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RocknRollaAyatollah
Nov 26, 2008

Lipstick Apathy

Lord_Hambrose posted:

My favorite will always be the Unicorn winner picking "No more stories about us, please" in response to be given immunity to the Kolat, their main interesting thing.

My favorite is the guy who killed the Dragon champion in the last tournament for $1,500? to fix his car. It was the last tournament too so it ended up being win win for that guy.

Yawgmoth posted:

I hope the Shadowlands see some development in both the RPG and LCG because otherwise it's a pretty gigantic bucket of unused material and wasted potential. If the Shadowlands are never a credible threat it really makes the Crab look like a band of paranoid idiots, first off. Secondly, without the Shadowlands the game is awfully single-note; yeah great you have clans that fight with s/words and an emperor who kind of but not really rules the whole thing. That's great for one game, maybe two, what else you got? You need that external threat to show that the petty squabbles are just that, and also that when it really matters the clans can actually accomplish anything at all worth doing.

I also want to see Spider Clan show up again, but with 100% less Daigot Sue. Spurned younger brother of the emperor who fucks off to the shadowlands with "fine, I'll make my own empire! With blackjack, and hookers!" is fine and good, but holy poo poo just about everything else was dumb as hell. Just let them be the subtle infiltrators trying to rot the empire from the inside, that's an interesting-ish angle to run with.

FFG handled Chaos well in the 40K RPG's so I'm hopeful.

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Dick Burglar
Mar 6, 2006

RocknRollaAyatollah posted:

My favorite is the guy who killed the Dragon champion in the last tournament for $1,500? to fix his car. It was the last tournament too so it ended up being win win for that guy.

Mantis, not Dragon.

Aramoro
Jun 1, 2012




Yawgmoth posted:

I also want to see Spider Clan show up again, but with 100% less Daigot Sue. Spurned younger brother of the emperor who fucks off to the shadowlands with "fine, I'll make my own empire! With blackjack, and hookers!" is fine and good, but holy poo poo just about everything else was dumb as hell. Just let them be the subtle infiltrators trying to rot the empire from the inside, that's an interesting-ish angle to run with.

The problem with that to an extent is that Shadowland's taint itself is also a creeping insidious evil, along with the Kolat if they bring them back and the Scorpion if you're one of the 6 other clans. You end up with too many creeping insidious evils. For a faction to work in the game it has to come from within the system of the great clans or why would they give a poo poo about your court games. They've got a lot of mileage with the three man alliance and tainting of great clans to go through first I think.

Cinnamon Bear
Aug 29, 2016

by FactsAreUseless
I'd rather see the Shadowlands as a corrupting force/mechanical theme represented through cards for the clans/neutrals instead of a faction on its own.

Aramoro posted:

The problem with that to an extent is that Shadowland's taint itself is also a creeping insidious evil, along with the Kolat if they bring them back and the Scorpion if you're one of the 6 other clans. You end up with too many creeping insidious evils. For a faction to work in the game it has to come from within the system of the great clans or why would they give a poo poo about your court games. They've got a lot of mileage with the three man alliance and tainting of great clans to go through first I think.

Also don't forget Ninjas/Nothing, Bloodspeakers, etc.

Hail Mr. Satan!
Oct 3, 2009

by zen death robot

Dick Burglar posted:

I think it's a really novel idea that L5R allows players to influence the course of history, but allowing weebs to make their OC Do Not Steal characters into official Mary Sues is really terrible and a severe detriment to the setting. Let them decide the outcome of a battle or something, not deify their stupid loving half-angel, half-demon, half-dragon character.

Was that a thing that actually happened though? Most of the stuff I remember were things like "choose one of these outcomes for the story"

Lord_Hambrose
Nov 21, 2008

*a foul hooting fills the air*



frakeaing HAMSTER DANCE posted:

Was that a thing that actually happened though? Most of the stuff I remember were things like "choose one of these outcomes for the story"

You have to remember that most writers are also huge fans that bring their own obsessions to the table. (Looking at you Ree Soesbee). So many decisions for so many tournaments for years was the big thing. You also has a problem with prominent decks ruling the tournament scene so all the important events mainly happened to two or maybe three clans for big chunks of time. And those two clans only have X NPCs to work with.

HidaO-Win
Jun 5, 2013

"And I did it, because I was a man who had exhausted reason and thus turned to magicks"
Nobody ever created a really crazy character, mostly characters got named by players. The weirdest stuff were the results of the story team setting up situations where players could make an unsuitable choice like an elephant finding a treasure or a Mantis Kenku Ninja.

PaybackJack
May 21, 2003

You'll hit your head and say: 'Boy, how stupid could I have been. A moron could've figured this out. I must be a real dimwit. A pathetic nimnal. A wretched idiotic excuse for a human being for not having figured these simple puzzles out in the first place...As usual, you've been a real pantload!

Aramoro posted:

The problem with that to an extent is that Shadowland's taint itself is also a creeping insidious evil, along with the Kolat if they bring them back and the Scorpion if you're one of the 6 other clans. You end up with too many creeping insidious evils. For a faction to work in the game it has to come from within the system of the great clans or why would they give a poo poo about your court games. They've got a lot of mileage with the three man alliance and tainting of great clans to go through first I think.

Exactly why I don't want to see Shadowlands back. Who cares about shades of grey, when there's a whole group of paint it black monsters marching on the wall.

And again with Game of Thrones being so popular, any story they tell about that will be seen as derivative(even if it already was), and unoriginal. The wall exists to keep the goblins from stumbing into farms and that's it. Maybe at some point down the line when they need a break they can toss in a Godzilla no Oni story, but I want that like 5 cycles from now after we've have a half dozen clan wars and a lot of characters have been fleshed out.

RocknRollaAyatollah posted:

My favorite is the guy who killed the Dragon champion in the last tournament for $1,500? to fix his car. It was the last tournament too so it ended up being win win for that guy.

I miss bounties. I'm pretty sure that won't be allowed by FFG, as they probably shouldn't be.

Brofessor Slayton
Jan 1, 2012

HidaO-Win posted:

Nobody ever created a really crazy character, mostly characters got named by players. The weirdest stuff were the results of the story team setting up situations where players could make an unsuitable choice like an elephant finding a treasure or a Mantis Kenku Ninja.

I know that the story choices were "okay, here's your prize money, and you can pick from these options that benefit your clan in different ways", but I always imagined it as the tournament winner being pulled up on some cheesy gameshow stage.

"You can take the washer-dryer-Promo Stronghold set! You can make Spider a great clan orrrrr you can take whatever's in the mystery box!"

Geisladisk
Sep 15, 2007

Games where one player was Shadowlands and the other was any deck that won via honor were so weird. I feel like proving you are more honorable and polite than a bunch of hellspawn who crawled out of some kind of black ooze is a pretty low bar.

There was also the problem if Shadowlands just not giving a poo poo about dishonor decks, which was an entire major deck archetype. A major archetype of deck literally autolosing against a faction was pretty awful game design.

Aramoro
Jun 1, 2012




The best storyline changes from tournaments where always the unintended ones. Lion became corrupt because they were all using Oni No Akuma. That's what I'd like to see back, if Scorpion with Crab makes a splash at tournaments maybe they become best buds in the storyline etc.

Cinnamon Bear
Aug 29, 2016

by FactsAreUseless
Solution:

Shadowlands should be a Big Box set that plays like Archenemy (1vMany) in Magic or is otherwise a multiplayer co-op experience. But otherwise is not a main faction for regular games.

Could do this with [insert foreign stereotype faction] too.

They did something similar with one of the Star Wars LCG big box sets

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

Brofessor Slayton posted:

I know that the story choices were "okay, here's your prize money, and you can pick from these options that benefit your clan in different ways", but I always imagined it as the tournament winner being pulled up on some cheesy gameshow stage.

"You can take the washer-dryer-Promo Stronghold set! You can make Spider a great clan orrrrr you can take whatever's in the mystery box!"

The box! The box!

PaybackJack
May 21, 2003

You'll hit your head and say: 'Boy, how stupid could I have been. A moron could've figured this out. I must be a real dimwit. A pathetic nimnal. A wretched idiotic excuse for a human being for not having figured these simple puzzles out in the first place...As usual, you've been a real pantload!

Cinnamon Bear posted:

They did something similar with one of the Star Wars LCG big box sets

They did and it was panned. It also introduced 2v2 rules that was ignored by pretty much everyone except one guy from Team Covenant. To be fair they introduced it as the 2nd deluxe so it was at a time when players wanted more cards for their decks and it gave each faction a single 1-off pod that could be played in standard 1v1 games. The challenge decks should have been a Print on Demand set and there should have been a ton more multiplayer pods in the box.

The "challenge deck" idea is great in theory but it would do gently caress all to placate Shadowlands players who want to see their faction represented in tournaments and such.

I would much rather just see a type of "agenda" to use a Game of Thrones LCG term, Wind or Sensei that corrupted a faction and allowed it to run neutral Shadowlands cards that would normally cause an honor hit, without suffering the honor hit but in term forbid you from winning by honor or made it so your personalities could never be have honored status.

Hail Mr. Satan!
Oct 3, 2009

by zen death robot
I like how we're barely 1 set in and already people are clamoring to disenfranchise part of the old player base lol

long-ass nips Diane
Dec 13, 2010

Breathe.

frakeaing HAMSTER DANCE posted:

I like how we're barely 1 set in and already people are clamoring to disenfranchise part of the old player base lol

I don't want them to disenfranchise anyone but if they just do the same stuff as old L5R but with new rules I'll be kinda disappointed.

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.
Yeah, there's no real point in resetting the timeline if they're just going to hit all the same story beats again. And I say this as someone who really wants Monkey clan back.

Hail Mr. Satan!
Oct 3, 2009

by zen death robot
Im not sure "having part of the setting exist" counts as a story beat

long-ass nips Diane
Dec 13, 2010

Breathe.

frakeaing HAMSTER DANCE posted:

Im not sure "having part of the setting exist" counts as a story beat

The shadowlands doesn't have to be a playable faction to exist (and it already exists, there's fiction on the FFG website about it).

I think they should be, but they need to be reworked from the ground up because of the way honor works now.

KittyEmpress
Dec 30, 2012

Jam Buddies

As someone who only played the rpg, the shadowlands was loving stupid, as was the Spider Clan. Every development got increasingly nonsensical and the entire plot looked idiotic any time either of those two started doing things. Like 5/7 great clans ended up corrupted at some point in time because the cards were good, the Spider Clan ignored basically all previous lore and went 'yeah they got to be a clan despite every single one of them being tainted and everyone knowing it's.

The setting books for 4e rpg tried it's best to make things coherent throughout, and yet when it got to the Spider Clan went 'wow we have no way to make this make sense.



I totally think that bad lore should be removed, and yeah, that means I don't think the game needs shadowlands or spider clan as playable factions. And from what I've seen of the lcg, large amounts of mechanics including whole win conditions are based on the idea that you aren't Just fighting, but also doing so in honorable ways and what not. I don't think creating deck archetypes that completely invalidate multiple archetypes is good.

That said, this is like, a super secondary concern to me, because I honestly don't think I'll play the lcg at length, but I will definitely play the rpg, so the lore not looking like a chaotic mess written by 20 authors with 500 decision points chosen by who had the most op deck is way more important to me.

OB_Juan
Nov 24, 2004

Not every day is a good day.


Dinosaur Gum
Maybe put out a set of shadowlands neutrals that you can use, but if you use any SL neutrals, you can't use any imperial ones. Have story choices based on if(or how many of) the tournament's winners are tainted by the shadowlands.

PaybackJack
May 21, 2003

You'll hit your head and say: 'Boy, how stupid could I have been. A moron could've figured this out. I must be a real dimwit. A pathetic nimnal. A wretched idiotic excuse for a human being for not having figured these simple puzzles out in the first place...As usual, you've been a real pantload!

frakeaing HAMSTER DANCE posted:

Im not sure "having part of the setting exist" counts as a story beat

I'm fine with them existing but their storylines don't mesh well with the themes of politics, intrigue, and clan warfare that make up the bulk of the game.

I mean gently caress there's a ton of Ratling fans and they sure as poo poo shouldn't bring that faction back.

I'll certainly admit to some bias as an old Scorpion player who played dishonor decks and ran into Shadowlands and it was just dumb because it was pretty much auto-lose unless I was playing a switch deck that could go military. It was a lovely element of the game that was only ever tolerated because playing dishonor was like playing a blue M:tG deck; no fun for most people even if there was a ton of interaction.

So yeah, add them in but don't make them a focus of the storyline for a long time, and if you add them to the LCG then do it in a passive way that doesn't detract from the rest of the game and plays in a somewhat similar fashion.

Hail Mr. Satan!
Oct 3, 2009

by zen death robot

KittyEmpress posted:

As someone who only played the rpg, the shadowlands was loving stupid, as was the Spider Clan. Every development got increasingly nonsensical and the entire plot looked idiotic any time either of those two started doing things. Like 5/7 great clans ended up corrupted at some point in time because the cards were good, the Spider Clan ignored basically all previous lore and went 'yeah they got to be a clan despite every single one of them being tainted and everyone knowing it's.

The setting books for 4e rpg tried it's best to make things coherent throughout, and yet when it got to the Spider Clan went 'wow we have no way to make this make sense.

I totally think that bad lore should be removed, and yeah, that means I don't think the game needs shadowlands or spider clan as playable factions.

I disagree with pretty much all of this. I think the way they earned their status was interesting

Aramoro
Jun 1, 2012




frakeaing HAMSTER DANCE posted:

Im not sure "having part of the setting exist" counts as a story beat

They can exist just not be a playable faction because it's dumb. If you look at the time line for L5R it was just insanely dumb, there's 6 years between Rain of Blood and the Destroyer War.

Scorpion Clan Coup happens in 1123 then it's under 50 years until the founding of the Spider Clan, that's mad.

With the reset of storyline it would be good if they just didn't do the Scorpion Clan Coup at all as banishing one of the factions is also an insanely bad idea for a game.

Aramoro
Jun 1, 2012




frakeaing HAMSTER DANCE posted:

I disagree with pretty much all of this. I think the way they earned their status was interesting

Yes I mean after attempting to assassinate the leaders of every great clan it sure makes sense that they would turn round and say 'Whelp your leaders dead so I guess you hideously corrupt and unashamedly evil people get to be a great clan now' and everyone's just fine with that.

Hail Mr. Satan!
Oct 3, 2009

by zen death robot

Aramoro posted:

Yes I mean after attempting to assassinate the leaders of every great clan it sure makes sense that they would turn round and say 'Whelp your leaders dead so I guess you hideously corrupt and unashamedly evil people get to be a great clan now' and everyone's just fine with that.

They sent them the gently caress away. It was basically a bribe to get them to gently caress off to the unexplored lands.

Hail Mr. Satan!
Oct 3, 2009

by zen death robot
Also it was balancing the scales for the original celestial fall.

1994 Toyota Celica
Sep 11, 2008

by Nyc_Tattoo
ain't never played any of the games for this franchise but i read some of the novels as a lad, and the scorpion coup was a great story. bayushi shoju was right

Aramoro
Jun 1, 2012




frakeaing HAMSTER DANCE posted:

They sent them the gently caress away. It was basically a bribe to get them to gently caress off to the unexplored lands.

As opposed to murdering every single last one of them because they were evil? I mean one of the families sole purpose is the annihilation of all people in Rokugan. Clan's have been purged from existence before for simply thinking about being tainted, it just makes no sense and gets forced in there from Storyline choices.


quote:

ain't never played any of the games for this franchise but i read some of the novels as a lad, and the scorpion coup was a great story. bayushi shoju was right

Shoju did nothing wrong!

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

PaybackJack posted:

I'm fine with them existing but their storylines don't mesh well with the themes of politics, intrigue, and clan warfare that make up the bulk of the game.

I mean gently caress there's a ton of Ratling fans and they sure as poo poo shouldn't bring that faction back.

I'll certainly admit to some bias as an old Scorpion player who played dishonor decks and ran into Shadowlands and it was just dumb because it was pretty much auto-lose unless I was playing a switch deck that could go military. It was a lovely element of the game that was only ever tolerated because playing dishonor was like playing a blue M:tG deck; no fun for most people even if there was a ton of interaction.

So yeah, add them in but don't make them a focus of the storyline for a long time, and if you add them to the LCG then do it in a passive way that doesn't detract from the rest of the game and plays in a somewhat similar fashion.

Ratling have their own sense of honor and could be made to work within the rules.
Shadowlands/Spider not really.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


I still think there should be a Shadowlands faction, although I don't think Spider's exactly the way it should go. It's fine if they're basically just a bunch of raiders who poke into rokugan or w/e that get repelled. I think the issue (at least from a story perspective) was that every time there was an incursion, it was basically THE END TIMES ARE NIGH. It's fine to have some outside pressure, but it shouldn't be constant and overwhelming. It also makes it less impactful when you actually do want to have some giant event. It's gonna be hard to just blank a lot of the backstory because there are people invested in it, but at some point it's a necessity, especially if you want this game to progress as something independent (which I expect they do).

And to get totally away from story stuff, looks like FFG just announced that they're doing a pack a week for the first cycle. This is something I've advocated for a bunch and I'm really glad to see them doing it (assuming it doesn't mean a 6 month gap until the next cycle starts or w/e). I know they've been actively playtesting a bunch of new stuff, so it's good seeing they're pushing it out. Getting more cards into the ecosystem is great for making sure these games take hold imo, as due to how they set up factions your choices for deckbuilding from even 3 core are still typically limited to all your clan stuff + a handful of splash.

alansmithee
Jan 25, 2007

Goodness no, now that wouldn't do at all!


Aramoro posted:

Shoju did nothing wrong!

Scorpion have always been the most noble of the clans.

PaybackJack
May 21, 2003

You'll hit your head and say: 'Boy, how stupid could I have been. A moron could've figured this out. I must be a real dimwit. A pathetic nimnal. A wretched idiotic excuse for a human being for not having figured these simple puzzles out in the first place...As usual, you've been a real pantload!

zeal posted:

ain't never played any of the games for this franchise but i read some of the novels as a lad, and the scorpion coup was a great story. bayushi shoju was right

Giving him a sword that corrupted him was basically an out to all the other clans so they could go 'See, he was evil!'

Pretty much the entire L5R storyline is no clan every being able to truly accomplish anything great because as soon as one starts to rise above the pack, the hands of the masses reach out to drag them back to the level of mediocrity that most rest at.

Yeah, I voted for the Khan to take over too.

Aramoro
Jun 1, 2012




PaybackJack posted:

Giving him a sword that corrupted him was basically an out to all the other clans so they could go 'See, he was evil!'

Pretty much the entire L5R storyline is no clan every being able to truly accomplish anything great because as soon as one starts to rise above the pack, the hands of the masses reach out to drag them back to the level of mediocrity that most rest at.

Yeah, I voted for the Khan to take over too.


It's the Crab's Fault

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality

1994 Toyota Celica
Sep 11, 2008

by Nyc_Tattoo
iirc in the scorpion coup it was objectively and specifically the crabs' fault

PaybackJack
May 21, 2003

You'll hit your head and say: 'Boy, how stupid could I have been. A moron could've figured this out. I must be a real dimwit. A pathetic nimnal. A wretched idiotic excuse for a human being for not having figured these simple puzzles out in the first place...As usual, you've been a real pantload!

alansmithee posted:

And to get totally away from story stuff, looks like FFG just announced that they're doing a pack a week for the first cycle. This is something I've advocated for a bunch and I'm really glad to see them doing it (assuming it doesn't mean a 6 month gap until the next cycle starts or w/e). I know they've been actively playtesting a bunch of new stuff, so it's good seeing they're pushing it out. Getting more cards into the ecosystem is great for making sure these games take hold imo, as due to how they set up factions your choices for deckbuilding from even 3 core are still typically limited to all your clan stuff + a handful of splash.

I think it's great, though I would have preferred a trio of Deluxe boxes, one a month instead as: a) I don't, for a second, believe that FFG can actually ship a new pack a week, and b) it allows for a meta to be established, played in, then shift and as such you can build a tournament more easily around knowing what product will be available.

Either way, despite having shipping issues to get everything to me. I'm glad that we'll see a deeper card pool faster. The core set feel extremely shallow to me.


I had originally written about how much you could really see the effects of confirmation bias in the L5R player base as people would be loyal to the death to defend even the most obvious and well founded criticism of their clan, and the player base took this to another level defending AEG and the design team.

This is good too though, real good.

PaybackJack fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Oct 11, 2017

Yawgmoth
Sep 10, 2003

This post is cursed!

Aramoro posted:

The best storyline changes from tournaments where always the unintended ones. Lion became corrupt because they were all using Oni No Akuma. That's what I'd like to see back, if Scorpion with Crab makes a splash at tournaments maybe they become best buds in the storyline etc.
Having deck choices determining plot is a huge reason the plot is so loving stupid and needs a reset in the first place, so I hope they do the exact opposite of this and leave the writing to the writers rather than a bunch of nerds in bathrobes.

Aramoro posted:

The problem with that to an extent is that Shadowland's taint itself is also a creeping insidious evil, along with the Kolat if they bring them back and the Scorpion if you're one of the 6 other clans. You end up with too many creeping insidious evils. For a faction to work in the game it has to come from within the system of the great clans or why would they give a poo poo about your court games. They've got a lot of mileage with the three man alliance and tainting of great clans to go through first I think.
The Kolat aren't really evil per se, they (or at least a good deal of them) want humanity run by humanity rather than a bunch of monsters in the sky. The problem really is that originally they're all painted with the same stupid brush when ideally they have something like:

Kolat: not evil, wants a different style of government also no gods no masters
Shadowlands: overt evil, wants to eat you
Spider clan/Bloodspeakers: insidious evil, wants to subvert your noble intentions
Scorpion clan: not evil, just not honorable either

So let all of these be factions but actually make them different from one another in goals and motives and tactics.

Hail Mr. Satan!
Oct 3, 2009

by zen death robot

Aramoro posted:

As opposed to murdering every single last one of them because they were evil? I mean one of the families sole purpose is the annihilation of all people in Rokugan. Clan's have been purged from existence before for simply thinking about being tainted, it just makes no sense and gets forced in there from Storyline choices.



Good luck with that. They had the backing of the commoners and were one of the most powerful military forces in Rokugan at the time. Challenging the Spider would have been a great way to overthrow the entire Empire. And the clan as a whole renounced the ways of Jigoku in order to get great clan status also, so much so that the Chuda hosed right out.

Hail Mr. Satan!
Oct 3, 2009

by zen death robot
The clan becoming a great clan wasn't an arbitrary choice, either. AEG deliberately told the Spider/Shadowlands players that the current state was untenable, and either Spider had to step up and start playing (somewhat) by the rules, or dissolve and fade back into Horde.

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The Lord of Hats
Aug 22, 2010

Hello, yes! Is being very good day for posting, no?
I'll admit, part of what originally got me interested in the LCG was the prospect of making it canon that Doji Hotaru poetry-ed somebody so hard that they died, but now I'm playing Lion, so whatever. I think it's kind of doable if you don't make it about huge story beats so much as who happens to be generally powerful at the time.

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