Brothers in Arms

1. Hello everyone. Just a reminder to all our friends in the L5R community that this is the web of a small community in Barcelona where, unfortunately, we don’t speak English well. So, everything you read in English will be translations from Chat GPT (including this text). We apologize for any potential errors or misunderstandings that may arise from this.
2. Nevertheless, we will do our best to respond to all your questions as quickly as possible.

Brother in Arms are a small group of 5 players, with over 20 years of experience in the game. We have witnessed nearly its entire evolution, from its inception with Alderac in 1995 to its modification in 2015 by Fantasy Flight Games. It is based on our subjective experience, valuing the aspects we have liked the most, that we present our rule construction.

As you will see, it closely aligns with those designed by another community of players, the Shiro Big Deck, with their Tanuki Rules (2016). In that case, it was a thick compendium accumulated to accommodate the rulings of all CCG expansions. We have simplified them since we are a new project.

For those of you who have also been accompanying this wonderful game for some time, we list the main innovations we introduce (not too many compared to Twenty Festivals):

1. Firstly, as we mentioned, a significant simplification of traits and abilities that we consider obsolete (Double Chi, Yu, Ninjutsu…), unnecessary (Honor, Sincerity, Courtesy…), of limited presence (Resilient, Stalwart…), or somehow duplicated (Melee with Ranged, Overconfident, or Brash with Expendable, Celestials with Events, etc.).
2. Restoration of the Events Phase. All members of our design group share the view that a destiny event is not something subject to human will, and therefore, it should be something that happens (events) rather than something we make happen (actions). A return to unique event cards that embrace randomness over control.
3. An increase in Unique cards. This third point is driven by our desire to create a design focused more on enjoyment than competition. Just as it is to propose greater interaction with the opponent’s deck, opening the door to playing with their cards.
4. Enhancement of the power level of rarely played card types such as Rings, Regions, Fortifications, or some Personalities (like Elemental Dragons). In general, we believe that if there are card types with specific rules that are seldom seen, the way to see them more often is to increase their power.
5. Restoration of Reactions and removal of Interruptions. Another point of consensus in our design group is that it is more intuitive, dynamic, simple, and natural to react to actions rather than interrupt them. Therefore, timing is simplified by, in some cases, reverting to the active player rule when two things happen simultaneously.
6. We will use the Engage Segment as in Ivory+, but we want to give it greater importance so that there will be more Personalities and strategies that will use engage as their main action phase with the intention of increasing interaction in this phase and making it more decisive.
7. An increase in card draw and the number of resources available. This change is aimed at adding complexity to decision-making and generating dynamism. Dynasty cards that replenish themselves, card arrangement with “discipline,” Personalities and Strategies with multiple actions, etc.

In general, our initial goal is to share with you, experienced players, a new card design and gameplay that conveys what, for us, is a pleasant gaming experience.

Greetings, and we continue to work!

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