BCSWowbagger wrote: ↑Sun Dec 12, 2021 5:52 pm
Standardizing on "gain" vs. "add" is something I've wanted to do for a while, but I haven't had the chance (sorry) to do the necessary research.
Which one is used more in this context? Which one has older precedents? Does anyone know? Because if so I can just outsource the research.
I'll do some research...
61 cards use the term gain(s) in the sense that is relevant to this discussion.
Of those 61, 32 are not really in need of any sort of clarification because the card tells you exactly what is gained. For instance
Mot's Advice tells you your personnel gains Barbering. That's is. Another example,
Vantika's Neural Pathways and Treachery x2.
This is almost always a personnel but ships can also "gain" equipment, such as
Grappler: Shuttlepod Retrieval and Tractor Beam
Vulcan Database let's a ship gain a skill as specified on the card.
14 cards cause a gain of something other than a skill. Example:
Earn Your Rank gains staffing icons.
Alliance with the Son'a gains
.
2 cards,
Consume Resources and
Consume: Technology allows the gain of "non-intelligence skills in mission requirements." Those will always be regular skills, so that's not really relevant to this topic.
3 cards specifically say you gain a REGULAR skill. Examples:
Comfort Women:
The Book
The Great Teacher
This seems redundant because the Glossary says:
When selecting skills for the Borg Queen, K'chiQ, Frame of Mind, etc., valid choices include any personnel type and any regular skill that exists in the game.
So those cards don't need to tell me to select a regular skills, because the glossary already says selected skills must be regular skills.
6 cards allow me to select a skill without specifying it has to be a regular skill (which, as mentioned already, is not necessary since the glossary already says selected skills must be regular skills).
Distribution Node
Dominion Hierarchy
Cluttering Irrelevancies
Not Programmed to Respond
Sucking Up to the Boss
Oran
The remaining 4 cards tell you to gain skills in some manner, besides selecting, without specifically saying whether those skills are only regular skill(s) or include any special skills. I'd call these cards "ambiguous". Those cards are:
Temporal Benefactor
Vulcan Mindmeld
Impersonate Captive (doesn't actually say "gains" but that the Founder's skills change to match captive's.)
Excalbian Kahless
Which came first, the gain or the add? Well, Vulcan Mindmeld originally said add, and clearly fell into the glossary definition of add only regular skills, until it was errataed. Impersonate Captive is the only other Decipher era card on the list of 4 "ambiguous" cards but as I said that one is kind of an oddball and may need its own separate clarification. Ironically the Glossary explicitly says that for Impersonate Captive, that the Founder loses ALL their skills when impersonating, including special skills, but it silent on whether the founder gains special skills from the captive.
"Add" has been used since Premier on the pre-errata Vulcan Mindmeld and appears as far back, otherwise, as AU on
Eyes In the Dark.
While "add" is clearly defined in the glossary, only 11 cards refer to adding skills.
Examples:
Praetor Neral
Rituals of the Hunt (another oddball that says regular skills when it seems it doesn't have to)
Vulcan PADD