I know the ST was working on the GenCon fiction, but there are now certain stipulations via FFG that they need to abide by, so it was going to take longer than normal due to that.

Fun fact, during early Ivory design, there was no small amount of discussion about removing the Province-based military system entirely. For various reasons, it was never implemented, but the idea of 'no sacred cows' has been around for a while, even when we were working on it.

Some members of the Design Team have banded around the idea of releasing some unofficial 'fan sets' in 2016 just to keep the community active, possibly set in things like Legend of the Burning Sands or Rokugan 2000, but it really depends on what FFG says is or is not okay to do.

I wouldn't be shocked to see card-based resources vanish from the FFG L5R game entirely for many of the reasons cited above. I think it would probably be a good thing.

They've already stated that the LCG and CCG will have significant mechanical differences to the extent that they will not be compatible.

Not saying they cannot diversify later in expansion packs, but for the initial core set I'd expect to see a lot of streamlining.

Trust me, I'm pretty familiar with the various aspects of each of the individual families of each Clan. However, for the sake of streamlining the game for an LCG, as well as making the basic setting easier to explain to people who aren't familiar with L5R, it's more feasible to 'streamline' the Clans if you intend to keep them all around. Don't forget the card pool for an LCG is vastly smaller than it was for L5R as a CCG, there is way less room for showing off Clan diversity than there was under the old model.

I'd see Provinces more akin to something like an Objective or something, probably dealt out from their own deck (I'd just lump everything else into one deck) that players can fight over and claim, probably utilized as a primary path to victory.

I'm very much in favor of limiting the card types in the game to Personalities Attachments Holdings Strategies Provinces

To be clear, I am talking about cards that say "Target a Cavalry card to do X" or "If you have a Cavalry card, X happens". This is a bit different than printing what Cavalry does on every card. Cavalry wouldn't actually 'do' anything. Just wanted to clarify what I am talking about.

I think it was mentioned earlier, but I am sure there will be keywords, but I'd think they would probably go more to referential ones. You can have Cavalry cards, but they don't 'do' anything internally, it's all dependent on external factors (ie other cards that affect Cavalry). Simplification is the name of the game here.

I wouldn't be surprised if they kept all 9 factions, but distilled them (at least in the beginning) to their most basic elements. Crab - Berserkers/Monster fighters Crane - Honorable politicians Dragon - Monks Lion - "generic" samurai Mantis - Pirates Phoenix - Spellcasters Scorpion - Evil Politicians (though more likely they would just make the Crane the "Politicians" faction and the Scorpion would be the "Ninjas" faction) Spider - Evil things Unicorn - Mongols I think it's unlikely if they keep all the factions you're going to see the diversity of themes you would have seen under the old model, for better or worse. Doing this also makes them easier to 'sell' to people unfamiliar with the setting, ie new players or players of their other brands who aren't familiar with L5R, which FFG will most likely be devoting most of their attention to. I think if there is a thing like Dueling, it will not be a Crane thing, but a thing everybody can do, and maybe there is a Crane guy or two that can just do it really well.

I would be extremely surprised to see any loaded keywords in the FFG iteration of L5R. I suspect those will all be on their way out, Naval and Cavalry included.

Fu Leng is the best. Mostly. Depending on what you're reading. Basically just read Bearers of Jade.

I think that Dave touched on this in his last release, but it's important as well to re-iterate: AEG as a company has been moving away from card games in general for a while. Their focus is more on the board game market these days.

Maybe they'll start handing out those T-Shirts you used to get at L5R events back in the WoTC days. I think I still have that purple Hitomi one somewhere....

That level of detail, from a fan of the setting, is neat, but that level of complexity, especially when it's something you just have to remember, as opposed to being on a card, tends not to be quite as neat from a player standpoint.

Honestly, dueling should be a simple mechanic that works universally for all Personalities, with the only modifications being from exterior card sources, such as abilities on Personalities, attachments, or other card effects. When you start making exceptions to this, or that, or the other thing, especially if you intend those exceptions to be things that cannot be easily referenced without going to a rulebook and breaking the flow of a game, you start to have issues.

Keep in mind that the news of the purchase is still very new, and with AEG not hosting an active L5R forum at the moment, this is the default place for everyone in the community to come (aside from the Clan sites), which is no doubt contributing to the flurry of activity. I think it's been said elsewhere already, but the real test will be how active these forums are in, say, September of 2016.

Streamlining Honor and Dishonor into a single Political Victory was always something we talked about, akin to the DC Comics board meetings where they would always suggest killing off Superman. The closest we got to implementation was the aforementioned Political Standoff, for a number of reasons.

People tend to take it personally, I think, for whatever reason, when your victory is based on slandering them. Over the many years I have played and designed, I see people disparage dishonor decks a fair amount more than any other, even when they aren't doing well in the environment. Dishonor decks also tend to have control elements, which cause several players to bristle, as they view any restrictions on how their deck does what it does as being 'unfair'.

I guess you'll have to feed those Naga something, so why not?

For L5R, it would probably be easier to divide it up by factions (possibly even Dynasties) than individual Clans, if they want to avoid having too many factions.

Since FFG owns the term LCG, they call Doomtown an ECG. It's essentially the same thing.

I'd be happy with a soft reboot personally. I was a big fan of the idea of leaping forward about twenty years to find an empire contested by a Hantei, an Iweko, and an upstart Toturi claimant, with maybe Otomo Suikihime acting as a wild card from the Colonies.