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Is Loyal Cathar's ability a "delayed triggered ability"?

Loyal Cathar - When Loyal Cathar dies, return it to the battlefield transformed under your control at the beginning of the next end step.

Question reposted from user Zacula:

I believe that Cathar's ability is not a delayed ability that triggers at End of turn. The ability reads: "When Loyal Cathar dies, return it to the battlefield transformed under your control at the beginning of the next end step." It is triggered upon Loyal Cathar's death! it doesn't say: "If Loyal Cathar dies, at the beginning of the next end step return it... blah... blah... blah...

From the rulings, a triggered ability begins with the words "at", "when", "whenever". Loyal Cathar's aility triggers upon its death, so it is up to the controller of the two triggered abilities (Undying, and cathar's) to place them on the stack any way he/she wishes to. He will of course prefer the Undying to resolve first, hence the result will be the same as everybody else answered to this question.
My question is: am I right regarding the Cathar's ability not being a delayed triggered ability that triggers at the End step?"

You are partially right. Loyal Cathar's ability is actually a triggered ability that creates a delayed triggered ability.

603.1. Triggered abilities have a trigger condition and an effect. They are written as “[Trigger condition], [effect],” and begin with the word “when,” “whenever,” or “at.” They can also be expressed as “[When/Whenever/At] [trigger event], [effect].”
Loyal Cathar's ability can be parsed as follows [When][Trigger Condition], [effect]:

[Loyal Cathar dies], - is the Trigger Condition.
[return it to the battlefield transformed under your control at the beginning of the next end step] - is the effect.

The effect of the triggered ability sets up a delayed triggered ability that triggers at the the beginning of the next end step (see example below).

603.7c A delayed triggered ability that refers to a particular object still affects it even if the object changes characteristics. However, if that object is no longer in the zone it’s expected to be in at the time the delayed triggered ability resolves, the ability won’t affect it. (Note that if that object left that zone and then returned, it’s a new object and thus won’t be affected. See rule 400.7.)
Example: An ability that reads “Exile this creature at the beginning of the next end
step” will exile the permanent even if it’s no longer a creature during the next end step.
However, it won’t do anything if the permanent left the battlefield before then.

The original question that spawned your question still has the correct checkmarked answer. Loyal Cathar's ability will fail to find the card in the graveyard, because Undying Evil already returned it to the battlefield. So, when the delayed triggered ability resolves at the beginning of the end of turn, it will fail to do anything. If Loyal Cathar dies again before the beginning of the end of turn, the original delayed triggered ability will still fail to do anything, because the Undying Evil returned Loyal Cathar is a new object.

Here's how I understand it:
2 abilities trigger simultaneously when "Loyal Cathar dies", since they have the same trigger condition. Their controller chooses on how to place them on the stack.
If he chooses to place Undying first and Cathar's ability above it, the latter will resolve first and it will set the Delayed triggered ability "return it to the battlefield transformed under your control at the beginning of the next end step", then Undying resolves, it checks if the creature had no +1/+1 counters on it, and as a result it returns it to the battlefield under its owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it. Then, at the End step, the delayed triggered ability set by the resolution of Cathar's ability triggers, but fizzles due to not finding the Cathar in the zone it was expecting it to be (Graveyard).
If the active player chooses to place the abilities in reverse order though, Undying will resolve first, it will check what it checks, and will return the creature to the battlefield under its owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it. Then Cathar's ability will try to resolve, but it doesn't find Cathar in the zone it expects it to be (Graveyard), so it fizzles without creating the Delayed triggered ability. Hence nothing triggers at the End step.
So, in the second scenario Loyal Cathar's Delayed triggered ability won't even trigger, since the triggered ability that creates it fizzled. This is excactly what I was saying from the beginning. Of course, I was indeed partially right, since I did not think of the first scenario. In any case Undying happens, either way the controller chooses to stack the abilities, so why even bother thinking about all these??
We are geeks, aren't we??? :P :P :P

The rules disagree. LC's trigger is only checking if it died. ("is put into a graveyard from the battlefield."), which it did. The game state is checked to verify that LC did trigger, then the ability is put on the stack. It doesn't check again until the delayed trigger ability resolves. Even if you believe that this card contained an intervening "if" clause, what part is failing to do anything (since it isn't doing anything until EOT). "the part of the ability attempting to do something to the object will fail to do anything."


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How can I play games with closed information with players who cheat?
Some would call it cheating. The perpetrators sometimes call it creative play. These players are the kind of people who think it is ok to peek at the bottom card while shuffling a poker deck to give themselves an edge, or glance at the cards in player's hands seated next to them when that player is casually holding their cards and not secreting them close to their face. They forget they have evidence that Col. Mustard isn't the killer and claim that they, "cannot disprove you," leading to your unfortunate accusation. They tell you go fish, even when they are holding the card you are looking for. They rearrange ship parts on their spaceship boards after grabbing a new part, or put parts back into the supply from their save space after finding out that they don't fit. Many of the people who engage in this sort of behavior don't believe it is wrong, they sort of see it as a game within the game, to see how much of an edge they can acquire without getting caught.
In the old west, these players could be shot. Unfortunately, we live in a more civilized time, where that sort of thing is frowned upon, no matter how much better it would make the world.
I got to thinking about this question after asking this one regarding Treasure Map. At first, I thought that the card was badly designed. Since the game's golden rule for following card rules is, "Do everything that you can," this card would require a 3rd party to verify that you don't have a Treasure Map in hand. My reasoning was flawed, because I was thinking about the card in terms of a tournament setting where monetary gain might influence players to cheat. Then it got me thinking about the large set of games with closed information. In most of those games, the designers don't expect players to have a third party verify that players aren't "playing creatively," and designers don't expect players to do so.
In an open information game, it is much more difficult to cheat. There is no information that needs to remain hidden, so cheaters can't just look at your facedown hand. Rearranging pieces that are open information is fraught with much more peril, because the cheater might be playing against someone with a good memory, "Wait, my King wasn't in check?"
What are some good ways to influence a cheater to not "play creatively" in your group? Please understand, I don't want answers like, "Talk to them, and tell them that you think cheating is wrong." Creative players don't see it the way you do, and no amount of reasoning will change their mind.
Bonus points for suggestions that do this subtlety. (i.e. "Oh, the video camera? We always record all our games. It makes it much easier to post session reports on the Geek that way.")
Edit: It might be time for some clarification. The comments, and the only answer so far seem to indicate that the only answer is to just not play with cheaters. I am uncertain how one could provide a good answer for, "how do I play with cheaters?" when one has no experience in playing with them, or has made no attempt to play with them. As an example for how it is possible to play with cheaters, I will give an example from my own past. My family is very good at Clue, and we take extensive notes. everyone records not only the cards that they have received from other players, they also indicate what player makes a supposition, which players cannot disprove a supposition, and which player did. After a couple of games were declared invalid because a player with a disproportionate amount of "mistakes" said that they couldn't disprove a supposition, and multiple players notes showed that they clearly could have, we instituted the following rule. Before saying, "I can/cannot disprove you," a player was required to pick up their cards (previously, people just used their notes marked with the cards they owned) and repeat, "MURDERER, with the WEAPON, in the ROOM," followed by their answer. Galaxy Trucker has players play with one hand behind their back, and although it doesn't prevent cheating, it makes it harder to cheat. Poker has you burn cards.
What I am looking for is people who have experience playing with cheaters, and what steps they took to help reduce the cheating. It can be general advice, or specific to a game. My hope is that someone has had some experience in this matter.

+1 because I find this an interesting game design problem also.  (Consider Fury of Dracula, which has hidden information but contains an audit trail which prevents Dracula cheating.)

If I work out that someone is a "creative player", as you so generously term them, I would just not invite them to play in my games ever again.  Simple as that.  Treating cheating as though it's some kind of valid strategy is just wrong, and cheaters need to learn that there are consequences for their creativity.  On a related note, I'm always delighted when WotC give cheats and unsportsmanlike players massive multi-year bans from competitive play.  It's not "unfair" to them or their Magic careers.  They brought it completely on themselves.

Creative players don't see it the way you do, and no amount of reasoning will change their mind. I disagree with your assertion. If you take "reasoning" off the table, about all you have left is squirting them with a spray bottle or thwacking them in the nose with a newspaper every time you catch them cheating.

@user1873  By any chance do you have a "Creative Player" in your gaming group that you also consider a close friend?  If that's the case then I could understand not wanting to directly confront them for the sake of your friendship.  But if your friend is not capable of taking your feelings into consideration when you do things together, you may have deeper problems with your friendship than cheating at Galaxy Trucker.

@user1873  Then just call them out as un-fun to play against.  If you can't come up with a way to play a game in a way you both enjoy, then there's not very many options left.

@user1873 you should change your screen name to user1984.  I think you are also making a false equivalence between people who play to win, and people who cheat.  People who cheat are people who aren't good enough to win by the rules.

@thesunneversets On a related note, I appreciate that the MTG rules are pretty good about making sure player actions are verifiable using open information (e.g. "search for a creature card, reveal it (to demonstrate you didn't pick another card), then put it in your hand"). The one ugly edge case is morphs -- which is why not showing your opponent your morphs at the end of the game gets you a game loss.

@user1873 So, your camera example... you're only catching cheaters post-hoc. And, when you do, what's the penalty? "That game didn't count"? Or "I'm never playing with you again"?

There is still some interesting culture clash in competitive MTG.  Players from some backgrounds look at tournament infractions more like fouls in basketball.  If you lost the match without being one infraction shy of a DQ, you didn't do everything you could to try to win.

As I see it, you have three options that aren't "stop playing with them". In all situations, you're going to have to accept that cheating might happen in the game.

Add incentives not to cheat (such as the answer from Kevin about automatically losing the game, or a game appropriate penalty, such as stealing a card from the offending player)
Change the rules to incorporate enforcement (player A asks player B if they have card X, player C confirms B's answer). Of course, this is likely to change
the balance of the game (player C then has extra information about B's hand), but done carefully you could end up with a great game.
Accept that cheating is part of the game. This works very well for some games, but terribly for others. For example, poker where you can cheat in any way, but are disqualified from the round if detected can be good fun (but I wouldn't recommend playing for money).

You mentioned detecting cheating after the fact, by recording the game in some way (eg pen and paper or video camera). Sadly, I don't think recording a game will solve your problem - a player who believes it's ok to cheat is likely to say "so what?" when presented with "proof" that they cheated.
Of course, some games just don't work well with cheating - for example, I can't imagine Cluedo working with cheating players and no modifications. Seriously, in this situation, just don't play with the cheaters.

As an aside, with a group of people who engaged in "creative play", we tried applying the rules to the card game Cheat to other card games:
Loosely, this means all cards are played face down, and the player declares what the card is. Others can challenge the declaration by declaring "Cheat" and  flipping the cards - if the cards are not as advertised, the player who played them is penalised. If the cards are what was declared, then the player who challenged is penalised (with the penalty varying depending on the game). With players who cheat in other ways (say hiding cards, or false shuffling) then you can also call them on that too - as long as you declare what "creative play" you're calling them on.
It's worth noting that even in these games that were designed to allow "creative play" there's still some honesty required - "I think you're dealing from the bottom" - "No I'm not". Consequently, if players are going to be dishonest, you can't really stop them.
So, practically, I would probably:

Settle on a game that the "creative players" think is interesting enough to play by the rules (good candidates are games with built in lies and deceit such as Cheat or Bang! - or games with intrigue such as Settlers), or
Find house rules that all players are happy with, or
If you really want to play say, Cluedo, and players are breaking the mechanics by being "creative", find other players.

"...all cards are played face down, and the player declares what the card is. Others can challenge the declaration by declaring "Cheat" and flipping the cards - if the cards are not as advertised, the player who played them is penalised." Anyone who thinks this sounds like the kind of game they might like should check out the game Cockroach Poker.

Additionally, here's a list of games "that have rules, roles, special actions, etc... that allow for a player to deceive other players [and] allow the player to do something that if it goes unnoticed is allowed, and if caught results in a loss [or] penalty..."

I know you don't want answers that say, "Talk to them, and tell them that you think cheating is wrong", but, honestly, it's players distaste for direct confrontation that allows cheating to happen. Cheaters prosper only because we let them get away with it.  If you see it happening and you can prove it, don't tolerate it.  No one wants a cheater in their group. If they don't listen to reason, it's best to remove the troublemaker.
There are probably many of passive aggressive ways to try and influence a cheater in your gaming group, but directly telling them that their behavior is unacceptable is going to be your best strait forward solution.  Don't tell them something like cheating is wrong. Don't frame the conversation about the definition of what cheating is.  Frame it around the fact that no one else has any fun when the offender acts like he does.  Tell them that their behavior is unacceptable to the group, defeats the purpose of the game, and that if they don't alter their behavior they will not be welcome in your group.  It's best to do this as a united group.  A little social shaming goes along way to fix bad habits, and you don't want it to look like it's just you being whiny.
Of course this is assuming we are talking about a true dyed in the wool cheater.  Sometimes people make honest mistakes, and I've seen sore losers make a big deal out of this kind of "cheating".  If you are going to confront someone, don't come on too strong for a first time offence.  Let the punishment fit the crime.  Saying your are pretty strict about following the rules is probably enough to deal with honest mistakes situations.
Catching someone in an elaborate sting operation is probably going to be counter productive.  And no one want's to play games where they feel like they are guilty until proven innocent when it comes to fair play.  Part of good sportsmanship is trusting your opponent to play fair and sometimes letting minor rules issues slip by.

@user1873 I feel like if you're going to make assertions right from the start about what will or will not work, this is really a thinly disguised rant rather than a problem seeking solutions.

@user1873  Part of the discussion should be that a game is a community event, and they should stop being selfish.  Of course you can always appeal to their selfish nature.  If no one likes playing games with them, they will have no one to play games with.

@user1873  I stand by those assertions backed by my vast experience as an adult human being. Oh and basic logic as well.  People can break the rules so long as people don't enforce the rules - tautology.  People who are unreasonable are unreasonable - tautology.  Humans react to social pressures from their in group - the entire scientific field of psychology.

I agree talking to them is the best answer, and refuse to play if they keep cheating.  I'd also emphasize not to mistake an honest mistake for cheating (and assuming a house rule is in play that isn't is a common example in Monopoloy....)  There are some things you can do in a competitive game to enhance the audit trail, but they are game specific and often more trouble than its worth in a casual game.

Incorporate the cheating into the game.  I don't know how well this ports to all games, but when I was in the Army, we use to play with a house rule in Spades that if you got caught reneging, the hand was immediately over, the reneging team lost their bid and the other team automatically made theirs. Before that, there was constant fighting between the two groups, of which I was in the rule following group.  As an added benefit, paying such close attention to the cards made me a much better player.

I love that there's a card in Magic The Gathering (well, one of the Un-sets) called Cheatyface, that you can play for free if you can sneak it in without an opponent noticing :)

How about adding a new rule to the game you're playing. Let the cheater play a cheating position, either openly or hidden, with the agreed limitation that he or she can't possibly win; or else they must keep track of every cheat they do and get scored on how well they cheated with the possibility of wining that way. Most times it's not about defeating your opponents but more about getting away with it. Creative people deserve creative scoring!!! Also, this will remove the incentive to cheat in the long run and bring said creative person back to the corroborative nature of the game.

Interesting answer. Welcome to the site. An upvote to get you started.

Do you value strategic decision-making and technically-precise play? If so, my advice is that it's not worth it to play with cheaters, because their "game within the game" gets in the way of actually experiencing the game. It's possible to play serious and deep games against cheaters within a tournament structure, but that involves tights rules for managing game state (usually with some component of making hidden state auditable), third-party oversight, and huge penalties for getting caught. And, even then, sometimes they delegitimize the whole tournament.
My experience with cheating in friendly play (this was with RPGs, though) is that a game where some players cheat and others don't but cheaters aren't punished with anything more than momentary ridicule eventually turns into a glorified bullshit session -- everyone's playing fast and loose with the rules, just in difference ways: the cheaters are cheating, and everyone else is just goofing around or fudging the game rules to impose ad-hoc penalties on the cheater.
The easiest option if you want to play with cheaters and value a real game is to play online, using dedicated software. A pen-and-paper Clue game might require the honor system, but an online implementation can force correct game actions on cheaty players.

my experience with RPG cheaters involved a player rolling 20s far too often. this was accomplished with skillful dice rolling and a specially manufactured die that had a high number hemisphere (high numbers were all next to each other). we eventually required playersto roll from a cup. the heater tried to slide their dice out. we had to enforce shaking the cup thoughly up and down,and fully inverting the cup. dedicated software is a good answer,limiting cheating to only those hackers who can decod the random seed generator.

@user1873 Sounds like he could've saved some money by just buying MTG "spindown life counters." :)

It was a spindown counter. It has been ages since I RPed, so I didn't remember that detail.

If they merely like lying, and not cheating, then a card game called "bullshit" or cheat where you put the cards face down, and state what cards you're putting down.
If someone suspects the person's lying, they can claim that the person's lying. They might do this because one player has said they're discarding "three tens" when they themselves have two tens.
If the person was lying, then they have some sort of penalty, whereas if they weren't lying, the person suspecting that there was lying has some sort of penalty.

I believe that game is called Bullshit. The object of the game is to lie, so lying isn't cheating in that game.

Cheat is one of my least favourite games, purely because people think it's acceptable lie when challenged after they've said "4 Aces" when laying 5 cards, the top four of which were aces.  The offending party always thinks they're being clever as you can't prove whether they laid 4 cards or 5 cards.

@tttppp headdesk.

@tttppp We actually allow that. If the challenge is "too many cards", then the previous player checks the 5th card to see if it's correct. Of course, this still requires some degree of honesty. When we play cheat, we allow players to cheat however they wish except lying when challenged. For us, it works very well - and we'd just stop playing with someone who lied when challenged.

Since this answer is mostly a recommendation, I'll say that Cockroach Poker is WAY better than "BS", and should always be recommended. You could even cobble together a "cockroach poker" deck using two standard decks of playing cards, if you're on a budget.

Maybe try the “I Doubt It” strategy rule. If you suspect they have the card, call them on it. They have to show you their whole hand, but if they don’t have the card, you have to take say 4 cards from them, and draw 4 more. Same if they do, in reverse.

This does not add anything new to the question

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Is kingmaking in multiplayer games a problem that can be fixed?
The original Kingmaker was Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick. He was instrumental during the Wars of the Roses in the deposition of two kings. The term kingmaker has come to mean, "a person or group that has great influence in a royal or political succession, without being a viable candidate." The term in game theory has come to mean:

Kingmaking: in a game of three or more players (on three or more opposing sides), during and endgame situation when a player who is unable to win is able to determine which player among others is the winner.

Kingmaking to me basically comes down to purposefully taking actions in a game so that someone other than yourself wins. It is slightly unusual that only the actions of the last player are considered kingmaking, when it is the total contribution of all players over the entire course of the game that determines a winner (i.e. If some else prevent you from getting 4 VP from shipping on boats in Puerto Rico on turn 5, but I prevent you from getting 4 VP on turn 19 and you lose by four points...why am I the kingmaker?)
Any game with more than two opposing sides is susceptible to kingmaking. In the world of competitive gaming, kingmaking can even occur in games with only two sides (due to rankings of multiple players). In Sumo Wrestling, for example yaochō or "match fixing" is where one wrestler who has already achieved a high paying rank throws a match on purpose to allow the opposing wrestler to secure a higher paycheck. In Magic: the Gathering tournaments, where a player may have no chance of making the top 8, they might concede a match to help a friend have a better win-loss ratio, while trying their hardest against any other opponents.
In a multiplayer MtG game, players may openly collude to help destroy the player with the best board position. In other groups, tabletalk and open collusion banned, but it is still expected that most players will gang up on the player with the best board position. The rules for MtG can also be exploited in multiplayer. A kingmaker player on the verge of elimination might cast an instant to hurt an unfavored player in hopes that they don't win or to make the game end earlier so they can play another game. A kingmaker might concede before damage is dealt so an unfavored player doesn't gain life from lifelinked creatures.
There are other examples from games like Ticket to Ride - purely blocking moves, and Settlers of Catan monopoly card ethics and future trades (these aren't the exact links I was looking for. I thought that one of these talked about the ethics of performing multiple trades circumvent the no zero card trade rule) , Monopoly trade before losing. Looking over the highest scored answers, it appears that there is still some question about whether kingmaking is a problem or the normal part of any game. In Risk Legacy, the line is blurred even further since the game is played over multiple rounds. A player without the chance of winning might purposefully lose to a particular player to improve their odds in future games.
Is kingmaking a problem that needs to be fixed? (Are only certain kinds of kingmaking an issue? Collusion, playing to lose/disrupt the game, etc.)
What steps/rules are helpful in mitigating kingmaking in games? (general concepts, but real world examples preferred)

"Kingmaking to me basically comes down to purposefully taking actions in a game so that someone other than yourself wins." In your example, in turn 5, you were prevented because an other player tried to reach the games goal, ie winning, yet in the 19th turn, presuming it's around the end of the game, you are prevented, because the acting player wants to give the win to a third player. I wouldn't call the action in turn 5 king-making. In my definition, king-making means, to deliberatly play an action as player A, so that player B wins instead of player C.

Go play Diplomacy :)  (Probably the ultimate "threats of kingmaking are a strategic tool" game, so much so that high-level games tend to end in large draws including players of very disparate apparent strengths.)

Kingmaking can be a desired feature in its own right
Particularly in games with a political or simulational bent, kingmaking can be a desired feature.  The kingmaker gets to feel like he accomplished something even if he didn't win, and the tension and turnabout can contribute to a more exciting play experience.
Thesunneversets' answer addresses this much better than I can.
Threats of kingmaking are a strategic tool
"If you take me out, I'm going to make it so that you can't win afterward."
In most games, this isn't really a problem. It's just allowing players to use a "rattlesnake" defense when their more conventional defenses have faltered. Mutually assured destruction is basically a higher-stakes version of the normal tit-for-tat trading that goes on in strategy games.
When every game session turns into a complex web of MAD checks-and-balances leading to a spectacular flameout, though -- well, at that point you've gotta either call it a feature or redesign the game.
To reduce rattlesnake behavior, players need a way to trump the rattlesnake's threat, e.g. by more slowly setting up a victory that can't be disrupted. Is one player keeping the whole table at bay with an overgrown Shrine of Burning Rage, for instance? It's important for the game to have cards like Krosan Grip, Trickbind, and Shining Shoal to stop him.
Undesirable kingmaking is a motivation issue
In the previous case, the kingmaker is still looking to win; he's just holding the threat of you losing over your head to keep you from taking an action against him. Full-on kingmaking behavior is a motivation problem, resulting from players abandoning the goal of actually winning the game. Two possibilities exist here:

Winning is no longer a reasonable goal.
If a game puts a player in a situation where she can no longer win, then that player is functionally aimless. Such players may turn to kingmaking because it's the only way they can still interact with the main goal of the game, indirectly.
If you want some overly reductive advice, either eliminate losing players quickly or provide some "come from behind" / "alternate victory" mechanisms so they can still engage with the game's goals.
Alternatively, a less winner-take-all model can keep players "playing to win" even when they're not in a position to actually seize first place. This is probably easiest in games with results that roll forward, such as tournaments where even finishing 3rd vs. 4th has an impact on overall scoring, or wargaming campaigns where the disposition of your surviving units has as much of an effect on future battles as the win/loss outcome of the skirmish itself.
Winning is a reasonable goal, but a player has decided to dismiss it.
I think this is really a social issue. The player has broken with the goals of the game and created his own. Part of good game design is avoiding this by keeping players engaged with what they're supposed to do, but as a layman I honestly can't speak to how good games do this.
One thing you can definitely do as a game designer is to clearly signpost your "come from behind" features so that players don't feel a game is hopeless when it's not.
Beyond that, though, the players themselves need to address disruptive kingmaking as a sportsmanship problem: fundamentally what's happening is that a player is following the rules but not the spirit of the game. Sometimes it's because the kingmaker has lost interest, sometimes it's because social goals have trumped gameplay.

I was going to answer, but now I can't because this has already said everything.  Now I'm going to go away and rethink my whole approach.  In the meantime, this deserves +many.

@Tynam Do come back and write an answer, though! This seems like the kind of question that really benefits from multiple perspectives.

@user1873 Here's some seemingly-related stuff about multiplayer game politics and threat analysis that I wanted to link to but can't quite synthesize or work in. Figured I might as well throw the link your way while I'm thinking of how to work it into the post.

There are some other subtleties as well e.g. are the other players aware of the kingmaking deal or is it secret. Might also be worth mentioning collusion in games for money being tracked by pattern matching

@jk. Oh, good point! I didn't even think of outright collusion as a form of kingmaking. That's sort of the sportsmanship problem above all other sportsmanship problems. I don't know much about pattern-matching in games for money, though... maybe you could add it as an edit or new answer?

I reject your description of disruptive kingmaking as a sportsmanship problem. If you're a game designer, and I've bought your game, I've compensated you and the publisher for the effort and materials of the product. You don't get to tell me how to enjoy it after that point. You can't stop me from playing by house rules, and you can't stop me from playing disruptively if I feel that is more enjoyable than winning. You may reasonably expect that players who enter a tournament are there to win, but I don't play games with my friends to win - I play to have fun!

@HaoYe That's what I said: sportsmanship is mostly an issue for the group in play, not the designer (though your goal as a designer is to make the game goals appealing enough on their own that people won't want to break 'em). It's up to the group to deal with potential problems of buy-in; "we all agree it's not actually a problem" is one (somewhat rare) choice they can legitimately make.

@AlexP In that case, I disagree with your definition of sportsmanship. I think enjoying the game, even not in the spirit intended by the designer can be considered "good" sportsmanship. I would characterize the issue as a "motivation" problem, and ascribe less importance to the "spirit" of the game or a designer's intentions. To me, it comes across as arrogant to say that I'm being a "bad sport" by kingmaking as allowed by the game rules.

@HaoYe, sorry, but in the case he said it is a sportsmanship problem you are being a bad sport. Any game worth playing is fairly balanced, if from the get go you decide to go all in helping one of the players at your expense, he will be guaranteed to win (unless someone else decides to do the same for another player). This makes the game pointless for everyone playing that wanted to follow the original objectives. It is perfectly fine to change the rules, it should just be clear from the start  what the goal is and people should follow it.

To a certain extent, kingmaking is a desirable element in multiplayer games.  Suppose that another player has been making my life a misery throughout a game, to the extent that I fall so far behind that I no longer have a chance of winning.  Obviously it's not exactly fun for me to then have to spend the rest of the game taking my persecutor down with me, but it's probably more fun than me not being able to.
Politics can be an important and beneficial part of many multiplayer games.  Take Settlers of Catan.  I know some people just hate having to victimise others with the robber (I believe their pain has been documented on this site!), but to me it's an important part of the game that stops everyone from just playing solitaire with occasional pauses to make fair trades for resources they need.  When the robber comes into play you're generally forced to pick sides, play politics, and put people's noses out of joint.  It keeps things interactive and adds competitive tension to a game that might, dare I say it, be a bit dull without such a mechanic.
I would say that the worst kingmaking problems solve themselves... over time.  Let's suppose you play with a group of roughly the same people every week.  If your "friend" Richard takes you down from behind in one game, you have every right to stab him in the back the next week.  Either a truce will be drawn up in due course, or before too long no one will want to play with either of you!  I used to have a delightfully political friend called Frances whose main tactic in Family Business was to advise everyone at the beginning of the game that "if you go out of your way to attack me in this game, I swear I will try to destroy you in both this game and in the future".  A bit drastic perhaps, but it's well worth making it clear to people that if they behave like unsportsmanlike jerks in games that are after all's said and done meant to be fun for everyone involved, there will be consequences!
It's all politics though, and politics is hard.  If it's a one-off game with strangers, and someone destabilises the balance of power in a random and vindictive way... at least you don't have to play with that person ever again.   Actually this reminds me of a guy I sort of co-ran a boardgames group in Seattle with.  He was a pretty good tactical player, and as such quickly decided that I was his biggest competition in most games we played in together.  As such, he'd attack me right from the start of games we sat down to together.  The upshot of this was... that most of the time I'd come last, and he'd come second from last.  I'm not sure if that taught him a lesson, but I certainly made sure the lesson was available for him to learn from, if he cared to think closely on the matter...

The only way to stop activity such as you describe in the last paragraph is to finish at least one place ahead of your friend; otherwise his tactic is likely to be seen on his part as successful. I was once backstabbed on turn 1 of a 7-player Diplomacy game by Italy (playing AH); I finished fourth, and Italy finished 7th. That player never backstabbed me early in a game again.

And the two players who most likely goaded Italy into taking Trieste on turn 1 finished 5th and 6th. ;-)  I played heavily on the obvious unreliability of Italy to maneuver alliances that would keep me in the game while Italy was swiftly destroyed.

In a discussion about this, my uncle mentioned the TV show game "Survivor" where this element plays a crucial part.  If you can't beat em, join em!

You mean you haven't moved the robber into the desert?

Most of the answers so far say that king-making can be an acceptable feature of a game. However, there are certainly people who don't like it, whether they are the king-maker or not. As such, making a game that avoids king-maker situations is a good goal, not because it's bad, but because it's seen as bad by some (many?) people. King-making is especially annoying in more competitive games, or with competitive players. Such situations can't be solved outside of the game, with house rules on sportsmanship, bribes of pizza, or playing badly to give others a chance. There seem to be far more games that don't try to solve the issue, so making games that try to avoid it in mechanics may prove to be a defining feature of your game.
If a player wants to not win and instead be a king-maker, there's not much you can do without making a low-interaction game, or making it so that players' actions have little meaning. So it's better to concentrate on avoiding accidental king-making, instead of deliberate.
It's a difficult problem to solve. It comes down to the existence of "lame-duck" situations, where a player is unable to win, but is still playing. For example: when there aren't enough VP cards in the bank in Dominion to be able to come back, or if the other players have boxed you in in Settlers. This is not a terribly fun position to be in for some people, including me.
One way is to make players unaware as to who is further ahead, so that someone who is unable to win is unaware that they are. People can usually have a fair idea of what's going on, so this works better when there's lots of hidden information. This may be undesirable if you'd like to keep other kinds of player politics in your game, though.
Another is player-elimination. This is not great for casual games, because this makes players sit and do nothing, or go elsewhere and forget to care about the end of the game, which leaves a bad impression of a lack of closure to the game. And it is good to make a game cater to both hardcore-competitive and casual-fun players. You can't get the hardcore players without them playing casually, at first.
You can make a system where even the player coming last can still win. You can make it so that, as long as the player coming last keeps making intelligent moves, then they can cross some kind of winning condition without the other players advancing much at all. This requires a game with a lot of interaction, so the losing player can obstruct all of the opponents while still advancing themselves. The danger is making it feel like the rest of the game didn't matter.
Make the players team up into two teams. Turn the 4-player problem into a fake 2-player solution. This is something your game would have to be thoroughly built around, and thus is not a solution that can be used in most games (unless you want to specialise and only make team games).
I rather like the method used in Puzzle Strike 3rd Edition. There's no win condition. Players just see who is in the best position when the end-game situation rolls around. The timing of the end-game situation is somewhat difficult to predict, but (at least in this case) can be influenced by players. "Who's in the best position" can't be so static as to feel like little can be done about it, but also can't be so dynamic as to feel random. (Edit: I had previously linked an article Sirlin wrote on the topic, but now his site and articles have been redone, and the link is no longer valid.)
So, to answer your question, "can it be fixed?": Maybe. It doesn't appear to have ever been totally solved, only reduced, and most solutions have some kind of drawback or can only be used for certain kinds of games. The solution you use for your game is likely to be dictated more by the game itself than by suggestions found on forums. Just keep testing with both casual and hardcore players.

I feel that another possible solution to kingmaking is to have the player rankings matter at the end of the game.  Most kingmaking is done by putting oneself in an even worse condition than before--but the kingmaker doesn't care, since he's already going to lose. IMO, the easiest way to accomplish this solution is to give rewards for the next game.  For example, you may have come in 3rd in game X, but the next time you play you'll receive more starting resources than whoever came in 4th.  (Whoever was 1st wins the game and therefore receives no special benefits next game)

@Ski or, allow players in losing positions to leave the game early and keep their remaining resources. For example, in a 4-player free-for-all tabletop wargame, a player reduced to their last five tanks could choose to leave the game on their turn and start the next game with an extra five tanks.

There are some mechanics which limit kingmaking.
We once played a 3-player version of Magic where anyone could attack anyone, and the winner was whoever had the most life at the moment the first of the three players died.
In this game, kingmaking is the last place person's job. It provides them with the best shot at whittling down the leaders to bringing a win back in reach.
It actually helped the game stay exciting though, keeping things interesting.

That's how Puzzle Strike handles multiplayer as well.

I would see that as unbalancing some mechanics since some decks like death shadows tend to win with little life while a white life gain would almost always win if it can kill one player.

I've seen this come up in games a lot.  For the most part I think it's something that has to be lived with, especially if the game you played doesn't have a mechanism to defend against it.  For the most part, it's punishment for eliminating a player's chances of winning, but still leaving them in a position to disrupt your end game.  Sometimes you can't get around that.  Most games aren't cut-throat enough to include mechanics to eliminate players before the game ends.
I've only noticed players get into this behavior if they cannot win themselves.  So as a player, you can try to keep the game as close as possible until the end.  You can also play games that have a catch-up mechanic--sort of like running in Hearts or blind nils in Spades.  This way players always have the off chance of pulling off a win from behind.
From a pure social engineering approach your gaming group can decide that it's unsportsmanlike behavior.  I don't quite like this approach myself.  I prefer to consider any valid action according to the rules to be acceptable.
I've seen one game that actually built king-making in as a mechanic. Solium Infernum(a very board game like PC game) includes a victory condition that is triggered if you chose the actual winner.
There's one last approach you may try: bribes.  Cookies, pizza, or beer for the appropriately aged gamer.

The Dune board game has the Bene Gesserit win if they can correctly guess the winning faction and winning turn at the start of play. Best mechanic ever.

Bribing with out-of-game stuff is worse than kingmaking! If you're going to play-to-win, then at least leave it at the table. Bribery encourages social drama.

Alex P mentioned,

Alternatively, a less winner-take-all model can keep players "playing to win" even when they're not in a position to actually seize first place. This is probably easiest in games with results that roll forward, such as tournaments where even finishing 3rd vs. 4th has an impact on overall scoring, or wargaming campaigns where the disposition of your surviving units has as much of an effect on future battles as the win/loss outcome of the skirmish itself.

An example of this is the card game Uno. During a round, the ideal outcome of a player is to get rid of all of their cards, but a player who has given up trying to win still benefits by getting rid of as many of their high-value cards as they can. This happened to me last month. I was so far behind that I determined that winning was unlikely and so my strategy switched to simply finding the quickest way to get rid of all of my Wild (50 points), colored Action (20 points), and high-valued number cards so that I would lose with the smallest point value hand possible.
Something like this could be adapted to house rule an anti-kingmaking provision into another game. For example, you could houserule that Monopoly players rack up a certain number of "survival points" based on how many turns they survive that they can exchange in a later game (in the same social circle) for money. This would discourage a behind player in a 3+ player game from selling all of their assets for $1 to the player they would rather win since they could instead try to survive a few more turns to rack up more points.

Split the players into exactly two teams
By splitting the players into two teams, king making is gone, since there are exactly two outcomes, winning and losing. If a player is going to lose, they can't influence the outcome of the game, since them losing determines the outcome.
Now in this system, you have what appears to be King-making. Using MtG as an example, a player that is about to die might attack the opponents or boost their allies. But this isn't really King-making, sense if their actions cause those opponents to lose or those teammates to win, they also win; their actions where just trying to win, not King-making.
If this is part of a tournament, you can choose to give points to players if their team wins. King-making will appear again, but to a lesser extent, since their teammates won't let them throw the game (hopefully). (And hopefully there won't be whole team king-making.)
Another way is to have exactly one loser. King-making won't exist, but its opposite might.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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text:
How likely are you to lose because Fool's Landing sinks into the abyss?
Since I like probability questions, and tttpp brought it up, I figured it might be interesting to calculate how likely you are to lose on the first turn in Forbidden Island, because Fool's Landing sinks into the abyss. This question is only interested in figuring the odds of losing the game during the first players turn. It would be slightly more difficult to figure the odds of losing during the first round, where each player has taken one turn at most. If this question gets enough attention, I might decide to ask that question and figure out the odds. To figure out the odds of losing, you will need to calculate the following:

What are the odds that the first player cannot shore up Fool's Landing? (depends upon the first player's character, their starting location, and Fool's Landing location)
What are the odds that no player has received a Sandbag/Helicopter (depends upon number of players)
What are the odds that a Waters Rise card is drawn?
What are the odds that Fool's Landing is redrawn after Waters Rise? (difficultly level effects this)

What are the odds range of losing on the first turn for a 2-4 Player game? Calculate each individual component separately, and then provide a range of maximum/minimum odds of losing on the first turn based upon the individual components above. Assume the following:

The all players will attempt to shore up Fool's Landing. (use Sandbags/Helicopter)
The default island map is used.
The first player and their character are randomly determined, per the rules.
Ignore the odds of losing because a player sinks into the abyss. (optional:)
Ignore the odds of losing because both tiles for a particular treasure sink into the abyss. (optional)

Note: Calculate this if you want, but I am not uninterested in the minimal effect on the result of losing first turn.

+1 What a good question :-)  I hadn't thought of the possibility of losing first turn due to someone sinking into the abyss.  Definitely possible, but you've got to be really unlucky!

Summary
The probability of losing in the first turn due to Fool's Landing sinking, assuming all players try their hardest to avoid it, is dependent on the difficultly level and the number of players n:

Difficultly  | n | Probability
Novice       | 2 | 0.00199
Novice       | 3 | 0.00122
Novice       | 4 | 0.00071
Normal/Elite | 2 | 0.00291
Normal/Elite | 3 | 0.00179
Normal/Elite | 4 | 0.00103
Legendary    | 2 | 0.00296
Legendary    | 3 | 0.00182
Legendary    | 4 | 0.00105

The computation of the values in this table was quite long, and an outline of the steps is given below.

Calculation
I have split the computation into four sections, based on the game stages:

Game setup - Fool's Landing is initially flooded and no one was dealt a special action card.
First Player's Actions - The first player is unable to shore up Fool's Landing.
First Player's Treasure Card Draw - Waters Rise is drawn (and Sandbags is not).
First Player's Flood Card Draw - Waters Rise is drawn a second time and sinks.

Notation:

n The number of players
v The number of Waters Rise cards drawn at the end of the first turn
w The water level after the first turn

Game Setup
P(Fool's Landing drawn in first six cards) = 6/24
P(No sandbags or helicopters dealt) = (20 C (2n)) / (25 C (2n))

First Player's Actions
Let R be the first player's role:
P(R = Pilot and can't shore up Fool's Landing) = 1/6 * 0 = 0
P(R = Diver and can't shore up Fool's Landing) = 1/6 * 4611612/18574248 = 384301/9287124
P(R = Explorer and can't shore up Fool's Landing) = 1/6 * 10/69 = 5/207
P(R in {Navigator, Messenger, Engineer} and can't shore up Fool's Landing) = 3/6 * 59/138 = 59/276

So summing these:
P(Can't shore up Fool's Landing) = 1945439/6965343
First Player's Treasure Card Draw
For Fool's Landing to sink, one of the two drawn cards must be Waters Rise.  The other must not be a sandbags. I'm keeping these separate as the value of v impacts the value of w.
P(v = 2 and no sandbags) = P(v = 2)
                         = 6 / ((28-2n)(27-2n))
P(v = 1 and no sandbags) = P(No sandbags | v = 1) * P(v = 1)
                         = (23-2n)/(25-2n) * 6(25-2n)/((28-2n)(27-2n))
                         = 6*(23-2n)/((28-2n)(27-2n))

First Player's Flood Card Draw
We have now shuffled the six flood cards and put them back on top of the Flood Card Deck.  Note that w can be derived from the difficulty and the value of v.
P(Fool's Landing drawn at end of first player's turn) = w/6
The Result
The difficultly level impacts w:
Novice: v=1 => w=2, v=2 => w=3
P(Fool's Landing Sinks First Turn) = 6/24 * (20C(2n))/(25C(2n)) * 1945439/6965343 * (6*(23-2n)/((28-2n)(27-2n)) * 2/6 + 6/((28-2n)(27-2n)) * 3/6)
 =  (20C(2n))/(25C(2n)) * 1945439/27861372 * (49-4n)/((28-2n)(27-2n))

Normal/Elite: v=1 => w=3, v=2 => w=3
P(Fool's Landing Sinks First Turn) = 6/24 * (20C(2n))/(25C(2n)) * 1945439/6965343 * (6*(23-2n)/((28-2n)(27-2n)) * 3/6 + 6/((28-2n)(27-2n)) * 3/6)
 =  (20C(2n))/(25C(2n)) * 1945439/27861372 * (72-6n)/((28-2n)(27-2n))

Legendary: v=1 => w=3, v=2 => w=4
P(Fool's Landing Sinks First Turn) = 6/24 * (20C(2n))/(25C(2n)) * 1945439/6965343 * (6*(23-2n)/((28-2n)(27-2n)) * 3/6 + 6/((28-2n)(27-2n)) * 4/6)
 =  (20C(2n))/(25C(2n)) * 1945439/27861372 * (73-6n)/((28-2n)(27-2n))

Finally, computing these formulae for different difficulty levels and number of players I ended up with:

Difficultly  | n |           Probability
Novice       | 2 | 1355970983/682632941760  ≈ 0.00199
Novice       | 3 | 1223681131/999834661980  ≈ 0.00122
Novice       | 4 |  429942019/608770978200  ≈ 0.00071
Normal/Elite | 2 |   33072463/11377215696   ≈ 0.00291
Normal/Elite | 3 |   99217389/55546370110   ≈ 0.00179
Normal/Elite | 4 |  859884038/837060095025  ≈ 0.00103
Legendary    | 2 | 2017420243/682632941760  ≈ 0.00296
Legendary    | 3 |   33072463/18178812036   ≈ 0.00182
Legendary    | 4 | 3009594133/2869920325800 ≈ 0.00105

Breaking it down: P(v=1) = (2 orderings)(3 ways to pick a WR)(25-2n ways to not pick a WR)/(total ways to pick two ordered cards) = 6(25-2n)/((28-2n)(27-2n))

P(No sandbags | v=1) = P(No sandbags given v=1) = P(The one non-WR card is not a sandbags card) =(23-2n)/(25-2n)

you are right. I rechecked my math, have no idea how I got 21.111%. I cleaned up my comments. You might want to keep just your second comment that breaks it down.

@user1873 Great! Let me know if you want any further bits broken down.

A friendly warning: This is a looong answer.
I've calculated the chances of Fools' Landing being lost immediately after the first turn with all players playing to prevent it and a random tile setup.

A few variables:

n = number of players
w = water level after rising once (2 for Novice, 3 for everything else)

Special abilities/actions
First, of all, there are a couple of special abilities and cards that make it impossible to fail:

If the first character is the Pilot (1/6), they start at FL and can always shore it up, or
If anyone starts with a Helicopter Lift (there are 3) or a Sandbag (2) in their hand (1-(20 C (2n))/(25 C (2n))), they can shore up or move the first player to shore up (it's OK to ignore WR cards in the initial deal)

1/6 + 1-(20 C (2n))/(25 C (2n))
i.e. (1 - (1/6 + 1-(20 C (2n))/(25 C (2n)))) chance that the following permutations can end the game.
Floods, Waters Rise and More Floods
What the characters do on their turns is tricky, so we'll deal with all the card probabilities together first:

6 areas are flooded to start. To immediately fail, FL must be one of them (6/24)
At the end of the first player's turn, regardless of what they did, a fail requires a WR card be drawn from the remaining deck. They draw two cards. The first has a 3/(28-2n) chance of being WR. If it's not ((25-2n)/(28-2n)), the second card has a 3/(27-2n) chance of being WR. After some balancing, that becomes (156-12n)/((28-2n)(27-2n)) chance that a WR card is drawn on the first turn
If it is, the (6-card) discard pile is shuffled into the deck and there is a w/24 chance that FL comes out again.

So, the odds that the cards are against you and only a perfect first turn can prevent a fail is:
6/24 * w/24 * (156-12n)/((28-2n)(27-2n)) = (w(156-12n))/(96(28-2n)(27-2n))
The First Turn: Explorer Edition
This is where it starts to get very hairy, so bear with me. If the first player is the Explorer, they can move diagonally, so that makes everything a bit more reachable. There is a 1/5 chance that the first player is the Explorer (because we've already taken into account that they're not the Pilot). To fail as the Explorer, you have to be more than three spaces away from FL including diagonally.

From the outside 8 spaces (hereafter, "outside"), there are six you cannot reach. The odds of placing FL in one of the 6 unreachable spaces is 6/23. Therefore, there is a 8/24 * 6/23 = 48/552 chance you fail for this starting position
If you start in a corner of the inner square ("corner"), there are four spaces you cannot reach as an Explorer (the opposite outsides). That's a 4/24 * 4/23 = 16/552 chance of failing
If you start in a space that is not in the centre four, "outside" or in a "corner" (which I'll refer to as "inside" for clarity), there are two unreachable spaces. That provides 8/24 * 2/23 = 16/552
Finally, your first option could be one of the central spaces (the centre four). If it is, congratulations! You can reach any space!

So, the odds of being the Explorer and being unable to shore FL on your first turn, based on all tiles being placed randomly is:
(48+16+16)/552 * 1/5 = 16/552
The First Turn II: Everyone Else Edition
But what if you're not the Explorer?! Let's look at all the potential starting spaces again (groan...) given you're one of the other non-Pilot characters (4/5):

There's a 80/552 chance that FL is unreachable from outside
There's a 40/552 chance that FL is unreachable from a corner
There's a 72/552 chance that FL is unreachable from inside
There's a 12/552 chance that FL is unreachable from the centre.

So, the odds of being a non-Explorer, non-Pilot and being unable to shore FL on your first turn is:
(80+40+72+12)/552 * 4/5 = 816/2760
Therefore, the odds of being unable to shore up FL (given that you're not the Pilot) is:
16/552 + 816/2760 = 896/2760
Phew!
The Grand Conclusion, Or TL;DR
So, we now take all three sections' results and multiply them together:

The odds that you're not the Pilot and no one has cards that can help you = (1 - (1/6 + 1-(20 C (2n))/(25 C (2n))))
The odds that you all the flooding will go against you, and you'll draw at least one WR = (w(156-12n))/(96(28-2n)(27-2n))
The odds that you won't be able to reach and shore up FL under normal circumstances = 896/2760

Given that w=3 (which it is for most setups), the odds of failing on the first turn by number of players is:

2 players: approximately 0.0768%
3 players: approximately 0.0483%
4 players: approximately 0.0288%

All are welcome to check my working :P

I haven't read this through yet, but looks good.  Just wanted to note that w = 2 if you're playing on novice: http://boardgamegeek.com/image/1001886/forbidden-island

Maybe I've misread, but I don't think the chance of getting a helicopter/sandbags card to start with is 5/2n.  This is >1 for two players :-)  Instead I think it's 1-(20 C (2n))/(25 C (2n)) (where C is the "combinations" function), which is ~0.62 for 2 players, ~0.78 for 3 players, and ~0.88 for 4 players.

@tttppp ... You passed the test! But seriously, thanks for the catch, not sure what I was thinking!

@tttppp And you're right about w=2 after the first WR on Novice, I couldn't make out the levels correctly looking at the PDF rules.

Tweaked the working and answers to fix my calculations for odds of drawing useful cards. Thanks to @tttppp

"If the first character is the Pilot (1/6), they can always move to FL and shore it up"  Minor quibble, but doesn't the Pilot always start at FL to begin with?

@bwarner You're quite right, but more importantly, you made me notice a different error: I misremembered the setup, thinking you chose your starting location from two possible tiles. Removing this error made the whole middle of the answer far more straightforward!

@Johno, great work so far. I haven't checked all your math, but it appears to agree with most of my initial calculations. You might have a mistake, " (6-card) discard pile is shuffled into the deck = w/24" The 6-7 card discard is shuffled and placed onto the flood deck. Whether you draw WR first or second affects if you have 6 (50% chance of FL redrawn if not novice), or 7 cards in the discard. Two waters rise makes the flood level go up by two, this might cause more than 3 tiles to flood (I think) at higher difficulty levels, although the odds are miniscule

@Johno, another small technicality is that the diver can move more than a single space through flooded tiles. I was going to answer the question like you (ignoring this ability), because his inability to reach FL is much more complex. I might take a stab at that portion of the question.

@user1873 Good point. "w/24" should indeed say "w/6 [maths goes here] w/7" since those are the options based on when you draw WR. I'm too tired to think about what that maths might be though :/. As for the diver, you're right, that makes things a lot more complicated. He could conceivably get all the way across the board with well placed flooded tiles...

This is a really good start, but I think a big issue with this at the moment is that you haven't considered the diver separately.  I can't see an easy way to calculate the number of squares he can't reach, it may need to be scripted.

Oh - just saw that user1873 posted the same thing :-)

@tttpp, you are probably right. A brute force examination of normal losing starting locations (x/552), with all possibilities examined for which tiles are flooded shouldn't be too many calculations for a computer. I will have to think about this question some more.

@Johno, one more small mistake that npmight shave off a tenth of a %. You need to account for one of the two drawn treasure cards being a Sandbag (when the other is WZters Rise), since that player has an opportunity to use it before the tiles flood.

The six card discard pile isn't shuffled into the deck.  It's shuffled and placed on top of the deck - increasing the odds that FL is redrawn to w/6.

@user1873 I ran a script and came up with the diver's chance of not being able to reach Fool's Landing as 4611612/18574248 which is about 25%.  It's more than the explorer, but less than everyone else, so sounds about right.  If anyone wants to either check my (horrific) code, or calculate it independently then let me know!

I'll take your word for it! By the way, everyone is welcome to edit my answer to improve it if they wish.

Another edge case: If the first player draws TWO Waters Rise cards, the water level goes up twice for the flood draw. This would make w = 3 for Novice and w = 4 for Legendary. (All others remain at 3)


text:
What are the ramifications of turning a planeswalker into a creature?
An answer on another question tells of a way to turn planeswalkers into creatures:

Basically you start by playing the Mycosynth
  Lattice
  which turns all your permanents into artifacts, this includes
  Planeswalker.
Then you play March Of the
  Machines
  turning your Planeswalker into an artifact creature with power and
  toughness equal to it's casting cost.

What are the ramifications of doing this? In particular, I'm curious about the answers to the following sub-questions:

Can the loyalty abilities still be activated?

Can they be activated after the creature has attacked? (ie. during the 2nd main phase)

Does the creature die if it's loyalty hits 0?
Does the creature die if it has lethal damage counted on it?
Can damage applied to the creature be directed to apply to the loyalty, on only counted as damage on the creature? (ie. counted against it's toughness)
Since the permanent is still a planeswalker, can it still be attacked like a normal planewalker? (ie. a creature attacking the planeswalker instead of me, the player)

Is there any other interesting fallout of converting a planeswalker into a creature that I'm missing?

Note that the creature dies if its loyalty hits zero, but the question also mentioned giving a different creature planeswalker abilities - that creature doesn't die for having 0 loyalty.

Gideon, Champion of Justice turns into a creature naturally. The rulings regarding him answer a lot of the things you want to know.

Note that with Mycosynth Lattice + March Of the Machines, all lands become 0/0 creatures (since they have CMC 0) and die from state based effects unless there is some static effect boosting their toughness

@Zags, An interesting strategy comes from this if you have a way to turn your lands into creatures before dropping this combo... It's always fun to wipe out opponents' land.

@cdeszaq or just have one of the various anthems (Glorious Anthem, Gaea's Anthem, Marshal's Anthem) and your lands survive while theirs don't

Can the loyalty abilities still be activated?
  Can they be activated after the creature has attacked? (ie. during the 2nd main phase)

Yes and yes. Nothing stops loyalty abilities from being activated just because Planeswalker is not the only type on the card. Actually, nothing stops a loyalty ability from being activated even if the permanent has not the Planeswalker type. Also, a loyalty ability doesn't include the tap simbol, so it doesn't matter if the creature is tapped or has summoning sickness.

Does the creature die if it's loyalty hits 0?

Yes:

704.5i If a planeswalker has loyalty 0, it’s put into its owner’s graveyard.

Does the creature die if it has lethal damage counted on it?

Yes:

704.5g If a creature has toughness greater than 0, and the total damage marked on it is greater than or equal to its toughness, that creature has been dealt lethal damage and is destroyed. Regeneration can replace this event.

Can damage applied to the creature be directed to apply to the loyalty, on only counted as damage on the creature? (ie. counted against it's toughness)

It counts for both. So if the creature-planeswalker is dealt two damage, you remove two loyalty counters and mark two damage on it (remember that damage does not reduce thoughness).

Since the permanent is still a planeswalker, can it still be attacked like a normal planewalker? (ie. a creature attacking the planeswalker instead of me, the player)

Yes. Planeswalkers can be attacked by creatures. There is no exception in the rules for a planeswalker that is also a creature.

As a wrap-up: to a permanent that is both a creature and a planeswalker, both rules for creatures and rules for planeswalkers apply.

100% correct. The rules for the last answer are: 119.3, 119.3c and 119.3e

I've added this to my question as a follow-up, since I didn't realize that the creature type was added, so it was a Creature Planeswalker: "Since the permanent is still a planeswalker, can it still be attacked like a normal planewalker? (ie. a creature attacking the planeswalker instead of me, the player)"

Given that regeneration can "solve" lethal damage, does a regen shield on Creature Planeswalker keep it on the battlefield? Or does it entirely depend on the state of the loyalty counters?

@cdeszaq Regeneration won't help if the planeswalker has loyalty 0. Notice how rule 704.5g does say that regeneration can replace it, but rule 704.5i does not.

Even if a regeneration effect prevented it from being destroyed, the next time SBEs were checked it would get destroyed again. Either you continue this process until you can no longer pay for regeneration, or it's an infinite loop which you either must break or draw the game.

@corsiKa Correct! I should've worded it better. "Damage to a planeswalker applies to loyalty regardless of its other types, even if it's combat damage received while acting like a creature..."

Game design minutia (updated): notice how, because damage to a planeswalker applies to its loyalty, even if it's combat damage received from attacking and blocking like a creature, all the planeswalkers that "animate" themselves (the two Gideons) have "Prevent all damage that would be dealt to him this turn."

@AlexP Remind me again why beginners have a hard time learning Magic? Does it have anything to do with the 206 page rule book? (I just want to the comp rules and hit ctrl p, it said 206. That's just... insane...)

@Pablo I figured it was something like that! Code blocks don't make a good substitute for quotes, though, since they don't word-wrap, and they behave much differently on mobile. I think it's OK since there's only two rules quotes, and I've tried to separate the individual questions via horizontal rules.

@Pablo, More importantly, regeneration replaces destruction and removes lethal damage. A Planeswalker with 0 loyalty isn't destroyed, it's simply put into the graveyard.

Also, I might point out that a Planeswalker Creature could potentially block for itself (ie, opponent attacks Creature-Walker, Creature-Walker blocks). While it generally wouldn't accomplish much since the combat damage would still be dealt, there are a number of cards which interact with combat where this would be advantageous.

@corsiKa That's not really fair, it's not strictly necessary for a beginner to know all the minutiae of the Comprehensive Rules. The 36 page basic rulebook is good enough. :) If there are any questions with specific card interactions, in 99% of cases the cards can be simply looked up on gatherer rulings without referencing the Comprehensive rules.

@ghoppe Well I think 36 pages of "basic" rules is also pretty intimidating. I think it really is fair to say that Magic's complexity (as evidenced by its insane number of rules) is its barrier to entry. Can you think of a higher barrier to entry than Magic's complexity?

@corsiKa Although it's only the first 17 pages that cover the basics of the page, I agree that magic's complexity is a bit of a barrier. Wizards tried a dumbed-down version, Portal, and it was a failure, because it wasn't strictly compatible with standard cards. What's another alternative? Lose the comprehensive foundation upon which we logically determine how the thousands of cards interact? I think Duels of the Planeswalkers on iPad/PC/XBox has gone a long way to reducing the barrier of entry.


text:
What happens if you activate a loyalty ability from a creature instead of a planeswalker?
An answer on another question tells of a way to give loyalty abilities to creatures:

Basically you start by playing the Mycosynth
  Lattice
  which turns all your permanents into artifacts, this includes
  Planeswalker.
Then you play March Of the
  Machines
  turning your Planeswalker into an artifact creature with power and
  toughness equal to it's casting cost.
Then you use the ability of an Experimental
  Kraj
  to put a +1/+1 counter on the Planeswalker artifact creature.
Now since the Planeswalker artifact Creature has a +1/+1 on it, the
  Experimental Kraj can use all of the Activated Abilities of the
  Planeswalker without any of the restrictions of a Planeswalker.

Since creatures don't have loyalty to add to or deduct from, what happens if you were to use a loyalty ability from a creature, rather than a Planeswalker?
More specifically:

In the case of using a (+) loyalty ability from a creature, what happens?
In the case of using a (-) loyalty ability from a creature, what happens?

Loyalty is not the same thing that loyalty counters.  Non-planeswalker creatures don't have loyalty, but the can have loyalty counters. So, if a (+) loyalty ability is played, then we add that many loyalty counters to the creature. If a (-) loyalty ability is played, then we remove that many loyalty counters from the creature.
Remember that we can only play activated abilities if we can pay the cost, and loyalty abilities are activated abilities, so we can't play a (-) ability if we don't have enough counters.

306.5. Loyalty is a characteristic only planeswalkers have.
306.5a The loyalty of a planeswalker not on the battlefield is equal to the number printed in its lower right corner.
306.5b A planeswalker is treated as if its text box included, “This permanent enters the battlefield with a number of loyalty counters on
  it equal to its printed loyalty number.” This ability creates a
  replacement effect (see rule 614.1c).
306.5c The loyalty of a planeswalker on the battlefield is equal to the number of loyalty counters on it.
306.5d Each planeswalker has a number of loyalty abilities, which are activated abilities with loyalty symbols in their costs. Loyalty
  abilities follow special rules: A player may activate a loyalty
  ability of a permanent he or she controls any time he or she has
  priority and the stack is empty during a main phase of his or her
  turn, but only if none of that permanent’s loyalty abilities have been
  activated that turn. See rule 606, “Loyalty Abilities.”

As we can see, the loyalty of a planeswalker on the battlefield is linked to the number of loyalty counters on it. But nothing stops a non-planeswalker permanent from having loyalty counters or loyalty abilities.
However, as rule 306.5d indicates, all permanents with loyalty abilities, not just planeswalkers, may only use their loyalty abilities at sorcery speed and once per turn.

Importantly, your "not-planeswalker" will not die for having 0 loyalty counters. Also, when the game is over and neither creature is bound to you, the planeswalker may be very mad at the beast for copying his powers.

In the same spirit, it's possible to not pay the plus cost. If you had say a Melira's Keepers or a Tatterkite somehow gain a loyalty ability, they would only be able to pay +0 costs. Talk about awkward.


text:
Can lands that say “Add one mana of any color to your mana pool” be used in a colorless EDH deck?
A couple of other questions have been asked regarding cards that "Add one mana of any color to your mana pool", but

One is for EDH decks in general (which, in most cases, have at least one color)
The other is for colorless mana in general (which would likely also be used in a colored deck, or a non-EDH deck where extra colors don't matter)

What I'm trying to answer now is if those sorts of cards can be used in a colorless EDH deck.
So, for example, if I have one of the big Eldrazi as my commander, I know I can have Coalition Relic in the deck because it has a colorless color identity. But, once it's on the field, can I use it to generate usable mana?

@Stephen - that's the question he linked to.  This question is a duplicate.

@Stephen, Neither of the two questions I linked to clearly answered my question. I'm asking about, specifically, colorless EDH decks and trying to figure out what are legal ways to generate mana for them. The two other questions deal with "Any color mana" for EDH, and with regards to colorless-ness, but neither deal with it directly. Since colorless EDH decks are a rather strange beast and has generated a lot of questions and discussion in my play group, I felt a specific question was warranted.

@cdeszaq In all cases the answer is "903.9".  Your question really is "what is the colour identity of an EDH commander who is colourless and costs colourless mana to cast?" ... applying the answer to that question to the referred to question then gives you the whole picture.

@cdeszaq - the questions specifies "any EDH deck" which I realize can be confusing since in the context of the game, "any color" does not include colorless, but the question you linked to contains my exact answer.

@cdeszaq Or perhaps your question really is "Are lands colourless?"

@Stephen - My goal is to build a colorless EDH deck. The challenge is that all cards within the deck must have a colorless color identity. When searching for lands that generate colorless mana and have a colorless color identity, I ran into a number of cards with the above text. So, the question I am trying to find an answer for is will those cards work for me in a colorless EDH deck?. My first attempt to answer the question was not precise enough, and the other question did not address colorless EDH decks and I felt did not give me enough information to answer my specific question.

@Stephen - Just to clarify, I'm not being snarky here, just trying to get a solid answer to a question that has been bouncing around my play group (and my head) for some time now :) As with everything in MTG, it's sometimes harder to formulate the question correctly, since there are so many moving parts!

@cdeszaq -  Like I said, its understandable to ask this question separately since "any" means different things depending on how its used.  Stephen and I are just letting you know that this question is answered by the question you linked to.  Its not a "this question should never have been asked" type of thing.  Its a "This question is a subset of an existing question" type of thing.  I recommend modifying the original question to specify that it applies to colorless EDH decks as well.

I'm pretty sure we could tidy up all of these questions into one clearly stated one that canonically resolves the issue at hand.  It's starting to get a bit confusing for me now, working out what's going on...

@thesunneversets - I agree. But, what is the best way to do so? Edit one of them to cover all the bases (there seems to be 2 aspects, and then a combination of the two). Or make a community wiki (cw) question that answers it in one fell swoop and links to the other 3 questions for reference? Or a cw question intended for linking out to "color/colour of mana" questions in general? (might make some sense, since mana color questions tend to all me closely related)

The 2nd question linked is perfectly fine by itself and is not limited to EDH.  This question and the first one linked are 2 different aspects of the same question.

Added an answer to the 1st link to explicitly cover the colourless case.

The rules have changed since you asked this question. Would you mind changing the accepted answer?

As of January 18th, 2016, the restriction on other colors of mana (mentioned in other answer) was removed.

Rule 4 removed. Decks may now generate mana of any colour.

They can still be in you deck, but now they can make any color of mana.

Yes.  This is mentioned in the first question you linked to.

903.9. If mana would be added to a player’s mana pool of a color that isn’t in the color identity of that player’s commander, that amount of colorless mana is added to that player’s mana pool instead.

@xornob Please do not make edits that substantially change the content of an answer. If an answer is incorrect and the correct answer is very different, downvote it and/or make a comment. If you have a better answer, post it as your own answer.

@murgatroid99 I don't know how I feel about the accepted answer being wrong, so I posted on meta to see if we could make an exception for cases like these.


text:
Do the rules 720.3 and 720.5 contradict each other?
Considering the problems in answering this question, I feel like there is a contradiction between rules 720.3 and 720.5:

720.3. Sometimes a loop can be fragmented, meaning that each player involved in the loop performs an independent action that results in the same game state being reached multiple times. If that happens, the active player (or, if the active player is not involved in the loop, the first player in turn order who is involved) must then make a different game choice so the loop does not continue.
720.5. No player can be forced to perform an action that would end a loop other than actions called for by objects involved in the loop.

Assume the same scenario as in the original question, Lethal Vapors and Solemnity are on the battlefield, and an undying or persist creature enters the battlefield. Assume further that the active player has only 2 possible game choices, those choices being "passing priority" and "activate Lethal Vapor's active ability".
Note that "passing priority" is a game choice:

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

Now, if all players keep passing when they receive priority between Lethal Vapor triggers, the game enters a loop and a draw. However, 720.3 clearly says that in this case, the active player must make a different choice, i.e. other than passing priority. The only remaining choice is activating Lethal Vapor's ability. That, however, might violate 720.5, because the game rules force the active player to end the loop.
So my question is, is there a possible contradiction between 720.3 and 720.5?
Related question, in case Lethal Vapor counts as an object involved in the loop: Assume there is a Pithing Needle naming Lethal Vapors, and the active player also controls Seal of Cleansing. The only legal game choice remaining would be to activate Seal of Cleansing. Does the player have to do that, and if not, is the game a draw?

I don't think that 720.3 applies to the situation you specified. Lethal Vapors is not an optional ability, so the active player cannot choose anything other than resolving it once it's been triggered.

Lethal Vapors has an activated ability too, one that would end the loop, so 720.5 does potentially apply.

Of course. I totally ignored that fact. In that case, I believe Lethal Vapors would indeed be an object involved in the loop, so you could activate its ability without contradicting 720.5. That said, I believe the second example with the Seal of Cleansing would indeed end in a draw unless the AP chose to sacrifice the seal.

The example for 720.5 in the rules explicitly calls out Seal of Cleansing's ability as one that a player does not have to activate to end a loop.

The question is, what does "force to" mean? Is it "forcing to" use the Seal if it's literally the only possible game choice as per the rules, because passing priority is illegal? A player can't choose to not take an action unless he concedes.

Passing priority is never illegal.

@Hackworth "A player can't choose to not take an action unless he concedes." That's not correct. Choosing not to perform an action is the definition of passing. Passing isn't an action, although it is a game choice.

There's no contradiction.
720.5 is an explanation of how to follow 720.3 in some cases. For example, if Lethal Vapors said "destroy it or sacrifice another permanent", then the creature's owner would have to sacrifice something else to end the loop. That's the kind of choice that is called for by 720.5.
In your example, neither player can be forced to activate Lethal Vapors. This is according to 720.5. The activated ability on Lethal Vapors is not called for by any object involved in the loop.
Either player however, would be able to choose to activate Lethal Vapors to end the sequence. Thus you have a situation which is legally allowed to end in a draw if both players agree, but either player could skip their next turn to keep the game going.
The key here is that 720.5 doesn't try to include "abilities of anything involved in the loop" in the scope. It just means when the mechanism of the loop inherently includes a way out - a player can't endlessly choose the other option to force a draw.

The case of "destroy it or sacrifice another permanent" is addressed by 720.6.

@Arthur 720.6 applies only in cases where the choice is presented as an "unless". Normally my example would be templated like that, but not necessarily. An example is Tainted Aether combined with Solemnity and a creature with Undying. The rule would force the player, if possible, to eventually sacrifice something other than the undying creature.

There is no contradiction here because rule 720.3 does not apply to this situation. "Pass priority" is not a game action on the same level as activating an ability or casting a spell. It is inaction and it is the default choice. The loop that you describe does not involve players taking actions, but rather players passively allowing game events to play out. So, no player is required to activate Lethal Vapors' ability, and the game is a draw unless a player chooses to take that action.
This has been confirmed by a ruling from the Level 3 judge who runs the Ask a Magic Judge tumblr blog. I asked this question and got the quoted answer

I would like to get a clarification on the infinite loop rules. Say the battlefield includes a Solemnity and a Lethal Vapors, and a player casts a Young Wolf, which has Undying. That creature will keep dying and returning in a loop because it never gets a counter. Does that cause the game to end in a draw? Is any player required to activate Lethal Vapors' other ability or take some other action to break the loop?

No, they’re not required to do so. The game will end in a draw if no one chooses to destroy the Lethal Vapors.

There's no contradiction.

CR 720.3 prevents a loop of voluntary actions.
CR 720.5 allows a loop of mandatory actions.

Only one of them applies to a given loop.
The loop you are describing isn't a fragmented loop; it's a loop of mandatory actions. That means that unless someone breaks it, the game ends in a draw.[CR 720.4, 104.4b, 104.4f] But it also means that noone is forced to break it even if they could.[CR 720.5]

An example of a fragmented loop would be if there were 3 Oblivion Rings (owned by 2 or more players) that are each entering the battlefield and exiling each other in a triangle.  An example of an action that could break the loop, as prescribed by rule 720.3, would be if there was a legal target for Oblivion Ring besides another Oblivion Ring.  In this case, rule 720.3 would force the active player to exile the other legal target, even if it strategically not desired.
Example: In a multiplayer game, Player 1 controls an Oblivion Ring that has exiled Player 2's Oblivion Ring.  Player 2 casts an Oblivion Ring, hoping to take down some other strategic target.  With Oblivion Ring on the stack, Player 3 responds by bouncing the strategic target with an Unsummon.  Now when the Oblivion Ring resolves, it must either target player 3's Abyssal Persecutor or Player 1's Oblivion Ring.  Neither Player 1 nor Player 2 want to exile the Abyssal Persecutor, because they are both at 0 life.  They want to juggle Oblivion Rings forever, but Rule 720.3 obligates Player 2 to break the loop by exiling something besides an Oblivion Ring.  Therefore, Player 2 is forced to exile Abyssal Persecutor, thus killing both Player 1 and Player 2.
An example of an application of Rule 720.5 is that if the active player has a Ray of Revelation in their graveyard, they are not obligated to flash it back in order to break the Oblivion Ring loop, because the Ray of Revelation is not an object that is involved in the loop.

Welcome to the site! If you use [mtg:cardname], it will auto-link to Gatherer, which will help give context to your answer.

@Gendolkari Unless the card you link has a name which is contained in the name of other cards. Just a heads-up.

And isn't it player 2 who is obligated to remove the persecutor, since it is he who is first faced with the exact same game state for the second time?

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


text:
Does the print version matter, or the card name?
I thought of this question while reading Why are there illegal cards?, which mentions that the illegal Egyptian God cards were later printed as legal versions with the same names.
In Magic, all tournament-legal printings (non-tournament-legal ones would be, for example, promotional versions with different card backs) can be used as the up-to-date card. An old card functions identically to a new card of the same new, even if it was originally printed with rules or wording that don't work anymore.
Does such a rule exist in Yu-Gi-Oh!, or are cards as-printed? For example, can the illegal Egyptian God cards (e.g. the original Slifer the Sky Dragon) be used as their updated legal versions (e.g. the updated Slifer the Sky Dragon)? If not, have the rules been maintained in such a way to keep older printings valid?

I see from the tournament rules Section K that proxy cards are not allowed, but it doesn't specify whether a different card with the same name is a proxy. Also relevant would be previously Forbidden cards (e.g. Sinister Serpent) that have been errataed so that their effects are changed and are now legal. My gut tells me that you can play with the Forbidden versions if you follow the errata, but I am having a hard time finding a source for it. Hopefully others can have more luck.

I would think that they are still illegal; like the Collectors' Edition and International Edition cards in Magic.

According to this link, the old cards are still valid, but you must ensure that your opponent is aware that the effect has been errata'd and provide them with the new effect.

If you are using an “Old Text” version of a card in your Deck, you must make it clear to your opponent that the effect of that paricular[sic] card is different to what you are currently playing.

With regards to the Slifer the Sky Dragon example, the original card was never legal to be used in a match, Errata or not. It is a promotional card that includes the explicit text "This card cannot be used in a Duel," and is distinct from the actual card that lacks this text and includes the card's actual effect text.
This can further be established by using that website's Card Database and searching for the card (result of the search). On that page, it shows all the legal sources for a given card. The first time the card became legal to play was in August of 2012 when it was distributed in an issue of Shonen Jump. By extension, this excludes the original versions that were released alongside the Gameboy games in the early 2000s.

There are some good information sources in this answer and it does definitely show that some cards can be used in the place of updated cards. However, Slifer shows all of the art, including the "cannot be used" one {but I don't know if that was used on a later printing too}, as the same card. If you're able to use the new text, it replaces the "this card cannot be used" text and so doesn't matter.

I've just had a look in the rules: "cards with the same name are considered to be the same card". Given the combination of this and that there are errata'd cards with instructions on how to play with old copies, it seems reasonable that the name is the defining factor for a card.

@Samthere Except that if you look up cards by set, the Yugioh-Card database doesn't actually acknowledge the original Egyptian God Cards as belonging to the set. For example, The Dawn of Destiny cards (https://www.db.yugioh-card.com/yugiohdb/card_list.action > "Other" > Video Game Bundles > 2004) included The Winged Dragon of Ra as card DOD-001, but it doesn't show up in this list. The presence of the original art is unusual, but the fact that it doesn't register as a card in this pack would seem to indicate that the card remains invalid.

Hmm, yeah, I have no idea!


text:
What is the timing of building and paying debt?
To reiterate on previous questions (1, 2), the general timing goes like so:

Players decide which card to play.
Players decide how to play that card (build, discard, wonder).
Players decide how to pay building costs (who to buy from), and then announce/reveal their play.
Players complete the action and resolve building effects.

In the Cities expansion, there are building effects that cause debt, forcing other players to pay money or take negative VP tokens.
Let's assume that an opponent will play a debt 2 building this turn, and I start the turn with no money. Also assume that I know this will happen (from passing them the card and them playing a black card strategy). What happens in the following situations?

My neighbour pays me 2 coins to build the debt building. From the turn timing, it seems clear that I can pay the debt, since building costs are paid before their effects (I've included this for completeness).
I build a yellow card that gives me enough coins to pay the debt. Since the money gain and the debt happen at the same time, can I pay with the income?
I discard a card to get enough coins to pay the debt. Does money from discarding come in in step 4 (above), or earlier (step 2 or 3)? If it's earlier, it seems clear I should be able to pay, but if it's 4 (or after) then it's similar to the second case above.

And as soon as I asked I saw the big red line that answers this that I had missed in the rulebook! Should I delete this or let someone answer?

If it is a big red line then I think you should delete this question.

I've left it open now since it has an answer (and the site advises against deleting answered questions); if the community disagrees with this I'll delete :)

According to the cities rulebook, p. 4:

Important: Monetary losses are always resolved at the end of a turn, after players have played their cards, possibly having paid for trade and/or obtained money...

Therefore, for all your examples, you do have enough money to pay the debt. Monetary losses is the last effect to resolve itself, even following the "take a card from the discard pile" ability of Halikarnassós.

The question has ben answered that all monetary losses happen at the end of a stage but the following should be clarified.  You have 'decide what card to play' and 'decide who to but resources from' as a separate action.
You should have decided who to but resources from, if needed, before revealing your card.  The payment for your action is done as soon as your card is revealed.  there isn't the chance to look at what other people have done first. A player may not spend money received that turn to buy resources themselves. They may however use that money to pay off debt.

You're right - I should have them together or have an extra entry for "reveal cards" after 3. I was trying to emphasise that the payments are made before the resolution. I'll add a point to 3.


text:
When can I use Cyberfeeder's recurring credit with icebreakers?
In Android: Netrunner, Cyberfeeder is a piece of hardware that reads:

1 [Recurring credit]
Use this credit to pay for using icebreakers or for installing virus programs.

I'm interested in the "using icebreakers" clause. I know I can use it for icebreakers' paid abilities, such as 1 [Credit]: +1 strength or 1 [Credit]: break ice subroutine, but I was wondering if it can also be used for other effects like this one of Darwin's:

When your turn begins, you may pay 1 [Credit] to place one virus counter on Darwin.

Does "use" apply to this kind of cost, or just to paid abilities?

This is answered in the Android: Netrunner FAQ (page 10):

Can the Runner use the recurring credit on Cyberfeeder to pay for using Femme Fatale’s bypass ability or Darwin’s gaining counters ability?
Yes. Triggering any ability on an icebreaker is considered to be using it.

Great, as I suspected. Just wasn't sure what counted as an "ability".

Cyberfeeder doesn't say it has to be used for a paid ability, just for using. You can use it to increase Atman's strength too!


text:
If I forfeit Breaking News, will the tags stick?
Breaking News is an agenda that reads:

When you score Breaking News, give the Runner 2 tags.
When the turn on which you scored Breaking News ends, the Runner loses 2 tags.

If I find some way of forfeiting it during the turn I score it, does the second "clause" fail to fire, so the Runner keeps the tags?
The reason I think it's ambiguous is because the two effects are listed as separate paragraphs, with separate "when" statements, suggesting they may trigger separately, rather than being both-or-neither. If the card is no longer in play because it's been forfeited, the card text no longer has an effect on the game. (Compare a card like Joshua B, which has a "when this turn ends" effect as PART of the main effect, suggesting it would have already triggered regardless of whether the card remains in play or not.)

In the latest FAQ from FFG the case of Archer, Amazon Industrial Zone and Breaking News is mentioned.

If the Corp scores
  Breaking News
  and then rezzes
  Archer
  through a card effect, forfeiting the Breaking News, does the
  Runner keep the 2 tags?
Yes. The conditional ability on Breaking News has not yet
  triggered, and it will not trigger when the turn ends since the
  card is no longer active.

So yes, the tags stick.

Thanks for the answer. I thought I looked in the FAQ, but it must not have been the latest. As a follow-up, am I right in thinking that the same does not apply to Joshua B? That is, if I use its ability, but trash it somehow during my turn (e.g. with Aesop's Pawnshop), the "when your turn ends" effect still occurs, because the effect is already triggered BEFORE the end of turn?

Yes, Joshua B triggers a "gain a click, gain a tag at the end of your turn" ability, while Breaking News has 2 separate abilities. This means you can't cheat a click out of Joshua B without getting the tag, unless you use Decoy.


text:
Does assassination nullify the bishop's protection?
If you are the bishop and you were assassinated, are you still protected from the warlord in that turn? I'm guessing you are, and this question also hints that you are, but the rules are not clear so I wondered whether it really is the case.

Yes, the Bishop loses his protection when assassinated. From the last page of the FAQ

Q: Can the warlord destroy a building of a murdered Bishop?
A: Yes. Since the Bishop is not present, he is not able to protect his districts.