Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Hey,

Specifically the "no opponent's card in my deck" and the "no duplicate characters" are game restrictions. Covenant of Eden, on the other hand, is doing it's magic via a special ability that overrides a standard game rule.

It seems to me that the banding and "duplicate characters" example is a much closer analogy here. Under the PAB interpretation why am I not allowed to band to an opponent's unique character that duplicates a character in my territory and then discard that character immediately? Why doesn't the argument "I am never actually violating the 'duplicate character' rule because I am rerouting my opponent's character before it actually gets into battle" hold any water here?

I think technically the rule is "if a card is ever sent to a draw pile of a player other than the owner of the card, the card goes to the draw pile of the owner of the card instead." (and likewise for discard piles).

The duplicates in play rule is a protect/restrict rule.  The opponent's deck rule is a place rule.

Does that make any more sense?

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

I think technically the rule is "if a card is ever sent to a draw pile of a player other than the owner of the card, the card goes to the draw pile of the owner of the card instead." (and likewise for discard piles).

Is this written someplace or are you stating that that is how you would phrase such a rule? If the latter, what advantages do you see going with your two-step place-redirect formulation rather than the simpler restriction--"Cards may not be sent to any deck other than the one controlled by their owner?"

The duplicates in play rule is a protect/restrict rule.  The opponent's deck rule is a place rule.

Does that make any more sense?

Yes, that make more sense. It raises the question about why you formulated the opponent's deck rule the way you did, however.


Also is there a more appropriate forum to take these types of discussions about how certain rulings came to be? I've noticed I am getting involved in a number of them (see also the question of if there is an attacker in a side battle), I don't want to distract from people being able to find a ruling if they need to (and I don't want to seem like I'm arguing to get the ruling changed).

You are not allowed to create a situation that would violate the duplicates rule.  This is what "Restrict" means.  You are restricted from performing that action.

You ARE allowed to create a situation where a card would end up in another player's pile.  It just goes to its owner's pile instead.  If a card like "Death of Unrighteous" said shuffle lost souls in your territory into your deck, but you had a lost soul that is not from your deck, then you are still allowed to target all of the lost souls, but you shuffle them into owners' decks.   In other words, think of "put this card in your deck" or "put this card in your discard pile" actions as ALWAYS being read "Put this card in OWNER's deck"/discard pile".  In this case, the destination deck is always owner.  Think of it like your mail from your old apartment being forwarded to your new home.  

Why are these treated differently?  One reason is fairness.  I could build a deck using nothing but the characters I know my opponent uses, plus a bunch of characters that can band to them.  All day long I can band to his guys, killing them as I force them to violate the uniqueness rule.

It is also for the sake of Type 2.  If I play Creation of the World, and search my deck for 5 copies each of Jacob, Eve, etc. then all but one of my characters are instantly killed.  It is better to simply say you are only allowed to bring out one of each because of a restriction.

Are you saying I am allowed to put a card in its owner's deck/discard pile or are you saying that I am allowed to--however temporarily--put an opponent's card in my deck/discard pile?

The former.

I must be missing something because your rephrashing sounds like a restriction to me. You are telling me I am not allowed to create a situation where an opponent's card ends up in any draw/discard pile except for his own. I am restricted from performing that action.

Now I see what you are missing.  A restriction keeps you from doing something, like restricting you from banding.  You don't get to band to that character and then reroute that band in some way.  You can't search for all copies of Genesis heroes and then reroute them in some way.  You just can't do it in the first place.  With cards going into decks or discard piles, you are not disallowed from carrying out an effect to its completion.  You just reroute cards to the correct destination.  You are not kept from using a special ability.  
When the uniqueness rule would be violated, you are restricted in what targets you can select.  When a "put in a pile" ability is used, targets are not changed.  Only destinations are changed.

Are you saying you think it is inherently fair for my opponent to band to my PAB, discard my PAB, and then search his discard pile for his own EC and put it in play?

It is no less fair than banding to my opponent's Zimri.    Really, when that decision was made a long time ago, it seemed like fairness was the deciding factor.  Obviously more cards with those abilities and similar abilities have been printed since then, but I still think it is better to lose a card to someone using your character's ability (which you know is a risk when you include such cards) than it is to lose a character because your opponent uses a bunch of banding cards and popular characters in hopes of killing your character by forcing them to violate the uniqueness rule.

Quote from: Bryon on February 12, 2010, 05:18:14 PM

Why are these treated differently?  One reason is fairness.  I could build a deck using nothing but the characters I know my opponent uses, plus a bunch of characters that can band to them.  All day long I can band to his guys, killing them as I force them to violate the uniqueness rule.

Banding to PAB and searching through your discard pile kills him just as easily.

...and so does banding to his Zimri. 

But once again, the difference is that in one scenario, you are losing your character because of the special ability on the character (a known risk that is printed on the card), while in the other case you would be losing your character because the game punishes YOUR character because your OPPONENT broke the uniqueness rule.

Then again, maybe we could let the uniqueness rule be broken any time you want, but just change the part about who gets to decide which character is kept.  If player A breaks the rule, then player B chooses which one is kept.  That way, you are not rewarded for breaking the rules. 

Once again, though, every non-optional search card that names a specific character(s) would be horrible in Type 2, forcing you to bring it into play and letting your opponent chose which one to discard.  Ugh.

I'd rather just keep it how it is.

Then again, maybe we could let the uniqueness rule be broken any time you want, but just change the part about who gets to decide which character is kept.  If player A breaks the rule, then player B chooses which one is kept.  That way, you are not rewarded for breaking the rules. 

I actually like this a lot.  It seems consistent with the hand limit of 8 cards at the end of you turn.  The way we enforce that is that if a player is caught with more than 8 cards in their hand when they shouldn't have that many, then their opponent gets to randomly discard from their hand until they are down to 8 cards.  This would be similar.

On the other hand, if we want to keep the "duplicate rule" to being restricted from even being broken, then I would also like to see the "only owner's cards in owner's draw pile" rule to being restricted from even being broken.  I understand that things CAN simply work differently without being inconsistent.  But with two similar situations like this, it seems more inconsistent, and I don't really see a purpose for making them different.  Is there any reason (besides wanting to use your opponents PAB to search for your EC) that we should allow the "only owner's cards in owner's draw pile" rule to be broken anyway.  If not, then why not line these two rulings up with one another.

There are a lot of older cards that return a card to YOUR deck or somesuch that would be killed by that rule.  Nowadays, we typically say "owner's deck" or just "deck" which defaults to owner's deck.

Thanks, that's what I'm looking for.  Can you point me to a few examples?

Going through the most recent URCL here are the cards I found that would be effected...

OK, so we have 5 enhancements, which would almost never be able to be used by an opponent, and 2 characters who could pretty easily be used by an opponent (although it would mean that your opponent was also playing with Phillistines, or with 2 specific Genesis characters).

It seems to me that it would be better to have the consistency in ruling that people are restricted from violating the "owner's card only are allowed in owner's draw and discard piles".  It would just mean that these particular special abilities would not be allowed to be used by opponents.  With the enhancements, that probably wouldn't ever come up anyway, and with the characters it is a simple rule to explain.

Hey,

I believe the shuffler is another card that would be affected.  Also keep in mind we try not to change rules unless we need to.  In this case we really don't need to.

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

I forgot the context the original question was asked in--namely TEAMS. In the specific case that resurrected this thread we were dealing with two partners sharing a PAB. There are scenarios that may be more common where one of these enhancement is used by one team member to search the deck/draw of his teammate.

I also forgot the context of TEAMS.  I actually like the idea of being able to search your teammate's deck to pull out a needed card.  This increases the amount of teamwork and interactivity between teammates in that event.  I still think that we should not even allow people to do something that would violate the "only owner's cards in owner's draw and discard piles" rule.  However, if I'm going to lose this one, I'll take solace in the fact that it makes TEAMS even more fun

I take that to mean that in teams, each member of the team is considered to be the owner of that team's collective deck?

Not owner exactly. Anything with the word "own", "owner" or forms thereof is limited to the traditional owner. In TEAMS, however, the words "you" and "your" can denote either player of the team, at the option of the person playing the card. So if you had played Great Faith, in the scenario given earlier, you would have the option to choose either your own or your partner's deck to riffle through.

I also forgot the context of TEAMS.

My bad.  If I hadn't mentioned Stealing Egypt's Wealth you would have been right there.

I actually like the idea of being able to search your teammate's deck to pull out a needed card.  This increases the amount of teamwork and interactivity between teammates in that event.  I still think that we should not even allow people to do something that would violate the "only owner's cards in owner's draw and discard piles" rule.  However, if I'm going to lose this one, I'll take solace in the fact that it makes TEAMS even more fun

This is exactly my sentiment. Making TEAMS more fun should be a high priority in any future ruling. 

Quote from: EmJayBee83 on February 15, 2010, 07:02:00 AM

... In TEAMS, however, the words "you" and "your" can denote either player of the team, at the option of the person playing the card. ...

Does this add a whole new level of complexity to drawing abilities in TEAMS?

Not really, because very few draw abilities include the word "you," "yours," or variants of those.