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Author Topic: It probably doesn't work this way: Possession and Trader  (Read 3824 times)

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AJD

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It probably doesn't work this way: Possession and Trader
« on: December 08, 2012, 12:01:41 pm »
+2

So, as we know, when two cards resolve at the same time, you choose the order to resolve them in. And even if resolving the first one eliminates the condition that triggered the second, you still do the second. For example, if you have Royal Seal in play and gain Mandarin, each wants to top-deck the other; and if you choose to resolve Mandarin first and top-deck Treasures, you can still top-deck Mandarin afterward even though Royal Seal is no longer in play when you do, because its ability was already activated.

So here's the conundrum:

If Alex plays Possession, and then on Betty's possessed turn she has Trader in hand and is about to gain, I dunno, a Province or something, two things happen simultaneously:

(a) Possession triggers: Alex gains the Province.
(b) Trader triggers: Betty may reveal it and gain Silver instead of Province.

Suppose Alex decides to resolve them in that order. First, Alex gains the Province. Then the triggering event for (b) no longer applies—Betty is no longer about to gain anything—but, by the Royal Seal example above, Betty should still be able to reveal Trader. Does Alex gain a Silver if she does? Why or why not?
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zahlman

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Re: It probably doesn't work this way: Possession and Trader
« Reply #1 on: December 08, 2012, 12:07:31 pm »
0

Betty doesn't reveal Trader, Alex reveals it while playing Betty's cards for her...
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WanderingWinder

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Re: It probably doesn't work this way: Possession and Trader
« Reply #2 on: December 08, 2012, 12:11:22 pm »
+4

Betty doesn't reveal Trader, Alex reveals it while playing Betty's cards for her...
Actually, I think if you want to be super pedantic, Alex doesn't play her cards for her (or him? Though man, I would feel sorry for a dude named Betty), he simply makes all decisions for her.

LastFootnote

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Re: It probably doesn't work this way: Possession and Trader
« Reply #3 on: December 08, 2012, 08:00:34 pm »
0

Good question. I'm guessing that in this case, one effect precludes the other and Alex decides which effect takes place. Either Alex gains the Province or Alex makes Betty reveal the Trader and gains a Silver instead.

It's different than how other triggered effects work, but I'm guessing that'll be the ruling. I'm not 100% confident, though.
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TWoos

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Re: It probably doesn't work this way: Possession and Trader
« Reply #4 on: December 08, 2012, 08:19:52 pm »
+1

This might be the exception to triggering multiple effects.

Both are would-gain.  If you take the Possession effect first, instead of Betty gaining a card, now Alex is.  So, Trader can no longer trigger, that effect was canceled.

If you take Trader first, Betty is now gaining a Silver, and Possession can still trigger to get that Silver.

I think I've read this as a ruling somewhere before, but I can't swear to it.
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Brando Commando

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Re: It probably doesn't work this way: Possession and Trader
« Reply #5 on: December 09, 2012, 06:17:28 pm »
0

http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=839.msg12381#msg12381

Does this answer your question? I haven't totally looked it over but it goes into a lot of points and DXV weighs in.
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AJD

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Re: It probably doesn't work this way: Possession and Trader
« Reply #6 on: December 09, 2012, 07:53:31 pm »
0

The thing is, I don't think guided's example there:

Quote
3b. I choose to activate Mint's when-buy condition before Talisman's. I trash all my treasures from play.
4b. Talisman is no longer in play, so I am not able to trigger its when-buy condition.

...is correct. Guided writes that, since the Talisman is no longer in play after you resolve Mint, you no longer activate its on-buy effect, even though it was in play when you bought Mint. But here Donald writes:

Quote
The resolution of the first won't stop us from trying to resolve the second. So isotropic has Royal Seal / Mandarin right.

—in other words, even though Royal Seal is no longer in play after you resolve Mandarin, you still activate its on-gain effect, since it was in play when you gained Mandarin. So I think guided is wrong: if you have Quarry and Talisman in play and buy Mint, Mint tries to trash your Treasures, and Talisman tries to gain you an extra Mint, and both effects go through in either order.

So in this case, even though Betty is no longer about to gain a Province, you still activate Trader's would-gain effect, since she was about to gain one and Trader's effect was triggered, but Alex just decided to activate Possession's simultaneous would-gain effect first.
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TWoos

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Re: It probably doesn't work this way: Possession and Trader
« Reply #7 on: December 09, 2012, 08:24:06 pm »
0

The thing is, I don't think guided's example there:

Quote
3b. I choose to activate Mint's when-buy condition before Talisman's. I trash all my treasures from play.
4b. Talisman is no longer in play, so I am not able to trigger its when-buy condition.

...is correct. Guided writes that, since the Talisman is no longer in play after you resolve Mint, you no longer activate its on-buy effect, even though it was in play when you bought Mint. But here Donald writes:

Quote
The resolution of the first won't stop us from trying to resolve the second. So isotropic has Royal Seal / Mandarin right.

—in other words, even though Royal Seal is no longer in play after you resolve Mandarin, you still activate its on-gain effect, since it was in play when you gained Mandarin. So I think guided is wrong: if you have Quarry and Talisman in play and buy Mint, Mint tries to trash your Treasures, and Talisman tries to gain you an extra Mint, and both effects go through in either order.

So in this case, even though Betty is no longer about to gain a Province, you still activate Trader's would-gain effect, since she was about to gain one and Trader's effect was triggered, but Alex just decided to activate Possession's simultaneous would-gain effect first.

The difference is that Royal Seal is reacting to something that happened.  It's a fact, it occurred.

Trader reacts before the effect it is reacting to actually occurs.  So if that effect is no longer about to occur, Trader cannot do anything.


Besides, you really can't have it the other way.  Suppose the initial card is gained by the possessing player, and now you have the silver being gained.  Reveal Trader again.  The possessing player gains the silver... and then there's another silver being gained.  Reveal Trader again.  And again.  And again.  So, you get the initial card, plus as many silver as you like, up to the whole stack.

Since that's obviously not acceptable, just give up.  You can't gain an extra silver this way.
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Brando Commando

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Re: It probably doesn't work this way: Possession and Trader
« Reply #8 on: December 09, 2012, 11:27:07 pm »
0

Part of the reason I linked to the other thread was that it has a discussion about which event "happens" to whom.

You say that Alex chooses which order the triggers happen in, but I'm not convinced that should be so -- it makes sense (enough) to me that the Possession redirect of Province to Alex "happens" to Alex and the Trader replacement "happens" to Betty.

If this is true, then Betty has to reveal Trader first in responding to the fact that she "would" gain a Province because it's her turn right now -- and because when two reactions/triggers are supposed to happen at the same time, we use turn order as the first way to determine which happens first.

So Betty reveals Trader first. Part of the effect of Trader will be to nullify the gain Province event that was previously hanging in the air. Indeed, Alex's Possession trigger still occurs in response, but by the time it happens, there's no Province to gain...although Alex still gets the Silver Betty would have gained, of course.

The difference is that Royal Seal is reacting to something that happened.  It's a fact, it occurred.

Trader reacts before the effect it is reacting to actually occurs.  So if that effect is no longer about to occur, Trader cannot do anything.

I don't agree that if the effect is no longer about to occur Trader can't do anything; the triggering event in the game that sets Trader off is "would gain a card". True, this isn't an event, but it is a stage that can be inferred as part of the gaining process. Once this trigger happens -- once Betty is at a point where she "would gain" a Province imminently -- the Trader can be played.

Obviously, I don't think Possession in this case would trigger before Trader (based on my reasoning above), but even if it did, it wouldn't matter. Here's how I imagine all this going:

1. The triggering event occurs. In this case, Betty declares her intention to buy a Province card, which means she "would gain a card," which is the trigger that would set off either Trader and/or Possession.
2. Now, anything triggered or that may be triggered via Reaction card is indeed triggered , even if it isn't resolved right away. We need to establish this in order to start determining in what order to resolve the new triggered events.
3. We figure out which order the new triggered events occur.
4. The Possession, if it occurred first, would redirect Province to Alex, and then the Trader could still be revealed. However, in this case, I think that means Betty's Trader would resolve first. This would nullify the event that triggered all this to begin with, but because we've already gone through step 2, we still resolve Possession's triggered event (the redirect from Betty to Alex).
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AJD

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Re: It probably doesn't work this way: Possession and Trader
« Reply #9 on: December 10, 2012, 12:08:45 am »
0

Part of the reason I linked to the other thread was that it has a discussion about which event "happens" to whom.

You say that Alex chooses which order the triggers happen in, but I'm not convinced that should be so -- it makes sense (enough) to me that the Possession redirect of Province to Alex "happens" to Alex and the Trader replacement "happens" to Betty.

This seems reasonable, but note that the Possession effect happens to Betty as well by making her not gain the Province.

Also, there's some discussion somewhere where Donald ruled that someone buying Noble Brigand can order it vs. other on-buy effects, even though Noble Brigand's on-buy effect isn't guaranteed to affect the buyer and does affect everyone else, so it seems like even fairly tangential effects can count as "happening to" someone.
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Donald X.

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Re: It probably doesn't work this way: Possession and Trader
« Reply #10 on: December 10, 2012, 05:02:08 am »
+1

If Alex plays Possession, and then on Betty's possessed turn she has Trader in hand and is about to gain, I dunno, a Province or something, two things happen simultaneously:

(a) Possession triggers: Alex gains the Province.
(b) Trader triggers: Betty may reveal it and gain Silver instead of Province.

Suppose Alex decides to resolve them in that order. First, Alex gains the Province. Then the triggering event for (b) no longer applies—Betty is no longer about to gain anything—but, by the Royal Seal example above, Betty should still be able to reveal Trader. Does Alex gain a Silver if she does? Why or why not?
Trader doesn't "trigger." The confusing thing here is that when you have a card in play that says "while this is in play, when x happens do y" then when x happens we queue up y to happen, and just pick what order to resolve things if there's more than one. But when a reaction card says "when x happens, you may discard this to do y," then this doesn't "trigger;" rather, it is an option, at some point when we haven't yet finished resolving every "when x happens" we want to / have to; you may discard the thing to do the thing, whether it was in hand when the triggering event happened or not. If the card isn't in hand anymore when you want to do it, you can't do it (generally clear anyway since it will say "reveal from your hand" or "discard implicitly from your hand"); if it wasn't there but shows up in time, you can.

Anyway I have apologized for how reaction cards work before and so much for that.

So then. Betty buys Province. Alex decides to resolve Possession, rather than using Betty's Trader first. It changes who will gain the Province, to Alex. Now Betty's Trader cannot be used, although if Alex has one in hand he can use his.
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Jeebus

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Re: It probably doesn't work this way: Possession and Trader
« Reply #11 on: December 20, 2012, 02:38:48 pm »
+2

As usual I'm late to post because I don't read this forum that often. Obviously Donald has answered, but I just want to say a few things.

When looking at the post from Guided in the other thread, it's clear that AJD is correct that Guided is wrong in his example. Both Mint and Talisman would do their thing, no matter what order you resolve them in. Similarly in his example 6a, he says that "Possession's would-gain effect never triggers on the Copper, because now that we're done resolving a different simultaneous event, it's no longer true that Bob would gain a Copper." Rather Possession's would-gain effect does trigger, but when we resolve it it fails to change "Bob gains Copper" into "Alice gains Copper" as there is no "Bob gains Copper" anymore. This is exactly what Donald writes a couple of posts up in that same thread.

Guided writes: "In short, when a conditional effect triggers, it and its antecedents are fully resolved before any other simultaneous, conditional effects can be triggered." This is wrong. All effects are triggered first, then resolved one at a time. AJD linked to the Mandarid/Royal Seal example.

The other important thing is how Reactions are resolved. A way of looking at it that really made it click for me when someone said it, is this: "Revealing a Reaction card is part of resolving it." So that's why guided's example of several players revealing their Secret Chambers isn't applicable when figuring out how conditional effects are triggered and resolved. The reason we don't all reveal our Secret Chambers before starting to resolve them, is that you can't reveal a Reaction card without immediately resolving all of it. Revealing it is the first step of resolving it.

Getting back to this case, just to clarify: When Betty would gain a Province, if Alex makes her reveal Trader, it would resolve immediately and Betty would gain a Silver instead. Alex can't make her reveal Trader and then decide to resolve Possession (gaining the Province) before resolving the rest of what Trader does.

So why can't Alex gain a Silver after gaining the Province? Actually I'm not sure whether he can make Betty reveal Trader after resolving Possession. But from what Donald says, it seems that he can't. But even if he could, it wouldn't matter. If he can and does make her reveal Trader, it would fail in the same way Possession fails if we do it the other way around: Trader tries to change "Betty gains a Province" into "Betty gains a Silver" but there is no "Betty gains a Province" anymore.

See also sections 10.3 (Effects contingent on other effects), 11.3 (Resolving Reactions and timing) and 19.5 (Resolving several concurrent abilities) here: http://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Complete_and_All-Encompassing_Dominion_FAQ
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