Always pays to check your e-mail at lunch . Here is my question and Nate's answer.

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Rule Question:
If i have three copies of Abandoned Mine in play, at the beginning of my turn can i trigger each Abandoned Mine to take a total of 3 developments back into my hand?

If I have one Abandoned Mine can I trigger it's Action multiple times to draw multiple cards back into my hand?

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Nate's Answer:

A player may take one "at the beginning of your turn" Action each turn, at the beginning of the first player Action window.

Any other Action written with a beginning of turn restriction could not be taken after the first one, as it is no longer the beginning of your turn.

So this means that in both Abandoned Mine situations, you could only trigger the effect once, at the beginning of your turn.

Note that Forced effects all initiate the moment a trigger would Force them to do so (and then the active player determines their order of resolution). This is an important distinction between Forced effects and player Actions -- you cannot trigger multiple player actions simultaneously.

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Now the only question I have is in regards to the first part of his answer when he says "at the beginning of the first player Action window". So do I not pick my development up until the first action window during the Kingdom Phase? I would say no given Nate's other answers about Abandoned Mine "breaking the rules" about when actions can be played.

I am going to submit a follow-up to clarify when the action takes place.

Here is Nate's superfast answer to my follow up question about when we actually trigger the Abandoned Mine action.

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Nate's Answer

Hi Rex,

Yes, we are working with Eric Lang to nail down the specifics of the "beginning of the phase" Action timing, before publishing it in the FAQ which should be up soon.

The current direction I'm receiving is that these effects are not going to create a special timing window, rather, they are going to be limited to one per turn at the beginning of the first natural player Action window of the Kingdom Phase.

Hope this makes the way to play this card a little clearer, official word will be coming soon in the FAQ.

Nate

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I think the net effects of these rulings make Abandoned Mine reasonably useful. Based on these rulings here is how I would evaluate the card.

Pros

1. Allows you to stress a little less about dropping a card as a development that you might need in endgame.

2. Two power icons so it is not too far behind the curve for resource generation.

3. With the timing moved to the Action window of the Kingdom Phase, you get the benefit if the development for resouce draw before you pick it up.

Cons

1. Moderately expensive card. There are certainly more prodcutive Kingdom Zone cards.

2. Since it appears you are going to be limited one "at the beginning of your turn" Action, having multipled copies in play is of limited value.

Overall, i expect the card will see some play in development heavy decks or decks that intend to stall play. I do not see it becoming integral to any deck concept.

Forced effects beat actions, right? So does this mean that if a forced effect triggers at the beginning of your turn, then it's no longer the beginning by the time you resolve that (as dormouse has proposed)? Thus, if there's a "beginning of your turn" forced effect you couldn't actually use Abandoned Mine?

Every response we get on this card makes it a little more confusing

I don't even want to touch the issue if they try and make "beginning of turn" actions go off in the first action window without errata'ing the card...

Buhallin said:

I think this is a rather tortured interpretation of what Nate said. It seems clear to me that we are looking at a flow of play as follows:

1. Turn Begins.

2. All Forced Effects take effect. Active player decides the order of any conflicting Forced Effects.

3 Trigger one "at the beginning of your turn ACTION. Action resolves at the beginning of the Kingdom Phase action window.

I think this avoids a lot of difficult timing questions. I think it also gives the designers room to create a subset of interesting cards that are limited by the beginning of your turn trigger.

But if you can't play a second "beginning of your turn" action because it's not the beginning of your turn by the time the first one resolves, why wouldn't that apply to forced effects as well? Do actions move the game "time" forward in some way that other effects don't?

The better way to think of it is all Forced effects are simultaneous and mandatory. Since our human brain does not do so well processing such events, we have an artificial process to address each of the simultaneous effects. Actions represent discrete points in time where you get to make a choice. The designers appear to have decided that you are limited to one Action at each discrete point. Seems reasonable to me.

These recent rulings are confusing and altering the way that we, the players, have interpreted how cards work.

Based on this ruling, it means that you can ONLY play one "beginning of your turn" ACTION. Meaning, you cannot even use Abandoned Mine to chain another "beginning of your turn" ACTION.

If at the moment that Abandoned Mine triggers the ACTION and creates a new ACTION WINDOW, it is no longer the beginning of your turn, this really makes Abandoned Mine a much more limited card that what it potentially could have been.

Not that it matters because to date this is the only card that is both an action and the timing requirement of "at the beginning of your turn." Not to mention it is consistent with other rulings involving absolute placement (such as first). It is a reversal of the previous ruling, after a lot of people complained about the card creating it's own action window... now there are people complaining about it being played in the first opportunity and the necessary restriction that it be the first action you take. I suspect that this is part of why FFG has a no posting of rules in forums policy to keep their developers from justifying every ruling and having the player base pushing and pulling them to rule one way or another.

That's really not fair, dormouse. I don't think anyone has been actively campaigning because of how they want the card to play - everyone is just trying to understand this card and the honestly baffling set of rulings surrounding it, none of which could have been reasonably arrived at by the players alone.

This card is starting to become a true nightmare...

I still don't understand why it was worded the way it was (compare it to Cloud of Flies, to get a better wording).

So, now, "start of your turn" should read "start of the end of your Kingdom phase". And this card is the first one whose effect doesn't stack when you have multiple copies in play. Interesting...

@dormouse: To me, game designers HAVE TO explain the rulings they make, so that every player understand them and apply them without concerns. Of course, they don't have to take into account any complain / whining posted of these boards.

this card is making my head explode

It is perfectly fair, because it was an extrapolation of the angst on these boards concerning not just this card but several others. I don't think anyone here would pester or beseach Nate to rule in their favor, but it is not hard to see by the opinions posted here (especially since one or two people asked me to essentially do this to Nate about this card) that someone else, maybe who plays this game, maybe who plays one of their other games, would does this. It doesn't take much imagination to see this as being a valid concern on the part of FFG executives. If you can't picture it, go to BGG and see how some people respond to the game and cards there, especially the whole GW C&D issue.

So FFG has a policy which prevents Nate from coming on here (or any forum) and posting about rules. He will communicate to players to clear things up in a one on one private setting where people tend to be more reasonable and less willing to fall to hyperbole. He has said that a FAQ is being released soon (though what soon is, is anyone's guess, it is concrete proof that the FAQ is in his thoughts). This is how FFG ensures its intent regarding the games rules and cards is known.

I like the manner by which Nateand Eric are handling this card. The first player action window of your turn this is the first action you must take if you intend on using it. Prevents all combos and abuses that people originally brought up without making the card useless. The card works now almost exactly the way one would expect after looking at the turn structure, the only confusion now should be that it is not played in a previous action window and then resolving at the begining, but is played as your first action at the beginning of the turn...

And that is the easiest way to think about this and future formatted cards, that they must be the first action you take in your turn in order to meet the timing restriction. Done. Easy to explain to a significant other or a child who is not a gamer and getting into it, and easy to remember.

Wow. So anyone who's having problems following this complete mess (which is pretty much everyone) can't grasp something that's perfectly easy for a child to understand?

It's been obvious for a while that your obsessive hero worship prevents you from acknowledging that FFG can do any wrong, but is it even possible for you to discuss a rule without a backhanded slap to the players in the process? I've seen some truly impressive fanboyism in my day, and it's always worse when players have the opportunity to meet and worship the object of their affections in person, but are you holding out hopes for a marriage proposal from Nate or something?

This is pretty much officially a joke now. I'd heard a decent number of bad things about Nate's abilities with AGOT, but trusted Eric's skills thanks to Chaos in the Old World. Not sure who led to what here, but with the level of baffling mismanagement we've seen already there's nothing but greater chaos (pardon the pun) on the horizon.

The best icing, though, is seeing you admit that they're ruling from intent, not what the cards say. I'm quite certain you didn't mean to, but it's quite the amusing note to end on.

Buhallin said:

So I take it you have given up on the game?

this has gone from a game that is impossible for people without the internet to play correctly to a game that is impossible even if you have access to the internet.

I cant even keep all the rulings straight anymore... Its not even a simple matter of remember the basic rules and arriving at the correct conclusion...

at least we got a second expansion pack out before the FAQ. That should clear things up.

Wow, you took that totally out of context. I was saying the previous ruling was byzantine without a fully flushed flowchart. I was saying that this ruling is simple and really does boil down to reading the card as written and looking at the turn sequence we have in the rules, and that the most common way to misinterpret the card was easily explained away in a manner anyone could get if new to the game.

You want to dump on someone because of whatever issues you have, feel free, but don't expect me to get invested in it.

As to my "obsessive hero worship" you haven't read enough by me to have any idea what my feelings are towards FFG's policies, history, or games. I know you think you have, but my being more patient and better able to discern the rulings of a card, and simply not getting upset or frustrated when I disagree with something does not equal obsessive hero worship. It is a game. This is a game company. My life is far to rich and varied for me to get even remotely annoyed with something so trivial.

(edited to add smilies to further demonstrate I just can't picture getting upset over any of this)

Well, we're gonna have to wait for an official FAQ and updated flowchart.

Individually sending questions to FFG/Nate and posting them here to discuss them doesn't seem to be working so well due to interpretations on the responses that FFG/Nate sends back. Interpretations of the ruling == bad.

Top that off with players such as myself that are postulating the effects of future cards which haven't been printed yet with current rules/rulings and then interpretations and... *head explodes*

Ah, we'd have that if Nate were on here telling us himself (which once upon a time, the developer before Nate used to do occasionally). Hell we still get the same things everytime a new FAQ comes out over on the Thrones Forum, where the gurus are referred to as rules philosphers rather lawyers. I expect very little different here when the FAQ is released.

If they want to have it limited once per turn, why not just making a new action window before kingdom phase, where only actions with a special treat can be used. And then just limit special cards with ruling on the cards. Would be far easier than card based rulings.

RexGator said:

Yep. I think it was the Greatswords ruling that was the last straw, really. Abandoned Mine highlighted the complete lack of control the developers seem to have over their own game, but that one... I'm about the only one in my area trying to get this game off the ground, and as I considered explaining to someone how an ability that wasn't in play when the trigger occurred could still go off... I'm all for playing games correctly, but the "Yeah, I know it's silly but that's the ruling" quotient is a big part of that.

Good luck to those who stick with it.

Does any ruling posted here change something in using Shrine to Taal ( forced: After your turn begins)?

"After your turn begins" is before Kingdom phase or after beggining of the first Action slot?

No. The only reason this is different than those is because it is an action and actions according to the rulebook must be played in an action window. The ori8ginal ruling by Nate was apparently reconsidered after the numerous questions it cause and between Eric and he a solution to simplify the way the card works was created. So rather than create it's own window of opportunity prior to the Kingdom Phase, it is now played like other actions, with the restriction that it must be played as your first action during the first action Window of your turn, which is to say in the Kingdom Phase. The card now works more consistently with the way other cards function and do not create a contradiction with the rulebook (of course the Golden Rule would have allowed it to do so, it is not the way most people would have attempted to play it).

What I find most interesting is the amount of complaints the original version got and now that it was brought in line with one of the main ways people were suggesting it should have been played prior to the clarification (and a tirade or two about Developer's Intent over card text), we have just as many complaints and I tink even by one or two of the same people. Apparently Nate and company are damned if they do or damned if they don't. I'd have expected applause not condemnation for listening to the players and making a change that manges to preserve intent while still being supported by card text and the current edition of the rulebook.

I'm trying to understand the Abandoned Mine current ruling now..

Is it similar like this?

Force : At the beginning of your turn you may.......

Do this only once per turn

Sort of. It is an Action not a Forced Effect, so it must be played during a legal player action window. Since it says at the beginning of your turn it must be the first action you take if you going to chose to take it, every other action is no longer "at the beginning" so you will get to only trigger one "At the beginning of your turn" action. This puts an effective limit on the card, as if it said "As your first action" which would probably have been a MUCH better wording for the card with litle to no confusion about when to play it or whether other actions could be taken, as well as whether or not it could be used as a response to itself.

I think the card needs an errata, I would make its action Forced and the card unique. This errata would fix all the problems.