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#561109
pfti wrote: If we are talking about writing rules for clarity, we should not hold onto old definitions as the goal, but rather look for what is consistent and clear (which is not that some cards impact the game without being in play.
I'm not opposed to updating the rule, but this thread has roamed around a lot and ranged from "what do the current rules say", to "how can we better explain the current rules", to "how should we clarify the current rules or make them more consistent, even if it means changing definitions," and these are three separate conversations. I've only been focusing on the first of these and have not thought about the others. JeBuS, if we've been taling past each other perhaps this is why.
pfti wrote: I also don't like cards impacting the game from outside play, down that road lies madness.
I get this, but my reading is that what is impacting the game is not an "in play" card, but an action (which to be initiated, requires you to have the card in your hand -- so the card isn't influencing the game out of literally nowhere), and it is this action which compels you to announce targets and pay costs, allows responses, and so forth, with the card only entering play once this action fully resolves. The game isn't influenced by a card in the aether, but by an action initiated by a card in your hand that you are trying to play.

This is my understanding of the rule as it currently is. But for the sake of fairness, this reading of the rules has some wackiness in it. For example: checking conditions happens at initiation (step 1), and a response negating a condition does not stop the action unless it is a hidden agenda (Glossary, "actions - step 2: responses modifying targets or conditions"). So, if I have Anya already in play, I can start to play Salia from my hand, and (during the responses phase) use Anya to download *another* Salia. The first Salia is not yet in play, and so Anya's download is validly initiated. Furthermore, this has no effect on my original Salia play -- even though the condition "if you have in a play a version of a given persona, you may not bring another into play" is no longer met, we're past initiation and it's too late: both Salias resolve.
Last edited by Rachmaninoff on Thu Sep 02, 2021 3:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By DarkSabre (Austin Chandler)
 - Delta Quadrant
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#561111
Armus wrote: Maybe 1e isn't as clear in the details (a fixable problem), but as a player of all 3 games, it makes sense to me that playing a card doesn't totally happen (including it landing "in play" if applicable) until after relevant response opportunities have come and gone.
I always looked at it from Magic & Star Wars (because I played both at the same time) that a response happened when a card is announced and if you have a valid response to the card that targets said card it happens.
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#561119
DarkSabre wrote: Thu Sep 02, 2021 2:38 pm I always looked at it from Magic & Star Wars (because I played both at the same time) that a response happened when a card is announced and if you have a valid response to the card that targets said card it happens.
Magic is a bad example here, because they have thrown a *lot* of language into differentiating the different states. (For instance - when you play a creature, that piece of cardboard moves from being a "creature card" to a "creature spell" to a "creature permanent". And "battlefield" is how they dodged the play/in play issue - they literally just errata'ed every instance of "in play" to "on the battlefield") But they have the advantage of having no precedence for "oh, we errata'ed a card, gotta re-do the artwork" - they just change it and make everyone look it up. :)

Another reason Magic is a bad example - they don't really *do* responses. They just do a stack, and specify that some things can only be done when the stack is empty. There's no difference in the MTG rules between "playing a card" and "playing a card 'in response' to another card".

Not to mention that after all those years of changes, they *still* use "counter" to mean both nullify ("counter target spell") and "shiny bead or M&M on top of a card" ("put a +1/+1 counter on target creature"). :)
JeBuS wrote: Thu Sep 02, 2021 11:39 am Because you go down an infinite loop, there, when I ask what it means to be "in play". Your answer would be, "cards that have been 'played'".
Except that's not correct - if you persona swap a card in, the new card is "in play", but it was never "played". That's literally the loophole for the "play or have played" cards. :) Also, dilemmas that end up on the spaceline table are "in play", but were never "played".

Setting aside the obvious "yes, it's bad to use a word to mean two things", I think the verb/adjective separation is the right read here. You play cards, and cards can be in play. And from at least AU, it's been possible to do one without doing the other. You can play a card, have it nullified, and thus have played a card without it ever being "in play". You can seed someone under a Cryosatellite, pick them up, and they're not "in play" but you never "played" them.
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By JeBuS (Brian S)
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#561143
Rachmaninoff wrote: Thu Sep 02, 2021 2:33 pm I've only been focusing on the first of these and have not thought about the others. JeBuS, if we've been taling past each other perhaps this is why.
No worries. Intended or not, you were still helpful.
Rachmaninoff wrote: Thu Sep 02, 2021 2:33 pm
pfti wrote: I also don't like cards impacting the game from outside play, down that road lies madness.
I get this, but my reading is that what is impacting the game is not an "in play" card, but an action (which to be initiated, requires you to have the card in your hand -- so the card isn't influencing the game out of literally nowhere), and it is this action which compels you to announce targets and pay costs, allows responses, and so forth, with the card only entering play once this action fully resolves. The game isn't influenced by a card in the aether, but by an action initiated by a card in your hand that you are trying to play.
To bring us around to the original post:
I think what is impacting the game isn't even that, it's something much simpler: Game Term Reuse and 1English.

Game Term Reuse - "in play" vs "to play" vs "enter play" vs "..."
They all reuse the term "play". And as we've seen, there are dozens of ways that each of these states and actions can be affected. And yeah... "play" being used both as a state and an action doesn't help.

1English
In our rulebook and glossary, we use the English language. Most of the words used are not anything more or less than what you can find in a dictionary. But, some terms, like "play" or "copy", in addition to having multiple different regular definitions, come with added 1E baggage. They don't necessarily mean what the dictionary says they mean, or they mean that, plus some more. As an example, some of you may have once "built" outposts at missions without using a card play, because hey, the card doesn't say it "plays", it says it's built. But nobody was confusing the term "built" with actually constructing an outpost on the table, right? Whereas "play"... hoo boy, are there many possible readings into that word, or what?

"Play" isn't a singular action. If it was simply "when it's slapped down on the table", we wouldn't be having this discussion. If "Play" was just that, then there were rules and terms for things that happened after that, we wouldn't be having this discussion. But "Play" has what... 4 internal stages in it as well? (None of which are "enter play")
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
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#561145
JeBuS wrote: Thu Sep 02, 2021 5:11 pm
1English
Don't feel bad, nerds have been having fights for years over 2English... it only was a matter of time before it cropped up over here... :wink:
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#561155
JeBuS wrote: Thu Sep 02, 2021 5:11 pm 1English
You mean I haven't had to bring a laptop to tournaments all these years to download cards?!? :shifty:
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By pfti (Jon Carter)
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#561156
I personally will be sad to stop having to bring tiny capes to cloak all of my ship cards
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By JeBuS (Brian S)
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#561175
AllenGould wrote: Thu Sep 02, 2021 6:35 pm
JeBuS wrote: Thu Sep 02, 2021 5:11 pm 1English
You mean I haven't had to bring a laptop to tournaments all these years to download cards?!? :shifty:
pfti wrote:I personally will be sad to stop having to bring tiny capes to cloak all of my ship cards
Exactly. Despite there being dictionary definitions of these terms, there's very little chance of them being confusing for any player, because there is no practical way they could mean anything besides what the rules say, and those rules are (generally) pretty well contained to a singular meaning. [Though, download does dovetail into "play", which is part of "play"'s problem.]

Another angle:
"cloak" is used about 105 times in the glossary and rulebook (generally in only a singular meaning, though you could argue that it has two meanings, similar to "play" [action and state])
"download" is used 360 times (again, generally only in a singlular meaning)
"play" is used 1500 times (with a plethora of meanings)

So, it's not just that "play" is complicated... It's that it touches damn near every paragraph of the combined rules.
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By Professor Scott (Mathew McCalpin)
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#561176
I am still waiting for an artist to declare they can have any cards they want, all they have to do is "draw" them.
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#561178
JeBuS wrote: Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:01 am [Though, download does dovetail into "play", which is part of "play"'s problem.]
I think this might be players taking a mental shortcut.

"Download" (if we ignore the "and seed" variation) can be summarized as "search for a card, reveal it, then play it". It's not a different type of "play" ability (and I'd argue that "build" and "report" aren't either - they're just Ye Olde Flavor Words) - it's just play plus another ability. If you download a card, you play a card - you just didn't have to play it from your hand.
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By JeBuS (Brian S)
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#561179
AllenGould wrote: Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:34 am
JeBuS wrote: Fri Sep 03, 2021 11:01 am [Though, download does dovetail into "play", which is part of "play"'s problem.]
I think this might be players taking a mental shortcut.

"Download" (if we ignore the "and seed" variation) can be summarized as "search for a card, reveal it, then play it". It's not a different type of "play" ability (and I'd argue that "build" and "report" aren't either - they're just Ye Olde Flavor Words) - it's just play plus another ability. If you download a card, you play a card - you just didn't have to play it from your hand.
Yeah, I'm not saying it's a real problem with "download", just that "play" is used there, which means it flows into that problem.
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By Boffo97 (Dave Hines)
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#561226
My summary:

Image

"Play and play! What is play?!"
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By DarkSabre (Austin Chandler)
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#561343
AllenGould wrote: Magic is a bad example here
I agree it is, but you also have to realize that many of us who started playing Star Trek CCG in the mid 90s were also playing games like Magic & Star Wars and that's why I never gave consideration to an issue of what it means for a card to be played and how to react to a card being played.

Regardless of all of this, we literally have decades of examples on how cards interact and shouldn't interact and at the end of the day that is what should be a deciding factor in all of this.
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By Dukat (Andreas Rheinländer)
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#561344
DarkSabre wrote: Sun Sep 05, 2021 1:54 pm
AllenGould wrote: Magic is a bad example here
I agree it is, but you also have to realize that many of us who started playing Star Trek CCG in the mid 90s were also playing games like Magic & Star Wars and that's why I never gave consideration to an issue of what it means for a card to be played and how to react to a card being played.

Regardless of all of this, we literally have decades of examples on how cards interact and shouldn't interact and at the end of the day that is what should be a deciding factor in all of this.
That is not enough.

If we are unable to have a definition that uses itself to define it, we have a problem.
The Glossary needs a definition for 'play' so that future design and rules efforts can work more efficiently.
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