7 minutes ago, Jedi samurai said:

You're right, which is why I didn't stat it as a fact, but just something that wouldn't surprise me.

As pointed out above - the Spider and Mantis clans could potentially be left out of the starter because of their more recent addition to the game (at least as great clans), they don't have Kami attached to their clans (so if each clan has a Kami card of some kind, adding them later with different make up/mechanics makes sense), the number of cards needed to support two extra clans at launch MIGHT mean putting some off until later, and while there are other places they can go with the big expansions, what would sell more boxes up front when trying to hook people to the game - the Mantis or Spider Clan, or Rattlings and Ronin?

I don't really see how having kami attached is relevant at this point. Moreover, the Spider Clan does have one... sort of. Well, had one.

I don't think Ratlings are ever going to return to the game. They were a rather unpopular faction even when they did exist and they really detracted from the whole game theme. Having to have a certain amount of ratmen cards in every set meant less functionally playable cards for everyone else. At least when there was a Ronin or Imperial or Ninja strongholds, they were mostly making use of cards that were being printed as "general use" cards anyway. Something that was equally true of Shadowlands cards. There was supposed to always be some level of temptation for a player to play shadowlands cards to get an extra edge, but with the understanding that it left them vulnerable to certain play styles and meta.

But Ratlings? Naga? They just didn't fit in. I am pretty sure they are widely acknowledged as mis-steps. Not to say you can't have the occasional unaligned non-human personality pop up, but trying to pop up a single type as a fully integrated faction didn't work.

You know Naga were due to return in Onyx Edition, right? And that their return was such a momentous occasion that Bryan Reese literally dropped the mic after announcing it at GenCon '15? I'm not sure how much further you could get from 'widely acknowledged as mis-steps', really.

I'm also not sure where you got the idea that Ratling were 'rather unpopular', either...I've been extremely active in L5R on both sides of the Atlantic and haven't encountered that at all.

24 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

I don't really see how having kami attached is relevant at this point. Moreover, the Spider Clan does have one... sort of. Well, had one.

I don't think Ratlings are ever going to return to the game. They were a rather unpopular faction even when they did exist and they really detracted from the whole game theme. Having to have a certain amount of ratmen cards in every set meant less functionally playable cards for everyone else. At least when there was a Ronin or Imperial or Ninja strongholds, they were mostly making use of cards that were being printed as "general use" cards anyway. Something that was equally true of Shadowlands cards. There was supposed to always be some level of temptation for a player to play shadowlands cards to get an extra edge, but with the understanding that it left them vulnerable to certain play styles and meta.

But Ratlings? Naga? They just didn't fit in. I am pretty sure they are widely acknowledged as mis-steps. Not to say you can't have the occasional unaligned non-human personality pop up, but trying to pop up a single type as a fully integrated faction didn't work.

If the game is designed in a such a way that each clan has a Kami in play or in a deck in some way, an easy line to draw when putting the starter box together.

The bold part is exactly why we may not see factions like Mantis, Spider, Ronin etc... included in the starter. It also why additional factions like that may be held off until the big expansions. That would/could be the time to take a big number of cards and alot them away from the great clans.

Hinomura addressed the rattlings and naga thing pretty well

19 minutes ago, Jedi samurai said:

If the game is designed in a such a way that each clan has a Kami in play or in a deck in some way, an easy line to draw when putting the starter box together.

The bold part is exactly why we may not see factions like Mantis, Spider, Ronin etc... included in the starter. It also why additional factions like that may be held off until the big expansions. That would/could be the time to take a big number of cards and alot them away from the great clans.

Except you STILL didn't comment about the Spider actually having a Kami the same way that all the other clans have. I mean... unless you don't know L5R lore at all, you would know that the spider were formed under the KAMI, Fu Leng. You know... the brother to EVERY OTHER KAMI in the setting??? C'mon, man. Get your facts straight here.

38 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

You know Naga were due to return in Onyx Edition, right? And that their return was such a momentous occasion that Bryan Reese literally dropped the mic after announcing it at GenCon '15? I'm not sure how much further you could get from 'widely acknowledged as mis-steps', really.

I'm also not sure where you got the idea that Ratling were 'rather unpopular', either...I've been extremely active in L5R on both sides of the Atlantic and haven't encountered that at all.

Uh-huh... They were dropped from the game for... what was it... a decade or so?
So just because the story team that drove the game into the ground in a big flaming plane crash with their "let's make shadowlands a great clan! let's replace the evil kami with our Mary Sue character! let's cleanse the world of all other cultures and have the samurai colonize without culturally advancing and then do nothing with it! let's make a second pit of jigoku right in the middle of the Scorpion lands, just because!".... Just because the people at the end who were doing desperate, stupid crap one after the other after the other after the other decided "hey, let's bring back the snake people that barely anyone played!" as their next pitiful, desperate bid to do something remotely "newsworthy"... doesn't mean it wasn't rightly acknowledged as a big misstep.

And while Ratlings were a faction, their personality cards saw the least play of just about any card printed. Every tournament they were legal, they made up a tiny fraction of the actual players compared to every other faction. We know this because at that time AEG had a whole reporting system and publicly posted the results of all the various tournaments. It was just that Ratlings weren't winning-- very few people even picked up the faction and tried to run with it. It was generally 1/10th the size of the next largest faction as I recall.

Seriously.... you are calling something "not a failure" based solely on the idea that drove away the majority of the player base with their bad ideas, bankrupted the game and had to sell it did a "mic drop" that bringing these things back was their next so-called "brilliant" idea to drive away what players remained?

24 minutes ago, Jedi samurai said:

If the game is designed in a such a way that each clan has a Kami in play or in a deck in some way, an easy line to draw when putting the starter box together.

The bold part is exactly why we may not see factions like Mantis, Spider, Ronin etc... included in the starter. It also why additional factions like that may be held off until the big expansions. That would/could be the time to take a big number of cards and alot them away from the great clans.

Hinomura addressed the rattlings and naga thing pretty well

Why would they have a Kami in play in any way, shape or form? What remote sense does that make? The only kind of possibility where such a thing would imaginably be a mechanic of the game is if they were going to launch the game from the get-go with "senseis"... which always had mixed results because of the complications they added.

L5R has always used the castles as the thing that defines the deck. If they really felt like making that a personality rather than a location, the next logical step would be to use Clan Champions. But not Kami, never kami-- they have never been presented in a way that they have such an ongoing, present, tangible effect on the world that they would be the major factor affecting the deck.

You are literally inventing a reason for those factions not to work, and its an invention that wouldn't even make the least bit of sense on its own merits. The very idea that the main defining mechanic of the deck is the god-like founder of the clan that died 1200 years ago and, in some cases, whose descendants aren't even the ruling family of the clan anymore is wonky and weird. And it is transparently going out of one's way to make things that should, that you would want to work, somehow no longer work....

And, again, Spider/Shadowlands has "Fu Leng" so I don't see how the mechanic would prevent that faction anyway. The only faction it would kill off is Mantis... and it really doesn't seem like making a wonky, nonsense mechanic just to kill off the Mantis Clan seems remotely like a good idea.

And, yes, I guess it would also prevent ronin and monk and the rat-people, snake-people, fox-people, crow-people, fish-people, tiger-people, lion-people, and every other imaginable animal-people factions that you apparently think should totally dominate the game and over-run any sort of thematic samurai-basis it could be said to have.

(And the Imperials still have Hantei... to whatever degree it matters, so "ronin" wouldn't exactly be discluded.)

You present your opinions as fact when they're not. Did you work for or with AEG at all? Because if you didn't, then all you have is overly verbose misguided speculation.

46 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

You know Naga were due to return in Onyx Edition, right? And that their return was such a momentous occasion that Bryan Reese literally dropped the mic after announcing it at GenCon '15? I'm not sure how much further you could get from 'widely acknowledged as mis-steps', really.

I'm also not sure where you got the idea that Ratling were 'rather unpopular', either...I've been extremely active in L5R on both sides of the Atlantic and haven't encountered that at all.

A lot of stuff was going on in the background of Gencon '15 and they were very much trying to clean up the massive mess Rob Vaux had caused as brand manager between September '14 and March '15. The Mic drop was about which side the Naga would be on: Emerald or Onyx.

Pretty much all the "Back to Imperial"-ness of Onyx (Mantis destroyed, Naga returning, Spider going full Shadowlands) can be traced back to a sudden shift that happened when he became brand manager.

2 minutes ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

A lot of stuff was going on in the background of Gencon '15 and they were very much trying to clean up the massive mess Rob Vaux had caused as brand manager between September '14 and March '15.

Pretty much all the "Back to Imperial"-ness of Onyx (Mantis destroyed, Naga returning, Spider going full Shadowlands) can be traced back to a sudden shift that happened when he became brand manager.

This is an incredibly unfair, imbalanced and misinformed summary of Rob Vaux's time at the head of brand.

Most of what he implemented never saw the light of day because the game was sold off before it came to fruition. The only thing I can think of is some of the story (which was mostly player driven from the tournament victories) and Evil Portents which was actually a good set.

It's also really unfair to be so crass about someone on an online forum.

1 minute ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Why would they have a Kami in play in any way, shape or form? What remote sense does that make? The only kind of possibility where such a thing would imaginably be a mechanic of the game is if they were going to launch the game from the get-go with "senseis"... which always had mixed results because of the complications they added.

L5R has always used the castles as the thing that defines the deck. If they really felt like making that a personality rather than a location, the next logical step would be to use Clan Champions. But not Kami, never kami-- they have never been presented in a way that they have such an ongoing, present, tangible effect on the world that they would be the major factor affecting the deck.

You are literally inventing a reason for those factions not to work, and its an invention that wouldn't even make the least bit of sense on its own merits. The very idea that the main defining mechanic of the deck is the god-like founder of the clan that died 1200 years ago and, in some cases, whose descendants aren't even the ruling family of the clan anymore is wonky and weird. And it is transparently going out of one's way to make things that should, that you would want to work, somehow no longer work....

And, again, Spider/Shadowlands has "Fu Leng" so I don't see how the mechanic would prevent that faction anyway. The only faction it would kill off is Mantis... and it really doesn't seem like making a wonky, nonsense mechanic just to kill off the Mantis Clan seems remotely like a good idea.

And, yes, I guess it would also prevent ronin and monk and the rat-people, snake-people, fox-people, crow-people, fish-people, tiger-people, lion-people, and every other imaginable animal-people factions that you apparently think should totally dominate the game and over-run any sort of thematic samurai-basis it could be said to have.

Maybe the Kami's will take the form of a faction identifier that grants an ability. Maybe the player will be able to trigger some benefit from their Kami if they achive something. Maybe it be in the form of a guidance card (remember those?).

And you do know they have made personalities cards of the Kami before right? https://imperialassembly.com/oracle/#hashid=7a5625bc764cd35a583e7a278ad73cb6,#page=1

And no, I am presenting possible reasons why the Spider and Mantis might be left out beyond the simple/basic "card count" in the starter. And you are aware that Fu Leng is dead right? And that the Spider-Clan is now basically the Imperial faction? (at least from the last I've read)

30 minutes ago, Sparks Duh said:

Except you STILL didn't comment about the Spider actually having a Kami the same way that all the other clans have. I mean... unless you don't know L5R lore at all, you would know that the spider were formed under the KAMI, Fu Leng. You know... the brother to EVERY OTHER KAMI in the setting??? C'mon, man. Get your facts straight here.

The Spider Clan was formed by Daigotsu (a mortal), not Fu Leng, though he intended the Spider to be Fu Leng's clan.

1 minute ago, Jedi samurai said:

Maybe the Kami's will take the form of a faction identifier that grants an ability. Maybe the player will be able to trigger some benefit from their Kami if they achive something. Maybe it be in the form of a guidance card (remember those?).

And you do know they have made personalities cards of the Kami before right? https://imperialassembly.com/oracle/#hashid=7a5625bc764cd35a583e7a278ad73cb6,#page=1

And no, I am presenting possible reasons why the Spider and Mantis might be left out beyond the simple/basic "card count" in the starter. And you are aware that Fu Leng is dead right? And that the Spider-Clan is now basically the Imperial faction? (at least from the last I've read)

The kami were personality cards in a special limited edition purchasable set in which more than half the cards were NEVER legal in any edition (except open which had long since been broken to the point that 2nd turn wins weren't difficult). I am well aware of their existence and they in no way support your idea that it is imperative that Kami replace Strongholds.

Again, the faction identifier and ability have always been on Strongholds, linked to physical locations rather than individual personalities, and it makes no sense to move that over to Kami.

You are really, really reaching to invent something that doesn't make sense specifically to find an excuse to disclude factions.

Also... Fu Leng "dying"... after regaining his divinity... more stupid crap that the old story team was doing.

Not that he couldn't die, but someone had a major brain-fart when they completely forgot that ALL the kami are dead. ALL of them. Ryoshun was even dead before he ever became a proper mortal like the others! So what exactly would Fu Leng dying mean?... His soul goes to hang out in the realm of the dead for a bit before either being booted back down to Jigoku or sent up to Tengoku to hang out with the rest of his siblings. Or he gets reborn as a mortal.

So exactly in what way was his dying supposedly supposed to take him out of commission and just how long could that even last presuming that one isn't breaking the preestablished rules of the world as a really cheap and stupid method of making their Mary Sue character the Lord of Jigoku?

And you know what I mean by the "Imperials". Regardless of what clan's member sat on the throne, it has always been the families of Hantei who actually run the empire.

Anyway, the Shadowlands or Spider or whatever is sure to be in the game from launch... if it isn't in the base set of cards, it will be in a separate "expansion" set you will be able to pick up at launch. If Mantis isn't included, it won't remotely be because they "lack a kami" or that having a kami is the most essential thing to even being able to mechanically function as a faction because it will undoubtedly be intended to create cards for them soon enough anyway.... Because unlike Kappa or Vanara or whatever other furry you think should be a major faction in the game, they have been consistently a faction for the majority of the run of the game and were actually played by real people as their main faction for a very long time.

1 minute ago, Moto Subodei said:

This is an incredibly unfair, imbalanced and misinformed summary of Rob Vaux's time at the head of brand.

Most of what he implemented never saw the light of day because the game was sold off before it came to fruition. The only thing I can think of is some of the story (which was mostly player driven from the tournament victories) and Evil Portents which was actually a good set.

It's also really unfair to be so crass about someone on an online forum.

No. I can be seen as early as the messy end of WC4 and the flavor text in Thunderous Acclaim (first set predominantly developed under him). Pre-Twenty festivals foreshadowing was pointing in a completely different direct prior.

The Clan Paths were Dave Laderoute's attempt to save things considering that not many players were reacting favorably to events.

40 minutes ago, Ultimatecalibur said:

No. I can be seen as early as the messy end of WC4 and the flavor text in Thunderous Acclaim (first set predominantly developed under him). Pre-Twenty festivals foreshadowing was pointing in a completely different direct prior.

The Clan Paths were Dave Laderoute's attempt to save things considering that not many players were reacting favorably to events.

If you actually knew the release cycles, and how far out sets go to print you wouldn't come to the same conclusion.

1 minute ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

The kami were personality cards in a special limited edition purchasable set in which more than half the cards were NEVER legal in any edition (except open which had long since been broken to the point that 2nd turn wins weren't difficult). I am well aware of their existence and they in no way support your idea that it is imperative that Kami replace Strongholds.

Again, the faction identifier and ability have always been on Strongholds, linked to physical locations rather than individual personalities, and it makes no sense to move that over to Kami.

You are really, really reaching to invent something that doesn't make sense specifically to find an excuse to disclude factions.

Also... Fu Leng "dying"... after regaining his divinity... more stupid crap that the old story team was doing.

Not that he couldn't die, but someone had a major brain-fart when they completely forgot that ALL the kami are dead. ALL of them. Ryoshun was even dead before he ever became a proper mortal like the others! So what exactly would Fu Leng dying mean?... His soul goes to hang out in the realm of the dead for a bit before either being booted back down to Jigoku or sent up to Tengoku to hang out with the rest of his siblings. Or he gets reborn as a mortal.

So exactly in what way was his dying supposedly supposed to take him out of commission and just how long could that even last presuming that one isn't breaking the preestablished rules of the world as a really cheap and stupid method of making their Mary Sue character the Lord of Jigoku?

And you know what I mean by the "Imperials". Regardless of what clan's member sat on the throne, it has always been the families of Hantei who actually run the empire.

Anyway, the Shadowlands or Spider or whatever is sure to be in the game from launch... if it isn't in the base set of cards, it will be in a separate "expansion" set you will be able to pick up at launch. If Mantis isn't included, it won't remotely be because they "lack a kami" or that having a kami is the most essential thing to even being able to mechanically function as a faction because it will undoubtedly be intended to create cards for them soon enough anyway.... Because unlike Kappa or Vanara or whatever other furry you think should be a major faction in the game, they have been consistently a faction for the majority of the run of the game and were actually played by real people as their main faction for a very long time.

LOL - you do realize its a new company that own its now and the game is changing right? For all we know a Kami card will be a big part of every deck. And please, show me were I said it was an "imperative". You also seem to miss the point that they simply may not be able to include 9 factions in a starter, and if they decide to make the Kami's a part of the decks, it would be easy why/reason to cut those two until a big expansion.

Ah - so you forgot Fu Leng was dead.

I haven't seen you mentino Imperials, so no I don't know what you mean by them. But no, Hantei's family have not been actually running the Empire the the whole time. They were just recently returned to the Throne.

Why would they need to include the Spider at launch if they don't make the starter? Why not wait until their first or second big expansion? That is their LCG model.

2 hours ago, Hinomura said:

I'm also not sure where you got the idea that Ratling were 'rather unpopular', either...I've been extremely active in L5R on both sides of the Atlantic and haven't encountered that at all.

Tournament attendance and statements from AEG employees would both be reasons to have such an idea. That doesn't mean Ratlings didn't get played when they got a broken Stronghold, but they were originally introduced as curiosity, and never achieved the level of popularity of the "normal" Clans. I wouldn't say that they were "unpopular," but they were certainly "less popular."

As for what factions are or are not going to be in the core set, we of course don't know. But there are obvious reasons that, if you're speculating, and you think the answer is going to be something less than 9, that Spider and Mantis are obvious possibilities. Neither was around when the game started. Neither has the same sort of long-term in-story presence and significance. And since there's basically no particular reason to identify any other particular faction to not show up, it's not surprising that those two are most frequently suggested as not showing up (almost the only Clans that people suggest might not show up in the core set, really). That doesn't mean there will only be seven factions. That doesn't mean that, even if there are only seven factions, that FFG would make a decision based on that. Indeed, FFG will almost certainly make a decision based on two things - what they think will make for a good game experience, and what in the long run will be the most profitable. If they think that they can support 9 (or 14 or whatever) factions out of the core set, and they think that will generate the most excitement and long-term interest, then they'll do it. If they think they can't make a good game that supports more than 4 factions out of the core set, then they won't put more than that in the core set (at least not in a fully supported way), and (I presume) additional factions will get rolled out through deluxe sets. If a faction has more distinct gameplay/rules from other factions (more likely for factions that aren't Great Clans, I imagine) then it might be more likely to wait for a deluxe expansion. Or maybe they would want one of those more distinctive factions in the core set to provide a more varied immediate experience (maybe they do four great clans, Spider/Shadowlands/whatever for a "villain" faction, and Naga/Ratlings/whatever for a creature faction). Maybe they put all the OG Clans in the base game because they think that's necessary for the setting and people will get mad if they don't. Or maybe they leave some OG Clans out of the core set because they think that spreading them out will help sustain excitement over the first couple of years the game is around. So we ultimately have no idea what they will do. But if someone thinks that it will be the original 7 Great Clans, and will not include Spider/Mantis, it's not like that belief is irrational (it might be pointless speculation, but then so is most of our conversation until FFG releases more information).

Regardless, I think I can confidently say that whether or what kind of kami a faction has will play exactly zero role in whether it appears in the core set.

2 hours ago, Jedi samurai said:

LOL - you do realize its a new company that own its now and the game is changing right? For all we know a Kami card will be a big part of every deck. And please, show me were I said it was an "imperative". You also seem to miss the point that they simply may not be able to include 9 factions in a starter, and if they decide to make the Kami's a part of the decks, it would be easy why/reason to cut those two until a big expansion.

Ah - so you forgot Fu Leng was dead.

I haven't seen you mentino Imperials, so no I don't know what you mean by them. But no, Hantei's family have not been actually running the Empire the the whole time. They were just recently returned to the Throne.

Why would they need to include the Spider at launch if they don't make the starter? Why not wait until their first or second big expansion? That is their LCG model.

For all we know, there won't be clans at all! For all we know, the entire game will be based on which featured personality you choose and most "personality" cards won't have any clan allegiance at all, they will just represent generic samurai. For all we know, the game will be entirely reinvented to take place in the American Civil War. For all we know, the release of the game is contingent on finding life on Mars.

We can play this game all day! Writing "for all we know" followed by the most stupid, outrageous, baseless conjecture that has every reason in the world to NOT be true and no reason for it to be true.

I didn't "forget" Fu Leng is dead, I just choose to ignore it-- because it is stupid nonsense and even if not properly retconned along with the rest of the stupid nonsense, even dead he still has exactly the same degree of influence on the Spider Clan as any other Kami has on any other clan-- because they are ALL dead and NONE of them communicate with mortals, meaning-- at best this whole idea of the kami would just be the samurai following their example.... which would still be true, the Spider Clan is still following Fu Leng's example.

When I say "Imperials", I, like anyone with the slightest bit of sense, mean the Otomo, the Seppun and the Miya-- i.e. Hantei's "Great Clan" if you would, the descendants of his primary set of followers that carry their names.. Also, the families that 99.5% of those who were descended from Hantei himself are in as the "Hantei" family only ever had the person on the throne and their current children--- all the other kids that all the other Hantei had with all their concubines joined the three families called "Imperials".

And you know what? After Hantei fell... the throne has been occupied by a Lion, a Phoenix, a Dragon and apparently now a Spider-- you know what is consistent through it all? Whomever sits on the throne, the actual day-to-day business of actually keeping the empire in one piece, balanced, seeing that imperial law and edict actually gets around to the various courts, overseeing the judicial system, handling minor interclan personal disputes before they erupt into warfare, driving wedges between alliances when the clans get too cozy with one another, seeing that taxes are collected from all the provinces and delivered to the capital and that imperial aid is given where it is needed... i.e. actually RUNNING the empire as opposed to just sitting on an elaborate chair and making commands based on whatever wild whim pops into their head.... that has always been done by the same families. They have not been "recently returned" anywhere, they never left.

And as for why it is important to include what is probably the most popular and necessary faction in the whole game for the players to sensibly be pit against one another? Why its important that the only actual antagonist faction in a faction-based war game is available for play?....

Is that seriously a question you are putting out there? Like, you really can't figure that out on your own and need it spelled out?

I don't think it has to be "Spider Clan", but some sort of "Shadowlands" faction is an absolute must. And if you just sit down for a few hours and reflect on the question for a while, I really hope you are clever enough to figure out why it is so necessary. (Hint: This is not a PvM MMORPG, this is a player vs. player card game.... and this time we aren't launching with one of the 7 original clans as the main villain who just murdered the emperor.)

3 hours ago, Kakita Shiro said:

The Spider Clan was formed by Daigotsu (a mortal), not Fu Leng, though he intended the Spider to be Fu Leng's clan.

I didn't say Fu Leng formed the spider clan...

Sigh. I guess the "which clan/s will be left out?" conundrum is doomed to be the end-point of every discussion for the next few months. At least we're a passionate bunch!

1 hour ago, FunTimeTeddy said:

Sigh. I guess the "which clan/s will be left out?" conundrum is doomed to be the end-point of every discussion for the next few months. At least we're a passionate bunch!

I guess I don't really understand why anyone thinks ANY clan should be left out. Why couldn't all 9 clans be in the game?

At this point, I truly believe people keep saying such and such clan or clans will be gone because bias. There really is no other reason why people think this.

15 hours ago, Sparks Duh said:

I guess I don't really understand why anyone thinks ANY clan should be left out. Why couldn't all 9 clans be in the game?

At this point, I truly believe people keep saying such and such clan or clans will be gone because bias. There really is no other reason why people think this.

I think there are a number of threads getting a bit tangled around this point. Of course all 9 clans can be in the game. It's more a question of practicality upon launch. Will they start small and build up? Or start big and flesh out? I have thoughts, which I've expressed elsewhere, but your guess is as good as mine.

As for bias, I don't disagree. There are those who lean more toward purist early-game history and speculate through that lens. Then there are those who identify with late-game story and predict accordingly. I'd say that both are rooted in some kind of biased thinking, based on emotional attachment to a clan, time period, and/or mechanic. Yet both can be supported by reasonable evidence too: classic reboot vs. chronological pick up.

Summary: crapshoot!

There's a very real possibility that there'll only be two factions at launch- Empire and Shadowlands.

Or maybe there'll be all nine of the Great Clans by the time of Iweko II, plus one of each Minor Clan (Boar Clan resurrection at Winter Court IV for the win!) and the Naga.

Or maybe they'll tweak the IP, and advance the storyline to wipe out everybody but the Phoenix, the Dragon, and the Mantis, who now resolve all disputes by rap battle.

None of these are likely, but after all the speculation on here? Sounds about as cogent as any theory postulating a specific number of factions.

18 hours ago, FunTimeTeddy said:

I think there are a number of threads getting a bit tangled around this point. Of course all 9 clans can be in the game. It's more a question of practicality upon launch. Will they start small and build up? Or start big and flesh out? I have thoughts, which I've expressed elsewhere, but your guess is as good as mine.

As for bias, I don't disagree. There are those who lean more toward purist early-game history and speculate through that lens. Then there are those who identify with late-game story and predict accordingly. I'd say that both are rooted in some kind of biased thinking, based on emotional attachment to a clan, time period, and/or mechanic. Yet both can be supported by reasonable evidence too: classic reboot vs. chronological pick up.

Summary: crapshoot!

They could just reskin Destiny, give us three colors and make us duel with Samurai?

On 2/10/2017 at 0:22 AM, Ultimatecalibur said:

That seems to be more a side effect of releasing 1 game in 3 different parts.

I do not think you are considering how different the model needs are for a story based skirmish game and a war game and how diverse an L5R mini line needs to be to cover all of L5R's needs.

The mini line needs to cover both samurai at war and samurai at court.

No. You are incredibly naive and are nostalgia locked. L5R does not need to retread old ground just because that would make you happy and starting with the Clan Wars Daimyo locks where you can go and how things can grow while also alienating a fair amount of the player base.

I feel a better Core campaign starting point would be to have the story focus on the Yoriki (made up of members from all the clans) of an Emerald Magistrate as they investigate crimes within the capital. As the campaign progresses the protagonists could face saki/tea house brawls, ronin duelists, bloodspeakers with oni, discover Kolat sleeper agents, protect witnesses from Ninja assassins, and get caught in a feud between courtiers before uncovering a conspiracy that threatens the Emperor all the while having 9 different perspectives butting heads.

I think we are having fun speculating, there's no reason for name calling or showing one another malice. We are a niche community that are carrying the torch of Rokugan forward into the future.

There are a thousand different ways they could take the story. The LCG could start with the Bayushi Shoju vs. Akodo Toturi story. They could build the Empire with the Kamis and Hentai I. The could hop in at Khan's Defiance or the Race for the Throne. Another idea is they could do a future jump...

If things go really well, the people in this discussion are going to be introducing Rokugan to a new generation of players and fans. The history is rich and deep. FFG is going to need a medium to tell that story.

So, it's possible the LCG could pick up where AEG left off. The RPG could do Race for the Throne. A story based minis game could cover Shoju vs. Toturi. They could also just run everything concurrently and tell the previous history in a synopsis.

I'm not going to get my panties in a bunch over anything they do, because I'm pretty sure it's going to be fun & cool.

Also, I'm a Crane and if they don't have them, then it's really not L5R?

Having played a lot of the games that FFG bought and move over to LCG before the change such as LOTR, GOT, and Netrunner. I can say that in general they seem to keep most of the rules from the previous incarnation intact.

I like the idea of starting with Emperor Hentai I.