It seems to me most of the posters are fans and tend to talk about stuff that would be above the heads of the few new comers that have shown up. It does create a small gap that could be filled by providing knowledge to them. The community has been friendly and I hadn't seen any real attacks on the forums.

I'm mega hyped for the LCG! Can't wait! I always wanted to get into the L5R CCG but never had a strong community around me or even friends willing to play multiple times. Having played many card games the Fate mechanic is interesting to me and looks promising.

I've had to use the L5R wiki a few times when Old5R players reference various timeline events - but honestly the AEG storyline reads like a hotmess to this newcomer and I really hope FFG can stay away from a bunch of retcons, timeloop shenanigans, and apparently the whole world being overtaken (or very heavily influenced) by Jigoku.

6 hours ago, slowreflex said:

I'm looking forward to it, but there does seem to be a divide between old and new players right now. I don't think it's intentional though, just different levels of knowledge and different expectations.

The good news is that, traditionally, the L5R community and player base (in person at least) have been very good about having the opposite approach to new players. Hopefully, wherever your local scene happens to be, you'll find the same warm and welcoming folks who brought me into the game about 17 years ago.

10 hours ago, TechnoGolem said:

It seems to me most of the posters are fans and tend to talk about stuff that would be above the heads of the few new comers that have shown up. It does create a small gap that could be filled by providing knowledge to them. The community has been friendly and I hadn't seen any real attacks on the forums.

I also think this more derives from us being geeks on the internet and not really conscious of our tone, especially since we can't specify it over text. In general, while old L5R was hard to teach, it was still one of the friendliest and most welcoming groups of people I've seen in the gaming community.

Double post.

12 hours ago, HirumaShigure said:

Sorry you feel this way. I personally used to eat, drink, and breath L5R. especially during the Race for the Throne. Even now, ever since the articles dropped, my interest in other games pretty much dried up over night. I was just about to get heavily invested in Star Wars Destiny. I'm going to hold off on buying the next waves of Armada, X-Wing, and Imperial Assault. Even Arkham Horror and Lord of the Rings are probably going to come to an end for me. L5R becoming an LCG, rebooting story, and new mechanics are probably going to be enough for me to "put all my eggs in one basket". Maybe that's bad for FFG, but boy is it good for me! L5R has been my go to universe for the past 15 years.

It's like you are in my mind. This post so perfectly sums up my feelings towards l5r I doubt I could have written it better.

I'm new to L5R and tentatively interested. I loved Conquest, and never played any sort of CCg before it. But now I've met people, both online and in person, who make the hobby of playing that sort of card game fun, so I'm thinking about L5R.

The game itself looks interesting enough to try out, but to be honest the fiction hasn't made me jump and down with excitement yet. It seems fine, I guess.

48 minutes ago, Brekekekiwi said:

I'm new to L5R and tentatively interested. I loved Conquest, and never played any sort of CCg before it. But now I've met people, both online and in person, who make the hobby of playing that sort of card game fun, so I'm thinking about L5R.

The game itself looks interesting enough to try out, but to be honest the fiction hasn't made me jump and down with excitement yet. It seems fine, I guess.

I get the impression that this latest fiction, with all of the random name dropping, is more focused on getting us old timers excited for this game. There is no reason for a new not-yet-a-player to care, at all, about Toshimoko / Kachiko / Yoshi / etc. I would hope that the fiction released closer to the game's release is more tailored for those that are just seeing this world for the first time, because this first Crane Fiction clearly wasn't.

7 hours ago, Yogo Gohei said:

I get the impression that this latest fiction, with all of the random name dropping, is more focused on getting us old timers excited for this game. There is no reason for a new not-yet-a-player to care, at all, about Toshimoko / Kachiko / Yoshi / etc. I would hope that the fiction released closer to the game's release is more tailored for those that are just seeing this world for the first time, because this first Crane Fiction clearly wasn't.

I'm new and enjoyed the first fiction alot, but for me if I had one big complaint it would be the fact that they threw a decent bit of gratuitous Japanese into the prose. As an avid reader/aspiring writer of fantasy fiction, I'm used to stories front-loading a bunch of proper nouns that are hard to remember at first. I just assume that the author will explain who they are as the story goes on. But the random Japanese words were pretty jarring. I mean, I kinda understand why they included the honorifics like "san" and "ue," since those don't have precise English translations--they were pretty distracting, but I can see the intent. Then again, I'm currently studying Japanese, so I understood these honorifics without needing to look them up. I feel like someone who hasn't might be confused. But thing that REALLY bugged me was the way the soldier said "Hai," instead of just "Yes." Completely unnecessary. I get it, we're in fantasy Japan. The milieu is clear, you don't have to clobber me over the head with stuff like that!

But for me, these are small complaints. Overall I loved the story.

5 minutes ago, Mandalore525 said:

But thing that REALLY bugged me was the way the soldier said "Hai," instead of just "Yes." Completely unnecessary.

I'll go ahead and warn you: that is probably not going to change.

26 minutes ago, Suzume Tomonori said:

I'll go ahead and warn you: that is probably not going to change.

Hai.

3 hours ago, Suzume Tomonori said:

I'll go ahead and warn you: that is probably not going to change.

If the fiction continues to be as good as it has been, then I'm sure I'll stop noticing at some point :).

9 hours ago, Mandalore525 said:

... the random Japanese words were pretty jarring. I mean, I kinda understand why they included the honorifics like "san" and "ue," since those don't have precise English translations--they were pretty distracting, but I can see the intent. Then again, I'm currently studying Japanese, so I understood these honorifics without needing to look them up. I feel like someone who hasn't might be confused. But thing that REALLY bugged me was the way the soldier said "Hai," instead of just "Yes." Completely unnecessary. I get it, we're in fantasy Japan. The milieu is clear, you don't have to clobber me over the head with stuff like that!

10 hours ago, Mandalore525 said:

I'm new and enjoyed the first fiction alot, but for me if I had one big complaint it would be the fact that they threw a decent bit of gratuitous Japanese into the prose. As an avid reader/aspiring writer of fantasy fiction, I'm used to stories front-loading a bunch of proper nouns that are hard to remember at first. I just assume that the author will explain who they are as the story goes on. But the random Japanese words were pretty jarring. I mean, I kinda understand why they included the honorifics like "san" and "ue," since those don't have precise English translations--they were pretty distracting, but I can see the intent. Then again, I'm currently studying Japanese, so I understood these honorifics without needing to look them up. I feel like someone who hasn't might be confused. But thing that REALLY bugged me was the way the soldier said "Hai," instead of just "Yes." Completely unnecessary. I get it, we're in fantasy Japan. The milieu is clear, you don't have to clobber me over the head with stuff like that!

But for me, these are small complaints. Overall I loved the story.

My very first exposure to L5R was the Unicorn Clan Wars novel: "Why are all these people named Shinjo?!?"

LOL to think about it. I had a hard time keeping everybody straight back then, even had to write people's names down to go back to remember who they were, but now it's 2nd nature.

I first came to L5R through the RPG and love of the setting. In fact, I run an L5R campaign each week. I have a friend who played the CCG, but I was wary of jumping in because I knew from experience how expensive a CCG can get. So I was extremely excited to see that L5R was moving to an LCG format.

I've been trying to read up on the mechanics, but it's a bit difficult to digest since I have no idea how the original game worked. Hopefully watching some of the streams will make it a bit clearer.

I'm fortunate that I'll actually be playing in the inaugural tournament at GenCon, even though I'm pretty sure you veterans will make quick work of me. But hopefully I'll make some friends and memories in the meantime.

Again, is it Wednesday yet???

39 minutes ago, LordBlunt said:

Again, is it Wednesday yet???

For some of us yes.... unfortunately we still have to wait at least another 10h while watching the clock at work.....

53 minutes ago, LordBlunt said:

Again, is it Wednesday yet???

2 hours ago, Nilandia said:

I first came to L5R through the RPG and love of the setting. In fact, I run an L5R campaign each week. I have a friend who played the CCG, but I was wary of jumping in because I knew from experience how expensive a CCG can get. So I was extremely excited to see that L5R was moving to an LCG format.

I've been trying to read up on the mechanics, but it's a bit difficult to digest since I have no idea how the original game worked. Hopefully watching some of the streams will make it a bit clearer.

I'm fortunate that I'll actually be playing in the inaugural tournament at GenCon, even though I'm pretty sure you veterans will make quick work of me. But hopefully I'll make some friends and memories in the meantime.

The good news is that for every mechanic that is familiar to players familiar with the old CCG there are two that are completely foreign. If you get a general sense of what's going on in the new game before you shuffle up, you won't be that far behind except in the skills and mindset that carry across most card games as a whole.

On 23/05/2017 at 4:58 AM, Mandalore525 said:

I'm new and enjoyed the first fiction alot, but for me if I had one big complaint it would be the fact that they threw a decent bit of gratuitous Japanese into the prose.

I know this doesn't really apply to you as you actually know all these words, but on ImperialAdvisor.com we are annotating the stories (at least we did the first one and plan to do more). For example, we went through Her Father's Daughter and linked any of the words like -san and Hai that we thought would be strange to new players. We also added some info on the family and place names that would have significance to an experienced player but would mean nothing to someone new. For the absolutely brand new we have an Introduction to the background article that hopefully will ground new players in the basics.

There definitely is a gap, but I'm pretty confident the players can fill it.

It looks like I'm one of the few completely new players (on the forums, obviously). Never seen a single card from the ccg, never played the rpg or read a novel.

Yet, I'm hooked. I've played a lot of ccgs and lcgs, and from a mechanics standpoint the game looks solid, even innovative in some areas. Lore looks fun, and I'm especially intrigued by the possibility of players to influence the story. At the same time, some stuff that worries me:

- FFG's curricula is not really spectacular from the organized play structure and effort point of view, something that they will really have to step up if they want to keep what AEG seemed to have done very well (at least, from what I've read online). Same goes with long term commitment to the game and community, again something that FFG has not been really great so far

- How will they manage the lore, and player-influenced story is a big question. It's clear (again, from what I've seen) that AEG went too far with that, at the risk of messing up and ruining the lore. They will have to be careful with it, but at the same time give to player at least the illusion of being in control.

- Clan affiliation. This is for me one of the key selling point, yet one of the features of L5R that may be more at risk with the lcg formula. Having all cards at hand may reduce the incentive to stick to one clan. What was the incentive in the ccg? Why did it worked in that way, differently from all (or most) other card games around?

The only (minor) things that bothers me right now is why Province cards are not all terrain and geographical features, but more like events (so this is good http://l5r.gamepedia.com/Mori_Kuroi, this does not make any sense to me http://l5r.gamepedia.com/Shameful_Display). But I'll survive, even if it would have been really easy to make it "right"

I'm a newbie to L5R but will definitely b picking this game up. It has a strong theme / IP as a basis and the interplay between the clans look like they will deliver a great game play experience.

I think I will hold off going 'full competitive' until I see what the meta holds: I expect it will be pretty narrow initially.

The tougher question will be deciding where my Clan loyalty will end up. Scorpion seems interesting initially but I am already liking what I've seen so far from Crane, Lion and Dragon!

2 hours ago, franzvong said:

Clan affiliation. This is for me one of the key selling point, yet one of the features of L5R that may be more at risk with the lcg formula. Having all cards at hand may reduce the incentive to stick to one clan. What was the incentive in the ccg? Why did it worked in that way, differently from all (or most) other card games around?

I never played in tournaments, but evidently there were storyline incentives besides those for the overall winners. Something like "best of clan".

My play group was always very small, so I made decks for all the clans and played whatever I wanted. I think a lot of people did that, so "clan loyalty" for us is just for fun.

Clan loyalty also has to do with play style... the different Clans did play very differently.

But for competitive players, that felt they had a shot at winning big tournaments they definitely did play the tier 1 decks regardless of clan affiliations. Nothing is going to change that.

10 minutes ago, Isawa Tasatu said:

Clan loyalty also has to do with play style... the different Clans did play very differently.

But for competitive players, that felt they had a shot at winning big tournaments they definitely did play the tier 1 decks regardless of clan affiliations. Nothing is going to change that.

Not back when I was playing -- there were some people who played whatever, but some of the most successful players were completely clan loyal at major tournaments. I played from Gold to Samurai 2002 -2007, and if I am remembering right almost all of the Gen Con and Euro Championship winners in that period were Clan loyal players, the exceptions being the Ratling wins.