Time for negotiation after playing a card before terms are set

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Pascal, reinforce what the rules say...
A card is legally played if and only if it is
1 - Revealed to the other players
2 - Its cost could be paid at the moment it was revealed
3 - Its effects were declared and had valid target/s and those targets were chosen

It seems that trying to construct tournament or game rules to police against negotiation in a five player high negotiation game such as this is policing the wind and the tide.

2/ has nothing to do with this debate. A card can't be played if its cost can't be paid.

A card is "played" once it's been moved from the hand to the limbo, and its targets (and whatever has to be chosen) have been declared. For instance, you can't play Direct Intervention on a Govern Unaligned before allowing the player to declare if it is base or superior.

Not to nitpick, but I mentioned legally played

Perfect.

The other way to maybe phrase the idea is (from the reverse point of view) is:

- The effects of a card are not declared until the person playing a card declares their effects but once declared cannot be changed.

This makes it in line with Political Action terms. The terms of a referendum must be negotiated before they are declared and once declared are not to be changed but voted upon.

The same can be done for other cards: their effects may be negotiated after at any point up until the Methuselah who is attempting to play the card declares the effects but once declared are not able to be changed.

So you may reveal a card, with the complete intention of playing it legally, and then negotiate on how that card will be legally played before declaring the specific legal play which a player will undertake. (i.e. You can state you will be playing a Haven Uncovered on a vampire, then negotiate which vampire may be declared as the target before settling on a 'declared target' for the Haven Uncovered).


This doesn't break the distinctiveness of the game in negotiation and deal-making but also still allows for the ready determination of unintended misplay and deliberate misplay.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

So you may reveal a card, with the complete intention of playing it legally, and then negotiate on how that card will be legally played before declaring the specific legal play which a player will undertake. (i.e. You can state you will be playing a Haven Uncovered on a vampire, then negotiate which vampire may be declared as the target before settling on a 'declared target' for the Haven Uncovered).

This is the common practice now - I completely agree with Johannes.

However, it is not technically correct. Changing the rules/rulings to say you can do this would make the rules/rulings match reality, except in Paris. Still, people often want to negotiate/remind the player of the consequences of their choice after the terms have been announced. IRL, people are changing their declarations after the are "reminded" of "game state".

AaronC:
My previous 'debate' with Jeff Kuta was entirely to point out that the current rules CAN be read that way. That reading them in the narrow fashion (You must reveal the card and tell me everything it does close to simultaneously) is one way, but that they could be easily read as a set of criteria (A card cannot be played until it is revealed and has had its effects announced but there is no requirement on the time gap between reveal and declaration and that allows for a negotiation window to exist).

Rather than quibble over "does the rules allow a window", we should reinforce that regardless of anything else... a card is NOT legally played until the person attempting to play it meets the criteria, which includes declaring the effects.

VTES is a game of negotiation and deal-making. Why are we trying to rule that out of the game? Why don't we just put the onus on the other players to wait until the card is fully declared before they play their response? Why don't we just get the other players to bring the judge over to hurry the slow-ass negotiations along? The rules don't favour EITHER interpretation, so lets make the interpretation suit the way the game IS played.