text:
Does "Stink Bomb" damage the Paladin when he is the first hero?
Can the Paladin get damage from the Trap card "Stink Bomb" if he is the first hero when activating the Trap?
I don’t have the exact card text, but from my memory (translated from the German edition) it says:

Move the first hero to the last position (unless it’s a Paladin).
The new first hero gets damage.

As the card says "new", it could be argued that it doesn’t damage the Paladin. The Paladin was and is the first hero, so he isn’t new at this position. Is this interpretation correct?

Is Stink Bomb from an expansion? It doesn't seem to exist in my original English edition of the game.

@PhilipKendall: Yes, it seems to be from the extension Festival Season (according to this card list).

I'd never read it like that. The "new" is to clarify that they're not using the same reference to the "first hero", and that it should be whoever's actually first. I don't know the game context enough to answer specifically though!

I would read the new first hero as the hero that is now in the first position. Probably it was the limited space on the card that led to the shorter but somewhat ambiguous wording.

As @Samthere said, the word new is to clarify they are refering to the character that is in the first position after the first effect of the card.
Anyway, let's go to the rulebook, page 17, Paladins:

The paladin is a special adventurer that is always at the front of
  the party. Any new warrior will push ahead of everyone but
  the paladin.

So the card specifies the Paladin won't move so it does not go against this primary rule, but the Paladin will take the damage anyway.


text:
Is an Action card resolved before or after an initiated clash?
When an Action card initiates a clash, is this Action card resolved

when the clash ends, or
before the clash begins?

Background: The red card Lug Samildanach allows to take an Action card to your hand after it has been resolved. If player A plays an Action card that initiates a clash, and player B plays Lug Samildanach, can B use A’s Action card in this clash?

What is the exact text on the Lug Samildanch card?

IMHO, the action card is resolved when the clash ends.
This is not made explicit in the rules, but on p. 7 of the rule book it says (under "Play a Season Card"): "The player plays the card, resolves the indicated effect, and then discards that card." This would mean that everything triggered by the Action Card (such as a clash) is resolved before it is discarded, and thus, by association, that an Action Card is only fully resolved after all its effects have been resolved.

source: Stack Exchange

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sort: votes


text:
Does a concealed Kan interrupt the game flow?
If you made a concealed Kan on the first turn and won on the extra tile that you drew, would you get Heaven/Earth?
Do your own concealed Kans interrupt the game flow, or does it only apply when someone else steals a discard?
A similar example: Kanning into first turn riichi. Is it considered a first turn riichi?

As the question refers to game flow, the short answer is yes. {OP MainQ}
The long answer is that calling a kan (closed or not) does three things:
First, It will break time-sensitive bonuses: any calls to meldwarning tiles into a group is registered as incrementing the turn count. It is properly understood that when open calls occur, this is the case. However, because of how game records are written manually in Japan (at least before the advent of computers), this definition extends to closed calls of quads (ankan 暗槓) as well: the call is what leads to an interruption, not just the act of melding for open stuff or "assembling" a closed group. If East can call kan on the first turn, the turn counter will immediately increment to turn 2, and the following become no longer possible:

East can no longer call its starter yakuman (tenhou 天和). {OP Sub1, OPSub2 implied}
East can no longer call double riichi for a 2-han yaku (1 more than the standard 1-han yaku for riichi) {OP Sub3, OP Sub2 still implied}
South/West/North can no longer call for the rarely-accepted-yet-also-not-stable-valued pre-start yaku renhou (人和) that in Japanese mahjong refers to winning before even drawing. Assuming that you may be in a placce that accepts this, the bonus could be either a flat score of mangan, baiman, or yakuman... or a standard yaku that could be worth 4 or 5 han.
South/West/North can no longer call their starter yakuman (chiihou 地和).
South/West/North can no longer call double riichi.

The above are all shutdown from the moment a closed kan occurs. If East does nothing, but West decides to make a closed kan, then naturally everything above that can be restricted applies from that point.
Second, a closed kan interrupts the one-shot bonus yaku (ippatsu 一発, 1-han bonus yaku) later in the game when the kan follows a riichi call that just happened prior, just like any of the open calls. Riichi is a declaration and not a call, thus two/three consecutive riichi calls can both earn ippatsu.
Third, it does alter the game flow, since the player calling takes a tile from the replacement stacks in the dead wall, and the tile at the end of the live wall dies. Japanese mahjong stops the game with 14 tiles remaining in the dead wall, not simply where the backbreak occured at the start of the game.
TL;DR: Closed kan calls break ippatsu (and miracle starts), but are also considered for other purposes to be "not melds" (from Japanese wikipedia: 副露に含まれない) and "not opening the hand". Confusion is normal, but this is how things work in riichi mahjong.
Extra disclaimer: Non-japanese variants of mahjong have different rules, different things (HK 地和　is winning off first East discard, nothing special for S/W/N players), and none of them have double riichi, except probably local rules established in the Manchuria area of Northern China.) so this post is only an authority in its sphere of influence. Even the language surrounding what a turn is varies by language, so I'm not even going to start on that.

Warning: not exactly familiar with the term Riichi, nor with the specific Mahjong ruleset Riichi Mahjong (Henceforth, RMJ).
In the books I've read, and the 3 different published rulesets I've played (One of which was a 1960's Japanese rulebook translation), the functional definition of "on the first turn" is "without having discarded."
Having just read the rules for Riichi from the EMJA, the rules for Riichi Blessing of Heaven (East out on deal), Blessing of Earth (non-east out on self-drawn tile), and Bleassing of Man (non-east out on claimed discard) forbid concealed Kong.
Both the RMJ rules and the 1 of the rulesets I've played agree that any play after a discard is claimed is no longer first turn.
TLDR: in the Riichi ruleset, yes, Kans/Kongs do preclude the "first turn" bonuses.

Late to the game, but the answer doesn't follow your explanation. When you claim a concealed kan, you haven't yet discarded a tile. By that logic alone, this should work.

It's still the player's move to make, but the turn jumps due to how game histories are recorded. The first answer to be posted here https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1284613757 is quite explicit and answers in full detail. It's probably better than my own response to the StackExchange question, it would just have to be translated.

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text:
Is it now a good time to buy rotating Magic Cards?
There are many cards from the RTR block and M14 that I want just for my collection and not for play (maybe just some casual play), for example, I would like to buy a Domri Rade and a Kalonian Hydra. Right now the prices for these and many other cards are reasonable but I am not in a hurry to buy NOW since I only want the cards for my collection.
In my case, when is the best moment to buy the cards? I have read some people saying that NOW is the best moment, but in other places I also have read that maybe it would be wise to wait until the release or pre release week for Khans, while others suggest to wait until December.
Based on your experience, what do you recommend?
Thank you.

This is a possible duplicate of What, generally, happens to card prices when a new set is released? Also, the answers are likely to be purely speculative.

Well, the question being pointed as possible duplicate is more about when to buy cards after a new set is released, my question is more about when to buy cards when a set is about to rotate or leave a particular format (Standard in this case).

They should both be closed as pure speculation anyway. I stated this on the older question, nobody listened, and the answer ended up saying exactly what I said. It's all just speculation.

@Rainbolt, speculation (in the sense of "supposition" which you contest both questions to be) is different from the investment practice called speculation which both questions touch upon.

He is asking what we would do based on our experience, the question itself asks for opinions/speculations.

It seems clear they're not duplicates; the older one is asking about buying cards from a new set with the intention of using them while they're in standard, and this one is about buying cards as they're rotating out.

As for whether this is purely opinion, well, there is certainly real evidence to base an answer on, especially if the OP is willing to simply ask "what has generally happened in the past?" - a lot of sets have rotated out of standard, and presumably some people have a pretty good idea how the prices varied over time at that point. (Rainbolt's comment on spocot's answer fairly clearly demonstrates this is possible.)

While this isn't a rules question, I'm surprised at the assumption that answers will need to be primarily opinion based. A good answer should be possible, should include some/lots of data, and, I think, be fairly easy to evaluate objectively.

This answer is based on the very weak assumption that history will repeat itself.
When this answer was written, cards rotated once per year. Wizards of the Coast is moving to two rotations per year. This will drastically change the pattern described below.

Innistrad was the first set of a block that rotated in October 2013. The rares and mythics that are not seeing play in Modern or Legacy from that set trended towards an all time low around December 2013 before finally beginning to rise due to being out of print.
If Return to Ravnica follows the same pattern, the rares and mythics from the set that are not seeing play in Modern or Legacy will trend towards an all time low around December 2014 before finally beginning to rise due to being out of print.
I used the price history line charts on TCGPlayer.com as a reference. I used my own experience to determine what cards see play in Modern and Legacy.

You don't really have to leave this as an assumption. If you looked at similar data for some previous rotations and older sets, you could figure out how reliable this conclusion is. If the pattern is pretty consistent, it's pretty likely to keep repeating (modulo things shifting around with the new rotation schedule), and if it varies a ton, then you can just conclude it's a bit unpredictable.

I simply didn't realize that the data wasn't available. You don't have to convince me that it's hard to tell how accurate this is from one data point. Also, perhaps it's fair to say that even if the exact time is variable, you'd at least expect the broad pattern to hold: the price fell after it rotated out, but didn't stay down forever.

Honestly, I would wait a little bit. As soon as Khans of Tarkir hits shelves, the demand for cards from RTR block will drop as it will no longer be legal in standard, so I would buy RTR cards like a week after the Khans release to wait for the prices to drop/become stable. You can most likely safely buy M14 as a lot of it has been reprinted, and it is close to rotation as well. It's prices appear to have stabilized and won't change much in the future.

2014 is still legal in standard.

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text:
What is the Monopoly M Symbol called?
What is the post 2008 monopoly currency symbol called (M with two lines through it) and is there an alt-code for it? Below is an example of it from Monopoly Deal but it is also used in the regular monopoly game post-2008.

Given that previous Monopoly money actually used the dollar sign ($), it's probably to prevent you from paying for your retail purchases with it.

We call them Mollies. As in, "I have a hotel on that one! Two thousand Mollies, thank you very much." Although bucks (American), quid (British), whatever the local slang is, works too.

What is the M-symbol?
It is most likely just an imaginary symbol for Monopoly money.
For "everyday use", the closest symbol might be "₩" or "￦", just turned upside down. This is a symbol for Won, currency used in South and North Korea.
How to use it?: LaTeX
Since the Monopoly M is not a real symbol, it does not have an alt-code. It can be still used via LaTex. Dont worry, it's not very hard. Here's an little example.

For those who know Latex already:
Use this in your preamble
\usepackage{textcomp} % for the Won symbol
\usepackage{graphicx} % Needed for the rotation

And this to make an alias
\newcommand{\M}{\rotatebox[origin=c]{180}{\textwon}}

You may now use \M to insert the Monopoly M.
For those who are not used to Latex:
Copy-paste this into blank document in Overleaf.com, and edit it for your needs (You will need to sign up, but it is free). Then download your pdf or just use Print Screen, depending on your needs.
\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}

\usepackage{textcomp} % for the Won symbol
\usepackage{graphicx} % Needed for the rotation

\begin{document}
  \newcommand{\M}{\rotatebox[origin=c]{180}{\textwon}} % make an alias '\M' for the upside-down Won.
  \Large
  \underline{\M { }stands for \M onopoly \M oney} \\[20px]

\large
\begin{tabular}{ll}
  Fish & \M 100 \\
  Chips &\M 50 \\
  Fish \& Chips \qquad \qquad & \M 120\\
\end{tabular}\\[20px]

\Large
 Normal: \M \qquad Bold: \textbf{\M}

\end{document}

Additional info: Unicode & HTML (Won sign)
As Wikipedia states, the first symbol (₩, WON SIGN) is at Unicode code point U+20A9, and has HTML code ₩. The second symbol  (￦, FULLWIDTH WON SIGN) is at Unicode code point  U+FFE6 and has HTML code ￦.

I just noticed that the symbols "₩" and "￦" might look different with different operating systems. E.g. with Android phone, they both look similar, and they have only one horizontal line. With Ubuntu & Firefox, they both have two horizontal lines, and they look slightly different from each other.

You could perhaps include their Unicode code points parenthetically? (For the record, it appears to be a matter of font face or point size: on desktop Firefox/Win7 they look the same in the answer but different in the comment, all double-barred.)

It looks like the first is U+20A9 ("Won Sign") and the second is U+FFE6 ("Fullwidth Won Sign"). Bizarrely, on my Chromebook the first one has two lines and the second only has one (and looks like it's in a fallback font - guess the main one is missing it), but in Chrome on Windows they both have two lines.

This would look much more like the real thing if you didn't use a serif font. Now it looks kinda... weird upside down.

It doesn't appear to have an official name, and the change is somewhat stealthy. The Monopoly wiki says

The Dollar, also called "the Monopoly Dollar", "$", "pound", "£",
  "munny", and "Monopoly Money", is the main currency used in Monopoly.

The new symbol is mentioned in passing:

In Pogo.com's World Edition, as well as the Here and Now Edition, a
  new symbol was added, a capital M with 2 horizontal lines in it. This
  seems to be the accepted symbol for Monopoly money.

I'm guessing the change is to standardise the money for future localised versions of the game, rather than printing e.g. either British pounds or dollars or local_currency_x. The large number of synonyms for the name suggests to me that this has never been given much thought.
Given that it doesn't have a name, it doesn't have an alt-code either.

To answer the question, "What is the post 2008 monopoly currency symbol called (M with two lines through it)", according to the game Monopoly Millionaires and recent online variations, it is called the Monopole.

Unfortunately I no longer own a game, and the online source was the Monopoly game on Facebook that was removed a few years ago. I've asked Hasboro directly for a confirmation and I'll update if I get an answer.

Just an update from a few years ago. I asked Hasbro several times and they've continually not provided any response. Kinda rude if you ask me... :(

Monopolian : In the entry for "Monopoly (game)" on WIkipedia : "The new game uses its own currency unit, the Monopolonian (a game-based take on the Euro; designated by M)." I have not found any attribution for this and the name seems ridiculously long.

Well it seems to me that if it resembles the Chinese Won (except upside down of course) wouldn't calling it Mon be a reasonable solution? After all it is very easy to remember even for the younger players.

Welcome to board & card games Q&A. This answer does not really add anything to the already accepted answer.

Won is Korean, not Chinese.


text:
Is accepting new survivors mandatory?
In dead of winter Plaid Hat game, when I draw a card that add survivor(s), do I have a choice:

to ignore the card?
to make noise to find another type of card?

Outsiders cards are just like any other card when you are searching.  You can absolutely make noise and choose not to keep them.
Once you do keep them, they go in your hand and don't take effect until you decide to play them.  You might want to hold a card that will add too many helpless survivors if you are short on food this turn.  Or maybe you're the betrayer and you want to surprise everyone by playing a bunch of helpless survivors at an inopportune moment.
Outsiders can even be requested if someone else decides that they really need another character.
Here's a post from one of the game's designers on BGG confirming these rulings.

yes, you add them to your hand like any other card, and can play it,
  request them, and give them to a request.

Please include the game designer's citation linked. Copy/paste it in case of link rot.


text:
Does reach apply to Way of the Sarlacc's adjacent figures?
The Way of the Sarlacc 4 XP Skill of Diala Passil states:

For each hostile figure adjacent to you, perform 1 attack with a melee weapon targeting that figure

Does a weapon with reach allow her to attack all figures within 2 squares ? (as for a normal attack)

A Melee attack includes the ability to apply Reach. However, if they are Adjacent to you already (part of the ability requirements) you won't need Reach to start with.
Remember:

For each hostile figure adjacent to you, perform 1 attack with a melee weapon targeting that figure

(Emphasis mine.) To initiate this ability, adjacency is first required. Reach does not grant Adjacent status.
It would only apply in this situation if you somehow where able to be Adjacent to a figure while still being 2 spaces away and not sharing an edge—against the standard rules. I'm not away of any cards or abilities that enables that though. (But I don't know all the cards by memory though.)
For reference:
RRG pg 4:

A space is adjacent to each other space that shares an edge or corner with the space.
• Spaces on either side of the diagonal intersection of walls and/or blocking terrain are not adjacent to each other

Just in case, if you do apply it for some reason, don't forget Reach still requires LoS.
RRG pg 21:

A figure with [Reach] may perform melee attacks that target figures or objects up to 2 spaces away.
• The attacking figure must have line of sight to the target in order to make this attack

In summary, no. You could apply Reach to a Melee attack but since you won't be able to initiate the attack without being Adjacent to start with, Reach won't need to be applied anyway.
(At least, this is my interpretation. Of course, the rules also doesn't explicitly state you can't do this. And it isn't super clear in the Reach rules the exact way it boosts a melee attack to enable it to not be adjacent anymore. So I totally get your confusion. And I wouldn't blame you if you disagree with me, because I can also see enough ambiguity in the rules to argue the other way. It might just come down to agreeing with the other players on a house rule about this one.)


text:
Can you play base-game Claustrophobia scenarios with De Profundis included?
Perhaps stupidly, I bought both Claustrophobia and its De Profundis expansion both at once.
After doing so I discovered that the designer has stated the scenarios in the base game are not suitable for playing with the material from De Profundis.
This is a colossal pain because it means sorting and removing all the cards and tiles from De Profundis every time we want to switch back to a base game scenario.
Does anyone know why this advice was given? Does it actually break the game somehow, or it merely untested? And has anyone actually tried it to see if it works okay?

Do you have a link for where the designer stated this?
Nobody I know cares about sorting out the cards to switch back to a base-game scenario. The only concern with using De Profundis with the base game is to impose a 3-card hand limit on the Demon player's Event Cards (because the expansion cards are more powerful). You also probably don't want to use the Hellhounds.


text:
What's the most effective storage solution for x-wing to keep bases, dials and templates next to ships?
I have a small x-wing collection, which consists of 2 base sets, 1 of everything in waves 1, 2 and 3, 1 of each "aces" set and a couple of other small ships.
I am looking for a storage solution which will:

Store all these ships in one or more boxes.
Store them safely in transit, so that the paint doesn't chip/scratch
Store the base, 4 base templates and manoeuvre dial in the same compartment as or directly next to the model
Can be purchased at a reasonable price in the UK.

Most of the popular solutions I see violate one or more of these principles, particularly number 3 - which is vitally important to me because I'm sick of digging through boxes looking for the relevant cardboard when setting up.
Is there anything that would suit my needs?

What I use is a large organizer box.  Something like this

The trick being having one where the size of the spaces can be adjusted, and one deep enough to fit the ships.
Then I cut up the original packaging of the ships.  They are already perfectly molded to the shape of the ship.  Cutting them out in exact size of the square that I am going to use I insert the packaging into he box, and then the ship into the packaging
I keep the cardboard for the ships in logical squares below the model

You can also fit a dial and two base tokens quite nicely  into the original packaging of expansion ships if you line up the void in the tokens with the hinge on the dial and slide it in right.

I uses cases from KR Multicase for all my X-Wing and Warhammer models. They do a selection of cases with foam inserts specifically designed for X-Wing and have cases ranging from aluminium, cardboard and backpacks.
They do pre-cut foam for most of the bigger ships as well as a standard slot which fits most of the fighters. Some of the trays in their bundles also have slots for cards/tokens:

I've found them to be very good quality.

Check these ones http://us.battlefoam.com/star-wars-x-wing/
They look pretty good.

To people who have flagged this as spam: this question explicitly asked for product recommendations, and while this answer may not be as well-written and detailed as other answers, it's fundamentally no different.

Thanks for you comment @Cascabel.
Yeah, I'm not even affiliated with the guys from battlefoam... This is what I bought to keep my ships next to dials. I like it because it is foam and not hard surface.
So many haters.... Was I supposed to write a 5 page document of why I like this product?

Answers that include more explanation (e.g. a couple sentences about what you like about it, or any downsides you've noticed) are definitely better; "not spam" is a relatively low bar of answer quality to clear.


text:
How accessible are the many German-only expansions for Catan?
The website catan.com gives a good overview of the many and varied editions and expansions for Catan available in English. However, it doesn't take long to find a slew of additional material for the game that appears to only be available in German.
Some examples include:

Atlantis: Szenarien & Varianten
Schätze, Drachen & Entdecker
Der Schokoladenmarkt
Historische Szenarien

This is not an exhaustive list. Some of the German-only scenarios do appear to have been reprinted in the English editions of certain expansions but there still seems to be a wealth of German-only material.
Am I right in thinking this material is unavailable in English? If so, is it easy for a non German speaker to learn and use these expansions? What about availability outside of Germany?

I don't have any sources at hand, but at least for some there are fanmade translations as pdf available on the webs.

Entdecker is a different game. Can't you play that one online? Can you give a specific Catan variant to illustrate your point?

Allthough there have been numerous expansions and scenarios that were never published in English, it is still quite possible to acquire these scenarios in the US, along with reliable English translations of the rules. I would recommend starting at BoardGameGeek.com. That site can be a bit of a firehose for newcomers, but if you have a bit of patience, your efforts will pay off.
After creating a free user account at BoardGameGeek, use their game search function to search for the scenarios and expansions that you're interested in. Each expansion/scenario will have its own information page. These information pages are big part of what makes BoardGameGeek.com such a fabulous resource for those of us interested in boardgaming as a hobby.
In addition to basic game information and discussion forums for each game, the game's information page will also have two sections that will be of particular interest to you. First is the "Buy A Copy" section. This is where you can usually find used copies of the game for sale. These copies are generally supplied by individual hobbyists who set their own price and choose where they will and won't ship the game to. While many of the games you are asking about were only available in Europe, it's quite possible that the people who have listed their copies for sale on BoardGameGeek will be willing to ship them overseas.
The second section of interest is the "Files" section. Here you will often find translations for rulebooks of games when they haven't been officially provided by the game publisher in a particular language. A quick search led me to an English translation of the Atlantis expansion this way, as well as an English translation of the Alexander and Cheops historical scenario. I also saw numerous copies of the Alexandar and Cheops scenario for sale by sellers in the US, all of which were asking $25 or less (plus shipping, I assume).
You will need to create an account before you would be able to purchase from any of these sellers, but I suspect you'll find it worth your while.
You pointed out that your list of examples was not exhaustive. I'd like to suggest that you try a game search at BoardGameGeek.com using only the keyword "Catan"; I think you might be surprised at just how much stuff has been made available for that game. Have fun!


text:
What game is shown in this stock photo?
I found this on Shutterstock, which is full of traditional family games and abstracts so this stood out. The image is blurry, but I figure there's enough here to recognise the game, although I don't. Anyone know what it is?

I'm pretty sure I've seen crystals exactly like this in Ascension, but this is not it. Perhaps a game from same publisher - they often reuse same components in different game

Those crystals are rather common.

Although my initial theory didn't hold up, the Crystal track led me to this BGG thread. Afterwards it was elementary.
Mystery is solved: your game most definitely is Istanbul.

Great, thanks. I've even played that & didn't spot it :)

Constantinople?


text:
"Can't attack you unless" in Two-Headed Giant
How do cards like Ghostly Prison and Propaganda work in 2HG?
More specific, how do you apply the "Can't attack you unless X" to the game. Does it work for both players, i.e. no matter which player you attack you need to pay mana. Or does it only protect the player who controls the effect. In the latter case it would significantly reduce the effectiveness.

Propaganda etc. apply whenever the enemy team attacks your team.
In 2HG games you cannot be attacked individually, you always attack or defend as a team, so all attacking creatures attack both players at once and Propaganda costs will have to be paid for those creatures that don't attack Planeswalkers.

810.7a Each team’s creatures attack the other team as a group. During the combat phase, the active team is the attacking team and each player on the active team is an attacking player. Likewise, the nonactive team is the defending team and each player on the nonactive team is a defending player.
810.7c As the declare attackers step begins, the active team declares attackers. If an effect of an object controlled by a defending player prohibits a creature from attacking him or her, that creature can’t attack the defending team. The active team has one combined attack, and that set of attacking creatures must be legal as a whole. See rule 508.1.
508.1g If any of the chosen creatures require paying costs to attack, the active player determines the total cost to attack. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. Once the total cost is determined, it becomes “locked in.” If effects would change the total cost after this time, ignore this change.

I believe with the upcoming release of Battlebond the rules have been changed.


text:
How far away does Reach let you hit?
The rules for Reach read:

The Reach keyword allows the figure to use a Melee attack to target a
  figure up to two spaces away, rather than only adjacent spaces. The
  target still needs to be in line of sight.

Does this mean that the reaching figure can hit one additional space away from where it could normally hit, or two spaces away from where it could normally hit? Alternatively, is "adjacent" considered to be figures that are zero spaces away, or one space away? (my question is about what "x spaces away" means, and not what adjacent means)

Per this FAQ:

The Reach ability allows a figure to make a melee attack targeting
  both adjacent spaces and spaces at a range of 2

I think it's pretty clear from the way that's phrased that "adjacent spaces" means the same as "spaces at a range of 1".

This is correct.  Technically every hero by default has a reach of 1 space with melee weapons.


text:
Cost for the CAFS Firefighter to extinguish fires
The CAFS Firefighter has 3 AP plus 3 free extinguish AP per turn. Do these extra AP allow him to extinguish a fire for 1 AP, or does it still cost 2 AP to extinguish a fire?

The Action Point (AP) cost is unchanged. From page 4 of the rule book

A player  gets 4 Action Points (AP) to spend on their turn. Each Action has a corresponding AP cost to perform. A player may select from any of the available Actions in any order and spend the appropriate AP to perform it. An action may be performed more than once per turn, so long as the AP cost is spent each time that Action is performed.
Players may pass. Unspent AP are saved from turn to turn. [...]
Extinguish – Use your gear to fight the fire in the Firefighter’s space or an Adjacent space:

Remove a Smoke marker from the Board: 1 AP • Flip a Fire marker to Smoke: 1 AP
Remove a Fire marker from the Board: 2 AP

It is usually best to completely Extinguish Fire (2 AP); Smoke is liable to reignite.

So, the CAFS Firefighter has to spend the normal 2 AP to fully extinguish fire, but they can use their free Extinguish AP that cannot be saved between turns.

CAFS Firefighter - 3 AP plus 3 free Extinguish AP per turn. Free Extinguish AP cannot be saved.


text:
Does the Zombie collect compensation even though zero ships are sent to the warp?
If one player plays a Negotiate card and the other main player plays an Attack card the player playing a negotiate card gets to collect compensation for each ship lost to the warp. If the player playing the Negotiate card is the Zombie, their ships will normally not go to the warp. Does this mean that the Zombie can't normally collect compensation? (unless their power is zapped) Or are the Zombie's ships sent to the warp which causes compensation to be collected, but then the Zombie's power saves those ships before they get there?

My understanding is that the Zombie's power is a replacement effect, meaning their ships never go to the warp. Given this, the official rules state that compensation is taken for each ship that the player loses to the warp when playing a negotiate card:

If One Player Plays a Negotiate Card and the Other Plays
  an Attack Card: if you played a Negotiate card, your side loses.
  Automatically. Your ships and your allies’ ships go to the Warp.
  However, you now claim Compensation from your belligerent
  opponent. You must take at random, from your opponent’s hand, one
  card for each ship you lost to the Warp (not counting your allies‘ they
  get Warped without Compensation). If your opponent doesn’t have
  enough cards to provide you full Compensation, you take only the
  cards he or she has.

(Sorry - I couldn't find the newer rules in PDF form on the web.)
Since the Zombie's ships never make it to the warp because of the word "instead" in their rules text, they would not collect compensation for the loss. This is verified here at the Cosmic Encounter wiki.

This depends upon which version you are playing.
Eon: Yes, Zombie gets compensation. This was stated twice in Encounter magazine, with the rationale being that Zombie did indeed lose his ships from the encounter, they just went to other colonies instead of to the warp.
Mayfair: Yes again, although Mayfair flip-flopped their answer twice. Yes, then No, then finally Yes again.
Fantasy Flight Games: No, according to their FAQ. However, some veteran players (myself included) have stated that they ignore this and play according to the original Eon intent. Zombie looks strong to new players, but in practice with veterans is a fairly weak alien when it is not allowed its compensation. However, if you want to play by the book, then it's a No in the FFG edition.


text:
How to resolve Loser Wild Flare
The Loser wild flare lets the player declare that both sides lose the encounter. The actual text is:

As a main player, before encounter cards are selected, you may declare
  that both sides lose, sending all involved ships to the warp.

I am not clear on how exactly to resolve this. The loser flare must be played before encounter cards are played, but it doesn't explicitly state that encounter cards don't get played even though the outcome is already determined. Should the main players still play their encounter cards? This could matter for example for the Oracle super flare:

As a main player, you may end an encounter after your opponent reveals
  his or her card. Your opponent takes back his or her card, all ships
  in the gate return to colonies, and play continues as if a deal had
  been made.

or perhaps for the Vacuum wild flare:

For each main player other than you who reveals an attack card, you
  may retrieve one ship from the warp.

and the Chosen super flare:

You may keep any non-encounter cards drawn from the deck while drawing
  for divine intervention.

If cards don't get played, is there still a Reveal phase? I haven't read every card in detail so it's possible that this actually doesn't matter, but I would still like to know.

One of the main things to remember here is that you "play" your encounter card face down, and then reveal it after both main players have done so. For reference, the rules for this phase are the following:

Play Encounter Cards: After alliances have been formed, the offensive
  player and the defensive player each choose an Encounter card (Attack or
  Negotiate) from their respective hands and place them face down.
Reveal Encounter Cards: Encounter cards are turned face up
  simultaneously. Or as close to simultaneously as possible in this
  imperfect universe.
Determine Outcome: There are three different outcomes to an
  encounter, depending on what type of Encounter card (Attack or
  Negotiate) is played by each player. After Encounter cards are revealed,
  the encounter is resolved. Then Encounter cards are discarded. Details of
  encounter resolution are shown below:

The Loser Flare needs to be played before any player even selects encounter cards, as emphasized below.

As a main player, before encounter cards are selected, you may declare
  that both sides lose, sending all involved ships to the warp.

This would move the turn to the Determine Outcome phase since the outcome has been determined already (i.e.: both players lost, sending all ships to the warp). Since no cards are selected, no cards are played so no cards can be revealed.

Should the main players still play their encounter cards?

No. It specifically says that you must play it before encounter cards are selected. This creates an outcome so there is no outcome to be determined by playing encounter cards.

If cards don't get played, is there still a Reveal phase?

Again, no. If there are no cards selected and then played face down, there is nothing to reveal. An outcome has already been determined.

This is the answer I was leaning toward before asking here, but your answer doesn't convince me. You state It specifically says that you must play it before encounter cards are selected. but to me that doesn't really say that encounter cards aren't selected. Also, I play MTG where the phases of the turn all happen even if there is nothing to do. For example the 'Combat Damage' phase still happens even if no creatures were attacking. I didn't see anything in the rules that says phases can be skipped if they aren't needed.

I think you may have misunderstood part of my question. When I listed the Oracle, Vacuum, and Chosen Flares, they were examples of things you do on the reveal phase where it could matter a lot if encounter cards are still played after the Loser wild flare has been played.

I get that it's easy to compare games to Magic because it's something you know. I struggled for awhile trying to learn Vs. because I was comparing it to Magic. I think ultimately there is a huge difference between a game as complex as Magic and something as simple as CE. You may not skip phases in Magic, but there was no reason for the creators of CE to address this in their rules because it's not an overly complex game (and there aren't money tournaments). Ultimately, play it so that you have fun. My take is that there is no need to go into those phases because an outcome already happened.

I agree that your interpretation of the rules is probably correct. I just don't like when people assume things like this (skipping phases) when I can fairly easily come up with examples of where it would matter. Ill probably accept this answer after a few more days if no one else answers with opposing views.

The neat thing about board games like this is you can always claim house rules. As long as your house rules are consistent and you can't find strong evidence that phases still happen, who cares? If that's how you want to play, make it so players have to move through phases.


text:
How long does crew change last?
When I first read how the crew change works it appeared useless:

Player may swap their existing Specialist card with and Specialist
  card not currently in play. The player's Firefighter has the AP (less
  the 2 AP required for a crew change) and special abilities of the
  newly selected Specialist for the entire turn.

The last part that states "... for the entire turn" to me makes it sound like you switch back to your old role when your turn ends. If this is the case though, you never get a chance to do much of anything with the new role. This makes it sound like that actually is not the case and that you keep the new role for the remainder of the game. Can someone confirm that this is the case?

Crew Change lasts until you decide to change roles again. You don't automatically change back to your old role.  The "cost" is having to get back to the truck, finish the turn, and then spend the 2 AP to change.


text:
Use of Jokers in Poker
What versions of poker allow Jokers to be included in the deck?
Are they treated as wildcards / how are they scored?
To date I've only played with a 52 card deck (i.e. where jokers would only be used to replace a specific lost card to make up an incomplete deck).

Use of a joker in poker is not common.  It messes with the order of hands.  Two pair is now less common than trips.

I don't think you'll find jokers used in live poker (against other humans) in a casino. However, there are many variations of poker played in home games that use jokers and/or other wild cards. In home games, the rules are quite varied because usually the person suggesting the game (dealer's choice) gets to make whatever rules they'd like. Typically though, the Joker is treated as a wild card which you can assign any value you wish. Scoring (hand ranking) is done identically to without wild cards, except that now 5 of a kind is possible, and that is the best hand. (5 deuces beats a royal flush, and 5 Aces is the best possible hand.)
This page lists some home poker games that use jokers.

If wild cards are allowed in a game, they lose to "tie" hands; a "natural" hand beats one using wildcards. So a hand with 3 "real" aces beats one ace and two jokers pretending they are aces.

@MarkRipley - another way to word that is when hands are tied, the hand with the fewest wild cards wins (or if they have the same number of wildcards it remains a tie).

Twos and one eyed jacks :-)

There's a version of texas hold em' we play with jokers. They add some spice and diversity to the game. These are the rules we play by. Jokers are worth nothing on their own but they are allowed to complete straights and flushes. Jokers may NOT be used with regular cards to create pairs, trips, four of a kind, or a full house, however, when both jokers are in play, whether in your hand or as a community card, they can be used together to make a pair that ranks one higher than an ace pair. A joker pair may be used in conjunction with three of a kind to make a full house, i.e. three kings and two jokers. Often when both jokers are out in play, the 'high pair' rule doesn't come into effect because both jokers can be used together on the same straight or flush making higher hands much easier to come by.


text:
What happens when a Reward that is a character card loses its hitpoints?
While playing the Oblivaeon expansion to Sentinels of the Multiverse, we completed the Mission card “Time and Time Again”, giving us the Reward character card “The Chronoist”. He has 14 HP.
Unfortunately, he was also destroyed by losing all his hit points. What happens to him then? Does he go into my trash? Get removed from the game? Something else?

From looking I see a thread on board game geek the card goes to the hero's trash when destroyed.
https://videogamegeek.com/thread/2074878/incapacitation-and-rewards

2) The Reward card is killed. It is sent to that hero's trash. When that hero is incapacitated, does the trashed Reward card go under the hero's character card as well? It SEEMS that way, since no exception is made for trashed rewards in the Incapacitation rules section

The response to this in the thread is that it is correct

I assume that when the trashed character is incapacitated, it still goes under their character card? And if the trash gets shuffled into the character deck, this gets shuffled too?

@Thunderforge I am not sure about the second part of the question but it seems that way from the link. I have not personally ran into this situation in my limited experience with the digital version


text:
If a player sets a monster that is revealed to be invalid when it is flipped face up, what happens?
Say that a player sets a monster. It sits there for a few turns and then the opponent attacks it, flipping it face up. Unfortunately, it turns out that it couldn't have been set. Perhaps it was a Link Monster (which can never be put in Defense Mode) or a Tribute Monster that was set without the proper tribute.
What happens? Given that a few turns have passed, it may be impossible to "rewind" to a point where the monster was set, so I'm not sure how the game can continue. In a tournament, would the player who illegally set the monster be required to forfeit the game?

In a tournament, the player who made the illegal play could be given a game loss, if the gamestate can't be reconstructed (and sometimes even if it can). Many calls like this are up to the discretion of the judge, and if you're at a larger tournament, you'll be able to appeal to a head judge for a final ruling if you disagree.
Be very careful about this. Even doing something like not activating a mandatory effect (like adding counters to a certain card when something happens) could give you a loss depending on the judge and if the opposing player calls a judge for it. I've heard of people being given game losses for not activating the effects of cards with multiple effects in the order printed on the card (Wavering Eyes in this case, for just the first 2 effects), even though the order wouldn't affect the gamestate in any way.
If you're playing with friends or in a more casual setting, oftentimes people just do the best they can to rewind it, or just play it out.

With examples you have provided it can be noted that if someone has resolved Maxx C the draws are mandatory and it is BOTH players responsibility for the person who activated Maxx C to draw cards, it has been ruled if draws are forgotten then the game results in a game loss for both players

@WhatsThePoint yes, Maxx C is mandatory and it's negligence penalty-worthy. On an historical note, the WCS when Dragon Rulers were king and they could make about 10 Special summons, you could even make your opponent deck-out if they activated maxx c

If secret information has been revealed (e.g. a player played a card from their hand, revealing the fact that the card was in their hand), then it would be impossible to reconstruct the game state, since that would require the other player forgetting the card.

In a tournament, would the player who illegally set the monster be required to forfeit the game?

This would eventually be up to the Judge who tends the case, but most likely the offending player will surely get a penalty at least, or will lose that game.
Three things I think would happen here:

First, there is a chance no player ever realizes the mistake, in which case this would go unnoticed and the game proceeds "naturally". If any player finds out (of course, most likely the offending player won't), what should be done is to call a Judge so he/she can sort this out.
The Judge will then see if it is possible to replay or go back in turns to the moment where the illegal move happened. If it is possible then good, but if not the offending player will surely lose the game or receive some strong warning.
To be honest, and if I were a Judge, I would indeed called out the game loss, even more if it were not able to "undo" it. I've seen players been given a lost game for less serious mistakes and situations, like showing up 30 seconds late to the table when you are up...
After the call is made, it should be resolved. If the Judge ruled for a game loss, the offending player loses, the game ends and the match continues. If this was a match-deciding game then the offending player will lose it. If another game is still to come, then the Judge would indicate so and both players would proceed with the remainder games.


text:
Does the "Alternate Reality" Crisis require each player to destroy 12 cost worth of Heroes?
The Crisis Expansion (Pack 1) for the DC Comics Deck-Building Game introduced a new Crisis Mode, which allows for cooperative play and "Crisis Cards" that involve villains' plans. There has been one that has bothered me in particular, "Alternate Reality", which says the following:

Ongoing: At the start of your turn, destroy all Heroes in your hand. Gain that many random Villains from the destroyed pile and put them into your hand.
To Beat: Your team must destroy 12 cost worth of Heroes in their discard piles.

Does this mean that each player of the team must destroy 12 cost worth of Heroes in each of their discard piles? Or do they have to collectively have at least 12 cost worth of Heroes (say, 3 points in each of 4 discard piles)?

Turns out that this is actually answered in the Specific Card Clarifications section of the Crisis rulebook:

Alternate Reality, Final Countdown: To beat one of these Crisis cards, the team acts together and chooses which cards to destroy. The burden is on the collective team, so each player does not destroy their own set of cards to beat the Crisis. For Alternate Reality, you don't have to destroy exactly 12 cost worth of Heroes to beat it.

As it clearly says, "each player does not destroy their own set of cards" and it's up to the team to pick and choose which cards from which discard piles to destroy so that the total is 12 (or more) points of Heroes.


text:
Does an increase in monster Toughness also mean an increase in monster trophy value?
There are several things that change a monster's Toughness. For instance:

Azathoth gives +1 Toughness to all Maniacs for the duration of the game
Heat Wave gives +1 Toughness to all Fire Vampires while the environment is active
Shub-Niggurath gives all monsters +1 Toughness for the duration of the game

When effects like these are in play, the monster's Toughness in combat is higher than printed on the monster token. Does this also increase the monster's trophy value?
If yes, what happens in the event of temporary changes to the monster's Toughness? For instance, if a Fire Vampire was killed before a Heat Wave, is the trophy worth one extra point if a Heat Wave strikes later? And if a Fire Vampire is killed during a Heat Wave and then the environment is replaced with something else, is the trophy back to the original value?

You always apply whatever toughness modifiers are in effect when you exchange the trophy, the trophy's worth when you gained it is irrelevant.
To refer to your examples, a Fire Vampire killed before a Heat Wave, and exchanged during a Heat Wave is worth +1 toughness, while a Fire Vampire killed during a Heat Wave and exchanged after the Heat Wave has ended is worth only the monster's base toughness.
From the Arkham Horror FAQ (page 3):

Q: When spending monster trophies, do you count any
  modifiers to toughness currently in effect?
A: Yes, use the modified toughness. This bonus applies to
  the use of any monster trophies spent at any location.


text:
Identify a card game where you discard playing cards based on die rolls
I am looking for rules to a card game I played as a child, which we called "Polish Poker". However, when I search for the name online, the rules I get don't match what I played, so I guess it must go under other names.
I recall that we used a standard deck of 52 cards and took out aces, sevens, kings, and jokers. On your turn, you roll two dice. If you have a card in your hand matching the roll (Jacks are 11 and Queens are 12), you discard it. If you roll a seven, you put a penny (or whatever you are using for chips) from your supply into a pot in the center, which the winner gets at the end. I don't remember what happened if you rolled a card you didn't have.
I think the whole deck of cards might have been dealt to each player in their hand, but I'm not entirely sure. Does this sound like a game that might have more complete rules, perhaps under a different name?

There are two different games with the same name:
A card only variant: https://everything2.com/title/card+game and a drinking game: http://www.haveacocktail.com/games/polish-poker.htm. Both don't fit the description.

I played the game like this in the mid 1970's
Equipment:

2 Dice (d6)
1 Pile of pennies for each player, or tokens of your choice
1 Cup or bowl
1 Deck of playing cards for every 4 players

Example:

1-4 players = 1 deck
5-8 players = 2 decks
etc...

Setup:

Remove Jokers, Aces, Sevens and Kings and put them aside as they are not used.
Remove any extra cards starting with the Queens to ensure everyone gets an even number of cards.
Examples:

3 players = 1 deck. ( 40/3 = 13 ), remove 1 Queen
6 players = 2 decks. (80/6 = 13), remove 2 Queens
etc...

Place cup/bowl in center of the table.
Shuffle the cards.

Game Play:

To start the game, each player picks a card, the player with the highest card deals and starts.  If 2 or more pick the same high card, all others are out and the tied players pick again until only one gets to start.  If more than one game is played, the winner of the last game deals and starts the next game.
Game play is to the left.
Roll the dice.
If you roll a 7, you throw a penny in the pot and pass the dice to the left.
If you have the number thrown (for example you throw 3+5 = 8 and you have the 8 of hearts), you toss that card on the pile and pass the dice to the left.
If you don't have the number thrown, you throw a penny in the pot and pass the dice to the left.
If the person before you did not have the number matching the dice, and you have more than two cards remaining, you may throw a matching card yourself and then roll the dice as stated above.
You must roll the last two cards yourself. So you can't throw one of those if your neighbor fails to play a card.
The game ends when a player has no more cards.
They are winner and collect the pot.

Do you remember what you called this game?

That is the polish poker that we played too. You may continue to roll the dice as long as you can discard the card that corresponds with the dice. If you roll a number that you don't have, then the dice goes to the next person that has the card to match. We also played that if you rolled doubles you retain the roll of the dice despite not having the corresponding card but the next person that has the card may discard it. And yes, the entire deck (minus the aces, sevens, kings, and jokers) is evenly distributed to all players. Extra cards are set aside.

Do you know of anywhere that has the complete rules?

The game sounds a little bit similar to wichita, it doesn't exactly match your description and is not normally a gambling game but someone might have put a slight variant on it.
Here are the complete rules.


text:
How do actions that trigger on a certain movement die result work when rolling two dice?
Some cards have things happen when you roll a certain result on the movement die. For instance, the Troll has the option of regenerating:

Whenever you roll a 6 for your move, you may regenerate instead of moving. If you choose to regenerate, heal one life and your turn immediately ends.

The Grim Reaper works this way too, moving when a 1 is rolled, and other cards such as Rumour of Riches and Flying Carpet also have an effect trigger this way.
But how does this work if you roll two dice for movement? For instance, the Riding Horse:

You may roll 2 dice and add them together to determine how far you can move.

Or the Torch:

You may roll two dice for your movement in the Dungeon and choose one of the results to use for your move.

How do abilities that trigger based on the result of the movement die happen when either die has the value?

You have to roll a 6 for your movement in order to be able to regenerate instead of moving. If you have Riding horse then you roll 2 dice for movement. If one of the two is a 6 you can regenerate instead as long as you control the Troll.

So to clarify, it doesn't matter if you roll two dice and add them together (like the Riding Horse) or roll two dice and pick one (like the Torch), you still get to trigger abilities like the Troll's regeneration if one of the dice is the number you want?

For the Horse: If one of the dice displays a six you will regenerate health if you have the troll.
For the dungeon: The dice you pick is the one you use so that one would have to be a six if you wanted to regenerate health with the troll.
So:
Pick a die: that die will trigger all available triggered abilities which require a number on the die.
Two dice: The dice will trigger the available triggered abilities which will trigger on a die number if one or both of them have the desired number


text:
Damage rarely matters in two-player RoboRally. How can I houserule it to be more interesting?
In the original version of RoboRally, I'm finding that damage rarely matters in two-player games. Over the course of the game, maybe four hits happen. No registers are locked, and drawing fewer cards doesn't seem like enough of a downside to make a difference.
What house-rules can I do to make damage matter more, as it does in a 6 or 8 player game? Would simply making the damage track smaller (say, 6 spots instead of 9) fix it?

Use a smaller board.
One tile and 6 flags create an interesting game for two players.
And place the flags so that you pass a few bottlenecks on the way.
The idea is to create as much interaction between the two robots as possible.

This game is perfect for houseruling :) Several things can be done to make hits mean more:

Start each life with 4 damage: every hit will lock a registry

and/or

Lasers to 2x (or 3x, yowza) damage: hits are punishing

and/or

Prevent healing at wrench tiles: damage is permanent

You can also try:

starting the game with upgrades to make things more interesting

or

each player gets two bots and they need to alternate flags or pass a baton to touch flags or somesuch.

Play with two robots each. One of the premade courses in the rules (Interference, on page 26 in this edition) actually suggests this as a variation, where you have one "racer" robot that can touch flags, and one "blocker" that can't. That way the board ends up more crowded and you have an incentive to actually go after the other player's robots rather than just heading for flags. (The two robots on a team are distinct, with separate hands and separate programs.) This should work reasonably well with a variety of maps, not just the one it's suggested on.
I think that one is the most straightforward for two players, and directly encourages interaction and damage, but the team variants do include the other obvious possibilities with a two-robot team:

from "Tandem Carnage" (page 29) - either robot from the team can touch each flag, as long as they're overall in order.
from "All for One or One for All" (page 30) - one robot from the team must touch all the flags in order, but it can be either one.

For what it's worth, there are also some more elaborate team games that could work with one player controlling the whole team, but they probably change the game more than you wanted, and require a lot more care in map construction:

"Capture the Flag" (page 31) - what it sounds like! Two boards, pushing a robot and surviving the phase counts as a "tag" and sends the other robot back to its home board, you can pick up the enemy flag and carry it, etc.
"Toggle Boggle" (page 32) - touch all the flags, but only the last team to touch a flag counts.
"War Zone" (page 32) - just try to run the other team out of life tokens.

I'm not a huge fan of trying to amp up the impact of damage (whether by making the track smaller or making each hit count more), because the core problem is simply that you don't run into each other that much. So yes, the couple of stray hits will matter, but they'll still be rare and if they do matter it'll feel more random, like you got punished a lot for a small mistake.
Reducing the board size as Toon Krijthe suggests is also a good idea, though there's a tradeoff that might matter to some people. It will indeed force the robots together, but it'll tend to favor smaller-scale movement (and more rotation), and have less of the larger-scale movement, multiple choices of paths, and diversity of board elements you get on larger boards.


text:
Does Skirmish apply to both attacking and defending?
We're a bit confused about the Skirmish ability. The helper text on Quixo the "Adventurer" says the following:

Skirmish. (When you use this creature to fight, it is dealt no damage in return).

We're confused about when a character is "fighting" for the purposes of this ability. Is that when it is attacking, defending, or both?

I think the confusion here is because of MTG. There are never any "attackers" or "defenders." link64 has the right idea.

No, Skirmish is only active on attacking
You can only Fight on your turn. This means that Skirmish is only active when you select that creature to Fight as an action, negating any damage you would be dealt.
If a creature with skirmish is targeted with a Fight action by an opponent, it will still take damage.
From the official rules:

Any ready creature of the active house may fight. When a creature
  is used to fight, its controller chooses one eligible creature controlled
  by the opponent as the target of the attack. Each of the two creatures
  deals an amount of damage equal to its power (the value to the left
  of the card’s title) to the other creature


text:
When I search for a card, do I have to reveal it to my opponent?
Consider a card like Sangan, which involves searching for a monster of a specific criteria and putting it in your hand (emphasis mine).

If this card is sent from the field to the GY: Add 1 monster with 1500 or less ATK from your Deck to your hand, but you cannot activate cards, or the effects of cards, with that name for the rest of this turn. You can only use this effect of "Sangan" once per turn.

Similarly The Shallow Grave involves searching for a monster and placing it face down.

Each player selects 1 monster in their Graveyard and Special Summons it in face-down Defense Position.

In both cases, the card I chose is now in a location where my opponent cannot verify that I picked a valid card (in Sangan's case, they can't look at my hand to confirm that I have chosen a Monster card with 1500 or less ATK). This makes me wonder: do I have to reveal the card I have searched for? Or are my opponents just supposed to trust that I picked a valid card?

This makes me wonder: do I have to reveal the card I have searched for?

Yes you do
A card that one searches from deck has to be shown to your opponent. In the case of Sangan, you have to show it so it is known that it was a 1500 or less monster.
The case for Shallow Grave is different, as cards in the graveyard are public knowledge always.
At any time you may ask your Opponent to look at his GY, thus in this case both players see the cards picked from the GY and set.

Here we have a more official statement from the Wikia (quite recommended reading BTW), emphasis mine:

When an effect causes a player to search for a card of a specific type in their Deck, that player must reveal the card to their opponent before adding it to their hand, Setting it on the field or placing it on the top of the Deck with that effect. For example, when a player adds a Monster Card to their hand using the effect of "Sangan", their opponent may read all of the information on the Monster Card added.

They even give the example with Sangan :o)
On that link they also explain some other funny rulings, like revealing all your deck if there is no valid target for Sangan, or not revealing your hand if all the copies of the card being questioned are public knowledge, but that escapes the scope of this post.


text:
Why did Yu-Gi-Oh! change from an unlimited deck size to a 60 card maximum deck size?
When Yu-Gi-Oh! first started, an unlimited deck size was allowed. Now there is a limit of 60 cards. It may not always be advantageous to play more cards (see Why would one want more than 40 cards in their deck?), but why was this restriction added? After all, Magic the Gathering has cards like Battle of Wits that rely on decks of over 200 and they seem to be doing fine.

The 60 card limit has quite some time, almost from the beginning if I recall (urgh, can't find a Rulebook v1.0 to check out)

Might have been a limitations of a video game you're remembering (I have a DS game that sets the limit to 80, and even in the game it said normally there's no limit)

If Reddit is to be believed, there was a person at a German regional tournament who thoroughly abused this by bringing a deck with 2222 cards (enough for about 740 cards with 3 duplicates each). To make matters worse, as many cards as possible were added so that the deck had to be shuffled during the game as often as possible. While it was definitely poor sportsmanship, is was unquestionably legal, so Konami instituted the maximum deck size shortly thereafter.

It was originally 40+. There was no limit. I'm pretty sure the 60 card limit was introduced because some guy brought a deck that was outrageously large to a tourney.

I think at one event long ago in Germany some dude brought a 2k card deck or something? I guess Konami decided to set an actual limit then.

This story has appeared in other places across the web, with this forum post including a picture of the deck purportedly being carried in (and a several dozen page deck list).

Seems that the story appears other places as well (like gamefaqs). Also, this took place during the YuGiOh 5D's series, according to YuGiOh wikia

Flipping 'ell, that is ridiculous! How long did that duel take?

@VortexYT Since it was a tournament, presumably until time ran out or until the other side surrendered out of frustration.

yeah, i would imagine many people got annoyed just at the amount of time it takes to finish turns where you kick off stuff that requires you constantly shuffle.

I believe the judge just asked them to leave


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Is it feasible to do a Yu-Gi-Oh! booster draft?
Magic: The Gathering has a Booster Draft format in which each player opens a booster pack, picks a card to keep, then passes the rest to the next player. After this is repeated a number of times, players add basic lands so that they have a deck they can use in a tournament. The designers of new Magic sets make sure that the cards and their distributions will be fun to play in a Booster Draft.
Is it feasible to do a booster draft with similar rules in the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game? If I have players open booster packs and pass them around following the same rules as the Magic Booster Draft format, would it create playable decks and a satisfying experience?
I'd prefer an answer based on experience from someone who has attempted this. If nobody has tried it, I will accept a detailed analysis of why it would or would not work.

Given that there's an article describing how it works why would you assume you can't do this?

For added bonus, here's a video of a designer at Konami walking you through a draft.

@corsiKa I didn't know that the article existed; I'm not super familiar with the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game. Now that I look at it, I see that it is says that it is missing "Battle Pack-specific rules", but don't know what that means. Given that there's a video of a Konami designer, does that mean it's an official format, as opposed to just some fan rules? The wiki article doesn't say.

@Thunderforge Battle Pack Specific rules apply to Draft Tournaments made with any Battle Pack (1, 2, or 3) expansion. In the answer I posted there is a link to one BP expansion where such rules are explained.

Yes it is feasible. It is not so different from other Card Game Drafts, and it is briefly described here.
However, from experience, it is not fully feasible to do with any booster pack, and is especially difficult with the "main" Card Expansion Sets that follow the Anime, which usually are 100-card sets or less. In fact, I have never seen a Draft tournament made on such "main" expansion sets in the community I play.
If you plan to do a Draft tournament I suggest you consider doing it with card expansions like Battle Pack 3: Monster League, its previous versions, or similar boosters. That link also describes on detail how to carry out such tournaments.
These Battle Pack sets are specifically made for draft or sealed pack tournaments, as they include a wide and balanced variety of cards. These are also bigger card set expansions (BP3 has 237 cards) which enable for a better gameplay. They also tend to be cheaper by the booster, something that makes it easily to afford and convince prospect duelists to join the tournament.

The only issues that I see is that the first player to open the pack will likely pull the one "good" card, and Yugioh also has many cards that rely on other cards (ie Trickstar Light Stage is useless w/o other Trickstar monsters). Konami has a set formula of distributing cards of increasing rarity in packs and boxes. I don't know if Magic follows a similar formula. I believe it would be both feasible and an interesting challenge to a player. It certainly wouldn't be the most competitive deck, but it should be a fun time by all.

Magic does, plus in a draft, everyone opens packs, the way it works in magic is each player in the draft pod opens a pack, takes one card then passes the pack, so everyone should have the same chance at access to the high rarity card, since everyone gets first access to the same number of packs. In magic every drafter gets 3 packs to open.


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Are Starter Deck Yugi Reloaded and Starter Deck Kaiba Reloaded balanced against each other?
I'm a fan of the original Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, but don't want to spend the money to buy lots of booster packs. I recently found that there are two new Starter Decks featuring the archrivals from the original series:

Starter Deck Yugi Reloaded
Starter Deck Kaiba Reloaded

The idea of just buying two off the shelf decks for characters of the original series and playing them against each other appeals to me. Are these two Starter Decks balanced against each other so that each deck will win close to 50% of the time against the other? Or is one much more likely to win in a duel?

The starter decks are well, starter decks.  I have both of the decks mentioned.  They play OK, and are fairly balanced against each other.  However, they brick often and have a hard time getting started.  They are starter decks, and are a good introduction to the game.  They do not play like a good competitive deck.  If you want to check out the game, it is a good investment.  However, you will find the game is more enjoyable by collecting additional cards.
Also, please note, there is at least one tournament forbidden card, and several restricted cards in those sets.


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Is there any harm in leaving board games out in a car during cold weather?
I live in an area where during the winter the temperature falls below -18°C/0°F. Will any harm come to board games that I leave out in a car in that temperature? I know that hot weather can be tough for some types of games (e.g. those with adhesives). I don't know if the reverse is true.

I figure games with batteries in them (e.g. those with an electronic timer) would result in needing to replace the batteries more often. Don't know if there are other types.

They might get damp when you bring them to a warmer environment, if you don't allow a gradual warming period - just like if you wear glasses in the cold and they steam up when you go into a warm room. The dampness may have undesirable consequences.

Will any harm come to board games that I leave out in a car in that ['below -18°C/0°F'] temperature?

No.
I have had some board games for 30+ years that, during that time, spent two years in a Minnesota storage garage and three years in an Upstate New York storage garage; in which neither had heat or air conditioning (neither location was ever particularly hot during the Summer).
Some games had adhesive tape repairs; some had a clear adhesive film protecting the graphics of the gameboard.  None exhibited any damage due to storage conditions.
Note: For long-term storage, all games are placed within plastic garbage bags which, in turn, are put inside plastic totes.
On one occasion, I noted one factory shrink-wrapped game developed a some minor condensation between the shrink-wrap and game box.  The game box lid was concave from being pressed; causing space between the shrink-wrap and box.  The condensate was noted when I brought this game home, from storage, during cold outside temps. It did not appear to damage or stain the cover of the gamebox.


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Is a monster considered "destroyed" if I tribute it?
Say that I have activated the Trap Card Shattered Axe on my opponent's monster:

Activate this card by targeting 1 face-up monster on the field. During each of your Standby Phases: It loses 500 ATK. When that target is destroyed, destroy this card.

Before I get a chance to attack it in battle, my opponent manages to tribute the target. Does this mean that the target is "destroyed", and thus Shattered Axe is destroyed along with it? Or is the target not destroyed and Shattered Axe remains on the field, despite the fact that the target is no longer there?
I ask because Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links (a mobile version of the game) does not destroy Shattered Axe if the target card is tributed. It just sits on the field clogging up space and having the turn counter run indefinitely if the monster is removed by tribute. I don't know if that's a bug or intended behavior.

I ask because Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links (a mobile version of the game) does not destroy Shattered Axe if the target card is tributed. the same occurs with Call of the Haunted in ygopro. Checking the Rulings for Call of the Haunted on Yu-Gi-Oh! Wikia doesn't suggest an answer. My thoughts are that its effects are temporary (when is resolving in a chain), but as an continuous trap card, it stays in the field until is directly destroyed (i.e, MST, Heavy Storm, Dust Tornado, etc).

As a side comment, it is perhaps not a great idea to take YGOPro or others as "how things should work", as their programmers could have made some omission mistake on the rules.

@DarkCygnus Duel Links is at least an official product from Konami so it should be accurate. And even if not, there’s a disclaim in the game saying that if they make a programming error, they are still considered to have the rules correct for the purposes of competitive gameplay and such (you can’t write to them and say you should have won the match due to a rules error).

According to the official rulebook of Yu-Gi-Oh!, "destroy" means

A card is destroyed when it is sent to the Graveyard due to battle
  between monsters or by an effect that destroys a card. A card that is
  returned from the field to the hand or Deck, or, that is sent to the
  Graveyard as a cost or Tribute, is NOT considered “destroyed.”

This can be found in the rulebook in the glossary part.
Even though Duel Links is a simplified version of the original game, it should follow the basic rules.

No. From a legal standpoint, "destroyed" only refers to a situation where a card is either destroyed by an effect that specifically says "destroy" or by battle. When you tribute a card, it is not considered either, but is rather considered a cost than a destruction.


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Is priority reevaluated in between each robot's movement or do we keep how it was at the start of the register?
In RoboRally 2016, we had a situation as follows. There were three robots on the board, which I have numbered 1 through 3 based on their priority and facing (thus "1→" is the first robot in priority order and is facing to the right).

Robot 1 did a "move 1" instruction and pushed Robot 2.

Note that of the two robots who haven't moved yet, Robot 3 is now closer to the Antenna than Robot 2. Do we keep the priority order, thus the one in the far right moves next?
Or do we immediately reevaluate the priority order as follows, thus the robot on the far left moves?

In other words, do we stick with priority that was set at the start of the register, or does it get reevaluated each time a Robot moves?

Using the priority antenna really slows the game down. I advise instead using it as a tiebreaker and instead start w/ faster actions. See this questions for a more detailed explanation.

@aslum I've found that it isn't really slowing the game down for us, since we only calculate priority if it looks like there is actually going to be a conflict (i.e. two robots are going to ram into each other). If everybody is in their own section of the board, then we don't bother calculating priority and just all move our robots simultaneously.

I rarely play Roborally with less than 5 players, and it's already quite long... saving 20 seconds per turn is well worth it!

The rules for Robo Rally can be found here.
On page 4 it says the following (emphasis mine):

Determining Priority
In ROBO RALLY, when a player has priority, it is that player’s turn. Rather than taking turns based on where they are sitting, players take turns based on where their robot is sitting on the board.
At any given time, the player whose robot is closest to the priority antenna has priority. After that player takes their turn, the second closest player to the antenna has priority and takes their turn, and so on.

This means that priority is reevaluated after each player's turn.


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If I have a net negative number of dice, how many clue tokens do I need to spend to attempt a roll?
Say that my investigator currently has their Sneak score at 1. If I am called upon to make a Sneak (–2) check, that's a net result of –1. If I want to be able to roll one die, how many clue tokens do I have to spend? I have heard it two ways:

You have to spend a clue token to counteract each negative. Thus in this case you would spend 2 clue tokens to roll a single die.
Negative dice doesn't make sense, so you consider it having zero dice. Thus in this case you would spend 1 clue token to roll a single die.

Which way is correct?

You always gain bonus dice from clue tokens spent, regardless of how negative your actual ability check is.
So in your example you do not have to spend one to overcome the negative, then another to gain a dice, you would be able to spend one (or more) clue(s) to gain one (or more) dice.
From the rulebook (page 13 under Spending Clue Tokens on Skill Checks):

Important: Spending a Clue token always gives you the
  bonus dice that you are entitled to, even if the modifier
  has dropped the number of dice you can roll below 0.


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If I play a card as part of a start/end of a turn effect, do I apply their start/end of turn effects as well?
Say that I have a start or end of turn effect that requires me to play a card (such as La Capitan's La Paradoja Magnifica, where at the start of the villain turn I play the top card of the villain deck). In the event that the card I play also has a start or end of turn effect, do I activate that too?

According to the FAQ:

If a card comes in to play at the end of a villain turn, and it has an "end of the villain turn" action, does that action happen this turn?
Yes. You are still in the "End of Turn" phase, and all "End of Turn" actions in play must resolve for that phase to end, even if those cards came in to play as part of that phase.

It seems safe to generalize this to the start of the villain turn as well.

This is correct, and matches with the mobile game. The trigger for the ability going off is being in a specific phase (e.g. "villain end-of-turn" or "villain start-of-turn") and not having already been activated, so new cards entering play that trigger during the current phase will still trigger. Note that the player may choose the order in which they resolve any remaining triggers so you could choose to immediately resolve that new card's trigger or delay it until after some other effect triggered by the same phase, but you must resolve it before leaving that phase.


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What is the point of having a token for the Dog companion?
The text for the Dog Companion is as follows:

Take a small monster token to represent the Dog. Put it in your room.
  (Use a token of a different color from other monsters, if any.)
Once during your turn, the Dog can move to any explored room up to 6
  spaces away, using doors and stairs, and then return. It can pick up,
  carry, and/or drop 1 item before it returns.
The Dog isn't slowed by opponents. It can't use one-way passages or
  rooms that require a roll. It can't carry items that slow movement.

So in other words, the instructions say:

Use a token to represent the dog
The dog can go to another room (and can carry items, perhaps to trade with another investigator) and then come right back
The dog can't get stuck by using a one-way door or a room that requires a roll

Since the dog always comes back to you immediately, and there is no situation where a dog can go somewhere they can't return from, what's the point of having a token for the dog?

One thing to consider is that there is a haunt where the betrayer has a dog token and this token can be used to keep it unique.

Possible duplicate of Clarification on using Dog Companion

@Howdy_McGee This question is not a duplicate. That other one is about how the rules of the dog work and what strategies would be employed. This one is asking about the use of a token to follow all those rules.

Apart from the flavour, which is the basis of Betrayal, I suspect the main reason is to act as a visual aid to check how far the dog can go to do stuff with items. For most players this isn't necessary, but it's easy enough to include in case it's helpful to someone.
At my table, we tend to keep the dog token on the character sheet so we don't have to move it around.

I agree that, aside from theme, counting rooms is a viable reason as to why a token might be desired. I've accepted this answer.

To the best of my knowledge, there is none.
I had the exact same question come up in my last game of Betrayal, in fact. We talked about it a while; couldn't see any reason to use a token, so we just didn't.
It could be only for theme purposes, that you can actually see the dog following you from room to room.

Technically speaking, the card never says that the dog needs to move where you move. The way I've always played it is that the dog remains in the room in which it was found for the rest of the game. From there, it can help its owner with item management. It's just a little boost, provided you're near it (which, if you're the traitor, and the Dog started the haunt, you will be).
Therefore, the tokens shows the origin point (and permanent location) of the dog.

What is the basis of saying that the dog remains in the room in which it was found? Is this a houserule? It always seemed to me that the dog followed you around.

Based only on the wording on the card, you would be correct. But the rulebook says different when talking about companions: "Companions: The Dog, Girl, and Madman omen cards are companions that follow the explorer who has custody of them. Companion omens don't have physical or mental traits." There's some discussion about this here: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/574555/dog-token

The rules on the Dog card say it isn't slowed by opponents.  However, it doesn't say anything about the reverse.  My playgroup is of the opinion that because the Dog has a token, it counts as an opponent for slowing movement by those opposed to the explorer to which it is a companion.


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Has Ash ever appeared on any Pokémon TCG cards?
Ash Ketchum is the star of the Pokémon anime. Has he ever appeared on any TCG cards to date? I know the cards tend to follow the game universe, but I'm wondering if over the 20+ years the lines blurred at some point.

As the Pokémon TCG follows the console games rather than anime, Ash was never a star in the TCG (because he was never in any console game). However, to commemorate few films in Generations III and IV, few promotional cards depicting Ash's Pokémon were released (along many other Owner's Pokémon originating from the films), although all are Japan-exclusive. No Trainer card named just Ash exists.

Pokémon: Destiny Deoxys (M07)

Ash's Torkoal

inserted in a children magazine

Ash's Treecko

Pokémon: Lucario and the Mystery of Mew (M08)

Ash's Grovyle
Ash's Phanpy
Ash's Swellow

Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea (M09)

Ash's Aipom

Pokémon: Arceus and the Jewel of Life (M12)

Pikachu
Pikachu  LV.X
Staraptor

As @JonathanJ mentioned in comments, there is also a card named Ash-Greninja  depicting a Bond Phenomenon Greninja originating in Gen 6 anime. It was released in both Japanese and English, but only the second Japanese print features a picture of Ash.
As @Thunderforge mentioned in comments, in April 2017 a new Japanese-exclusive subset named Ash vs Team Rocket Deck Kit was released, based on Alolan episodes of anime. Some artworks of Pokémon that Ash owns also depict himself. The subset also includes the first Trainer card with Ash in its name.

Rowlet
Ash's Pikachu
Tauros
Ash's Friendship

Also on Ash-Greninja-EX (similar to the other Ash's pokemon) if you want to add it: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/File:XYZ_Character_Song_Project_2_Limited_B.png Interestingly, it was a legal English card although only the Japanese version has the Ash insert - Greninja apparently takes on Ash's characteristics :)

As per my other comment, English card - Ash-Greninja-EX = http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Ash-Greninja-EX_(XY_Promo_133)


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Are bonus jewels discarded after use?
In The Hobbit: Enchanted Gold, you use jewels to defeat enemies. Step 2 of the "Make Encounters" says that you have to return the regular jewels you used to the bag:

When you defeat one of the adversaries, return the required jewels for the encounter to the bag and place the defeated Encounter card face up in front of you if it shows one or more bonus jewels.

What do you if you used a bonus jewel to defeat the enemy? Since it's a card, you can't put it in the bag. Do you flip it face down? Do you keep it for subsequent rounds?

You turn the card over after using it.
While this isn't explicitly covered in the main rules, there's an example of play at the end of the rules that clarifies the issue. In the example, Gollum and Orcs are used for bonus gems, and then turned over.
The German rules can be found here, and have the example "Beispeil" on page 7. It ends with:

„Gollum“ und „Orks“ werden umgedreht. ("Gollum" and "Orks" are turned around.")

This is also in the unofficial English rules translation.


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Which cards should I sleeve for The 7th Continent?
I backed The 7th Continent on Kickstarter and received 200 card sleeves with my order. There are far more than 200 cards in the game. Which cards are worth sleeving?

The cards in your action and hand deck are used the most, and these are the ones the for which the sleeves were provided ("to protect all ACTION and STATE cards"). These include the following:

11 character cards
35 character-specific skill cards
35 skill cards
49 advanced skill cards, or 50 if you have the Path of Repentance expansion
11 curse cards (including the four "Death is Lurking" cards)
45 state cards. These are found at these numbers:

 100 to 108, inclusive (5 of each)

For a total of 186 cards, or 187 with the Path of Repentance expansion.
The following are other possible candidates:

10 saving-related cards
Satchel & Journal
7 clue cards
Card 777 ("Easy mode") and card 650 ("Hardcode mode")

For a total of 20 cards.
The counts are for the base Kickstarter reward. Cards from the add-ons are mentioned separately.

49 is the correct number. I was suspicious of that count too, so I did a double check against the official card list when I wrote my post. There are 40 in the base game, and 3 in each of the incl expansions. Do you perhaps have the Path of Repentance expansion add-on? It adds one.

I do have a few expansions, but haven't added them yet. I think I'm missing Path of Repentance. Your post said that it was for "the Kickstarter reward with no add-ons", so I assumed that meant no expansions. If you are including expansions (which would be helpful for anybody sleeving those), it may be better to divide it up by base game and expansion pack.

Then I'd have to start worrying about KS-exclusive content (e.g. some of the character cards, some skill or advanced skill cards) for a game that's never going to be published outside of KS.

From the official card list it looks like there are 40 in the base game, 3 in The Icy Maze, 3 in The Forbidden Sanctuary, 3 in Swamp of Madness, and 1 in Path of Repentance. So if a player hasn't added any of those to their base game yet, then they'll have only 40.

Yes, that's what I said.

If you are wanting more sleeves for the game you just need some that are "premium thickness" in the 80 X 80 mm size cards, there are several companies that make them including Swan and Mayday.

This doesn't answer the question of which cards I should sleeve with the sleeves I have.


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Does fire go away after saving?
When you save the game in The 7th Continent, does fire go away, given that there isn't any way to mark this in the save stack? Or are you just supposed to remember which tiles had it?

Re "Or are you just supposed to remember which tiles had it?", The saving mechanism provided by the rules only saves one exploration tile.

@ikegami True, although you could have fire in the current exploration tile.

Yes. My comment was specifically about the possible misconception that there would be tiles left over.

Using the saving mechanism found in the rules, all exploration tiles except the one on which every explorer is standing are discarded. Any fire tokens on these discarded cards are also discarded. While the card on which the explorers are standing is saved rather than discarded, a fire token on that card is also discarded because the mechanism does not provide a means of saving its presence.
That said, the saving mechanism provided by the rules is meant to be quick and simple to use, and nothing stops you from using a more thorough saving mechanism. For example, you could store a fire in the dice bag to indicate there was a fire present on the explorer's tile. Or you could note the detailed state of the game (perhaps in the Cartographic Notebook add-on or this printable version (.pdf, 1.2 MB)) to perfectly restore the state of the game.

or even just take a quick photo of the board?

You'd have to flip the exploration tiles over, but yeah


text:
If I find a hidden number, do I have to be on the tile to replace it?
Say that I notice a hidden number on a tile on the other side of the continent. Do I still replace the tile card even though I am nowhere near it?

The rules don't say anything about needing a figure on the card (or on the connected terrain card for permanent event cards).

Some Terrain and Permanent event cards contain hidden numbers. When players find one, they may discard the card on which they spotted it and replace it with the card bearing that number.

From what I've seen, hidden cards open new paths or new actions, so you won't be able to take advantage of these until you have a figure on the card. This means that little is gained from revealing the hidden card without a figure on the card (or on the connected terrain card for permanent event cards), so it makes little difference if you reveal the hidden card sooner rather than later.
Since it makes little difference, you may want to wait to reveal the hidden card until you have a figure on the card or an adjacent one for thematic reasons (since the hidden card represents keen observation or exceptional situational problem solving on the part of your character). But you are not required to do so.


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A trail card says I pass if I roll an even number and die if I roll a 1. What happens if I roll a 3 or 5?
In The Oregon Trail Card Game, there is a trail card that says the following:

Roll an even number and ford the river. Roll a one and die by drowning.

What happens if I roll a 3 or a 5? Other cards have you lose a supply card on a failed roll, so I'm not sure if that happens here. But since it doesn't say, I'm wondering if there is any consequence.
This question was raised in a review of the game at Ars Technica.

A Board Game Geek user sent in some rules questions to Pressman Toys and received responses from the company president and game designer. They were kind enough to post them on Board Game Geek, and this question was one of them:

1) River card: “Roll an Even number to ford the river. Roll a 1 and die by drowning.” What happens then when the person rolls a 1 and dies? Would you take that to mean the river was forded, but lost that player to drowning? What happens if a 3 or 5 is rolled?
-When players are trying to ford a river and they don’t drown or ford the river play passes to the next player, who rolls to try to ford the river. This continues until all players drown or a player fords the river. No player may play another Trail Card until the river has been forded.

In other words, a result of 3 or 5 means that the river is not forded, but there are no other ill effects. The next player then attempts to ford the river. Only when a person rolls a 2, 4, or 6 is the River considered to be forded and a new trail tile may be drawn.


text:
What is different between regular Catan and Simply Catan?
I was recently made aware of Simply Catan, a re-implementation of Catan (formerly Settlers of Catan). I see that it is advertised as being faster, with only a 5 minute setup and 30 minute play-time. But what are the actual differences between these games?

It looks like the biggest differences are tile sets (multiple hexes attached together) to decrease set up time, and only 7VP needed to win for shorter games.
From the Catan website:

Differences Between Simply Catan and the Base Game
For a quick setup, Simply Catan comes with 5 rows of tiles, printed on both sides (1x5, 2x4, 2x3). This design reduces overall setup time of the game while still providing enough variation to make for a different game each time you play.
For beginners, the rules provide recommended starting positions. This allows new players to dive immediately into the fun of the game mechanics, without spending a lot of time worrying about getting started.
Playing to 7 Victory Points speeds up the time to play. With Simply Catan, 30-40 minutes is all your family needs to get your "Catan fix".


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What is the tallest Jenga tower ever created?
Under the standard rules of Jenga, what is officially recognized as the tallest Jenga tower ever created?

According the the 2008 Vintage Game Collection version of Jenga, the tallest recorded Jenga tower was made by Robert Grebler in 1985 with a tower 40 2⁄3 levels*, using an original Jenga set produced by Leslie Scott, the designer of the game.
Board Game Geek's gallery for Jenga includes a picture that nearly matches this at 40 levels tall. The user Romir posted a picture of a tower 43 levels tall, but it looks like they didn't follow the rule to complete a 3 block story before starting another one.**

For fun, there is a YouTube video of the Tallest Game of Jenga Ever Assembled at 66 inches (5.5 feet, 1.68 meters), using multiple sets.
* Presumably, the "2/3 levels" means that the Robert Grebler placed 2 out of a possible 3 blocks on the top level before the tower collapsed. In Jenga, you must place three blocks on a level before starting a new level.
** As described above, a level must have three blocks on it before starting another level. Therefore, it's not possible for both the top level and the one below it to only have one block, as shown in the picture.

For example, in this article they write https://jenga-game.com/blog/tallest-jenga-tower/
The tallest tower is 397 centimeters (slightly higher than a single-story house);
The fastest construction is 23.5 seconds from the beginning to the full tower;
The largest purchase - 125 boxes with the game were bought at a time in a retail store.


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Can I use Jyn Odan's Quick Draw if I don't have line of sight normally, but do with Trick Shot?
Jyn Odan's Quick Draw works as follows:

2 Strain: Use at the start of a hostile figure's activation. Interrupt to perform an attack with a Pistol targeting that figure. Limit once per round (twice if you have 2 activation tokens).

For 4 XP, Jyn can buy the Trick Shot skill:

1 Strain: Use before you declare an attack with a Ranged weapon. You can draw line of sight from any space within 3 spaces.

It's not clear to me: can these two can be used together? Can I use Quick Draw against someone I don't normally have line of sight to, but do with Trick Shot?

Yes
Justin Kemppainen, Assistant Board Game Manager for Fantasy Flight Games, definitively stated that it is allowed:

Question:
  If a Trooper "just around the corner" (out of LOS) activates, can Jyn activate Quick Draw and Trick Shot (to gain LOS) to attack him?
Answer:
  Yep! That combination of abilities is legit, and they remain legit even if the target is not currently in line of sight.


text:
Can doors be closed in Imperial Assault?
Say that a figure opens a door. Can it later be closed by either the Rebels or the Imperials (perhaps with the intention of blocking line of sight or hindering movement)?

Players cannot close doors after they are opened, only game effects can close an open doorway.
From the Rules Reference Guide (page 11 under Doors)

If an effect closes a door, place a door token on the map as
  shown on the mission’s map. Figures cannot voluntarily close
  doors.