Maybe this won't be for the Gencon or November tournaments, but I was just watching the Dragon clan Facebook AMA and was thinking about how neat it would be if they let the players decide how the clan reacts to the Pure Land sect of Shinseism--tolerate them, try to convert them, or wipe them out? It might be cool to let players actually have debates and conflicts WITHIN their clans, rather than only ever having external conflicts between players of different clans. There's a couple of ways they could possibly do this--maybe have a series of brief, pre-tournament events where players from the clans all get together and play one or two games, with the winners getting votes in the decision. Or they could just put things like this up to a direct vote--although I worry that if they did that, we'd have people from the clans that are rivals stuffing each others' ballot boxes with the dumbest possible choices...

6 hours ago, Mandalore525 said:

Or they could just put things like this up to a direct vote--although I worry that if they did that, we'd have people from the clans that are rivals stuffing each others' ballot boxes with the dumbest possible choices...

The only way to avoid this would be for FFG to introduce a global system in which players would register at their LGS and declare their clan loyalty. Perhaps they could change their loyalty, say, every six months so they wouldn't be locked in permamently. And the only effect this would have is that it would give them access to clan-specific story and card votes, for which they would require a unique code given to them upon registration.

I think it's always better to tie any significant story branch decision to tournament or organized play results and/or statistics. That maintains the marriage of the story and the game, which I think is the main appeals of the game. Also it ensures the people participating in the "voting" are putting significant effort into their contribution and are therefore less likely to just troll the vote.

35 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

The only way to avoid this would be for FFG to introduce a global system in which players would register at their LGS and declare their clan loyalty. Perhaps they could change their loyalty, say, every six months so they wouldn't be locked in permamently. And the only effect this would have is that it would give them access to clan-specific story and card votes, for which they would require a unique code given to them upon registration.

This is something I would actually love to see, and it's actually not too difficult to implement. It would really help

44 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

The only way to avoid this would be for FFG to introduce a global system in which players would register at their LGS and declare their clan loyalty. Perhaps they could change their loyalty, say, every six months so they wouldn't be locked in permamently. And the only effect this would have is that it would give them access to clan-specific story and card votes, for which they would require a unique code given to them upon registration.

This seems like a wonderful idea, and maybe when players buy deluxe sets or specific expansions they'd get codes that would allow them to vote on other aspects of the game/story?

45 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

The only way to avoid this would be for FFG to introduce a global system in which players would register at their LGS and declare their clan loyalty. Perhaps they could change their loyalty, say, every six months so they wouldn't be locked in permamently. And the only effect this would have is that it would give them access to clan-specific story and card votes, for which they would require a unique code given to them upon registration.

AEG had the Imperial Assembly which wasn't too far off from this idea. Some ballot stuffing still happened since people would get multiple registrations, but since each registration cost money that sort of thing was mostly kept at a minimum.

3 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

AEG had the Imperial Assembly which wasn't too far off from this idea. Some ballot stuffing still happened since people would get multiple registrations, but since each registration cost money that sort of thing was mostly kept at a minimum.

And to this date I would argue that such was the only benefit of asking people to pay money for such a thing. But I think gameplay-exclusive promos are stupid as hell, so take that as you will.

5 minutes ago, Ide Yoshiya said:

And to this date I would argue that such was the only benefit of asking people to pay money for such a thing. But I think gameplay-exclusive promos are stupid as hell, so take that as you will.

There are several forums out there that require a small amount of money to join (www.somethingawful.com being the most well known). You would be surprised how well that small fee puts everyone on their best behavior.

I think what FFG will do is something similar to their Summer Series of NetRunner. Probably have a vote be swung by Faction turn out at the summer Kotei series, then hand a decision, likely another "Choice of 3" to the tournament winner, and go with whatever one has the most choices at the end of the 8 Kotei. Save your big decisions for GenCon and the World Championship.

9 hours ago, Mandalore525 said:

Maybe this won't be for the Gencon or November tournaments, but I was just watching the Dragon clan Facebook AMA and was thinking about how neat it would be if they let the players decide how the clan reacts to the Pure Land sect of Shinseism--tolerate them, try to convert them, or wipe them out? It might be cool to let players actually have debates and conflicts WITHIN their clans, rather than only ever having external conflicts between players of different clans. There's a couple of ways they could possibly do this--maybe have a series of brief, pre-tournament events where players from the clans all get together and play one or two games, with the winners getting votes in the decision. Or they could just put things like this up to a direct vote--although I worry that if they did that, we'd have people from the clans that are rivals stuffing each others' ballot boxes with the dumbest possible choices...

Why not combine the ideas? Everyone who participates in the pre-tournament gets a vote, but higher ranking folks have their vote count more (e.g. a winner's vote counts as 15 votes, a finalist's vote counts as 10, etc.)

Or your vote is weighted by the number of wins you get, incentivizing people to keep playing when they're in the losers bracket

51 minutes ago, profparm said:

Or your vote is weighted by the number of wins you get, incentivizing people to keep playing when they're in the losers bracket

I like it, and I think it should be the gold standard for all major tournaments. Call it the Sincerity Prize.