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Suzume Tomonori

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Posts posted by Suzume Tomonori

  1. Posted

    Ideally the RPG would support any era, and include information about era-appropriate rules in the official storyline for people who care. Things like the Agasha family changing from Dragon to Phoenix, or that Spider Clan doesn't exist so those rules shouldn't be used in a Clan War-era campaign, etc. It might be a ton of work to get those game era caveats into the book in an accurate and easily referenced fashion, though.

    In the end, though, what rules and story you use is going to be up to each group that plays. Some people want to play in the official canon, so that's fine. Some people are okay with re-telling stories such that hey steer away from the official version, and some people are just going to ignore canon altogether and do whatever they feel like. An ideal RPG would have enough rules and story information to support all of these groups. It would be up to the play group to decide what rules their story does or does not allow.

    But to get back to the OP, if I could only have one era to play in I would probably want Clan War, with rules for Scorpion characters even without their Great Clan status, of course, and plenty of support for minor clans such as the Mantis and Wasp. I think splat books for stuff like KYD and Dawn of the Empire eras would be really cool too, though.

  3. Posted

    I think we've opened this can of worms on this board before, but we've got to talk about something for the next two weeks.

    At first the idea of all victory advancing actions (destroying provinces, gaining honor, causing honor loss, putting rings into play) giving "points" to a single victory counter seemed a bit lame and un-L5R, but the more I think about it I can see how, if done well, it might actually be a good thing. Military decks always got honor for defeating armies anyway, so it's thematically not too much of a stretch. I had more than a few Phoenix decks that could do military switch back in the day, so a common "victory point" system would not be too dissimilar.

    It also could make alternate victory condition events easier to design and streamline, but then again I don't know if there was ever any real complaint about alternate victory conditions being unviable.

  14. Posted

    I'm curious, since I've been unable to find one, is there a list online somewhere of the winning clan at the Gencon championships every year, along with the story implications of the win? It seems given the nature of the internet that it should exist somewhere. Something like:

    1996 - Crab - Hida Yakamo gets the Ancestral Sword of the Hantei

    1997 -  Lion - Toturi slays Fu Leng and becomes emperor.

    etc.

  15. Posted

    13 hours ago, BayushiCroy said:

    Ultimately I believe a healthy meta that is frequently shaken, even if that means one clan is one top for a while. But what I don't want is the meta to be tied to other thing s like the story. 

    This has always been an issue with L5R. Players getting to influence the storyline is good and all, but because certain clans are going to be more viable than others at different times, game balance issues also have an effect on the story to some extent. I seem to recall that most tournament seasons were not dominated by a single clan, but generally there were a few favorites. It also meant that when the championship season at the end of each arc rolled around you would have some clans that were basically not in contention, and thus had less ability to affect the story. While that is unfortunate, I don't know if it's realistic to expect 9+ factions in any game to be so well balanced that they all have an equal chance of winning.

  16. Posted

    32 minutes ago, BayushiCroy said:

    God I hope our meta isn't dictated by deluxe expansion release cycle, but that seems to be a given. 

    Indeed. In my experience every expansion usually alters the meta. It is a bit annoying, but I will admit it keeps the game a bit fresh. More importantly for FFG, if the meta requires cards from the new expansion then they make money. That is just the way these games work, though.

     

    1 hour ago, Muktidata said:

    Suzumi

    Sparrow clan gets no respect. ?

  18. Posted

    Old L5R had factions that would become dominant or at least much stronger after a certain set was released, even when each clan received the same number of cards in a set. While that could be disappointing for people not playing those clans, it was part of the CCG beast. At any given time some decks / factions / victory conditions are just going to be better than others. 

    Usually each expansion did focus a bit on a few factions more than others. Correct me if I'm wrong, but for much of L5R's life I think each expansion would give three clans new strongholds, often with cards focused on the new stronghold themes. Sometimes that would propel a clan to be competitive at tournaments, though odds were just as good that the new stronghold and its associated cards would be crap. After each new set was released we'd go on forums and complain about how design clearly had it out for our clan in particular, and obviously were biased toward whatever clans we didn't play, but that was the nature of things.  I doubt the LCG will be much different, both in terms of imbalance between factions and forum complaining. 

    I anticipate the complaining threads to show up promptly on April 19th, depending on how much info they give us about gameplay and cards. 

    Ookamiprime, Muktidata, TheHobgoblyn and 2 others reacted to this

  22. Posted

    It could just as easily be assumed that a card like Bayushi Kachiko represents her and her retinue (bodyguards, servants, ladies in waiting, and all of the other assorted entourage that would probably accompany her to court), though game-wise it has no effect either way; it's just an abstraction. 

    The point I'm trying to make in regards to naming personalities is that while you could still provide flavor and world building with unnamed "personality" cards, you could do the same and also provide an enhanced level of player involvement in the story of the game if the personality cards have names that are tied to real characters in the story.

    More to the point,  I don't think players would have nearly as much interest including "Scorpion Seductress" in their deck as they do "Bayushi Kachiko."

    FunTimeTeddy reacted to this

  23. Posted

    3 hours ago, muzouka said:

    So generic gemupuku personalities like Crab Berserker in the core set then a Unique card called Hida Amoro who is an xp version of Crab berserker and may overlay him?

    Yeah but then if design wants to make another basic but mechanically different crab berserker, what do they call him?

    Crab Berserker 2?

    Crabby Berserker?

    Crab Berserkest?

    JJ48 and Mirith reacted to this

  24. Posted

    2 hours ago, Kubernes said:

    I think some generic cards could work. Things like groups of soldiers, monks, and so on. Even lowly attendants would be fine. Just as long as they are uncommon, rare, or usually neutrals.

    If my memory serves, I think that originally a single personality card was supposed to represent a unit of people in a very real sense of a named hero leading a group of retainers and attendants etc., which is how, say, "one" personality could destroy an entire province.

    So the suggestion of having cards that are generic groups of soldiers and monks does make sense in that way, but I can't help but feel such a card would lack...

    ...personality.

  25. Posted · Edited by Suzume Tomonori
    Spelling

    They did the "Soul of" mechanic in the past to justify using the cards of characters long dead in the story. It confused new players most of the time, but fit with the idea that most personalities (especially non-unique ones) represented archetypes even as they also represented story characters.

    That being said, if I have to play with personalities named "Phoenix Yojimbo", "Isawa Water Shugenja", and "Order of Rebirth Monk", that might actually be a deal-breaker for me.

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