There seems to be some concern about using Magic: the Gathering terms to talk about Keyforge rules and concepts. I would like to clarify (at the very least, in my case) what is and is not being said or believed:

1. Many of the rulings are mirroring rules found in the Magic Comprehensive Rules. This is because many of the issues presented mirror those that Magic has had to deal with in its 25+ year history. As a result, knowing about these rules helps understand the reasoning behind many provided rulings.
2. In the likely event that new and different cards get released (despite the fact that there are 104 quintillion deck configurations just from the ones we have), there will be new interactions, possibly with new abilities, and being able to process them on sight is a very good thing to have. Magic has taken years to get this far, and Keyforge would to well to borrow from that vast storehouse of knowledge and not think it has to reinvent the wheel.
3. Part of doing the above involves recognizing categories that Magic has had to create but may not seem obvious in the context of Keyforge: New Object, Zones, State-Based "Actions", Replacement Abilities, etc.

In recognizing these, there are also things that we are specifically avoiding when it comes to Magic emulation:

1. We are not advocating multiplayer rules or player-controlled deck construction rules. This is currently a 2-person game, and if a multiplayer option becomes available, I would want it to be from a separate set where the cards are balanced based on the idea that you have to defend your Aember from more than one opponent.
2. We are not trying to introduce mana costs or an equivalent to playing cards. While Magic uses mana costs as a resource for balancing card effects, Keyforge does this through the active house principle, chains and effects that occasionally boomerang onto the player. Each does its job of forcing players to plan out their turns and preventing them from playing every card every turn.

I hope this clears up what those of us who use Magic-speak to talk about Keyforge are doing.

9 hours ago, Rabbitball said:

There seems to be some concern about using Magic: the Gathering terms to talk about Keyforge rules and concepts. I would like to clarify (at the very least, in my case) what is and is not being said or believed:

1. Many of the rulings are mirroring rules found in the Magic Comprehensive Rules. This is because many of the issues presented mirror those that Magic has had to deal with in its 25+ year history. As a result, knowing about these rules helps understand the reasoning behind many provided rulings.
2. In the likely event that new and different cards get released (despite the fact that there are 104 quintillion deck configurations just from the ones we have), there will be new interactions, possibly with new abilities, and being able to process them on sight is a very good thing to have. Magic has taken years to get this far, and Keyforge would to well to borrow from that vast storehouse of knowledge and not think it has to reinvent the wheel.
3. Part of doing the above involves recognizing categories that Magic has had to create but may not seem obvious in the context of Keyforge: New Object, Zones, State-Based "Actions", Replacement Abilities, etc.

In recognizing these, there are also things that we are specifically avoiding when it comes to Magic emulation:

1. We are not advocating multiplayer rules or player-controlled deck construction rules. This is currently a 2-person game, and if a multiplayer option becomes available, I would want it to be from a separate set where the cards are balanced based on the idea that you have to defend your Aember from more than one opponent.
2. We are not trying to introduce mana costs or an equivalent to playing cards. While Magic uses mana costs as a resource for balancing card effects, Keyforge does this through the active house principle, chains and effects that occasionally boomerang onto the player. Each does its job of forcing players to plan out their turns and preventing them from playing every card every turn.

I hope this clears up what those of us who use Magic-speak to talk about Keyforge are doing.

That's fair. It's also fair that some others have absolutely no interest in that level of rules detail. In the overwhelming majority of cases where I'm hearing "the interaction is broken and we need an errata", the real cause is player expectation versus how the rules are actually written. Yes, there are a few real ambiguities or missing rules. For the overwhelming majority of the card base, the current rules as written work fine. Why not just errata the very small handful of situations and go from there? Do you really need to define state-based actions to know that you forge a key if you have 6 aember at the start of your turn?

3 hours ago, KrisWall said:

That's fair. It's also fair that some others have absolutely no interest in that level of rules detail. In the overwhelming majority of cases where I'm hearing "the interaction is broken and we need an errata", the real cause is player expectation versus how the rules are actually written. Yes, there are a few real ambiguities or missing rules. For the overwhelming majority of the card base, the current rules as written work fine. Why not just errata the very small handful of situations and go from there? Do you really need to define state-based actions to know that you forge a key if you have 6 aember at the start of your turn?

How is having a complete rule set for those who want one a problem for you? The game can be simple to play and cover every possible interaction, they needn’t be mutually exclusive.

Hi

Why the Magic lingo?

-Most of the terms in Keyforge are just a variation on a word commonly used in MTG (Magic the Gathering) for legal purposes, ex: Ready is just like referring to the card as Untapped/Haste; I am sure if Garfield could've used words like ''Tap'', ''Summoning Sickness'' he would've.

- Quite a lot of Keyforge players have knowledge and familiarity with other CCG's, one of the most popular being MTG.

- It is faster to explain to a new player in terms they are familiar with.

Multiplayer: I played a game of 4 players recently with Keyforge we merely just decided that certain cards lingo would be considered a single player instead, ex: Grabber Jammer, Aether Spider affect one player only. The game went very well so it is quite possible to play multiplayer Keyforge even now without a set dedicated to multiplayer interactions.

Quickstory of the game: The game took about 1 hr. 1 of us had 1 key and the other 3 had 2 key's. My friend with 1 key was super salty but in the end was able to forge a key in a turn with Key charge and Witch of the Eye brought back Key Charge and was able to make another next turn.

I think after such a successful multiplayer game, Keyforge needs to enable more multiplayer as the game was even more fun with more players vying to make keys and even if one player gets close, the others kept them down:p

21 minutes ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

How is having a complete rule set for those who want one a problem for you? The game can be simple to play and cover every possible interaction, they needn’t be mutually exclusive.

I never said that having a complete rule set is a bad thing. I'm saying that you don't need to define terms like 'state-based actions' to have a rule set where people know that they need to forge keys at the start of their turn if they have 6 or more aember. The Magic rules are more or less comprehensive, but they're also inelegant.

I freely admit that the initial rule book makes some assumptions and has some ambiguities that really need to be spelled out.

• Timing is vague in places and we could really use a timing flowchart.
• There seems to be some general player confusion around whether or not you ever reevaluate a Play: effect. I.e., if a play effect references an opponent, would you reevaluate which player is the opponent if the creature changes control?
• Can we play an upgrade if there are no creatures on the table? If so, what happens to the upgrade?

None of these questions needs much more than a sentence or two. None of these questions need specific card FAQs or erratas.

25 minutes ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

How is having a complete rule set for those who want one a problem for you? The game can be simple to play and cover every possible interaction, they needn’t be mutually exclusive.

Not having a complete rule set per se, but, I could see someone having a "saw how the sausage is made" kind of reaction. Or maybe some folks are like me in that the more something is discussed, the less interested they get. That'd one reason why I've never read Harry Potter, or watched Breaking Bad. It got beaten to death, and now I just don't care. So, in a way, yeah... discussing the minutia of a thing for pages upon pages in a forum can actually detract from one's enjoyment of a thing.

That said, I agree that there can exist both a competitive and casual contingent. But I also see how high-level, hyper-intricate analysis can turn some folks off.

3 hours ago, KrisWall said:

The Magic rules are more or less comprehensive, but they're also inelegant.

I would say no more so than the OED is inelegant, but then it's purely subjective on both accounts.

1 hour ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

I would say no more so than the OED is inelegant, but then it's purely subjective on both accounts.

Relevance?

I should note that I'm using the programming concept of elegance. All else equal, the more concise solution is the better solution. In that sense, I'm using elegance as a very measurable idea.

My point was that what is and isn’t elegant is a matter of opinion. The M;tG rules are exactly as short as they need to be to cover 25+ years of game development and evolution, and many of those are concepts that can be applied to other games as a matter of gaming logic. Is future proofing not a thing in programming?

10 hours ago, KrisWall said:

I never said that having a complete rule set is a bad thing. I'm saying that you don't need to define terms like 'state-based actions' to have a rule set where people know that they need to forge keys at the start of their turn if they have 6 or more aember. The Magic rules are more or less comprehensive, but they're also inelegant.

I freely admit that the initial rule book makes some assumptions and has some ambiguities that really need to be spelled out.

• Timing is vague in places and we could really use a timing flowchart.
• There seems to be some general player confusion around whether or not you ever reevaluate a Play: effect. I.e., if a play effect references an opponent, would you reevaluate which player is the opponent if the creature changes control?
• Can we play an upgrade if there are no creatures on the table? If so, what happens to the upgrade?

None of these questions needs much more than a sentence or two. None of these questions need specific card FAQs or erratas.

The comprehensive rules are inelegant, but that's a side effect of being comprehensive. As we have said repeatedly, most people won't need the Comprehensive Rules. But for those who do, they are necessary and invaluable. I don't expect the people who play Keyforge at a friend's house every couple of weeks to need a detailed description of everything; but when the Keyforge World Championships take place, I would expect that level of detail to insure that the event is not viewed as sloppy, arbitrary, or biased.

Eh... agree to disagree. Plenty of competitive games work just fine without super meticulous rules. Magic is, I think, an outlier in terms of complex rules.

5 minutes ago, KrisWall said:

Eh... agree to disagree. Plenty of competitive games work just fine without super meticulous rules. Magic is, I think, an outlier in terms of complex rules.

Star Fleet Battles, how anyone plays the game at all is beyond me. 😎

But as you say exception to the rule.

4 hours ago, KrisWall said:

Eh... agree to disagree. Plenty of competitive games work just fine without super meticulous rules. Magic is, I think, an outlier in terms of complex rules.

Which ones?

Just now, WonderWAAAGH said:

Which ones?

Pretty much every other game that FFG has ever made that has a tournament scene? If you're not even peripherally aware of the situation outside of Magic, maybe you should brush up before saying it's the only viable option?

20 minutes ago, KrisWall said:

Pretty much every other game that FFG has ever made that has a tournament scene? If you're not even peripherally aware of the situation outside of Magic, maybe you should brush up before saying it's the only viable option?

TBF on this point, some other LCGs from FFG do have more in-depth rulebooks than what Keyforge has but those usually come about after a few years of rulings.

I expect Keyforge may have a comprehensive rulebook eventually, but I don't see it as necessary right now. What we really need is card rulings put down in text and available in a central location, such as a PDF on the keyforge product page.

2 hours ago, KrisWall said:

Pretty much every other game that FFG has ever made that has a tournament scene? If you're not even peripherally aware of the situation outside of Magic, maybe you should brush up before saying it's the only viable option?

I played X-Wing up through Wave 5, 40k: Conquest, Destiny, Imperial Assault, and briefly dabbled with L5R. I've had very few interactions with FFG's rules writing that left me feeling they were anything other than suspect or incomplete, but at least some of them had reference guides at launch. Suffice it to say, I didn't get to 6,000+ posts here over the past 5 some-odd years because FFG writes good rules.

If you have other examples I'd love to hear them, but I prefer you spare me any further condescension. Thanks.

10 minutes ago, WonderWAAAGH said:

I played X-Wing up through Wave 5, 40k: Conquest, Destiny, Imperial Assault, and briefly dabbled with L5R. I've had very few interactions with FFG's rules writing that left me feeling they were anything other than suspect or incomplete, but at least some of them had reference guides at launch. Suffice it to say, I didn't get to 6,000+ posts here over the past 5 some-odd years because FFG writes good rules.

If you have any other examples I'd love to hear them, but you can spare me any further condescension.

I'll spare you the condescension if you promise to do the same for me. I also don't put much stock in post count, but I suppose quantity has a quality all its own if that's your thing. Compared to other games I play, my post count here is relatively low specifically because the rules don't generally require many questions. Your experience is clearly different, but my FFG experience (competitive X-Wing, Armada, Conquest, Destiny and Imperial Assault up to and including North American Championships) as well as numerous other casual games) has been pretty positive with well written and easy to understand rules.

I'm also coming from a tabletop war gaming background, where the rules are more vague suggestions. I can see how FFG rules might seem incomplete compared to a 200 page comprehensive rules document. For me, while there are occasional areas where a reword would be nice, they're pretty solid and can actually be read cover to cover in less than a week.

I've only been informative on this topic, insofar as I'm aware. You asked questions in this other thread that I answered in some considerable detail, since I assumed you were being earnest. I'm not making a connection between being well-versed in Magic and only "peripherally aware" of other games, unless you mistakenly believed my call for evidence was made out of complete ignorance. In which case, what have I been doing on these forums all this time? The two sets of knowledge are not mutually exclusive, I assure you.

I'm not judging you for your post count; rather, I'm highlighting just how contentious FFG's rules writing must be to warrant so much deliberation. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding (probably a better aphorism than anything attributed to Stalin).

6 hours ago, CaptainIxidor said:

TBF on this point, some other LCGs from FFG do have more in-depth rulebooks than what Keyforge has but those usually come about after a few years of rulings.

I expect Keyforge may have a comprehensive rulebook eventually, but I don't see it as necessary right now. What we really need is card rulings put down in text and available in a central location, such as a PDF on the keyforge product page.

In terms of absolute necessity, I would agree. But I see incomplete rules, sloppy templating, and the like as maintenance issues that make the eventual transition into a comprehensive rules document that much harder to produce the longer they linger. Nip it in the bud now and it's easier to keep up with as new sets and abilities get released.

And I don't even need this comprehensive book to be published to get this benefit. All that matters is that someone builds and maintains it as soon as possible. Then, when the Comprehensive Rules are within 20% the length of the Basic Rules + the multiple of pages of specific rulings, they can be presented as "Here's all the rules, they explain why all the rulings are the way they are, and if you don't add pictures, they're just as big as what you have now."