8 minutes ago, Mirumoto Saito said:

Wait, wait, wait... Hold on for a second.

What are you saying here is that, under this idea you where discussing, if someone was a Scorpion or Dragon Clan player, that person would have two options in that block: either suck the Spider Clan's " yari " or not play at all?

Is that serious?

That was more or less my reaction, too. And I don't even play the card game. <lol>

I created Daigotsu. Fight me.

In all seriousness, I understand the Spider hate. I feel the same way about Scorpion, and I could see the argument being made for Mantis and some of the gimmick clans like ratling and monkey. Personal opinion time, so don't ask me to cite sources or whatever.

I played for almost all of the lifespan of V1. I went to more than 20 kotei, and met literally dozens of people from each clan. Getting past the Spike / Johnny / Timmy classifications, you start to see some stereotypical traits in the players of each clan. Keep in mind these are general rules, not 100% encompassing, but enough that you notice it.

Dragon and Phoenix players in my travels have tended to be smarter and more methodical in playstyle, but more introverted in terms of communication. Lion and Crane players tended towards being extroverted and aggressive in playstyle. Crab players and Unicorn players tend to be big smashy guys, but they're a blast to play the game with (or have a beer with after the tournament).

I've met some pretty cool spider / shadowlands / scorpion players. ESPECIALLY towards the top 8, where you tend to see good players that are also good PEOPLE. However, during the swiss grind, the trait that I notice most in spider / scorpion / some mantis / some ratling players is blind contrarianism. "I play the bad guys because I hate good guys" kinds of people. Dudes that get off on trying to ruin someone else's good time by using annoying ass cards and laughing about it. Dudes who would rather make you bow all your personalities every turn and watch you quit the game in frustration than win. Dudes who aren't trying to do well in the tournament, just tilt the people who play the game because they like it.

I've seen A LOT of this. I can count on one hand the number of people I've met who played Spider because they were the plucky shadowlands underdog. Most of the rest of them were argumentative jerks who only did things to get a rise out of people. Basically the L5R equivalent of the guy who gets disqualified illegally sweeping the Karate Kid's leg.

I said maybe the mantis because their players tended towards being contrarian, but they tried like hell to win. I saw mantis players more as the "screw you, we'll win a kotei with the garbage cards you gave us" clan. Ratling was the exact opposite, usually. Not trying to win, but not trying to ruin your day either. Just trying to play their clan, have some fun, and fight the good fight.

This is why I disliked spider and scorpion. Not because of cool guys like Sparks, but because of all the dbags who use those clans as an excuse to try to ruin your Saturday. I appreciate that some of you are cool dudes, but try to understand that you're not indicative of the larger sample, at least in my experience.

1) The Spider can go back and forth from the Shadowlands straight to the capital at will, they had a free pass to run back and forth. Isn't there supposed to be a wall there? Isn't there a whole clan whose whole job is supposed to be "keep the shadowlands out"? Apparently not! The Crab are such absolute garbage that they cannot manage to stop even a single one of these "Spider" guys dashing back and forth between the Ruined Palace into Rokugn and back again. They suck so hard that they might as well not exist.

2) There are apparently so many tainted individuals across the empire who are tainted and dedicated to hell, they are just running around the empire committing crimes on a whim, murdering and sacrificing people, and building up a massive force from crime alone. Isn't there Empire supposed to have Investigators, Inquisitors, Witch Hunters a whole magistrate level in every clan and for the empire as a whole? Well.. it is supposed to. Except, no. No Spider Clan member ever gets caught, ever gets discovered, ever suffers consequences for all the harm they do. Certainly not any named one. All the organizations in Rokugan designed from their initial design to stop these things all apparently suck so hard once it comes to anything Spider, they all may as well not exist at all. Instead of being hunted down and purged, they just endlessly grew in numbers from the dozens to the tens of thousands in no time, spawning more and more families like it there was a huge bargain on family names.

3) They manage to infiltrate all the clans, assassinate and cheat their way into more and more politically powerful positions without needing any sort of framework or support. Every other clan was simply helpless and automatically lost all confrontations without even pushback. All other clans were apparently so dumb they couldn't see the obvious right before their eyes and every infiltration or replacement of any individual was automatically successful without fail.

4) A MAJOR theme in the concept of the game is that the samurai are restricted by a lot of very strict behavioral rules. It is built right into the system-- they have to walk on eggshells because if they fail at any time, they could be killed. This goes right out the window with the Spider. Their basic CCG mechanic is straight up "You can't lose honor no matter what you do." Sure, others can cause it to you, but fundamentally-- the Spider is allowed to violate every tenet of every aspect of proper behavior on all levels without limits and everyone just turns their head and looks the other way. No Spider has ever or would ever be punished for their transgressions. Well, maybe they can be killed by a more evil and "bad ass" member of their own faction, but all others simply fall and fail before them.

5) Each step the Spider took-- from being a infiltrating criminal organization to becoming a minor clan to become a major clan-- each step taken was due to extortion and handing all power and control over the Spider and never refusing or making any demands of them. The final one was particularly insulting to anyone playing any other faction. "You know the big bad? Yeah, only one faction can actually stop it. The rest of you are just here as spectators. So just get down and bow and scrape before the one character in the whole thing that actually matters and forget about ever opposing his faction. Go on now, go lick his boots!" Even if you want to claim there was any negotiation, what exactly the Empire get out of it?... That the Spider and the Spider alone were now able to hide their taint while continuing to worship the Lord of Jigoku and bearing his name (or the name of one of his most loyal demonic servants)?

So they had comparatively high Kotei attendance. You know-- when you sit the vast majority of the players down and make it **** clear to them that they exist only as puppets and punching bags for the singular group the writers are making the whole game a power fantasy about... it is not surprising everyone else left and the only ones still showing up were the ones playing as the center of that power fantasy.

Tell you what. If I am actually wrong as so many of you seem so keen on assert... How about this simple challenge.

Give me an example of even a SINGLE major storyline from say... Emperor Edition to Onyx in which any other faction in the game actually mattered and was given any sort of measure of tangible success. The following things don't count.

1) The faction won a high ranking, but effectively meaningless, position, particularly any where they would have been responsible for stopping crime or taint from infecting the empire... at which point they just stood there looking stupid as the criminal taint faction ran amok among them.

2) The faction "won" an alliance with some nonhuman group that never impacted anything, particularly anything involving getting a nonhuman Clan Champion.

3) A faction got control of any location in the game less prestigious or meaningful or important than Otosan Uchi or Toshi Ranbo. Both of which just got straight-out handed to the Spider.

4) The faction got to be the ones to take down some part of the Big Bad's force... which really didn't matter because the Big Bad was still alive and they would have lost once the Big Bad was destroyed by the Spider anyway. I.e. they got a "big contribution" which was ultimately meaningless.

Here is the timeline: http://l5r.wikia.com/wiki/12th_century

Let's see... the Scorpion blamed the Kolat for the mass assassination campaign of the Spider (for which they were never punished or opposed) and took out a temple for a now defunct group?

The Scorpion and Crab built a wall around the second festering pit which exists to show how "bad ass" the Spider are... and the wall barely finishes getting built before being breached by an Oni who then kills a Phoenix and so the Scorpion and Phoenix go to war with one another because-- well-- got to feed into that power fantasy of the Spider and make sure they don't remember who is actually to blame and summoning the Oni.

Seriously-- where is anything that doesn't basically revolve around, get caused by and ultimately gets won by the Spider without ever facing a setback, loss or even lash back for their constant, endless daily transgressions.

And the funny thing is, though the Spider never got anything but story win after story win after story win and getting to be the major focus and the major victors in every single major or meaningful storyline... I am also told that they were a "bad" faction at this time? As in they had trouble winning games. That people were "looking forward to Spider getting a good deck in Onyx"? So apparently none of this "Spider always wins, other Clans can't do literally anything meaningful" had nothing to do with the deck being so unstoppable and unbeatable that every storyline tournament was going to them. Instead, it sounds a lot like all this was writer fiat and all storyline prizes were designed to be worthless footnotes as the writers focused all their attention singularly on building up the glory of the Spider Clan.

L5R was supposed to be a game where "Honor is Stronger than Steel". Except... no. Obviously not. It is the game where "Demonic Magical Steel is Stronger than Honor" If you weren't the demonic evil faction, you existed as nothing more than a helpless nuisance before them to be squashed when the writers decided they would squash you. The king of kings were clearly the group whose very mechanic was to do as much dishonorable and evil stuff as they like because they will never be held accountable for it and will always win in the end-- no matter how "unplayable" some will claim their CCG decks were.

Given that the only thing that can be said about the Spider Clan is their implementation, the story they came from and the fact that all other clans had to be as effective as garbage and forget their entire culture, their entire history and their entire set of laws, betray their entire ancestry and embrace Jigoku to some extent to even allow for them to exist as an entity... I really do not believe for a moment there are "fans" of this.

Even those who claim to be "fans" of the Spider Clan I see either being in complete denial (and if you still are, I set down the challenge-- show me that any other faction in the game actually mattered or existed as anything other than the Spider Clan's puppet or punching bag) or is quick to denounce pretty much everything about the Spider Clan...

The thing is the fans "denouncement" either goes one of two ways

"The Spider Clan shouldn't be tainted at all, should be 100% pure and holy and all of their past transgressions should be immediately forgotten and never held against them and they should no longer do any of the 'shadowlands' things and will be forced to obey the same rules and laws and traditions as the rest of the clan, though their value system will be a little different."

or

"The Spider Clan should be an evil tainted group with maho-tsukai and ninja and summoned zombies and oni and it is really dumb that the other clans are accepting them for one moment we are happily, gleefully play the role of the villains and all compromising of that role seems awkward."

These ideas are 100% incompatible. They cannot simultaneously exist-- trying to force them to simultaneously exist is just flat out bad writing, which is why it had such a cancerous effect. How can either of these really, TRULY be fans of the Spider since they both object to what the Spider actually is and how it has actually functioned and everything about it? They aren't fans of the Spider Clan-- they are each fans of what they think the Spider Clan could be. And the first group just looks ridiculous to me-- after all, they want to take the 1 evil faction in the game and strip it entirely of all identity leaving them with... what? The whole identity of the group from the Night of Spider to the rise of the Onyx Empire has been solely devoted to doing evil. What "corner" was supposedly turned and when? What penance was done? What kharmic punishment did they receive? It really just boils down to them getting the ability to entirely escape the negative consequences of taint and hide it beyond any attempt to detect or measure it.

The idea that nothing about the Spider is objectionable or negative or bad for the very concept of the game is laughable. And I do not believe for a moment that nearly anyone is actually a fan of the Spider Clan. Not if you actually break it down, look at what it is and consider the actual effects it had on the game and story. I am sure they had plenty of people running the strongholds, no doubt. I myself was technically a "Spider Clan" player above any other faction if it absolutely has to be described in those terms. But, no-- I ran Shadowlands. The Spider Clan was bad in all possible ways...

The thing was invented to try to solve an issue in the CCG. An issue that could not be resolved well-- how exactly do you have a faction that is free to use all the demonic honor-losing cards, yet can still be vulnerable to a deck draining its honor to 20 or less? If they cared about honor at all, then the first part of it doesn't make sense-- any excuse you could use for them not losing honor on honor loss cards would also apply to other factions when using certain honor loss cards (Scorpion using ninja and honor loss political tactics, Crabs using Berserkers, Mantis using gaijin cards and honor loss political actions). And any excuse for the later part of it? Well... just how much political work do you need to do to prove that army of zombies and demons is dishonorable and get the imperial legion in there to help?

What exactly is even redeemable about the concept? How exactly could such a thing be implemented without becoming the sole focus and center of the whole game and turning all factions to trash under writer fiat? It utterly failed the first time, it never should have been attempted and it absolutely should not be attempted again-- not unless someone can draw out a roadmap of how to implement it without fundamentally murdering the entire spirit of the game and making all other clans out to be complete trash for being completely incapable of opposing them.

1 hour ago, Mirumoto Saito said:

Wait, wait, wait... Hold on for a second.

What are you saying here is that, under this idea you where discussing, if someone was a Scorpion or Dragon Clan player, that person would have two options in that block: either suck the Spider Clan's " yari " or not play at all?

Is that serious?

They would have been "alliances" made up primarily of those clans. So if you wanted to play Spider/Scorpion/Dragon, you'd play the "(insert name here)" alliance, with one of the three clans' sensei to represent that clan.

I'm fairly sure that Points 1-4 are supposed to be the real deal to a certain point: the Crab can't stop the Shadowlands passing through the Kaiu Wall, the Taint-hunter organizations are really bad at what they are doing, and Rokugani society is super-vulnerable and gives too much way to ignorance and stupidity (or incompetence for that matter). Then we have Point 5 that is Yoritomo's Second Day of Thunder Deal Reloaded.

I think the main problem with the Spider is not that they are breaking the system but that they are shamelessly exploiting its weaknesses. Nobody really likes to read about how their fantasy world is bad, let alone having a whole faction centered around it.

I think one of the bigger problems the whole situation had was making the antagonist a protagonist. When the "big bad" suddenly became playable (particularly something players can spend money on) and built the community support it had, both of which paralleled the previously established protagonists (the other clans), there can be no winner. You couldn't really have the other clans stamp out the Spider clan, as it was tied directly to the player base. You couldn't really have a situation (at least for very long) where the Spider clan "won" and took over Rokugan, either. So what's left? Introduce an even bigger, badder bad-guy to unite everyone against the new evil? Yawn. What they did was create a situation they couldn't really get out of without ostracizing a HUGE portion of their player base, so it ended up just being this sort of stalemate with small skirmishes and lots of glares and eye-rolling.

59 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

<Lots of stuff>

You actually make a lot of valid points that I, a Spider Clan player, have myself made and would co-sign. I'm not going to contest that the L5R story, in later years, could be described as being ‘about’ the Spider Clan. My main objection is that this doesn't necessarily mean the Spider Clan can't or shouldn't exist in principle. I think it can, but it would mean that the Spider would have to give up their goal of s***ing over anything everyone else is doing, requiring Rokugan to unite against them time and time again, and exist alongside the other clans as equals and operate under the same rules. The taint would also probably need to be reimagined as something more manageable (and less powerful), but that's good since its original formulation was just John Wick's excuse for torturing his players' characters and taking control of them.

Though on the other hand, the biggest obstacle to all of that is one of the biggest playerbases in the game so maybe you're right and the Spider has to be erased from history.

Edit: We can all agree that the Spider Clan as “Shadowlands Horde, but with katanas” just can't work, right?

23 minutes ago, Buttlord said:

Edit: We can all agree that the Spider Clan as “Shadowlands Horde, but with katanas” just can't work, right?

Nope. In fact, I'd say it works way better than a not-spider clan in the empire. The problem was making the spider in to a great clan. That's the only part that doesn't make sense. I don't think any spider player really wanted that option when it was presented, but it was this or the spider clan disappears from existence... so I guess we choose to be a great clan?

1 hour ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

...

Did somebody say something?

Yeah, forcing the Bad Guys to become an integral part of the Empire was far more of a headache than simply having a bad guy faction (not that it doesn't come with its share of baggage, but...).

For all of the headaches Shadowlands/Spider inflicted upon us (their winning of certain positions made no sense, winning the Obsidian or Onyx Championship often meant giving the bad guys a character from your faction as if it's somehow a good thing, needing alternate versions of outcomes to make sense of things) they were relatively tolerable until suddenly everybody has to regard them as part of the Empire to be invited over for tea and sadane...

3 minutes ago, Sparks Duh said:

Nope. In fact, I'd say it works way better than a not-spider clan in the empire. The problem was making the spider in to a great clan. That's the only part that doesn't make sense. I don't think any spider player really wanted that option when it was presented, but it was this or the spider clan disappears from existence... so I guess we choose to be a great clan?

I wanted it to become a Great Clan and so did enough players at the time for it to become a reality. Even when it was explained that, no, they can't be practicing maho in open court or proclaiming the virtue of the taint or whatever, people still wanted it. I would argue that the real f***-up was that this was never delivered upon and the Spider became another wrapper for Shadowlands cards instead of its own thing, with the forces of Jigoku represented in some other way (which they also ended up being with The Forgotten Temple).

Just now, Buttlord said:

I wanted it to become a Great Clan and so did enough players at the time for it to become a reality. Even when it was explained that, no, they can't be practicing maho in open court or proclaiming the virtue of the taint or whatever, people still wanted it. I would argue that the real f***-up was that this was never delivered upon and the Spider became another wrapper for Shadowlands cards instead of its own thing, with the forces of Jigoku represented in some other way (which they also ended up being with The Forgotten Temple).

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. You keep saying this like the spider had a real choice in the matter. We did not. It was either this is no more spider. Spider players didn't want no more spider, obviously. THAT is the reason the spider becoming a great clan was a reality. Not because we chose to do this or stay the same spider. How does this not get through your head???

2 minutes ago, Sparks Duh said:

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. You keep saying this like the spider had a real choice in the matter. We did not. It was either this is no more spider. Spider players didn't want no more spider, obviously. THAT is the reason the spider becoming a great clan was a reality. Not because we chose to do this or stay the same spider. How does this not get through your head???

I was literally there. I know what the discussion was like. People wanted it.

3 minutes ago, Buttlord said:

I was literally there. I know what the discussion was like. People wanted it.

Uhhh... You think I wasn't?? Seriously??? Yeah people wanted it!! I totally agree with that. Because the alternative was cease to exist! Of course spider players wanted to continue playing spider than not. Stop being dumb.

1 minute ago, Sparks Duh said:

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. You keep saying this like the spider had a real choice in the matter. We did not. It was either this is no more spider. Spider players didn't want no more spider, obviously. THAT is the reason the spider becoming a great clan was a reality. Not because we chose to do this or stay the same spider. How does this not get through your head???

Just now, Buttlord said:

I was literally there. I know how the discussion was and what it was like. People wanted it.

it can be both. you can want the great clan status, and you can feel pinned in a corner, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

its a pointless discussion anyway. Hobnonsense's argument is that because the spider didn't fit into his vision of how rokugan worked, its impossible that people like spider is hot garbage. the fact that we're arguing about the vision of the spider, and care about what the spider were and how they evolved is a pretty conclusive rebuttal to his nonsense.

its fine to not like what AEG did with the spider in the story. most of the spider players didn't like it. where i get my hackles up with Hobgarbage is not even thinly veiled contempt for people who like spider, and his dismissal that its possible to like them, simply because he doesn't. im fine with differences of opinion when it comes to stories, but you don't get to decide what other people do and don't like.

1 minute ago, Sparks Duh said:

Uhhh... You think I wasn't?? Seriously??? Yeah people wanted it!! I totally agree with that. Because the alternative was cease to exist! Of course spider players wanted to continue playing spider than not. Stop being dumb.

Calm down. Jesus.

2 minutes ago, Buttlord said:

Calm down. Jesus.

I'm not Jesus, but thanks for the high praise.

who knows exactly what "brand new interpretation" means. mechanical? story? both? fall is interesting tho. so it won't be immediately after gencon.

Gen Con is the prerelease anyway. Available at your FLGS in Q3, just like AGoT 2.0.

31 minutes ago, cielago said:

who knows exactly what "brand new interpretation" means. mechanical? story? both? fall is interesting tho. so it won't be immediately after gencon.

Can we just talk about how slick that font is?

yeah, never doubted that FFG would bring some high quality design chops to the game. not that AEG didn't have great art, but FFG certainly is gonna bring their A game.

Just now, cielago said:

yeah, never doubted that FFG would bring some high quality design chops to the game. not that AEG didn't have great art, but FFG certainly is gonna bring their A game.

They should have done the rings in the same style that the clan mons were!

3 minutes ago, BayushiCroy said:

Can we just talk about how slick that font is?

I prefer the final AEG font, but this is not-awful.

2 minutes ago, Sparks Duh said:

They should have done the rings in the same style that the clan mons were!

We've only seen the ring Mons in the title art, right? They may have been In-game

Either way, I mentioned befor e, I'm using my full bleed ring promos in this game in Casuals if the rings are playable cards.

There's an FFG presentation at 5 PM Pacific. Look for some facebook streams popping up

(This is just a dumb joke, don't read too much into it.)