I mean "folklore" in the sense that these elements are inspired by Japanese and other Asian folklore. Was that not obvious?

If we don't get a HUMAN keyword, then I hope we at least get proper templating to describe them on abilities: as non-NONHUMANs, rather than referring to an implied keyword, right?

Tone-wise, I prefer to run my L5R games less like animation, and more like a Kurosawa film with more open displays of supernatural elements. Not saying this is the best way, but it makes the most sense to me as an expression of what makes a *samurai* fantasy different from any other fantasy.

So basically, you'd prefer to see the protagonists of the story as something beyond human comprehension.

Magic tried that for quite some time, found that it sucked, and performed an in-universe reboot to fix the problem. No, I do not see FFG going this route. Fantasy is only good when it speaks to our shared human experiences. There's a reason few novels feature no human characters.

 

That really depends on how you define the bolded part. Gain for a samurai in Rokugan is not the same as for us, and honor is not about profiting yourself, but about representing with dignity the countless generations that have come before you. Dying for the honor of one's clan is the most cherished act a samurai can perform, hence the popularity of seppuku in the setting. The reason the Dark Virtues are so reviled is not because they are necessarily bad - indeed, they undoubtedly strengthen those who practice them - but because they contradict the samurai lifestyle, which is about servitude, to one's lord and clan, to the Emperor, and to the lower castes (which incidentally is the main reason I am also proud to be a Unicorn). A true samurai does not seek to "gain much" for oneself.

The thing is, though, no matter how far ahead you jump in the timeline, there is a deliberate values dissonance between the characters in L5R and its primarily-Western audience. The mores and beliefs of those who live in Rokugan inform every facet of their day-to-day activities, and it is an important part of what makes the game and its setting unique. You can't explain these in less than five sentences, as they take up many pages' worth of exposition in the 4th Edition rulebook.

I don't think rebooting the timeline is the answer. Just like real-world history, history in Rokugan is layered and complex. One shouldn't feel the need to know every minute detail of each Clan's history in the 12th century, any more than they must know the countless stories pre-1130 that have been inevitably glossed over in composing the backdrop for the setting. I think the simpler answer for FFG is simply to present the setting as such, making it clear that whatever has happened in the past, this is what Rokugan looks like now, and resources are available for new players who wish to delve deeper into the lore of what has come before.

In a setting where 95%+ of the featured inhabitants are human, no. "Nonhumans" are fine with whatever trait they get, be it Oni, Ogre, Undead, Nezumi, Spirit, and so on. I could understand the need to put human as a trait in a game like Magic: the Gathering where there are multitudes of nonhumans around.

That would be very boring crap game. 

Smash Up's future looks to be as bright as Love Letter, which is to say, they'll keep milking that cow until the udder falls off.

Surprised nobody has made the obvious reference here, so I will.

Valar Morghulis.

 

For the astromech thing, can it not be simply assumed that the X-Wing pilot either could not acquire an astromech, or not one that was noteworthy enough to impact the list?

Holy teaser topic, Batman!

Yep, dearth of plausible kanji read "nu" was part of the motivation, as I remember. The other major reason, of course, was that using the "nin-" (忍) of "ninja" and "ninjutsu" seemed too good to pass up.
 
I also figured the distinction in pronunciation between nin-u-be and ni-nu-be is pretty negligible (if it's detectable/reproducible at all) to most speakers of european languages, unless they've already studied a foreign language that requires thinking of sound in syllables...

...For real? T-70s not worth it? When did this happen?

Somehow Maul has become to canon what Revan was to Legends as of TOR; that is, a character surviving well past the realm of plausibility due to fan appeal.

Somehow Maul has become to canon what Revan was to Legends as of TOR; that is, a character surviving well past the realm of plausibility due to fan appeal.

Somehow Maul has become to canon what Revan was to Legends as of TOR; that is, a character surviving well past the realm of plausibility due to fan appeal.

Somehow Maul has become to canon what Revan was to Legends as of TOR; that is, a character surviving well past the realm of plausibility due to fan appeal.

Somehow Maul has become to canon what Revan was to Legends as of TOR; that is, a character surviving well past the realm of plausibility due to fan appeal.

But Tywin Lannister isn't said to be able to sh*t influence...

i don't think that's very in the spirit of the world, where loyalty to your clan is paramount. Not that I don't see what you mean, and there have been charismatic characters transcending Clan barriers (for instance, Toturi's four children) but they are the exception, rather than the norm. On the other hand, of late (for the last couple of arcs, IIRC), L5R had a little of that, sort of-ish... I mean, before that, your faction kept getting periodically completely new Strongholds with different powers and abilities, around 3 per arc. However, for the last couple of arcs, your faction got just one core stronghold for the whole arc, which could be further personalized by adding a Sensei which gave you access to specific abilities, and represented an important character (but not a Champion)
 
In any case, I don't think they'd do that, and i hope they don't. Why? Because I'm of two minds about this... Let me elaborate. I wan't the game to play and feel as close as possible to the original version I first enjoyed playing for so many years; on the other hand, I want the new designers to make a total overhaul of it, as I no longer enjoyed playing it for the last few years. In my mind, that means to examine all and every mechanic and decide what goes out, what stays in, and what is totally changed mechanically to get the same effect.
 
I realize that's not a realistic prospect, and I'm bound to be disappointed one way or the other. However, if we look back to the other games FFG have overhauled in the past, perhaps not so much. Android Netrunner is like classic Netrunner, but enhanced with factions, better feel, art, design... I can't picture any classic Netrunner player wishing to go back to the old version. Same for AGOT, they kept with the original for quite a few years and design had been cluttered with lot of rules, unwanted interactions, etc... They decided to start from scratch,  examined what was working, what was not, removed these rules, reworked these others and we got a more solid game, soundly rebuilt on both the successes and mistakes of the old version.
 
That's what I want for new L5R. I want a L5R 2.0, not another card game set in Rokugan. And what you propose is more along the lines of a new game. Not saying that I wouldn't be interested in that game too, but that wouldn't be L5R and I think it would make no sense for them to do that, not if they own the IP and are able to create as many games as they want with different concepts within the world of Rokugan. What would be the point of that?

You could easily replace a clan stronghold with a clan 'champion' by just switching out the names. You don't necessarily need to change any other function. The question is what does this type of change do for the narrative or story compared to a stronghold? Is it a good thing to be attached to a specific character rather than the clan in general? Keep that discussion rolling.

I think it is the difference between RPG and CCG. Within the RPG, a person from any clan should imaginably be capable of being anything. No more crappy school system that insists that if you are from clan X then the only thing you can ever do well is military position Y and if you try anything else, you either have to be trained in a foreign school, or you have to be face-palmingly substandard with all your strongest features being things you under-utilize.
 
Various RPGs have demonstrated that you really only need a small bump to get min/maxers to flood a certain way, you don't need vastly overpowered school abilities enforcing that the "one true path" is taken. Duelists were one of those things that surely all clans had, but if you weren't the right Clan with the right school, you stood no chance.
 
Far more egregious was cavalry. If you were Unicorn, you were just straight-up awarded the most expensive and useful item in the entire book just for having chosen that clan-- and all your school abilities were built around being the best of the best on horseback and not bad at all off of it. If you chose any other clan, it really didn't matter how many points you put into riding because you would never be able to have enough to purchase even the worst of horses. You flat out could not possibly ever be a cavalryman from any other clan, let alone the super-powerful abilities Unicorn got that made actual skill ranks meaningless through their effect.
 
But even a cursory look at the artwork of clans would tell you-- ever single one has cavalry. There are even ashigaru cavalrymen!! Sure, their horses might not be quite as good as the Unicorn's-- but they were not nonexistent as the RPG enforced being so.
 
So a new version of the RPG where schools and clans have much less impact, maybe just a few initial attribute points and skills that give you a slight edge on a certain path, but by no means make other paths unavailable and actual techniques are learned based on your actual duties and experiences.
 
However, in the CCG... well, if every faction had absolute equal access to every technique, there would be very little reason to have different factions. Obviously the faction itself and its most iconic leaders are going to have to fit certain specialties. But that is the clan as a whole.
 
Let's look at it this way-- Japan's major crop is rice and rice-derived products. Probably more than any other country in the world they are the best at growing rice and making rice derived products. This does NOT mean that people in Japan absolutely 100% without any deviation absolutely must be a rice farmer down to every single last individual. No. Of course they can grow fruit! Or raise cattle! Or grow corn or wheat or barley... and a farmer who does those particular things has no barriers to being world class either! And, naturally, you have a whole society with jobs that have nothing to do with farming whatsoever.
 
Moreover, there are plenty of rice growers and makers of rice-derived products outside of Japan who might even be better than most Japanese rice-growers. But just not all that many for Japan to lose its claim to it being the national specialty.
 
 
So if you are playing a game about swapping crops with other countries and you are playing Japan, then you will have an advantage in the rice market and it will be your most important crop for international trading.
 
But if you are playing a game where you are an individual farmer in Japan, there is no reason you cannot grow barley and make beer instead and be plenty competitive with those German beers.
 
 
Hopefully that analogy is not so esoteric....
 
That being said, I really hope the whole concept of dueling is revisited from the ground up. The way it worked in the game, if one is totally honest, was that someone was allowed to straight-up assassinate people who had no chance against your ultra-powerful personality for doing nothing wrong but being on the other side of the board and there was often no defense against it whatsoever and the person carrying out blatant assassinations was receiving "honor" for it.
 
Various different incarnations and tweaks about it were attempted, but at the end-- it never really came across as anything other than outright assassination against defenseless, innocent targets for which the assassin was awarded "honor" making "honor" a stupid and meaningless concept. And the extent to which that seeped into the RPG, particularly in the early editions, has a devastating effect.
 
Making all honorable duels non-lethal outside of battles or that are not in response to a personality taking an action that loses honor or causes an honor loss for instance would go a long way towards fixing this problem.
 
Moreover, the Crane were not supposed to be about dueling primarily or exclusively in the first place. But because it was a mechanic that allowed you to assassinate people willy-nilly while gaining victory points for doing so, it massively overtook the identity of the clan to an extent it really wasn't supposed to. No other political action could really hope to compete with straight-up murdering someone for no reason and getting huge heapings of victory points in return. Nevermind the possibility that you could possibly force someone to discard their hand in desperation of trying to save the victim.
 
Sure, the idea was supposed to be that dueling was "risky" and so that is why it awarded better-- but it was rarely actually risky in any way at all.

It would have helped if the Topaz Championship event hadn't consistently been held in a place with experienced, solid, dead-skilled Unicorn and Dragon players over the last few years of the game.
 
Actually, that was one thing that kinda monkeyed with Clan loyalty... having the jeweled events in the same places year after year after year...