Once again, I am disappointed with FFG's response to an actual issue that will most certainly arise in competitive play...

The games already take an insane amount of time to finish, and I don't think anyone is talking nearly enough about the fact that we have to use counters to track honor according to the competitive play rules.

Not allowing Pen/Paper is an absolute death knell for competitive environments:

• You constantly have to count you and your opponent's honor and this takes up SO MUCH TIME
  • The modified win clause already hurts, things like this make it worse
• There are so many non-card components involved in this game already, the board state looks much closer to a board game than a card game

Like in other games, I think both players should be responsible for tracking EACH player's honor. There is really no other way to keep the integrity of the game in a competitive environment.

What I've heard in the past, like with Star Wars Destiny, FFG wants their components to be used, but when it comes to competitive play, this just doesn't make sense and seems like a stubborn move.

Does anyone have any better insight into this? Most local event organizer's I have spoken too are already deciding that they will be allowing pen/paper. There should be a community outcry from competitive players for this.

Pen and Paper isn't allowed because of note-taking. Has been a rule for FFG since early days of Netrunner (If I remember correctly).

And if you want a quicker way of tracking tokens, just stack of fives. It's pretty easy to get a number at a glance, and it'll reduce clutter.

I don't know about other FFG games but honor is regularly exchanged between players so the act of me giving/taking honor from my opponent takes no more, and probably less, time than writing it down.

Also if one person is writing it down but makes a mistake and it differes from honor tokens in play what would you go with? Your be forcing people to all track honor the same way......the use of tokens already does that and is baked into the rules of the game.

5 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

I don't know about other FFG games but honor is regularly exchanged between players so the act of me giving/taking honor from my opponent takes no more, and probably less, time than writing it down.

Also if one person is writing it down but makes a mistake and it differes from honor tokens in play what would you go with? Your be forcing people to all track honor the same way......the use of tokens already does that and is baked into the rules of the game.

I know someone who asked why not Dials, and took me awhile to figure out why not, and you made a very good point. It's a touch fiddly with the passing back and forth, too easy for mistakes to happen in the accounting of things.

It also keeps people from temptation. Writing stuff. Dials. Those can be fudged with. If I see you grab an extra honor token, by accident or on purpose, there is no fudging that.

1 minute ago, RandomJC said:

I know someone who asked why not Dials, and took me awhile to figure out why not, and you made a very good point. It's a touch fiddly with the passing back and forth, too easy for mistakes to happen in the accounting of things.

I still think the old CCG honor dials would have been much better if they'd just had a bit of a jagged edge so that they locked on the number you selected until you changed them.

1 minute ago, JJ48 said:

I still think the old CCG honor dials would have been much better if they'd just had a bit of a jagged edge so that they locked on the number you selected until you changed them.

Yeah, if they had stops and the text was bigger, I think that would be okay. Right now I kinda hate reading my opponents dial (From the CCG).

I want my opponents honor and fate floating in big numbers above their heads at all times. Make that happen.

1 hour ago, Mirith said:

I want my opponents honor and fate floating in big numbers above their heads at all times. Make that happen.

Goggle Glass?

4 minutes ago, Duciris said:

Goggle Glass?

I am not 100% opposed to this concept. This gives me the idea for a game that is far too complicated to make. But use AR and specially marked cards that are basically blank (Maybe it has a unique identifier) to the naked eye but has an image projected on them via AR. Build around this. You could do something like the computer CCGs (Hearthstone, Eternal) on this. However the technical hurdles would be a pain.

How long does it really take to count fate tokens, even if they aren't arranged in an orderly fashion? Seconds? I'm not getting on anyone for their opinion, but "death knell to the competitive scene" is a bit extreme

EDIT - Meant honor tokens, but either of them really.

Just now, SolidusPrime said:

How long does it really take to count fate tokens, even if they aren't arranged in an orderly fashion? Seconds? I'm not getting on anyone for their opinion, but "death knell to the competitive scene" is a bit extreme

To be fair, honor is a lot worse than fate. I have difficulty getting a precise count of above about 8ish at a glance, so I have to count if they aren't easily grouped by 5s or anything. And not everyone is orderly, especially 75% the way through a game when it really starts to matter. I personally try to be, but some in my playgroup just go for the "pile" method. You should be trying to track this in your head, but sometimes that just doesn't work.

I'm not going to propose a rules change , but I think tallying strength in a conflict on paper is fine. I get missing things or forgetting what I'm at because I've been deciding for too long on which card to play, when. I resolve conflict strength as per the rules, "All right. I played Banzai!, now what am at? 4 to 4. OK. Attacker wins on ties. Your move." I do this with my opponent (not actually saying what card I played (well, as part of the tally)), calling out, "I added or subtracted X. Now its Y to Z. Your move." And then, "you added X, now it's Y to Z. I'll do..." It's pretty straightforward. Not all of my opponents do that out loud, but I'll do it anyway.

13 minutes ago, Duciris said:

I'm not going to propose a rules change , but I think tallying strength in a conflict on paper is fine. I get missing things or forgetting what I'm at because I've been deciding for too long on which card to play, when. I resolve conflict strength as per the rules, "All right. I played Banzai!, now what am at? 4 to 4. OK. Attacker wins on ties. Your move." I do this with my opponent (not actually saying what card I played (well, as part of the tally)), calling out, "I added or subtracted X. Now its Y to Z. Your move." And then, "you added X, now it's Y to Z. I'll do..." It's pretty straightforward. Not all of my opponents do that out loud, but I'll do it anyway.

Right, but that is expressly forbidden by the floor rules. I have some extra counters that I initially wanted to use for skill bonuses and penalties, but I need ones for negatives as well. I think tracking all of the bonuses explicitly (if not exactly by source) is a good idea.

is an abacus allowed? would be very useful for l5r.

1 hour ago, Tebbo said:

is an abacus allowed? would be very useful for l5r.

Only official FFG abacuses may be used in sanctioned tournaments.

I actually do think everyone should be forced to keep honor on paper in tournaments. That is exactly how its done in Magic. Both players are responsible for maintaining both player's honor totals. But, I understand how extreme this is and it just won't happen.

I actually think Team Covenant will probably just come out with honor tokens that have 1-3-5 on them and I will just get used to it eventually. I'm just spoiled to how clean and well oiled Magic is in a competitive environment.

Thanks for letting me complain, though!

magic is like checkers, this is like chess or Go.

I'm 100% in favour of tracking honour with notes, I did it at Gencon and it's flat out less hassle than tokens. It's faster than moving tokens back and forth, easier to check than looking at the pile of tokens in front of your opponent and any discrepancies can quickly be established and corrected. The advantage of tokens is that they come in the box when you buy the game. They definitely aren't more reliable than writing it down- there are videos of people cheating with tokens in other FFG games, something that becomes much harder when both players are actively tracking honour totals instead of just assuming the pile of tokens in front of your opponent is correct.

15 hours ago, cyclops2500 said:

It also keeps people from temptation. Writing stuff. Dials. Those can be fudged with. If I see you grab an extra honor token, by accident or on purpose, there is no fudging that.

Who says you're gonna see me? Those long hours practicing magic tricks are finally going to pay off! (My secondary deck is Scorpion, we're allowed to do is, just for the lore )

Now on a more serious note... they should've added +5 honor counters, if only to make things a bit clearer.

2 hours ago, Evilgm said:

I'm 100% in favour of tracking honour with notes, I did it at Gencon and it's flat out less hassle than tokens. It's faster than moving tokens back and forth, easier to check than looking at the pile of tokens in front of your opponent and any discrepancies can quickly be established and corrected. The advantage of tokens is that they come in the box when you buy the game. They definitely aren't more reliable than writing it down- there are videos of people cheating with tokens in other FFG games, something that becomes much harder when both players are actively tracking honour totals instead of just assuming the pile of tokens in front of your opponent is correct.

Which can be done, no matter the method, and should be done. I can keep track of my opponents honor, if they're using tokens, and not just assume anything. That's just how you should play, not something inherent in one way of tracking, not another.

I'm also curious how one resolves this easily, with notes. Whose total is right? And how does one notice it quickly? Like most errors of the sort they aren't really noticed till later.

And finally, it's not like it's cheat proof anyway, they'll be writing totals when your writting totals, they can fudge the math when you aren't paying attention.

End of point. Writing isn't really more reliable. What's most reliable is paying attention.

2 hours ago, RandomJC said:

Which can be done, no matter the method, and should be done. I can keep track of my opponents honor, if they're using tokens, and not just assume anything. That's just how you should play, not something inherent in one way of tracking, not another.

I'm also curious how one resolves this easily, with notes. Whose total is right? And how does one notice it quickly? Like most errors of the sort they aren't really noticed till later.

And finally, it's not like it's cheat proof anyway, they'll be writing totals when your writting totals, they can fudge the math when you aren't paying attention.

End of point. Writing isn't really more reliable. What's most reliable is paying attention.

Like the whole Skill totals in a conflict, its a good idea to verify with your opponent, "I have 5 honor you have 6 honor" each time it changes. If they then respond. "No I have 7 honor", you then figure out where the discrepancy comes from.

13 hours ago, Fu Leng said:

magic is like checkers, this is like chess or Go.

Yeah...stir that pot! (I agree, btw)

9 minutes ago, Mirith said:

Like the whole Skill totals in a conflict, its a good idea to verify with your opponent, "I have 5 honor you have 6 honor" each time it changes. If they then respond. "No I have 7 honor", you then figure out where the discrepancy comes from.

Pretty much.

2 hours ago, RandomJC said:

I'm also curious how one resolves this easily, with notes. Whose total is right? And how does one notice it quickly? Like most errors of the sort they aren't really noticed till later.

Because you have a track of each gain and loss, rather than just the current totals. You can immediately see the point where one player has a gain or loss and the other doesn't. Even if only one player is writing it down, you can go back and check they have each gain and loss correctly noted down if the players have a different total.

This isn't supposition and theory, this is years of playing Dishonour decks and knowing the importance of tracking a mechanic that most players don't really pay attention to in most games. It's not like life totals in Magic or even Skill totals in battles- those are important in every matchup so players are used to tracking them. Honour only matters when one player is trying to win with it, or specific cards refer to it, so most players add or remove their tokens after the bid phase or playing Banzai! and don't give it a second thought.