The Player

From Legend of the Five Rings Rules

Contents 1 The player 1.1 Player keywords, abilities and values 1.1.1 Clan alignment 1.1.2 Family Honor 1.1.3 Player Abilities 1.2 Winning and losing the game 1.2.1 Honor victory 1.2.2 Military loss/victory 1.2.3 Dishonor loss/victory 1.2.4 Enlightenment victory 1.2.5 Other victory conditions 1.2.6 Player elimination 1.3 Turn order 1.4 Construction of the play deck

[edit] The player

[edit] Player keywords, abilities and values

[edit] Clan alignment

A player’s Clan alignment, for example “Scorpion Clan” or “Unicorn Clan,” is the same as his or her Stronghold’s.

A player using an unaligned Stronghold (one with no Clan alignment) has no Clan alignment, and specifically does not have the same Clan alignment as Personalities with no Clan alignment.

Effects that say “You are an [X] Clan player.” give the player that Clan alignment.

Legal Clan alignments in Samurai Edition are:

• Crab Clan
• Crane Clan
• Dragon Clan
• Lion Clan
• Mantis Clan
• Phoenix Clan
• Scorpion Clan
• Spider Clan
• Unicorn Clan

Other Clan alignments given by card effects only exist in games where those card effects apply.
Example: Shiro Usagi (The Truest Test) is an unaligned Stronghold that gives the Hare Clan alignment to its player and certain Personalities, but Hare Clan is not a Clan alignment in games where this stronghold is not in play.

[edit] Family Honor

A player’s Family Honor, or Honor for short, represents the respect and integrity he or she is seen to have in the Imperial Court. It may rise and fall over the course of the game. A player is responsible for keeping an accurate record of his or her Family Honor that the other player can check. Players may also confirm their opponents' Family Honor by keeping their own record.

A player’s starting Family Honor is taken from his or her Stronghold's Starting Family Honor stat.

Family Honor is a numerical value that follows different rules than card stats. Family Honor may have a negative value. Also, because Family Honor is marked in the game, changes to it do not have a duration; they are instantaneous.

When an Honor gain or loss is itself reduced or increased by another effect, the reduction or increase is not counted as an Honor gain or loss. This is different from what happens with card stats in this situation. [ADDED 20 May 2008]

Reduction of an Honor gain cannot turn it into a loss, nor can reduction of a loss turn it into a gain; the minimum value of a gain or loss is zero. Losses are expressed in positive numbers even though their ultimate effect is to reduce Honor. [ADDED 20 May 2008]

An Honor gain of 0 points is not considered a gain for things that check whether a gain happened. Likewise, an Honor loss of 0 points is not considered a loss for such things.

References to "points of Family Honor" indicate a positive Family Honor value. (Added 1 October 2007)
Example: House of the Fallen Blossom, which produces "1 Gold for every full 10 points of Family Honor you have," does not produce any gold when you are at -10 Family Honor.

[edit] Player Abilities

Players may gain abilities from effects. The following is a reminder list of the abilities players start the game with. For more details, see Equip, Share, Lobby, The Imperial Favor, Tactician, Naval, Seppuku, and Legacy.

Limited: Any number of times per turn, target one of your Personalities: Attach a target attachment card from your hand to him (paying all costs).

Political Limited: If you have a higher Family Honor than all other players, bow one of your target Personalities with Personal Honor of 1 or higher: Take control of the Imperial Favor.

Political Limited: Discard the Imperial Favor and a card: Draw a card.

Open: Bow one of your attachments: Transfer it to another of your target Personalities who can legally attach it.

Political Battle: Discard the Imperial Favor: Move a target attacking enemy unit home.

Tactical Battle: Any number of times per turn, discard a card and target one of your Tactician Personalities: Give him a Force bonus equal to the Focus Value of the discarded card.

Reaction: If you are the Attacker and your current army has more Naval cards than the opposing army, once per battle after engaging, target your Naval Personality: You have the first opportunity to take a Battle action, which must be performed by the targeted Personality or one of his Naval Followers.

[Naval ability UPDATED 28 June 2008]

Reaction: Any number of times per turn, before you lose Honor from an action that targeted or was performed by one of your Courtier or Samurai Personalities: He commits seppuku. If the seppuku destroyed him, reduce the Honor loss to one.

Reaction: After your Dynasty Phase ends, if you have brought no Holdings into play this turn, bow your Stronghold: Search your deck, then your Provinces, for a Legacy Holding. Put it into play without Gold cost.

[edit] Winning and losing the game

L5R has a number of different victory conditions that reflect different paths to mastering the world of Rokugan or eliminating other players from contention.

[edit] Honor victory

An Honor victory represents overwhelming political acclaim in the Imperial Courts. At the point when a player’s turn begins (that is, before anything triggered "after the turn begins"), if that player has 40 or more Family Honor, he or she wins through an Honor Victory.

[edit] Military loss/victory

A Military victory represents the destruction of an adversary’s last base of support. A player loses immediately after his or her last Province is destroyed (see Provinces), and is then eliminated from the game.

When two players are in a game (including the later stages of a game that started with more players), and one player loses this way, the last remaining player has won a Military Victory. This is considered a Military Victory even if the last province was destroyed by some other means than battle resolution.

[edit] Dishonor loss/victory

A player can lose by Dishonor, representing his or her faction becoming utterly discredited in the eyes of Imperial Courts. A player loses immediately and is eliminated from the game after his Family Honor reaches -20 or below. When two or more players are in a game and one player loses in this way, the one remaining player has won a Dishonor Victory. If two or more players lose through Dishonor from simultaneous Honor losses, the active player chooses who loses first; the last remaining player wins, even if he or she would lose immediately after.

[edit] Enlightenment victory

Enlightenment victory represents finding a path of insight beyond the material world, reflecting on one’s experience in war and peace through the philosophies of the Five Elements. A player wins immediately through an Enlightenment Victory when he or she has in play five Ring cards, each with a different element keyword, and each of which last entered play by its own text (as opposed to other effects that can put a Ring into play).

[edit] Other victory conditions

Cards in the game may give other conditions of winning or losing. Winning by one of these cards, or because one of them caused the last remaining other player to lose, is designated by the title of that card.

[edit] Player elimination

If a player loses the game and two or more players remain, all cards from the eliminated player’s play deck are removed from the game, all created cards under his control are removed from the game, all his remaining Provinces leave the game (without literally being destroyed), and he leaves the game. An eliminated player’s tokens that are still in play after this, as well as his created cards that are controlled by other players, remain in play. If an attacker is eliminated in the middle of a series of battles, the player to his left determines the order remaining battles will resolve in. Effects generated by eliminated players’ cards or actions persist for their normal duration. For effects that will end during some future turn of the eliminated player, end them after the previous remaining player’s turn and before the next remaining player’s turn.

[edit] Turn order

Turn order proceeds to the left. If no starting player is specified, it starts with the active player.

[edit] Construction of the play deck

The play deck consists of two decks – one of black-backed Dynasty cards, one of green-backed Fate cards – and a stronghold. These decks are constructed according to a format.

L5R has a standard competitive format, Samurai 40/40 (referring to current base set and the minimum number of cards in the Dynasty and Fate decks, respectively), and a number of alternate formats.

Unless format rules specifically state otherwise, all play decks must be constructed according to the following two general rules:

• No more than three copies of any card of the other types, by card title, can be included in a play deck.
• No more than one copy of each Event, Ring, and Unique card, by card title, may be included in the play deck.

EXCEPTION: Unique cards with the same title but different Experienced keywords count as different cards for deck construction.

If a card or card type “does not count against deck construction limits,” its existence in the deck does not count towards the minimum count required by the format. In practice this means the deck has to contain more cards than the stated minimum. In Samurai 40/40 format:

• All cards in a play deck must be Samurai legal – their most recent printing must have the Samurai expansion symbol.
• Older versions of cards reprinted with the Samurai expansion symbol may be used in a deck, but are always played by the stats and text of their most recent printing, following cardinal rule 2.
• The Dynasty and Fate deck each must contain a minimum of 40 cards.

Alternate formats are listed under the Alternate Format Rules section.

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