Hello, all Legacy enthusiasts!

Since you can't know when I'm editing the "New Oracle Links" sticky at the top of the page, I'm making an announcement:

SPELLS ARE NOW DONE!

Tweaks continue on pre-existing Oracles, but I just this week hunkered down and tackled all the Spells from Imperial through Honor's Veil in a 7-day Oracling binge.

Whew! And I plan on doing Items next. This thing WILL be completed.

Later, all.

Edit: Say, Taikishi, since your post is the lead-off in the Oracle sticky, perhaps you could edit it to explain to the uninitiated just what the Oracle IS...

And, no, we shouldn't Oracle unreleased cards like Toturi III.

Pretty shameless bump, given all the enthusiastic replies I got to the OP.

But, sarcasm aside, I proudly announce the completion of half the Item Oracle!

Consider this a warning, Ken. I'm steadily and determinedly bringing the Oracle Project to the point where all we'll be waiting on is a web interface!

Further updates to come...

Great! Keep it up!:-p

Still working on the import utility. The web interface is close but I need to know what the data is going to be like in the DB before I get a test version ready.

Er... I'll pretend I understood that.

Great job! Keep it up!

It's really pretty simple. The text oracle is not in a single standard format that will make it easy for the text files to be processed by a computer program.

For instance:


and



Which means I have to write different programs for different files which is slow going. Don't worry about it though I'm making progress.

Well, in respect to that (and I hope this doesn't invalidate a lot of work you've already done), I'm trying to get all of the ones that I've done into the same format. I know, my Actions currently are the worst offenders to uniformity, but they shouldn't be by the time I'm done.

I'm sorry we didn't tell you sooner; I guess it was just internal communication. But the Oracle staff, such as we were at the time, had agreed on a uniform format:

Name
Type
Faction
F / C
HR / G / PH (or PS / G / FH for Strongholds)
Keywords
Traits
Abilities
FV
MRP

So, when I'm done, all card types should have the same omissions to that format as applicable to their type (with, hopefully, few to zero exceptions; Inazuma Blade in Spells having a F / C line coming to mind). Some of the card traits have extra carrage returns, I think, putting seperate sentences on seperate lines, but I believe it's mostly or exclusively SE-legal cards that I've cut, pasted, and not touched because they're inviolate.

I also have editing access to all of Taikishi's Oracles, so I can unify his formats as well (with his permission, if he's still too busy to do it himself) after I get my own house in order.

Edit: Forgot "Faction" and alternate Stronghold stat line. Even though it's only completely necessary for Strongholds, we added "Faction" to Personalities, too.

If you're doing this editing then I'll get a basic import utility based on that format done.

One thing that will really help, 2 carriage returns between each card and never anywhere else (i.e. no blank lines in an entry). This makes scanning for the end of each entry very easy.

Great work guys!

Ummm...kinda

They are certainly doing a lot of work and deserve praise for their perseverance.

I sincerely hope that the Oracle is never used to run tournaments with. It just makes it harder to know what a card does and severly changes many cards effects (just as if you issued an MRP or eratta). Just use compiled rules from all the sets, with newer rules taking presedence over older where they clash.

Cheers
UK Ronin

The oracle is (supposed to be?) only the text of the old card, adapted to modern standard.

99.9% of the changes are already covered by the "How to interpret older cards" set of rules in Legacy (most of which reflect the matching L5R rulebook).

0.1% is stuff that should have been part of the above sentence, but that we forgot.

Bottom line is, the Oracle should have no significant functional effect on how the cards are played in Legacy - except perhaps to have a single source to make it clear and end interpretations.

Got some examples?

I second Ken's statement.

If I've accidentally changed a card to be functionally different than how it worked during its own era, please let me know. I'm pretty sure I tried to not do that.

If I can admit to one conceit, it might be dropping "Unaligned" as superfluous from Personalities who had it without another Faction alignment (like TA, Ninja, or Monk). Now, I know there are ways to give those people an alignment that won't remove the Unaligned keyword and thus still have them susceptible to things that target the "Unaligned". But I was also considering suggesting as one of the coming revamps to Legacy that giving any Personality a Faction alignment will automatically wipe off "Unaligned". Granted, those Unaligned Ninjas, TAers, and Monks will still be oddballs (as intended and as they should be), but invoking such a rule will cause more consistency in general across a huge swath of Shadowlands Personalities (pre-Broken Blades versus post) and all pre- versus post-SE "Unaligned"s... unless they're Monks, Monkeys, or Ninja .

I'd avoid dropping the trait. If it changes how one card works, that's bad mojo.

One must also consider "Dark Harmony". If you remove the trait 'Unaligned' from a character, and he doesn't have a faction trait, is he still Unaligned?

Also, suppose that the 'Unaligned' trait is the only trait left on the character, and you need a 4th action for your Ring of the Void, you should be able to play it on the character's Unaligned boldface trait.

Dark Harmony
Limited: Bow a Ring you control or discard a Ring from your hand: Permanently remove a boldface non-faction trait from a target Personality.