winterflames wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 10:47 am
There used to be a Golden Rules section, but the current rulebook doesn't seem to have it. Something like "Cards trump rules, more restrictive cards trump less restrictive cards" but I don't remember which rulebook I got that out of, and I read a lot of rulebooks, so it may not even be this game.
I think you're probably thinking of Magic, which has a full-blown Golden Rules section. A member of the R.C. who knows this topic well summarized them for me a few months ago:
Magic's Golden Rules wrote:1. If a card contradicts a rule, the cards have precedence
2. If a rule or effect says something can happen, and an effect says it can't, the can't wins out
3. Any part of an instruction that's impossible to perform is ignored
4. If both players are instructed to do something at the same time, they are carried out in Active Player, Non-Active Player (APNAP) order
5. If a player chooses a card in a hidden zone, those cards stay hidden while they're choosing (but must be made clear which ones are chosen)
6. Other than in that situation, a player knows the choices a previous player made
7. If a player makes more than one choice at the same time, they make them in the order specified, or chooses the order if not specified
8. If a choice made by a player causes the other player to have to make a choice, APNAP order is restarted for the outstanding choices
9. If both players would make choices or take actions before the start of the game, the starting player is considered the active player
I repeat, these are MAGIC's golden rules, not Trek's. #3 is wrong in Trek, and I believe #4 is inverted.
Trek has the "Keep in mind a few things as you begin" section of the About This Rulebook chapter, which dates back (in some form) to the Premiere Rulebook. That section contains (and has always contained) our one and only Golden Rule:
Trek Golden Rule wrote:A specific rule overrides a more general rule, and a card's specific text overrides an otherwise applicable rule.
The Rules Committee has actually debated a couple times in the past year whether we should add "can't > can" as an official Silver Rule. (That's actually why we were reading Magic's Golden Rules!) I've been somewhat reluctant because I've been worried about unforeseen side effects (for example, "does not work with" is currently overcome by a treaty, which seems to go against this Silver Rule). There also seems to be some "rule change fatigue," especially in Europe, which we don't wish to exacerbate with a big addition like this.
But this conversation is making me think we may need to bite the bullet.
FWIW, in the U.S. legal tradition, there are two prominent theories for how to resolve statutory conflicts at the same level of specificity and authority:
* The more recent law controls (the equivalent in a card game would be the card played most recently "wins")
* Neither law is given effect in the area where they conflict (which would seem to boil down to can't > can in practice).