20 minutes ago, sndwurks said:

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.

Even in the 3 player this will be a concern as two can easily gang up on the third and use them as an easy ring farm.

Much of the concern present can be found in other multiplayer card games. I believe the solution is to simply foster a sense of "casual" fun, where casual is just having lower power or thematic decks and simply trying to have a good time. Commander is a good frame work to think about L5R's multiplayer experience and there are plenty of articles to help too.

I don't mean that a person cannot build a powerful deck but a group can also do ok against that type of player through in game politics or alliances!

Probably the best way I've found is to do a sort of "sword and shield" style game - Lets say the 3 players are A, B, and C. Player A wins only if B dies, Player B wins only if C dies, and Player C only wins if A dies. It could be combined with the already-different 3 player honor bid rules to make a sort of "Rokugani Standoff" when the game drops to (or starts at) 3 players.

Edit: I would also like to point y'all to the titles system I ripped off borrowed from AGoT to solve this issue, too; If someone is beating on you, you can just plan to take the title that prevents them from attacking you this round...potentially. (In the thread about AGoT Titles)

On 5/24/2018 at 2:33 PM, sndwurks said:

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.

Why? Unless each player believes eliminating the first player benefits them more than anyone else, or believe it is the least bad option, there is no reason for them to do that. 3rd player can attack 1st player for 1 ring, for 2nd player for 2+ rings. The later seems obviously better.

That said, in large games you will need some kind of interaction limit otherwise anyone who gets close to winning will get piled on by the rest of the table.

2 hours ago, HamHamJ2 said:

Why? Unless each player believes eliminating the first player benefits them more than anyone else, or believe it is the least bad option, there is no reason for them to do that. 3rd player can attack 1st player for 1 ring, for 2nd player for 2+ rings. The later seems obviously better.

That said, in large games you will need some kind of interaction limit otherwise anyone who gets close to winning will get piled on by the rest of the table.

But because once you eliminate one of the players your win percentage goes from 33% to 50% and your own turn becomes easier to manage since you don't need to allocate resources to potentially fending off 4 attacks a turn.

It's almost impossible to eliminate a player from an AGoT multiplayer game. The only loss condition is running out of cards (and that only since 2nd edition), which I've never seen happen in either edition (I've been playing since 2011). And even if you're talking about soft elimination (a player is in such a bad position they can barely influence the game), it's still pretty hard, since you're better off countering your highest-placed opponents than pounding on the underdog (except as the last push for the win).

@Schmoozies Players still in contention don't necessarily have the same chances. Eliminating a player might cost you resources and put you in a worse position relative to your remaining opponents.

@HamHamJ2 That's probably an important reason why AGoT melee is played with 4 players (with up to 3-player tables in case the number of players isn't divisible by 4), despite the rules allowing up to 6 players. Ganging up on potential winners is a time-honored tactics, but there are often several of those when a game nears its end.

I just finished playing some 3 player games, and with treaties being so meh, there's really nothing stopping Kingmaking and ganging up against a weaker player.

We had a game where someone actually suicided themselves to give me the honor victory just so the other player wouldn't get it.

We also had a scorpion win by enlightenment, which was amusing.

I feel that, even if you don't intend to eliminate an opponent, ganging up on someone who has been attacked multiple times is particularly advantageous. If they are spent, then I can go and break a province without near the threat.

I think that limiting a player to being attacked 2 (maybe 3 so it doesn't feel too much like 2-player) times per round is the solution. I would say house ruling that (which I suspect I will) isn't enough. For anything approaching competitive (side events and minor tournaments), this or something commensurate will need to be added to the rules before it leaves beta.