A smallish debate opened up over a statement made by a Cylon player in our last game. At this point, it was a five player game with both cylons known (one revealed, one known but unrevealed). A crisis card skill check came up with colors Yellow, Green, and Purple. Revealed Cylon 1 throws in his one card and says to Known Cylon 2, "I think this is a good skill check for blue cards." Cylon 2 is Boomer, so should have some blue cards. Cylon 2 considers this and throws in one card, as well. It appears everyone, including the humans, is pretty clear what just happened. When the cards are added up, there are 3 blue cards. One is a blue 5, one a blue 3, and a blue 0 doubling all blue points. All other cards are positive. Clearly, one of the blues was Destiny Deck, and the other two were cylon contributions. Now, the humans object that what Cylon 1 said was "telegraphing" what he was playing (the Blue 0 doubling all blues). Cylon 1 says, no, I never said what color I was playing or what value; I simply suggested others play blue. No rule has been broken. Humans say in response, the fact that we are so experienced and can read cues so well means we should be more careful in how we speak and that the statement was "crossing the line." The Cylon responds that there are ways the group communicates things ambiguously and telegraphically all the time, such as "Can anyone do something useful?" means "I have an Executive Order" and "I could do something really useful if someone can help my roll" means "I have Scouting for Fuel." The cylon argued that this was just a novel example of the same, and they are upset because it suceeded.

What do you think?

More broadly, does your game group have formal or informal rules about what you can say about your skill cards? Where is the line?

Tough one. In my play, this would be OK. So would "I can help after the check." It would not be cool to day "I can help after the check but its a 5 should I just put it in?"

You can say "I have a strategic planning" or "Does someone need an XO" during the game, for example.

I believe you can also say "A lot" or "A little", so again, there is some flexibility.

Definitely an illegal play, the official FAQ is quite clear you can say nothing about skill cards you are playing into a check other than 'high' 'low' and the number of cards you're playing in. References to colour, card type and anything more on strength are specifically not allowed.

It's right alongside the bit about you being allowed to ask after specific skill card effects you might need but stuff that's going into a check is tightly locked down for good reasons

So, to be clear, the Cylon never said anything about what they were playing . They made a suggestion about what would be good to play. Curiously, would it be illegal for someone to say the following:

"This would be a good skill check for someone to play Iron Will."

"This would be a good check for someone to double blues."

"As you can see from my sheet, I don't draw those colors, but I'll help out anyway because it's Adama's crisis card."

Just thinking aloud.

"As you can see from my sheet, I don't draw those colors, but I'll help out anyway because it's Adama's crisis card."

What I like about this example is that the player doesn't even need to say any of that stuff. Suppose it's turn 1, so everyone knows that you can't be holding any of that check's colors. Everyone else is saying "I can't help," "I can help a little," but on a strict interpretation of the secrecy rules, you'd be giving away overly specific information if all you said was "Yes. I can help too." So are you just supposed to play your card, sheepishly shrug in response to the other players' questions, and hope they don't airlock you?

Really, it's impossible to have exact standards for this. That's why the FAQ says things like "you're allowed to mention having a skill card ability, just don't abuse it." At what point does it cross over into abuse? Who knows?!

For me, it comes down to intent. If the sole purpose of what you're saying is to reveal your card (" something tells me that blue is going to count double, wink wink"), then that's out. But you should be allowed to encourage your teammate to do things that will help with the check, even if doing so is based on private information.

(Obviously this isn't an absolute or unequivocal distinction either. Where to draw the line is ultimately up to the group, but personally, I'd have allowed it.)

JasX had it right (cause I asked FF). You can not talk about cards that go in to a check, or elude to them. That statement says (basically) exactly what they put in. So, it was a no-no.

Not to be confused with card abilities in other case.

In a sense, I guess you could say "skill check" "abilities" are not talk-about-able abilities.

Anacreon: As I understood it from FF, those statements are not allowed (cause those cards go into a skill check).

Now that's hard to believe. There are good reasons for the rules against saying too much (whatever that means) about what you put into a skill check--it'd be impossible for the cylons to win if you could just table-talk your way into an informal Investigative Committee for any given check--but not being allowed to talk about skill check abilities at all? What if I've been watching the Cylons cycle through blue and I'm pretty sure that they're hoarding Establish Networks and/or Build Nuke? Am I not allowed to say this, or to suggest, in a particular check, that someone might want to play Red Tape as a counter? What secret information would I be giving away, exactly?

This topic is about someone referencing what they played in particular, which is clearly a no-no.

Asking for someone else to put in something seems like only a thin line from that. And could also be abused... (as I put card in) "I hope SOMEONE plays a Red Tape!").... haha.