Where are cards at different stages?

Ankha wrote:

TwoRazorReign wrote:

There is no contradiction in practice; however, there is an apparent contradiction that three people have commented on.
1.6.1 in the rulebook should state the following to match the Detailed Play Summary: "A card is played by placing it face up in the playing area. The player completely declares the effect of the card when it is played." The ash heap does not need to be mentioned here because that detail will be explained later in 6.2.3.

The reference for the rules is the rulebook, not the Detailed Play Summary. The DPS is a secondary document that explains the *same things* a different way. It also details all steps one by one, trying to be exhaustive.

This by default, makes the DPS rules, since it is what allows the rules to be used. This is identical to the situation of 'case law'. And because we do have control over the game, and could easily amend the rules of the game, it seems stupid not to 'amend the rules to include the case-law' so to speak.

This is a point I've been arguing for a while. We have three sets of rules on how to play the game, and at least one of them should be merged into another.

Ankha wrote:

This is a point I've been arguing for a while. We have three sets of rules on how to play the game, and at least one of them should be merged into another.

The DPS has errors in it. The DPS can't cover all the cases, unless it's 1000 lines long. I suggest we remove it because people use it as the reference rules, which it is not.

What is the third set of rules?[/quote]

I concider v:tes a more complex game then mtg in may ways, also rulewise. MTG have a 200+ comperhensive rulebook.

But then there also really aint any corner case that is missed.

Yeah we really need a clear cut, we cant get into a semantic argument over stuff ruleset.

But well mtg(wizards) have also had the guts to rewrite core rules so streamline and make things more intuative quite a few times.

/Jesper

Ankha wrote:

I suggest we remove it because people use it as the reference rules, which it is not.

What is the third set of rules?

The card "Rulings". You have "Rulebook", the CRR/Detailed Play Summary and the Rulings. Those constitute the three sets of rules.

The CRR/Detailed Play Summary seems to basically be a set of explanatory notes that should be subsumed into the Rules themselves (they are the rules which need to be the least separate than the rulings).

The DPS has errors in it. The DPS can't cover all the cases, unless it's 1000 lines long. I suggest we remove it because people use it as the reference rules, which it is not.

Be careful blaming people using the DPS wrong. It is not their fault that they don’t immediately understand an extremely complex game and are using the resources available to them to the best of their ability. It is the fault of those resources for not conveying clearly enough how the game is played.

It's not a question of guts. It's a question of (very heavy) work, and purpose.

This is a very valid point. If the amount of work is really the problem, you should just say this instead of defending a poorly written rulebook and calling people wrong for misunderstanding it.

The rulebook has been amended and perfected for about 20 years. It's unwise to scratch it because some people would like it to be written differently, not because it's wrong, but just because they'd prefer a "200+" (pages I suppose) document. Or because they read it wrongly.

Again, be careful blaming people for reading the rulebook wrongly. The problem with the rulebook is that it is not clear, not that it is wrong. And “perfected” is not the word I would use. It was codified over 20 years. But it certainly wasn’t perfected over that time. That’s why most of the posts on this forum are rules questions.

Nor it's not because two or three people on the forum complain that they represent a majority. The majority is silent, and I trust more a document that has been proof-read for 20 years than nitpicking arguments that don't stand.

The silent majority you are thinking of are players who have been playing the game for a number of years. They are not relevant to this discussion because they don’t need to read the rulebook. The few people who are commenting are newer players who read the rulebook and have fresh ideas on how to convey the rules of the game more clearly. Simply shunning their opinions and telling them they’re wrong is an interesting approach. It’s very defensive, almost like you’re taking these ideas as personal attacks. They’re not attacks, they’re just ideas. Let’s have a discussion.

Ultimately, I have nothing against the DPS, except that it's currently wrong on some parts, and that people use it against the rulebook saying: "the rulebook is wrong because the DPS says something else." It doesn't make sense, as it is the rulebook and nothing else that defines the rules.

The rulebook and DPS are inconsistent, and that’s why this is happening. They should be consistent. Getting rid of the DPS is a terrible idea. It is the only place where sequencing and combat are explained in enough detail to understand all of the concepts involved.

For cases that aren't explicitely covered by the rulebook, there are rulings that can be reverted or added.

Neither the rulebook nor the rulings give a clear enough description of sequencing or combat to understand all of the concepts involved.

For instance, the rulebook states that an action card played goes to the ash heap or in play when the action resolves. The original question was: where is the card in the meantime?

That is not what the rulebook states. It states that players play a card by either placing it in the playing area or in the ash heap. You added in “when the action resolves” to make your point. If the rulebook said that, I would not be having this discussion with you.

Actually, we can live without knowing that. We know it's "somewhere" not in the hand, not in play, not in the ash heap. Because people really wanted to know what is this place, a ruling gave it a name: limbo. Does it change anything to the game? No.

It doesn’t change anything in the game, but it makes the game easier to understand. Living “without knowing that” leaves things open to interpretation. If you leave things open to interpretation, you will get those pesky commenters wrongly interpreting the rules. And the cycle will continue.

There are plenty of things that aren't explicitely described, for instance: how is called the location in the play area where my library is? Do we care? No.

We don’t care because nothing interacts with that play area. So for this, we don’t need to make anything explicitly clear.