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[Jimmmmm]

So at the end of Return of the Jedi, we see this nice image of the Force ghosts of Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. Those lucky enough to see it when it first came out saw Anakin portrayed by Sebastian Shaw. But not too long ago some guy named George came along and changed it, and now he's portrayed by Hayden Christensen. Now it's my understanding that this was a fairly unpopular change among die-hard fans. But if someone was to go up to George and tell him that he was wrong, that the "real" image of the Force ghosts had Sebastian Shaw in it, George could quite rightly say "No, the original image is non-canon. The image with Hayden Christensen is canon." Why is the new image canon? Exactly and precisely because George said so. It's his franchise, he can say that a game of Dominion on Tatooine between Donald and guided in which they each scrawl the score on their respective bellies with their own blood is canon if he wants to. So regardless of what actually came out originally at the movies, or how anyone else feels about Hayden, or Jar Jar Binks, or scoring with your own blood, what George says is canon is canon and what George says isn't canon isn't canon.

So what are the official rules of Dominion? Well, exactly the rules according to its creator. The rulebooks do their best to convey these rules both as completely and as succinctly as possible, but who has the higher authority? The rulebooks or the writer of the rulebooks? The books, as we know, are incomplete. We have an official "lose track" rule. We also have an official ruling on how Ironworks and Trader interact. Donald has added some rules that are not present in the rulebooks. He can do that - they're his rules.

Now we can argue all day about exactly what you can and can not infer from the Base game rulebook. But that seems a little, I don't know, narrow-minded given all the rules and rulings we've received since said rulebook was published. And why do we need to? We're lucky enough to have the creator of the game and knower/decider of all rules to tell us anything that we're not sure of from the rulebooks.

Of course, not everyone's so lucky. Not everyone reads these forums. Someone could go their whole Dominion life never knowing that a lose track rule exists, or what the official Ironworks + Trader ruling is, or that the official rules prohibit the use of pen and paper to track the scores. Do they really need to know? Probably not. The rulebooks are enough to teach them how to play the game. If they come across anything unclear from the books, the group makes a decision, they play that way from then on, and everyone's happy. But those of us who love Dominion enough to go on a forum about it have Donald to tell us exactly what the official rules of his game are.

[DStu]

So at the end of Return of the Jedi, we see this nice image of the Force ghosts of Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. Those lucky enough to see it when it first came out saw Anakin portrayed by Sebastian Shaw. But not too long ago some guy named George came along and changed it, and now he's portrayed by Hayden Christensen. Now it's my understanding that this was a fairly unpopular change among die-hard fans. But if someone was to go up to George and tell him that he was wrong, that the "real" image of the Force ghosts had Sebastian Shaw in it, George could quite rightly say "No, the original image is non-canon. The image with Hayden Christensen is canon." Why is the new image canon? Exactly and precisely because George said so. It's his franchise, he can say that a game of Dominion on Tatooine between Donald and guided in which they each scrawl the score on their respective bellies with their own blood is canon if he wants to. So regardless of what actually came out originally at the movies, or how anyone else feels about Hayden, or Jar Jar Binks, or scoring with your own blood, what George says is canon is canon and what George says isn't canon isn't canon.

Han shot first! period. I'm with Eric Cartman here...

So what are the official rules of Dominion? Well, exactly the rules according to its creator. The rulebooks do their best to convey these rules both as completely and as succinctly as possible, but who has the higher authority? The rulebooks or the writer of the rulebooks? The books, as we know, are incomplete. We have an official "lose track" rule. We also have an official ruling on how Ironworks and Trader interact. Donald has added some rules that are not present in the rulebooks. He can do that - they're his rules.

If I understood it correctly, the creator said that there are no erratas. So given this statement with highest authority, we just not care what the authority says.
And I think Ironworks+Traders is clear from everything that is written in the rulebooks, if you think long enough about it. But other topic...

[Davio]

Well, it's always better to have the game designer give his insights for some very specific edge cases which you may come across once or twice in your entire life than to have the game designer ask the public for a rule for something that happens a lot!

Yes, there will be no Errata, this is not a collectible card game. Those cards are not created to be banned one day, every Dominion card has been created to see actual play with the least amount of confusion. Also, it's still a printed game, not an online game. We can never go back and change Throne Room to "you may" (I actually like it this way).

Still, I wonder why so many people are actually looking to Donald to sanctify their answers. If he would not post on these forums, I'm sure a lot people could have worked out some satisfactory ruling for themselves or just use whatever Dougz implemented on Iso. You could play the game anyway you want, as long as you have fun with it. Just don't do the blood-on-your-belly thing please, it's gross.

[kn1tt3r]

I don't really know what's the problem here. Quite certainly using a notebook for score tracking is a variant (even if it's not explicitely in the rulebook), but so what. If you want to do it, fine - but it's clearly not according to (maybe unwritten) rules. The same would apply for Skat for example, and I don't know whether there is a chess rule about taking notes of your planned turns and subsequent strategy changes, just to support your own brain a bit in the whole thinking / memoring process, but it would be against the (unwritten) rules too.

I do think that online it is a very sensible variant to automatically track the score because nobody can ensure that your opponent doesn't use a notebook himself at home to have an advantage over you. In real life (and that's the main focus) I see it as a clear deviation from what (in the rules or not) common sense would tell about what's allowed and what is not.

[guided]

I am again pleased, it is rare that words convince people on the internet of anything. Not to insult you by calling you a person on the internet.

You will find I am a person who can be convinced of things by good arguments, on the internet or otherwise. Shouting matches where neither party admits the possibility that their reasoning could be mistaken are not something I consider worth my time and effort on this earth, and I do not make a habit of engaging in them.

[guided]

So what are the official rules of Dominion? Well, exactly the rules according to its creator.

This is exactly, completely wrong. The rules are the rules, and short of publishing official errata designer intent can only clarify actual ambiguities in the rules.

There is no cosmic force preventing Donald from coming out tomorrow and saying "Smithy only gives you 2 Cards now, because oops, that was my original design intent." And yet if he were to say that, it wouldn't change the rules: Smithy would still give you 3 cards.


edit: Also let me add (and Donald can obviously contradict me) that there is no official lose-track rule. The FAQs clarify how Throne Room works with Mining Village, but the versions of the lose-track rule in the BGG thread were never complete or official. I presume if the rule is ever really needed for cases not covered in the FAQs it will have a finalized statement in one of the expansion rulebooks. Somebody recently pointed out that lose-track technically applies to Inn + Watchtower, but this is only because of an incidental overstatement on the Inn card (presuming the Inn itself must be in the discard pile after being gained), and unlike the TR/MV case any result you would like to obtain from Inn/Watchtower can be achieved without appeal to lose-track by simply resolving them in whatever order you like.

[tlloyd]

I am not cool with writing the score on your belly in your own blood, as I gave as an example previously; I am fine with saying the score out loud or using Ars Memorativa or what have you. When you write on yourself, you're using yourself as a notebook; it's a weird thing that only comes up to try to get around the rules. If you say the score out loud to help you remember, that's normal.

This distinction could be any or all of the following:
1. Reasonable
2. Explicitly addressed in the rules.
3. Implied by the rules.
4. So obvious there is no need to address it in the rules.

I think the distinction is certainly reasonable (and in fact I don't use the point tracker on Isotropic or take notes IRL--primarily for the reasons Davio mentions), but I don't see much basis for any of the other three claims about it. I don't claim that score-tracking is legal because I want a memory crutch (again, I don't use the score-tracker), I claim that it is not apparent from the rules that memory differentials are core to the game while vision differentials are not, and therefore any insistence that someone not use memory aids cannot be supported by an appeal to the rules.

Certainly Donald's opinion about how the game should be played is going to have some weight, but in this case I think he's crossed from interpreting the rules to providing a new rule--something he intended never to do. I'll leave it at this: while others may feel differently, I would not feel justified in calling someone who keeps score by some physical means a cheater (although I might have lots of other names for him if he slows down the game!).

[ChaosRed]

Well Donald said taking notes in a Dominion game (even on Iso) is cheating, unless both players agree. He's made that pretty clear. So I'll stop. It makes me sad, because notes were invaluable to me in helping understand and appreciate the game, in particular judging a deck's momentum and poise.

I'll still take notes during live games with my wife, but on iso, I'll stop. In general, games on iso aren't as fun anyway, so perhaps I just need to embrace that I prefer a more casual/analytical game than a competitive one. I like to win, but I much prefer the social aspect and meta-game. Which is cool, I can get that at home.

It's great Donald came in and cleared this up, and the argument resolved in the way it should: with the realization that Donald's argument was both correct and fair. Kudos to the designer for not only clarifying the issue, but presenting the argument with grace.

[Jimmmmm]

So what are the official rules of Dominion? Well, exactly the rules according to its creator.

This is exactly, completely wrong. The rules are the rules, and short of publishing official errata designer intent can only clarify actual ambiguities in the rules.

There is no cosmic force preventing Donald from coming out tomorrow and saying "Smithy only gives you 2 Cards now, because oops, that was my original design intent." And yet if he were to say that, it wouldn't change the rules: Smithy would still give you 3 cards.

Whether it would or it wouldn't, whether we would now have a published version and a new official version or just the original published version is kind of beside the point. To be clear, I was talking about additional rules not specified in the rulebooks, which is the issue, as opposed to rules that contradict the rulebooks. If Donald comes out with two rules that contradict each other, the game is broken. Assuming that he is a good enough game designer to avoid this, his rules are "the" rules. I was not meaning to say that Donald can change the published rules, only that they are a subset of the full set of official rules (which include, for example, the lose track rule).

[Jimmmmm]

Also let me add (and Donald can obviously contradict me) that there is no official lose-track rule.

If that is the case, then I will concede that point to you. As Donald points out, it doesn't really matter as there's currently only one situation where it's important and we have the FAQs for that. On the other hand I'm still not entirely sure if the FAQs are meant to be official rules or simply interpretation of the rules. Regardless. There's no FAQ on score-keeping and apparently it's an issue but thank goodness we have Donald to clear it up for us.

[guided]

If that is the case, then I will concede that point to you. As Donald points out, it doesn't really matter as there's currently only one situation where it's important and we have the FAQs for that. On the other hand I'm still not entirely sure if the FAQs are meant to be official rules or simply interpretation of the rules. Regardless. There's no FAQ on score-keeping and apparently it's an issue but thank goodness we have Donald to clear it up for us.

If you read the BGG thread he hedges and says basically "don't hold me to this exactly," and even over the course of extensive discussion there's no "official" rule established, just a general idea that there's this concept of losing track of cards that might matter in some weird edge cases.

In contrast I view the rule about cleaning up TR and KC cards from chains involving duration cards as official (because the rulebook is ambiguous and the ruling is unequivocal), and the rule about what happens when you Trader the card you tried to get from Ironworks is equally official too.

[Kirian]

It seems to me that it's not a game of bodies and physicality (i.e. all of me vs all of you as you seem to be saying), it's a game of wits and mind. Your body is merely required to carry out the game decisions your mind thinks up.

This strikes me as a rather arbitrary distinction... even if you think the mind somehow transcends the physicality of the brain and body.

Ignoring physiological distinctions between mind and body, there is still a relevant philosophical argument to be made about mind-body duality within the scope of gaming.  As soon as an AI that can play the game is introduced--and an extremely basic BMU AI is easy enough to program--then we have to make certain that a distinction is drawn between player (active) and player (physical).

In Dominion, no physical presence is required, as we have seen.  It's possible to play with a virtual set using virtual decks on a virtual system.  Therefore, if we posit a virtual player (AI), anything that virtual player cannot do is something a physical player should not do.  Making up mnemonics?  Sure, OK.  Writing scores down?  While an AI could write virtual numbers on virtual paper, that's really an allocation of memory, not something separate from the AI... thus, for a human, mind-based.

[ChaosRed]

In Dominion, no physical presence is required, as we have seen.  It's possible to play with a virtual set using virtual decks on a virtual system.  Therefore, if we posit a virtual player (AI), anything that virtual player cannot do is something a physical player should not do.  Making up mnemonics?  Sure, OK.  Writing scores down?  While an AI could write virtual numbers on virtual paper, that's really an allocation of memory, not something separate from the AI... thus, for a human, mind-based.

Okay the thread has gone to a weird place, but just to indulge this, humans have been aiding their short term memory with notes and writing and symbols for centuries. If an AI must access data on a disk, (like the XML it loads to perform its algorithm), then the human equivalent is accessing notes written down or obtained in the game. Also most AIs DO record the circumstances of the game, and this is eventually actually WRITTEN somewhere for the machine to use, so in some obscure way, the AI is cheating. It's fully aware of the gaming circumstances, and it does so by recording things beyond RAM, but actually writing this to disk (or at a minimum caching the circumstances of the session, so that it can resume at the exact point, should the session get lost).

And really, since we're on the topic, is running simulators cheating? It's not written in the rules you can't test tactics in a simulator, but truly developing software to test tactics to 10,000 games or more, seems at some level, exploiting something to achieve tactical advantage.

I shouldn't have gone there, apologies.

It's clear that using a notepad to keep track of score, curses and purchases is considered not only "bad form" but cheating, even in isotropic. That's been made clear and I totally respect that and I vow to no longer do that kind of tracking online.

[barsooma]

It's clear that using a notepad to keep track of score, curses and purchases is considered not only "bad form" but cheating, even in isotropic. That's been made clear and I totally respect that and I vow to no longer do that kind of tracking online.

It is not totally clear - I reject all arguments put forward so far and I have no respect for this position. I vow to continue doing whatever tracking I please.

[ChaosRed]

It is not totally clear - I reject all arguments put forward so far and I have no respect for this position. I vow to continue doing whatever tracking I please.

The designer of the game, and creator of the rules has declared it cheating. That ends the argument.

You may not agree with the decision, but there's no room for argument anymore. Similar to if a referee declares a penalty kick, you may not agree with the call, but it won't stop the ball from going to the mark and the penalty shot from being taken.

Games need refs to set rules and guidelines. Donald did that for us, there's no room for argument. It's been declared cheating, by the one person who can make that declaration authoritatively.

[theory]

This seems like a good a time as any to lock the thread.  This exact debate has been done to death both here and on BGG and never gets anyone anywhere.