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.
I picked up the Twenty Festivals Starter Display with the 9 decks and read everything I could. Spent yesterday trying several decks against my little brother, and we did our best to get through some games.
Some cards seem two have two different effects on them. Do you simply choose only one to play at a given phase?
If the card does not bow as a result, can you then use the other effect, or is it one per turn, or perhaps one per phase?
I picked up the Twenty Festivals Starter Display with the 9 decks and read everything I could. Spent yesterday trying several decks against my little brother, and we did our best to get through some games.
Some cards seem two have two different effects on them. Do you simply choose only one to play at a given phase?
If the card does not bow as a result, can you then use the other effect, or is it one per turn, or perhaps one per phase?
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "effects". The text box on a card can have several different types of text: All cards also have a text box. This can contain up to three game-relevant elements: Keywords, which are printed in all caps above a separating line; traits, or normal text in the text box; abilities, or normal text preceded by boldface words in the text box. The text box also includes color text and flavor text.
These different types of text generate effects in different ways. Effects are described in detail here.
If by "effects" you mean traits, these are either continuous, which means that they are always applicable while their card is in play, or triggered, which means that they produce their stated effects each time the triggering effect occurs.
If by "effects" you mean abilities, these allow you to take actions. If an ability is on a card in play, you may generally take one action per turn from each of its abilties, subject to the constraint that you cannot use abilities on bowed cards. If the ability is on a Strategy, you may take an action play it from hand, after which it goes to the discard pile: when you annouce the action you must state which of the card's abilities you are using, and since you cannot use abilities on cards in your discard pile (unless the card has Discipline) you will only be able to use one of its abilities.