[s-d] [s-b] Upper House Ruling on CFI "15 points for DOOM!"

[Jake Eakle <jseakle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I hope I don't have to paste all the actual arguments and stuff in again..
for reference, they are below in the form of Zarpint's ruling.

Now, my Ruling: FALSE

Analysis: 
The wording on the card is unclear, and could be taken two ways, each of
which results in a FALSE ruling for this CFI. The first interpretation is as
follows:

Choose one: (Choose any three cards held by players and one card you hold)
or (Fail to choose any cards). If you chose the the first option, the cards
chosen are discarded and you gain 15 points. If you chose the second option,
discard cards at random from your hand until you have discarded five cards
or have no cards in your hand. If x fewer than five cards were discarded in
this way, discard x cards held by players at random.

Under this interpretation, Peter did not explicitly choose either option (or
more relevantly, did not explicitly choose the first option), and so
implicitly chose the second option. The second option does not award any
points to anyone, so the proper ruling is FALSE.

Another possibility with this interpretation is that since Peter did not
explicitly make one of the choices on the card, e did not successfully play
the card, and nothing happened and it's still in eir hand. The issue of
whether cards allow implicit choices is perhaps grounds for another CFI.
However, he still doesnt get the points, so the ruling is still FALSE.

The second interpretation is:

Choose four card name/player pairs. If one of the players is yourself and
each card named is held by the player you paired it with, discard a copy of
each named card from the hand of the player you paired it with. If all those
cards were discarded in this way, you gain 15 points. Otherwise, discard
cards from your hand until you have discarded five cards or have no cards in
your hand. If x fewer than five cards were discarded in this way, discard x
cards held by players at random.

Under this interpretation, Peter's card name/player pairs did not satisfy
the second condition, so no points are awarded. Therefore, the proper ruling
is FALSE. 


--Personman





On 2/26/05 11:44 AM, "Jeremy Cook" <athena@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 
> Looks like I'm still in the Upper House, and so I come out from
> my Rock to make a Ruling.
> 
> Plaintiff: Peter
> 
> Statement: When Peter played eir Card of DOOM! on nweek 80 nday
> 3, e gained 15 points.
> 
> Plaintiff's argument: The text on Card of DOOM! doesn't state
> that the normal action doesn't occur if the required cards are
> not chosen. Other cards (such as Greater Booty and Petty Theft)
> state that something happens "instead" of the normal action if
> the normal conditions aren't meant. Here without the use of the
> word "instead" or something similar, one would follow Card of
> DOOM!'s instructions in order, just like any other card. The
> card-player chooses cards.  The chosen cards, if any, are
> discarded. The card-player gains 15 points. Then, if not all
> cards were chosen, more stuff happens (namely, the random
> devouring of the card-player's hand, followed by other players'
> hands).
> 
> Defendant's Argument: The wording of the card suggests that the
> two are intended as disjoint alternatives. You pick the target
> cards, and then the target cards are discarded and you gain 15
> points; if you didn't pick the target cards properly, then
> discarding the targets is impossible, so instead you go to the
> end of the card, and the DOOM! randomly devours your hand. Since
> the 15-point gain is grouped with the discarding of the targets,
> it doesn't happen unless that whole block happens, which it
> didn't in Peter's case because e failed to specify valid targets.
> 
> Ruling: FALSE
> 
> Analysis: 
> 
> The text of the Card is: "Choose any three cards held by players,
> and one card you hold other than this one. All those cards are
> discarded and you gain 15 points. If you fail to choose such
> cards, five cards are chosen at random and all of them are
> discarded. The random choices will be made from cards in your
> hand until you have no unchosen cards left in your hand; the
> remaining choices will be made from cards in all player's hands."
> 
> Peter's Action was "I play a Card of DOOM!, discarding an
> Enclosing Game card held by Zarpint, a Tournament Russian
> Roulette card held by Wonko, a Your Spoo Has Too Much Fleem card
> held by bd, and another Card of DOOM!  from my hand. I gain 15
> points."
> 
> The Minister's response was "Peter plays a card of DOOM!, but
> fails to choose three cards in player's hands to be destroyed
> (there is no TRR in my hand). So the Card of DOOM! eats eir hand
> instead (two Cards of DOOM! and a Greater Booty). There are only
> three cards to eat there, so the DOOM!  selects two other cards
> at random, specifically SkArcher's RPS and bd's YSHMF."
> 
> According to Plaintiff's argument, what should happen is: "The
> chosen cards, if any, are discarded. The card-player gains 15
> points. Then, if not all cards were chosen, more stuff happens
> (namely, the random devouring of the card-player's hand, followed
> by other players' hands)."
> 
> This argument doesn't hold. The card doesn't say "if any". From
> the text of the card, it's clear that "All those cards are
> discarded" refers to four cards. Thus, the sentence "All those
> cards are discarded and you gain 15 points." fails to do anything
> at the first conjunct, since "all those cards" fails to refer to
> the four cards it's supposed to. So the second conjunct never
> gets a chance to happen. It's like short-circuiting operators in
> Perl. As Defendant points out, DOOM eating Plaintiff's hand and
> Plaintiff getting 15 points are written as disjoint alternatives.
> 
> Zarpint
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