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[guided]

There's also no real basis in the rulebooks (other than, of course, the FAQ for Secret Chamber) for believing that "you may reveal this from your hand when an opponent plays an attack card" allows you to reveal a card that isn't in your hand when an opponent plays an attack card, but that is the rule.

It's certainly in your hand when you reveal it. And until the attack card finally begins to resolve (once each player in turn agrees they have no reactions they intend to reveal), the rules and card text inform you that you may reveal it if it's in your hand.

Are you proposing that this would be a sensible way of interpreting the printed rules?:

1. 3p game. RHO plays an attack card.
2. I reveal Secret Chamber and draw 2 cards, including a Moat. I put 2 cards back on my deck and still have my Moat in hand.
3. I am not allowed to reveal my Moat because it is no longer "when an opponent plays an attack card". Alas! the moment has already passed. Eet eez too late, my friend.
4. OK. So now it's too late to react to the attack. Too bad
5. But wait! LHO engages his time machine, going back in time to when it was OK for him to reveal his Moat. He reveals his Moat and dodges the attack.


Again, there's no basis for imagining that the rules instruct that all reactions must be revealed at the same time before any of them begin to resolve. For example, I can choose to reveal or not reveal my Moat based on whether the player on my right chooses to reveal reaction cards. If my RHO reveals a Secret Chamber and immediately starts drawing cards, I'm not instantly shut out of revealing any reactions because I wasn't fast enough to reveal before they started resolving their reaction card.

[guided]

And I mean, this issue is explicitly addressed in the main body of the Intrigue rules:

Each Reaction card is revealed and resolved before another Reaction card is revealed. The second Reaction card can be one that was not initially in hand when the first Reaction card was played.

Just, you know, for what it's worth.

[AJD]

ETA: Okay, I missed that in the main body of the Intrigue rules; I withdraw my objection. (And so far, Intrigue is the only set in which it matters.) However, I wrote all of the below, and I'm not going to delete it:

Actually I'm proposing that this would be a sensible way of interpreting the printed rules:

1. RHO plays an attack card.
2. LHO and I reveal any reaction cards that are in our hands and which we want to reveal, simultaneously, and each activate them simultaneously. If either of us revealed more than one, we choose in which order to execute them.

(But wait! What about the "go in turn order" rule? ...The rulebook actually says "If an ability of a card affects multiple players, and the order matters, resolve that ability for each affected player in turn order." The revealing of Reactions is an "ability" of the Reaction cards themselves, not of the Attack card, and so there is no ability of "a card" that affects multiple players here. Actually, an alternative to 2 would be the following:

2': LHO and I reveal any reaction cards we want to reveal, simultaneously, and RHO decides the order in which they are executed.

This should be clearly incorrect, but it's what's suggested by the wording of this rule: "If multiple cards resolve at the same time on your turn, you choose what order to resolve them." The Reactions are multiple cards resolving at the same time.)

[AJD]

That said, I am a little confused now about what rules out the part of 2' where the player who played the Attack gets to decide in what order the other players get to reveal their Reactions. A straightforward reading of the rules seems to make multiple players' reactions fall under the category of "If multiple cards resolve at the same time on your turn" from the Seaside rules, not the category of "If an ability of a card affects multiple players". I know that Donald has said in a couple of places that "players reveal Reactions in turn order" is the official rule, and I'm not disputing that—and clearly it's a better rule than "players reveal Reactions in order chosen by the attacker"—but I can't quite see how that ruling emerges from the rules of the game as printed.

[guided]

The next thing in the Seaside rulebook is "A card that affects multiple players during your turn still resolves in player order", to remind you of the rule that was already in mentioned in the Intrigue rulebook. An attack card affects multiple players by giving them an opportunity to reveal and resolve reactions, which they do in turn order if it matters to anybody.

[AJD]

...I mean, it's clear that that's the rationale, but... I think it leads to contradictions if we say that an attack card "affects" players merely in that it gives them an opportunity to reveal reactions. For instance, when Lighthouse is in play, attack cards don't "affect" you, but you're still allowed to reveal reactions. So the reveal of the reaction is really an effect of the reaction card itself, not of the attack card.

[guided]

It's clear there's no actual confusion on your part, honestly. I assume you're not seriously saying you think it would be reasonable to interpret the rules in a way that is basically impossible to adjudicate? If RHO reveals a bunch of reactions, what's to stop me from waiting until they're done before deciding whether to reveal my own reactions? and if I do that does the attacker get to say "hold up, rewind the game, you do yours first"? and maybe RHO revealed a Secret Chamber that caused a shuffle, so they have to go back and rewind their shuffle somehow....? If my reactions change RHO's mind about whether to reveal reactions, what then?

Even if you ignore those issues, what about the direct conflict between this interpretation and the rule (in place before the Seaside rulebook was ever printed) that reaction cards are revealed and resolved one at a time?

[AJD]

Of course there's no confusion on my part with regard to what the rules are or should be. What I'm confused about is whether this rule is stated in, or even unambiguously inferrable from, the game's printed rulebooks.

What I'm doing in this thread (and the other one I just started, about Goons) is identifying cases where we all know what the official rule is for one reason or another—because Donald has said so in some forum or other, because that's the way Isotropic works, or even because the card FAQs say so, or whatever—but the rule itself isn't actually stated in any of the official rulebooks or card texts.

In general, what I'm trying to do is locate the holes in the principle "you can always tell what to do if you exactly follow the instructions on the card in order, as much as possible, in keeping with the general game rules". We know of some already—Donald has stated that the "lose track" rule that's needed to interpret the interaction of Throne Room, Mining Village, and Possession has never been stated in any of the rulebooks—but there are some cases not covered in the rulebook that apply to situations that are much less unusual than that. This seems to be one of them.

[guided]

This seems to be one of them.

I don't agree at all. Your pretend-confused interpretation directly contradicts a printed rule (reactions revealed and resolved one at a time).

[AJD]

The printed rule says that a single player's reactions are revealed and resolved one at a time, but doesn't say anything about which player gets to do so first. Meanwhile, the actual correct rule also directly contradicts a printed rule (the "multiple cards on your turn" rule).

[guided]

The printed rule says that a single player's reactions are revealed and resolved one at a time, but doesn't say anything about which player gets to do so first.

Since we're feigning confusion by precisely parsing rulebook text instead of taking it for what it obviously means, the rule about revealing reactions one at a time does not say it only applies to a single player's multiple reactions. Even if we restrict the that ruling to a single player revealing multiple reaction cards, saying the attacker gets to choose the order of a single player's reactions is contradictory (and otherwise an obvious non-starter in the Secret Chamber case).

You're grasping at straws, man.

[AJD]

It is obviously a non-starter; it would be a terrible idea. My point is that the rule booklet doesn't clearly give an alternative to it and state what the correct rule is, is all.

[guided]

My point is that the rule booklet doesn't clearly give an alternative to it and state what the correct rule is, is all.

Resolve in turn order starting with the current player! There would have been no confusion about this before Seaside, and Seaside went to some pains to avoid confusion by making sure the very next thing was a reminder about the resolve-in-turn-order rule. Seaside didn't go back and change how Secret Chamber works.

If Lighthouse gives you pause, consider that the Lighthouse FAQ specifically talks about revealing a reaction card even though you have a Lighthouse in play. If you go back to the Moat FAQ you can see that "not affected by the attack" wording is meant to cover the effects of actually resolving the attack card.

[Donald X.]

It is obviously a non-starter; it would be a terrible idea. My point is that the rule booklet doesn't clearly give an alternative to it and state what the correct rule is, is all.

I didn't write the original rulebook, just the FAQ, so hooray! You can blame me for the rules but not the presentation. I don't even know who wrote the rulebook at this point (my first guess is Georg Wild); the original rulebook (Valerie's) was modified/replaced with the rewritten German one in order to use the SdJ logo.

The full timing rules couldn't be in the main set rulebook because they weren't all invoked. They just would have confused people.

It would be nice if the rulebook had a section that explained the card types, and the section for Reactions would say that you go around the table Moating, but the rulebook isn't changing, again the SdJ logo thing, so whatever. People seem to manage? There are possible questions if you like to poke at things, but so many games of Dominion get played with no problem that I am confident there are no major flaws in the rulebook.

There is one question however which looms large. One question that gets asked far more than any other, to the point where it's clear that, while the rulebook does answer it, it needed to do more there. So I mean, here's something actually relevant to complain about and focus on, even though again, nothing can be done. That question: what happens if I Throne Room a Feast?

[AJD]

Donald, thanks for responding, here and in the other thread; I'm willing to drop this topic, since continuing to go round and round about it doesn't seem likely to benefit anyone. I would encourage you, though, to encourage whoever's responsible for writing the Hinterlands rulebook to mention explicitly in it that "if multiple people can reveal Reactions in response to the same event, they do so in turn order", if that's appropriate to the Reactions that exist in Hinterlands and it's not too late to do so.

..."The SdJ logo thing"?

[Donald X.]

I would encourage you, though, to encourage whoever's responsible for writing the Hinterlands rulebook to mention explicitly in it that "if multiple people can reveal Reactions in response to the same event, they do so in turn order", if that's appropriate to the Reactions that exist in Hinterlands and it's not too late to do so.

..."The SdJ logo thing"?

It's me these days, and that rulebook is done already.

If we wish to use the SdJ logo on the Dominion box, which we do, it must have the same rules as the German version. The German version is what actually got the award.

[kn1tt3r]

SdJ (I presume it's "Spiel des Jahres", the German game of the year award) or not - since the German version of the rules is flawed in some details, I would strictly discourage you from using them (which you probably didn't intent to anyway, but I just wanted to mention it).