#560616
My response to OP would be "Every Turn vs Each Turn.' These things are equivalent in english (the language the game is written in), they should be equivalent in the game. The fact that they're not is maddening enough, but having to remember which is which is insane and never works. Always have to look it up.
My first honorable mention would go to: Some points count for winning, some points sometimes count for winning, some points don't count for winning.
Beyond making everyone track multiple point values for every player, and adding a lot of unnecessary math, it also takes away a lot of unorthodox, unique strategies and win conditions that were deliberately included in the game from the beginning and throughout its history (at least at Decipher). It started with Decipher's ridiculous In The Zone, but CC has continued to carry it and take it to even further extremes.
My second honorable mention would go to: Valid responses. An interrupt is an interrupt - interrupt means it stops things to unexpectedly change something, which means any interruption should be "valid." It's not up to you or to the rules to determine if my interruption is good enough or valid enough!
But the problem is, we're several decades in to the 21st century, rather than being stuck in the 90s. All of those problems that existed for you and your friends in the 90s either don't exist anymore or are so minor as to be meaningless. Hell, we can't even get the cards without going to the internet, so there's no reason not to believe players can access the rules on the internet.
Speaking of which, instead of slashing and burning the rules in a misguided effort to reduce player confusion, why not link the cards to the rules/glossary in the first place? It's a complete no-brainer and would require almost no effort compared to the considerable work you've no doubt put into the rules and the committees to manually pull rules out, and would go further than anything else in reducing player confusion.
Don't get me wrong, this post is blunt and some may even say adversarial. But when you label fanatical slash-and-burn methodology as "The Right Thing To Do" without hesitation or shame, then someone sorely needs to provide pushback, so that's what I've done. I respect you have a good understanding of the rules as they currently are, but I think that you've demonstrated a lack of understanding of the rules as they have been, which is an important historical context, and I think your crusade to simplify and dumb-down the game, for the sake of an arbitrary metric like reducing the length of the glossary, is both inappropriate and harmful to what has made this game unique.
Frankly, I fear the day when "HTSBEG" inevitably comes under your fire.
My first honorable mention would go to: Some points count for winning, some points sometimes count for winning, some points don't count for winning.
Beyond making everyone track multiple point values for every player, and adding a lot of unnecessary math, it also takes away a lot of unorthodox, unique strategies and win conditions that were deliberately included in the game from the beginning and throughout its history (at least at Decipher). It started with Decipher's ridiculous In The Zone, but CC has continued to carry it and take it to even further extremes.
My second honorable mention would go to: Valid responses. An interrupt is an interrupt - interrupt means it stops things to unexpectedly change something, which means any interruption should be "valid." It's not up to you or to the rules to determine if my interruption is good enough or valid enough!
BCSWowbagger wrote: ↑Wed Aug 25, 2021 10:24 pm Borg can now send down any number of Borg to scout a planet (previously, they could only beam down one per turn).That's not how that ever worked.
I get why these changes were made. Borg were hideously complexThose rule changes didn't really affect complexity of the Borg. Rules complexity was due to objectives, scouting, and downloading, most of which went unaffected by those rule changes from The Borg.
From a rules perspective, it was The Right Thing To DoIt was not "The Right Thing To Do." I honestly think it was the wrong thing to do - and even if you personally think it was "the right thing to do," I think it's frightening that you would label it as "The Right Thing To Do." I also think that specific labeling is a telling sign of the zealotry you've brandished about getting rid of rules merely for the sake of getting rid of rules, no matter the cost.
and I'd do it again in their shoes.Sadly, not only do I believe you would - despite the fact that it's inappropriate and the wrong move - I think you already have. You've carried on a crusade to make the unique 1E game a less richer, fuller experience, paving over its history with blandness - using scare stories of new players unable to learn minor edge cases that they'll almost certainly never meaningfully encounter as a justification to gut one of the most historically and thematically flavorful games in CCG history, if not tabletop history.
(MY friends and I bought some packs of First Contact but never played Borg because we were waiting to open up some Borg-affiliation missions -- because Decipher didn't put the Borg rules in the booster packs! We saw the objectives but didn't know what "scouting" was and we figured it would be explained by some other card! Oh, Decipher...)I think this is an interesting origin story for your crusade, and an explanation for your consistent over-reaction to rules baggage. You want to do things "the right way" for that time and place, for young James and his friends who didn't have access to booster boxes, Scrye magazines, or the internet.
But the problem is, we're several decades in to the 21st century, rather than being stuck in the 90s. All of those problems that existed for you and your friends in the 90s either don't exist anymore or are so minor as to be meaningless. Hell, we can't even get the cards without going to the internet, so there's no reason not to believe players can access the rules on the internet.
Speaking of which, instead of slashing and burning the rules in a misguided effort to reduce player confusion, why not link the cards to the rules/glossary in the first place? It's a complete no-brainer and would require almost no effort compared to the considerable work you've no doubt put into the rules and the committees to manually pull rules out, and would go further than anything else in reducing player confusion.
Don't get me wrong, this post is blunt and some may even say adversarial. But when you label fanatical slash-and-burn methodology as "The Right Thing To Do" without hesitation or shame, then someone sorely needs to provide pushback, so that's what I've done. I respect you have a good understanding of the rules as they currently are, but I think that you've demonstrated a lack of understanding of the rules as they have been, which is an important historical context, and I think your crusade to simplify and dumb-down the game, for the sake of an arbitrary metric like reducing the length of the glossary, is both inappropriate and harmful to what has made this game unique.
Frankly, I fear the day when "HTSBEG" inevitably comes under your fire.