Design Diaries: The Seventh Virtue

Sometime after the Onyx Lives! Project got underway, we realized that we had introduced mechanics for six Bushido keywords, but we were missing the seventh: Duty. Various ideas were discussed, including "service after death" (minor bonuses from your dead pile), etc. The one thing we knew was that with three very clear Fate-side mechanics (Courage, Honesty, Honor), one clear Dynasty-side mechanic (Sincerity), and two swing mechanics (Compassion, Courtesy), this should probably be a Dynasty-side keyword.

The eventual ideation of the mechanic was "service when needed," represented by the ability to be "called back" into a Province at a later point during the game, a way of mitigating late-game turns with Province flips full of Holdings. This was pitched as sort of an "anti-Kharmic," and at one time was literally that, "pay 2 Gold to refill your Province with a discarded Duty card". The Gold cost version felt off, and we eventually arrived at a Fate card cost. Some clans and themes would be able to make better use of the keyword with recycle/reuse potential, which was fine. We had a brief debate over whether the ability should be Repeatable, but felt once per turn was fine.

• Duty Open: You may discard a card from your hand to reshuffle a face-up card in a Province and refill it with a discarded (not dead) Duty card.

Rather than discard the card in the Province, we elected to have the ability reshuffle. This was also not intended as a resurrection mechanic, so it was limited to discarded Personalities only. This would make it useless for certain setups, such as Unicorn with Rani Sensei. (Rani Sensei, conversely, would receive some of the best anti-Duty meta in its banish effects against opponents' discard piles.) Duty being usable as an Open action meant that players could potentially refill two Personalities on a turn cycle, which was determined to be fine; placing one on your opponent's turn is a telegraph of your intentions, and gives them the opportunity to disrupt your plans by taking the province, etc.

Duty would be best, we felt, on solid mid-game Personalities. You didn't want to discard a Fate card to get back a low-cost spud; instead, get back a solid Unique like Teskath or Hida Kurabi, or someone with a useful ability, like Akodo Eirasu. We also had space to explore various Duty-related mechanics:

• the one-two punch of Kharmic + Duty (Asako Dotari)

• triggers when Duty is used (Bayushi Nomen, Clever Strategist, Mirumoto Tadakuni (ROU))

• cards that have an ability usable from discard until you bring them back with Duty (Hida Osuro) -- aka the "never off-Duty" contingent

• cards that have an effect when discarded from a Province (Suikihime's Domain, Moto Oyuun)

• the non-Personality space, allowing for reusable actions on Events like Siege of the Great Wall or Holdings like Forgotten Storage, at the cost of a Fate card

Duty is a very simple keyword (in contrast to the more complex Sincerity and Honesty which we preserved mostly intact, but which immediately preceded it), but we determined very quickly that it opened a whole new realm of future Design space, as seen from its multiple interactions in the list above. It had the right feel of helping smooth out bad flips late game, and could be applied both mechanically and thematically. Since we were adding this as a new keyword to the previously-begun Road to Ruin (RtR) set, it allowed us to rethink multiple cards' design. A set whose Alpha designs were intended for a printed product environment (and thus originally including cards designed for Draft) became our first major rework to reconsider how we were using our set slots. With the introduction of Duty, the Bushido keyword mechanic suite was now complete.

PLEASE PARDON OUR DUST

This article originally appeared on Facebook as a work-in-progress description of changes made during our initial Onyx Lives! design phases. The information in it may be outdated, but it is presented here as part of an ongoing attempt to consolidate all of the various public writings we have made along the way.