4 hours ago, LuceLineGames said:

There actually is a requirement to check potential targets against the ability to see if they can be affected.

Edit: Just for illustrative purposes, if there was a character that said "this character can not be honored or dishonored", you couldn't pick that character as one of the targets just because the game state would change from the other target. To be an eligible target, it must be possible to affect the target/

I agree, my wording was shaky at best. You are right: targets need to be able to be affected. However, Shameful Display's trigger does not require that one target be subjective to honor and the other be subjective to dishonor.

Both targets need to be valid (ie, subjective to a change of their honor status) but they do not need to be in a position where both changes in honor status can be applied. Klawtu actually explains my views better than I.

6 hours ago, Klawtu said:

" A card is not an eligible target for an ability if the resolution of that ability’s effect could not affect the target at all . (For example, a bowed character cannot be chosen as the target for an ability that reads “Action: Choose a character — bow that character.”)"

Take the example of having 2 dishonored characters. So what you're saying is that because the resolution could affect either of them and as long as it does change the game state for at least one of them then it's totally valid? It doesn't matter that only one of the chosen targets will have their status changed just that a change will happen and that both could have been changed.

That actually makes sense. I will also gladly accept this interpretation because I happen to plan on using that card in both of my decks.

That is exactly what I mean. It is even substantiated by the fact that you can resolve only part of the effects of a card as long as board state changes.

48 minutes ago, LuceLineGames said:

Three things make this incorrect. 1) you cannot honor or dishonor a character in that state, 2) you must carry out as much of an effect as you can, and 3) you must change the game state. I'm paraphrasing, but to the best of my knowledge.

I totally agree with numbers 1 and 3 but is there a specific rule where you have to chose the option that will carry out the most change? Like if the characters are one dishonored and one with no honor/dishonor token are you required to select the dishonored character for honoring and the neutral one for dishonoring? Where is that fond in the rules? All I could see was that there needed to be a change in the game state.

13 minutes ago, Mirumoto Kuroniten said:

I agree, my wording was shaky at best. You are right: targets need to be able to be affected. However, Shameful Display's trigger does not require that one target be subjective to honor and the other be subjective to dishonor.

Both targets need to be valid (ie, subjective to a change of their honor status) but they do not need to be in a position where both changes in honor status can be applied. Klawtu actually explains my views better than I.

That is exactly what I mean. It is even substantiated by the fact that you can resolve only part of the effects of a card as long as board state changes.

Thanks, I think it actually helped me that I was initially thinking it went the other way so I knew where my own argument was coming from. After rereading that section I finally saw exactly what people had been trying to say. This is one of those the rules totally do work one way but if you only do a cursory examination you could easily interpret them the wrong way.

Also congratulations for everyone here who managed to actually change an opinion on the internet without making me feel like I was totally dumb. That deserves a gold star if nothing else.

42 minutes ago, Klawtu said:

I totally agree with numbers 1 and 3 but is there a specific rule where you have to chose the option that will carry out the most change? Like if the characters are one dishonored and one with no honor/dishonor token are you required to select the dishonored character for honoring and the neutral one for dishonoring? Where is that fond in the rules? All I could see was that there needed to be a change in the game state.

Thanks, I think it actually helped me that I was initially thinking it went the other way so I knew where my own argument was coming from. After rereading that section I finally saw exactly what people had been trying to say. This is one of those the rules totally do work one way but if you only do a cursory examination you could easily interpret them the wrong way.

Also congratulations for everyone here who managed to actually change an opinion on the internet without making me feel like I was totally dumb. That deserves a gold star if nothing else.

It's kinda hard to explain, but there is a rule to carry out as much as you can, given the circumstances that you can pick something that results in the other not being affected. Do what you can do until you can't do anything anymore. No rule to have the max effect as possible.

Edit: you'll find it in the RR saying something like complete as much of the effect as you can.

19 hours ago, LuceLineGames said:

Three things make this incorrect. 1) you cannot honor or dishonor a character in that state, 2) you must carry out as much of an effect as you can, and 3) you must change the game state. I'm paraphrasing, but to the best of my knowledge.

None of those statements are actually true. The first two are directly contradicted by Nate French's ruling on Shameful Display and the third is what my entire post was debunking; there is actually no rule that said what you are saying, just a rule that people over interpret.

18 hours ago, LuceLineGames said:

It's kinda hard to explain, but there is a rule to carry out as much as you can, given the circumstances that you can pick something that results in the other not being affected. Do what you can do until you can't do anything anymore. No rule to have the max effect as possible.

Edit: you'll find it in the RR saying something like complete as much of the effect as you can.

This is incorrect; no such rule exists in the L5R rules reference. Additionally, we have a direct ruling from the game's lead designer to the contrary. This may have been the case in testing or in prior LCGs, but it is not the case in the final version of L5R.

Are you guys talking about this rule?

https://fiveringsdb.com/rules/reference#effects

• Once an ability is initiated, players must resolve as much of each aspect of its effect as they are able, unless the effect uses the word "may."

1 hour ago, mplain said:

Are you guys talking about this rule?

https://fiveringsdb.com/rules/reference#effects

• Once an ability is initiated, players must resolve as much of each aspect of its effect as they are able, unless the effect uses the word "may."

That's the one I was speaking of. Am I missing something?

6 hours ago, Khift said:

None of those statements are actually true. The first two are directly contradicted by Nate French's ruling on Shameful Display and the third is what my entire post was debunking; there is actually no rule that said what you are saying, just a rule that people over interpret.

All three are in the RR to my knowledge.

• A character with an honored status token cannot become honored. A character with a dishonored status token cannot become dishonored. (this might not be relevant with the hole honor/become honored rule thing)
• Once an ability is initiated, players must resolve as much of each aspect of its effect as they are able, unless the effect uses the word "may."
• An ability cannot initiate (and therefore its costs cannot be paid) if its effect on its own does not have the potential to change the game state.
• If an ability instructs a player to select among multiple effects, an effect that has the potential to change the game state must be selected.

I pulled these pretty quickly, so may have made a mistake on references. I'm confident in how Shameful Display works, I had the opportunity to discuss with the developers and Kiku Matsuri judges. What is your interpretation of Shameful Display? Maybe I'm missing something.

4 hours ago, LuceLineGames said:

• A character with an honored status token cannot become honored. A character with a dishonored status token cannot become dishonored. (this might not be relevant with the hole honor/become honored rule thing)

You are correct; this is not relevant to this case. This rules means that a character with an honor token doesn't become double honored. It has no relevance to the example on hand.

4 hours ago, LuceLineGames said:

• Once an ability is initiated, players must resolve as much of each aspect of its effect as they are able, unless the effect uses the word "may."

This quote does not mean what you are claiming it means. This does not refer to choices at all, this simply refers to resolving all of the card's text. I can't choose not to do part of a card's text, but that doesn't mean I can't make choices such that parts of the card's text don't end up affecting the board. Again, we have direct confirmation from Nate French via email that in the example of Shameful Display targeting an honored character and an ordinary character you can choose to honor the honored character and dishonor the ordinary character, indicating that you do not have to "maximally apply" the ability. So no, this does not apply.

4 hours ago, LuceLineGames said:

• An ability cannot initiate (and therefore its costs cannot be paid) if its effect on its own does not have the potential to change the game state.

I made an entire post as to why this rule does not apply the way you (and most people) think it is applied. This is a very commonly misunderstood rule. The long and short of it is: this says absolutely nothing about changing the game state, this says you have to have the ability to change the game state. Which Shameful Display does in this case.

4 hours ago, LuceLineGames said:

• If an ability instructs a player to select among multiple effects, an effect that has the potential to change the game state must be selected.

Shameful Display is not a selection effect; the word select is entirely absent from its card. As such, this rule, which is specifically from the "Select" section of the rules reference, does not apply.

4 hours ago, LuceLineGames said:

I pulled these pretty quickly, so may have made a mistake on references. I'm confident in how Shameful Display works, I had the opportunity to discuss with the developers and Kiku Matsuri judges. What is your interpretation of Shameful Display? Maybe I'm missing something.

I read you other post, this scenario is definitely not legal. There have been other threads discussing Shameful Display that lay out how it can be used. I heard from developers with Shameful Display you have to do something that changes the game state. Is there new info since Gen Con? I see how you came to that conclusion with the word 'potential', but I specifically talked to Eric about Shameful display and walked through some scenarios, and he was very clear about having to change the game state, and that as long as the game state was changed, it was a legal play.

My interpretation for Shameful Display is that as long as you have two legal targets then the ability fires in whichever manner you choose it to fire. If it has two legal targets (or currently just two targets, as it isn't currently possible for a character to be an illegal target for Shameful Display but may be in the future) then you can use it and do whatever you want, even nothing if that's possible (e.g. targeting an Honored character and a Dishonored character and honoring the former and dishonoring the latter).

The only reason I am tilting at this particular windmill is because is because this is a very clear example of people memorizing short-hand rules and trying to claim them as actual rules and that's a major peeve of mine. Everyone has this "must change the game-state" shorthand rule memorized and everyone claims it's in the rules reference but the actual rule being cited is slightly different in some meaningful way which allows for events such as this to occasionally happen. And in this case the difference actually allows you to do something that people who only know the short-hand rule consider to be completely illegal, which is quite humorous to me to point out.

13 minutes ago, Khift said:

You are correct; this is not relevant to this case. This rules means that a character with an honor token doesn't become double honored. It has no relevance to the example on hand.

This quote does not mean what you are claiming it means. This does not refer to choices at all, this simply refers to resolving all of the card's text. I can't choose not to do part of a card's text, but that doesn't mean I can't make choices such that parts of the card's text don't end up affecting the board. Again, we have direct confirmation from Nate French via email that in the example of Shameful Display targeting an honored character and an ordinary character you can choose to honor the honored character and dishonor the ordinary character, indicating that you do not have to "maximally apply" the ability. So no, this does not apply.

I made an entire post as to why this rule does not apply the way you (and most people) think it is applied. This is a very commonly misunderstood rule. The long and short of it is: this says absolutely nothing about changing the game state, this says you have to have the ability to change the game state. Which Shameful Display does in this case.

Shameful Display is not a selection effect; the word select is entirely absent from its card. As such, this rule, which is specifically from the "Select" section of the rules reference, does not apply.

My interpretation for Shameful Display is that as long as you have two legal targets then the ability fires in whichever manner you choose it to fire. If it has two legal targets (or currently just two targets, as it isn't currently possible for a character to be an illegal target for Shameful Display but may be in the future) then you can use it and do whatever you want, even nothing if that's possible (e.g. targeting an Honored character and a Dishonored character and honoring the former and dishonoring the latter).

The only reason I am tilting at this particular windmill is because is because this is a very clear example of people memorizing short-hand rules and trying to claim them as actual rules and that's a major peeve of mine. Everyone has this "must change the game-state" shorthand rule memorized and everyone claims it's in the rules reference but the actual rule being cited is slightly different in some meaningful way which allows for events such as this to occasionally happen. And in this case the difference actually allows you to do something that people who only know the short-hand rule consider to be completely illegal, which is quite humorous to me to point out.

It sounds like Nate's email supports what Eric said - there must be a change in game state. So your example doesn't work.

Just now, LuceLineGames said:

It sounds like Nate's email supports what Eric said - there must be a change in game state. So your example doesn't work.

So, what it comes down to is "it doesn't work because I say it doesn't work"? I point out that hey, you're overinterpreting a rule, which is a thing that happens all the time even to devs, and you're just going to declare you're right rather than even consider the argument?

Long and short of it is you're wrong. That's not what that rule means and you know it. You can read the actual rule; it categorically does not require a change in game state, it requires the potential to change the game state. I am sorry, but you are wrong.

1 minute ago, Khift said:

So, what it comes down to is "it doesn't work because I say it doesn't work"? I point out that hey, you're overinterpreting a rule, which is a thing that happens all the time even to devs, and you're just going to declare you're right rather than even consider the argument?

Long and short of it is you're wrong. That's not what that rule means and you know it. You can read the actual rule; it categorically does not require a change in game state, it requires the potential to change the game state. I am sorry, but you are wrong.

Not meaning to start an argument, I'm just going by how the developers told me it works, need a change in game state. You did point out some flaws in my references, which I also admitted might be the case, but it's still an illegal move regardless.

Just now, LuceLineGames said:

Not meaning to start an argument, I'm just going by how the developers told me it works, need a change in game state. You did point out some flaws in my references, which I also admitted might be the case, but it's still an illegal move regardless.

The developers themselves are probably not even aware of the argument I'm making. Devs are actually the most susceptible group of people to the short-hand rule phenomena I pointed out because they have a model of how the game works inside their head which they operate off of as opposed to the actual written rules of the game. This kind of thing happens all the time in board games, for example, and LCG devs I'm sure are no different; they try to make sure the game in their head lines up with the game on paper as best they can but in the end everyone is only human and small things like this occur.

I would be willing to bet that if I were to sit down and lay out the argument to a dev they would realize oh yeah, that is actually how it works. Especially Nate, who is known for being very RAW with his rulings. The reason I haven't done this is because it's not actually an important question and I don't want to bug them with inane questions. Even if it were publicly known to be legal it actually wouldn't surprise me if over the entire sum of L5R games ever played that this would never actually be a meaningful play; arguing about it is just intellectual masturbation to be honest. If it mattered then I'd bring it to their attention and argue the point, but it really doesn't so I don't see the need. It's just something I bring up because I think it's funny.

I think the only issue I can think of is if you try to target an honored and dishonored character, and try to honor the honored character and dishonor the dishonored one. This would not be allowed. The reason is (pg 6) if an ability instructs a player to select among multiple effects, an effect that has the potential to change the game state must be selected. You must select which target to honor, and which to dishonor. The second one can fizzle because there is no choice at that time, but if there is an option which effects the game state it must be chosen if able.

If you have an ordinary status character, and either an honored or dishonored character as your targets then you can effect the status on the ordinary character first, and then the second can fizzle, but you cannot honor an honored character, or dishonor a dishonored character if there is an option to honor a dishonored character, or dishonor an honored character.

1 minute ago, shosuko said:

I think the only issue I can think of is if you try to target an honored and dishonored character, and try to honor the honored character and dishonor the dishonored one. This would not be allowed. The reason is (pg 6) if an ability instructs a player to select among multiple effects, an effect that has the potential to change the game state must be selected. You must select which target to honor, and which to dishonor. The second one can fizzle because there is no choice at that time, but if there is an option which effects the game state it must be chosen if able.

If you have an ordinary status character, and either an honored or dishonored character as your targets then you can effect the status on the ordinary character first, and then the second can fizzle, but you cannot honor an honored character, or dishonor a dishonored character if there is an option to honor a dishonored character, or dishonor an honored character.

So, the reason your quote doesn't apply here is because that quote is specifically from the "Select" section and is specifically about selection effects, which Shameful Display is not. Select is a very well defined term in the rules reference, and the word select is completely absent from Shameful Display's card, and so it isn't a selection effect, and so that quote doesn't apply to it.

This is a hill I will actually die on because this has the potential to matter quite a lot in the future. It is very important that rules for specific terms not be applied willy-nilly to other situations outside of their context.

39 minutes ago, Khift said:

So, the reason your quote doesn't apply here is because that quote is specifically from the "Select" section and is specifically about selection effects, which Shameful Display is not. Select is a very well defined term in the rules reference, and the word select is completely absent from Shameful Display's card, and so it isn't a selection effect, and so that quote doesn't apply to it.

This is a hill I will actually die on because this has the potential to matter quite a lot in the future. It is very important that rules for specific terms not be applied willy-nilly to other situations outside of their context.

I would also see bullet point 2 - players must resolve as much of each aspect of its effect as they are able to - to also be relevant here.

If there is a way to apply it in which it effects the game state - then you cannot choose to apply an effect in a way in which it does not. Both bullet 2 and 5 cover this.

As far as I can tell, Khift is 100% accurate on all counts.

Shameful Display requires two targets as part of its cost. Thus, we know that we must have at least two participating characters in order to trigger its effect at all. Once we have selected two targets, the rules require us to check that the resulting effect has to potential to change the game state. Then, we carry out as much of the ability as we can.

So let's do that with our hypothetical honoured and dishonoured characters. Given the nature of the ability, we can select the two targets and say with certainty that the effect – before any choices are made – has the potential to change the game state. Thus, our choice of targets gets the thumbs up and we move on to resolving the effect.

And this is where things get dicy, but we can still pull everything we need from the Rules Reference document. If we honour the dishonoured character and dishonour the honoured one, I think we all know that's perfectly legit and there's no need to discuss it, so we're talking about the opposite. Can I apply the honour effect to an honoured character? Yes, I can. Let's see that in the rules:

Quote

A character with an honored status token cannot become honored. A character with a dishonored status token cannot become dishonored.

Now, there is room for people to disagree (not that I'm saying they might be right), but 'becoming' honoured or dishonoured is to go from not being in that state to being in that state. To show that the game recognises this distinction, I can compare and contrast Steward of Law with Savvy Politician. Steward of Law says that you personalities cannot become dishonoured. Your characters can get dishonoured, but they will never become dishonoured. Savvy Politician, however, says that when it is honoured, you can honour another character. If Savvy Politician was dishonoured (has the status of) then honouring the savvy Politician will discard her dishonoured status and allow you to honour another character.

So we have the distinction already present in the text of card abilities. Further, we have another example of rules being used in this way: Court Mask. Court Mask dishonours the character it is attached to as an effect of its action. If the character is already dishonoured, that part of the effect simply does nothing. So individually it is legal to have the honour effect bestowed on and honoured character, and vice versa, which leaves us with the question of whether it is allowable to have the effect resolves without a change in game state.

I can find no rule to say that this is not allowed. So until someone can produce a rule that says you can't, you can.

To give you credit, the rules reference don't do a great job of coming out and saying the game state must change. What I'm going by is the developers specifically telling me the game state change rule, and also how it specifically applies to Shameful Display. That is good enough for me to hear it from a developer, but I can see how to some people hearing it third hand isn't good enough. Maybe for others, me providing this context from that conversation is helpful, and maybe there is other info out there to back the whole game state must change thing. And maybe if you talked through your thoughts with the developers they would just update the RR to make it clear you must change the game state, or provide an example in the FAQ. The developers aren't tied to how the rules are written, if something isn't clear, they can make an update. I don't see any faults in your logic for how you interpreted the RR, and there's no one that is going to stop you from playing that way with your friends and having a good time.

But the 'game state must change' is how the judges and developers made rulings at Gen Con, so if you're planning on using it differently at one of their tournaments, there'd need to be an update contrary to this.

2 hours ago, InquisitorM said:

So we have the distinction already present in the text of card abilities. Further, we have another example of rules being used in this way: Court Mask. Court Mask dishonours the character it is attached to as an effect of its action. If the character is already dishonoured, that part of the effect simply does nothing. So individually it is legal to have the honour effect bestowed on and honoured character, and vice versa, which leaves us with the question of whether it is allowable to have the effect resolves without a change in game state.

If the character Court Mask is attached to is Dishonored, you cannot activate Court Mask's ability.

1 hour ago, OsramTaleka said:

If the character Court Mask is attached to is Dishonored, you cannot activate Court Mask's ability.

Don't just claim it: show me it in the rules. It's already been well discussed as doable.

I passed it with a judge at L5R Honored yesterday.

14 minutes ago, InquisitorM said:

Don't just claim it: show me it in the rules. It's already been well discussed as doable.

I passed it with a judge at L5R Honored yesterday.

I think court mask can still be activated. Adding the card to your hand is a change in game state. And the 'target' is part of the effect, so it's not limited by the regular target rules.

Just now, LuceLineGames said:

I think court mask can still be activated. Adding the card to your hand is a change in game state. And the 'target' is part of the effect, so it's not limited by the regular target rules.

Court Mask doesn't have a target.

The reason Court Mask can still return to hand while attached to a dishonored character is because dishonoring the character is part of Court Mask's effect, not part of its cost. The ability is worded as:

"Action: Return this attachment to your hand and dishonor attached character."
and not as:
"Action: Dishonor attached character - return this attachment to your hand."

The rules reference says this:

Quote

If a triggered ability has no dash, the ability has no pre-dash
content, and the entirety of the ability is considered an effect.
(Rules Reference pg 16, Triggering Conditions, 4th bullet)

So by this, Court Mask's ability is entirely just an effect and there is no cost to pay, therefore as long as one of the two parts of the effect can affect the game state then it can be triggered.

In my opinion this is also about 99% intentional as well, as if the dishonor were a cost then the counterplay to court mask is to dishonor the character it is attached to in order to strand the mask and ensure that it gets discarded with the character. It's not very thematic or appropriate for Scorpion to be so terrified of being dishonored, in fact it's generally quite the opposite, and it would have a lot of negative synergy with other Scorpion cards so I am at least personally quite certain this one was done on purpose and is not an accidental glitch caused by unintentional wording.

5 hours ago, InquisitorM said:

Now, there is room for people to disagree (not that I'm saying they might be right), but 'becoming' honoured or dishonoured is to go from not being in that state to being in that state. To show that the game recognises this distinction, I can compare and contrast Steward of Law with Savvy Politician. Steward of Law says that you personalities cannot become dishonoured. Your characters can get dishonoured, but they will never become dishonoured. Savvy Politician, however, says that when it is honoured, you can honour another character. If Savvy Politician was dishonoured (has the status of) then honouring the savvy Politician will discard her dishonoured status and allow you to honour another character.

What do you think of this: We have Steward of Law in a conflict, my opponent plays an event, and I use Forged Edict to cancel it. I choose to pay the cost by dishonoring Steward of Law. Steward of Law states that a character cannot become dishonored, so he does not.

Was the cost of Forged Edict still paid?

I think this is directly linked to the Shameful Display. There seems to be a distinction between "honoring" and "becoming honored" sure, but does that distinction allow an honored character to "honor" and then the secondary effect of "becoming honored" fails? Or does them being unable to become honored / dishonored block the effect.

If it does not block the effect - then certainly, I believe Shameful Display can work with any 2 targets no matter what their status is, and you can apply it in any way you wish. IF being unable to become honored / dishonored blocks the honor / dishonor part so that it fizzles, I still see (pg 6 effects bullet 2) a requirement that you must do as much of each aspect of the effect as you can. This means you can't fizzle both ways if applying it the other way would allow any part of the effect to resolve.

Just looking at the Personal Honor, Personal Dishonor section (pg12) I don't think "becoming honored" or "becoming dishonored" are uniquely separate from honoring or dishonoring. I feel it is more an added distinction of dishonoring a dishonored character or honoring an honored character. Steward of Law would not prevent an honored character from being dishonored because they are not then becoming dishonored, but they would stop an ordinary character from being dishonored. I don't think "becoming dishonored" is a secondary effect but more an added stipulation to the same effect when the status switches to that state.

The reasons I believe it as such are 1) There is no actual definition for "becoming honored." I feel if it were a unique thing, separate from honoring that it would have its own definition. Rather I think "becoming" is simply used for what the word means. If you have that status, you cannot gain that status. 2) It does not state that you cannot honor a character who is honored, and if you can do that then there is nothing that states you cannot add additional honored status tokens to that character. The first bullet point states simply that when a character is honored (not becomes honored) that you put an honored token on them. Nothing here blocks 2x honored tokens, or 2x dishonored tokens. 3) You can argue that "the rules are wrong" but I think that this is more a misconception on the readers part than poor rules. "Becoming" is its own word, with its own meaning. It does create a distinction in some situations, but using that word does not add a new distinct term of "honoring" and "becoming honored." It only augments honoring to include if a character is already honored they cannot honor.

The only way I can interpret the 4th bullet point is that "become honored" is not a unique thing, but simply an additional part of the same thing. If I have an honored character, I cannot target them with Way of the Crane because they cannot receive honor status. If I have Steward of Law out, and no honored characters, I could not play Forged Edict because dishonor and "cannot become dishonored" are the exact same thing at that point. The only time this distinction comes into play is if you are dishonoring an honored character, or honoring a dishonored character... exactly what people are trying to do here with Shameful Display.

Therefore I think that pg3 Cannot combined with pg 6 Effects pt 2 forces you to ensure the first part of the effect (either honoring or dishonoring one of the characters) properly happens. The second part can fizzle, because you can paint it into a corner, but the first part can't simply be vanished by honoring an honored character, or dishonoring a dishonored one.

Shosuko:

I agree with you on the Forged Edict vs. Steward of Law, but I must continue to point out that with regards to the Shameful Display situation you are continuing to apply a rule that does not actually impact the situation. Specifically, Shameful Display does not have the word select in its ability text , and therefore rules about selecting choices do not apply to it. This is a very cogent point; select is a term that is well defined in the Rules Reference and Shameful Display categorically is not a selection by that definition. As a result, yes, both parts can actually fizzle if the controller of the ability so desires them to, because there does not exist a rule that says otherwise.