[The Prefect]

I would rule that you have to relocate if you are able since there's no cost involved.

As far as I am aware, that would be incorrect.

What your ruling wants the card to say is, "Your opponent chooses a planet mission in play. Place a personnel with Exobiology or Medical on that planet. Otherwise, all your personnel are stopped."

But, that's not what the card says.

So you're arguing that every dilemma that says unless implies I can choose to do whatever it says after it or not?

No. I'm stating that you should follow the rules. Again, please read page 11 of the Rule Book. And, by the way, this thread right here is a perfect example of why designers can't always "vote for less words." Rules Lawyering is real.

[Naetor]

As far as I am aware, that would be incorrect.

What your ruling wants the card to say is, "Your opponent chooses a planet mission in play. Place a personnel with Exobiology or Medical on that planet. Otherwise, all your personnel are stopped."

But, that's not what the card says.

So you're arguing that every dilemma that says unless implies I can choose to do whatever it says after it or not?

No. I'm stating that you should follow the rules. Again, please read page 11 of the Rule Book. And, by the way, this thread right here is a perfect example of why designers can't always "vote for less words." Rules Lawyering is real.

The only change you made was omitting "unless you". So your argument has to be that "Unless you" somehow gives a player an option to do so or not. The implications of that are wide spread. Brian and I both gave examples.

[The Prefect]

The only change you made was omitting "unless you". So your argument has to be that "Unless you" somehow gives a player an option to do so or not. The implications of that are wide spread. Brian and I both gave examples.

No, and again I think you're wanting this card to say things it doesn't say. That you and Brian both misunderstand the card in the same way doesn't make you correct.

It's worth pointing out that neither Command Decisions nor An Issue of Trust - the examples you both gave - contain the word "unless." Clarification for the Pedantic: neither of these cards contain a condition followed by the word "unless."

A relevant example of the "unless" text would be "Rapid Progress" or Adopted Authority. In these two cases, the "unless" text follows a set of conditions which aren't optional. A player either has the named skills or he doesn't. A player either has a personnel with attributes >5 or he doesn't.

On Hippocratic Oath, there is no mandatory text preceding the unless. So, grammatically, it is the word unless in this case that provides the choice.

It's the same as understanding the difference between the following two statements:

"Unless you clean your room, you don't get any dinner."

"Unless you're wearing a coat and tie, you don't get in to the restaurant."

In the above cases, I can choose to clean my room or not. But, if I don't clean my room, I don't get any dinner. On the other hand, once I arrive at the restaurant, I'm either wearing a coat and tie, or I'm not. It's a binary condition and there's no choice implied. If I don't have a coat and tie, I don't get in. The "unless" is contextualized by the words around it.

Hippocratic Oath is the same as "Unless you clean your room, you don't get any dinner." Unless you relocate the relevant personnel, all your personnel are stopped. Again, it's the word unless that's giving you the choice here because it's not preceded by any mandatory condition or binary state.

"Rapid Progress", and Adopted Authority are all like the same as, "Unless you're wearing a coat and tie, you don't get in to the restaurant." The word "unless" in "Rapid Progress", and Adopted Authority are preceded by a condition that you either meet or you don't.

An Issue of Trust is the same, except the word "unless" precedes the condition, not the other way around, but we understand it to mean the same thing. Think of An Issue of Trust as saying, "Unless you're wearing a coat and tie, you don't get in to the restaurant. Choose all but one of your friends who is also wearing a coat and tie to come with you into the restaurant."

What you're arguing is that the statement, "Unless you clean your room, you don't get any dinner" means exactly the same thing as "You must clean your room." Clearly, that's false. You also want to say that because I'm saying those two statements aren't the same, I'm also saying that the word "unless" always implies a choice. But, a basic understanding of English tells me that's got to be false as well.

Does that make more sense?

[Naetor]

Literally the first word of Issue is unless.

[The Prefect]

Literally the first word of Issue is unless.

I think you understood what I meant. Now you're just being pedantic.

As a teacher, one of the hardest lessons I had to learn is that some students don't want to be taught. When that happens, there's little that can be done.

You don't want to understand this card. Rule the way you say you want to rule. But, if you do you'll be wrong.

Nothing else I can do here.

[Armus]

No. I'm stating that you should follow the rules. Again, please read page 11 of the Rule Book. And, by the way, this thread right here is a perfect example of why designers can't always "vote for less words." Rules Lawyering is real.

The only change you made was omitting "unless you". So your argument has to be that "Unless you" somehow gives a player an option to do so or not. The implications of that are wide spread. Brian and I both gave examples.

Rules lawyering is real, and sometimes you need more text. I think this is one of those cases.

If the card explicitly said "Unless you choose to relocate..." then it wouldn't be a question and you could rightly accuse us of being pedantic or Rules Lawyering or whatever.

But that's not what the card says.

What you call a "plain text reading" is an assumed implication that a choice exists.

Maybe that's what it was supposed to be. Maybe that was the assumption throughout the design process. Maybe that's how it's supposed to work.

But that's not what the card says.

At least not explicitly.

Nate isn't wrong that an "unless" clause implying a choice could have far reaching and potentially unintended consequences. That's not how dilemmas have typically been written.

To the contrary, most choices are explicit (e.g., choose a personnel with Leadership or Officer to be stopped...) and to the extent it's not, it's typically the opponent's choice (e.g., a tie for the most cunning science personnel with Unscientific Method).

I can't speak for Nate, but I was asking my questions sincerely and not trying to Rules Lawyer or Troll or whatever else you think I was doing.

If I'm wrong that's fine, but my main reason for asking is that it's NOT clear. Maybe consider that instead of ascribing motive.

[The Prefect]

... lots of stuff that ignored the illustration between the cards in question ...

If you understand the difference between the following statements, then you understand the difference between the cards in question.

Statement 1: "Unless you clean your room, you don't get any dinner."

Statement 2: "Unless you're wearing a coat and tie, you don't get in to the restaurant."

Would you agree that there is a clearly a choice in Statement 1? I think you would, as would anyone who understands English. You can choose not to clean your room. If you do, you don't get any dinner. That's pretty clear.

Well, that's what Hippocratic Oath says. Hippocratic Oath is like Statement 1. It's literally that clear. You can choose not to relocate a personnel with Medical or Exobiology. If you make that choice, all your personnel are stopped.

I can't speak for Nate, but I was asking my questions sincerely and not trying to Rules Lawyer or Troll or whatever else you think I was doing.

If I'm wrong that's fine, but my main reason for asking is that it's NOT clear. Maybe consider that instead of ascribing motive.

I also don't doubt the sincerity of your question, but it's still rules lawyering. It's just unintentional rules lawyering, at least in your case.

Not understanding a card this clear could be the possible result of just not stopping to think about what the cards says. That happens to all of us. Nothing wrong with it.

Misunderstanding a card and then creating scenarios that ignore basic rules of the game or basic rules of English grammar is another thing entirely. It's rules lawyering. In your case, it's clear you don't mean to be doing that. So, stop doing that.

The reason it aggravates me so much when Nate does it is because he's the first person to criticize design for there being too many words on a card. But in this case it seems he wants a paragraph to explain what's already clear in three lines of text. I'm willing to bet all the money in my wallet that if design had done that, he'd have complained about a "wall-o-text" card. He refuses to realize that sometimes cards have to be "wall-o-text" because designers and rules volunteers are tired of dealing with exactly what this is: the misunderstanding, deliberate or not, of an otherwise clear concept.

Would you all honestly have been more happy with:

Your opponent chooses a planet mission in play. You may choose a personnel with Exobiology or a personnel with Medical to be placed on that planet mission. If you do, nothing else happens and this dilemma is overcome. If you choose not to place a personnel with Exobiology or a personnel with Medical on the planet your opponent has chosen, all personnel attempting this mission are stopped and this dilemma is overcome.

I'm asking as a designer.

[Cmdr Xym]

Would you all honestly have been more happy with:

Your opponent chooses a planet mission in play. You may choose a personnel with Exobiology or a personnel with Medical to be placed on that planet mission. If you do, nothing else happens and this dilemma is overcome. If you choose not to place a personnel with Exobiology or a personnel with Medical on the planet your opponent has chosen, all personnel attempting this mission are stopped and this dilemma is overcome.

I'm asking as a designer.

That much text is not necessary. I think Armus' suggestion of "Unless you choose to..." would have been sufficient. With enough people questioning how the card works, it's probably not as clear as it could be or as you think it is (Rulebook notwithstanding).

I also did not understand the card to be giving you a choice. Now that you've made the distinction, I can see where you're coming from but it's still very easy to miss that distinction as worded.

[Armus]

Ok I think I see the problem. You're using typical American English conventions to argue 2e Rules text.

That doesn't typically go well, and this isn't the first time it's led to a big nerd fight.

I was asking my question based on my reading of the card and my knowledge of 2e language conventions, which are NOT the same as American English conventions. (You could argue that they should be, but that's a different debate)

As a result, you think I'm too thick to see what you consider blatantly obvious truth, and we end up spending a page and a half talking past each other.

To address your point: I see the difference between your two above statements and clearly understand what you're trying to illustrate. What I'm saying is, in the context of 2e gametext conventions, that distinction isn't the slam dunk case you're making it out to be.

So let's review:

Here's the gametext we're talking about:

Your opponent chooses a planet mission in play. Unless you place a personnel with Exobiology or Medical on that planet, all your personnel are stopped.

So the placing of that personnel is part of the requirement.

Generally in 2e, you can't choose to fail a requirement that you're otherwise capable of passing, thus my earlier reference to not being able to go directly to the random kill in Command Decisions just because I don't want to stop a leadership or officer.

As such, in 2e English, if not traditional English, since there is no implied choice when it comes to meeting a dilemma's requirements, the way I read it is that if you have an eligible exo or med personnel, you have to relocate them or create a situation where you don't have one (e.g., Stricken Dumb on your only eligible person).

Which is why I said earlier that in order to work the way you say it does, the choice has to be explicitly stated; something like:

Your opponent chooses a planet mission in play. Unless you choose to place a personnel with Exobiology or Medical on that planet, all your personnel are stopped.

.

The card doesn't say this, so at the very least it would probably be good to get a Rules clarification as to why this card is different.

Either that or errata the card to my suggested text to remove the ambiguity.

[monty42]

What the hell is wrong with you guys?

[Mogor]

What the hell is wrong with you guys?

2E has rule lawyers and its a nasty plague of negative nancyisms

[The Prefect]

Ok I think I see the problem. You're using typical American English conventions to argue 2e Rules text.

That doesn't typically go well, and this isn't the first time it's led to a big nerd fight.

I was asking my question based on my reading of the card and my knowledge of 2e language conventions, which are NOT the same as American English conventions. (You could argue that they should be, but that's a different debate)

As a result, you think I'm too thick to see what you consider blatantly obvious truth, and we end up spending a page and a half talking past each other.

To address your point: I see the difference between your two above statements and clearly understand what you're trying to illustrate. What I'm saying is, in the context of 2e gametext conventions, that distinction isn't the slam dunk case you're making it out to be.

Okay I understand now. Thanks for clarifying.

Admittedly, I'm not on Rules, and maybe this is part of the reason why lol.

This never came up in testing that I'm aware of - as far as I'm aware it was tested as working the way I've understood it to work. Maybe, since I'm aware of the design intent and since I'm aware of how it was tested and since I assume Rules reviewed it, I also assumed our understanding was both correct and clear. It never actually occurred to me that there was any other way to interpret it.

Two honest questions:

Can you give me another example of when English and 2E-English have produced a similar misunderstanding?

I've always played Psychological Pressure as follows: if I choose not to discard a card to use a skill I fail a mission's requirements and take the all stop if that's to my advantage. Is that the correct way to play it?

[Gorgo Primus]

Yeah, for what it's worth I understood the card intent instantly upon reading it. It is asking if you have done a thing (a choice) not if you have a thing (a fact). But if more words are needed for some people, go for it I guess.

[Naetor]

God forbid people request clarification on a card.

The next 2e brand manager should drain the swamp.

[Honest]

I am a big fan of The Prefect, Trek wise and personally. I think he may be wrong in this case.

Perhaps if Hippocratic Oath said "you may place" your Exo-Med person at the planet, if you don't all your guys get stopped, it would make more sense.

The concept and flavour of the card, for what its worth, is terrific. Props to design

Honest