Fortunately, if I'm going to initiate multiple duels with Raitsugu (or anyone, for that matter), I usually have him at 6 or 7 Military when I do so. Having him at only 5 is definitely risky.

Dueling only has a very few bare-bones foundations laid in the core set. I'm sure it will be expanded upon fairly soon-ish. In the meantime, it's a useful tool when applied correctly, but sometimes requires more caution that old-school L5R dueling. It's not like you can't still "bully duel" a fair amount of the time. Raitsugu with two weapons and / or a Banzai is usually enough to win without any real potential for honor loss, against at least some of your opponent's characters.

At this point, my biggest "issue" with dueling in Dragon is that I find Raitsugu's art to be rather poor. There's a lot of great Dragon dueling / Niten art from the old game t hey could have used. I made this for casual play:

3 hours ago, Shiba Jaimi said:

So, the duel is initiated, against a lower military stat character. And the player wants to discard the target of the duel...that's why he triggered the duel in the first place. On the "honor" dial, someplace, there is a number between "2" and "5" that insures this happens. Mirumoto has a military stat of "3", freshly fielded and untouched. So, we are talking about someone with a military stat between "0" and "2", normally. Let's say "0" and let's say there are only two characters in this political air ring challenge over a province. Now, why should the player controlling Mirumoto NOT pick "3"?

The wise Dragon player bids 1 or 2 if they are anticipating their opponent realizes they have no means of winning the duel if you outbid them, and thus intends to bid 1 to force you to pay as much honor as possible to guarantee your win. There is a subtle but important difference between winning and winning at all costs. What you are advocating is the latter, and yes you should expect to pay honor in those situations, just as you should expect your opponent to catch on to your obsession with always winning the duels and capitalizing on draining honor from you through those duels. Nearly any action comes at a risk of your opponent canceling or altering it. Duels are no no exception (it's "cancelled" through ties, or "altered" by your opponent using the loss effect against you by winning the duel).

Unless the duel is game-winningly-critical, assume that the person initiating the duel is going to throw a 1 and bid accordingly. This plan of attack has yet to fail me in a game.

Occasionally they will throw much higher, but that is usually more of a pleasant surprise.

10 hours ago, Shiba Jaimi said:

Ok, let's try it this way. The player initiates the duel against a character with a lower duel stat. This is the norm. The duelist is Mirumoto. So, can we agree, the player controlling Mirumoto wants to use the duel's outcome to discard a character (or a fate off of a character)? This is an ability printed on Mirumoto's card. So, someone expects Mirumoto to discard characters and fate off of characters, as a result of the duel. But, you may have another idea in mind. If you do, say so.

So, the duel is initiated, against a lower military stat character. And the player wants to discard the target of the duel...that's why he triggered the duel in the first place. On the "honor" dial, someplace, there is a number between "2" and "5" that insures this happens. Mirumoto has a military stat of "3", freshly fielded and untouched. So, we are talking about someone with a military stat between "0" and "2", normally. Let's say "0" and let's say there are only two characters in this political air ring challenge over a province. Now, why should the player controlling Mirumoto NOT pick "3"?

Well first off - you can certainly duel someone with another motive in mind. I could duel with Raitsugu with the intention of bidding 1 to take the honor from my opponent. Losing just 1 fate on Raitsugu to take 2-3 honor from my opponent is powerful too! If they bid just 1 I get their fate, so my backup plan is also good.

Plus - while you can defend the Crane as "dueling for honor" when you play Dragon you can't make such a thematic statement - their core school of dueling is in drawing both their weapons, something "traditional duelists" of Rokugan already see as dishonorable. When Raitsugu duels it isn't for honor, it is for blood. Kakita Kaezin however certainly duels for "skill, technique, and perfection." This is why his duel is non-lethal, and can actually be useful whether he wins or not, allowing you to play the honor game more.

8 hours ago, Togashi Gao Shan said:

At this point, my biggest "issue" with dueling in Dragon is that I find Raitsugu's art to be rather poor. There's a lot of great Dragon dueling / Niten art from the old game t hey could have used. I made this for casual play:

I don't know how you did it. I don't know where you got it. But this is f_cking AWESOME! There is now no other Mirumoto Raitsugu. I am going to have the card made, or make it myself, and I am going to burn the other version... And should another player ask me where I got it, I am going to tell him, "I took Raitsugu in to the Scorpion Clan Territory for the New Year Celebration and a sake house raid. I introduced him to this hot actress and she got him to loosen up. 4 sake cups later, he was outside posing in the mid-day sun with his hair down."

Seriously, that is some beautiful art and I am making the card. And I am definitely throwing the other one away. If it keeps me out of the tournies, I say, "F-ck'em, if they can't take improvements." Then I'm gonna tell'em the above joke and go to where the smart people are.

N I C E L Y D O N E !!!!!

Yeah Raitsugu looks awful and for Crane we get garbage vanity artwork for our unique duelist.

A Crane with a foreigner's face, and facial hair... facial hair which is also black. It's like in every sense they just said 'who cares!'. Stupid.

42 minutes ago, Shiba Jaimi said:

I don't know how you did it. I don't know where you got it. But this is f_cking AWESOME! There is now no other Mirumoto Raitsugu. I am going to have the card made, or make it myself, and I am going to burn the other version... And should another player ask me where I got it, I am going to tell him, "I took Raitsugu in to the Scorpion Clan Territory for the New Year Celebration and a sake house raid. I introduced him to this hot actress and she got him to loosen up. 4 sake cups later, he was outside posing in the mid-day sun with his hair down."

Seriously, that is some beautiful art and I am making the card. And I am definitely throwing the other one away. If it keeps me out of the tournies, I say, "F-ck'em, if they can't take improvements." Then I'm gonna tell'em the above joke and go to where the smart people are.

N I C E L Y D O N E !!!!!

Thanks, but I really wouldn't try to use it at tourneys. For a lot of players, the way a card looks is directly tied into their ability to remember what each card on the board does. I love making custom alt-art cards (especially using a lot of characters from Avatar The Last Airbeder and The Legend of Korra), but there's a good reason it's not allowed at tournaments.

Anyway, this art is from Michael Komarck, easily one of my favorite L5R artists. As far as I know, FFG has the rights to most if not all the card art he did for the original game. This one was from a pretty lackluster Mirumoto that never saw much play (plus, he was a dirty Kolat). I wanted to actually see it on the table during games.

5 hours ago, shosuko said:

I could duel with Raitsugu with the intention of bidding 1 to take the honor from my opponent. Losing just 1 fate on Raitsugu to take 2-3 honor from my opponent is powerful too! If they bid just 1 I get their fate, so my backup plan is also good.

Ok, so you would pay a fate, or lose a character, for 2-3 honor. Considering that gain could go up to 4 (5 with card combos)...HOLY CR@P!!! That is more powerful than the air ring. WTF!! This is better than the Phoenix Clan Champion, she can only trigger two different unclaimed rings. So, the dueling mechanic punishes the players for bidding high (in some cases more than "Assassinate), makes dueling a dishonorable practice, makes all duelist characters dishonorable, is better than the Phoenix Clan Champion's ability to trigger rings and it is more powerful than one of the "magical items" partially credited with creating/balancing the universe. People complained that the old system of dueling was too powerful, and they may have had a point here or there...but they celebrate this system???

Your position just got worse.

5 hours ago, shosuko said:

Plus - while you can defend the Crane as "dueling for honor" when you play Dragon you can't make such a thematic statement - their core school of dueling is in drawing both their weapons, something "traditional duelists" of Rokugan already see as dishonorable.

The game does not consider the practice dishonorable, or at least no more dishonorable than all the other dueling. If it was dishonorable, triggering the duel would require you losing honor. Like "Lose 2 honor. Target an opposing character. Challenge that character to a duel..."

Out of curiosity, do you have a system in mind as a mechanic that could function as a duel instead? It may be that there is no perfect mechanical match for the act of a duel. Currently, there is an exchange of honor based on performance, a tense moment where each player sets up the duel, an exciting reveal of the dial as players find out the results of the duel, and then consequences of resolving the duel. Even if it's not a perfect mirror thematically, in terms of gameplay, it has the same exciting feel of a duel while maintaining a lot of plausibility. If you have a better system, I'd be interested in hearing.

I hope this is a troll post because I have less faith in gamers if this is actually someone's position on the matter.

I gave up when I read his or his friend's post on the Facebook group stating that if he wins a duel it means the kami favor him and it doesn't matter if he did things like kick sand in his opponent's eyes, because he won and that is virtue enough to justify any actions during the duel. He believes in winning a duel at all costs, then starts whinging because that cost happens to be honor, when his own philosophy on dueling is diametrically opposed to the game's iteration of honor.

I'm gonna go 1 more post on this - What do you think would be an appropriate penalty for bidding higher in a duel? Obviously there needs to be a penalty right? otherwise you'd just bid 5 every time, and its just whoever has more MIL wins... which is boring and not worth creating a mechanic for.

16 hours ago, Zesu Shadaban said:

He believes in winning a duel at all costs, then starts whinging because that cost happens to be honor, when his own philosophy on dueling is diametrically opposed to the game's iteration of honor.

No, I don't believe in winning at all costs. You are not understanding my argument. I am saying one primary thing and coming at it from a few different angles;

Thesis: "The dueling rules are broken."

1.) Game Mechanics: No other action type in the game punishes the initiator of an action in the same way dueling does. "Route", "Outwit", "For Shame" and others, for example, do not "punish" the initiator. You pay a cost, sure. But that is not punishment. You are managing resources to achieve an effect on the game board. The cost of that effect is up front and everyone can see it before you the resolution of the event is made manifest. If we say there should be an element of randomness in a duel mechanic...and there should be...it should punish the losing character/player and reward the winning player/character. The current system, in the vast majority of duels, punishes BOTH sides. So, it is possible to win every duel and lose the game because of it.

2.) Game Balance: This game is made up of micro-conflicts. Each micro-conflict can have different win conditions, subjectively or objectively. Plus, because each player can have different methods for their "win condition" and "goals" for the action, the "win condition" can be obscured. This adds subtly to the game and it is a good thing. But winning each micro-conflict is supposed to get the winner closer to one of the possible win conditions not farther way, or rather, it should not contribute to the winner of the micro-conflict losing the game, directly. Under the current rules, it is possible for a player to initiate 4 duels, in a single combat phase, and lose the game at the end of the fourth duel, immediately. This gives a very slanted advantage to the loser of the duel and in so doing, unbalances the game.

3.) Effect of Honor Loss: No clan starts the game with more than 12 honor and, I think, more clans start a game with 10 honor, more clans start with 10 honor than any other value. Dishonor is a victory condition. There are cards that transfer "1" honor from one player to another, one clan to another clan. Character effects, a clan stronghold and the Air Ring can do this. But the dueling rules can force one player/clan to transfer "4" honor to the other player/clan and the transfer can be as high as "5" or "6" honor with other card effects. This is one-third to almost one half of a clan's starting honor, possibly in one duel. This means, the dueling rules can force transfers of honor, in one duel, more power than any clan champion ability, any stronghold, any single activation of a ring. No action in the game is this powerful. And, even if we came to the conclusion that any card/action should be this much power, because most duels are normally trigger against characters with lower duel stats than the initiating character, this transfer is more likely to go to the loser of the duel. So, the player initiating the duel is giving his opponent access to the most powerful action in the game, as far as honor transfers are concerned, but because of the math behind the challenger having a higher duel stat, the largest honor transfers will happen in favor of the player/character losing the duel. The reward is going in the wrong direction.

4.) Fictional Storyline: Rokugan is a realm governed by an honor component. This has duelists and the majority are supposed to honorable. Because the rules say, "you must enter a number on the dial of how much honor you are willing to lose", it makes gives every duel an element of dishonor. Honorable samurai/duelists would not want to be dishonorable, by definition. The dueling rules directly contradict the idea of honorable duelist, by definition. Because you always have to add the number on the dial (the amount of honor to risk) to your military stat. So, under this current system, every duel is DISHONORABLE, at some level, even when both players choose "1", because both characters are still RISKING "1" honor. That, by definition, is DISHONORABLE. Honorable characters would not do this.

This dueling system does all four of these things at the same time, and so, none of these points stand alone. And for these reasons the dueling rules should be changed. What to, not sure yet, but I am closing in on a few ideas.

Stop bidding so high! Use Duelist Training and pitch cards instead, or pick targets that have lower skill.

The three duels that currently exist are all strictly better than equivalent action cards. Raitsugu can kill anyone without fate, Assassinate is limited to low skill targets. The Crane duelist sends multiple targets home, other effects are limited to single targets. Duelist Training allows you to dump cards instead of honor. All of these are characters or attachments and can be used multiple times instead of one shot effects from action cards. The honor bid is used to balance out the higher effects and reusability.

Oh, and the idea that both duelists are risking 1 honor even at minimum bids is dumb. If both players bid 1, no one loses honor except in the event of Contingency Plans.

On 10/9/2017 at 1:29 PM, Mirith said:

but I think the actual mechanic is cool, both balanced and deep.

No offense to Mirith, but I disagree with this wholeheartedly. The mechanic is very surface-level.

When you do the math there only becomes a few options to chose from, an intentional loss which is typically a bid of 1, an intentional win which is a bid of 5 minus the difference between the projected winner's max score and the projected losers max score, and the third outcome is when a duel is somewhat close, and that is the only place where it becomes compelling.

A duelist won't "proclaim" a duel unless they think they can win, so it puts them at the advantage. The challenged have no way to counter this duel with any decisions beyond the honor dial - and the OP is right, duels are a participatory act, otherwise it's just murder.

On 10/9/2017 at 0:54 PM, Shiba Jaimi said:

I mean, when a duel is triggered in the game, it should be just as threatening as "bow", "send home" or "discard"

I for one love the OP's ideas, and I would like to add to them:

3 New Rules for Dueling:

1) You may declare either a Duel (Military) or a Petition (Political). Maintaining these two separate names for duel-types would mean not having to change any current cards or reprint anything.

• Winning a Duel grants you 1 honor.
• Winning a Petition grants you 1 fate.

2) A duel/petition may be declined. Declining duels and petitions does not trigger a duel/petition "win", its a "decline".

• In order to decline a Duel the defender must Concede (bow the challenged character), or Beg (give the declarer 1 honor).
• In order to decline a Petition the defender must Concede (bow the challenged character), or Bribe (give the declarer 1 fate).
• If the conditions cannot be met under these circumstances, (if the character is bowed and the defending player does not have 1 fate or has only 1 honor left) the defending character is discarded.
• A player may also choose to discard the defending character instead of Conceding , Begging , or Bribing . Doing so is called Seppuku .
  • These are 4 new KEYWORDS that can be used for new card effects and abilities that are triggered by their use.
    • Example: Reaction: After an opponent's character Concedes a duel to this character, dishonor the defending character.
    • Example: Reaction: After an opponent's character Begs , take 1 additional honor from their honor pool.
    • Example: Reaction: After an opponent's character Bribes, you may add 1 fate to the character that declared the duel.
    • Example: Reaction: After a unit you control commits Seppuku , gain 2 honor and bow the character that declared the duel or petition.

3) All other rules for the duels continue. In this instance, winning a duel means you "dishonor" yourself and your clan by revolving a conflict without consulting your clan leaders and outside of the normal rules of Rokugon's status quo and judicial system, Rokugon already has an "accepted" form of military and political resolution - military and political attacks.

However, Dueling and Petitioning are technically not illegal and have their advantages - 1 fate or 1 honor.

Now there's your dueling system - complex yet easy to understand, rewarding and thematic.

eh the rules seem fine, it's that there is nothing interesting to it at the moment.

we need some cool cards that can react/interrupt dueling honor reveals. dueling just isn't fleshed out yet.

@Etaywah Whats funny about your post is that adding these extra rules can make you feel like there is a deeper system, but what it actually creates is a stagnant dueling system where every dueling effect has such a sever layer of common mechanics that they cannot properly differentiate from each other.

Ol5r did it in the same way new5r does it. Each duel will tell you if you can refuse the challenge, and what the penalty will be. Each card tells you the effects of winning or losing. This way each card is its own unique challenge and the game has variety.

By adding a common layer to give "depth to the dueling system" you actually reduce the potential variance in the system as every duel has such a strong effect already that adding to it becomes burdening. It would also greatly inflate the rule book. The RR already has over a page devoted to dueling, if your proposed rules were added the Dueling rules may become as large as the full game rules are currently.

There is dept even in simple choices. Whether you would want to risk throwing the duel with a bid of 1, or accept defeat when challenged by only bidding 1 has a lot to do with the game state. Mono no Aware is already powerful enough that you may be willing to lose a fate to gain a few honor, or to accept losing a conflict to gain a few honor (and all of the mind games that are built into those decisions.)

What we really need are more dueling cards. Having just 2 dueling characters, and 1 duel not attached to a character isn't enough. We need a few more duel actions, including neutral and political duels. Then we need reactions / interrupts and equipment which feed into the dueling system. Poisoned Weapon, Strike of Flowing Water, Focus, and Kharmic Strike were all great ways that a player could alter the outcome of a duel before. We need cards like these back - so a duel isn't just the duelist stat and the dial. That is what is missing - more options, not more core mechanics.

The OP has shared their experience that they must always bid to win, and that the loser can always concede. If they are losing so much honor from dueling it is not because of the dueling system, but their inability to read the game state and their opponent. When you bid 1, or bid enough to win is a very important decision to make. The same decision is made every single turn of every single game... I don't see people complaining about losing honor when they draw 5 cards, I don't see why this person thinks losing honor when they bid 5 in a duel is any different.

13 minutes ago, Etaywah said:

No offense to Mirith, but I disagree with this wholeheartedly. The mechanic is very surface-level.

When you do the math there only becomes a few options to chose from, an intentional loss which is typically a bid of 1, an intentional win which is a bid of 5 minus the difference between the projected winner's max score and the projected losers max score, and the third outcome is when a duel is somewhat close, and that is the only place where it becomes compelling.

A duelist won't "proclaim" a duel unless they think they can win, so it puts them at the advantage. The challenged have no way to counter this duel with any decisions beyond the honor dial - and the OP is right, duels are a participatory act, otherwise it's just murder.

I think you missed some options here. Assuming there is some chance for the challenged of the duel to win, (not saying this is always the case), there comes the option of trying to aim for a tie, aim for a win, or aim for honor gain. When you start or get hit with a duel you need to decide what you want out of the duel, as well as what your opponent wants out of the duel. Does the challenger intend to win this or is the challenger trying to bleed honor? Given the difference between a tie and a win, is it worth the extra honor to try and get the win vs just the tie? I feel like there is a lot of depth to these simple decisions.

2 minutes ago, shosuko said:

@Etaywah Whats funny about your post is that adding these extra rules can make you feel like there is a deeper system, but what it actually creates is a stagnant dueling system where every dueling effect has such a sever layer of common mechanics that they cannot properly differentiate from each other.

Ol5r did it in the same way new5r does it. Each duel will tell you if you could refuse the challenge, and what the penalty would be. Each card told you the effects of winning or losing. This way each card is its own unique challenge.

By adding a common layer to give "depth" you actually reduce the potential variance in the system as every duel has such a strong effect already that adding to it becomes burdening. It would also greatly inflate the rule book. The RR already has over a page devoted to dueling, if your proposed rules were added the Dueling rules may become as large as the full game rules are currently.

There is dept even in simple choices. Whether you would want to risk throwing the duel with a bid of 1, or accept defeat when challenged by only bidding 1 has a lot to do with the game state. Mono no Aware is already powerful enough that you may be willing to lose a fate to gain a few honor, or to accept losing a conflict to gain a few honor (and all of the mind games that are built into those decisions.)

The OP has shared their experience that they must always bid to win, and that the loser can always concede. If they are losing so much honor from dueling it is not because of the dueling system, but their inability to read the game state and their opponent. When you bid 1, or bid enough to win is a very important decision to make. The same decision is made every single turn of every single game... I don't see people complaining about losing honor when they draw 5 cards, I don't see why this person thinks losing honor when they bid 5 in a duel is any different.

The system is vacant and feels extraordinarily hollow. From an ex-Warhammer: Conquest player, where the planet-dial could make or break an entire game, dueling is very vanilla and tame. I understand you are satisfied with the watered-down rules of dueling. I am not satisfied because it lacked immersion, theme, and strategy. The only strategic choice right now in a duel is "Do I want to try to win this duel, or do I want honor?" and that bland, vanilla choice is wholly devoid of the theme and immersion.

1 minute ago, Etaywah said:

The system is vacant and feels extraordinarily hollow. From an ex-Warhammer: Conquest player, where the planet-dial could make or break an entire game, dueling is very vanilla and tame. I understand you are satisfied with the watered-down rules of dueling. I am not satisfied because it lacked immersion, theme, and strategy. The only strategic choice right now in a duel is "Do I want to try to win this duel, or do I want honor?" and that bland, vanilla choice is wholly devoid of the theme and immersion.

Sorry - I edit my posts heavily after posting to clear up my thoughts - I think this paragraph is what you should consider

What we really need are more dueling cards. Having just 2 dueling characters, and 1 duel not attached to a character isn't enough. We need a few more duel actions, including neutral and political duels. Then we need reactions / interrupts and equipment which feed into the dueling system. Poisoned Weapon, Strike of Flowing Water, Focus, and Kharmic Strike were all great ways that a player could alter the outcome of a duel before. We need cards like these back - so a duel isn't just the duelist stat and the dial. That is what is missing - more options, not more core mechanics.

The dueling system is supposed to be a simple construct because each card that creates a duel needs to be free to implement its own rules, options, and consequences. Ol5r had many different types of duels including some that were reusable with penalties appropriately defined by the card, and some dues that could not be refused. Some duels were to the death while others bowed cards, and some didn't even penalize the loser but just gave honor to the winner.

Just now, Mirith said:

I feel like there is a lot of depth to these simple decisions.

The reward for a duel lacks any logical sense to me. You challenge someone to a duel, they cannot refuse, and then you give them honor for winning. It's nonsense to me and currently the weakest part of the game.

1 minute ago, Etaywah said:

The reward for a duel lacks any logical sense to me. You challenge someone to a duel, they cannot refuse, and then you give them honor for winning. It's nonsense to me and currently the weakest part of the game.

You don't give them honor for winning, you give them honor if you bid higher than them. Without some penalty for bidding high, the dueling system becomes a simple contest of who had the higher stat. With the bidding there is more to it than that. Does a player value their honor more than winning, or do they value winning more than their honor? This is a question both players must ask of themselves and discern from their opponent to properly engage in a duel in this game. Then duels can add more variety such as Duelist Training allowing card discard instead of honor loss.

1 minute ago, shosuko said:

You don't give them honor for winning, you give them honor if you bid higher than them. Without some penalty for bidding high, the dueling system becomes a simple contest of who had the higher stat. With the bidding there is more to it than that. Does a player value their honor more than winning, or do they value winning more than their honor? This is a question both players must ask of themselves and discern from their opponent to properly engage in a duel in this game. Then duels can add more variety such as Duelist Training allowing card discard instead of honor loss.

Ok, just answer me this: What is lethal about a military duel? Because currently it doesn't exist.

2 minutes ago, Etaywah said:

The system is vacant and feels extraordinarily hollow. From an ex-Warhammer: Conquest player, where the planet-dial could make or break an entire game, dueling is very vanilla and tame. I understand you are satisfied with the watered-down rules of dueling. I am not satisfied because it lacked immersion, theme, and strategy. The only strategic choice right now in a duel is "Do I want to try to win this duel, or do I want honor?" and that bland, vanilla choice is wholly devoid of the theme and immersion.

Why does dueling need to be an involved process? It was pretty involved old L5R and it was generally considered pretty terrible. I had to repeatedly teach people how to duel in Kotei, which means that it wasn't commonly used. This is simple and lets everyone have a chance to use it without having to build your deck around it. Meanwhile, participating in a duel is very impactful to board state. Either honor changes hands or the results of the duel happens (or both).

Why do you need to be able to refuse? Why does this need to be an innate thing?