A topic from AEG's L5R CCG Rules forum, copied for Oracle of the Void from a copy of the forum saved in October 2015, so pages it didn't save are missing. Players' names are left out; the rules officials are named. Rulings are as they stood on these dates; later rulings, the rulebooks and the Rules Archive may differ.
(spun off from viewtopic.php?f=59&t=102863 ) http://rules.l5r.com/EE_Glossary_S#Search "To inspect a deck, or all cards in another area, in order to select one or more cards from it. "
If an action requires me to choose a performing personality, am I searching my home/battlefield area for that personality? If an action requires me to target an enemy card, am I searching the battlefield for that card?
You don't need to "inspect" cards in play. They're there for everyone to see (face up), and they're not forming a pile. You just choose them, or target them, without any need to "inspect" them. That definition is for cards forming piles in out of play areas.
re: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=102892&view=unread#p1353675
http://rules.l5r.com/EE_Glossary_S#Search The player may choose to have a search fail; he or she need not retrieve a suitable card even if found. [ADDED 6 April 2012]
Learning: Battle: Choose your performing Personality and a Battle Strategy in another player's discard pile: stuff
Since choosing a card in a discard pile is searching ( viewtopic.php?p=1353596#p1353596 ), and a player may choose to have a search fail, am I able to announce and resolve Learning if my opponent has no battle strategies in his discard pile just to copy a keyword on an enemy personality?
Since targeting a card in a discard pile is also searching ( viewtopic.php?p=1349438#p1349438 ), does the answer to the above question extend to any card which targets a card in a discard pile, allowing Empress' Address to be used to gain 2 honor even if I have no non-unique personalities in my discard pile?
Chris Fuchs wrote:Since choosing a card in a discard pile is searching ( http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 6#p1353596 ), and a player may choose to have a search fail, am I able to announce and resolve Learning if my opponent has no battle strategies in his discard pile just to copy a keyword on an enemy personality?
I'm putting this one under discussion.
Since targeting a card in a discard pile is also searching ( http://www.alderac.com/forum/viewtopic. ... 8#p1349438 ), does the answer to the above question extend to any card which targets a card in a discard pile, allowing Empress' Address to be used to gain 2 honor even if I have no non-unique personalities in my discard pile?
That particular targeting may be a case of "searching", but in any case targeting is still targeting, and that has implications under the Good Faith Rule. If you have no possible choices for a required target for an action, that action is illegal to announce, search or not.