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I'd preordered it from them and when I heard it was backordered I immediately cancelled and ordered it direct from Alderac (since they probably have the best direct-shipping-to-Canada after Amazon). I remember trying to track down a copy of Emerald Empire 3rd Edition about six months before they wrapped up 3rd edition and it was very nearly impossible to find, and it looks like this time around isn't going to be much different. If you want this game or any of its supplements, buy asap, is what I'm saying, because AEG seems allergic to second printings.
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May 3, 2011 14:45
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My problem with Troll and Toad was that in order to get the fifty dollar book shipped to Canada, it was an extra $30. Was not impressed. None of my local game stores carry any L5R RPG books either. Back when I was tracking down 3rd Edition I went on a road trip to visit a few friends in a couple different cities, and we went to every gaming store in each city I stopped in (not just passing through though) and I found I think one L5R book the entire weekend, and that was dusty and forgotten. It's not a mainstream game, and I can see why AEG wouldn't want to print more than they can sell of this stuff, I just wish they'd go to some kind of print on demand solution with it so that the people who do want it can get it without paying exorbitant prices or, especially later in an edition, having to go to great lengths to track down the books. (For example, I ended up getting Emerald Empire 3rd Edition, after having called tons of game stores in my province and having friends try in several different countries, because one of my friends wrote a script to run searches on every Barnes and Noble individually to find it. The main search for the franchise as a whole said there were none but he'd found four stores had one each. I called the nearest one up, somewhere in New York I think, and had them ship it to me across the border.) It's good to hear that this edition's more corebook friendly. It also looks like they're compressing things even further, so that the great clans are getting one book instead of three like in 3rd edition or what, nine? in second and first...though that leaves me wondering how many books they'll be able to sustain before they run out of topics to cover in enough depth to justify the expense of the book...
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May 4, 2011 15:08
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Amazon's description says that it's got 100 pages of new material in, plus updates to 4e rules for any crunch that was there before. I think it's supposed to be about 3/4 the same though, so mileage may vary.
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May 6, 2011 11:58
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I was lucky enough to snag a copy of Book of Air from my FLGS. It's pretty, but as others have said, much fluffier than the previous books. Haven't had a chance to more than skim yet. Strongholds of the Empire hit Drive-Thru RPG today (or yesterday, depending on time zone). It's supposedly PDF-primary release, but there are POD options for black and white or color versions, too. I ordered the color POD, will report on quality once it arrives if anyone's curious.
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May 11, 2012 05:20
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Yeah, there's pretty much nothing beyond Book of Air unavailable at Drive-Thru for purchase as PDF from 4th Edition. 3rd Edition definitely didn't see consistent pdf release, but I think that hurt them in the long run when some of the essential titles in the line (Emerald Empire, in particular) became unavailable in print and late arrivals to the edition couldn't get them by any means whatsoever. Tracking down my copy of EE3rd was an ordeal of many months and some pretty ridiculous measures trying to find a copy for sale for less than $200. AEG've gone to some pretty big steps to try and drag this edition away from being an obscure, niche game. Divorcing the RPG from the card-game timeline was one, ensuring PDF availability is another. Whether it's enough to let it reach a wider audience I don't know, but I do know definitely appreciate not having to worry that if I don't buy the print edition of a given book when it comes out, that I won't be able to get it at all. That definitely wasn't always the case.
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May 11, 2012 13:16
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Just got the Second City box set from the FLGS and it is waaaay meatier than I expected. It has a set of dice, a velvet bag for them, a pad of blank character sheets, six premium character folios, a fold-out poster map of the Second City, a book each for City, People, and Campaign, a set of cards for all the basic schools for 4e, and a couple of miscellaneous feelie journals. It is in a much heavier stock box, too, than the older box sets--more like a board game box than any of the other RPG box sets I've encountered. Everyone who picked it up commented on how heavy it is, and it's no surprise with all that stuff packed in there. Really impressed, and I haven't really started flipping through it at all yet.
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Sep 19, 2012 02:35
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Not yet, unfortunately. I'm operating on a dozen-book backlog just now, but I had a really hard time getting 3rd edition stuff after launch so I tend to pick stuff up ASAP, regardless of how soon I can get to it. I'll pull it forward in the priority and get an impression sometime this week, though, if I can.
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Sep 25, 2012 23:55
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Swagger Dagger posted:I'm more down on it than you are, but overall it's a good buy. The cards are super cheap and really really need to be sleeved if you're going to use them at all frequently, the map is really pixellated and unless I run the campaign only like a book and a half is useful. To be honest though, buying a box set like this without the intention to run the campaign is really missing the point of these box sets. That's really what you're meant to get out of them. I wish it were easier to get the older ones. I have Ryoko Owari, but I'd really like to have the Otosan Uchi one as well and it's just nearly impossible to find for a reasonable price, it seems...
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Sep 28, 2012 06:29
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I got it printed in color hardcover. It's not terrible quality, but it doesn't quite match up with the rest of the line in a few ways: - The entire cover is glossy, where the 4e line in general has matte with gloss to highlight the art. - Conversely, the pages are matte, where the 4e line in general uses glossy paper interior. The pages are also slightly heavier stock than the paper used in other 4e products. - The print quality is up to the usual standards, there's nothing out of place with the way the art looks on the page, but (probably to avoid cutting anything vital off) the color cuts off utterly in the seam between pages. It's not too bad unless you open the book wide, at which point you'll notice it. Definitely not a deal breaker, though. This is noted on the drivethru page in reference to the B&W version, but it's true of the color as well. It feels durable and doesn't really come across as a cheap, rushed print product or anything. It's just an odd duck on the shelf.
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Sep 28, 2012 13:44
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Polyakov posted:Kayumi, have you had a chance to get into the meat of Second Cities text enough to get an impression of it yet? There is very little information about it on the internet about what level of quality the content of it is, that i can find. All right, I've had more time to flip through it. I'm about halfway through reading the People book, I read through the City book itself, and I idly flipped through the Campaign book, enough to come to a few conclusions about the content. First and foremost: I really don't feel like this box set is aimed at newcomers to the L5R experience. I'm on the fence over whether I think that's a bad thing or not. On the one hand, at this point in the lifespan of the game and its setting, much of Rokugan proper has been covered, and really I think we're dealing with a fanbase who's been with the setting for quite awhile. On the other hand, though, the Second City and the Colonies in general are really a very different feel from Rokugan proper, while still being distinctly Rokugani. I had little real info on what the Second City and the Colonies were like beforehand. I have no idea how common my situation is, but I don't come at Rokugan through the CCG, and I only vaguely follow the developments in the story that the CCG presents, since I figure I'll get the details when the RPG supplements come out that detail them. I tried to get into the CCG but there's no local community for it and none of the FLGS were particularly interested in building one. Anyway, I expected the Colonies to be a few Rokugani samurai ruling over a population of natives to the Ivory Kingdoms. This really isn't the case, though--90% of the Ivory Kingdoms population was wiped out by the Destroyer before the Destroyer went to Rokugan, and the survivors had a hard time of it even after that due to the dangers in the area. So the Colonies really aren't a multicultural place like I expected, so much as a Rokugani city with a displaced Rokugani population, and cultural differences from the traditional Rokugani expectations based on needs of climate, space, and available goods and food. It's hotter in the Ivory Kingdoms, so clothing is scandalous. There's no harsh winters, so they have Summer Court instead because that's when it's impossible to work, due to heat instead of snow. The clans all work together more closely, because they have to to survive and there's more space out there between their holdings. Chicken replaces fish as the staple food. The thing about this is that it's all logical, but when you're presenting a setting for an RPG that's so distinctive to the main setting, it's A) not useful to run traditional Rokugani stuff without hefty modification, and B) even more difficult to present to a group unfamiliar with Rokugan, since you have to first explain Rokugan, then explain how the Colonies differ. So, getting back to it not being good for a new group: I don't think it matters entirely when you're looking at a price tag on this thing that's around 80 bucks, because you're going to get it only if you love L5R, but to me a box set should be something that you can just pick up and play with, with your group, and that gives a focus that may otherwise be missing. I'd say the City of Lies box set, for example, would be a fantastic intro to Rokugan in comparison to this, simply because it takes the default assumptions of Rokugan as a given and gives you somewhere to play around with that stuff. Second City doesn't do that, even without the campaign proper, so it's more there as a sourcebook on a "new" part of the setting, I guess, that is sufficiently detailed as to basically require a sourcebook to cover. I don't know if I have a real point with this or if I'm just rambling. I guess, maybe, that if I were picking spots to do a box set on, I might have picked Toshi Ranbo or some other city in Rokugan proper to get the treatment, and done the Colonies as a standalone sourcebook, but that violates 4e's timeline neutrality pretty hard. On the other hand, Second City as a box set doesn't sidestep timeline neutrality questions either. From a point of view of overall usability, though...I'd say there's absolutely some fantastic stuff to work with, for plot hooks, within and without the campaign proper, and it's definitely something that could offer a wealth of material for an L5R group looking for a change of flavor within the setting as a whole. That's probably more what you were looking for than my little ramble on whether it's a good choice for a box set in the first place.
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Oct 2, 2012 17:55
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I had zero problems with printing errors on my copy.
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Jan 12, 2013 01:33
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I love the Kolat agents in City of Lies, who are just like, outright vile and evil and owned by oni, because they wouldn't even tell Stolze what was up with the Kolat (betting they hadn't decided yet and just knew they were bad and secret.)
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Feb 5, 2013 02:51
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I was pretty happy when DriveThru released a Print On Demand edition of the Otosan Uchi box. Even though it's not a box, just the three books in the box put into one hardcover, at least I have the content for less than the secondary market is asking for the proper box. Now I just need to track down Tomb of Iuchiban.
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Feb 7, 2013 06:32
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It's not just pdf. It's a physical, hard copy, just not in the original box set format. Instead, it's a single hardcover book, like any number of other RPG resources, with all the books contained within. You just don't get the map, or any other little things--I don't know if it had feelies like the journal thing that City of Lies has or whatever. Edit: I mean yes, it IS available pdf too, but this is a thing they sell. MollyMetroid fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Feb 7, 2013 |
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Feb 7, 2013 07:08
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It would clearly be worth all of the Glory. All of it. I think it would destroy Honor, though.
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Feb 12, 2013 06:24
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Actually its not the Scorpion who pushed the testimony-only thing. According to Merchant's Guide to Rokugan, it was of all things the Kolat who did their best to get the courts to move primarily to testimony over evidence. They wanted justice to be less about the truth than the perception of the truth, because that way over time it could undermine the Emperor, or something. What Saibankan did was create a codified system of trials and punishment, to be applied even-handedly everywhere, rather than the previous system which was done entirely by the whim of the magistrate handling the case. Saibankan's name is one of those awful bits of Japanese they threw in, too, incidentally.
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Mar 21, 2013 00:28
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Hahaha to be honest, BryanChavez, when I first saw the product listing for it (coming to the game late) I was like..."what? Why would anyone want that? It's like, explicitly against Rokugani social mores." And then I avoided getting it for a long time, based entirely on their misdirection working all too well! More seriously, yeah, AEG of that era had a bunch of notions like that, and in some cases I think it worked okay (7th Sea's whole syrneth thing) and in others the bait-and-switch tactic kind of bit them on the rear end. This is one of the latter. Edit: I'd also hesitate to take credit for the resurgence. FactsAreUseless and Dagon both began campaigns before I did, which was part of what inspired me, and Alien Rope Burn's review of Way of the Scorpion in Fatal and Friends drew a lot of interest to it too. AND I understand there's a PBP run by someone else that's around 4000 posts long... MollyMetroid fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Mar 21, 2013 |
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Mar 21, 2013 01:19
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I'm having a lot of fun (as are a lot of other people apparently) with an alternate timeline in which I've killed off a significant chunk of the major "canon" characters, and dramatically altered the way the storyline went after a certain point (the Scorpion coup, specifically). It's still got the recognizable bits and nods to the original history that some fans want, but if I don't like something, I can change it all I want. For example, Kachiko is a major villain and I'm looking forward to the day when my players kill her.
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Mar 25, 2013 00:28
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Alien Rope Burn posted:Rich Wulf had Yasuki Garou Hey. Show some respect. That's Fuzake Garou.
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Mar 26, 2013 00:56
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Yasuki Garou (pronounced more like Gah Roh than the werewolfy gar ooh, from loup-garou) is Rich Wulf's character. Wulf took over from Soesbee and eventually passed the line to Carman, who runs it now. Garou shows up in one adventure, Bells of the Dead, as a minor NPC, is mentioned a few times in Way of the Ratling (Wulf was a huge fan of the nezumi and Garou was the Ratling Guy, basically) and in this fan-fiction parodying roughly from the Clan War through Hidden Emperor. He's also mentioned briefly in Emerald Empire, where it is revealed that the Crane pushed for him to get his own family name--Fuzake--in light of his unyielding efforts to bring laughter to Rokugan during the dark times. (i.e. he got a family name because of the fanfic.) He was not granted a clan, and joined up with Toku, making the Monkey the only minor clan to have two family names. That bit of fan fiction was basically my introduction to Rokugan and L5R. I still reference it on occasion, especially on the subject of ninjas versus bedtime.
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Mar 26, 2013 01:09
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Imperial Histories 2 should be hitting stores late this month. The distributor my FLGS deals with has the date April 29th listed, ymmv.
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Apr 10, 2013 19:18
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Let rip the most impressive fart imaginable, thus demonstrating your mastery of the element of air. I never have serious answers to that sort of thing.
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Apr 26, 2013 00:59
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Theoretically yes, as of April 29th. My FLGS has not got my copy in, but there are folks reviewing it elsewhere. Apparently the phrase "Orbital Jade Strike" appears.
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May 4, 2013 03:22
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RicochetD20 posted:I'm a bit new to L5R, and I'm wondering how do you handle Minor Clan Shugenja? For example, the Monkey Clan have the Fuzake Family, but they don't have a school to get their array of skills/spells from, so what do they do? The Fuzake family is known for doing it sideways.
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May 4, 2013 04:27
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It got splatbooks? I thought all it ever got was the core book.
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May 4, 2013 05:23
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The card game lasted for like, a year, too--it was really not a very heavily supported line, so they didn't have nearly as much to work with. There's enough there to be interesting though. It really feels like something that they did so they could not...I wanna say pollute, I guess? Rokugan with a bunch of details about some not-Rokugan cultures and setting that happened to be really important, briefly, to the storyline.
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May 4, 2013 05:52
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The Imperial Histories are pretty responsible for my own (big) game here on SA, though I'm not using one of the settings they provide. They are awesome books, though. Part of me hopes we will see a third, though I'm not sure what would be left to cover, canonically, beyond maybe Vacant Throne.
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May 19, 2013 00:06
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ScottyBomb posted:
Funny you should say that...
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May 19, 2013 00:27
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AEG typically does smallish print runs, and does not reprint books once they go out of print. Towards the latter years of 3rd Edition trying to find a copy of Emerald Empire was literally hundreds of dollars for the cheapest available, and it took me six months of searching (and a custom programmed web bot a friend made) to locate a copy for a reasonable price. Historically, they don't reprint things like that this far into an edition's lifespan. That having been said, it's not really "dropping the ball" not to have an out of print title listed on their web store, or they'd have a shitton of clutter. To be honest, it's my own pet theory at this point that once we get the Books of Fire, Water, and Void, plus Secrets of the Empire and Unexpected Allies--that is to say, once AEG have released the currently announced titles for 4th Edition--that we will very likely be looking at a new edition anyway. Content saturation will have essentially been reached, and diminishing returns will start to hit critical point by then.
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May 29, 2013 06:05
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Yeah as ARB said, I have made a point of picking up all the 4e books as they come because I remember exactly how much of a pain it is to get them after the fact. The box sets are NASTY hard to find, from 1e, too.
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May 29, 2013 07:03
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They want to allow the FLGS to sell through before they put it on their site.
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May 29, 2013 07:29
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I have two complete copies of City of Lies, just that one has a really badly damaged box.
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May 29, 2013 15:48
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Mildly irritated that the distributor my flgs uses lost b the preorder we submitted for this one. I have placed a call and been assured that we will have my copy in next week. That sheet looks pretty decent, but I am on my cell and unable to play with it. How automated is it and how fleshy is the school list, if it is automated?
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Jul 27, 2013 22:27
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Hey look, Book of Fire is up on DriveThru now! IH2 still isn't though!
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Oct 25, 2013 06:52
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Who knows, Cirno. Not like AEG is any good at communicating these things. I theoretically have a copy of the Naishou Province book waiting for me at the FLGS, I was going to pick it up this afternoon. Edit: Apparently not, since it went up with Naishou Province today. MollyMetroid fucked around with this message at 06:36 on Oct 26, 2013 |
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Oct 25, 2013 17:53
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Man I guess that with you here any baseless speculation on my part is meaningless, huh, Spookyelectric! (And I do have some speculations!)
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Oct 27, 2013 00:20
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Ha. My big speculation right now is that, after we see Secrets, Book of Water, Book of Void, and the Allies thing, we're likely to be seeing a new edition. 4e is pretty saturated and with Hobart taking over from Carman due to "workload" at this stage in the game there's an implication that there's some work that's being a load...but it's 100% speculation.
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Oct 27, 2013 01:26
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Content saturation was when they went to 4e, too. The problem is, you can only continue to sell additional product to a subset of the people who bought the earlier stuff, and every additional book you release makes it harder to sell to newcomers, who see (if anything) either an intimidating wall of content, or a core book and a bunch of unavailable/out of print earlier sourcebooks. As far as buying the same stuff goes...let's face it, we've been doing that since first edition.
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Oct 27, 2013 02:06
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Haha lookit me bein' wrong, the Naked Steel column on RPGnet reveals plans for Sword & Fan, the next book to follow the Elements books, covering warfare in Rokugan, both military and social. I have never been happier to be wrong.
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Nov 4, 2013 07:06
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There's a softcover Naishou Province tie-in book that's also labelled Secrets of the Empire that came out earlier.
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Dec 2, 2013 03:48
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