Deja Vu!

[kempy]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/160842683946823/posts/9875608135803514?comment_id=9875888572442137

Rob Hobart
The original plans for the Destroyer War metagame were far more ambitious than what actually happened. Instead of just a generic map with Clans voting on moving tokens around for modest effects, there was going to be an actual "wargame" with stats and rules and combat resolution. So the Clan armies could have won or lost major battles, changed the course of the war, saved or lost major holdings and castles, etc.
Unfortunately the Brand Manager (who IIRC lived in Ireland) who had all these big plans suddenly quit after only about six months. We never did find out why, although the rumor we heard was that his doctor told him the job was ruining his health.
AEG hurriedly promoted an intern into the position, which led to various problems, including the second Winter Court launching with very little coordination with Story (when originally approved, it was supposed to be tied in closely to the upcoming wargame), and the metagame itself getting delayed and then eventually throttled back massively to what we actually got.

[kempy]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/160842683946823?multi_permalinks=9950054381692222

[kempy]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/160842683946823/posts/10082028481828144/?comment_id=10086896064674719&reply_comment_id=10086961754668150

Douglas Dee
Playtesting was a shit show and thats putting it nicely. Playtest was maybe 9 months ahead of the actual game when I was a playtester, but the real pains were the following
1) Arguing with other teams that a card like Favors (https://oracleofthevoid.com/#game=l5r,#cardid=2492) was indeed a fate card - specifically a strategy card and thus could not be run in their dynasty deck as a 3 of and treated like an event that just gained you 2 honor when it was your events phase.
2) Having to test clearly overpowered items that ended games on turn 2 or turn 3 during playtesting
3) Showing the lead designer that occurrences he thought were "highly unlikely" would actually happen 43% of the time and his response was something akin to "I'm not good at math so you must be wrong".
I'll post as I remember more.
Outside of Playtesting, the constant rules changes. GE to DE had no rules changes that I can remember, but DE to LE was huge, LE to SE was even more drastic, CE to EE was another huge change, and then EE to Ivory/20F was another. The most common complaint about not returning for another arc was the drastic shifts in rules changes that made veteran players hesitant to return for another arc and thus not spend $ on the game.
TL/DR: Put some of the blame at the feet of the lead designer from SE to EE.


Daniel Benson
Douglas Dee To add to what Doug stated here. It was very disheartening during playtest when we posted reports, complete with play-by-play and decklists, showing that Dragon could start taking provinces on turn 3 with access to a ton of kill actions and enough protection to ensure they didn't lose any bodies, all while still being able to put more bodies in play than their opponent and turning each into solo Provence smashing killing machines. Only to have the rest of playtest telling us we didn't know what we were talking about and that our decklists would never be viable. If you remember what the Dragon Kensai decks were a problem at the start of Emperor Edition, you can thank Doug and I for fighting to make sure they were not 1000 times worse.


https://www.facebook.com/groups/160842683946823/posts/10082028481828144?comment_id=10083482131682779

John Zinser
I see a lot of my name in this article.  I have recently been thinking about L5R and the product and business decisions we made. I miss it. I still think we made the right decision for AEG and at the time for L5R. The people inside of FFG who wanted L5R were passionate and had big plans for it. I often wonder what the alternate universe looks like where we did not sell L5R and instead focused only on that brand. As a fan I see the ads for the upcoming monolith miniatures game and am excited that the world still exists. I still feel that the L5R path would have been the harder one. I am sure we would have had to refresh the team, make big changes to the L5R universe, and somehow figure out how to pull new players into a 20 year old CCG with a very opinionated, entrenched, and passionate player base. L5R was the hardest most rewarding work I have done in my 32 years in the industry. But it was exhausting. I love all the people who worked on the world with us and am in still in awe of their talent. I say this every time I post about L5R if we broke your heart with our decisions or actions we apologize. We formed a closer bond with our L5R players than most companies do and gave them control which invested them in the product and story. I am still hopeful L5R will go full Pheonix and have a rebirth but until then must be happy to relive the great moments, accomplishments, and friends made.

[kempy]

[kempy]

Spookyelectric — Wczoraj o 23:59
To be fair to the later teams, story team member vanity characters tended to just get cards, not really appearing in fictions or anything. There may have been one or two exceptions if they were explicitly chosen by players for a story prize

Spookyelectric — 00:00
The OG teams though, they’re littered everywhere
Even Niccolo Machiavelli got a vanity insert character!
(Bayushi Tangen, author of Lies)

Shinjo Aramaki — 00:01
who are some of the other ones?

Spookyelectric — 00:03
The one I know for absolute certain is Bayushi Yojiro = John Wick
One that I’m not as sure of is Ree Soesbee = Doji Shizue. That one is based on rumors from the time, and it may not be true. I don’t think Ree ever confirmed

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Spookyelectric = Robert Denton

[kempy]

Stary Zen się uaktywnił wspominkowo.

https://sites.google.com/view/steel-and-iron/home?fbclid=IwY2xjawN9Y1xleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETB4T1gwZmNVYkVTd0xFNWtJc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHtqeHB-q4seolOxd-bQ72GU7oFH8KFVXVPZAzQZLfXDW2Dr3OYMnIbOHAKVS_aem_KOmLxvwwLqIVJ9oaCuU3Uw

[kempy]

Zen Faulkes
Another great interview! I want to add a little detail to the story of the “Lion Speed Deck,” because that deck changed L5R forever.
In Imperial Edition, five clans had nine personalities. Lion only had eight, because of the fall and dishonor of the Lion champion Akodo Toturi.
The pre-Imperial promo cards featured Lion personality Matsu Turi, who was renamed Matsu Gohei in Imperial Edition. To give all clans the same number of personalities to work with, Matsu Turi was made a distinct card from Matsu Gohei.
But Gohei / Turi were low cost personalities. They could both be targeted with +3 force boosters Charge and Strength of Purity. Lion players basically had six copies of the same very efficient personality. And decks were smaller then (20 Dynasty and 20 Fate cards), so the chance of a turn 1 Gohei or Turi, followed by a turn 2 province kill, was very high.
And that was the basis of the “Lion Speed Deck.”
Eventually, the deck was so dominant that Turi was returned to the pool of promo cards as a promo version Matsu Gohei, with thanks to his service to the Empire. Decks were increased to 30 Dynasty and 30 Fate cards. These changes helped, but versions of the Lion Speed Deck remained very competitive for years and won at the Day of Thunder.

[kempy]