Rulings for 9 February 2001

Rulings for 7 February 2001

In a message dated 2/9/01 1:46:51 PM Pacific Standard Time, writes:

In a message dated 2/7/01 9:58:50 PM Pacific Standard Time, writes:

I've rethought it and I say it needs to stand. Gaheris only allows actions with certain effects to be played. If you don't know, at the time you play an action, whether its effect will be a valid one by Gaheris's text, then you can't play it.

By what I read on this Gaheris ruling, a player shouldn't be allowed to play Superior Strategist in response to his opponents playing of Deadly Ground.

Oh, there'll be repurcussions of this either way, let me assure you. It's not like there have never been inconsistancies within the archives before.

So then Deadly Ground, and Gaheris, which are worded virtually identical, have different rulings about how they work?

So then no matter WHICH way it goes, the archive will have to be combed to keep things consistent.

You are right about inconsistencies Jeff, there have been many. So is that an excuse to keep making them.

Of course not. I didn't use it as one. I'm saying the Gaheris ruling is going to conflict with existing rulings no matter which way it goes, and when it does, the older ones will likely change.

Shurin Storms Clarification Request (Was: RE: [L5RINFO] Rulings for 7

February 2001)

Okay, so terrains resolve as the very last effect in the Battle Action Segment, not as the very first effect in the Resolution Segment. That answers one burning question about Shurin Storms.

Here's another:

My opponent attacks.

Ninube Ogoku, who is oathed to the Brotherhood and therefore able to cast kihos, assigns to the attacking army.

She casts Shurin Storms and is still in the battle at battle's end.

What happens to the province? Is it destroyed? That is, does "you" refer to "the player controlling the personality" (past precedent would seem to indicate such) or does it take the POV of the caster into account?

"You" refers to the person who played Shurin Storms. If the attack is coming after your Provinces, then you're the Defender, regardless of where Ogoku is. If she's still there, the Province will be destroyed.

If the province is destroyed, can I play the Ring of Water (assuming I've met the other conditions)? The rulebook says that armies are only "destroyed" during resolution. By extension, you'd assume the same thing about provinces but the card specifically destroys the province when it resolves. (Of course, it also explicitly destroys the army so this is probably a moot question.)

Moot question. The Province must be destroyed by battle resolution.

On a related note, does 'destroying a province/army' during battle explicitly mean "destroy using the total force of the army" or can it include other effects? (Whatever segment they occur in; possibly only the resolution segment.)

From the way the archive entry is worded, anything that happens during the Resolution Segment is legit. (Mind you, this is an utterly random result, as it's based entirely on the phrasing chosen on the spur of the moment by whoever wrote that entry, but as I've no reason to go one way or the other, it's as good as the opposite ruling. It also, by the way, wouldn't apply to any card that used clear wording such as "destroyed by battle resolution".)

Rulings for 5 February 2000

There _is_ a distinction between a rule effect and a card effect. If you cannot see the difference, you need to (re)read the rules for this game.

The point of view that many have on this is that Tactician is a shorthand notation for an action, and that if the shorthand form is on the card then the action itself is there in a convenient, space saving manner. The fact that the full meaning of "Tactician" is spelled out elsewhere is beside the point - the word represents a full action, and it is printed on the card. There are many games which take precisely this approach. Clan War and Diskwars come to mind.

"Other games are different" isn't a good enough reason, all by itself, to change the way this game works.

The reality of the matter is this is a card interaction which was done badly. With that many cards and effects out, it was bound to happen. Tactician is the only text I can think of which has an action directly associated with it allowable only to those cards which have the word printed on them. All other actions in the game are either printed directly on the card, are available to every card of a certain class (lobbying for the favour),

Not quite true. Lobbying also requires that something be true about the card beyond being a Personality: it needs a Personal Honor above 0. Lobbying is closer to gaining a Tactician bonus than you think.

Rulings for 7 February 2001

Thanks for the timely answers, I'm still a little confused.

6. Togashi Senai Cards with the "Tattooing" have no effect, do they? How about "Tattoos"

From the archive, "Tattoo", "Tattooed", and "Tattoos" will all count, but that's it. No "Tattooing", sorry.

Is there a section that counteracts Zen's ruling?

Does not gain his bonus if targeted by a Tattooed personality. [ZF, netnews, 31 July 2000]

Or am I forgetting something obvious? (Am I out of date?)

OOPS! My mistake there. "Tattoo", "Tattoos", "Tattoo's," and "Tattoos'" are equivalent. "Tattooed" isn't. I was misremembering a specific ruling that "Corrupt" and "Corrupted" count as each other and treating it as a general case.

Zen's ruling is correct. "Tattooed" cards do not count as "Tattoo" cards.

Shinjo Tashima Question [Jeff]

Can Shinjo Tashima use his limited ability to challenge the follower Bandit Gangs to a duel (using the rule that followers without a printed statistic have 0 in that statistic)? Tashima does not read challenge a personality, simply just a Bandit.

Similarly, can Utaku Kamoko exp 3 challenge Kolat followers?

Based on the Facing Your Devils ruling, challenges must be between Personalities. Neither Holdings nor Followers may be challenged.

Fall on your Knees question

Ok, a couple of questions about Fall on your Knees that came up at a recent tournament.

First, can Fall on your Knees cancel Sneak Attack? Sneak says it is played before the action phase of a battle, but the list archive says that the battle action segment begins immediately when the attacking player chooses which battle to resolve. Can FoyK cancel Sneak Attack or not?

Second, can I cancel the Armor of Earth's ability to cancel a send-home action? If so, does it help at all(i.e., can the Armor's reaction immediately be used again against the same action)?

Yes, you can, and no, it doesn't help.

Final ruling on canceled actions

Negated is *not* a game term. NOT in Glossary Canceled is *not* a game term. NOT in Glossary

Both canceled and negated, although not in the glossary, are defined on pg. 33 of the Spirit Wars rulebook. Not defined as thoroughly as they might need to be, but they are defined. They are also referenced in the index, giving some indication that they are recognized game terms.

And in my discussion on this point I precisely pointed out that page and went to the trouble of typing the entire rule for my email. Clearly on page 33 Cancel and negate are explained as being 2 different things. Yet, you rules guys says on Flee the Darkness it is a redundant statement and should not be considered.

Right. They're different, but they can't both happen. For reasons I've already detailed elsewhere, the first one leaves the second with nothing to do.

Yet when you read the rule Reactions on page 50 there is an effect that is negated by Flee the Darkness, it is the triggering effect. So, though the action was canceled ( never happened) within the timing of the game an effect was negated per FtD language thus the once per turn condition has been fulfilled.

First: "Once per turn" is not an effect. Saying it is is like saying "which targets a Shadowlands card" is an effect, or "if you control no dishonored Personalities" is an effect, or "Limited" is an effect. Targeting isn't an effect either -- it's something that effects and actions DO, rather than being one in and of itself. (And targeting is what Flee the Darkness triggers on, by the way. Not "once per turn".)

I'm sorry that the rulebook uses the phrase "trigger effect". I'm going to change it as soon as I can (probably to just "trigger", since the phrase I've personally been using, "trigger event", overlaps yet another game term). I thank you for findinding the error, but at the end of the day, it's just that: an error. An inappropriate use of a word.

Second: I've already stated that the meaning those two conflicting sentences on page 33 was meant to convey is that canceling an action outright resets its status back to "unused", whereas negating its effects does not. Negating effects is the opposite of canceling in that it actually does nothing at all to the used/unused status of an action, rather than explicitly setting it back to "used". They're still opposites of each other, but in a different way than how the rulebook currently represents them -- a way that doesn't cause paradoxes even if you play cards like Flee verbatim.

Am I changing the rulebook? Absolutely. I'm the Lead Designer. I can do that. I feel I need to in this case, and I've tried my best here to explain why I need to and why I'm changing it the way I am. I don't feel your counterarguments build a strong enough defense for allowing things to stand as they are.

Where I am having the problem is with Flee the Darkness. It canceled an action and negated an effect. Once during the turn, according to the rules.

To recap:

You didn't negate anything, since "once during the turn" is not an effect, and even if you did, you wouldn't re-set the action's status back to "used".