I have an untested theory about sushi:

People decide whether they like sushi before they try it, and there's no changing their minds.

It goes both ways. For instance, I liked the idea of sushi for years before I got the chance to try it. When I did, I loved it. No surprise. A lot of people think sushi is gross, and if you convince them to try it ... well, they still think it's gross. Anyone who played L5R had a gut reaction in 2015. Could it be that we all made up our minds about the reboot right away? So now, regardless of what FFG has done, we’re all just looking to confirm our prejudice? I was excited when I heard the news, and I’m deliriously happy with everything I see now. I know many players were upset in 2015, and now ...

What do you think? How did you feel in 2015, and how do you feel now? Any change? No judgments, I'm just curious.

I can't disagree in premise, though I thought sushi was gross till a friend had me try it.

I love sushi now.

I'm glad for the reboot, I tried getting in at Ivory, but the scene wasn't here, and it lost interest for me, but I kept all the 4th ed RPG books, so the setting is deep in my heart. FFG as a developer wasn't done me wrong yet, so it's taking my favorite setting and matching to a great developer. I can't be more happy.

I like them both just fine but I wouldn't say either are my favorite things. I enjoy them and will gladly partake but I won't get up in arms against people who know more or care more than I do.

I rejected the idea that FFG could make a "real" L5R almost immediately. I'd never played any of their games, and didn't know anything about them. I ranted. I raved. I typed out posts and then deleted them.

I have some nostalgia and emotional attachments to the game even though I hadn't been actively playing for a few years. I'm eager to try L5R 2.0 even if I do still have some apprehension. I'm actively trying to avoid deciding I don't like things about it mechanically until I've had a chance to fully play it and make my decision. My public face is to stay cautiously optimistic, and go with the assumption that I'm going to enjoy it when I see the full picture. That might not turn out to be true, but if I don't come at it from that direction, I know that I might as well not even play.

Come September I will be playing Clan War L5R and watching MST3K. It's like I've traveled back in time to the late nineties.

As someone who had drifted away from L5R some years prior due to a breaking-up of the cardpool I was in and an unwillingness to follow the game's expense on my own, I was in the perfect place when the initial announcement was made. I just wish I'd had the willpower not to invest in AGoT 2E thereafter, when I always knew this would be where I'd end up.

I was a little sad that another company was taking over but I was glad that it was Fantasy Flight. They've made several games that I count among my favorite and I was very happy that it was going to be a LCG, since I tend to save a lot of money with those. At the time the game was a must buy for me at release. Now, I'm not so sure. There are several game mechanics that makes me hesitant to really dive into this game.

1) The honor/draw system: I've mentioned this before but this system looks like it will make multiplayer a headache, which is a major deal for me since it is extremely rare for me to play a game with just one other person.

2) Timer on characters: I've never been fond of games where my assets have some kind of timer. It seems like they will be around for a very short time which leads me to my next worry.

3) 3-6 Rounds: They've said the average game is typically 3-6 rounds to finish. That seems insanely short to me. One of my favorite quick games (Star Realms) seems to typically last 15-20 rounds.

4) Duel system: Right now it sounds like to increase your odds of wining a duel you will probably lose honor. As a Crane player, I despise the idea of losing honor to win a duel. I really hate that I would have to sacrifice something the clan is be known for (honor) just to do something the clan is known for doing well (dueling).

I also have a very minor issue with two clans I liked being removed and the story being reset but those wouldn't stop me from playing. The gameplay mechanics might.

4 minutes ago, TechnoGolem said:

4) Duel system: Right now it sounds like to increase your odds of wining a duel you will probably lose honor. As a Crane player, I despise the idea of losing honor to win a duel. I really hate that I would have to sacrifice something the clan is be known for (honor) just to do something the clan is known for doing well (dueling).

As a fellow Crane honor dueler, I'm probably in the minority in saying I like this change because by design it will likely (hopefully?) dissuade rampant bully duels to honor rocket. As fun as that was for me in Diamond and Lotus, the players I went up against (sans Shadowlands and other dueling decks) couldn't stand what amounted to me playing solitaire.

2 minutes ago, Nagori-A-Go-Go said:

As a fellow Crane honor dueler, I'm probably in the minority in saying I like this change because by design it will likely (hopefully?) dissuade rampant bully duels to honor rocket. As fun as that was for me in Diamond and Lotus, the players I went up against (sans Shadowlands and other dueling decks) couldn't stand what amounted to me playing solitaire.

People bully duel because nobody wants to use cards that are not reliable. If there is a chance you will lose your duel, why even play with duels and instead just opt for alternative strategies that produce similar results without the risk?

As long as there is dueling, people who chose to include it in their decks will do so because they do not intend to ever lose those duels, which means they don't intend for whoever they target to ever have a chance.

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3) 3-6 Rounds: They've said the average game is typically 3-6 rounds to finish. That seems insanely short to me. One of my favorite quick games (Star Realms) seems to typically last 15-20 rounds.

Isn't this hugely dependent on how long a round actually takes?

2 minutes ago, Tetsuro said:

As long as there is dueling, people who chose to include it in their decks will do so because they do not intend to ever lose those duels, which means they don't intend for whoever they target to ever have a chance.

Which is why I think the exchange of honor thing makes sense from a thematic perspective, too. If you cut someone down so brutally that they never stood a chance it says more about the challenged personality's courage than it does the challenger's.

2 hours ago, Kakita Shijin said:

People decide whether they like sushi before they try it, and there's no changing their minds.

I actually felt that way about sushi before I tried it...

1 minute ago, Nagori-A-Go-Go said:

Which is why I think the exchange of honor thing makes sense from a thematic perspective, too. If you cut someone down so brutally that they never stood a chance it says more about the challenged personality's courage than it does the challenger's.

Thematic is fine, but you have to weigh how thematic you want to be versus how effective you want to be. If you go too far then people just won't play duels, they will just play any other thing that doesn't punish them because it works too reliably.

8 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

Isn't this hugely dependent on how long a round actually takes?

Yes. And my current feeling is that a round of L5R would be about 4 times as long as one of Star Realms, if not longer.

Also, Star Realms requires a ramp-up time, whereas you start at closer to maximum efficiency in L5R.

1 minute ago, Hinomura said:

Isn't this hugely dependent on how long a round actually takes?

Oh I agree and we really don't know much about what a round involves but most games don't have very long turns. If you are playing with new players will often stretch out a turn. But if you are playing with people that know the game, turns tend to go fast in most games.

Since you can only take one attack action a turn, that means that, on average, in 6 turns or less the players will win by destroying providences. Since there are 4, it means this victory will probably take 4-6 turns on average. That makes it sound like all battles will be extremely one sided and the attacker will win most of the time. It doesn't seem like a defender will really be able to save the day by pulling something out of their bag of tricks. Something I saw happen often in the previous version.

FFG seems to estimate the average time of a game to be 40 minutes, which means probably it's closer to 20.

2 hours ago, Kakita Shijin said:

I have an untested theory about sushi:

People decide whether they like sushi before they try it, and there's no changing their minds.

It goes both ways. For instance, I liked the idea of sushi for years before I got the chance to try it. When I did, I loved it. No surprise. A lot of people think sushi is gross, and if you convince them to try it ... well, they still think it's gross. Anyone who played L5R had a gut reaction in 2015. Could it be that we all made up our minds about the reboot right away? So now, regardless of what FFG has done, we’re all just looking to confirm our prejudice? I was excited when I heard the news, and I’m deliriously happy with everything I see now. I know many players were upset in 2015, and now ...

What do you think? How did you feel in 2015, and how do you feel now? Any change? No judgments, I'm just curious.

I like your analogy.

I was icked out by sushi until I actually tried it, and then I found that I really enjoyed it. I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to try it, but I found that I liked it... which may not be the perfect metaphor for gaming, but it's applicable!

I've been playing L5R for a very long time, and the news that AEG was shutting it down and selling it off was a definite gut-punch for me. I was cautiously optimistic when I read the press release and found that FFG was the buyer, and then very quickly came to terms with the "this will be a new game, incompatible with the old one" part of the press release. I have a ton of cards. I will still keep playing the old game with my kids... and I'm very excited to learn the new one with them.

This will be the L5R that they grow up with. This will be where their stories come from, and I'm excited for that.

I won't go so far as to say that I'm "deliriously happy", but I maintain my level of cautious optimism, and that optimism has only grown with the new information. We'll be back in Rokugan again, seeing what unfolds next, all of that old timeline's history washed away - and I will want to be there.

4 minutes ago, TechnoGolem said:

Oh I agree and we really don't know much about what a round involves but most games don't have very long turns. If you are playing with new players will often stretch out a turn. But if you are playing with people that know the game, turns tend to go fast in most games.

Since you can only take one attack action a turn, that means that, on average, in 6 turns or less the players will win by destroying providences. Since there are 4, it means this victory will probably take 4-6 turns on average. That makes it sound like all battles will be extremely one sided and the attacker will win most of the time. It doesn't seem like a defender will really be able to save the day by pulling something out of their bag of tricks. Something I saw happen often in the previous version.

Um, you get to take 2 attack actions per turn. 1 Military and 1 Political. Over the course of 3-6 turns, you get 6-12 attacks, requiring 4 Province Breaks.

2 minutes ago, Tetsuro said:

FFG seems to estimate the average time of a game to be 40 minutes, which means probably it's closer to 20.

I didn't see the estimate on the game time. I find that they are rarely accurate but even if it is just 20 minutes I would be happy. It would make for a short game but not too short. Just don't want to run into a situation where most games are 5 - 10 minutes long.

1 minute ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Um, you get to take 2 attack actions per turn. 1 Military and 1 Political. Over the course of 3-6 turns, you get 6-12 attacks, requiring 4 Province Breaks.

Huh, guess I need to reread it. I thought they said you had 2 attack types (military or political) and you could only pick one of them per turn. If you are correct it sounds like the combat will be less one sided and a lot more interesting.

48 minutes ago, Tetsuro said:

People bully duel because nobody wants to use cards that are not reliable. If there is a chance you will lose your duel, why even play with duels and instead just opt for alternative strategies that produce similar results without the risk?

As long as there is dueling, people who chose to include it in their decks will do so because they do not intend to ever lose those duels, which means they don't intend for whoever they target to ever have a chance.

I don't think that will be the case, although we must wait and see the complete rules / cards on dueling first.

While what you describe was true for the Old5R, the new iteration gives a choice to the defender of the duel. Let's take an imaginary duel card that says if you win bow the defender for example (not so far fetched I would guess). However the defender bids the outcome will be benificial for a Crane Honor deck for example, but still it would present a choice to the defender. Either he will bow his potential attacker or give honor to the Crane cause he choose to bid high in order to keep his character available.

All this is just theory, but what I am saying is how "good" the new dueling system will be is dependent on the cards that will support it, and so far we haven't seen any...

Is it one of each conflict type per round? I was under the impression that you could issue two military challenges or two political challenges if you wished. As much as I favor the Ide family, I don't see the Unicorn Clan doing much politically, at least out of the core set.

10 minutes ago, Builder2 said:

Is it one of each conflict type per round? I was under the impression that you could issue two military challenges or two political challenges if you wished. As much as I favor the Ide family, I don't see the Unicorn Clan doing much politically, at least out of the core set.

Yeah, somebody made a joke about Unicorn crushing a province, playing Breakthrough, and taking another province by having tea.

Well, I made the account here on the forums the day the news dropped that FFG will takeover L5R, so I guess I was immediatly on board, quite literally! I was open from the beginning for changes, since I thought L5R needed them, and I love so far everything the revealed about what the new L5R game will be like.

7 minutes ago, Drudenfusz said:

Well, I made the account here on the forums the day the news dropped that FFG will takeover L5R, so I guess I was immediatly on board, quite literally! I was open from the beginning for changes, since I through L5R needed them, and I love so far everything the revealed about what the new L5R game will be like.

I'm not going to lie, when I created my account here, I fully planned to be "that guy" and hate on every little change... but I deleted a few half typed posts and bit my tongue at first. I did have a few full on gripe sessions about how much I hated AEG for selling it, how much I hated FFG for buying it, how it was going to be watered down trash... blah blah blah... but I kept that mostly to myself and a few friends. I did have a few times on here where I gritted my teeth while trying to remain polite with people who came from FFG's other games, and were full of criticism and derision for Old5R. I got frustrated and irritated trying to justify the things I felt were core to the essence of the game and should be kept as opposed the people who wanted to burn it to the ground and build a parking lot. Nearly everything on my list made it through, but I can understand people having a different list and being upset that something wasn't kept that they felt was core to their experience.

I came around and mellowed out, but it wasn't an immediate process.