[admiral-mogh]

Is the second function also limited to once every turn? Smooth As an Android's Bottom?

[Professor Scott]

Yes. It's parsed like this.... Once every turn, .... plays to reveal.... OR Prevents.....

See my recant, below.

[Jono]

Yes. It's parsed like this.... Once every turn, .... plays to reveal.... OR Prevents.....

I agree with Professor Scott.

If it added an extra "Plays to" after the OR like this...

Once every turn, plays to reveal the bottom three cards of your draw deck. Take any non-personnel into hand; discard others. OR Plays to prevents the death of any one Youth personnel.

...then it would allow you to play it as many times every turn to prevent the death of a Youth personnel. But alas, it does not. Note that is does say "every" so you can play it on your turn as well as your opponent's.

[DataNoh]

Is there official guidance on this? If not, I'd parse this differently than @Professor Scott and @Jono. (Not saying I'm right and they're wrong, just this is subjective. Prior to a TD ruling, this would probably need to be addressed by Rules or somebody who was on Design for TMP:Remastered.)

Any time I see full sentences (i.e. starting with a capital letter and ending with a period) separated by an OR, I assume they are completely disconnected thoughts. (See Storage Compartment Door, which repeats the phrase "once each turn" in two adjoining sentences.)

If there's a clause like "once every turn" that's expected to carry over, I'm used to seeing the OR in the middle of the sentence. (See Temporal Micro-Wormhole.)

[Professor Scott]

I am going to recant my prior statement, and I will explain why.

Consider Bribery

Seeds or plays on table. Once each turn, your Smuggling or Greed personnel may discard one of your Gold-Pressed Latinum present to add [FER] to your mission there (except Ferenginar) until end of your next turn OR to prevent one entire point loss of up to 9 points just incurred there (discard incident) OR to release (and relocate to that personnel) one of your personnel held captive there.

Clearly the ORs are meant to continue the prior required action which in this case can occur once each turn.

Consider Lure of the Nexus

Prevent a personnel from leaving The Nexus. OR Relocate all personnel under The Nexus aboard a ship about to be destroyed by it; relocate ship to adjacent location. Discard interrupt.

In this case, the Prevent text precedes the OR, but as was previously pointed out, both sides of the OR are complete sentences and have sentence starting capitalization.

I now believe that Smooth can be played once per death of a Youth personnel, as many times per turn as needed; limited only by how many copies you can manage to play in response.

Good call @DataNoh

[admiral-mogh]

I am going to recant my prior statement, and I will explain why.

Consider Bribery

Seeds or plays on table. Once each turn, your Smuggling or Greed personnel may discard one of your Gold-Pressed Latinum present to add [FER] to your mission there (except Ferenginar) until end of your next turn OR to prevent one entire point loss of up to 9 points just incurred there (discard incident) OR to release (and relocate to that personnel) one of your personnel held captive there.

Clearly the ORs are meant to continue the prior required action which in this case can occur once each turn.

Consider Lure of the Nexus

Prevent a personnel from leaving The Nexus. OR Relocate all personnel under The Nexus aboard a ship about to be destroyed by it; relocate ship to adjacent location. Discard interrupt.

In this case, the Prevent text precedes the OR, but as was previously pointed out, both sides of the OR are complete sentences and have sentence starting capitalization.

I now believe that Smooth can be played once per death of a Youth personnel, as many times per turn as needed; limited only by how many copies you can manage to play in response.

Good call @DataNoh

Thanks, could we get some bluetext on this?

[Professor Scott]

I am going to recant my prior statement, and I will explain why.

Consider Bribery

Seeds or plays on table. Once each turn, your Smuggling or Greed personnel may discard one of your Gold-Pressed Latinum present to add [FER] to your mission there (except Ferenginar) until end of your next turn OR to prevent one entire point loss of up to 9 points just incurred there (discard incident) OR to release (and relocate to that personnel) one of your personnel held captive there.

Clearly the ORs are meant to continue the prior required action which in this case can occur once each turn.

Consider Lure of the Nexus

Prevent a personnel from leaving The Nexus. OR Relocate all personnel under The Nexus aboard a ship about to be destroyed by it; relocate ship to adjacent location. Discard interrupt.

In this case, the Prevent text precedes the OR, but as was previously pointed out, both sides of the OR are complete sentences and have sentence starting capitalization.

I now believe that Smooth can be played once per death of a Youth personnel, as many times per turn as needed; limited only by how many copies you can manage to play in response.

Good call @DataNoh

Thanks, could we get some bluetext on this?

Emergency...Paging Dr. Beats.....Emergency....Paging Dr. Beats.....

Err umm I mean @BCSWowbagger

[BCSWowbagger]

The "Once every turn" in the first function on Smooth As An Android's Bottom has no connection to the second function. You can save fifty Youth personnel with fifty copies of Smooth in a single turn, if you want.

Incidentally, here is an internal report on the "Big Red 'Or'" that the Rules Committee put together (for staff) back in April 2021, which remains our most recent semi-official guidance on the subject:

(hidden for length and boringness)

Hello Staff,

Some months ago, Design asked Rules to look into the meaning of the "Big Red Or" that appears on many cards. Since this is a question that implicates a lot of departments, I figured we'd post our final report here. It won't be as long as some of my reports to Design.

1. A Big Red "Or" is the equivalent of putting a set of parentheses around the succeeding and preceding clauses.

For example, on a dilemma, suppose you had the following text:

"To get past, must have ENGINEER + Leadership or Geology + Anthropology"

That's ambiguous, because you could read it two ways. It could mean:

To get past, must have (ENGINEER + Leadership) or (Geology + Anthropology)"

or it could mean:

"To get past, must have ENGINEER + (Leadership or Geology) + Anthropology."

Turning that little "or" into a Big Red Or resolves the ambiguity:

"To get past, must have ENGINEER + Leadership OR Geology + Anthropology"

You know immediately, without ever thinking about clauses or parentheses, that the parentheses go around the entire preceding clause ("ENGINEER + Leadership") and the entire succeeding clause ("Geology + Anthropology"). Option A is the correct reading.

2. A card may only use a Big Red Or at one level of specificity, and must thereafter use regular "or" or actual parentheses.

In other words, Big Red Ors can separate specific targets, sets of requirements, entire functions, or any number of other things -- but they can only separate one kind of thing on any given card. After that, you have to use other tools to separate other things.

For example, if you use a Big Red Or to separate entire functions on a card, you can't use it to further separate sub-clauses within those functions. Imagine if Handshake read like this:

Plays once each turn (for free) if you have played no cards this turn and have fewer in hand than opponent; they must choose to discard three cards OR allow you to draw three. OR Plays to look at top five cards in any draw deck OR discard pile for ten seconds; rearrange as desired. OR Plays if you have at least three other cards in hand; discard entire hand and draw seven cards. Discard incident after any use.

Lunacy! You can't do it! It's unreadable! For these cases, you have to use normal "ors" in the subclauses or -- where appropriate -- actual parentheses. This happens on missions pretty routinely.

Yet you could absolutely make a card that said:

Plays once each turn (for free) if you have played no cards this turn and have fewer in hand than opponent; they must choose to discard three cards OR allow you to draw three.

...it'd actually be a little weird if you DIDN'T do a Big Red Or there.

So the presence of Big Red Ors at one level of a card has a huge influence on how the Ors at other levels of the card can/should be presented.

Occasionally, we have erred by using Big Red Ors without being clear about what they are actually separating. For example, the first Big Red Or on Getting To Know You reads ambiguously:

Plays to draw a card. Then draw an additional card for each different infiltration icon you have in play that does not match any opponent's cards (maximum 3). OR Download Insert Undercover Agent.

Does this mean Option A?

Plays to draw a card + (Draw extra cards for excess infiltrators OR download Insert Undercover Agent)

Or does it mean Option B?

(Draw a card + draw extra cards for excess infiltrators) OR (plays to download Insert Undercover Agent)

Based on everything I've said in this post so far, the most natural reading is Option A -- the Big Red Ors are separating two sentences, not two functions. Many players read it that way on their first pass. But they're wrong, because the next Big Red Or on the card makes it clear that, on this card Big Red Ors are separating functions, not sentences:

...OR Plays (for free, once each turn) on an opponent's personnel present with your infiltrator. Your Founders and personnel with any Intelligence add target's regular skills until end of your turn. Discard incident after any use.

The way the Big Red Or was used on this card was an error. It was an understandable error, and not an error that breaks the card or pushes it to the top of the clarifying errata list or anything, but it should have either reordered the clauses, used parentheses, or (most likely) said "Plays to download Insert Undercover Agent" instead of just going straight to the download.

One more example and I'll stop. In Project Londo / A Private Little War, this is the wording for Ancient Citadel that was sent to Art (with Rules' approval):

Seeds or plays on your mission with "23rd century" in lore. Your personnel who name in lore this planet become (even if not in play). OR Plays on your crew or Away Team with at least 4 Honor OR 4 SECURITY. Draw up to three cards; discard objective.

This is clearly, unambiguously wrong. The Big Red Or is being used to separate functions and to separate targets. It could have done one or the other; it could not do both. (Fortunately, Johnny Holeva and the Art team caught it before it went to press, and the second Big Red Or was converted to a regular "or" instead.)

3. The decision whether to use a Big Red Or (instead of regular "or" or parentheses) is often stylistic.

Consider Reunion:

Miracle Worker OR Cantankerousness OR Spock
X = 15 points if one present, 40 if all three.

It uses a Big Red Or to separate each requirement. But does it need to? No. Because there is only one requirement in each set, this would be totally unambiguous:

Miracle Worker or Cantankerousness or Spock

Likewise, on Avert Danger:

Stellar Cartography + CUNNING>35 OR Astrophysics + CUNNING>35

...legally, this could just as easily be:

(Stellar Cartography + CUNNING>35) or (Astrophysics + CUNNING>35)

Yet, in almost every single case where we had a choice whether to use the Big Red Or or another tool, we and Decipher have used the Big Red Or. Why?

Our official Rules Committee conclusion is: 'cuz it's purdy.

The Big Red Or very clearly separates parts of a card in a way that makes them easier for players to digest. And it makes cards look good and right and 1E. When it is possible to use a Big Red Or, it is probably a good idea to do so. (But this is only a guideline. It is based on precedent, not on actual rules.)

But, as long as you are aware of exactly what it means (it adds parentheses around the clause right before it and the thing right after it), and as long as you aware of when you can't use it (when you've already used it, or when it's ambiguous what's being separated), you should be just fine. Of all the many, many things to worry about in the Design pipeline, Big Red Or Misuse is one of the rarest things we in Rules see. You all seem to have an instinctive sense for when a Big Red Or is appropriate, and that sense rarely misleads you. But hopefully having it spelled out clearly in a document you can reference will be of some value.

Questions, comments, concerns, leave 'em in the comments on this post! Cheers.

-The Rules Committee

[admiral-mogh]

@BCSWowbagger I doubt I can get fifty drones out in one game but I appreciate the answer!