[Iron Prime]

So this question/comment pair came up in the Universal Missions thread.

So, question for the group: have Ref problems been fixed enough that we can ban Tribunal of Q and return to traditional Q-the-Referee cycling?

I would argue that's too low a bar. The only Ref cards we should have in the end are actual meta "I have anticipated your move, and now you have activated my Trap Card muahaha!" (insert Mr. Burns "Excellent" gif here)

(This is in contrast to the Dark Ages where Ref cards were "stock this to not die".)

How do we feel about this? Are we, as a community, ready fro this? Do you have additions to the discussion? Please vote above and post below. If you vote for a 'no' option I would like to encourage you to comment on what you think could be done to get us there. Is it as simple as a single ban or errata? Is it more nuanced?

[Ensign Q]

so do i need to copy my reply from there to here? lol
->
can you please stop hating on ref cards, why on earth do you want to get rid of them? they are not a problem at all and i think the hate only comes from a time when they were neccessary.

if you dont like them, dont run them. they still fix some minor issues with the game. going second, no mulligan or excessive hands for example, redshirting etc.

and no, i dont want to get rid of them at all, so what kind of comment is: "encourage you to comment on what you think could be done to get us there"

keep them!!

actually in the current state of 1e, its a waste of time and ressource to even think about ref cards.

[pfti]

via Imgflip Meme Generator

[BCSWowbagger]

I don't know what arguments your conclusions are based on, so I can't respond to them.

I mean, it seems obvious that most Ref cards aren't making your games more tactical and fun, unless your meta is doing something really weird. Access Denied, Feedback Surge, HQ: Orbital Weapons, Panel Overload, and Writ are all pretty much sidelined for most of the world. Intruder Alert! and Reactor Overload today basically exist only to perform cheap tricks, usually involving some flavor of Borg. White Dep, Strategema, and Oof! aren't so much "interesting tactical choices" as "straight-up obvious counters that you always use in situations where you need them." Q the Referee is academically interesting, in that you could write a whole book about its timing, how it interacts with and with Tribunal, and the unintended consequences thereof (consequences from which the public is largely but not entirely shielded by the hard work of the Rules Committee), but tactically adds little -- and what it does add is certainly outweighed for the great majority of players by the need to fix its arcane timing-reveal rules in their heads.

This leaves a handful of Ref cards whose Ref icon does arguably add fun to the game (at times), but I don't see how having a Revised Format Ref Pile to support them makes them more fun.

Indeed, wouldn't it be more tactical and fun if you had to actually make space for your cards in your Tent or your draw deck, leading to interesting deckbuilding choices? Right now, you just scoop up every single broadly useful Ref card and dump it in your Civil War tent, then round out the remaining slots with a few that theoretically could be useful. But everyone who has a Civil War Tent has Oof! and everybody knows it. Wouldn't it be fascinating if you saw your opponent had a Tribunal, but there was no Civil War tent, and so it was an open question whether he or she decided to stock Oof! or not? Are you gonna risk playing that Kevin or not now?

Even supporters of keeping the mechanic in the game should see the benefit to eliminating some of the infrastructure -- which is all I'm suggesting be done right now.

[LORE]

Where is the leave them alone poll option?

[AllenGould]

so do i need to copy my reply from there to here? lol
->
can you please stop hating on ref cards, why on earth do you want to get rid of them? they are not a problem at all and i think the hate only comes from a time when they were neccessary.

if you dont like them, dont run them. they still fix some minor issues with the game. going second, no mulligan or excessive hands for example, redshirting etc.

The problem is that there's two types of cards.

The "good" ones are things like Villagers with Torches or HQ: Orbital Weapons Platform, that reward you for catching your opponent out. Villagers is even better, because you can build your planet dilemmas knowing that you don't have to worry about redshirting. It's a strategic decision that you use to get an advantage.

The "bad" ones, on the other hand, are stuff like Access Denied or Writ of Accountability. You don't stock these to gain an advantage, but to stop yourself from losing because your opponent is about to do something excessively naughty. They don't do anything for your gameplan, they just stop you from getting cheesed out.

The difference is in what happens when you don't run it - if you don't run Villagers, then you need to build your dilemmas to account for redshirting. If you don't run Writ, you run the chance of losing the game. You're not spending a seed card to get upside, you're just paying the cheese tax.

And remember, the reason Q the Ref, and then Tribunal came about was that the game had devolved into cheese whack-a-mole - the "attacker" using cheese could be playing any (and in the end, multiple) cheesy strategies, while the defender had to spend multiple seed slots and hope they happened to pick the right ones this week. So we added cards to make engines out of Ref and effectively give every player every Ref card, when the proper solution was just to cut the cheese out entirely rather than expect Every Other Player to stock this pile of cards.

So, my personal "wincon" here would be to reach a point where we can ban Q the Referee and Tribunal of Q, and you're paying the seed cost for a Ref card because it's doing something good for *you*, rather than just band-aiding a bad card somewhere else.

[Armus]

Where is the leave them alone poll option?

I think "Leave them alone" ~= one of the no options.

Here's my question: what's the purpose of the ban list? My understanding was it was a place to put problem cards until they could be errataed and released back into the wild. A Security Holding Cell if you will.

If that's the case, what problem are the cards and associated infrastructure causing to the game that requires them to be locked up?

I get that Intermix Ratio, Big Picture, GQ, and YAAM would be problematic as cards since they're already baked into the OTF rules and doubling down would cause its own problems, fair enough.

But since there's about 13 cards still playable, the real question becomes one of a) run normal Q tent and no cards or b) run Civil War Tent and cards AND Tribunal

It's a very straightforward analysis: the Q tents take up one seed slot on each side so they're irrelevant in a direct comparison. What is relevant is the benefit gained (13 cards) vs. The cost incurred, which in this case is losing the ability to attempt a mission with less than 4 people ( irrelevant ), the ability to play Q's Tent from hand to get a much needed key card, and - perhaps most importantly - a precious seed slot.

Is giving players the choice - and yes, at this point it's definitely a choice, specifically BECAUSE of the work that's been done - of using a seed slot for the swiss army knife causing a problem for the game?

I don't see it. let the players decide the relative value in the deckbuilding process. That's where the decision should reside IMO.

[JeBuS]

Another downside to ref cards is that they are essentially hidden rules. For example, take Writ. It's a card that some players won't even know exists that says: You lose.

That's not a good player experience on either side of it. Just make that a rule that people can read, or redesign those cards so they only play once per game. Period.

White Deprivation can be loaded onto a card which puts the onus on the Dominion player to use it. (Unless anyone here would like to convince me that Dominion are overpowered in the current meta!)

And there are solutions to all of them.

[Iron Prime]

Where is the leave them alone poll option?

Fixed the poll for you.

[JeBuS]

Where is the leave them alone poll option?

Fixed the poll for you.

And... now everyone who has already voted needs to do it again.

[Ensign Q]

so how would you replace masaka (mulligan and staff of ships) and scorching hand without ref?

also 2nd player to start gets to draw an extra card?

auto lose the game after 15 points of dilemmas otf rule?

homeworlds always protected?

free security into play at no cost?

i mean yeah its stupid for a new player to lose the game after a cardflip, but so there are probably a hundred other cards he could just lose to or his deck wouldnt even function in the first place because the rules are a mess.

banning or discussin ref cards is a strawman and distraction to not face the real problems with 1e. so can we please close this topic?

[JeBuS]

banning or discussin ref cards is a strawman and distraction to not face the real problems with 1e. so can we please close this topic?

The Ref cards are a symptom of the problems with 1e. Every time we have this discussion, I think it helps us move a little bit closer to fixing the game and making the ref cards unnecessary.

[Armus]

banning or discussin ref cards is a strawman and distraction to not face the real problems with 1e. so can we please close this topic?

The Ref cards are a symptom of the problems with 1e. Every time we have this discussion, I think it helps us move a little bit closer to fixing the game and making the ref cards unnecessary.

Also, have you ever tried to stop nerds from arguing about anything on the internet? It usually doesn't go well...

[Ensign Q]

banning or discussin ref cards is a strawman and distraction to not face the real problems with 1e. so can we please close this topic?

The Ref cards are a symptom of the problems with 1e. Every time we have this discussion, I think it helps us move a little bit closer to fixing the game and making the ref cards unnecessary.

more the opposite. as soon as someone wants to fix or change 1e stuff you guys fall into an endless loop of targeting ref cards as a problem, although as often enough said are an additional tool to actually fix things. (see universal missions topic)

[Data's Socks]

IMO with White Deprivation in particular, it's "What are you doing as a card and not a rule?" Absolutely there would be the downside of having yet another rules entry, not to mention upping the number of loaded icons by one, though I think a special case can be made here that the Jem'Hadar were designed and balanced around Ketracel-White. Similarly, it would streamline the rules a little (possibly, one never knows for sure) if all affiliations shared the same attack restrictions, punting the exceptions onto a card; it doesn't seem right to have some aspects subject to player whims, though.