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 straightened two personalities while my opponent had Crippling Weather in play. He demanded I bow them both. I explained that they weren't performing anything. He says anything before the colon is considered to be performing (i.e. targeting). I understood the colons to simply denote cost of playing the card. Ususally if someone is to perform an action, it will explicitly say "perform" on the card.
Should I have been able to straighten my guys? Or am I in the wrong here?
I straightened two personalities while my opponent had Crippling Weather in play. He demanded I bow them both. I explained that they weren't performing anything. He says anything before the colon is considered to be performing (i.e. targeting). I understood the colons to simply denote cost of playing the card. Ususally if someone is to perform an action, it will explicitly say "perform" on the card.
Should I have been able to straighten my guys? Or am I in the wrong here?
Under Celestial Edition rules, performance of an action can be indicated by targeting in the constraints block.
http://rules.l5r.com/CE_FAQ#What_performs_an_action.3F
Mod nudge: Read the FAQ!
So I saw this ruling by Zen, and while I completely agree that is what the rules say. I also remember this little post about the templating change for Before the Dawn, and presumably an anticipated rules change for Emperor/BtD. Then there is this post, from before The Plague War was released, indicating performing would be explicit for cards printed in The Plague War and sets that followed it.
So not so much a question, but pointing out an example of where these multiple card templating changes may be resulting in unintended card interactions, like the one with Creating Order/Crippling Weather. I have a hard time believing this particular interaction was intended to occur since almost every other card that straightened anything and was printed before this latest templating change was worded in a way that did not have the targets performing the action. It is only the result of a card templating change to make required targets explicit, and thus improve card readability that is causing this performing interaction.
And while I am content to wait for Emperor to drop for this discrepancy to go away, It seems in the best intrest of everybody to not have cards that suddenly change function when the switch over to Emperor actually occurs. Unless the Rules Junta is okay with answering this sort of question every week or so until the rules change with regard to performing become official.
For instance, based on the rules and ruling above that would mean that playing Stockpiled Resources to attach a Follower from hand, means the Follower is also performing the action though the performer is explicitly mentioned as just the personality. While I can't think of an interaction, right at the moment, that would be broken by this, it doesn't mean there isn't something comming down the pipe that won't make this broken. And it just seems daft that performing has been "explicit" since The Plague War released, but we have new cards that are performed but yet don't explicitly say performed on them anywhere.
I thought the goal of the templating changes was to make the cards easier to understand, but in this case it seems to be backfiring due to keeping the old rules around without them specifically only applying to the older templated cards.
So I saw this ruling by Zen, and while I completely agree that is what the rules say. I also remember this little post about the templating change for Before the Dawn, and presumably an anticipated rules change for Emperor/BtD. Then there is this post, from before The Plague War was released, indicating performing would be explicit for cards printed in The Plague War and sets that followed it.
So not so much a question, but pointing out an example of where these multiple card templating changes may be resulting in unintended card interactions, like the one with Creating Order/Crippling Weather. I have a hard time believing this particular interaction was intended to occur since almost every other card that straightened anything and was printed before this latest templating change was worded in a way that did not have the targets performing the action. It is only the result of a card templating change to make required targets explicit, and thus improve card readability that is causing this performing interaction.
And while I am content to wait for Emperor to drop for this discrepancy to go away, It seems in the best intrest of everybody to not have cards that suddenly change function when the switch over to Emperor actually occurs. Unless the Rules Junta is okay with answering this sort of question every week or so until the rules change with regard to performing become official.
For instance, based on the rules and ruling above that would mean that playing Stockpiled Resources to attach a Follower from hand, means the Follower is also performing the action though the performer is explicitly mentioned as just the personality. While I can't think of an interaction, right at the moment, that would be broken by this, it doesn't mean there isn't something comming down the pipe that won't make this broken. And it just seems daft that performing has been "explicit" since The Plague War released, but we have new cards that are performed but yet don't explicitly say performed on them anywhere.
I thought the goal of the templating changes was to make the cards easier to understand, but in this case it seems to be backfiring due to keeping the old rules around without them specifically only applying to the older templated cards.
The Comprehensive Rules were not updated when The Plague War was released because we had not yet made the change for Emperor Edition that mandatory targeting will be in the constraints block. The entry in the Glossary for Perform now says:
A Personality or Follower is performing an action if its controller is the player taking the action (or, if the Personality or Follower is out of play, if its owner is the player taking the action), and any of these things is true: The action is from an ability on the Personality or Follower. The action is from an ability on an Item or Spell in the Personality’s unit. EXCEPTION: Actions on an Item or Spell that attach the Item or Spell itself to a Personality are performed by the Personality even if the attachment card is not yet in the Personality's unit. For cards whose most recent printing was prior to The Plague War: if the Personality or Follower was targeted by targeting in the base wording of the action’s constraints block (between the two colons). [CHANGED 8 August 2011] The Personality or Follower is explicitly mentioned as a performer in the action's constraints block, using the word "performing." (Emphasis added.)
Thus, Creating Order is not performed [REVERSAL].