text:
Implementing Hidden Opposing Player Votes/Bids with Variable Values
High Level
I am designing an asymmetrical secret objective game (each player is trying to win with different objectives that other players don't know).
I want to introduce an element in the game which will let all the players participate in determining the outcome of specific events.
The players must be able to influence the outcome of an event without other players knowing in what way.
Additionally, Players would have different amounts of influence they could use towards events.

Main Questions in implementation:

How can the player choose which outcome they are influencing?
How can the player determine how much influence to use?
How can this information (1 & 2) be kept secret from other players?

Abstract Example:
An event has two outcomes RED and BLUE.

Players can influence events towards the outcome they want
Players can choose how much to influence (1, 2, or 3)

So lets say there are 4 players, and they vote/bid as follows.

Player 1: RED 2
Player 2: RED 1
Player 3: BLUE 3
Player 4: BLUE 2

In this example, BLUE would be the outcome of the event.

Attempted Non-perfect Solution to the Abstract Example Using cards:
If each player has cards that represent their influence (1, 2, and 3) and they have such cards in each of the possible outcome colors (RED and BLUE). so that each player then has 6 cards. When an event is being voted on, each player would choose one card to use.
Why this is a problem:
After the vote/bid each player would need to reclaim the cards they spent so that they could use them again next time they need to vote/bid, and that would reveal who had used which card.
Possible Solution:
We could redistribute all the cards each time. So that no one would know who had used which card since they are all discarded each time
The Problems with this solution:

Lots of work to re-distribute cards each vote/bid, especially if there will be lots of voting/bidding
Requires all players to always have all the same influence all the time.

Some more details:
I want there to be a variable number of outcomes to events, such that some events could have 2, 3, or more outcomes.
I want the Player's influence to be generic, not specific to outcomes, so that the influence could be used for any event and outcome.
There would be multiple event voting/bidding rounds throughout the game.
Most of the time there will be multiple events to be voted/bid on.
Players shouldn't be required to spend all their influence when voting/bidding and should be able to preserve it for layer votes/bids at a later stage in the game.

Other possible implementation using influence chips:
Players accumulate influence chips throughout the game and spend them when voting/bidding. When it is time to vote/bid on an event, each outcome is voted/bid separately using a bag which is passed around the table and each player can use as many chips as they want to vote/bid for that outcome by placing them in the bag.
Why this is a problem:
voting would be slow. It would be hard to hide which outcome the player is or is not voting for and also how much influence they are using. It is prone to cheating with players peaking into the bag, or being able to feel if there are any chips in the bag already or even how many.

As you can see I can not think of a good solution for this. Games with similar mechanics:
Battlestar Galactica

[Players] need to collect skill cards ... Each turn also brings a Crisis Card, various tasks that players must overcome. Players need to play matching skill cards to fend off the problems; skill cards that don't match hinder the players success. Fate could be working against the crew, or there could be a [traitor]

Dead of Winter

... players are working together toward one common victory condition — but for each individual player to achieve victory, he must also complete his personal secret objective. This secret objective could relate to a psychological tick that's fairly harmless to most others in the colony, a dangerous obsession that could put the main objective at risk, a desire for sabotage of the main mission, or (worst of all) vengeance against the colony! Certain games could end with all players winning, some winning and some losing, or all players losing. Work toward the group's goal, but don't get walked all over by a loudmouth who's looking out only for his own interests!

You are looking for inspiration it seems - an innovative game mechanic unlike anything ever before seen. Don't expect to find it here. That's your sole job as a game designer. You don't have a game until you can work that out.

@ForgetIwaseverhere Yes, I am looking for inspiration. I am hoping someone might have some insight into this kind of system, perhaps similar solutions or implementations I can learn from. My main problem is that the theoretical concept is easy to think of, but actually physically implementing it as a board game is hard, if this were a computer game it would be easy. Thanks for your time. I do hope to find a solution.

For inspiration, I would look at Goodcritters

If they don't lose their influence cards, why would they not bid the maximum?

Use a card and marker combination
There are several different ways to implement this mechanic, one of the simplest (IMO) is to give each player a small cardboard card with several holes (each marked differently and representing a different vote) and a small plastic marker pin which can be placed in any single hole. Players secretly place their pin in a hole of their choice on their voting card, than toss it into a shared voting box while hiding all the holes with their hand.
After all have placed their votes, the box is opened and the votes are tallied. Finally, each player gets one of the voting cards and its pin so they are ready to vote again.
This tends to be faster and more efficient than using the voting cards method - especially if there are many possible votes - since every player discards (and later reclaims) a single "thing" per voting, rather than a thing for every possible option (like the six cards per player in your abstract example).

(Image of a Dixit: Odyssey voting card - used differently but demonstrates the implementation well. Source published on BGG with "copying allowed" license)
Alternatives to cardboard voting cards with holes and pin markers include:

Small whiteboard cards and erasable markers.
Metal cards and magnetic markers.
Plastic Lego style slabs and marker bricks.
Two circular pieces of card/cardboard layered one over the other with a hinge at their center so that the top layer can be rotated over the bottom one - one layer shows all possible votes and the other has an arrow mark (or a hole revealing a single vote etc.).

I'm sure you can think of other implementations - this all boils down to the trade-offs of aesthetics, ease-of-use, durability and manufacturing costs.
Variant for influence as a limited resource
If it's important for your game that players can accumulate influence and that more powerful votes cost more influence - you can just use multiple markers to represent stronger votes (e.g. to vote BLUE 3, a player will place 3 markers on the BLUE row of his voting card). If the cost of a vote scales faster than its strength, just have multiple holes per strength. For example, if BLUE 1 costs 1 influence, BLUE 2 costs 3 and BLUE 3 costs 6, have one hole next to BLUE 1, two additional holes next to BLUE 2 and three additional next to BLUE 3. A player voting BLUE 2 will place markers in the first three holes.
In this variant, players get only the voting card back after the vote, with no markers (or just a single marker) regardless of how much influence they've secretly spent. Use player screens to keep the accumulated influence secret from the other players.

Finally, as a side note - if you don't mind the game to include an accompanying mobile app, it is relatively simple to create a voting app to secretly and quickly handle votes. This can be in addition to one of the methods above, or as the sole voting mechanic.

I think your influence chips idea has the most promise. There are a few points that I'd bear in mind that will make this too long for a comment, and I'm not sure design questions like this have solid "answers" as such any way.

You don't have to go the whole hog with either of your ways of distributing influence. So far you have "fixed set of 6 for every vote" or "slowly accumulate and spend". You can have a fixed set that replenishes at set points in the game. Say every 5 votes for example. (Try giving everyone a sets of RPG dice to start with 20=3, 12=2, 10=1 anything else = 0)
Voting in a social game is always slow. Even voting in The Resistance for actually going on the mission is slow, and there many of the players don't have any choice at all. Passing round a bag and dunking in tokens doesn't seem likely to eat too much time unless you're doing these votes constantly.
Stop worrying about people cheating. People who are prone to cheating will cheat no matter what you do as a designer. You can't be there to police every game. Instead concentrate on making the rules clear so people don't do things wrong accidentally. (Note that the RPG dice idea will give you an idea of how easy it is to tell what's in the bag while you're filling it. RPG dice are fairly distinct, espcially 4/6s vs 12/20s, you may be surprised how difficult it is to tell what you have in there.) A player screen, or individual bag, combined with closed fist drops into the vote bag and I think you'll be ok.
Your biggest difficulty is your desire to allow events to have multiple outcomes. While this can make sense, shall we go Left, Right or Turn back? It adds a large amount of complexity and book keeping and increases the chance of ties/indecisive results. There's a reason why most political systems end up as Ayes/Nays after all.

A potential solution, inspired by the way I've seen The Resistance played:
Each spendable influence "point" is represented by a set of three cards - in your example, Red, Blue, and Yellow. (I'm assuming the max number of outcomes is 3; change the details accordingly for more though it could get cumbersome with too many.) For each point you want to spend, you play a full set of three: one face down into the actual voting pile, and the other two face down in a discard pile. There is also a large stack of blank cards available, used to obfuscate how much influence you are spending. You may draw blank cards for free at any time, and any time that you may spend influence, you may also pretend to spend influence by playing blank cards into the piles as if they were normal influence cards: one blank in the voting pile and two blanks in the discard pile. (One thing a player can do under this system is prove that they are not spending influence by visibly playing zero cards; if you want to prevent this, you could pick a number and require each person to always play at least (or exactly) that many sets, either real or blank.) Redistributing cards in this system is easy: whenever a person earns a new influence point (after a vote, or however else they get points), they just take one full set from the bank.

Have a multi-compartment opaque box. Each section of the box has a slot (like a piggy bank).  Each compartment represents a possible outcome of the event.
Each player is given some number of chips, possibly all the same, or possibly based on some other game element.
The box is put in the middle of the table, and the outcomes assigned (with cards, perhaps).
Each player, in turn, puts all their chips in the box. They can split between multiple compartments if they wish.  This must be done secretly - either everyone turns their back / closes their eyes, or you have some cowl or similar.
You then open the box, most chips wins.
As no-one handles the box during the voting, it's unlikely anyone will accidentally find out how the vote is going. This would probably be most secretive with cardboard voting tokens in a cardboard box.

To expand on the skill cards, each player has their own deck of cards, from which they draw X (handsize will depend on the rest of your game to some extent) cards. They'll have various values of Red and Blue. Though you don't need to limit yourself to just 2 color. Indeed, having multiple colors, and considering only matching colors "points for", while any other colors are "points against" could give you more options, though in that case "points for" might need to be more valuable (or cards could have a For and Against value.)


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Power Grid: Auction in following rounds
This question is a followup of this question.
Let's say, we have A, B C and D again:
First round:
If A chooses Power plant, but D wins, then A will initiate another auction.
Again when A chooses Power plant, but C wins, then A will initiate yet another auction.
Looks like A has a slight adavantage here - it can potentially force others to bid higher for a power plant, or trick them into buying plants which it does not intend.
If A passes during an auction which it started, does it still get the option to initiate the next auction?
Subsequent rounds:
If A chooses Power plant, D wins, who initiates the auction again? A or B?
If A initiates, then how is a subsequent round is any different from the first round?
If B initiates, does this mean A never gets the chance to initiate an auction again in this round?

It sounds like you are mixing different uses of the word "round". When the rules say "Exception: In the first round of the game, each player must buy a power plant" it means round as in a full round of the game, where there's auction, resource buying, etc. But you seem to be using round to mean a round of the action phase, where 1 plant is auctioned off.
So in the very first round of the game, the player whose turn it is to pick a plant is not allowed to pass. He must pick a plant to bid on. In later rounds, if it is your turn to pick a plant for auction, you can pass instead, in which case you do not get to buy a plant at all until the next game round.
If you pass in the middle of a specific auction for a specific plant, that just means you can no longer bid on that plant. You can still bid on the next plant to be auctioned, or pick a plant yourself when your turn comes up.

In all of your cases A chooses the next power plant. The rules are quite clear:

When a player other than the player who started
   the auction wins the auction, the auctioning player may choose a new plant to auction from the actual market or pass

A will keep putting power plants up for bid until either

A wins a power plant auction
A passes (and is out for the entire phase, they will not get a power plant this turn)

Remember, that when choosing a power plant A must make the first bid for at least the minimum printed on the power plant card.

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sort: votes


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Can Bazooka Joe use Black Ops when attached to a unit?
Bazooka Joe has the Black Ops special rule that allows him to be given a free order during the command phase.  The Black Ops rule is not listed as a "Shared" rule, so it is not normally given to any solider unit he joins.  Heroes become part of a squad when joined, so they can't independently receive orders anymore.

Shared - "If at least one miniature in a unit(including Heroes) has a shared ability, the entire unit is considered to have the ability.
Black Ops - "During the command phase, units with the Black Ops ability may be issued an order for free. In addition the unit may be issued an order regardless of its position on the battlefield"

When a hero is attached to a unit they are treated as part of that unit.  Any unit he is attached to wouldn't have the Black Ops ability on it's own.
Does this mean that Joe loses his Black Ops special ability while he leads a squad?

Are any of the hero abilities listed as shared? It appears from the rulebook that when a hero joins a squad, his abilities may affect the squad (see specific ability). All the abilities listed in the rules that could affect the squad and don't say "does not share" like Jump, Damage Resilent, etc. It would seem to me that the default behavior is to share abilities, unless otherwise noted. Do you have an example of one that does?

Rules like Berserk, Assault, Charge and Agile are marked as Shared. Those are all abilities that are mostly only given to Heroes.  But most of those all have a mechanical effect that would be useless if it wasn't applied to the squad as well. It kind of seems weird to have the Shared rule when everything get's shared by default.

When you say "marked as shared,"What do you mean? In the Fantasy Flight version of the rule book I never have seen this phrasing. Can you point me to tis "shared rule" you speak of? What page number does the Shared Rule appear on? Is the FF rulebook on teir website the same as the rulebook you have?

Make sure you are looking at the Dust Warfare rulebook instead of the Dust Tactics rulebook.  Shared is described on page 52 under the heading Special Abilities.  And if you look on page 53 you will see rules sometimes marked like "Air Drop - (Shared)"

This has been errata'd in the FAQ.  Black Ops is now Shared and a unit that is joined to Bazooka Joe will automatically have the rule extended to them.

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What is the process for determining if an infinite loop will be a draw?
Related to this question, and inspired by this question, I realized that I don't know what the game play will actually look like when an infinite loop arises.
Imagine that Lethal Vapors and Solemnity are on the battlefield. Alice casts a creature with undying or persist, and it resolves. This should cause an infinite loop of triggers, because the creature will be destroyed when it enters the battlefield, and it will return to the battlefield when it dies.
Now, either player can easily stop the infinite loop, because Lethal Vapors has an ability that will end the loop, which can be activated by either player. But let's say both players think that the loss of turn that comes from activating that ability will be enough to cause them to lose the game. So what specifically happens now?
I would imagine that in a casual setting, both players would simply discuss "ok, this is an infinite loop. I'm not doing anything to stop it; are you doing anything to stop it? No? Ok, draw then".
But in a more formal setting (either a tournament, or a casual game where both players really want to follow every CR to the letter), whose responsibility is it to take what action and when? Alice has priority, so she passes it. Bob then passes priority, and Lethal Vapors' trigger resolves. Then Alice has priority, so she passes it. Bob then passes priority, so the undying trigger resolves. Is one of them responsible for using their priority to suggest a draw?
Are the rules for shortcuts relevant here? Although it seems like a shortcut isn't really involved, the rules for dealing with infinite loops are under the rules for taking shortcuts (section 720).
The only relevant rules I can see are these 3:

720.1b Occasionally the game gets into a state in which a set of actions could be repeated indefinitely (thus creating a “loop”). In that case, the shortcut rules can be used to determine how many times those actions are repeated without having to actually perform them, and how the loop is broken.
720.4. If a loop contains only mandatory actions, the game is a draw. (See rules 104.4b and 104.4f.)
720.5. No player can be forced to perform an action that would end a loop other than actions called for by objects involved in the loop.

So it says "the game is a draw", but when specifically does the game become a draw? Does one player have an obligation to propose a shortcut here? I don't actually see a legal shortcut that would work to cause a draw, however, as shortcuts for loops generally involve naming a finite number of times that you want the action to happen.

I'm pretty sure any judge you called over would say something along the lines of "Ok, this is an infinite loop. Are you doing anything to stop it? No? Ok, draw then." But I fail to find exact rulings by which one player could force the other player to accept a draw (provided the other player is being obstinate, but rule-abiding).

Indeed the correct answer might have to be "call a judge". I'm not actually sure if 720.4 causes a draw here, because the players have an option to do something to end the loop; or if a draw would only happen because of 104.4i (which states that players may agree to a draw).

Could the answer be different if the creature in question was already in play and was destroyed by other means? Such as the person who controls lethal vapors blocking with it when attacked?

What you are describing is a loop of mandatory actions. Unless someone breaks it, the game ends in a draw.

720.4. If a loop contains only mandatory actions, the game is a draw. (See rules 104.4b and 104.4f.)

That said, noone is forced to break it even if they could.

720.5. No player can be forced to perform an action that would end a loop other than actions called for by objects involved in the loop.

You seem to be asking how to get the game declared a draw. 104.4i allows the players to mutually agree to a draw.

104.4i In a tournament, all players in the game may agree to an intentional draw. See rule 100.6.

If the other player refuses to accept, you can't just keep passing, because that would be Slow Play.
That leaves the option of creating a shortcut. The active player should propose passing until the loop is broken (or until they get priority in the next phase/step for a loop that doesn't span phases/steps). If the opponent accepts the shortcut, the game is officially a draw because neither player ever gets priority again.

Can you explain more detail about the proposed shortcut? To me, saying "Draw" sounds like offering a draw as per 104.4i; which is different (from a technical perspective) than allowing the game to automatically end in a draw as per 720.4. And why would proposing to shortcut until the next phase/step cause the automatic draw?

Actually I now realize I'm not sure whether or not it is possible to end the loop after some iterations of the loop. Would 720.4 cause the game to end in a draw as soon as both players allow the loop to play out once? At that point, a loop containing only mandatory actions will have occurred.

Will look at 104.4i later. /// Yes, that's my point. The next phase will never be reached because the stack will never be empty, so you have an infinite loop and no one can do anything once v they've accepted the shortcut. Game is a draw.

Ok, finally at my computer... Consulted 104.4i and adjusted my answer accordingly.

The example you named does not lead to a draw because it contains non-mandatory actions. It is a fragmented loop that has to be broken by the players, if possible.
Every time Lethal Vapors triggers, its ability goes on the stack and waits to resolve. After it has resolved, every player gets priority and thus has a chance to either pass or take an action.

116.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.

That means there are non-mandatory actions in the loop, and therefore the game is not a draw.

720.4. If a loop contains only mandatory actions, the game is a draw. (See rules 104.4b and 104.4f.)

The case you describe is a fragmented loop:

720.3. Sometimes a loop can be fragmented, meaning that each player involved in the loop performs an independent action that results in the same game state being reached multiple times. If that happens, the active player (or, if the active player is not involved in the loop, the first player in turn order who is involved) must then make a different game choice so the loop does not continue.
Example: In a two-player game, the active player controls a creature with the ability “{0}: [This creature] gains flying,” the nonactive player controls a permanent with the ability “{0}: Target creature loses flying,” and nothing in the game cares how many times an ability has been activated. Say the active player activates his creature’s ability, it resolves, then the nonactive player activates her permanent’s ability targeting that creature, and it resolves. This returns the game to a game state it was at before. The active player must make a different game choice (in other words, anything other than activating that creature’s ability again). The creature doesn’t have flying. Note that the nonactive player could have prevented the fragmented loop simply by not activating her permanent’s ability, in which case the creature would have had flying. The nonactive player always has the final choice and is therefore able to determine whether the creature has flying.

In this case, breaking the loop would require one player to take an action other than passing priority.
"Passing priority" is a game choice:

720.1. When playing a game, players typically make use of mutually understood shortcuts rather than explicitly identifying each game choice (either taking an action or passing priority) a player makes.

Therefore, in your example, passing priority would become an illegal choice, and ending the loop, if possible, becomes mandatory. Activating Lethal Vapor's ability is one possibility.

This is incorrect. This loop does contain only mandatory actions: the Lethal Vapors trigger and the Undying/Persist trigger. Other actions, such as the option to activate Lethal Vapors' other ability, are outside of the loop and are therefore not required to end the loop.

@murgatroid99 I think Hackworth considers "passing priority" a non-mandatory action. As in, the players have to keep actively passing priority for this loop to continue. I haven't found any mention in the rules as to what "mandatory" actually means, so I can't immediately say that he's wrong.

OK, that's simply not the case. You can't just hold priority forever, and rule 720.5 explicitly states that you don't have to take actions that are not called for by objects involved in the loop to break a loop.

@murgatroid99 Playing the devil's advocate here, but when you have priority, there are actions you can perform other than passing priority. You can play a spell or an ability, for instance. Just because you (probably) have to eventually pass priority, does that make passing priority a mandatory action each time? Or is passing priority not an action at all in this context (an "un-action")? What is a mandatory action?

If that was the case, then as the answer argues some player would eventually be required to make some other such choice, which would be in direct contradiction to rule 720.5.

I found a more explicit reference, in 116.3d: "If a player has priority and chooses not to take any actions, that player passes." So passing is the absence of action.

I'm quite sure that 720.5 specifically means that neither player can be forced to break the loop. The example given is almost identical to my example.

Honestly, everything to do with loops is a shit-fest of undefined terms and informalities, a minefield for rules lawyers. Game state? Mandatory action? Independent action? Objects involved in the loop?

Passing priority actually is a game choice, which is relevant for fragmented loops, see my edit.

@GendoIkari "Almost" identical might not be good enough. You can't force someone to sac Seal of Cleansing, because it's an object not involved in the loop. Lethal Vapors clearly is involved in the loop, however, so how does 720.5 apply to Lethal Vapors in this case?

Wouldn't 116.3b apply to every loop?

@JoeW Not necessarily. If all players each have exactly one legal choice, typically passing priority, then choosing to pass is mandatory.

So in this case passing because they chose not do to an optional action associated with a card is a non-mandatory action? Sounds like this can be setup for abuse to force your opponent to take an optional action.

It seems clear to me that "actions called for by objects involved in the loop" would be an action such as an ability resolving that says "each player sacrifices a creature". That would be an action that is called for.

Re "I think Hackworth considers "passing priority" a non-mandatory action.", If that was true, then there mandatory loops wouldn't exist, which is clearly false.

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text:
Why does Renegade Freighter not just have trample?
The artifact vehicle Renegade Freighter has the ability

Whenever Renegade Freighter attacks, it gets +1/+1 and gains trample until end of turn.

Given that trample is only generally relevant when attacking, this should behave basically identically to:

Trample
Whenever Renegade Freighter attacks, it gets +1/+1 until end of turn.

At first, I thought that maybe this was because it would be strange to have a non-creature have trample, so it only gets trample at a time that it is a creature. But then I saw Fleetwheel Cruiser, which is another vehicle that does always have trample. In fact, Untethered Express is even more similar, in that it does have a when-attack ability, yet it also just always has Trample.
Renegade Freighter could be seen as slightly weaker as worded, because something like Stifle could prevent it from getting Trample. However, that seems like a small enough thing that it wouldn't be specifically designed around.
Is it known why this card only gets trample when it attacks? A good answer could either point to any statements about it from the development team, or to information about general templating choices where this is a consistent design choice. Or finally, perhaps there is an important difference between always having trample vs only having trample when attacking that I am missing.

Question: are there any Vehicles from that set or earlier which have properties like first strike or trample?  (Maybe they where just avoiding having non-creature artifacts with trample that early on in the Vehicle mechanic?  Or a design left over from even earlier in Vehicle design?)

@Yakk Fleetwheel Cruiser was mentioned in the question as an example.

Renegade Freighter is a Common.  The Head Designer of Magic has stated twice ten years apart that a Common should only have one ability, I don't recall any posts where he ever recanted the position:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/common-courtesy-2002-06-10
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/common-knowledge-2011-04-18

Your card should do one thing. If it's a creature, just give it one
  ability, whether that's a keyword, activated ability or a triggered
  ability.

Clearly 'Crew' got a pass on that rule for this set; but it is otherwise adhered to among the Common vehicles.  It seems like a feasible claim that the designer of this card was just being "clever" in "only having one ability."

There are some more relevant edge cases where the difference actually matters. Two of the cards that were in standard at the same time as Renegade Freighter were Odric, Lunarch Marshal and Majestic Myriarch. Both of those check for abilities including Trample at the beginning of combat, so in both cases, they can find Trample on Untethered Express, but not on Renegade Freighter.

Stifle would also like to have a say. Because trample is part of the triggered ability, stifle can stop it (although I would at least consider stifling the crewing instead).

Do you think it's likely that they actually did this to make Renegade Freighter very slightly weaker though?

Ah, the great mysteries of Magic's R&D crew.

I suspect that this is the correct answer, though if you want to know for sure you can always try Blogatog.

I'd say the most likely reason is space in the textbox. "Trample" would have required an additional line of rules text (since abilities like that get their own line), which seems like it would have a hard time fitting in.

If they wanted to fit more lines, they could've skipped the reminder text on Crew. So that's not really a problem, I think.

Skipping reminder text on a new mechanic on a common is a big problem.

@Bakabaka Fair enough. Didn't look at the rarity and set.

But Untethered Express seems to have the same amount of text. In fact, it looks like the reminder text on Untethered Express is actually smaller in order to fit on less lines.

@GendoIkari Untethered Express is an uncommon, as opposed to a common, and it's in the second set that had vehicles after their introduction. I guess that's legit ground for reducing the type size by a point :) For added irony, read the Express's flavour text.

You don't always have reminder text with trample, though.


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Why do double-faced planeswalkers from Origins get exiled before being transformed?
In Magic the Gathering Origins set, there is a cycle of 5 creatures, each that are double-sided and have a planeswalker on the back side. Previously when double-sided cards were used, the cards had a condition that when triggered, said to "transform [CARD NAME]". However, with this cycle of cards, instead of simply being transformed, when the condition is met, the cards are exiled and then returned to the battlefield transformed.
Is there a reason for this? There's obviously a few different situations in which case this will be different for game purposes, such as if the creature was being targeted by a spell on the stack when it's transform condition triggered. But most of the time it would play out the same. And the new version is a little wordier than the old, as well as different than what people were used to; so I'm assuming that there's either a mechanical reason or a flavorful reason for doing it this way. Are there any rules issues that would be caused by a creature simply transforming into a planeswalker?

There are two main reasons for this way of doing it, one mechanics based, and one flavor based.
The mechanical reason is that if they just transformed they would need to have additional text to put the loyalty counters on them, whereas if they exile then enter transformed they enter with the appropriate number of loyalty counters.
The flavor reason is it represents them Planeswalking when their spark ignites, then returning to help you out.

I know Doug, MaRo, and Matt have talked about this on tumblr, I will try to find references, but I'm not sure I'll be able to find them quickly.

Ah, I hadn't thought of the loyalty counters.

It would also remove any continuous effects and Auras, and it allows them to evade spells and abilities targeting them, giving the Planeswalker a fresh start. I don't know if this is by design or not.

@ikegami that would fit flavor wise too, since sparks are said to ignite under extreme stress, pulling the new walker away and out of danger.

Another answer is both mechanics and flavor based, I think. I have yet to find confirmation on it.
It stops all mind control effects from the planeswalker. It gets exiled, and then returns under its Owner's control, not its controller's. Something really annoying to find out mid match.

While this is an effect of the exiling, it's more of a down-the-line side effect than the actual reason they get exiled. It's not like MTG specifically tries to do things to beat mind control effects, and it's simply already the default that "exile, then return" effects put the card under the owner's control.

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


text:
Close combat after a rank is removed from an attack on any flank
I asked a similar question recently. However, i believe this question to be different since that question was in regard to "incomplete" ranks. This question is in regards to a rank that is completely removed from a rear attack.

Legend:

Funit = friendly unit.
Eunit = enemy unit.

A few scenarios here.

FunitA contains a unit of infantry and my general. They are attacking EunitA in the front. EunitB is attacking FunitA's left flank. My general is on the far right flank of FunitA. The entire unit of FunitA is killed except my general. EunitB is no longer in base contact with my general. What happens in this scenario? Does EunitB automatically move into base contact with my general or can they still attack even though they are no longer in base contact?
FunitA contains a unit of infantry and my general. They are attacking EunitA in the front. EunitB is attacking FunitA's left flank. FunitB is attacking the rear flank of EunitB. FunitB kills the entire rear rank of EunitB and is no longer in base contact with any models from EunitB. What happens in this scenario? Does FunitB automatically move into base contact with EunitB or do they attack across the gap even though they are not in base contact with any model of EunitB.
Same scenario of number 2. Except there is a EunitC attacking the left flank of FunitB at the same time. FunitB kills all of EunitB's rear rank and loses base contact with EunitB. What happens now?

Thanks, and i know it is wordy. I tried my best to explain the scenarios. Let me know if you need clarification.

You've got some tricky scenarios there - I'll do my best (with diagrams)
Scenario 1

What happens if EUnitA kills FUnitA but not the general?
The first thing to test for is whether the general runs away, given he's flanked, outranked and has had his entire unit die around him this is a very real possibility. I'll assume he doesn't either because he's stubborn, unbreakable or has rolled snake-eyes.
The first rule to remember is that you cannot die out of combat deliberately, however it it occurs and EUnitA is released then they are no longer in the combat and can move, charge and shoot as per normal. This question considers what happens if they're not released from combat because of a challenge.
Scenario 2

What happens if FunitB kills the entire back rank of EunitA and is no longer in combat?
They take a step forward and remain in combat. Move as few units as possible.
Scenario 3

This one is vague, it's one of those scenarios which occurs so rarely it's not really covered in the rules and you have to use a little common sense.
The issue is that if FUnitB don't take a step forward you're losing a significant number of attacks per turn.
My advice would be to:

Keep it as a single combat
Move FUnitB forward
Allow your opponent to bring EUnitC with you so they do not lose any attacks in the process.

I don't have a rulebook quote to back me up but I would suggest that nudging the units so it's fair for everyone.
If you really can't decide which is fairest then both state your cases, roll a die and abide by the result. People can spend longer working out these tiny edge cases than playing the rest of the game - at the end of the day try to do what's fair and practical.


text:
What does protection mean?

Possible Duplicate:
What does protection from [quality] do?

I was playing a match with a friend where I had Elite Inquisitor on the field against his 3 zombies. Is he able to declare his zombies as blockers even though Elite Inquisitor has "protection" from zombies?  If he can[declare them as blockers] does protection mean that just no damage is dealt by that creature?


text:
What's the legal stance for online versions of games?
I've played Dominion on isotropic, and I saw the existing question about online versions of board games, but not all of the games listed there appear to be official.  The FAQ for isotropic says "I don't have permission to use RGG's art." To me this implies two things:

The art for Dominion is legally protected (since he says so directly)
The game mechanics are not (since the site continues to exist)

Is this typical?  Or is Rio Grande Games just choosing to look the other way?  Do publishers or creators have more control is such matters?  What component of games (art, mechanics, terminology, other) are protected legally?  If programmers want to make free versions of games, should they be concerned about infringing on any trademarks, copyrights, or other legal protections?
I know this is actually several questions, but they're all so tightly knit that I didn't feel that they'd benefit from being separated.

Isotropic has a good relationship with the Dominion creators, in fact in the lead-up to the Hinterlands release (most recent expansion) cards were previewed each week on the site.

IANAL (I am not a lawyer): this does not constitute legal advice. (Side note: Is it even necessary, i.e. do lawyers actually say this on the internet? Doesn't everyone assume that any advice you receive over the internet is suspect, and you should consult a professional?)
Paul Edward Nowak has a great thread on the geek related to many of the common misconceptions regarding Intellectual Property.
Yes, art and the specific expression of the rules in rule book are protected by copyright, which protect an original artistic or literary work. If you reword the rules and use your own artwork, you can most likely recreate any game that you like with no legal repercussions from copyright. There are other concerns though, like trademark infringement. Trademarks are there to protect the public from being unable to distinguish one maker/source of a product from another. Trademarks may include fictional names of people or places (Catan, Darth Vader), product (Blokus, Monopoly, Magic: the Gathering) or company names (Apple Inc.). You should avoid copying aspects of a game that might confuse your version of a board game with that of the originator.
Is this typical? That is difficult determine. There have been lawsuits in the past. Anti-Monopoly creator was sued, but eventually Parker Brothers settled out of court, and granted the creator of the game a license to distribute the game. Facebook's Scrabble-like board game creators were sued, but they modified the game enough that the lawsuit was withdrawn.
Rio Grande might be looking the other way because it doesn't see a good positive cost/benefit analysis. In general, developers and publishers would probably send a Cease and Desist letter to the website hosting the alleged infringing content. The website will probably remove the offending content if they are a third party, but afterwards the creator of the infringing content can deny any infringement. Court is costly, and it is difficult to determine on which side the court will settle.
The components of board games that are protected are:

Art: Is protected by copyright.
Rules: As written. You cannot copy verbatim any rule book.
Name (maybe): The name of the game might be a trademark, or a registered trademark. Trademarks are location/industry specific. This is why Apple Inc. (iPad creators) and Apple Records can both have very similar trademark names and icons.
Terminology (maybe): You probably cannot directly copy fake technical terminology. You definitely cannot have Romulan Disruptors in your spaceship battle game. You probably could have lasers, or photo torpedoes, or other real technology.
Mechanics (probably not): You cannot patent a game mechanic. Everyone is free to create Roll and Move games (Monopoly, et.al.), or Deck Building games (Dominion clones), Tactical Wargames (Warhammer 40k), etc.
Mechanical Inventions (maybe, but it is harder than you think): Mechanical inventions in games that are novel and not obvious are able to be patented. They have to be new though. You cannot patent "inventions" that existed before your patent in the public, or that are obvious extensions of prior art (Quarriors! creators could not patent custom die faces on six sided dice, because this invention existed previously and is obvious). WizKids sued Wizards in an attempt to declare Wizards constructible game patent invalid. On this same page you can see other cases where Wizards sues Nintendo (settles).

A software developer should be worried about all these types of infringement. The worst that is likely to happen to you if you are creating a freeware online implementation though is that you will probably be sent a cease and desist letter. If you choose not to fight and remove the infringing work at that point, little if anything will happen to you. If you are charging money, and are earning a profit, then (if the amount of money you have made is considerable) you might be headed to court. While it is possible that you might be liable for up to $150,000, they would have to prove that your reproduction wasn't Fair Use DMCA.

In a civil suit, an infringer may be liable for a copyright owner's actual damages plus any profits made from the infringement. Alternatively, the copyright owner may avoid proving actual damage by electing a statutory damage recovery of up to $30,000 or, where the court determines that the infringement occurred willfully, up to $150,000. The actual amount will be based upon what the court in its discretion considers just. (17 U.S.C. 504)
Violation of copyright law is also considered a federal crime when done willfully with an intent to profit. Criminal penalties include up to ten years imprisonment depending on the nature of the violation. (No Electronic Theft Act, 18 U.S.C. 2319)

Since the question specifically asks about Dominion, a game that contains many cards, with each card's name being a common word, I think something else that would be copyright infringement is copying the collection of names of cards. If one card is called "Menestrel" then of course copying the word Menestrel is not going to be copyright infringement. But if the game contains a list of 200 cards and you copy that list of names exactly, then it's probably copyright infringement.

There are legal precedents about "collections" being protected by copyright. For instance, you can't protect a particular chess problem with copyright. But if you copy the exact list of chess problems from a chess book, then it's copyright infringement.

Here is what the US Government Copyright Office has to say about the matter.
Quoting the first paragraph from the above:

Copyright does not protect the idea for a game, its name or title, or the method or methods for playing it. Nor does copyright protect any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in developing, merchandising, or playing a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles. Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form.

It then goes into a little more detail, but overall is a pretty short blurb.


text:
What kind of action is selling cargo and contraband to a solid contact?

Solid
When you are Solid, Contacts will buy
Cargo and Contraband from you. The
prices offered appear on the Contact
side of the Job Cards.

What kind of action is selling cargo and contraband to a solid contact?
(We've ruled that it's part of a Deal action, in the same way that you can buy fuel in addition to going through the Supply in a Buy action.)

Turns out we ruled correctly.

Deal Actions
If your Firefly is in a Contact’s Sector,
  you may Deal with that Contact. You
  may look at 3 and accept up to 2 Jobs
  from their Contact Deck.
If you are Solid with that Contact, you
  may also sell Cargo and Contraband
  to them as part of your Deal Action.
  (see rules for Reputation on pg 15 for
  details on getting Solid with Contacts).


text:
Do crew receiving a better offer bring their gear with them?

A Better Offer
Other players may hire Disgruntled
Crew away from you when in the
same Sector by paying their hiring
fee to the bank. The Disgruntled crew
joins their new Captain’s crew and the
Disgruntled token is removed.

Do crew receiving a better offer bring their gear with them?

There really isn't a definitive ruling on this anywhere within the rules or the FAQ.
However the FAQ does state

The only time you may not switch Gear is during a Work Action. Other than that, you may change who is carrying what Gear freely.

Based on this I would rule that you are absolutely entitled to strip any Gear off a character before they are taken from your ship.


text:
How does the effect of tile 22 (from Tower of Babel) apply to tokens (from Great Projects)?
In the Babel rules, under the section "Playing with the other expansions", it says (English PDF, page 7):

If you play with the Tower of Babel expansion, the effect of tiles 19 and 22 also apply to Conflict tokens from the Great Projects.

Tile 19 modifies the "taking of military Victory tokens".
Tile 22 modifies the "taking of military Defeat tokens".
While the Great Projects expansion has a reward token where you get Victory tokens (so the effect of tile 19 is clear), there is no reward nor penality token where you get Defeat tokens.
So when would the effect of tile 22 "apply to Conflict tokens from the Great Projects"?

Despite not having, yet, a Project that hands out defeat tokens as penalties, the phrase "apply to Conflict tokens from the Great Projects" is still in the rules just in case a relevant Great Project will be released, either as a promo or in a future expansion. That's my best guess.


text:
May you choose *not* to use your own resources and buy them instead?
May you choose not to use your own resources and buy them from your neighbours instead?
This is relevant for cases where you would earn money when "buying" from your neighbours.

The rules say about "Resource Cost" (English PDF, page 4):

Some cards have a resource cost.
  To construct them, the player must produce the corresponding resources
  AND/OR buy them from one of his or her two neighboring cities.

And about "Commerce" (same page):

Often, a player will want to build a structure requiring resources he or
  she does not produce.
  If these resources are produced by a neighboring city – players sitting
  directly to the left or right of that player – the player will be able to purchase the missing resource(s) through commerce.

It doesn’t seem to address this case explicitly, and I can’t deduce it from this wording. I guess the "AND/OR" was meant for different cases (e.g., that you can combine both ways).

As stated by the rules (English Rules, p. 4), you're required to use your own resources first and buy the missing afterwards.

Often, a player will want to build a structure requiring resources he or she does not produce. If these resources are produced by a neighboring city – players sitting directly to the left or right of that player – the player will be able to purchase the missing resource(s) through commerce.

This is also confirmed by the "City" expansion rules (English City Rules, p. 10):

A player must use their own resource before buying one from their neighbors.

This rule is stated under "Team Play", but it states "neighbors", instead of just "teammates", like other similar rules, so I assume it's a more general rule. In any case, the base-game rules are quite clear on that.

I’m still not convinced. The quoted rule from Cities is only valid for team plays (players not playing the team variant would skip this section entirely). Because they explicitly mention it for the team variant could mean that it’s not forbidden in the normal game. -- So I guess in this case, we should only look at the normal rules. And there it says "will want" and "will be able" - yes, you will be able to purchase missing resources, but as far as I understand it, this does not imply that the resources have to be missing.

(I’m not saying that your conclusion is wrong; I just don’t think that this part of the rules is clear. I thought it might be because I’m not a native speaker, but even the German rules say "möchte" und "kann", i.e., "want to" and "will be able to". Both versions are formulated in the form of a typical use case, not in the form of a definition :/)

In the BoardGameGeek thread Choosing to pay for resources, the user Jacek Deimer says he has asked the designer (Antoine Bauza):

2a. Can you decide to buy resource instead of using your own resources?

2a. You have to use your own resources in the first place.

(I could not verify if this source/quote is accurate.)
However, in the same message the designer answered that you "have to build for free if you can", but in the question May you choose *not* to use the free construction chain? we came to the conclusion (based on the rules) that you don’t have to build for free. So I’m not sure what to make of this.


text:
Maecenas and Rome (B): are the extra Leaders also free?
The Leader Maecenas allows to build Leaders for free (Leaders, page 6):

As soon as Maecenas enters play, his controlling player can recruit all of his or her future Leaders for free (during the Recruitment Phase), without having to pay their coin cost.

The Wonder Rome (B) allows in its second and third stage to build additional Leaders (Leaders, page 12):

The second stage is worth 3 victory points and the player can immediately put in play an extra Leader (by paying 2 coins less than its printed cost).
The third stage is worth 3 victory points and the player can immediately put in play an extra Leader (by paying 2 coins less than its printed cost).

If the Rome (B) player has recruited Maecenas, can the additional Leaders (from the 2nd/3rd stage) be built for free?
I wonder because it says "during the Recruitment Phase", but when building the wonder stages, you are not in the Recruitment Phase, are you? So this would mean that Maecenas’ effect doesn’t work for the extra Leaders, unless this is an oversight, or am I missing something?

The recruitment phase is specifically at the beginning of an age before players have received cards.  I would agree that Maecenas would only get the bonus during this phase and not if leader is put in play by any other means.


text:
Timing of Babylon's (B) and Halicarnassus' special abilities?
Alice has Babylon (B), Bob has Halicarnassus (B).
Alice has built the 2nd wonder stage, so she is able to play her 7th card.
In the 6th turn:

Bob builds a stage of his wonder, so he is able to build one card from the discard pile at the end of the turn.
Alice builds her 6th card and wants to discard her 7th for 3 coins.

Does Alice's card gets added to the discard pile before or after Bob is allowed to see through it?
In other words: Does Alice get a "real" 7th turn?

We already discussed (here and here) that Alice doesn't have to buy resources for her 6th and 7th card from the same set (so she can buy the same resources again for her 7th card that she bought for her 6th card).
Discussion elsewhere

boardgamegeek.com: Halikarnassos and Babylon Interaction

Babylon has a clarification in the rules that says:

Clariﬁcation :
  - during the sixth turn, the player can therefore play both cards they have in hand. If the second stage of the Wonder is not built, the
  Babylon player can then build it on their sixth turn and then play the
  seventh card instead of discarding it.

Halicarnassus has the following clarification:

Clariﬁcation : this special action is taken at the end of the turn in
  which the stage is built. If players discard cards on that turn (for
  example, during the 6th turn of an age), the player can also choose
  from among those cards.

I'd say from that that Babylon's power basically all happens "during the sixth turn", and so Halicarnassus can take advantage of any of Babylon's discards.  There isn't really a ghostly extra seventh turn getting created by Babylon's Wonder.


text:
Puerto Rico, 3-player: Which role order in the first round?
What would be the best role choice order for the first round in a 3-player game of Puerto Rico (without extension)?
I often see:

Settler (→ Quarry)
Builder (→ Small Indigo or Small Sugar)
Major (staffing corn)

I sometimes see:

Settler (→ Quarry)
Craftsman (no bonus)
Major (staffing corn)

And also:

Settler (→ Quarry)
Craftsman (no bonus)
Builder (→ Small Market)

What should player 1 (Indigo), player 2 (Indigo) and player 3 (Corn) choose?
Is Settler (selecting a Quarry) the only advisable role choice for player 1?
I'm also interested in choices for player 2/3 if player 1/2 chose something unusual.

For a 5-player game, see Viable, alternative, first round role orders in 5-player Puerto Rico

What's the point of the Craftsman on the first round?

@seppo: I never chose it myself, so I can only guess: probably because then player 3 can't choose it. So in the next round, player 2 can choose Craftsman again, so that he can produce indigo (resp. sugar), while player 3 could only produce corn, and player 1 nothing.

Player 2 will not be able to pick Craftsman on round 2 since he will need both a Builder and a Major (with two colonists) to produce indigo.

@seppo: Ah, yes, I had it wrong. In the second round player 2 is the first one to choose the Major (not the Craftsman). But this requires that player 3 chose the builder in the first round. -- As I said, I don't play that way, but I often saw it on BrettspielWelt.

The first round is almost always:

Settler (P1:Quarry, P2:Corn(or Sugar if Corn unavailable), P3:Indigo (other choices are also good)
Builder (P2:Small Market or related production building, P3:Small Market, P1:Pass or (Small Market if available, sometimes Small Indigo)
Mayor (P3:Corn and Small Market, P1:Quarry, P2:doesn't matter)

An in depth analysis would take pages, but your two latter cases make no sense, because Craftsman gains Player 2 no advantage. Clearly, they could have chosen Builder, built the Small Market for free (1 VP), and prevent Player 1 from getting the opportunity to build it for free with a covered Quarry.
If Player 1 chooses Mayor, Captain, Craftsman, or Trader then no choices can be made so I won't cover those. If Player 1 chooses Builder, Player 2 should build either Small Market or Small Indigo, Player 3 should probably build Small Market. This gives Player 2 the opportunity to get the first Quarry by selecting Settler (cash is king in the early game), or Mayor to cover both Indigo slots. If they choose wisely though, that would leave Player 3 with Mayor, covering their Corn+Small Market.

I do think that Settle for a Quarry is far and away the best first move of the game. The return on the investment is just so good. It helps you get the important early- and midgame buildings earlier, and get more buildings total.
I think Building for a Small Market or small Indigo/Sugar plant, depending on what you grabbed with Settler, is a strong choice for the second player. Hacienda is a wildcard building choice.
I think Mayor is the best remaining choice for the last player. Colonists are sometimes short in the early game and having an extra is nice.
Craftsman makes no sense at all. It doesn't provide you any benefit.


text:
'Free City' with Babylon (B): How to play the special ability (2nd stage)?
You can use the special ability of Babylon (side B, 2nd stage) to get a 7th turn (EDIT: well, apparently not) where you are allowed to play your last (7th) card (which would otherwise be discarded). You can use this ability in each age (if the 2nd step is built).
How does this work in a 2-player game where the 'Free City' (NPC) uses Babylon?
Let's say the 2nd wonder stage is already built. It's the 6th turn. Player Bob manages the 'Free City'. After playing his and the NPC's card, he has left 1 card on his hand. The 'Free City' pile has 1 hidden card left. Player Alice has also 1 card left on her hand. Now the NPC gets a 7th turn.

Bob plays his last card?
Bob draws the last pile card and chooses which of his two cards to play?
Bob discards his card, draws the last pile card and plays it?
Bob transfers his card to Alice, and Alice …

discards her card and plays the one handed over by Bob?
discards her card, draws the last pile card and chooses which of her two cards to play?

Alice plays her last card?
Alice draws the last pile card and chooses which of her two cards to play?
Alice discards her card, draws the last pile card and plays it?

(did I miss a possibility?)
Note that even if there would be no choice which card to play, it's still important which player has to play it for the 'Free City' (because this player has to decide whether to build the card or the 3rd wonder stage).
Also, if the last card of one of the players has to be played, it's important which player's hand is used, because one of the players might have the wonder Halicarnassus (which allows to build discarded cards).

Note: The same question is asked on boardgamegeek.com.

Started formulating a read-as-written answer based on the idea that the Free City can't use special abilities (play from discard, double-play, copy guild) since you only play its action, but then there's no clear definition of whether these abilities are used as part of an action. In the end, I really don't know, but I would think it most sensible to have the player ending the round look at the last card in the draw pile and decide whether or not Babylon should play it.

The player controlling the Free City during the 6th turn plays the last remaining card in the Free City's draw pile.
The 7-wonders rules define each Wonder boards special abilities. (page 9)

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon the second stage gives the player the option of playing their seventh Age card instead of discarding it. This card can be played by paying its costs, discarded to earn 3 coins or used in the building of the third phase of the Wonder.
Clarification : during the sixth turn, the player can therefore play both cards they have in hand. If the second stage of the Wonder is not built, the Babylon player can then build it on their sixth turn and then play the seventh card instead of discarding it.

There isn't really a 7th turn in an Age, but it helps to think of it as an extra turn, since the resources used to build the 6th card as well as the 6th card itself are available to build the 7th and last card. This 7th card is normally the card that you would discard during the 6th turn of an Age, so that is the card that the player controlling the Free City can play to construct a structure, build their wonder, or if both if those are impossible to discard for 3 coins. (Page 7)

Clarification : The Free City cannot discard a card to get 3 coins unless it cannot play a card.
Note : during the sixth turn of the age, there is only one card remaining in the Free city’s draw pile. This last card is discarded at the same time as the seventh and last card of the players.


text:
Do you get 2 coins from Xenophon for yellow cards put into play by Halicarnassus/Solomon?
The rules for the leader Xenophon (Leaders expansion):

Xenophon grants 2 coins for each commercial structure (yellow card) that the player builds from this point forward. The coins are taken from the bank, at the moment when the structures are built.
Clarifcation: Xenophon has no effect on commercial structures built before he enters play.

Do you get this 2 coins also if you use Halicarnassus or Solomon to bring a yellow card into game?
The rules (p. 8) for Halicarnassus' special ability:

the player can look through all of the cards discarded since the beginning of the game ([…]), pick one, and build it for free.

The rules for the leader Solomon (Leaders expansion):

Once Solomon enters play, the player can
  choose an Age card from the discard pile and
  put it in play for free.

Yes for both. "Build" is just a short, thematic word for putting into play.
On p. 4 of the rulebook, it states:

player will get to build structures (cards)

and a bit later on:

Some cards have no cost and can be put into play for free.

(using the Eastern Trading Post as an example.) The same page uses "construct" as another synonym. ("Some cards have a resource cost. To construct them, the player must...")They all refer to the same thing.

I've +1'd this competing answer as I'm sure it's probably the sensible answer.  I've asked Antoine Bauza for confirmation via Twitter, just in case!

Thank you. I am pretty confident. If the rest of the rulebook were written in the very formal, precise language typical of, say, M:tG or wargames, I might take pause, but in this case I think the intent is clear and the end result the one that makes the most sense.

Really good question, and not one that I could immediately find a definitive answer to.  Everything seems to hinge on whether "build" implies all the same things as "put into play".
In the rulebook to the original game, the term "build" is used many, times, often as part of the phrase "build for free" (which proves that building can happen in ways other than the conventional way).
The phrase "put into play" only appears once:

Each Age has 6 game turns. During each turn the  players
  simultaneously put into play one card.

Which suggests that building always counts as putting into play, but doesn't prove that the reverse is also true.
Sometimes these things are just the result of sloppy phrasing in one language or another, but I looking at a French version of the Leaders rules and the wording is exactly the same: Solomon "puts into play", not "builds".
In the absence of official errata or clarification I would have to say that I don't think Solomon should get 2 coins from Xenophon, although I do think Halicarnassus should.  "Building" and "putting into play" are sufficiently careful and distinct terms that it's possible to imagine the game designers might not have meant them to be synonymous.  Why on earth this should be is of course another question entirely.  Maybe they feared that games could end up being seriously dominated by the OBVIOUSLY BROKEN Solomon/Xenophon combo. </tongue in cheek>
ETA: Having spoken to the game designer Antoine Bauza on Twitter about this I'm going to change my answer and say that putting a card building card into play is exactly the same thing as building it, as this seems to have been the intention.  It feels like the choice of wording was to allow the possibility of putting other types of cards that are not buildings into play with Solomon... Anyway, I'm just trying to double-check the intention behind the wording with Antoine, but now that we are no longer "in the absence of official clarification" I'm going to say that sitalnax's instincts were right, putting a building into play is to all intents and purposes the same thing as building it!

No way. You are ignoring a giant flag that Solomon and Halicarnassus are supposed to be the same: they use identical icons. The different word choice in the manuals is unfortunate, but the game doesn't otherwise have a concept of "put into play without building" and there is no need to introduce one.

@sitnaltax I would almost definitely agree that there is "no need" for one, but what are we rules lawyers for if not to overthink these types of things?  I would expect that getting in touch with the game creators would reveal that the cases are actually meant to be treated in the same way, but if that's the case, they probably ought to issue some errata :)

It is of course quite easy to forget that not all games are, or need to be, as obsessive-compulsive about their wording as MtG...

Thanks for asking the designer! :) For reference, here is your question and Antoine's answer on Twitter.


text:
Choose from discard pile ability: put into play simultaneously?
The rules for the Wonder Pack say:

If multiple players take cards from the discard pile during a given turn, the resolution order is the following: Halikarnassos, The Great Wall, Manneken Pis, Salomon and finally, Courtesan’s Guild

Let’s say Alice plays this ability from Halikarnassos and Bob plays it from The Great Wall.
Alice chooses a card from the discard pile. Does she have to put it in play before Bob chooses a card? Or do they put their cards in play simultaneously?

The cards are taken secretly from the discard, and then put into play simultaneously
The quote from the Wonder Pack rules should be taken literally. When they use the term, "resolution order" they are specifically speaking of what order to resolve the actions in the previous conditional: (I.e. multiple players taking cards from the discard pile.)

If multiple players take cards from the discard pile during a given turn, the resolution order is the following: Halikarnassos, The Great Wall, Manneken Pis, Salomon and finally, Courtesan’s Guild

Cards are always played simultaneously, so some way to resolve conflicts between multiple players taking conflicting actions is necessary. Take for example the original rules (page 5, 8):

Overview of an Age - [...] Each Age is made up of 6 game turns. During each turn the players put into play a single card, simultaneously.
The Mausoleum of Halicarnassus - the player can look through all of the cards discarded since the beginning of the game (those discarded for coins as well as those discarded at the end of an age), pick one, and build it for free.
Clarification : this special ability takes place at the end of the turn in which this stage is built. If players discard cards this turn (as in the case of the 6th turn of an age), the player can also choose from among them.

The same rules text is in the Leaders Expansion (page 4, 7):

Recruitment Phase - During this phase, each player will play one of their Leader cards. The cards are chosen secretly by each player, then revealed simultaneously to be played.
Solomon - Once Solomon enters play, the player can choose an Age card from the discard pile and put it in play for free.

The Leaders rules also only notes that Halicarnassus chooses its card before Solomon, not that it plays the card before Solomon.

Leader: Solomon
Q: What happens if Solomon enters play in the same turn in which Halicarnassus builds a Wonder stage?
A: Halicarnassus chooses its card from the discard pile before Solomon.

It should also be noted that the Bazar and Vineyard count Brown/Gray cards respectively that are built during the "same turn", and Halicarnassus's ability occurs at the end of the same turn its wonder stage is built.

There is no step between "choose a card from the discards" and "put the card into play": the various play-from-discard abilities are a single-step action. The rules text uses the phrase "resolution order," so you should fully resolve each player's play-from-discard ability before moving onto the next player with a play-from-discard ability. Alice chooses a discarded card and puts it into play before Bob even looks at the discards.
In general, 7 Wonders doesn't break things into discrete steps, so there's no sense in inventing extra steps for this particular case. I agree that there is a very small advantage for Bob here (slightly bigger if Alice is a neighbor), but that's roughly balanced by Alice getting first pick of the discards.

I disagree, everywhere else in 7-wonders, buildings enter play simultaneously. My guess is this rule for "resolution" is in regard to choosing a card from the discard. Players need a specific order to handle that. Players choose their card from the discard in that order (keeping the chosen card face down), and then reveal and put into play simultaneously. Unfortunately, I haven't found an official FAQ that confirms this interpretation, but it follows other building rules like how buildings count all other building put into play during the same turn.

Post that as an answer, then. I very much see your point, but I disagree; I don't think that the various special abilities are intended to be at all complicated. If Halikarnassos is supposed to go first, then let Halikarnassos go first and be done first. Don't confuse the issue by having Halikarnassos do half of something, wait for other players, and then do the other half.

authors: Анна Никифорова


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Babylon (B), 2nd step: Can you use this ability only one time?
The wonder Babylon (B) has a special ability on step 2: You can play your last (7th) card instead of discarding it.
These two questions cover if you'd have to play both cards in the 6th round or if you get a 7th round:

Can a resource card be used more than once in a turn when allowed to build more than one structure?
How does Babylons's second stage wonder work for building/discarding your last two cards?

I wonder: Can you use this ability in all Ages (if built)? Or can you use it only in the Age you built the wonder?
I assumed that you can use it every Age, but then I noted that the special ability of Olympia (A), which can be used in all Ages, has "I, II, III" written on it. This clarification is missing on Bablyon's (B) second step, though.

You may use it once per age.  The description of symbols page shows that symbol as (emphasis mine).

The player can play the last card of each age instead of discarding
  it. This card can be played by paying its cost, discarded to gain 3
  coins or used in the construction of his or her Wonder.

Ah, great. In the German translation of the rules it is not that clear.

I'm certain that you can use the ability in all Ages.  I would expect some kind of gloss such as "Once in the game, you may..." if this wasn't the case.
I wonder why Olympia should have a special clarification though.  Perhaps it is to make it clearer that you can only build a free building once per Age (i.e. I, II, III to imply a maximum of three free buildings).  There would be no need to worry that a player might try to play their last card more than once per age, of course...

Thanks! The explanation for "I, II, III" makes sense to me.


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Rules to decide which wonder side (A or B) to play in 7 Wonders?
In the rules it is recommended for the first games to use side A of the wonders only. After these first games (if I understand the rules correctly) players play the side that is at the top of the wonder card they draw. So some would play side A and some side B (probably). This question discusses if the two sides are balanced.
I wonder if this is really the best way?
I see several possibilities how to handle which side to play:

randomly drawn wonder cards, but all players use side A (recommended for the first games)
randomly drawn wonder cards, but all players use side B
randomly drawn wonder cards, all players use the side that is at the top when the card is revealed (the normal rule)
randomly drawn wonder cards, all players use the side they like more

I feel like variant 4 would be the best (each player may select the side) for a casual playing group, as otherwise some side A players might feel that the side B players have an "unfair" advantage (as the special abilites on B seem to be better). Would it be problematic/unbalanced to use variant 4?
How does the side get selected in tournaments?

EDIT: The rules also allow that players (if all agree) can choose which wonder to play. In this case, variant 4 is probably used (variants 1 and 2 would be possible, too), while variant 3 would be rather pointless (you'd select a wonder yourself but randomize which side to play). Anyhow, this question is about randomly chosen wonders.

For what it's worth, we almost always choose option 4, unless there is someone playing for the first time.

Related: thread on boardgamegeek.com.

I usually play #4, so everybody choose what they like to play this specific game.

This is a tricky one. The rulebook makes seems to specify option #3 pretty specifically:

Shuffle the 7 Wonder cards, face down, and hand one to each player. The card and its facing determine the Wonders board given to each player, as well as the side to be used during the game.

However, when I demoed the Leaders expansion from Asmodee at a convention, option #4 was used; the cards were dealt randomly but players were allowed to choose their own sides. This was the first I had seen this rule, but it seemed to work well and I immediately started using it in casual games as well. Not only do players get to choose the board they like better, but there's no worry about making sure to maintain the orientation on the Wonder card when revealing it. I encountered the same rule at GenCon 2012, when I played (with little success, sadly) in a tournament.

Thanks for the tournament info. I tried #4 too (in casual games), and it works pretty well (also everyone is happy with it).

The sides are pretty imbalanced - with about one exception (I forget which, and depends on Leaders expansion) B is far stronger.  In general it's a poorly balanced game but forcing some players to side A and some to side B only exacerbates this.


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Ramses and Babel tile 23: are Guilds free or do you have to pay coins?
If you have recruited the Leader Ramses and the Babel tile 23 is active, can you build Guilds for free, or do you have to pay coins?
Leader Ramses: (Leaders, page 6)

As soon as Ramses enters play, the player can build all of his or her Guilds for free, without having to pay their resource costs.

Babel tile 23 (Babel, page 5):

The construction of […] Guilds (purple cards) via resources is forbidden. Their construction requires a number of coins equal to the number of resources present in their construction cost. […]

With Ramses in effect, guilds are still free. This is the reason Babel tile 23 specifies "construction of guilds via resources" is forbidden.
Antoine Bauza (the game's creator) was asked this directly on his forums this past December. The question was posed:
«When we built a guild with Ramses Leader in play but the tile Babel No. 23 (resources become parts payable) is also at stake, what's happening? The guild building is it paying off in parts or completely free in the end?»
To which he replied:
«Your Free guilds remain with Ramses (Free resource becomes free rooms)»


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Magic the gathering question about exiling a flashback card

Possible Duplicate:
Does Cremate counter flashback, scavange, and their ilk?

If my opponent uses Think Twice for the flash back cost, and I in response use Cremate to exile it, does the effect of think twice still happen?

Hey Isaac! Welcome to B&CG, I've linked your question to one we already had.  If you feel it doesn't answer your question, please edit your question to clarify and "flag" this question for moderator attention and we can get it reopened shortly!

If one casts Cremate in response to someone casting a card from a graveyard, Cremate won't be able to target the card just cast. By the time the card in the graveyard is cast, it's no longer in the graveyard; it's on the stack, where it's not a valid target for Cremate.

601.2. To cast a spell is to take it from where it is (usually the hand), put it on the stack, and pay its costs, so that it will eventually resolve and have its effect. [...]

As an addition to this, the reverse works just fine. The opponent can cast think twice in response to you casting your cremate, causing cremate to fizzle, since when they get priority after you cast cremate, the spell is still in graveyard.


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Where can I get free tarot cards images to print?
I am looking to download some set/s of tarot cards in order to print them. This needs to be from a free site. Grayscale cards are also acceptable. It would be great if the images are designed specially for printing on A4, as then I could print sheets and cut them up.
Motivation of the question

I’m voting to close this question as a product recommendation request - the same reasons apply here as for any game recommendations.

I agree the Q should be closed and would vote so if SO would let me. The provided answers are already awesome. Any further activity on the thread would be spam.

The most popular version in the English speaking world is the Rider-Waite Tarot cards. These were published in the early 20th century.
This site has The Pictorial Key to the Tarot that contains B/W images of the Tarot cards (clicking those opens fair quality scans in color). The book and the images predate U.S. copyright laws.
These images here are the best high quality scans I have found of these old images.

Yep, you can download the images from the pictoral key to the tarot here.  I'm creating a deck, the Evolutionary Options Tarot which is being released into the creative commons.  That means copyright free tarot card images!  Have at it, and I'd appreciate any feedback.


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Can Flute of the Outer Gods be used for monsters "not on the board" like in The Terrible Experiment?
The Flute of the Outer Gods says the following (emphasis mine):

Any Phase: Lose 3 Sanity and 3 Stamina and discard Flute of the Outer Gods before making a Combat check to defeat all monsters in your current area. This does not affect Ancient Ones.

Another answer on this site about the Flute states that it can be used at either a location or a street. However, there are other locations that monsters can be, such as the Outskirts and The Sky, but you can't attack those so it's moot about whether you can be used there.
But what about monsters that are in a location where you can attack them, but are not "on the board"? For instance, there is The Terrible Experiment rumor that says the following (emphasis mine):

When this card enters play, place 5 monsters from the cup on it. Any player may choose to fight one or more of these monsters while in the Miskatonic U. streets during the Arkham Encounter Phase. If defeated, they are claimed as monster trophies. These monsters do not move, are not considered on the board, and do not count against the monster limit.

Are they in "your current area" despite not being on the board? Can you attack one of these monsters, pass a Horror check, then instead of a Combat check use the Flute of the Outer Gods to destroy all of the monsters? This came up in our last game and we weren't sure how to resolve it.

No,
While I'd be tempted to allow this as it would be a very cool thing to do and it is hard to find a good use for the Flute of the Outer Gods, this question is addressed directly in the FAQ, pg 10.

Q: Do cards that affect monsters at Miskatonic University
  (such as the “Campus Security Increased” Mythos card or
  the “Flute of the Outer Gods” Unique Item) affect monsters
  spawned by “The Terrible Experiment”?
A: No. Those monsters are not actually on the board; they
  can only be fought as if they were.


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Does the effect "Reduce all HP recovery by 2" affect Setback's cards?
In the Time Cataclysm environment, there is a card called Oppressive Smog that has the following text:

Oppressive Smog
Anomaly
Reduce all HP recovery by 2.
At the start of the Environment Turn, a player may discard 1 card to destroy this card.

There are two cards in Setback's deck that the HP recovery effect might apply to, but it's not clear because they don't use the words "HP recovery". Specifically:

Karmic Retribution
One-Shot
If you have fewer than 7 tokens in your Unlucky Pool, remove 1 of them. If you do, Setback regains 2 HP.

Is "regains X HP" an instance of "HP recovery"?

Silver Lining
Ongoing
If Setback would be reduced to 0 or fewer HP, remove all tokens from your Unlucky Pool and restore Setback to HP equal to the amount of tokens removed this way.
Then, destroy this card.

Is "restore Setback to HP equal to…" an instance of "HP recovery"?
In both cases, the cards increase the HP of Setback, but don't use the word "recover" or "recovery". Does Oppressive Smog, or another card that reduces HP recovery, apply to these cards in Setback's deck that use the terms "regain" and "restore" in relation to HP?

Recovery only applies when you are regaining health, not when health is being restored.
As noted by phantaskippy on the Greater Than Games forums:

Regain and restore are different terms.  Health can still be restored if Health can't be regained.

Despite only the term restore showing up in the glossary, regain and restore are both keywords that apply to different abilities. This is further clarified here (page 17) and here (just search for the word "restore"). Something that restores health is not affected if an ability increases HP that is regained.
In the forum post, phantaskippy goes on to say:

There is recovery as a term as well, but that has only applied to Regaining health so far.

In some cases, the word recovery is used to reference regaining health. This does not impact the keyword restore and will only impact abilities that use the keyword regain.
For your specific card interactions, if Oppressive Smog was in play, Setback would regain 2-2 HP (0) with Karmic Retribution. If Silver Lining would trigger, Setback will restore HP equal to the number of tokens in your Unlucky Pool with no reduction.

For what it's worth, phantaskippy is a playtester and active user on the GTG forums. He also generated a series of story challenges with rules tweaks for "epic" gameplay. I mention this to show that his comments on the forums carry weight and are generally trustworthy.


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Haunt requires adding a room, but it will seal off a floor. What do I do?
In Betrayal at House on the Hill, there is a rule saying that you can't add a tile if it would close off the floor:

Can I Seal Off a Floor by Placing a Tile?
You can’t place a tile in such a way that it seals off a floor (that is, leaves no way to connect other rooms to that floor). If the only possible placement of a tile would seal off a floor, discard that tile and draw new ones until you draw one that leaves a free doorway. If all the remaining tiles for a floor would seal off the floor, then the person whose turn it is rearranges the floor until there are more free doorways.

However, some haunts require that a certain room be added, if it doesn't exist already. For instance, Haunt #46 (The Feast) says the following

If the Attic isn't in the house, search the room stack for it and put it on the upper floor. Then shuffle that stack.

It says a similar thing for the Dining Room as well.
What happens if adding one of these tiles would seal off a floor? The room needs to be there for the Haunt, so not adding it isn't an option. What happens?

The rules for sealing off rooms have this line at the end:

If all the remaining tiles for a floor would seal off the floor, then the person whose turn it is rearranges the floor until there are more free doorways.

It seems reasonable to infer that this rule would also apply if adding the necessary room for the Haunt also seals off the floor. Thus the floor will need to be rearranged so that the room can be added without sealing off the floor.
The above rule also says that the person whose turn it is should be the one to rearrange the floor, which seems appropriate given that they are the Haunt revealer who is kicking all of this off.


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Is a yellow sign marker still added if the terror level increase is reduced to 0?
In the King in Yellow Herald variant, there is a rule about increasing the terror level (emphasis mine):

The blasphemous play "The King in Yellow" is being performed in Arkham. Every time the terror level increases, the investigators must do one of the following:
A: Place a yellow sign token in the space just vacated by the terror marker.
or
B. Place a yellow sign token on the doom track as if it were a doom token.

There are ways to reduce the terror level increase, such as the Director's Diary:

Discard this card when the terror level is increased to reduce the amount by which it is being increased by 1.

What is the order of these two events? Do I place a yellow sign token first before I reduce the terror level? Or do I reduce the terror level and then not place a yellow sign token because it is staying the same?

Using this card when the terror level is increased by 1 would effectively make it increase by 0 and prevent the requirement to place the yellow sign token.  Notice the wording of the card is to discard it when the terror level is increased to reduce the amount increased.  If it had said something along the lines of discarding it to decrease the terror level, then one might construe that to mean the terror level increased then decreased, but in this case it strongly implies you are cancelling the action, not subsequently reverting it.


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Does End of Days affect cards underneath another card (e.g. The Dreamer's defeated Projections)?
Fanatic has a card called "End of Days" that destroys most every card in play:

At the start of the Environment turn, destroy all cards in play, other than this card, character cards, and Relics.
Then, destroy this card.

Several villains, such as the Dreamer, can place cards underneath them:

Whenever a Projection card is destroyed, it is placed under this card. At the start of the Villain turn, if there are (H) times 2 cards underneath this card, the heroes win the game.

Does End of Days affect these "underneath" cards?

I tested this in the app version of the game.

The cards under The Dreamer they are destroyed
The cards are put back under The Dreamer, per its effect
If some other card would interact (Like Savage Mana), that takes precedence and would be destroyed afterwards

Also don't forget that it's the players that choose which effect resolve first and which cards are destroyed first.

I changed your run-on sentence into a list for clarity. If I missed something or you otherwise don't like the change, feel free to edit or revert it.

Thanks ! Also don't forget that it's the players that choose which effect resolve first and which cards are destroyed first.

There are two things at play here. First is that once a projection card is destroyed and placed under the dreamers card they are no longer in play. Second is that even when they are under the dreamers card they are sill projections so if they where able to get destroyed they would be placed right back under the card per the rules of the card.

So is your second point moot because the cards are out of play (and not accessible to End of Days) due to your first point? I ask because other villains, like Time Pirate, can have cards underneath her, but not due to card destruction.


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Can Termi-Nation Unity's power be used if you don't have a Mechanical Golem in play?
The variant Termi-Nation Unity character card has the following power:

Reconfigure
Power: Shuffle a Mechanical Golem from play into your deck. Move a Mechanical Golem from your trash into play. You may draw a card.

There was debate at our table about the first sentence. We were in agreement that if an Mechanical Golem is in play, you must shuffle it into your deck (since the text was worded as a command). However, we had two conflicting interpretations about what happens when a Mechanical Golem is not in play:

If you don't have a Mechanical Golem in play, you can't continue to the rest of the text (thus you can't use this power).

If you don't have a Mechanical Golem in play, you just ignore that sentence (or think of it as a command that has no effect) and continue on.

Which interpretation is correct?

To take with a bit of salt but usually if you have no connection to the first sentence in the followings, it's not linked. Termi-nation Unity is kinda hard to unlock on the app but I really think you can move Mechanical Golems  and draw a card even if there's no Mechanical Golem.

Sentinels of the Multiverse follows a rule of "Do as much as you can."
Unless an effect explicitly depends on a previous effect actually occurring, then any actions that cannot be performed are simply skipped.
I ran a test case in the video game version (which sources its rules interpretations directly from the game designer Christopher Badell), and here are the results, taken from the log file.
Case 1:  Greatest Legacy uses Gung-Ho to let Unity use a power.  She has no Golems in play or in the trash.  Unity still draws a card.

Legacy uses the power on America's Greatest Legacy.
  America's Greatest Legacy's Gung-Ho tried to increase Termi-Nation Unity's HP, but they are already at their maximum HP.
  Unity uses the power on Termi-Nation Unity.
  Unity draws Turret Bot.
  Went from Legacy's UsePower phase to DrawCard phase.

Case 2: Unity uses her power with 1 Golem in play and none in the trash.  Unity destroys her Golem and draws a card.

Went from Unity's PlayCard phase to UsePower phase.
  Unity uses the power on Termi-Nation Unity.
  Termi-Nation Unity's Reconfigure destroys Raptor Bot!
  GameController moved Raptor Bot to Unity's deck.
  Unity shuffles their Unity's deck.
  Unity draws Brainstorm.
  Went from Unity's UsePower phase to DrawCard phase.

Case 3: Gung-Ho Unity uses her power with no golems in play and 1 in the trash.  Unity reanimates a Golem and draws a card.

Went from Unity's PlayCard phase to UsePower phase.
  Unity uses the power on Termi-Nation Unity.
  Termi-Nation Unity's Reconfigure puts Swift Bot into play.
  Unity draws Flash Forge.
  Swift Bot increased the action count of DrawCard by 1.
  Went from Unity's UsePower phase to DrawCard phase. (Count: 2)

There are conditional powers, but Unity's is not one of them
If the rest of Unity's effect was conditional upon destroying a Golem, it would be worded like Freedom Six Tempest's power Sacrifice:

Sacrifice - Destroy 1 of your cards.  If you do, draw 3 cards.

“Unless an effect explicitly depends on a previous effect actually occurring, then any actions that cannot be performed are simply skipped.” Do you have a source for this? Or is it just your summary of rulings? I suspect it is correct, but I’m wondering if it is spelled out anywhere.

@Thunderforge I don't think it's spelled out anywhere.  I'm pretty sure you can find it on the Greater than Games forums if you dig through the rules questions, although most of those are answered by experienced players and playtesters rather than the game designers themselves (Christopher chimes in on occasion, but usually for more obscure issues than this) and I'm not up to digging though old rules questions at the moment.  You can observe it in the video game, though, and as I said before video game behavior is considered official.

One brief search for "Do as much as you can"

In the current version of the digital game the card reads

Destroy a mechanical golem, then shuffle it into your deck. Move a mechanical golem from your trash into play. You may draw a card.

When you try to use this power with no golems in play the game will inform you that there are none in play however if you have a discarded golem in your discard pile it will be put into play.
Yes you can use this power to place a golem in play from the trash even if you don't currently have one in play so the second option is what happens.

@ArcanistLupus Was able to test this with a golem in my discard but not one in play and the goelm was put into play and I did draw a card.


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How to determine the edition of The Settlers of Catan?
I know that there are four editions of The Settlers of Catan so far. But how do you tell which edition it is when buying? Is it written somewhere on the box? The titles for the products in online shops sometimes contain the edition and sometimes don't, and I don't want to end up buying an old edition.

There are differences in cover art and publisher. And there are counting different languages, over 50 different editions of the base game...
The most common US versions are US third and US fourth editions by Mayfair... other countries' edition counts may vary, plus the US editions have made the rounds...
The current, US 4th Mayfair edition shows a scene with several colonists on a road along a wheat field, with a large sun in the background. The water is a puzzle frame.
The third is basically off-white front, with red sides, with a crest in the upper left, and an inset of some individuals negotiating in the lower right. The water is hexagonal tiles.
Some people's 3rd edition copies will have a 4th edition frame, rulebook, and port markers; these were provided in an "Adaptation Kit."
Both 3rd and 4th edition have 4 colors of pieces, and specific colors seem to have varied slightly, with red, blue, white and either yellow or orange; black and neutral wood were in the 5-6 player expansion.
The first and second are brown boxes with a sun in the upper left. The 2nd edition was essentially the same as the first, save for extra rules and different colors, and 1st edition may have been reprinted at the same time as second. 1st ed colors are red, blue, green, and natural wood; 2nd are black, purple, yellow, and orange, and the box might be stickered as 2nd edition. Note that some people will have combined a 1st edition and second edition for play with up to 8 players.
Mayfair used the same illustration for the Travel Edition as on 3rd, but the front is basically red. The pieces are much smaller, have large stubs, and the hexes have circular voids for the fixed numbers in the plastic board. The art and rules are pretty much the same as third, but all components are smaller.
There also was a Simply Fun version, retitled "Simply Catan", which shows a city against a large sun, and water in the front. It's a frame version, and has 3d plastic road, settlement and city pieces in red, orange, white and blue, with the board comprised of strips, rather than separate hexes. Further, the frame includes many rules elements.
And that's not counting the other games: The Card Game, the Dice Game, etc.
BGG links:

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/20630/mayfair-games-first-edition
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/42682/mayfair-second-english-edition-with-alternate-colo
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/24859/mayfair-games-third-edition
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameversion/23765/mayfair-games-fourth-edition
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/24511/simply-catan
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/17419/catan-3d-collectors-edition
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3972/the-settlers-of-catan-travel-edition

I accept this answer for the effort. The other answer by sitnaltax is short and straight to the point, and it is also very helpful, but I can't accept both.

The BGG page has a photograph for for each version.
Your profile indicates that you are located in Russia. I only see one Russian language edition.
If you are looking at American Mayfair-published editions, the box art style is distinctively different between fourth edition and third edition, which are the versions I commonly see. The first and second editions have an identical box; the second edition has a sticker on the shrink and different color player pieces, but are otherwise the same.

Where are the versions on that page exactly? I've been there, but I can't find the list of versions. Yes, I'm interested in the international versions, for Russian versions there is a publisher in Russia, so this is all different. This is the latest version in Russia, by the way.

About midway down the page, above the "Images" gallery, there's a "Versions" gallery. There's a tag that says "Pg. 1 of 12". You can click the small chevrons to page through various historical and international versions.


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How does jumping work in Descent 2nd Edition?
In Descent: Journeys in the Dark, 2nd Edition, the rules state:

Figures cannot jump over a pit space.

I never saw jumping mentioned anywhere else in the rules. How does jumping work and where is it defined?
This is not the same as this question, as that question is dealing with the 1st edition.

You cannot jump in Descent 2nd Edition. I believe this statement is in the rulebook to notify First Edition players that this is a difference in the editions: you can no longer spend extra movement to jump across a pit you are aware of.