People that want "open roles" are the same people that, when learning D&D for the first time, ask "Which alignment lets me do whatever I want?"

40 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

People that want "open roles" are the same people that, when learning D&D for the first time, ask "Which alignment lets me do whatever I want?"

That's a load of bovine excrement (to stay polite). Previous LCGs have open role-equivalent cards (when they have such cards at all). The rules included in the box are open roles. When the game came out, there was absolutely no expectation of role-locking. Added to a lack of new strongholds (both Netrunner and Conquest had new stronghold-equivalent cards for all factions in their first cycle, while L5R still won't have 2 strongholds for each clan after 2 cycles), role locking stifles the meta by reducing deckbuilding possibilities.

1 hour ago, Khudzlin said:

That's a load of bovine excrement (to stay polite).

Or “Ox poop”, as our favorite wily trader Yasuki Taka would say.

4 hours ago, Yogo Gohei said:

People that want "open roles" are the same people that, when learning D&D for the first time, ask "Which alignment lets me do whatever I want?"

That analogy does not work.

18 hours ago, Suzume Tomonori said:

That analogy does not work.

It isn't an analogy.

I said they were the same people that make both requests. I am not saying that both requests are absolutely-identical-in-all-ways.

1 hour ago, Yogo Gohei said:

It isn't an analogy.

I said they were the same people that make both requests. I am not saying that both requests are absolutely-identical-in-all-ways.

And you're still wrong. I've never asked that D&D question, because it's ridiculous. I expected free roles because of how other LCGs work (notably AGoT with its agendas) and how the deckbuilding rules are written in the LtP. And I want them back.

The roles aren't locked in casual play, when playing with friends as most people tend to do. Go nuts! When playing at a tournament or event it's about the same as playing with the guidelines of a banned/restricted list. If you think having roles creates stale decks look at other games and see how even without roles eventually all decks settle to an "efficient" deck and people just net deck that template.

Even though FFG is doubling down on locked roles, I still believe roles should be open to all. Deckbuilding options increase the health of the game.

I still think roles can have an impact while being open to all clans however. Fore instance, perhaps the winners of the Kotei will affect the story based on the role they chose. I know FFG is very protective of and doesn't want the players to have that much influence on story direction, but the roles would still leave a lot of room for the story team to not "get trolled" into an uncomfortable decision regarding the story.

4 hours ago, Khudzlin said:

And you're still wrong. I've never asked that D&D question, because it's ridiculous. I expected free roles because of how other LCGs work (notably AGoT with its agendas) and how the deckbuilding rules are written in the LtP. And I want them back.

At which point, exactly, did you "expect free roles"? The one-role-at-a-time system (which was recently replaced) was announced in literally the exact same article that the roles themselves were mentioned for the very first time.

I am not sure how you can have expectations about something that you didn't know exists.

4 hours ago, Khudzlin said:

And you're still wrong. I've never asked that D&D question, because it's ridiculous. I expected free roles because of how other LCGs work (notably AGoT with its agendas) and how the deckbuilding rules are written in the LtP. And I want them back.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/8/1/your-path-into-rokugan/

No you are wrong actually they announced role locking right from the beginning of the game months before the game actually released.

16 hours ago, Yogo Gohei said:

At which point, exactly, did you "expect free roles"? The one-role-at-a-time system (which was recently replaced) was announced in literally the exact same article that the roles themselves were mentioned for the very first time.

I am not sure how you can have expectations about something that you didn't know exists.

There was a demo event in Paris at the end of June 2017 (about 5 weeks before the OP article was published). Some people saw the deckbuilding rules there and talked about roles on the French forum (and posted a picture, which was later taken down). That's when I learned about roles and started to expect they'd be free.

2 hours ago, Khudzlin said:

There was a demo event in Paris at the end of June 2017 (about 5 weeks before the OP article was published). Some people saw the deckbuilding rules there and talked about roles on the French forum (and posted a picture, which was later taken down). That's when I learned about roles and started to expect they'd be free.

So second hand information in a vacuum of the full rules. Basing any statements about they changed the rules based on that are your own bias and frankly while it may make you feel better are not true. From the beginning of organized promotion for the game every time we have seen information about roles we were told that they would be locked based on tournament results, it was a cornerstone of the Gencon launch that Initial Roles for Worlds would be determined there, and one of the deciding factors for Worlds that top of clan would have the privilege of deciding the role for their Clan for the next year.

From an organized play angle it was a great idea on paper as it allowed for regular meta shakeups not tied to the release of new cards and gave players a reason to support their chosen clan even if they are not a top performing clan at the moment. Sadly we've seen with the release of the new element locked cards the weakness of this system, especially since role voting was being done in the absence of information as to what role locked cards were coming out for each clan (for the record I am against role locked cards on the Dynasty side of clan cards and feel that they should have made most of the elemental locked ones XXXX CLAN or ELEMENT so that they would always be playable in their selected clan and the element role becomes a splash restriction).

1 hour ago, Schmoozies said:

So second hand information in a vacuum of the full rules. Basing any statements about they changed the rules based on that are your own bias and frankly while it may make you feel better are not true. From the beginning of organized promotion for the game every time we have seen information about roles we were told that they would be locked based on tournament results, it was a cornerstone of the Gencon launch that Initial Roles for Worlds would be determined there, and one of the deciding factors for Worlds that top of clan would have the privilege of deciding the role for their Clan for the next year.

From an organized play angle it was a great idea on paper as it allowed for regular meta shakeups not tied to the release of new cards and gave players a reason to support their chosen clan even if they are not a top performing clan at the moment. Sadly we've seen with the release of the new element locked cards the weakness of this system, especially since role voting was being done in the absence of information as to what role locked cards were coming out for each clan (for the record I am against role locked cards on the Dynasty side of clan cards and feel that they should have made most of the elemental locked ones XXXX CLAN or ELEMENT so that they would always be playable in their selected clan and the element role becomes a splash restriction).

Whilst I agree with your last point I'll point out that there's only 2 role-locked Clan Dynasty cards out of 44, so it's not a big problem. The other half dozenish role-locked dynasty cards are Neutral.

On 7/27/2018 at 12:26 PM, Tonbo Karasu said:

Whilst I agree with your last point I'll point out that there's only 2 role-locked Clan Dynasty cards out of 44, so it's not a big problem. The other half dozenish role-locked dynasty cards are Neutral.

Plus FFG has stated publicly that they will not be elemental locking any clan aligned dynasty cards. I like to think that they learned their lesson on this, but time will tell.

56 minutes ago, Yogo Gohei said:

Plus FFG has stated publicly that they will not be elemental locking and clan aligned dynasty cards. I like to think that they learned their lesson on this, but time will tell.

It just sucks for those two that they did lock as they dictate role selections for a while. Sadly with Crisis Breaker being so good it does lock Crab into pretty well always wanting at least one Keeper option. Northern Wall Sensei they luckily made the choice less difficult since it kind of sucks.

9 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

It just sucks for those two that they did lock as they dictate role selections for a while. Sadly with Crisis Breaker being so good it does lock Crab into pretty well always wanting at least one Keeper option. Northern Wall Sensei they luckily made the choice less difficult since it kind of sucks.

I don't really think Crisis Breaker is good enough to be an auto-include.

I am not going to worlds

Why do I care about roles in deck building?

Theres no tournament between here and there and at the end of it I'll have 2 roles neither of which are the one I have now.

I didn't go to gen con

On ‎7‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 3:50 PM, Schmoozies said:

It just sucks for those two that they did lock as they dictate role selections for a while. Sadly with Crisis Breaker being so good it does lock Crab into pretty well always wanting at least one Keeper option. Northern Wall Sensei they luckily made the choice less difficult since it kind of sucks.

Northern Wall Sensei is interesting, well, potentially interesting, but Stone of Sorrows is devastatingly effective. I wanted to walk away from the last worlds with a seeker role (which we did) because we were given heads-up on what 2 cards each clan was going to get.

Moving forward, with infrequent exceptions, all clans will have both a seeker & keeper role. As a result, those won't be too often unavailable.

On ‎7‎/‎27‎/‎2018 at 2:52 PM, Yogo Gohei said:

FFG has stated publicly that they will not be elemental locking any clan aligned dynasty cards.

This is really neat news. Working on my new deck, it's fun to be able to use a card from my splash faction that they cannot use right now. I really enjoy the limitations and opportunities for new tactics that are being locked and unlocked at (soon) regular intervals (their purported goal is every 4 months).

I really like the idea that, on average, half of the decks played at Worlds will not be eligible in subsequent tournaments. It's a mandated change in deck design, without new product, that ensures at least some upsetting to winning decks.

Roles would be better if the cards tied to them were worded "May not be included in Seeker decks" as opposed to "Keeper only" (and vice versa), allowing some form of choice in deck construction. As it is, there is no incentive at all to not be the Keeper or Seeker that your clan is tied to; doing so gives you the bonuses from the role itself, plus unlocks new cards. Not playing the role only limits your options.

If the cards were framed to be disallowed by a role rather than permitted to its opposite, there would be actual choice, as while taking the role would give the bonuses as usual, it would lock out certain card choices, which would only be available to 'vanilla' can decks.

5 hours ago, Laurence J Sinclair said:

Roles would be better if the cards tied to them were worded "May not be included in Seeker decks" as opposed to "Keeper only" (and vice versa), allowing some form of choice in deck construction. As it is, there is no incentive at all to not be the Keeper or Seeker that your clan is tied to; doing so gives you the bonuses from the role itself, plus unlocks new cards. Not playing the role only limits your options.

If the cards were framed to be disallowed by a role rather than permitted to its opposite, there would be actual choice, as while taking the role would give the bonuses as usual, it would lock out certain card choices, which would only be available to 'vanilla' can decks.

But were that the case, than Support of the Phoenix (and its ilk) would allow for all Seeker/Keeper cards. In addition to the influence.

What you are describing is perception. The choice is the same either way, it is simply how you internalize it.

In gambling, let us suppose that there are the following 2 games. First, there is a game where you receive 2 tokens for playing. Then, on the flip of a coin, one of those tokens is taken away from you. In the second, you are given 1 token for playing. Then, on the flip of a coin, you gain an extra token.

In either of those games, the odds are fifty-fifty that you will end up with 1 or 2 tokens. However, in the first game it feels like you are being punished, while in the second game you feel like you are being rewarded. ?

I like the roles, but I must admit I do also like the way some cards modify cost or stats based on roles also. So you are free to take Walking The Ways at a premium if you need it, but it is better with the associated trait/role/etc.