On 1/9/2019 at 6:40 AM, KrisWall said:

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.

As I have said in other places, the rules are probably good enough for 370 unique card titles. When that number goes higher, the chances of that remaining true vanish rapidly.

What I'm lobbying for isn't for the casual player. The casual player will rarely need to know what's actually going on and just play. But once you introduce competitive play for prizes, there will be some rules lawyer who will want to argue every little detail, and if such details aren't in the "definitively most complete rulebook we can muster at this time", it opens the door for different judges and marshals to interpret the rules as they see fit, leading to inconsistent rulings and people shopping for event officials whose "clear interpretations" of "less than clear" rules favor their decks over others.

And just because the rulebook doesn't call out that lethal damage destroys a creature is a state-based effect, that doesn't mean that it isn't. It just means that it's not called out as such. My high school Sociology teacher had a favorite example:

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There is no rule that says you can't bring your pet elephant to school. Why not? Because we have never had a problem with anyone bringing their pet elephant to school. If we start having a problem with people bringing their pet elephants to school, we will make a rule about it then.

Every rule created in the Magic Comprehensive Rules was created because it potentially might come up (and probably has come up over the games 25+ year history at least once).

I am very tempted to bet money that we will get an updated rule book on January 22nd, seems unlikely that they would start a new "phase" of the game without doing that. At least that's what I took away from today's article on the front page.

10 minutes ago, TheSpitfired said:

I am very tempted to bet money that we will get an updated rule book on January 22nd, seems unlikely that they would start a new "phase" of the game without doing that. At least that's what I took away from today's article on the front page.

That doesn't surprise me. It's about on par with how often the Magic Comprehensive Rules get updated. I'm just looking to see if there's a comprehensive option or more of the same.

On 1/8/2019 at 10:19 PM, Rabbitball said:

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 .

In the ffg Star Wars LCG, and likely other lcgs, they do have a term listed in the the faq for things that the game state mandates to happen. They call them framework events. This is pulled from the Star Wars lcg faq.

Framework Events are activities that are dictated by the game rules rather than by player choice; they are the fundamental occurences and rituals that propel the game forward. Framework event windows cannot be broken by player actions. The grey Framework Event windows in the Timing Structure diagram on pages 30-31 of the core rulebook identify each of the game’s framework events..

To me this seems like the same idea. I’m not a magic or keyforge player so I may be misunderstanding.

Edit: A game of thrones 2nd Ed and legend of the five rings both have the same term in the rulebook. So they added it from the get-go instead of after the fact like in Star Wars. Which makes sense since they are later games. All of these games also have flowcharts laying out action windows and framework events. It’s baffling to me that keyforge wouldn’t have something similar.

11 hours ago, pixcalcis said:

In the ffg Star Wars LCG, and likely other lcgs, they do have a term listed in the the faq for things that the game state mandates to happen. They call them framework events. This is pulled from the Star Wars lcg faq.

Framework Events are activities that are dictated by the game rules rather than by player choice; they are the fundamental occurences and rituals that propel the game forward. Framework event windows cannot be broken by player actions. The grey Framework Event windows in the Timing Structure diagram on pages 30-31 of the core rulebook identify each of the game’s framework events..

To me this seems like the same idea. I’m not a magic or keyforge player so I may be misunderstanding.

Edit: A game of thrones 2nd Ed and legend of the five rings both have the same term in the rulebook. So they added it from the get-go instead of after the fact like in Star Wars. Which makes sense since they are later games. All of these games also have flowcharts laying out action windows and framework events. It’s baffling to me that keyforge wouldn’t have something similar.

I took a look at the Star Wars LCG Rulebook, and what they are calling framework events are what Magic would call "Turn-based Actions". Those are the events that process based on where you are in the turn. Examples in Keyforge would include:

• Readying all permanents in the Ready Phase
• Drawing cards up to hand size in the Draw Phase
• Declaring an active house in the House Phase

In my previous list, "forge a key" is more properly a turn-based action than a state-based action, which may have led to the confusion. A state-based action happens because of something that popped up on the board:

• Removing creatures that have been dealt lethal damage
• Removing upgrades that were attached to creatures that are no longer in play
• Ending the game when a player gets their third key

In Magic, it's more important to call these out because there can be conflicting events. This is not yet a concern for Keyforge, but it could be. All it would take is a card like this:

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Ancient Keymaker

Mars Action

Each player may forge a key at current cost.

If both players are sitting on enough Aember to forge their third key, what happens? My answer is that the card id poorly templated, and should have specified which players forges first, but if such a card made it to print, what would we do?

2 hours ago, Rabbitball said:

In my previous list, "forge a key" is more properly a turn-based action than a state-based action, which may have led to the confusion. A state-based action happens because of something that popped up on the board:

• Removing creatures that have been dealt lethal damage
• Removing upgrades that were attached to creatures that are no longer in play
• Ending the game when a player gets their third key

In Magic, it's more important to call these out because there can be conflicting events. This is not yet a concern for Keyforge, but it could be. All it would take is a card like this:

If both players are sitting on enough Aember to forge their third key, what happens? My answer is that the card id poorly templated, and should have specified which players forges first, but if such a card made it to print, what would we do?

Gotcha. Yes, the forge a key example was the example I homed in on as it seemed similar to the framework events in lcgs

In your example on each player forging a key, would that not just fall under a timing conflict and thus the active player chooses the order the forging is resolved? And if any other conflicting events happen,wouldn’t it fall under the same catch-all that the active player decides?

regardless, I get your point, there were certainly issues that came up in their other card games such as where we needed the exact timing on when exactly an attachment is no longer considered attached to a character who is killed. Upon hitting discard pile? Or immediately after placing terminal damage?

8 minutes ago, pixcalcis said:

In your example on each player forging a key, would that not just fall under a timing conflict and thus the active player chooses the order the forging is resolved? And if any other conflicting events happen,wouldn’t it fall under the same catch-all that the active player decides?

Probably, but we already have a similar timing problem in the Tournament Rules when a game goes to time. In that case, once the current turn is finished and the opponent gets one last turn, each player with 6 or more Æmber forges one key simultaneously. At least there, those rules resolve who actually wins.