Will this game have some kind of fun Multi-Player Variant? I hope so. I realize that many established games are 2 player but it is hard to get people really interested in group unless the game can be played by 3 or 4 people.

We are playing Destiny at my house right now. I was able to get this up and running because of the hype of a new game and it being Star Wars. But I actually get to play very few 1 on 1 games. My family always get's more excited when a game is multi player. I sold all my other 2 player CCG's to collect and play Destiny. No regrets. I love Star Wars so much that I am fine with playing when I get the chance. The fan and player base online is great and keeps me entertained.

Anyway back the L5R. I always wanted to play this when it was a CCG but my money was tired up in MTG and SWCCG. Now we all have a chance to get in on the ground floor. If it is only 1v1 then it will fall in the category of NR for me.

I am about to pull the trigger on LOTR for the very reason of it being solo and multi player. But LOTR is a very mature in it's life cycle. I think it would be neat to catch that new and fresh feeling that Destiny is bringing right now.

Thoughts?

There's not been any announcement to indicate that the game will support multiplayer.

There's a theory that the "Personality" cards in the core set are for a multiplayer mode, likely in the vein of the melee mode in A Game Of Thrones. Even if that is true, it looks like one core set will only have enough cards to support two players, so if the game does support multiplayer (which it very well may not), it will almost surely require multiple cores.

I'm hoping for a deluxe box for multiplayer. The box contains shadowlands and spider clan people. For every shadowland player you get 2-3 great clan players.

Makes the shadowlands sufficiently scary.

So far in every description they talk about a 2 player game. The core set defintly is. If you look for the product description of other LCG core sets it's as following:

1. Game of Thrones 1&2 : 2-4 players, 1 core set was (barely) enough for a 4 player game, full game supports up to 6. 1st edition even had 2/3 diffrent melee formats in the end.
2. Net Runner : 2 players, true till this day. They did receive a new kind of campaign 1vs1 deluxe expansion.
3. Star Wars: 2 players, but the second deluxe introduced 2 kinds of multiplayer (competitive 2vs2 and a scenario deck for 1vs 2 to 3 players)
4. Warhammer Invasion: 2 players, at the end of it's life cycle it did receive a multiplayer format which could be played 1vs1 aswell. Never tried it though.
5. Warhammer Conquest: 2 players, no multiplayer.
6. Legends of the 5 Rings: 2 players, so far not a single word on it's multiplayer aspect.

I think it's safe to say L5R, at launch, will not have a multiplayer format. And frankly i'm wondering if it ever will a standard free for all mp like it's previous incarnation. Both the honor bid mechanic and limited rings make this complicated.

7 minutes ago, Mig el Pig said:

1. Warhammer Invasion: 2 players, at the end of it's life cycle it did receive a multiplayer format which could be played 1vs1 aswell. Never tried it though.

Did this really not support multiplayer? My buddy taught us all how to play and we always played it as 4 player free for all. I always assumed this was in the rulebook.

Well we can't have it all I guess.

16 minutes ago, JRosen9 said:

Did this really not support multiplayer? My buddy taught us all how to play and we always played it as 4 player free for all. I always assumed this was in the rulebook.

While I don't know for sure about WH:I, most games can be adapted to multiplayer fairly easily. Usually just one or two things needed to be adjusted for a multiplayer game to work out. That is what will most likely happen for L5RLCG, but that is fine with me.

I wouldn't expect multiplayer unless the rules could support MP games being over in 3-4 rounds or unless FFG suddenly wanted to support the format.

39 minutes ago, JRosen9 said:

Did this really not support multiplayer? My buddy taught us all how to play and we always played it as 4 player free for all. I always assumed this was in the rulebook.

Their was a deluxe box which added multiplayer rules but if i'm not mistaken this was one of the last. Their were several unofficial multiplayer formats though.

When asked directly about multiplayer in...the Crane video? I think...they said they couldn't talk about it. Which almost certainly means something is or has been in the works. Whether it sees the light of day is another question, but my bet is MP rules will be in a deluxe box.

I am fine just using home-brew rules for multiplayer. My favorite times playing MTG, L5R and many other games is when we can get 3-5 people in a game. I am almost certain my personal play group of friends will find a way to play 3-5 player games regardless of the "official" rules.

I would not expect anything but 1v1 in tournaments, although it would be awesomely thematic if they did a weekly local game that players could be involved in (like friday night magic), and have like, the last week of the month be 3-5 player pods to change it up.

2 minutes ago, shosuko said:

I would not expect anything but 1v1 in tournaments, although it would be awesomely thematic if they did a weekly local game that players could be involved in (like friday night magic), and have like, the last week of the month be 3-5 player pods to change it up.

If it's a robust multiplayer system, there's no reason FFG couldn't run MP events. They do it for Thrones.

The biggest hurdle for a balanced multiplayer variant, IMO (because I imagine it will be a thing whether the rules come from FFG or the playerbase), is the fact that the game has one win condition and two loss conditions. Anyone working toward an honor victory has a considerable advantage over those with a greater dispensation toward military or dishonor. I could be overthinking this, though?

43 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

The biggest hurdle for a balanced multiplayer variant, IMO (because I imagine it will be a thing whether the rules come from FFG or the playerbase), is the fact that the game has one win condition and two loss conditions. Anyone working toward an honor victory has a considerable advantage over those with a greater dispensation toward military or dishonor. I could be overthinking this, though?

You're absolutely correct - When I've played multiplayer L5R before (before War of Honor) without house rules, Crane / Phoenix / Dragon typically needed to be ganged up on to prevent a simple honor win. I've played with different sets of house rules to both prevent the auto-win options, and to prevent total ganks. I liked how War of Honor worked though, and have had fun playing with it before. The tracks for victory worked well enough to allow each clan to work "their" type of victory while capping the more abusive paths to victory.

I feel I'd need to know more about the new L5R system to really get into what house rules may be needed to facilitate a 3-5+ player game. It's definitely something on my mind.

I mean, on the honor dial/card draw system, it isn't necessarily limited to 2 players. Because it draws you x cards, but modifies honor by comparison, all multiplayer has to do is define with whom you compare your dial.

It could be everyone.

Bids in a 3 player game:

Crane: 2

Lion: 3

Scorpion: 5

Crane draws 2 cards, and gain 1 honor from Lion and 3 from Scorpion.

Lion draws 3, loses 1 honor to Crane, gains 2 from Scorpion.

Scorpion draws 5, loses 3 honor to Crane, 2 to Lion.

Overall, Crane is +4, Lion is +1, Scorpion is -5. All in, it tallies to zero sum, just like a 1v1 game.

Now, the swings can be bigger for highest and lowest bid, but that's an incentive to trend toward less risk and less card draw, which in turn stabilizes a multiplayer environment where there are simply more players drawing cards.

At 4+ players, it probably gets too complicated (and the swings too big) so it might be wise to compare only to the players to your immediate left and right, and they to their left and right.

My thoughts on multiplayer (3+) for this game, and what it might end up being.

I think they are shaking out rules for a team based formst, 2v2. With the rings, each player from each team would only be able to take 1 ring per round. Combine hidden honir bid for cards. You win as a team or lose as a team.

The second one will be a co-op story mode a la Arkham. Maybe 1st arc is stop a shadow land invasion.

3 minutes ago, illenvillen said:

The second one will be a co-op story mode a la Arkham. Maybe 1st arc is stop a shadow land invasion.

Not to say they'll never do a co-op take on L5R, but it would be a design nightmare to try to do both with the same cards, both in designing the rules to work with extant cards and designing future cards to work with both versions of the game.

14 minutes ago, BD Flory said:

Not to say they'll never do a co-op take on L5R, but it would be a design nightmare to try to do both with the same cards, both in designing the rules to work with extant cards and designing future cards to work with both versions of the game.

I'm thinking they limit the cards allowed in the format, or make custom attachments that change the character, like cloud the mind so only traits and strengths matter. Then have cards that work off those #s and traits

1 minute ago, illenvillen said:

I'm thinking they limit the cards allowed in the format

It would probably be better for both styles of game just to design a potential co-op version to stand on its own, rather than trying to serve two masters with one card pool.

This has been done debated many times. Personally I will try to homebrew at launch with either a zero sum system like B D Flory stated or an honor bank system where you look at the highest and lowest bidders and pay the difference for example: A bids 4, B bids 3, C bids 1. A would pay 3 to the bank, B would pay 1 and C would get 3. As soon as someone is eliminated you go back to 1v1 rules. Adjust honor/military requirements as needed.

A few years back we played around with what we called the koku system. We used poker chips as honor or glory. We kept our chips on our provinces. We could trade honor for favors. If a province was destroyed the player who attacked it got all of the honor. It led to the Crane hiring the spider for everything. We set a time limit or turn limit. The last two turns no honor could be traded only conquered. The player with the most at the end won.

I want to try something like that again sometime.

Also whenever they are asked about multiplayer they don't answer. That means they are working on it. Otherworldly would have just said 'no' by now.

3 hours ago, Spawnod said:

This has been done debated many times. Personally I will try to homebrew at launch with either a zero sum system like B D Flory stated or an honor bank system where you look at the highest and lowest bidders and pay the difference for example: A bids 4, B bids 3, C bids 1. A would pay 3 to the bank, B would pay 1 and C would get 3. As soon as someone is eliminated you go back to 1v1 rules. Adjust honor/military requirements as needed.

Not a bad plan. I like it. What if when you draw cards you just bid against the player to your right? And maybe give extra cards to players who go later in the turn?

9 minutes ago, Devin-the-Poet said:

Also whenever they are asked about multiplayer they don't answer. That means they are working on it. Otherworldly would have just said 'no' by now.

Or they have no such plans and are keeping quiet so that those of us hellbent on multiplayer don't lose interest too soon.