[Mr.Sloan]

if i move my ship between 2 Build-In Wormhole missions, i guess its not stopped.

If i use Wormhole + Wormhole (or STP) i guess its stopped.

What if i use a Build-In Wormhole mission and a wormhole interrupt? Not stopped no matter the direction? (to vs. from Build-In Mission?)

[BCSWowbagger]

if i move my ship between 2 Build-In Wormhole missions, i guess its not stopped.

If i use Wormhole + Wormhole (or STP) i guess its stopped.

What if i use a Build-In Wormhole mission and a wormhole interrupt? Not stopped no matter the direction? (to vs. from Build-In Mission?)

Correct. The Wormhole is a "card played as a cost" (see actions: step 1 - initiation) and none of its text takes effect.

It's exactly like when Cultural Observation II's reverse side instructs you to play Long-Range Scan to flip it over. When you do that, you are burning Long-Range Scan as a cost for a different effect, so you do get to flip the mission over, but you don't get to glance at the cards on an opponent's ship.

[Mogor]

if i move my ship between 2 Build-In Wormhole missions, i guess its not stopped.

If i use Wormhole + Wormhole (or STP) i guess its stopped.

What if i use a Build-In Wormhole mission and a wormhole interrupt? Not stopped no matter the direction? (to vs. from Build-In Mission?)

Correct. The Wormhole is a "card played as a cost" (see actions: step 1 - initiation) and none of its text takes effect.

It's exactly like when Cultural Observation II's reverse side instructs you to play Long-Range Scan to flip it over. When you do that, you are burning Long-Range Scan as a cost for a different effect, so you do get to flip the mission over, but you don't get to glance at the cards on an opponent's ship.

Wish I had known this awhile ago, as it would have given me a few games

[BCSWowbagger]

It does trip people up a lot. I'm not sure why, since it's a pretty well-established principle in a zillion contexts. (Do you have to be in a personnel battle to play Vulcan Nerve Pinch to nullify I Hate You?) Possibly it's because the functionality of the card played as a cost here is soooooooooo close to the functionality of the card it's paying for (with the only difference being whether it stops you).

[AllenGould]

It does trip people up a lot. I'm not sure why, since it's a pretty well-established principle in a zillion contexts.

I suspect it's because we say "play" when we mean "discard"?

[BCSWowbagger]

Okay, I buy that.

[JeBuS]

I do think it would be less problematic if it said something like:

You may move relocate your staffed ship between from here and to any other location (if that location is a [Wmh] mission OR if you discard one Wormhole interrupt). Then flip this mission over.

[BCSWowbagger]

That would require... 6 errata.

Huh. Thought it'd be a steeper price than that.

*files information away in recesses of mind*

[JeBuS]

That would require... 6 errata.

Huh. Thought it'd be a steeper price than that.

*files information away in recesses of mind*

Yes, get with Errata on that. Also, as I have edited above, it should be "relocate" rather than "move" on the Mission IIs in order to make wording and functionality consistent.

And the reverse should likewise say:

If you have a staffed ship here, you may discard Long-Range Scan to "detect Wormhole" (flip mission over).

What other opportunities are there to eliminate "play as cost" when we really mean "discard as cost"?

[PantsOfTheTalShiar]

I do think it would be less problematic if it said something like:

You may move relocate your staffed ship between from here and to any other location (if that location is a [Wmh] mission OR if you discard one Wormhole interrupt). Then flip this mission over.

This would be a functional change because this only works in one direction while "between" allows movement in either direction. It also changes from movement to relocation, so it no longer requires ship staffing.

It's true that Wormhole now says "relocate," but IMO if you want consistency you should change that back to "move," since the glossary entry for movement still lists using Wormholes as Normal ship movement that requires staffing.

[BCSWowbagger]

What other opportunities are there to eliminate "play as cost" when we really mean "discard as cost"?

Another question worth asking is what would it cost for us to take those opportunities?

Suppose that the 1E Department could issue up to 1 "clarifying" erratum every month. That's a completely made-up number, with truly, literally, no tie to reality whatsoever. There's currently no "clarifying" errata process at all. But suppose there can be 1 released every month. That's it.

So if you wanted to change all the Mission II's, boom, that's six months of the "clarifying" pipeline tied up. If you find other cards where changing "play" to "discard" makes sense... say, 12 more... well, now that's 18 months. During that time, no other "clarifying" errata can be released. So you've cleaned up this area of the game a bit, but you've sacrificed the opportunity to clean up other areas in the process.

Assuming for the sake of discussion that the department's ability to produce "clarifying" errata is limited, is this the hill you'd want the 1E Department to commit its resources, for however long it would actually be?

My suspicion is that there are other cards where a deft "clarifying" erratum could do more good with fewer resources, while the Mission II's might be "cured" fairly well (not perfectly, but fairly well) with an extra Glossary sentence.

I'm never going to take ideas off the table. It's kind of my job now to listen to rules ideas, discuss them (openly, when possible), and put them in the rolodex where I can find them again. And I've found this discussion pretty helpful for that. I asked why people got confused about this and received some excellent replies and ideas in return.

But acting on ideas means engaging a giant production machine -- a machine which then can't do something else -- which means it's not enough for an idea to be good idea; it has to be a better idea than every other idea in the pipe. And not just in the Rules pipe, but in Errata's pipe and in Art's pipe and (if functional changes are involved) Testing's pipe.

(And I believe Errata's pretty excited about some of the stuff they've been working on recently. Deservedly so, from what I've seen.)

All of which is a very long way of saying... I agree errata (that fixes the wording but does not adjust card functionality) seems like a good idea here, but I would be pretty surprised to see it anytime soon.

It's true that Wormhole now says "relocate," but IMO if you want consistency you should change that back to "move," since the glossary entry for movement still lists using Wormholes as Normal ship movement that requires staffing.

Whooooops. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll have to go check the archives to see whether that was deliberate or simply an oversight when the Wormhole errata came out.

[eberlems]

While on errata and Wormhole, can we make the gametext identical? and then is "stopped" <-> and then is stopped?

[9of24]

It does trip people up a lot. I'm not sure why, since it's a pretty well-established principle in a zillion contexts.

I suspect it's because we say "play" when we mean "discard"?

I can't speak to the original intent of the card, but because it says played, it is played. Which means it can be interacted with, i.e. the play of the interrupt can be nullified, preventing the ability. Changing this to discard would take away that functionality as well.

[JeBuS]

I do think it would be less problematic if it said something like:

You may move relocate your staffed ship between from between here and to and any other location (if that location is a [Wmh] mission OR if you discard one Wormhole interrupt). Then flip this mission over.

This would be a functional change because this only works in one direction while "between" allows movement in either direction. It also changes from movement to relocation, so it no longer requires ship staffing.

You make a good point. Consider that portion un-redacted.

It's true that Wormhole now says "relocate," but IMO if you want consistency you should change that back to "move," since the glossary entry for movement still lists using Wormholes as Normal ship movement that requires staffing.

I believe this particular bit of glossary entry is meant to be there only because of the Wormhole II missions which never received 'relocate' errata. If they become relocaters instead of movers, it obviates this glossary entry.

I can't speak to the original intent of the card, but because it says played, it is played. Which means it can be interacted with, i.e. the play of the interrupt can be nullified, preventing the ability. Changing this to discard would take away that functionality as well.

A very good point. A very very good point. While I'm sure there's a way around it, I couldn't think of one that didn't require creating new game terminology or errata to the nullification cards.


So, here's my next proposal based on the above:

The biggest issue I see is that the Wormhole II missions don't have enough space for more clarified wording to make it match the functionality that is intended for Wormhole Interrupt. So I have an alternate plan of action based on this insightful discussion and years of experience as a programmer where the mantra is to not duplicate your code if you can avoid it (cuz then you've got to make edits [aka errata] in more then one location):

You may download Wormhole here (even from discard pile). (It may not be nullified or prevented.) Then flip this mission over.

Plays on your ship to relocate it to another Wormhole (and then ship is "stopped") OR Plays on a location (even a time location) until end of turn.

This would offload all of the rules stuff to the Wormhole Interrupt itself. It would make every use of Wormhole the same (whether it's a Mission II, STP, or Wormhole Interrupt). And it would eliminate the "play as cost" weirdness that is hard to explain.

The biggest changes under this proposal are:

• No more "unstopped" movement from a Mission II, which I'm okay with as it means the cards are all playing by consistent rules. Which means we can eliminate the movement text mentioned above from the Glossary. (WIN!)
• The wormhole at the location sticks around until the end of turn. I did this because the playing of an interrupt would result in a discard immediately after you finish its effect, which would mean that if the location hole didn't stick around for a bit, it'd evaporate before you could play one on the ship (or vice versa). The original doesn't have this problem because it has you "play two" in one action. So, one end of my proposal is slightly sticky.
• It means you need to stock at least one, possibly two Wormhole Interrupts in your deck. A Mission II to Mission II trip would need 2 Interrupts. A Mission II to STP would need one. I think this is a reasonable trade-off for rules consistency and clarification, but I can understand opposition.

[AllenGould]

It's true that Wormhole now says "relocate," but IMO if you want consistency you should change that back to "move," since the glossary entry for movement still lists using Wormholes as Normal ship movement that requires staffing.

Since the errata is newer than the glossary entry, it's safe to say that the glossary is the bit that needs to change.