text:
Is 3-4 player endgame necessarily a deadlock?
I played Ravensburger's Labyrinth with two friends, and we didn't manage to finish the game.
As far as I can see, you can never effectively move your piece more than 2 steps during your turn (step 1 by shifting the space you're standing on, step 2 by making your step). With 3+ players, you also can't limit what shifts your opponents make in any way (with 2 players, you could shift a row in one direction and then your opponent can't shift that row in the opposite direction that turn; with 3 players, player A shifts a row, player B can't reverse it, player C can).
Assuming all players always prefer to prevent an opponent from winning the game next move, how is it possible to finish the game? I assume that if you wait until 2 players are positioned close to their goals, then eventually a situation might occur where the deadlock would be broken... but that's a rather tiresome conclusion.

My English version is called "The aMAZEing Labyrinth", did the German version just go by "Labyrinth"? Also, my rules indicate that you can move as far as you want on your turn, not just a single space. Your explanation seems to indicate only moving a single square dungeon tile (in addition to the shift).

@user1873: Oh, holy expletive! Yeah, the "aMAZEing" pun is part of the name in some editions, and yes, I've been misreading the rules completely. Well, I sure feel sheepish... Shall I delete the question?

Not necessarily. Perhaps the question could be reworded (using the proper rules), to ask if it is possible for two players to lock out an opponent, making it impossible for them to reach the exit. I don't think it is, but that doesn't mean some one couldn't prove this with analysis.

Don't change the question please. The fact that you asked the question indicates that there has been a realistic (happened in real life) confusion. It is not impossible that any other player ends up having the same confusion and searches for answers on this site, and then this question will provide the answer. If you change the question, perhaps you make a question that is never searched for because it is not realistic.

Seems like an OK question.  Misreading rules is pretty common.  I think most folks around here have been guilty of it on a couple occasions:)  Welcome to B&CG!

According to this translation of the rules, you can move your piece as far as you like down an open corridor, not just one step.


text:
Hunt re-rolls in the presence of Sauron's servants or Strongholds
How should I understand this rule (rulebook p.41, Hunt Re-rolls)? Does it refer to the last known position of the Fellowship, or does the free peoples' player have to tell the shadow player that he now got X re-rolls which would help him to determine the current position?

According to the 2nd Edition rules (although the 1st Edition rules do not differ in this respect, although it clarifies it in a different way), when determining the location of the Fellowship, the Frodo & Sam figurine's location is used. This may be the current location of the Fellowship, if the Fellowship is declared or revealed. Otherwise, it will be the last known position (LKP) of the Fellowship and the Fellowship Progress Counter will indicate how far the Fellowship has traveled from that last know position. Since the LKP of the Fellowship is always used for all rules, including Hunt re-rolls (Hunt Re-rolls use the position of the Ring-bearers figure, not the current position of the Fellowship), no extra information is revealed to the shadow player.

The Ring-bearers figure (Frodo & Sam) indicates the last known position of the Fellowship. It is placed in the Region where the Fellowship was last declared or revealed (see page 38). At the start of the game, it is placed in Rivendell. Whenever rules or Event Cards refer to the current location of the Fellowship, it is determined by the position of this figure, regardless of the position of the Fellowship Progress Counter (see below).
The Fellowship Progress Counter shows how far the Fellowship has traveled from its last known position and indicates whether the Fellowship is Hidden or Revealed. This counter is placed on the the Fellowship Track on the game board and is moved a step forward each time the Fellowship advances.

The 1st Edition just flat out tells you to use the Fellowships last known position.

Hunt Re-rolls - The presence of Sauron’s servants or Strongholds makes movement of
the Fellowship more dangerous. If, during the Hunt, the last known position of the Fellowship is in a Region that contains one or more of the following... (Clip: up to 3 possible re-roll conditions)

My copy of the WotR rules don't have a page 41, but on page 19 of my rule book, the following text occurs:
"If, during the Hunt, the last known position of the Fellowship" [emphasis mine]
Think of it as the Shadow following the trail of the Fellowship.  Getting out from under a Nazgûl is in fact one of the motives to declare the position of the Fellowship.
What's fun is that the Free Peoples player doesn't actually know where the Fellowship is, either.  They don't have an actual position until they are declared, so any rule that acts to give clues about what that actual position might be wouldn't work anyway.

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text:
What is the benefit of having an "Inflict X damage to your opponent" spell card that does less damage than others?
I have noticed that there are a number of cards that have the following text (or a variation of it):

Inflict [some amount of] damage to your opponent's Life Points.

Cards that follow this format are:

Sparks: 200 points
Raimei: 300 points
Hinotama: 500 points*
Final Flame: 600 points
Ookazi: 800 points

But why would you ever want to choose Sparks or Raimei when Ookazi does the exact same thing, but deals more damage?
This doesn't seem to be a matter of power creep; these cards all seem to have come out at about the same time: 1999 for the Japanese versions, 2002 for the North American versions, and 2004 for the worldwide versions. So all of these cards were available at about the same time, (and Ookazi was in the Kaiba starter deck, so it wasn't hard to find).
When a spell card exists that says "Inflict 800 damage to your opponent's Life Points", why would you ever want to include a card in your deck that says "Inflict 200 damage to your opponent's Life Points"?

* There is also Goblin Thief that deals 500 points of damage to your opponent and you gain 500 points. I understand why someone might want to choose Goblin Thief over Ookazi, but not why someone would want to choose Hinotama over Goblin Thief.

Regrettably the cards aren't loading. Do the cards take the same quantity of resources, or exact the same cost, in order to play? Or is the cost proportionate to their effect?

@DrunkCynic YGO (from my understanding) doesn't really have a resource system for their spells other than cards. (They don't have something like mana from Magic or energy from Pokemon where more expensive effects take more mana/energy)

@DrunkCynic Diego is right. Yu-Gi-Oh! does not have any sort of mana pool for spell cards; you just play down the spell card you want to play and resolve its effect. Some have an opportunity cost to playing it (e.g. destroy one of your own monsters), but that's part of their effect. Playing the card before resolving its effects has no cost.

Part of the underlying reason is that some of them are just filler cards, for sets that wouldn't have had enough cards on their own.  That's not enough to be a full answer, though.

There is no benefit whatsoever. The only reason why someone would use this sort or not-as-useful card is that there are some decks that mainly focus on damage from spell or trap cards, such as 'Magic Cylinder' These decks basically only contain cards that deal instant damage. It is one of the most quickest way to deplete someone's LP. The benefit is that not many decks are prepared for this type of damage, and since there are only three copies of a single card within a single deck, varieties of a card are necessary.

The only use I can think of, is you can only have 3 copies of each card in the deck. So if you wanted more direct damage cards in your deck, you'd need to use a lower damage version.
I don't play the game, and I only understand the rules superficially, so I might be overlooking some other factor.

Yu-Gi-Oh! only allows three copies of a card per deck, so yes, if I wanted 6 direct damage cards, I would have to use Ookazi (800 points) and Final Flame (600 points). I don't think you can have a viable deck with much more than that though, and you would have to have 12-15 of them before Sparks (200 points) makes any sense.

If you wanted to build a direct damage deck, 15 cards out of 40 is not that many. That still means less than half. Again, not saying they are any good, I always found Yugioh less balanced than for example MtG, where the intercard combos could suddenly make a crappy card very OP.

As far as the game goes, you can only have a maximum of 3 copies of a card. If you have 3 copies of Ookazi, which deals 800 damage, that would mean it is a maximum of 2400 damage (800x3 copies). A player, be default, has 8000 life points, and thus they're now down to 5600 (8000-2400). To be able to consistently deal damage, you have to have more than one thing that can deal damage, regardless of just how much each individual card can do.

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How do I use the Dominion & Dominion Intrigue Update Packs?
I purchased the Dominion Update Pack (and the one for Intrigue), but it didn't come with any instructions. There is a new slip that is obviously deaigned to go in the center of the original box, replacing the old one. But there are a two strange things about it:

Several cards in the original are missing from the new strip (e.g. Secret Chamber, Coppersmith)
The Treasure, Curse, and Victory card slots are blank, whereas they had names in the original

Are the old cards not supposed to be used if I am "upgrating" by adding the new second edition cards? And what do I do with the card slots that are blank?

The update pack serves two purposes:

Replace 6 old cards with 7 newer ones
Provide a new card strip; base cards are missing from the new strip.

Replacing older cards
The following 12 cards have been removed from their respective versions:

Base game (6): Adventurer, Chancellor, Feast, Thief, Spy, Woodcutter
Intrigue (6): Coppersmith, Great Hall, Saboteur, Scout, Secret Chamber, Tribute

You should not use these cards anymore. Naturally, it's your game so you are free to do whatever you feel best, add these together with the rest or not. If you do, however, there might not be enough space in the box to store them, if you keep the base cards in the same box as well. They are not "broken" or "overpowered", just very weak. Usually these cards were skipped, that's why they were removed. Dominion creator Donald X. has explained why each card was removed.
Should you take them out, remember to remove their respective randomizer (blue-back) cards as well.

New card strip
Naturally, since 6 kingdom cards have been replaced with 7 new kingdom cards, a new insert has been provided. Therefore, you will not see removed cards listed, such as Secret Chamber. You will see the new cards, though, such as Diplomat.

Other cards: you should be able to find all other non-replaced cards on the card strip, such as Wishing Well.
Base cards: base cards, such as Curse, Copper, Gold and Province, have been deliberately omitted from the new card strip. This is because the newer Dominion: Intrigue (second version) is no longer a stand-alone expansion of Dominion, thus you need the base cards to play it. This means that the whole expansion is not shipped with the base cards, thus they have been omitted from the card strip. Nevertheless, the actual insert should have enough space for you to store them (give or take one slot, as there are 26 kingdom cards now).
Empty strips: you can use them to hold extra cards, such as the base cards or the removed cards.

Out of curiosity, will there be any problems with playing the removed cards, aside from the difficulty storing them? Are they unbalanced with the new cards?

@Thunderforge All the cards that were removed were done because they were very weak, or boring; to the point where experienced players very rarely would ever purchase one in a game. Having cards that were not worth buying the majority of the time made the experience worse for new players; so Donald X decided that it would be better if they were replaced.

@Thunderforge You can read Donald's thoughts on each of the removed cards and why they were removed here: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=16338.0

@Thunderforge Thank you for the heads up, I updated my answer to reflect the "Wishing Well" issue. Also, as I have written, you can use the blank strips to store the base cards and some thoughts on the removed cards; they are not broken, just very weak.

The update packs are meant to replace cards from the original sets.  No more Chancellor, Adventurer, etc., as these cards were generally under played.  Of course you are free to mix and match whatever you will from the update and the original sets, but that is the intent.  You should continue using the treasure cards and victory cards even though they aren't explicitly printed on the center sheet.


text:
Are newly gained items considered Bequests in Haunt 94: Last Will and Tournament?
This question is spoiler-free.
In Haunt 94: Last Will and Tournament, what is considered a Bequest? Is it just the item and omen cards that we start the Haunt with? Or is it also any items and omens that we gain afterwards?
We had played where we thought it was any item and omen, since the rule book was a bit ambiguous. However, this resulted in a stalemate and we gave up as we went into our third hour of play time. Basically, we gained items far faster than we could get rid of them. So we are unsure if we were playing correctly.

From the secrets of survival tome:

Each hero draws an item card, then each counts
  his or her total number of item cards and omen
  cards that can be traded or stolen. (A card that can
  be traded but not stolen, or vice versa, counts. For
  example, the Armor and Blood Dagger count, but the
  Bite doesn’t.) These cards represent your Bequests,
  which will change as you gain and lose cards.

Especially that last part is interesting for your question: These cards represent your Bequests,
which will change as you gain and lose cards
This means that every omen and item card which fits the previous description you gain will become a bequest, if you lose one they will stop being a bequest.
for other confusions: read this

Thanks for the clarification. I think that this is correct, but it kind of makes the scenario unplayable. We started out with 6 Bequests between ourselves and it quick ballooned to 14. Since the heroes win by having the traitor have no bequests, and you reroll for the traitor whenever the traitor has less bequests than another person, we got caught in a stalemate.


text:
In the Star Wars VCR board game, which die face has the Stormtrooper symbol?
In Star Wars: The Interactive Video Board Game (a.k.a. the VCR board game), the instructions say that the die has a Stormtrooper symbol on it:

If you roll the Stormtrooper symbol, move the Stormtrooper forward three spaces.

Unfortunately, my used copy doesn't come with a die, so I'm not sure what the die looks like or which side has a Stormtrooper symbol. Can I use a regular d6? If so, which number should I use to indicate the Stormtrooper symbol.
And yes, I am playing this in 2017. The video is online, so I don't have to plug in a VCR player.

Based on evidence from a few photos online, it appears that the Stormtrooper symbol replaces the 1 on an standard die.
The Board Game Geek gallery for this game includes a few pictures of the die.
This image shows that the Stormtrooper does not replace the 3 or 5...

... and this image shows that it does not replace the 2.

Another image from VintageStarWars.net shows that it does not replace the 6.

I was unable to locate a picture with either the 1 or 4 showing, but since a standard 6-sided die is oriented such that opposing sides add to seven it seems reasonable to conclude that the Stormtrooper must replace the 1, since the 4 would be opposite the 3.  (It would also seem more logical to replace either the smallest or largest number, rather than one in the middle.)

I watched people playing the game on YouTube and their original die definitely had all the numbers except a 1 on it.


text:
How does face-down Attack Position (via Darkness Approaches) work?
The card Darkness Approaches has the following text:

Discard 2 cards from your hand. Select 1 face-up monster and flip it face-down, but do not change its battle position.

Because it specifically says to not change its battle position, this would allow a face-up Attack Position monster to become a face-down Attack Position monster.
How does this work exactly? If a monster attacks a face-up Attack Position monster, what happens? Does it flip in response to the attack? Can I Flip Summon a face-up Attack Position monster? Are there other oddities that I need to be aware of?

Sometime in mid-2017 (after this question was originally asked), the card text for Darkness Approaches was errata'd to no longer allow face-down Attack Position monsters:

Discard 2 cards from your hand. Select 1 face-up monster and change it to face-down Defense Position.

Still, it's interesting to keep this question around for historical purposes.

There are no oddities that you need to be aware of, but you will need to remember the technical details of each action to ensure you do not breach a rule or create a tactical blunder for yourself, as explained below.

Face-up monsters are given one (1) attack per turn. Face-down monsters are not face-up, so they cannot be used to attack.
If a face-down attack position monster is attacked, it is flipped and stays in the same position. The damage step is worked out as if it had been face-up attack position the whole time.
No, you cannot flip-summon an attack position monster. If the face-down monster is in attack position, it does not meet the second criteria below, and therefore is not being flip-summoned. The flip-summon is

a manual change
from face-down defence position
to face-up attack position.

It's worth noting (for historical purposes) that flip-summoning a face-down monster did NOT have the requirement of the monster being in defense mode before Konami took over the TCG from UDE, as UDE's rulings specifically allowed flip-summoning from face-down attack position to face-up attack position. Of course, Konami has declared UDE's rulings no longer official, so any ruling by UDE that conflicts with the rules (such as the "face-down defense position" requirement for flip-summoning) is no longer valid.

That kind of edit is extremely inappropriate. If you have a comment as to the correctness or otherwise of an answer, it goes in a comment. I have rolled back your change, if it had come up in review, this would be clearly rejected as conflicts with author intent. @Andrew

@Nij I disagree, I believe it should be very clear that an answer is historically accurate but currently inaccurate. The accepted answer as it stands now does not show while this was true, it no longer is. Accuracy is the aim here, and a user not familiar with the card may find the question, go right to the accepted answer and get invalid information.

Then you put that in a comment and downvote until it is fixed. Don't add giant titles that presume the author incapable of responding to feedback.


text:
What is the proper way to set up a Jenga tower?
I've always been rather confused about how to set up a Jenga tower. There is a cardboard piece that comes with it that covers two sides and either the top and bottom of a completed tower. It's clear to me that this is supposed to help in setup, since doing it free hand leads to a less stable tower.
But how do you actually use this insert? If you use the horizontal side is on the top, it gets in the way of placing blocks and doesn't help much with stability (you would obviously take it off before playing).

If it's on the bottom, it's more stable, but you can't get it out when it's time to play.

So how do you properly set up a Jenga tower with the cardboard piece?

I'd always assumed that was just to make getting the set back in the box easier...

If you don't get a satisfying answer here, I recommend asking again at Lifehack SE.

@Matthew The instructions do say "To set up the game, use the included loading tray to create the initial tower."

The official Jenga rules from 2000, which are printed on Hasbro's website, have this to say about setup:

SETUP

Empty the blocks onto a flat surface
One person uses this loading tray to build up the tower by placing layers of three wooden blocks at right angles to each other. (See photo on package back.) When you finish, you'll have a solid, 18-story tower that can more than double during play!
Carefully stand the loading tray upright, then remove it so the tower stands by itself.

The rules indicate that you should lay the loading tray on its side, with one of the long sides resting against the table. Fill the loading tray, then tip the tower upright so the free end is on the table.
A picture was included in the 1986 edition rules (the insert in that version was transparent plastic):

You make the stack (without using the insert).
You put the cardboard insert over the stack, with the horizontal bit on top, and push all the blocks into the insert to make sure they're all straight.
You take the insert off and start playing.

How on earth would you play with the insert on?

@Matt - That confused me too. I thought that was what the OP meant when he said "If you use the horizontal side is on the top, it gets in the way of placing blocks". But re-reading, I see that he knew you have to "get it out when it's time to play". So it would appear that the OP was trying to create the stack inside the insert, rather than creating the stack freely before using the insert to straighten it. Answer revised to reflect this.

I did mean that it gets in the way of placing blocks. I've clarified the question.

Simple, you set the guide on its side and fill it with blocks. Afterwards, it's just a simple matter of lifting one side so that it's right-side up. I base this answer on the fact that the guide is placed as such in all the JENGA boxes that I have ever played with.

I always build it upside down. So you put the cardboard retainer at the bottom, then build the tower. Finally, you slowly flip the tower using the retainer to keep everything in place.
This doesn't work well for everyone, but it's how I learned to do it as a kid.


text:
Do I add all Mask monsters from the base game and expansions when Nyarlathotep is the Ancient One?
Of all the Mask monsters in Arkham Horror, there are 5 in the base game, 1 in Dunwich Horror, 2 in Kingsport Horror, and 2 in Insmouth Horror. If Nyarlathotep is the Ancient One, do I add all Mask monsters from the base game and any expansions I am playing to the cup? Or do I cap them at a certain number (say, pick 5 random Mask monsters)?

You use them all.
The closest the rules get to directly saying this is things like this from the Dunwich Horror rules:

As with the “Mask” monster markers from Arkham Horror, do not place the Spawn monsters in the monster cup (unless the Ancient One sheet instructs otherwise).

That strongly suggests that you're expected to use them along with the original ones if the Ancient One says to. The Mask monsters are also referenced a few other times in the rules, and similarly in the Innsmouth Horror rules, every time just implying they're treated the same as the original ones. If they wanted you to randomly select 5, I think they'd have to spell that out, the way they very clearly did with Ally selection.
Also, this makes sense. The idea of having 5 masks in the base game was to give them a certain probability of being drawn. The expansions all add additional monsters to the cup, and if they didn't also add Masks then the odds of drawing a Mask would go down.


text:
Can I use the Injury and Madness cards from Miskatonic Horror without Dunwich Horror?
One of the components of Miskatonic Horror are additional Injury and Madness cards, which were originally for the Dunwich Horror expansion. The rules for Miskatonic Horror say this about the cards:

If you are using the Dunwich Horror expansion, shuffle the new Injury, Madness, and Dunwich Horror cards into their respective decks. If you are not using the Dunwich Horror expansion, return all the new Injury, Madness, and Dunwich Horror cards to the box.

I have heard many players rave about how much fun the Injury and Madness cards make the game, but unfortunately I don't own Dunwich Horror.
Despite what the rules say, is it possible to play with these cards found in Miskatonic Horror without Dunwich Horror?

It's possible to houserule anything, and these cards aren't an exception.
Just have in mind that if you want to add these in using just the Dunwich Horror rules, it will decrease the game's difficulty considerably.
In the core game when your Sanity or Stamina drops to 0 you:

Discard half of your items
Discard half of your Clues
Recover 1 Sanity or Stamina

The Dunwich Horror leaves the above possibility intact, but also gives you an option to instead:

Keep your items
Keep your Clues
Recover full Sanity or Stamina
Gain an Injury or Madness card

Like this, it's already a convenience.
As it's entirely a player's choice to gain the Injury/Madness card, you'll simply choose the option that's less harmful in a given situation.
While Injury and Madness cards are somewhat debilitating, in many cases it's still more desirable to gain one than to lose your clues, stuff, and time needed to heal yourself.
To balance this, there's a risk included: If you ever gain another copy of the Injury or Madness you already have, you are instantly devoured.
If you only have Miskatonic Horror, you never risk gaining a second copy.
With this mitigating factor gone, Injuries and Madnessess become a more attractive option.
If you're fine with an easier game, then you're done.
If not, you have a lot of options in front of you. We're talking about house rules after all.

The easiest modification would be to remove the base game option of losing half of your possessions.
When gaining Injury/Madness is no longer a player's choice, they will more likely hit you when it hurts.
You may also consider a "baseball" variant:
When you have three "strikes" (total of both Injuries and Madnesses) you are instantly devoured.
This would be a proxy of the "double copy = devoured" rule.

It's impossible to list all the potential variants. I'm sure you'll find something that suits your gaming group.

It is definitely possible, I have played with the base game plus only the Injury and Madness cards from Dunwich Horror before on at least a couple of occasions.
The only downside to this is a slight difficulty increase. The Dunwich Horror location cards (for both the Dunwich Horror map locations, and for the existing St. Mary's Hospital and Arkham Asylum locations) provide a small number of events that can allow an investigator to heal Injury and Madness cards. If these aren't available Injury and Madness cards become permanent.


text:
In a two-player game, is it allowed to choose the flag symbol to bid 0 during war?
When declaring war, one tactic might be for a player to choose the white flag on the war die to mean "0 war cost", and have no intention of forming an alliance. Normally, an alliance is formed when both players in a war choose the white flag symbol:

If both players chose a white flag, a peaceful alliance is formed

However, the rules clearly state that

Players cannot form an alliance in a 2 player game.

Is it still permitted to choose the white flag symbol to bid 0 during war, knowing full well that an alliance cannot be formed? If yes, what happens if both players choose the white flag? Does that mean that it is a tie of 0, and then standard tiebreaker rules apply?

Michael Coe, the designer of Tiny Epic Kingdoms, responded to this question and said that it was allowed:

Yes, a flag is a zero in 2 player games. If both choose zero, it's a tie and regular rules apply (tie goes to defender).

As Benjamin Cosman pointed out in his answer, a player may be forced to choose the flag if they have no resources available, so it would be very problematic for the flag to be disallowed in a two-player game.

Tl;dr: In a 2-player game, the flag is just a 0.

Both players set [a war die] to a number indicating the total war cost they are willing to incur. Players must have enough value in resources and ability bonuses when setting the die to pay their chosen war cost.

If you are attacked and you have no resources or ability bonuses, you are unable to pay any war cost 1 or higher, so the only legal move you have is to select the flag. Since this situation is not explicitly listed as an exception in the rules, we may infer that you are allowed to choose the flag in other situations as well. So what happens if both players choose the flag?

A player may set their die to the white flag to offer a peaceful alliance; which requires no cost in resources.
If both players chose a white flag, a peaceful alliance is formed.
Players cannot form an alliance in a 2 player game.
If both players have selected the same war cost, the tie goes to the defender who then becomes the winner.

As you suggest, the rule that would form an alliance is cancelled by the 2 player exception, so we fall back to the normal tiebreaker and defender wins.

This answer relies on the assumption that there always is a legal move. I think this is reasonable, especially since every game I can think of where it is not true explicitly states in the rules what happens in that situation (e.g. a stalemate in chess or a loss in most combinatorial games).

I am accepting the answer with a ruling from the game designer, but I invited your answer because I think that it matches the rationale that they used.

Choosing the flag IS forming the alliance. You can't pick the flag in a two player game because that's not just "Peace" that's "Form an alliance".

I'm not seeing how the white flag means "form an alliance." An alliance is only formed when both choose the white flag.

Your comment is internally redundant. But let me try explaing it like this. "Forming an Alliance" isn't an action in TEK. It's not something you choose to do. It's a result of an event and that event is making peace (white flag) with someone else. When you choose the flag of peace and the other person does as well you don't then choose to form an alliance. You dn't choose it because an alliance is the what you've just done. Picking the white flag is what makes the alliance. There fore you can't pick the white flag and NOT make an alliance because that's what flag is

I think that there is a difference in interpretation of the rules. You are interpreting the rules to mean that one person choosing the white flag means "form an alliance". I interpret them as one person choosing the white flag means nothing, both means "form an alliance" (based on the wording of the rule saying that "if both choose the white flag, an alliance is formed", and thus if both don't, then no alliance is formed).

Both interpretations are reasonable, but I found a way to pick one using the assumption that there is always at least one legal move (see my answer).


text:
Is this a case where a figure doesn't have LOS to an enemy because another figure it doesn't have LOS to is in the way?
While playing Star Wars: Imperial Assult, we had a strange situation where an Imperial had two Rebel figures down the field. One of them was clearly not within Line of Sight because one corner of the Imperial figure could not draw a line to two of the Rebel figure's corners. So the Imperial decided to target the other Rebel.

But that's when we remembered that figures block line of sight. If the other Rebel figure wasn't in the way, the Imperial player would clearly have line of sight. But because this Rebel is where it is, it would appear that a Rebel that the Imperial doesn't have line of sight to is somehow blocking line of sight to another figure.
Is this a correct interpretation of the rules? Realistically, it makes no sense, since the only reason a figure would block line of sight is because it would be hit by a blaster bolt instead.

I believe that your interpretation of the rules is correct, since they do seem to be pretty clear on that point; here's the "Line of Sight" section from the Rules Reference Guide, page 16:

To determine line of sight, the player draws two imaginary, nonintersecting lines from one corner of the attacking figure’s space
  to two adjacent corners of the target’s space. If either of these lines
  passes through a wall, figure, or blocking terrain, then the figure
  does not have line of sight to the target.

(I've added the emphasis on "figure", the other is in the original.)
The way I'd justify this slight oddness to myself is that when you're targetting a figure, it's one particular figure that you're trying to target - there's no way to say, "this would probably hit one of these two rebels", and if there were that'd have to take into account their different distances, etc. It'd be a much more confusing combat system if that possibility were taken into account. So I guess it's a nice simplification to say that you're just targetting one figure, and anything that might get in the way blocks that intention, even if it's another hostile figure rather than blocking terrain.


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What are the major changes between Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization and the first game?
Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization is described as a new edition of Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization. What are the major changes between the two versions?

The new edition was released during Essen 2015. Information on it was readily available since summer 2015, although the game was still at a prototype state. In brief, the new version revolves around 3 major overhauls:

Complete graphic redesign. While the older game did work, the cards and the player boards were rather dull. All cards in the new version have their own unique, engaging illustration.
Card rebalancing: based on analysis of thousands online games, it was noticed that a couple of cards were very strong, while others were very weak or skipped. For instance, nobody was interested in building a new Mine/Farm in late Age II, or everybody was taking Napoleon with 3 Civil Actions. These issues have been fixed.
Streamlined rules: corruption was an unnecessarily complex phase, so it was moved forward, before production, reducing downtime. Military was also nerfed quite a bit, as sacrifices were completely removed from aggressions & wars and it's a bit easier to defend in the early game.

I would suggest further reading of two comprehensive articles:

List of rule changes; all rule differences between the two versions.
List of card changes; all rebalanced and tweaked cards in the new version.

BGO Developer Nicholas Vlaada and the rest of his team wrote a detailed list of all the changes, along with his rationale, which has been reprinted on Board Game Geek. In short, it's a lot of rebalancing and changes to the way that certain actions work, but it is largely the same game as before.


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Can you play the Crisis Expansion's Crisis Mode with the core game and Heroes Unite combined?
The description for the DC Comics Deck Building Game: Crisis Expansion 1 says the following:

This is not a standalone product. DC Comics Deck-building Game or Heroes Unite is required to play.

Is it possible to play with both at once in Crisis mode, maybe with house rules? Since the deck size in Crisis is the time limit, my first thought is that it could maybe be done if you mixed them all up, then reduced the size, but I'd be interested to know if this works well in practice (bonus points if there is something official that says whether or not they work out together).
To be clear, I know that I can just add the decks together and play without further modifications, but that makes the difficulty far, far easier because you have about 75% more cards (meaning you'll probably never end the game by reaching the end of the deck). I'd like to know if there is a way to play it that keeps the difficulty about the same.

As per BGG
James Cheng:

One of the option rules for combining and playing with both set mix up is to alternate your game with two separate decks. So you can play two game with each half of the combined deck. The second game will have a little more knowledge about what you might expect.

Richard Brady of Cryptozoic chimes in

At Cryptozoic, if we want to play with mixed sets... we generally mix all the cards up from the first two (and future!) sets and then count out about 115 or so cards to be our main deck. Sometimes you get some scary games with a lot of Villain cards but for the most part it's worked out pretty cool.
Otherwise, I'd suggest making a deck list of your favorite cards but make sure it's somewhere between 110-140. If you go above 140 it actually gets fairly easy, though we've made our own weird variants that use over that amount. We have never gone over 150 as far as I can remember.

John Galietta III:

If I recall my rulebook perusal correctly, it recommends that if you wish to customize the decks, use 25 cards per player. With 1-3 player games this is a little small, so I'd say no smaller than 100 cards. But just a random 100+ cards seems a little random for my tastes. You don't get as much of the synergy you normally would.
I usually keep my main decks separate. If I want to play using both sets, we use both decks separately, using 2 line ups. With the rules that A) you can only buy/gain/affect one line-up per turn, and B) when you buy/gain a card from the line-up, destroy the card in the second line-up in the same spot. There was a file about this variant in one of the forums.
I'd say for that, if you wanted to use the new main deck cards as well just mix 16 into each of the main decks. this variant wouldn't work very well in Crisis mode, though.

There's also this article on a supposed balance of combining the two decks. That might work as well.
In short while there are workarounds some of which are semi-official. There's no official method of combining. There are however many player suggested varients that should resolve the complexities.

The backs of the cards are all the same just for that reason.

Play Heroes United on its own, or combine it with the original for an
  epic battle!

This doesn't answer the question about whether or not you can play the Crisis expansions (in Crisis mode) with both base games at the same time. Your answer says that one base game can be played with the other base game and doesn't mention the expansions.


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When is International Tabletop Day?
I have heard of "International Tabletop Day" being a celebration of board games and roleplaying games, and that some stores have events for it. When is that?
Also, do previous dates provide any clues as to when we can expect future dates to be so that stores etc. can plan accordingly?

I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is about the schedule of an event, not about board or card games.

Meta discussion about our policy on gaming related events.

International Tabletop Day has been hosted by Geek & Sundry every year since 2013,* but the schedule has been somewhat inconsistent as to when it is. I had a hard time finding the dates, especially for the early ones, but here they are:

March 30, 2013
April 5, 2014
April 11, 2015
April 30, 2016
April 29, 2017
April 28, 2018

If the pattern for the last couple of years holds, then one would expect that in the future it will be held on the last Saturday in April.
* The logo for International TableTop Day says that it's "since 2012", but I cannot find any evidence that it was actually held in that year. @PatLudwig in the comments provides supporting evidence that 2013 was the first.

2013 was the first - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3m0PIWqkfQ


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Can outfits other than Law Dogs start with Gomorra Jail?
Gomorra Jail is a deed with the following text:

You may start with this deed in play in place of a Law Dogs dude.
Controller React, Boot: When another player's wanted dude is discarded during the High Noon phase, this deed gains a permanent control point.

You can have dudes from other outfits in your deck (potentially with an additional upkeep cost, pg. 16), so is there any reason another faction, like the Sloane Gang, can't start with Gomorra Jail? I mean, could they just start with three Sloane Gang characters and have the Gomorra Jail be a "different outfit" dude from the Law Dogs?

From the rulebook, page 14:

Once players have revealed their outfits, they search their decks for up to
  five dudes—either from their outfit or drifters

(Bold added)
Dudes from other factions can be in your deck, but not your starting posse. Hence if you are playing something other than Law Dogs, there is no way to have a Law Dog in your posse for the Jail to start "in place of".


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How do CCGs/LCGs have an ongoing metaplot?
I am told that there are some collectible card games and living card games that have a metaplot. For instance, I am told that Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) has Legend of the Five Rings and Doomtown: Reloaded have an ongoing story in the background that is furthered as new sets come out. Apparently it's a pretty involved metaplot too, as I've heard of a lot of fans of the Legend of the Five Rings RPG complaining about the changes introduced by the CCG.
For instance, I have heard that throughout the run of the Legend of the Five Rings CCG, different people have become emperor and new threats (e.g. politcal coups, demon invasions) have emerged and apparently had a specific canon resolution (e.g. the coup failed but the emperor was mortally wounded, so dude X is the new Emperor). These events are all somehow established by the cards int he game and became canon, becoming part of the timeline and affecting those who play the RPG and read any tie-in media, such as novels.
How does this work? I'm having a hard time imagining a story being told as part of a deck of cards with one sentence flavor text on each of them. At first, I thought maybe new boxed sets included fiction stories in the rulebooks, but as far as I can tell, that's not the case.
So how do CCGs and LCGs have an ongoing metaplot?
For what it's worth, my experience with card games in the past is stuff like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon Trading Card Game, which definitely did not have metaplot (at least, not metaplot that was furthered by the card game itself as opposed to a TV show or other media).
EDIT: To clarify, it is my understanding that the Legend of the Five Rings CCG and Doomtown are not having their metaplot advanced by their corresponding RPGs or anything else, but they are doing it through the cards themselves. My question is not about a card game where the game metaplot changes based on some other media (e.g. Season 2 of a TV show has a storyline where the hero gets a new power, so a new card is released reflecting this story development).

Does my answer give you an idea of how it works? If not, is there a way I can clarify it further?

You realize Magic the Gathering has an entire team dedicated to creating an expressive and consistent world for the cards to be "from"? There are over 60 books and hundreds of articles describe in vivid detail the worlds of the game.

@corsiKa, I was not aware of that for Magic. I haven't really played it nor have I met anybody who mentioned them. Perhaps it's not as prominent?

I decided to e-mail someone who is more familiar with the Legend of the Five Rings collectible card game and got a pretty helpful answer:
Consider for instance the Race for the Throne storyline of the L5R card game. This was a storyline where the emperor's throne was vacant with no heir and there was a sort of civil war to determine who should become emperor.
One thing that you seem to have not been aware of is that AEG publishes fiction stories online for L5R and their other games (Doomtown too). Race for the Throne had a whole collection of stories that talked about which people each clan put forth as candidates, what issues arose, who died in the conflict, and so on. This was where the majority of metaplot took place.
If the stories had something happen to a particular person, they would be reflected in a new version of their character in the next edition (or in the rare even that someone died in the fiction, they would be completely omitted from the next edition). For instance, Race for the Throne had Kitsuki Iweko as a Daimyo as a reflection of the development she gained during the Rain of Blood arc (Diamond Edition) where she was just a Samurai.
Aside from characters, the cards also tended to reflect the events of the stories as well. For Race for the Throne, these were cards such as The Throne Stands Empty, Claimants to the Throne, and Claiming the Throne. Often times, flavor text quotes attributed to certain people were in fact quotes from the fiction itself.
AEG will also base the storyline off of the results of high level tournaments, particularly the world championships. If memory serves, the 2007 World Championships were represented in-universe as the Celestial Tournament where the winning player got to have their faction crown their champion as emperor, concluding the Race to the Throne arc. The winner of the world championships was a player who played a Dragon clan deck, so the Dragon clan champion, Iweko, was crowned Empress Iweko I.
It seems the specifics about the 2007 World Championships have been taken down, but I found similar info on their website for the 2014 World Championships. For instance, there was the storyline event "Something Wicked…"

Even in the most prosperous of times, there are dire omens that must be heeded. In Rokugan, there is one omen that is darker than all others, one sign that causes the faithful to rush to shrines and temples and pray to their Fortunes and ancestors of choice for guidance and protection. There is one portent that is so dire that there can be no room for interpretation, but instead its presence affords certainty that there are dark and terrible things upon the horizon.
The Porcelain Mask of Fu Leng has returned.
The winner of this tournament may select any one personality affiliated with his faction. That personality will be responsible for discovering the mask’s return to Rokugan, and will be among the first to realize what disaster looms upon the horizon.

As a result of this, future stories by AEG will involve whichever person the winner of the tournament picked to be the one who found the mask.
So the ongoing metaplot happens in a couple of ways:

Fiction stories published by AEG
Cards that reflect those fiction stories
Input from players who win championships or other special events

I think that it's rare for the RPG to affect the CCG metaplot (which I think is partly why RPG players hate the CCG metaplot changes, especially since sometimes there are pretty drastic shifts in status quo). I suspect that's because the CCG is more of a moneymaker and story prizes are a really good incentive for those who care about it.

Yu-Gi-Oh does have a Meta Plot that is advanced by game play. It has several, actually, that follow the histories and relations of the many archetypes.
As for your question, which I will simply summarize as "How do collectible card games and limited card games have Meta-Plots?" I will answer as follows:
Designers of card games often create stories when creating their cards and original characters, not unlike how authors might create a back story for their characters that may or may not make it to print. It is a natural part of creation to grow attached to what you spend hours upon hours designing.
I will use Magic: the Gathering to explain this. Imagine, if you will, being a traveler who explores the world (lands) and gaining knowledge (cards in hand) and allies (creatures/planeswalkers). The more you explore, the more powerful you become (playing 1 land per turn and/or playing stronger creatures). When you play a game, you are telling a story of a rivalry between 2 people that must, ultimately, end in someone's demise. A game of Magic: the Gathering could account for years of conflict in the world of Magic's characters. Are you a sliver slayer? Are you at war with the Goblins? Did you forge an alliance with Jace or Chandra in your travels? Will you learn the spells needed (draw the right cards) to defeat your opponent?
All of this can be portrayed as a story.

I've clarified in the question what I mean by a metaplot. I understand that a game with your friend can have an underlying story, but that's not what I'm talking about. Apparently, L5R and Doomtown have canon stories behind them, which are more expansive than "designer X imagined this background when they made the card."

Well, again, I come back to Magic: the Gathering, which also has a canon story line, with each expansion diving deeper into the world and expanding the universe. In Magic, you are installing yourself into the story line. Each card in each set represents an actual part of a story. All you do is play it out. http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Timeline
The same with Yu-Gi-Oh! - http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Card_storylines#Duel_Terminal_Storyline
The way to make a game where gameplay can have an effect on a story line is to make the ending completely up in the air until new cards are released.

Imagine, if you will, a game like MLB Showdown, where the characters on the cards are actual, real-life baseball players. Some cards you play indicate tactics and actions in baseball; other cards represent players on your team. Every year, a new "season" comes out. Sometimes ballplayers change teams; most times, their stats rise and fall based on their real world abilities. Now imagine that the organized play for this game mandated that you used only the cards from the most recent season. You might find that players you liked were no longer good in your deck, or that new players popped up that outclassed older ones, or that your favorite player was now on another team entirely.
This is how metaplot in CCGs worked, especially when it comes to games from AEG. Each character card shows or references an event; each character card shows a significant persona in the story and the way they appear now, as opposed to last time. An expansion would show events from different parts of the changing storyline; characters would change, fortunes would rise and fall. The story of Legend of the Five Rings was basically an Asian-themed "Game of Thrones." (Now imagine if you had Ned Stark in your deck; and then suddenly — well, you know.)
In particular, which factions were on top were determined by an aggregate of tournament reports around the world — the games being played would be translated after a fashion into changes in the world's fiction. This synergy was a great draw to some people, but alienated others, as you've heard.


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What is different in each version of Chrononauts?
Chrononauts is a time travel game by Looney Labs and has been through five different versions at the time of this writing. Board Game Geek lists the versions as the first, second, and third printings, v1.4, and the second edition.
In trying to find out if there were any differences, I discovered a page from Looney Labs, which said that v1.4 added four new cards and icons for The Gore Years expansion. But I haven't been able to find any other differences between the versions.
So what are the differences between each version of Chrononauts?

looney labs documentation 1.3 to 1.4

@PatLudwig We've had this debate before and meta consensus is still that edition-comparison should remain as a tag. If you disagree, please bring it up there.

After quite a bit of searching (and an e-mail to Andy Looney, creator of Chrononauts), I was able to piece together the following:
Chrononauts First Printing
While this was the initial release, it did feature a number of art changes from the beta version, notably the beta card back was replaced with the one used in all subsequent editions.
Chrononauts Second Printing
Buried in the July 18, 2002 Wunderland Weekly News (the company's newsletter at the time), they note the following changes were introduced in the second printing:

The box has been revised. The art on the front and top panels has been reversed, and several new bits of info have been added (Origins Award winner, Parent's Choice winner, Second Printing, Patent Pending, etc).
1962 will henceforth hinge on an "OR" instead of an "AND". This makes World War III and the ÜberParadox much easier to create, and to sustain, which will hopefully give Squa Tront (and Zane Reenak) more of a fighting chance. (It also makes it more satisfying to flip 1943 and 1957.)
The Obvious Forgery of the Mona Lisa now sports a handlebar mustache.
A note about Killing Time has been added to Fast Forward.
The incorrect Time Index on the Marijuana Legalized card has been fixed.
The teeny-tiny tick mark missing from the Rongo-Rongo Tablets has been restored.

Chrononauts Third Printing
The card list for the third printing has a few notes about what has changed with this version compared to the second printing:

8 Reverse Fate cards (down from 9)
1 Restore History card (down from 4)
2 new Artifact cards

Jade Statue of Tirade
German Cake

The concept of Gadget cards are introduced with 2 new cards

Really Fast Time Machine
Teeny Tiny Time Machine

Chrononauts v1.4
Rather than calling it the fourth printing, Looney Labs called this version v1.4 (as can be seen from this photo). The card list for this version noted the following changes:

4 new artifacts were added (increasing the total card count from 136 to 140)

Beatles Reunion CD (Artifact)
Live Triceratops (Artifact)
1945D: Tokyo Nuked (Patch)
Restore History (Inverter)

Bigger, better box
Bigger, better rulesheet
A Fast Forward was changed into a Reverse Fate

Additionally, the inverter cards added icons indicating which linchpins they could be used for in either Early American Chrononauts or The Gore Years expansion. For instance, Halt Attack notes that it can be used to flip the expansion's 2001 World Trade Center Attack linchpin.
Chrononauts v1.5
As of this writing, Board Game Geek lists the version after v1.4 as the "Second Edition". I could not find anything about the changes with this version, so I e-mailed Andy Looney and got the following response:

The most recent version of Chrononauts is what we call v1.5, which differs from 1.4 only in the design of the box itself. There is no v2.0 of Chrononauts.

So according to the creator himself, there are no changes to any cards in v1.5 and the only difference is the new box cover.
Other Promo Cards
While we're at it, a number of promo cards eventually did wind up included in later versions (such as German Chocolate Cake), but there are two that never were (and are still for sale in Looney Lab's web store):

Mating Pair of Pterodactyls (distributed at Dragon*Con 2004)
Carl Sagan's Joint (distributed for the "Summer Festivals of 2004")


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Making the Contingency Planner more useful
The 2013 version of Pandemic added a new card, the Contingency Planner:

My gaming group has found this card very weak compared to the other roles for a couple of reasons:

It's ability to pull an event card from the discard pile only seems to happen a couple of times a game whereas the other roles are used almost every turn.
The role is more luck based than the other ones because the good cards don't always turn up, so although we try to pull a card whenever we can, sometimes it's just not really worth duplicating a less than ideal card.
Duplicating the cards tends to be unnecessary if you have certain roles. Building a research center for free is fine, but building it a second time is kind of pointless if we also have the Operations Expert.

We've gotten to the point where we're ready to remove the Contingency Planner from the deck. But before we do, I'd like to know if there is anything we can do to make the Contingency Planner more useful and equal to the other roles.

This role is one that will not always have the same level of power as others but depending on how the game goes it can easily be the most powerful role in the game. While some of the event cards may not seem as powerful based on the game setup it all depends on how they are used.

Resilient Population

Being able to remove a second city card from the infection deck and having some control over when you do it can easily save a game by preventing a break out in an area with several cities in proximity

Airlift

Being able to move a player such as the containment specialist to a bad area right before the infection phase or move another player to a research faculty to allow the curing of a disease can be very useful.

Forecast

Being able to setup the next 6 cards in the infection deck a second time is never bad.

One Quiet Night

One of the best reasons for this role is avoiding an infection phase a second time

Government Grant

Not always the most useful but even in a game with the operations expert if this role is in the same city as another player who can make the cure then the free research center is very nice.
Need to remember that this role gets its power based on playing all the event cards in a timely manner so that they can all be played again when needed.

I assume that your gaming group typically plays with 4 players.  I have found the contingency planner to be much worse with 4 players than with 2.  I agree that the contingency planner is the worst role, but part of that is because of how variable his power is depending on how the event cards fall.  Throwing him out is a reasonable approach if you only have the base game, but the other option is to buy "On the Brink".  It includes a bunch of new event cards, so you switch to playing with 2 event cards in the deck per player (8 with 4 players instead of the usual 5), and I found that this really balanced out the Contingency Planner with the other roles.  With a higher number of event cards being drawn (and therefore being put in the discard pile), he has a much longer list of options on a given turn.

Welcome to Board & Card Game SE! Great first answer that both included feedback from gameplay and a recommendation for how it might improve with expansions!

+1: I agree on both accounts; a) CP in the default game is pretty weak compared to all other roles, and b) the role will likely get much better with the event cards in OtB expansion (just bought it, so haven't had the chance to test it out yet).

We had the same thought and we thought of the following solution:
When the Contingency Planner takes a discarded event card, he has to take one less playing card (not infection) after his turn. This has the benefit of slowing down the game: epidemic cards will be taken later and there will be more turns before all cards run out. Although not a gigantic benefit, it makes the CP on par with the other characters.

Adding "No hand limit" to the card makes it more useful.

@ToonKrijthe I don't see how it doesn't provide an answer. If you find the answer not useful, the proper response is downvoting.

The ability doesn't count towards the hand limit already.

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


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How does +1 damage interact with a power with two damage types?
Consider a power like the Legacy's "Galvanize":

Until the start of your next turn, increase damage dealt by hero targets by 1.

How does this interact with powers that deal two different types of damage, such as Fanatic's "Exorcism":

Fanatic deals 1 target 1 melee damage and 1 radiant damage.

Does Fanatic deal 2 melee damage and 2 radiant damage? Or 2 of one type and 1 of another type of the player's choice?

It increases damage dealt by hero's each time they deal damage so in this case Fanatic would deal 1 target 2 melee damage and 2 radiant damage. It should be remembered that in a case like Fanatic each hit if the damage is considered a different damage. And in the case of Legacy it increases all hero damage.
Now where you need to be careful is if you where dealing with something that said the next time the character did damage or the first time that turn they do damage in a case like that only the melee portion of the damage would be increased.
This is how the it works in the iPad app when using Fanatic's power while Legacy's power is in effect.


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What would be the reasons for not having Jokers in a deck?
In Doomtown Reloaded, it is optional to have Jokers in your deck. However, it seems to me like having Jokers in your deck is extremely useful, since you are more likely to get a better hand in a shootout.
I suppose that not having them in your deck means that there isn't a chance of having an unplayable card in your play hand, but that seems to be a small risk with many options for discarding cards. In fact, I have never played against any player who has not had Jokers in their deck, and those whom I have asked have always said it was better to have them.
So what would be the reasons for not having Jokers in a deck?

In my experience, the vast majority of decks do in fact run Jokers.
The main exception is a deck that does not want to get into shootouts at all or make any pulls. This is typically a "Landslide" deck that focuses on playing more dudes & deeds than the opponent can deal with.  It often includes cards like Make the Smart Choice or Pistol Whip, seeking to remove everyone from a posse before it ever gets to comparing Draw Hands. In such a deck a Joker will be a dead card if ever drawn to your Play Hand so there is no point in including them at all.

Unlike original doomtown you cannot discard jokers when you draw them into your play hand. They follow the normal discard rules when drawn in hand. As such, if you have a deck that naturally does well in shootouts and pulls you may find the jokers to be more of a nuisance than a help.
I have a deck that doesn't find the addition of jokers to be helpful. It takes time to cycle cards so jokers can really clog up your hand. While in your hand they provide no value limiting your options for a turn or more while you struggle to discard them.

Where is the rule that you cannot discard Jokers if they come up in your hand? I don't see any rule like that in the section on Jokers in the rulebook.


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Acing a copy of a unique card that you have in play
Say that you have a character or deed in play that does not have the non-unique keyword (which are most dudes and deeds), and another card of the same name in your hand. You would not be able to play this second one because the character is unique. Similarly, if the card on the table is aced, you still cannot play the same card because it is unique.
But what happens if you have a unique card in play and then you try to ace the duplicate in your hand, either intentionally through something like Gomorra Parish, or forcibly through something like This'll Hurt in the Mornin'.
Is this permitted? Does anything happen when you have a dude in play and then a duplicate gets aced to Boot Hill?

Nothing special happens and the unique character in play is permitted to remain in play, despite a duplicate being added to Boot Hill. The uniqueness rule only applies to bringing cards into play, not to cards that are already in play.

You can put more than one copy in your deck, but you can’t bring a unique card into play if you own another card with the same name that is either already in play or in your Boot Hill. (DTR Rulebook, Page 14 Uniqueness)

This is corroborated by a ruling on the AEG forums.


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In Last Will is property purchasing broken?
I've played Last Will with 2-4 other friends a few times.
One friend consistently wins.  He never buys any property and just plays event cards, goes to the theatre and plays non property cards in his play areas.
I buy my houses when the market is high, trash them and sell low successfully but he still ends up winning.
Is it unbalanced?  Have I missed some errata?  Are we doing it wrong?

In the planning phase, can't the other players choose the card-heavy spots, and force this guy to another strategy?

Please come back!

There are a couple of observations that can be made about property purchasing in Last Will:
They don't get rid of as much money as you think. Sure, they cost a lot to buy, but the house is still an asset and part of your funds, and this is something you might be tempted to forget. Right up until you sell it and the money cascades back into your pile. If you spend the whole game focussing on just a couple of properties, you'll find that the total outlay isn't that much. Even with a fully favourable market, total decay, and an estate agent or two, you might only manage to sink 30 cash into a house at the most, and that's not a great return if you've spent a lot of turns on it (and nothing else; which brings me to my next point...).
Make sure you have a finishing strategy. If you learn only one thing from this answer, learn this. Properly done, houses can get rid of a lot of money, but it's actually impossible to get rid of ALL your money exclusively through property because you have to sell said property, which leaves you with a small pile of remaining money and no way left of efficiently spending it. I've seen games of Last Will in which a player has absolutely hosed his money away on properties, sold them at the end for a crippling loss, but has still been forced to crawl over the finish line because they're relying entirely on event cards and the "theatre" board action to get rid of their remaining pennies. Invariably another more balanced player will cross the line first (or at least go further into debt) because when it got to the end, they could still spend a decent amount with each action.
The most obvious player interaction is on the property market. There's very little interaction in the game. Actions on player's individual boards are totally independent. There's a little competition for good cards, or the wild-card companions, and there's competition for spaces in the turn order, but fundamentally, this does little except to change turn order for chasing the good cards. (If you don't care about turn order, there's pretty much always somewhere you can go that gets you close to what you want for cards/errands/actions balance.) But there's only one property market space, and it will affect everyone in the property business, and this can have a profound effect. The best time to dip into the property market will often be when most other people aren't interested. As always, you'll do better with no competition. Your opponent probably found that he could get decent helpers from the board (while everyone else fought over property-oriented cards) and largely play his own game, unconcerned with other players.
TL;DR:

Don't plough all your actions into maintaining properties and playing/activating helpers that only affect properties.
Have an escape plan. Play a couple of helpers that work well together and will still be able to spend money once your properties are gone.
As in all games, take the path of least resistance. Go for the strategy that the fewest other players are going for and you'll find less competition for the cards that suit that strategy.


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In the Megaman TCG, what does a collector number that starts with "4" indicate?
The collector's numbers on most cards in the Megaman Trading Card Game list the set number, the rarity, and the number within the set for the given card.
Because there were only three sets released, I expected the set numbers to be only 1, 2, and 3. However, some of my cards have a 4 in the set number position.
Some examples are BambooLance (4 U 35), BugCharge (4 U 38), Geyser (4 U 40), and MagBolt3 (4 U 42).
What does the 4 mean on these cards?

I added a tag and a board game geek link. If you are referring to some other game, feel free to revert my change or make further edits.

These cards were misprinted. The set number is supposed to be 3, just like the other cards in the set.
I found this answer in a supplement to the Grave starter deck rulebook titled "MegaMan Trading Card Game - Current Rulings Document 2.0 - 4/1/2005".
The list of cards that were misprinted in this way are:

BambooLance (3U35)
BugCharge (3U38)
Geyser (3U40)
MagBolt3 (3U42)
Muramasa (3U44)
VoodooDoll (3U46)

It seems to refer to the Gameboy Advance games that featured these items. If I look at this list of in-game items for Megaman Battle Network 4 for the GBA, it lists all these items.


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Ora et Labora. Ideas for an alternative 2 player game ending rule?
I love the game "Ora et Labora" by Uwe Rosenberg. It is has especially a nice 2 player mechanism.
In 3 and 4 player mode the game ends after a certain number of rounds. Which I like very much.
However in the 2 player variant the game ends, when there is only one building left to built. I find this troublesome. My first problem here is that if both player focus on the production of goods, the game can be very long. Moreover, some of the buildings (yellowish) have to connect to your main building complex. If you have been not careful, it can be costly or impossible to get rid of these building-cards.
I am interested in alternative ending rules. What about stopping after a fixed (how many?) number of turns. Should there be a final settlement phase in the end? What was the intention of the game designer to have a completely different 2 player game termination rule?

Two options that we have considered: 1) randomly removing a tile (card?) or two from eah round, or 2) playing until X tiles (cards) remain, where X is greater than zero.

@TheChaz This is probably as close as you can be to the original rules. I still wonder what is the advantage of the "X card left rule" over the "fixed number of turns" rule in the 2 player version.

It might just be a matter of taste, but I prefer the way that player interactions are affected by "until there are X (maybe 0) left". Navegador has a "whichever comes first" end condition.

The "extra turn" mechanism in Ora et Labora is something Uwe carried over from Le Havre. The intention is to avoid the The Kingmaker Dilemma, where a 3rd player is unable to win himself, but is able to choose between two actions that decide the winner. During the "extra turn", players can't be blocked out of actions, so each player acts in his own best interest to put the finishing touches on his board. There's a big stochastic factor in 3-4 player, where other players just happen to get in your way by accident; this is largely missing in 2 player.
Most of the points in the game usually come from buildings, and building them in a checkerboard pattern with settlements. Late-game buildings can be as many as 15-20 points just by sitting on your board between 2 or 3 settlements. If you're finding that 2-player games tend to find cycles which create lots of points (through relics, or wonders), you could try limiting them. Wonders are already limited at 8, but you could limit the relics (and pottery, books, and ornaments) to 16.


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Android: Netrunner judge program
Does Android: Netrunner have anything similar to Magic the Gathering's judge program?

Fantasy Flight Games doesn't currently have a judge program, the closest thing they have are the floor rules.
However at the start of 2015 they announced their intent to setup something like a judge program sometime this year, with a trial starting in the US initially.
It's possible they're delaying the program to see what happens with the Magic Judge system after the currently running lawsuits are settled.

Did anything ever happen with this in terms of a judge program being instigated for Netrunner?


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Where can I find a copy of Starbase Jeff?
One of my favorite games is a now out-of-print game from Cheapass games called Starbase Jeff.  I've been looking for a copy of it for years and haven't had any luck.  Sadly, the game wasn't designed by James Ernest but another game designer, so I doubt it will eventually join the other fine games that he has put out for free on the cheapass site.
Does anyone know where I could get a copy of the game?

With the apparent passing of the designer, my guess is that the copyright would revert to his estate (probably his wife). This isn't the time or place to be asking her to release it to the public domain though.
It appears that at least two places have the out of print game for sale, although I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the products they are selling.
BGG Marketplace
Noble Knight this appears to be a sale house middleman like CardShark.

Currently Starbase Jeff is available for free on the Cheapass Games website. You'll have to print it out yourself but that sort of thing isn't super complicated and might be easier than locating a copy of the original version.

you can check the boardgamegeek.com marketplace, auctions or auction forum periodically. that would be your best bet.  I actually have a copy that I am going to list on the auction forum some time in the next few weeks (just depends on when I get everything listed and ready to go). I am hippyhillary on the geek.


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Can you peek at your cards from future years in Seasons?
In Seasons, after you have selected cards for all 3 years, can you take a look at cards from future years to plan which energy to take?

From the rulebook section II - Constructing your deck:

From the nine power cards chosen, each player should assemble three
sets  of three cards each. The first set immediately forms the
player’s hand, as it  corresponds to the cards with which the players
will begin their tournament.
The second set is placed under the
Library II token and will be added to  the player’s hand during the
second year of  the tournament. As for the third set of power  cards,
it is placed under the Library III token  and will be added to the
player’s hand during  the third and final year of the tournament. At
any point during the game, players can look  at the power cards
they’ve selected.

Emphasis mine.  Assuming I've understood your question correctly, there is no bar to looking at your cards for year two and year three to remind yourself what they are.

Thanks, looks like it's a bug in the BGA implementation.  Then again, it's still in beta over there.


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Thunderstone game taking too long (2 players)
On boardgamesgeek.com there is written that an average length of Thunderstone game (no expansions) is 60 minutes. But when I play it with my girlfriend we regularly play for more than 2 hours. I don't remember actually playing it for less than an hour. It is really too long and although we enjoy the game so much, we often prefer other games to Thunderstone because of the length. We also tend not to fight monsters we aren't sure we can beat. We do it only with the strongest ones so the other player don't receive so many points. So...
1) How long does it take you to play one game on average?
2) Is game shorter when played with more players than 2?
3) Do you have any recommendations on speeding the game up a little?
4) Do you fight monsters even if you can't win the battle? How often do you go to dungeon on average?

When you have a big discrepancy like this, it's a good idea to go back and check the rules to see if you missed something.  I've only played Thunderstone a few times so I'm not sure what it'd be, though.

I am quite sure we play it correctly and we have also played many times... I think we might have spent about 20 hours on playing just in the first week.

Okay, just a suggestion; sometimes there are easy-to-miss but important details in the rules. I have games where there are rules I know exist and still have trouble finding in the rulebook.

My group blows through a 4 player game in 45 minutes (not including setup) with experienced players.  Are you playing the actual original Thunderstone with no expansions, or  Thunderstone Advance?

Plain old Thunderstone with no expansions :)

The original Thunderstone, while a great game, has a bit of a design flaw in that the 'Militia' you start with are just objectively too bad.  It is honestly a winning strategy to spend literally your entire first 6 turns of the game doing nothing but trashing your militia and then starting up building a deck without them.  If you haven't sort of 'realized' this yet in your strategy, the game can be very slow to start and take a long time for your decks to get powered up.
The expansions to the original Thunderstone address this to some extent by adding ways to kill them off into the monster abilities and some spell/item effects that otherwise utilize them.
Thunderstone Advance makes them better by reducing the XP cost to promote them to a L1 warrior, and adding an equipment to your starting deck that gives an ability when equipped to them.
For the base game, you may consider simply starting with fewer of them in your deck to speed up the early development and be strong enough to start going to the dungeon faster.
1) My group can finish a 4 player game in 45 minutes.
2) Not significantly in my experience, but I rarely play with fewer than 4.
3) Cull some of the militia out of the starting deck.  Use one of the several Apps available that generate 'semi-random' starting boards but make sure things are balanced.  This way you don't get really challenging combinations like monsters that require magic and all figher-type warriors that makes for a very slow start.
4) I always go to the dungeon if I have card draw effects in my hand that give me any reasonable hope of possibly defeating something.  (Not withstanding extreme cases like the Last L3 hero is on top of a hero deck and I have enough gold to get it or something...)
Thunderstone Advance is also a vastly improved game and highly recommended if you are willing to drop more $$$.  Your monsters and equipment/spell cards are 'compatible' and can still be used with it.

Thanks for such a well-thought answer :). I will try to play with your suggestions and let you know. At the end you said I should try TS Advance and that these games are compatible... Are there any major rule changes I could also apply in my basic TS? If militia is so better, could I just play with my old version as if it was the new version? I am trying to determine if it is worthy my time to read new rulebook :). Thanks

You could certainly just sort of memorize the changes and pretend your militia are regulars and your daggers are long-spears.  That would help jump-start the game a bit.  The only way in which the cards are really 'incompatible' that you need to track is effects on old cards that say "battle:" should be converted to "aftermath:" when using the advance rules.

2 hours is a LOT of time for a game of Thunderstone. Going through 20-30 monsters isnt so hard...
I see two possible problems. You may have "mechanical" problems, or have little experience with building decks.
"Mechanical" problems
Maybe you arent using your time efficiently. Some of the players in our playgroup couldnt get used to shuffling their library/planning their turn during other players turns. This is a great way to make games shorter. Some of out players just picked up their new-drawn hand when they were supposed to make their moves, making us all wait till they make up thier mind. The whole point of having the draw step at the end of the turn is to give you time to think about what youve got before its your next turn :) Sure, some of the other players may kill some of the monsters or make you discard cards, altering your plans, but accomodating for these changes once youve done all the math  earlier isnt such a problem.
Deckbuilding problems
The game might be drawn out if you wait till you can kill a monster and your decks arent very good. Maybe that is your problem?
Deckbuilding is a tricky process. Most people think its about adding the coolest things to your deck, but that isnt the case. The more cards you have in your deck, the smaller the odds you get a hand that you want. If your deck has 6 torches, you may get all of them on one hand! But if your deck had only 6 good cards, you would get the perfect setting each and every turn!
So get rid of those daggers, iron rations and crappy heroes! There is a card that lets you discard crappy cards while in the village - use it! It's a must-buy! Always consider the ratio of heroes/food/equipments and spells in your deck. I know that halberd or feast is just sooo cool, but you also need someone to wield/eat it!
Also remember - each beaten monster adds to your deck, lowering the average gold and attack you'll get on your turn. Make sure you have a slim, strong deck before you start the serious beating of monsters.
For our group, the game starts slowly, with a lot of buying, turning into a slaughterfest near the end. But all in all, if we all think during other people's turns, we tend to play 30-60 min per game, setup and teardown not included.

The problem playing with 2 people is that you often don't have time to do anything between turns. You haven't even drawn your cards yet let alone shuffled them, when your opponent says "Prepare" and it's your turn again.
Also a lot of the problem can come from the dungeon deck. If you play with the standard rules there is nothing to stop the 3 strongest monsters in the game from coming up first. Which means you can't beat them. Which means nobody gets xp. So you either just take 20 village turns buying cards or someone has to waste an entire turn failing a fight, allowing someone else first shot at the new monster. Fix this by shuffling weak and medium monsters in the top of the deck with medium and strong monsters in the bottom. This ensures a manageable opening game.
But the main problem with Thunderstone play time is that if you play like me you are talking and laughing and joking with your friend, because this is pretty much the only interaction you will have while playing this game. There is next to nothing you can do to effect your opponents. Which means you're each just playing a game by yourself in the same room as your friend. Which is fine, my games take about 2 hours as well but I'm willing to bet that at least 45 minutes of that is spend socializing. I say let the game take as long as it takes. Set up and take down are long too, so this isn't the game to pull out for a quick go before work anyway.
Oh, and your games will speed up once you and your friends know all the cards well. In the beginning I spent half the time reading cards or checking to see what the the higher level heroes do. That will cut down the game time significantly.

To address Draygarth's point above, we play with a house rule that I found on BGG years ago:

Put the Thunderstone to one side.
Whenever you are supposed to draw a monster card from the dungeon deck, draw three and bring the weakest one into the hall and discard the other two.
When the dungeon deck runs out (1/3 of the way through the game), shuffle the discarded monsters into a new dungeon deck and shuffle the Thunderstone into the bottom half of that.
Now play with the rules as normal, just drawing the top card.

If you're playing with traps or treasures, then I discard them in phase 2 above unless they are the first of the three cards drawn.
That way for the first 1/3 of the game you get weaker monsters which are more achievable with your weak initial party. It speeds things up quite a lot in my experience, and avoids the occasional game where you draw three rock hard monsters at the beginning and everything grinds to a halt.

Thunderstone (Advance) is the one game in my collection where I find the time of the box to be hilariously out.  Playing a 4/5 player game usually takes my group 2-3 hours every time, even with experienced players.
But it's still fun :)

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


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How many moves can I make in a single turn in Maharaja?
The Maharaja rules state that I can take my two actions any way I like.  I can even sub-divide the actions.  So for example, given the "build palace and house" action, I could build a palace in one city, move my architect to the next city, and then build the house of that same action in the new city.
So far so good.
The question I have is: how many times can I make moves during my turn?  Only once?  More than once?  For example: after taking one action, moving, and taking part of my second action - can I then move a second time to another city and take the remainder of my second action?  If yes, then I could perhaps have visited as many as four cities in one turn (based on two actions, with each action sub-divided).
Anyone know?

I don't have the original rules with me, but based on my memory and rules from BGG:

7.0 ACTIONS
7.1 Travelling
Moving an architect is a free action, that does not feature on the action disc. The player may freely move his architect
  at any time during his turn. He may move his architect to a city,
  build there and then move him to another city to build there again,
  and so on.
The only restrictions to moving an architect are: He may never be
  moved through a village in which no house (of whichever player) is
  present; He must sometimes pay for his passage.

I would say - Yes, you can move as many times as you want, even between your actions (And theoretically build in four different cities, or even five with builder special role card in one turn) as long as you can move to them and pay the passage fee.


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What are the differences between the oldest (EON) version of Cosmic Encounter and the newest (Fantasy Flight)?
I played hundreds of games of the EON version of Cosmic Encounter when younger but have not played the Fantasy Flight version, which is now the 5th version of this game. Including the expansions from both sets, what are the differences between the two versions?
I'm most interested in any changes in strategy, rules, feel of the play, and types of powers. No need to discuss the specs of the game (numbers of cards, numbers of powers, etc.) which are easily found online.

Here are most of the major changes (including expansions).  (Since a lot of Eon Cosmic fans also played the Mayfair 2nd ed, I've mentioned a it where relevant.)
Main gameplay

The basic game mechanics are unchanged.
Hand size is now 8.
Flares are Eon-style, not Mayfair-style (once played they return to the hand, and are only lost when a new hand is redrawn).
FFG counters allows for up to 8 players with all expansions.  Team play rules have just been added for once you go over 6.
The fixed player boards of Eon/Mayfair are replaced by separate coaster-sized planets.  This seems like a cosmetic change but it's not; several powers and flares now take advantage of the fact that planets can be moved around independently.  (e.g. one alien power actually steals whole planets.)
The main deck contains positive attack cards, negotiates, reinforcements, artifacts and flares.  The confusing array of Eon / Mayfair zaps have been simplified down to the Cosmic Zap (unchanged), and the Card Zap, which zaps artifacts, flares, and zaps.  There's also a 'morph' challenge card, which duplicates your opponent's challenge card.

Optional rules

Destiny cards:

In addition to the wild cards, three special destiny cards are included which all pick a 'well-off' player (e.g. fewest tokens in the warp).
The 'rewards reversed' destiny cards have been improved into an entire expansion mechanic, the hazard deck.  One card in each colour is a 'hazard' card which calls for an alternate rule for the encounter to be drawn.  This deck includes the old 'reversed ally rewards' rule, but also many others that change the encounter feel and require tactical adjustments (e.g. one hazard sends both players to the warp if the total of their attacks is too high).  Three of the cards are long-lasting; they change the rules for all encounters until another one of the three replaces them.

Removed: Most of the more random or bookkeeping-intense optional rules.

In particular, moons and lucre are gone. (Along with all powers that needed them.)

Added: Several major optional card decks.  The hazard deck is mentioned above; there are also:

Tech research.  If this rule is used, each player starts with a random tech card, which can be researched by putting tokens on it at the rate of one a turn until its cost is paid.  This means having fewer forces available on-board, in return for a reward later.
These powers can be low-cost and small, or expensive but extremely powerful.  (e.g. one card creates an entire new planet.)
Rewards deck.  Intended to make being a defensive ally a stronger option; defending allies may draw rewards from the main deck or this one.  This deck includes attack cards (including some negative cards, and not going as high as the main deck attack-30 and -40, but averaging pretty high), crooked negotiates which penalise your opponent more for not dealing, kickers, artifacts, and some cards which retrieve lost ships.  Those cards in this deck also explode and destroy tokens if an opponent ever steals them from you.  (Reward cards have different backs, to discourage being taken by theft powers.)

Powers

In general, the full range of classic powers have been included, but where there were several similar powers, FFG have picked only one.
Powers are rated by complexity, so that the hardest-to-use can easily be removed for beginners' games.
There are no powers that depend on certain optional rules being in play.  Any power will work in any game.  Some powers get better with certain rules in play, of course.
Powers or flares which had ambiguous or interpretative effects (Judge, Witch, etc.) have been reworded to be unambiguous.  (For old-school Eon players, some of the reworded flares have the original version included as an alternative.)
A significant number of new powers are added.  Generally they're well-designed, and surprisingly original - several do odd things with the basic game mechanics, like destroy planets or change the victory conditions.  Many are previewed in the news feed at Fantasy Flight's Cosmic Encounter website, so check there for examples.

Great answer but I'm left with a question: Is there still a very wide range between the best and worst powers, or was that range tightened? As you can see from the stats I posted here (http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/6140/cosmic-encounter-data-which-powers-are-best), powers like the Aristocrat, Disease, and Mesmer won about 4x more (in the Eon version) than Warrior, Mutant, and Witch.

@Joe: I've only played a dozen or so new Cosmic games, which isn't enough for a definitive answer to that.  There's certainly still a large gap (as there should be, in Cosmic!), and it's still situational and depends heavily on the combination of powers.  (Virus is still lethal.)  However, because the new optional rules add more non-power-dependant abilites, if you're playing with Tech, Hazards and Rewards the weaker powers have more chance to close the gap through normal gameplay.  My gut feeling is that the gap is smaller than it was, but I can't prove it.

I was about to answer this, but Tynan's answer is so much better. Several sites have histories of the games and their changes. I only list it here for completeness sake, in case you were wondering about particular changes in card wording, artwork, and alien races available.
http://cosmicencounter.daveola.com/Versions/
http://cosmicencounter.wikia.com/

Even though Tynam's answer was awesome, I appreciate the links - I had no idea there was a Cosmic Encounter Wiki. Perhaps it would make more sense to post my Cosmic Encounter stats at the wikia site rather than (or in addition to) Board and Card Games. As you can see, hardly anybody views my stats here: (http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/6140/cosmic-encounter-data-which-powers-are-best)

Seconded.  Nice addition; I simply didn't think of it.

Here is a pretty detailed and somewhat graphical rundown of the differences among editions, including comprehensive lists of which version has which aliens, organized both by edition and by alien name.
Cosmodex Appendix C on Boardgame Geek


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How literally should I take the "Man of War" in Pirate King?
I've encountered the following card while playing Pirate King:

"Man of War: Fight ship of equal value: win 1 crew 1 cannon and 500 bronze"

I'm not sure how to interpret it and I haven't really gotten a consensus from my fellow players either.
So far we have two different interpretations:

That this is a challenge and the recipient must actually fight a ship of equal value in game combat, and if they win, they receive the stated reward.
That this is simply an event that has occurred, like cargo spoiling, and that it has already played out in the recipient's favour.

I can see how both interpretations work, and I'm not sure which one to pick as the "right" answer. The instructions don't provide much guidance on this issue.
Has anyone else come up with a definitive answer for this card? What logic or source did you use to make your decision?

This is a challenge and the recipient must actually fight a ship of equal value in game combat, and if they win, they receive the stated reward.
From the All Hands on Deck (bottom left corner), hand management expansion:

The Commodore's First Mate: Instead of challenging the Commodore, players may challenge the Commodore's First Mate when they land on the Commodore's spot. The First Mate's ship acts like a Man of War card. Player must fight a ship of equal in men and cannons to their own. If they win they gain 500 bronze, 1 crew & 1 cannon, but if they lose normal defeat conditions apply.

Thanks for finding this. The "if they lose" clause should be all the clarification we need.


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How different are "Kill Doctor Lucky" and "Save Doctor Lucky"?
I've played "Kill Doctor Lucky" and highly enjoy it.  A great, light, game that non-gamers quickly pick up and play easily.  In this game, players move from room to room in a mansion, trying to get Dr. Lucky out of sight of other players so they can kill him.
I'm considering purchasing "Save Doctor Lucky."  It looks like this game reverses the intent.  Players move from room to room in the Titanic, hoping to be in sight of another player as they save Dr. Lucky (so they can be known as a hero).
Obviously, the mechanics sound similar.  I'm wondering what the overall feel of the game is.  Does it offer new and interesting strategies?  Will my family, who are veteran assassins from the first game, find it interesting?  Or is it "just a skin" on the old game?

Save Dr Lucky is similar in some ways, but does play differently. In order to increase the chance of success as the game progresses, the board shrinks one deck at time as the Titanic sinks, which means forces the players closer together. This can be annoying when you are holding on to room cards for a lower deck that has just sunk.
It is definitely worth owning if you enjoy Kill Dr Lucky. I will say that it doesn't play very well if you don't have at least four players.


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English Rules for the card game Belote
There is a card game I used to play when I was in school in the Middle East--which I understand is based on a French game called Belote.
Does anyone know of an English set of rules for this game?
The game involves 4 players in two teams, only uses the 7's and up of each suit (A,K,Q,J,10,9,8,7).
Each turn starts with a bidding process for the top card; it's either chosen to be the trump suite or not.
Scoring is different for the trump suit as is, the rank of the cards, (trump: J,9,A,10,K,Q,8,7) vs (non-trump: A,10,K,Q,J,9,8,7).
Each round consists of a player playing one card into the pile, the team with the highest value card wins that round.
There are also sets of cards like three/four/five in a row or 4 of a kind that are worth bonus points.
I'm looking for a concise set of rules in English for this game, preferably the Arabic variant, if not the French original.

It looks like I misspelt the name of the game. It's actually Belut or Belote
I've found a set of rules here:
http://www.pagat.com/jass/belote.html
The only difference in rules to what I'm used to that I can see from a glance is that 4 Aces is worth 400 points.

I usually resort to pagat, as they have an almost comprehensive number of card game rule descriptions.

You can find here : http://en.beloteenligne.com/ some additionnal information.
The Belote rules seems so easy, but there were so much strategy going on. In France, they prefer a lot Belote to Poker.
This game is known because in every family (and at school) they play belote on Sunday after the meal.