If you look on the FFG homepage, the new fiction is essentially a choose-your-own-adventure, whosecollated resultsfeed into the storyline choices in the way a GENCON adventure would have....

You're a ronin working for Ikoma Tsanuri, one of the least unpleasant of the remaining lion commanders, in their "border dispute" with the Unicorn, and she needs you to...well.... spoilers.

This is a very cool idea. I hope they do more stuff like this, pandemic or no.

It is definitely a throwback to those old text adventure games, but...

I got to be honest, the reporting side of it feels super shallow that given all the choices one can make in the game, in the end only 4 results get reported-- everything else is just fluff.

Also, by putting players into the shoes of a protagonist fighting on behalf of the Lion, I got to think people will play through until they find the best possible result and then report that. I kind of feel like Gencon decisions should break down to players voting between a couple of equally potentially interesting story directions or just supporting their most favorite character/clan.

But when you make it a game like this and players are playing in favor of any given clan-- I mean... its not like anyone is going to report the "I ran off, charged recklessly into the camp, attacked the guards and got cut down" result.

From the results I got through my few play throughs and what others reported as their results, I think the first two goals you report are mutually exclusive-- so I guess there is an active choice between those.

But I felt like one of the more interesting, semi-hidden, options one had within that game, meaning one where it isn't exactly clear if doing it is good or bad, is something that didn't even appear on the report.

This is the first time they (anyone?) has ever done something like this.

As a note, there have been people (mostly Crane and Unicorn, I reckon) who have been reporting complete failures. I, on the other hand, as a Phoenix, ended up with an equivocal result and entered that.

2 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Also, by putting players into the shoes of a protagonist fighting on behalf of the Lion, I got to think people will play through until they find the best possible result and then report that. I kind of feel like Gencon decisions should break down to players voting between a couple of equally potentially interesting story directions or just supporting their most favorite character/clan.

Don’t worry, I am reporting the worst possible results for the Lion.

4 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

I got to be honest, the reporting side of it feels super shallow that given all the choices one can make in the game, in the end only 4 results get reported-- everything else is just fluff.

Interesting. I had almost the opposite reaction. If it had just come down to "Lion win" or "Unicorn win," I still would have thought this was a nice game. I'm a little impressed there are as many possible ways for this to play out as there are. Whether or not a commander dies, whether or not a town is taken, and whether or not the message get out all seem like interesting possibilities to me (I guess I'm less sure on how reading the message matters). Out of curiosity, how many possibilities would you want there to be?

4 hours ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Also, by putting players into the shoes of a protagonist fighting on behalf of the Lion, I got to think people will play through until they find the best possible result and then report that.

Yeah, that seems very true. If you're not especially invested in the clans, you might just try to play the dutiful samurai, which favors the Lion retaking the town. At least you still have to choose between getting the message and saving the general. That's kind of cool.

8 hours ago, MonCalamariAgainstDrunkDriving said:

Interesting. I had almost the opposite reaction. If it had just come down to "Lion win" or "Unicorn win," I still would have thought this was a nice game. I'm a little impressed there are as many possible ways for this to play out as there are. Whether or not a commander dies, whether or not a town is taken, and whether or not the message get out all seem like interesting possibilities to me (I guess I'm less sure on how reading the message matters). Out of curiosity, how many possibilities would you want there to be?

Well, there were options in there such as what to visit before you go-- which seem to have no actual impact on the outcome, maybe visiting the shrine makes you a little stronger and more likely to win the fights, and the medical tent slightly alters the text when you first arrive if you find out where the commander is being kept, but beyond that-- none of the other options impact the story.

After arriving at camp, there are options such as stealing the protection amulet, sabotaging the archers, scattering the horses and saving the grainery-- all of which mean nothing. Whether you do them or not seems to make no difference, in the end only when you choose the messenger or the commander is the only options that matter and in the end if you go to the battlefield then the lion win the town and if you go back to camp then the unicorn win. I guess I am being told that if you do all the sabotage efforts then you can go back to camp and the lion will still win-- but as long as you choose to meet the general on the battlefield, the Lion win so... you do those 4 tasks or you choose that one final option correctly and the result is basically the same.

Stealing the amulet isn't obvious whether it is a good or bad action, so it seemed like the most intriguing "further story" choice.

And then there is the matter of whether you go in there and slaughter the messenger and guards or if you avoid killing anyone-- doesn't matter.

And if you do avoid killing them, did you choose to light the village on fire as a distraction-- seems like that would matter since no one would really be in a position to stop that fire from spreading throughout the village during the battle. Imaging wining the battle and taking back the village only for it to be mostly burned down... or the food to have all been lost because you didn't choose to save it. Again, seems like it should matter-- but it doesn't.

I guess I just feel like it would have been more interesting if they had been keeping track of all of those other choices that people made rather than the report result button resulting in opening a Google Doc to self-report only a select few choices.

11 hours ago, MonCalamariAgainstDrunkDriving said:

I guess I'm less sure on how reading the message matters

Since it's officially tracked, it must matter. I would assume that if final verdict is that the ronin reads the scrolls, it becomes moderately common knowledge that the Lion harvest is short, and that it's short primarily because of their ultimately Pyrrhic capture of Kyuden Kakita - since we can assume neither the bulk of the rice nor the bulk of the Lion soldiers sent on that mission survived the experience but are instead medium rare, courtesy of Daidoji Uji.

11 hours ago, MonCalamariAgainstDrunkDriving said:

At least you still have to choose between getting the message and saving the general. That's kind of cool.

Which is also a slightly harder choice than first impression if you ask Tsanuri about him; it turns out the general is Mirumoto-trained and his personal influence and friendships will make the difference between Dragon clan allies swinging in behind the Lion or not. That's a fairly big difference.