10/10 on the game personally, but I see one minor thing that I would have changed: Political and Military conflicts would have a reward for winning each type, regardless of being the defender or the attacker.

This would do 2 things

1) Unincentivize "chump attacking" just for the sake of collecting fate on rings in fear of a loss, granting the winner of a conflict a reward beyond just the defense itself and increasing their position on the board.

2) Differentiate the two attack-types from each other beyond just their modifiers. What do I mean by this? Well political and military conflicts have no differentiation in resolution. They obviously have different modifiers and triggers and all the things that come along with them, but there's nothing that separates the two in resolution, which I believe is thematically important. No one "Dies" in a military attack, no one gets "Outwitted or politically marginalized" by a political attack.

The change I would recommend would be: After you win a military conflict, gain 1 fate, after a political victory, gain 1 honor.

This change would throw off a lot of cogs in the wheel, especially for "dishonor victories", however it would definitely make winning by honor more attainable. Obviously this change will likely never be made, but I enjoy the conversation about it.

Thoughts? What would you change?

18 minutes ago, Etaywah said:

What would you change?

Release date. To next friday.

Crane nerfs as far the eye can see.

I've been racking my brain for weeks trying to come up with complaints for this game (because just saying a card game is perfect is so boring). After lots of thought and many many games (including about 15 to 20 total games during Gencon in both testing and tournament play) I have one complaint.

The length of the games can be a barrier to entry. I was talking to my friends who play Star Wars Destiny and they got through an entire tournament in about half the time it took to do 5 rounds for the Kiku Matsuri.

Now, I know that it was a release event and people just play naturally slower when they're learning a game. And I know that it was a 1 core tournament so you have a far lower ratio of good cards to bad cards in your decks, making breaking provinces much more difficult in certain cases, but it still needs to be pointed out that the game itself says 45 to 90 minutes on average per game. This will be a tough sell for players coming from Magic, Destiny, Yugioh and, to an extent, Old L5R.

Unless people get significantly more decisive with experience, a 7 round tournament can be a real slog fest. I know that for Gencon, I spent approximately 20 to 24 hours "playing in L5R tournaments", despite only playing 12 games. That's an average round time, including pairing, the game, result submission and the next pairing, of about 2 hours.

Other than that, the game is as close to perfect as I can think of right now. Of course, I am still in the infatuation stage of my relationship with this game. Maybe once we've been together for a few years, I'll start to notice a few of its flaws :P.

7 minutes ago, Joe From Cincinnati said:

Other than that, the game is as close to perfect as I can think of right now. Of course, I am still in the infatuation stage of my relationship with this game. Maybe once we've been together for a few years, I'll start to notice a few of its flaws :P.

Ten years from now ;

Sorry L5R, your @$$ is too big..it's over.???

Until we see enough constructed play to generate any significant amount of data to back anything up I think the game is exceptional as is.

Tournament rounds for LCGs are on average an hour. I'd expect that to become the norm for L5R as well. It would be nice if there was something that forced players to play aggressively. I feel like if your games goes 6+ rounds both players are playing too defensively and there's nothing in the game to really prevent that behavior. That said in Netrunner and Conquest I remember there being the same initial issue of players not being aggressive enough, which resulted in longer games on average. Netrunner especially. I remember lots of slow rig building, hesitance to run with incomplete info and corporations not drawing/scoring aggressively.

I'd add Naga.

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Oh, you probably meant mechanically? Well, I'd probably have had dueling be a base rule thing. Like, every player has an action that they can use to challenge someone, that would do a base thing like bow the loser, and some clans would have cards that made the duel more potent or added cool effects in a duel. Just a neat little thing to make dueling more open for everyone, rather than crane/dragon and a little if you splash crane.

5 minutes ago, fyrm said:

I'd add Naga.

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Oh, you probably meant mechanically? Well, I'd probably have had dueling be a base rule thing. Like, every player has an action that they can use to challenge someone, that would do a base thing like bow the loser, and some clans would have cards that made the duel more potent or added cool effects in a duel. Just a neat little thing to make dueling more open for everyone, rather than crane/dragon and a little if you splash crane.

I do wish there was a more involved dueling system that leveraged the dials, too. Something that pits two characters against each other and risks their lives to gain some type of advantage.

57 minutes ago, Kuni Katsuyoshi said:

Ten years from now ;

Sorry L5R, your @$$ is too big..it's over.???

The joke is on him. L5R already has half his bank account and the house after 10 years of L5R products.

27 minutes ago, Shu2jack said:

10 years of L5R products.

3 cores, about 15 deluxe boxes, about 120 dynasty packs, at least 2 playmats,...

Let's ignore in the equation: RPG, miniatures, board games, dice, art books,...

I'd give the conflict characters a distinctive template to differentiate them from dynasty characters (think Shadows cards in AGoT 1E).

5 hours ago, Etaywah said:

10/10 on the game personally, but I see one minor thing that I would have changed: Political and Military conflicts would have a reward for winning each type, regardless of being the defender or the attacker.

This would do 2 things

1) Unincentivize "chump attacking" just for the sake of collecting fate on rings in fear of a loss, granting the winner of a conflict a reward beyond just the defense itself and increasing their position on the board.

2) Differentiate the two attack-types from each other beyond just their modifiers. What do I mean by this? Well political and military conflicts have no differentiation in resolution. They obviously have different modifiers and triggers and all the things that come along with them, but there's nothing that separates the two in resolution, which I believe is thematically important. No one "Dies" in a military attack, no one gets "Outwitted or politically marginalized" by a political attack.

The change I would recommend would be: After you win a military conflict, gain 1 fate, after a political victory, gain 1 honor.

This change would throw off a lot of cogs in the wheel, especially for "dishonor victories", however it would definitely make winning by honor more attainable. Obviously this change will likely never be made, but I enjoy the conversation about it.

Thoughts? What would you change?

Comparing l5r to agot there is a compunction to try and fit 'claim' in, and yet the system as is seems fairly robust.

If the lion lion fiction proves anything it's that cracking provinces through 'wiles' is apparently a thing and the game as is seems to reflect that in mechanics. I'm certainly happy to try it and one thing I do like is that it provides the 'political' clans a second path to victory rather than just scratching their head with the combined 2f.

Lion switch was always hard to face into as the flexibility was a huge strength and now at least every clan has the ability to crack provinces in one fashionable n or another particularly in an asymmetrical match up.

I'd remove the "discard a card from opponents hand" effect from the Earth Ring. I hate that stuff being a basic game mechanic.

1 hour ago, Barbacuo said:

I'd remove the "discard a card from opponents hand" effect from the Earth Ring. I hate that stuff being a basic game mechanic.

Nahhh, you gotta have multiple avenues of pressure, earth is just another one of them

I would make ring effects optional. It seems dangerous to possibly be forced to bow your own character with ring of water, or remove a fate from your own character with ring of void. It can create a situation where you don't want to win a battle because the ring effect is rigged against you. I don't mind a ring being potentially rendered useless with good play, but to actually turn it into a trap might create NPE game states where a player is punished for winning.

12 minutes ago, shosuko said:

I would make ring effects optional. It seems dangerous to possibly be forced to bow your own character with ring of water, or remove a fate from your own character with ring of void. It can create a situation where you don't want to win a battle because the ring effect is rigged against you. I don't mind a ring being potentially rendered useless with good play, but to actually turn it into a trap might create NPE game states where a player is punished for winning.

When you win a Ring as the Attacker, you "May" trigger its effect. pg. 13 Learn to Play rules.

31 minutes ago, Cambeul no Oni said:

When you win a Ring as the Attacker, you "May" trigger its effect. pg. 13 Learn to Play rules.

Ah, well then - I wouldn't change anything just yet. We'll see as I get to play more

I would like to change some of the character names and some of the art. I like the way they handle character names in general, though.

Overall the art is beautiful; the occasional less-beautiful cards stand out.

Rename Unicorn to Kirin.

15 minutes ago, Mr Omura said:

Rename Unicorn to Kirin.

Are you aware that's a plot point in the story of the Clan?

4 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

Are you aware that's a plot point in the story of the Clan?

Then change the plot then? Are you aware of the point of this thread?

The term "unicorn" has a lot of cultural baggage and weirdness associated with it (for Americans at least).

I agree. You could also rename the clan Kirin as part of their reintegration story. I think it'd be pretty cool.

1 minute ago, Mr Omura said:

Then change the plot then? Are you aware of the point of this thread?

The term "unicorn" has a lot of cultural baggage and weirdness associated with it (for Americans at least).

Not knowing whether you are entirely new to the franchise or an old hand, I felt that it might be something you were unaware of.

Since I'm a Scot, and the Unicorn is our national animal, I'm curious what you mean by cultural baggage and weirdness.

Then again, as you said, this may not be the thread for that.

11 minutes ago, Mr Omura said:

Then change the plot then? Are you aware of the point of this thread?

The term "unicorn" has a lot of cultural baggage and weirdness associated with it (for Americans at least).

As an American, I don't know of any cultural baggage or weirdness associated with it.