We have a rulebook that should be the target of all the changes, rulings and clarifications made.

Sadly it need to be put on life support, it is so dead!

The faster this gets done, the better. we have but one place to look and Alex will start to get fewer questions.

3 hours ago, Amanal said:

We have a rulebook that should be the target of all the changes, rulings and clarifications made.

Sadly it need to be put on life support, it is so dead!

The faster this gets done, the better. we have but one place to look and Alex will start to get fewer questions.

The rulebook will get updated. Patience. FFG has never updated a rulebook on a daily or weekly basis. You should always expect months between updates.

8 hours ago, KrisWall said:

The rulebook will get updated. Patience. FFG has never updated a rulebook on a daily or weekly basis. You should always expect months between updates.

True, but that doesn't make it a good practice.

Just some speculation here, but I can see several reason for the wait:

• Revise the rulebook based on a huge amount of player feedback
• Revise the rulebook to eliminate timing issues and inconsistencies in rulings
• Develop a comprehensive list of clarifications and errata if needed
• Ensure that the rules correspond to a KeyForge game app in development
• Develop better templates for cards going forward
• Ensure that the next set release is consistent with the revised rules and templates

I really hope all of these are being addressed, also hope there is a game app being released in the new year. I'm not sure if they planned on the game being this successful or not. Either way, it would be nice if they'd communicate more openly with the community.

3 hours ago, debiant said:

Just some speculation here, but I can see several reason for the wait:

• Revise the rulebook based on a huge amount of player feedback
• Revise the rulebook to eliminate timing issues and inconsistencies in rulings
• Develop a comprehensive list of clarifications and errata if needed
• Ensure that the rules correspond to a KeyForge game app in development
• Develop better templates for cards going forward
• Ensure that the next set release is consistent with the revised rules and templates

I really hope all of these are being addressed, also hope there is a game app being released in the new year. I'm not sure if they planned on the game being this successful or not. Either way, it would be nice if they'd communicate more openly with the community.

Or, hire some Magic judge with nothing better to do to create a Keyforge Comprehensive Rulebook and have him update it at least as often as Magic does theirs (i.e., when new sets get released).

8 hours ago, Rabbitball said:

Or, hire some Magic judge with nothing better to do to create a Keyforge Comprehensive Rulebook and have him update it at least as often as Magic does theirs (i.e., when new sets get released).

I've always thought that a room full of MtG judges and experienced users could've fixed everything wrong with the card wording and at very least pointed out the timing issues.

9 hours ago, Rabbitball said:

Or, hire some Magic judge with nothing better to do to create a Keyforge Comprehensive Rulebook and have him update it at least as often as Magic does theirs (i.e., when new sets get released).

In fairness, the Magic rules are an absolute nightmare to navigate for casual players. FFG also tends to update several times a year for most of their games, which seems to be what you're asking for?

On 1/3/2019 at 8:44 AM, KrisWall said:

The rulebook will get updated. Patience. FFG has never updated a rulebook on a daily or weekly basis. You should always expect months between updates.

16 hours ago, Amanal said:

True, but that doesn't make it a good practice.

A daily or weekly update would be a bad practice as well. They could easily end up with scenarios where rulings get reversed week after week, and that would be worse for the game than a comprehensive update every few months.

3 hours ago, CaptainIxidor said:

A daily or weekly update would be a bad practice as well. They could easily end up with scenarios where rulings get reversed week after week, and that would be worse for the game than a comprehensive update every few months.

True, but here we are 8 weeks, the game is brand new, there are a good number of questions and parts of the rulebook that has been noted that there could be an improvement to. I understand that there is an appropriate frequency and timing of communication to the players here.

Are you suggesting that an appropriate level of communication to players is being met here?

People have been playing since Gencon or before...just not in the mass numbers they are now....

8 hours ago, KrisWall said:

In fairness, the Magic rules are an absolute nightmare to navigate for casual players.

Also, to be completely fair, the Magic Comprehensive Rules warn casual players of that very fact at the beginning:

Quote

This document is designed for people who’ve moved beyond the basics of the Magic: The Gathering® game. If you’re a beginning Magic™ player, you’ll probably find these rules intimidating. They’re intended to be the ultimate authority for the game, and you won’t usually need to refer to them except in specific cases or during competitive games. For casual play and most ordinary situations, you’ll find what you need in the Magic: The Gathering basic rulebook. You can download a copy of that rulebook from the Wizards of the Coast® Magic rules website at Wizards.com/Magic/Rules. If you’re sure this is where you want to be, keep reading.

Quote

FFG also tends to update several times a year for most of their games, which seems to be what you're asking for?

The downloadable Keyforge rulebook is about where Magic was 2 years into the game (i.e., about 4 years pre-MCR), which is a vast improvement made possible by hard-earned experience. FFG seems to be resisting the urge to go the Comprehensive Rulebook route in an attempt to prevent the sticker shock such a book tends to elicit, but if the tournament scene is to have any chance of taking off, the sooner we get a Keyforge Comprehensive Rulebook, the better.

9 hours ago, debiant said:

I've always thought that a room full of MtG judges and experienced users could've fixed everything wrong with the card wording and at very least pointed out the timing issues.

It doesn't take a room full of judges, just a couple of judges who play 150 games or so, with one of them having templating experience (or even pseudo-templating experience, such as anyone who made it to the multiple-choice round of any Great Designer Search). Then the templating judge could take the current MCR, edit out all non-Keyforge concepts, use the formats to put in those concepts unique to Keyforge, and run the wording by the other judge to make sure the general public could understand the result (modulo the TL;DR factor). By this, I mean that any individual rule would be understandable, even if casual players would balk at reading what would still end up being somewhere in the neighborhood of a 50-page "wall of text".

11 hours ago, KrisWall said:

In fairness, the Magic rules are an absolute nightmare to navigate for casual players. FFG also tends to update several times a year for most of their games, which seems to be what you're asking for?

That's fair. Magic has had a lot of time to refine their ruleset, and the rules for timing can be labyrinthine, even for players who've been playing for years. As for card templates it took a lot of evolution to get to form a solid card template upon which player's could rely. Even those templates are often unnecessarily obtuse players, sometime this difficulty seems intentional.

That said, I think MtG judge and high level players could have caught most of the issues. Developers could have taken their feedback and used it to ensure that the rules addressed all the issues, and the card text was fairly unambiguous. FFG has experience in LCGs. They have the long history of CCGs and the various templates those games used as references to create their own.

Sometimes, it feels as if FFG don't really learn from previous releases, or just don't care. Honestly, I'm not sure which is worse.

1 hour ago, debiant said:

That's fair. Magic has had a lot of time to refine their ruleset, and the rules for timing can be labyrinthine, even for players who've been playing for years. As for card templates it took a lot of evolution to get to form a solid card template upon which player's could rely. Even those templates are often unnecessarily obtuse players, sometime this difficulty seems intentional.

That said, I think MtG judge and high level players could have caught most of the issues. Developers could have taken their feedback and used it to ensure that the rules addressed all the issues, and the card text was fairly unambiguous. FFG has experience in LCGs. They have the long history of CCGs and the various templates those games used as references to create their own.

Sometimes, it feels as if FFG don't really learn from previous releases, or just don't care. Honestly, I'm not sure which is worse.

Even as labyrinthine as the Magic rules are, they don't cover every possible interaction . They come close, though, and acknowledge their limitation.

Quote

We at Wizards of the Coast recognize that no matter how detailed the rules, situations will arise in which the interaction of specific cards requires a precise answer. If you have questions, you can get the answers from us at Wizards.com/CustomerService.

That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if there are people at FFG who steadfastly refuse to let their rulebooks get all "Magicky" with precise templates and specific well-defined rules, fearing that players will get turned off by the "wall of text" effect. I have not been playing in other LCG published by FFG, so it hasn't been an issue for me in the past, but for this game I intend to make sure the structure it needs exists in spite of such attitudes.

On 1/5/2019 at 2:36 PM, Rabbitball said:

That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if there are people at FFG who steadfastly refuse to let their rulebooks get all "Magicky" with precise templates and specific well-defined rules, fearing that players will get turned off by the "wall of text" effect.

Templating as I understand it is creating a list of phrases and icons that can be used to ensure that the card text is getting its job done in a manner that is easy for players to process and ensuring that cards use the words in a similar manner. For example ready and fight would make a perfect template, and we shouldn't see ready and attack. You could also render down ready and fight to an icon that then replaces the text. I am all for this as it makes the game text on the cards far easier to write and far more consistent to us to read. For example you could say replace text "Mars" with the icon for Mars.

I haven't played much Magic as to be familiar with their rules, as such I am not too sure if it would be a good thing at all. However, right now there is no expectation of an update to the rulebook or FAQ, you find rules answers here and there online. Right now, something is better than nothing.

14 hours ago, Amanal said:

Templating as I understand it is creating a list of phrases and icons that can be used to ensure that the card text is getting its job done in a manner that is easy for players to process and ensuring that cards use the words in a similar manner. For example ready and fight would make a perfect template, and we shouldn't see ready and attack. You could also render down ready and fight to an icon that then replaces the text. I am all for this as it makes the game text on the cards far easier to write and far more consistent to us to read. For example you could say replace text "Mars" with the icon for Mars.

I haven't played much Magic as to be familiar with their rules, as such I am not too sure if it would be a good thing at all. However, right now there is no expectation of an update to the rulebook or FAQ, you find rules answers here and there online. Right now, something is better than nothing.

I agree with replacing the faction names with faction icons in most cases (all that I can think of, at least).

I'm less fond of replacing stuff like "ready and fight" with icons. That's a barrier for new players, where the faction icons aren't (we have the faction icons on every card, after all, so it's quicker to pick up). However, making sure that an ability that is functionally the same as another ability use identical language is essential to good contemplating and formatting.

Then again, perhaps Ready, Fight, Reap, Action could all be icons. So "ready and fight" could be "You can [ready icon] and [fight icon] with a friendly creature," etc.

One of the reasons I worry about icons, beyond the new player barrier I mentioned before, is that sometimes a game can go too far with icons. For instance, we could also add an icon for "neighboring creatures," and "flank creatures." I think there definitely is a point where we're going too far. If it were only the three action types, plus the ready, then maybe that would be fine. These are concepts that you need to know for playing just about any deck, so you could learn the icons at the same time you learn the concepts. When you also consider that MTG hasn't started using icons for things like "tap target creature" or "untap target creature," because it complicates things, that for me also leads to thinking you need a hard limit on what types of things are iconized. The individual words really don't take up that much space on the cards, really. (There is a tap and untap symbol, they are only used in costs, AFAIK.)

23 hours ago, Amanal said:

Templating as I understand it is creating a list of phrases and icons that can be used to ensure that the card text is getting its job done in a manner that is easy for players to process and ensuring that cards use the words in a similar manner. For example ready and fight would make a perfect template, and we shouldn't see ready and attack. You could also render down ready and fight to an icon that then replaces the text. I am all for this as it makes the game text on the cards far easier to write and far more consistent to us to read. For example you could say replace text "Mars" with the icon for Mars.

I haven't played much Magic as to be familiar with their rules, as such I am not too sure if it would be a good thing at all. However, right now there is no expectation of an update to the rulebook or FAQ, you find rules answers here and there online. Right now, something is better than nothing.

Close. Let me give you a few templates that are already in use for Keyforge as examples of what I mean:

The colon template "Something: Something else" is used for effects that take place at a specified time: Play, Leaves Play, Fight, Reap, Action, Omni, and Destroyed have been developed so far, and I won't be surprised to see Discard added to the list at some point.

The keywords are templates: Elusive, Hazardous, Skirmish, Taunt, etc. Each encapsulates a whole ability into a single word or phrase.

I could see taking the "After an enemy creature is destroyed fighting <this>" and distilling it into a colon template such as "Defeat in Battle:" but for now it's good enough as is.

These terms, when used independently of another template, are keyword actions: Fight, Reap, Use, Ready. Keyword actions have a specific meaning in the game not conveyed by their normal meaning.

The symbols are nice, but not everything needs a symbol.

Right now, there are a few "state-based actions" that aren't called out as such:

• A player who forges their third key wins the game.
• A creature with damage equal to or greater than its power is destroyed.
• An upgrade that no longer is attached to the creature it was played on is destroyed.

Putting all of these into a rules document as such as the Magic Comprehensive Rules would be possible (I'm poking at doing just such a thing as we speak), but may take time to complete.

6 hours ago, Rabbitball said:

Right now, there are a few "state-based actions" that aren't called out as such:

• A player who forges their third key wins the game.
• A creature with damage equal to or greater than its power is destroyed.
• An upgrade that no longer is attached to the creature it was played on is destroyed.

Putting all of these into a rules document as such as the Magic Comprehensive Rules would be possible (I'm poking at doing just such a thing as we speak), but may take time to complete.

Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? These things are in the rules right now, so I'm curious why you would call these out specifically.

10 hours ago, Rabbitball said:

Right now, there are a few "state-based actions" that aren't called out as such:

• A player who forges their third key wins the game.
• A creature with damage equal to or greater than its power is destroyed.
• An upgrade that no longer is attached to the creature it was played on is destroyed.

Putting all of these into a rules document as such as the Magic Comprehensive Rules would be possible (I'm poking at doing just such a thing as we speak), but may take time to complete.

Page 3... "The game ends immediately when a player forges their third key, and that player wins the game."

Page 7... "If a creature has as much or more damage on it as it has power, the creature is destroyed and placed on top of its owner's discard pile."

Page 6... "If the card to which an upgrade is attached leaves play, the upgrade is discarded." Incidentally, your reading is incorrect. The upgrade isn't destroyed. It's simply discarded.

First off... your three examples are pretty clearly in the rule book. They aren't called out specifically as "state-based", but I don't think they need to be. What happens when a player forges their third key? Pretty clearly, the game ends and that player is the winner. Do you really need to complicate and abstract the rules by adding the concept of game state?

17 hours ago, Palpster said:

Could you elaborate on what you mean by this? These things are in the rules right now, so I'm curious why you would call these out specifically.

12 hours ago, KrisWall said:

Page 3... "The game ends immediately when a player forges their third key, and that player wins the game."

Page 7... "If a creature has as much or more damage on it as it has power, the creature is destroyed and placed on top of its owner's discard pile."

Page 6... "If the card to which an upgrade is attached leaves play, the upgrade is discarded." Incidentally, your reading is incorrect. The upgrade isn't destroyed. It's simply discarded.

First off... your three examples are pretty clearly in the rule book. They aren't called out specifically as "state-based", but I don't think they need to be. What happens when a player forges their third key? Pretty clearly, the game ends and that player is the winner. Do you really need to complicate and abstract the rules by adding the concept of game state?

Actually. the rules already contain state-based actions without calling them out. That's what I'm pointing out. It's like saying that if a zoo has baboons and macaques and apes we shouldn't complicate the displays by referring to them all as primates or even suggesting they be grouped together based on their clear primate commonality.

As for what a state-based action is, it means that the game requires an action be performed based on the game state rather than because of an action taken by the players directly. In looking at it, there are two other state-based actions I have discovered in the rules:

• When a player enters their "forge a key" step, if they have enough Æmber to forge a key, that player forges one (and only one) key.
• When a non-flank creature is destroyed, the line shifts inward. This means that the destroyed creature's neighbors are no longer neighbors of that creature and become neighbors of each other. (I bolded that part because although it's implied by the rules, it's not directly stated.)

It's not that I want to introduce more categories. The categories are already there , just not called out as such. Taunt and poison are keywords, even if not called out as such. Fight and ready (when used as instructions) are keyword actions, even if not called out as such. And so on. Keyforge has Magic DNA, just as a mule has horse DNA. But just as mules aren't horses, so Keyforge is not Magic. But because they have some of the same DNA, it is possible to use terms from one to speak of the other. And in so doing, it makes talking about Keyforge easier, not harder, for those who have a need or desire to dig deeper into the rules. If that's not you, don't worry about it.

23 minutes ago, Rabbitball said:

Actually. the rules already contain state-based actions without calling them out. That's what I'm pointing out. It's like saying that if a zoo has baboons and macaques and apes we shouldn't complicate the displays by referring to them all as primates or even suggesting they be grouped together based on their clear primate commonality.

As for what a state-based action is, it means that the game requires an action be performed based on the game state rather than because of an action taken by the players directly. In looking at it, there are two other state-based actions I have discovered in the rules:

• When a player enters their "forge a key" step, if they have enough Æmber to forge a key, that player forges one (and only one) key.
• When a non-flank creature is destroyed, the line shifts inward. This means that the destroyed creature's neighbors are no longer neighbors of that creature and become neighbors of each other. (I bolded that part because although it's implied by the rules, it's not directly stated.)

It's not that I want to introduce more categories. The categories are already there , just not called out as such. Taunt and poison are keywords, even if not called out as such. Fight and ready (when used as instructions) are keyword actions, even if not called out as such. And so on. Keyforge has Magic DNA, just as a mule has horse DNA. But just as mules aren't horses, so Keyforge is not Magic. But because they have some of the same DNA, it is possible to use terms from one to speak of the other. And in so doing, it makes talking about Keyforge easier, not harder, for those who have a need or desire to dig deeper into the rules. If that's not you, don't worry about it.

Except forging a key isn’t an action.

In this game, Actions are a card type, or a thing one of the other card types (creature, artifact) can do by when they exhaust.

And the result of a creature being destroyed doesn’t need to be explicitly stated, there is no alternative.

9 minutes ago, Derrault said:

Except forging a key isn’t an action.

In this game, Actions are a card type, or a thing one of the other card types (creature, artifact) can do by when they exhaust.

And the result of a creature being destroyed doesn’t need to be explicitly stated, there is no alternative.

It is in Magic terms, which I am borrowing for this point. In that sense, an action is "something that affects the game state." If it proves to be too confusing, it can always be renamed to something else.

The point is, there are some things that happen because the players in the game take "actions" to make them happen, while other things happen because the game state requires them to happen. And gathering all of these state-based "actions" into a category isn't a bad thing.

PS: Suggestions welcome on what to rename the generic term for "something that affects the game state" so that it doesn't overload the term action .

21 minutes ago, Derrault said:

Except forging a key isn’t an action.

In this game, Actions are a card type, or a thing one of the other card types (creature, artifact) can do by when they exhaust.

And the result of a creature being destroyed doesn’t need to be explicitly stated, there is no alternative.

I think the idea here is that forging a key isn't optional, if you have had Lash of Broken Dreams used in your opponents turn and you had 9 Amber you can't wait a turn, you forge the key. Also, if you miss that you had the Amber and go on with your turn it may not be considered a missed opportunity as he too should have noticed you forged a key at the start of your turn.

7 minutes ago, Amanal said:

I think the idea here is that forging a key isn't optional, if you have had Lash of Broken Dreams used in your opponents turn and you had 9 Amber you can't wait a turn, you forge the key. Also, if you miss that you had the Amber and go on with your turn it may not be considered a missed opportunity as he too should have noticed you forged a key at the start of your turn.

Right, what Magic calls a "state-based action" is something that the game makes you do because of what has already happened, not something that you do because you played or used a card to make it happen.

8 hours ago, Rabbitball said:

Right, what Magic calls a "state-based action" is something that the game makes you do because of what has already happened, not something that you do because you played or used a card to make it happen.

I just don't see this as necessary. The rules seem pretty straightforward as is. It sounds like you're needlessly complicating the rule set to make it more like Magic. Magic is an enormous game with a huge card pool, creating an insane number of possible interactions. The rules for such a game need to be extremely rigorous to the point that you end up with a roughly 200 page document that looks more like a legal contract than a rule set. Keyforge isn't the same game. It's enough to say 'when a creature has damage on it equal to its power, it is destroyed'. You don't need to explicitly say 'after each player takes an action [defined elsewhere], check the game state [defined elsewhere] and destroy any creature where it has damage tokens on it equal to or greater than its current power'.

My question is to ask what specifically is wrong with the way things are currently handled. Do you feel that simply telling players to destroy creatures who have suffered sufficient damage is somehow confusing? Do you see any things in the game that are consistently being missed because there is no step in the rules to check the game state? If the answer is no, I think the rules are sufficient as written.