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Author Topic: Can I reveal Trader when I gain it?  (Read 9547 times)

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Jeebus

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Re: Can I reveal Trader when I gain it?
« Reply #25 on: May 19, 2016, 02:28:04 pm »
+1

I think it's necessary to keep in mind the difference between the semantic and pragmatic meanings of a sentence.
I agree with everything you wrote.

The funny thing is that Dominion card text occupies a space somewhere between the two. Donald has said that the texts can't be little computer programs, they have to make sense to normal people. So they're generally expressed with pragmatic meanings. "What things mean in English," etc. At the same time the language is often intentionally phrased in a semantic way in order to convey a very specific meaning that would not be apparent to a casual reader (even one familiar with Dominion) - for instance the use of a semicolon instead of a period.

Ultimately though, the card text is on the side of pragmatic meanings, with the FAQs in the rulebooks having the actual job of detailing the specifics.

GendoIkari

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Re: Can I reveal Trader when I gain it?
« Reply #26 on: May 19, 2016, 03:25:33 pm »
0

And the answer depends completely on if Royal Seal includes "no visiting" or not. I can't remember the answer to that. It seems to use the exact same wording as Travelling Fair.
Watchtower, Royal Seal and Travelling Fair are the only three when-gain abilities that move the card. So they move it after it's been gained. In addition Summon moves the card after it gains it. I don't think there are others.

And now Villa joins those as cards that visit the discard then move.
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SkyHard

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Re: Can I reveal Trader when I gain it?
« Reply #27 on: May 20, 2016, 02:20:31 am »
0

So it just now occurred to me that you should be able to Transmogrify something into a Watchtower, and then reveal that Watchtower to respond to the gaining of itself?
Yes.

I just tried it on MF and could not reveal the Watchtower. Is it a bug?
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Donald X.

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Re: Can I reveal Trader when I gain it?
« Reply #28 on: May 20, 2016, 02:50:46 am »
+1

So it just now occurred to me that you should be able to Transmogrify something into a Watchtower, and then reveal that Watchtower to respond to the gaining of itself?
Yes.

I just tried it on MF and could not reveal the Watchtower. Is it a bug?
What are your other options?

I mean uh. I make the rules and not them. Them programming it any which way isn't going to convince me of anything.
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SkyHard

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Re: Can I reveal Trader when I gain it?
« Reply #29 on: May 20, 2016, 03:00:02 am »
+2

So it just now occurred to me that you should be able to Transmogrify something into a Watchtower, and then reveal that Watchtower to respond to the gaining of itself?
Yes.

I just tried it on MF and could not reveal the Watchtower. Is it a bug?
What are your other options?

I mean uh. I make the rules and not them. Them programming it any which way isn't going to convince me of anything.

I was just asking if it is a bug or not. English is not my mothertongue and I was unsure and not trying to convince anyone.
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tufftaeh

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Re: Can I reveal Trader when I gain it?
« Reply #30 on: May 28, 2016, 08:23:43 am »
0

The wording is sort of ambiguous on Transmogrify, but the intent is that the card goes straight to your hand, not that it visits the discard pile (or wherever).

In the German version of the card, the translation has gone wrong a bit, unfortunately [translated back by yours truly]:
At the start of your turn, you may call this from your tavern mat. If you do: Trash a card from your hand and gain a card costing up to 1 more than the trashed card. Put that card into your hand.

If this was the English card text, I assume the gained card would actually visit the trash. And the reaction option effect of Market Square would need to happen before the last sentence of Transmogrify, so Transmogrify would lose track of the gained card because it is concealed by the discarded Market Square and a Gold.

As far as I know the English rules take precedence, however, so I will just tell my playing group how Transmogrify works with Market Square without explaining it by the German card text. Correct?
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Seprix

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Re: Can I reveal Trader when I gain it?
« Reply #31 on: May 28, 2016, 07:57:17 pm »
0

Stef is a Dominion lawyer.
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ehunt

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Re: Can I reveal Trader when I gain it?
« Reply #32 on: May 29, 2016, 05:30:38 am »
+1

I think it's necessary to keep in mind the difference between the semantic and pragmatic meanings of a sentence.
I agree with everything you wrote.

The funny thing is that Dominion card text occupies a space somewhere between the two. Donald has said that the texts can't be little computer programs, they have to make sense to normal people. So they're generally expressed with pragmatic meanings. "What things mean in English," etc. At the same time the language is often intentionally phrased in a semantic way in order to convey a very specific meaning that would not be apparent to a casual reader (even one familiar with Dominion) - for instance the use of a semicolon instead of a period.

Ultimately though, the card text is on the side of pragmatic meanings, with the FAQs in the rulebooks having the actual job of detailing the specifics.

I like this interpretation.

The general Dominion rules philosophy has always been "Dominion cards aren't computer programs, but are precise for humans: "do what it says on the card" will resolve all reasonable rules questions." No erratas, the FAQs are not formally needed, etc. The problem is that as Dominion grows, it becomes harder for this to be reasonable, because the number of card interactions grow quadratically and not linearly with the introduction of new cards. It must be tricky for dxv-- on the one hand you want the game to be maximally appealing to Johnny types, on the other, you don't want rules-laywering or unintuitive rules.

It seems that until around Hinterlands and the gain/buy distinction becoming important, a general combination of "just do what the card says" would resolve basically any case that could come up in practice. Generally,when you taught the game to people, they asked "dumb questions" for a few games that could be resolved, and then figured out how to read a Dominion card literally and could answer questions for themselves.

For theoretical reasons, you needed a few "rulings" even back then... the "everyone starves to death" ruling, a few other ones, but none of them come up (throning a mining village is maybe an exception, although I don't think that, before the lose track rule was formalized, anyone seriously argued you could Throne a Mining Village, trash it the first time, move it back to the play area the second time, then get to keep it (or trash it again). The possession/Ironworks interaction is another counterexample, although nobody noticed it... I don't remember how Isotropic implemented it, but probably wrong w.r.t. the current ruling.) But you could mostly sweep this under the rug and say the philosophy just was the only rule.

But now the fact of the matter is, there are just too many weird cases to take the philosophy 100% literally. So you have to look up things online. Which is OK, it's just what has to happen when you have this many expansions. What would be really nice is if there were a centralized sort of FAQ like yours, but connected with the official implementation.
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