If you have played any games you will know honor running is currently hard. Not only is it difficult but it can be boring as you are conflict card starved with low bids.

A simple holding could be the solution with the below action.

Action: Draw a card if your have 3 more honor than your opponent, if you have 5 more draw 2.

The details could be tweaked but I think something like that would help - it may need to be unique. What do you think?

Something like this would be perfect. I love what I've seen so far, and the only qualm I have is the lack of support for an honor victory. This approach doesn't directly gain honor but would reward those who sacrifice card draw to make a concerted effort at an honor victory.

idk - the Crane and Lion both already have ways to draw some extra cards, there is also a neutral holding too. If you want to draw more cards to make up for low bids the tools are already there.

The card pool will obviously expand and more cards filling this function may enter the card pool, but I don't feel this is a "needed" niche to pitch a card for.

I never really viewed honor and dishonor as primary win conditions. They seem to be designed to be pressure valves in case weird things happen in a game. The primary win condition of every deck should be to crush provinces. Further, I'm personally of the opinion that the more you add different non-interacting forms of victory, the less fun a game becomes. Netrunner is famous for this, top tier decks just playing their own kind of solitaire and either they assemble what they need or they don't. It would be a shame, in my mind at least, if players could just ignore the intricate systems of the board and instead flip cards over until they got 25 honor, or their opponent to 0.

1 hour ago, Bayushi Curtin said:

If you have played any games you will know honor running is currently hard. Not only is it difficult but it can be boring as you are conflict card starved with low bids.

In a game where the Crane can win by attacking, one should consider the difficulty in honor running to be intentional.

Yeah sorry, but, I can't really get on board with this. If honor is allowed to both be ahead on that win condition and still be on par to challenge for provinces then that puts them ahead by a large margin and it pretty much hoses any clan that cannot effectively honor run.

Honor out of the core set isn't really a primary win condition. Its more of a resource. That being said, if you want to honor run then build a dueling deck and mulligan aggressively. It still won't be easy but if you draw an early duel and make a low bid, that will put some serious pressure on your opponent.

It's funny that I keep on thinking I'm playing a different game than everyone else, because I've seen several honour victories and several more threatened. Perhaps I play with people who bid more conservatively than most.

21 minutes ago, Casanunda said:

It's funny that I keep on thinking I'm playing a different game than everyone else, because I've seen several honour victories and several more threatened. Perhaps I play with people who bid more conservatively than most.

From my experience it really comes down to the bidding of each player. Bidding high just once against Lion may give them enough honor advantage to take the game but it still won't be easy. If you bid high twice into Lion they may very well win with honor. What bidding do you see when you play?

2 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Yeah sorry, but, I can't really get on board with this. If honor is allowed to both be ahead on that win condition and still be on par to challenge for provinces then that puts them ahead by a large margin and it pretty much hoses any clan that cannot effectively honor run.

Honor out of the core set isn't really a primary win condition. Its more of a resource. That being said, if you want to honor run then build a dueling deck and mulligan aggressively. It still won't be easy but if you draw an early duel and make a low bid, that will put some serious pressure on your opponent.

At this time I also see honor as a resource rather than a primary win condition. In my opinion, this is a flaw. It should be possible to pursue an honor win as your primary strategy rather than including it as a restrictive measure.

I agree that a clan capable of threatening both an honor victory and breaking provinces would have an unfair advantage, and I respect that. I would be content to use a holding or stronghold that better enabled an honor victory while simultaneously making it more difficult for me to break provinces. Conceptually, would that be more appealing to you?

2 minutes ago, shosuko said:

What bidding do you see when you play?

5s are rare, I often bid 1 with Lion, especially first turn. I would say it averages out at around 3.

51 minutes ago, Doji Hana said:

At this time I also see honor as a resource rather than a primary win condition. In my opinion, this is a flaw. It should be possible to pursue an honor win as your primary strategy rather than including it as a restrictive measure.

I agree that a clan capable of threatening both an honor victory and breaking provinces would have an unfair advantage, and I respect that. I would be content to use a holding or stronghold that better enabled an honor victory while simultaneously making it more difficult for me to break provinces. Conceptually, would that be more appealing to you?

I think it is more thematic to see honor as a resource. If we consider "tactics" to be a "dishonorable" thing as Rokugan do (Bayushi Tangen's Lies was a rebuke of Akodo's Leadership exposing all warfare tactics as dishonorable), and you and I do battle, and I am able to win without drawing as many cards as you do then I am more honorable in my victory. The same with dueling - if I bid a 5 and you bid a 1 even though I won the duel I did so brutishly like a crab, without grace or reserve.

In this way an honor victory doesn't just make sense thematically - but also makes sense mechanically. If you are able to stay alive and also gain 25 honor this means you didn't just hold out against your opponent, but were able to do so at a significant disadvantage or you were at least able to capitalize on their own misplays to a significant effect.

imo - this makes honor victory more real. The Lion and Crane have an advantage in gaining honor but anyone who wins by honor has earned that win. Compare this to the ol5r game where you could literally win in a few turns with full access to abilities matching your opponent and without requiring any mis-play from them... This honor victory is something you can respect.

5 minutes ago, Casanunda said:

5s are rare, I often bid 1 with Lion, especially first turn. I would say it averages out at around 3.

If someone bids 1, does their opponent continue to test bids of 2-3? Or do they immediately fall back to bids of 1 to match the Lion to prevent that exchange of honor? This may be a big factor if players are continuing to bid even 2 or 3 each turn.

Working on something with the Crane that focuses on bidding low and high card draw. That combination is key, IMO. There has to be enough of a draw engine where bidding low helps you more than it hurts you. Then, cards like Duelist Training, Contingency Plan, Kakita Asami, Kakita Kaezin and Asahina Storyteller can push a player over the top.

Current splash is Lion, primarily for Honoured Blade.

I have some bias as a Phoenix player, but I would prefer honor running support in the form of more options to honor characters. This *can* benefit your ability to break provinces as well, but you have to keep your character honored until it leaves play to gain the honor from it, so there's a little more work to it. Or, maybe a card (possibly with a deck limit) that grants you a bonus honor when an honored character leaves play. Or something that lets you gain an honor when an opponent's dishonored character leaves play, either as you taking the honor they lose, or you gaining an honor instead of them losing one.

20 minutes ago, Anemura said:

Working on something with the Crane that focuses on bidding low and high card draw. That combination is key, IMO. There has to be enough of a draw engine where bidding low helps you more than it hurts you. Then, cards like Duelist Training, Contingency Plan, Kakita Asami, Kakita Kaezin and Asahina Storyteller can push a player over the top.

Curren splash is Lion, primarily for Honoured Blade.

Remember the meta is still evolving, and we are only now getting the full cards. New cards will also be added. Simply having the most optimal deck will do well enough to help honor running without anything focused on running honor as you will experience less low-impact cards that you would need to filter through.

That said - if you want a deck that reaches a point where it can bid just 1, and still draw enough cards to keep up with someone bidding higher... that is basically asking to be OP. Why should the Crane get to draw so much and keep their honor while the rest of the clans need to watch that balance? NO, I prefer it as is. Honor victories and defeats are for when a player misplays and their opponent can capitalize on it, or when a player is able to play reserved - NOT drawing heavy - signifying how they can win with grace and honor, rather than digging through their deck like a Crab grabbing all their weapons for a duel.

1 sword, 1 breath, 1 strike -> 1 bid, 1 card, 1 victory.

43 minutes ago, shosuko said:

Remember the meta is still evolving, and we are only now getting the full cards. New cards will also be added. Simply having the most optimal deck will do well enough to help honor running without anything focused on running honor as you will experience less low-impact cards that you would need to filter through.

That said - if you want a deck that reaches a point where it can bid just 1, and still draw enough cards to keep up with someone bidding higher... that is basically asking to be OP. Why should the Crane get to draw so much and keep their honor while the rest of the clans need to watch that balance? NO, I prefer it as is. Honor victories and defeats are for when a player misplays and their opponent can capitalize on it, or when a player is able to play reserved - NOT drawing heavy - signifying how they can win with grace and honor, rather than digging through their deck like a Crab grabbing all their weapons for a duel.

1 sword, 1 breath, 1 strike -> 1 bid, 1 card, 1 victory.

Did I convey that focus meant using sub-optimal cards? Not sure that this is an argument I had made...?

Who is "asking to be OP"??

I'm saying there is a _current_ design space for honour running which I am going to explore. It's in the game already. My thought on it is that a combination of Asahina Storyteller, Kakita Kaezin, Kakita Asami, Imperial Storehouse, Duelist Training, Contingency Plan, the various methods of Honouring, a focus on the Ring of Air and splashing Honoured Blade could lead to a deck that generates enough honour and/or card draw to allow the Crane player to bid for strategy instead of need.

I feel the same way that the elements for alternative win conditions are already there. But with the limited resources available on the core set, they primarily focused on the militaristic aspect as a learning curve for people because it's pratically a new game. You clearly see the split in the card pool, but a side had to give way to be able to field a workable deck out of the gate and that side was the honor/dishonor side.

10 hours ago, Bayushi Curtin said:

you are conflict card starved with low bids.

Splash Spyglass? Cheap Influence, helps in diplomatic battles, cheap in fate cost. Also pairs well with the Courtier known as Ide Messenger.

Plus: it's only Core right now. There is no need to "fix" victory conditions.

7 hours ago, Doji Hana said:

At this time I also see honor as a resource rather than a primary win condition. In my opinion, this is a flaw. It should be possible to pursue an honor win as your primary strategy rather than including it as a restrictive measure.

I agree that a clan capable of threatening both an honor victory and breaking provinces would have an unfair advantage, and I respect that. I would be content to use a holding or stronghold that better enabled an honor victory while simultaneously making it more difficult for me to break provinces. Conceptually, would that be more appealing to you?

I don't feel that the honor mechanic is flawed at all. I think it's quite brilliant. While old5r was a great game with multiple paths to victory, the game went through large phases where the multiple win conditions were unbalanced and led to the game focusing very little on actual player interaction. IMO this was the worst part of old5r. As much as I love the game, it would be foolish not to admit it had flaws.

FFG has improved upon the game in a great many ways and I think the mechanics are the biggest part of that. Promoting player interaction and putting the emphasis on each players in game decisions makes the game much more enjoyable. I can certainly understand that there will be players that would prefer to focus on other win conditions besides breaking provinces. I would just caution those players to consider that if that is pursued to the point where player interaction is stifled, you could end up with a worse game.

I wouldn't mind something to the effect of......

Mercy

0 fate event

Reaction: after you break an opponent's province, the province becomes unbroken. Turn the province face down. Gain 4 honor

Anything that continues to keep the focus on engaging in conflicts I would be all for.

With Crane you can get pretty close to both Honor and Dishonor victory but currently the deck always feels like you miss a few cards. Only against Scorpion it seems impossible to pull of because they steal honor from you every turn and they dishonor your guys losing you even more. They cannot push you to dishonor, but you cannot win against them that way (Edit: Or at all for that matter ).

What I would like to see in the future for Crane and in general:

1)More self honoring cards like Brash Samurai. My dream card is a Duelist that honors himself ala Honored General.

2)One more Honor gain tool. Currently you need to splash either Honored Blade or the Phoenix pretty dress or the Crab Levy.

3)For Dishonor Victory one more card similar to Lady Kakita so along with the Crab Watch Commander you go up to 9 cards that steal honor.

4)More neutral cards that support low bids like Good Omen.

Also the Mercy event from the above post

my problem with making honor an easily achievablev(as in that is what a deck is designed for and needs to be meta'd against) is that it would have to be countered by a lessening of any clan that uses it ability to take provinces and I quite like the new approach.

perhaps if they created a stronghold that made honor more consistent at the cost of weaker or more expensive peeps but why look back to the ccg types? Winning political conflicts is more satisfying, to me, than a 'not in the face' honor runner.

Honour need not be "easily achievable" to work. Design just needs to add more cards like the ones they have: Cards like Levy, Court Games and Magnificent Kimono all help. The 'costs' associated with the use of these cards is built into their limitations. That maintains the balance, whether you swap out one card for another.

And just as those cards do not veer the game away from interaction, the new ones following the same guidelines will perform in the same way (or should). This isn't the CCG. Honour running in the LCG does not appear to prevent interaction -- it actually encourages it, IMO.

42 minutes ago, Matrim said:

perhaps if they created a stronghold that made honor more consistent at the cost of weaker or more expensive peeps but why look back to the ccg types? Winning political conflicts is more satisfying, to me, than a 'not in the face' honor runner.

Considering Honored Blade, getting a Crane courtier character that has same ability (or limited to Political) would make sense.