An action is still played regardless of if you are following "its instructions*" or following the Way for its ability. This means any results from playing that action for the Way's ability is attributed to that action, because playing an action encompasses following the Way's ability. If you disagree that the text doesn't mean that, well that is why we have rulings by Donald X. to provide clarity.
Again, circular argumentation.
This brings us back to Harbor Village. You are inserting meaning into Harbor Village when it doesn't say anything about "instructions". In my opinion, Harbor Village isn't vague. "The next action gave" has clear meaning. For an action "to give" would mean to follow some instruction in the game that is from "playing that action."
That definition includes Adventures tokens and other things, as I have said many times.
This, however, doesn't mean Harbor Village cares about if instructions are followed. Instruction following is incidental and not a determining factor in satisfying Harbor Village's if clause. (if the next action gave)
I have never said that Harbor Village cares
whether instructions are followed to get $. That would be a silly thing for me to say, since "+$" can't happen without an instruction being followed. Harbor Village implicitly cares if the "+$" instruction is being followed, and importantly, it cares where that instruction comes from.
The rules for Ways say "playing an Action card for a Way ability" This implies that the action is giving whatever the Way ability does. We have more than implications though. A ruling to clarify that it does indeed that.
Again, circular argumentation.
I will also note that Donald X. originally ruled that Enchantress and Ways did not "attribute" anything to the played Action card. He just recently reinterpreted the rules. So I think we can be pretty sure that he didn't intend one way or another when he originally formulated the rules or card texts for Ways and Enchantress; he's just reading and interpreting them after the fact.
"Source" is not defined anywhere, neither is "obtained". Note that I'm using the words "player" and "instructions" and "follow instructions", all defined in Dominion and also generally defined and understood in all games. Use these terms only and see where it gets you.
Sure. When playing an action, the player follows the action's instruction for what it normally does or what the Way's instruction does. In addition the player follows instructions of any abilities that are given to the action and the player follows instructions of any other abilities that may happen before, during, or after the playing of that action. Pretty simple, just wordy.
You included the Way thing in two different ways there, I guess by mistake.
"Follow a card's instructions for what another card's instruction does" is nonsensical.
You are using "given" when the point was to not use any of these undefined terms. (As I said before, "attributed" is also not defined anywhere and not used in the rulebooks or on cards.)
Harbor Village does not say "instruction." It doesn't need to. Harbor Village isn't looking for instructions being followed. It simply doesn't mention it explicitly at all.
Enchantress doesn't say "when you would follow the card's on-play instructions" either, but that's what it means according to the ruling. Cards use colloquial language a lot of the time, not technically accurate language.
Enchantress indeed doesn't say that explicitly, but through its ruling it is clarified to mean exactly that. The ruling also happens to make sense. On this precedent if a card explicitly says "its instruction" or "instruction" it should be assumed that it is referring to its normal text, unless noted otherwise by context in which "its instruction" is used or other rules and rulings. Harbor Village says "if it(the next played action) gave you $" is ruled the way it is because it would take a lot of warping of its interpretation to have it behave any other way than its printed meaning.
From the base game rulebook, a card "giving you +1 Action" is used to refer to the player following the card's instructions. It would certainly not be "warping" to rule that that's what it still means. "Giving you +1 Action" must mean "making you get +1 Action". Just like "giving you 'trash a card'" must mean "making you trash a card". So to say that "a card making you trash a card" is the same as "following a card's instructions to trash a card" would not be warping anything, but a perfectly reasonable ruling.
Priest says "when you trash a card, +$2". Supposedly, if there were a card (Marble Village) that triggered when trashing a card "gives you $", it would not trigger from Priest's "+$2". According to Donald X., if Priest said "when you trash a card, it gives you $2", Marble Village would trigger from that. But note that the rulebook
does use this term for Priest: "trashing a card from your hand will give you +$2". So the terms ("+$2" and "give you +$2") have been used colloquially to mean the same thing. There is no reason why it
has to have one of the two specific meanings just based on the text on Harbor Village. And for me it would be way more reasonable if they still meant the same thing.
I don't see that you have technically described "to give". What needs to be technically described though is what it means for a card to "make you" do something without it entailing you following the card's instructions. Note that "do something" always means following
some instructions, so to rephrase the question: What does it mean for a card to "make you" follow some instructions that are not the card's instructions?
Actually, it would seem that this is exactly what Chameleon does - it says to "follow this card's instructions" (so it
makes you follow those instructions). But that is because "follow this card's instructions"
is Chameleon's instructions. So if Smithy makes you trash a card (via Way of the Goat) it would seem that we have shapeshifted Smithy's instructions to "follow Way of the Goat's instructions".
we then have to define a new rule to make it work: wherever "instructions" are mentioned with no modifier, the normal instructions are meant, not "attributed instructions".
Is this not already precisely how Enchantress and Reckless are ruled upon? If so, the precedent already exists as I've mentioned.
No, they just mention "instructions". For instance, if the instructions where changed (shapeshifted), they would refer to the new instructions. If a card was given two sets of instructions, we would need that rule.
But which instructions are included in "the instructions you follow playing a card"?
Clearly, it includes the card's instructions. And certainly the most straight-forward, obvious answer is that it only includes the card's instructions. (Since it does not include Adventures tokens, Cultist played by Cultist, etc.)
But we somehow want it to include the Way's instructions, Enchantress's instructions "+1 Card and +1 Action" and Reckless's instructions to "follow the card's instructions an extra time". But, we don't want to say that those instructions in any way are, or count as, the card's instructions. Then how the frack do we solve it*? It's remarkable to me that nobody can answer this and still claim that this ruling makes any sense.
I disagree with your conclusion when you say, "it only includes the card's instructions."
That was not my conclusion there. You seems to have skipped the last paragraph.
And I'm assuming here you mean the literal text of the card. Why? When Enchantress is in play it replaces what you would normally do while playing an action card with the cantrip, but this is only if you play the action card for what it normally does. The cantrip is also given by the played action, per the official FAQ. Playing the action for the Way's ability isn't playing the action for what it normally does. Remember, per the rules in Menagerie's Rulebook, you are still playing the action. Reckless has you carry out what a card would normally do, only twice. If you aren't doing what a card normally would do, Reckless would not apply. You are still playing that card, however. It should also be put into consideration other hypothical effects that can say things similar to, "If an action you played met some criteria, the action also gives you some effect." That would mean the action is doing or giving something that it doesn't normally do when played. The ruling makes sense because both the rules and cards are being interpreted in a reasonable way. It is not reasonable to say "instructions you follow playing the card" to only mean "it only includes the card's instructions" because there are rules, that when interpreted in a reasonable way, contradict this.
Again, circular. You keep saying "the rulings work becuase the rulings say so".
You seem to be confusing two aspects of Enchantress/Reckless here. I was talking about the effect of those cards ("+1 Card and +1 Action", "follow the card's instructions an extra time"), while you are talking about when those cards apply.
You argue that "you are still playing the card". Yes, of course you are playing the card, but that has very little to do with Ways and Enchantress. They trigger when you get to "when you would resolve the card's instructions". Other things trigger from playing the card too.