| Daniel Lepage on 1 Dec 2003 17:31:31 -0000 |
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| Re: [spoon-discuss] Re: [Spoon-business] New card: Nop |
On Monday, December 1, 2003, at 04:05 AM, Glotmorf wrote:
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?
If all cards that force you to do things are 'optional', then yes. By 'optional', I mean that it is theoretically possible to do nothing when targeted by them, even if there might be great penalties attached, such as an inability to play future cards.
What Nop does is force a player to make an active decision, which requires participation, at a specific time. It doesn't do this all by itself, but it does do this when used in conjunction with a card like "draw two", which forces a player to take an action that requires no decision on eir part and thus can be performed without the player's active participation.
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.
I think it does prevent other players from taking actions - if you can't determine which cards are still in that player's hand, then you can't determine which cards are in the deck; in order for anyone to draw, you must know the state of the deck. Thus, as long as the targeted player refuses to discard or draw, any attempt by another player to draw puts that player's hand in an indeterminate state as well.
This is not simply a complaint about Nop, mind you - the idea of forced decisions in general is one that is likely to come up in many card-based games, and we need some way of dealing with it.
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.
That's probably the best way to handle compulsory decision making; or to provide for it in the card ("the player must choose and discard all but two of eir cards; if e does not within one nweek, eir entire hand is discarded and e loses 50 points").
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.
I think that the problem isn't compulsory actions in general, but compulsory decision making; a card such as Nop could simply state on it that the player may not take any voluntary card related actions until the Nop is resolved, which resolves much of the problem - you can still be forced to draw, discard, and even play, but you can't choose to do any of the above of your own free will until you finish being Nopped.
Actually, I've just realized that the current Card definition doesn't support Nop - the Body is a Description of what happens when the card is played, and at the moment, no card can have jurisdiction except when it is played.
This also calls into question the legality of a statement such as "This card can only be played if there exists a waiting Syn card".
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.
The deck already has nearly eighty cards, and new ones keep getting added... I doubt we'll run out any time soon.
Though I appear to have forgotten to include a clause to return cards to the deck when a player forfeits or is GC'd.
BTW...is there an option (in memory of uin) that a player not have a hand?
Well, you could have a hand of zero cards, and simply refuse to draw, or you could simply ignore whatever cards are in your hand, since at the moment the only suggested card that can have an effect without being played is Nop, and it only affects the cards in your hand... But if we develop more cards like Nop that punish people simply for possessing them, then probably not, otherwise any player who does so basically gains immunity from a variety of card-related punishments.
I seem to recall that that was the argument against Grid nonintervention as well, though I suppose that passed anyway.
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