I have a few questions about the game.

1) When moving into a square that contains a monster card, I fight the monster and kill it. After resolving that encounter, do I draw another card to resolve the square, or does fighting the monster end my turn?

2) When you land on a town/village/tavern space, do you choose what to resolve, or do you need to resolve anything? The way we played, we just usually went with the 1-6 roll table, but we were unsure whether we had to resolve an encounter there or not.

3) When is it appropriate to discard a specific toughness of monsters to get a modifier for your strength or craf? Is it on your turn, at the end of your turn, when you meet the requirments?

Hello!

So...

1 - When you land in a square where a monster card is in, you fight it but you don't draw any another card after. You just stack the killing points as usual and pick up the possibly items that another player could have drop here before you...

Oh, and if there are several cards in the same area, items and a monster card, you must fight the monster first

2 - Once in a town/tavern/..., You roll a dice and apply the effect as scribe on the board. You don't have to draw an adventure card, but I think you could do such little things like rob items and/or attack other player in the same location.

3 - To me, the better time to modify your stats is once you reach the appropriate value, because more powerful you will be, more lucky to reach the inner board you will be. And even maybe before this the famous portal to pass!

Hope I didn't mistaken myself with these answers...

Good game to you!

1) When moving into a square that contains a monster card, I fight the monster and kill it. After resolving that encounter, do I draw another card to resolve the square, or does fighting the monster end my turn?

If a sqaure says "Draw 1 Card", and there is already a card on the Square, do not draw another, as it counts as that one card. So in thise case, your turn will end as you have entountered the square.

2) When you land on a town/village/tavern space, do you choose what to resolve, or do you need to resolve anything? The way we played, we just usually went with the 1-6 roll table, but we were unsure whether we had to resolve an encounter there or not.

You must always encounter the square. So if you land on there, you must choose somewhere to visit or roll. If there is a person on the square, you may alternatively choose to encounter them.

3) When is it appropriate to discard a specific toughness of monsters to get a modifier for your strength or craf? Is it on your turn, at the end of your turn, when you meet the requirments?

You can only trade in towards your strength or craft at the end of your turn.

SubElement said:

In 4th edition, as with the revised edition, you must visit one of the three people in the Village or City.

Hmm... that's silly... and if correct it is a contradiction in redesign ideology. Considering among justification of Fate was giving players more control versus game mechanics, this change takes away control.

The squares on the board read "Visit Only One of the Following"... but I'm not sure that means "have to." I cannot find any rule that clarifies this. Poor wording again, and in the new corner graphics for the Revised edition recently posted, the text is change for the cornes but is just as unclear. SIGH.

That was always my take on the Village or City. You Have to do one of them.... Keep an extra item with you so you can turn it into gold or go the other way. I guess you have to have business in the towns....

They were made "visit" (as in command) spaces to stop people just going there and doing nothing.

Well, I think it will become a house rule that they are still optional.

The biggest reason I see behind the intension of "you must visit" a space in the city and village is this...

If you are in a settlement, something is going to happen to you (looking at it from a role playing perspective)

The tavern, is a must. You roll on the table.

For the village and city, they are giving you multiple "tavern" spaces to roll or do some action.

Tavern example. This space could have been broken up into a few catigories.

1.Visit inside the tavern and roll the table (like normal)

2.got upstairs and get a room for the night (regain 1 life and 1 fate)

3.Hang around outside lurking in the dark. If another character lands on this space you may attempt to steal a item from him. on a 4+

You have the option of doing one of the threee. But you must do one of them.

The reasoning still doesn't work.

1. Passing through a settlement in a pure RPG does not always generate an encounter; sometimes the characters are just passing through, and the settlement is a landmark along the way and nothing more.
2. This isn't an RPG; it's a boardgame, and that dimension takes precedence.
3. Inactive or option spaces exist in many boardgames... in fact almost everyone I've ever played.

2nd ed. Village states "You may visit...," so playing it another way was a house rule and not by the rules of the game itself. Same Wording in 3rd edition, and I'd assume the same in 1st. I don't see the point of this change, and sorry if I'm finding flaws in speculated reasons. It is still a contradiction of redesign ideology against claims that mechanics override player choice too much.

And the wording on the board still leaves room to be interpreted (which is what we are doing) and should have been made as clear as previous editions.

"You must visit..."

CITY

Visit the Doctor, Alchemist, or Enchantress

VILLAGE

Visit the Blacksmith, Healer, or Mystic

TAVERN

Roll 1 die

This text is taken directly from the revised 4th edition board. The wording is perfectly clear. A character must do something in these spaces. This change was brought in to prevent a character from specifically doing nothing in the City space.

Can I encounter more then one people in the Village and the City?

No, the board text states - "Visit the Blacksmith, Healer, or Mystic" and "Visit the Doctor, Alchemist, or Enchantress" - so you may only visit one of them.

Thank You very much!

talismanamsilat said:

No, it isn't clear, and that's part of what's underlying here besides some of us needing to find the clarity beyond the words. This is a longstanding game of multiple editions, where the wording wasn't really changed until now, and it wasn't done right. I know clarity of wording; it's my business, my whole income. As stated before, in 2nd edition (and possibly 1st) the Village and City said

"You may visit one only of..."

In 3rd edition, the same clarity was kept, though the City was just a market and the Village lost its blacksmith. This is not the only example of ambiguous language in 4th (look at the Cave card for the same problem). The wording could've been so easily changed to

"You must visit one only of..."

I'm not sure why this wasn't addressed along with other typos or missing text. It's ambiguous, regardless that we now understand what is intended. The only thing clear by the wording is that it implies (by "or") that you pick only one person to visit in those spaces.

JCHendee said:

No offense but I think you're reading way too much into this. The Forest, Chasm, and Crags do not say that you MUST roll a die, the Chapel does not say that an evil character MUST lose a life, the Deserts do not say that you MUST lose a life, and even the other board spaces do not say that you MUST draw a card. Yet it would appear that most players automatically assume that you must do what the space instructs because that is how it is explained in the rule book.

The village says visit the blacksmith, healer, or mystic. So you must visit one of them of your choice. Unless I missed something, what is so hard to understand about that wording?

Losing something automatically or making one roll on a square that has always been manditory is not the same as making choices on spaces previously optional.

I see your point in part; I don't see why wording in previous editions wasn't paid attention to. The better clarity for a change was obvious, especially since they went back to 2nd in moving forward to 4th. Someone wasn't paying attention in pre-production oversight. I and my group are not the only ones (on the forums and elsewhere) who've been hesitant and had to seek clarity beyond the game.

I sincerely hope that FFG moves forward with more expansions; I also hope more attention is paid to details, so that errata, corrections, and explanations, like we are often dealing with here, are less necessary.

And specifically for the wording, a mandatory visit is implied not stated on those squares. Any writer knows that in transmitting meaning, statement overpowers implication, a difference between stated meaning and implied meaning. One is wholly clear; the other is not (and can be used to advantage for its lack of clarity). That is how language works in portraying meaning.

I was emailing with some high school students of a teacher friend of mine. I suggested the game to him for a genre fandom club among his students. They were a little overwhelmed, as was he as a first time player. Guess what was among the first three questions they emailed me? An adult and a group of late teens weren't certain; some guessed it was mandatory, and that's as far as they got.

I want to add one more thing: translation of the foreign versions of the game makes it more complicated, unfortunately. You are the only source for now, where I try to find solutions to many problems with the rules. Anyway, thanks for helping.

JCHendee said:

I'm not trying to disagree with you, I just think that some of this confusion is based on players expecting the new edition to work exactly like the old versions.

Page 10 of the rules book states that "Characters must follow the instructions on the space if their player chooses to encounter the space instead of encountering another character."

Okay, so the rules say that when you encounter a space you have to follow the instructions on the space. With me so far? The village says "Visit the Blacksmith, Healer, or Mystic. Therefore you must visit one of those encounters at the village.

Since the rule book clearly states in black and white that players "characters must follow the instructions on the space" I do not see any need to reiterate the rule by adding"You Must" on every single board space in the entire game. Otherwise you would also have to add "You Must" to every adventure card too, as well as every spell card in the game. Authors get paid by the word so maybe this option is preferable to them but personally I think it would clutter up the game with unnecessary redundancies.

Our current group has only played 4E (from BI) and have always understood that you MUST do something in village/city. It's clearly stated in the rules.

Carrion Prince said:

And again... I see your point... so I guess we differ in that new players shouldn't have to run to the rule book since previous editions made things easily plain without doing so. There was a reason it was that way, and changing it produced some problems, as evidenced. And we've definitely beat this issue to death now.

Well said. Thread finished me thinks;-)