15 hours ago, Doji Takashi said:

But why would FFG change Doji Hoturi, one of the most prominent and well established characters in Rokugan's history, to "Doji Hotaru"?!? I know this only by chance - are there more perversions like this I am not aware of?

I'd just assume you were someone mad about the gender flop if not for the perversions line which is basically tailor made to incite angry replies.

With regards to the actual topic of the thread, it isn't a retcon and if comics have taught us any one thing that alternate universes can still clearly be identified as sharing the same essence of a [thing] even with enormous variance from said [thing]. We're Rokugan-1610 here, if you will. Or frankly, more like Rokugan-2 or at least 3.

10 hours ago, KerenRhys said:

It's funny you put the "beginning" of the convoluted and unbelievable stuff at the War of the Spirits. For me, there were a lot more of that in the Hidden Emperor/Lying Darkness story arc (is there anything that isn't convoluted and/or unbelievable in it?) than in the Four Winds one.

Yeah.... That part is really very convoluted as well. Got me there.

2 hours ago, Kubernes said:

*stuff about Hoturi's story*

As someone who never liked Hoturi's story, I welcome my new lesbian overlords.

9 hours ago, Matrim said:

The question is what people who hate the changes so much 'that they either dont want to play the game or would not play it (say RPG players only)' makes it think spouting about is worthwhile? There will always be a hard core that would hate the game whatever FFG did basically having closed minds to the possiblity that things might , dare I say it, be better than the original.

Don't get me wrong - I think there is in fact a fair chance the LCG will be better than the old CCG.

I should probably say I was never much of a CCG player to begin with, having tried just once to set up a deck, and giving up because of money issues. So I'm mostly an RPG player only, really. And from that perspective, ditching all the story since 1994 or so (right?) is rather frustrating... due to loose ends in the previous story, to loads of things that could have been more detailed, and this sort of thing - which I already mentioned.

As far as a card game goes, though, I do believe FFG's new take on the game is likely to yield good results. I'm even considering buying it along with friends, despite the fact that I'm frustrated about what the future may bring for the RPG. It's just that... I now feel it more akin to a fun board game set in an odd version of Rokugan than the interactive world L5R first was to me. But well, it's still magic samurai clans waging war, and Lion vs Crane will still lead to inspiring fights.

First let me start by saying I don't hate that they are rebooting L5R. The story was all over the place and had some major timeline problems.

I don't care that they gender-swapped some characters. Rokugan from the start was suppose to be an equal opportunity setting, but tended to fall short.

I'm not against them redoing the clan wars, IMHO AEG was to open with players determining the story. They later corrected this with winners choosing from a group of options.

I Stopped playing the card game because. I stopped playing all card games, they are just to expensive to maintain. I still love the L5R setting.

What I am against is change for the sake of change.

While I don't care that Hoturi is now female, I feel that the swap was just for change sake. The fact that they seem to be heading down the same road as the original excepted with a lesbian theme is just change for change sake.

The Hoturi story, love it or hate it, was about forbidden love, loss, and redemption. Hoturi's affair leads to his wife's vow being broken, Him killing his own son, etc. Where this new line loses all of this.

If they want to change him to a her they should write their own story and not just shoehorn in a female.

On to the main issues for me. I am all for them cleaning up the precoup/clan wars history and starting fresh. I don't need them to retell the same story and I'm fine with the story changing.

What I don't want is them to start rewriting the past (Past to me is precoup) to the point that it stops being Rokugan and becomes a game with the L5R logo.

an example:

57 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

I think even this has a lot to play around, because certain Clans have major internal inconsistencies and/or have multiple thematic choices. For example, the Phoenix Clan without their shugenja wouldn't be at a huge loss , because the Clan's secondary warrior-scholar focus could carry them and most fans maybe wouldn't even notice the change at first.

On this one I have to ask when did you start playing L5R. Because the shugenja stuff was and is the whole identity of the Phoenix Clan from the start check out their first stronghold The Sacred Temple of the Phoenix .

The Clan's secondary warrior-scholar focus was a later add-on to the clan to give the Shiba some character of their own.

If this was changed the Phoenix would be the Phoenix in name only.

This is the type of change that to me would destroy the setting and just make it another samurai game.

2 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

While I don't care that Hoturi is now female, I feel that the swap was just for change sake. The fact that they seem to be heading down the same road as the original excepted with a lesbian theme is just change for change sake.

We've had one story. Total. We've no idea what road they are heading down.

The thing is L5R can get as much retcon as FFG wants. It's THEIR story now, and they'll let players influence what FFG will allow them to influence.

It will not be the same story, although there will be similarities. What people must understand is the players don't decide and have no right to decide what can/should/will change.

If you don't like what FFG does with L5R, you have no right to say it's not L5R anymore. FFG bought the whole IP, they're free to do whatever they want with it. And of course, they won't make everyone happy. There will always be people who will dislike some characters dying or some clan spending too much (in their opinion) time in the spotlight.

If you don't like what you see, suck it up. This new L5R is another story. It doesn't have to be the same, FFG can change (and they will) whatever they want to change, and you don't have to like it. I'm pretty sure most people will love the new game, the new story and the rest of what they will do with the IP.

11 hours ago, Tetsuro said:

I think we're all now interested to see what they do with Bayushi Yojiro and the case of the mysterious swapping genders.

Or if they go with Doji Shizue's inexplicable age regression from her basic to XP version.

As far as I know, Shizue was de-aged because Ree Roesbee became the lead writer, and Shizue became "her" character, so they made a Shizue that fit Ree's image of her.

I know some people found it silly, but it wasn't as straight-up "I'm basically a character in the game I write!" as Ree's warflord character, Keziah the bard.

(Note: This is not meant to be a slight on Ms. Soesbee. She's a lovely person, and is a talented writer).

I think the Hidden Emperor arc had a lot of very cool, intriguing elements. It was just a mess due to the rush to come up with a new huge, epic story without the original lead writer, John Wick, leaving the game due to Wizards of the Coast - the new publishers of the game) demanding he do things with the story that Wick wouldn't do (mainly, they insisted that the Scorpion be banished and so mostly removed from the game. Wick said "We already did that with the Scorpion. It would be silly to do that again immediately. They insisted, and he left).

Also, AEG was still having growing pains on how to include player input into the story. Ree Soesbee (Wick's successor) had a huge mess to handle, and while she got a lot of vitriol for how it panned out, I think she did fairly well given the circumstances. That said, I'd love to see a lot of elements from Hidden Emperor done better.

5 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

While I don't care that Hoturi is now female, I feel that the swap was just for change sake. The fact that they seem to be heading down the same road as the original excepted with a lesbian theme is just change for change sake.

The Hoturi story, love it or hate it, was about forbidden love, loss, and redemption. Hoturi's affair leads to his wife's vow being broken, Him killing his own son, etc. Where this new line loses all of this.

If they want to change him to a her they should write their own story and not just shoehorn in a female.

I think I should point out the contradiction in your statement here.

Your contradiction. You want them to tell a completely new story, after telling us all the story they won't tell. I'm pretty sure that your entire premise here is flawed, they are physically unable to retell Hoturi's story with Hotaru, as you pointed out. So I think, we're going to get a new story.

Maybe you can't really ***** about the story being the same AND being different at once. Kind of...loses something.

58 minutes ago, RandomJC said:

I think I should point out the contradiction in your statement here.

Your contradiction. You want them to tell a completely new story, after telling us all the story they won't tell. I'm pretty sure that your entire premise here is flawed, they are physically unable to retell Hoturi's story with Hotaru, as you pointed out. So I think, we're going to get a new story.

Maybe you can't really ***** about the story being the same AND being different at once. Kind of...loses something.

Let me offer a half-hearted defense of that position, then I'm personally a bit ambivalent about the whole story reset (though I'm very excited about the game mechanics and art I've seen so far - make no mistake, I'm in for this game...)

Anyway, on the one hand I can understand why they're doing the reset. There was a lot of history in the old story that could make it harder for new players to join. At the same time, the coup and the clan wars were great stories, and I can see why they'd want to retell them, both for the story value and to bring in new players.

On the other hand, those stories have been told, and that puts FFG in a bit of a hard spot, at least for me and I think for some others commenting here. If they tell the same story, well, we already know that story, so that's bad. If they make changes, they're doing it just for the sake of making changes, so that's bad. If it seems like a no-win situation, that's because it is - they're dealing with fans here, we want everything, even when it's contradictory.

So wanting both the same and a different story may be unreasonable, but I can see why people feel that way.

I think they'll change the story and give it nice and interesting twists.

You only list two possibilities : retelling the same story, or changing it for the sake of change.

You forget they can change the story and make it more interesting.

2 minutes ago, agarrett said:

Let me offer a half-hearted defense of that position, then I'm personally a bit ambivalent about the whole story reset (though I'm very excited about the game mechanics and art I've seen so far - make no mistake, I'm in for this game...)

Anyway, on the one hand I can understand why they're doing the reset. There was a lot of history in the old story that could make it harder for new players to join. At the same time, the coup and the clan wars were great stories, and I can see why they'd want to retell them, both for the story value and to bring in new players.

On the other hand, those stories have been told, and that puts FFG in a bit of a hard spot, at least for me and I think for some others commenting here. If they tell the same story, well, we already know that story, so that's bad. If they make changes, they're doing it just for the sake of making changes, so that's bad. If it seems like a no-win situation, that's because it is - they're dealing with fans here, we want everything, even when it's contradictory.

So wanting both the same and a different story may be unreasonable, but I can see why people feel that way.

I think my biggest problem is calling it changes for change's sake. Which i don't feel is true.

7 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

What I am against is change for the sake of change.

While I don't care that Hoturi is now female, I feel that the swap was just for change sake. The fact that they seem to be heading down the same road as the original excepted with a lesbian theme is just change for change sake.

The Hoturi story, love it or hate it, was about forbidden love, loss, and redemption. Hoturi's affair leads to his wife's vow being broken, Him killing his own son, etc. Where this new line loses all of this.

I am cautiously optimistic that FFG understands this. From the very little of I have seen of Katrina, she seems to "get" what makes the original story so loved.

I am not sure why everyone is so bent out of shape about Rokugan being "different". We have a grand total of one fiction so far, and that fiction seems to go out of its way, to an almost obnoxious degree, of showing us what is the same .

Yoritomo (a) still exists and (b) is still a pirate.
Kachiko is still the exact same character we came to know and love/hate.
The other random name dropping (Yoshi, Toshimoko, etc.) is all there purely to get the old timers more comfortable.

We simply do not know enough about Hotaru to come to the conclusion of "they made her a woman for no good reason!"

Not everything changed. For the moment, to me, it seems like everything that I cared about in the old setting is in tact, and most of the characters are too. They changed up a few small things so that when the bigger changes come later, we will understand why things are different. Butterfly effect.

plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

2 hours ago, RandomJC said:

I think I should point out the contradiction in your statement here.

Your contradiction. You want them to tell a completely new story, after telling us all the story they won't tell. I'm pretty sure that your entire premise here is flawed, they are physically unable to retell Hoturi's story with Hotaru, as you pointed out. So I think, we're going to get a new story.

Maybe you can't really ***** about the story being the same AND being different at once. Kind of...loses something.

Sorry, Have to stop writing pot before I go to bed.

anyway the point I was trying to make poorly was.

I'm fine with them changing Hoturi to Hotaru , but that fact that they are keeping the the affair lead me to think that they are treading the same water from a new angle. As has been stated we don't know for sure but it is just the way it seems right now to me.

4 minutes ago, tenchi2a said:

Sorry, Have to stop writing pot before I go to bed.

anyway the point I was trying to make poorly was.

I'm fine with them changing Hoturi to Hotaru , but that fact that they are keeping the the affair lead me to think that they are treading the same water from a new angle. As has been stated we don't know for sure but it is just the way it seems right now to me.

I do think that's the other thing we need to keep in mind. We have so little to judge how this will go, we can't assume they will be the same (Nor can we assume they will change significantly, either).

We can get a feel for how this will really go down after a few fictions, and maybe not really till we get the fictions of the first cycle, sadly.

P.S. Apologies if I came off too strong. I can get heated in a moment.

On 5/29/2017 at 8:33 AM, Doji Takashi said:

I love and play L5R RPG since the early 2000's. I always hated the story development parts which were caused by random tournament outcomes. When Yakamo and Hitomi replaced Amaterasu and Onnotangu respectively and the Hantei line ended I was devastated. I was somewhat mollified when Jade Dragon and Obsidian Dragon took over, so I understand the urge to write a coherent story. But why would FFG change Doji Hoturi, one of the most prominent and well established characters in Rokugan's history, to "Doji Hotaru"?!? I know this only by chance - are there more perversions like this I am not aware of?

Why are you actually so upset about this? I've been reading some of your counters to others' responses, and while it's clear this bothers you, I can't quite tell why. Do you even know, or is this just a visceral, gut reaction to change?

It's a reboot. And alternate timeline. A parallel universe. Old5R had its run, and its lore, and its rich stories and complex characters. So will this new incarnation, just differently. Do not assume that anything that happened in the old story will happen here. Will there even be a Second Day of Thunder? It appears that FFG is more interested in samurai drama, as opposed to The Big Bad, so maybe not!

It's not a retcon. It's an altcon.

9 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

The Hoturi story, love it or hate it, was about forbidden love, loss, and redemption. Hoturi's affair leads to his wife's vow being broken, Him killing his own son, etc. Where this new line loses all of this.

How?

9 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

While I don't care that Hoturi is now female, I feel that the swap was just for change sake. The fact that they seem to be heading down the same road as the original excepted with a lesbian theme is just change for change sake.

That you can predict all of that as early as Chapter One seems unlikely attributable to merely reading between the lines. Are you sure you're not just plain psychic...?

I am glad I got to experience the old Legend of the Five Rings for what it was.

I am glad I get to experience the new Legend of the Five Rings for what it will be.

The impermanence of all things is important.

10 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

On this one I have to ask when did you start playing L5R.

This is actually a good question. Somewhere before Iweko. I can faintly remember the Celestial Tournament and Fu Leng being a monk. So yeah, I'm not very old, excuse my ignorance .

14 hours ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

How?

How What? not sure I know what your asking.

1. Hoturi's wife Ameiko was infact a Kitsune fox spirit., as such she was required to take a vow to retain her human form and remain in Ningen-do. Her vow was You must marry a worthy human within one year and treat your spouse with loyalty and respect. If your spouse proves unworthy of being by your side, you must return to your own Realm and never come back to Ningen-do. She was willing to forgive his transgressions as long as he did not fall in love with any of his conquests. Which he did with Kachiko. Hoturi wares a lock of Ameiko hair as a reminder of the wife he lost.

During the Clan War the Egg of P'an Ku was used to create a double of a captured Hoturi. This and the attack on Kyuden Kakita in 1127 by the Crab Clan made Ameiko flee and disappear into the forest with the other foxes, and never to return. She committed jigai in the wilderness instead of returning to her realm.

2. In 1109 IC Kachiko gave birth to a child Bayushi Dairu. He was the result of the affair between Hoturi and Kachiko. He was adopted by Shoju, who raised him as his own son. During the Scorpion Clan Coup he faced Hoturi in a duel and was cut down. This lead to Kachiko using the Egg of P'an Ku to create a double Hoturi and try to destroy the Crane Clan as revenge for the death of her son.

3. During the Day of Thunder Hoturi Died in Kachiko's arms. Kachiko admited her love for him and finaly forgave him for the death of their son. She also noting the lock of Ameiko hair told him that Ameiko would forgives him to.

14 hours ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

That you can predict all of that as early as Chapter One seems unlikely attributable to merely reading between the lines. Are you sure you're not just plain psychic...?

You should read my second post on the matter.

13 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

This is actually a good question. Somewhere before Iweko. I can faintly remember the Celestial Tournament and Fu Leng being a monk. So yeah, I'm not very old, excuse my ignorance .

There is nothing to excuse, The fact that L5R was still bring in new players at this time is good. And I know the back story is long so some of it gets lost over time and is hard to follow.

My first decks were the Crane,Unicorn and Phoenix demo decks from Imperial Edition. I was gaming at Wizards World New York during my college years. It makes it so much easier to know the back story when you where there for it lol.

4 hours ago, tenchi2a said:

How What? not sure I know what your asking.

1. Hoturi's wife Ameiko was infact a Kitsune fox spirit., as such she was required to take a vow to retain her human form and remain in Ningen-do. Her vow was You must marry a worthy human within one year and treat your spouse with loyalty and respect. If your spouse proves unworthy of being by your side, you must return to your own Realm and never come back to Ningen-do. She was willing to forgive his transgressions as long as he did not fall in love with any of his conquests. Which he did with Kachiko. Hoturi wares a lock of Ameiko hair as a reminder of the wife he lost.

During the Clan War the Egg of P'an Ku was used to create a double of a captured Hoturi. This and the attack on Kyuden Kakita in 1127 by the Crab Clan made Ameiko flee and disappear into the forest with the other foxes, and never to return. She committed jigai in the wilderness instead of returning to her realm.

2. In 1109 IC Kachiko gave birth to a child Bayushi Dairu. He was the result of the affair between Hoturi and Kachiko. He was adopted by Shoju, who raised him as his own son. During the Scorpion Clan Coup he faced Hoturi in a duel and was cut down. This lead to Kachiko using the Egg of P'an Ku to create a double Hoturi and try to destroy the Crane Clan as revenge for the death of her son.

3. During the Day of Thunder Hoturi Died in Kachiko's arms. Kachiko admited her love for him and finaly forgave him for the death of their son. She also noting the lock of Ameiko hair told him that Ameiko would forgives him to.

You should read my second post on the matter.

I have more of a cursory knowledge of the story and haven't read the fictions so much as descriptions of the story in various L5R media, so sorry if I get some things wrong. However, aside from Dairu being Hotaru's son, I don't not sure they really need to change much of what we know.

If I recall correctly, Hoturi married Ameiko after Kachiko became pregnant and ended their relationship. So I guess you could make it like this:

Hotaru's husband gets killed fighting Yoritomo (because Doji No-name is not going to beat the Son of Storms), her relationship with Kachiko deepens as a result. After Kachiko gets pregnant, with Shoju's actual child, she stops seeing Hotaru, because her pregnancy could draw attention to her social life and expose the affair, which would dishonor them both, even if the child can't possibly be the result of that adventure.

After that Hotaru remarries to a fox-husband and begins her affair career, which the husband tolerates as long as she doesn't fall in love. She eventually kills Dairu during the coup and Kachiko seeks revenge, because she's hurt that the woman she loves killed the son she also loved. Thus False Hotaru is created, leading to male!Ameiko's death.

After that Second day of Thunder plays like before with the death of Hotaru, her confession of love to Kachiko and being forgiven by her.

I'm not saying they should do it like this, rather that they could if they wanted to keep the story similar. You would lose some themes because Dairu can't be Hotaru's son, but you could add some others, I guess (the relationship with the second husband could potentially need changes too, since, for all we know, Hotaru isn't bisexual. I'm not sure about this since I don't know how Hoturi and Ameiko's relationship was).

What does bug me a bit, and hadn't realized prior to reading this tread, is that indeed if they want to tell a different story they could have changed all characters, which I guess they didn't do precisely to keep the setting more recognizable. When I first read the introductory article I missed the first two X in Hantei's name and thought we would be about 600 years prior, with the grandchild of the Steel Chrysanthemum and I liked it (they could even have used previous emperor's reign to justify the Crane clan's bad state). However I don't have to much of a problem with their decision, maybe because I wasn't around for the old setting.

24 minutes ago, Doji Tori said:

I have more of a cursory knowledge of the story and haven't read the fictions so much as descriptions of the story in various L5R media, so sorry if I get some things wrong. However, aside from Dairu being Hotaru's son, I don't not sure they really need to change much of what we know.

This is the point I was make earlier. If they are going to change Hoturi's gender then don't keep the same story. IMHO the only good reason to change genders is to either explore a female/female relationship in L5R and tell a diffrent story that could not be told if it where a male/female relationship. But if you keep the same or a similar story then its just change for change sake

Quote

If I recall correctly, Hoturi married Ameiko after Kachiko became pregnant and ended their relationship. So I guess you could make it like this:

I don't remember if this was ever confirmed but it is stated that Shoju missed the wedding due to his wife's sudden illness so it could be true.

Quote

I'm not saying they should do it like this, rather that they could if they wanted to keep the story similar. You would lose some themes because Dairu can't be Hotaru's son, but you could add some others, I guess (the relationship with the second husband could potentially need changes too, since, for all we know Hotaru, isn't bisexual.

Again I feel if thay are gong to change Hoturi to Hotaru, they need to give us a new story and not just rehash the old one with new gender roles.

Quote

I'm not sure about this since I don't know how Hoturi and Ameiko's relationship was.

Its not touched on much. It was not clear if he love her or she is just a consolation prize. He does seem to care for her as he stopped fooling around after their marriage and after her death he cared a lock of her hair till his death. She was in love with him, and was vary forgiving about his transgressions.

Quote

What does bug me a bit, and hadn't realized prior to reading this tread, is that indeed if they want to tell a different story they could have changed all characters, which I guess they didn't do precisely to keep the setting more recognizable. When I first read the introductory article I missed the first two X in Hantei's name and thought we would be about 600 years prior, with the grandchild of the Steel Chrysanthemum and I liked it (they could even have used previous emperor's reign to justify the Crane clan's bad state). However I don't have to much of a problem with their decision, maybe because I wasn't around for the old setting.

They needed to keep enough the same to keep the fans they have while telling a new and interesting story to gain new fans.

I will be the first to say that after the Clan wars IMHO the card game went downhill. This stems from the fact that Clan Wars was suppose to be a one-off thing. AEG's writing staff had wrote themselves into a corner by killing off the main baddie. So they got stuck in the build it up tear it down cycle that we all know. Hears hoping that FFG is in it for the long haul and don't try to shoehorn in an ending.