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101

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: February 01, 2023, 10:49:38 am »

I'm not clear what "your choice!" means for Sheep + Chameleon... is this ruling that you can play a card and end up getting just +2 cards for it? Or does "your choice" simply mean that you can play a card for Sheep, or for Chameleon, or for neither?

I'm almost positive it means you can choose which to apply, based on the ruling that the first one you apply will stick, since the next one does nothing when you're no longer following the card's instructions. It's the same for all where he wrote "your choice".

102

Rules Questions / Re: Replaying Durations that aren't in play

« on: February 01, 2023, 10:20:44 am »

I also realize that this means the original Dark Ages rulebook is again correct(!) regarding Procession, while the 2017 rulebook (which used to be correct based on the rule change regarding Throne Rooms and Durations) is now wrong.

EDIT: I think this is wrong!

103

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: February 01, 2023, 04:20:20 am »

- Reckless + Way of the Chameleon
-- This could go either way, but I have ruled that it works, you get the flipped effect twice. (a reversal)

- Enchantress + Way of the Chameleon
-- Your choice!
- Way of the Sheep + Way of the Chameleon
-- Not recommended! But supported. Your choice!

Those two seem contradictory to me.

Reckless works if you're following the card's instructions; it doesn't if you're not (see Reckless + Enchantress, and Reckless + Way of the Sheep).
So if Reckless + Way of the Chameleon works, it must mean that you're following the card's instructions with Chameleon.

Okay, but then Enchantress + Chameleon should work like this: You apply Enchantress first, Chameleon does nothing. You apply Chameleon first, Enchantress works. So there's no way to escape Enchantress.

And Sheep + Chameleon should work like this: You apply Sheep first, Chameleon does nothing. You apply Chameleon first, Sheep works. Of course this doesn't matter in practice, because you can just choose not to use Sheep if you want the Chameleon effect.

104

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: February 01, 2023, 04:08:03 am »

The essence of my issue is this:

A card gives you +$ must mean that the card makes you get +$. For instance, with Way of the Goat, the played card makes you trash - according to this ruling.

1. The card makes you trash.
2. The card tells you to trash.
3. The card instructs you to trash.
4. The card orders you to trash.
5. The card's instructions are to trash.
6. The card's orders are to trash.

To me these are synonymous. But according to the ruling, they are not. (This is not about terminology, but about concept. We can add more verbs and nouns.) Where do we draw the line? Between the verbs and nouns? Wherever we draw the line seems arbitrary to me.

I don't understand the list of 6 things or how it relates to anything.

Because if making you trash and giving you an instruction to trash is the same concept, then using Way of the Goat counts as following the played card's instructions.

105

Rules Questions / Re: Rulebook note on Cutthroat

« on: February 01, 2023, 03:51:15 am »

When I read "Loot itself is a Treasure costing $5 or more, so a player gaining one will trigger Cutthroats", I read "because all Loot cards have the type treasure and cost or more, gaining a Loot will cause Cutthroat to trigger, just like gaining a Gold would".

In other words, I'm not reading anything about "the Loot that Cutthroat is causing you to gain will also trigger other Cutthroats."

If the sentence started with "The Loot" instead of "Loot", then I'd agree with your reading of it. The phrase "Loot itself" here reads to me as just being there because Loot is the subject of what the card does. Kind of like a FAQ entry that says "because Throne Room itself is an action card, you can choose to play a Throne Room in your hand twice when you play a Throne Room".

I see what you mean. At least this made me realize how a Cutthroat-gained Loot could trigger a Cutthroat.

106

Rules Questions / Rulebook note on Cutthroat

« on: January 31, 2023, 08:03:45 am »

"Loot itself is a Treasure costing $5 or more, so a player gaining one will trigger Cutthroats."

I assume the implication of "Loot itself" is the Loot gained by triggering a Cutthroat. But is this actually possible? If someone gains a Gold, my Cutthroat triggers, gaining me a Loot. But all Cutthroats already triggered from the Gold gain, so how can my Loot gain trigger any Cutthroats?

Thinking about it, I think the only way is if someone played a Cutthroat from gaining the Gold or the Loot, before I gained my Loot. Let's say my left-hand player gained a Loot from their Cutthroat, reacted with a Sheepdog using Way of the Mouse playing Vassal, and Vassal hitting Cutthroat. Then I gain my Loot, triggering their new Cuttroat. So I guess we need Way of the Mouse and Vassal?

EDIT: No, also if the player gaining the Gold (the player in turn, let's say) gained Cutthroat from Haggler or Architects' Guild, they could play it with Innovation or similar.

107

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: January 30, 2023, 07:07:13 am »

Yes, your formulation seems to be correct for Reckless when Way/Ench/Highw have already been applied. (You can't include Reckless in the list of the sets of instructions that can be followed, because that would mean we could apply Reckless first and have Way/Ench/Highw fail to do anything.)

Yes, Moat and Adventures tokens trigger after announcing the card, before starting to resolve its on-play instructions. League of Shopkeepers triggers afterwards. But my objection was not related to the timing. Priest triggers while you're in the middle of following the on-play instructions. All of the mentioned things provide instructions that you follow when playing the card, at various times. Ways/Ench/Highw are basically no different. Like Snowy Village or Trader 1E they happen to cancel something that you were supposed to do, and then they make you do something else, but triggering at a certain time and making you do something is what all these things do. In order for Ways/Ench/Highw to be different, we need to specifically say so, for instance by introducing the concept of imbuing the played card with the ability to "make you" do something outside of its instructions.

Your "game rule" about what it means to play a card (different sets of instructions) works as long as Harbor Village, Moat etc. are understood to refer specifically to the instructions the "game rule" tells you to follow, and not other instructions you follow when playing a card, and of course not (only) the card's instructions. We need that "game rule" though.

I was kind of giving up trying to formulate this based on which instructions are being followed. I had in mind the card "making you" do stuff - by following some other instructions of course - but the definition being that Ways/Ench/Highw are imbued with this transferal power. To me it's weird, but it seems to be the only way to understand this ruling. So for Enchantress it would be: "the first time each other player plays an Action card on their turn, it makes them get +1 Card and +1 Action instead of following its instructions." (using "it gives them" instead of "it makes them get" makes the last part of the sentence wrong and difficult to get right.)

108

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Semi-Interesting Dominion Moments Thread

« on: January 30, 2023, 05:20:45 am »

opened black market/hermit.

turn 3 drew black market and 4 coppers. black market opened to king's court, bishop, and.... patron. so i could afford king's court with the rule change!

What rule change was that?

nervous cause no one knows the rules like you but i thought back in the day that one couldn't spend coffers on black market goods

Of course. My head is swimming with rule changes I suppose.

109

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: January 30, 2023, 03:16:48 am »

Jeebus, can you unpack how your interpretation works in the case of a simple card like Steward? If I play one Steward and choose +2 coins, and another Steward and choose to trash 2 cards, it seems clear to me that the two Stewards made me do different things (your sentence #1 is true of the second one but not the first one), but that they have the same instructions. Do you disagree with that? Based on your statement, it seems like you must—if "what the card makes you do" is synonymous with "the card’s instructions", then two cards with the same instructions can’t make you do different things. So… would you say that Steward #2 didn’t make me trash? That the two copies of Steward have different instructions as a result of my choice? What’s your analysis of this situation?

I was referring to how Ways work, and they make you do a whole set of other instructions. So I used "instructions" and "orders" (plural). Steward's instructions are that you choose between drawing, getting $ and trashing, and then do one of those things. And that's exactly what Steward makes you do. (This could be Steward with Chameleon, or a Way that has variable outcome like Way of the Rat.)

But yes, you can look at it as individual instructions, and not all of those are followed. So what I'm talking about are the instructions you're following:
If you're following a card's instruction to trash, it means that it instructs you to trash. (or any other words you want to use)
And vice versa, if the card instructs you to trash, it means that you're following its instruction to trash / its instruction to you is to trash. (or any other words you want to use)

You could add something like "now" in front of every sentence to make it clear that all of them are about something happening in the game:
1. Now, the card makes you trash.
2. Now, the card tells you to trash.
3. Now, the card instructs you to trash.
4. Now, the card orders you to trash.
5. Now, the card's instruction is to trash.
6. Now, the card's order is to trash.

110

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: January 29, 2023, 03:37:39 pm »

You could try sticking to the thing you care the most about, and saying it tersely, and seeing how it goes.

The essence of my issue is this:

A card gives you +$ must mean that the card makes you get +$. For instance, with Way of the Goat, the played card makes you trash - according to this ruling.

1. The card makes you trash.
2. The card tells you to trash.
3. The card instructs you to trash.
4. The card orders you to trash.
5. The card's instructions are to trash.
6. The card's orders are to trash.

To me these are synonymous. But according to the ruling, they are not. (This is not about terminology, but about concept. We can add more verbs and nouns.) Where do we draw the line? Between the verbs and nouns? Wherever we draw the line seems arbitrary to me.

(As a separate matter, I don't see that the Way rules say anything about the played card "giving" you or "making" you do anything [explained in more detail before, I'm just mentioning it here for completeness], and Enchantress doesn't say it [yes in the rulebook notes, but so do the rulebook notes about Merchant, Ironworks and Ironmonger].)

111

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: January 29, 2023, 02:47:51 pm »

I was talking about me as a player, not as a rules-document manintainer (if I shared your thinking I could just delete all the stuff about old versions in the document). I'm not going to explain before we start a game that Trader allows when-gain stuff to happen and Haggler triggers on when-gain, unlike what the cards say. And I expect other people to do that even less (out of those people who know about the changes). I don't imagine that most people that look up their card is fine with playing with a different card text that works differently. And I don't imagine that IRL tournaments include all the changed card texts unless the organizers actually bought all the new sets (and tournaments need rulings).

This is just another case where we fail to communicate? You, and people reading this thread, are trying to figure out weird cases. Normal people are not! They are not. They aren't. They don't. It's not a thing.

When a weird situation comes up, they don't necessarily even think to ask. They think they know what happens and they do that.

Yeah, it seems we're not talking about the same thing anymore.
But it sounds like you're saying that "normal" players are not looking up explanations online? (For certain definitions of "normal", I would agree.) Or are you saying that there is something especially weird about these interactions as opposed to other two-card interactions?

112

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: January 29, 2023, 02:31:04 pm »

A fourth option is the instructions written on the card followed by the instructions written on the card.  This is only available if the card has the Reckless trait.  (Does this also require "and one is not subject to an Enchantress attack"?)

I've now read the Wiki about Reckless, so I know that it would require "and one is subject to neither an Enchantress attack or a Highwayman attack."  It's also occurred to me that my phrasing is careless since what matters is whether the card, not the player, is subject to the attack, so let's try the following instead:

Playing a card consists of following one of the available sets of instructions from the following list:

• [Available only if the card is subject to an Enchantress attack] +1 Card and +1 Action.
• [Available only if the card is subject to a Highwayman attack] nothing.
• [Available only if the card has the Reckless trait and neither of the first two options are available] The instructions written on the card followed by the instructions written on the card.
• [Available only if none of the first three options are available] The instructions written on the card.
• [Available when Way of the Chameleon is in the game] The instructions on the card as modified by Way of the Chameleon
• [Available when any other Way is in the game] The instructions written on the Way.

That's a rather more verbose way of listing the options than I would have liked, but I think the above now gets the details of what can and can't be done right (except that it doesn't cover Envious, and if one has bought Inheritance, it doesn't properly cover Estates, given that the instructions aren't on the Estates themselves).  I'm vaguely hopeful that it also leads to the right results as far as Harbor Village and Moat are concerned, but I might well have overlooked something.

Inheritance makes the instructions the Estate's instructions, it's a shapeshifter. Same with Envious.

I think your explanation works (except the mistake with Reckless). But it requires that all that is in the general game rules, and of course it's not in the game rules. I was thinking about a way to actually describe what Ways and Enchantress do without having to change the rules of the game.

113

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: January 29, 2023, 02:23:09 pm »

(Reckless does not substitute the instructions like the others, it horns in after you have followed them once and makes you do it an extra time.)

It seems to me that "Follow the instructions of played Reckless cards twice" can be considered as having the effect of creating a set of instructions that consists of the instructions on the card followed by the instructions on the card. 

But that's not how Donald X. ruled that it works. You can find it in the thread called "Reckless" possibly, or just search for it. It's the way I said.

114

Dominion General Discussion / Re: Semi-Interesting Dominion Moments Thread

« on: January 29, 2023, 02:18:40 pm »

opened black market/hermit.

turn 3 drew black market and 4 coppers. black market opened to king's court, bishop, and.... patron. so i could afford king's court with the rule change!

What rule change was that?

115

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: January 29, 2023, 08:10:05 am »

So does anyone have a suggestion for a short, not necessarily technical, description of what Ways, Enchantress and Reckless actually do - so that Harbor Village and Moat work as intended? (Of course without mentioning Harbor Village or Moat.)

Playing a card consists of following a set of instructions.  Usually there is only one possible set of instructions, but sometimes there is more than one, in which case the player can choose which to follow.

The problem is that saying that all those things are the card's instructions means that Ways/Ench/Highw/Reckless will work on a card to which Ways/Ench/Highw has already been applied.

But my description doesn't say that they are the card's instructions.  It says that playing a card consists of following a set of instructions, one of the possible sets being the card's instructions. 

I'm sorry, I misread your post to say that the card consists of several sets of instructions.

scolapasta has correctly understood the distinction between "the card's instructions" and "the instructions followed when playing a card", whereas you persist in treating the two concepts as being identical.

I have never treated them as identical, quite the opposite. I have said that "the instructions followed when playing a card" also includes tokens, League of Shopkeepers, etc., while "the card's instructions" don't.

More later.

116

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: January 28, 2023, 01:42:43 pm »

So does anyone have a suggestion for a short, not necessarily technical, description of what Ways, Enchantress and Reckless actually do - so that Harbor Village and Moat work as intended? (Of course without mentioning Harbor Village or Moat.)

Using "give" doesn't work, since Moat doesn't say that, but I guess something with "make you"?

I have to confess that I am now somewhat unclear on how things are supposed to work.  No doubt buried within this thread there is all the necessary information, but the occasional reference to changed rulings means I'm far from convinced that I could identify the information even if I could winnow it out from the lengthy debates about what exactly various words ought to mean.  I had therefore been intending to ask to what extent, if any, the approach described below gives the right results.  If miraculously it gives all the right results, consider it an answer (though one that almost certainly be improved) to your request.  If as is more likely it doesn't, ignore it, though it would be helpful to my grasp of the various rulings if you'd point out which ones it gets wrong.  I'm particularly worried about the interaction between Reckless and Enchantress.

Playing a card consists of following a set of instructions.  Usually there is only one possible set of instructions, but sometimes there is more than one, in which case the player can choose which to follow.

One option is the instructions written on the card.  This option is not available if the card has the Reckless trait or one is subject to an Enchantress attack.

A second option is the instructions on a Way (or in the case of Way of Chameleon, the instructions on the card after rewriting as directed).  This is only available if there is a Way in the game.

A third option is +1 card, +1 action.  This is only available if one is subject to an Enchantress attack.

A fourth option is the instructions written on the card followed by the instructions written on the card.  This is only available if the card has the Reckless trait.  (Does this also require "and one is not subject to an Enchantress attack"?)

The problem is that saying that all those things are the card's instructions means that Ways/Ench/Highw/Reckless will work on a card to which Ways/Ench/Highw has already been applied. In short, applying Enchantress and then Chameleon will produce +$1 and +1 Action, applying Chameleon and then Enchantress will produce +1 Card and +1 Action, applying Enchantress and then Reckless will produce +1 Card and +1 Action twice, applying Sheep and then Reckless will produce +$2 twice. None of that is according to current rulings. But your explanation is pretty much what I've been advocating.

I'll try to write a summary of the rulings one of the upcoming days.

(Reckless does not substitute the instructions like the others, it horns in after you have followed them once and makes you do it an extra time.)

117

Rules Questions / Re: Replaying Durations that aren't in play

« on: January 28, 2023, 12:56:05 pm »

Wait, doesn't "anything playing a card that isn't in play or isn't moving it into play" include Throne Rooms in the Throne–Caravan–Way of the Horse situation? The second time the Caravan gets played by that Throne Room, it's not in play and not moving into play. Does that mean the Throne Room in that scenario stays in play as long as the Caravan would? I think that contradicts previous rulings.

I'm not looking up if this actually contradicts a ruling, or if it contradicts a ruling but only because that ruling predated this one. But, you're correct otherwise; if Throne Room plays a Caravan that's not in play due to Way of the Horse, Throne should stay out as long as the Caravan would have, just like with Band of Misfits etc.

It's definitely a new ruling. Previously this rule only applied to cards like Band of Misfits, Overlord, Inheritance, Necromancer and Captain, not to Throne Room:

Rule 2 is there to tell people about the changes; the actual rulebook location for rule 2 would be in each relevant card's FAQ. It wouldn't have a special section in a rulebook because it's not something I want anyone to see unless they are specifically looking up a relevant card. There's no challenge of which cards it applies to, it would apply to the cards that explained it. It's not challenging to me either, it's cards that play cards that aren't put into play. Throne Room for example does not do that; it can fail to put the card into play e.g. when playing a one-shot the second time, but it always tries to put the card into play.

118

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: January 28, 2023, 10:11:24 am »

(In addition to Ways, Enchantress, and Reckless, I suppose Highwayman and the late lamented Coppersmith also do that.)

Highwayman, yes it's the same as Enchantress.

Coppersmith and Envious were ruled to be shapeshifters. Of course, that was when saying that a card does something meant that its instructions were changed. Donald X. might think differently about it now that this he's introduced this new concept.

119

Rules Questions / Taskmaster and Improve

« on: January 28, 2023, 07:48:39 am »

 

Taskmaster seems to be like Garrison and Cargo Ship: If it hasn't triggered yet at the start of Clean-up, it can be trashed with Improve, making it trigger. Except the cost of Taskmaster is $3, so it can't be Improved into a $5 cost card. But let's say we played Improve twice, and we first trash Taskmaster with Improve, and then Improve another card into a $5 cost - then Taskmaster should trigger. And it should keep working every turn even though it's trashed. Am I thinking about it correctly?

120

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: January 28, 2023, 05:47:53 am »

So does anyone have a suggestion for a short, not necessarily technical, description of what Ways, Enchantress and Reckless actually do - so that Harbor Village and Moat work as intended? (Of course without mentioning Harbor Village or Moat.)

Using "give" doesn't work, since Moat doesn't say that, but I guess something with "make you"?

121

Rules Questions / Re: Lantern, Elder, Harbor Village, Moat

« on: January 28, 2023, 04:21:40 am »

Okay, but I don't agree that it's reasonable. People who look up an explanation of how to play a card they own, can't be expected to then play that card with a different card text. If it were a completely broken card that needed errata to not ruin the game, I would agree, but that's not the case. About 70 cards have been functionally changed. When I play IRL with my original sets, I don't expect the other players to play the cards differently than the printed text. If a rules question comes up, I'll answer it based on the cards we're actually playing with.

I can see how it's not ideal from your perspective as a rules-document maintainer. It's essential from my perspective as a game-maintainer though, and it's doing just fine for players.

Of course people play cards by their wordings; they don't even know there's errata. And weird Trader questions don't come up and they're fine. No-one demands rulings beyond "there's errata" but you. It's beyond the scope for me; it's not happening.

I was talking about me as a player, not as a rules-document manintainer (if I shared your thinking I could just delete all the stuff about old versions in the document). I'm not going to explain before we start a game that Trader allows when-gain stuff to happen and Haggler triggers on when-gain, unlike what the cards say. And I expect other people to do that even less (out of those people who know about the changes). I don't imagine that most people that look up their card is fine with playing with a different card text that works differently. And I don't imagine that IRL tournaments include all the changed card texts unless the organizers actually bought all the new sets (and tournaments need rulings).

As I said, I don't think that's how anybody thinks it works, nor, I assume, how it was intended. I think instead it must be:

I would not lean on these "it must be" words like you do. We could also say, my rulings are inconceivable. Yet there they are.

I think the "anybody" who's thinking how things work, is not baffled by Way of the Sheep; it means you can play a card to make +$2, and that's how they use it. They're not possibly baffled by the minutiae that you're looking at but which they absolutely never are. They're not programming Dominion or writing a rules document for it.

Several people here are trying to explain how this ruling makes sense to them. (They are mostly following what I said it "must be" above.) Of course it's possible to just accept a ruling of how card A, B and C individually work with card D, E and F, but it's easier to parse if there were some commonality that could actually be understood, so that we could predict how the next card that is similar to A, B and C would also work with D, E and F without asking for another ruling. That's what I've been trying to get at, along with some other posters. Although they don't agree with me, we have all been trying to figure out how this actually works.

And that's saying that "following Ways/Ench's instructions" counts as "following the card's instructions". (I explained why at the end of my post.)

Yet again what it is actually saying is what I said, not what you say while saying "this is what you're saying." I again refuse to let you put new words into my mouth.

I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. I was trying to find a way that I could explain it, and it lead to what it lead to. Since you were responding to that, I referred to it.

It would be nice if we were better at communicating with each other. I can share the blame but there's only so much time I have to devote to fixing it.

This may be the important point, but I have used up my ability to focus on these for the day. I'm not sure if you're arguing for a different ruling somewhere here or what.

When you try to come up with a new way to say what Harbor Village does, it just makes it so hard to try to follow it or agree to anything ever. Harbor Village does what it says and what I've explained; your terms for it just shut me down.

To me, I'm doing what we always do in these threads, going back to Ironworks/Trader or maybe earlier, and in threads about all games, figuring out how two things actually work in order to work out the interaction.

I get that you don't want to engage with this anymore. I actually thought you wouldn't even respond to that post; and in the end you didn't actually respond to its arguments.

122

Rules Questions / Re: Throne Room + Quartermaster

« on: January 27, 2023, 03:04:19 pm »

The current ruling as I understand it is that those playings form different "pools" of cards, so you get 2 different pools for Quatermaster cards, unlike Throning one (which gives you one pool that gets affected twice at each start of turn). Because the Quatermaster played is not in play, we do not remember the identity of the played card, so consider it new each time.

The precedent is how it works with Durations cards. Play Overlord --> Gear (set nothing aside), then play another Overlord --> Gear (set something aside). The first Overlord leaves play at end of turn, even though it played the same Gear card as the second Overlord, which stays in play.

Hmm. It is similar to that weird "cards that play a card while leaving it" rule. I guess in both cases there's an underlying rule that players can't identify cards in the supply.

123

Rules Questions / Re: Throne Room + Quartermaster

« on: January 27, 2023, 11:41:46 am »

So since Quartermaster refers to cards on itself, no matter how they were placed there, what happens when you play it with Overlord? I assume you technically have to place the set-aside cards on the Quartermaster pile (although for convenience you'd place it somewhere else). And if you then play the same Quartermaster again with Overlord, the cards go in the same stack. Come to think of it, any player who plays that Quartermaster in the supply would add to the same stack! And what would happen if that Quartermaster were gained?

I mean, that can't be the intended way it works, so I guess "from this" can't really mean "from this card" after all?

124

Rules Questions / Re: Harbor Village and Inspiring

« on: January 27, 2023, 11:01:13 am »

I guess there is nothing besides Inspiring that can cause the second Harbor Village to give +$ so that it counts for the first Harbor Village.

125

Rules Questions / Re: Harbor Village and Inspiring

« on: January 27, 2023, 10:56:10 am »

("It" referred to Inspiring.)

Yes, I see now. I misunderstood the clarification. I thought it meant that the card after Harbor Village (whether it was a second Harbor Village or any other card) would give you +$ if Inspiring caused you to play a card that gave you +$. I didn't catch the chain reaction effect.