The product page says L5R will be for 2 players. Does that mean there will no way to play it with more than two at the same time?

Unknown. Technically, the wording in the cards leaves the possibility for multiplayer rules open for the future, but at least it's pretty certain that a single core set of the game has no support for 3+ players.

Reading all the articles, so far only the drawing-honor mechanic seems a bit against multiplayer. Everything else seems fine to me. Maybe eventually they will develop/publish some multiplayer rules. Other players will certainly offer their own options long before that happens.

I mean no offense to people, but why is this such a big deal?

5 minutes ago, Mirith said:

I mean no offense to people, but why is this such a big deal?

L5R was originally designed with multiplayer matches in mind. I know people who still kind of see it as "the multiplayer card game."

4 minutes ago, Mirith said:

I mean no offense to people, but why is this such a big deal?

For some of us, we either play games solo or with a group. Having games that allow for multiple players, especially an odd number, goes a long way to getting a game to the table. I find that two player only games almost never get played with my group. Sadly this game seems very focused on two players with the poorly thought out draw/honor system.

Currently this is the one thing that made this game go from must buy to maybe a pass. I don't want to spend money on games I will rarely, if ever, get to play.

Just now, Smobey said:

L5R was originally designed with multiplayer matches in mind. I know people who still kind of see it as "the multiplayer card game."

I started in celestial, so I never got this feel. All of the incarnations since then felt forced.

1 minute ago, TechnoGolem said:

For some of us, we either play games solo or with a group. Having games that allow for multiple players, especially an odd number, goes a long way to getting a game to the table. I find that two player only games almost never get played with my group. Sadly this game seems very focused on two players with the poorly thought out draw/honor system.

Currently this is the one thing that made this game go from must buy to maybe a pass. I don't want to spend money on games I will rarely, if ever, get to play.

That being said, I also think of CCGs/LCGs as 1v1 games (Maybe tainted by Magic from an early age). Usually my intention is either to do this 1v1, or I play some other board game where we scale it to the right number of people. I will say the 1v1 is more inconvenient most of the time.

14 minutes ago, TechnoGolem said:

Having games that allow for multiple players, especially an odd number, goes a long way to getting a game to the table.

This is a very good reason.

Games were always better as 2 players rather than more. At least in my experience. And if Naga were around, with even more reason. But having the multiplayer option was always good.

I agree in that only the honor dial is the only thing directly opposing multi-player so far.

But that's am easy fix. Teams of people share honor.

In keeping with the (early) CCG, I would hope it wouldn't be team based. I appreciated the free-for-all aspect, and would hope they keep it in some form.

I feel like CCGs/TCGs can always be home-brewed to support multiplayer, regardless of whether or not it was intended by the company to be played as such.

4 hours ago, Chronokill said:

In keeping with the (early) CCG, I would hope it wouldn't be team based. I appreciated the free-for-all aspect, and would hope they keep it in some form.

Negotiating with other players and then the inevitable betrayal (especially when accompanied by a sufficiently shocked face) was the best part.

Multi player with the honour dial will be fine. Player 1 bids 5, players 2 and 3 bid 3, and player 4 bids 1.

player 1 gives players 2 and 3, 2 honour. Players 2 and 3 gives player 1, 2 each.

Net result player 1 gave away 4, player 4 got 4 honour. 2 and 3 got nothing.

i think it'll work

Multiplayer l5r has always been abysmal to play... at least as long as I played the game.

I'd rather have a group of people come over and play each individually than play a multiplayer game. Most likely in less time!

3 minutes ago, Sparks Duh said:

Multiplayer l5r has always been abysmal to play... at least as long as I played the game.

I'd rather have a group of people come over and play each individually than play a multiplayer game. Most likely in less time!

I had a completely different experience. Not sure if things changed much later (I dropped out after they changed the back and invalidated most of my cards), but multiplayer was a blast for everyone. We even had a promoter come in to our LGS and host a huge 8-player multiplayer brawl, where the winner got an uncut sheet of Time of the Void.

11 minutes ago, Ywingscum said:

Multi player with the honour dial will be fine. Player 1 bids 5, players 2 and 3 bid 3, and player 4 bids 1.

player 1 gives players 2 and 3, 2 honour. Players 2 and 3 gives player 1, 2 each.

Net result player 1 gave away 4, player 4 got 4 honour. 2 and 3 got nothing.

i think it'll work

So if player 1 bids 5 and players 2, 3, 4 bid 1, player 1 is out 12 honor?

Yup, player one will have to rethink his/her life. Now that player one is down 12 honour, the player will have to bid low for a couple turns, but has more cards then everyone else.

59 minutes ago, Kiseki said:

Negotiating with other players and then the inevitable betrayal (especially when accompanied by a sufficiently shocked face) was the best part.

F'sho.

So ... how can we do it, based on what we know about the honor dial mechanic?

Compare your dial to the player on your left? Seems like it would work just fine.

Just now, Kakita Shijin said:

F'sho.

So ... how can we do it, based on what we know about the honor dial mechanic?

Compare your dial to the player on your left? Seems like it would work just fine.

For now that sounds as reasonable as any other homebrew with the limited info we have.

1 minute ago, Kakita Shijin said:

F'sho.

So ... how can we do it, based on what we know about the honor dial mechanic?

Compare your dial to the player on your left? Seems like it would work just fine.

I'd almost rather see a new dial or system to handle card drawing. A card based system like in the older aGoT may work (where you have "roles"). I suppose a dial that features fixed card drawing based on a fixed honor amount could also work: maybe have it based on the elements too.

They go with the 1v1 format 'cuz it best supports tournament play, and that's what drives the sale of these games (much to the dismay of us casual players). However, they have also proven in the past that multiplayer options are possible to incorporate (most successfully done IMO with the melee format for AGOT, not so much with the team format of StarWars).

3 hours ago, Childeric the Shatterer said:

not so much with the team format of StarWars).

Imho star wars was one of the better team based card games. It had a lot more tactical choice then the base game. (Common reserve, support attack/defense, first player).

GoT being multiplayer is what helped me to get my friends addicted to it, as it is I only rarely play Netrunner because the 1v1 format is not so inclusive, particularly if there's an odd number of people. I am hoping there is a multiplayer mechanic for this game.

7 hours ago, Ywingscum said:

Multi player with the honour dial will be fine. Player 1 bids 5, players 2 and 3 bid 3, and player 4 bids 1.

player 1 gives players 2 and 3, 2 honour. Players 2 and 3 gives player 1, 2 each.

Net result player 1 gave away 4, player 4 got 4 honour. 2 and 3 got nothing.

i think it'll work

Your example is flawed, since if you doesn't work with different numbers. Say we remove player 3 from the equation, then player 1 would give only 2 honour to the player 2 and player to gives only 2 honour to player 4. Overall that means you would have to have for every composition of players and what they pick a different result chart. The solution has to be deductive and your inductive approach only works in the case you made there but falls apart in other situations. So, instead of constructing an example that might work, look next time at example where your method will fall apart to see if there is actual merit to a proposition.

So, maybe if that honour distribution problem is to solve for multi-player, then it would be easier to look just as the extrem positions and make the highest bidder pay the lowest bidder, but of course that still doesn't solve the issue of what happens if mulptiple parties have taken the same bid on either end of the spectrum. I guess it simply cannot be a zero-sum game in a multi-player version, but that everybody loses or wins or loses honour to certain conditions that have to be very specific and lead to points getting into the void or are generated out of thin air.

So, my solution would be all players who made the lowes bid get honour accourdingly to the difference to the highest bidder, everybody else loses honour equal to the difference to the lowest bidder(s). But I guess that would probably lead to a rather slow play environment in multi-player, since with more players around the propablity of one player going to pick the lowest option increases and so everybody will stay on low card draw. Which means that even with soluving the issue mathematicalls one still has to face social dynamics of game theory that come to play a role in such investment strategies.

I think AGoT 2nd Edition's take on multiplayer is very clever. Each round players pick secretly their position in the "Small Council" (Hand of the King, Master of Law/Coin/Whispers/Ships, Crown Regent). This roles provide some bonus and dictate who your allies/rivals are for the turn. So in a similar system for L5R you could bet against your rivals for the honor/card draw system.