This would be much less of a problem if you were allowed to choose which role you are when you build your deck. In casual play you can do this, but not in official play. Personally I would like the ability to choose my own roll, instead of relying on the decision of some dude, I've never met, let alone spoken too. Seeker of Air is a really powerful role, and having 2 air provinces is neat, but I would have preferred the Extra influence and access to the Keeper cards. Allowing players to choose their own rolls has the added benefit of actually seeing some diversity between decks that use the same clan.

Or as another idea, when you are building your deck, you could have the option of including the Officially Selected roll for your clan, which gives you access to an element and a role, a generic element without a role , or a generic Keeper/Seeker roll without an element. That is a system I could get behind.

23 hours ago, shosuko said:

too complex - and what do you do if multiple clans vote for the same role? Better to just take the shaft for the year even if some cards you want aren't available.

The only solution I see besides that ^ is to let anyone use their clan role, and any unclaimed role.

Same clans vote for same role, who has the most votes wins? There's so many things that can help tip that choice towards a certain clan, this is just one.

I have always been the advocate of letting the player choose their own role upon deck building, right from the start. But some people seem to think that locking one clan to a specific role for an entire year is a good idea so I started with that in mind and built from there.

Personally I think it's an easier pill to swallow for people to have a voice when it comes to choosing the clan role, no matter how small a voice that is. A decision this big and long lasting shouldn't be left in the hands of one person.

Having clearly defined roles helps define the meta-game and gives people a reasonable idea of how to prepare to be successful for their clan.

Allowing anyone to play anything leads to a meta game that only gets solved by the players with the ability to play enough to go through all the various decks, likely someone who is on playtest or acess to playtest. Then by the time the general public catch up the meta shifts again......creating another artificial barrier to player a looking to break into the competitive scene.

1 hour ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Having clearly defined roles helps define the meta-game and gives people a reasonable idea of how to prepare to be successful for their clan.

Allowing anyone to play anything leads to a meta game that only gets solved by the players with the ability to play enough to go through all the various decks, likely someone who is on playtest or acess to playtest. Then by the time the general public catch up the meta shifts again......creating another artificial barrier to player a looking to break into the competitive scene.

I don't see how the roles are significantly different than anything else when it comes to "solving" the metagame. There will always be an advantage in having groups to play with and the opportunity to play many games. I don't see how this makes more of a difference in it than anything else.

32 minutes ago, Vlad3theImpaler said:

I don't see how the roles are significantly different than anything else when it comes to "solving" the metagame. There will always be an advantage in having groups to play with and the opportunity to play many games. I don't see how this makes more of a difference in it than anything else.

Because there are significantly more combinations to play and with a larger variation of decks out there. Someone that doesn't have that kind of time is at a severe disadvantage when they have to get reps in vs 20 or more decks as opposed to 4-5 decks.

It's a lot easier to identify which cards are strongest for each clan within a defined role and more acurately predict how to build a deck to give yourself the best shot within a known meta game.

For example the Crab player that won Madrid specifically built his deck to beat Lion. Good call I'd say since Lion won the WC and out 2 of the top 4 decks into PAX. It doesn't take a top pro to figure this out. You know what is good from the core set and what cards Lion likely added......but if meta were such that seeker Lion and Keeper Lion play differently then it's much harder to do that.

That argument basically boils down to, "any time new cards are added to the meta, the meta is harder to figure out/plan for." So the same argument can be used any time new cards are introduced to the meta, such as when new packs are released, which kinda makes it a bad argument.

Nope

3 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Because there are significantly more combinations to play and with a larger variation of decks out there. Someone that doesn't have that kind of time is at a severe disadvantage when they have to get reps in vs 20 or more decks as opposed to 4-5 decks.

Even if there are 20 viable deck combinations, people will still gravitate towards the most competitive variation of a clan's deck if they want to do well in any tournament. The only thing the freedom to choose any role adds is the opportunity to pit your own deck to the competitive scene.

You may encounter some variation, but all you have to do is to prepare for the most powerful decks in the meta, not every single one.

6 hours ago, Shosuro Teri said:

A decision this big and long lasting shouldn't be left in the hands of one person.

Reading that I was struck by two things.

One is that when I first came into L5R back in the day one of the things that hit me the most was how I heard that the story and the whole path of the game was influenced by the players.

The second was that the choice of role is in a way much less impacting because although it's quite a powerful decision, it only lasts for a year, rather than permanently changing the story or introducing new cards or changing/eradicating existing ones forever.

I just wished they wouldn't make seeker/keeper dynasty cards, making some truly dead cards that make a waste of paper and art.

Yep, conflict only going forward please. Crisis Breaker and Northern Wall Sensei are the only 2 dynasty Role only cards (as far as I recall). I hope they're the last.

13 minutes ago, HirumaShigure said:

Yep, conflict only going forward please. Crisis Breaker and Northern Wall Sensei are the only 2 dynasty Role only cards (as far as I recall). I hope they're the last.

I expect eventually every clan will get one of each role on both the Conflict and Dynasty side. Plus once we get to the stage where the under-performing Clans are getting a second role it will be possible to set up so that the majority of them will have a seeker and keeper option. It will just mean if your Clan is performing well you won't have the freedom (which is fine since you probably won't need the help at that point).

4 hours ago, Hordeoverseer said:

I just wished they wouldn't make seeker/keeper dynasty cards, making some truly dead cards that make a waste of paper and art.

Well, they're not dead for casual players. Also, they may not be dead next time the roles change, if a Keeper becomes a Seeker or vice-versa.

The only problem I have is that they did it so soon... I don't know if every set is going to have a set of role specific cards, but this set certainly didn't need to. The cards weren't released yet, no one got to experiment or try things out, the first worlds was just a core set competition... These first few weeks have been tough because I see new cards come out that I can't use because of the roles meaning my deck is largely still 3 cores even after the first cycle... Its just a bit disappointing.

but once we get more cards it won't matter at all. At least they did the 6 in 6 weeks thing, if I had to play for 6 months with just a core and the Imperial cycle I'd probably shelf the game just because it would be so stale having such a small and restricted card pool to play with...

On December 5, 2017 at 4:56 AM, Daigotsu Steve said:

Reading that I was struck by two things.

One is that when I first came into L5R back in the day one of the things that hit me the most was how I heard that the story and the whole path of the game was influenced by the players.

The second was that the choice of role is in a way much less impacting because although it's quite a powerful decision, it only lasts for a year, rather than permanently changing the story or introducing new cards or changing/eradicating existing ones forever.

Personally, I would much rather player choices impact the story than the gameplay.

You'll see the benefit of this 2 or 3 years out where the role choices are keeping the card pool that extra bit dynamic. Right now it seems like it's only limiting choices, but a soft cycle every tournament season will only help keep the game feeling more fresh and it's a soft cycle that the players have agency in determining. Judging by past experience with multiple LCGs in 2 or 3 years out we aren't going to be moaning that the card pool is too small. We'll be moaning that the card pool isn't dynamic enough. If the distribution model for L5R settles into the traditional model then I can easily see this happening again. I hope we get way more keeper/seeker only cards and elemental role only cards. This is seeding for the future health of the game, and it has to happen now not later so it can actually be effective for a variety of reasons (most notably because of the current rotation policy).

But they aren't a waste of paper.. because other people can use them..

17 hours ago, phillos said:

You'll see the benefit of this 2 or 3 years out where the role choices are keeping the card pool that extra bit dynamic. Right now it seems like it's only limiting choices, but a soft cycle every tournament season will only help keep the game feeling more fresh and it's a soft cycle that the players have agency in determining. Judging by past experience with multiple LCGs in 2 or 3 years out we aren't going to be moaning that the card pool is too small. We'll be moaning that the card pool isn't dynamic enough. If the distribution model for L5R settles into the traditional model then I can easily see this happening again. I hope we get way more keeper/seeker only cards and elemental role only cards. This is seeding for the future health of the game, and it has to happen now not later so it can actually be effective for a variety of reasons (most notably because of the current rotation policy).

And even for casuals they can be useful. Just this past week I was looking through the last couple released packs for cards to swap into my deck. One of the cards I wanted, though, was Keeper Only, so I had to swap my Seeker role for Keeper. Then that meant I had to take out any Seeker Only cards, and in the end, I changed a bit more about my deck than I originally anticipated.

Personally, I think the fact that the roles limit as well as permit makes deck-building that much more interesting.

So true!

Keeper Dragon and Seeker Dragon are so different in some aspect that it almost feel like different faction... well not completely, but it definitely offer variety to the game!

21 hours ago, Hannibal_pjv said:

So true!

Keeper Dragon and Seeker Dragon are so different in some aspect that i almost feel like different faction... well not completely, but it definitely offer variety to the game!

It kind of puts me in mind of some of the newer Total War PC games, where you start by choosing your major faction with corresponding bonuses, but then choose a sub-faction that gets even more specific. (Whatever people may think of the newer Total War games as a whole, this particular element of them is pretty interesting, I think.)

On 09/12/2017 at 5:02 PM, cerealkiller195 said:

But they aren't a waste of paper.. because other people can use them..

That's my problem with them, at present - I'd be happier if no-one got to use clan-specific seeker/keeper cards that the clan itself can't use.

The Keeper/Seeker issue is fluid so it is a misstep now but will not always be. It has unnecessarily constricted the available cards to construct decks with so I think they are a horrible design choice given the current card pool but will become a great design choice later when the carpool may become unwieldy. They could have just introduced them later...