By Roger Giner-Sorolla
L5R CCG Mechanics Editor
One of the hardest jobs in this game is judging at a large tournament. I got the chance to do just that in the elimination rounds of the World Championships in Brussels last October, soon after I became L5R’s technical editor. I already had good feelings about the Samurai Edition rules back then. We’d gotten the go-ahead to do something never before done in an L5R base set: rebuild the rules from the ground up, and plan the environment and wording changes before the first legal expansion, The Khan’s Defiance, went to press. As my legs rushed from table to table, and my brain wrestled with all the frustrating complications in the Lotus rules, one recurring thought kept popping into my mind:
“This shouldn’t happen in Samurai Edition.”
I soon realized that it wasn’t going to be easy. Setting up the rules and wordings involves a tough balancing act between three things judges and players both hate. First, they hate it when cards are not clear. With a basic knowledge of the rules, you should be able to read the card and figure out what it does. With the emphasis on recruiting new players in Samurai Edition, smoothing out the learning curve was a must. This also meant that card wordings had to get shorter, and that a lot of complicated or seldom-used rules had to go. Samurai Edition would have plenty of room for flavor, but not at the expense of understanding the game. Simpler rules and clearer cards would mean fewer judge calls, and more time for us to sit back and sip some cherry-flavored Belgian beer.
Second, everyone hates when cards are not intuitive: the way they work shouldn’t be surprising or weird. Cards going in the hand face-up, personalities keeping Yu 0 after an effect gives them Yu, and the multi-staged complexity of performing, are just a few of the Lotus rules I’ve seen players puzzled or unhappy about. Instead of players bending logic to follow the rules, I wanted Samurai Edition to follow, as far as possible, how the majority of experienced players naturally think about the game.
Now, the great thing about intuition is that everyone has their own hunches and understandings. But because L5R is a game played worldwide and taken seriously by thousands, the rules also have to be consistent. Nothing is worse for a judge than making a tough call in a finals round, only to find out later it isn’t correct – unless you’re the player deprived of victory by that wrong call.
As Zen Faulkes said a while ago, “Intuition and consistency fight.” This is why people laugh at the packages of salted nuts that warn allergy sufferers: “Contains nuts”. A consistent rule (“if this package contains nuts, it has the warning”) can give results that look weird or silly. But experience shows that having consistent rules is a must for a game where so much hangs on tournaments. This means that while there will still be unintuitive moments, I’ve tried to minimize them. Add to this the need for cards to be easy to understand … well, it’s a good thing that I had a lot of help from the members of the Rules Team – Zen Faulkes, Marty Lund and Chris Fuchs. These guys have been making tough decisions for years and were in a great position to let me know exactly what they wanted to see. I think they’re also pretty happy about the huge Comprehensive Rules website, which incorporates all the topics covered in the L5R Rulings Archive, and a lot more. Expect frequent additions and updates to this site as new cards, effects and rulings come up.
Moving beyond the technicalities of rules and wordings, the Samurai Design team also agreed to a number of basic changes in how the game plays out. There aren’t that many of these, but there’s a strong reason behind each one.
• We wanted attachments to be more powerful, so they can now be more easily transferred, and big Followers don’t stop boosting your army if their Personality bows.
• The sun has set on Winds, and the single Imperial Favor is back with a definitely old-school flavor. The actions are powered down a little for Samurai – it cycles cards instead of just drawing them, and you’ll need Presence to use the Battle action, because too much card draw is bad and opposed battles are good.
• Honor is still important in the game, but failing to meet Honor Requirements no longer completely shuts down a deck of steadfast Clan-aligned people. This change will be huge, as it frees up Design to make balanced Honor loss effects, and high Honor players won’t have to worry so much whether their Personalities can commit seppuku.
• The change to Naval really came about because of the Tsuruchi family. It’s not in character to design these woodland archers as Naval, yet the old rule forced Mantis players to run all-Naval armies. Now Naval works in a mixed army, so you can strike first with Naval cards and follow up with the rest.
• Finally, after years and years of decks finding quick and easy ways to Enlightenment, it’s now official – an Enlightenment victory has to be done the hard way, putting the Rings into play by their own conditions. As with the Honor Requirement rule, this actually makes it easier for Design to use the Ring theme without worrying about breaking the game. Good news, in particular, for the Dragon Clan.
With all these changes, I’m really looking forward to judging in Samurai Edition. I’m especially looking forward to the time when someone calls me over and asks some question about a technicality from the old days. Maybe they still think that bowed Personalities can’t perform an action that has something to do with someone issuing an unconditional challenge, or however that rule went. Then I can lean over and tell them:
“This doesn’t happen in Samurai Edition.”
