Re: [spoon-discuss] Re: [Spoon-business] New card: Nop

["Glotmorf" <dwhytock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 30 Nov 2003 at 23:48, Daniel Lepage wrote:

> 
> On Saturday, November 29, 2003, at 03:31 AM, Glotmorf wrote:
> 
> > On 28 Nov 2003 at 12:17, Daniel Lepage wrote:
> >
> >> Also, what constitutes a card related action? If somebody plays a card
> >> that requires me to draw a card, for example, what happens? According
> >> to their card, I must draw; according to mine, I cannot.
> >
> > The text reads, "upon receipt of a Nop card"; that means
> > you're acting in immediate response to the Nop card.  If you
> > get the Nop card because you're forced to draw, I would
> > interpret the situation to mean you'd stop long enough to
> > discard down to two cards, then draw more cards if still
> > required.  If you were somehow forced to have more cards than
> > the Nop-count maximum, you'd have to discard cards to come
> > down to the maximum.
> >
> > If you're asking whether a card that forces drawing takes
> > precedence over the Nop card, I'd guess the B Nomic precedence
> > rule kicks in, such that cards added after the Nop defer to
> > the Nop unless they explicitly claim precedence.
> 
> I'm worried about a situation like this:
> I play for a while, and accrue a hand of, say, 9 cards. Then I stop 
> playing, as many players have done in the past; I will eventually be 
> garbage collected out of the game.
> Shortly after I stop playing, many nweeks before garbage collection 
> kicks in, you play Nop on me. The next nday, The Baron targets me with 
> a card, Foo, that says something like "Wonko draws two cards". 
> According to the Baron's card, I must now draw two cards; according to 
> Nop, I cannot do so until I've discarded down to 2.
> 
> You could argue that since I am forced to draw by Foo, this supersedes 
> the restriction set on me by Nop. In this case, it would also be true 
> that if the Force were still in effect, and the Mind Trick was altered 
> slightly, I could keep playing as normal, ignoring the Nop, simply by 
> repeatedly forcing myself to play.
> 	This scenario also raises the issue of what happens then - Nop said I 
> couldn't do anything, but then I did. Am I still under the Nop? Must I 
> now discard before my next action (which will never come...)
> 
> You could argue that since I am forbidden to take card related actions, 
> the draw card fizzles and has no effect, as I am unable to carry out 
> its instructions. In that case, it is highly to my advantage to ignore 
> Nops until the last possible second, so as to make myself immune to 
> anything that forces me to discard.
> 
> Or you could argue what seems to me to be the most accurate argument 
> based on the text of Nop, that I *must* discard before the Foo hits me; 
> that is, as you suggested above, "I'd stop long enough to discard down 
> to two cards", then continue as usual. Then we run into the old problem 
> of the rules declaring that a player *must* do something when it has no 
> power to enforce it - if I've left the game and am no longer 
> responding, there's nothing the ruleset can do about it. So if I don't 
> declare which cards I'm discarding, the game enters an indeterminate 
> state, where, according to the rules, I must have at least two cards, 
> and I must have drawn two from the Deck at some point; but there is no 
> way to figure out which two are still in my hand, or whether I did 
> discard the Nop first and thus have 10 cards in hand now, or whether I 
> drew another Nop, or anything.
> 
> That is, IMHO, a Bad Thing.
> 
> Perhaps Nop should simply state, "If you hold a Nop card, you may not 
> play any cards unless you first discard down to twice the number of Nop 
> cards you hold."
> 
> This means that you can continue to draw, and even to give cards away 
> if you were foresighted enough to set up a Syn/Ack connection before 
> you got Nopped, but if you don't have a Syn/Ack, you'll have to discard 
> before you can play anything new.
> 
> Perhaps a note should be included, too, something like [[Note - you 
> choose which cards to discard first, then discard them all at once, so 
> if the number of Nop cards in your hand changes as a result of this 
> discard, you still discard the same number of cards.]]

Wouldn't it be more logical to say that events happening to a 
player that require action on that player's part stack up 
until (a) said actions are performed or (b) the player 
forfeits?

Okay, so the game is in an indeterminant state.  As long as 
that state doesn't prevent other players from taking actions, 
I think it's liveable.  And if people continue to pile card 
events onto a player who has a backlog already, more fool 
them.

The other alternative is to create a compulsory contingency 
system, whereby if a player doesn't voluntarily perform an 
action required by an event said action gets performed for em 
after a checkpoint or two.  Thus, cards that must be discarded 
because of a Nop can be randomly selected from eir hand.  
Cards that must be drawn are drawn.

Or we simply say that any compulsory action cards must be 
involuntary in nature, so that the target player not only 
doesn't have to make a decision, but is in fact not given the 
chance to.  I mislike that, because I'd rather have the 
opportunity for choice, even if I then blow my chance.  And of 
course it would Make More Work for Dave.

Worst side effect I see from a backlog is that the deck might 
get depleted.  Perhaps it would be a good idea to add a clause 
that, upon the depletion of the deck, all cards are returned 
to the deck and new hands are dealt.

BTW...is there an option (in memory of uin) that a player not 
have a hand?

						Glotmorf

-----
The Ivory Mini-Tower: a blog study in Social Technology.
http://ix.1sound.com/ivoryminitower

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