An issue with this card came up in a game and I thought I'd bring it up here since I was drawn in for a consulting opinion even though I wasn't playing the game.

You play the card on an attacker to force him to decide whether to retreat or not. If he does not retreat he must discard 2 influence and 2 tactics cards. In this particular case, the attacker had the influence but not the tactics cards. So the question was whether the attacker was forced to retreat because he couldn't fully carry out the discards.

I don't remember if this is the game where it specified that if you're given the choice "do A or B" and you can't fully do one of them, you must to the other, but I based my opinion on that assumption. In this particular case, it was not "Retreat or discard ..." it was "Retreat or not. If you don't retreat, then...". So I said the player didn't have to retreat, the defender said he did (that the discard was a "cost" for not retreating), the third player was Switzerland (i.e., neutral) on the subject.

What's the experts' opinions?

Corey has ruled on this that the option to retreat is not dependent upon whether or not you have the 2 influence or 2 tactics cards.

The player can:

• choose to retreat, and lose nothing
• choose to NOT retreat, and lose 2 influence and 2 tactics card. If the player has less than 2 influence or 2 tactics cards, he loses as much as he is able to.

If the player had 0 tactics cards an 0 influence, it would be useless to play on them, because they could choose to not retreat, and lose as much as they could, which since they have nothing, is nothing.

Macronx said:

I don't think that rule is actually in the rulebook in black and white. It's accepted wisdom for board games in general, but I don't know of any game off the top of my head that actually spells that out. Even then, it's not so much "you must do this" and "you should do this." ie: if everyone at the table is willing to let you get away with a partial B instead of a complete A, then you're away to the races.

As you point out, however, the card doesn't say "retreat or discard" it says "choose to retreat or not. If you choose not, etc." So it's not really the same thing. I agree with Corey's ruling on this card (for whatever my unofficial opinion is worth. =P) There's not much point in betraying someone if you don't have a reason to betray them, after all.

Corey's rationale in his response to me was that the "discard" clause was separate from the "retreat or not" clause. Sometimes, you could have a choice like "Do *A* or *B*", such as with the abilities that say, for instance, "Destroy 2 Triangles or 1 Rectangle". In that case, the clauses are "complete" - if one cannot be fulfilled it cannot be done unless the other one also cannot be fulfilled.

But in the Blackmail card the choice is simply "Retreat, or not retreat". The consequences of not retreating are then spelled out, but Corey's point was that it was intentionally listed as a separate clause, as a consequence of not retreating, not as a requirement.

IE, if it was intended to be a requirement, it could have been worded "Your opponent must retreat or discard 2 tactics cards and 2 influence". Then the situation would be different.

I hope that helps I think the ruling does make sense based on the cards - it seems the rule of thumb is if two things are in separate sentences/clauses, they aren't dependent upon each other. Another example is there is a quest card where the "neutral" result says "Discard 1 Reward if able. Then draw 1 Reward". I asked Corey if the drawing can be done if you have no rewards to discard. He said no, they are separate clauses, and the second does not depend on the first; if it was meant to, it would have been worded differently."