Do you think players should be allowed to bid 0 on the dial?

Does anybody have a good reason why not?

OK so here's two questions

1. What do you think would be a good reward for a bid of zero.?

2. Whats a good idea for what would happen if both players bid zero? As nothing happening doesn't seem very satisfying. 

Your #2 is a good reason why 0 bids probably aren't a good idea. Bidding at least 1 means that the game has a little more forward momentum. As honor gets low, you'd see minimum bids being the norm, and games would stall out with matching 0 bids. It'd come down to province flops and completely neglect one half of the deck construction.

Now, as a specific character ability or card ability that a player would have to consciously bring into the game, it's fine, because it wouldn't be symmetrical. The game still has momentum moving towards an end, because one player would be bidding 0 and the other only 1, losing an honor. They'd be racing against a clock to defeat someone before they ran out of honor.

For your #1 question, the reward is obviously the honor attack. But if your actual question is, "What would be a bonus that would convince you to give up your card draw (and honor bid exchange)," it's probably somewhere just below the effect of a ring, since Earth Ring would give you your card back, and Air ring would steal your honor back. I could see a reactive card that let you replace each point of honor you might gain with some other bonus, especially if your opponent kept their honor as well.

"3 fate. Reaction: After honor dials are revealed- Instead of taking honor, for each honor you would take from your opponent, you may resolve one ring effect instead."

That's pretty beefy if you can catch someone with a 4-point gap, but to be fair, 4-point honor exchanges are fairly significant events as well. I think 3 fate for that flexibility is probably about right.

15 minutes ago, AradonTemplar said:

Your #2 is a good reason why 0 bids probably aren't a good idea. Bidding at least 1 means that the game has a little more forward momentum

There are loads of things that could happen if both players bid zero that would move the game along.

Both players receive

2 honour

2 fate

2 cards

Or could be they get 5 points to use on any combination of the three

All 5 honour

Or 2 fate and 3 cards

Or any combination.

*********

Maybe allow the person with the lowest number of cards to draw cards equal the the number of cards of their opponent.. And the person with the lowest honour to receive honour equal to the person with the highest honour.

That could shake things up

Why though? What does it add to the game beyond 'shaking things up'? Your suggestions are not only complicated but also massively distort the math behind the game, for no apparent benefit. An important part of game design is to only implement mechanics that have a tangible benefit when playing the game, not just because you thought them up.

I think the real question is should you be able to bid negative honor?

The honour dials have an option for zero.

Why have it even on the dial if it has no purpose for being there.

Some third party L5R compatible dials I've seen have only 1 to 5 but the dials provided in the core sets have an unused 6th option.

30 minutes ago, Maffster said:

The honour dials have an option for zero.

Why have it even on the dial if it has no purpose for being there.

Some third party L5R compatible dials I've seen have only 1 to 5 but the dials provided in the core sets have an unused 6th option.

Well that's partially an after effect of the shape they went with for the dials. But not all official FFG dials do. The Kotei acrylic ones only have 1-5.

44 minutes ago, Maffster said:

The honour dials have an option for zero.

They don’t, though. It’s an empty space. If it were a zero, there will be a “0” printed there.

You say it’s a zero? Ok, I say it’s a six. Who’s right?

46 minutes ago, Maffster said:

The honour dials have an option for zero.

Why have it even on the dial if it has no purpose for being there.

Some third party L5R compatible dials I've seen have only 1 to 5 but the dials provided in the core sets have an unused 6th option.

Wait, what? I just went and double checked and my dials don't have a 0 on them. So they didn't put it on the dial with no purpose...

2 minutes ago, Tabris2k said:

They don’t, though. It’s an empty space. If it were a zero, there will be a “0” printed there.

You say it’s a zero? Ok, I say it’s a six. Who’s right?

Id say an empty space has more in common with zero

19 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

Well that's partially an after effect of the shape they went with for the dials. But not all official FFG dials do. The Kotei acrylic ones only have 1-5.

I didn't know that. If I did I probably wouldn't have started this post

7 hours ago, Maffster said:

Id say an empty space has more in common with zero

No value and 0 aren't the same thing in FFG games (nor for programmers).

I never said they were.

I said an empty space has more in common with 0 than a 6 does

On 10/15/2018 at 1:27 AM, Maffster said:

I never said they were.

I said an empty space has more in common with 0 than a 6 does

Have to disagree there. Might as well say apple has more in common with 0 than it does with 6.

Yeah, blank space is a null not a zero. Massive difference.

Null has as much in common with zero as it does any other real number.

Null is the Lying Darkness.

0 is how many Kami were in Rokugan before the Fall of the Kami.

I would say if you were allowed to bid zero honor, you treat that as a bid for 0 honor. Which, I think, means you lose 0 honor and draw 0 cards?

You can already modify your bid value to 0 (with Contingency Plan). It doesn't change the rules for the draw phase:

• 2.4 Honor Transfer - The player with the higher honor bid must give an amount of honor to the player with the lower honor bid that is equal to the difference between the two bids. If the bids are equal, no honor is transferred during this step.
• 2.5 Draw Cards - Each player simultaneously draws X cards from his or her conflict deck. For each player, X is equal to his or her honor bid.

So, if you modify your bid to 0, the other player has to give you an amount of honor equal to their own bid (because they bid higher and the difference is equal to their bid) and you draw 0 cards.

1 minute ago, Khudzlin said:

You can already modify your bid value to 0 (with Contingency Plan). It doesn't change the rules for the draw phase:

• 2.4 Honor Transfer - The player with the higher honor bid must give an amount of honor to the player with the lower honor bid that is equal to the difference between the two bids. If the bids are equal, no honor is transferred during this step.
• 2.5 Draw Cards - Each player simultaneously draws X cards from his or her conflict deck. For each player, X is equal to his or her honor bid.

So, if you modify your bid to 0, the other player has to give you an amount of honor equal to their own bid (because they bid higher and the difference is equal to their bid) and you draw 0 cards.

The difference is that you can only do that through a card effect and so it is a one off (or at least limited) effect. The problem with allowing the 0 bid as a regular bid is when the game breaks down to the 1 bid stage where neither side can afford to give or lose honor on a bid you replace that potential bid with the 0 bid which leaves both players not drawing any cards and the game stalling out as the players are reliant on what's in their hands already or the change brought by the Dynasty phase. You've essentially taken chunk of a players options away from them at that point. It would also have a knock back effect as with an ideal draw Lion or Crane could enable a 1st turn honor win using Way of the Chrysanthemum if their opponent bids 5 to 0 and they have a Toturi or Hotaru out and attack air (which is not hard to achieve with aggressive mulligan and are packing three of each in your decks).

Ah, but I've never said it was a good idea to allow setting the dial on 0 (because I don't think it is). I just pointed out that the rules already cover bids of 0.

Just a note of observation here;

It’s funny that I keep reading so much push-back against being able to bid 0 that I’m quite befuddled as to why. (not specifically here in this thread, but elsewhere on other threads)

Readjng through the reasoning of posters I get their argument. However, I’m in the camp of allowing more options rather than limiting choice during matches. Though I get it, so to speak.

17 hours ago, LordBlunt said:

However, I’m in the camp of allowing more options rather than limiting choice during matches.

The problem is that, in the end, not drawing any conflict cards limits your choices a lot more than not being able to bid 0.

4 hours ago, Khudzlin said:

The problem is that, in the end, not drawing any conflict cards limits your choices a lot more than not being able to bid 0.

I started this thread because I was in a tounament.

Round 1

I have 2 bayushi manipulators in and and 2 contingency plans. I bid 5 and up it all the way to 9

Roind 2

I really didn't need any cards but I had to bid 1.

It was at that moment I thought

"mmm I wonder if there's a good reason why I can't bid 0"

Well, that means that at the end of the draw phase turn 1 you had 11 cards in hand and your opponent had 9 cards in hand (assuming he bid 5), and you lost 4 honor (so 3 Honor with SH). As a two card difference is not so much, I suppose your opponent spent a lot of cards in conflicts and you didn’t?

All in all, a very unusual situation and not representative enough to put another rule just for it.

And the reason to not bid 0 is to move the game forward.

Requiring a minimum bid 1 also means players can't abuse card draw tech/high early bids to draw all their conflict cards, then keep bidding 0 to prevent themselves from decking out and losing 5 honor for it.