they'd be making the Spider player near their victory condition.

Well if they were Shourido tokens it'd basically be the flavor I was describing. And IMO it makes more thematic sense: it's one thing to show up in court believing in one or more tenets of Shourido; it's quite another to show up Tainted.

Small detail, but I'm hoping that if there's an equivalent to Focus Values, the average is closer to 2 than 4.

Well, I hope Duels are gone or heavily changed and Focus Value can go, as far as I'm concerned.

1 hour ago, Ser Nakata said:

Well, I hope Duels are gone or heavily changed and Focus Value can go, as far as I'm concerned.

As much as I like the Duel mechanic, I completely understand how it can easily lead to NPE, so should be removed or heavily altered to make it less Clan-biased.

NPE? I don't think I've heard that abbreviation before..

17 minutes ago, Myrion said:

NPE? I don't think I've heard that abbreviation before..

Negative Player Experience

Thanks!

5 hours ago, Network57 said:

As much as I like the Duel mechanic, I completely understand how it can easily lead to NPE, so should be removed or heavily altered to make it less Clan-biased.

Might as well make honor, dishonor and enlightenment non clan biased as well. Which I think won't happen. Assuming all of this stays in, everyone will be the best at something, FFG has done it on other games don't see why they wouldn't do it here.

The problem with dueling was never from the perspective of the person getting challenged, there were always meta cards that helped with that, but from the perspective of the challenger you had:

1.- Dueling was never directly tied to a win condition.

2.- Dueling should be high risk high reward, but at the beginning cyclists duelists stack deck in their favor so no risk, and at the end (ivory) dueling had very little reward (no deadly duels, mostly bowing).

3.- You always had to mill your own deck/hand to focus, which is not something anyone wants to do with any frequency.

I hope dueling stays, but they have to address the above.

5 hours ago, Network57 said:

As much as I like the Duel mechanic, I completely understand how it can easily lead to NPE, so should be removed or heavily altered to make it less Clan-biased.

I think there needs to be some kind of duelling mechanic to l5r. Though if you stop clans being better in duelling, leaving the risk of taking an action to kill your own personality, what's the incentive to include duelling in your deck?

39 minutes ago, BitRunr said:

I think there needs to be some kind of duelling mechanic to l5r. Though if you stop clans being better in duelling, leaving the risk of taking an action to kill your own personality, what's the incentive to include duelling in your deck?

Yeah this was the problem with it, "High risk high reward" ends up being either too good or too bad!

I think they made inroads to fixing dueling, duelist was a better iteration than Double Chi and they began integrating more dueling cards.

IMO, dueling should be a normal thing that occurs, not just something dueling decks do, and not something that requires a deck built around it. The problem with it, is that both suffer the same effect for losing a duel, this may appear fair, but for a deck that is not prepared to duel, it just makes it feel non-interactive.

I think the duelist trait would need to be changed, and not be geared to help you win a duel, but gives you extra bonuses when you do win a duel, or even a mitigating factor when you lose.

I'd also personally change the focus mechanic a little. The card limit to dueling was a good change, and focusing off the top of your deck was a good idea too, but I'd do somehting like, you can only focus a number of times up to your printed chi, +1 if you are a duelist. Also something like, once per turn mechanic that lets you choose and draw a card that was focused in a duel, even one of your opponents. Just to give playing duelists more value.

I think duels should also have win conditions to do more powerful versions of action cards that exist already. Like ehanced force bonus/penalty cards, enhanced straighten or bow tech, send home and movement etc. I'd also be tempted to build duelist options into normal bread and butter cards with those kinds fo effects. Which means that your deck doesnt fall to crap when you dont have an adequate duelist on board, but sometimes, you might take a risk to use the duel option to try and swing a battle more in your favour, and again, this would be in an environment when duelists dont have a huge advantage in winning duels, just get more benefit from using them,

In short, I'd love if every game and deck had a duel of some kind that was usable! And not just resigned to, "oh God, here we go again, a double chi duelist with Judgment and a secrets on the wind shug on the board" QQ

if you want a pretty good parallel of how dueling could be implemented in a way thats both frustrating as hell, useful, but also not the backbreaking NPE of say gold/diamond, then theres a good example in netrunner. one of the corps, Jinteki, frequently uses a mechanic that forces the opponent and yourself to bet a number of credits, secretly, and then depending on the outcome of that bet, something happens. for example, when a runner triggers some jinteki ice (basically they walk into defensive trap, if you aren't familiar with the game), both bet, and as long as the runner doesn't bet the same as the corp, their turn ends. now, i'm not saying you use this mechanic, but its a good example of what i think is a pretty similar piece of game design, which i think works well. hopefully it also indicates that FFG knows what they're up to, and they find a similarly elegant way of handling dueling.

edit: rereading this, it occurs to me that it doesn't really show you why i think it works, if you don't already play netrunner. the betting mechanic means you have to weigh the benefits (betting high is the least likely to be your opponents bet, because credits are good to have) vs the cost (credits are good, obviously). you also have to take into account your opponents engine, their current pool, their betting habits. its a clever mechanic.

I know I've said this in another thread somewhere on here, but if dueling were to come back, it would be nice to see something similar to Legend of the Burning Sands knife fighting. I really loved that mechanic!

1 minute ago, Sparks Duh said:

I know I've said this in another thread somewhere on here, but if dueling were to come back, it would be nice to see something similar to Legend of the Burning Sands knife fighting. I really loved that mechanic!

Yeah. Let me quote LBS duel ruleset:

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.

Reading those rules makes it apparent to me that those rules are suitable for back and forth knife fights or the duels of European style knights, but ill suited for one strike Iai style samurai duels.

Many of the times I saw someone opposite of me experiencing a dueling related "NPE" ended up being self-inflicted. They built their decks ignoring focus values and then ended up punished for it. They would fill their decks with "strong cards" with low focus values and then get upset when that weakness came up.

Those times when I was having a "NPE" as a dueling deck was primarily due to design failures. I'd face decks big unit decks with boxable personalities with expensive +C 4FV attachments that would push them out of challenge range and the same environment would give me 7G/8G personalities and no low cost +C 4FV attachments. Focus Effects would be printed that were primarily punish the winner dueling meta rather than reward the challenger for focusing even if they lose effects.

38 minutes ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

Many of the times I saw someone opposite of me experiencing a dueling related "NPE" ended up being self-inflicted. They built their decks ignoring focus values and then ended up punished for it. They would fill their decks with "strong cards" with low focus values and then get upset when that weakness came up.

Uhhhhh. Yeah that's the whole reason dueling was a stupid mechanic. You build a deck and the dueling deck builds a dueling deck. Non dueling deck gets smashed by duels. It was never fun at all. That's why dueling was stupid.

19 minutes ago, Sparks Duh said:

Uhhhhh. Yeah that's the whole reason dueling was a stupid mechanic. You build a deck and the dueling deck builds a dueling deck. Non dueling deck gets smashed by duels. It was never fun at all. That's why dueling was stupid.

You could say the exact same thing about pretty much any other type of deck. Didn't build your deck to handle Cavalry? Hope you enjoyed your opponent taking several provinces unopposed. Didn't build your deck to handle turn two blitz even though you knew it was possible? Hope you enjoyed being down one or more provinces before you could do anything. Didn't build your deck to face Dishonor? Enjoy losing or going to time.

It was mainly because only dueling and tactician decks cared about focus values (supposedly major balancing factor for cards) that duels ended up being so lopsidedly in favor of dueling decks.

22 minutes ago, Sparks Duh said:

Uhhhhh. Yeah that's the whole reason dueling was a stupid mechanic. You build a deck and the dueling deck builds a dueling deck. Non dueling deck gets smashed by duels. It was never fun at all. That's why dueling was stupid.

Uhhhhh. Yeah that's the whole reason military was a stupid mechanic. You build a deck and the military deck builds a military deck. Non military deck gets smashed by attacks. It was never fun at all. That's why military was stupid.

Uhhhhh. Yeah that's the whole reason honor was a stupid mechanic. You build a deck and the honor deck builds a honor deck. Non honor deck gets smashed by honor gain. It was never fun at all. That's why honor was stupid

Uhhhhh. Yeah that's the whole reason cavalry was a stupid mechanic. You build a deck and the cav deck builds a cav deck. Non cavalry deck gets smashed by horses . It was never fun at all. That's why cavaley was stupid

Uhhhhh. Yeah that's the whole reason naval was a stupid mechanic. You build a deck and the naval deck builds a naval deck. Non naval deck gets smashed by first actions . It was never fun at all. That's why naval was stupid

Uhhhhh. Yeah that's the whole reason enlightment was a stupid mechanic. You build a deck and the enlightment deck builds a enlightment deck. Non enlightment deck gets smashed by someone playing guided solitaire . It was never fun at all. That's why enlightment was stupid

Pick your flavor.

47 minutes ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

It was mainly because only dueling and tactician decks cared about focus values (supposedly major balancing factor for cards) that duels ended up being so lopsidedly in favor of dueling decks.

Yup, there were MANY 4FV meta cards that anybody could splash into decks which would turn into great fodder for duels and/or Merchant Caravans (never understood why they never got reprinted).

Like I said before, dueling never directly lead to a win condition, which is why duel decks had to win every single duel they threw down. Losing even one meant you were giving your opponent tempo and board advantage "So, for my action I'll play a card that will kill one of my dudes.... "

1 hour ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

duels ended up being so lopsidedly in favor of dueling decks.

Exactly. I can't recall anytime in the time that I played that dueling was a good and balanced mechanic. It was either way OP or crappy. *shrug*

1 hour ago, BayushiCroy said:

Uhhhhh. Yeah that's the whole reason military was a stupid mechanic. You build a deck and the military deck builds a military deck. Non military deck gets smashed by attacks. It was never fun at all. That's why military was stupid.

Uhhhhh. Yeah that's the whole reason honor was a stupid mechanic. You build a deck and the honor deck builds a honor deck. Non honor deck gets smashed by honor gain. It was never fun at all. That's why honor was stupid

Uhhhhh. Yeah that's the whole reason cavalry was a stupid mechanic. You build a deck and the cav deck builds a cav deck. Non cavalry deck gets smashed by horses . It was never fun at all. That's why cavaley was stupid

Uhhhhh. Yeah that's the whole reason naval was a stupid mechanic. You build a deck and the naval deck builds a naval deck. Non naval deck gets smashed by first actions . It was never fun at all. That's why naval was stupid

Uhhhhh. Yeah that's the whole reason enlightment was a stupid mechanic. You build a deck and the enlightment deck builds a enlightment deck. Non enlightment deck gets smashed by someone playing guided solitaire . It was never fun at all. That's why enlightment was stupid

Pick your flavor.

Except you don't. So none of that makes any sense at all. Nice try though...

Just now, Sparks Duh said:

Except you don't. So none of that makes any sense at all. Nice try though...

Explain to me how it makes less sense than yours with dueling please.

1 hour ago, El_Ganso said:

Yup, there were MANY 4FV meta cards that anybody could splash into decks which would turn into great fodder for duels and/or Merchant Caravans (never understood why they never got reprinted).

Like I said before, dueling never directly lead to a win condition, which is why duel decks had to win every single duel they threw down. Losing even one meant you were giving your opponent tempo and board advantage "So, for my action I'll play a card that will kill one of my dudes.... "

There were times when I had enough Focus Effects and play from the discard in my deck that even not winning the duel would lead to an advantage if I could only focus any cards from the top of my deck. Winning was nice but not necessary for the duel to be successful at those times.

1 hour ago, Sparks Duh said:

Exactly. I can't recall anytime in the time that I played that dueling was a good and balanced mechanic. It was either way OP or crappy. *shrug*

Do you know why dueling ended up either "OP" or crappy? Lack of wider FV relevance and poorly balance play environments. Often to many decks ignored FVs which made the "strong but risky" effects of duels reliable which led them to being called "OP" by players who didn't prepare for them. Other times they ended up crappy because meta (both intentional and unintentional) ended up being far to strong in backlash against a previously "OP" dueling environment.

Dueling was actually one of the most interactive mechanics in the game and when two dueling decks faced each other or a dueling deck faced another deck that favored high focus values (such as an enlightenment deck or a tactician deck) some of the most "Positive Play Experiences" happened.