(Message luke:62)
Date:    Tue, 18 May 1999 15:10:09 PDT
To:      <l5rinfo@frpg.com>
From:    "Luke Peterschmidt" <Lukeout@frpg.com>
Subject: New Team Member

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X-ListMember: andy@cowell.org [l5rinfo@frpg.com]

Hey All,
   Ed Bolme, the Associate Brand Manager who works on Doomtown, is now going
to be spending some time on the L5R brand. I have asked him to be my
assistant with a very focused goal - increase the amount of player control
in L5R. After much thinking and discussing about polling on this list (you
see I do listen), and examination of the L5R Brand Identity, it is clear to
me that one of the coolest things about L5R is that it truly is the players
game. We take card ideas from players. We take tournament results and bend
the storyline because of player actions. Hell, we even plan on having fan
fiction and artwork in the Herald. It is your game, and I want Ed to
spearhead the effort of giving you all more control.
   As I mentioned before, so topics are sacred cows. I will never put up to
a vote release schedules, rarity mixes, marketing messages, etc..., but
other areas are open game. Many of the topics will be decisions that we
make, but specifics that you dictate (see example below).
   We will not just be listening to players on this list. We will have
feedback loops with fan club members, convention attendees, etc... We'll
even do some specific faction based decisions. Ed and I are in the process
of working out a set of criteria and methods to get more player feedback in.
I want to warn you that everyone will not be involved in ever decision. We
may do things that are just weird, like holding a special Ninja vote on the
web site that we hide on the site somewhere obscure and tell no one about,
that we only leave up for 2 days. We may take a poll at GenCon Spain.
Whatever we want. Clearly, many of these "polls" will be play related. Some
may be related to your current ranking, how many koku you've turned in in
the last 6 months, how many different clans you've played in tournaments in
the last 6 months... whatever wackiness we can think of that doesn't detract
from the core of what L5R is.
    To those of you who have never met Ed, he is the most "gamerific" of the
brand managers I have met. He always keeps the players first and has come
out with some really wacky but cool ideas (such as including beef jerky in
the Doomtown League kits). I have a feeling that Ed will be the one always
pushing for more and more and I'll be the one trying to reign him in. That's
a good dynamic to have...

Here's an example - JUST AN EXAMPLE - of the kinds of things that I could
see putting up to a strait IA vote (or web vote, or list vote).
Let's assume that players fall in love with the new card frames (not a
stretch, I find them to be awesome). And many players say that they wish the
old cards were available with the new frames. I may make the following
announcement... "In every expansion this year, we are going to include 10
reprinted commons and 3 reprinted Uncommons from earlier sets. Although
these cards would appear on those sheets, they would replace a second
occurrence of other cards so that the set would be just as easy to collect.
I could then get a list of 50 commons and 10 Uncommons from releases such as
TotV, SL, or AoD, and have you all vote on which ones you want to see
reprinted.


Hopefully, we'll have a good plan together before too long. Like I said, Ed
is a total game fan (wrote part of the Unicorn Book for the RPG) and a great
guy to boot. I'm sure you'll be hearing more from him soon.

Asta,
Luke Peterschmidt
Brand Manager: L5R, LBS


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