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Optimal (Or Just Effective) Strategy For The Resistance?
I played Resistance for the first time last night, and it was great fun, but the consensus at the table was that the resistance can only beat the spies given a healthy dose of luck.  I played a resistance member both times, and won one and lose one game.  But even after two games I have no idea how to act in an effective manner liable to uncover the spies and result in probable resistance victory.
Take the first round of the first game: as resistance leader for the round I had no idea who was loyal, so I chose two players at random to go on the mission.  The prevailing opinion was that the first mission always succeeds, because no spy will ever tip their hand that early.  As such, I can't see any way of getting any useful information out of mission one.  Am I missing something?
To keep this question from being overly general: let's take the situation I found myself in last night.  A seven player game, with four resistance members and three spies.  Assuming that all the players are acting rationally and the spies are not being too devious about presenting themselves as loyal resistance men, what strategies can the resistance adopt or what signs can they look out for from the spies to give them a solid chance of victory?

If you're a Resistance member and the first leader, this tactic gives a 1-in-5 chance of directly winning the game:
On the first round, send yourself and someone who isn't to your left. If both the player you send and the player to your left are Resistance members, you win!
The flow is as follows:

You and the selected Resistance member succeed at the first mission.
When the player to your left becomes the leader, she adds herself to your successful team, and you succeed at the second mission.
The third leader has to send the three of you on the third mission lest he out himself as a spy. You three keep down-voting missions until you get sent and succeed at the third mission.

To see that this gives a 1 in 5 chance of outright winning, multiply the probability that the player to your left is in the resistance by the probability that you successfully pick a resistance member for the first mission:
3/6 * 2/5 = 1/5
If the first mission fails, at least you know for certain the identity of one of the spies (and hopefully can convince your allies of this).
If the first mission succeeds and the second fails, well, now you're playing a normal game of the Resistance.
If the first two succeed and the third fails, you've almost won, and the Imperial spy gained almost nothing from waiting.
In each case, attempting the auto-win didn't cost you anything.

A minor modification here is to intentionally choose the person on your left.  Let them choose a random third player for the team.  This way, if the first mission fails, you know to downvote mission #2 (as you know the person to your left is a spy).  Otherwise the odds are the same (this way it just recovers quicker)

I like to call this strategy "The Three Wise Men" ploy.  Basically, as the first leader, you should always assume that the first three leaders (yourself and the two people clockwise from you) are innocent until proven otherwise.  If you're right, congratulations - you're the Three Wise Men and just get a random, free victory!

This strategy will lead to a lot of failures once everyone knows what is going on. If the first team includes a spy or the person sitting to the left of the starting player is a spy they have a lot of power in gaining a spy victory. Assuming 7 players as that would be a 2, 3, 3 player mission progression. If one of the 3 players in the first two missions is a spy when they fail the second mission they cast a lot of concern on 3 of the players. Assuming there is only 1 spy in that group means there is two spies in the other group giving you a 50/50 chance of getting a spy from the rest.

I have really been enjoying this game; we play it a lot at work over lunch. I haven't kept track, but I'm pretty sure the victories are roughly evenly split. You are correct that in a game with fewer than 8 players, the first mission almost always goes to the Resistance because the Spies aren't willing to risk being found out. This isn't an issue with 8+ players, because the first mission is three people and it's not so dangerous for the spies to sabotage then.
A 7-player game isn't really that hard for the Resistance to win. As we've said, they can generally count on winning the 1st mission. They can also usually count on winning the 4th mission, since the Spies need two votes to fail that mission. So they only need to win one of the remaining three missions. The 5th mission is difficult to win, because the Resistance must correctly pick every Resistance member. However, the 2nd and 3rd missions are doable. Generally if it gets to the 5th mission, the Spies will win, unless the Resistance players have figured everyone out.
An important thing to remember is that you often gain more information from the team votes than from the mission votes. It's generally very telling when someone votes against a mission team. A simple strategy that often works well is to simply repeat successful (for the Resistance) teams. For example, if the Resistance wins the 2nd mission, simply repeat the same three people for the 3rd mission. It's possible there was a Spy in the group, but it's unlikely they would have let the Resistance get a 2nd victory so early (assuming they won the 1st). Anyone that votes against this repeat team is likely a Spy. If the leader refuses to repeat the same team, they are likely a Spy. You can use the same strategy with the 4th mission. If the Resistance won the 3rd mission, simply repeat the same three people plus one more. Since the Spies will need two fail votes, if the previous three were all Resistance they will win again. Obviously, the Spies will vote against this (unless there was a Spy in the previous group). So if the Resistance wins either the 2nd or 3rd mission, just make sure the same three people are on the next team. If the Resistance doesn't win either the 2nd or 3rd they are in trouble, because even if they win the 4th, the 5th will be tough.
Also, keep in mind that in the early part of the game only the Spies have a good reason to vote against a team. A Resistance player would only vote against the 1st team if they were playing a hunch or trying to get the leadership to move closer to them. Likewise, assuming the 1st mission goes to the Resistance and the same two people are proposed for the 2nd mission, only a Spy would generally have cause to vote against the team as the Resistance players don't have much to go on.

I think the group I was at may have been playing it wrong.  Can you confirm, if people vote for a mission to go ahead, does the leader stay the same for the next mission?  The way they taught it to me, the leader rotates clockwise every turn, vote of confidence or no.  I can imagine it makes a big difference if the leader role can stay put, almost certainly in the Resistance's favour!

Hmm, online consensus is that the leader role does constantly rotate.  I'd ask a question about how the game would change if this were not the case, except I know such questions are generally frowned upon by the Stack format (not based on practical experience)...

@sun Sorry for the confusion. The leadership does change after each mission team vote. What I was trying to say is if the 2nd mission is won by the resistance, the next leader should choose the exact same team. What reason would they have for not doing so? They could argue 1 of those people is a spy, but it's unlikely. That'd mean the spy chose not to fail the mission and handed the resistance a 2nd victory (assuming they won the 1st, as usual). The same logic also applies to the 4th mission. It doesn't matter who the leader is. They should either follow this logic or out themselves as a spy.

Also, keep in mind that in the early part of the game only the Spies
  have a good reason to vote against a team.

...actually, its the opposite.  In the early part of the game, only the Spies have good reason to vote FOR a team....
Think of it this way:  If a team vote UNANIMOUSLY passes, that means the spies have also voted for the team to pass...
Only the spies have perfect information.  They know themselves and the other spies.  So if themself or one of their dirty scumbag traitorous buddies are on a team, you can bet they WILL vote for it!  (unless of course they are being sneaky).
The resistance don't know who's who.  Since you don't know, why would you arbitrarily accept a team?
I'm not sure if the opposite is true, but right now (my logical deductive brain isn't the best) I can't see why not.  If a team UNANIMOUSLY FAILS a team vote, that means all the Spies have voted it down also.... its possible that it was a team made up entirely of good guys (rebels / resistance)... so the next leader should attempt the same team to a split vote: Rebels approving and the Spies (possibly) outing themselves!  In either case, if the mission succeeds, stay with those members for the next mission.

Actually, if there is more than one spy on a team, and you are a spy you probably want to vote against it...

It all depends who you're playing with. If you're largely playing with people you don't really know, then you should stick to an odds-based strategy from one of the previous answers. However, when you're playing with close friends, the game becomes more interesting because you can identify the "tells" of the other players. When you know the people you're playing with well, the game actually becomes less about strategy and more about psychology.

The only thing you need to be concerned about in an optimal strategy is information about the other players. In The Resistance you will gain information in three main ways.
First is how a player picks a team, this is not only from who they pick to go on a team but any explanation of how they picked it.
Second is how people vote on a team after the members have been picked. This is can be a powerful tool in determining not only spies but if the mission will fail before the mission votes are shown. What I mean by this is if you have a mission where everyone votes for it to go (other than the first mission where no information is known) then you know the spies approved of it which should be a bad sign.
Third is how the mission went. If the mission fails you know for certain that there is at least one spy on the team. If the mission passes there might be a spy on the team or it could be a spy pretending they are not a spy so they get picked again.
What should be avoided as it can cause lots of problems for the resistance and help the spies is strategies that spell out how to play the game (that and it takes a lot of fun out of it). Any strategy and rules that resistance members know the spies will also know and be able to use to their advantage.  Here is an example of a problem strategy.

7 player game players  A, B, C, D, E, F, G sitting in a circle in that order.
Players A, G, F are spies, B, C, D, E are resistance
Player A picks the first mission and chooses players A and E to go on the mission which is voted to succeed. In the end no real information is gathered other than thinking that no spy was on the mission.
Player B picks A and E to go on the mission because it succeeded and include themselves and the mission succeeds again. In the end no real information is gathered other than thinking that no spy was on the mission.
Now Player C is forced into the position of choosing the exact same team because everyone knows there is no spies on the team. This time when the votes are counted the mission fails because player A is ready to make their move. Other than knowing a spy was on the mission no real information was gained.
At this point the players on the resistance know two things. In the group that was on the mission there is likely one spy (more spies would risk having more fail votes). In the group that wasn't on the mission they know that there are two spies.
At this point Player D has a very hard choice to make. 4 players need to be chosen for the next mission with the upside that 2 votes are needed to fail. At this point they know only one person can be picked from the group that hasn't played and there is only a 33% chance that they will not get a spy. From the second group they will have a 66% chance of not getting a spy on the first pick and a 50% of not getting one on the second pick. This mission comes down to luck on the picks and if the leader is a spy then chances are you just lost the mission and the game as there will be even more confusion for the last round.

A loss like this is possible because of the rules on how people are supposed to act and that lets the spies be able to pass themselves off as resistance members. As a spy there is no reason to worry about two resistance wins in a row the spies are able to have a good shot at controlling who goes on the later missions in order to ensure they fail and the best way to do that is to not look like a spy.

I have played as a Spy and been put on the first mission.  I chose to fail it.  The only person who knows for sure that I am the spy is the other person on the mission.  Then you start a slow smear campaign against the other person.  If you can get one other player to side with you (another spy usually) then others will come to your aide.  Its risky but you can make it work...

In a situation like this you can let yourself get outed as the spy and then use your mission voting to make it look like one of the resistance members is a spy by rejecting missions they are not on.

A well known tactic for fishing out newbie spies is showing how it is mathematically superior to be on the mission.
Everybody will claim resistance, and resistance don't know who the other resistance, so in a 5p game, you have four companions, two of which are spies (you must act like this even if you are a spy), so the odds of the first mission being clean when you are NOT on it would be 1/4. The odds of it being clean if you ARE on it is 1/2. This discrepancy should never be overlooked, as spies (with perfect information) would be the only ones with any incentive to offapp a mission (approve a mission you are not on), and you can catch newer players this way.
You must also pay careful attention to picks. A pick may be from resistance, thus meaning nothing, but if you know how a spy might act (likely trying to establish trust with a res), you can pick out potential resistance members.
Pay attention to what spy teams are possible. If m1 (mission 1) fails, then the people that weren't on the mission can't possibly be a spy team. Never repick a failing mission (although you will want parts of it most of the time) and be wary around accusations.


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Here Come The Warm Jets
One of the swingier cards in the Agricola X-Deck is "Mind the Jets!".  Players lucky enough to have renovated to a Clay house get their dwelling hardened to Stone by the jets of the alien spacecraft... but players whose houses are still made of Wood watch them burn down to the ground.
It didn't seem problematic to us having two families without a roof over their heads - obviously there wasn't going to be much Family Growth in our game's future!  However, our issue lay in interpreting the text on the card which states that homeless players may "renovate" back to a 2-room Wooden hut for 2 Wood and 1 Reed.
Does this action require a family member to visit the Renovate space to get their house back?  The card's use of inverted commas implied to us that this was not a normal Renovation, so we ruled that getting a 2-room Wooden house back was a free action, to anyone with the required Goods in their supply.
And then, another issue arose, which was that I had an Occupation in play, the Wood Carver, that allowed me to pay 1 less Wood once per turn for a room, improvement, fence or stable.  I ended up paying 1 Wood and 1 Reed to get my house back, but now I'm feeling a bit nervous that I can't have it both ways.  Either the post-Mind-the-Jets action is a real renovation or it isn't.  Can something like the Wood Carver really provide a discount for rebuilding an incinerated wooden house if we have ruled that to be a special, unique and exceptional free action?
(Bonus question: is it possible that I'm taking Agricola: The Goodies a little bit too seriously?  Surely not!)

From the rules posted here:

If your home is destroyed, its spaces count as “unused” and your family sleeps under the stars until it is rebuilt. You must take a Renovate action to renovate to a new Wooden hut.)

I'd say that it's not a free action. I don't have an official ruling on Wood Carver, but I'd say that it would apply.

Hmm, yes, if it costs a Renovate action then the Wood Carver's discount would certainly apply, I'd have thought.  I do think that forcing the player to take an additional Renovate action on top of all their other problems - especially if other lucky players are now living in free Stone buildings - is adding grievous insult to injury!  But maybe that's just the way the X-Deck rolls...

That may indeed be how the deck rolls - I'm pretty sure that this card in particular is the one that made my wife hate the X-Deck. She prefers the family version without the minor improvements and occupations anyhow, and having her house burn down (and I think mine actually go to stone) really ticked her off.

Mm, my wife and I are enjoying the X-Deck so far but it's extremely swingy - the effects can really turn the game around, and not always in the favour of the person taking the stone (or else it would be an easy choice).  Family version Agricola is such a finely balanced game that a deck that throws in even more wild randomness (than even the most broken Occupation cards!) definitely feels a bit contrary to the spirit of things.

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How To Trap Meeples In 2-Player Carcassonne?
During the past couple of weeks I got a bit addicted to online 2-player "ranked matches" of Carcassonne on my XBox.  After a few humiliating losses against the local sharks, it became obvious to me that optimal strategy is probably not to concentrate on building your own features, and hope you come out ahead in the final points tally; but to aggressively trap the opponent's meeples in disadvantageous, or preferably completely inescapable, positions - until your usable men outnumber theirs enough that you can dominate the game.  That's if they haven't managed to trap your guys first, of course!
My problem is that I have a hazier idea of what constitutes a good trap than what some of my better opponents do.  I'll be thinking "aha, you'll never find a tile with three road sides and one city side", and obviously they draw such a thing straightaway.  Conversely, when they see me making an obvious attempt to block one of their guys in, they'll quickly box themselves in in such a way that it's easy for them to draw the right piece to escape.
So: is there a list of the different tiles in the basic game of Carcassonne? What positions are impossible to extract a meeple from, and/or what are the easiest spots to draw a good tile to escape from? Help me become as evil and dastardly a Carcassonne player as my opponents!

The first question is straightforward.  Yes, there is a list of the tiles.
It is much easier to discuss places where no tile can be placed, rather than meeple traps, although they are obviously related.  The basic game has no tiles with the (unordered) edges {pasture, pasture, road, city} or {pasture, road, city, city}.  It also has no tile with the ordered edges (city, road, city, road).
I tend to use these facts to try to create unfinishable holes next to my opponent's features.
If you're on the ball you can also use the fact that some tiles have already gone.  I usually only use this for spotting whether farmland can easily become connected or not, by keeping track of the six monastery tiles (i.e. the pieces with the most 'pasture connectivity').  In theory you could use this to keep track of other types of tiles too.
One last thing - when my opponent has a large city on the go, then it's worth putting in effort to ensure it doesn't get completed.  This can mean adding tiles to open out their city. It is more usual to be trying to create unfillable spaces though, and this is best done by placing tiles to try to hit one of the three combinations above.

Note: This applies to the base Carcassonne set.  I played enough with Inns and Cathedrals to learn that set too, but as you add more sets learning the distibution has diminishing returns.  Here is a full list of the expansions and their tile distributions.
All the tile edge combinations exist in one set or another as there are only 24 (until you start including river tiles).  There are plenty more tiles designs than that (e.g. two city edges may or may not join on a tile), and they've probably all been done in one expansion or another by now!

It can be nearly as effective to join their castles and roads as it is to cripple them. That way the only advantage to completing a project is to get your meeps back. The XBLA game doesn't really last long enough for you to lock away all of their meeple in traps, even with the DLC.

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How Do You Catch A Player Who Takes A Quick Lead In Alhambra?
I really enjoying playing Alhambra, but I'm a bit worried that my strategy may be overly simplistic.  Basically, I play according to the following principles:

Try not to build buildings unless I can pay exactly for them, except in emergencies
Prefer to pick up several small currency cards over one large one
Prefer to pick up a currency card that will help me buy a building for exact money
Walls are good, staying competitive in different colours is good, taking too big a lead in buildings of any one colour is unnecessary

And these rules of thumb work pretty well to give me a fair chance of winning the games of Alhambra I play.
What I don't know is, what do in a game where the above strategy isn't winning the game for me?  I'm playing a game online at the moment where one player just raced ahead of everyone else really early one.  I guess his starting currency cards were a really good match for the  buildings that were available early and all his tiles were unusually cooperative in allowing him to build a really good wall.  (Either that or he's just a much better Alhambra player than the rest of us - always a possibility!)
So I'm finding my above strategy isn't very enjoyable in a game where a player is miles ahead.  Therefore: is there a way of adapting my Alhambra methods to aggressively "go after" another player who is doing rather too well?  Or is Alhambra just one of those unfortunate games where a player developing an early lead is overwhelmingly likely to win?

From my experience, early leads in Alhambra tend to not indicate victories.  In most games in my circles I am last after the first scoring round, and then win the game.
My strategies:

First scoring round is all about walls.  These walls if played right
will make you points two more times in the game.  The color points
are meager, and the game will change quite a bit before the next
scoring round.
Before first scoring, stacking up on money can be more useful than buying.
Small exact change is nice, but don't undervalue big money.  Having to later drop 4 cards to pay for something loses all the advantage of taking two consecutive actions.  In a perfect world you have some 8s and 9s, and some 1s and 2s to adjust them.
Buy almost always for exact change, but don't feel bad taking something for too much if you need it (if it's an emergency).
The endgame grab of tiles can decide the winner.  Be ready for it when taking money late game.
If you can, memorise EVERYTHING.  There is actually no unknown information.  You have seen every card in every player's hand.

Excellent general points, though when I say "early lead" I don't necessarily mean "buying every tile that comes up in the first few rounds, and ending up with a random assortment of tiles, a few walls, and not very much money at the time of the first scoring".  More just a player who pulls ahead quickly due to great compatibility between the money cards they get dealt and the early tiles/walls that are available".  I'd say it's not always the case in Alhambra that pulling ahead early definitely implies you'll be in a worse position early on...?

I am sorry i assumed early lead meant points, not overall good game standing.
What i mean is that people who blow all their money before first scoring, and knowing how the overall game develops, do poorer than people who hold on to money and make wiser decisions mid game.  This also means more money in hand to buy with exact change.

I have accepted this answer, though I have to say, since I started taking a more measured approach to Alhambra, saving money instead of buying anything that I have exact money for, and considering the strategic value of tiles before buying them... I feel like I've started to do a lot worse!  But I'll keep at it for a while :)


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When to make a continuation bet and how much in Texas Hold'em?
I am aware of the idea of a continuation bet, where you bet again on the flop, after a pre-flop raise. However, I'm not that sure on when I should and shouldn't do it. I tend to do it if I get the idea (from other players checking, say), that other players have missed the flop, but it would be useful to have more specific things to look for.
Also, how big should continuation bets be? I've heard between half and the full pot as a guide, with the higher end for if the flop has high draw potential (lots of hearts, say).  Is that reasonable?
How much does it make a difference if I have hit the flop or not? Also, how much of a difference is there between cash games and tournaments?

I would say that you want to make a continuation bet a large percentage of the time if you have signalled you are in the lead and no opponent has signalled otherwise.  What this "large percentage" is probably depends on what you are comfortable with and how aggressive you are, but I would estimate it would vary from 50% to 100%.  Continuation betting on every single flop will make you predictable.  You should also factor in how tight the table is - placing the bet more at a tight table and less at a loose table or against loose opponents.
Don't vary your bet based on whether or not you hit the flop.  This gives a signal to your opponents which will eventually allow good opponents to tell whether you hit the flop. Vary your bet based only on the texture of the flop - as you mentioned, a flop with more draw possibilities rates a larger bet, although some flops may be so dangerous that you may not make a continuation bet at all (i.e. Jh, Qh, Kh) if you did not catch a piece of them.

Assuming you play no-limit cash games:
Personally, I like to cbet every single flop but only if i was the aggressor preflop (that means i raised before the flop - no one re-raised me and there are one or more callers). If the aggressor was someone else, you should be more careful: Obviously you want to raise the flop for value if hit something (and you think you are ahead). In that case, your bet size should depend on the structure of flop (draw heavy means bigger bets). If you miss, you have to consider to fold.
A few words regarding bet size:

Bets less than 1/3 the pot are meaningless in almost every situation (exception are thin value bets and so on in higher stakes games - you probably have quite a few things to lean, before you need to worry about such things).
Bets more than 1/1 the pot are usually to much - you just don't get called by weaker hands often enough to make it profitable in the long run.

Every bet you make, must be for one of two main reasons:

Bet for value
Bet for bluff

Every time you bet, you have to ask yourself, why are you doing it, and continuation bet is not an exception. I'm not gonna explain what the reasons mean as it's off-topic, but you can read about it e.g. here: http://www.cardschat.com/reasons-for-betting.php
Your reasons for cbet should vary on what type of game you're playing, and what kind of opponents you're dealing with. If you play a freeroll, or a low-stakes cash game, you better cbet only for value, because weaker opponents will tend to call you even with the lowest pair, or similar weak hands, thus making your cbets less profitable. Also a lot depends on your table image, if you think other players see you as a tight player, you can bet for bluff from time to time, without any damage. If they think you're playing loose, you will profit from value betting more.
The bet size shouldn't be less than 1/2 of the pot, and more than the pot, but this may also vary depending on the players, and the board texture. If you're dealing with a drawy board, you should bet more than is the pot, to lower the pot odds for players waiting for the draw to complete.

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Where can I play Hearts online?
I would like to play against other people.
Can't seem to find any sites.

Yahoo! Games has Hearts. Actually I originally signed up for a Yahoo account so I could play Hearts.

cool thanks. wow, looks so old though, u know any newer websites?

do you find that when you play, it keeps booting you out of games? I logged in and probably was booted out of 10-15 games before I could play

You can play Hearts now on Board Game Arena. There are also many other board and card games available.
If you want to know why I recommend BGA, please have a look at my post on another question here. There are many reasons to join BGA community, mostly:

Many great games.
Technology - web based
Both live & asynchronous play
Table system
Community

Reputation
Feedback

Ease of use

I used to play mostly Bridge and occasionally Hearts on pogo.com.  Again it's a site that's been around for many years, though!

PlayOK is pretty good and uses almost-standard rules of Black Lady Hearts.  It runs on Java.

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Effect of "keep in play" on "Thirty-Three" crisis card?
The crisis card 'Thirty-Three' has the following special rule:

Relentless Pursuit: Keep this card in play until a civilian ship or basestar is destroyed. If this card is in play when the fleet jumps, shuffle it back into the Crisis deck.

What exactly does this mean? My gaming group has come up with 3 possible interpretations so far:

the card is kept in play, and has no effect, other than to be shuffled back into the deck afterwards -- in other words, the special rule is simply that "there's a chance it may reappear later in the game", but that just seems a really weak rule, partly because the odds of it ever reappearing within the same game are pretty low, and partly because it's just not a very strong attack (place one basestar, no raiders and no heavy raiders)
the card is kept in play, and all instructions on the card are repeated every turn. This seems to match the actual episode which the card is named after (the fleet is attacked every 33 minutes until they lose a civilian ship), but means a lot of ships are put on the board every turn (two vipers, 4 civilians and a basestar), and that raiders are activated
the card is kept in play, and the raider activation is repeated every turn. This seems a bit milder than the previous interpretation, in that new ships aren't put on the board.

is there an official explanation somewhere? Or just some kind of consensus on which interpretation makes sense?

We've always played it as option #1, and I've only ever seen it played as option #1.  I agree its 'weaker' than the effect in the show, but its the only interpretation that is supported by hard-and-fast rules-as-written logic.

Yeah, what puzzles me isn't just that the effect is weaker than in the show, but mainly that it's so much weaker than pretty much every other card. I mean, practically speaking it makes no difference that the card is shuffled back into the deck. It just seems strange.

One side effect of this card is that the pocket of really nasty buried crises at the bottom of the crisis deck are shuffled, so they it's not just 33 that may show back up.  Every bad crises that you thought you scouted past is now "back in play". :)

Your first option is the correct ruling. I think it was done mostly for flavor. However while it may not be the nastiest card in the deck, Thirty-three can be nasty if Galactica is currently under attack because it scatters so many civilian ships around and immediately activates the Raiders.

Doesn't it activate the raiders first? The raiders are activated as step 1,and step 2 says to deploy all those ships (that's true for all attack cards though, not just 33)

That's correct. My mistake. I was going from memory. I've amended my answer.

I agree that option #1 is the correct rule.
I've played with a house rule that states you shuffle thirty-three into the top 3 cards of the crisis deck. This makes things quite a bit more difficult because

The attacks are in general much worse than the other crisis cards.
Thirty-three is much harder if there are ships to be activated.

Ooh, that's nasty! I love it


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In Descent, can heroes jump over arbitrary tiles or just pits?
The rules clearly state that heroes can jump over pits, and how much movement it costs  to do so.
But in some quests, simply stepping on a regular terrain tile may trigger effects too (in this case, Quest #3 in Well of Darkness, where it triggers a rolling boulder, and can trigger this effect multiple times), and it's a safe bet that once the heroes have triggered that once, they're going to want to jump over that tile the next time they need to get past it.
So, is that allowed? Do we simply assume that the "jump over pits" rule also applies to "jump over blank tiles"? Or is there some official ruling about this?

I don't know about the general case, but the official FAQ does specify that you can NOT jump over water tiles. They give a pretty lame justification for it, but the real reason is that it would break a lot of the scenarios that count on that to act as a barrier. So a good rule of thumb is probably that you also can't jump over "trigger" type tiles that a scenario's challenge is built around. Unfortunately I can't find anything official to back that up, other than the rulebook only specifically mentioning pits in regards to jumping and the FAQ specifically saying you can't jump over water.
That said, in all our games, we always allowed jumping over damaging tiles such as lava, too. Spending the extra extra movement point to avoid a wound (which is pretty much why you'd jump over a pit, too) seemed balanced.


text:
Can a Beer protect me from Dynamite overkill?
In Bang!, if I have 1 bullet left and the Dynamite blows up on me for 3 damage, can I use Beer and wind up at 1 life at the end?

Basically, drink more beer.

You would have to play 3 beers to wind up with 1 bullet if the dynamite blew up on you with 1 bullet left. Here's an example in the rule book for the beer card that explains it...

Example. You have 2 life points left, and suffer 3 damages from a Dynamite. If you play 2 Beers you will stay alive with 1 life point left (2-3+2), while you would be eliminated playing only one Beer that would allow you to regain just 1 life point. You would still be at zero!


text:
How has the composition of Catan's development card deck changed over time?
Has the number of Knight/Year of Plenty/Road Building/Victory Point/Monopoly cards in Settlers of Catan's development card deck evolved across editions, or is the latest edition the same as the first?
If so, what was its progression?

It has stayed the same from the beginning (though Mayfair has changed some rules and the map in the last edition):

14 Soldiers
5 Victory Points
2 Monopoly
2 Road Building
2 Year of Plenty

You are correct. One interesting thing to note is that the development cards in the very old versions were on much thicker cardstock. That is why many people refer to them as "stiffy" cards.

@Apreche Interesting, I've heard them called "spiffies" with a "p," with the word applied to any game's special cards, like Monopoly's Chance and Community Chest cards.

I've seen no indications of changes by edition, but note that Cities and Knights alters it.

Cities and Knights alters it, as does the 5-6 player expansion and a couple Traders and Barbarians scenarios.

As I recall, my copy of the original Mayfair 4-player edition (with the teeny tiny cards) combined the Kosmos 4-player and 5-6 player decks, and that was fixed when Mayfair started using the Kosmos materials in later editions. It's possible I just had a bad copy, though.


text:
Do good bridge players memorize all cards played?
Certainly, they track the quantity of each suit and the high value cards, but I'm curious if good bridge players also remember, say, whether someone ducked the ace using a 7 of spades vs a 6 of spades.

Obviously, this answer depends on your meaning of the word 'good'.  However, I consider myself a good bridge player, and find myself not often needing to track the nuanced difference between 6 and 7.  Most hands are not decided in table play, but in the bidding, and most are determined by leading, the high cards and the trump suit.   There are situations where I would need to track a spade 6 or 7, but often that's when I've got a hole that I need my partner to fill, or attempt a finesse.  In such situations, I'm looking specifically for those problem cards, so I don't need to track every card.
There are unforeseen situations where tracking every card could give a slight edge, but those happen so infrequently that it won't make much of a difference in one's overall 'goodness'.
Incidentally, there are mnemonic tricks that allow one to easily track all cards, I just find it not worth the effort in standard bridge.

Touche.  I should have said that once learned, applying mnemonic tricks are easy to do, but learning them in the first place (learning the skill) can be quite difficult.  For those interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic_major_system

-1: For: 1) the hands are not decided in table play, but in bidding/.... This is inaccurate and actually irrelevant to the discussion I suppose. 2) The good players watch spots like hawks, especially if those could be relevant defensive signals. They might make a conclusion then and there and forget later, but the spots are relevant.

@Aryabhata I hadn't noticed your comment until after I had written my answer but you'll see from my answer that I agree - better players will track both the exact cards played and their sequence for defensive signaling purposes.

@JoeGolton: No worries, I don't mind. In fact, you have my +1 :-)

This gets to semantics around 'good'.  If you're playing casually, usually partners won't have detailed sequential defensive signalling techniques.  If you're playing in a tournament setting, then you likely will want these.  However, I posit that you can register defensive signals without memorizing every card, just like you can understand a written paragraph, and repeat its meaning, without being able to exactly replicate each word in order.

While it is true that the play is largely determined by  information gleaned from bidding, high cards, leading, and the trump suit, there is one aspect of bridge where precisely tracking every card is very helpful: defensive signaling. As Wikipedia describes, "partners defending against a contract may play particular cards in a manner which gives a signal or coded meaning to guide their subsequent card play; also referred to as carding." Obviously these signals will only work if the partners are tracking cards precisely, including their sequence. And this goes for the offense too so they can gain information as to where cards are placed among the defenders.
The most common example where remembering a low discard is vital is the high low signal indicating a doubleton, and thus a desire for partner to lead back that suit a third time if trumps have not yet been completely pulled. I've typically played that this can be with a first card followed by a second lower card, even a 3-2.
Another common example is leading the fourth highest card from longest and strongest when defending a no trump contract. In this case, it is helpful to subsequently remember every card played in that suit as this often makes it possible to infer exactly which cards are held by the opponents in this suit.
One could reasonably argue that you can get by just remembering the first card played by the first and third seats (in addition to tracking high cards and trumps), and that will probably get you by for the defensive signals typically applied by beginning to intermediate players.
However, you asked if good players memorize all cards. I'm not sure how good you mean but at the higher levels of play many forms of defensive signaling are used. The more defensive signals you use, the more it requires remembering not only exactly which cards have already been played, but the exact sequence in which they were played.

My guess is that SOME good players will memorize individual cards (because they have a "knack" for it. But many, probably will NOT.
I'm not a "good" player, but know that it is important to size up the hand. That means looking out for opposing honors, and also for missing trumps. Tn this way, I focus on maybe 10 of the 26 opposing cards. Sometimes more (13-15), if there is a critical side suit.
It gets exponentially harder at each step; going from tracking 7 cards to 13, and 13 to 26 (that is, quadrupling difficulty for each numerical doubling). Most good players take the first steps (up to 13). Some go all the way to 26.
In his autobiography, Lee Iacocca told the story of how his boss, Robert McNamara was shown a 750 page presentation, and on page 724, he said, "That contradicts something you said on page nine." That kind of skill does exist, but it's pretty rare. Iacocca himself probably didn't have it.

This boils down to issues of active thinking and observation. Good players weigh expectation against actuality. But the tools for determining actuality are tools of observation, not memorization. (s)he looks at every card, but there is no value in memorizing them. The dire need is to determine where his tricks are coming from. The tools for this include planning, reconstructing the original four hands and determining how to play certain card combinations and analyzing the opponents' motives.
By observing every card in the context of reconstructing the hands, the information such as order of play of spot cards is available if needed. But most of your useful information is gleamed from an analysis of what did not happen.
Say, for example, you are defending a contract of 3N. Dummy has DAQJxx, but declarer has tackled a short suit and you are in. You know that declarer holds the DK. Your target number of tricks will be informed in part by that knowledge. THEN you recall that partner (or opponent) gave count in another suit and know that you can wait for your tricks or that you must cash out.


text:
What's the fastest way to print a card game prototype?
My goal is to minimize the amount of time I have to spend, with a budget of about $40.
Also, I'm absolutely terrible at using scissors and glue.

Get some card sleeves and card-stock. Write/print whatever you need to on the card-stock and cut it down to size. After you sleeve it they will all be shuffle-able and readable, just like normal cards. Admittedly this isn't good for much beyond prototype testing, but it's definitely fast and cheap. :D

Being cheap, it's also possible to iterate many prototypes without excessive cost. It's also quick to create a new card or replace one.

For added simplicity, stick a regular playing card from a cheap deck in the sleeve and print your cards on regular paper.

I have two different things I do for prototype cards.  The first is just to use scraps of paper and sleeves, as outlined in the answer above (which I upvoted) - it's cheap, easy to swap in cards and stops you from over-investing time into half-baked ideas.
After I have confidence in a design enough to bring it to outside play groups, I usually use stickers on existing cards.  Piles of Magic cards are super cheap (commons are essentially free, just ask around gaming groups), and you can use several different labels to print out and stick to them.  If you need a couple different backs, you can use different types of dead CCG commons.
Avery makes several different stickers, and there are clones of them that are even cheaper, along with pretty good templates. I've used the White Adhesive Name Badges in the past as the biggest sticker I can fit on a card. They're 2-1/3" by 3-3/8", which is just a bit smaller than a standard poker card (2.5" x 3.5"). Those are great if you have a lot of information. I used to use the 3 1/2" floppy labels for most of my cards, as they had enough room to fit a fair bit of info while being still fairly cheap on a per-label basis, but Avery appears to have discontinued those.  I still have a stockpile, but that doesn't help you.
In searching a bit, these look to be the same size as those old labels, so that might work.  The nice thing about this method is that it doesn't require any cutting, just sticking, and the cards are very durable and shuffleable, being based on CCG stock.

That is a great idea, never thought of that before.

Your first "this" link takes us to a Page Not Found.

@Ramiro Thanks for the heads up. I updated with more information and an updated link.

There are several card printers online; you'll be running right near the quality bottom edge, after shipping.
The other option is to use business card sheets, or to print to 3x5 cards.

This week I made a card game prototyper, it converts your google docs or csv to printable cards. http://card-game-prototyper.herokuapp.com/

You can also get playing-card sized sheets for inkjet printers. This is the first one I turned up in a Google search - do some Google work and you can probably find more. Printing on your own printer on these is probably the quickest way to get something that's actually playing card sized. If you can live with off sizes, then go to your local office store and get inkjet printable business cards or 3x5 cards.

What I do is buy some adhesive name badges from office max (office max number 412-587 or avery labels 5395) then a few decks of the same playing cards from the dollar store.  Then I just print out the labels and stick them to the cards.  The labels cost less than 20 bucks for 160 of them

Assuming that you already have the following resources:

A computer
A decent color printer

Then the thing to do is to use a decent software imaging program to create your own cards and backs and fronts.  A really good open source software tool is GIMP.  Get good at using the image software, particularly understanding layers and work out how to run the same piece of card through your printer so you get fronts and backs to line up (I convert GIMP images to pngs and print from MSPaint, which is good for centering and lining up the images).  So far, we have spent 0$ (but have spent some time downloading and learning how to use the software).
You still have 40$ to spend on blank card, either finishing spray or card sleeves and buy a cheap guillotine.  The most time you are going to spend on prototyping cards (especially if you have a significant number) is the hours of using scissors cutting out cards (which you say you are no good at) and a guillotine will save you many hours and be much more accurate.  You could use a craft knife but the guillotine is faster and more accurate.

GIMP, or any other photography/raster editing software isn't really meant for print layout and design. You will inevitably get "jaggies" and such artefacts in your printed output. You would do much better with a vector-based application, like Inkscape, which output will transfer nicely to print.

A really fast way to prototype card games I found out is to use Excel to create your cards, and then use Word mailing directory function to import data from an excel spreadsheet. Then you just print then out and put inside a card sleeve protector from a random card you don't use anymore.
A good idea too, is to use Google Docs Spreadsheet and edit your card with your friends, then you can download the file as an excel spreadsheet and follow the same steps.
Another tip is to use a 2 columns page layout and create your card using simple tables in directory layout, you will save time, ink and paper this way.

Excel Data Example
Word Mailing Directory Example

Hm, the Word Mailing Directory Example makes Word crash for me (I'm on OSX).

It's pretty easy use to create your own, Microsoft have plenty of tutorials on that

I remembered this question when I finally found my bookmark:  http://www.artscow.com/photo-gifts/Card/Multi-purpose-Cards-Rectangle-394 .  Artscow will print custom one side (with all the backs being unform) and custom both sides (every card unique).  If you google them you can find discussions on art prep and find example sets that others have made public.  I think artscow also keeps a database of designs that anyone can have printed.

Nice! Have you used them yourself?

Artscow is pretty expensive to be using for prototypes.

I'm designing a card game.  I made a prototype in 24 hours with $15.
I made laid groups of 8 cards out on a normal paper sized image file.
I made another image with the backs of the cards. I use Gimp to edit photos , it's free.
To make a set of 100 cards I had to make about 12 pages (24 including back pages)
I dropped the image filess off at Staples and asked to be printed on thick card stock and to be cut.
Not perfectly cut but great for friends.
Check out an image from it!
https://twitter.com/Phasefirefilms/status/210515000840814593/photo/1/large

I know I've already answered but I've found an article on making your own playing cards that you might find useful:
http://www.wopc.co.uk/otc/production.html

Use cardsleeves which are colored at the back. With those sleeves, you don't even have to very nicely cut your cards, just write it on some piece of paper and put them in the sleeves. From the back side you cannot see the difference between cards.
If needed, you can use different colors.
And what is even better:
- You can even add more notes along with the card (e.g. more clarification; or just a temporary change for playtesting)
- You can write on it since they are just some paper.
- You can add cards on the fly without the need of printing them BUT without knowing from the backside it is a 'new' card.

Not sure how much of this has been said already, so I thought I'd just go ahead and so it... ^^
For physical prototyping (I use Tabletop Simulator now), I used to go through a number of phases for a quick start:

For early testing I cut up some real cheap A3 paper (not card) into card-sized pieces (using a guillotine). Then I used playing cards (or Magic the Gathering cards work well), put them in sleeves (very cheap), and slipped the paper on top. Then I can just scrawl in pencil (for easy editing) and I've got as many cards as I need.
Later on, I do the same process but print out sheets of 3x3 cards onto A4. Then cut them up and slip them in as normal. This stays really cheap, without any need for gluing and only some quick cuts on the guillotine.

Resources and (GBP) prices for what I found:

Guillotine - £5 for cheapest. Not always best quality, but they work for prototyping just fine.
£1 for 100 clear card sleeves (£8 for 1000).
£1 for 45 sheets of A3. Each page is large enough for maybe 18 cards.
Pack of poker-sized playing cards (£5 for a couple of packs). Or I found 1000 blank white bridge-sized cards (slightly smaller) for £12. This is a little better because the print on the card doesn't show through at all, but with most cards that's not an issue.

So you can get started for as little as £12, if you wanted to. And have enough for 100. Or spend a little extra and have enough for hundreds!

I'm having trouble finding one that would cut out playing card sized cards but you might be able to find a craft punch that will cut cards to a particular size?
I know you can get passport photo punches that cut out a passport photo sized rectangle from a sheet, you can probably buy one that is business/playing card shaped?
These might be what you are looking for but the bigger one is scalloped which I think means the edges are going to be a bit wibbly the smaller one is quite small.

Scalloped Rectangle Punch
Rectangle Punch

I've also found a Corner Rounder you can use to round the corners of your cards Which would allow you to use a regular guillotine to cut your cards.


text:
How does one make foam inserts for games?
I've got several games that have all the pieces rattling around in the box, each set of pieces stored in its own Ziplock bag. But I'd really rather have my own custom inserts.
I looked into making vacum-formed inserts out of plastic, but construction of such a machine was too much work, and in my area there are no companies willing to make a  "run" of a single formed piece.
So I thought of getting foam and cutting it to shape around all the bits, but I haven't found a good guide about how to measure the cuts, and what types of foam are better for this.
Any advice? I'm willing to accept "You're wrong! You have to be doing [something else] instead!"

I prefer the zip-lock bags, actually.  If you don't want to waste a full-sized sandwich bag for tiny bits, they're available in smaller sizes.  Search for "bags" here: http://www.fairplaygames.com/games.asp

Oh, I've got 4 different bag sizes. I think I got them all in Office Depot. That's not the problem. I'm a little OCD, for this, and I think it would look waaay cooler to have all the little bits in their own little spots in a game insert. Since I can't make a plastic one, I guess a foam one would have to do. (Then again, I'd still be forced to make some tuckboxes for cards, and component boxes for cubes and such.)

I'm not sure if this would work well for you, as you didn't mentioned exactly what type of things you're transporting, but I'll throw it out there as a posibility for when you need to transport larger items (eg, I have a wh40k scale titan that I built for a friend when the Armageddon rules came out)

find a container of a suitable size for transporting the items
get two heavy duty plastic bags, each larger than the container (can be lighter weight, but then it won't be as durable.  The more in/out bits the item to be cushioned has protruding from it, the larger the bag you'll need.
get enough spray foam from the hardware store to fill the container.
find a couple of heavy twist ties
tape a bag to the tube for the spray foam, leaving as much space as possible for the bag to expand.  Do not fill the bag with air, only open it enough to get the tube on and secure the bag's opening.
If using more than one can of spray foam, prepare the other bag, too.
place the first bag into the box, and fill it part-way with foam, then set the item onto the bag, and fill the bag until it's takes up about half of the empty space in the box.  (you may have to move the spray tube to the next can and/or just use a bag per can ... more bags means the foam will separate into more pieces)
place the second bag on top, and close the lid as best you can, with the tube sticking out the side, and fill the bag with foam 'til it starts trying to come out the container.  (note -- some spray foams continue to grow after spraying ... it's a good idea to pay attention to how it grows w/ the first bag, so you can be prepared)
let cure

It works well for packing stuff once, but the foam sets up fairly hard, and so you sometimes have to break the foam when removing the item, which makes it less useful for repacking multiple times.
You might also be able to just place all of the items in the bottom of a shallow box, use a single bag of foam over it, then once cured, flip the whole thing over to have little recesses for each piece.
...
If the question was simply 'how do I keep the pieces from rattling together', I'd go with egg-crate foam; you place the pieces in the valleys of the foam, put another piece on top, then compress the whole thing together.  For anything but stuff with really fine and/or delicate parts, it works great.
...
If that still isn't enough for you, and you really wanted to make one of those boards with various sized holes in it, then you'll need lots of free time, some sheets of foam (but not too rubbery ... it seems to attract hair and dirt), contact cement, a few sharp craft knives, and some free time.
For each tray, you'll need two pieces of foam -- one to hold the piece, and one as a 'bottom' to the tray.  The bottom should be stiffer, but fairly thin, such as camping pad.  The other one should be thicker, but 'softer' material, tall enough to sufficiently hold the piece laying down.  You should be able to find this at fabric stores, as it's used for upholstering.  You'll then want one of the thin but stiffer pieces as a lid to the whole thing.
You're only going to be cutting the pieces that are thicker and softer.  For each hole, you'll want to cut it just under the size of the piece it's going to hold.  How much smaller depends on how soft the material is.  (the softer it is, the smaller you'll want the hole, basically, you want to wedge the piece in the hole and it to hold firmly if it's heavy such as metal figures; you want it less tight if it's lightweight with more delicate parts).  Cut all the way through to the bottom.
Once you've got all of the holes cut in the sheet, use the contact cement to attach the cut piece of foam to one of the bottoms.  Make sure to read the warnings on contact cement; they're not kidding when they say shut off the pilot lights in the house as it's highly flamable.  I'd also recommend using a disposable brush (or a scrap of foam), as it's a pain to clean up after.
Once you're all done, you have a series of trays that you can stack together, and then put the lid on it, and transport.  (although, it also helps to identify a container to set it all into first, and make them to fit the container for easier transport)

If you're still interested in vacuum-forming, Make magazine (by O'Riley Press) had an article on how to make your own vacuum-former in issue 11.  I followed their instructions and made one so I could quickly duplicate parts for a board game prototype I'm making.
An important note: You'll want to find a (local) source for sheets of .03" or .02" Styrene if you're going to do vacuum-forming.
Another route:  I'm not sure how pricey the foam people are suggesting is.  If it's fairly expensive, consider making your own custom holders with Crayola's Model Magic.  It's a foamy clay-like substance that's lightweight, easy to sculpt, and hardens fairly quickly when exposed to air.  I can easily imagine taking a hunk of it and modeling custom inserts for a game box.
Incidentally, the solution I chose when I had lots of bits rattling around in my copy of Terra Prime (which is a darn fun game, BTW), was to purchase a bunch of little snap-top craft boxes - like you'd store pins & needles, or buttons in - from a craft store.  Each token has its own box, and each player piece color has its own box, along with the tokens and chips you're supposed to start with.  Stuff still shifts around in the box, but not as much since it's all in larger boxes, and it all stays organized anyway.  On top of that, setup is much faster since players already have their starting tokens in their piece box.

The boxes sold at craft stores tend to be the same ones sold at sporting goods stores for holding fishing lures -- but the sportings goods stuff is seasonal so sometimes goes on sale at the end of the season.  (I use a few larger ones for storing my WH40k bits while I'm assembling / painting.)

+1. Craft store / tool shop boxes are the answer for me - flexible, cheap, always come with lots of compartments to store small things.  Most of my Fantasy Flight games are dependant on them.

There are a couple of companies I can think of off the top of my head, Sabol Designs and Battle Foam who have foam trays where you can pluck out squares to fit the shape of models you need.  Depending on how small the game pieces are, though, the squares may still be too big for you, and they're not exactly cheap either.
If you want to make your own, I believe that the trays mentioned above are made from polyethelyne sheets, but someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Unless the models are fragile or expensive (Space Hulk comes to mind), I would stick with sandwich bags, it's just easier.

What are you trying to store, chits or models/figurines  What sizes?
For chits, we buy plastic trays (with lids) at a local gaming store.  A tray is about 9x12" and has 15 compartments -- great for the gazillion different types of chits in Merchant of Venus, 7 Ages, etc.
For figurines, back in my D&D days I took open-cell foam (that's the squishy yellow kind), cut it to fit the box I was going to use, and then cut out little "nooks" sized for the figures in question.

I'm storing chits/markers, usually from cardboard or plastic.

How about using papier mâché? You could use those egg crates to get a very fine-textured pulp and build the insert from that, then cover the backside with paper strips. Lightweight, durable, cheap, and paints easily.


text:
How are power plant discards handled in Power Grid?
When a player purchases a power plant above the maximum limit, and must discard one, does the discard go under the stack of power plants, into a separate pile, or is it removed from the game?

They are discarded, which pretty much means they are removed from the game.  The only time a power plant is put back under the stack of plants is during Phase 5: Update the power plant market.
Once a plant is discarded (because of too many plants) or removed from the game (no one bids on a plant in a turn, or someone's house count is higher than a power plant number), they aren't coming back, so "discarded" and "removed from the game" are pretty synonymous.


text:
Exchanging Cards in Pandemic
When exchanging cards between two players in Pandemic, does it matter which player's turn it is? I have seen this rule played two ways:
- The active player can only give a card.
OR
- The active player can give or receive a card.
Both actions would still cost 1 point each, but the latter allows the active player to use an action point to take a card from another player sharing the same space.

From the rules:

Share Knowledge Sometimes it’s hard
  for one player to get the cards
  necessary to discover a cure. The Share
  Knowledge action (while difficult to
  perform) can be useful in these cases.
  Transfer a card from one player to
  another. Every card transferred costs
  1 action. Both your pawn and your
  fellow player’s pawn must be in the
  same city, and you may only transfer
  the card of the city that you are in
  together. (For example, if you are
  together in Moscow, only the Moscow
  card may be transferred from one
  player to the other.) If either player
  holds more than 7 cards as the result
  of a transfer, the excess cards must
  be immediately discarded to the Player
  Discard Pile.

Special for the Researcher:

The Researcher may give a
  fellow player any card from his hand
  when involved in a Share Knowledge
  action. He is not restricted to giving
  the card of the current
  jointly-occupied city, like other
  players are. is freedom only applies
  when the Researcher is giving a
  card—he always receives a card with
  the same restriction as other players.
  e Researcher can utilize this ability
  when involved in Share Knowledge
  actions on any player’s turn.

It does NOT matter what player's turn it is. Either play can initiate the transfer and either give or take a card from the other player. The Researcher only gets to use his special ability of transferring any card when the card is being transferred from the Researcher to another player. In order to transfer a card from another player to the Researcher, they must be in the same city as depicted on the card being transferred.
This will make the game a fair bit easier as you don't have to wait for the right players turn to transfer cards. You could play the other way if you wanted a bit more difficulty with 2 or 3 players, but playing it with 4 can be almost as bad as adding another epidemic card. :D

Or in short: The active player can give or receive a card.

Thanks for the help. We've played 4 or 5 games where we were all set to go for a 4th cure during the next time around the table, only to have the deck run out of cards 1-2 players before our cure could be cashed in. Playing the game properly should help turn these into a few wins now!


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Small World: Do Orcs Get Race Bonus When Conquering Abandoned Territories?
So Orcs get a bonus for conquering unoccupied territories.  If the Orcs abandon a territory and then re-conquer it later in a turn, do they get the bonus? Technically they are conquering an unoccupied territory, but should it read "unoccupied at start of the player's turn?"

@nicole - you should ask that as your own question.

You have it backwards.  Orcs do not gain a bonus for conquering unoccupied territories.  From the Rule Book, emphasis mine:

Orcs
Each not empty Region your Orcs conquered this turn is worth 1 bonus Victory coin, at the end of your turn.

Vacating a territory would mean that it was unoccupied when conquered, and therefore the orcs would not get a bonus.

Thanks for the correction : ) I didn't have the game in front of my when I was asking Small World questions that day. Simple mistake!


text:
Small World: Do Spirit Ghouls Score When Active Race Declines?
So I already understand that when Spirit Ghouls are the already-in-decline race, they cannot make any conquests on the turn that the active race declines, but do they score victory points for the territories they already hold?

Why can Spirit Ghouls not attack? Ghouls behave like "as if they were still Active tokens"... so why can they not attack? So if I have Spirit Ghouls (in decline), Race 2 (in decline) and Race 3 (active), I should get conquest + points for Ghouls, region points for Race 2 and conquest + points for Race 3

Yes,
From the Spirit description in the Rule Book.

You may thus end up with two different races In
  Decline on the map at the same time and score for them both.

Thanks for the answer. This was a sub-question to a previous misunderstanding, where I thought the player did not score during the turn they first entered decline. According to the rule book, you may not make new conquests on the turn you enter decline, but you do score.

Going in to decline and conquering are exclusive events. The turn the ghouls go in to decline, they cannot attack.
If you have spirit as posed in the question, and the active race goes in to decline, then neither can attack as going in to decline is an exclusive event for the turn and after the decline phase is completed, the move goes to the next person.
This was also clarified by the developers with a small world clarification .pdf (http://templecon.org/13/files/boardgames/SmallWorld_FAQ.pdf)
Hope this helps, and have fun!


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Can a Zooloretto Enclosure Score Money if Filled Via Enclosure w/ Breeding?
In the rules for Zooloretto it states that you won't collect money for filling an enclosure through the "exchange" action. It also states that animals of opposite sex will not breed in the barn. If you exchange one type of animal enclosure with another type of animal from the barn (which happens to include the breeding-ready couple), would you receive the coin bonus? My interpretation is that the breeding happens after the exchange, so you would get the bonus, but this is not spelled out in the actual rules. Does anyone have a definite answer on how this situation is scored?
As a side-note, the iOS version of this game would be no help in seeing how the computer scores the situation, as it incorrectly does not let you exchange animals out of the barn (the rules clearly state that you can).

I could have sworn I have Exchanged out of the barn before, but perhaps I Moved instead.

It's a good question: the rules state that pairs united by an exchange DO breed; and that you DO NOT collect money for filling an enclosure through an exchange action.  It really comes down to whether exchanging-then-breeding counts as "filling an enclosure through an exchange action", or whether the breeding is really subsequent to and distinct from the exchange action.
My gut reaction was that, sure, it's a bit ambiguous, but why not give the benefit of the doubt, don't be cheap, dish out some money.  Fortunately, I managed to find a passage in the rules that proves my gut is an idiot:

Exception: NO bonus is awarded when
  all enclosure spaces are filled as a
  result of an exchange. There is also
  NO bonus awarded if an offspring
  produced by the exchange fills the
  last space.

So there you have it!  (Incidentally, I found a useful combined rules pdf online here: http://files.boardgamegeek.com/file/download/48p5z9a045/Zooloretto.pdf?)  You're welcome!


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Agricola: Traveling Player?
What the heck is the "Traveling Player" space for in Agricola (family game)? Besides gaining the food there, is there anything else significant about that space?

Traveling Players only becomes really relevant in the full game, when players' Occupations and Minor Improvements may trigger off using it.
So why is it still there in the family game, you ask?  Well, Agricola is a pretty tough game for newbies to "grok" on the first play, or even the first few plays.  The last thing you want is for them to have three Begging cards by the end of the second harvest, and vow never to play this stupid game again!
By having multiple spaces that just contain food piling up, even the least clued-up player has an obvious way of saving his family from grim starvation at the end of the harvest rounds.  And that's good.  Once they get a bit more experienced, they will turn their noses up at such an inefficient way of turning actions into food... but's that another story, for a later day!

In the family game, it is just a food stockpile, and has no other significance.
I think your question stems from the name of the action. Like all other actions, the name 'Traveling Players' refers to how your family member spends their time. As opposed to fishing, collecting wood or planting a field, your family member works in a band of traveling players. That is, acrobats, actors in a play, jugglers and other various performers. It has nothing to do with the 'players' of the game.

Yes,
As in the regular versions, Traveling Players accumulates 1 food a turn.
Unlike the regular version, there are no occupations or minor improvements to play to gain a greater advantage from that space.


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Doom: The Boardgame Scenario Guide for download?
Does anyone know if the Scenario Guide for Doom: The Boardgame is available somewhere for download in English? Unfortunately it is not on the Fantasy Flight archive page.
I've got the game in German, but want to play it with an English speaker, and with the original Scenario Guide it would be much easier than translating myself.

I don't know a download site for this.  However, Fantasy Flight are extremely good about sending replacement components, so it may be worth just emailing their customer service and asking for one.

I hadn't considered that, since I'm not a FF customer having only the German edition, but I followed your suggestion and they actually are sending me a copy (internationally no less). Thank you for the suggestion.


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How long does it take to play Elder Sign?
This dice game version of Arkham Horror is about to be published by Fantasy Flight but a lot of gamers have already picked it up or at least demoed it at GenCon and PAX Prime. I've read a few comments that stated Elder Sign did not play in one hour as advertised, but these comments were rather vague.
Is there a group consensus on how long this game takes to play?

Boardgamesgeek suggests it takes 120 minutes.
I don't know where your "one hour figure" comes from, whether it's written on the box or not, but I'd definitely tend to take the word of the diehard gamers at BGG over the word of the manufacturers, every time!

120 minutes sounds about right for 4+ players. I suspect that the fastest possible play would be two to three players with good cooperative housekeeping, which might be under an hour.
I've played once with five players (three new), and it took about two hours from box open to completion (Hastur, by elder signs). There was definitely a "too many cooks" effect, especially with new players - we were hardly playing the game ourselves on many turns. Two hours does seem excessive, but that can be how it shakes out.
I have also played twice solo. The first took 90 minutes (Yig) and the second under 60 minutes, including setup from closed box. (I lose about 30 seconds trying to open the box. I might have to start greasing the stupid thing.)
Completion time is affected by other things too:

Universal things - Players wandering off, explaining rules to newbies, over-strategizing
Protectiveness - Trying hard not to get doom tokens or lose characters may cost you more real-world time than it is worth
Big bad drawn - Ask an experienced player for details. This largely depends on elder signs.

I've played three games now (two games with two players, one solo), they seem to average around 30-45 minutes (the first game took longer, unsurprisingly).  Two hours seems excessive.


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Examples of board games with good/interesting rules for trading?
Trading is in my opinion often an overlooked aspect of rules for board games. The lack of such rules often results in players modifying or making up these rules themselves. While making up the rules can be part of the fun I was wondering if you know of any games that already have good such rules/mechanisms? Any examples of games that make trading and the interaction between multiple players when doing so an interesting part of the gameplay would be appreciated.

I always like that the rules for Civilization seemed to encourage bluffing when trading -- you had to give them the number of cards you said you were going to, but you didn't have to be 100% truthful about what you were giving the other party.  (or maybe that was just the way our group played ... I don't have a copy, so can't verify the rules for trading)

Good point; can't believe I didn't think to mention this game.  Civilization rewarded - no, demanded - aggressive trade, because trade good acquisition was a mix of all types goods, but value increased geometrically with sets of the same type of good.  But you can't trade single cards - minimum sets of 3 - and some of the cards were 0-value 'booby traps' that had bad effects when received.  The tension between need-to-trade-to-complete-set and fear-of-trap was a beautiful gameplay motivator.

Settlers of Catan is a classic game with trading elements.  Each player needs to build roads and buildings with various resources (wheat, clay, ore, sheep, wood), but most players will have scarcity in one or more of the resources needed; thus, they must trade resources with other players to be able to complete purchases.
The key is that you need all of the resources, at some points, to win the game.  There is no strategy where you can get by on just three or four of the five, so you must trade often to win.
Often times you will see resources traded at uneven ratios.  A few groups add more advanced sorts of trading, such as futures, but those are not allowed in the basic rules.

The addition of sea trade makes this kind of straight forward trade work for Settlers of Catan. The ratios for sea trade could however be discussed. I really like the idea of blind auctions as it keeps all the players equally engaged, avoids players entering pacts (cheating) and is more exciting when revealing the winner.

I think Catan is a good game which involves a lot of trading; I wouldn't have said there is anything especially innovative or memorable about its trading rules/mechanisms.

Container
One of my favourite trading type games is Container. The idea of container is that a person has a number of elements to their island.

A group of factories
A group of warehouses
A Port

The interesting mechanic of this game is that a player must produce items in their factory and sell them to an opposing player. They CANNOT sell to their own warehouses.
The opposing player then stores those goods in their warehouses.
An opposing player can then visit the port to purchase the goods from the warehouse, to then ship to "the island" in their container ship. A player CANNOT visit their own port to purchase goods.
A player must set their own prices for goods in the factory and goods in the warehouse.
When the player ships to the island, a blind auction takes place to see who purchases the goods. A player can choose to purchase them for themselves for the maximum bid, or choose to take the max bid in cash, plus a matched amount from the bank.
Each good is worth more at the end of the game to different players based on a random card drawn at the start, which makes the bidding process very important.
I love this game because you need to work with other players to beat them, its an odd feeling to sell cheap, so that you can buy back your own goods, but you are all competing in a real market situation with each other.

I've never heard of this game, but you've really got my interest up, now.

Twilight Imperium has an interesting trade mechanic: Each player has two 'trade contract' cards (varying from 1-3 in value).  When a trade phase happens (which in TI3 is a player decision) you gain goods equal to the value of other players' contract cards you're holding.  Then you can trade your contracts to other players.  (This sequence means you don't start to profit until the turn after you made the trade.)
Not all races have equal contracts - trade-oriented races might have a 2 and a 3, while warlike ones have two 1s - so bargaining power is uneven.  But as an alternative to hosting a trade phase, a player can take the 'trade phase' order and use it to cancel all existing contracts... and a player who is the only one not profiting from trade will be tempted to do so, setting all the traders back by two turns while they reestablish profitable deals.
Contracts can be broken unilaterally at pretty much any time.  Going to war automatically breaks them.  So good trade deals can discourage conquest.  It's a nice interaction.

Sounds interesting. I´ll have to check this out.

I should have noted that TI is not primarily a trade game, certainly not in the sense that, say, Settlers is.  Nevertheless trade is one important gameplay component.

Genoa, or as it was originally published, Traders of Genoa.
Here's a game where just about everything that anyone does involves making a deal with another player.  And everything in the game short of future promises can be part of the deal - wares, small orders, large orders, privileges, messages, extra-move tiles, everything.  It's a little daunting at first, because you don't always know how much everything's going to be worth at the end of the game and it's hard to cut tougher deals with the person in first place when you don't know who it is.
This is by far the best negotiation game I've ever played, much better than Chinatown or Who's The Boss?

Roll Through The Ages with The Late Bronze Age "expansion".  It's a dice game that's quick to teach, quick to play, and has trading (which people often forget about, but it's really very useful!).
Also consider Bohnanza (aka: That Bean Game).  Quick to teach, plays fast, and it's all about trading.


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Dominion: When to use Platinum and Colony
I recently acquired Dominion: Prosperity (yay Christmas) and came across the Platinum and Colony Cards which are designed to be new Basic Cards (like Estate, Copper, etc...).
My question is, should I (or do you) always play with Platinum and Colony even when you're not using Prosperity kingdom cards? Or do you only play with them if you're doing a Prosperity only game? Or do you use them whenever some (or certain) Prosperity cards are chosen as kingdom cards but otherwise you leave the Platinum and Colony to the side?

FYI: I use Dominion Shuffle on android to select kingdom cards, and it will sometimes add Platinum and Colony to the list depending on the kingdom cards it selected, so it handles this ruling when it shuffles.

From the Prosperity rulebook:
If only Kingdom cards from Prosperity are being used this game, then the Platinum and Colony piles are added to the Basic cards in the Supply for the game. If a mix of Kingdom cards from Prosperity and other sets are being used, then the inclusion of Platinum and Colony in the Supply should be determined randomly, based on the proportion of Prosperity and non-Prosperity cards in use. For example, choose a random Kingdom card being used - such as the first card dealt out from the Randomizer deck - and if it is from Prosperity, add Platinum and Colony to the Supply. Platinum and Colony are not Kingdom cards; when those are included, there are 10 Kingdom cards, plus Copper, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Estate, Duchy, Province, Colony, and Curse, in the Supply. Use 8 Colonies for a 2-player game, or 12 Colonies for a game with 3 or more players.
Seems like there isn't much I can add to that!

Lol, well there you have it.  I must have missed that statement in the rule book.  Well thanks for reiterating for me =)

@Thesun - darn you for being so fast!  Good job :D

@LittleBobby - never fear, I use my phenomenal typing speed powers only for good!

@Thesun has it right, I'll note that my group often discards this rule and plays with the Platinum and Colony with any set.  We enjoy seeing how the play differs, especially since we played a lot (>130 games) of Dominion prior to Prosperity.

My group usually just decides collectively whether we feel like playing with these cards or not.  It can actually be a lot of fun to throw ONLY Platinum and Colony into a game consisting of no Prosperity Kingdom cards.

To me it makes a lot more sense to shuffle the kingdom cards you're going to use, then pick one at random, rather than take the first card out of the randomizer deck. Assuming you have every card out so far, this changes your odds from 5/23 (just better than 1/5) to n/10, where n is the number of Prosperity kingdom cards in play.

In my group we count the number of Prosperity cards, and roll a d10. If it's <= we play w/ C&P. So the more Prosperity cards, the likelier we are to have 'em.

@Andrew-Vandever Note: Taking the first card out of the randomiser deck is equivalent to shuffling them and taking one of your ten. If you think about shuffling the randomiser deck and drawing the top 10 cards, the top card has a n/10 chance of being from prosperity where n is the number of cards from prosperity in the top 10. The difference is only in when you decide which one of the 10 is the "top" card.

@Nick good point...It's always painful to see something me from six months ago posted. :)

Yes, there is what the rulebook says for choosing randomly.
But there are two primary effects of these cards and honestly I think the bigger issue is which effect matters more for you.
Platinum and Colony extend the depth of strategy you can put into a build up. They tend to make for longer games, but games in which you could take things further. This is a popular enough option that Androminion on Android has always including these as one of its settings. Personally, I really like this effect and we usually include them in any setup.
On the other hand there are various cards in Dominion that seem to have been written on the tacit assumption that Gold is your final treasure goal. Sure, they can be used regardless, but they are just less likely to be bought when platinum is in play. If that is something you want to avoid, then leave them out. (Other cards, like Mine, become more powerful, but not overwhelmingly so).

It is interesting when Gold-goal cards make quickly ending a Colony-game on Provinces viable.

The Second Edition of Prosperity actually made an update to the rules regarding Platinum and Colony usage. What was previously declared as "the rule" is now just a suggestion on how to randomize if you wish. The official "rule" now is that you can include them whenever you want to.

Prosperity includes two new base cards, Platinum and Colony. You can include them whenever you want
  to; they are always used together. If you want to determine when to use them randomly, choose a random
  Kingdom card being used, and if it is from Prosperity, use Platinum and Colony.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Magic: The Gathering - Can Charge Counters be put on cards that don't "use" counters themselves?
Some cards allow you to add counters, or move counters, to other cards.  Would you be allowed to do this onto a card that doesn't actually use any counters at all?
For example:
Would Coretapper be allowed to put a charge counter on itself?  What about putting one on something like Yotian Soldier?
I understand that a Charge Counter is not a +1/+1 counter, however having them around can be useful for things like Power Conduit.

Yes, you can put Charge Counters anywhere that the ability/spell/whatever allows. For example, Coretapper's ability is limited to "target artifact", so any artifact it can target is fine. This sort of thing is exactly what Power Conduit is designed to take advantage of.

To clarify: You can put a counter on anything that fulfills the requirements, but they don't necessarily do anything. You can put a charge counter on any artifact, but if neither the game rules nor that artifact's ability (or any other ability) specifies an effect for that specific kind of counter, it simply has no effect.

Agreed.  Coretapper can't place counters on something with Protection from Artifacts, of course, or a Tatterkite... but any valid target artifact is fair game for building up charge!


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Magic: The Gathering - Are there behavioral rules for sanctioned MTG games?
FNM is least stringent Rule Enforcement Level (REL) sanctioned Magic game there is.  My question is that at that REL, are there any behavioral rules, and if so, what are the consequences?
Example: Your opponent gets pissed that he didn't notice one of your viable blockers, you double block and kill his creature creating an outcome he didn't prepare for and decides the proper course of action is to accuse you of cheating and sweep your non-deck cards (sideboard and Dual-Faced Cards) off the table in a huff.  Should you call a judge in this case?

That's a very...specific example.

ya know, I wanted to provide some realistic and possibly (although probably not) false details that could tailor answers a bit =)

Yes, there are behavioural rules, and yes there are consequences.
Chapter 5 of Wizards official tournament rules outlines Unsporting conduct.

5.2. Unsporting Conduct — Major
Penalty: Game Loss
Definition
Unsporting Conduct — Major infractions fall into three categories:

Failing to follow a direct instruction from a tournament official.
Insulting another person based on his or her race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, disability, or sexual orientation.
Aggressive or violent behavior that is not directed at another person or another person’s property.

Examples

... snip ..

D. After losing a match, a player throws his cards onto the table and knocks his chair over in anger.

... snip ...

Additional Remedy
The player must correct the behavior immediately, and can expect to be removed from the tournament venue upon further offenses. As with Unsporting Conduct — Minor infractions, if the offense occurs at the end of a game, it is acceptable for the judge to apply the penalty to the next game instead.

... snip ...

5.5. Unsporting Conduct — Aggressive Behavior
Penalty: Disqualification
Definition
A player acts in a threatening way towards others or their property.
Examples

... snip ...

D. A player tears up a card belonging to another player.
E. A player intentionally turns over a table.
Philosophy
The safety of all people at a tournament is of paramount importance. There will be no tolerance of physical abuse or intimidation.
Additional Remedy
The offender should be asked to leave the venue by the organizer.

Depending on the ruling of the judge, your opponent could either be disqualified or assessed a game loss. I believe in this case, if he touched your cards and threw them on the floor, that would fall under 5.5 and he should be disqualified.
Edit:
AHA, just noticed you asked about REL events. Well this is what the Judging at Regular REL document has to say:

There are also certain behaviours that will not be tolerated in any event. Any player engaging in the following must be disqualified from your event;

Aggressive, violent or abusive behaviour (physical or verbal)
Cheating, lying or intentionally making illegal game actions or trying to avoid penalties
Influencing Match outcomes (by incentives, coercion or random methods)
Theft (this includes things like replacing a chase rare in a draft with one from their binder)

If you do have to hand out a Disqualification, let the players know that while your decision is final, the DCI would still like to hear their side of the story. Contact your WPN representative directly, and they will advise you further.

So they tournament organizers would be well within their rights to disqualify this person for aggressive behaviour, but they have more leeway. In any case, it certainly is grounds to call over a judge.

My understanding is that tantrum-y players get a stern talking-to from the event organizer (or a judge) and then gets booted if the behavior persists.
For straight-up violent or threatening behavior, skip right to that "getting booted" part.
Details from the "Judging at Regular REL" handout:

- General Unwanted Behaviours -
There will sometimes be issues that do not have official fixes, but
  need to be discouraged. These include, but are not limited to;

Players taking unreasonable amounts of time side-boarding or making play decisions
Inadequate shuffling after a search
Asking for, or providing, strategy advice during a tournament match or booster draft

In all of these cases, educate the player on better behaviour – for
  example, alternate shuffling techniques or the importance of allowing
  players to make their own decisions. Players continuing to exhibit
  specific unwanted behaviour after being instructed otherwise should be
  issued with a Game Loss.
Players arriving late to their game deserve a special mention, as
  players more than ten minutes late are considered to have forfeited
  their match. Also deserving special mention are players engaging in
  conduct that you feel is likely to upset, offend or affect the safety
  of others – e.g. using foul language or tearing up cards. Give these
  players a stern chat about what is expected in your event/store – and
  let them know that failure to curb this behaviour is considered a
  Serious Problem and will result in their disqualification.
- Serious Problems -
There are also certain behaviours that will not be tolerated in any
  event. Any player engaging in the following must be disqualified from
  your event;

Aggressive, violent or abusive behaviour (physical or verbal)
Cheating, lying or intentionally making illegal game actions or trying to avoid penalties
Influencing Match outcomes (by incentives, coercion or random methods)
Theft (this includes things like replacing a chase rare in a draft with one from their binder)

If you do have to hand out a Disqualification, let the players know
  that while your decision is final, the DCI would still like to hear
  their side of the story. Contact your WPN representative directly, and
  they will advise you further.

"Insulting another person based on his or her race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, disability, or sexual orientation." So, I guess, insulting for other reasons is fine. Otherwise, what would be the point of enumeration.

@tsuma534 Couple of things: 1. These categories are deemed especially important because they create a hostile atmosphere for an entire group, not just the person targeted. 2. They're called out explicitly because these have been problem areas in the past. 3. I believe event organizers at Regular REL have significant leeway to decide other insulting behavior is equally bad (i.e. it's up to you to interpret "verbal abuse" based on the audience and culture where you're playing).


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Does the Quarriors "Shaping Charm" allow me to rotate creatures to same level but with a burst (*)?
The Shaping Charm rules state:

Cast this Spell to rotate all Creatures in your Ready Area up 1 Level, if possible.

Although the "level" of the creature is the number in the upper left hand corner, there are "sub-levels" for some of the creatures in which the level stays the same, but they gain a * ability.  We've been playing that the order of the faces on the bottom of the card is the "Level-up" order in this situation.
Is this an acceptable interpretation? Or should we just go with numerical level only, and if there is more than one option, allow the caster to choose which +1 level face to go to?
Also, on a related note, how does this affect the Demonic Overlord which has level faces of 1, 2, and 4.  Can I roll it from 2 to 4 with a shaping charm? Or must it be exactly 1 level higher than its current level?

You should go by the numerical level. If there is more than one option, the caster can choose which +1 Level die face to use. It is impossible for Demonic Overlord to rotate +1 Level from Level 2 (since the next level is 4), so it is unaffected. The rulebook covers what a Creature's level is.

Creature Dice that show a Creature Icon can be “summoned.” You must spend Quiddity equal
to the Creature’s level (in the upper left corner of the die face) to summon it.

Why settle for an unofficial FAQ (regardless of how nicely it is laid out):

Shaping Charm - Remember the upper-left number is the Level, so a die currently has a 1 then you can rotate it to any face with a 2, or if it is a 2 you can rotate it to any face with a 3.  We don't think you can change to a different face of the same level.  We also don't think you can increase the level of a Strong Primordial Ooze.

When an example in the rulebook explains a related rule, you cannot return a creature to the Ready Area on a different die face at the same level.

Shaping Cantrip - Reaction: Cast this Spell to return one of your just destroyed Creatures to your Ready Area (at its same level) instead of putting it in the Used Pile.
Example: Quinn’s beloved Scavenging Goblin has just been destroyed by a mean old Strong Deathdealer. Fortunately, Quinn has a Shaping Cantrip in his Ready Area, which he casts to save his goblin at the last moment! Though he would like to change the goblin to a face with the Burst, he cannot rotate the die, and must return the goblin to his Ready Area with the same (Burstless) face showing. Even though the goblin was saved, the Strong Deathdealer can still use his ability, immediately scoring Glory for his player.

According to this BGG post, no.

In the case of already being at max level, there are no legal targets and so you would not be able to turn the die at all.

If you have a die without a burst, you cannot turn it so that it is the same level with a burst. You may only turn it so that it is a level one higher. If there are multiple eligible sides to choose from, one with a burst and one without, you may choose which of those sides you'd like to turn the die to.

In the case of multiple legal targets, you choose the result. So if you are currently Level 1 and you have the choice of Level 2 with and without burst, pick whichever side you prefer.

interesting, ok.  Then depending on your purchases, that severely limits the effectiveness of Shaping Charm.  Any word on the second question?

@Pithlit Based on a literal reading of the rules, I would say no to that as well, since it specifies the increase must be by 1 level. As you say, the value of Shaping Charm will vary by setup.