We just had the new clan roles chosen at worlds. I contacted the organizer for a local league that's starting soon to confirm that the new roles would be in effect. To my surprise, he responded that players would be free to pick any role they want, because the league is not a formal FFG event.

That got me wondering if different stores and regions will tend to have different policies. Will we see a split in the community between places that do enforce the official clan roles and places that don't?

What is your local community doing? Do the stores you play at enforce the official roles?

No, but I plan to enforce them on myself. It makes for a more interesting deck construction challenge, IMO.

None of the stores in this area are enforcing them for anything.

Haven't played much in stores yet, but among my friends, yeah, we play with roles. There's no reason not to. Build a legal deck without a role - check. Now add a role. Is the deck still legal? Sure is! And even a little bit better, because now you have a Role action you can do. Roles -add- deckbuilding options, not limits them.

Most of the players I meet at regular games, whether game nights or store tournaments, aim to play competitively so we use official roles regardless of whether they're enforced. That said, the game stores do enforce official roles for store tournaments. The big question they're debating now is to allow the new cards in when they hit the street; we're within reasonable distance of PAX and a lot of players don't want to take on the new meta until after PAX since it won't be legal there, while others want to play with the new stuff ASAP.

Yes. You can obviously not pick a role, and not use any seeker/keeper card if you really want. I just don't see why anyone would do that...

In my area we have a decent sized playerbase. Nobody has really enforced the new clan roles on anybody. The night of worlds finals there was a facebook group post that showed everybody the new roles. I walked in yesterday to our weekly meetup and noticed everybody was equipped with their new roles. I prepared my deck beforehand as well and didn't talk to anybody beforehand. It was a pleasant surprise to see everybody ready to take on their new roles. I guess you could say we all have this unspoken rule where we respect the game and its rules and just play with the official roles.

In my store (literally my store, as in I own it), I plan to enforce the official Roles for Clans in any event that is officially sanctioned by FFG. It's their event, so we use their rules. In casual play and any purely local, in-store events we run, the Roles will be optional. That said, I have quite a few competitive players in the local group--several of our players went to both GenCon and Worlds--so I suspect we'll see many of the players adhere to the Clan Roles for much of their play, at least in their "main" decks. Of course, players tend to have multiple decks, some they keep solely for casual play, so we'll probably see more variance in them.

There is no mandate that local play needs to enforce the roles. IIRC the roles are for Kotei level tournaments and up. I tend to play with the assigned roles anyway because I think it's fun to give yourself that restriction and it helps prepare you for the higher level tournaments. I wouldn't expect that my opponent needs to do the same. If they want to have fun and deckbuild without that restriction more power to them. TO's are free to set any restrictions they want in non- FFG mandated organized play so a player run tournament or league could or could not be enforcing the roles. They also could have some completely different restrictions. Make sure to clarify before you sign up.

So far I'm the only person who has shown up to play at my FLGS. I can confirm that EVERYONE in my area is using roles, although they have not been enforced. HAHA... aww

For the Way of the Rings tournament clan roles will be enforced in my local store, so I guess it will be the same for the rest of the year. That reminds me, I still have to ask if the official 11 days period for new dynasty packs will also be a rule I have to obey when constructing my deck for that event.

Our local league is not intending on enforcing the official clan roles, but local tournaments will. For free play, do whatever!

22 minutes ago, Yakamo no Oni said:

For the Way of the Rings tournament clan roles will be enforced in my local store, so I guess it will be the same for the rest of the year. That reminds me, I still have to ask if the official 11 days period for new dynasty packs will also be a rule I have to obey when constructing my deck for that event.

The eleven day rule is only for Premier tier events, meaning essentially Koteis and above. For anything else, cards are legal as soon as they're released.

2 minutes ago, Hinomura said:

The eleven day rule is only for Premier tier events, meaning essentially Koteis and above. For anything else, cards are legal as soon as they're released.

Ah, okay. Thank you for clearing that up for me.

1 hour ago, twinstarbmc said:

Haven't played much in stores yet, but among my friends, yeah, we play with roles. There's no reason not to. Build a legal deck without a role - check. Now add a role. Is the deck still legal? Sure is! And even a little bit better, because now you have a Role action you can do. Roles -add- deckbuilding options, not limits them.

1 hour ago, franzvong said:

Yes. You can obviously not pick a role, and not use any seeker/keeper card if you really want. I just don't see why anyone would do that...

53 minutes ago, DarwinsDog said:

So far I'm the only person who has shown up to play at my FLGS. I can confirm that EVERYONE in my area is using roles, although they have not been enforced. HAHA... aww

Looking at these three responses, I'm worried the question wasn't clear to some people. My question was not, "Do you use roles or not?" My question was, "Do you force each clan to use only the role chosen for them at the most recent major FFG event?" There's a huge difference in your deckbuilding options between "You can use any role you want" and "If you want to play Crab, you must use the Keeper of Earth role because that's what the Crab player chose at worlds."

1 hour ago, twinstarbmc said:

Haven't played much in stores yet, but among my friends, yeah, we play with roles. There's no reason not to. Build a legal deck without a role - check. Now add a role. Is the deck still legal? Sure is! And even a little bit better, because now you have a Role action you can do. Roles -add- deckbuilding options, not limits them.

Also, I don't know if you've noticed, but there ARE some cards that say, "Seeker Role Only" or "Keeper Role Only", so that does affect deckbuilding options quite a bit.

2 hours ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

No, but I plan to enforce them on myself. It makes for a more interesting deck construction challenge, IMO.

Same here. Was Keeper of Earth, already switched my deck to Keeper of Fire.

Everyone is using them voluntarily, but if someone were to show up not playing the assigned role I don't think anyone would run them out of the store.

Unless in tournament or league play, you can use whatever role you wish. Most players are using the official roles (or at least, the official roles pre-worlds) voluntarily as deck testing and practice. If an opponent was playing an "improper" role, it really wouldn't matter to me. Tournaments and league play require the official roles, which is enforced by the organizer.

Voluntarily because we like the rule and think it will make deck building more diverse as roles change over time.

In the spring I hope to be opening my FLGS. For official tournaments yes, I will be enforcing the official roles, but for casual play of course not. Play what makes you happy. I'll encourage anyone who plans on going to any of the Kotei tournaments to go with the official roles even in casual just because you're doing yourself a disservice not using them, but what people do in their casual games is their own business.

15 hours ago, EdgeOfDreams said:

Also, I don't know if you've noticed, but there ARE some cards that say, "Seeker Role Only" or "Keeper Role Only", so that does affect deckbuilding options quite a bit.

Yes, it sure does. If you have NO role, you can't include ANY of those cards! Which only emphasizes my opinion that including a role -- any role -- ONLY makes your deck better.

15 hours ago, EdgeOfDreams said:

Looking at these three responses, I'm worried the question wasn't clear to some people. My question was not, "Do you use roles or not?" My question was, "Do you force each clan to use only the role chosen for them at the most recent major FFG event?" There's a huge difference in your deckbuilding options between "You can use any role you want" and "If you want to play Crab, you must use the Keeper of Earth role because that's what the Crab player chose at worlds."

My bad for not being clear, my playgroup uses the official roles, just because.

For casual play and non-official tournament play, I'd say we're encouraging rather than enforcing.

14 hours ago, Yogo Gohei said:

Everyone is using them voluntarily, but if someone were to show up not playing the assigned role I don't think anyone would run them out of the store.

In my neck of the woods, a throng of players would chase you to the parking lot with sticks in their hands. I’ve seen this happen. (!!!!!) ?