10 hours ago, General Zodd said:

Having chatted about this discussion topic with a friend who is *far* more LCG-literate than I am, I now realise my comment was based on a different perspective than most posting here. I come primarily from a role play and miniature gaming background, where a little (often, quite a lot!) interpretation is expected in the rules given the wide range of possible situations you may encounter. As a result, arguments of this kind in those games would be to ensure we're all playing the rule correctly, rather than being conducted on an academic point of principle.

I now realise the exactitude and precision expected of LCG rules, and my esteem for the development team behind Arkham has only risen given the very few instances where there has been debate on points like this!

I would say Arkham is certainly more resistant to a 'play how you think the rules work' interpretation, but lots of the Arkham players I know have come from an LCG (or possibly CCG) background, which are largely competitive. When we're at a tournament, even if the prizes are just a fancy play mat and an alt-art card, we need to make sure everyone is playing the game exactly the same!

I've played role playing games before as well as MTG, so i know a bit about "rules as written" (RAI) and "rules as intended" (RAW).

Which approach you take should depends on your goal. When playing RGPs, you usually want to immerse yourself in the world and have fun, so a fluent game experience should be prefered. So rules discussions should be reduced to a minimum, even temporary rules are OK, to keep the flow.

In contrast, for competative games you should stick as close to the rules as possible to keep it fair for everyone (or help the developer, if the rules aren't). This way you also avoid being banned from official matches, if they don't share your "point of view" on some rules.

For coop games it's a bit of both, especially as arkham LCG is advertised as an LCG with RPG elements. This is where the grim rules comes in, if you're unsure about rules, just use the variant that's not in favor of the players.

Thanks guys for all your replies, my questions have been answered.

1 minute ago, django042 said:

For coop games it's a bit of both, especially as arkham LCG is advertised as an LCG with RPG elements. This is where the grim rules comes in, if you're unsure about rules, just use the variant that's not in favor of the players.

It isn't, really, though. It's an LCG with rules written under that model, and to be read and interpreted as such. The roleplaying elements are expressed with LCG rules and in an LCG context. There isn't much wiggle room.

Of course when you're playing Game of Thrones or whatever around your kitchen table, you're just as free to play fast and loose with whatever rules you wish, and run with a best guess on a rule when in doubt. Even some competitive games have had mechanisms for quickly dispensing with rules disputes without necessarily reaching a correct resolution -- Warhammer's d6 method, for example.

None of that's to say you shouldn't play permanents as intended rather than RAW, but that's because it's been ruled on by the game's designer to work that way.

That's unusual, though. In most cases the rules as written are how designers communicate the intent. That's the point of writing them.