With the game being relaunched I really hope FFG takes the opportunity to re-flavour some of the clans and elements of the game. Some of the changes I'd like to see....

The Unicorn - They are based on the Mongols and their most defining charactistic is their horsemanship. Great, I love it. But this was never thought/followed through on. The Unicorn, not the mantis, should have the empire's greatest archers. The best way to utilize a horse in combat, given their technology level, is to have an archer firing arrows in all directions. The Unicorn families who focus on mounted combat should be archers and spearmen/lancers - the two most effective weapons from horseback.

Dueling - Every clan should be competent in dueling. From an in-universe perspective, a clan who can't win a duel could be defeated in any political disagreement. From a gameplay perspective, everyone who's played a clan other then Crane or Dragon knows the fustration of being targeted by pretty powerful attacks with little to no recourse (depending on the arc of course). I think dueling should be included in the game, one-on-one battles a big part of Samurai movies, comics, lore etc... but it can't be the super attacks of 2 or 3 clans. Either all clans need to be competent in dueling, or dueling needs to change (maybe something similar to "Burn" abilities in GoT )

Berserkers - The way they portrayed Crab Berserkers in the last arc or two always bothered me. They started characterizing them as these.....crazy brutes would were just as likely to kill their own comrades then the enemy. This is just stupid. No general would deploy troops like that. Yes the Crab are the biggest (physically) of the clans. Yes are less cultured of the clans because their whole lives revolve around combat with the Shadowlands. But they are still Samurai. I'd like to see characters like Kisada II, Sozan, Kuon, Benjiro, define what a Crab Clan Samurai is.

Are there any elements/clans of the game you'd like to see reflavoured when FFG releases it later this year?

8 minutes ago, Jedi samurai said:

With the game being relaunched I really hope FFG takes the opportunity to re-flavour some of the clans and elements of the game. Some of the changes I'd like to see....

The Unicorn - They are based on the Mongols and their most defining charactistic is their horsemanship. Great, I love it. But this was never thought/followed through on. The Unicorn, not the mantis, should have the empire's greatest archers. The best way to utilize a horse in combat, given their technology level, is to have an archer firing arrows in all directions. The Unicorn families who focus on mounted combat should be archers and spearmen/lancers - the two most effective weapons from horseback.

Dueling - Every clan should be competent in dueling. From an in-universe perspective, a clan who can't win a duel could be defeated in any political disagreement. From a gameplay perspective, everyone who's played a clan other then Crane or Dragon knows the fustration of being targeted by pretty powerful attacks with little to no recourse (depending on the arc of course). I think dueling should be included in the game, one-on-one battles a big part of Samurai movies, comics, lore etc... but it can't be the super attacks of 2 or 3 clans. Either all clans need to be competent in dueling, or dueling needs to change (maybe something similar to "Burn" abilities in GoT )

Berserkers - The way they portrayed Crab Berserkers in the last arc or two always bothered me. They started characterizing them as these.....crazy brutes would were just as likely to kill their own comrades then the enemy. This is just stupid. No general would deploy troops like that. Yes the Crab are the biggest (physically) of the clans. Yes are less cultured of the clans because their whole lives revolve around combat with the Shadowlands. But they are still Samurai. I'd like to see characters like Kisada II, Sozan, Kuon, Benjiro, define what a Crab Clan Samurai is.

Are there any elements/clans of the game you'd like to see reflavoured when FFG releases it later this year?

Unicorn may be able to have some decent archers, but keep in mind that on horseback you're going to be firing a shortbow rather than a longbow. It'd be nice if there were a way to get these to work differently from each other, like having Unicorn archers do a couple small-numbered, ranged attacks while Tsuruchi archers do single, large-numbered attacks.

I do think Dueling should become an innate part of the game (maybe make it so anyone with 3 or more Chi can initiate a duel?) Some clans having slightly more focus on it could be allowed, but every clan should have at least a couple duelists (if that's still a thing), and it shouldn't be something that's an auto-win just because I include cards for it in my deck an you don't.

I'd like to see them revamp direct attacks. It seems a bit odd that a samurai is charging into battle, but can't actually directly attack his foes. I think it should be a rulebook ability that every personality can bow to perform a melee attack equal to his Force (or Force -1, if that would be too OP), with some characters having abilities that help them perform melee attacks better (not having to bow, getting a bonus, etc.)

Also, I would like to see a greater distinction between melee and ranged attacks.

i go back and forth on dueling. on the one hand, i know well the NPE of getting worked over the coals by a well made dueling deck. but by the same token, from a storyline standpoint, it makes no sense for every clan to be equally good at dueling, unless you're gonna give everyone equally good horsemanship and tacticians and shugenja. Some clans are better at things. Dueling should be one of those things. Either you make it less painful for dueling to be something some clans are better at than others, or you build in other ways to compensate. Netrunner has some good examples of how this could work. Theres a lot of different kind of decks, and many of them are unique to factions. the way they handle it is asymmetrical. almost everything has a counter, but its not always efficient to run counters for everything. sometimes its best to just try and best faster/better at your own thing.

I played dueling decks in 2013, 2014, 2015. I used Phoenix, Crane, Dragon and Unicorn. By the end of Twenty Festivals, the Unicorn was actually my most successful dueling deck, and I consistently ranked around the top 3 in our local and national tournaments. Even though Unicorn is naturally weaker at duels, the stronger economy and movement more than compensated for this. Dueling is something about L5R that makes it different to other games so that should be retained I hope.

As regards the all or nothing battle resolution, they tried the alternative with Legend of the Burning Sands, which was also a great game. Essentially, each unit could use a battle action to Engage, where they could do something similar to a ranged attack against an enemy card. Both games were good, but overall, I prefer the L5R approach. Committing all of your units to a battle in which you are not at least 80% certain of winning is so risky that the losses should reflect that.

1 minute ago, Eye of Night said:

Alternative with Legend of the Burning Sands, which was also a great game. Essentially, each unit could use a battle action to Engage, where they could do something similar to a ranged attack against an enemy card.

Sorry for OT, but could you help me with answer for this:

Personally I like all or nothing battles. Not that units had lack luster abilities and it turned into Legend of Math, but learning when to commit and when to disengage was so fun to me. Being able to anticipate digging a hole that you can't get out of is very important.

Also, from a story line standpoint, it is absolutely necessary for every clan to be at least Competent in dueling. Doji set up the social standards and that included dueling as a way of settling disagreements. The fact that that the clans exist is proof enough that they are able to exist and compete in a society that values dueling.

But yea, some have an edge or focused on it more, but not at the expense of others even being able to participate.

The Unicorn - I like JJ48's idea about shortbow vs. longbow. The Tsuruchi have always been the "Greatest Archers in all of Rokugan", but they shouldn't have a monopoly on shooting arrows. If the unicorn mounted archers have the advantages of horse-riding and filling you full of arrows, that would be kinda sweet.

Dueling - I have to assume that we're going to have completely different mechanics around dueling. I am in complete agreement with both of the OP's points - duelling in the CCG was extremely flavorful and a pain-in-the-neck, mechanically. I'm very interested to see what FFG does with the concept.

Berserkers - Story-wise, Berserkers were tainted bushi that were used as suicide troops; they were expected to kill everyone around them, and their general use was "point them at the shadowlands and let 'em rip" - they were not the standard Crab bushi.

4 hours ago, JJ48 said:

Unicorn may be able to have some decent archers, but keep in mind that on horseback you're going to be firing a shortbow rather than a longbow. It'd be nice if there were a way to get these to work differently from each other, like having Unicorn archers do a couple small-numbered, ranged attacks while Tsuruchi archers do single, large-numbered attacks.

I do think Dueling should become an innate part of the game (maybe make it so anyone with 3 or more Chi can initiate a duel?) Some clans having slightly more focus on it could be allowed, but every clan should have at least a couple duelists (if that's still a thing), and it shouldn't be something that's an auto-win just because I include cards for it in my deck an you don't.

I'd like to see them revamp direct attacks. It seems a bit odd that a samurai is charging into battle, but can't actually directly attack his foes. I think it should be a rulebook ability that every personality can bow to perform a melee attack equal to his Force (or Force -1, if that would be too OP), with some characters having abilities that help them perform melee attacks better (not having to bow, getting a bonus, etc.)

Also, I would like to see a greater distinction between melee and ranged attacks.

Youre right about the types of bows, but still still be the main focus for them. Like the mantis decks,mtheir offense should be built on range attacks.

2 hours ago, Ryoshun Higoka said:

The Unicorn - I like JJ48's idea about shortbow vs. longbow. The Tsuruchi have always been the "Greatest Archers in all of Rokugan", but they shouldn't have a monopoly on shooting arrows. If the unicorn mounted archers have the advantages of horse-riding and filling you full of arrows, that would be kinda sweet.

Dueling - I have to assume that we're going to have completely different mechanics around dueling. I am in complete agreement with both of the OP's points - duelling in the CCG was extremely flavorful and a pain-in-the-neck, mechanically. I'm very interested to see what FFG does with the concept.

Berserkers - Story-wise, Berserkers were tainted bushi that were used as suicide troops; they were expected to kill everyone around them, and their general use was "point them at the shadowlands and let 'em rip" - they were not the standard Crab bushi.

True, but in the last 2-3 editions (since emperor I believe) the Hida main (or only) decks were berserker decks. I think the old hero deck should have been more the focus for that clan.

18 hours ago, Jedi samurai said:

With the game being relaunched I really hope FFG takes the opportunity to re-flavour some of the clans and elements of the game. Some of the changes I'd like to see....

The Unicorn - They are based on the Mongols and their most defining charactistic is their horsemanship. Great, I love it. But this was never thought/followed through on. The Unicorn, not the mantis, should have the empire's greatest archers. The best way to utilize a horse in combat, given their technology level, is to have an archer firing arrows in all directions. The Unicorn families who focus on mounted combat should be archers and spearmen/lancers - the two most effective weapons from horseback.

Dueling - Every clan should be competent in dueling. From an in-universe perspective, a clan who can't win a duel could be defeated in any political disagreement. From a gameplay perspective, everyone who's played a clan other then Crane or Dragon knows the fustration of being targeted by pretty powerful attacks with little to no recourse (depending on the arc of course). I think dueling should be included in the game, one-on-one battles a big part of Samurai movies, comics, lore etc... but it can't be the super attacks of 2 or 3 clans. Either all clans need to be competent in dueling, or dueling needs to change (maybe something similar to "Burn" abilities in GoT )

Berserkers - The way they portrayed Crab Berserkers in the last arc or two always bothered me. They started characterizing them as these.....crazy brutes would were just as likely to kill their own comrades then the enemy. This is just stupid. No general would deploy troops like that. Yes the Crab are the biggest (physically) of the clans. Yes are less cultured of the clans because their whole lives revolve around combat with the Shadowlands. But they are still Samurai. I'd like to see characters like Kisada II, Sozan, Kuon, Benjiro, define what a Crab Clan Samurai is.

Are there any elements/clans of the game you'd like to see reflavoured when FFG releases it later this year?

You have good points here except well... at some point you have to separate the "this is how it would logically function in a living world" and "any mechanics of the card game have to be simple and streamlined."

Yes, from horseback archery is actually considerably more effective than using melee weapons. As difficult as it may be to aim correctly while bouncing on horseback, you do have the higher advantage point. They will either have to shoot back at you or, if they can't, they will never be able to catch up with you in order to do harm. If you use melee weapons from horseback, you are still having to deal with the horse's movements, you are only going to be able to get so close to the opponent so if their weapon is longer they will have even more of an advantage and it is considerably more difficult to get powerful swings at something at your calf level than your opponent is going to have trying to hurt you who is at their head level. Moreover, they don't really need to attack you directly-- that animal you are mounted on is, well, an animal-- and it doesn't take all that much damage to spook or kill a horse no matter how broken or disciplined that horse might be-- at which point, you as the rider, are screwed.

Now, sure, you could set a lance from a horse and that will give you speed and momentum and reach and that first thing you hit is going to be shattered. But that helps you only against the first thing you run into. After that, your lance is more of a hindrance than a help as your horse gets surrounded and attacked, it won't be able to make a second run. So naturally, yes, when riding horseback you ought to be an archer.

Problem them comes here-- well... in terms of CCG, what exactly is the gimmick of the Unicorn? Well, primarily the horses! And the concept of what exactly cavalry did was determined early on and it was a STRONG concept. Unicorn strongholds produce the most gold and while they pay a premium for their cards, more than any other military victory player, they had the best chance of taking out a province on turn 2 or 3. After all, if they have to place the 1-2 personalities they have to defend their 4 provinces, 2-3 are going to by wide-open for your cavalry card to come in and knock off.

Whenever Unicorn was strong, it always meant that if you were facing off with them, you were going to have to find a way to beat them when they have more gold and more provinces than you. Even when weak, Unicorn's issue usually revolved around knocking out those last few provinces.

Stacking "we also want the action to eliminate enemies before the resolution even takes place" is wholly unnecessary and cumbersome. Furthermore, it unnecessarily infringes on what is the gimmick for another clan.

So while from an RPG perspective we should be saying "Of COURSE Unicorns are great archers" that has to somehow be consistent with "But their cards in the RPG just generally don't have ranged attack actions". Afterall, giving them ranged attacks would mean paying extra for those ranged attacks and that would just slow them down-- a good Unicorn player won't want the slow down and won't really need them. If they do, perhaps there can be an in-game way to generate bows for the troops (i.e. a "smith" personality that can create token Strength 3 bows) or can just be attached using item cards (generally a poor use of fate cards, but maybe the new version will handle items differently).

Dueling... was one of the most badly implemented ideas in L5R, it hurt the game because of its mechanics, it was REALLY damaging to the theme and made the people making the game look ridiculously misinformed anti-Japanese propagandists. And the defense "Rokugan isn't Japan" when you give everything Japanese names, pull so much from Japanese culture and then screw something like that up so monumentally.

Mechanically it was initially broken because it effectively allowed someone to assassinate personalities and gain a MASSIVE amount of honor because of it. Sure, the idea was that there was a "risk" involved, but it was generally so very easy to pump the chi of a duelist personality to the point where there was effectively 0 risk. And, sure, the person could run dueling meta cards... but when "meta" really just means "play this card to back out of one of the 5 unwinnable duels they will be tossing at you this turn", it was more than a little ridiculous.

Furthermore, since dueling was all but no-risk, there really couldn't be any other way to run an honor running deck-- even if the honor gain from dueling wasn't vastly higher than any other method, eliminating the opponent's personalities was so much more valuable that dueling would have been worth it even if it didn't gain honor. Dueling went from being something that Cranes COULD do to being the ONLY thing a Crane deck would ever do.

Different sets tried to play around with dueling in different ways-- from changing it so that personalities did not die as a result of losing to making refusing the duels a lot easier and a lot less costly to making them lethal but giving almost no honor gain to letting the challenged choose which personality answered and so on. In addition, Crane Clan personalities were increasingly printed as being less "no force, massive chi" to having numbers that weren't much different than any other clan's and raising their chi became a costly endeavor.

So, while at its pinnacle dueling was a thoroughly unfair-feeling broken mechanic, at its worse it became completely useless.

Meanwhile, within the actual world of the game-- dueling was first thrown out there as pretty much "anyone can challenge anyone else to a duel whenever they feel like it over the flimsiest of pretexts and the challenged person, or someone on their behalf, must immediately engage in a sword fight to the death with the challenger or commit suicide on the spot." Which was stupid. Incredibly stupid. No way you can have even a fictional living world that functions in such a really dumb way.

So, as time went on and this kept coming up again and again as a problem, so they backed off of it. Various ideas were floated... that the challenged can choose the sort of challenge they will participate in... and that people cannot challenge those of higher ranks... to that duels are virtually never lethal... and that you need written permission from your clan superior to participate in a duel for it to ever be considered legal... NONE of which was ever reflected in the stories, but the stories being written were about dramatic and rare moments, if samurai were really running around acting that to each other on a daily basis, the world would have fallen into far more chaos than it ever really did. Whole Great Clans would collapse in on themselves.

Should all clans be great duelists?... That is hard to say. Because dueling was introduced into the world as something wholly world-breakingly unrealistic, a lot of things that shouldn't have been based exclusively on dueling ended up being based exclusively on dueling. The Topaz Championship, the way the Scorpion made it back into the Empire, determining which clan would even hold the capital, etc.... again and again dueling was brought up as the "ONLY" way to resolve any big problem and the clan that won the tournament was the clan that won the dueling tournament-- despite a lot of them having no mechanics that dealt with dueling.

I don't know how one handles that issue well. The PROPER result is to drop the stupid pretext in-world about dueling-- dueling should only determine two kinds of disputes... which of two "best fighter in the world" is really the best... and "which of the two bored, angry, drunk young man is going to still have all his body parts by the time the night is through". In real life NO ONE else, particularly the actual movers and shakers of the world, engaged in random dueling or treated it like it was the best and most final way to determine any and all political disputes. They actually talked stuff over, traded favors and otherwise worked things out "politically" as actually turning their armies on each other and going to war would certainly make them both weaker and more vulnerable to other enemies regardless of who won.... and, if all else failed, then they went to war with armies, they did not determine it by which of them had the faster sword-arm (particularly if one of them was known specifically for training the fastest swordsmen and having otherwise no real military strength).

And then, in terms of the card game, it should be handled as a nearly battle-exclusive defensive thing. So if an army moves in to attack a province, then your defending personality can challenge the leader of an enemy unit to a duel and if they win, the commander dies and all followers get scattered and the defender gains honor... but is still stuck out there as a sitting duck for the rest of the units unless you have a way to extract them from the battle. I could also imagine a situation where a personality could be given some sort of buff, but with the caveat that the personality can be challenged to a duel at any time and if it loses, it is killed and the challenger gains honor. There could also be cards that represent tournaments or such that could be played that the opponent can choose to engage in or forfeit a victory, allowing some honor to be gained-- and even then, no personalities die as a result.

But Crane's honor gain should be primarily from political actions, the idea that one should be able to assassinate key noncombat characters using a massively overpowered duelist and gain massive honor from it needs to be dead... and in-world the idea that during the course of regular, everyday socializing and negotiations someone can effectively murder anyone else or force them to kill themselves over the flimsiest of context simply because their "iajutsu" skill is super high needs to be doubly dead.

Finally, Berserkers... I see nothing wrong with them as long as it is made quite clear that these are NOT usual Crab Clan troops and should not be defining the clan. They are a relatively rare aberrations, those who already have a death sentence and so.. its not quite that they have no fear, but rather they are driven by fear, anger and hatred-- but primarily the fear of dying without redeeming themselves in battle. It should by no means be the primary Crab gimmick. Perhaps instead of having a particular Crab Clan Personality who is a berserker, Crab Clan Berserkers can be an unnamed troop/follower type that clearly writes out what berserkers do rather than making it a trait that has some effect found in the rulebook.

Because otherwise... how does one have an "alternate playstyle" in a base set at all? Either the cards are there to support the theme or the theme is non-existent. If you have a weakly supported theme, it is almost worse than if it isn't included at all.

One of the best early Unicorn decks (Clan War era) was ranged attacks. I hope the FFG developers remember that. =)

Ranged attacks were a fairly common thing for Unicorn until the Mantis sailed up river and stole our bows and our money and our knowledge and our Gaijin.

I guess the Mantis needed some theme besides "Yarr, where be my rum?" But they also slowly took over everything the Unicorn were doing besides horses.

Early Unicorn themes were: effective cavalry tactics, being the richest clan from trading with gaijin, global knowledge, freedom, and struggling with trying to fit into polite society.

2 minutes ago, Iuchi Toshimo said:

One of the best early Unicorn decks (Clan War era) was ranged attacks. I hope the FFG developers remember that. =)

Ranged attacks were a fairly common thing for Unicorn until the Mantis sailed up river and stole our bows and our money and our knowledge and our Gaijin.

I guess the Mantis needed some theme besides "Yarr, where be my rum?" But they also slowly took over everything the Unicorn were doing besides horses.

Early Unicorn themes were: effective cavalry tactics, being the richest clan from trading with gaijin, global knowledge, freedom, and struggling with trying to fit into polite society.

Fair enough. And, to be totally honest... I have to think that there must have been a big temptation to make Naval function identical to Cavalry. In terms of how one would think the two things would play out in real life, they two mechanics kind of seem backwards.... those charging you on horses are the ones that it would be hard to have time to prepare for or react to, while I could far more easily imagine the ships attacking an unexpected target though that target would surely spot them soon enough before they arrived that they would be able to react to their arrival.

But this does open up another question besides griping about particular mechanics how how they negatively impact the RPG...

Given just how much various factions have thematically spread out, been complicated and expanded and bled into each other since the Clan War era, and given that apparently the setting is not going to be given a fresh restart... how exactly with a new base set game does one stuff them back into clearly defined thematic boxes once again?

On one hand, it is far more realistic to say that there are all sorts of different peoples in any given clan and whatever main theme they have in the card game is only a small slice of the overall diversity and uniqueness you can find among its members.

But, on the other hand... if the theme just isn't strong enough to make one feel there is a greater difference beyond "those guys wear purple and ride horses" and "those guys wear green and ride boats"... even though, if we were reflecting a realistic nation that had been pretty united and interbreeding for 1500 years, there probably wouldn't even be that much of a discernible difference. After all, surely every army's commanders are going to be riding horses and every non-landlocked province is going to have its boats.. and everyone would just wear whatever color dye is currently in fashion but affordable.

12 minutes ago, Iuchi Toshimo said:

Early Unicorn themes were: effective cavalry tactics, being the richest clan from trading with gaijin, global knowledge, freedom, and struggling with trying to fit into polite society.

As i heard early Unicorn was about Kamoko + Strength of Purity only.

2 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

And then, in terms of the card game, it should be handled as a nearly battle-exclusive defensive thing.

I used to play honor runners that used duels to defend, but things changed in Ivory because Come One at a Time was the main defensive duel and it was very hard to defend with (any terrain in Ivory could overwrite it, and many other things could happen to the lone defender). So I had to become good at using duels offensively (and adjusting to the difference between honor decks and military decks). Duels in Ivory could only be effectively used offensively. In Ivory and later, I never saw an effective defensive dueling deck. I think you are right though, duels should be a defensive option.

1 hour ago, kempy said:

As i heard early Unicorn was about Kamoko + Strength of Purity only.

That was only 10% of our cards. =)

Iuchi Daiyu + The Fire From Within was another 10% (and often overlooked.)

As I saw something mentioned about all or nothing battle mechanics. I actually think the game would function much better if Yu was a trait on all bushi personality cards. It would give more significance to bushi over shugenja and courtiers, and also provide a bit more attrition.

It would really have changed the flow of the game, and would have given far more interesting play decisions.

6 minutes ago, Moto Subodei said:

As I saw something mentioned about all or nothing battle mechanics. I actually think the game would function much better if Yu was a trait on all bushi personality cards. It would give more significance to bushi over shugenja and courtiers, and also provide a bit more attrition.

It would really have changed the flow of the game, and would have given far more interesting play decisions.

Yeah, something like the Yu trait would be nice.

On 2/1/2017 at 7:00 AM, Ryoshun Higoka said:

Berserkers - Story-wise, Berserkers were tainted bushi that were used as suicide troops; they were expected to kill everyone around them, and their general use was "point them at the shadowlands and let 'em rip" - they were not the standard Crab bushi.

Tainted bushi were called the Damned and were only used against the shadowlands. They are not used in wars with other clans.

If berserkers are expected to kill everyone around them giving them Yu and having it activate automatically when they die would have fit the description.

Since Crabs were said to be the best at siege warfare it would have been nice if they had continued the clan war theme of having Crab engineers being able to do something with fortifications. I think Crab lost their thing when they got rid of fortifications.

The Kaiu should definitely still specialize in siege warfare, just as the Hiruma need to have whatever the new game's equivalent of "scouting" is going to be. As with all of the clans, the different families have different specializations; Hida smash, Hiruma scout, Kaiu build, and Yasuki swindle (and Toritaka tussle with ghosts).

Also, I know I'm forgetting something about the berserkers - was Amoro Tainted? And there were un-tainted Berserkers, right? Not mechanically, I know, because the concept hadn't been put on the cards yet, but lore-wise? Help an old fogey out.

Of course, without knowing any of the LCG's mechanics, it's pretty difficult to figure what they'll do!

Ideally, no clan's portrayal should be utterly dominated by a single Family- and that includes mechanical means.

1 hour ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Ideally, no clan's portrayal should be utterly dominated by a single Family- and that includes mechanical means.

I actually I think we're going to get something like this from the LCG. One change I'm fairly confident in seeing is that instead of seeing Dragon Kensai and Dueling and Shugenja and Monk decks, we're simply going to see a "Dragon Deck".

5 hours ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

Ideally, no clan's portrayal should be utterly dominated by a single Family- and that includes mechanical means.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Celebrate the differences!

4 hours ago, Jedi samurai said:

I actually I think we're going to get something like this from the LCG. One change I'm fairly confident in seeing is that instead of seeing Dragon Kensai and Dueling and Shugenja and Monk decks, we're simply going to see a "Dragon Deck".

That would be a neat throwback to how the game started; each clan was good at a few specific things (they hadn't really figured out what each individual family's strengths were) and things evolved from there. I'd love to see a "Dragon Deck" - and then a few iterations later, have some more flavorful abilities added to that clan. I'm pretty exited to see what they do!

On 2/3/2017 at 1:59 PM, Shiba Gunichi said:

Ideally, no clan's portrayal should be utterly dominated by a single Family- and that includes mechanical means.

I think that depends on the clan. Some clans - The Crab, the Scorpion, the Lion, the Unicorn come to mind - seem to be defined by one or two of their families with the rest just kinda being there. While other clans - the Dragon, The Crane, the Phoenix - seem to have more....diversity to them because they have stronger "supporting" families. Its hard to suggest how this could/would work without knowing the fundamentals of the game.

2 minutes ago, Jedi samurai said:

I think that depends on the clan. Some clans - The Crab, the Scorpion, the Lion, the Unicorn come to mind - seem to be defined by one or two of their families with the rest just kinda being there. While other clans - the Dragon, The Crane, the Phoenix - seem to have more....diversity to them because they have stronger "supporting" families. Its hard to suggest how this could/would work without knowing the fundamentals of the game.

Wait... what?.... This just makes me think you just aren't remotely familiar with half the clans in the game.

Crab has engineers, berserkers, witchhunters, scouts, merchants and defensive fighters....

Scorpion has fighters, ninja, wizards, and politicians.... (the main weird thing about Scorpion is that their politician family and their fighter family are the same family which isn't true for any other clan but Mantis)

All Phoenix has is... wizards, wizards, wizards, wizards and... a few fighters who exist to be bodyguards to wizards.

And Crane? Politicians, Craftsmen, Duelists and Fighters... That's a shorter list than the Crab or Scorpion right there.

Seriously, I might agree that Lion and Unicorn might seem a bit limited (after all, the idea that all Unicorn must ride horses does limit what you can do with them) and that Dragon shows a decent amount of diversity, but every other clan you listed seems completely backwards as to what category they should fall in.

What singular mechanic would you even think of building Crab around that would represent all their families?

What singular mechanic do you think remotely represents Scorpion?

53 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

(after all, the idea that all Unicorn must ride horses does limit what you can do with them)

The very first Unicorn personalities had like one or two horses in their art, total. The original Unicorn Clan was supposed to be a bunch of wizards with foreign blood/magic/artifacts, a theme probably best reflected by the Horiuchi family (RIP). What they became (Mongol horse guys) is somewhat regrettable though the Moto and the Lords of Death by no means a shabby consolation prize.

1 hour ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Wait... what?.... This just makes me think you just aren't remotely familiar with half the clans in the game.

Crab has engineers, berserkers, witchhunters, scouts, merchants and defensive fighters....

Scorpion has fighters, ninja, wizards, and politicians.... (the main weird thing about Scorpion is that their politician family and their fighter family are the same family which isn't true for any other clan but Mantis)

All Phoenix has is... wizards, wizards, wizards, wizards and... a few fighters who exist to be bodyguards to wizards.

And Crane? Politicians, Craftsmen, Duelists and Fighters... That's a shorter list than the Crab or Scorpion right there.

Seriously, I might agree that Lion and Unicorn might seem a bit limited (after all, the idea that all Unicorn must ride horses does limit what you can do with them) and that Dragon shows a decent amount of diversity, but every other clan you listed seems completely backwards as to what category they should fall in.

What singular mechanic would you even think of building Crab around that would represent all their families?

What singular mechanic do you think remotely represents Scorpion?

Yes, and no one cares about those engineers or witchhuners or merchants etc.... The Crab were defined up until Emperor by the Hida and Hiruma. Period. The Bayushi and Soshi dominate the Scorpion clan. They have 2 shugenja families and hardly ever had a viable shugenja deck.

Shiba were the 3rd dueling family for a long time and they have been trying to figure out the right Shugenja/Yojimbo mix for a LONG time. And their other shugenja families (unlike the scorpion ones) actually have their own flavor, decks and function. The Crane are not defined 1 family the way the Crab and Scorpion are.

Seriously, You're missing the point - it isn't what the clans have in terms of the story, its what they have in terms of deck building and functional themes - what they ACTUALLY have. The Crab, for example, until Emperor really would have 3 Hida family military decks and 1 Hiruma military deck. The Scorpion would have a military deck full of Bayushi, a Ninja Deck full of Shosuro, and a dishonor deck full of Bayushi with one of two Shosuro backing them up. They were clans defined by what 1 or 2 of their families did. And you made list of 4 things for Crane, 4 for Scorpion, then claimed the scorpion had more..........

You said the Unicorn were a bit limited, and I agree, but I could make "your type" of argument and tell you the Unicorn have wizards (Iuchi), scouts (Shinjo), fighters (Moto), battle maidens (Utaku), merchants (Ide) - but that wouldn't be honest take of the clan which was basically defined by its horsemanship.