text:
To what extent do mobile adaptations of board games change the games?
Some board games tend to have a lot of complex rules, and many also have several official variants.  Sometimes the mechanics of a mobile device (iPhone, Android, iPad), make implementing some rules cumbersome.  In these cases, do the mobile versions take liberties with how faithful of an adaptation they implement?  Do they tend to also implement rule variations?  When things are changed, are the changes generally received well, or do gamers, in general, feel let down by the changes?

Care to provide an example?

Sure.  In Reiner Knizia's Money, the iPhone version had slightly different mechanics, and wasn't true to the rules (it was changed in later updates of the app), for example, the number of currencies didn't scale down to the number of players (as the print rules proscribe).

So the answer to your question, based on the example you had in mind, is "yes".

I voted to close; I think the question is too broad. There is no right answer, and the specific examples will be different for every app.

You would rather I take the top 10 game adaptations and ask individually how they differ from the physical versions?  I just want a sense of how common this practice is and how it's received.

What you want is not a good fit for a Q&A site. Just go to ipadboardgames.org (as I did), and read the reviews for the top games. I listed them in another comment. Also, monopoly is a lot faster since the moneychanging time is minimal.

It occurred to me while Dominionating earlier that Isotropic offers both "veto mode" and an automatic point counter. My friends and I have been using a variant of veto mode since the beginning, but the point counter is definitely a dynamic unique to tech-based play. As to how well these are received, I dislike the counter, but many of my opponents do not. I was once called (by my opponent) some sort of male genital slang in Italian after disabling the counter.

You are probably going to have to perform more research to find an answer to your question.
Yes, mobile application developers take liberties.
I would guess that few mobile app developers implement variations, official or not. no one is going to waste development time on version 1 implementing a variant that might not be played. (but the only way to verify this would be to find all mobile apps for Boardgames and figure out which of those have game variations in physical form, then figure out what percentage of those have mobile app variants)
Are mobile apps that behave differently received well? Don't know. Do you know of a polling company that does this kind of research? Do you have a list of all liberal implementations of board games, such that a poll could determine that 50% or more of those games were received poorly/well?
I don't think your question can be answered without considerable effort.

Considerable effort, indeed! A cursory investigation reveals that quite a few "top games" (eg Carcasonne, Catan, Caylus, Dominion, Ticket to Ride, Tigris, Small World, Forbidden Island) have faithful iPad versions. And if we broaden the scope of this question (crazy, I know!) to include browser-based versions, then we have all the BSW games - faithful.

As user1873 says, a full answer to this question would take a tremendous amount of research.
But I think the general rule is that many (most?) representations are perfectly faithful to the original rules or are clearly laid out as variants.  The mobile versions of Chess, and Zombie dies are true to the rules.  The mobile Go games can get slightly quirky for scoring for complicated board positions (deciding whether a shape is alive or dead), but the game play itself is true to the rules and the automated scoring as close to perfect as possible (many have a fallback of letting the humans decide).
As The Chaz points out even more modern games with complicated rules often have true-to-rules adaptations.
So in short, I suspect most adapations are true-to-original when they are amenable to being adaptabled and those that are simply not amenable to being adapted (pictionary?  Charades?) are simply not adapter.  There are certainly some exceptions, but I suspect they are just that.


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Where can I find statistics on good/evil wins for the Resistance:Avalon for different role setups?
I'm trying to nail down exactly which roles work best for different numbers of players.  While I have much anecdotal evidence from many game plays, I was wondering if anyone is actually keeping track and has hard numbers?
For example, I'd like to be able to answer if, for a 9 player games, Merlin+Percy+Morgana+Mordred is more or less close to an even win percentage than the same game without Morgana

I would suggest checking out the Board Game Geek Avalon community. People regularly record their play sessions and the users on the forums are usually willing to go into in-depth analysis and discussion on game setup and configuration. For instance, even one of the most recent forum discussions is about statistical anomalies in Avalon games.

I've looked there and didn't find what I was looking for.  Any more specific links to this specific question?

From my experience to much revolves around the players skill and play style to track from group to group. What may be a balanced combination for some groups will be unbalanced for others. What you need to look at instead is what does the roles you are adding in do to the game balance (according to the rule book) and start making changes from there. From what I have seen when I have played in different groups the win/loss for good/evil will vary from group to group even for a basic setup.
Percival and Oberon will make the good side more powerful
Morderd and Morgana will make the evil side more powerful
It is just a matter of tweaking the balance based on your groups play style and skill and you will probably find that the balance will change as you play it more often.

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text:
How should I alert this 1D opening?
In the context of a precision system, the 1D bid is nominally 11-15 high card points and could be one of the following hand types:

Unbalanced with 3+ diamonds, no 5-card major, no 6-card club suit (balanced hands and minor-major 5422s are opened 1NT)
2=2=4=5 or 2=2=5=4
A semibalanced hand with 6+ diamonds
A 6-5 (or more distributional) hand with clubs or diamonds as the longest suit, not strong enough to open 1C (note: this hand type may have 0-2 diamonds)

The last hand type makes it difficult to alert completely and succinctly. I don't think it's reasonable to have a 1-minute explanation of such a common bid as an opening 1D, but I want to make sure to inform my opponents of our agreement.
As a secondary question, do you think that this opening is legal under the ACBL general chart (presumably under the rubric of "all-purpose opening bid
(artificial or natural) promising a minimum of 10 high-card points").

Tell them what you are playing, alert everytime you open 1D and when they ask, explain?

@petqwe Yes, obviously. The question is how to explain. If I reel off the hand types, I'm more likely to confuse than inform, particularly at the club. Too much information can be as uninformative as too little.

Whether they find it informative is of no concern as long as you strictly follow a full disclosure principle. Just tell them the above combinations. If it really bugs you that opponents may be left with the dark, perhaps you should consider playing some other system? I was playing an equally messy 'catchall' bid with my previous partner, and I am not afraid to explain to them everytime I open such bid.

With the new ACBL Alert regulations (effective January 2021), the following seems correct:

You Pre-Alert your system, because of your 1C (not Natural, Forcing) and 1D (not Natural) openers. "We play Precision" should be fine, but you should probably prepare a slightly longer one if you want to be clear.  "Our 1C is 16+, any distribution; 1D is 3+ except in very rare cases; 1NT is 11-15 and can include 4M5m22s."

You Alert 1C.  When they ask, you should be more clear than the Pre-Alert.

You Announce 1D "could be zero".  Here is where, I agree, it gets difficult.  This is why I recommend the expanded Pre-Alert, because most "could be 1" and "could be zero" Precision 1Ds include things like (43)=1=5 and 4=4=0=5s (and put the 2D opener to better use).  If they ask, you can say that it's 3+ unless you're 6C-5M or better.  I tend to ask "when could it be short" and this is a great answer (for me)!
Of course, if they ask for a better description of 1D, you can come out with what you have above; but your agreement isn't that much different from a "normal" 3+ 1D (limited to 15) that you should feel a requirement to routinely explain it.

You Announce 1NT "11-15" as before.  Be prepared to explain (if asked, or at the end of the auction if you're declaring) that you put more hands into 1NT than "normal", especially the 4M5m22s.  Again, if it doesn't take too much time, the Pre-Alert should handle that.

My partner and I have always played Precision, but I also looked at the English Bridge Union's Handbook of Permitted Understandings to make sure my own personal understanding of this was reasonable.
Remember it's not up to the bidder, but their partner, to alert the opposition of a bid that may have a special meaning:
4 A 4    Alert or announce only your partner’s calls, never your own. (Special
         regulations apply when playing online or with screens.)

Even if you can't actually fully explain your partner's bid, you should alert it:
4 A 5    Even if you cannot explain the meaning of partner’s call, you should still
         alert (or announce) it if you believe that it may be required.

It's then up to you to explain in as much detail what you understand from your partner's non-natural bid. If you follow the link above and take a look at the whole document, you'll see that there are guidelines set out about all the bids that require alerting, including strong artificial bids like the Precision 1D.
4 D 1    ... Strong and artificial 1C and 1D openings are alerted as are a two way 1C
         opening such as the Polish Club and any opening which may be short but is
         unconditionally forcing.

It is expected that these sort of bids will be described with a series of "may be"s and minimums.

I'm not asking whether I should alert my partner's opening; the question is more about what words to use to minimize opponent confusion.

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What general approach should be taken opening hands with 3=1=4=5 and 1=3=4=5 shape?
If my hand is not good enough to reverse, what should I do with a hand like
Kxx
x
KJxx
AQxxx
That is, a minimum opener with a singleton major, 4 diamonds, and 5 clubs (assuming that I'm playing Standard American or 2/1 with a strong NT opener)?
Should I open 1D or 1C? What's my rebid if partner bids my singleton?

If the diamond quality is vastly better than the clubs, then open 1D planning on rebidding clubs; otherwise open 1C.
If the club quality is vastly better than the diamonds, then open 1C and plan on rebidding 1NT if partner responds 1H; the club suit can be expected to run in such a situation, and so how much trouble can you get into in 1NT.
Remember that if partner passes a 1NT rebid by you this shows 6-9 points to go with your minimum opener. If you can't make 1NT on power and the club suit, the opponents can probably make at least 2S (or 2H!); going down 1 or 2 undoubled is a win.
The big misconception newer and intermediate players make is thinking that 5-card suits, by either responder or opener, are a preferable rebid; this is untrue; rebidding a 5-card suit is a desperation rebid to be done only in dire circumstances, or to reveal a 5-5. Both opener and responder should try keenly to avoid rebidding 5-card suits, and save such rebids for 6-card suits. Partner will preference back with 3-card support unless her hand is strongly no-trumpish, at which point the 8-card fit can be revealed.
In regards to Rud's statement about opener's raise of 1M with 3 card support; I have always felt comfortable raising partner's suit with 3 and a side singleton. If partner cannot handle the occasional Moysian fit, I find another partner. (And I never have difficulty finding partners.)

Good point about rebidding 5-card suits.

I'm aware of 3 general approaches to this problem. Each of these approaches has its adherents, and most people seem to think that their own answer is obviously the best approach. I'll list the 3 approaches and their major weaknesses (assuming opener has 3 spades, 1 heart, 4 diamonds, 5 clubs).

Open 1C, plan to raise diamonds or spades, and rebid 1NT after hearts.

Some people prefer never to rebid 1NT with a singleton and therefore recoil from this approach.
The main weakness with this call is that partner may correct to 2 of their major with a good 5-card suit and thus play a 5-1 fit.
Some players have no system to handle 1C-1H-2H if opener may raise on 3.

Open 1C, plan to rebid 2C over 1H (and maybe even 1S).

In the ideal 1C-1H-2C auction, opener has a 6-card suit. Partner may well pass with a minimum and two small clubs. Worse is that responder may have a good hand and you'll wind up in the wrong strain at a higher level.

Open 1D, plan to rebid 2C over 1H (and maybe even 1S).

When partner has a minimum and is 2-2 or 3-3 in the minors, you'll end up playing in 2D when 2C plays a trick or two better.
In a competitive auction, partner doesn't know about your best suit -- you may never get a chance to show clubs, causing partner to compete in the wrong suit or to lead diamonds instead of clubs.

As a side note, you may notice a common thread to all three approaches is that your life is made more difficult if opener can't raise responder's suit with 3-card support. 1C-1S-2C is definitely inferior to 1C-1S-2S when opener has 3 spades and only 5 clubs, but if partner will bid on as though opener has 4-card support in this auction, 2S is not an option.

I'd open one club, 1) because there are five of them and 2) to give partner a chance to respond in all three higher suts (or no trump). With your length in clubs, partner is less likely to have four or five of them.
If he responds in your singleton, I'd bid one NT, denying a four card spade suit, and denying support for his suit, implying that most of my strength is in the minors.


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Can an immobile vehicle expend movement points?
In a recent game, the following situation arose.
A stationary AFV attempted to use smoke dispensers and failed, thus not expending a movement point. It then expended a start MP, and was attacked by an anti-tank gun and was immobilized (D8).
The vehicle then wished to make a Bounding First Fire attack (D3.3), which appears to be permitted without the expenditure of movement points, but to attack the desired target needed to change its Turret Covered Arc. The change of Turret Covered Arc (D3.12) could be freely done but according to D3.12

the TCA may also be changed freely with each movement point expended
  for movement, start, stop or delay purposes

which is the point at issue if the vehicle is immobile.
So, can an immobile vehicle expend movement points for the purpose of changing turret covered arc, bounding first fire, or (in a later turn) for attempting to use smoke dispensers (immobile vehicles appear to be granted a special exemption in D6.5 for the purposes of unloading passengers).

Your specific situation seems to be actually quite simple: D8.1 says

An immobilized vehicle cannot expend a Start MP, leave its current Location nor change its VCA, but may otherwise change its TCA if otherwise able to do so.

What does otherwise able to do so mean, you ask? Well; if, your suspicions aroused by the word also in your own quotation, you check the rest of the paragraph, you will find that "...whenever a vehicle fires a turret-mounted weapon outside its VCA...a turret counter is placed." with no mention of Immobilization. So, despite what you might think, the tank does not change its TCA and then fire: it fires at whatever target it wishes, and then places or moves the turret counter.
More generally: though an immobile vehicle cannot do the things mentioned above (i.e. move), it is still covered by B2.1 " a vehicle may expend up to its full MP allotment during its own MPh". So there is no reason it cannot fire smoke dispensers. load/unload passengers, and spend Delay MPs if it wants to Bounding First Fire.
For reality check purposes, consider that even if the turret rotation works off the engine (some had batteries, and most had hand cranks for emergency), a combat Immobilization result is likely to reflect a broken track or wheel  rather than complete loss of power: the crew have already passed an Immobilization TC, so they think it possible to stay and use the weapons.
Later: Though this answer is correct, I forgot that in ASL it's not the actual rules you have to worry about, but the exceptions to the exceptions (and the ambiguous phrasing). C5.2 says "A Bounding First Firer must always fire within its current CA: it may change that CA only via MP expenditure."  So since the tank did not change its CA as part of the start procedure, it must now spend another Delay MP (or possibly three, to avoid the Limited Aim penalty (cue the argument about whether you had LOS to the gun at the start of the phase, when you saw the hex, but the gun was still Hidden; cf. C5.33, which clearly supports both possibilities)) which accomplishes nothing, but allows it, free as part of the MP expenditure, to change CA and thus fire.  As a limited consolation, the same paragraph says "[The penalty for changing CA] is never applicable to an Attacker firing during his own MPh."


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What happens to the dynamite when you die?
In BANG!, if a player has the dynamite in front of them when they die, what happens to the dynamite?
Does that change when someone's special skill is to receive the cards of dead people?

The dynamite is discarded unless the dynamite didn't kill the dead player AND Vulture Sam is playing.
From the Bang! consolidated FAQ:

If the Dynamite explodes eliminating a player, does the character Vulture Sam draw the Dynamite along with all other cards of the player eliminated?
No. To complete the effect of the Dynamite you have to discard it after it explodes. So when Vulture Sam gets all the cards of the player killed, the Dynamite is already in the discard pile.

So,

If the Dynamite hasn't exploded, Vulture Sam picks it up as normal (since he takes all cards from the dead player). From the rulebook:

whenever a character is
eliminated from the game,
Sam takes all the cards
that player had in his
hand and in play, and adds them to
his hand.

If the Dynamite did explode (killing the player), Vulture Sam does not pick it up, since it has been discarded.

If Vulture Sam (or similar) isn't playing, then the dynamite is discarded along with all other cards of the dead player. Again, from the rulebook:

When you are
eliminated from the game, show your role card and discard all the cards you
have in hand and in play.


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What should be considered in constructing a balanced team of investigators?
I haven't played much Arkham Horror, but from what I've seen it's important to have a balanced team of investigators. What key attributes need to be represented by the team as a whole to have at least a fighting chance at survival?
For example, in my first game I played a "street sweeper" who basically hung out in the streets all game mowing down monsters and clearing paths for others; however, I didn't have any magical items so there were some monsters I really had no chance against without some help or a special item.
Also, to what extent are the particulars of a balanced team impacted by individual player's styles, any expansion packs in the mix, and which dark one you've drawn?

Really, the most important thing is to have the ability to deal with monsters that are in the way without having significant delays. Whether that is being able to effectively sneak past things or just kill them outright.
If you're trying to jump around to locations to pick up clues to seal, you want to make sure you can get to locations and not have (sealing critical) people sit in the streets or stay in the same location because they can't deal with the baddie that is sitting in the streets. Similarly, it is frequently worthwhile to have a monster beater rush a gate (and get sucked through) just to clear the way for someone with the ability to seal.
Also note, that it's important to make sure there's someone in Arkham that can deal with monsters in a pinch should the regular monster beater be unavailable (healing, in an OW, etc.).
Pretty much everyone can gather clues equally well, and fully healed people with a health of 5/5 are more likely to survive the OW trip (although it's important to remember that they may have to fight something during their trip, so you don't want them completely defenseless), and there really aren't many people that can't make either the Fight or Lore check to close.
Other than that though, it's always nice having someone that starts with some money to pass around if healing cash is needed in a pinch. Having at least one Magical and Physical weapon to deal with things is nice (Although depending on the expansion, you may want to tote around spells).
All of this can be greatly affected by with AO that is in play. If Shub is on the board, you'll need really good monster fighters to not have the game slow to a crawl.


text:
In Warhammer fantasy, is it permissible to make an army using an old version of a race's codec?
In Warhammer fantasy, new codecs for the races are released periodically that tweak units' attributes, cost, etc.
About 15 years ago I remember comparing two versions of the High Elves codec, which among other changes had increased the cost of a bolt thrower from 50 points to 100 points. I assume this is because the weapon was under-priced at 50 and 100 was a more fair and balanced valuation.
It is against the rules (either explicitly or in terms of etiquette) to build an army using  an older version of a codec? For example to take advantage of the cheaper bolt throwers at the cost of not being able to use any of the material in the newer book?
(Obviously anything that a given play-group decides is acceptable they can do; I'm asking in the context of official tournaments or an event where strangers would be playing.)

I know nothing about Warhammer, but I would be very surprised if any tournament allowed you to use anything other than the most recent version of the rules.

Every tournament has its own specific rules, but I've never seen one that hasn't required the use of the latest/greatest rules sets available, both for the game itself and the army. There are often additional restrictions, e.g. banned items or characters, troop limits etc, as well as model requirements (minimal painting requirements, no use of non-GW models, etc).
There are several good reasons to require the latest rules for a tournament:

Everyone is on a level playing field (tournament organiser understands the environment)
Everyone knows exactly what to expect
Army list checking and meta game preparation is much simpler
Strange, unbalanced or just broken loopholes from previous editions are obsolete
Games Workshop gets you to spend more money

I didn't explicitly ask, but now that I'm reading it, the rationale for why only the latest rules would be allowed is the interesting analysis. The last point rings especially true, and the penultimate one speaks to my specific example of the way under-priced bolt throwers.

There is also the fact that the main rules for some things change from edition to edition.
The way a War Machine or Chariot worked in 3rd edition may be subtly but importantly different from the way they work in 8th edition, accounting even more for the points difference.


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What do you recommend putting in an Arkham Horror quick reference sheet?
I've played Arkham Horror twice and am still boggled by the complexity of the mechanics and the number of rules. During both games I wished for a quick reference guide to summarize the turn order and key mechanics (e.g. combat order, a key to interpret the icons on the monster tokens, the definition of a successful roll and how the roll modifiers work, etc.).
I did some searching and found some Arkham reference sheets (#2), but the first was way to long to be accurately called a quick reference guide (IMO) and the second spent an entire page just to explain combat.
Neither seemed to be what I was looking for, but I'm inexperienced enough that I can't even really define what I was expecting. (The best example of a good reference guide that I could think of is from Warhammer Fantasy.)
What information would you recommend including in a one- or two-page Arkham Horror reference manual?

I use the reference sheet from The Esoteric Order of Gamers website.Very comprehensive and and well layed out. http://www.orderofgamers.com/games/arkham-horror/

Alright. I'll look for an actual reference guide later, but I'll do a summary of the rules, followed by a brief turn summary now. Here goes.
The game is divided up into four phases. Upkeep, Movement, Encounters, and Mythos.
The game starts with a Mythos.
Phases:
Upkeep: Pass first player token. Refresh Exhuasted Cards, use items/spells that get used during upkeep.
Movement: Starting from first player and going clockwise, investigators get to move. Delayed Investigators stand up and they're done, that's it. Investigators in Arkham can move a number of spaces up to their current speed, barring odd environmental effects. If playing with expansion boards, it costs 1 'movement' to move between two locations with a train symbol, or a location/street with a train symbol and the train station. If an investigator attempts to leave a location/street that has a monster or attempts to end movement in said location, combat starts. Investigators in the first area of an Other World move to the second area. Investigators in the second area of an Other World return to Arkham in a location with an open gate that matches the Other World they're coming from. If no such location exists, they're Lost In Time and Space (lose the rest of this turn and all of the next turn).
Encounters: Arkham encounters come first. Starting from first player and going clockwise, Investigators in a location in Arkahm draw a card for the neighborhood they're in, and read/resolve the encounter for the location they're in. Investigators that are standing on an open gate get drawn through to their respective Other Worlds. Investigators that have returned from an Other World can attempt to close the gate by making a combat or a lore check (Investigator's choice) at the modifier printed on the gate token. If there is a single success, the gate has been closed. When an Investigator closes a gate they can choose to spend 5 clue tokens after the fact to 'seal' the Arkham Location. Then comes Other World encounters. Starting from first playing and going clockwise, Investigators in an Other World location draw Other World encounter cards until they get a card that matches a color of the Other World they're in, and then they resolve that card.
Mythos: The first player draws and resolves a Mythos Card. These get resolved from the bottom up, oddly enough. Bottom left of the card shows the location in Arkham where a gate opens up. With 1-4 players 1 monster accompanies the gate. With 5-8 players you get 2 monsters. If a gate opens in a location where there's already an open gate, a Monster Surge occurs. (Though the exact specifics of this are debated...) Starting from the surging location and going clockwise around the board, place one monster on each gate, for a total of new monsters equal to the number of open gates or the number of Investigators, whichever is greater. If the mythos card shows a location that's been sealed, nothing happens. If a new gate trophy is placed on the board, add a doom token to the Ancient One's doom track. Next up is monster movement. Monsters in a location/stree with an Investigator do not leave. Monsters with symbols that match those in the black rectangle move along the paths in arkham indicated by the black arrow. Monsters with symbols that match those in the white rectangle move along the paths indicated by the white arrow. Monsters with symbols that don't match any on the mythos card do not move. The color of the monster tokens modifies how they move.

Black: Normal
Red: Moves Twice
Yellow: Doesn't Move
Green: Has special text on the token that explains what happens
Blue: If in a location/street and adjacent to an Investigator, moves to them. Otherwise moves to the Sky. The Sky is adjacent to all streets. If in the Sky and adjacent to an Investigator, moves to the Investigator with the worst sneak score.
Purple: Moves to an Investigator in an adjacent street or unstable location. Otherwise it moves normally.
Orange: If in an aquatic location, moves to another aquatic location with an Investigator. Otherwise it moves normally.

Next, a clue is placed on the board in the indicated location. If there's an open gate there, no clue, period. If an Investigator is there, they get the clue.
Finally, the text of the mythos card is resolved.
Combat:
The Monster Token:
On the front of the token is a number in the top corner, that's the awareness modifier. The symbol in the bottom corner isn't important for battle, it's used during the mythos phase for monster movement. The back bottom left of the monster token is for horror checks. If there's a number present, that's the horror check modifier. Under the modifier is a number of ovals for how much sanity damage you'll take for failing the check. The back bottom right is the modifier for the combat check. Under this modifier is a number of hearts for how much stamina damage you'll take for failing the check. The back bottom middle has a number of blood drops, this is the monster's Toughness. This is how many successes you'll need to pass the combat check. Monsters may have additional text at the back top of the token. These effects include:

Ambush: Cannot flee once combat has started
Endless: Don't get the trophy if you win
Physically Resistant/Immune: Physical Weapons give half (rounded in your favor) or none of the bonus they usually do
Magically Resistant/Immune: Magical Weapons/Spells give half (rounded in your favor) or none of the bonus they usually do
Weapon Immune: Weapons give none of the bonus they usually do. Spells are still ok.
Nightmarish X: If you pass the horror check, take X sanity damage. If you fail the horror check, ignore this.
Overwhelming X: If you pass the very first combat check, take X stamina damage. If you ever fail the combat check, ignore this.

Combat Procedure:
At the very beginning of combat, you can attempt a Evade (which is Sneak + anything with evasion bonuses) check at a modifier equal to the monster's Awareness (number on the front top corner). If this check passes, pretend like combat with this monster never happened. (Elusive monsters present in expansions have a green awareness modifier. You can't fight them unless you pass the Evade Check.) If you fail the evade check, you take combat damage from the monster. If combat is still going at this point, you lose the rest of your movement for the turn. Now make the horror check. If the check has no successes, take the horror damage. If you're still alive, start making combat checks. You can also choose to make additional evade checks. If you pass a combat check, the monster is defeated and you claim the trophy. If you pass an evade check, combat ends, the monster remains where it is, and you still don't have any movement. If you fail either a combat check or an evade check, you take combat damage. Repeat this step until combat is over.
Misc.
Getting knocked out/driven insane: If at any point while in Arkahm an Investigator's stamina is reduced to 0, they lose the rest of the current turn, move to St. Mary's Hospital, and are set to 1 Stamina. Same story for sanity except move to Arkham Asylum. If an Investigator is reduced to 0 Stamina or 0 Sanity while in an Other World, lose the rest of the turn, lose the next turn completely, move to Lost In Time and Space, and the relevant stat is set to 1. During the Upkeep phase following the lost turn, the Investigator can appear in any location/street in Arkham. If an Investigator is reduced to 0 Stamina and 0 Sanity simultaneously or are reduced to 0 Sanity or 0 Stamina during Final Combat, or an Investigator's Maximum Sanity/Stamina is reduced to 0, they are devoured. Discard everything except trophies and start with a new character, as though you were setting up.
Monster Limit: There can only be (# of Investigators + 3) monsters on the main arkham board at one time (doesn't include expansion board or the Outskirts). If a monster is placed on the board and the limit is exceeded it goes into the outskirts. The outskirts can support (8 - # of Investigators) monsters. If a monster is placed in the Outskirts and the limit is exceeded, all of the monsters in the outskirts to back into the cup and the terror level increases by one.
Terror Level: Each time the terror level increases, an ally is discarded from the ally deck. Additionally, when the track hits 3, the general store closes; 6 - the curiositie shoppe closes; 9 - The Magic Shop Closes. 10 - Monster Limit is doubled.
Winning: If there are 6 sealed locations in Arkham, or if there are no open gates in Arkham and the Investigators collectively have a number of gate trophies equal to the number of investigators, or the Ancient One is defeated in Final Combat.
Losing: If everyone is devoured in Final Combat
Final Combat: Begins when

There are 9 - (# Investigators divided by 2 rounded up) open gates on the board
The Ancient One's doom track fills up.
Terror Level is 10 and the doubled monster limit is exceeded
No gate trophies left to use when one is needed
No monster trophies left in the cup when one is needed

Final Combat: At the start, the Ancient One's doom track fills up. Final Combat has three phases. Upkeep, Investigator Attack, Ancient One attack. Upkeep is the same as before, also item trading can occur. During Investigator attack, make a combat check at the Ancient One's Combat modified and count the successes. Successes are cumulative across all Investigators and all rounds. A # of successes equal to the # of Investigators removes a single doom token from the Ancient One's doom track. If the doom track empties, the Investigators win. During the Ancient One attack, resolve the printed effect on the card. Usually each Investigator has to pass a skill check of some sort at increasingly difficult modifiers or discard something and when they run out they're dead.
Quick Summary

Upkeep: Refresh, move first player
Movement: Move around the arkham board, fighting/sneaking past monsters or move 1 space in an Other world.
Encounter: Draw an Arkham Encounter, move into an Other World, close a gate, or draw an Other World Encounter
Mythos: Gate opens, doom token, monsters appear, monsters move, clue appears, text is resolved.

Combat:

Evade Check (optional)
Horror Check
Combat Check or Evade Check (repeat this step until dead)

Yeah...the summary got a bit away from me, but that about covers it save for odd corner cases. Hopefully that'll help a bit.

Wow. #1 nicely done. #2 game is super complicated. #3 there are lots of little things we were doing wrong (e.g. a clue appeared where I was and I didn't get to keep it so had to wait a whole other turn to pick it up since it was the 5th one I needed to close the penultimate gate; we did monster surges at the double gate, not evenly distributed;

I'll leave open for a while to see if anyone else wants to answer. Not that I'm asking for someone to generate one for this answer, but a graphical version of what you wrote above (e.g. a picture of a monster card with all the symbols annotated with their meaning, or a picture of a mythos card with callouts showing the order you process the card and notes like on clue placement) would help so much. Part of the reason the game takes so long is that there's usually a couple of people (myself always) who don't know the game well and slow everyone else down.

Good answer, but I'd probably mention adjusting stats during upkeep.

" Investigators that have returned from an Other World can attempt to close the gate by making a combat or a lore check " <-- combat check should be replaced by fight check, i believe.


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How does the introduction of victory cities in Axis & Allies revised change gameplay and strategy?
In the 2nd Edition of Axis and Allies, you win one of two ways:

Capture two of your opponent's capital cities (i.e. Germany and Japan if playing as the Allies or some combination of Eastern US, Russia, and Great Britain if playing the Axis).
Control 84 IPCs of territory at the end of the turn if playing the Axis, or 110 if playing the Allies.

In Axis and Allies Revised, economic victory was eliminated and the concept of victory cities was added. Instead of having to capture two capitals, the game ends when one side controls a certain number of these victory cities (and the number required can be used to scale game length).
How has this change in victory conditions changed gameplay and strategy?

With the introduction of "victory cities," the revised edition tilts the game towards Asia and the Pacific.
Seven new cities have been added to the original roster of five (Tokyo, Washington, London, Berlin and Moscow). The new ones are Paris, Rome, Leningrad, Los Angeles, Calcutta, Manila and Shanghai.
Of these, Paris, Rome, and Leningrad had natural importance in the early editions, en route to Berlin and Moscow, respectively. The Allies actually captured Rome and Paris on their way to Berlin, and arguably, the Germans should have secured Leningrad before attempting Moscow. In a sense, their importance had not changed, only their "scoring."
On the other hand, Los Angeles, Manila, Shanghai and Calcutta have now taken the importance of the other three cities. They are worth fighting for in their own right, rather than just for a few IPCs. Put another way, there are 166 IPCs on the new board and 12 victory cities, meaning that pro rata, each victory city is equivalent to about 14 IPCs. In the old edition, only Los Angeles had anywhere close to that importance. Now it makes sense for both the U.S. and Japan to fight a war in the Pacific instead of heading their forces toward Europe.
The other important change is victory conditions. In the old editions, the Allies were forced to aim for "total victory"  while the Axis were encouraged to go for a major victory (all except the U.S.). (Both of these would be after the implied "mopping up").
There are now minor and moderate victory conditions. The Axis can win a minor victory early by capturing, say, Leningrad and Calcutta, which is more than adequate compensation for the loss of the economic victory option. If the Germans had captured Leningrad and Japan had gone for India instead of Pearl Harbor, the Axis might have gotten a "negotiated" peace.


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In Haunt #43 - The Star Sickness, does any use of the serum on a traitor kill them?
For those not familiar with this Haunt, a found a general description of Haunt #43 — The Star Sickness, (although sadly not the exact rule text, so if someone has the rules handy please update).
We played this haunt the other day and interpreted the rules to mean that a traitor was only killed by the serum when it was injected in them by an Alien, because the rule stating they were killed by the serum were in the Alien section of the Haunt description. Thus when a traitor was immunized by a player we assumed it had no effect. But as we played it out, this didn't seem to make sense.
From the link above, it appears the correct interpretation is that when a traitor is injected for any reason they die, and when a player is injected they are cured.
However, this didn't make sense to us either because then a traitor would have to reveal themselves as such when someone wanted to "cure" them. Or is this how it is supposed to work? The best way to root out traitors is to try and cure them?

Haunt 43 has a different tile according to the WotC pdf, Survivor and Traitor 43 -- A Gathering of Shadows

@user1873 Interesting, but obviously we were playing a different version of the rules—perhaps because this haunt, although fun, was confusing and had a lot of rules. The object that came up was the Spear, and I read through all the spear-triggered haunts in the links you provided and none were the same.

@AdamWuerl The revised survivor's and traitor's books feature a few haunts that were completely replaced like this one (8 in total - haunts 17, 18, 19, 31, 33, 34, 43, 50). It is worth printing out a copy of the newer books to use, although using the older iterations as well gives you more haunts to choose from as they are still usable.

@winterblood Thanks for letting me know. It was a friend's game and he hadn't played in a while, so I don't think any of us knew that some of the haunts had been deprecated.

Yes, the best way to determine if someone is a traitor is to (attempt to) inject them with the serum.
If they are a traitor they are killed by agreeing to the serum, and if they are not a traitor it completely absolves them of any current or future suspicion, plus heals them back to their starting values and stops them potentially taking damage each turn from the physical attack that occurs on the haunt revealer's turn (this is not directly stated, but is implied by the rules).
If they refuse, you then have a fairly good idea that they are a traitor, after which they can then do their best to infect you, or die by other means and become an alien.
As for your confusion over the serum, any explorer can use it, but it would mostly be pointless for a traitor to (the only good case I can think of for a traitor using the serum on another explorer is to redirect suspicion).
Note that on becoming an alien the explorer drops all items and that aliens cannot trade items. This seems to indicate a general intent in the rules for aliens to not be able to use items, but it also specifically says that aliens are treated as monsters only for the purposes of movement and taking damage, thus rules-as-read they are not technically prevented from later picking up or stealing items.


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What are effective strategies for passing cards in Hearts?
In Hearts, before three out of every four hands you get to pass three cards to another player. Some people seem to always pass the Queen of Spades while others like to keep her under certain conditions. Some people like to drain themselves of a suit, while others seem to like ditching hearts as a top priority.
What strategies/considerations do you evaluate when deciding what to pass, and why? Does your decision depend on if you're passing left, right, or across?

I had a friend who would always troll in Hearts and always attempt to shoot the moon, so he would always pass low cards to other players. He actually succeeded about 1/4 of the time.

My general priority for passing when attempting to avoid points is:

AK and usually Q of Spades. The AK are passed like a hot potato. If I'm long in lower Spades (6+) and have the Queen, I might try to keep her to foist off-suit, or when the AK turn up from someone else's hand. So, keeping the Queen is a judgement call, but absolutely nothing good can come from the Ace or King no matter how long you are; you're either lucky enough to play them last to a harmless Spade trick or off-suit, or they'll win you the Queen. In either case they can't hurt anyone else but you, and they certainly won't help you avoid points.
Face card Diamonds and Clubs. I might hang on to the Ace of Clubs if I don't have the 2, so I can win the first trick and choose the direction of play from there (usually either a Spade hunt or voiding Clubs/Diamonds), but other face cards in these suits typically have a similar low advantage/high risk as the high Spades.
Face card Hearts, if I'm short in Hearts. Again, they're dangerous, but usually playable depending on the rest of my hand.
Voiding Clubs or Diamonds. Except for the Ace of Clubs, if I'm very short in either or even both of these suits and have cards left to pass, I'll pass whatever I'm shortest in and try to void a suit completely. Being void in a suit early gives you a lot of power; you can start dealing out blood early, or you can play it cool and dump other harmful cards. I might even keep some otherwise dangerous cards, like face Clubs/Hearts/Diamonds, in favor of voiding a suit and playing the others off-suit early in the hand.

There are cards that you should NEVER pass if you have an avoidance strategy. Even if you're trying for a moon shot, passing certain of these is a guaranteed red flag to the passee, requiring you to pretty much guarantee that you have 10 cards that will make it happen:

The 2/3/4 of Hearts. As soon as someone breaks Hearts, the very next trick is the "funeral", where a low Heart is led and the person who can't undercut the rest (or sluff) gets them all. Passing a Heart lower than 7 is usually a pretty bonehead move; even if you're short in them, if your highest Heart is a 7 your bigger concern is ensuring you can choose the non-Heart tricks to win and then lose the lead on the next trick.
Any Spade ranked Jack or lower. Don't even try to void Spades. Just don't. If you end up lucky enough to get dealt a hand with no Spades on the no-pass hand, then thank your lucky stars and throw a middle Heart on every Spade trick you see. But with everyone at the table trying to get rid of the AKQ of Spades in passing rounds, odds are high that if you're not giving one of those, you're getting one, and will have to avoid playing it until just the right time (off-suit or when a higher Spade got smoked out). If you gave away the only low Spades that would have done that for you, you're hosed.
The Ace of Hearts; even if it's your only Heart, never pass it. Whoever has the Ace has the power to make or break a moon shot, and by passing it you risk giving it to someone who could shoot the moon with it. Worst-case, realistically, is eating a Heart trick with it (if you're really unlucky it can win you a Heart trick in which someone managed to sluff the Queen; that's extremely unlikely). Best case, after the Queen's been smoked out you can off it on whomever didn't get the Queen and guarantee no moon shot for anyone.
Your last Club. Playing off-suit to the first trick is a red flag that you're void in Clubs and will usually spoil further attempts to make use of it. If you have only one Club, and it isn't the Ace, keep it. Keep the Ace too if it's your only Club, as long as you have another card to lose the lead with.

I try not to pass the 2 of Clubs if I have it, even if I void everything else in the clubs suit.

Again, judgement call. The 2 of Clubs guarantees you'll lose the trick, but pretty much everything except the Ace will do the same. If you have both and it's a "pass left" hand you have a choice; pass the 2 and play last this trick to lead the next, or pass the Ace and play last next trick. I do agree with you though, the 2 of clubs is usually a keeper.

I prefer not to pass Q of spades to my left if I can keep her with not too great risk (having 4 other cards of spades)

As with most strategy games, I don't think there's an optimal way to answer this.  I tend to focus on what cards I want to keep.  I'll address a non-Shoot-The-Moon hand because that's the majority of hands I play.

I like the Ace of Clubs.  Having the early lead puts you in control.
I prefer to void Clubs or Diamonds as soon as possible.
I won't ever pass 2 through Jack of Spades to void the suit.  That leaves you open to get passed a single high spade that might stick you with the Queen.
I'll hold the Queen of Spades if it's protected by several other spades and I can easily void another suit.  Otherwise, I say pass it so you reduce the risk of being stuck with it.  Again, it's about being in control.
I like holding A-2 of Diamonds.  I'll pass middle Diamonds to set that up.  You can usually win an early trick (before Hearts are broken) with the Ace, then lead the 2 (or similar low card) to void the suit.
I don't mind holding a high Heart or two.  At worst it's 4-8 points, and you have a play to stop a Shoot-the-Moon by someone else.

I've never really considered where I'm passing cards.  I probably should, but I'm not serious enough of a player to learn why it might matter.  My main goal is flexibility.  Unless I'm holding 2-5 of each suit, I'd rather not have to play follow-the-leader.

This is a good 'stage 1' strategy.  However, if you play with the same people often, this, like many card games, stops being about the gameplay and becomes more psychological.  In my game group, we started by 'voiding clubs/diamonds' then we realized that everyone did this, so we were effectively nullifying passing.  There's something quite satisfying in taking a round 3 'protected' queen of spades, with an Ace of spades, then 'winning' the last trick for a shoot with your J of spades against a hole Ace and King of hearts.

Never try to pass away all your spades.  If someone then passes you the Queen, you have a high chance of getting stuck.
Similarly, never pass away a bunch of low hearts.  This again leaves you open to catching lots of unwanted tricks if you are passed the high ones.
Only pass the Queen of Spades if you don't have a bunch of other spades;  having other spades makes you more likely to be able to drop the Queen (and only the Queen) at the most devastating moment.
If you can completely get rid of all (or all high) cards of a certain suit, do it IF that suit is Diamonds or Clubs.  Don't do it otherwise.

Assuming you're not trying to Shoot the Moon, I usually approach it from the strategy of trying to take as few tricks as possible:

Can you short yourself out of a non-Spades suit? The sooner you can be out of a suit, the sooner you can be dumping high cards from other suits (or just unloading hearts in general).
If you have spades, look at tossing the K&A - they're just plain dangerous.
If you have the Queen of Spades, you need to decide if you're likely to be able to dump it on someone else. (If you had Q & K or A and are passing left, you can set them up as a patsy, for instance). If not, toss the sucker.
If you're short on clubs, feel free to hold on to one and pass a higher card from another suit. Since you always start on clubs and you can't take points on the first hand, one club is always safe.

What's a patsy?

@JoeZeng Another term for "unwilling participant" (or "sucker", depending on the playgroup)

Your card-passing strategy should also take into account the opponent you're passing your cards to. For example, if you are passing to an opponent that semi-regularly tries to shoot the moon, make sure you aren't playing into their hand. For example, don't pass them the Ace, Queen, and Jack of Hearts. Mix in a low heart or a mid-range non-heart card.

The other answers are good but I'll also add, never pass your highest heart if it is J or higher. Otherwise, you are handing the other person a moon shot.

Other answers good; my two cents: If you pass high hearts include a low heart too. It makes it very hard for someone to shoot the moon if you pass them the Ace and the 2 of Hearts.

Hard but not impossible. The unspoken rule everywhere I've played is that you never pass the Ace of Hearts; you keep it to make sure that one other person, even yourself, takes some Hearts.

Another reason hold onto the queen if you have sufficient backers is that you can lead or play higher problem diamonds and/or clubs without the fear of catching her. The most you'll do early on is catch a heart but not generally until a few tricks have been played.this also works well when you catch her in the pass.

If you are passing right, always feel free to pass the queen of spades and keep the king and queen as you will never take the queen as long as the person on your right does not lead it, (unlikely)

Don't break hearts with the Ace.  If you pass the Q of spades and then lead spades, you won't be invited back.

This does not answer the question or add anything to the discussion.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


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Variations in scoring "his nobs" and "his heels"
I've been playing cribbage for a greater portion of my lifetime, and until recently I haven't really played any games where the rules and customs varied much from what I was taught by my grandfather.  Every online reference I've read, and electronic version of the game, has generally agreed with my understanding of how cribbage is played and scored.
So, it was a strange moment when I was playing against an uncle from the other side of my family and found that he expected the scoring of "his nobs" and "his heels" to be opposite of what I'd learned.
By common rules, "his nobs" refers to when any player holds a Jack in his hand which has the same suit as the starter card.  "His heels" is awarded to the dealer when the starter card itself is a Jack.  Both my uncle and I agree on this.  What we disagree on is the value of each.  I (and, it seems, most of the rest of the world's cribbage players) understand "his nobs" to be valued at one point, and "his heels" at two - my uncle believes the reverse.
I imagine he's probably been playing cribbage for longer than I've been alive, so this has me wondering:  Is this a common variant in cribbage rules?  Are there others like this?

I suggest explaining the following motivation for assigning points in that way. If you have the Jack that is the same suit as the starter card, you get 1 point. But if a Jack is the starter card, then nobody has the opportunity to earn that point. So, the dealer is given the benefit of the doubt as if they had the Jack in each of their hands (their hand and the crib), so they get 2 points.

This is not a common variation that I have heard of, and research on multiple cribbage sources seems to agree that Knobs (starter hand jacks) are always 1 point and heels (or flipped/dealer jacks) are 2 points.
This may very well be a case of a small player group misunderstanding or altering the rules. Rules for games like cribbage can often be changed in the same way that playing a game of "telephone" or telling a story by word-of mouth can change the original wording in subtle or not-so-subtle ways.

My family has a cribbage board where the track is the shape of the numbers "2,9". Guess they'd have to get a "30" to play with this variant!


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Can two Creepers be attached to the same Keeper?
Some Creepers say they must be attached to a Keeper if you have a Keeper in play. If you end up with two such Creepers, and only one Keeper, can both Creepers be attached to the lone Keeper? Or is there a limit of one Creeper per Keeper?
I haven't found anything in the official Rules or FAQ, which came with the game, to address this scenario.

From a discussion on BGG http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/917715/multiple-creeper-question

Q:Can a single keeper have more then one creeper attached? Evil/Malfunction, two Brain Parasites, etc.
A:Yes, as long as both Creepers are allowed to attach to the card, there can be two Creepers attached to the same card.
Q:Also, do you choose which keepers get the attached creeper if you can?
A:Yes, if there is more than one Keeper that a Creeper can attach to when it's played, you get to choose. If it can't attach to anything when it's played, it stays unattached and attaches to the first Keeper it can.


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Counting multi-runs in cribbage
I've recently begun memorizing totals of common multi-run combinations to help score cribbage hands.  I've seen some others do this as well.
Short-Hand Examples:

AS AC 2H 3H | 6D - A double-run of three for eight.
AS AC 2H 3H | 4D - A double-run of four for ten.
AS AC 2H 3H | 3D - A double-double-run for sixteen.
AS AC AD 2H | 3D - A triple-run for fifteen.

The alternative methods of counting these hands can be rather long and cumbersome, and can add to what might already be a rather complex hand if there's also fifteens involved.
Long-Hand Examples:

AS AC 2H 3H | 6D

A run of three for three, a run of three for six, and a pair makes eight.
Two runs of three for six, and a pair makes eight.

AS AC 2H 3H | 4D

A run of four for four, a run of four for eight, and a pair makes ten.
Two runs of four for eight, and a pair makes ten.

AS AC 2H 3H | 3D

A run of three for three, a run of three for six, a run of three for nine, a run of three for twelve, a pair for fourteen, and a pair make sixteen.
Four runs of three for twelve, and two pairs make sixteen.

AS AC AD 2H | 3D

A run of three for three, a run of three for six, a run of three for nine, a pair for eleven, a pair for thirteen, and a pair makes fifteen.
Three runs of three for nine, and trips make fifteen.

Nightmare Example:

7S 7C 7H 8D | 9C

Really Long:  Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, a run of three for nine, a run of three for twelve, a run of three for fifteen, a pair for seventeen, a pair for nineteen, and a pair makes twenty-one.
Somewhat Short:  Fifteen two, fifteen four, fifteen six, three runs of three for fifteen, and trips make twenty-one.
Short-Hand:  Three fifteens for six, and a triple-run makes twenty-one.

Is it a commonly accepted method to use the above short-hand combinations to announce your score?  Are there any tournament rules for or against this?

I use the shorthands you make mention of, but when they're not present I always make a point of counting 2-point combos (and 4-point runs, if applicable) first. Keeping the score tally even as long as possible is easy to follow.

@Gregor I do roughly the same. Usually my order is (for each present): Fifteens, Pairs (skipping any that are a part of a multi-run), Run/Multi-Run, Knobs.

According to the American Cribbage Congress rules there is no specification as to HOW you score your hand but the score must be said in a way that is understood by your opponent and that they accept the total.
From http://www.cribbage.org/rules/rule9.asp
Rule 9.2. Order Of Counting

The counting and pegging of the hands and crib shall be done in the following sequence.
Each step must be completed before the next is started.

a. The pone shall count his or her hand first, announcing the total, and peg the score.
Pone shall leave cards face up until any claim or overpegging is resolved or until the
dealer indicates acceptance of the pone's pegging by counting his or her hand.

...

This continues on for each of the phases of the count with the dealer accepting the pone and the pone accepting the dealer thru the hand and the crib separately. So as long as your opponent understands your "shorthand" then it should be acceptable play.

Not to be trite, but the score is the score!
Announcing point contributions from the various categories (runs, pairs, same suit, correct Jack, etc.) should suffice. Note: this is what you have called "shorthand".
Of course, this all depends on the level of play. If I'm teaching the game to a new player, I would go as far as to count (the first example) as "one, two, three" (pause), "four, five, six... and a pair of Aces is eight".
In a tournament, players should know that pairs/trips/quads are worth 2/6/12, runs are calculated as (length of run) times (multiplicities of each rank involved), etc.

I understand that the way the score is counted has no effect on what the score is.  However in some circles - especially tournaments - there may be rules or expectations that scores are counted in a certain way to avoid confusion.  I'm not much familiar with tournament play or rules yet, so I thought asking here would be appropriate.  If you can provide a reference to support your statement regarding tournament play, I'd appreciate it.

The rules of the ACC don't explicitly mention how to count. The overall tone of the rules promotes politeness and grace...

Just be prepared to break it down if your opponent fails to grok your shorthand. Double Run, Triple Run, Double-Double run, and Pair Royal (=3 of a kind) are pretty widely used, and most competent players will know what you mean by them. Most tournament players will be well more than just competent... The only one that's standard that a lot of players don't know is "his heels"... many confuse it with "his knobs"...


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Evaluating a Dominion Kingdom set
How do you analyze a Dominion Kingdom set to determine what your strategy is going to be for the game? In other words, are you looking for specific cards? for abilities (e.g., trashing cards or chaining actions)? for combos (e.g., if I draw these two cards together then I can do X)? for counter-strategies? How do you rank those things in your evaluation process?
I'm trying to learn what the thought process behind the strategy looks like, so walking through specific examples, like the suggested Kingdom card setups, would be greatly appreciated.
Feel free to use any Dominion expansions in your advice.

Know the difference between an early game card and a mid game card
Quickly evaluate what cards will be good for your first few buys (besides money). This is the only time where it doesn't matter if an action is terminal or not because you won't really have many actions. Deck thinning cards like chapel, cards that let you draw a lot like smithy, and cheap attack cards like militia can all be good investments. Plan your first few buys out of the good starter cards.
Other things to keep in mind:

Cards that give you +actions. This will help you judge how many combos to go for. If there's tons, stock up on those and draws to get some major combinations.
Cards that give you +buys. You definitely want a few of these for your later game, its a matter of what options you have. Don't go for woodcutter unless you don't really have any better choices. Having a good amount of buys can also help you end the game early if you want, but that requires some advanced planning.
Cards that give you +cards. How much money do I need to buy? Are cards that give +actions but NOT +cards going to be effective?
Cards that give you +$. If your only source of $ is from treasures, don't skimp on gold because your action chains will only get you more cards and maybe some attacks.
Attack and reaction cards. Helps you judge how much interaction there will be and how you will prepare. If there's going to be a cursing war (witch), might as well not get left out/defenseless.
How strong is big-money? This helps you know how hard you should go on actions. If all you need to win happens to be some silver, gold, a witch, and some counsel rooms, make sure you take that into account. Actually evaluating how strong this combo will be is more complex, but recognizing that it exists is a good start.
Unique cards that need certain combos to work well. Don't get adventurer unless you have a higher density of gold in your deck. Only get gardens if you plan to have the cards to expand your deck to 40+ cards. Don't get a throne room unless you have something worth throne-rooming. Get a library or two if people are going hard on militia because it lets you redraw all the cards you lost.

As per your request, here's an analysis of the starting cards they recommend.
Cellar, moat, village, militia, workshop, woodcutter, smithy, remodel, mine, market. They're listed here.
There's one strong attack card, so a moat or two would probably be a good investment if people end up buying as they should. Hit the village and market pretty hard (maybe cellar as well if you have a lot of weak cards in your deck) because they're the only ones that give +actions and you're main hope for getting big combos if you choose to go that route. Remodel and mine will let you get rid of bad cards, like estates, so get on that soon if possible. woodcutter and market both give +buys. Woodcutter is one of my least favorite cards as a silver is almost always a better bet. Since you can get +buys from market I personally wouldn't buy any Woodcutters at all. Village will be good for combos because there's a few terminal actions that are very useful (militia, smithy, workshop, etc.) Since remodel is available you will able to hone your deck to a slight degree later in the game, so don't be super afraid of buying cards that will only be mostly useful short-term, like a mine at the beginning of the game.
for the beginning:

2-5 split: Get either a moat or a cellar for the 2$ buy and a mine. At this point, anything that gives you extra actions isn't really very beneficial, AKA village. Anything you can do to get rid of your bad cards (AKA mine) in the beginning is almost always a good idea. A moat will protect you from the early militias that will likely be played, but a cellar would help you go through your deck more quickly and get to the better cards in it. I'd probably go with the moat first and then cellar in the next few turns.
3-4 split: Get a workshop and a smithy/remodel/militia. These are all great early 4$ cards, the smithy will let you draw lots of cards, the remodel will let you trash bad cards, and the militia will put you ahead and slow others players down, all of which are amazing strategies. I'd probably go with the remodel or militia, but you'll be able to get more 4 cost cards with workshop soon after anyway, so it won't make a huge difference.

Here's some rough estimates of how many I'd go for long term.

cellar: 2-3, great cards that keeps your chain going. Good if you've only got 2$,  otherwise go with something more powerful.
moat: 1-3, Only get if militia is being used a lot, or maybe you need to draw cards for cheap, a cellar won't work, and you don't have many action cards (otherwise you'd probably have something better to play in your hand).
village: 2-3, good for mid game combos, depends on how many +cards cards you have.
militia: 1-3, beat on your opponents while getting money, what's not to like?
workshop: 1-2, good at the beginning, only buy 2 if you can remodel into market later or have a strategy that works with lots of cards costing 4 or less.
woodcutter: 0, go with a silver instead. This isn't a kingdom set where trading an action for a buy is going to be worthwhile very often.
smithy: 1, good at beginning of the game, maybe remodel later into gold. Only get 2 if you have a couple of villages or a big money strategy (not many actions in your deck).
remodel/mine: 1-2 of each. Try to get them early so you can upgrade your deck. Think about the odds of you getting them and the cards you want to upgrade at the same time. A mine is a total disadvantage if you have very little copper or silver, so plan accordingly. Remodel I'd probably go with 2 just because you can remodel gold into provinces in the later game.
market: 2-5. This is a pretty generic cards that is almost always helpful and will be strong with this kingdom set, but be sure to weigh it properly against the other options and don't just choose it because its a good all-around card.
gold: buy lots early, there's not a set number. As I said earlier you will want to determine how much money you'll want to buy early in the game. Buy some silver early if you like, or use mine/workshop to get it instead. In the beginning you'll want to get gold whenever you have 6, especially since you can remodel them into provinces. Once you get to late game you might want to go with a duchy instead.

Potential combos:

remodel + gold = make money into provinces during end-game.
remodel + workshop = get lots of cards costing 3-4 and crank them up to better stuff later. Workshop is a good early card that you can remodel later if you need to as its not very strong in the end-game.
remodel + mine = get 2 mines early and upgrade as many copper and silver as possible. Then remodel the mine into a gold once you don't need it anymore.
workshop + village = Use workshops to get lots of villages and smithy's while you use you actual money for better things. A village in your deck never hurts as long as you aren't using to much energy to buy it, and the village + smithy combination can get you some mega drawing action.
village + militia = launch a relentless attack with 3+ militias to keep other players' cards down. Add village to keep your chains going. If you buy up moats you can be even more evil.
cellar + moat + village = get some silver and gold
woodcutter + mine = get some woodcutters early with $ or a workshop. Use the extra buys to stock up on copper, and have 2 or 3 mines to crank up the copper into silver and gold. This is sort of a modification of big money, so getting a smithy can help. Just watch your number of terminal actions. I crossed this one out because its actually pretty weak. Buying copper is rarely useful, and relying on getting lucky to use a mine to upgrade it to a silver is pretty bad as it really dilutes your deck.

These are only guidelines. Dominion is a dynamic enough game that no strategy should ever be followed to the letter. Use your judgement and knowledge of combos to make a good choice, but flexibility is always important.
Another very interesting read is about the silver test, which is basically where you weigh all your $3, $4, and $5 choices against a silver. If you read this, be sure to skim through read the replies with +20 score to make sure you get both sides of the story!

Evaluating a kingdom set properly takes practice, and experience is the best teacher. However, this should give you a pretty good start to learning some of the most important issues.
If you want to see some other specific sets analyzed, post them in a different question and I'd be glad to help. :)

I'm a little confused by Village/Militia being listed as a combo. As the Militia attack doesn't stack and Village card draw only replaces itself, something like "Village, Militia, Militia" is just a more complicated way of getting the same result as "Militia, Silver." Granted, you don't have an action left over, but you're not relying on having the village in hand to start things off.

Though I should also say +1 for a nice and thorough answer!

I'm only an occasional Dominion player so take any advice from me with a pinch of salt, but...
Generally I'd be looking for a couple of cards that seem like they would combo well with each other.  In my first few games I was like a kid in a candy store, buying one each of many different action cards.  This was all well and good, except the performance of my deck was pretty much completely random!
Most newbies, like me, just don't get that building quick money and then early Provinces can often be a surer route to victory than splashing out on a dozen "cool" action cards.  If you are investing in actions, you'd better make sure they are (a) good, (b) good in combination with each other, and (c) not clogging up valuable slots in your deck that would be better off having Silvers in them!  As such, you want to err on the side of buying fewer action cards, not more, in general.
One other important consideration: immediately check what Attack cards are available, and also what defences.  If there is a really good Attack out there, jumping on it early and in multiples can cripple your opponents' effectiveness before they have time to develop their game.  Conversely, if someone else beats you to the punch and is clearly about to start throwing out attacks every turn, make sure you have the Reaction cards you need to survive such an onslaught, if at all possible!

Personally the first thing I look for is trashing cards or other deck thinners - Chapel, Steward, Ambassador, etc.  Nothing opens up the opportunity for a powerful deck, regardless of other available cards, like a thinner.
Next I'll generally look for action-draw chains like Laboratory, Alchemist, or Village + a heftier draw card.  This is mostly because I personally get a kick out of splashy action chains, even though they're not always best.
Scoping out the existing attacks is good - some Attack cards are more popular than others.  If Pirate Ship is out there, you'd better have a plan to account for it even if you're not personally going to buy any.  I personally don't tend to attack much so I mostly focus on how I'll defend the clear attacks on the board.
When all this basic stuff is clear in your mind, sometimes you really just have to wing it and hope to spot a cool interaction between cards on the board.  Sometimes the best play really is Silver + Silver the first two turns until you see what the others will do.

I tend to focus on which cards will net me the most points.  Perhaps that's a Colony, or Dukes and Duchies, or Gardens, etc...  If any of those exist I focus on building them to max potential, so in the example of having Gardens on the table, I would focus on cards with +Buy or "Gain a card" and stay away from deck thinning cards (Trash cards).  For Duke/Duchy I would look for cards that let me get extra cards costing 5 like Feast (especially effective for this strategy if Throne Room is also available), or a Bridge coupled with a Workshop or Ironworks.
So the idea of focusing on specific combos is right, but make sure that that combo works well with the Victory cards on the board.  A deck thinning strategy is great for cards like Library, but would work against you with Gardens on the board.
Dual type cards can also be a huge boon and a great thing to focus on in your combo hunting.  Combos like Scout + Nobles or Harem and Ironworks + Great Hall are good choices to focus on too.
Another thing I look at is are there any cards that allow giving out curses, because being able to block them with a defensive card or being able to dole out curses in bundles can sometimes be a great strategy (Throne Room + Witch).
All in all, focus on the kingdom cards that augment your VPs (both positive and negative) and focus your strategy around those.

Since everyone plays differently, I'll just share my personal checklist for coming up with my board strategies.
1: I'm a "Thin-to-Win" guy so the first thing I'm looking for is a decent, preferably non-type-specific trasher. So I'm looking for Chapel, Steward, Bishop or Forge. In a pinch, Moneylender, Counterfeit or Spice Merchant are good for dumping your early Coppers. For later in the game, I'm also checking for something like Remodel or Governer to upgrade Golds to Provinces.
2: Are there any attack cards I can either use, or have to counter? If Thief or Noble Brigands is on the field, I'm checking for either alt-money or or a direct counter-card (Moat). If there's a hand-size attack (Goons, Urchin, Militia), then I'm checking if there's Watchtower, Library or multi-card draws (Preferably with a Village variant since those are usually terminal cards). Junkers can usually be handled either with the aforementioned Trashers, or Watchtower, but Trader's also nice for getting a Silver instead of a Curse.
3: Are there any entertaining or potential Mega-Turn combos? Something like King's Court/Bridge, Hermit/Market Square, Beggar/Gardens, Goons/Watchtower etc. If you're playing with experienced opponents (or even just opponents who've seen that particular combo before), you either need to prepare to counter/mitigate it or go for it yourself.
I usually have pretty good luck by taking the above into consideration, though my usual opponents are starting to adapt to my play-style.

One thing worth mentioning... Since Bishop helps your opponents trash cards just as much as you, it may not be good to think of it as a deck thinner in general (with deck thinners, if you use them but your opponent doesn't, then your deck should be thinner than his. But Bishop doesn't do this).

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


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Transitioning to Dominion late-game
At what point in a Dominion game should a player stop buying middle value cards (e.g., Silver or other cards more suited to mid-game play than Province/Colony-buying sprees)?

One of the first things I try and figure out when evaluating a set of kingdom cards is to try and figure out which way I think the game will end.  Is it going to be a three-stack game or a province/colony game?  Are there cards that push it in one direction or another?  Am I going to try and push it one way or another, and what do I know about the tendencies of my fellow gamers (and their first turn purchases)?  If I believe that it's going to be a three-stack game, or I will be pushing it that way, there is no mid-game for me.  I'm usually going to try and buy as many VP cards as I can while keeping my deck's head above water.  Since I've evaluated the tableau and decided that there won't be an extended run on Provinces/Colonies, the bar for success in my deck has changed.  Trying to keep a consistent 5 purchase power (for Duchies) is a much different thing than trying to build to a consistent 8 or more, and in such a deck, mid-power cards can always be useful.
If I've decided that it's going to be a game where one of the big VP stacks is going to run out, then presumably I've decided how I'm going to drive me economy.  At every step of the way, what matters more to me than anything else is answering two rolling questions:  what is the average value of the cards in my deck and how does my purchase change that number.  Adding silver to a starting deck changes things from .7 $/c to .82 $/c, pretty good.  A Laboratory, added to a starting deck, does a little worse, .76 $/c.  But, later on in the game, if you've got a deck that is averaging 1.5 $/c over, say, 25 cards, adding a silver doesn't do much, 1.52 $/c.  But a Lab does better, 1.62 $/c.  Etc.  Obviously, I'm not computing this stuff directly at the table, but you should have a rough idea of where you are at and should only buy cards that can move the needle.  Stuff like Silver (or similar cards that don't have +Cards attached to them) is limited, and should be avoided once the average value of your deck is getting close to their inherent value.

Nice answer.  I wish I was close to having such a good feel for the average value of the cards in my deck!

One important thing is knowing how many reshuffles are left for you in the game. Different kingdom cards will lend themselves to different deck sizes, which in turn can tell you how much victory cards are going to weigh down your deck. If another player is looking to end the game soon and is ahead, you probably want to scramble to get as many points as you can, even if its from duchies and estates instead of provinces. This is really helpful when deciding when to buy the lower victory cards.
Its usually fairly easy to get an idea of how many turns are going to go by before the game ends by looking at how many cards are left in the various relevant piles and how quickly players are buying them. You should always have a general sense of how many cards are in your deck. Within 5 cards of the total size is good, though I've seen people who can tell you how many cards are in their deck AND discard pile at any point in the game.
Divide by the average number of cards you're drawing per turn to get a rough estimate of how many reshuffles are left. If you have a treasure heavy deck and not many sources of +cards, you may draw an average of 6 or less cards per turn. If you've got a super action chaining deck you may have an average of 9 or more cards per turn. Obviously its very difficult to get a precise estimate of the number of reshuffles left due to its many influencing factors, but you can usually do well enough. Unless you have more than 6 reshuffles left, just buy the dang province. If you have 3-4 reshuffles left, consider getting that duchy. I you have 1-2, get an estate or whatever the hell you can because there's no point in doing anything that doesn't get you direct points.
Obviously this is a very inexact science, and these are just very general rules. There's a ton of factors that affect your decisions on every turn. There's 2 important things in Dominion:

Knowing how to build an efficient deck in the beginning and mid-game.
Knowing when to stop making your deck efficient and just get those dang points! :D


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Best Light Strategy Party Games?
I'm wondering, what are some good games for mixed gamer/non-gamer parties?  I've had good luck with some light strategy games in the past, but nothing too serious.  What's good, quick, and can easily incorporate a lot of people?

There are of course different definitions of light strategy games, so I will just mention some games, which I have introduced to nongamers in parties, and which have been interesting both for them as well as more experienced gamers (in random order).
Games which can be explained in 5 min
Small pure card games:

Saboteur: 3-10 players, 30 min
6 Nimmt! or Category 5: 2-10 players, 45 min (usually less)
Coloretto: 2-5 players, 30 min (this one I really like despite its simple rules)

Cards and some bits:

Citadels: 2-7(8 with usually included expansion) players, 60 min - this one is a must have
DiXit: 3-6 players, 30 min - almost no strategy but very good and can be easily played with upt to 8 players even using just the expansion and writing points down on a paper

Abstract:

Rumis(+): 2-4(6 with expansion) players, 45 min
Blokus: 1-4 players, 20 min

Other:

Ca$h'n Gun$: 4-6 players, 30 min
Fast food or any other reaction game like Halli Galli, jugle speed are all around 2(3)-6(8) players and 10-15min
Roll through the ages: the bronze age: 1-4 players, 30 min (this is a nice gem, also pure gamers love it, and when you have taught all others some games and don't have anything to do, you can play it by yourself ;))

Games, that require a little longer explanation, but are still manageable

Bohnanza: 2-7 players, 45 min. Even though this is an easy game, explaining it always takes me more time than I like
Bang!: 4-7 players, 30 min. This one is really good for more players, but explanation takes some time. Can be modified so, that healing beer cards make the player drink a tequila shot ;)
Dominion: 2-4 players, 30 min. Everybody loves this one, and it can be played as fast filler. Just don't overdose with expansions in the first session. If you have an expansion, you can run more than one parallel game.
Agricola (Family version): 1-5 players, 120 min. If you are really adventurous explainer and have longer time to kill in a small party, this actually can work really well. My nongaming in-laws understood the family version on ~10 min and really liked it (even though their score wasn't great)
7 wonders: 2-7 players, 30 min. As previously mentioned it might look intimidating, but is easily explained and a fast game.

In my opinion one of the most important things for a game to be successful with non-gamers and casual gamers is the capability of "getting in the game fast" - you must generalize the important rules and guidelines and delve into details as you go. If you do so, and the game is not a total brain burner and doesn't exceed some 2h, you will be able to play almost any game with nongamers.
Basically:

Persuade them, how cool the game is
Don't scare them away before they get into it

Also, a good advice by Tynam - with some exceptions, like bang and saboteur, try to split the group in several smaller gaming sessions with similar expected game time, so they can mix the games during the evening.
Edit: Added hyperlinks as promised

Great, dare I say definitive answer?  I like that you aren't afraid to mention games that people who want to get into boardgames might enjoy, instead of just games that won't offend the lowest common denominator :D

go go gadget tequila shot ;)

Bang
Fast, not too complex, contains casual violence towards your fellow partygoers.
(Cash and Guns works well for the same reasons.)

Bang has the property of different players getting knocked out of the game at different times; this may be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on what type of party it is.  (It's good for players to be able to "suicide" if they want to go mingle... but bad if one person has to sit on the sidelines of a game everyone else is enjoying.)  I've only played Cash and Guns once but it might be similar.  However, you can't really fault a party game where everyone gets to point big foam rubber guns at each other!

Cash and guns can have early knockouts, but doesn't often, as it lets you duck out when under heavy threat.  So usually all players will last most of the game.  And yes, it's the rubber guns that make it a great party game.

Assuming you don't want something that is fun for gamers and non-gamers alike, but doesn't really count as a strategy game (Apples to Apples?  Dixit?)...
7 Wonders
I got "7 Wonders" for Christmas, it's pretty light as strategy games go and has an easy theme that anyone who's heard of the computer game Civilization will quickly comprehend and enjoy.  It takes up to 7 players, as the name might suggest, and only lasts half an hour per game.  Each player only has to interact with their left- and right-hand neighbours so it's not too intimidating; and you have the choice of either cooperating with neighbours (buying their stuff, while they buy yours in return) or amassing superior military force, so it should appeal to most temperaments!
I haven't actually tried it with non-gamers, but it strikes me that it would be a perfect "gateway game", while simultaneously accommodating a pretty large group.  Could be worth a try!

I just played 7 Wonders for the first time, and I think you're overestimating the ability of non-gamers to keep track of everything. There's a good amount going on in that game, and ~8 different ways you can amass points; non-gamers aren't used to that sort of thing

Agreed, this is far too complicated for a casual party game.

Well, it depends on your crowd.  Random drunk partygoers who think boardgames start and end with Monopoly: definitely won't work.  People who've expressed an interest in boardgames, have maybe played some Settlers of Catan and quite enjoyed it, I think 7 Wonders would be an excellent length and not absurdly overcomplex.

Having said all that I have, I sprang this on 6 other people who'd never heard of it at my boardgames night last night.  Some of them really took to it: in fact, there was an immediate clamour after the game had finished that we should play again, and we did (though only a 4 player game this time).  One or two people really couldn't get the hang of it though, kept on trying to build things they didn't have the resources for, clearly couldn't cope with the concept of trading.  With regret I must concede that this is probably not a game ideally suited for totally non-gamery types :(

I'm a little surprised that no-one has mentioned Werewolf yet.
It's quick to explain, quick to set up, works best with a large (9+) number of players, requires nothing more than a Poker deck, can be played by gamers and non-gamers, and still plays well if the players in the game have a wide range of play-skills.

The Resistance
Simple 5-10 player social game where a set number of people are spies infiltrating a group of resistance fighters.  Brings out some of the witch hunt of Battlestar Galactica without all those pesky rules and components getting in the way.  Plays fast.  The recent printing has great quality components.

Here's a few I pull out at parties:

Bonanza
Kill Dr. Lucky
Unexploded Cow
Hey That's My Fish!
Blockus

One of the most fun party games I've played (and the one that has generated the most laughter) is Eat Poop You Cat (or its commercial version, Telestrations). All you need is a stack of index cards (or paper) and a pen or marker for each player. Each person begins by writing a word or sentence on the top card or on top of the paper. They then pass their paper or card stack to the person on their left or right. This person looks at the words written and on the next card or below the words and then draws a picture illustrating the words. Then, they put the card with the words at the bottom of the stack or fold over the top of the paper, and pass it on to the next person who writes a word or sentence describing the picture. This repeats until everyone playing has gone through the process with each stack of card or paper. When people get their original stack or paper back, the chain of pictures and sentences is then revealed, generally to much laughter.

Ingenious
Always a solid simple abstract strategy game; allows 2–4 equally well and has that useful party property of being easily taught by someone who only just learned it themselves.

Wits and Wagers
It's like a fun version of Trivial Pursuit, only everyone guesses the answer and you get to bet on the right one.  Straightforward, and good for parties.

It is a great game, and ideal for most parties - not sure I'd go so far as to call it "light strategy" though!

The wagers portion is strategic, but I agree that the game is still pretty "light" in comparison to other games.


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Why does a run of 4 in Cribbage score only 4?
Cribbage scoring is fairly logical.  There are card combinations worth a given number of points and you can score every unique subset of cards independently and total up the score.  Except for runs of 4 or 5.
For example, a pair is worth 2.  Three of a kind is three different pairs (3 choose 2 is 3) and scores 6 (called a "pair royal").  A run is 3 or more cards in a row (e.g. 4, 5, 6) and scores one point per card.  It seems to me that in keeping with the other scoring rules, a 4-card run should score 6 (2 3-card runs each made by dropping the end cards) and a 5-card run should score 9.  Instead, a run scores one point per card.
Is there a logical reason I'm missing or is this just an inconsistency in Cribbage?
(afterthought:  a 5-card flush would score 20, which is a little too much)

How would a five-card flush score 20?

@Adam If a 4-card flush scores 4, then with 5 there are 5 ways to remove a card and still have a 4-card flush.

Okay duh, I hadn't made the mental leap to scoring flushes the same way as you'd asked about scoring runs: each unique way of getting four cards in the same suit. So yes, I agree with your afterthought, scoring a 5-card flush as 20 would be insane, given that it would be possible to have plenty of runs and 15s in there as well. It could blow the 29-point hand out of the water, which would way unbalance the game. One example of the new best hand would be 6-7-8-9-10, for 33 points.

@BenJackson: A 4 card flush only scores 4 if it's the 4 cards in hand.  3 cards in hand all matching the turn up, with the 4th card a different suit scores nothing.

First off, taken one way this might be an unanswerable question
I'm struggling with the question. It seems to be asking folks to guess on what they think the rationale might have been for scoring 4-card runs as 4-points instead of 6 (or some other number); however, since the game was invented in the 17th century its inventor is long-since dead, and absent some comprehensive history on the game and its inception that I'm not aware of the real answer to the question is not knowable. In other words, we can come up with some reasons that seem logical to us, but we will probably never understand the thought process of the game's inventor.
That said, here's why I like the rule as-is (and incidentally I like your question because I've had the same thought):
The best possible hand in cribbage is 29, which involves the Jack that counts for nobs and all of the 5s. Now although hands with lots of fives are always good, often retaining just one or two will only result in a mediocre score where you count a few 15s, a pair, and are done.
In contrast, a strategy that relies on runs, pairs, and 15s will have a lower maximum score, but will get more points if the up card is not exactly as desired.
For example if you're drawing for the best possible hand failing to get that last 5 as the up card will cost you 14 points, as you'll only score 15-8, a pair royal for 6 and 1 for his nobs for 15.
Consider now the runs, pairs, and 15s strategy, say for example, 6-7-7-8-9. Based on the rules this hand scores: 15-2 (7-8), 15-4 (7-8), 15-6 (6-9), run for 10 (6-7-8-9), run for 14 (6-7-8-9), and pair for 16 (7-7). A super solid hand. In the previous example there is only one card in the deck that gets you the extra 14 points. In this hand the best draw is one of the 4 nines, but the drop-off in points isn't that much if you draw another 8, or a 7, or a 6, or a 5. Less upside potential, but a much more robust hand statistically speaking.
Now here's why scoring runs differently breaks things.
If runs of 4 were scored as 6--or more precisely, if you got to count for 3 points every unique run of 3 that you could make, this hand scores much higher. The count to 15-6 is unchanged, but then: run for 9 (6-7-8), run for 12 (6-7-8), run for 15 (7-8-9), run for 18 (7-8-9), pair for 20 (7-7). Or perhaps a much simpler but more dramatic example is a hand of 5-6-7-8-9, where the score for just the runs would go from 5 points to 9.
If the value of runs is increased, this incentivises players to only go for the much more likely (and now also relatively more lucrative) run hands instead of the larger payoff but higher risk 15 hands. This would make the strategy of the game more myopic and because everyone would be playing the same way because the relative payoff of going for the knock-out blow would be much reduced.
I don't want to make too much of all this (too late probably) because ultimately a players freedom is highly restricted by their cards (you only get to discard 2 after all), but the incentives of changing the rule appear to be to be tilted in the wrong direction.

+1 - This is the kind of answer I've been waiting for all week.  Well thought out, and very informative!

Agreed.  All this quality analysis is making me want to learn how to play cribbage!

One tear...thanks guys. :) @thesunneversets you should learn, cribbage is crazy fun

I agree on the "unanswerable" angle, but thanks for answering what I was trying to ask, which is about why the game design favors a lower-scoring exception to the more general "score every subset of the hand independently" rule.

@Ben Jackson np, I figured that's what you were going for.

@thesunneversets I don't know if you have kids, but I can tell you from experience cribbage is a great way to get them to learn 1) numbers and counting 2) strategy and analysis 3) politics and 4) an appreciation for games! Bonus points for being easy to play in a car =0

Am I missing something or did you mis-count the "missed 29" example? You don't seem to specify which card actually turns up. By my count, setup for 29 (hand of 555J where J does not match the 5s) can end up scoring as low as 14 (four 15s for 8, plus trips makes 14) about half the time.

This is most likely, I think, a consistency thing between game and hand scoring of runs. During play you score for each card in a run, first player to get the run scores 3, then the second player for continuing it scores 4 - this rewards longer runs in game more without needing to ignore the last played card (to include the first sub-run of 3) which never happens in game. Now when we get to scoring in hand, we could allow counting sub-runs and not allow counting larger runs, but this then makes scoring harder because there are different rules for scoring the same thing between hand and game. While there are things not scored in one and scored in the other, like a flush, simpler scoring rules are better.
They could have scored longer runs differently, not per card, but this would make scoring harder to understand without thinking around it (why a run of 5 is worth 9) and would create the potential for some excessive single scores in long runs, Ace through 7 is the longest possible run, and in a 2 player game, scoring each card that finishes a longer run as 3 higher than the last would be 29 to one player (3+9+15 for runs and 2 for the 1,2,3,4,5 15) and 18 for the other player (6+12) for a total of 47 points between the players in a single go.

There isn't really a good reason why Cribbage does not score 2 3 4 5 as 234 345 (6 points) or flushes of five cards as 20.  The objection above
"So yes, I agree with your afterthought, scoring a 5-card flush as 20 would be insane, given that it would be possible to have plenty of runs and 15s in there as well."
doesn't really hold water.  A flush in poker is a very high hand - actually above a run.  It should score a high proportion of points.  A running flush is the highest hand and very very rare.
The only reason I can see for the rules as is is that it makes scoring runs in the playoff easier.  But IMO it is a fault.

Poker odds are based on probability: the flush is less likely than the straight (except in three card, where the reverse happens). Adam Wuerl explains perfectly why a consistent approach to likelihoods leads to valuing runs in cribbage as they currently are: they are much more likely to occur and thus they require less weight in scoring to ensure a variety of strategies remain available. Just as in poker, players must choose between stability with mediocre rewards or risk greater reward and drawback.

While writing a Cribbage app (BTO Cribbage), I had the same thought.  When I wrote the scoring module, it came to me with the following rule:
For straights, you get a point per card considering every unique combination of straights of 3 cards or more.
Example:
2,3,4 -> only 1 combination of straight = 3
2,3,4,4 -> 2 combinations of straights + 1 pair = 8
2,3,4,5 -> only 1 combination straight = 4
2,3,4,5,5 -> 2 combinations of straights + 1 pair + fifteen = 10

Easy right?  Now use the same logic for pairs / sets:
For sets (2,3,4) you get a point per card considering every unique combination of pairs.
Example (more detailed):
2C,2H -> 1 pair = 2 points
2C,2H,2D -> 3 pairs of 2C+2H, 2C+2D, 2H+2D = 6 points
2C,2H,2D,2S -> 6 pairs of 2C+2H, 2C+2D, 2H+2D, 2S+2C, 2S+2H, 2S+2D = 12 points

So in both cases, you score 1 point per card considering every combination.  If you think about it this way, straights are scored just as logically as sets.  Further, 15 scoring also works this way.

How does your game score 2,3,4,5?  It's not 2,3,4+3,4,5...

Good point Ben.  I guess the difference is that with sets / pairs, the combinations are ALL unique, as in the detailed example.  Whereas, in the 2,3,4 and 3,4,5 the sequence 3,4 are used twice and thereby not unique.  So the counting is for unique combinations.

@raider33 Not really, in combinations of pairs for 3 matching cards, you have 1 different card and 1 same card in each pair as each other pair, in runs of 3 out of 4 consecutive cards you'd still have 1 different card for each run, but 2 same cards.