What is the name of this trick-taking card game? Years ago, in the 70s, my aunt from Kentucky taught us a card game. She called it "Table".  I've found nothing on the internet but it seems similar to Oh Hell. You were dealt 1 card in the first round, 2 in the second, etc. up to 10 cards in the 10th round then back down to 1. Like Oh Hell, players bid on tricks and score points but only if they make their bid.  Unlike what I've seen of Oh Hell, if a player doesn't make their bid they go set and lose points. I would like to know the actual name of this game and also how it's scored.

It seems to me that Simon Klaver's comment referring to the wikipedia article on Oh Hell and its variations is the answer here. Although there's nothing on a version called "table."


Isn't Wall of Runes a Rune card? I played Runed Crown on MTG Arena, and tried to select Wall of Runes, but wasn't able. Isn't it a Rune card? So which cards are?

When Runed Crown says "A rune card" it means "A card with the subtype Rune" not "A card with Rune in its name". This is the same way that Forest Bear can't be found with Three Visits but Dryad Arbor can - when a card is talking about card name it will say "card(s) named ~" and it uses the whole name of cards. When it says "a(n) ___ card." that blank is always some combination of colors and types (including subtypes, like rune here, and supertypes, like legendary or basic). Forging the Tyrite Sword is a perfect example of both, letting you search for "a card named Halvar, God of Battle" or "an Equipment card" the first is searching based on the name, the second option is searching based on type.
Kaldheim created Rune as a subtype of enchantment, always beside Aura (at least for now) because the runes are meant to modify whatever they are put on, either the creature directly or the equipment. There are currently 5 rune cards, one in each color, all 2 cost enchantments that can go on any permanent, but only have an effect when attached to a creature or equipment.
It's possible they could errata cards like Wall of Runes to add the rune type to it, but this is extremely unlikely. While you could arguably attach Wall of Runes to Runed Crown (since equipping attaches the two cards, though it attaches the equipment to the creature) the crown is meant to gain abilities that can then be given to whatever creatures the crown gets attached to using the search.
If cards with the word Rune in their name were Rune cards, that would make Runed Crown a Rune card too - you could play one Runed Crown and use it to search for your second one, use that to get the third, then the fourth and the fourth finally finds something like Runes of the Deus or Wall of Runes. The crowns would fall off eachother since equipment can't attach to equipment, leaving you with 3 unequipped basic crowns and one equipped or enchanted crown, pulling 4 cards worth 10+ mana out of your deck and into play for 3 total mana.


Can cards from an invalid meld be used in a subsequent valid meld? This is a follow-up to my previous question here: Canasta and the rules on invalid melding

In Canasta, if the “partner” of the person who laid down an invalid meld after exposing her cards, now comes down with a valid meld, can she now use any of the cards in the “invalid” meld that are lying exposed?  Or are they only used for discards still?

According to this answer to your previous question yes, you can use these in a valid meld. Here is the relevant quote:

  If a player exposes any cards from his hand, but does not meld them, he must leave them face-up on the table, and discard them one at a time in subsequent turns. However, if these cards can be validly melded before they are discarded, he may do so, rather than discard them.

As a side-note there are different rules and different variants of Canasta, and I do not believe there is one true way. That what makes difficult answering your question unambiguously.

For my Canasta games, I've written down my own version of Canasta rules, that I compiled from different sources on the web and got everyone at the table to agree to them. Since we are running a friendly non-commercial games, we simply re-deal the round if someone makes this mistake, because we trust that no one of us will do this intentionally. Anyway it happened only once or twice, so it has never been a problem for us.


Which property group colour gives the best ROI , undeveloped or fully developed, in Monopoly? Everybody always goes for the dark blues in Monopoly (Mayfair and Park Lane in the UK edition), but I'm convinced that the cheaper colour groups offer a better return on investment, partly because you can fully develop them quicker, and partly because you can own more squares, thereby giving you more "hits" and a steadier income. But is there any analysis to support (or refute) this view?

My understanding is that the best three property groups are light blue (Angel Islington, Euston Road, Pentonville Road), orange (Bow Street, Marlborough Street, Vine Street), and dark blue (Park Lane, Mayfair). Light blue is good because the buildings are very cheap but give excellent returns. Orange is good because the likelihood of landing there is substantially higher, due to forced starting from Jail (gets you on a 6, 8 or 9). Finally, the dark blues are a good choice because eventually someone will draw the Advance to Mayfair card.

There is a much more detailed analysis here. The names are from the American set, but the calculations are the same.


Kate Winthrop's Immunity to All Terror effects in Elder Sign - how does it work? The ability reads SHE is immune, however, what about Terror affects that'd add another doom token, for example? In that case, the Terror effect wouldn't directly target her, would her immunity still cancel the effect. Or if an effect states All investigators lose 1 sanity/stamina/trophy/etc. Would the other investigators still be affected.

Kate Winthrop's ability should be played as if the terror die does not trigger the terror effects. So, no doom should be added, nor other investigator should suffer any effects. I could not find rules about that anywhere, but that's how things work in the mobile version of the game.


How to beat the 10 car long Southampton to New York Route in the United Kingdom Map Collection set of Ticket to Ride? We are big fans of Ticket to Ride, and having both the America and Europe versions and recently added the United Kingdom Map Collection set too.

In this variant, there is a 10 car long route from Southampton to New York, which even does not need any technology cards to build.

Our games merely reduced to a competition who can build that route first, because in every single game, regardless who does it first, that person wins the game, whatever tactic (longer routes, more Tickets, etc) other players try.

How to beat that Route? 40 points in this game variant for that route seems extremely much.

Boiler Lagging and Steam Turbines
The times that I have won against someone who got the Southampton-New York route, I had relied on the bonus points from the Boiler Lagging card (score 1 extra point for each route that you claim) and the Steam Turbines card (score 2, or 3 extra points for each Ferry route that you claim).

Right of Way Also, this is riskier but, you can buy the Right of Way card and lay down your own Southampton route next to your opponents route. This is particularly nasty because you will both be hoarding cards, hopefully of different colours, which will cause serious problems for the other players who will need these cardsto complete their routes.

Equalising Beam and Risky Contracts These cards would certainly help, but I have won more than once against the Southampton=New York player without them.

Rules for Ticket To Ride - United Kingdom


Allies Cards in Sickbay/Brig Last weekend my group played Battlestar Galactica's Exodus Expansion using the Ionian Nebula option. In a determined moment of the game, an Ally Card was located at the Sickbay (it was Simon O'Neill, but the same applied to Dr. Cottle in a later moment in the game). My question is, considering that players cannot move their characters on their own to the Sickbay and an encounter with Allies only occurs after the Movement Step of a player, when an encounter with an Ally in Sickbay or Brig should happen? My thougths are:

Players sent to Sickbay can encounter an Ally in Sickbay if they stay in Sickbay in his Movement Step (this is possible?). If they move out from the Sickbay, they do not encounter the Ally.
Players sent to Brig must encounter an Ally in Brig while they are in the Brig

Is that correct?

Your guess is correct.

  At the end of a player’s Movement step, if his character is in the same location as an ally token, he must encounter that token’s corresponding Ally Card before proceeding to his Action phase.

In the brig, you cannot leave during your movement step voluntarily. Leaving will normally occur as a result of using the action on the brig space. You still have a Movement step, so you're going to encounter the ally before you take an action from a card or on the brig space.

  Players may move out of “Sickbay” without difficulty, but
  not the “Brig.” They may only move out of the “Brig” by
  passing the skill check listed on the location.

In Sickbay, you wait until your turn and would have to decide to remain there during your Movement step. It says "may move out", so you're clearly allowed to stay. This means, however, that you may be starting your next turn there as well.


How do Nexus of Fate decks win? How do Nexus of Fate decks like Simic Nexus win? I see plenty of them but I see absolutely no creatures or win conditions in the main board. The entire deck is based off getting lands to Nexus of Fate. It seems like the way these decks work are based off getting your opponent to concede, is this correct?

There're a variety of ways. The deck you linked wins with Commence the Endgame. What happens is, when Nexus goes off, it takes all the remaining turns. That means it can do this:

Play Tamiyo, Collector of Tales.
Cast Commence the Endgame.
Tick down Tamiyo to rebuy Commence the Endgame.
Cast Commence the Endgame.
Tick up Tamiyo (you can do this since you have infinite turns)
Repeat steps 3-5 until you have an arbitrarily large attacker.
Attack for however many attack steps it takes to kill the opponent.

If the Nexus deck is in danger of running out of cards in the library, the play pattern above changes. First, maneuver until the only four cards left in the library are Nexus of Fate (easily achieved by drawing every other card and looping Nexus). Only go to step 2 once this is achieved. After that, in step 5, tick up Tamiyo naming a card not in the deck. This reveals all the Nexus, which shuffle back in. The Nexus player still has a library with only four Nexus of Fate, but Tamiyo now has an extra loyalty. He can repeat this until Tamiyo can tick down, etc.

Right now, the other popular win condition is Callous Dismissal, which operates in the same fashion. You cast Callous Dismissal, rebuy it with Tamiyo, and cast it as many times as is necessary to bounce the opponent's entire board before killing them with the army token. Also note that if the Nexus deck has Frilled Mystic, that's also sufficient: it can play Frilled Mystic, cast and recast Blink of an Eye (a Nexus staple) to bounce the opponent's board, and then win with the 3/2.

Much rarer, but still around, is the Bant Nexus deck which wins with Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. In this scenario, you:

Play Teferi.
Tick it up until it's got 9 loyalty.
Ultimate.
Keep ticking up until you've exiled all your opponent's permanents.
Then use Teferi's -3 on itself. This ensures you'll never deck out.
Since opponent has no lands, opponent cannot cast spells, and therefore you win eventually by milling.


Retreating to the unrevealed rebel base In Star Wars Rebellion, the Board Game, can the empire retreat from a battle to the unrevealed rebel base?  Assume that the battle takes place adjacent to the unrevealed rebel base, there are no imperial systems adjacent to the battle site, and there are no units or loyalty of any kind on the system on which the rebel base is hidden.  Also assume that the empire is bringing ground forces with them on this retreat.

Here is how this situation happened:

As the empire, I captured a rebel turn 1.
On turn 2, I used Homing Beacon on the captured prisoner to reveal the sector of the rebel base, Planetary Conquest to conquer a planet in the sector, and then deployed two assault carriers from the build queue to this newly conquered planet.
On turn 3, the rebels attacked me with all of the ships they had, including fighters from the rebel base (which was adjacent to where I had landed).  I still had an assault carrier left after the first round of combat and decided to retreat with it and all my ground forces (an AT-AT and two Stormtroopers).  As a result of this setup, there were no adjacent imperial systems, so I was allowed to retreat to an unoccupied system, and the system containing the rebel base had no units in it nor rebel loyalty.  The planet I picked to retreat to was the planet containing the rebel base.

Is this a valid retreat, and if so, what happens?  Does it change if the rebels versus the empire initiate the combat next to the rebel base?  Does it matter that rebel units in the combat came from the rebel base?

If the rebel player has not revealed their base before the beginning of combat, and the system it is on is unoccupied, it is a valid retreat location.  This is true regardless of which player's turn it is or whether or not units involved in the combat came from the rebel base.

Justification

The rules for retreat state:

  A player must choose to retreat to a system that contains his units or
  one of his loyalty markers, if able. He cannot retreat to a system
  that contains his opponent’s units.

  If there are no adjacent systems containing his units or loyalty markers, he can retreat to any adjacent system that does not contain
  units.
  A player cannot retreat to a system that his opponent moved units from to initiate the combat

Meanwhile, the rules for the rebel base state:

  The “Rebel Base” space is not a system.

  When Imperial ground units move into the system, the base is revealed
  after all movement is completed, before resolving combat.

  The Rebel player may optionally reveal his base at any time during one
  of his turns of the Command Phase

Since the rebel base is not a system, units coming from it to participate in combat do not change the situation since units must come from a system to impose a retreat restriction ("A player cannot retreat to a system that his opponent moved units from").

Also as a result of the rebel base not being a system, as long as it is unrevealed, it does not change the retreat eligibility of the system on which it is hidden.  If the rebel base is not revealed and the system on which it is hidden is unoccupied and neutral, then it is a valid retreat location for the empire (so long as there are no imperial systems adjacent to the battle).

If the empire retreats with ground forces, the base is revealed as a a result of having imperial ground forces there and a second battle will ensue.  If the empire still has some forces (such as tie fighters or other ground troops) in the first battle location, the first battle should be concluded before beginning the second rebel base battle.

If the rebels initiated the combat next to their base however, things get a little more complicated because this combat occurs during the rebels' turn.  One consequence of this is that if the empire retreats to the rebels base, the rebels will go first in the resulting combat because it is still their turn (despite the fact that the empire was the one that moved the units that initiated combat).  But more importantly, on the rebels' turn the rebels can reveal their base before initiating combat to prevent it from being a valid imperial retreat location.

Note that the July 2016 FAQ errated away the very problematic "at any time" phrasing in when the rebels could reveal their base.  It now reads:

  If the Rebel player wishes to optionally reveal his base, he can only
  do so at the start of one of his turns of the Command Phase, before
  using one of his leaders.

If the rebels do not reveal their base before attacking an imperial fleet next to their base, however, the empire can still retreat to their base's system.

Aside

Before the errata to when the rebels could reveal their base, the "at any time" clause lead to a glaring timing question, with two possible interpretations:

By the point at which the empire has declared a retreat to the rebel base, it will happen; if the rebel player wants to prevent the empire from retreating to the rebel base, they must reveal the base before the empire declares their retreat.
If the empire declares a retreat to the rebel base, the rebel player can chose to reveal the base in response and invalidate the retreat.

The original rules didn't clarify on this point, but drawing on timing philosophy from other games actually leads to the same result as the errata gives us.

There are two primary philosophies for timing conflicts in games: stacks (such as in Magic the Gathering) and priority queues (like Android Netrunner).  In a stack system, a player can use an "any time" action to respond to another player's action and the responding effect happens first.  Stacks are "last in first out".  In a priority queue system, players can only have their action happen first if the rules specifically define it as superseding the other player's action (such as preventing damage in Netrunner), and otherwise it resolves after.  Queues are "first in first out", unless one thing is given preference by a specific rule.

The rules of Star Wars Rebellion give a lot of clear indicators that it is a priority queue game in terms of timing.  Every part of the game where players interact, there is a defined order for the action, the reaction, and the resolution.  Even with combat tactics cards, there is a separate step during which the recipient of damage gets to play damage block cards, meaning even one of the most classic interrupting actions (blocking damage) must be played in its specific order defined by the rules.  The conclusion of this is that option 1 (defined above) is the case; if the rebels want to prevent the empire from retreating to the rebel base, they must reveal their base before the empire decides where to retreat.  The errata supports this theory by specifying a time in the turn order when the rebels can reveal their base that is distinctly before any other actions that would be impacted by this.


How much does the difficulty change based on game 1 I have just started playing the game and realized that it would be a very different game depending on which virus gets the sticker in the first game.  I am wondering if my think is correct and which color would be the easiest verse the hardest?

February spoilers:

   I am talking about the virus which becomes incurable in February of the game

There is some difference in difficulty based on which color becomes faded; but shouldn't change things very much compared to other random chance elements in the game.

As a whole, Blue being faded makes for the most difficult games.

The biggest difference between the colors is that they each have a different number of connections to other colors. This increases the number of faded counters that will end up on other colors on average.

Based on this statistic, blue is a difficult color to get, because it has 13 total connections to other colors, compared to 9 for Black, 8 for Yellow, and 6 for Red.

There are some other factors such as the number of internal connections; but ultimately which random cards you draw and when both from the player card deck and the infection deck will have a bigger luck-based impact on how difficult it is compared to which of the 4 colors ends up faded.

For more details and analysis, see here (where I got my numbers from).


How does one make foam inserts for games? I've got several games that have all the pieces rattling around in the box, each set of pieces stored in its own Ziplock bag. But I'd really rather have my own custom inserts.

I looked into making vacum-formed inserts out of plastic, but construction of such a machine was too much work, and in my area there are no companies willing to make a  "run" of a single formed piece.

So I thought of getting foam and cutting it to shape around all the bits, but I haven't found a good guide about how to measure the cuts, and what types of foam are better for this.

Any advice? I'm willing to accept "You're wrong! You have to be doing [something else] instead!"

I'm not sure if this would work well for you, as you didn't mentioned exactly what type of things you're transporting, but I'll throw it out there as a posibility for when you need to transport larger items (eg, I have a wh40k scale titan that I built for a friend when the Armageddon rules came out)

find a container of a suitable size for transporting the items
get two heavy duty plastic bags, each larger than the container (can be lighter weight, but then it won't be as durable.  The more in/out bits the item to be cushioned has protruding from it, the larger the bag you'll need.
get enough spray foam from the hardware store to fill the container.
find a couple of heavy twist ties
tape a bag to the tube for the spray foam, leaving as much space as possible for the bag to expand.  Do not fill the bag with air, only open it enough to get the tube on and secure the bag's opening.
If using more than one can of spray foam, prepare the other bag, too.
place the first bag into the box, and fill it part-way with foam, then set the item onto the bag, and fill the bag until it's takes up about half of the empty space in the box.  (you may have to move the spray tube to the next can and/or just use a bag per can ... more bags means the foam will separate into more pieces)
place the second bag on top, and close the lid as best you can, with the tube sticking out the side, and fill the bag with foam 'til it starts trying to come out the container.  (note -- some spray foams continue to grow after spraying ... it's a good idea to pay attention to how it grows w/ the first bag, so you can be prepared)
let cure

It works well for packing stuff once, but the foam sets up fairly hard, and so you sometimes have to break the foam when removing the item, which makes it less useful for repacking multiple times.

You might also be able to just place all of the items in the bottom of a shallow box, use a single bag of foam over it, then once cured, flip the whole thing over to have little recesses for each piece.

...

If the question was simply 'how do I keep the pieces from rattling together', I'd go with egg-crate foam; you place the pieces in the valleys of the foam, put another piece on top, then compress the whole thing together.  For anything but stuff with really fine and/or delicate parts, it works great.

...

If that still isn't enough for you, and you really wanted to make one of those boards with various sized holes in it, then you'll need lots of free time, some sheets of foam (but not too rubbery ... it seems to attract hair and dirt), contact cement, a few sharp craft knives, and some free time.

For each tray, you'll need two pieces of foam -- one to hold the piece, and one as a 'bottom' to the tray.  The bottom should be stiffer, but fairly thin, such as camping pad.  The other one should be thicker, but 'softer' material, tall enough to sufficiently hold the piece laying down.  You should be able to find this at fabric stores, as it's used for upholstering.  You'll then want one of the thin but stiffer pieces as a lid to the whole thing.

You're only going to be cutting the pieces that are thicker and softer.  For each hole, you'll want to cut it just under the size of the piece it's going to hold.  How much smaller depends on how soft the material is.  (the softer it is, the smaller you'll want the hole, basically, you want to wedge the piece in the hole and it to hold firmly if it's heavy such as metal figures; you want it less tight if it's lightweight with more delicate parts).  Cut all the way through to the bottom.

Once you've got all of the holes cut in the sheet, use the contact cement to attach the cut piece of foam to one of the bottoms.  Make sure to read the warnings on contact cement; they're not kidding when they say shut off the pilot lights in the house as it's highly flamable.  I'd also recommend using a disposable brush (or a scrap of foam), as it's a pain to clean up after.

Once you're all done, you have a series of trays that you can stack together, and then put the lid on it, and transport.  (although, it also helps to identify a container to set it all into first, and make them to fit the container for easier transport)


Miniature painting - what does it mean to seal the model? I was watching a couple of miniature painting tutorials and both times the narrator referred to "sealing" the model.  I'm not quite sure what he meant by this.  What does sealing a model refer to?

Sealing a model means applying a coat of a transparent and durable protective layer after painting. Normally this is a clear varnish. After leaving your painted model to thoroughly dry, you brush or spray it on. This helps prevent chipping and flaking of your paint job during subsequent transportation and gaming.

You have a basic choice of gloss or matte finish, depending on whether you like your models more reflective or not.

The main downside of sealing is that it makes applying further paint changes or touch ups very difficult. So be sure you're satisfied with your paint job before you seal!


Pilgrimage World with Consume 2x action--how many points? When consuming 4 goods on the Pilgrimage World using the 2x VP consume action, what is the total number of points that should be received: 6 or 7?
The Card: "Discard all remaining goods to gain that number -1 VPs"
The Instructions: "Discard all goods (possibly after using other consume powers) to gain VP chips equal to one less than the number of goods discarded"
Consume Card: "Receive twice as many VP chips as you would have normally received in this phase"
My interpretation

Six points. Determine how many victory points that you will receive normally, and then double them. You would normally receive 3 VP, so it should now be 6.

My wife's interpretation

Seven points. You would normally take 4 VP, then return one. So now you should take 8 and return one.

I'm smart enough to know that my wife's interpretation is right. But who's actually right?

The rules say (page 6):

  Players who chose Consume: 2x VPs double the number of victory point
  chips — but not any other effects — that their consume powers provide.

The consume power on Pilgrimage World defines the number of victory points you get for consuming a number of goods.  Consuming one good is zero points, two goods is one point, three goods is two points, and so on.  Then, the Consume 2x doubles the amount provided by Pilgrimage world.  In the situation you described, the player consuming 4 goods would get 6 points.


Selling properties while owing another player Can I sell properties to a player while I have to pay another player?
I was wondering if I land on a player's building and I have to pay him or her but I don't have money, however I have a property that another player would like to buy. Can I sell it to this player?

You can sell houses and hotels to the bank (at 50% value).
You can sell empty property to another player even if it is mortgaged.

SELLING PROPERTY... Unimproved properties, railroads and utilities
(but not buildings) may be sold to any player as a private transaction
for any amount the owner can get; however, no property can be sold to
another player if buildings are standing on any properties of that
color-group. Any buildings so located must be sold back to the Bank
before the owner can sell any property of that color-group.
Houses and
hotels may be sold back to the Bank at any time for one-half  the
price paid for them. All houses on one color-group must be sold one by
one, evenly, in reverse of the manner in which they were erected. All
hotels on one color-group may be sold at once, or they may be sold one
house  at a time (one hotel equals five houses), evenly, in reverse of
the manner in which they were erected.
MORTGAGES... Unimproved
properties can be mortgaged through the Bank at any time. Before an
improved property can be mortgaged, all the buildings on all the
properties of its color-group must be sold back to the Bank at half
price. The mortgage value is printed on each Title Deed card. No rent
can be collected on mortgaged properties or utilities, but rent can be
collected on unmortgaged properties in the same group.
In order to
lift the mortgage, the owner must pay the Bank the amount of the
mortgage  plus  10% interest. When all the properties of a color-group
are no longer mortgaged, the owner may begin to buy back houses at
full price. The player who mortgages property retains possession of it
and no other player may secure it by lifting the mortgage from the
Bank. However, the owner may sell this mortgaged property to another
player at any agreed price. If you are the new owner, you may lift the
mortgage at once if you wish by paying off the mortgage plus 10%
interest to the Bank. If the mortgage is not lifted at once, you must
pay the Bank 10% interest when you buy the property and if you lift
the mortgage later you must pay the Bank an  additional  10% interest
as well as the amount of the mortgage.
BANKRUPTCY... You are dec


When turning in a mission, do you have to be on the mission hex to complete a mission, or is anywhere in the system acceptable? In Xia, Legends of a Drift System, one can receive missions to go to certain locations and do such things as conduct negotiations or pick up contraband.  In order to achieve this step of this mission, is it necessary to go to that system's "mission" location, or is it sufficient to enter that system's tile?

Yes, you must go to the mission point (!) to complete a mission.

Source: http://www.faroffgames.com/images/games/xia-legends-of-a-drift-system/Xia_Rulebook.pdf

Look at the top left section of page 14


What is the best starting planet in Race for the Galaxy (base set) I've seen stats on BGG which include expansion sets but couldn't find stats on just the base set. I would like to know which starting planet has the highest probability of winning, which has the second highest, etc.

Based on experience, I believe Earth's Lost Colony and Alpha Centauri are above average but I'd love to see stats based on thousands of games played (or more) if available.

I don't have stats, but the conventional wisdom is that production/consumption strategies are dominant in the base set, so ELC is generally thought of as the best. New Earth vs. Alpha Centauri seem like a toss-up to me for second.


What type of Pokémon coins are these? I have no idea where they came from or what they are, if any one knows I would greatly appreciate an answer.

These are Metal Pokémon Tazos from Taiwan.

They were distributed as promotional items in Frito-Lays or Smiths products, more specifically, I believe these came in Cheetos packets.

They came in 3 sizes, but these seem to be the small variant.


Is there a portable / travel / pocket Dixit, without a large / bulky board but same riddling gameplay? I've read Differences between Dixit versions?, and the BoardGame Geek "Dixit product guide" which help, but I'm interested in something more specific.

Is there a version/expansion of Dixit that has the same "riddling/storytelling" element as the main game, but can be played with just cards? (therefore, can be easily transported in just a pocket or without taking up much room in a bag)

I've seen Dixit Jinx which at first glance looked like exactly what I'm talking about, but apparently as well as dropping the board it also has "abstract" cards resulting in, apparently, much more basic and limited riddles/stories/clues.

Dixit Odyssey is apparently playable standalone and looks like its board is much smaller (I could be mistaken from the photos). If the board folds up small, that'd be fine, I could just ditch the giant box, but it's hard to tell from the photos I can find. Some listings of expansions (example) talk as if they can be played standalone with other basic equipment but others say they need the full original.

I travel a lot and so the smaller space would be a big help. Games like Once Upon A Time are great for this, I can just ditch the box and slip the cards in a pocket or at the bottom of a bag.

Dixit appears to also be mostly about cards and riddling/storytelling (must confess I've not actually played it), but all the versions I can find appear to be either expansions, or come in a big box with a board.

I've seen a few comments various places that seem to say that some of the Dixit card-only expansions can be played as standalone games if you use something else (dice, paper) to keep score but I'm not clear about which this is true of or what would be needed.

There are no official portable Dixit version I'm aware of, but to play the game you need only 3 things:

Set of cards with artwork
Way to secretly vote for cards for each player
Way to track score

Expansions are just a sets of cards, so choose one you like most. For secret voting you can make a set of tokens with different colored backs and numbered fronts, just like in base game. Or you can use dice and reveal them simultaneously. And for scoring you can use just pen and paper or any counters that go up to 30. You might need to make a box/container too, as I think expansion box is bigger than necessary.
My friend did exactly this, although not for portability reasons, just because she liked set of cards from expansion the most, and it worked fine.


When can I use a power of a Keeper in Adventure Time Fluxx? Some keepers have powers. Can these powers only be used during the turn that you play the keeper or every turn whilst the keeper is in play?

In the official rules, it states:

  If a keeper has a special power, you must have the card on the table in front of you in order to make use of the power.

So as long as you have the keeper in front of you on the table, you can use its power.


How do fish and road building cards apply to bridges? How many fish does it take to build a bridge?

If you get a road building development/progress card how does that apply to bridges?

http://www.catan.com/service/combinations/fishermen-catan-rivers-catan says "If you pay 6 fish, you can build a bridge".

Meanwhile, the rules for the Rivers of Catan scenario specifically state that you cannot use the "Road Building" development card to build a bridge, and that would seem to extend to any combination of expansions/scenarios that replaces the normal development cards (including the Traders & Barbarians scenario, or the Cities & Knights progress cards).


Can an opponent kill Undercity Informer before you can sacrifice it? If I have four open mana, one of which is {B} to cast Undercity Informer with one mana remaining, if I go to sacrifice it, can the opponent respond with a kill spell to stop me sacrificing it? In this case is it better to wait till I have two mana open after casting it?

Normally, your opponent will not be able to stop you with a kill spell.
When a spell resolves; the active player gets priority:

116.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.

Normally if you are casting a creature spell, that means you are the active player; as you can normally only cast creature spells on your turn. Because you have priority, you can activate Undercity Informer’s ability; before your opponent had any chance to act. You pay the costs when you activate the ability, which includes sacrificing a creature. Whether you sacrifice Undercity Informer or a different creature; the ability is activated and on the stack. Only then does your opponent get priority.
Also, even if you do not choose to activate the ability the first chance you get; if your opponent casts a kill spell, then you can respond to that by activating the ability at that point.


Betrayal at House on the Hill scenario where a hero dies after using a haunt-related item If I have successfully used the ring to perform an exorcism (one of multiple required) and later that hero dies, does the exorcism still count? Or, does the successful attempt die with character who was holding the ring when he died?

In general, the heroes work toward a communal goal with a communal pool of successes.

I can't comment on the specific haunt you were playing, because I am not familiar with it, but as a general rule the successes that a hero achieves are shared, and the death of a hero does not invalidate the progress they made.


Name of dice-rolling board game There's a game where you roll (usually three) dice and then can combine them to claim items on the board. Play proceeds clockwise with each person using one, two, or three of their dice to claim resources, millitary power, peeks (find out what the next combat card will be) or (+2) dice modifiers from the board. The three resources are gold, wood, and stone.

In the winter of each year there's a combat phase and everyone fights the next card on the deck. There's a reward for those who win and a penalty for those who lose.

After each reward-claiming phase you can spend your resources to build structures to gain various bonuses and also victory points (which is how you win the game).

What's this game called?

Maybe you're talking about Kingsburg https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/27162/kingsburg

I haven't played it but I've watched reviews and it looks similar to what you describe.


How do I place stations in Ticket to Ride on Steam? I'm playing Ticket to Ride, Europe, online using the Steam version on a Macintosh. I understand the rules of stations, just not how to physically place on the game board. For example:

In this map I'm attempting a route from Madrid to Wien. My opponent has blocked me from Müchen to Wien. You can see in the lower right hand corner that I have 3 stations available. If I click on my stations I get the same dialog that I get if I click my avatar, the one that shows routes complete, train cards, route cards, and trains. Curiously, it does not list stations. I've tried all the modifiers, control, command, option, shift click etc...

I cannot drag to the made route, I cannot click on the cities where I want the stations. How do I place a station in the online version?

Just in case StartPlayer doesn't put in an answer. Once he does I'll mark his as correct.

  Have you tried dragging a card to the city? That's what you do in the
  iOS app. You said you tried dragging to the route and clicking on a
  city but not dragging wagon cards to a city.

  StartPlayer


Can Sundial of the Infinite interrupt multiple-card draws while drawing? I'm not quite sure about the interaction between the stack and multiple-card draws.

  120.2. Cards may only be drawn one at a time. If a player is instructed to draw multiple cards, that player performs that many individual card draws.

According to Is drawing multiple cards an atomic action?, this means that:

  "draw 2 cards" really means "draw a card, then draw a card". - diego

Now, my question is: Does that mean that a player, affected by a multiple-card draw (Divination for example), can draw one card and avoid drawing any more by activating Sundial of the Infinite inbetween individual draws?

No.

In order to activate an ability or cast a spell, a player must have priority. During the resolution of spells and abilities, players do not receive priority.

One advantage of declaring "multiple draws are done one at a time" is multiple card drawing cleanly interacts with cards like Abundance, Alhammarret's Archive, or cards that say, "whenever you draw a card"


Combined Catan player+player+bank transactions Consider the following Catan scenario:

Player A has 3 wheat. Wants ore.
Player B has 1 wheat + 1 ore. Wants brick.

Question: Is there any official rule which would explicitly explain if the following trade is legal or not?

Player B agrees to give 1 wheat + 1 ore, if he gets 1 brick in return.
Player A doesn't have brick yet, but he gets his fourth wheat from player B. Immediately exchanges 4 wheat to 1 brick in bank. Gives brick to B.

Note, that this is not equivalent to:

Player A gives 3 wheat for 1 ore.

...because, in this case, player B ends up with 4 wheat, not 1 ore. (He may still exchange wheat for ore in his turn, but until such time, he has more resources.)

No, this is not legal as written. This is really a series of three separate trades (one of them being with the bank), and two of them are giving a resource for free, which is forbidden by the rules.

The problem is that a trade can only involve 2 people, so a "triangular trade" must be done as separate trades. From the FAQ:

  Trade - Is a “triangular trade” permitted? On player A’s turn, are player B and player C allowed to trade with each other if afterwards one of them uses the obtained resource for trading with player A?

    No. Not only is a triangular trade forbidden, it is also unnecessary, because player B and player C each trades individually with player A and, thus, may trade whatever resource he has – provided that it meets the requirements of player A.

And:

  Trade - May I give away resources or buy services with them, for example, to avoid being bothered by the robber?

    No. On Catan, a trade always involves giving and taking resources. Consequently, Catan’s trade law does not contain a “trade” of something for nothing or for immaterial goods such as services.

If they really want to do this, and they trust each other, they can do the following trades:

A gives 3 wheat and gets 1 ore
B gives 4 wheat and gets 1 ore
A trades 4 wheat to the bank for 1 brick
A gives 1 brick and gets 1 ore

Those are 4 separate, legal trades that have the same result. But there's nothing stopping either player from choosing to stop after any given step; though doing so will hurt their chances of being trusted in future trades and even future games.


Looking for Card Game With Streaks of Ashes on the Face I am looking for a specific Card Game that my Grandma and Grandpa both played when they were younger.

They don't remember the rules, but it appears that the defining feature was that, after a player would win a round, they would take some ash from a fireplace and make a streak on their face with it.

I don't remember what they said the name is, but I do remember that it is a semi-inappropriate word.

Any kind of info (name, rules, etc.) would help!

Thank you so much!

Notes:
It is not "Oh, Hell"

It looks like a game that is known in dutch as black peeter (zwarte pieten), but it has several names.

  In Greece the game is called "mu(n)tzuris" (μου(ν)τζούρης, "smudged, smutted"), because winners used to smudge the loser with soot.

The goal of the game was to remove matching pairs. Players moved one card to the player to the left, receiving one from the left. But there was one unmatched card. So the one left with this card lost and got ash or some other stuff that was black and hard to remove from their face.


Do the shipping rules restrict my choices if all ships are empty? Under page 6 of the rules it states.

Loading/shipping rules: When shipping, players must follow these rules:

Each cargo ship will carry goods on only one kind.

Players may not load goods on a cargo ship if goods of that same kind are on one of the other two cargo ships.

Players may not load goods on a full ship.

On a player's turn, he must load goods if he can. However, he may only load one kind of goods.

When a players loads good of a kind, he must load as many of that kind as he can. A player cannot hold back goods where there is space on a cargo ship carrying the kind of goods he has. If a player has a kind of goods that can be loaded on several empty ships, he must choose the ship where he can load the most goods, leaving none behind, if possible.

If a player has several kinds of goods that he can load, he may choose freely, which goods to load. He need not choose the goods that would allow him to load the most barrels.

The bolded part above is what is confusing me. So say you only had 1 corn and all the ships are empty. Does this mean you are free to choose any ship? Or is this rule saying you must choose the largest ship?
I read the rule as saying you cannot choose a ship that is smaller than the amount of goods you have to ship, unless it's the largest of the only available ships.

The rule what you stated, but your wording is awkward. I would say:

  If a player has a kind of goods that can be loaded on several empty ships, he must choose a ship at least as large as the number of goods of that kind, leaving no goods behind. If no ships are large enough, that player must choose the largest ship.


Sleeving the dollar cards in Ca$h 'n Guns where the exact sleeve size doesn't exist I've recently received Ca$h 'n Guns (2nd edition) for my birthday, and I'm sleeving all the cards. The problem is that the "dollars" card have a very weird size (60x120 mm, or 2.36x4.72 in) and I can't find sleeves of the right size. I want to cover them, since those are the most used cards of the game.

The closest I've found (and the recommended one by most sites) are the Tarot size (70x120 mm, 2.76x4.72 in), which are 1 cm bigger on one dimension, or a smaller one (61x112 mm, 2.40x4.41 in).

What would you do? Use the bigger size sleeves or do some complicated stuff like having a smaller sleeve on one side of the card and another on the other side, with an overlapping section?

Putting the comments in an answer so we can "close" the case.

Honestly, I would just buy a second copy of the game. You're talking about a potential cost of $15-20 (for double sleeves) to protect the components that are handled the least (besides the diamond, of course). Furthermore, damaged cards would have almost no impact on the game, unless you're playing with card counters... but then just shoot the card counter!

The cards are certainly essential - they just aren't handled that much. Each card is shuffled at the beginning, dealt out and chosen during one round, and kept in a player's "stash" until the end of the game.


Could I play forever with this loop combination? Let it be my main phase: I got Omniscience on the field and one Clear the Mind in my graveyard and another one in my hand.

Could I then play forever?
Because I would never run out of cards, so these rules would never apply, right?

MTG Arena: If I continue to do this combo over and over again, would at some point my timer start to run out?

I assume your library is empty and your graveyard contains no other cards; otherwise you risk drawing something else (an Island?) and you'll have no Clear the Mind to cast anymore.

Even then, you cannot play forever; it's a "loop", but one with non-mandatory actions, and you'll have to use a shortcut to state how many times you want to perform the action.

  720.1b Occasionally the game gets into a state in which a set of actions could be repeated indefinitely (thus creating a “loop”). In that case, the shortcut rules can be used to determine how many times those actions are repeated without having to actually perform them, and how the loop is broken.

This loop is only useful if you have some other effect, e.g. Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind which turns your card draws into damage, or as you mention, Psychic Corrosion to mill your opponent.

(I don't know what happens in this situation in MTG Arena, I don't play it.)


Was a larger version of Chitin I: The Harvest Wars ever released? I owned Metagaming's Chitin I: The Harvest Wars (MicroGame 2) when I was a kid. I have a possibly flawed recollection that a larger bookshelf game using the Hymenoptera universe was released or possibly just planned. Does anyone know anything about it? I may also be confusing this with a similar game 3M or Avalon Hill game.

From my own research, it appears that a larger game based on the Hymenoptera universe was planned. There were a range of Chitin 25mm miniatures in the prototyping stage when Martian Metals was destroyed in a fire, pushing the release back. As Metagaming itself unfortunately went out of business a few years later, the larger game was never released.

Source: http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=99895


How to reduce slow starts at the beginning of the game? We recently played a game of Settlers of Catan where for the first 3 rounds none of us got any brick at all, so there was no road construction at all and it dragged a little. I'm not looking to reduce the randomness, but a slight alteration of the game setup could probably do the trick.

Here's what I've thought of:

Give players more starting resources. If everyone began with 2 of everything things could get going faster.
give everyone an extra free road at the beginning.

Are there any other good ways to give Catan a bit more of a jump start? I find if one player gets a slow start in the beginning (like no brick) they can get screwed for most of the game. Different players being strong in different resources is core to the entire game, but a tiny early lack of wood can make one player suffer through the entire thing.

Don't forget, you get a resource card for each resource you touch when you place your second settlement.

If you're still finding things going slow, here's some random ideas you can use:

For each player, remove a Year of Plenty or Road Building card from the deck, shuffle them up, and deal one to each player.  That should get things really going.
Give each player one extra road as suggested.
Let each player pick one extra resource when starting.
NEW - The first time any player rolls a 7 (i.e. this will only happen once), after placing the thief the player has the option of taking a resource from the pile matching the tile they just played the thief on instead of taking a resource from a player (yes, it rewards a little bit of luck, but it also softens the blow of the first thief a little).
NEW - The first time each player rolls the dice in the game, if they get any resources, they may take one extra of a resource they just received.


What is a good board game to use for a programming competition We recently had a programming competition where each team had to write an A.I. for the board game Broadside. It was perfect because the rules were simple enough that the teams had to concentrate on the basic idea of when and how to attack, and not on handling a number of esoteric rules. At the same time, it had really good gameplay rules so that the smarter A.I. had a strong advantage.

So, any suggestions for games that would be a good one for a programming competition? A perfect game would have:

Lack of existing readily available AI's
Handles 6+ players
Simple easily understood rules (no or few edge cases)
Enough depth so that the better AI has a strong advantage

Robo Rally (rules) could be interesting. Amusingly, the game itself is programming a robot, one of several (up to 8) on a game board.

Each player gets 9 random instruction cards per round and chooses 5 to play.  Then all the robots' moves are evaluated simultaneously (more or less).  Your robot can get pushed around or damaged by other robots as well as by conveyor belts and other board elements.  First robot to hit all the checkpoints in order wins.

You should have a few knobs to tweak here to make the challenge easier or harder:

Do the players know the board in advance, or does their AI have to deal with it dynamically?
The damage rules could be left out for simplicity, or left in for more complexity

It's possible this is too complex, but it's pretty well suited for this kind of contest, I think.

It's also an excellent board game to play in person, especially with other programmers.


What is this game with a 12x8 pegboard and 59 double sided pegs? I was wondering if anyone knows what this game is.
It has 59(maybe missing 1) pegs that are red on one side and wood color on the other.
It is a 12 x 8 Pegboard Game.
There are no markings on the inside or outside and it folds like a briefcase.
Everything is made of wood except the handle, rubber feet, and latches.

your pegboard looks like an earlier or a later edition of the plastic pegboard we have at the psychology museum. All pegs have two colors like yours. Among other things these and other pegboards were developed for testing dexterity in recruitment contexts and for testing and training eye-hand-coordination in neuropsychology. In neuropsychology it helps to assess neurological damages. Our version has the imprint "U.S.E.S. PEGBOARD". The abbreviation stands for "United States Employment Services". We got our exemplar donated though from the psychological laboratory of the Otto Wagner Hospital in Vienna, a psychiatry.


Changing decks in test of leadership in Arena? I created a throw away deck, and entered it as a test of an idea into the current "Test of Leadership" in Arena.
Now, it appears I am unable to modify or otherwise alter that deck?  Am I stuck with a crap deck for the next 4 days of this event?
Realize this is an Arena question, but I know several readers play it, and I never get Arena questions answered on Arqade...

I figured out the problem.  I'd taken my crap deck, and modified it significantly.  And put in a legendary creature that was not part of Strixhaven.  Because of this, the UI didn't allow me to modify my deck.  After I removed the legendary creature, the deck appeared in the UI again.


Identifying a word-guessing game based on the players' role A couple of years ago, I learned a game from a Chinese grad student that he didn't know an English name for. I'd love to know if anybody knows about it and has a name I could use when explaining it to others. Here's the way it works:

There need to be at least four people playing, but I don't know if there's a maximum number of players. The game takes place in rounds where one person is the game master (GM) for each round.

The GM writes words on pieces of paper. Every paper except for one has the same word on it, but the remaining paper has a related, distinct word. The GM puts the papers in a bowl so that players pick without anybody knowing who has what word, even the GM.

Then players go around and say something about the word on their paper. After everyone has said something, the GM calls for the players to vote on the count of three by pointing to who they believe has the distinct word.

The GM checks to see if the player with the most votes has the distinct word or not. If it's not somebody with the distinct word, that player is eliminated and the remaining players go around again and say something else.

This continues until either the player with the distinct word is caught or there are only two players left, at which point the distinct word player wins.

There were only six of us playing when I learned about the game, but the guy who taught us the game said that there were additional rules to keep it competitive when there were more players. I think he said a third word would be added or something like that.

I just watched a video on YouTube of people playing a Japanese card game called "A Fake Artist Goes To New York" which was similar to my game (link to that video). The most obvious difference is that mine requires no drawing. But another significant difference is that in my game, nobody knows whether they have the distinct word or not. Everyone wants to be vague in case theirs is the distinct one, and it may continue to be hard to tell if things are kept vague enough.

Is anybody familiar with this game?

I don't know if the game and the rules you played has a certain name, but the basis of this game looks like from Word Wolf, a Werewolf game with words. The rules you played might be a variation/house rules of this game.

Preparation: Players get their own words (or "role")

At least 4 participants, consisting of 1 GM and 3+ players
The GM thinks of 2 different-but-related words (e.g. "Tennis" and "Table tennis") and decides which one is the "villagers" (the majority) and the "werewolves" (the minority; usually 1, but can be more if there are enough players)
The GM writes these words on pieces of paper the same amount as the "villagers" and "werewolves", then fold and shuffle them (or anything to prevent the words easily guessed by the players and the GM)
Each player then picks a paper and sees the words without telling anyone. They don't know if they are "villagers" or "werewolves"!

Playing: Players trying to guess if they are "villagers" or "werewolves" by discussing the words without revealing them. The "villagers" trying to hunt the "werewolves", and the "werewolves" trying to mix-in with or deceive the "villagers". This phase seems to have many variations, but usually free-talk with time-limit (just like the original Werewolf)

The GM decides how long the round will be (e.g. 5 minutes), then starts the game
Each player is free to say/ask something to gather information based on the other players' response, while at the same time trying their best to hide their identity from anyone
When the round ends, the players simultaneously vote on who is the "werewolves" (a.k.a "lynching")
If the majority votes are on a "werewolves", then the "villagers" win. Otherwise, the "werewolves" win. (It seems there's no default tie-breaking system, though usually it's done by re-voting on the players with the tied vote only)

That's the basis of the game, though it is easily extended with variations/house rules, such as (the naming is arbitrary; it's my own idea):

Reversal: if the majority votes are on the "werewolves", then they are given a chance once to guess the majority word. If it's correct, then the "werewolves" win
Turn-based: instead of the time-limit, the GM decides how many turns in a round, then each player has 1 chance to say/ask something in each round
Sequential: instead of free-talk, each player in sequential says/asks something
Long game: just like the original Werewolf, instead of a single independent round, it is played until all "werewolves" got hunted (the "villagers" win), or the amount of "werewolves" equals the "villagers" (the "werewolves" win). Each round, the "lynched" player is eliminated from the game
Outsider: The 3rd word is added, and is deemed as "villager"
and possibly many more...


Pokémon energy cards with circled numbers I have these Grass type energy cards in my collection, they're from 2017, fairly new. But I have no idea why they're numbered. I can't even remember where I got them from. The numbers are on each card in a white and blue circle, not quite at the bottom, right corner.

These are from Sun & Moon Trainer Kit: Alolan Sandslash & Alolan Ninetales, the first instance of Trainer Kit that uses those circled numbers instead of the previous approach of using set number for purpose of sorting the two half decks for a demonstration game.


Can a Thorncaster Sliver's ability have deathtouch? If I have a Thorncaster that has deathtouch, does its "1 damage to target creature or player" have deathtouch?

At first I thought no.  Because the rules say "Combat Damage".

But then I was reading on wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Deathtouch and one of the "Rulings" says:

  The rule that causes creatures dealt damage by a source with
  deathtouch to be destroyed applies to any damage, not just combat
  damage.

I am not sure if these "Rulings" that are listed on that site are official.  I can't imagine them making them up, but I want to know for sure before I pursue deathtouching silvers with multiple Thorncast abilities.

Because if this is true, then a few Slivers with Deathtouch and a Thorncaster out can clean out most blockers...

So, does anyone know where I can access the "Official" rulings for deathtouch?  (Something I could show a judge to prove that it is allowed.)

Thorncaster Sliver's ability works with deathtouch. (The ability doesn't have deathtouch; the Sliver has deathtouch.)

You can go have a look directly in the comprehensive rules if you like - though generally (and in that case), wiki.mtgsalvation.com has copied the relevant part of the comp rules into the articles. As it says:

  702.2c A creature with toughness greater than 0 that's been dealt damage by a source with deathtouch since the last time state-based actions were checked is destroyed as a state-based action.

It doesn't say "combat damage" in that rule, just "damage" - so any sort of damage dealt by a creature with deathtouch to another creature causes that creature to be destroyed. This is all you should need to convince someone, especially a judge, who ought to be familiar with the rules in the first place. So yes, the combination of a pinging ability like Thorncaster's with deathtouch works how you want it to.

If you need a reminder, it's right there on the card in the reminder text, at least in core sets: "(Any amount of damage this deals to a creature is enough to destroy it.)" Reminder text isn't actually official rules, but they would certainly have written "combat damage" there if it's what they meant.

(You say "the rules say combat damage" - perhaps referring to 702.2b? But that's talking about the definition of lethal damage in the context of deathtouch, which matters when you're assigning damage to multiple blockers.)

The rulings on those wiki pages aren't official per se, but I would expect they're generally correct, and many are probably copied from rulings on cards on Gatherer. Sometimes you'll find the same set of rulings copied onto many cards with the same keyword/ability, but I don't think that ever got done with deathtouch.


Going to ground behind a Aegis defense line If a unit goes to ground while behind an Aegis defense line (or some other "high" terrain), do we still consider them visible and potential targets for other shooting attacks?

After all, they're lying on the ground behind a wall.

The same rules of true Line Of Sight apply regardless of gone-to-ground status.  We can assume the enemy has radios, some M41 version of IR scanners, etc and knows there's somebody there.

From a practical standpoint, it's just bad game balance/design to allow someone to shoot you without moving if you weren't able to shoot them on your turn.

Warhammer 40K is very much an abstract game played with pieces that look like soldiers.  It does not try to be a simulation.


What if two players are eligible for the Express bonus? The longest path for Adam are ten trains while Bella and Celia both has a longest path of fifteen trains, i.e both Bella and Celia has the longest path and thus are eligible for the Express Bonus/European Express.

Are the express bonus points divided between Bella and Celia, do they both receive the entire bonus of ten points, or is the express bonus skipped?

The rules, p7:

  If several players are tied for the longest path, they each receive the 10 point bonus from the European Express card.


Do you still get experience for wounding an opponent who makes a successful armour save? In many Necromunda (1st ed) scenarios, you gain experience for causing a wounding hit. But if that wounding hit doesn't cause a roll of the injury dice due to a successful armour save, does the gang fighter who rolled the wound dice still get the experience?

According to yaktribe's FAQ, which cites the 2000 living rule-book (LRB), the answer is no:

  Q: Do I get experience awards for shots that I take that hit a target and then are saved by the targets armour since I did wound him?

  A: [LRB] Per the Armour Rules on page 18 of the LRB 'If the dice roll is sufficiently high then the wounding shot has struck the armour and not hurt the wearer at all.' This means you do not get the experience award. This also holds true for all game mechanics that prevent a wound from being inflicted, like say event deck cards, wyrd powers, skills, etc.


Magic: The Gathering - Can Charge Counters be put on cards that don't "use" counters themselves? Some cards allow you to add counters, or move counters, to other cards.  Would you be allowed to do this onto a card that doesn't actually use any counters at all?

For example:
Would Coretapper be allowed to put a charge counter on itself?  What about putting one on something like Yotian Soldier?

I understand that a Charge Counter is not a +1/+1 counter, however having them around can be useful for things like Power Conduit.

Yes, you can put Charge Counters anywhere that the ability/spell/whatever allows. For example, Coretapper's ability is limited to "target artifact", so any artifact it can target is fine. This sort of thing is exactly what Power Conduit is designed to take advantage of.


Tamiyo's Journal and the Legend Rule The Legend Rule states:

  If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same
  name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their
  owners' graveyards.

This is just a rule clarification so my brother believes me, but is everything listed below legal?

tap Tamiyo's Journal and sacrifice three clues to find another Tamiyo's
play it for 5 mana and put the tapped Tamiyo's into the graveyard
tap the untapped Tamiyos and sacrifice three more clues

Yes, that's perfectly legal, assuming that you started with 6 clue tokens. Hard to point to a specific rule saying so, but there's 2 things to keep in mind:

1 - The legend rule, which you quoted, doesn't say anything about restrictions on which of the duplicates you have to choose, so there's no reason you can't choose the tapped one to get rid of and the untapped one to keep.

2 - Tamiyo's Journal doesn't care where the clue tokens came from; it doesn't have to be the same tokens that it created.

Of course, as described, you will get no benefit from this: you'll have just wasted 3 clue tokens and 5 mana. But it could be good with various combinations.


Origin of scores for letters in Scrabble (in relation to their frequency in a langauge) In Scrabble, each letter is worth a number of points. Typically, the rarer the letter, the more score it has, see Scrabble letter distribution and score.

Does anyone know how these scores are being assigned? (Or modified, if needed.) Is it based on some gut-feeling, or a formula/algorithm?

As I see, the score is proportional to surprisal (from information theory), i.e. \log(1/p), where p is the frequency of a given letter in a given language. Just I am not sure, if such scoring is planned mathematically, or appeared as some emergent behavior (e.g. other scoring seems unfair, unnatural, etc...).

That is touched upon in the official History of Scrabble by Hasbro, the owner of Scrabble.

  Legend has it Butts studied the front page of “The New York Times” to make his calculations for the letter distribution in the game. This skilled, cryptographic analysis of our language formed the basis of the original tile distribution, which has remained constant through almost three generations and billions of games.

I have misplaced (or more likely given away, again) my copy of Everything Scrabble, but I remember bits of what I think I remember reading there (hows that for reliable source?).

From what I remember reading, the letter distribution in Scrabble has continuously slid in favor of people who memorize things like 2-Letter Lists and Q without U words. Even with two well-read players who have never really studied the English language as it relates to Scrabble, the distribution is off-kilter for the normal vocabulary in 2015.

It's not your imagination, there are too many Is. People who know that QI and ZA are words, really tip the value (and risk) of those letters.

Only Hasbro can change Scrabble, but Words With Friends is gaining popularity in part because the tiles more closely represent the way the English language is used today.

Should the tile values change with the times?

Is ZA really a word?

Has X become the best letter in the alphabet?

These are hotly debated subjects.

The history of how the tiles got their distribution seems pretty clear, even if it is described in the official history as a legend. What is less clear is the origin of the point value of individual letters. I think the point value is a part of the same thing, unchanged since the Scrabble name, but that the values were printed on the scorecard, not the tiles. Unfortunately, I have no citation for that, it's one of those things that I read somewhere - or maybe I saw an antique scorecard on display - who knows? But I am fairly certain that the official Scrabble point value per letter has remained unchanged along with the distribution of 100 letters.


Go game board - what is this on the back? The back of my (19×19) go board looks like this:

Does anyone know what this is? Is this for a different game?

Looks like a board for Xiangqi, with the river in the middle and the palaces on either end.


Board games sponsored for an agenda? This is mostly for curiosity, I've been thinking of board games from a publishers' point of view lately and was wondering if there are any games out there that have been published to pursue some other agenda (political, religious, etc.)? I specifically mean a game where a sponsor would want to remain anonymous, wouldn't want the board game to be branded with their visual brand.

[Note: This answer focuses on the history of this subject, citing some famous examples, as opposed to contemporary propagandistic games, which I have no doubt exist, although I can't comment on the anonymity issue. Generally, designers are proud to be associated with such games, but we do seem to be entering a new era of propaganda, with definite emphasis on obfuscation of sources.]

You will want to look into the predecessor of Monopoly, known as The Landlord's Game.

There is a delicious irony here in that, while the game was designed to teach about the dangers of certain aspects of capitalism, the later Monopoly, the most commercially successful boardgame in US history, glorifies practices that Landlord's inventor, Elizabeth Magie, was cautioning against.

From the wiki:

  The game was created to be a "practical demonstration of the present system of land grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences". She based the game on the economic principles of Georgism, a system proposed by Henry George, with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants. She knew that some people could find it hard to understand why this happened and what might be done about it, and she thought that if Georgist ideas were put into the concrete form of a game, they might be easier to demonstrate. Magie also hoped that when played by children the game would provoke their natural suspicion of unfairness, and that they might carry this awareness into adulthood.

There were also earlier boardgames designed to teach moral lessons to children and reinforce religious beliefs, including Snakes & Ladders, Mansions of Happiness, and The Game of Pope or Pagan (aka The Siege of the Stronghold of Satan by the Christian Army.)

Nuclear War, the card game, is a famous recent example.  Created during the height of the Cold War, it demonstrated the principle of Mutual Assured Destruction in that the game very often results in all players losing.

Also of note is utilization of games by think tanks such as the Rand Corporation. John Von Neumann, the originator of Game Theory, was a consultant at Rand starting in the late 1940's.


Is "Longest Road" an overrated strategy in Settlers of Catan? At one level, "longest road," is an "obvious" way to win the game.

At another level, could it be too obvious? That is, a player clearly pursuing this strategy might stir too much fear in opponents, who will then try to break up the road, or hamper him in other ways?

Also it requires an abundance of certain materials, namely wood and brick. Could a single-minded focus these materials hurt a player's game in other ways?

Is there a "better" way to build the longest road, i.e. build settlements with "short" roads some optimal distances apart, then connect them "naturally" toward the end, when opponents' attentions are focused elsewhere?

Do people in your games use a "longest road" strategy too much, or conversely, "too little?"

Like many great games, Settlers of Catan rewards those players who are willing to be adaptable.

Doggedly centering your strategy, from the beginning, on obtaining wood and clay (to the exclusion of other goods) and building road after road with it, is likely to secure you a certain number of victory points.  That number is nowhere near enough to win you the game - you're going to have to do other things with your time and resources at some point to clinch first place.

Does the Longest Road bonus incentivise road building?  Of course it does, to some extent, just as the Largest Army bonus incentivises buying cards.  What it mostly does, though, is ensure that there is competition in various areas of the game.  If only one player cares about roads, the Longest Road bonus will fall to them without any effort on their part.  Likewise for Largest Army if only one player is bothering to buy cards.  However, gamer psychology is such that, given an obvious bonus to be obtained, players will not be able to bear letting it go easily, and at least some of them are likely to compete vigorously for it.

As such, I see the Longest Road bonus less as "a strategy" and more as a nice little, well, bonus... if you're brave enough to enter into a competition with other players over it.  Competition is necessary for a game to work, but it can, as you rightly point out, paint a general target on your forehead, or make enemies of specific other players.  If that's not the type of thing you like to get involved in, you might indeed want to adopt a more surreptitious strategy.

Certainly I would tend to prefer not aiming for the Longest Road early: let other people set themselves up as "the one to beat" by gaining an early lead.  Keeping an eye on the road situation, and perhaps setting yourself up to win with a late road-building spurt, is great though.  As I say though, adaptability is key: if everyone in your group fancies themselves as road-builders, it's a very risky strategy.  If no one else is doing it... you'd be a fool not to pile in there as quickly as possible, really!


Why is the Pandemic starting position always Atlanta? Why did the creators of the game Pandemic decide that the starting position for each game would be Atlanta rather than any of the other possible cities on the board?

Because Atlanta is the home of the CDC. And since we all live in America they are responsible for diseases everywhere...

EDIT: I just checked the English and German rules and now understand your confusion. The German rules explicitly say that this is why players start in Atlanta. For some reason the English rules skip that part.

  Danach nimmt sich jeder Spieler die farblich passende Spielfigur und stellt sie in Atlanta auf, wo sich das Zentrum für Seuchenkontrolle und -prävention (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) befindet.

Which roughly translates to:

  Then every player takes the matching pawn and places it on Atlanta - where the CDC is based.


Does MTG have a card with a mana-generating ability that has a target and is thus not a mana ability? Just out of curiosity: The rules say:

  605.1a An activated ability is a mana ability if it meets all of the following criteria: it doesn’t have a target, it could add mana to a player’s mana pool when it resolves, and it’s not a loyalty ability. (See rule 606, “Loyalty Abilities.”)

So, are there currently abilities on cards that do have a target, but could add mana on resolve and are no loyalty abilities, thus using the stack?

I'm asking because until recently I falsely believed that all abilities that generate mana are mana abilities and are thus exceptions to the "abilities go to the stack" rule. But it wouldn't be MTG if rules didn't have exceptions to exceptions, so it'd be good to know which cards to look out for. Even if some of them are joke cards like Unglued it'd be nice to know them just for the sake of knowing.

Yes, Deathrite Shaman is one such card.  One of its abilities:

  {T}: Exile target land card from a graveyard. Add one mana of any color.

In fact, its oracle page even addresses this ability:

  Because the first ability requires a target, it is not a mana ability. It uses the stack and can be responded to. (2016-06-08)


Where can I find "Risk Express" dice? Risk Express (or Age of War if you prefer) is a great game and I'd like to create my own version. That's easy, the game contains just a bunch of cards and 8 dice. I'm interested in such dice, they are six sided, but have army symbols (a cannon, a dragoon(?), musketeers e.t.c.) instead of numbers.

Where can I find such dice? Not necessarily with the same symbols, anything war related may do, I'll re-theme the game anyway, no sci-fi or modern guns though, I want to keep it in ancient, medieval or Napoleonic age. I searched a lot in dice shops but found nothing...

On the BoardGameGeek Store, they sell an item called "Rattlebones" Prototyping Dice. These dice have snap-on faces so you can changes how many times a given colour face appears on each, and in addition you can draw symbols on those faces.


Do you collect $200 in Monopoly if you don't ask for it? If a player passes Go but doesn't ask for their money and the next player plays, does the first player still get their money if they ask only after the next round is played? I could not find this in the Monopoly rules.

Yes, you still collect $200.

From the rulebook:

  Each time a player’s token lands on or passes over GO,
  whether by throwing the dice or drawing a card, the Banker pays
  him/her a $200 salary.

No mention of the player "asking" for the money or anything. It says the Banker pays him, so the Banker pays him.


Must take net damage vs prevent net damage If a runner hits a shi.kyu can the runner use guru davinder to prevent the damage and both effects?

Can the runner decide to take the net damage and then prevent the net damage with guru davinder?

or

If the runner does number 1, does that satisfy the "OR" condition and the effect is finished? Or does the runner have to add the asset to their score area now, since they did not take the net damage?

The confusion is that shi.kyu says "MUST take". Which implies, unless they take the netdamage one of the conditions has to be met. So the runner would be forced to do the second condition.

Firstly, any damage that doesn't have "cannot be prevented" can be prevented.

Secondly, if you choose to take damage instead of adding Shi.Kyu to your score area, it doesn't go to your score area, even if you prevented some/all of that damage.

So yes, it's a valid play to choose taking damage, have it prevented with guru davinder (or any other damage preventer, this is not relevant part), and don't take Shi.Kyu.
There already is similar ruling regarding Wotan's last two subroutines and Data Raven's encounter ability Wotan and Raven ruling.

A curious person can find different ruling on seemingly similar case Snatch and Grab ruling. The difference is that S&G is worded "do X to Y". "To" implies [cost:effect] relations, and as such preventing the cost from being paid prevents the effect from happening. Discussion on this case is here: BGG forum

To sum it up, here is a great excerpt from BGG post by CommissarFeesh:

  In short though; Data Raven gives you the choice of x (take a tag) or y (end the run). You must choose one of these effects to resolve. By choosing to resolve x, you completely negate y, even if you prevent x.
  Snatch and Grab though is do x to do y - if you never actually do x, then you haven't paid the cost for y.


Pandemic - Can an action be performed by different players during action phase? In Pandemic, can an action be performed by different players during action phase, by using Funded Event cards?
For example:
"Flexible Aid Package" allows a. player to perform 1-3 extra actions (by discarding cards).
Can this card be used by "player #2" while "player #1" is in the "action phase"?

No, Flexible Aid Package specifically says that "the current player" takes 1 additional action per card you discard.

So if player 2 uses Flexible Aid Package during player 1's turn, player 2 will discard 1-3 cards from their hand, and that will give player 1 extra actions. Player 2 cannot take the extra actions.

Same with the Borrowed Time event; it only gives the "current player" (the player who is taking their turn" the extra action.


Does mixing Dominion expansions lessen the power of card combinations in random kingdom setups? Although they can be mixed together, Dominion sets seem to have many cards that were designed to combo with other cards in the same set. Scout works better with the cards that are both victory cards and actions (Great Hall) or coins (Harem), rather than cards that are just Victory cards, such as those found in the basic set. Seaside's Treasure Map works really well with Warehouse's deck-digging ability. Cornucopia benefits from the Tournament Prizes that help diversify your deck.

Does mixing 3+ sets of Dominion together and selecting 10 random kingdom cards lead to games that are less focused on card interactions? In other words, does individual card quality become more of a driving factor?

Added: A fundamental property of Dominion is card interaction, so to claim (not that anyone has) that a certain expansion doesn't increase the amount of positive interaction between cards/sets would be quite a criticism of said expansion. It's possible, but I haven't seen it yet. (Of course, Alchemy does create a sort of artificial exterior game with the potions, and some dislike it for this reason. But I digress).

So what I should have said from the start is that every set is designed to make games more interesting, especially when combined with other sets. Also, the main way that I have developed strategy over the years is to look at a (random) set of 10 kingdom cards, and start looking at the interactions. As you'll see below, you can use (the cards that you add to your hand with) Scout for two major purposes: trashing, and discarding. So when Scout is in play, I quickly (?) decide if either of these is a viable option given the other cards out there, and then do the same for all the other cards and their main uses.

Consider the combo:
Golem (Tactician, then Library/Minion/etc)

There are other examples, but they aren't fresh in my mind (I quit playing after 2000 something games on isotropic, and 1000 on BSW...).

Added:
While I stand by my answer, it seems that the best answer to this question would involve, at the very minimum, an analysis of how every card interacts with [all the other] cards from other expansions. At worst, we'd have to consider all 10^14 possible sets of kingdom cards!

Here is my analysis of Scout:

Scout: Like the Apothecary, Scout can be used to add 3-4 cards to your hand (which may not have that great of a direct value - e.g. coppers/estates). Then you can combo (for different reasons, effects on your deck) this with:

Ambassador.
Warehouse
Vault (+ Tunnel = BOOM)
Apprentice
Transmute
Forge
Hamlet
Horse Traders
Young Witch
Hunting Party
Crossroads (!! Forgot about this one...)

Furthermore, with Hoard, the strategy of using Scout to get cards in your hand for the purpose of trashing opens up more possibilities. Scout is a good counter to Rabble. Scout might be the only +Action in the set, so then your only option to net an action would be to combine this with Golem, KC, or Throne Room. This is, of course, the last thing that crosses my mind when analyzing a set of 10 cards in-game.

And then there's Scheme, which in itself opens up combos with most Action cards!

Analysis of Black Market:

Besides gaining a card that no other player can have, Black Market opens up a unique set of possibilities due to its extra buy phase. So during the execution of Black Market, you can [put into] play all of the treasures in your hand, possibly leaving you with 1-2 Action cards. In any case, you still have the +$ to spend from those treasures! If the other cards are, say, Library or Minion, then you can draw a bunch more cards and have a longer turn. If you are left with a Tactician, then you can use that to start your next turn with 10 cards, and you still get to spend the money that was played during the Black Market!


Where do MTG spoilers come from and why are the images low quality? I'm quite new to MTG, joining just within the Khans block. I've seen spoilers for Fate Reforged and I'm wondering: if the spoilers came from Wizards then why do the images look like they've been taken with a bad camera phone?

Source:

Most spoilers coming directly from Wizards, or other authorized spoilers we get nice full sized images that are clear and easy to read. But occasionally we get spoilers taken from promotional items Wizards sends out. In this case the spoiler image was scanned or photographed from a calendar of events that Wizards provides for stores to put up and have the time and format of their FNMs, Pre-Releases, etc. The Mastadon is the promo for the release events and for that date it has a picture next to the date. As you can see here it is fairly small, about half the size of a normal card. That is why this one is such low quality.

The other main reason that spoilers from Wizards are low quality is that they spoiled them at a Con and the only images we have are ones people at the con took with their phones. For example when Crux of Fate was first spoiled the only pictures we had were from people that attended PAXAus, it wasn't until later that Wizards gave us higher quality images.


How do you score the Mayor in a city with no pennants? We played our first games with the Abbey & Mayor expansion tonight, and ran across a scoring question that's not precisely covered by the rules.  The rules are pretty simple:

The Mayor counts as a meeple, so you can't play him where another meeple is already present.
The Mayor counts as one follower for each pennant in the city.

What happens if a city with no pennants is closed (or the game ends) and the only meeple in the city is a Mayor?  Does that player score zero points for the city?

No points are scored.

From the Carcassonne Annotated Rules p58 (note 161)

  Question: Blue has a mayor in a city with no pennants. Does the city count as occupied? And if
  so, when the city is scored, will blue score points? Answer: The city is occupied. The mayor has no
  ‘strength’, so he counts as if there is no follower, and scores no points.


Choosing between Shanty Town and Village when both are in the Kingdom set? Shanty Town: +2 Actions, Reveal your hand. If you have no Action cards
  in hand, +2 Cards

  Village: +1 Card, +2 Actions

Occasionally I've had games where both of these are in the kingdom set and I don't really know which one to choose. Village is a sure thing, but Shanty Town offers the potential of getting 2 cards with the downside of sometimes getting none. I tend to prefer Village because you usually only want +2 Action cards in a deck running a fair amount of actions, and if you have a fair amount of actions you'll probably draw one with the Shanty Town and lose the +2 card bonus. In an action-thin deck Shanty Town could be more useful as you'd get the +2 cards more often, but often it would just degrade into a Moat because you don't have many actions to draw with those +2 cards to use the actions it gives you.

When should I take Shanty Town instead of Village? Is my analysis mostly correct? When should I chose to buy/gain a Shanty Town in general if its 2 effects (one being good in action decks, the other other being very bad) seem to have no synergy at all?

First, you have a mistake in your question: Shanty can give +2 cards, but sometimes it will only give zero (not the 1 that say in your second sentence).

1) In a standard village+draw engine, the vanilla Village is more useful because you will expect to have other actions in your hand, and so Shanty Town's bonus won't trigger.

2) If there are lots of non-terminals or an easy way to spam +Actions, then Shanty Town becomes more powerful because you have the ability to play the remaining actions in your hand and then use Shanty to trigger the draw.

3) Shanty is useful in early turns for increasing cycling. Shanty Town + Potion is a great opening for Apothecary or University games (less so for Scrying Pool because you'll eventually have lots of actions and not necessarily +Action cards).

4) Finally, Shanty is solid in plain Big Money games. If you have only one or two Shanty Towns in your deck, it is almost guaranteed to be a Lab (which is a $5 card).


Does "target Merfolk" imply "target Merfolk creature"? The new Ixalan card "River Heralds' Boon" says:

  Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature and a +1/+1 counter on up to one target Merfolk.

The subtype "Merfolk" can apply to non-creatures, including Merrow Commerce and Aquitect's Will. My reading of Comp Rules 114.2 is that an Aquitect's Will on the stack is not a legal target for the Boon, but what about Merrow Commerce? (Yes, I know it will normally be useless to put a +1/+1 counter on an enchantment. Maybe you're planning to cast Opalescence later on. Whatever.)

Could you target a creature and a Merrow Commerce, and put counters on each of them?

Yes, you can target either a Creature - Merfolk or a Tribal - Merfolk, and put +1/+1 counters on them. Rule 109.2 says

  If a spell or ability uses a description of an object that includes a card type or subtype, but doesn’t include the word “card,” “spell,” “source,” or “scheme,” it means a permanent of that card type or subtype on the battlefield.

And rule 308.2 says

  Tribal subtypes are always a single word and are listed after a long dash: “Tribal Enchantment — Merfolk.” The set of tribal subtypes is the same as the set of creature subtypes; these subtypes are called creature types. Tribals may have multiple subtypes. See rule 205.3m for the complete list of creature types.

So, any spell that refers to an object just by a creature subtype is talking about a permanent of that subtype. And since the Creature and Tribal types share the same set of subtypes, an object that is referred to just by creature type can be either a creature or a tribal permanent.


Is it possible for players to gain an advantage from colluding in blackjack? Blackjack basic strategy makes the assumption that the player is playing independently, with one person's decision to hit/stand having no affect on another player's decision to hit/stand.  If the results of every single hand were independent from each other, then there would be no way to improve upon basic strategy and gain a positive expected return.

Blackjack hands, however, are not independent events.  Card counting takes advantage of the fact that the next hand is not independent of previous hands, due to the limited number of decks in the shoe.

A few days ago, I realized that there might be another way to gain an advantage by using the fact that the results for individual players during a single round are not independent of each other.

For example, most players will win when the dealer has a weak hand, and most players will lose when the dealer has a strong hand. Also, one player's cards reveal information about the probable outcome for both other player's hands and the dealer's hands for that particular round (even when there is a continuous shuffle machine being used).

If player A and player B have expected returns that are not independent of each other, is there a way for them to work together to alter their strategy in a way as to decrease the house edge?

In a loose sense, players can collaborate by signaling each other their hole card when the deal is one up one down. this allows far better optimization by almost doubling the known number of cards for the sharp who counts. Especially true if one or more goes for small bets and lots of draws.

The more cards are known to a sharp, the better he's able to account the odds.

Note that signaling, if caught, is potentially grounds for removal from the facility and forfeiture of any chips.


Is it better to ask a question or guess with 3 characters left in Guess Who? Say you have 3 potential characters left.

If you go with a guess, you have a 1/3 chance that turn and a 1/2 chance next turn.

If you go with a hint, you would have a 50% chance of leaving 2 left (with a 50% chance to win next turn) or a 50% chance of leaving 1 left (with a 100% chance to win next turn).

I don't know statistics well enough to figure it out from there.

EDIT: We were not aware of the rule that state if you guess incorrectly it means you instantly lose. That definitely makes it clear which you should do. We will definitely try to follow that going forward, thanks all!

My original answer assumed that there was no penalty for guessing incorrectly. This answer assumes that you are playing with the rule that incorrect guesses cause a game loss.  My original answer is provided below this one

Never guess, unless a player has only a single character left

If your opponent guesses, then your odds of winning are 50% if they have two characters left or higher if they have more.  If you guess, your odds are 50% if you have two characters left, or lower if you have more.  Therefore, there is never any benefit to guessing - the odds are always equal to or better if your opponent guesses.  This only changes if your opponent have a single character left.  At that point the odds of losing jump to 100%, and any odds are better than that, so guess.  (Also, if you only have 1 character left you should obviously guess as well)

Guess. Always guess when there are three or fewer characters left

Any question you ask is guaranteed to divide the remaining characters into a group of one and a group of two.

Guessing also divides the characters into a group of one and a group of two.

Literally the only difference is that if the character is in the group of one and you ask then you need to take an additional turn to guess, whereas if you guess and the character is in the group of one then you've already won.

Your error is in assuming that asking a question has a 50% chance of putting the character in the group of one.  It's actually 1/3, same as when you guess.


What is the meaning of this Joseki continuation? In games against Leela with 7 handicap stones, Leela (white) plays the following variant of a well known joseki (knight move approach with one space pincer)

$$W
$$ ----------------------
$$ |...................|
$$ |...................|
$$ |.......X.XXX.O.....|
$$ |...X...xOOOX...X...|
$$ |......a....O.O.....|
$$ |..........1....X...|
$$ |...................|

The usual continuation of the joseki I have in my books is white a. However, Leela often plays white 1 and takes me out of book here. What is the meaning of white 1 in this situation? How should black continue? Should he tenuki?

You should try to figure out what White is trying to do by "changing moves," as well as what White failed to do.

White failed to prevent you from moving into the center (and outflanking him) with a. That is something you should consider doing. It connects your upper side to the upper left corner stone, (and makes both absolutely safe). In a seven stone game, you should connect your groups and seek this "absolute" safety; "relatively safety is not quite enough.

Also, a threatens to seal off the left side corner, possibly forcing white to take the 3-3 point (simplifying the game in your favor).

White's next move might be a knights move kakari against your upper right corner shimari. (The meaning of his move was that he strengthened his wall. You should then "touch" with P17. After that, you have the choice of "extending" with P18, securing the corner, or (better), keeping White divided with P13, aiming at a double envelopment of White's wall.

White has "played out" two corners and gained no appreciable advantage to offset his seven stone handicap. If you can use your spear points at a and P13 to limit the influence of White's wall and keep him on the defensive, you should win quite comfortably.