Highlights from the FFG #L5RLive Facebook Livestream

On Friday 12th May FFG hosted a Livestream on Facebook where they answered a number of questions sent through to them. The Livestream was hosted by one of the FFG staff (not named) and included Katrina Ostrander the story lead for L5R, Brad Andres one of the designers of the FFG LCG, Nate French the senior LCG designer. The core set was designed by Nate, Brad, and Eric Dolman who was not at the Livestream. Below we’ve included some of the highlights from the discussion sorted into Mechanics, Storyline, and Gencon.

Editted to include Gencon Events

Mechanics

Multiplayer – Brad referred to the game as a 2 Player Cardgame, however, a later discussion about multiplayer was not answered suggesting there will be a later reveal.

Influence – It was revealed that the Dynasty deck will only contain clan and unaligned cards, so no Dragon personalities in a Crane Dynasty deck. The Conflict deck, on the other hand, does have the option of including some cards from another clan. The bamboo icons on the Strongholds show how many cards from another clan can be used, conflict cards that can be used have a number of bamboo icons from 1 to 3. The revelation was that you can only use cards from one other clan, not multiple. It is currently unclear if conflict cards without bamboo icons are considered ‘free’ or may not be used.

Skills – Characters with a skill marked as – cannot be in conflicts of that skill. This represents an inability to participate at this type of conflict. They cannot be assigned to those types of conflicts and if the conflict type changes to that conflict type while they are in a conflict they are bowed and sent home immediately.

Mulligan – both provinces and conflict hand card by card. The ones you want to replace you replace them and the get shuffled into your deck. Works out pretty slick.

Fate economy – Obviously stronghold provides a certain amount of Fate per turn. There are some cards that let you get a little extra economy but not in the way you would expect. There is a card that lets you put fate on a character but nothing like an economy engine. It is pretty flat. Additional fate is based on how I play the game, such as the first player to pass during the dynasty phase gets 1 fate and unclaimed rings get fate placed upon them that can be claimed later.

Using abilities – Bowed characters can use printed abilities if bowing is not part of the cost. In general cards outside of conflicts can use abilities. Many characters will specifically say as part of their ability if they have to be in the conflict. It was a design choice to have shugenja abilities usable when the shugenja are outside of the conflict. This gives shugenja this extra feel.

Conflicts Broken provinces cannot be the target for a conflict. Designers felt it didn’t move the story along and could be used to stall the game. They went back and forth over who had the first action in the conflict. Generally, there is a goal of encouraging aggression. In this case, they decided to have the defender as the first action as it encouraged defence. It balances the scale between aggression and defence and encourages conflicts.

Characters from the conflict deck – If you’re playing a character from the conflict deck during a conflict you can place as much fate as you have available on them. So quite like during the dynasty phase.

Rings – A ring is considered to be contested, claimed, or unclaimed. There are cards that will effect rings when they are in certain places.

Duelling – This was mentioned in the AMA and was covered again this time. Duels will be military or political. Dials are used, in the same was as during the card draw phase. The dial number (1 to 5) is added to the stat, the highest total is the winner. Honour shifts based on the difference between dial choice.

Honour / Dishonour – Theoretically you could win by honour or dishonour without focusing on conflicts, but it sounds like a bad idea. You would be ignoring tools at your disposal.

Story

Story Focus – One of the key elements of the story is the inherent conflict between human feelings (Ninjō) vs duty to a lord (Giri). Emotions vs responsibilities. To serve your lord is to be truly happy but life is a little more complex than that. The characters will be the centre of the story and their difficult choices will drive the story. The difficulty with Bushido is that the tenants do conflict and cause dilemmas.

Big Bads – There have been many grand villains, from Fu Leng to Iuchiban and many others. Having a great force converging on the empire is one kind of story. To Kat, she wants to start with the clans themselves. Have the clans as their own greatest strength and worst enemy. Each clan has their own objectives and drives which bring them into conflicts with other clans. You can have those empire crushing threats on the edge but it is more interesting to see how the clans conflict with each other, as the players will be playing those clans.

Diversity – Rokugan is a country that features east Asian ethnicity primarily Japanese. There are areas outside of Rokugan that they can explore in the future. They can have diversity within Rokugan, for example, Gender and Age. A balance of men and women characters is important, they strived really hard to have equal representation. This allows players to identify with the game and see themselves reflected in the game.

Story Releases – Lots of stories to come. First fiction will launch on the website next week. They will start diving into the clans and how their champions tick. As the game releases the story will be on the website and in the releases, so you will need both to get the full story. The writers are amazing, old and new names. An incredible amount of craft. You will fall in love with the setting all over again.

World building – The upcoming stories are going to have a lot of background elements. They do have many more years to develop the story and the setting. It is not the same Rokugan as with AEG. They may use some of the elements but we will have to wait and see what is familiar and what is fresh.

Clan champions – All 7 clan champions will be in the core set. They are choosing to separate the fiction and the game. This frees the story team and the LCG design team to both do the best job. The game is a giant sandbox to explore the world. If a champion should get stabbed in the back and killed, you will still be able to play the champion. The game represents the overall game period. The storyline beings in the first half of the 12th century and will progress. The game can be considered to represent the whole period rather than just the current moment in the storyline. They could print another card for the character at a later date.

Gencon

Storyline prize –  There will be a storyline prize at Gencon. Details to be revealed closer to Gencon.

Events – The event guide will be coming out next week.- Couple Panels, Limited PreRelease (a few of you will be able to get your hands on it), Couple Tournaments.

Edited to add the following. These are the details which have just gone up on the Gencon page.

Seminars

Designing the Legend of the Five Rings LCG: Join the Fantasy Flight Games design team as they discuss the the update from the CCG format to the LCG & how the themes of the setting informed the mechanics.

The Stories & Setting of Rokugan: Join the Fantasy Flight Games story team for a behind-the-scenes look at the art, the fiction & the world of Rokugan in the new Legend of the Five Rings LCG.

Fantasy Flight Games In Flight Report: Join Fantasy Flight Games for the annual In-Flight Report where all of the latest news and announcements will be revealed.

Tournaments

Legend of the Five Rings Inaugural Tournament & Celebration: Event registration closes at 12:30pm on Thursday, August 17th. The Opening Celebration starts promptly at 1:00pm. Afterwards, players will receive one Core Set to construct a deck with, using the “Deckbuilding” rules provided in the Learn To Play booklet that comes in the Core Set. Once players have selected their clan they will report to tournament HQ to be entered into the tournament and receive their exclusive clan promos and participation prizes. For Rules, FAQ, and more, please visit our website. 350 Players.

Legend of the Five Rings Tournament: Event registration closes at 12:30pm on Friday, August 18th. The first round will begin promptly at 1:00pm. To compete, players will construct a deck from one core set using the deckbuilding rules provided in the Learn to Play booklet that comes in the core set of Legend of the Five Rings. After the Swiss rounds the Top 16 players will be selected to return Saturday, August 19th at 9:30am for the Elimination rounds! For Rules, FAQ, and more, please visit our website. 100 Players

Legend of the Five Rings Tournament Top 16: The top 16 players that qualified on the Friday, August 19th Legend of the Five Rings tournament for the elimination rounds will report at 9:30am on Saturday, August 20th. Players will compete in a single elimination bracket to crown one champion!

Legend of the Five Rings Casual Tournament: Play in a Legend of the Five Rings casual tournament for fun and prizes. Registration ends at 9:30am on Sunday, August 20th. The first of three Swiss rounds begins at 10:00am. To compete, players will construct a deck from one core set using the deckbuilding rules provided in the Learn to Play booklet that comes in the core set of Legend of the Five Rings. 120 Players.

 

Upcoming

Every other week FFG will have a clan focus starting with the crane clan next week. There will be more talks upcoming.

Check out our Twitch stream this Monday at 20:00 BST, 21.00 CEST, 13:00 PST.

We will be releasing this as a YouTube video and a podcast later. Follow us on Twitter for more updates.