I have heard some veteran players saying that many rules disputes can be settled by reading the cards, or reading the cards better. However, FFG uses some language that is pretty technical and not always clear, in an effort to be concise. For example, "(*) result".

This can be translated as "a die with the (*) side showing". It doesn't refer to a platonic ideal of (*) floating in the fluidic etherspace, it is just a shortcut. When we look at the interaction between accuracy corrector and lightweight frame with that in mind, it becomes clear. The player shooting with accuracy corrector picks up all the rolled dice (cancels the results) and places two dice with the (*) side up (adds two (*) results).

There are two dice on the table, so the defender doesn't trigger lightweight frame on their TIE/sf.

We shortcut the picking up and placing dice sometimes, so when we don't read the cards in the same way we get confusion. Any other phrases you have noticed that aren't immediately clear?

Christ... dozens. Various Omega Leader interactions are virtually their own threads worth of confusion!

Ahhh, but when "cancelling" do we physically remove the dice from play? Where does it say to do that?
Or do we simply just ignore the results of those dice in the same way as an Autoblaster ignores evade results?
Are the red dice on the table however many were originally rolled and cancelled plus the 2 (*) from AC?

Ok, now I'm just confusing myself and don't actually know how anything works anymore...

5 minutes ago, Stevey86 said:

Ahhh, but when "cancelling" do we physically remove the dice from play? Where does it say to do that?
Or do we simply just ignore the results of those dice in the same way as an Autoblaster ignores evade results?
Are the red dice on the table however many were originally rolled and cancelled plus the 2 (*) from AC?

Ok, now I'm just confusing myself and don't actually know how anything works anymore...

I guess I have always interpreted things this way, which matches the ruling on accuracy corrector and lightweight frame. It could be lucky coincidence...

"Can I focus?"

"No, that's modifying"

"But I can reroll them, right?"

"No that's modifying"

"Oh. Can I add a dice with C-3PO?"

"No, that's modifying too"

"But when I used Omega Leader last week you rolled an extra dice against him with Pure Sabacc "

"I rolled an extra dice, that's different to adding a dice."

"Is it?"

"Apparently so"

"And then you turned it to a crit with Palpatine. How's that different to using a focus?"

"Omega Leader says YOU can't modify the dice"

"Yeah, and YOU did"

"Yeah but YOU doesn't mean ME it means HIM"

"Well it seems to ME like YOU just make the rules up to suit yourself"

"I don't know, man, I only work here"

Looks like you're right.

CANCEL

When a die result is cancelled, a player takes one die displaying the cancelled result and physically removes the die from the common area. Players ignore all cancelled results.

(I have always played it like that anyway, don't know anyone who doesn't. Just never actually bothered to check the rules reference before now)

1 minute ago, SOTL said:

"Well it seems to ME like YOU just make the rules up to suit yourself"

Given the amount of un FAQ'd things that seems to have about 10 different trains of thought, it does feel like this sometimes.

Some of the wording around ranges and arcs could be clearer. Autothrusters is the prime example. I still maintain that the only reason The Inquisitor's pilot ability counters Autothrusters is "because the FAQ says so." It's the like the designers couldn't figure out their own wording, so they just threw up their hands and said "screw this, let's just make this one edge case explicitly different in the FAQ because we want The Inquisitor to be strong."

Another one is the distinctions between arc types. E.g. can you equip Tail Gunner on the Ghost? Does it do anything if you do? (Yes and no, actually: it's a legal upgrade but it does nothing because the Ghost's rear arc is a "special" arc, not an "auxiliary" arc.)

15 minutes ago, SOTL said:

"Can I focus?"

"No, that's modifying"

"But I can reroll them, right?"

"No that's modifying"

"Oh. Can I add a dice with C-3PO?"

"No, that's modifying too"

"But when I used Omega Leader last week you rolled an extra dice against him with Pure Sabacc "

"I rolled an extra dice, that's different to adding a dice."

"Is it?"

"Apparently so"

"And then you turned it to a crit with Palpatine. How's that different to using a focus?"

"Omega Leader says YOU can't modify the dice"

"Yeah, and YOU did"

"Yeah but YOU doesn't mean ME it means HIM"

"Well it seems to ME like YOU just make the rules up to suit yourself"

"I don't know, man, I only work here"

I mean, if you're half-explaining the rules to someone who hasn't read them at all, it may well end up sounding like that. All that one takes is a brief note that these three things are what the game defines as 'modifying dice', and this one thing is what the game means when it says 'you' or 'your'. That clarifies OL's ability perfectly.

Virtually any rule set for a game of anything approaching x-wing's complexity can be made to sound ridiculous if you explain it in the least clear and least complete way possible, to wit:

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.

Each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out, and when he’s out he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out.

When they are all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out.

Sometimes you get men still in and not out.

When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in.

There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.

When both sides have been in and all the men have out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game!

----

X-wing is by no means perfect, there are a LOT of places in which it could have been written more succinctly, more clearly, or both (I'm looking at you, Targetting Synchroniser, to name but one from a great many), and in which proper use of templating and keywords could have alleviated a lot of confusion, but it's mostly unambiguous, and the bits which are ambiguous actually come up fairly rarely in practice IME.

I'll echo thespaceinvader here; I spend a fair amount of time on the rules forums and even there, looking at some really bizarre and uncommon questions it's fairly rare that I find myself unsure of what the correct ruling is or ending on the wrong side of an eventual FAQ. Discounting that I'm some sort of wunderkind it just takes careful application of logically applying the rules and FAQ together to get to the solutions.

Sometimes things are messed up and sometimes things as written don't match as intended but I've see much worse and with any rule set you have to accept certain premises before you can apply them correctly, this one not even being that terrible to get into.

1 hour ago, nigeltastic said:

I'll echo thespaceinvader here; I spend a fair amount of time on the rules forums and even there, looking at some really bizarre and uncommon questions it's fairly rare that I find myself unsure of what the correct ruling is or ending on the wrong side of an eventual FAQ. Discounting that I'm some sort of wunderkind it just takes careful application of logically applying the rules and FAQ together to get to the solutions.

Sometimes things are messed up and sometimes things as written don't match as intended but I've see much worse and with any rule set you have to accept certain premises before you can apply them correctly, this one not even being that terrible to get into.

Same goes for me, for the most part. I think a lot of the rules questions we get stem from people who learned the game from other players and never read the whole Rules Reference or FAQ for themselves. On the other hand, there are a LOT of cards, rules, and FAQ entries, so it can be difficult to remember some details. For example, the fact that bomb tokens are not obstacles is a very simple and clear rule, but it's defined on one line on one page of the Rules Reference among a bunch of other rules about bombs. It doesn't surprise me that someone might forget that and ask a question about it.

There's also a lot of rules that aren't quite where you'd think they'd be or worded the way you'd think they are, so they're hard to find, or players mis-remember what they're called or where they're found. A great example is how people often refer to the "once per opportunity rule in the FAQ" that says you can't trigger the same card effect more than once during its timing window. Except it turns out that rule isn't actually called "once per opportunity" and isn't in the FAQ. It's under "Card Abilities" in the Rules Reference and worded as "A card ability cannot be resolved more than once during the timing specified on the card."

2 hours ago, SOTL said:

"But when I used Omega Leader last week you rolled an extra dice against him with Pure Sabacc " [...]

Adding dice is not the same as adding dice result, and we can easily see that the former can be good or bad, while the latter is not uncertain. So it is feasible to have "modifying result" (all) and "modifying dice" (rerolls, adding results, changing face) available as design space.

However that does not mean that FFG is great at explaining the difference...

I think there are two main issues with the rules:

1) There are a lot of them. Memorizing the exact wording of every card ability is tricky so most people use heuristics, which leads to improper rulings when things get complicated. This is the classic, "do what the card (actually) says" issue. This is going to become more and more of a problem as the game continues to accrue more and more rules and abilities.

2) The language used on some card abilities can be misleading. Words like "you", "attack", "hit", "immediately" etc. can have multiple meanings, confusing meanings, or no meaning at all in the context of the rules. This is something FFG has control over but continues to have issues with. The fact that this game uses mini cards for upgrades doesn't help since text has to be concise but clear and often fails at the later.

6 minutes ago, Transmogrifier said:

Memorizing the exact wording of every card ability is tricky so most people use heuristics, which leads to improper rulings when things get complicated. This is the classic, "do what the card (actually) says" issue.

This is an important point. There's evidence that when people play a game long enough (and it doesn't take very long), they stop reading the cards they're already familiar with. Instead, the name or image of the card becomes a symbol in their mind that directly links to their understanding of what that card does or means. Thus, if someone misread or misunderstood a card the first time they used it and no one corrected them, they are unlikely to ever go back and actually read the card to realize what they got wrong. On top of that, complicated cards are often taught from one player to another. That creates scenarios where a player knows how to use a particular card in the most common scenarios, but because they never read the card carefully to understand it for themselves, they haven't internalized all the little details.

Every card in the game: tldr

I can't decide if Vassal helps or hurts. The cards don't have text, right? So unless you go to a lot of effort, everyone plays by memory, give or take.

Either this means people remember rules better, or wrong interpretations get reinforced.

Reading the cards should be enough to understand how the rules work. However the cards are not always written cleanly, and many game terms are only loosely defined. Or you have to dig through the errata to find clarification. So sometimes reading the card isn't sufficient.

1 hour ago, AEIllingworth said:

I can't decide if Vassal helps or hurts. The cards don't have text, right? So unless you go to a lot of effort, everyone plays by memory, give or take.

Either this means people remember rules better, or wrong interpretations get reinforced.

Wellllllll nowadays since you load squads by list-builder permalink, and the game displays that link to everyone in the game, presumably everybody at least loads it in their browser and checks over all the upgrade cards before starting the game, if not during as well.

Bonus, since the squad builders all have the errata'd text, it can be more accurate than when playing with the cards.

Just now, Sparklelord said:

Wellllllll nowadays since you load squads by list-builder permalink, and the game displays that link to everyone in the game, presumably everybody at least loads it in their browser and checks over all the upgrade cards before starting the game, if not during as well.

Bonus, since the squad builders all have the errata'd text, it can be more accurate than when playing with the cards.

Dang, that might get me to try Vassal again. Is the button/menu to do that obvious? Or are there instructions somewhere on how to load a squad like that?

3 minutes ago, EdgeOfDreams said:

Dang, that might get me to try Vassal again. Is the button/menu to do that obvious? Or are there instructions somewhere on how to load a squad like that?

Yes. It's in each respective player's window. It prompts a dialog box into which you paste the permalink that you get from the builder. All spawning in your window with all necessary stats, names, dials, tokens, and upgrade cards. Super convenient. (Only thing I've noticed so far is it doesn't spawn more than one EM token; big deal, right? )

The squad builders also allow you to indicate which obstacles you're using, too, so it'll spawn those as well.

Did you also know that collision detection + management has been made automatic now?

Yeah. If they could make the font even smaller, that'd be great.