Cactus Game Design Message Boards

So something that has bugged me for my entire Redemption career since I first heard of it is the subject of cascade negating. I always understood that if a draw or search ability was negated and a player had played cards that were drawn or searched for by that ability, those cards were negated (if not cbi) as part of the process of returning them to their prior location. This makes complete sense, and for most of the time I've played Redemption, this (draws and searches) was the only kind of cascade negating I had thought existed.

Then I joined the boards and started seeing threads where people mentioned cascade negating abilities of characters banded into battle if the band was negated and other such things, and was very confused because I had never heard of anything like this. I looked through the two versions of the rule book on Cactus website, I looked through the REG, and while I did find the clause about cascade negating abilities of a negated draw under the "draw" section, I could not find anything at all referencing anything like the cascade negate that supposedly happened when a band ability was negated.

I've played several tournaments local-state, hosted a couple of my town, and been to Nats twice, played on lackey a decent amount, and never had I ever come across another person who actually played with this mysterious band ability cascade negate rule except maybe once on lackey a while ago I played someone who mentioned it but I thought they were wrong and asked them to show me where that rule came from and they couldn't so we played without it. I was playing lackey again today though and it came up again, and the person I was playing cited several Elder rulings where an Elder would claim that negating a band ability cascade negates the abilities of the banded character but also couldn't find anything about it besides boards posts.

That brings us to the point of this post, which is that "cascade negating" as an ability in reference to banding does not actually exist and is all a conspiracy. A conspiracy I would like to have answered. The first point is that as far as I am concerned at this moment in time cascade negating (I'm just going to refer to it as cascade negating even though I mean just in reference to banding; I know it exists for draws and searches) does not exist and any scenarios I judge will be ruled as if it does not exist.

The simple question now is: For the purposes of official tournaments like Nats, does this rule actually exist in the current form of Redemption? (I assume the answer to this is going to be yes which is why the post doesn't stop here)

If this ability does actually exist, it shouldn't. Cascade negating makes the game needlessly more complicated and solves no problems that I can think of. If a band ability is negated, the characters banded in should return to territory, nothing more and nothing less. A negate doesn't go back in time, it simply undoes the exact ability that is targeted by the negate. If this mystery ability does really exist, WHY?

Lastly, if it does exist, and for some unknown reason the powers that be think it is actually better for the game that it does (It's not), it absolutely must be added to the REG. I understand the REG is lacking in some areas and could be more specific in some places, the fact that an entire rule is simple not to be found is not remotely acceptable. Any rule that would affect a game at an official tournament must be included in official documentation, and official documentation does not include word of mouth from Elders on a message board. Maybe this is on the list for REG 5.0 but if it isn't it really needs to be.

I apologize for the wall o' text but I want to make sure this gets covered once and for all. Short summary of actual questions:

1. Does negating a band ability negate the abilities of the characters that were banded in?
2. Does this affect anything else besides drawing, searching, and banding?
3. If the answer to 1 is yes, why in the world does this rule exist when just having the rule not exist would make the game more intuitive and less complicated?
4. If the answer to 1 is yes, why is not even a tiny side note in even one entry on the entire REG and/or rulebook?

Kevin,

Thanks for bringing this up - We appreciate constructive feedback like this. I'd like to take a moment to answer your questions to the best of my ability, after discussion with my peers.

1. Does negating a band ability negate the abilities of the characters that were banded in?

Short Answer: Yes
Long Answer: "Cascade Negates" do exist as a concept in the game, and banding is not an exception to them - See Question 4 for more.

2. Does this affect anything else besides drawing, searching, and banding?

Short Answer: Yes
Long Answer: Theoretically all abilities are 'Cascade-able', the most prominent being 'Use other Enhancement' abilities - If I play Coat of Many Colors, and then a bunch of off-brigade enhancements, negating Coat also negates those enhancements - This is why most 'Use other Enhancement' abilities printed recently have Cannot be interrupted language on them

3. If the answer to 1 is yes, why in the world does this rule exist when just having the rule not exist would make the game more intuitive and less complicated?

Long Answer: As an Elder team we feel that the complexities that occur in these rare situations (Namely mass-bands) are a far smaller negative than the huge power-bump these abilities (Namely draw) would get if we removed the concept of 'cascades' (Also worth noting, we've been talking for a while about making 'Use other Enhancements' CBI as a default to remove that particular ability from realm of cascades)

4. If the answer to 1 is yes, why is not even a tiny side note in even one entry on the entire REG and/or rulebook?

Short Answer: There is
Long Answer:

General Description
A negate ability takes a previously completed ability and undoes the effect of that ability, and it keeps the uncompleted activation of an ability from ever completing.

It is our understanding that the phrase 'Undoes the effect of that ability' is the 'Cascades' idea you've referenced. Part of the 'effect' of a band ability is the activation of the banded characters ability, Therefore negating a band ability also negates the banded character. Part of the 'effect' of a search ability is that I have access to that card, if I negate the search, I never had access to the card to activate it, so it gets negated.

We understand that there are complexities that exist within the game, and strive to make things clear whenever possible. We'd like to include language in REG 5.0 that clarifies the idea of cascading negates as noted above - We believe it could be as simple as this: