Here is a stone placement game that can be played using the backs of the cards as a board and fate and honour tokens.
Everything you need comes in the core set.
You will need 5 cards
On the back of every card are 5 circles in a circle we lay the 5 cards in the same pattern.
You also need tokens for each player.
Each card is placed to represent one of the elements. Earth, Air, Water, Fire and Void.
We will call these zones, so we have five zones
Each zone has 5 spots for each of the five elements
Players take turns placing tokens on the spots until 1 of the players wins.
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Rules
Decide who goes first.
Each player has two phases to each turn.
Capture phase (optional)
This is where you can move your tokens that are on the board and capture your opponents pieces
Placement phase. (compulsory)
This is where you place an additional token on the board.
There are 3 ways of wining the game.
1, Fill all 5 spots on any zone with all of your tokens.
2. If there are any empty spots on the board and your opponent can't make a legal move then you win.
3, If the board is full then count the tokens in each zone.
a if you have more tokens in the zone then you claim the zone
b if you have claimed more zones then you win.
I'm pretty sure there can't be a draw.
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Best way to see how this works is to follow along in an example.
As capturing will come later we'll be skipping that phase until we get the chance.
Ok lets begin
The honour player goes first and places a token on in the Water zone on the Fire spot.
The spot you play your token on restricts where your opponent can play their next token.
The honour player played on a Fire spot so the fate player can either play on any available Fire spot in another zone.
Or on any spot within the Fire zone.
Lets say they play in the Fire zone on the Air spot.
Meaning the honour player is now restricted to play Air.
Either on any Air spot within any zone
Or on any spot within the Air zone.
Lets say they choose to play in the Air zone on the Water spot.
I think it should be clear that the fate player can now only play either on a Water spot
Or within the water zone
They play in the Water zone and they also play on the Water spot.
Passing play back to the honour player to play Water again.
The Honour player plays in the Earth zone on the Water spot.
At this point in the game before the fate player places a token they can capture a token from the honour player.
There are 2 ways to capture an opponents token
1, Hopping from zone to zone
this is done by hopping over an opponents token along lines created in the board shape.
2, By hoping over an opponents token moving around within a zone either clockwise or anti-clockwise
in both instances the player must land on a spot that is of the element type they are playing on their turn.
First lets look at hopping from zone to zone
Lines are created by 4 spots of 2 element types
In this example its the Water/Fire line
The 4 spots that make up the Air/Void line are here
There are 10 combination of any 2 elements types and they are
1 Earth/Air
2 Earth/Water
3 Earth/Fire
4 Earth/Void
5 Air/Water
6 Air/Fire
7 Air/Void
8 Water/Fire
9 Water/Void
10 Fire/Void
Each combination of element type creates 2 lines within the board for a total of 20 lines within the board structure.
Highlighted are both Air/Void lines
Ok back to the game and its the fate player to play on Water
They are going to move this token that already in play
Hoping over the honour token moving along the Water/Fire line from the Water zone into the Fire zone onto the Water spot
They move their token
And remove the honour token from the board
Its still the fate players turn as the turn end only when a player add a new token to the board.
So each round a player can capture tokens on the board by moving tokens that are already in play
Then they end their turn by adding a new token
All confined to the element type they are playing that round
The fate player this round is playing Water so they end their turn by playing a token in the Water zone on the Void spot.
The honour player plays in the Void zone on the Air spot
Fate plays in the Air zone on the Earth spot
The Honour player plays in the Earth zone on the Void spot
Now here the fate play can use the second way of capturing a token by moving around the spots within a zone
The fate player is on Void.
They can move around the Air zone Anti-clockwise hopping over the honour token to land on the Void spot.
They make the move and remove the honour token from the game
But the fate player isn't finished yet and can make another capture this round
Here along the Air/Void line
They can hop the honour token moving from the Air zone into the Void zone.
They make the move and remove the honour token from play
With no more captures available this round the fate player ends their turn by placing a token in the Void zone on the Air spot
The honour player plays in the Air zone on the Water spot
The fate player plays in the Void zone on the water spot passing play back to the honour player keeping it on Water
Now here the honour player can only play within the Water zone as all the water spot everywhere else are currently taken
They can pass play back to the fate player and keep it on water by playing on the Water spot within the water Zone
Ok I hope you've followed everything so far
now lets look at the 3 win conditions
Win Condition One
This is where a player fills all five spots of any zone with 5 of their tokens
Lets take a look at this board position
It fate to play on Fire
They choose to play in the Water zone on the Fire spot
The honour player wins the game by playing on the Fire spot in the Earth zone
All five spots within the Earth zone have been claimed by the honour player.
Win Condition Two
This is where your opponent can no longer make a legal move.
Lets take a look at this board position.
Its Fate to play on Void
They place their token on the last Void spot in the fire zone
Its honour to play on Void and they can't make a legal move
All the Void spots are taken and all the spots within the Void zone are also taken
Because the honour player can't play then the Fate player wins
Win Condition Three
If the board ever gets to a completed state without a winner then player first count the number of tokens in each zone
In the Earth zone there are 3 Honour tokens and 2 fate token so the honour player claims the Earth zone
The player who has claimed the most zone at the end of the game wins.
Thats all there is to it
it can be tricky at first to see the lines but once you see them then its quite easy
I'm sure there are plenty of games that can be played by arranging 5 cards into the configuration
This is my first idea if anybody plays it and finds it to be broken or has suggested rules changes leave a comment
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ARTS AND CRAFTS
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If you have a printer than i've made some boards that can be printed and are a little more stable than laying out 5 cards.
If you're struggling to see how the spots create lines then maybe this board could help.
I've added all 20 lines to help highlight where they are
I'm not sure if this helps or not
If you have no problem seeing how the lines are created then maybe this is a better board to print.
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The Next Level
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For a more involved longer game then we can scale up another level giving the board a total of 125 spots to play
This creates
5 zones
25 circles
125 spots
When its a players turn and say they are playing Water this round
Then they now have three options to play
1 They can play on any water spot anywhere on the board
2 They can play on any spot within a Water circle in any zone
3 They can play on any spot within the Water zone
To create the Master size board print out the following 5 images onto A3 Paper and cut them out and stick them onto a big board in the correct configuration.
Feedback is always appreciated.
If anybody wants to come up with a good name for this game please comment below.
Also a link to Game version 2
L5R-MINI Game #2 - Four in a Row
Edited by Maffster