Re: Coven timing

So you can never "forget" anything except the Edge? Great. Our game is now reduced to a math exercise on a piece of paper.

Pascal, I'm not saying this isn't the correct response on your part. I'm saying that if someone discard, says DONE, and indicates that it's their prey's turn now, then they've forgotten to use the Coven, they don't get to go back and use it, and it passes to their predator. Too damn bad. This isn't a math proof, it's a game.

I suggest that a rule/ing be created that states that despite the impulse's timing, if a player voluntarily exits a phase by taking an action in the next phase, or by ending his turn, thereby ending the discard phase, that he forfeits all benefits of mandatory actions in the previous phase.

Yeah, I don't expect that to gain much traction, but our game is now reduced to who's better at math, not who's better at VTES.

I'd be suggesting that it should be this:

"If a player chooses to end a phase, they have forfeited all voluntary actions but must complete all mandatory actions before passing the impulse."

This means that if you forget, its your problem, the correct game state is reached and the impulse moves as it needs to.

But in general, I agree with you KJM. If people forget a voluntary effect, then they should pay the penalty for that oversight.

I'm going to start with clarification and proceed to opinion later.

Clarification:

I think there's some confusion for some of the readers here. I certainly didn't get what was going on at first; given their responses, I'd guess that KJM and Juggernaut are in the same boat.

As I see it, the scenario described is thus:

Players A and B are the only players remaining in a game. Player A has the coven, untapped.

Player A ends his turn without processing the coven.

Player B gets halfway through his turn. Then someone says "oh snap, we forgot about the coven - now we need to fix game state!"

Clearly game state gets fixed by moving the Coven from player A to player B. Game history is rewritten to state that it happened during player A's discard phase.

Now, this leads to two questions. I think the problem is that some folks are thinking about the first, and some the second.

First question: should player A be allowed to retroactively choose to tap the Coven before it moves?

Second question: if it is ruled that player A doesn't get to retroactively tap the coven before it moves, then should player B be allowed to retroactively tap the Coven before B's untap phase, getting a Coven "double dip"?

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Now, my opinion:

First, I think that once you establish that player B could possibly have tapped the Coven, Impulse is just a red herring here. Remember, our starting point is that we're trying to fix broken game state; we're already outside of timing rules.

I think there are three principles that should be considered here; to my mind they make a pretty good framework for figuring out how things should work out. They are:

i. The principle that a player should not be rewarded for making a mistake in updating game state. Obviously, if there was an advantage to be gained from forgetful play, that would encourage players to be "forgetful" more often, leading to more and more rollback issues. A direct consequence of this is, if there's a situation where one of two players will gain an advantage as a result of a mistake, it should go to the player that did not make the mistake. I will call this principle "justice".

ii. The principle that rewriting game history should mess with as little as possible. This is just common sense; we don't want to do-over huge sections of the game or have situations that are difficult to unravel. So, all things being equal, if there are two ways to fix the game state, we should choose the one that requires fewer changes. Let's call this "complexity"

iii. The principle that, once game history has been rewritten, the game state is consistent all the way through - ie, that the state at the end of the fix is such that you can look back and say "it's as if X happened, then Y, then Z, and then we ended up here", where each of X, Y, and Z are legal events supported by the rules. We should note that there's no real requirement that this be the case. Sometimes a judge dealing with a complex rollback case will just throw this out the window and set game state to something reasonable and close to what they consider fair. However, most of the time, especially with simple cases, a consistent state is better. I will call this principle "consistency."

In the light of these, I'm going to consider the two questions above.

Question 1 is pretty simple, I think. It seems clear that allowing player A to retroactively tap the Coven is not a good idea. It doesn't break consistency, but - when compared to not allowing A to tap it - it's a loss in terms of complexity and it doesn't quite square with justice.

Question 2 is more complicated. It doesn't break consistency, but letting player B tap the Coven before the untap adds more complexity than not letting them do so. As for justice - well, while not passing the Coven was player A's mistake, the Coven's text and state was public knowledge, and Player B did not notice this at the time either, so the fault wasn't all with A. I think it's actually fairer if A doesn't get the 2 blood, and B doesn't get the extra 2 blood; that way A is punished, but B doesn't get an extra random reward.

There's an argument where player B says "well, if we had been doing this correctly, A would have passed me the untapped Coven back in A's discard phase, and I would have been reminded about it when it was passed to me; so I should get to take advantage of that". However, I don't think that holds much water. It's clear that the scenario described isn't legitimate; if player A had remembered about the Coven and passed it during discard, they would almost certainly have tapped it first. The scenario in question exists as a result of the rewrite.

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I think it's also worth considering that, whenever we discuss any of the above, we're outside of the realm of the rules and in the territory of the game judge - especially if player B's turn has been running for a while. For example, imagine B has two empty minions at the start of the turn, had them both take their mandatory hunts, took an action with a third minion, and THEN figured out that they hadn't been passed the Coven. Or if they had decided to pitch an expensive, important action like Sensory Deprivation to The Barrens because they didn't think they had enough blood to play it. Really, if we're dealing with a rollback scenario, it's up to the judge to decide; this is an area where the rules have been broken, and I don't think Pascal can make a rules call here that would suit all possible table situations. (I mean, consider also if this is player A's third time making the same mistake...)

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There's also a closely related case. What if A says "pass" at the end of A's turn, and B immediately realizes that they didn't process the Coven?

According to the rules, A isn't allowed to pass if he/she has mandatory effects remaining. So, as a good player, B should point that out. However, if B does point this out, then A's pass will be rolled back, and since nothing else has happened, A will get another opportunity to tap the Coven.

This means that, at this point, B would be penalized for doing the right thing. And that's baked into the rules of the game.

Alternately, B can pass themselves, then immediately point out that the Coven was not passed. But then you're in a rollback situation again - and they still don't get to use the Coven themselves before untap, because they already knowingly passed.

... it's a weird grey area.

One way to fix this is to actually change the timing rules. Rather than not allowing players to pass if they have mandatory effects, let anyone pass whenever they want - but, if all players pass while mandatory effects are still pending, rather than letting the phase end, go into a "mandatory only" stage. While in this stage:
1) starting with the player whose turn it is and continuing clockwise, find the first player with a pending mandatory effect. (If none are found, the phase ends.)
2) have that player's prey choose a mandatory effect that remains unresolved
3) have the player with the mandatory effect make any choices necessary to resolve it. (burn pool or minion to AA; choose regular or variant hunt for an empty minion, etc)
4) allow all players to respond as normal, including blocks for mandatory actions etc.
5) go back to step 1.

This has some positive effects. It deals with the case mentioned above. It gives a clear framework for ordering multiple mandatory effects. It increases the number of rollback cases that can be resolved entirely mechanically, and thus reduces the need for a judge.

However, it does make the impulse rules - which are already confusing to some people - even more complicated. And that may just be too much to deal with...

... and there's also some question about what kinds of effects should be allowed in step 4.

Fin,
You're kind of cross-breeding three issues.

Issue #1: How do you correct an incorrect game state?
Answer: The way you usually do, by making the least number of changes required to have the table be in the 'correct state' or as close as is reasonably possible to the 'correct state' (which basically enforces any mandatory effects).

Issue #2: What does it mean or should happen when a player declares to the rest of the players that a phase has ended? (Either by moving into the next phase or by declaring the end of their turn).
My Answer (and KJMs answer): That player has chosen to forfeit all voluntary effects and to ensure the correct game-state all mandatory effects are completed. Then impulse is passed in the usual way. Then in the scenario regarding the Coven, the player who currently controls the Coven forfeits the ability to tap it for blood (being penalised for their own mistake), the mandatory effect occurs (moving it to their Predator) and then the impulse is passed, which will in turn give the Predator the opportunity to tap the Coven before the current turn finishes.
Note: This is move the game to the easiest correct state AND applying the Impulse rules. The game state was corrected when the Coven moved and any other effects (such as someone preemptively drawing a card) can be unwound to that point. Then the Impulse rule is given precedence and the impulse moves around the table. In more cases than not, this should be a trivial event. If for some reason play has moved past that point (i.e. into another players turn), then it still gets met by the principal that if you didn't take your voluntary effect its your bad play.

Issue #3: How does Impulse work?
Answer: Simply, the same way as it always had. Every player gets the impulse at the end of a phase and at that point they may declare any effects that are legal to use at that time.

KevinM wrote:

Yeah, I don't ecpect that to gain much traction, but our game is now reduced to who's better at math, not who's better at remembering what cards are in play.

I've been conveniently forgetting to do mandatory Smiling Jack penalties for the past year so this will also affect my game. Now I'll have to actually read what that card does...

KevinM wrote:

Yeah, I don't expect that to gain much traction, but our game is now reduced to who's better at math, not who's better at VTES.

That's a weird statement. Do you really think that the memory game element is or ever was a bigger part of VTES than the mathematical or Machiavellian elements? To me, to be good at VTES has always been to be good at mathematical thinking and manipulating other players. Remembering to do things steps in at the same level as knowing how to hold cards in your hand or not drooling on the table.

I don't necessarily disagree with you on the Coven-issue, though.