Rulings for 30-31 March 2001

Rules Junta

: More time passed until Dave started moving to other things like Seventh : Sea and Warlords, so AEG hired Jeff to be the new Lead Designer of L5R. : : Stop. Jeff wasn't hired by AEG. He was an employee of WotC, as far as I : know. I think your timeline is a little screwed up.

Yes, he was. A month prior to coming to WotC.

I stand corrected. On the other hand, how much work did Jeff actually do in that month?

I did the Gold rulebook and contributed to the initial card selection.

I think it's pretty safe to say Jeff really got started after the move to WotC.

Designing cards and mixing it up with the story team? Yeah.

Dave, Jeff, Zen, Ryan. Two. Jeff, Mike, Me, Ed, Frank.

See, this is where you get into trouble. You have 5 desginers designing the game. Only one of those is actually making the decisions about rulings that affect how the cards get played.

You're making all sorts of assumptions here, Nick. Those people Andy mentioned hardly had equal weight. Most contributed more card suggestions than rules changes...something no different than the dozens of fans who submitted ideas that made it in. And they were definitely polled for rules input when Steve and I felt more voices were needed, not to mention when *I* wanted second opinions.

If bowed is an effect......(was Re: [L5RINFO] Rulingsfor 22March 2001)

You know, in having WAY to much time on my hands today at work, I thought of a really odd question, but I am going to ask it anyway. If a card says go home bowed, and winter warfair is in play, you stay in the battle, but are bowed. Since all effects are seperate. Bow is an action and a card orientation. Now, what about the reverse? If a card says go home unbowed, would that straighten the card? Why wouldn't it? Wouldn't unbowed be an effect just as bowed is?

Woooo! GO JAMES! GO JAMES! GO JAMES! GET BUSY! IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY!

Gettin' jiggy wid it dere, pard. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

Irrelevant, of course. It's been in the archives for simply ever that "go home unbowed" means "go home without bowing", and that such a card does not straighten anything.

RoFL/Palace

Hey everyone, I just have a quick rules question : If a player has the Palace of the Emerald Champion out, which states that that player cannot win by an honor victory, does he have to destroy a province when return of fu leng pops?

Yes. Return of Fu Leng cares about your current ability (or lack thereof) to achieve an Honor Victory.

Test of the Jade Champion question

Can Togashi Yoshi use his innate ability when entering the Test of the Jade Champion? This came up in a game once, and I was able to convince the other player that he could not. So, he sent Hitomi E3 to the test instead (I am an honorable player, after all). Was I right, or should his Yoshi have been the inevitable winner. My challenger had four chi. Any idea?

The Test of the Jade Champion is not a duel. Card effects involving entering or being in a duel, or focusing IN A DUEL, may not be used. (Card effects involving focusing that don't make any mention of being in a duel are still legal.)

You were right. Yoshi can't react.

RoFL/SoB question

I was reading the FAQ, and noticed that Return of Fu Leng says all shadowlands players MUST lose a province (harsh boss!). But sepulchre of Bone does not say it may not win by honor, only that its honor may not be raised above zero. While that is a very fine distinction, there are many other rules based on finer ones. Am I missing something, a point of logic maybe, or is the archive a little wrong?

The archive is correct. Any Stronghold which doesn't let its player reach 40 Honor is implicitly incapable of an Honor Victory.