There have been many great moments in L5R's long-running story - now it's time for yours. Share your greatest L5R experience - what hooked you? When was the moment when you found yourself truly invested in the games, whether CCG, RPG, or both? Was there a great story moment that grabbed you? Share as many as you'd like.

For me, it was the overall feel of my first few games. There was so much information to keep track of, people are dying left and right, and then my opponent sent his Matsu Gohei to attack my last province. I was playing War Fortress of the Crab and had Isha, Hida Tampako, and Hida Sukune to defend it. It had been a long game (since we were both newbies), with lots of attrition on both sides, and this was his make-or-break attack. Gohei had enough followers behind him (archers, spearmen, infantry) and I was not going to win. I could see it all unfold - the glorious Lion-led charge against the grim, resigned defenders. Taking the first action, I dropped Dispersive Terrain. All of a sudden, my soon-to-be-overwhelmed defenders had the attackers fighting uphill and unable to bring their full strength to bear. We pushed them back, and in desperation, Gohei challenged Hida Tampako to an Iaijutsu Duel. Both sides focused, and Tampako crushed the Lion's head with his tetsubo, causing his army to rout. The grim Crab then marched on Lion lands, steadily burning through them until the war was over -and it all turned on that one charge, that one great moment.

My opponent and I sat back from the table after his last province had been taken and the day won for the Crab.

"It's like a movie," he said. "It's like a book."

And that's how I've seen L5R ever since. Sure, there's deck construction and playtesting, but when you get down to the essence of it, it's a story every time you play. Sometimes it's a very silly story (I'm looking at you, Scorpion), but that just adds to the fun of it.

From the official storyline, I've always rather liked Yoritomo's crowning moment of awesome - the famous "I am my twenty strongest" - and Aramasu's "And I am twenty-one".

So what about you? Share your stories from the CCG or RPG - what was your Deciding Moment?

You know, browsing these forums has made me realize I don't know the lore half as well as I'd like to! Time to start reading, again!

Anyway, I seem to recall one game where my opponent (Lion, maybe?) was building up a single, massive unit with something like 15F on the personality, PLUS a few followers. My Mantis archers bravely charged in and managed to pick off his followers, then combine enough ranged attack to take out his big samurai (who had received further buffs in the battle)! I probably had to bow everyone to do it, losing the battle and giving my opponent an honor victory (downside of having many, small units), but I didn't care. I had taken out the guy he bragged was "invincible", and that was victory enough for me!

Probably Pearl edition was when I fully decided to really get into L5R and that was mainly to do with the starters. Before that, my local store really didn't get too much L5R in. Yeah, we had maybe a booster box of some sets but it wasn't till Pearl when we had enough people for tournaments and the store decided to buy more. I believe I purchased six of those starters alone because I wanted to try out different factions and every one had something really cool in them. I remember that I really found the monks/Brotherhood to be really cool at the time even though I largely just played Scorpion.

At that time, none of my local gamers had very good decks, but I think that was part of the charm. We could do quite a number of different strategies without fear of certain decks. Of course later Shadowlands players started showing up and really wrecked our meta. There's nothing worse than playing a dishonor deck against Shadowlands at that time.

Going to GenCon for the first time at MECCA and hearing the Utz-Banzai rattle the convention center.

I have a few stories to share.

My first time in Canada I showed up late to the tournament and had to take an automatic round 1 loss to play. I figured I'd come to play games and probably wouldn't have done well anyway so sure. So of course I end up making the cut and getting Top of Clan for the first time.

That was Samurai of Steel weekend so the next day was also a tournament. I did less well in that one, but it's notable for being the only time I ever saw anyone playing Purge of Fudoism. Considering how many games I played I feel very justified in running Fudoist Temple and Ogre Bushi even if it cost me that game.

My second time in Canada after the tournament I played a teaching game. We were in Montreal and I don't speak French so one of the locals was advising my opponent. Despite the language barrier I was able to tell when they were describing the Crab and that the description was of the 'Hida Smash' variety. It was especially amusing because I was playing a Yasuki deck at the time.

My first time in Pittsburgh was very memorable. Round 1 I was up against a very skilled opponent who ended up facing at least three Yasuki decks that day and beat all of them. It quickly became apparent that I wasn't going to win. However I was able to achieve one act of futile defiance. Farms had become unplayable since the release of Colonial Conscripts. But this gentleman had continued to use Bountiful Fields with the idea being that he would buy it, use it for gold, and then destroy it for a free Colonial Conscripts. He did this during our game and I responded by destroying his Colonial Conscripts with Your True Nature thereby causing him to have wasted his Holding.

My last round of the swiss was a mirror match. Crab vs Crab, Yasuki vs Yasuki, vying for the honor and glory of making the cut. My opponent was not unknown to me for I had met this gentleman the year prior while he was attempting to perfect Crab dishonor during the Dark Age of the pre-'The Coming Storm' environment. It was thus in the spirit of brothers-in-arms who through the misfortunes of war find themselves on opposing sides of the battlefield that we faced each other. Relatively early in the game my opponent played Kamalakar's Harem. Immediately recognizing the danger I destroyed it with Your True Nature which ended up preventing him from dishonoring any of my personalities for several turns putting me considerably ahead in Honor loss. Though the battle was hard fought on both sides I ultimately achieved victory.

My Quarterfinal matches lacked a specific moment that comes to mind, but I bring them up because Shiho was most definitely MVP during them, stripping enemy Personalities of their attachments and allowing me to use Planted Evidence on 4 Chi targets.

My RPG moments are limited to my Winter Court activities. Winter Court 3 is mostly notable in that I came away from it liking the Crane and very much disliking the Mantis. Which is ironic since I went into it with the exact opposite mindset. Its amazing what allying with the Spider does for my opinion of you and your enemies.

Winter Court 4 was amazing. My two biggest achievements were spearheading the formation of the Imperial Navy and my feud with the Spider which lead to my untimely death.

The Imperial Navy, for those who don't know, was my idea and I did the majority of the initial legwork to get the proposal off the ground. Unfortunately I perished before the project received Imperial Sanction, but luckily sympathetic associates within the Imperial Families were able to see my brainchild through to completion. Provided it remains canon it's my most significant contribution to the setting thus far.

That being said my feud with the Spider is what I've received the most recognition for. After meeting several of them in real life I was informed of their in-game hatred of me. I wouldn't have thought so at the time but apparently their Delegation considered me to be a major nuisance. In fact I've been told that if I hadn't died when I did certain members of their Delegation were prepared to have me assassinated. That's just awesome. As I said in response to this revelation, "If all your enemies want you dead you must be doing something right".

My very first game of legend of the five rings

I got a few free starter decks that were handed out at Gen Con in 1996. I read the rules on the drive back home and really liked the game at least as much as I could tell from the rules alone. I purchased a few more cards in the next few weeks but never got a game together with my people before I moved across the country for graduate school.

In the summer of 1998 I was visiting friends in Denver for a week while I was doing research in Boulder (A stop I was making while moving across the country) and to my surprise the guy I was staying with played L5R. I happily grabbed my cards re3viewed the rules and eagerly sat down to my first game (aside from a few I played against myself as a way to learn the rules).

I was a four or five player game and one of the players had a deck that featured some character that could (with the correct other cards in play) poison (?) other personalities without bowing (I imagine that it was a scorpion deck but I wasn't familiar enough at the time with the game to note who it was) this player was clearly excited about their new card and eager to use it to destroy his opponents.

The game started up and the (I presume) scorpion player got his cards into play just as he wanted them and was suitably pleased as the other players at the table seemed to look at the setup with fear. He made an attack on my unicorn deck, which was a military deck or as much of one as my limited card selection would allow. Before the cavalry assignment phase I asked what his total force was. I was told that it didn't matter until the battle resolved. I tried to count the force up myself but I got the impression that the others were concerned about a first time player slowing down their game with his ignorance So I threw everything I could into the battle to defend the province (against the advice of the other players) and, being the defender, I took the first action and played deadly ground

I suspect that deadly ground was removed in latter editions of the game for being too powerful. It was a terrain that said thsat the only actions that could be taken were actions that destroyed the terrain card. Apparently this group wasn't that deep into playing competitively yet, no one had been using this card in their decks. My attacker was forced to pass and his cool army was defeated, the other players were shocked, and I gained a huge pile of honor (that made me a huge target for the other players who defeated me in short order). But in my very first game I was able to shock and surprise this group that had been playing for a few months with a cool move that they'd not seen coming.

That was a deciding moment for me.

(edited after I looked up the card on line).

I dabbled in Jade when a friend was playing but there wasn't much of a community then. The setting always stuck with me. I always loved samurai and fantasy settings. I would return late Gold to find some acquaintances playing it at the local shop. I took the game back up and would eventually fall in love with the characters and the stories that went along with them. I also became a huge fan of the various artists that AEG commissioned to do work for the game.