4 minutes ago, Kinzen said:

I shall light incense to the Fortunes for 1000 Years of Coherence. ;-)

I think this is the key... I am a player from Emerald Edition, and the story is just getting a bit too wacky and too incoherent as time goes on.

Personal headcanon is that at some future date (maybe Rokugan 40k), the Imperial Histories are being rewritten to hide something massively shameful to the current regime but the only way to properly obsure it is to rewrite everything starting from the 1100s on.

7 minutes ago, Ryoshun Higoka said:

Oh, I don't know about that. I'm looking at it as a good reboot, a chance to form an alternate timeline, not something that's beholden to twenty-odd years of history.

But this is not a re-telling or an alternate storyline. What FFG does is going to be THE Story going forward. They already changed the major players in this tale, rather than just add new major players into the story.

7 minutes ago, Wintersong said:

Alternate or not (XCOM 2's flashbacks here), I feel quite positive about the whole thing. It does not invalidate what was already done by AEG, and we get to experience new stuff in a familiar setting. Kind of A 1000 Years of Darkness, right?

1000 Years of Awesome?

4 minutes ago, Kakita Shiro said:

Personal headcanon is that at some future date (maybe Rokugan 40k), the Imperial Histories are being rewritten to hide something massively shameful to the current regime but the only way to properly obsure it is to rewrite everything starting from the 1100s on.

In the grim dark future there is only Bushido: Rokugan 40.000!!! For the Emprah!!!

1 minute ago, Wintersong said:

In the grim dark future there is only Bushido: Rokugan 40.000!!! For the Emprah!!!

Honor for the Honor God! Fate for the Fate Throne!

21 minutes ago, Ryoshun Higoka said:

It will be interesting to see where the new story takes us. Maybe Shoju makes a different choice. Without Hoturi, maybe Kachiko isn't quite as driven. And we haven't heard anything about Yogo Junzo yet, or even if the history of the Hantei dynasty is still the same! What if there hasn't been a Battle of the White Stag? Or if there have been overtures to the Ivory Kingdoms?

Or maybe is Hotaru who had an illegitimate son from Shoju. The Scorpion kills his own son in battle. Kachiko unleashes a false Hotaru (assuming she is as skilled as Hotaru) against the Crane out of hatred. Hotaru could die in the Second Day of Thunder, killed by guys in black pajamas by Kachiko's order and Kuwanan becomes the next Champion.

Just throwing something out there...

1 hour ago, C2K said:

But this is not a re-telling or an alternate storyline. What FFG does is going to be THE Story going forward. They already changed the major players in this tale, rather than just add new major players into the story.

It's kind of like the new Star Trek series of films; blow up the old continuity and establish a new one.

Just now, Ryoshun Higoka said:

It's kind of like the new Star Trek series of films; blow up the old continuity and establish a new one.

Or the constant Spiderman reboots?

3 minutes ago, Wintersong said:

Or the constant Spiderman reboots?

What Spider-man reboots? The first movie comes out soon... have there been other ones?

Of course, alternate realities are canon in L5R, through the Realm of Dreams.

The 1,000 years of Darkness expansion was explicitly an alternate reality, and then the KYD Daidoji Uji turned up in the main setting. This is just another dream world, or maybe the previous one was the dream.

Most amusingly, even Rokugan 2000 is hinted to be deeply in the dream canon

21 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Of course, alternate realities are canon in L5R, through the Realm of Dreams.

The 1,000 years of Darkness expansion was explicitly an alternate reality, and then the KYD Daidoji Uji turned up in the main setting. This is just another dream world, or maybe the previous one was the dream.

Most amusingly, even Rokugan 2000 is hinted to be deeply in the dream canon

R2K: Netrunner? BOOO YAAA!

Here are some of my observations on the various card games I've played over the years.

Card games that do not have an established lore/story and have good mechanics/gameplay have greater potential to be successful than a game of similar quality with a story that is established. Were I have seen good games falter i.e. Highlander, Star Wars, Conquest, etc is that the existing fan base has certain preconceptions of what the game should be. Vader shouldn't lose to a random rebel with a blaster....so when the card game allows for things like this to happen (no matter how well done it is) there will be a portion of the playerbase that will get upset.

In addtion to this, when people who like a certain universe play a card game for the first time against players who are experienced in card games but not as invested in the lore, you can suffer some player loss because those who love the story may not want to get as competitive as those looking for a challenging game to showcase their ability.

I think FFG has given is two really good examples of this. Conquest was IMO, a very well done game. However many of the people I played against were 40k minatures players and simply not prepared to play against someone with over 2 decades of CCG experience. I also heard, many times, that the lore was off for many of the cards/factions. This ultimately lead to the game not getting played and subsequently not carried at the local store. Ultimately it wouldn't have mattered for my store if Conquest got renewed because the game was dead in my area.

FFG has also made two really well done Star Wars games. I really felt like the LCG captured the struggle between good and evil......however I did notice that the main guys seems to start getting bumped out for the strong themes and you ended up with some sting decks that would frustrate players because it was no longer capturing that Star Wars vibe. Now there is the CCG which is also a good game and is straight up a game of who would beat who? That seems to fill the void from the LCG but it fractures the playerbase as they both compete for Star Wars fans.....and that's not even considering Armada, X-Wing, and Imperial Assault player also dipping into that fan base. I'd love to play them all but I don't have that much time or money.

When L5R first came out, it didn't have an established storyline. So most of the players who were drawn to it were samurai fans and card players looking for a new challenge. Since the samurai fans didn't know who these people in the story were, they had no expectations of how battles should play out so pretty much anything was expected and the level of play was elevated from the onset. Now we're looking at a reboot of a game with 20+ years of story that was largely directed by those players. That's something L5R did not have to deal with the first time around. There are way more expectations that people have for the game this time....and it's already starting to show. From what I've seen to this point I think FFG is doing a good job at trying to clean up some of the mechanical and gameplay problems that L5R has had in the past while still keeping the essence of the game. Until I see all of the rules and cards I can't give an educated opinion about if they pulled it off and even if I was disappointed with what I've seen so far, I wouldn't pass judgement without playing it first.

For those of you that feel let down by what's being offered in the reboot, I hope you can let go of the expectations you've built in the past and can appreciate the new game enough that your be willing to support the game for the future.

For those of you like me who need to go buy a new pair of pants because they couldn't contain their excitment I can only say this.......

UUUUUUUTTZZZZZZ!!!!!!

I look at it as a great opportunity to reconnect with old friends, celebrate a vibrant and selfless community that was truly a family. That is the greatest thing that l5r offers, it's players, some of the sharpest, funniest and genuine people I have met. Cream of the nerd crop. I am excited by the new mechanics and look forward to learn more. Time to play again, dammit.

14 minutes ago, El_Ganso said:

R2K: Netrunner? BOOO YAAA!

IIRC there's a Kakita coding school...

50 minutes ago, Wintersong said:

Or the constant Spiderman reboots?

That's no reason to have a Spider-Clan reboot.

2 hours ago, C2K said:

Honestly, this was probably a horrible period to reboot the game to then, because you run the most risk of alienating the older players of the game in terms of story.

every "old" player I know is excited about the reboot. the ones complaining are the newer players. 90% of us quit this game YEARS ago...we are back for the reboot.

14 minutes ago, Hidatom said:

every "old" player I know is excited about the reboot. the ones complaining are the newer players. 90% of us quit this game YEARS ago...we are back for the reboot.

Grrrr, apparently you can only hit like a certain number of times per day. I guess I'm all out of likes to give.

I get that a lot

15 minutes ago, Hidatom said:

every "old" player I know is excited about the reboot. the ones complaining are the newer players. 90% of us quit this game YEARS ago...we are back for the reboot.

90% might be a little high, but a lot of what I'm hearing and seeing on the boards is that a big number of old players are coming back for the LCG.

I didn't start playing the CCG until Ivory, I didn't know it was a card game until I went to a Con back in SLC. My first intorduction to Rokugan was through DnD 3e's Oriental Adventures book. I played with that book well into 3.5, and I loved the clans but I had no real knowledge of the world besides what the book stated (I still have it btw), which wasn't very much compared to what was happening during the time I was playing the well outdated RPG. I never got to play in the glory days of L5R, and I only got to experience one Kotei (During the Mantis Clan dominance) where I was the only Mantis there, I got my but handed to me by the nicest group of players I ever met.

I helped to build a local group in SLC, at our peak we had 12 members, all new players, before the game was sold. As a celebration of the fun we had we bought a booster box and "charged" everyone two packs from any set they wanted for a booster draft. It was a very fun night with some very interesting decks to say the least. I wish I was still in SLC to celebrate the return of L5R with them, maybe play a few games of the old game as we prep for the new one. Sadly I wont be able to do much from my side, but I know they're already ramping up there.

1 minute ago, Yoritomo Kazuto said:

I didn't start playing the CCG until Ivory, I didn't know it was a card game until I went to a Con back in SLC. My first intorduction to Rokugan was through DnD 3e's Oriental Adventures book. I played with that book well into 3.5, and I loved the clans but I had no real knowledge of the world besides what the book stated (I still have it btw), which wasn't very much compared to what was happening during the time I was playing the well outdated RPG. I never got to play in the glory days of L5R, and I only got to experience one Kotei (During the Mantis Clan dominance) where I was the only Mantis there, I got my but handed to me by the nicest group of players I ever met.

I helped to build a local group in SLC, at our peak we had 12 members, all new players, before the game was sold. As a celebration of the fun we had we bought a booster box and "charged" everyone two packs from any set they wanted for a booster draft. It was a very fun night with some very interesting decks to say the least. I wish I was still in SLC to celebrate the return of L5R with them, maybe play a few games of the old game as we prep for the new one. Sadly I wont be able to do much from my side, but I know they're already ramping up there.

That's another thing: The player base, despite the impression sometimes given on the internet, was phenomenal in person. Play groups often gave fistfuls of cards to new players, rares included, and would take time even at big tournaments to coach newer or younger players who were just getting started through their first real games. That's why most of us *stayed* with L5R.

1 hour ago, Ryoshun Higoka said:

What Spider-man reboots? The first movie comes out soon... have there been other ones?

It's amazing how much Marvel has spoiled us... Spider-Man 2 (Raimi, not the recent not-so-Amazing) was widely considered one of the best superhero movies ever when it hit. Now people pretend it doesn't exist

(It's still a great movie!)

44 minutes ago, Kiseki said:

That's another thing: The player base, despite the impression sometimes given on the internet, was phenomenal in person. Play groups often gave fistfuls of cards to new players, rares included, and would take time even at big tournaments to coach newer or younger players who were just getting started through their first real games. That's why most of us *stayed* with L5R.

I can attest to that. I did participate in a Kotei here in Florida many years ago, and everyone was nice to everyone, vets giving boosters and rare cards. Teaching them in a constructive way how to improve their decks. It felt like a regular Wednesday night, even the Champ gave one boxed set to a newb. The final was exiting between Crane vs Dragon, Kakita vs Mirumoto, in the end the Crane player won, and they share their winnings with other players. Like you that spirit made me stay for a long time...

3 minutes ago, FelixPhoenix said:

I can attest to that. I did participate in a Kotei here in Florida many years ago, and everyone was nice to everyone, vets giving boosters and rare cards. Teaching them in a constructive way how to improve their decks. It felt like a regular Wednesday night, even the Champ gave one boxed set to a newb. The final was exiting between Crane vs Dragon, Kakita vs Mirumoto, in the end the Crane player won, and they share their winnings with other player. Like you that spirit made me stay for a long time...

I mean, heck, that goes back to the beginning. The first storyline ended with a great match between Lion and Crane, with nothing less than the throne of the Empire on the line. Lion won. Then both players turned to the head of story at the time (John Wick, responsible for most of the early world-building), and declared that they didn't want to fight each other - they wanted to fight Fu Leng (the big bad of the storyline). So Wick improvised the story of the Lion and Crane generals uniting to kill Fu Leng, with the Crane being mortally wounded in the process. Classic, wonderful story moment, and it came from the players.

Gameplay. Players. Story. All great reasons to come over to the game.