Lucky for me, I can hide behind an internet persona. Patience is not one of my best qualities. RELEASE THE **** GAME!!!! I WANNA PLAY!!!

4 hours 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 first person out of the game. I could easily see L5R being similar where the first stronghold to break ends the game.

So when 3-4 vs 1 gangs up on the one, who wins then? Seems kind of dumb to me.

Let them make the main game, the 2 player version, as perfect as it can be before they make the multi-player version. I'm sure that plenty of people will try to shoehorn in multiplayer rules on the forum for the game at some point. I'd imagine it would be would out as soon as someone gets ahold of the rulebook.

It took MtG decades to get multiplayer right and to support it fully with regular, special releases. Even then every group has it tone and various house rules. There's also the irony that people want to try the multiplayer format, Commander, as a 1v1 thing.

Just now, Kubernes said:

There's also the irony that people want to try the multiplayer format, Commander, as a 1v1 thing.

1v1 Commander is way better than multiplayer commander.

4 hours ago, Sparks Duh said:

So when 3-4 vs 1 gangs up on the one, who wins then? Seems kind of dumb to me.

There is a 5 player allies / enemies format that actually works quite well. You have everyone seated around the table, and the two people to your sides are your "allies" and the two people across from you are your "enemies." The thing is, your allies aren't allies... There are some times where 2 people can gang up on 1 person but there is no reason for 3 people to gang up on 1 person because neither ally shares the same win condition. Likewise there is good reason for that 1 person to always have at least one of their two allies willing to help out. There were times where an ally would do a sneaky thing and steal a win by playing an instant to deal the death blow their ally had set up, and much other shenanigans. The format works well because it is impossible for too many people to gang up on any 1 person, and there is a natural incentive for your allies to help you out (if you lose, they can't win.)

We sorta thought this type of multiplayer aggression channeling and win condition limits out ourselves but I've heard others have come to the same play style too.

3 hours ago, Kubernes said:

Let them make the main game, the 2 player version, as perfect as it can be before they make the multi-player version. I'm sure that plenty of people will try to shoehorn in multiplayer rules on the forum for the game at some point. I'd imagine it would be would out as soon as someone gets ahold of the rulebook.

It took MtG decades to get multiplayer right and to support it fully with regular, special releases. Even then every group has it tone and various house rules. There's also the irony that people want to try the multiplayer format, Commander, as a 1v1 thing.

Do you think the game isn't great right now? From what I've played the game works great, there is no reason to wait. They don't have to give any 3+ player events or cards specifically designed for 3+ player unless they want to, just giving out the rules for multiplayer won't take away from 1v1 or their ability to develop the game. We've already seen phrasing on cards that is multiplayer-safe, they don't need to do anything more than that... but I'm either going to home-brew some rules to play multiplayer or they are going to provide a standard format for it. It's going to happen either way.

MTG did take decades to get multiplayer right - but we're not reinventing the wheel here. Game design has come a long way and learned many lessons. FFG isn't starting from scratch here. Commander is not something I would say is more apt to multiplayer than it is to 1v1. Commander was no magical "Finally we can multiplayer" game type. It's really just a different format that passes as a more casual game type. Ironically there are some hyper-competitive decks that can ruin the multiplayer fun by taking over the game 1vEveryone which is partly why some people want to play commander 1v1. The game type is great, limiting it to multiplayer is bad. Multiplayer introduces an element of randomness that practically requires the players to accept it as a more casual game type where 1v1 is best left as the competitive "real" game mode.

EDIT: Double post

8 hours ago, Kubernes said:

There's also the irony that people want to try the multiplayer format, Commander, as a 1v1 thing.

Then they take an explicitly multiplayer, casual format (says so right on the rules sheet that comes inside each product), turn it into a 1v1 competitive format, spend $K+ to pimp out their deck, and still have the audacity to call it Commander/EDH.

Though to be perfectly honest, Richard figured out how to make a good multiplayer version of his game as early as 1994. It was called Vampire: The Eternal Struggle.

Instead of multi-player, why not teams that play individual games over the course of a "war"?

-Make a map of Rokugan, divide it into smaller provinces.

-Each province has a fortification rating from 1-5. Every successful attack drops the value by one. Every successful defense raises it by one. When a province hit "0" the attackers claim the province and the value is reset at specific value.

-Each player on a team gets to declare two attacks in a week. They declare what adjacent province they are attacking. Any player from an opposing team may defend. You can defend an unlimited about of times.

It wouldn't solve the problem of odd numbers at a table, but it would let players line up games over a week. Odd samurai out can check over the map, watch games for how the opponents play, and devise strategies.