I've read that the original CCG was playable by more than 2 players and well Game of Thrones was too, I'm kinda disappointed that FFG didn't consider making the game with multiplayer format...

There's no official statement saying that there won't be a way to play with 3+ players.

Granted, the core set box and the product page say '2 players'. Also, the mechanics of the Honor Dial bidding for drawing cards would need to be adjusted / added to for multiplayer, and the devs have avoided directly answering any questions about multiplayer, as far as I know.

However, there are certainly ways FFG could add multiplayer to the game. Some people think the 5 'Personality' cards that will be in the core set might involve multiplayer, but I think it's more likely they'll either have some sort of casual multiplayer rules in the bac of the rulebook, and wait until after the core set and create a special multiplayer set later.

I would put the chances of a multiplayer ruleset coming out at 70%.

I don't know there will be any official event support for a multiplayer format but I think there will be a deluxe sized set at some point with multiplayer rules.

The wording is already crafted for multiplayer (3+ players,) but nothing is specifically designed for it like Intersecting Highways from before. The wording alone doesn't promise multiplayer but it does leave us hopeful. They have avoided any questions about that so far.

They may have a natural multiplayer ruleset out of the box but some of the rules such as honor bidding seem to be less straight forward in application to a multiplayer environment. We'll have to see. I would not mind if they did a separate release which took the LCG cards and created a well designed multiplayer experience from them with different rules, such as the War of Honor set AEG released, as that can give better design space for the experience than simply adding more players to the same game.

FFG doesn't waste time on a niche format. Especially when that format is crap!

A few of the cards specifically word themselves for multiple players, like Secluded Temple for example: "Reaction: After the conflict phase begins, each opponent who controls more characters than you must choose a character he or she controls with 1 or more fate on it – remove 1 fate from each chosen character."

Also, whether or not we specifically get rules for an 3+ player format seems irrelevant to me. If you and yours want to get 4 heads round a table and just do it, FFG isn't going to pull an Eyehole Man and drop someone in to kick everyones heads in...

2 minutes ago, Daigotsu Steve said:

A few of the cards specifically word themselves for multiple players, like Secluded Temple for example: "Reaction: After the conflict phase begins, each opponent who controls more characters than you must choose a character he or she controls with 1 or more fate on it – remove 1 fate from each chosen character."

Also, whether or not we specifically get rules for an 3+ player format seems irrelevant to me. If you and yours want to get 4 heads round a table and just do it, FFG isn't going to pull an Eyehole Man and drop someone in to kick everyones heads in...

Good luck trying to compare your honor bid with all your opponents!

1 minute ago, Sparks Duh said:

Good luck trying to compare your honor bid with all your opponents!

Everyone attacks and compares to their right and can defend the player to their left if they want. Done! I'm not saying their isn't problems to be solved, but people can solve them how they see fir I reckon. I don't know what people are after here TBH. I don't think there was ever a point in the old game where there was something like sanctioned multiplayer play, but that might have just been around my neck of the woods. Back in my groups L5R heyday about 10 years ago, people would get 6 man games together that would last hours lol

Just now, Daigotsu Steve said:

Everyone attacks and compares to their right and can defend the player to their left if they want. Done! I'm not saying their isn't problems to be solved, but people can solve them how they see fir I reckon. I don't know what people are after here TBH. I don't think there was ever a point in the old game where there was something like sanctioned multiplayer play, but that might have just been around my neck of the woods. Back in my groups L5R heyday about 10 years ago, people would get 6 man games together that would last hours lol

If everyone compares to the right, you will be comparing to the left as well. It IS a big circle, right?

27 minutes ago, Sparks Duh said:

Good luck trying to compare your honor bid with all your opponents!

You can simplify the game by having everyone draw 2 or 3 cards with the ability to lose honor to draw deeper, or you can go slightly more complex and still compare. Everyone can compare with everyone, with a "player 1 and clockwise dominance." So if there are 4 players, and their bids are 5, 1, 3, and 4 then the 5 player pays the 4 player 1, the 4 player pays the 3 player 1, the 3 player pays the 1 player 2. If two people bid the same such as 4, 3, 4, 1 then the player who is higher widdershins pays the honor to the player lower clockwise, so the first 4 pays the 3 player 1 honor, and the second 4 pays the 1 player 3 honor. You could do either the simplified or the complex method and have essentially the same game.

You could also do an "allies and enemies" which would give each player a specific "opponent" before the bid and change who is who's "opponent" each turn, but this doesn't work as well with an odd number of players.

I'm not saying it isn't an issue though - if FFG has rules for multiplayer I assume part of that would be changing the honor bid system.

4 hours ago, Sparks Duh said:

FFG doesn't waste time on a niche format. Especially when that format is crap!

And they're right not to do so. Multiplayer won't ever be a competitive environment. If you want to play multiplayer, pick a L5R boardgame.

I think a 2v2 format could be cool with a shared honor pool, if you lose both strongholds you lose.

But I don't think we will see any multi-player rules until a deluxe expansion or two is released.

Having been introduced to L5R by multiplayer games when Jade Edition came out (our group split a box of starters between us. I got crane.) I've been very disappointed that the new game seems to only support two players. Frankly I've little or no interest in a two player game these days. I always preferred multiplayer L5R, with negotiation for allies in battle etc.

I hope that there's a multiplayer expansion in the works.

18 hours ago, shosuko said:

You can simplify the game by having everyone draw 2 or 3 cards with the ability to lose honor to draw deeper, or you can go slightly more complex and still compare. Everyone can compare with everyone, with a "player 1 and clockwise dominance." So if there are 4 players, and their bids are 5, 1, 3, and 4 then the 5 player pays the 4 player 1, the 4 player pays the 3 player 1, the 3 player pays the 1 player 2. If two people bid the same such as 4, 3, 4, 1 then the player who is higher widdershins pays the honor to the player lower clockwise, so the first 4 pays the 3 player 1 honor, and the second 4 pays the 1 player 3 honor. You could do either the simplified or the complex method and have essentially the same game.

This reminded me of the team games that were played (I didn't play then) at a convention over 8 years (???) ago; Simply put, it was teams of 2 players who sat to the front of their partner, total of 4 players on a table, with players A and C on one team, and players B and D on the other team. Each player then played against the players to their left and right, while 'coordinating' with their partner to their front. I don't remember the rules of this format, but there were over 40 players gaming in that hall with this setup.

Something that needs to be pointed out in this discussion is that player count listed on FFG's LCG boxes is the amount of players that a single core set can support. Not the amount of players the ruleset can support, just the amount one box can. Take the Arkham Horror LCG for example -- its ruleset can support 4 player play, but its core set says 1-2 players. AGoT2.0's ruleset can support 6 players in melee, but a single core set there says 2-4. So L5R's box saying only 2 players on it only means that there are not enough cards in the box to build three decks out of -- which has been known for a quite a while thanks to the Spanish box contents reveal.

So it's still possible. I don't know and won't speculate on how likely it is, but the box content playercount isn't actually a piece of evidence against the argument for multiplayer.

During the first L5R Live (at around the 32:40 mark) the moderator picked up a question about multiplayer and said something to the effect of "I don't think we can talk about that quite yet," and the head designer confirmed that they couldn't talk about it before moving on. It sounded to me like the moderator had accidentally brought up something that they aren't supposed to talk about but that is in consideration or development. Coupled with the fact that, as mentioned, some cards have some phrasing that implies being used with multiple players, I get the feeling we'll probably be see multiplayer at some point. But it's also possible that the multiple player phrasing may just be there in case they decide to make multiplayer eventually i.e. not necessarily that they have a plan at the moment. As to why FFG seems to be avoiding commenting on it, I only have wild speculation.

Maybe the first Deluxe box will be about multiplayer.

The thing is The game is getting out at GenCon. I'm pretty sure they will also announce some of the next products in line at that time. They're not only launching the LCG, they're (re-) launching a franchise.

20 hours ago, PGMason said:

Having been introduced to L5R by multiplayer games when Jade Edition came out (our group split a box of starters between us. I got crane.) I've been very disappointed that the new game seems to only support two players. Frankly I've little or no interest in a two player game these days. I always preferred multiplayer L5R, with negotiation for allies in battle etc.

I hope that there's a multiplayer expansion in the works.

It's hard for me to wrap my head around someone preferring to sit out and not playing at all for hours (or a friend) for a game to finish. It really boggles the mind.

2 minutes ago, Sparks Duh said:

It's hard for me to wrap my head around someone preferring to sit out and not playing at all for hours (or a friend) for a game to finish. It really boggles the mind.

Not all minds are equal.

On 7/24/2017 at 0:53 AM, Ser Nakata said:

And they're right not to do so. Multiplayer won't ever be a competitive environment. If you want to play multiplayer, pick a L5R boardgame.

Sure, but the competitive circuit isn't the only potential market. The ability to accommodate a variable number of players would be a big draw for kitchen table gamers.

Honestly, I feel like letting the casual market slip away from them was one of the biggest mistakes AEG made. Multiplayer would be a good first step to avoid repeating that mistake.

5 hours ago, Sparks Duh said:

It's hard for me to wrap my head around someone preferring to sit out and not playing at all for hours (or a friend) for a game to finish. It really boggles the mind.

Not all 3+ games go to the last man. When I had a group that played 5 player MTG games the first person who went out ended the game for everyone. The "winner" was whoever put the first person out of the game. I could easily see L5R being similar where the first stronghold to break ends the game.

4 hours ago, Fumi said:

Sure, but the competitive circuit isn't the only potential market. The ability to accommodate a variable number of players would be a big draw for kitchen table gamers.

Honestly, I feel like letting the casual market slip away from them was one of the biggest mistakes AEG made. Multiplayer would be a good first step to avoid repeating that mistake.

I agree here - when I played 5 player MTG it wasn't because we had 5 serious MTG players but rather we had 5 people who wanted to play a game, and MTG caught our interest. It fit for us doing a pentagram allies / enemies format. With L5R being an LCG, and if even just 2 players buy a set of cards each it may support a decent 5 player game, or at least a 4 player teams game. I think a teams game would be very straight forward with the current rules, but for an odd number of players it would need a few touches - nothing I wouldn't just home-brew anyway though haha

20 minutes ago, shosuko said:

Not all 3+ games go to the last man. When I had a group that played 5 player MTG games the first person who went out ended the game for everyone. The "winner" was whoever put the last person out of the game. I could easily see L5R being similar where the first stronghold to break ends the game.

I agree here - when I played 5 player MTG it wasn't because we had 5 serious MTG players but rather we had 5 people who wanted to play a game, and MTG caught our interest. It fit for us doing a pentagram allies / enemies format. With L5R being an LCG, and if even just 2 players buy a set of cards each it may support a decent 5 player game, or at least a 4 player teams game. I think a teams game would be very straight forward with the current rules, but for an odd number of players it would need a few touches - nothing I wouldn't just home-brew anyway though haha

Similar to your MTG example, I'm very much a casual Netrunner player: I just have the core box and treat it as a standalone game. And there have been several times when I've been with friends and wanted to show them Netrunner, but we had too many players, so we played something else instead. I don't really blame Netrunner for this, the asymmetry of the game doesn't lend itself to multiplayer. But L5R isn't all that asymmetrical, designing rules tight enough for casual play should be relatively easy.

And agreed, if FFG doesn't do multiplayer rules, people like you and I will homebrew it. But the fact that we're here shows we're way more dedicated than your average potential player. Most casual gamers won't bother with that. And even for the ones that do, it can be harder to convince their friends to try a new game they've never heard of if they've had to houserule it to make it playable. Whereas if it says "for 2-4 players" or whatever on the box, it'll be a much easier sell.

So people would be introduced to the game who otherwise wouldn't have been. Some of those people will decide to go competitive, others will just buy a core set of their own so they don't have to rock-paper-scissors to figure out who gets to play Crab. Either way, those are extra sales.

4 hours ago, Fumi said:

Sure, but the competitive circuit isn't the only potential market. The ability to accommodate a variable number of players would be a big draw for kitchen table gamers.

This is the rationale that I'm working with nowadays.

Im a little older now, with a family, and various demands pulling me this way and that way each day. And thus, I don't have the necessary time needed to continually practice with several deck types, arrange games with opponents at my LGS, play 10+ games a day and so on in order to ready myself for the tournament scene. Those days are pretty much out of reach for me and my gaming buddies. However, gathering a few close friends during our monthly/bi-monthly board game nights and playing an FFG card game is wholly doable; and this is my preferred gaming venue now.

So, I'm super excited, somewhat giddy, obviously childish given my postings for any/all info dealing with the release of this card game. Being able to bring in my wife into this game, at the bottom floor so to speak, has made me more eager to get my hands on these cards and "relive" my excitement from yesteryear.... As I have replied in several threads and as I continue to wish and hope for a multiplayer ability for this game; FFG, please add multiplayer to L5R soon. Please. ?

It is clear the game is future-proofed for multiplayer. Patience. The basic game isn't even out yet. Let FFG get 1v1 right first.

49 minutes ago, DarkHorse said:

It is clear the game is future-proofed for multiplayer. Patience. The basic game isn't even out yet. Let FFG get 1v1 right first.

As someone (probably) once said, "Patience? If I had patience, I'd be a doctor, not a comedian!"