I think there is enough here that it should be addressed in the FAQ, specifically discarding characters - can't be done, they have to be defeated.

9 hours ago, Mep said:

I think there is enough here that it should be addressed in the FAQ, specifically discarding characters - can't be done, they have to be defeated.

Agreed.

At the very least it'd shut people up on the subject.

Why would anyone think you could include characters in a deck of 30? The set up instructions clearly explain how each of the card types are used in the game. I am curious about the difference between characters who are "droids" and droids who are used as supports. The intent of the card since it says vehicles and droids seems to be supports not characters.

On 1/2/2018 at 4:15 PM, Buhallin said:

There's also this:

Characters also start the game in play, and remain there until defeated.

Then there was this

I would not be surprised if you could discard the Battle Droids because you can get more too. It would also be neat if the rule was updated/added that "If a character card would be discarded it is exhausted instead" That would be very thematic in this case and useful without just nuking characters.

2 hours ago, McTavish said:

Then there was this

And long before that there was Endless Ranks.

These cards explicitly conflict with the other rules about starting in play. So the Golden Rule applies, and you complete the effect.

This is not the same thing.

9 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

And long before that there was Endless Ranks.

These cards explicitly conflict with the other rules about starting in play. So the Golden Rule applies, and you complete the effect.

This is not the same thing.

How does endless ranks conflict with starting in play? The character starts in play, gets defeated and then gets returned to play. It's the same character from the start. Landing craft adds new characters that did not start in play and did not count toward the character point limits.

So, yes, I completely agree these are not the same things.

I'm not following your argument about the Golden Rule. First: "Discarding a character would remove it from play without defeating it, so it's not possible." Now: "So the Golden Rule applies, and you complete the effect." Those seem to be conflicting statements to me. I think that it's too ambiguous right now what the scope of the interactions are.

2 hours ago, McTavish said:

I'm not following your argument about the Golden Rule. First: "Discarding a character would remove it from play without defeating it, so it's not possible." Now: "So the Golden Rule applies, and you complete the effect." Those seem to be conflicting statements to me. I think that it's too ambiguous right now what the scope of the interactions are.

You ignored an important past of the sentence leading - "These cards explicitly conflict..." The Golden Rule applies when a card effect directly contradicts a base rule. If you can follow both rules, you do. The card ability only wins when it's impossible to follow other rules.

Can you add a new character to play while respecting the "Characters start in play" rule? No, so the card ability wins.

Can you "Discard a droid" while respecting the "Characters stay in play until they are defeated" rule? Sure - you can discard other droids just fine.

35 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

Can you "Discard a droid" while respecting the "Characters stay in play until they are defeated" rule? Sure - you can discard other droids just fine.

That’s a bad example and not really why the golden rule doesn’t work here. Your argument that this card doesn’t explicitly address that characters remain in play until defeated is correct. But, not because you can discard other droids just fine. It’s because the card would need to clearly address this rule, adding language like, “including characters” or something to that nature, which it does not.

Regardless, this is why RRGs and FAQs exist. It isn’t clear cut. Anyone that argues it shouldn’t be in a rules update is just being obtuse.

1 minute ago, gokubb said:

That’s a bad example and not really why the golden rule doesn’t work here. Your argument that this card doesn’t explicitly address that characters remain in play until defeated is correct. But, not because you can discard other droids just fine. It’s because the card would need to clearly address this rule, adding language like, “including characters” or something to that nature, which it does not.

It was more of a point that you can make use of the card just fine without breaking other rules. I didn't seem to be getting anywhere with the explicit contradiction argument, so... <shrug>

6 minutes ago, gokubb said:

Regardless, this is why RRGs and FAQs exist. It isn’t clear cut. Anyone that argues it shouldn’t be in a rules update is just being obtuse.

Sad that it needs to be, but you're certainly right. Honestly, it feels like half the Destiny community plays the game about half a step above just making pew-pew sounds at each other to decide who wins.

1 hour ago, Buhallin said:

Honestly, it feels like half the Destiny community plays the game about half a step above just making pew-pew sounds at each other to decide who wins.

Are you saying you don't go "pew pew" while playing?

If FFG says EMP kills battle droids cause golden rule, then it happens. Until then we are only guessing FFG's intent, which honestly, has been all over the place. No one should even pretend do to know what they are doing, cause they sure don't.

27 minutes ago, Mep said:

Until then we are only guessing FFG's intent

The competent ones are going by the rules.

1 hour ago, Buhallin said:

The competent ones are going by the rules.

This is how it has been in every game Ive played over the last two decades Ive been playing hobby games. There will always be what has been termed "Rules Lawyers" in every single game. Unless somthing in spelled out to the letter on how it works or that they cant do it they will argue they can. It goes to the difference in RAW vs RAI. RAW, Rules as Written, is a mind set that you go by the exact phrasing of a rule even though it many times is written poorly. RAI, Rules as Intended, is a mind set that uses the phrasing that exists in the rest of the game to understand what the intended interaction was. Rules Lawyers are usually a RAW mindset player and others tend to be a RAI.

Couple years ago Warmahordes released a model that had their longest single rule, it was several paragraphs long if I remember. In lore the Caster could "meld" with its accompanying beast to create one being. The arguement came about because by rules spells which say "this" only effect the model of the card its printed on and models not on the table cant be effected by spells. The RAW/Lawyers argued that since in the wording of what you did to "meld" you removed the model the spell list was on that any spells saying "this model" wouldnt work. Of course anyone with a braincell looked at how they opperated in lore and knew this wasnt the case. Needless Privateer Press had to add another 30-60 word Paragraph just to clarify how their already longest worded rule worked because it wasnt EXPLICITLY spelled out but was IMPLICITLY suggested at.

I hate and dont think we need a RRG ruling on EMP its clear, Characters are Defeated/ Upgades and Supports are Discarded. But the fact a already 100 word rule had to have another 30-60 word extension cause people cant read between the lines tells you that everything has to be spelled out or someone somewhere is going to bend and exploit it to their own benefit.

Actually, rule lawyers read between the lines, i.e. making stuff up. Hopefully no one here is doing that. It is FFG's, and their job alone, to clearly communicate how their game is played to an international audience. If people have questions, that is okay, All of us have been wrong one on item or another in the rule book. FFG has to communicate to all their players, not just a handful that "get it". So yeah, they do need to explain things clearly.

I don't think it is possible to discard characters however I don't think I can point out the rule that says you can't discard characters. I wouldn't be surprised if FFG came out and said that EMP can knock out a battle droid. I wouldn't be surprised if they simply didn't think about that possible interaction when putting that droid text in there and there is no intent for EMP to work on them.

The smart play is to not discard characters but post the question to make sure.

3 hours ago, GamerGuy1984 said:

RAI, Rules as Intended, is a mind set that uses the phrasing that exists in the rest of the game to understand what the intended interaction was.

The problem with RAI is that, in my experience, people are generally unable to separate how they want something to work from their interpretation of the developer's intent. Some can, certainly, but it's by far the exception rather than the rule. Typically, RAI actually means "Rules as Iwantthemtobeplayed." And sure, there will be cases where you don't have any choice but to go to take your best guess at what's supposed to happen when a rule doesn't work. Redeploy was like this until recently - as it was originally written the ability did nothing. But it was pretty obvious what it was meant to do, so everyone played it like that.

3 hours ago, GamerGuy1984 said:

I hate and dont think we need a RRG ruling on EMP its clear, Characters are Defeated/ Upgades and Supports are Discarded. But the fact a already 100 word rule had to have another 30-60 word extension cause people cant read between the lines tells you that everything has to be spelled out or someone somewhere is going to bend and exploit it to their own benefit.

I think this is backwards in this case. As written, the rules are pretty clear. Everyone arguing otherwise is trying to do so by guessing intent - you can see that above in comments like "They could change the rules." In this case, a rules lawyer acknowledges that the rules just don't handle discarding characters, and there's nothing that even hints that you can. The RAI folks are the ones who think maybe it should work anyway.

You can't do Rules As Intended with this game since FFG changes the rules too often to know what they intend. Nor do you go with majority opinion since that too has proven to not be correct - looking at all of you putting actions into the queue. Follow the rules as best you can, be consistent when following the rules and when a question is brought up submit it to FFG. If it gets asked frequently enough, it goes into the FFA.

I -STILL- think you are all overthinking this....

13 hours ago, Buhallin said:

You ignored an important past of the sentence leading - "These cards explicitly conflict..." The Golden Rule applies when a card effect directly contradicts a base rule. If you can follow both rules, you do. The card ability only wins when it's impossible to follow other rules.

Can you add a new character to play while respecting the "Characters start in play" rule? No, so the card ability wins.

Can you "Discard a droid" while respecting the "Characters stay in play until they are defeated" rule? Sure - you can discard other droids just fine.

EMP Grenades explicitly says to discard a "droid or vehicle from play." Battle Droid explicitly has the Droid subtype. In fact, the rules don't explicitly state that a Character cannot be discarded; they at best do so implicitly by never stating that they can be discarded. The fact that other cards with the Droid subtype exist has no impact on this interaction, so I fail to see why EMP Grenades cannot, rules as written, discard a Battle Droid. (I don't want to get into what happens to the game end triggers if that happens, because I fully expect FFG will either rule that discarding a character defeats it, or change EMP Grenades to specifically not hit characters.)

10 hours ago, GamerGuy1984 said:

I hate and dont think we need a RRG ruling on EMP its clear, Characters are Defeated/ Upgades and Supports are Discarded. But the fact a already 100 word rule had to have another 30-60 word extension cause people cant read between the lines tells you that everything has to be spelled out or someone somewhere is going to bend and exploit it to their own benefit.

The problem with rules as intended is that two different players can look at the same rules and, in all honesty and sincerity, not agree on the intended rules. You are reading between the lines and get that discarding a character defeats it. I'm reading between the lines and get that they never intended EMP Grenades to be able to hit characters. I have no doubt that you honestly believe the intent you've read, but I also honestly believe the intent I've read, so how do we adjudicate which of us is right?

Yes, this is the problem. People saying you can't discard a character (like me) are just making that up because the rules do not state that you can do that. People saying you can discard a character are making that up because the rules do not state you can do that. It is a silly game that is not always well thought out on FFG's part.

6 hours ago, GooeyChewie said:

In fact, the rules don't explicitly state that a Character cannot be discarded

They actually do, this has been referenced multiple times:

Characters start the game in play and remain in play until defeated.

Discarding a card takes it out of play. Discarding does not defeat.

The only way a character can leave play is by being defeated. Anything that tries to remove them from play otherwise (without explicitly stating so) doesn't work.

38 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

They actually do, this has been referenced multiple times:

Characters start the game in play and remain in play until defeated.

Discarding a card takes it out of play. Discarding does not defeat.

The only way a character can leave play is by being defeated. Anything that tries to remove them from play otherwise (without explicitly stating so) doesn't work.

So you are saying a rule which doesn’t use the term “discard” is explicit about discarding characters, but a card which literally instructs you to discard a Droid is NOT explicit about discarding the Droid (who happens to be a character)? I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around your logic.

At this point, I just want to wait for an FFG ruling.

5 minutes ago, GooeyChewie said:

So you are saying a rule which doesn’t use the term “discard” is explicit about discarding characters, but a card which literally instructs you to discard a Droid is NOT explicit about discarding the Droid (who happens to be a character)? I’m having trouble wrapping my brain around your logic.

The rule in question is broader than discarding - it applies to any effect which could make a card leave play. You can't discard a character. You can't return it to your hand. You can't set it aside.

The rules for when abilities are active reference in play and not in play. At no point does it say "An ability stops applying when the card is discarded." Does that mean there's a question about whether abilities stay active after a card is discarded? Just because it doesn't say "discard" doesn't mean that the rule doesn't explicitly cover discarding. It's a very explicit rule that covers a number of possible things, discarding is just one of them.

8 minutes ago, Buhallin said:

The rule in question is broader than discarding - it applies to any effect which could make a card leave play. You can't discard a character. You can't return it to your hand. You can't set it aside.

The rules for when abilities are active reference in play and not in play. At no point does it say "An ability stops applying when the card is discarded." Does that mean there's a question about whether abilities stay active after a card is discarded? Just because it doesn't say "discard" doesn't mean that the rule doesn't explicitly cover discarding. It's a very explicit rule that covers a number of possible things, discarding is just one of them.

Okay, so the rule doesn’t have to explicitly use the term “discard” to cover discard. So why doesn’t EMP Grenades explicitly discard Battle Droid in accordance to The Golden Rule?

Characters defeated are not discarded... They remain in play as defeated, otherwise the tie breaking rule about damage done can not be applied as the characters discarded will no longer be counted, people just make it a habit of removing the defeated charater off the board when in fact it supposed to stay on the board fliped face down

7 minutes ago, GooeyChewie said:

Okay, so the rule doesn’t have to explicitly use the term “discard” to cover discard. So why doesn’t EMP Grenades explicitly discard Battle Droid in accordance to The Golden Rule?

This has been covered ad nauseum, not going to go around on it again.

2 minutes ago, nakala said:

Characters defeated are not discarded... They remain in play as defeated, otherwise the tie breaking rule about damage done can not be applied as the characters discarded will no longer be counted, people just make it a habit of removing the defeated charater off the board when in fact it supposed to stay on the board fliped face down

This is incorrect.

Page 10: Defeated characters are placed in the set-aside zone,

The tiebreaker rules only apply for the tournament structure, which doesn't really care what's in play or not when everything's counted up. It's outside the main rules.