Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Rules Questions => Topic started by: DooWopDJ on May 31, 2017, 10:49:05 am
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Hello, hello
When a player (either your or another player) attempts to Gain a card, and if there are no cards to Gain, do I still get the benefit of the Gain?
My guess is no, and this question may just be an unlikely scenario in gameplay.
And if there is a 'rule' that covers this scenario, please post the link to the rule or clarification (if there is one).
Again, if this has already been posted in a different thread, please post that thread link (if there is one).
Also I appreciated the tolerance of my 'newbieness' of my posts.
-Thanks
-DooWopDJ
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When a player (either your or another player) attempts to Gain a card, and if there are no cards to Gain, do I still get the benefit of the Gain?
My guess is no, and this question may just be an unlikely scenario in gameplay.
Please be way way more specific.
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When a player (either your or another player) attempts to Gain a card, and if there are no cards to Gain, do I still get the benefit of the Gain?
My guess is no, and this question may just be an unlikely scenario in gameplay.
Please be way way more specific.
Perhaps emptying all piles and then trying to gain?
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When a player (either your or another player) attempts to Gain a card, and if there are no cards to Gain, do I still get the benefit of the Gain?
My guess is no, and this question may just be an unlikely scenario in gameplay.
Please be way way more specific.
My apologies. I was thinking there could have been 'gain' benefit, but I could not find a specific scenario that would create this condition. It seemed possible that a player would gain a card, but that card would not longer be available to gain and not be able to use the 'gain advantage'. So disregard the question. (unless master players could think of a situation where my question would still be likely scenario.
-Thanks
-DooWopDJ
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Only thing I can think of are cards like Ironworks or Replace, and no, you wouldn't get any benefit, since you fail to gain a card, and hence the bonus isn't defined.
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If you try to gain something, but you don't gain it, then nothing that would happen as a result of gaining it happens. For example, if Duchess and Tournament are in the game, and you use Tournament to gain a Duchy, but the Duchy pile is empty, then you would not be able to gain a Duchess. Similarly, you can't buy a Duchy, reveal a Trader to instead gain a Silver, and then gain a Duchess.
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If you try to gain something, but you don't gain it, then nothing that would happen as a result of gaining it happens. For example, if Duchess and Tournament are in the game, and you use Tournament to gain a Duchy, but the Duchy pile is empty, then you would not be able to gain a Duchess. Similarly, you can't buy a Duchy, reveal a Trader to instead gain a Silver, and then gain a Duchess.
I guess the "exception" to this - though it's not really an exception, it's something else entirely (but might seem similar to new players) - is if you have a card that says:
"Gain a snatz. Trash a card from your hand." Then even if you don't gain a snatz, you still get the trash benefit - it's not conditional on the snatz-gaining.
That said, I don't think there are any cards where this causes confusion - all the cards of the "gain something (that you maybe don't want) for some benefit" type have an "if you do" clause.
"Gain a snatz. If you do, trash a card from your hand." This is once again like the Duchess case. If there's no snatz's to gain, you don't get the trash benefit.
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Ah, those three little words... "if you do"
They make all the difference. I can't tell you how many times people at the IRL table have read a card and said "why is this worded so strangely?" I end up explaining all of the lovely broken things you could do if the card/event was missing those three little words, or if the instructions were in a different order, or if some of the text was above the line or below the line.
Kudos to Donald X for continuing to get better at anticipating when there will be rules issues or exploits and heading them off in the wordings and/or behaviors of newer cards.