Design Diaries: Retemplating Sincerity

Sincerity was a new keyword which was to be introduced to L5R with the set The Blackest Storm (TBS), part of the ongoing series of Bushido Virtue related keywords which began in Ivory Arc. This was one of the more convoluted mechanics, which worked as follows:

• Before your turn ends, give each Sincerity card in your Provinces a Sincerity token.

Each card would then list the effect generated from purchasing the card with one or more Sincerity tokens on it. The longer you held onto such a card, the more benefit you would derive from it when you finally purchased it. The decision-making to keep cards in province rather than aggressively flushing as usual led to some interesting interactions.

One of the issues this mechanic created was a proliferation of tokens. As originally templated, the Sincerity tokens remained on the card, having zero effect on gameplay after the card was purchased (other than as a reminder for certain permanent changes to the card). In addition, multiple Sincerity cards created an equal number of a totally different type of token, which meant that a card like Moshi Madohime would (briefly) have both Sincerity and Cloud tokens.

By the time I was brought onto Design in early 2015 (shortly after the initial design of Rise of Jigoku (RoJ)), discussion was already taking place regarding the token explosion. A decision was made to re-template the mechanic, which was done for cards in RoJ and moving forward; however, TBS was already at the printer, and Onyx Edition was wrapping up. I was able to propose a slightly modified rule for the keyword and a new template for how its effects should resolve, but the game was shuttered before we had the chance to formally re-template anything for Onyx Edition (much less potentially revisit TBS).

• Before your turn ends, give each Sincerity card in your Provinces a Sincerity token. After a Sincerity card enters play, remove all Sincerity tokens from it.

The Sincerity trait appearing in card text, as seen on Sapphire Mine, reads as:

• After this Sincerity keyworded card is Recruited, resolve the Sincerity trait effect as worded (by default, once per Sincerity token removed).

As the old Design members have come to work on the unofficial "Onyx Lives!" passion project, we've stuck with the modified Sincerity template designed in 2015. This left a gap for the originally written Sincerity cards, as we are not re-creating those card images due to the official art assets. We've provided a Sincerity Templating Datasheet in the public Onyx folder, with rewordings which address the intent of how the finished TBS and Onyx cards would most likely have been re-templated.