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[philosophyguy]

Alice plays Possession and Bob is next. Bob's hand contains a Trader. Can Alice make Bob buy a Copper and reveal Bob's Trader to turn it into a Silver (which Alice will then gain, via Possession), or does Possession's gaining rule cut out the possibility of Trader's reaction?

[DStu]

I would guess, as both cards talk about "would gain" they happen at the same time and you can choose the order, so yes.

Buy Copper->would gain a Copper->Reaction Trader/Effect Possession at the same time.
Choose Trader first: -> gain Silver (Trader)-> Silver is gained by Alice (Possession).
Choose Possession first:  -> Copper is gained by Alice (Possession).

[Jimmmmm]

That's the conclusion I came to: they both try to happen at the same time, so you choose which one happens first.

[AJD]

You only choose which happens first if they affect the same person; if they affect different people they go in turn order. But I can't tell if the Possession "would gain" effect should be considered as affecting the possessor or the possessee. Probably the possessor? In which case you probably don't get the choose the order?

[DStu]

"Would gain" is clearly the possessee. It's "Any cards HE would gain on that turn". If the condition is fullfilled, something else happens, but that's after you decided on the order of the "would gain" and you continue this effect to the end.

[guided]

"Would gain" is clearly the possessee.

Yep! I posted about this exact interaction on BGG when Donald did the preview for Trader

[philosophyguy]

So does that mean that the Copper-for-Silver trade is not possible?

[AJD]

"Would gain" is clearly the possessee. It's "Any cards HE would gain on that turn". If the condition is fullfilled, something else happens, but that's after you decided on the order of the "would gain" and you continue this effect to the end.

I mean, of course "would gain" refers to the possessee. But what Possession does is, when the possessee "would gain" something then the possessor gains it instead. In other words, the timing is determined by the possessee's turn, but the effect affects the possessor. So when the possessee "would gain" something, there are two simultaneous things that happen:

a. Possessee may reveal Trader
b. Possessor gains the card that is to be gained

Since these simultaneous effects apply to different people, (a) must happen first. Right?

[guided]

a. Possessee may reveal Trader
b. Possessor gains the card that is to be gained

Since these simultaneous effects apply to different people, (a) must happen first. Right?

This is a fair question, though it doesn't matter since you could just choose not to reveal Trader.

To answer the question directly though: I don't think so. B is a two-sided effect that hits both players (Possessee is prevented from gaining, Possessor gains instead).

Forgive an earlier version of this post which stated certain things I am no longer confident of! Still, my impression is that somebody has to decide what order to trigger the two different cards' effects in, and that they fully-resolve serially once triggered. Since the X in "when X would gain" is the Possessee for both cards, they are simultaneous triggers for the same player, so somebody (the Possessor) gets to freely decide the order.

[philosophyguy]

Guided, I don't understand your response about the possessee choosing not reveal Trader. Isn't the point of Possession that the possessor makes all of those decisions for the possessee? Maybe I'm missing something…

[guided]

Guided, I don't understand your response about the possessee choosing not reveal Trader. Isn't the point of Possession that the possessor makes all of those decisions for the possessee? Maybe I'm missing something…

I don't know what you're asking, sorry. I never said the Possessee was allowed to choose anything.

I don't know if this is related to your question, but I was saying it doesn't matter even if you think A is constrained to happen before B, because A doesn't have to happen at all, so you can just skip straight to B if you don't want A to happen.

[philosophyguy]

I don't know if this is related to your question, but I was saying it doesn't matter even if you think A is constrained to happen before B, because A doesn't have to happen at all, so you can just skip straight to B if you don't want A to happen.

I am getting even more confused, so let me go back to the original question. Alice is possessing Bob. Bob is forced to buy a Copper. Can Alice force Bob to reveal a Trader and turn that Copper into a Silver? Alice wants revealing the Trader to happen (what I'm guessing your "A" is), so the fact that she could just skip to gaining the card that Bob bought (the Copper) (i.e., your event "B", if I understand you) is irrelevant in this context because Alice doesn't want to gain a Copper, and if she can't force Bob to reveal a Trader because of how Possession's gain rule operates, then she doesn't want Bob to buy a Copper in the first place.

[guided]

DStu explained exactly why you can do exactly what you want to do. I posted in this thread to agree with him. Do you have some reason to doubt that Alice can make Bob reveal a Trader? I mean, I don't know how to explain it any better than DStu already did.

My later posts were in response to AJD's assertion that A must come before B. Firstly, I believe B can come before A if you want. Secondly, it doesn't matter whether the order is a choice since you can choose to skip A and achieve the same result as doing B before A.

[Jimmmmm]

Alice is possessing Bob. Bob is forced to buy a Copper. Can Alice force Bob to reveal a Trader and turn that Copper into a Silver?

Yes.

[DStu]

I think the point that causes confusion or uncertainty is: The rules say something like "If 2 things happen at the same time, they resolve in turn order. If they happen to the same person, you can chose the order." But that is not exactly what we need here, we need "If 2 conditions have to be checked at the same time, they are checked in turn order. If they are checked on the same person, you can chose."

I haven't looked up the rules and don't know if you really can justify the second statement by what is written there, but I think we are quite save if we say that concerning "conditions to be checked" it's they way it should be done.

[AJD]

Are there two conditions being checked? I think there's only one condition being checked (whether the possessee "would gain" a card), and two things, (a) and (b), that are both supposed to happen at that time.

[DStu]

Are there two conditions being checked? I think there's only one condition being checked (whether the possessee "would gain" a card), and two things, (a) and (b), that are both supposed to happen at that time.

OK, it is the same condition, but it is asked two times.
Thought a little bit if the rules could be like: "First, check all conditions and afterwards resolve all effects (which have survived the check) in the usual order". But this would be quite degenerate. Look at the following examples.
A) Three player game, 1 Curse left, A plays Witch, B and C have Trader. Checking the condition (would gain a card) is fullfilled for both. Now B takes the curse, C could gain a Silver despite he would NOT gain a curse at this moment, because the check was before the Curse was gone.  Not intuitive, but not so bad. But worse:
B) I have two traders in hand. If I gain a card X, both Trader would trigger. So when I would gain X, I would gain 2 Silvers. Now consider X="Silver", and I can gain all Silvers at once by buying a Copper.

This shows that checking all conditions at once and than resolving all effects that passes the condition is not a good idea.

[Donald X.]

Alice plays Possession and Bob is next. Bob's hand contains a Trader. Can Alice make Bob buy a Copper and reveal Bob's Trader to turn it into a Silver (which Alice will then gain, via Possession), or does Possession's gaining rule cut out the possibility of Trader's reaction?

Alice can make Bob buy Copper and reveal Bob's Trader to get Silver instead.

Possession and Trader are both "when Bob would gain a card." It's Bob's turn so he gets to order those two things, but Alice is possessing him so Alice gets to. It doesn't matter that one is optional and one is mandatory.

The timing rule is not different for Reactions vs. "things happening." If two people want to reveal Moat for an attack, they go in turn order, except that no-one bothers to wait because really.

[Thisisnotasmile]

Gonna throw a spanner in the works here:

Alice Possesses Bob and makes Bob buy Copper. Bob now "would gain" a Copper, so

1) Alice makes Bob reveal a Trader: Bob instead gains a Silver.
2) The Copper that Bob "would gain", Alice now gains instead, as per Possession.

These can (possibly) happen in either order; see the discussion above. My point is not concerned with which order they must/may occur in. My point is that both of these effects have been triggered, thus they WILL both occur, in whatever order. Now, assume that they resolve in order 1-2, as we have confirmation that this ordering is legal from Donald. First, Bob "would gain" a Silver instead of the Copper, and thus Possession triggers and Alice gains the Silver. Then, as we do not go back and 'check' effect 2) still can be satisfied (it has been triggered and is just waiting to happen) it happens. Thus, Alice gains the Copper than Bob "would have gained".

Now, this obviously can't be right as this allows Alice to make Bob reveal his Trader to each "would gained" Silver and gain ALL of them, draining the Silver pile. However, the way I understand the rules, this is what SHOULD happen. Am I misunderstanding something or is this actually what SHOULD happen. Is there an exception ruling that this SHOULD happen, but it can't because it causes problems?

[Donald X.]

Alice Possesses Bob and makes Bob buy Copper. Bob now "would gain" a Copper, so

1) Alice makes Bob reveal a Trader: Bob instead gains a Silver.
2) The Copper that Bob "would gain", Alice now gains instead, as per Possession.

No. Possession fails to transfer that Copper because no Copper is being gained now. Possession is trying to change "Bob gains Copper" into "Alice gains Copper" and there is no longer a "Bob gains Copper" to change.

[DStu]

Gonna throw a spanner in the works here:

Alice Possesses Bob and makes Bob buy Copper. Bob now "would gain" a Copper, so

1) Alice makes Bob reveal a Trader: Bob instead gains a Silver.
2) The Copper that Bob "would gain", Alice now gains instead, as per Possession.

These can (possibly) happen in either order; see the discussion above. My point is not concerned with which order they must/may occur in. My point is that both of these effects have been triggered, thus they WILL both occur, in whatever order.

I don't think that this will be a good rule, see my last post. Two Traders, both triggered on the gain, so both Traders would gain a Silver, each triggering two Traders, who would each gain a Silver, that ...

Now, this obviously can't be right as this allows Alice to make Bob reveal his Trader to each "would gained" Silver and gain ALL of them, draining the Silver pile. However, the way I understand the rules, this is what SHOULD happen. Am I misunderstanding something or is this actually what SHOULD happen. Is there an exception ruling that this SHOULD happen, but it can't because it causes problems?

Oh. Should end reading the posts before I comment. Any way, strict from the (BaseSet-)Rules, I think one could not really argue against you. It says about "If an ability of a card affects multiple players ...", and I think I can't convince someone who says checking a condition is not an ability of a card to the opposite.

[DStu]

1) Alice makes Bob reveal a Trader: Bob instead gains a Silver.
2) The Copper that Bob "would gain", Alice now gains instead, as per Possession.

No. Possession fails to transfer that Copper because no Copper is being gained now. Possession is trying to change "Bob gains Copper" into "Alice gains Copper" and there is no longer a "Bob gains Copper" to change.

I think that's getting rather academic, as everybody by now realized that that's the only ruling that makes sense.  But the rules we (or at least "I") know don't say anything about in which order and when conditions like "if you would gain" have to be checked. It only says something about abilities. And clearly these conditions have to be checked before you now which cards have which abilities. So if you now would check all conditions before resolving any effects, you "would gain" a Copper at the moment you check, even if something else prevents you from gaining it after checking.
That playing this way is not a good idea I think we have both seen, I think TINASs question was if the rules really say somewhere that you should not do it this way, as you could say that checking conditions is not an ability of a card.

Edit: I apologize. Should read the rulebook carefully before complaining. The Hinterland rules extend the "ability" to "something happens". While you may maybe still argue that checking a condition, the example given to this explicitly deals with "when you buy", so that's clear.

[guided]

For a while I was thinking TINAS really had a point there, though of course Donald's ruling is the only way to avoid bizarre and undesirable effects. However, remembering my favorite old chestnut of a Dominion timing example cleared things up for me:

1. I play Quarry, Royal Seal, and Talisman.
2. I buy a Mint.

3a. I choose to activate Talisman's when-buy condition before Mint's. I gain another Mint.
4a. I activate Royal Seal's when-gain condition and choose to put the 2nd ("gained") Mint on top of my deck.
5a. Now that Talisman's when-buy effect is fully resolved, I must resolve Mint's when-buy condition and trash all treasures I have in play.
6a. I finally gain the 1st ("bought") Mint. Royal Seal is no longer in play, so I can't use it to top-deck this 1st Mint.

-or-

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.

In short, when a conditional effect triggers, it and its antecedents are fully resolved before any other simultaneous, conditional effects can be triggered. Secret Chamber in multiplayer is a more mundane example: When an attack is played, the other players go around the table in turn order, each revealing a Secret Chamber and fully resolving it before moving on to the next player's opportunity to reveal and resolve a Secret Chamber. We don't go around the table and all reveal our Secret Chambers before we start resolving them.

Here's how the current case works, then:

1. Possessed by Alice, Bob has a Trader in hand and would gain a Copper.
2. Possession and Trader both have potential would-gain effects at this moment affecting (at least) Bob, so Alice chooses the order (for Bob).

3a. Alice chooses for Bob to reveal Trader first.
4a. Bob would now gain a Silver instead of a Copper.
5a. Possession's would-gain effect triggers re the Silver, and Alice gains the Silver instead of Bob.
6a. ...and we're done. 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.

-or-

3b. Alice chooses for Bob to resolve Possession's would-gain effect (for the Copper) first.
4b. Alice gains the Copper instead of Bob.
5b. ...and we're done. Having fully resolved one simultaneous event, the other (Bob revealing a Trader) is no longer eligible to trigger.


I think that's the right way to rules-lawyer this one, anyway!

[werothegreat]

Just a quick question - Bob has Mine/Trading Post/Explorer/whatever, and Alice uses it to gain a Silver/Gold (while Possessing Bob).  That goes into her discard, not her hand, right?

[AJD]

Just a quick question - Bob has Mine/Trading Post/Explorer/whatever, and Alice uses it to gain a Silver/Gold (while Possessing Bob).  That goes into her discard, not her hand, right?

Right.