Secrets of the Garou: General Notes

Here's some general notes that don't deal with particular cards.

General Rulings

The rules for selecting your shapeshifters have been changed. In order to use a particular tribe card, you must include more renown total from that tribe in your deck than any other single tribe. For example, if you are using the Get of Fenris in a 15-Renown game, Hide-of-Iron (an 8-Renown Get of Fenris) and Gordon Goffe (a 6-Renown Bone Gnawer cohort) would be a legal set of characters. But it would be illegal if you were playing as the Bone Gnawers, since the Get of Fenris' Renown total is higher than the Bone Gnawers'. [Damian Mastrangelo, 11/11/98]
It's okay if the combined total of several cohort tribes' Renown is higher than your Tribe's, as long as no single cohort tribe does. For example, a 20-Renown Bone Gnawer deck with Grekko Goodheart (an 8-Renown Bone Gnawer), Soft Brain (a 5-Renown Get of Fenris cohort), and Zin-Shaar (a 5-Renown Silent Strider cohort) would be legal. Also, do not count the Renown penalty you have to pay for including cohort Garou in your deck; only count the Renown of the Garou themselves. [Ed Bolme, 11/11/98]

For the purposes of your deck, your own tribe's cohorts are the ones listed on your tribe card. Those cohort tribes only have one cohort: your tribe. And other tribes have no cohorts at all.
For example: Let's say that you're playing the Red Talons; your cohorts (as of right now) are the Shadow Lords and the Wendigo. If you have a Red Talon Tattoo (which requires a Red Talon cohort), you can play it on a Shadow Lord or Wendigo Garou in your tribe. If you have a Wendigo Tattoo, you can only play it on a Red Talon. And if you have a Silent Strider tattoo, you can't play it on anything, because it requires a Silent Strider cohort, and as far as your deck is concerned, the Striders don't have any cohorts. Even if you happen to have a Silent Strider tribe card handy, and even if it says that the Wendigo are cohorts of the Striders, you can't play the tattoo on a Wendigo in your pack; only the cohorts listed on the tribe card you're playing Right Now matter. [Mailing list discussion]

If a defense card somehow winds up with a nonzero Damage rating, that does not cause it to deal damage. (Counterattacks are an exception to this.) Likewise, if an attack card somehow winds up with a nonzero Block rating, that does not cause it to block damage. [Matt Farney, 11/1/98] For example, a kick defense played by a Travelling Spirit will wind up with a Damage rating of 1, but will not do any damage.

Unless something specifically says that they should be treated differently, flexes are treated as attacks in all ways when they're played when you have the initiative, and as defenses in all ways when they're played when you don't have the initiative. So, for example, Superior Position will add to the base damage of Healing Dance cards played after it. [Kickaha Ota, 10/31/98]

You can only play Gifts (and Equipment) on your own characters, unless a card specifically says otherwise. [Matt Farney, 10/25/98]

Combats always take place in the Hunting Grounds. If the combat takes place during the Main Phase (or at any other point during the turn other than the Alpha Phase), characters return to their Staging Area at the end of combat, flipping back to breed form if possible.
During the Alpha Phase, characters do not return to their Staging Area, no matter how they entered combat.
During the End Phase, everybody goes home, flipping back to breed form if possible. [Ed Bolme, 10/13/98]
Any character in the Hunting Grounds, for whatever reason, is fair game for attack; but only alphas get an action. So, for example, if your character accepts a challenge (moving it into the Hunting Grounds), it can then be attacked by other alphas for the rest of the turn. [Ed Bolme, 10/13/98]

In classic Rage (the White Wolf rules), you could not call Moots if you were the only player left in the game. If the Five Rings version, this is not true; call all the Moots you want. (And they're much easier to pass when there's no one left to vote against them.) [Matt Farney, 10/27/98]

Players often misunderstand how Sustained Rage works. Sustained Rage: 2 does not mean "Your Rage never drops below 2"; it means "You can always play cards with a Rage cost of 2 or less, even if you can't afford them." So if you have Sustained Rage: 2 and a Rage of 3, and you play a Rage-2 combat card, your Rage is now 1, just as it would be if you didn't have Sustained Rage. If you play another Rage-2 combat card, it works normally, and your Rage drops to zero. You can continue to play combat cards with a Rage cost of 2 or less, and they will continue to work; but a Fight On! will only bring your Rage back to 2, not to 4. [Ed Bolme, 10/15/98]

If all players but one are eliminated, the game is not over. The remaining player must continue play; if he attacks a Victim or Enemy, one of the defeated players should play for the Victim/Enemy. The game does not end until a player reaches the Renown limit of that game; bear in mind that that limit drops each time a turn passes without anyone drawing Sept cards. It is entirely possible for the remaining player to lose the game; if he has no way of generating Renown, and one of the eliminated players has a higher Renown total, that player will eventually win the game. [Ed Bolme, 10/29/98]
If the last player is eliminated as well, then the winner is the player with the highest Renown total. [Rulebook, p. 45]
In classic Rage (the White Wolf rules), you were eliminated from the game if all your Garou were killed, even if you still had Allies in play. This is not the case in the Five Rings game; you remain in the game as long as you have any living characters, no matter what they are.[Lon Franson, 10/27/98]