When claiming victory in 011, can one select a character other than the Chosen One or Fenrir? According to the rules, for a normal Heroic victory:

  ...you must move the Chosen One (by the normal movement methods) to
  the building where the Organ of Eternity is located...

However, the rules later state that one can select any character when one claims victory:

  A player who declares victory can choose to move any character,
  even one already used by another player during that Hour, or
  which is blocked by an event of ability.

The rules for claiming a Fenrir victory are similar, except one has to move the Fenrir character to the Chosen One; the "any character" provision applies to both a heroic victory and a Fenrir victory exactly as worded.

Now, moving the Chosen One (or Fenrir) by the normal movement rules implies that that character is the one selected since normally one can only move the selected character, and it stands to reason that the right to choose any character is just to prevent the Chosen One/Fenrir from ever becoming unavailable and thus making victory impossible for that Hour.

However, it's unclear whether either of the following scenarios would be valid:

Claiming a Fenrir victory, selecting the Chosen One, and moving him or her to Fenrir rather than vice-versa.
Claiming a victory, moving an unrelated character to the victory location, then using the "swap 2 characters" tile on the Chosen One/Fenrir.

The first scenario doesn't involve Fenrir moving at all, so it doesn't seem to count as "moving Fenrir to the location of the Chosen One" by a literal interpretation of the rules.  The second scenario could count if one considers that the Chosen One/Fenrir "moves" when the swap action is played on him/her.

Of course, I may just be overthinking this.

Are these legal plays?

I think no, in both cases.
The rulebook (PDF) specifically mentions that when declaring victory, and as quoted by you (emphasis mine):

If you are a hero [...] you must move the Chosen One (by the normal movement methods) to the building where the Organ of Eternity is located
If you are the incarnation of Fenrir [...] you must move the character whose card you have in your hand (by the normal movement methods) to the same space as the Chosen One

I think "you must move the character whose card you have in your hand" rules out a Fenrir victory by bringing the Chosen One to him instead of selecting and moving Fenrir to the Chosen One.
In your second scenario, both cases in the rules specify "by the normal movement methods" which I think precludes moving a different character to the objective and then using a special movement technique to swap two players' locations.
The clarification allowing players that are declaring victory to select any character is presumably just a way to avoid meta-gaming and players choosing specific characters only to prevent an opposition win (or heroes accidentally working themselves into a corner).


Boggle Rules - Two same letters to make a word Why can't we use two dices at different positions that have the same letters to make a word?

For example:

-DEED --> INVALID

-NEON --> INVALID

Why..?

I can find nothing in the official rules, nor in the Wikipedia article, that disallows using the same letter on different cubes. In fact, the Wikipedia article names some of the longest possible Boggle words and they include multiples of the same letter which would be impossible if that were the case.

It is definitely true that you cannot use the same cube more than once in a given word, nor can you spell the same word twice using different cubes. Where did you learn this rule - is it an official online implementation, or from someone telling you the rules, or elsewhere? It's likely that someone misinterpreted the rules, or was playing some kind of variant or house rule.


Agricola - After/Also rule For an action space which states:

  After A, also B

such as:

  After Family Growth, also 1 minor Improvement

Does it mean that I must do both Family Growth and Minor Improvement?

No,

The first part is mandatory, the second optional.

The Rules for Family growth (page 5) state:

  Players must have room for offspring in their home before they can
  use this action  – that is, they must have more rooms in their home than they have Family members. After taking Family growth, the player may choose to purchase a Minor Improvement

Note that in general, a player must be able to use an action to be allowed to place a worker on it. (page 3),

  A Family member may never occupy an Action space without
  performing its action.

Therefore you cannot place a worker there just to block another player.


What happens if installed Medium is trashed during access on R&D? Let's say Runner has a Medium installed with 3 virus counters on it and performs a successful run on R&D, choosing to access the maximum 3 cards they are entitled to.

If the first card is a Sapper for example and causes that installed Medium to be trashed, does the Runner still get to access the remaining two cards?

My understanding is that the number of cards to access is set at the point where the run is successful and therefore even if the Medium which triggered that ability is trashed during accessing, they Runner can still access the same number of cards, but could someone confirm where this is clarified in the rules or an FAQ or similar?

From the FAQ:

  When the Runner chooses to access cards in a server he or she will access a set number of cards. Upon choosing to access, that number is determined by the total number of cards a successful run on that server would normally access, any active modifiers that may be adding to or reducing the number, up to the number of cards actually in the server, plus all cards in a central server’s root.

This doesn't go on to address Medium specifically, but as you suggested, the number of cards accessed is determined at the moment of choosing to access. Therefore Medium would let you access the 3 cards, even if Sapper ends up trashing Medium.


What is the repeated move stalemate? I've heard of a rule where if the same move sequence is repeated 3 times (6 moves total) the game ends in a stale mate.

Is this a de facto rule or a convention adopted outside the formal rules?

It's a rule, from Wikipedia:

The relevant rule in the FIDE laws of chess is 9.2, which reads:

  The game is drawn, upon a correct claim by the player having the move, when the same position, for at least the third time (not necessarily by sequential repetition of moves)

    a. is about to appear, if he first writes his move on his scoresheet and declares to the arbiter his intention to make this move, or

    b. has just appeared, and the player claiming the draw has the move.

  Positions as in (a) and (b) are considered the same, if the same player has the move, pieces of the same kind and colour occupy the same squares, and the possible moves of all the pieces of both players are the same.

  Positions are not [considered to be] the same if a pawn that could have been captured en passant can no longer be captured or if the right to castle has been changed. (FIDE 2005, Article 9.2)

While the rule does not require that the position occur thrice on nearly consecutive moves, it happens this way very often in practice, typically with one of the kings being put into perpetual check. The intermediate positions and moves do not matter – they can be the same or different. The rule applies to positions, not moves.

Also note that the draw has to be claimed, it's not automatic.


Yu-Gi-Oh Magic/Trap cards that are based on how many tributes I had that turn I have a Majespecter Amorphage deck where I basically tribute a monster every turn.

Are there any magic or trap cards that give me effects based on how many tributes I had that turn or if I tributed at all?

are there any magic or trap cards that give me effects based on how many tributes I had that turn or if I tributed at all?

Perhaps the most effective and generic card that comes to mind is Trial and Tribulation:

You can only activate 1 "Trial and Tribulation" per turn. during the End Phase of the turn this card was activated, apply this effect, depending on the number of monsters you Tributed from the field and from your hand this turn, except Tokens.

1: Draw 1 card.

2: Add 2 monsters from your Graveyard to your hand.

3+: Destroy up to 3 face-up card on the field.

As you can see it is quite powerful and will benefit from tributing monsters (even from your hand).


Does Mr. X reveal his location on every turn of the travel log that is circled? When playing the board game Scotland Yard, does Mr. X reveal his location on every turn of the travel log that is circled? Or does he hide his location on every circled turn of the travel log and reveal it for all other turns?

Mr X. reveals his current location on, and only on, the circled turns, or at any time he is on the same space as a police player (in which case he immediately loses the game and the police players win the game).  All remaining turns (the majority) are played as hidden information.

Keep in mind that if Mr. X uses a Double Move Token to skip over a reveal turn, Mr. X must still reveal where he was at that time even though he is no longer there.  For this reason as well as convenience, it is a common house rule to leave the Mr. X token on his "last known location" at the last time of reveal.


Absorbing damage with Planeswalker If my opponent attacks my planeswalker (who has 1 loyalty counter) with two creatures (power 1 and 3 respectively), can I absorb the attack of the creature with power 3 with my planeswalker and only take one damage to my health? Or do I treat it like the creature has trample and take three damage to my health?

Neither. Treat your planeswalker as if they are a separate player, one that you can use your creatures to block for. If there is trample damage when your block, that damage goes to your planeswalker, not you. If you don't block (or do block and there's trample) and that damage is more than enough to kill your planeswalker, then your planeswalker dies, and no damage is dealt to you. Damage never tramples over onto you from an attack at your planeswalker. From the comprehensive rules (emphasis mine):

  510.1b An unblocked creature assigns its combat damage to the player or planeswalker it's attacking. If it isn't currently attacking anything (if, for example, it was attacking a planeswalker that has left the battlefield), it assigns no combat damage.


Can a creature with Hexproof be affected by a spell like Sleep? Let's suppose I have Emrakul, the Promised End in play, equipped with Swiftfoot Boots.  My opponent plays Sleep.  Does Emrakul, the Promised End get tapped or does Hexproof prevent that?

Yes, Emrakul will be tapped.

Hexproof prevents a creature from being targeted by an opponent.  Targeting is a very specific action in Magic, and only happens in three cases:

A spell or ability has the word "target" in its text.
A keyword ability defined in terms of an ability that has the word "target" in its text. (e.g. Equip)
You are casting an Aura Enchantment.

In either of those cases, you cannot choose your opponent's hexproof creature as the target.  But any effect that does not target will affect the hexproof creature just like it would any other creature.

Sleep does not target a creature, only a player, so it will affect Emrakul.


If Bad Penny is destroyed by Yxilo Bolter's Fight/Reap effect, where does it go? When Bad Penny is destroyed, it goes back into my (its owner's) hand. But if Yxilo Bolter destroys it due to its Fight/Reap effect, it is purged. In this case, which effect "wins"?

Destroyed effects actually trigger just before the creature leaves play, so in this case Bad Penny is safely returned to its owner's hand just before the purge would be applied. At that point, Yxilo Bolter's effect tries to purge Bad Penny, but it is considered a new object, and so the purge does not take effect. By contrast, a card like Oubliette would purge Bad Penny because it simply purges without going through the destroy flow.

Reference video.


Can I build a settlement if I don't have the building piece for it? Each player has 5 settlement tokens in hand at the beginning of the game. After placing the 5th settlement, considering I have not built a single city, can I build a 6th settlement?

This is super clear in the rules.

Under Build in the Game Rules section:

  You cannot build more pieces than what is available in your
  pool—a maximum of 5 settlements, 4 cities, and 15 roads.

Then, later, under Build (Building) in the Almanac:

  You can build as many items and buy as many cards as
  you desire—as long as you have enough resources to “pay”
  for them and they are still available in the supply.
  [...]
  Each player has a supply of 15 roads, 5 settlements, and 4
  cities.

(Emphasis added.)

and again later, under Settlements:

  Note: If you have built all 5 of your settlements, you must
  upgrade 1 of your settlements to a city before you can build
  another settlement. You will then have the settlement in your
  supply, so you can build another settlement.


A go at 15 with a run I played a 4, opponent played a six then I played a 5. Easy to count.....3 for run and 2 for the 15. However, what about if it was also a go for me. Do I get one point for the go as well?

Yes it would get the go but it could only happen if these are the last 3 cards since it the only way 15 can be a go.


When can corp trash its own ice? The Rules (page 13) say:

  When installing a card in a server, the Corporation can first
  trash any cards already installed in that server.

And also:

  When installing ice, the Corporation can first trash any ice
  protecting that server in order to reduce the install cost.

The first quote seems to imply that when the corp is installing any card in a server (including Agenda, Asset or Upgrade), it can trash any card installed on the same server first, including ice.

The second quote is more restrictive, but doesn't seem to actually contradict the first one.

At the same time, I have seen comments indicating that the corp can't trash ice when installing other card types.

So, can the corp actually trash ice when installing other types of cards?

No, ice can only be trashed when installing other ice.

The terms "in a server" and "protecting a server" are not interchangeable, but rather used discretely to refer to different types of cards and their relation to servers. Agendas, assets, and upgrades are installed in servers, while ice is always referred to as protecting a server, and is never considered to be in a server for the purposes of any rules or card effects.


Whitechapel murder location I've been playing a lot of whitchapel with friends lately and we were wondering about a certain rule:

It states that a prostitute may not be placed on the same location as a previous murder.
What would happen if a prostitute moved to another location and was murdered there? In the next night can a prostitute start on the same location the last prostitute started, seeing as the murder didn't happen on that location?

I'm assuming you're talking about Letters from Whitechapel.

Wretched Pawns may never occupy the same space as a Crime Scene marker, whether as a result of Jack the Ripper's Woman token placement or the movement of the Head of the Investigation.

Rule citations are as follows:

In Phase two of the First Part of a night (page 9 in the rulebook), when Jack the Ripper is placing the Woman tokens, he cannot place any on a red circle that also has a red Crime Scene marker (a location that he had killed a target on any previous night). This restriction applies even if it is an unmarked (decoy) Woman token being placed.
In Phase six of the First Part of a night (page 13), there are Four restrictions on the movement of Wretched Pawns:

The movement must end on an unoccupied numbered circle.
The movement must not cross over a Police Patrol token.
The movement must not end adjacent to a Police Patrol token.
The movement must not end with the Wretched Pawn on a circle with a red Crime Scene marker.

In short, if a Wretched Pawn would end up on the same numbered circle as a crime scene marker, the movement (or Woman token placement) is illegal.

Jack is permitted to reuse the same numbered red circle for multiple nights

There is no rule forbidding Jack from placing a marked Woman token on, say, 65 (a Red numbered circle), waiting once (so that the resulting Wretched pawn moves off the red numbered circle), murdering that pawn, and then placing another Woman token (marked or not) on 65 the next night.

Interestingly enough, forbidding this reuse of red numbered circles (or Jack not waiting during the first two nights, thus placing crime scene markers on two red numbered circles) actually makes it very easy to perform an "instant arrest" on Night 3, as Jack's mandatory first move is to move to one of the two murders that night, thereby giving the inspectors the first move of that night. If the inspectors have cops positioned in a way that they can reach and perform an arrest on both murder sites on that first move, Jack loses, and the likelihood of this goes up significantly if two of the numbered red circles have crime scene markers on them (preventing Jack from placing Woman tokens on them).


Counter heavy proactive control with a distruption-based aggro deck in the Legacy format [Feel free to edit my question, English is not my primary language]

Legacy is a format with a pretty high number of cards available. It is arguably the format with the most possible different strategies possible. Being an eternal format with very low card renewing, I think it is fair to say that decks with names like Canadian Treshold, Reanimator, Jund, StoneBlade(any) or Burn are not subject to drastic, heavy changes or stop being played anymore in the next years. That is why I feel secure posting a question which will contain specific deck names, assuming their strategies will never change. A discard will always be a discard, land destruction won't radically change from what it is now and so on.

What brings me here is this: How to handle massive proactive control (discard, land-destruction and creature killing (mostly by eddict effect)). Yes, I'm talking about Pox (or SmallPox, if you prefer).

As a distruption-based aggro deck, if I don't run counter-Magic at all because I'm purely creature based, how should I handle the adventure of the game? Somewhat playing as Maverick would be relevant.

I know the importance of a sideboard. I know cards like Loxodon smiter and Sigarda, Host of Herons exists. I know the mechanics my decks can use to disrupt my opponent (activating knight Knight of the reliquary in response to a Wasteland targeting my Savannah and so on).

I want to know how to counter the goal of proactive control deck, which is to get me out of fuel and making me unable to come back from it. Should I keep my cards in my hand, creating a card advantage, should I try to go "all-in" and play as much creature as possible, trying to race his life points before he's able to completely shutdown my battlefield with his many warth effects and eddict effects. Maybe it would be preferable to do the smart plays, playing just the cards that respond to his moves, hoping each turns he will not rip my hand, leaving me unable to keep advantage on the game.

Mostly by my own, little experience, I tend to rush him, overwhelm his board, making him unable to deal with the number of creatures I'm able to put into play. Sometimes it works, sometimes he warth and I have no other choices than wait for my slow and painfull death, unable to comeback. That is not a strategy, it is trying to overrun the problem.

I want to know how to deal with the problem.
Thanks in advance.

So, we know you are looking more for a heuristic for how to play your deck as is (or with minimal changes) against an attrition based opponent playing a pox/gate like deck.

The aim of your opponent's deck is to slow the game down as much as possible, so it can abuse its central cards to gain an incremental advantage (usually though the difference in how the values of your respective resources at the time Pox is cast are rounded). To beat this kind of strategy, you either need to come in underneath it, by killing it before it can accrue enough advantage, or go over the top of it, by negating the advantage it is trying to accrue (investing in resources it cant/doesnt interact with, such as artifacts/enchantments) or preventing it from gaining that advantage at all, such as with countermagic.

The most obvious answer (for your deck) is to mulligan aggressively to aggressive hands with lots of efficient, aggressive creatures, and try to overwhelm them before they can lock you out. Creatures that you can discard to the battlefield (some of which you have mentioned) augment this strategy.

Pox decks tend to rely heavily on buying back from their graveyards,finding a way to limit that (such as Deathrite Shaman or Scavenging ooze removing Bloodghast) should help make that strategy harder. On the subject, scavenging ooze provides a good way to rebuild following a wrath effect.

Similarly, as they attack against the axis of lands and creatures, combating that by playing artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers that make their strategy problematic is useful. Elspeth, Knight Errant is a very good planeswalker to consider for your deck, and the various swords (particularly Sword of feast and famine) will work well with her tokens to let you stay in the game with resources your opponent can't easily control.

If land destruction is going to be an issue, fetchlands for basics for the first few turns may well be the best way to mitigate that. Pox/Smallpox wont be affected, but at least wasteland will have less impact.

Silence in your opponent's upkeep or drawstep could give you a valuable Time Walk against them, allowing you to further establish yourself. Lingering souls will give you enough to work with to protect your bigger creatures from a few edict effects, particularly if you have black mana to flash it back.

There isn't any way, as a deck built around a board presence of a small number of highly effective creatures, for you to overcome a deck like this in terms of attrition. As is, your only option is to be aggressive and cross your fingers. This IS a strategy, and one that you can try to maximize. You know which of your cards are the most aggressive, and you can mulligan to try and get a hand that will kill your opponent quickly. A Mother of Runes, Knight of the Reliquary reliant hand will probably struggle, but other hands with more aggressive creatures would do better.

With the possibility of making some changes, the above options should be plenty of food for thought, it is worth bearing in mind though that every advantage gained here is potentially (I would say almost certainly) a loss in another match-up. The minimal impact would probably be some Silences, or to consider Lingering souls and/or an Elspeth, Knight Errant or 2, with Swords to back up your tokens. I can't tell you the best combination, but these are all the options I can think of for ways to combat this strategy. It's not for a tournament, so you have plenty of room for experimentation and finding what works best for you.


Are there any magazines similar to InQuest Gamer in print today? When I was young, I begged my parents for a subscription to InQuest Gamer (a magazine mostly about collectable card games). I remember reading the articles and learning about new games every month. At the time I played mostly Magic The Gathering, but I was interested in learning/playing other games. The magazine was discontinued.

Years later, I still have some back issues (my favorite being the one that came with the board game Space Station Zemo - That's right; the magazine came with a board game in it). I was wondering if there are any similar publications. I play all kinds of games (table top RPGs, card games, but mostly board games). I would like to read quality articles talking about games of the past or new games intermixed with other that games would like (InQuest had articles about the history of games, mythology, short stories, house rules, etc.). It doesn't have to be print; I read digital magazines.

So, does a magazine similar to InQuest exist today?

Looking around, I found a couple online magazines

http://www.meoplesmagazine.com/

http://www.flagshipmagazine.co.uk/index.php?a=home

I also found a list of magazines on the geek:

http://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Game_Magazines

Not exactly what I was looking for, but it's better than nothing.


Using weapons control on raiders I just played my first game of BSG (solo using the official fully cooperative rules). I've got the german edition so my card names might be a bit off...

In my version the "weapons control" locations says something like:

Action: Attack a cylon ship using the Galactica.

Is it possible to attack a raider or heavy raider with Galactica's guns? It doesn't say it has to be a basestar and in the show the Galactica is seen doing this IIRC...

I conceed that vipers are usually better suited for this job but what if:

I'm out of vipers
Raiders are about to attack a civilian ship an there's no viper to intercept them in time
Or if I simply want to get a head start on those heavy raiders

That's right.  Just because the attack chart doesn't say what happens when Galactica attacks a raider or heavy raider, it doesn't mean galactica can't do it, just that the roll to hit is not different.  Blast away!


When a player gets Rummikub & the round is over, how is play continued? Do they take a number of tiles, one tile, or is the player who got Rummikub now out of the game? (...What if there are only 2 players?)  Thanks!

The player who got Rummikub is the winner of that round, and that round is over. In the beginning of the game, you decide how many points are needed to be the winner of the whole game.

From this PDF of Rules:

  Object:
  Be the first player to eliminate all the tiles from your rack by forming them into sets of runs and groups. Try to keep as few points in your rack as possible. At the start of the game, you decide how many points to reach to end the game.

  Scoring:
  After a player has cleared the rack and called "Rummikub", the losing players add up the value of
  the tiles they are holding on their racks. This score is totaled as a minus (negative) amount. The
  winner of the round receives a positive (plus) score equal to the total of all the losers' points. ...

  Winning:
  The player with the highest score at the end of the game wins.

So it doesn't matter how many players there are. When someone runs out of tiles and calls out "Rummikub", it is the end of the round and you tally scores. Then everyone starts a new round (all tiles reshuffled and redrawn), and you play as many rounds as it takes for someone to reach the target amount of points.


How on earth do I crew a non-vehicle? The Kaladesh update bulletin includes the following line:

208.5
Also on the subject of power and toughness, we have a new rule that if a creature has no power or toughness, that value is 0. This can happen if you manage to get a crew ability to animate a non-Vehicle artifact.

The newly defined rule itself says:

208.5 If a creature somehow has no value for its power, its power is 0. The same is true for toughness.

The update bulletin doesn't mention what cards could possibly enable this to happen though, and I can't for the life of me figure out how this gets set up. Is it some combo involving Necrotic Ooze or something?
How can I crew a non-vehicle to arrive at this situation?

The simplest method of accomplishing this probably involves using a Mizzium Transreliquat. Say you control a Mizzium Transreliquat, a Sol Ring, a Smuggler's Copter, and a Grizzly Bears. Then you can get the situation the bulletin is referring to by doing the following:

Activate and resolve the Mizzium Transreliquat's second ability targeting the Copter.
Activate the copy's Crew ability.
While that is on the stack, activate and resolve the Mizzium Transreliquat ability again targeting Sol Ring.
Let the Crew ability resolve, animating a copy of a Sol Ring.


Selling to external market in Brass, is benefit salary or cash? When selling cotton to an external market the scale (if there's any left after turning the card) provides what the rules describe as "an additional amount" of between £1 to £4.

It's ambiguous whether that extra amount is:

An amount in cash, as a one-off payment from the bank.  The amounts seem negligible if this is the case.
An additional income.  The point of doing this action is to increase income, so the word additional suggests this is additional income.
If it is additional income, is it an increase income squares or income bands?  The scale is marked in £ so that implies an increment of a salary band.

Various other rule summaries and versions seem to just echo the words of the original, so they're not much help.

We've played both #1 and #2 without much impact either way, but still very uncertain which way this is supposed to be.   For info, I've a first edition copy of the game, so this may be clearer in later editions.

The extra amount is in additional income, in squares. According to the publisher's website:

  if you sell to the Distant Market then the additional income shown on the Cotton Demand track is added to your income level, it is not taken as cash.

And further on, clarifying that you go up by squares, not bands:

  When you gain income you go up a number spaces equal to the income increase, e.g. if you gained £5 then you would go up five spaces. Note that this does not translate into an increase of £5 in actual income, as that depends on the income band you are in.

The bands are only used when reducing your income due to taking loans.


Firefly 'Sky Hook' ship upgrade There is a "Sky Hook" ship upgrade which "Counts as TRANSPORT" and "Requires Pilot to use". What exactly the rules of its use are? I see several possibilities:
1. It should be "equipped" by a Pilot going on a mission (like gear)
2. A Pilot should stay on the ship (because the ship is acting as a transport)
3. It always counts as a transport if you have a Pilot in the crew.

If the mission calls for a transport, they use the firefly as the transport. The transport is not expected to be in their pockets, so either they used the transport to get to the job, or they went back to the ship to do the job. You're good if you got a pilot on the job.


What is the point of having a token for the Dog companion? The text for the Dog Companion is as follows:

  Take a small monster token to represent the Dog. Put it in your room.
  (Use a token of a different color from other monsters, if any.)

  Once during your turn, the Dog can move to any explored room up to 6
  spaces away, using doors and stairs, and then return. It can pick up,
  carry, and/or drop 1 item before it returns.

  The Dog isn't slowed by opponents. It can't use one-way passages or
  rooms that require a roll. It can't carry items that slow movement.

So in other words, the instructions say:

Use a token to represent the dog
The dog can go to another room (and can carry items, perhaps to trade with another investigator) and then come right back
The dog can't get stuck by using a one-way door or a room that requires a roll

Since the dog always comes back to you immediately, and there is no situation where a dog can go somewhere they can't return from, what's the point of having a token for the dog?

To the best of my knowledge, there is none.

I had the exact same question come up in my last game of Betrayal, in fact. We talked about it a while; couldn't see any reason to use a token, so we just didn't.

It could be only for theme purposes, that you can actually see the dog following you from room to room.


What should I consider when selecting a Prize to take with my Tournament? Straight forward really: What are the strengths and weaknesses of each Prize? What play styles do they complement well?

Also, apart from the obvious (late in the game), when should I take a Duchy instead?

A fair amount of the time, Followers is going to be the strongest prize. If the board doesn't have another way to give Curses, and you are getting to choose a prize relatively quickly, giving out the only Curses in the game should have a pretty big impact. Also, bringing your opponent down to a 3-card hand will make it more difficult for him to buy those important Provinces.

After that, Trusty Steed tends to be quite strong. Be sure to think about all the options that it offers; it's quite common to just choose +2 Cards +2 Actions, but that in itself isn't all that great... it's a level 2 City, and Cities are only good when you get a lot of them. But all the options have their place.

All the others are more situational:

Princess can be necessary if there's no other +Buy card.
Trusty Steed can be necessary if there's no other +2 Actions card.

I don't think I'd ever take Bag of Gold or Diadem as the first prize. But either of them can be good if other prizes are already gone. Bag of Gold is good mostly in a game towards the end when you need a little more boost to get the last or last couple Provinces. I rarely see Diadem worth more than 2 or 3, and when it is, you probably already have a deck with enough money anyway. However, I'll often choose it because I need that extra 2 or 3 this turn.


In Monopoly, Can I mortgage the property I land on in order raise sufficient funds for its purchase? While discussing What happens if the auction winner cannot pay his/her bid? I concluded that the winning bidder cannot use the mortgage value of the property being auctioned to fund his bid.
Does the person landing on a property have the right to mortgage this property in order to buy it?

The official rules state

  Buying Property Whenever a player lands on an
  unowned property, the player may buy that property from
  the Bank at its printed price. The player receives the Title
  Deed card showing ownership and places it face up in
  front of him/her. If he/she does not wish to buy the
  property, it is sold at auction by the Banker to the highest
  bidder. The buyer pays to the Bank the amount of the bid
  in cash and receives the Title Deed card for that property.
  Any player, including the one who declined the option of
  buying it at the printed price, may bid. Bidding may start
  at any price.

The "face up" terminology seems to indicate that the property will not be in a mortgaged state at time of purchase.

From the rules you posted link to.

  The player who mortgages property
  retains possession of it and no other player may secure it
  by lifting the mortgage from the Bank.

If a player retains possession, they must have possession of it in first place.  So it can't be mortgaged before purchase.


What color is a crewed vehicle? In Magic the Gathering, most vehicles in the Kaladesh set appear to be colorless. If you crew with a green creature does the vehicle become green?

This would affect cards that target color.

No, vehicles don't gain a color, they stay colorless. I suppose that'd make some sense thematically, but in terms of the rules, Crew is just an ability that turns a noncreature vehicle into a creature, and that's really all it does. You shouldn't really think of vehicles as having creature(s) inside them; they stay separate. It's more like the creature(s) cranking the engine starter.

You can see this from the full rules definition of crew (rule 702.121), which is conveniently quoted in the Kaladesh Release Notes:

  702.121a Crew is an activated ability of Vehicle cards. “Crew N” means “Tap any number of untapped creatures you control with total power N or greater: This permanent becomes an artifact creature until end of turn.”

Nothing in there about color!

The release notes also include rulings for a bunch of common (and less common) scenarios, the same ones that are reproduced in the Gatherer rulings for each vehicle - see for example Fleetwheel Cruiser.

(And it's not just most - all vehicles are colorless artifacts.)


How do mulligans in a multiplayer game work exactly? According to the Comprehensive Rules,

103.4c In a multiplayer game and in any Brawl game, the first mulligan a player takes doesn’t count toward the number of cards that player will
put on the bottom of their library or the number of mulligans that
player may take. Subsequent mulligans are counted toward these numbers
as normal.

Does this mean that the first mulligan in a multiplayer (3+ persons) game is "free" (that player keeps all 7 cards), the second mulligan forces that player to put one (not two) card to the bottom of their library, the third mulligan forces that player to put two cards to the bottom of their library, and so on?

Yes. It's referring to the emphasized part below of rule 103.4:

To take a mulligan, a player shuffles the cards in their hand back into their library, draws a new hand of cards equal to their starting hand size, then puts a number of those cards equal to the number of times that player has taken a mulligan on the bottom of their library in any order.

That number is simply reduced by one.


When I tap a creature to attack with it, does that also activate abilities that require tapping it? When I declare my attackers, that causes the attacker to be tapped. What happens if the attacker I tap has an ability that is triggered by tapping?

Would I have to tap the creature before the combat phase to use the ability (thus making it unable to attack due to it being tapped) or does tapping the creature to declare it as an attacker cause it to trigger its ability?

If you can attack and use the ability depends on exactly what kind of ability it is.

If it is a triggered ability like Fallowsage that says "Whenever Fallowsage becomes tapped, you may draw a card." you get to use the ability anytime that card becomes tapped, attacking is the most common way but any other way of tapping it would also work.

If it is an activated ability that has tapping as a cost like Elvish Mystic that says "{T}: Add {G}." you have to choose whether you are tapping it to attack or if you are tapping it to pay for its ability. This is because tapping the creature is a cost and if it is already tapped from attacking you can't tap it again to pay for the cost.


Can the Runner/Corporation trash their own installed cards? This mostly came up last game with a player that had Wyldside.

  When your turn begins, draw 2 cards and lose [Click].

He was using it to good effect up until a few turns in, when he had too many cards and not enough money to do anything with them. The question becomes, can he voluntarily trash his own installed cards without a prerequisite action?

I know that the Corporation can trash their own installed agendas/assets in servers they control by simply installing something over what they want to trash, and Runners can trash programs by installing a program that would be above their storage limit.  But for Wyldside, there's no way to trash it unless you have Aesop's Pawnshop.

Unless a card states otherwise, players may only trash cards in the following circumstances:

In the rulebook (PDF) page 13:

  When installing a card in a server, the Corporation can first trash any cards already installed in that server. Trashed cards go to Archives faceup if they are rezzed, and facedown if they are unrezzed.

This means that under normal circumstances, Corps can trash ICE (rezzed or unrezzed), assets/upgrades (rezzed or unrezzed) or agendas when installing any ICE/asset/agenda/upgrade in that same server. They might do this to install a valued card in a well-defended server rather than creating a new server, or to reduce the install cost of ICE. They MUST trash assets/agendas in servers that already contain assets/agendas.

Corps cannot trash ICE/assets/agendas/upgrades at any other time or in a different server.

On page 15:

  The Runner can choose to trash any number of his installed programs at the beginning of an install program action.

Under normal circumstances, Runners can trash programs when installing a program. In fact, they MUST trash programs if their MU limit is exceeded in this instance.

Runners cannot trash hardware/resources (including Wyldside!) or programs at times other than the above.

But, a card's text can over-rule this. For instance, Wyldside cannot be voluntarily trashed of its own accord, but, as you correctly mention, a card like Aesop's Pawnshop can trash it (and for a benefit) because the card explicitly tells you to trash something:

  When your turn begins, you may trash another of your installed cards to gain 3 [Credits].


What's a good way to shuffle small decks of cards? In the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, there are a lot of small deck of cards to shuffle: 1 to 6 15-cards character decks and 3 to 8 10-card location decks, depending on the number of players. Due to the way these decks are prepared or reset, cards usually end up in clumps of the same type.

With such a small deck, it's hard to riffle shuffle the cards and overhand shuffles don't separate the clumps too well. What's a good way to shuffle my cards?

The pile shuffle recommended by Jonathan Hobbs works OK, although I'd strongly recommend randomly varying the order in which you deal out the cards to make it more random.

The main issue with it is that the randomness comes almost entirely from the shuffler's choices, rather than from uncontrollable physical randomness as in a riffle or mash shuffle (not that those can't be done "perfectly" too, but it takes a lot more skill).

A variant that you can do in your hand is the Mongean shuffle, where you hold the source deck in one hand and pick cards from it alternately to the top and bottom of the target deck held in the other hand.  With a bit of practice, you can do this really quickly and efficiently.

Like the pile shuffle, the Mongean shuffle doesn't actually introduce any randomness if you do it perfectly in consistent order.  However, you can break up the order by sometimes dealing more than one card in a row to the same end of the deck; if you do this perfectly randomly (i.e. switching ends with 50% probability after each card), the Mongean shuffle actually becomes about as good as the theoretical random riffle shuffle.  Of course, again, the source of the randomness is under the shuffler's control, so a skilled shuffler could, in principle, use this to stack the deck.

A nice feature of both the pile and the Mongean shuffles is that, even if done non-randomly, they still serve to spread out clumps of cards; indeed, a "perfect" Mongean or pile shuffle breaks up clumps more efficiently than one would expect by random chance.  For some purposes, this may be sufficient.

Finally, if you want to shuffle a small number of cards really randomly, one of the most efficient methods may be the simplest: the wash shuffle, where you simply spread the cards on the table face down and push them around randomly before gathering them up again.  It's simple, it's crude, but it does the job.


House rules to fix LotR Risk endgame I've been playing Lord of the Rings Risk, in the variant where the Ring moves one territory per turn, requiring a roll of 4 or higher to leave certain territories, and the game ends when the Ring reaches Mt. Doom and is destroyed. At the game's end, victory points are allotted for:

Territories owned
Complete regions (="continents") controlled
Strongholds owned
Adventure cards played throughout the game

The problem is that once the Ring reaches Mt. Doom, the next player to go has a strong incentive to abandon strategic position and defensibility and just expand as much as he possibly can in order to maximize his points. If the Ring isn't destroyed, then the next player to go does the same thing. If this happens several times, the endgame has a tendency to become a series of ridiculous expansions and contractions that obliterates whatever strategic shape the board had beforehand.

What house rules have others used to avoid these problems?

I find that when considering house rules, its best to think about why something is happening and attack the cause of the behavior.

The root problem as I see it, is that once the ring is one die roll away from destruction the game has a 50% chance of ending before the current player can lose any newly acquired gains.  Conversely, any reserves not spent that turn are increasingly unlikely to be used productively for each additional player in the game.

Consider adding one last "round" of play after the ring would be destroyed at Mt. Doom.  Essentially, when the player who "destroyed" the ring finishes his next turn the game ends.

By adding an extra round, you remove the random element of the game ending, allowing everyone to plan ahead and try and defend their territory rationally.


In Gin-Rummy, when not to Knock? In Gin-Rummy, besides several exceptions, in most rounds the best move is to Knock as soon as possible.  What are those exceptions? When it is better to go for Gin / Undercut?

While this question generate some degree of opinion based on expert experience, I presume that some guidelines are a consensus.

From Rummy-Talk: When to Knock, Play for Gin, or Underknock

  Knock, under most conditions, should be utilized at the first opportunity, with a few
  exceptions:

  When the odds are in favor of your going out in a game, or obtaining
  enough score to catch up to your opponent.
  When it is a reasonable
  assumption on your part that you stand to be underknocked by laying
  off his cards.
  When you know that your opponent is not in a position
  to knock his hand
  When you have your opponent’s hand dead.
  When your hand has the characteristics of a gin hand.


How to stimulate more creative storytelling? According to the blurb on the box,

  Rory's Story Cubes® is a pocket-sized visual story generator that sparks the imagination of all ages.

You throw 9 dice and then create a story that connects the images shown on the dice.

However, when I play with my kids, the game often devolves into "connect the dots as fast as possible", for example:

  There once was a (first cube), who met a (next cube), and then he saw a (next cube), then he went to the (next cube), and so on.

What can I do to help us get away from this type of storytelling and become more creative with our stories? Are there any house rules I can add to discourage or prevent the "and then, and then, and then" storytelling?

I found a number of "ways to play" on the Story Cubes website. Some just involve getting more or other dice and are little more then showcases or advertisements for different sets, but others are actually house rules, or alternate rules. I will be trying those out.

#4 Superheroes

Each person roles 3 cubes and uses these to create a superhero (superpowers and a name). Then all 9 cubes are rolled by each to create a back story for their superhero. Finally, all 9 cubes are rolled again to create an arch-nemesis, as a group.
Now we're set to play. Cubes are rolled as usual to create exciting adventures pitting the heroes against their enemy.

#1 Roll & Play

Also, while roll & play is the standard way of playing, it showed the icons on the dice do not need to be interpreted as literally as we were doing. No additional rules, but another way of using the existing rules.

I initially thought they were all just advertisements for different sets of cubes, but some of them offer the kind of additions to the rules I was looking for.

Of course, other ideas are still welcome.


Who picks a card name first for Null Chamber? The card Null Chamber states

As Null Chamber enters the battlefield, you and an opponent each choose a card name other than a basic land card name.
Spells with the chosen names can’t be cast and lands with the chosen names can’t be played.

For political reasons, it's relevant to me who picks the card name first (betrayals and such).
When casting Null Chamber, in what order do me and the chosen opponent name cards?

The active player chooses first, followed by each other player in turn order

This is covered by the general rule of APNAP - active player, non-active player. The active player (the player whose turn it is) is the one to make choices first, followed by the other players in turn order. Another example of this rule coming into play would be any card that says "each player sacrifices a creature" - players choose sequentially in turn order, starting with whoever's turn it is, and then  after everyone has made their choice, all the chosen creatures get sacrificed simultaneously.

  101.4. If multiple players would make choices and/or take actions at the same time, the active player (the player whose turn it is) makes
  any choices required, then the next player in turn order (usually the
  player seated to the active player’s left) makes any choices required,
  followed by the remaining nonactive players in turn order. Then the
  actions happen simultaneously. This rule is often referred to as the
  “Active Player, Nonactive Player (APNAP) order” rule.


What happens when playing a single Treasure Map? I'm wondering if I can play a Scheme Card and then a Treasure Map and put the Treasure Map back on top of my deck at clean up.  But I can only put the Treasure Map back on top if it's in play and not trashed.

So if you play a single Treasure Map with a 2nd Treasure Map not in your hand, does it get trashed or does it only get trashed when you trash 2 Treasure Maps?

No,

The single Treasure map will get trashed first before you can Scheme it.  From the Seaside rules:

  Treasure Map - You can play this without another Treasure Map
  in your hand; if you do, you trash this and gain nothing.

Scheme reads:

  At the start of Clean-up this turn, you may choose an Action card you have in play. If you discard it from play this turn, put it on your deck.

If the Treasure Map stays in your hand, it is not a valid target for Scheme.  If you play the single Treasure Map, it will trash itself before Scheme triggers at the start of Clean-up.


Where do you go for the 'nearest railroad' in Monopoly? In the American edition of Monopoly, there is a Chance card that says:

Advance token to nearest railroad
Pay owner twice the rental to which he/she is entitled. If railroad is unowned, you may buy it from the bank.

However, is this the closest railroad, or the next one? If you are standing on the Chance spot in the light blues, do you go all around the board to Reading, which is the closest to you, or do you go to Pennsylvania, which is the first one you land on?

Look closely at the card and it tells you exactly what to do.

Advance token to nearest railroad
Pay owner twice the rental to which he/she is entitled. If railroad is unowned, you may buy it from the bank.

Advance means you are moving forward on the board so this will always move you to the railroad that you run into. In your example it means that you would stop at Pennsylvania.
From what it sounds like you are reading way to much into a simple card. In the game of Monopoly, there is no way to go backwards, so you never look behind you when you are trying to calculate distance.
To break it down from the Chance spot that is in the light blues, the ranking of railroads in terms of distance is

Pennsylvania (8 spaces away with normal movement)
B. & O. (18 spaces away with normal movement)
Short Line (28 spaces away with normal movement)
Reading (38 spaces away with normal movement)

The only time you can pass go with that card is on the Chance spot right after the Short Line spot on the board.
Always need to remember that when playing a board game (unless specifically stated) you calculate distance based on the direction you move.
As for the comment about the Go to Jail card, it does not instruct you to advance to jail. That card is specifying changes to the movement rules on the card because it wants you to treat it differently than other cards that direct you to move to a location.

Go to jail
Go directly to jail
Do not pass go
Do not collect $200

There are other cards which break the movement rules and those cards fully describe the changes to the rules.

Go back 3 spaces

This card clearly describes a movement that is outside of the normal rules and does not use the word advance so it can't be confused with normal movement.
Official Tournament Rules where passing go a second time by this card is not mentioned even though it does mention passing go a second time from this space

GO Each time a player’s token lands on or passes over
GO, whether by throw of the dice or by drawing a card,
the Banker pays the player a $200 salary. The $200 is
paid only once each time around the board. However, if a
player passing GO on the throw of a dice lands 2 spaces
beyond it on Community Chest, or 7 spaces beyond it on
Chance, and draws the “Advance to GO” card, he/she
collects $200 for passing GO the first time and another
$200 for reaching it the second time by instructions on the
card.


Do intrigue cards have to be resolved? This question came up in my game group.  A player had a completed plot quest that gave him 2 victory points every time he played an intrigue card.  Is it possible to play an intrigue card and not resolve the action (either because he can't or doesn't want to) just to earn the victory point bonus?  This doesn't seem right to me, but I'm looking for supporting rules.

No, you always have to resolve the card.

The rules say that when you play an intrigue card, you follow its instructions, and none of the intrigue cards have instructions that say "if you feel like it, do X".

  Play Intrigue Card: By assigning an Agent to one of the action
  spaces on Waterdeep Harbor, you play a single Intrigue card from
  your hand. If you have no Intrigue cards, you cannot assign an
  Agent to Waterdeep Harbor.

  When you play an Intrigue card, you follow its instructions
  immediately. Its effect takes place just once.

(emphasis mine)

However, as GendoIkari pointed out in the comments, if he actually can't follow some part of the instructions, he would do as much as possible. He'd still be resolving the card, it's just that some instructions are impossible to follow so they don't happen. I don't think there's anything in the rules about this, but if the rules wanted you to ignore the whole card just because you couldn't do part of it, they'd presumably say so.

Side note: your instinct is right; ignoring what cards say in games is pretty much always wrong. If a game has an object (a card, tile, board space, or anything) with instructions printed on it, and you play/use that object, you follow the instructions (insofar as you can). If the game doesn't want you to always follow the instructions, it'll say so in the rules.


Can Operations be attacked in Pixel Tactics? In Pixel Tactics 2 and some other versions, there are Operations (Ongoing Orders) that sit in the reserve spot of your unit. Do these count as heroes that can be attacked, or are they there for 4 Waves no matter what?

You cannot attack Operations. They are not part of your unit and only reside in one of 3 reserve slots which hold only Traps or Operations. Neither can be directly attacked as they have no attack or health.

On the other hand, some cards can increase or decrease the amount of timers on various Operations. In this way, you can lengthen or reduce the time an Operation is in play even though it cannot be removed directly.


Does Evolution Sage proliferate Blast Zone when played? When Evolution Sage is in play, it proliferates my board every time a land is dropped. When I drop Blast Zone, it enters with 1 counter on it and then triggers the Sage. So after that the Blast Zone should have 2 counters, right?

Yes, it does. Blast Zone's ability modifies how it comes into play, so it's a replacement effect, and not a trigger ability like Evolution Sage's. It doesn't use the stack, and when Evolution Sage's ability resolves, it will have a counter you can proliferate.

If Blast Zone's ability would have read

  When Blast Zone enters the battlefield, put a charge counter on it.

you would have to choose which ability triggered first, because you control both abilities; if you'd then choose Blast Zone's ability, Evolution Sage's ability would resolve before Blast Zone's and it would not receive an extra charge counter. But again, that is not the case.


What is the cost of Unmortgaging Park Lane / Park Place in Monopoly? Properties of value x have mortgage value x/2 and unmortgage value 11x/20, for 27 of the properties this is an exact dollar value but Park Place is special.

Cost M$350, Mortgage M$175, unmortgage M$192.5. Half dollars don't exist and would never be useful EXCEPT in this case.

Is there an official ruling for the unmortgage cost of Park Lane? I've always played it as $193 but an argument came up when an opponent only had M$592 and wanted to put houses on Mayfair and Park Lane and unmortgage Park lane on the same turn, it made a difference of M$105 rent the next turn.

You round up. So the unmortgage cost of Park Place is $193.

The rules for the electronic banking version of monopoly have this specifically listed in the mortgage rules.

page 12:

  Repaying a mortgage
  You must pay the original mortgage amount plus 10% interest (rounded up to the nearest 10,000). Once the mortgage is repaid, turn the Title Deed card faceup.

emphasis mine.

In this version you start with $15Million instead of the normal $1500, so the nearest $10,000 is equivalent to $1 in other versions.


Do Fortification Discs Double VPs like Town Discs? I just played my first game of A Few Acres of Snow (late to the party, I know). And the end game scoring confused me just a little. The rules state that VPs for locations are doubled if there is a disc placed there...but both towns (from Development actions) and fortifications (from Fortify actions) place discs.

Do the black fortification discs double the score of locations at end of game?

My feeling is no, but I can't find a specific rule or clarification on BGG. Anyone here know for sure?

No, Fortification discs do not double VP for locations.
You are misunderstanding the rules. When one of the ending conditions has been met, players total the points they have scored. Locations that you control score double the VP indicated on the map if you have a town disc instead of a village cube on the location to indicate control. The "If you have a disc in a location" phrase was in reference to "control" of the location which is indicated by a blue/red disc and not a fortification.

Each player now adds up the number of victory points he has. You score points as indicated for locations that you control, i.e. that you have a cube or disc in. If you have a disc in a location then you score double the number of points indicated.
You also score two points for each of your opponents cubes that you captured and four points for each disc you captured.
The player who has the highest total of victory points is the winner. In the case of a tie then the French player is the winner.

Under The Board section is a picture indicating that the hexagonal symbol with a number in it scores Victory Points at the end of the game. (Page 4 pdf, labeled page 2 IRL)

Victory points scored at the end of the game. You double the points if you have a town disc in the location.

Fortification discs do not indicate control of an area. What they do is explained on (page 3)

Fortify a location
To fortify a location you must play a fortification card and the location card for the location you wish to fortify. You must also pay three money to the bank. You then place a fortification disc under the cube or disc in the location. A location can only have one fortification disc in it. A fortified location starts a siege with an additional siege strength of two, and is also immune to raids. The number of fortification discs is a limit to the number of times this action can be selected. Note that if you had just resettled a location you could fortify it within the same turn.

Finally, under Starting the Game (page 6), they indicate how you control a location.

Each player starts with a number of cubes and discs on the board, which represent settled locations. Cubes represent villages and discs represent towns. Certain locations are already coloured red and blue, to indicate which side they are initially controlled by.
The British player should place one cube in each red square location and one disc in each red circular location. The French player should do likewise in each blue location. Having a cube or disc in a location indicates that you control it.


Can I use the Shining Trapezohedron against Epic Monsters to attempt to move them? The trapezohedron allows the investigator to discard the chosen monster on a roll of 5 or 6. Since discarding Epic Monsters is disallowed, would a 5 or 6 result in no action while a roll of 1-4 result in moving the monster to me?

The exact text on the card is:

  Action: Choose 1 Monster on any space and role 1 die. On a 5 or 6, discard that Monster. On a 1-4, move that Monster to your space.

From the reference guide (page 6):

  Epic Monsters are treated like Monsters for all effects except as described here:

  An Epic Monster cannot be defeated by any effect except losing Health equal to or greater than it's toughness.
  An Epic Monster cannot be discarded.
  An Epic Monster cannot be moved, except by an effect on its
  token or the component that spawned it.
  Epic Monsters are never placed in the Monster cup.
  When an Epic Monster is defeated, it is returned to the game box.
  “Monster” refers to a Monster and/or an Epic Monsters. “Non-Epic Monster” refers to a Monster but not an Epic Monster.

So no, the Shining Trapezohedron can not move the Epic Monster


If Anger of the Gods kills a creature, does it still trigger death effects? Let's say I control Athreos, God of Passage and my opponent casts an Anger of the Gods. I'm fairly sure any creatures I own that die this turn are just exiled without Athreos' ability triggering, but I can't bring to mind a concrete explanation of exactly why that's the case.

Can anyone explain how abilities that trigger when a creature dies interact with effects along the lines of "If X would die this turn, do Y with it instead"?

The creature never died, so the ability doesn't trigger.

Anger of the Gods creates a replacement effect.

614.1. Some continuous effects are replacement effects. [...] Such effects watch for a particular event that would happen and completely or partially replace that event with a different event. [...]
614.1a Effects that use the word “instead” are replacement effects. Most replacement effects use the word “instead” to indicate what events will be replaced with other events.

So the creatures never went to the graveyard.

614.6. If an event is replaced, it never happens. A modified event occurs instead, which may in turn trigger abilities. Note that the modified event may contain instructions that can’t be carried out, in which case the impossible instruction is simply ignored.

So the creatures never died.

700.4. The term dies means “is put into a graveyard from the battlefield.”

If you have an ability that triggered on a creature being exiled, that ability would trigger.


Poker Texas Hold'em Sit-and-Go - Independent Chip Model (ICM) What is "ICM" in Poker Texas Hold'em?

I want to know some mathematical equations in answers on this question, because this part is important for me.

The Independent Chip Model (ICM) is a way of calculating the right decision when playing the bubble in Texas Hold'em tournaments.
Three players:

A = Player 1's Stack
B = Player 2's Stack
C = Player 3's Stack
T = Total chips in play
(A * 0.5 + B * (A * 0.3 + C * 0.2) / (A + C) + C * (A * 0.3 + B * 0.2) / (A + B)) / T


Prismatic Piper card availability in Commander Draft I've been planning to organize a Commander Legends draft with a few people at work. I've been looking into just how the drafting works with this format (it has a few oddities to account for the commander format, after all) and I have a few pracical conserns over The Prismatic Piper.
The sources I've been looking at indicate that you have the same level of access to the Piper as to Basic Lands. However, it doesn't seem that they're as readily available, but rather come in the draft packs same as any other card. Be that, at a special rarity, averaging about 6 per pack, replacing a common (as far as I've gathered).
Lets say I organize an 8 player draft and bring a booster box and a land station.
What happens, is someone needs a Prismatic Piper?
Do they just grab one from another players draft pool?
I get that it's propably just draft chaff, bit just feels... wrong.
A Card Game Base guide suggest that people wouldn't need to pick these cards, but they still seem to be part of the 20 draftable cards?

The Prismatic Piper appears roughly in one per six packs. So that means you’ll usually get around 6 of them in one booster box. This should be enough for everyone, since you don’t need to actually spend picks on them. However, if you’ll need more you can just use proxies during the draft.

Since you said you have practical concerns over this, let's look at this from a practical standpoint.
There are 48 guaranteed legends (commanders) per box, plus a few that'll be foils, etc.  Chances are pretty high you will find legendary creatures in every color (I'd say it's almost certain to happen).  Granted, not every player will see every legendary creature during the draft, but they should see a fair bit, usually enough to find something usable.
But there's always a chance they won't find something.  That can happen for one of two reasons, either a player drafted poorly or you got the most color-imbalanced box of Magic cards ever shipped (ie. you got say all green stuff for your non-legendary cards and only blue commanders).  Far more likely is draft error or draft stubbornness, ie. sticking with say green because you got one really nice green card but all of the packs coming around don't have any usable green cards, just some nice blue and black stuff (a good indicator you should give up on green and pick up the blue and black shinies, let everyone else fight over and dilute the green among themselves).
And some people are stubborn and will draft to their own detriment or just get ridiculously unlucky and will need a Prismatic Piper.  Hopefully since no one will need the full 60 cards they drafted to make a 60 card deck (you will need some lands) and the unlucky player can borrow one.  You should expect between 3-5 Pipers to get opened and I highly doubt all of them will get used (if 3-5 people in an 8 player pod need that as a commander, draft mistakes were made or you got a horrible booster box, if people need a 3/3, 5 CMC creature for their 59, they also probably drafted poorly if they can't find better creatures than that).  The point here is someone should be able to share.  I can't think of any play group I've been a part of where someone wouldn't let another player borrow an unused card for a couple hours.
Finally, in case you get the absolute worst box of Commander Legends ever printed and you need every single Piper you get (or you get none at all and still need one), just proxy it.  It's going to be a commander so shouldn't get shuffled in a deck so you can grab one of the advertisement cards and a Sharpie and make a proxy.  You'll survive for a couple games of Magic that way.
And if the thought of the remotest possibility that you will need to proxy a card offends you, you can always buy a few online and bring them with you.  Right now they cost about $0.10 (USD) so grab a handful and be done worrying about it.
TL/DR: chances are pretty low you will truly need Pipers at all.  Chances are even lower that you will need them and not have a spare.  Chances are still lower that you will need one, not have one available and can't proxy one or buy a few extra ahead of time.  If you get to that point, I don't have any more practical advice I can give you.


Do you need a program to make a run in Netrunner? The definition for interaction in netrunner seems a tad vague and I was hoping to clear up some points. I know you can run through ice and accept subroutines if you do not have the appropriate ice breaker. You choose not to interact and bypass the ice but suffer the consequences.

Can you still do this if you have no programs installed as the runner? For example, couldn't I, without any programs, make 4 runs on my first turn? Even if the corp put down 3 ice on their turn, Most likely they will not or cannot rez them all. This gives me several, maybe even four succesful runs on my first turn.

Is this possible?

You are correct!  No icebreaker is required to make a run.  So yes, the mantra: run early, run often!  On the first turn, it is usually good to put some pressure on a central server that isn't well defended (either HQ or R&D).

However: some decks will punish you for this (especially Jinteki), as they have cards that can hurt you when accessed from R&D or HQ (Snare, Shock, et cetera).  Also, you can run naked (no ICEBREAKERS) even against servers that have ICE... and you might be successful if the corp doesn't rez them or if they don't have any "end the run" subroutines.  Again, that can be pretty dangerous though (watch out for Neural Katanas).

Most corp players will expect this though - if you are Criminal, they will generally defend HQ on turn 1 (to stop Account Siphons); if you are Shaper, they will typically put some ICE on R&D (to try and prevent Maker's Eye runs).


What cards use coin tokens? My son really wants to play a game with the coin tokens. What are all the cards that use coin tokens?

Although the cards using coin tokens are already listed in the answer by RM Bee (including the comments), Coin tokens appear in currently four expansions (Seaside, Prosperity, Guilds, and Renaissance) and are used slightly differently in each set.

Please note that all the named cards have additional abilities besides generating or converting Coin tokens, but as the question is about Coin tokens this answer also focuses on them.

Seaside

The first expansion set to feature Coin tokens is Seaside. Using its card Pirate Ship, Coin tokens can be collected by individual players on their own Pirate Ship mats. Alternatively the collected tokens can be converted to +$ using the same action card, but the Coin tokens are not used up, so they remain on the Pirate Ship mat.

In later turns, this basically makes Pirate Ship kind of a Treasure which is possibly huge, but needs to be played as an action to generate money.

Prosperity

Prosperity also features Coin tokens with its Trade Route card, but this time the Coin tokens are placed on top of the victory card piles in the supply (one each) during setup. Once a card is gained from such a pile, the token is moved onto the Trade Route mat.

Amongst other effects, playing Trade Route then generates money according to the number of tokens on the mat. Again, the Coin tokens remain on the mat when used. In contrast to Pirate Ship, however, the Coin tokens on the Trade Route mat do not belong to a single player, but can be used by anyone.

Guilds

Using Candlestick Maker, Baker, Plaza, Merchant Guild, or Butcher from the Guilds expansion, players can get Coin tokens individually. The Second Edition printing of Guilds uses the name "Coffers" for these tokens; when a card says "+1 Coffers", you add a coin token to your Coffers mat. The details or conditions on how to get them are different for each card.

The Coin tokens from these cards can be used like other Treasures during the Buy Phase to pay the costs of the cards. Each coin generates $1 and is returned to the coin supply after using it. So basically, you can use these action cards to save some money and use it in later turns, which you cannot do with regular Treasures, obviously.

Renaissance

The newest expansion, Renaissance, brings back the same coin tokens from Guilds. It includes a "Villagers/Coffers" mat, which can replace the Coffers mat from Guilds. Certain cards give you either Villagers or Coffers, which you track by placing coin tokens on the correct half of the mat.

Coffers work exactly the same as they did in Guilds. Villagers can be spent at any time during your action phase to add +1 Action.

Cards that provide Coffers include Ducat, Silk Merchant, Swashbuckler, Patron, Spices, Villain, Exploration, Pageant, and Guildhall

Card that provide Villagers include Acting Troupe, Recruiter, Sculptor, Lackeys, Patron, Silk Merchant, Academy, and Exploration.


Can I avoid an opponent preventing my Desecration Demon attacking? I have a Desecration Demon in my hand, and through some other means I have the ability to cast it with flash and give it haste. Is there a point on my turn when I can cast the Demon such that it can still attack, but is too late for my opponent to sacrifice a creature to tap it?

ie. Can I do the following:

Start combat phase
The "beginning of combat" passes
Cast Desecration Demon (with flash from some effect)
Declare Desecration Demon as an attacker (with haste from some effect)

or will my opponent have an opportunity to sacrifice a creature to the demon prior to declaring it an attacker?

You can do that. The combat phase is divided into several steps, and this is how the first step goes:

  507.Beginning of Combat Step

    507.1. First, if the game being played is a multiplayer game in which the active player's opponent's don't all automatically become
    defending players, the active player chooses one of his or her
    opponents. That player becomes the defending player. This turn-based
    action doesn't use the stack. (See rule 506.2.)

    507.2. Second, any abilities that trigger at the beginning of combat go on the stack. (See rule 603, "Handling Triggered Abilities.")

    507.3. Third, the active player gets priority. Players may cast spells and activate abilities.

So, during the 3rd part listed there, you can cast Desecration Demon (if you have something that allows you to do so as though it had flash, such as Leyline of Anticipation). At this time, "At the beginning of each combat" have already been triggered, and it wasn't on the battlefield at that time, so it didn't trigger. By the time you cast it, it's too late for that trigger.

After that comes the declare attackers step, during which you can attack with your Demon if you have a card such as Fervor that will give him haste.


What are the changes in the Revised Edition of Curse of the Dark Pharaoh? I recently picked up a copy of the Miskatonic Horror expansion. In the rules, it says

  Note: Miskatonic Horror is designed to be used with the revised edition of The Curse of the Dark Pharaoh. If using the original edition ... (that is, if the expansion does not say "Revised Edition" on the lid of the box), use only the new Exhibit Item cards.

This is the first I've heard of a "Revised Edition", and I'm a little annoyed that my version of the expansion (which I got quite recently) isn't fully compatible.

What are the differences between the original and revised versions of The Curse of the Dark Pharaoh? Was the original substantially broken in some way(s)? Is it really worth buying a second time?

I don't have my two sets in front of me to give a direct card-by-card comparison (I can do that later if desired), but here's roughly the differences between the two sets.

The original edition of CotDP has 'Barred from X' cards, where X is a neighborhood. An Investigator gets one of those, they can't go into the relevant neighborhood until the terror level increases and the Barred card goes away. The revised edition replaced them with 'Patrol' markers. When a patrol marker is in a neighborhood, all investigators that pass through a patrolled street must sneak through or be arrested. Similarly, Patrol markers go away when the terror level increases.

A new mechanic to the expansion is the 'Whispering Exhibit' encounters. There's a marker on the board in a street area. If an investigator is in that street area during encounters, they have a Whispering Exhibit encounter. This usually gives the Investigator an opportunity to get an Exhibit Item by passing some sort of check. Then, pass or fail, the encounter specifies a street area to move the Whispering Exhibit marker to. If no one has a Whispering Exhibit encounter during a turn, the marker moves as a moon monster.

There are also a significant number of card changes. Most, if not all, of the benefit/detriment cards have been re-written to provide different effects. Some Mythos and encounter cards have been rewritten in a effort to be clearer. A good portion of the Exhibit Items effects have been changed, especially the Masks. Most of the Allies have been reworked as well, they no longer provide +2 to 2 different combat states. The Messenger now gives a -1 to everything! Some spells have been changed as well. Plague of Locusts now returns a single monster to the cup rather than weaken everything in the neighborhood.

The cards in the Miskatonic expansion that are meant for the revised edition are additional Whispering Exhibit encounter cards.

As to whether or not the expansion is worth purchasing, I think the revised edition is better than the original. One of my (and many other people's) biggest complaints about the AH expansions is that certain mechanics get severely diluted once you mix in more than one expansion. With the Original edition, as you added in more expansions, the odds you would see an encounter that would mention an exhibit item (let alone actually getting one out of it) would plummet. The Whispering Exhibit mechanic rounds that out nicely; They're always available. Personally, I also thought that the allies in the Original edition of the game were too strong and was glad to see them toned down. The Barred from neighborhood cards were also rarely important. It was rare that one would show up, and it only affected a single investigator. Patrol markers still have to be triggered by encounters, sure, but they only create a minor obstacle for the entire team rather than completely preventing someone being useful in a given neighborhood.


How to prepare for a Mansions of Madness session efficiently? I own the core game, and the Forgotten Alchemy and the Call of the Wild expansions. That means a lot of cards.

That also means that before every session, there is a lot of preparation. The worst part is sorting out the necessary Exploration cards. I love the game itself, but this preparation slowly drives me into madness... Well, this might have been the designer's intention in the first place.

Is there a way to organize everything in a way that results in less preparation time?

So far, I have found two ways to simplify the preparation:

Some exploration cards (and other elements) are only used in a single scenario. I separate all such scenario-specific components, and store each such scenario separated.
Storing the exploration card sorted alphabetically greatly decreases the search time.


Does a flush beat a straight in three-card poker? Does a flush beat a straight in three-card poker?

No, it doesn't beat it.

Unlike 'normal' Poker, where a flush does beat it, a straight is much less likely with three cards and is ranked higher as a result.

The order of probability (least likely first) is:

Straight flush
Three of a kind
Straight
Flush
Pair


Sac outlet, Cyclonic Rift overload, & Chronozoa Say I have a Chronozoa with no counters and a free sacrifice outlet on the field when an opponent overloads Cyclonic Rift. If I were to sacrifice the Chronozoa in response, what happens? Will I create the tokens that are copies of it before or after the CR Overload resolves?

Your Chronozoa's ability would resolve first, and you would lose the tokens you got to the opponent's Cyclonic rift.
Whenever an ability triggers or is activated, is goes on top of the stack, and the stack resolves from top to bottom.
So, assuming you both pass after each step:

Opponent casts Cyclonic Rift, stack has just Cyclonic Rift
You respond by activating something that lets you sacrifice Chronozoa, Chronozoa's ability triggers and goes on top of the stack. (We will assume for now that the sacrifice didn’t add anything else to the stack, such as Ashnod's Altar).
Chronozoa's ability resolves giving you 2 tokens.
Cyclonic Rift resolves, returning tokens to your hand, which cease to exist because tokens can’t be in your hand.

There is no other time that you could sacrifice Chronozoa to get around this problem.
Note that in order to have a Chronozoa on the battlefield with no time counters requires something such as Stifle or Solemnity to stop you from sacrificing it when it lost its last counter.
Comprehensive rules:

405.1. When a spell is cast, the physical card is put on the stack (see rule 601.2a). When an ability is activated or triggers, it goes on top of the stack without any card associated with it (see rules 602.2a and 603.3).
405.5. When all players pass in succession, the top (last-added) spell or ability on the stack resolves.


In Gloomhaven - do monsters spawn in the beginning of scenarios that have open doors/passageways to other tiles? I see the rules about how you spawn monsters in a new room when you "reveal" it by unlocking the door.  However, in some maps there are already open passageways between map tiles.  Does that mean the monsters on these tiles are all already "revealed" and spawn immediately from the beginning of the scenario?  Or do I still have to have a character walk on or look into the tile to activate and spawn the monsters?

I assumed the that they were revealed but noticed that in one of the scenarios I would run out of creature tiles for a specific type if they were all revealed at once in the large open multi-tile cave with no doors.

Yes, since rooms can be composed of multiple map tiles, you would spawn every monster in that multi-tile room.

Some overlay tiles, like Corridors, can combine multiple map tiles into a single room.

  Each scenario map is broken up into separate rooms by door overlay tiles. A room may contain more than one map tile if those tiles are connected by other overlay tiles. (Page 13, Gloomhaven Rulebook)

Thus, when following the scenario setup:

  Monsters in the starting room are placed at the beginning of a scenario. (Page 13, Gloomhaven Rulebook)

Or when revealing a new room when a door is opened:

  Immediately place overlay tiles, monsters, and money tokens as indicated in the scenario description for the revealed room. (Page 14, Gloomhaven Rulebook)

You do so no matter how many tiles that room is composed of.

It's OK to run out of a specific creature standee. You just don't spawn any more of that creature.


A Game of Thrones: 2nd Edition Supply I've played this game several times, but I am still confused when it comes to supply and the amount of armies you can have. Are you allowed to go over your army limit, but when a supply card comes up, you just have to diminish your armies? For example, if I am playing as Lannister and I start the game with 2 supply which means I can have one army of 3 and two armies of 2, am I allowed to have an army of 4, but go down to three if the supply card comes up?

No.  The supply cards are when you adjust your position on the Supply track, but your armies must always respect your supply.  This is called out specifically in the supply section of the rulebook on page 8:

  A player is never allowed to take any action in the game that would cause him to exceed his actual supply limit as dictated by his position on the Supply track (such as mustering, marching, or retreating).

The mustering section on page 9 has a blurb that reinforces this idea:

  A player may never muster a unit that would create or expand an army beyond his actual supply limit.  In other words, if mustering a new unit would cause a player to have more (or larger) armies than allowed by his position on the Supply track, that unit cannot be mustered.

Thus, in your example, you cannot have an army of 4 while you remain at position 2 on the supply track.  This also prevents you from swapping out say a siege engine for a footmen - once you recruit a unit, you're stuck with it until it dies.


Can I cast Quarantine Field with Brisela in play for my opponent? Can I cast Quarantine Field with Brisela, Voice of Nightmares in play for my opponent?

I just tried, Magic Online wouldn't let me.

But with X as 2 Quarantine Field has a CMC of 6.

Is this right?

The Gatherer page for Brisela has this ruling:

  For spells with {X} in their mana costs, use the value chosen for X to determine if the spell’s converted mana cost is 3 or less. For example, your opponent could cast Burn from Within (a spell with mana cost {X}{R}) with X equal to 3, but not with X equal to 2.

You should have been able to cast the spell, so you should report this as a bug.


Can I cast both parts of Commit//Memory from the graveyard with Torrential Gearhulk? I cast Torrential Gearhulk, can I cast Memory from my graveyard with gearhulk's triggered ability?

As I understand and with some basic rules I know, I can't, because Memory is a sorcery and gearhulk says I can cast an instant. But I read that split cards count as 1 card with converted mana cost equal to total of converted mana costs of each of the card's parts. That means this card is an instant and sorcery at the same time as long as it remains in the graveyard at least and I can cast it with gearhulk and choose both parts to be cast, I found it too good to be true for standard and I wanted to know if this is right. (Please explain)

You can use Torrential Gearhulk to cast either Commit or Memory, but not both.

As you mentioned, in zones other than the stack (including the graveyard), a split card has the combination of the characteristics of the two halves [CR 708.4]. In this case, that does mean that the card is considered to be both an Instant and a Sorcery. Since it is an instant card, it is a valid target of Torrential Gearhulk's ability.

Then, Torrential Gearhulk instructs you to cast the spell. The first thing you do when casting a split card is choosing which half you are casting [CR 708.3]. In this case, Memory has a restriction (Aftermath) that says that you can only cast it from your graveyard. You are casting the card from your graveyard, so that's no problem. Commit doesn't have any restrictions, so you can cast that too. The Gearhulk's ability doesn't care if you cast the instant half or the sorcery half. It instructed you to cast an instant card, and that's what you did.


Do creature tokens get removed along with the permanent that created them? I have this card called Militia's Pride which lets me summon 1/1 creature token onto the battlefield. My question is: if Militia's Pride is sent to the graveyard, do my 1/1 tokens stay or are they removed from the battlefield as well?

The tokens will stay.

A token is simply a new object. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, it does not matter what spell or effect created it, and there is no connection. Consider also that, strictly speaking, the Militia's Pride did not create the token, but its triggered ability did.

  110.1. A permanent is a card or token on the battlefield. A permanent remains on the battlefield indefinitely. [..]

Of course that doesn't mean that permanents are indestructible or anything like that. It only says that permanents don't leave the battlefield on their own. It means that an effect or rule is required to make a token die (in fact, it takes an effect or a rule for anything to happen in the game), so since Militia's Pride does not say anything about what happens to the tokens it created when the Pride dies, nothing will happen to those tokens. There is also no rule to that effect.


betrayal at house on the hill attacking and lucky stone A character attacks a monster.  The character rolls their attack roll first.  The monster rolls second, but the combat is simultaneous.  If the attacker loses the combat roll can he chose to reroll any number of the attackers dice after the combat is complete or does the attacker need to reroll immediately following his attack roll not knowing whether it is needed (as it depends on the simultaneous defense roll)?  Consider that the lucky stone is a one use item then discarded.
Counter argument of the defender is that the attacker roll happens first and cannot be rerolled after the defender rolls.
Only the defender with a lucky stone gets the benefit of the item?
Seems wrong to me as the item is a very powerful one use item.

The rulebook is not clear on if combat is simultaneous, or if the attacker rolls before the defender. The only thing is says is:

  When you make an attack, roll a number of dice equal to your Might. Your opponent does the same.

Normally, it makes no difference, but with the Lucky Stone; you must decide if you want combat to be simultaneous or not. There are many little rules like this in Betrayal where your group needs to decide which way to play it. Either way, the Lucky Stone can be used, but your knowledge would be different in each case.

The Lucky Stone is used "after you attempt a roll of any kind". It is reasonable to assume this means "immediately after", or before anything else has happened. Therefore, there are 2 options:

If you play with simultaneous attacks, then the player with the Lucky Stone can choose if they want to use the Lucky Stone after the players have rolled their dice. The player will know how the defender rolled before making that choice.

If you play where the attacker rolls first, and then the defender rolls, then the attack should have to decide to use the Lucky Stone after rolling, before they can know what the defender will roll.

In the second case, the Lucky Stone is still useful, but using it might be a risk as the defender could end up rolling really poorly so that they didn't end up needing to have used it.


Can I use Trait Doctoring to to make a Circle of Protection monocolor or multicolor? Can Trait Doctoring be used to change a Circle of Protection (whatever color) into protection from mono or multicolor? Trait Doctoring reads

  Change the text of target permanent by replacing all instances of one color word with another or one basic land type with another until end of turn.

  Cipher (Then you may exile this spell card encoded on a creature you control. Whenever that creature deals combat damage to a player, its controller may cast a copy of the encoded card without paying its mana cost.)

Do monocolor and multicolor count as "color words"? I sort of assumed so but I'm not really sure.

No, it cannot.
As per the ruling on the card:

The type-changing effect can change part of a word such as “nonblack” or “swampwalk” if the part of the word is being used to refer to a color or basic land type.

Referring to color in general does not refer to a color.
As per the comp rules:

105.1. There are five colors in the Magic game: white, blue, black, red, and green.
105.4. If a player is asked to choose a color, he or she must choose one of the five colors. "Multicolored" is not a color. Neither is "colorless."


When can upgrades be obtained or edited? The rules say "Once runners have earned Karma, they may gain upgrades." on page 22 of the rules.  Does this mean that I specifically may not change my upgrades after a mission in which I've failed to gain any Karma, and also that anytime I gain even a single Karma point, I can manage my upgrades?  It seems to make more sense, even more so since they are able to be swapped out, to be allowed to switch them between any missions.

I think you're reading this too literally.
"Once runners have earned Karma..." is just an answer to "When do I start buying upgrades, in general?"

For each runner, their earned Karma is a permanent value.
If you earn 3 Karma from completing a mission, that's 3 Karma that this runner will always have. This runner "has earned karma", now and forevermore.
Each runner is always "worth" as much karma as he has ever earned.

Between missions, each runner can "spend" their karma to buy or swap abilities on their sheet (by the costing rules).  (the term "spend" isn't exactly right either; your karma is just your maximum capacity for upgrades, but it never goes away)
Even if they didn't gain any new karma on that specific mission.


Does Stony Silence stop Salvage Titan's activated ability from the graveyard? Salvage Titan is a black artifact with the ability "Exile three artifact cards from your graveyard: Return Salvage Titan from your graveyard to your hand."
If Salvage Titan is in the graveyard and opponent has Stony Silence in play (which says "activated abilities of artifacts can't be activated"), can I still activate Salvage Titan's ability to return it from graveyard to hand? In other words, does Stony Silence's ability extend to artifacts in the graveyard?

No, Stony Silence does not affect that ability on Salvage Titan.
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.

Stony Silence refers to "artifacts", so it is talking about artifact permanents on the battlefield. So, while Salvage Titan is in the graveyard, Stony Silence's effect does not apply to it.


Games that play well with a wide range of different numbers of players Many times, I have limited space to pack games, and don't know how many players there are going to be. I frequently end up in a situation in which we have 5 players, but games that only work with 3 or 4 players, or something of the sort. In these situations, games which are flexible in the number of players they support are useful; one or two such games can cover most situations you end up in.

One problem is that while many games nominally work with a given number of players, they are really best played with a narrower range of players. For instance, there are many multi-player games that have a two-player variant, but the two-player variant is quite different than the multi-player game, and couldn't really be called the same game.

So, what games support a wide range of number of players well? Since there are many games which support 2-4 or 3-5 players, let's limit it to games that support at least 4 different player numbers well, such as 2-5 or 3-6 or any odd number from 7 to 15.

edit to add: Let's limit this to non-party games; party games as a genre tend to be fairly flexible in the number of players, so it's not all that interesting to list each one.

Once again I can't recommend Dominion enough.

The base set supports 2-4 players and really plays the same for all of those, and if you also get Dominion: Intrigue (or a second copy of Dominion, or just some extra copies of a few of the victory cards) you can play with anywhere from 2-6 players.  4 players is probably the "sweet spot" that the game was balanced around, though.

A few basic rules are adjusted based on the number of players - the amount of available victory points and the game end conditions scale with the number of players.

Game times will be affected most, naturally - in a 6-player game you'll be waiting longer between turns.  The other factor that changes is competition for cards - in a 2-player game you will mostly be able to get whatever cards you want, while a 6-player game will require more adjusting of your strategy on the fly to respond to cards going to other players.

All that said, the core gameplay works very well for any number of players from 2 to 6 without excessive special-case 2-player rules or dummy players.


Alternatives to the coins supplied in Puerto Rico After getting the Rio Grande Treasure Chest for the two Puerto Rico expansions, I want to spice up my set of Puerto Rico a little bit.

Can anyone recommend any good sites where I could get physical coins to use instead of the $1 and $5 pieces in the game?  I was thinking period-authentic replicas, or just even nice looking small gold and silver doubloon-looking coins.

Board Game Bits has little wooden disks in various sizes.  You could get some cheap plastic pirate coins you can get at pirate stores.  This might help spice things up also.  There is also a company out of Australia, Campaign Coins, that specializes in coinage useful for games and LARPs.  They're prices are a little steep at $7 for ten coins, but they have a good selection of different designs.


Does the Waymoot get 4 VPs if it shows up on the 1st round? At the start of the first round, if The Waymoot is one of three starting buildings, do you put 4 VP on it (i.e. 3 from the building description and 1 from the VP on the 1st round area)?

No, Waymoot would only get 1 VP Tokens placed on it, since it isn't in play.
The Builder's Hall (page 12) of the rules tells you to take the 3 VP Tokens for the round, and distribute one to each building tile for purchase. The Waymoot has special rules text that takes effect at the When Purchased/Start of Round, but this only occurs if it is "in play."

When Purchased and at Start of Round: Place 3 VP tokens on this space.

Once on page 8 under Start of Round

Start of Round - The rounds track on the game board starts out with 3 VP tokens [...] remove the 3 VP tokens from that round’s space and place 1 VP token on each face-up Building in Builder’s Hall.
When Purchased/Start of Round: Some Building tiles have special instructions to be followed when the Building is purchased and at the start of each round. If any of those Buildings are in play, follow the start-of-round instructions for each.(See Appendix 1: Buildings on page 12 for descriptions of these effects.)
Once all start-of-round effects are complete, players take turns in order.

On the same page under Assign Agent, they define what it means for a building to be in play.

Assign Agent
If you have any Agents in your pool, you assign 1 of them. To assign an Agent, place it on any unoccupied action space of a Building, whether a basic Building or one that has been put into play. You cannot place an Agent on an action space that contains another Agent (yours or another player’s) or on Buildings that are not yet in play.