I've been discussing this with a buddy of mine, and figured I'd bring the convo here as well.

One of my biggest problems with ye olde L5R multiplayer was the two-on-one, just-to-be-an-******* team-up... where a majority of the players completely pound the other(s) into a fine paste, eliminating them handily and finishing the game on their own.

It's not fun, and it's barely fair. And I see nothing in these new rules to deal with that scenario.

Said buddy posits it's an important part of multiplayer games that the underdogs be able to gang up on the big guy, to achieve a competitive balance. And sure, while I agree with that, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the opposite, where two better players demolish the little guy, cackling in malicious glee all the while, for the ultimate negative play experience.

Does anyone else share my concern? Or am I worrying about something that isn't going to be an issue? If it IS an issue, what can be done about it?

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a single thing that can actually be done about this without introducing a huge list of convoluted rules that feel arbitrary and constricting.

As far as strategy games go, they only reliable counter to this is not to play with jerks.

@twinstarbmc while I share your concerns, I don’t think there is a perfect way to go about multiplayer rules and make it so that there is ‘balance’ among all players in the match.

I’m scratchimg my head with these rules, especially with all of those rings in play, but gotta give it a fair shake, IMO.

Even with our home brew rules we tended to gang up on the Scorpion player, remove him first, then go about and finish the game.... ?‍♀️

it's just like any other Multiplayer Games, what's to stop me and my buddy from wailing at a 3rd person in M:TG Multiplayer then going at each other? It happens at any competitive table top game when there's more than 2 players.

Ya, that will always be a thing in MP games with odd numbers.

In my opinion it is good and bad. It's a whole 'nother playstyle. Very dog-eat-dog. Make sure you able to persuade them that attacking you is not in their best interest (Don't be the little guy). If you happen to end up there, try to make one of them attacking the other too tempting to pass up, or maybe strike a treaty. They know they will have to go at it afterwards, so offer to focus all your attacks on one player. You could even just break the treaty once their alliance has broken down

Which is why I hope FFG never has multiplayer as a competitive format.

I guess that something like the Titles in GOT LCG mitigates this problem.

In GOT every round the players must chose a Title. The Titles have an ability and Rivals and Supports. Attacking it's Rivals the player is rewarded, and he can't attack the titles he Supports (but normaly the titles he Supports will get to attack him).

Also there was a kind of map built from tiles in War of Honor, alternative multiplayer system in L5R CCG. Position of Clan tiles determined who was allowed to help you during attack or defend.

7 minutes ago, kempy said:

Also there was a kind of map built from tiles in War of Honor, alternative multiplayer system in L5R CCG. Position of Clan tiles determined who was allowed to help you during attack or defend.

What the holy crap is this nonsense?!? I have NEVER seen anything like this. I must've gotten out of the game at the right time.

6 minutes ago, twinstarbmc said:

What the holy crap is this nonsense?!? I have NEVER seen anything like this. I must've gotten out of the game at the right time.

This "nonsense" was 100% much better experience that this original multiplayer BS.

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/93819/war-honor

That was stand alone box that could work as board game, that introduced alternate multiplayer system. Anyway, at the end of the game L5R had 3 different multiplayer systems available, classic one (in rulebook), War of Honor and Siege (1 vs X players).

27 minutes ago, kempy said:

Also there was a kind of map built from tiles in War of Honor, alternative multiplayer system in L5R CCG. Position of Clan tiles determined who was allowed to help you during attack or defend.

I like the way it played, and i believe that is a solution to the problem, but a think it's a bit "heavy" to introduce as a game variant that, as far as we know, will not get a expansion box.

I think that something like the Titles in GOT is better in the sense that you don't need to put much effort printing stuff or even writting the title effects.

51 minutes ago, kempy said:

This "nonsense" was 100% much better experience that this original multiplayer BS.

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/93819/war-honor

That was stand alone box that could work as board game, that introduced alternate multiplayer system. Anyway, at the end of the game L5R had 3 different multiplayer systems available, classic one (in rulebook), War of Honor and Siege (1 vs X players).

War of Honor and Seige were some of the better things to come out of Old5R at the end of it's run.

I think the tiles would be pretty easy to incorporate into the FFG version, maybe to better control which rings/players can be attacked, or maybe even setting up terms for treaties.

The scoring board and win conditions were really cool in war of honor too. Very "Race for the Throne". I like the title idea too: left hand, right hand, underhand, voice, dark heart anyone? Of course there is always Imperial Chancellor, Imperial Treasurer, Shogun, Emerald Champion, Jade Champion, Imperial Advisor, Voice of the Emperor... could be very cool

My favorite form of multiplayer remains the Siege boxed sets, but I had imagined the L5R multiplayer would have been something closer to AGoT's than this model.

I agree that this model has a tendency to result in two players ganging up on the third. And why should they not? Just establish a treaty of "We do not attack each other until the other guy is gone.", and then stake 5 Honor each on it, and beat them up to bow out their characters, and achieve unopposed Rings.

2 minutes ago, sndwurks said:

My favorite form of multiplayer remains the Siege boxed sets, but I had imagined the L5R multiplayer would have been something closer to AGoT's than this model.

I agree that this model has a tendency to result in two players ganging up on the third. And why should they not? Just establish a treaty of "We do not attack each other until the other guy is gone.", and then stake 5 Honor each on it, and beat them up to bow out their characters, and achieve unopposed Rings.

Strategically may be a good idea, but i think this end up not being fun for anyone

5 minutes ago, RenanBarcellos said:

Strategically may be a good idea, but i think this end up not being fun for anyone

If you have designed a game where effective strategy runs counter to fun? Then you have designed your game poorly.

An easy fix to this is to limit the number of conflicts a single player can be targeted with per round.

7 minutes ago, sndwurks said:

If you have designed a game where geffective strategy runs counter to fun? Then you have designed a bad game.

That's why i think that the Titles may be a good thing. They could even be negotiated with Treaties ("Leave Imperial Treasurer to me and i won't attack this round, first player"). But in truth i'm only saying what a guess that would be cool, still need to play the multiplayer as it has been proposed now.

I definitely did think that War of Honor was a cool idea.

Although I did play in that first GenCon tournament for it... and boy did it get weird. Especially when it was single-elimination, and the top two players in your four-player pod move on.

And you got paired into a pod with two Spider zombie breeders that were totally teaming up against everyone.

And the fourth player didn't want to do *anything* to try to break them up or try to stop them.

...yeah.

Anyway, I wonder if you could do something where if you declare a attack against a player and win, you get a couple bonus honor. You can't get the bonus honor again against that player until you have gotten it from every opposing player. So you're encouraged a bit to spread out your attacks so you have a honor advantage that can go into extra card draw.

Huh. I guess I missed out on a good thing. I rescind my snark.

2 minutes ago, twinstarbmc said:

Huh. I guess I missed out on a good thing. I rescind my snark.

You are part of Clan Unicorn. You have been away from Rokugan for many years. You are forgiven and accepted back into the fold. ?

1 hour ago, sndwurks said:

An easy fix to this is to limit the number of conflicts a single player can be targeted with per round.

This.

Really, this. ??

Just now, LordBlunt said:

You are part of Clan Unicorn. You have been away from Rokugan for many years. You are forgiven and accepted back into the fold. ?

Except you can't have anything good until the elements are balanced

15 hours ago, WhiteOnmyoji said:

it's just like any other Multiplayer Games, what's to stop me and my buddy from wailing at a 3rd person in M:TG Multiplayer then going at each other? It happens at any competitive table top game when there's more than 2 players.

Not tapping when defending is often a big part of people not gang up on a player.

20 hours ago, Ishi Tonu said:

Which is why I hope FFG never has multiplayer as a competitive format.

I'm sure it will be like SW:Destiny multiplayer. They had an event on the last day of Worlds, the rounds were 75min instead of the standard 35. They played 4 player. They weren't tiered advancement - it just ran 3 rounds and you show up and have a good time.

Multiplayer is really dicey in official tournaments. It is very, very easy to have a kingmaker problem.

• Kingmaker: a losing player who has the power to decide the winner. In a tournament, players who work as a team to advance their teammate with the best chance of advancing/winning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingmaker_scenario

14 hours ago, sndwurks said:

An easy fix to this is to limit the number of conflicts a single player can be targeted with per round.

I think in a that would be good. In a 3-player game, each player would only be able to target a given player once in a round.

I often end up playing in a group of 3, and the trick is to wait until the other 2 (or if you can force the other 2) to end up in a feud, then swing in and ****** the victory they've been denying each other.

Follow up question, is it possible to sit on the sidelines and build your board state while the other 2 attack each other?

Also, when I play Dragon in 2-player, I have difficult time ensuring that I'll be able to have units for 4 contests. Is that harder still when you could potentially be in 6?

Can anyone that has actually played weigh in on my or others' concerns?

The main issue with having no limit to the number of times a player can be attacked becomes very quickly apparent once you have 4 or 5 players. At 3 players, there is some balance due to the first player not being in that bad of a position. But the moment you are looking at 4 players?

First player Conflict opportunity. Then the next player targets the first. Then the third player targets the first. Then the fourth player targets the first. By the time the First Player gets their second opportunity, they will have to have survived 3 Conflicts where they were the ideal target (i.e. have expended the most resources). And then there are 3 more Conflicts coming.

At 4 players? All three other players should just team up and eliminate the First Player from the game on the first turn.