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[Jeebus]

What's the goal?
DXV has gotten sick of being able to take 3+ turns in a row, every single turn, for the whole game. Fleet and Seize the Day are only once a game, which is why they're safe.

How was that possible, except with Voyage, specifically because it was missing "if this is the first time you played a Voyage this turn"?
Was the problem when there were several of these cards in the same game?

EDIT: Oh yes, Possession too.

[Jeebus]

I'm surprised that Outpost is errata'ed back to its original text, since now we're back to all the confusing stuff that the new (previous) wording was specifically made to avoid:

* If you play several Outposts, all stay in play. One is discarded in the Clean-up of your extra turn. The others are discarded in the Clean-up of the turn after that, which is normally the next player's turn.

* If you play Outpost and buy Seize the Day (on the same turn), you get both turns. The Outpost stays in play for one or two turns, depending on which extra turn you resolve first (although it doesn't make a difference otherwise; you will start the first turn with 3 cards in hand in any case).

* If you play Outpost on an extra turn, you only draw 3 cards in Clean-up even though you don't get an extra turn. The Outpost stays in play until the Clean-up of the next turn, which is normally the next player's turn.

Most of this now also applies to Voyage.

In addition we have all the confusing stuff about Lich that Majiponi posted, which I think applies to all of these "extra turn" cards.

Previous Outpost had a longer text, but I think it was much cleaner in its implementation. Either you get an extra turn and a reduced hand, or Outpost is discarded right away.

[GendoIkari]

I'm reminded of when a new rule was added that if a cost would be reduced to less than , it stayed at . This enabled Bridge and other cards to all not need "but not less than ". Could the same thing have worked for extra turns? Just a general new rule that says "A player cannot take more than 2 turns in a row. If a player would begin a third turn in a row, that turn is skipped". If such a rule existed, then all of these cards could be worded as they are in this errata, but without the "but not a 3rd turn in a row" bit.

Granted, that would also change Fleet and Seize the day, but only in the rare cases when they show up in the same game with other extra turn cards.

[faust]

Other random question:

3-player game. On my turn, I play two Possessions. On the first possessed turn, I make the player 2 play a Possession. Player 3 now takes a possessed turn. I then get to possess player 2 again?

Or alternatively, all turns beyond the first Possession turn fail because they are all "extra turns in a row", even if they are not extra turns by the same player? But then that would mean that Possession also fails if I play it on a Mission turn?

[Donald X.]

I'm surprised that Outpost is errata'ed back to its original text, since now we're back to all the confusing stuff that the new (previous) wording was specifically made to avoid:

For me, "you can't take 3 turns in a row" was more important than these things. That's the whole idea; killing those awful situations. I think the new wording is very clear for players in normal situations. IRL players may discard Outpost at the wrong time in exotic cases and that will be fine.

[Donald X.]

I'm reminded of when a new rule was added that if a cost would be reduced to less than , it stayed at . This enabled Bridge and other cards to all not need "but not less than ". Could the same thing have worked for extra turns? Just a general new rule that says "A player cannot take more than 2 turns in a row. If a player would begin a third turn in a row, that turn is skipped". If such a rule existed, then all of these cards could be worded as they are in this errata, but without the "but not a 3rd turn in a row" bit.

Granted, that would also change Fleet and Seize the day, but only in the rare cases when they show up in the same game with other extra turn cards.

Changing Fleet and Seize the Day isn't a problem. Having it just be a rule, no 3rd turns, was proposed, and considered, and wasn't good enough. If it were a new game, with an Outpost in the main set, then it could be in the rules, even though every such rule is super bad, as players never learn them since they don't come up often enough. In Dominion especially, people expect the cards to tell them the rules. Anyway it's not the main set for a new game; it's these cards, and the way for people to know the rule is to put it on the cards. Then you can say, the cards could have treated it like a rule that they were reminding you of: "(Players can't take 3 turns in a row.)" And I mean that was considered too. I don't want a main set rulebook rule like "you can't take three turns in a row" with no way to take extra turns; that's how it is.

"Cards can't cost less than $0" is much different, because it's what everyone expects will be the rule if they don't know the rule, and when they don't know the rule it's very clear to them that they don't know it. As soon as they ask, "hey does it go to negative $," they know they don't know and can look it up. They never think "oh it probably goes to negative, la la la, let's not check." They think "of course it won't go negative" or "I don't know." Whereas! You can't tell that you don't know "you can't take 3 turns in a row"; there's no hint for you that a rule is missing. By default you sure think you can.

[Donald X.]

Other random question:

3-player game. On my turn, I play two Possessions. On the first possessed turn, I make the player 2 play a Possession. Player 3 now takes a possessed turn. I then get to possess player 2 again?

Yes if you squeeze in a turn for a different player, you can get your next Possession to work. However! When two players are supposed to do something at once, we go in turn order, and in these between-turns situations, we go by the last player to take a turn. So you possess Alice twice, and on the first extra turn make her possess Bob; Alice took the last turn (with you possessing her) so we start with her and resolve her taking another extra turn, no wait she doesn't get it due to the wording on Possession, and then go on to Bob's extra turn.

[Ethan]

Hope we can get an Alchemy 2E replaced Possession. Maybe in 2033.

[Jeebus]

I'm surprised that Outpost is errata'ed back to its original text, since now we're back to all the confusing stuff that the new (previous) wording was specifically made to avoid:

For me, "you can't take 3 turns in a row" was more important than these things. That's the whole idea; killing those awful situations. I think the new wording is very clear for players in normal situations. IRL players may discard Outpost at the wrong time in exotic cases and that will be fine.

Sure, I understand that priority. But Outpost already prevented more than 1 extra turn from itself. Voyage and Possession were the only ones that didn't. So the reason to not just errata those two must be that you wanted to prevent taking more than 1 extra turn in games with two (or more) of these cards in the kingdom?

Outpost got errata specifically to kill those complicated questions, and you maintain that there's a high bar for getting errata, so that must have been quite important. What this new errata achieves is that you can't take exactly 2 extra turns in a row when there are two "extra turn" cards in the kingdom. (Those kingdoms aren't any less exotic than playing a Throne Room variant + Outpost/Voyage.) It seems weird to me that that was so important that it warrants not just another errata, but reverting a previous errata (plus errata to several cards where that's the only difference).

Or to put it another way: Why is it so bad that players can't take 2 extra turns in a row when there are two of these cards in the same kingdom, which surely isn't very common?

[GendoIkari]

"Cards can't cost less than $0" is much different, because it's what everyone expects will be the rule if they don't know the rule, and when they don't know the rule it's very clear to them that they don't know it. As soon as they ask, "hey does it go to negative $," they know they don't know and can look it up. They never think "oh it probably goes to negative, la la la, let's not check." They think "of course it won't go negative" or "I don't know." Whereas! You can't tell that you don't know "you can't take 3 turns in a row"; there's no hint for you that a rule is missing. By default you sure think you can.

Yeah, very good point.

[Donald X.]

Or to put it another way: Why is it so bad that players can't take 2 extra turns in a row when there are two of these cards in the same kingdom, which surely isn't very common?

I think we just disagree on the importance of both halves - I put less value on the exotic cases, and more value on the three-turns-in-a-row problem. It would be great to have everything perfect in all respects; this is what I have currently. Playing Throne on Outpost is super crazy exotic when the card makes it clear that it won't work. You won't do it! Asking what happens exactly then is just an intellectual exercise, or something important for programmers of the digital versions; it's not something that really happens in games. Whereas when you can take 3 turns in a row, you do it.

It came up; otherwise I wouldn't have been thinking about it. I had multiple games where players could take three turns in a row. It sucked hard. I thought, damn Donald X., fix that. I fixed it. It wasn't just Voyage; a variety of extra turn cards came up and we had the awful experience. Then Allies was being reprinted and hey, good time to fix this.

[Jeebus]

Or to put it another way: Why is it so bad that players can't take 2 extra turns in a row when there are two of these cards in the same kingdom, which surely isn't very common?

I think we just disagree on the importance of both halves - I put less value on the exotic cases, and more value on the three-turns-in-a-row problem. It would be great to have everything perfect in all respects; this is what I have currently. Playing Throne on Outpost is super crazy exotic when the card makes it clear that it won't work. You won't do it! Asking what happens exactly then is just an intellectual exercise, or something important for programmers of the digital versions; it's not something that really happens in games.

That's a good point, in a practical sense it's more exotic than I realized. But then why was it important enough to get errata in the first place? I guess that's part of my surprise here.

I had multiple games where players could take three turns in a row. It sucked hard. I thought, damn Donald X., fix that. I fixed it. It wasn't just Voyage; a variety of extra turn cards came up and we had the awful experience. Then Allies was being reprinted and hey, good time to fix this.

I really wonder what kind of games this was, with two of these cards consistently giving 1 extra turn each, making in awful experience? I guess it didn't involve Island Folk; you don't get that many Favors. Voyage and Journey create very limited turns; Possession, Mission, and sometimes Outpost will let you take full turns. So I guess that's three cards, two of which need to be in the game, letting you take 3 full turns in a row. (Not just asking Donald X. here; I guess this is a problem several people reported?)

[Wizard_Amul]

I really wonder what kind of games this was, with two of these cards consistently giving 1 extra turn each, making in awful experience? I guess it didn't involve Island Folk; you don't get that many Favors. Voyage and Journey create very limited turns; Possession, Mission, and sometimes Outpost will let you take full turns. So I guess that's three cards, two of which need to be in the game, letting you take 3 full turns in a row. (Not just asking Donald X. here; I guess this is a problem several people reported?)

If you have more than one of those, the turns can definitely stack up. You probably get this part, but before the errata, since they all said "if the previous turn wasn't yours," you could sometimes easily stack up multiple of those effects on your first turn and then proceed to take multiple turns in a row.

In the particular case of Donald's game, I'd be curious to hear what the cards were but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Island Folk combined with another one--you can sometimes build a deck that can give you multiple favors every turn, most likely with Underling or Guildmaster. I think I've personally played a game with Island Folk and Outpost where I was able to get the 5 favors each time (plus, you get two turns to get the favors, so 3 favors each turn would work). The game ends up being both players taking nearly 3 full turns in a row every turn. I wouldn't say it was a bad experience, though, although it definitely makes judging the end of the game pretty difficult.

I can see Voyage going either way--I thought it was fine to take the very limited turns multiple times, but it's the one card where you could sometimes get multiple turns in a row without needing another extra turns card. Particularly IRL, I could see that slowing the game down and not being a fun experience.

[Jeebus]

If you have more than one of those, the turns can definitely stack up. You probably get this part, but before the errata, since they all said "if the previous turn wasn't yours," you could sometimes easily stack up multiple of those effects on your first turn and then proceed to take multiple turns in a row.

In the particular case of Donald's game, I'd be curious to hear what the cards were but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Island Folk combined with another one--you can sometimes build a deck that can give you multiple favors every turn, most likely with Underling or Guildmaster. I think I've personally played a game with Island Folk and Outpost where I was able to get the 5 favors each time (plus, you get two turns to get the favors, so 3 favors each turn would work). The game ends up being both players taking nearly 3 full turns in a row every turn. I wouldn't say it was a bad experience, though, although it definitely makes judging the end of the game pretty difficult.

I can see Voyage going either way--I thought it was fine to take the very limited turns multiple times, but it's the one card where you could sometimes get multiple turns in a row without needing another extra turns card. Particularly IRL, I could see that slowing the game down and not being a fun experience.

Yeah, I can see changing Voyage and Possession to get rid of multiple turns with them in a row. But the errata to the others are only relevant when there are several of these cards in the same kingdom (as you wrote and as I wrote before). Game with three of these cards would be extremely rare, so we're talking about the ability to take 3 turns in a row as opposed to 2 turns in a row. I don't really get the awfulness of this in the few games where it would be possible. Some people also understandably hate 4-player cursing games with no trashing, for example, which has been quite common in Dominion from the start; but I would never think the game should be fixed to avoid it.

[majiponi]

New question.

Alice played Possession.
She gained Province.
Bob played Black Cat as a Vassal(Way of the Mouse).
He discarded Outpost to play it.
Between turns, He chose 4-card Outpost turn to resolve first.
On the Outpost turn, he played another Outpost.

Q1. Does he take another Outpost turn?
Q2. If Q1 is true, after his 2nd extra turn, does he take a Possessed turn? (It will be the 3rd turn in a row, not the 2nd one in a row.)

[Ingix]

New question.

Alice played Possession.
She gained Province.
Bob played Black Cat as a Vassal(Way of the Mouse).
He discarded Outpost to play it.
Between turns, He chose 4-card Outpost turn to resolve first.
On the Outpost turn, he played another Outpost.

Q1. Does he take another Outpost turn?

Yes. The second Outpost turn (if he choses to take it before the Possessed turn) would be his 2nd turn in a row, so is not prevented.

Q2. If Q1 is true, after his 2nd extra turn, does he take a Possessed turn? (It will be the 3rd turn in a row, not the 2nd one in a row.)

No, the Possession turn will not be taken. It would be his 3rd extra turn in a row and Possession prevents that. It was deemed overkill to word it as "2nd, 3rd,.... extra turn in a row", as your scenario is really rare. The same is true for the other rewordings, that means in the following situation

normal turn, play Outpost,
Outpost turn, buy Seize the Day
Seize the Day turn, activate Island Folk

you don't get an Island Folk turn, it would be your 4th turn in a row.

[Jeebus]

Yes, I think this is a very strange interpretation of new Outpost - that it actually sets up an extra turn, and then checks whether it would be the 3rd turn in a row right before you start the turn. I don't see why it wouldn't be exactly like original Outpost: after the current turn, it checks whether it will give you an extra turn.

The new phrasing seems to support this even more than the original phrasing did. "Take an extra turn after this one (but not a 3rd turn in a row)" suggests that you only take the extra turn if it wouldn't be the 3rd in a row. Taking an extra turn means that an extra turn is set up. Exactly as GendoIkari said, Outpost does not say: "take an extra turn after this one. If this would be the 3rd turn in a row, skip it."

By the way, this Lich interaction applies to all these "extra turn" cards (except Possession), not just Outpost.

Donald X., maybe you missed this post since it was last on the first page? Seems like at least me, GendoIkari and Majiponi think that the wording on Outpost suggests that Lich can't skip the Outpost turn.

[Donald X.]

Yes, I think this is a very strange interpretation of new Outpost - that it actually sets up an extra turn, and then checks whether it would be the 3rd turn in a row right before you start the turn. I don't see why it wouldn't be exactly like original Outpost: after the current turn, it checks whether it will give you an extra turn.

The new phrasing seems to support this even more than the original phrasing did. "Take an extra turn after this one (but not a 3rd turn in a row)" suggests that you only take the extra turn if it wouldn't be the 3rd in a row. Taking an extra turn means that an extra turn is set up. Exactly as GendoIkari said, Outpost does not say: "take an extra turn after this one. If this would be the 3rd turn in a row, skip it."

By the way, this Lich interaction applies to all these "extra turn" cards (except Possession), not just Outpost.

Donald X., maybe you missed this post since it was last on the first page? Seems like at least me, GendoIkari and Majiponi think that the wording on Outpost suggests that Lich can't skip the Outpost turn.

Outpost has to check if the turn will be a 3rd one right before that turn happens. If it checked any earlier, things could change such that you got a 3rd turn in a row; if it checked any later, the turn would have already happened.

Then, given that, how should it be phrased? Currently it's phrased to be clear and simple for people in normal situations, with the idea being that there's a rulebook (though currently there isn't, since the card hasn't been reprinted yet) to cover the tricky cases.

So then, there's two pieces here: generating the turn, and making sure it's not a 3rd one. We could spell these out as:
A) Take an additional turn after this one. When it's about to happen, if it would be a third turn in a row, get rid of it quietly.
B) After this turn, when you've got a moment, if another turn wouldn't be a third turn in a row, take one.

I went with A. I think you're arguing for B.

The card text is: "Take an extra turn after this one (but not a 3rd turn in a row)."

Leading with "Take an extra turn" makes it look like, okay we're taking a turn; now then, what else is there to say? But really we've provided timing and could rephrase it as:

"After this turn, take an extra turn (but not a 3rd turn in a row).

When you look at it like that, the uh amount of reasonableness of B goes up. B still is really seeing it as:

"After this turn, if it won't be a 3rd turn in a row, take an extra turn."

But then, the "if" has to come ahead of the actual turn.

So this does make it seem like Lich shouldn't be able to skip a 3rd turn generated by Outpost. There's no turn to skip until we know it's not a third one.

[Jeebus]

So then, there's two pieces here: generating the turn, and making sure it's not a 3rd one. We could spell these out as:
A) Take an additional turn after this one. When it's about to happen, if it would be a third turn in a row, get rid of it quietly.
B) After this turn, when you've got a moment, if another turn wouldn't be a third turn in a row, take one.

I went with A. I think you're arguing for B.

Yes. I read "(but not a 3rd turn in a row)" as "unless it would be your 3rd turn in a row".

[Donald X.]

So:

I'm changing the ruling on Lich vs. the new Outposts. You can't skip the turn you weren't going to get. Outpost says "Take an extra turn after this one (but not a 3rd turn in a row)"; that can be read as "After this turn, if this wouldn't be a 3rd turn in a row, take an extra one."

Outpost is timed as "in-between turns"; Lich is timed as "when you're about to take a turn." If you play two Outposts and Lich on one turn, Lich can skip the first extra turn. The second Outpost still happens, since you haven't taken 2 turns in a row yet. If you play Outpost and Lich on an Outpost turn, Outpost doesn't generate an extra turn and Lich ends up skipping your next normal turn.

As noted this means that a superfluous Outpost gets discarded during another player's Clean-up. It doesn't know that the extra turn won't happen until we're right there failing to do it, which is after Clean-up.

[GendoIkari]

As noted this means that a superfluous Outpost gets discarded during another player's Clean-up. It doesn't know that the extra turn won't happen until we're right there failing to do it, which is after Clean-up.

And this would be the case even if Outpost had nothing to do with giving extra turns, right? The fact that it also changes the draw part of cleanup means that it still has stuff to do after the discard part of cleanup.

[GendoIkari]

Outpost says "Take an extra turn after this one (but not a 3rd turn in a row)"; that can be read as "After this turn, if this wouldn't be a 3rd turn in a row, take an extra one."

Outpost is timed as "in-between turns"; Lich is timed as "when you're about to take a turn." If you play two Outposts and Lich on one turn, Lich can skip the first extra turn. The second Outpost still happens, since you haven't taken 2 turns in a row yet. If you play Outpost and Lich on an Outpost turn, Outpost doesn't generate an extra turn and Lich ends up skipping your next normal turn.

Hmm, I'm a bit unclear on the timing of multiple Outposts in general. When you play 2 Outposts, do both trigger at the same time (in between turns)? Or does one trigger after the current turn, and the other trigger (and fail) after the Outpost turn? I'm pretty sure it's the first one. But if it is, I don't see how the timing works out with the new Lich ruling.

1) Play Outpost, Outpost, Lich
2) Go to in between turns. Both Outposts trigger
3) Outpost #1 (whichever you choose to resolve first) creates an extra turn
4a) Outpost #2 fails to create an extra turn, because it would be your third. But how does Outpost #2 know if it will be your third turn or not?
OR
4b) Outpost #2 creates an extra turn, because the extra turn from Outpost #1 won't happen. But how does Outpost #2 know this?
5. Lich skipps the upcoming Outpost #1 turn. (When you would begin a turn).
6. You get to take the Outpost #2 turn.

There's a disconnect in step 4 here. Lich doesn't skip the turn until it's about to begin, whereas Outpost is creating, or failing to create, the extra turns before Lich gets involved. By your recent ruling update, it seems that Outpost #2 has to "look into the future" and know to not create the turn if there was another Outpost played, or to go ahead and create the turn if there was also a Lich played which will skip the other Outpost's turn.

*Edit* Or was the comment about the extra Outpost being discarded during another player's turn precisely because Outpost #2 doesn't trigger after the current turn, but rather after the Outpost #1 extra turn? After all, if they both triggered after the current turn, then they should both be cleaned up at the end of the Outpost extra turn, because Outpost #2 will have already finished failing to create that extra turn.

[majiponi]

When you play 2 Outposts, do both trigger at the same time (in between turns)?

I am sure they do, but understanding is different.


"Between turns" window
Outpost #1 and #2 are waiting for being resolved
choose Outpost #1 to resolve
(Outpost #2 waits until #1 is fully resolved)
-- Outpost #1 checks if the extra turn wouldn't be the 3rd turn
-- Outpost #1 tries to create a turn(Lich can interrupt to cancel it)
---- Outpost #1 turn starts!
---- ....
---- Outpost #1 turn ends
---- end-game check
-- Outpost #1 is fully resolved
choose Outpost #2 to resolve
-- Outpost #2 checks if the extra turn wouldn't be the 3rd turn
-- Outpost #2 does nothing
-- Outpost #2 is fully resolved

"if the extra turn wouldn't be the 3rd turn" is clear; it actually checks "if the previous 2 turns are yours" because Outpost can't know the future

[GendoIkari]

When you play 2 Outposts, do both trigger at the same time (in between turns)?

I am sure they do, but understanding is different.


"Between turns" window
Outpost #1 and #2 are waiting for being resolved
choose Outpost #1 to resolve
(Outpost #2 waits until #1 is fully resolved)
-- Outpost #1 checks if the extra turn wouldn't be the 3rd turn
-- Outpost #1 tries to create a turn(Lich can interrupt to cancel it)
---- Outpost #1 turn starts!
---- ....
---- Outpost #1 turn ends
---- end-game check
-- Outpost #1 is fully resolved
choose Outpost #2 to resolve
-- Outpost #2 checks if the extra turn wouldn't be the 3rd turn
-- Outpost #2 does nothing
-- Outpost #2 is fully resolved

"if the extra turn wouldn't be the 3rd turn" is clear; it actually checks "if the previous 2 turns are yours" because Outpost can't know the future

Yeah I was imprecise with "triggers" vs "resolves". I had been thinking that 2 Outposts both resolved at the same time; setting up 2 extra turns before either one happened.

Perhaps the question would be clearer with current Voyage, which lets you play multiple to take multiple extra turns after this... you play 2 Voyages on your turn. In between turns, what exactly happens? Do you resolve both Voyages to set up your next 2 extra turns? Or do you only resolve 1, taking that turn right away, then resolve the other, taking that turn?

[Jeebus]

Yeah I was imprecise with "triggers" vs "resolves". I had been thinking that 2 Outposts both resolved at the same time; setting up 2 extra turns before either one happened.

Perhaps the question would be clearer with current Voyage, which lets you play multiple to take multiple extra turns after this... you play 2 Voyages on your turn. In between turns, what exactly happens? Do you resolve both Voyages to set up your next 2 extra turns? Or do you only resolve 1, taking that turn right away, then resolve the other, taking that turn?

It must be the latter.

I'm pretty sure the original scenario is simply:

1) After this turn, these two trigger:
* Outpost #1: "Take an extra turn if you haven't had more than one turn in a row"
* Outpost #2: "Take an extra turn if you haven't had more than one turn in a row"

2) You resolve the first Outpost: "Take an extra turn if you haven't had more than one turn in a row". So you get an extra turn.

3) When you would resolve that extra turn, Lich cancels it.

4) You resolve the second Outpost: "Take an extra turn if you haven't had more than one turn in a row". So you get an extra turn.