Or you could, you know, read the preview articles. Sometimes people have a habit of making their intent clear with words.

This not only allows him to convert a detrimental effect into a positive attack modification; it also permits him to perform stressful red maneuvers with impunity. If he chose, Keyan Farlander could potentially perform the difficult Koiogran-turn maneuver every round.

But when rules are vague and there are decent RAW arguments in both direction, then RAI is all we have to go on and analyzing similar situations and precedents in order to determine how the designers think about certain types of issues is the only way to reach a consensus until official word is handed down. Rarely do we have the luxury of games with such responsive creators as we do with x-wing and FFG in general. If an issue can't be resolved by RAW and you can't expect an official clarification for months then you have to rely on trying to deduce the intent.

There are also occasional instances like Jake Farrell above, where a super technical reading of the rules results in a blatantly unintended loophole like his ability triggering twice off a focus action. Nobody thinks that is what was intended, nobody is going to try and play it that way, but a strict interpretation of the rules as written says that is how it works.

In the kinds of games we play you CAN'T wholly separate the designers intent from what was written because the games are simply too complex and mistakes slip through. In that regard, x-wing is an amazing game. Compared to other miniature games it has relatively few ambiguous rules interactions and those that do exist are dealt with swiftly, meaning that for THIS game we need to rely on designer intent less than we do for the other games that have trained and conditioned us to dissect rules text in order to try and divine intent.

I get that and I know, it's important for them to be a little more careful with the terms they use for certain cards. It just seems baffling to me that any TO would end up ruling it in opposition to what the design intent was.

But what's the design intent? Is it intended that Farlander be able to guarantee stress removal with an attack? Or is it intended to be more limited, so that you only clear the stress if you actually roll an eyeball?

This is why "intent" needs to stay as far from rules discussions as possible. Nobody knows what the design intent was - what they see, and what they argue, is what THEY THINK the intent was. Some people think a B-wing being able to clear stress is too powerful, so it couldn't possibly have been intended, and rule that you need eyeballs. Some people think unique pilots are historically underwhelming and need help, and improving their abilities is a way to do it, so they obviously intended for it to be a very good ability.

We rarely have an actual read on intent.

Not only does WW make a fantastic point (in other threads I have repeatedly linked to the article that states that Keyan uses his stress effectively as an offensive focus token), but the intent is clear purely from the wording on the card. Look at the rules for using a focus offensively in the core rulebook. It is literally worded in the same structure with the same effect. If that doesn't scream intent at you I don't know what to say.

There will be times you have to go to intent, but it should be an absolute last resort, and it should be applied as objectively as possible. And it should ALWAYS be considered suspect.

I disagree that X-wing is good on the rules front. X-wing is good compared to other games only because it has fewer - FAR fewer - abilities to interact, not because those abilities are inherently cleaner. If you normalize for the number of abilities, X-wing has an FAQ density somewhere around 10 times what the Star Wars, Netrunner, or LOTR LCGs have.

Not only does WW make a fantastic point (in other threads I have repeatedly linked to the article that states that Keyan uses his stress effectively as an offensive focus token), but the intent is clear purely from the wording on the card. Look at the rules for using a focus offensively in the core rulebook. It is literally worded in the same structure with the same effect. If that doesn't scream intent at you I don't know what to say.

That has nothing to do with intent. This is actually a perfectly solid rules argument. Well, the card/rules comparison, that is. The article bit is informative but I try not to consider them conclusive, since I often have to wonder if whoever writes them even plays the game.

Intent arguments are statements like "If he could shed a stress at will, it would be too good for his cost, they couldn't possibly want it to work like that" or "If Keyan works like that we'll see even more B-wings and they're already dominating the meta, so it can't be right" (yes, that was a real argument back when Rebel Aces was announced). They typically divert from the rules because someone doesn't like the way something works, and is sure the developers wouldn't have done that.

Keyan not being able to spend his stress without an eyeball to change is our current contender. Jake's a good example of where a RAI argument is pretty compelling - despite it being pretty clear per the rules, nobody thinks Jake is supposed to trigger twice from a single focus action. It's pretty clearly bad wording, and a decent step outside the actual rules.

So... it's not an intent argument because the people who designed the cards aren't the ones writing the preview articles? It's a wonder they got anything right, then. I suppose we should consider ourselves lucky that they could even identify a B-Wing, let alone spell it out.

I disagree that X-wing is good on the rules front.

it should be applied as objectively as possible. And it should ALWAYS be considered suspect.

Sure, but this is true about any interpretation about anything. That doesn't mean you get to just globally dismiss discussions about intent as always 100% pointless.

Not only does WW make a fantastic point (in other threads I have repeatedly linked to the article that states that Keyan uses his stress effectively as an offensive focus token), but the intent is clear purely from the wording on the card. Look at the rules for using a focus offensively in the core rulebook. It is literally worded in the same structure with the same effect. If that doesn't scream intent at you I don't know what to say.

That has nothing to do with intent. This is actually a perfectly solid rules argument. Well, the card/rules comparison, that is. The article bit is informative but I try not to consider them conclusive, since I often have to wonder if whoever writes them even plays the game.

Intent arguments are statements like "If he could shed a stress at will, it would be too good for his cost, they couldn't possibly want it to work like that" or "If Keyan works like that we'll see even more B-wings and they're already dominating the meta, so it can't be right" (yes, that was a real argument back when Rebel Aces was announced). They typically divert from the rules because someone doesn't like the way something works, and is sure the developers wouldn't have done that.

Keyan not being able to spend his stress without an eyeball to change is our current contender. Jake's a good example of where a RAI argument is pretty compelling - despite it being pretty clear per the rules, nobody thinks Jake is supposed to trigger twice from a single focus action. It's pretty clearly bad wording, and a decent step outside the actual rules.

Well then you and I have a different definition of what intent is. I'm saying that if they essentially copied and pasted the rules for focus and replaced focus with stress then it seems to me that their intent was to have the ability have exactly the same effect as focus.

If you normalize for the number of abilities, X-wing has an FAQ density somewhere around 10 times what the Star Wars, Netrunner, or LOTR LCGs have.

Reading through the FAQ though, I kind of fell that about 50% of it could be cut out if people just botherd to read the rules/cards and think a bit... That might be true for the other games as well though, I'm not very familiar with them.

If you normalize for the number of abilities, X-wing has an FAQ density somewhere around 10 times what the Star Wars, Netrunner, or LOTR LCGs have.

Reading through the FAQ though, I kind of fell that about 50% of it could be cut out if people just botherd to read the rules/cards and think a bit... That might be true for the other games as well though, I'm not very familiar with them.

I think that's probably true for every game, so tend to consider those a wash when comparing them.

If you normalize for the number of abilities, X-wing has an FAQ density somewhere around 10 times what the Star Wars, Netrunner, or LOTR LCGs have.

Reading through the FAQ though, I kind of fell that about 50% of it could be cut out if people just botherd to read the rules/cards and think a bit... That might be true for the other games as well though, I'm not very familiar with them.

I was thinking the same thing, except I think it is more like 90%. May have to actually go through the FAQ again tomorrow and see.