Elder should work the same as Harbor Village. If a Way said "choose one," Elder would give you an extra choice.
So then you are changing the ruling about
Elder with Chameleon and the ruling about
Elder with Reckless?
I am not clear as to what the question is here. Moat happens before you decide to use a Way or not.
The issue is
"unaffected by it". Moat seem to be like Elder (
"when it gives you..."), so if using Elder on a Chameleon'ed card does nothing (which was your earlier ruling), then using Moat on a Chameleon'ed card also should do nothing.
The rules for Ways say: "Each Way gives Action cards an additional option: you can play the Action for what it normally does, or play it to do what the Way says to do."
So when you play a card and use Way of the Sheep to get +$2, you "played the card" to get +$2. "...Play it to do what the Way says..."
Harbor Village asks if playing the Action gave you +$, and if you used Way of the Sheep, it did. That is the logic there.
I just don't understand how
"playing the card does something" means anything beyond
"the played card instructs you to do that thing". Cards don't actually do anything, right?
The player is the one actually doing it. "Chapel trashes cards" is short-hand meaning that
you trash cards because Chapel
instructs you to.
Playing Smithy draws you 3 cards = On play, Smithy
instructs you to draw 3 cards
Playing Monument gives you 1 VP token = On play, Monument
instructs you to take 1 VP token
Playing Market gives you +$1 = On play, Market
instructs you to get +$1
What about?:
Playing Workshop with Way of the Sheep gives you +$2This cannot mean:
On play, Workshop instructs you to get +$2What instructs you to get +$ is Way of the Sheep.
Yes, you can say that you "played Workshop" to get +$, but that is also true if you have your +$1 token on the Workshop pile. Both the Way and the token instruct you to get +$ and happen as a result of playing Workshop.
This should mean that Elder, Harbor Village and Moat all refer to what the played card instructs you to do. If something gets in there and tells you to do something else
instead, it's like Ironworks/Trader, right? It's not what Elder, Harbor Village and Moat refer to.
***
I can see changing the ruling for
Way of the Chameleon and
Reckless so that
"follow the instructions" actually means that you resolve the played card's instructions. (This is what everybody assumes anyway!) Then Moat, Elder and Harbor Village would work as expected with Chameleon and Reckless;
although it would mean that Reckless repeats the Way. It would also mean that Chameleon can't prevent Enchantress's attack. Harbor Village would still
not work with other Ways (like Sheep) though.
You could go further and change how Ways (+Enchantress, Highwayman) work, so that they
count as resolving the played card's instructions for any ability that cares about that, but still don't actually
modify the instructions (for replaying with Royal Village or gaining a copy). Then Harbor Village would work with Sheep. It wouldn't change much else (compared to the Chameleon/Reckless change above), and the
rule for keeping Durations in play would make more sense.