text:
House Rule for Minor Improvement/Occupation distribution?
I'm in a group that regularly plays together. We love Agricola, but we tend to play the family version because we feel the minor improvements and occupations are a bit too unbalanced. Or sometimes one player gets great combinations and other players are left cold.
What options are there for distributing the minor improvements and occupations such that we can minimize that variation?

The back page of my set of rules has several systems to try to sort this out.  Appendix 6 of the rules (from here) says:
3:1 Exchange
At any time, a player may discard any 3 cards from his hand and draw the face-down card at the top of either the Minor Improvements or the Occupations deck. This card is placed in the player’s hand.
10-3
Each player draws 10 Occupation and 10 Minor Improvement cards and discards 3 of each.
Mulligan
At the start of the game (and only at the start), a player may discard all 7 Occupations and/or Minor Improvements and draw 6 new cards of that type. (If the player is still unhappy, he can keep trying this, always drawing 1 card fewer than he discards).
Draft
Before the game starts, each player receives a hand of 7 Occupation cards as usual, then chooses one and passes the rest to her left-hand neighbor. Each player chooses one of the 6 new cards and passes on the remaining 5. This continues until each player has 7 cards. Repeat this process with the Minor Improvement cards. This variant allows players to create better combinations of cards than with a purely random distribution. We recommend that each player should have played Agricola at least 4-5 times before trying this variant.

Drafting
Drafting is pretty popular at http://play-agricola.com  It will take longer to get setup, but each player is more likely to have a set of cards that work together.

Each player draws or receives 8 occupations
Each player picks one occupation and passes the rest to the player to the right
Repeat until each player has 7 occupations
Do the same process with the Minor Improvements

Banning
You could also ban the worst of the cards.  The following can currently be optionally banned for online play at play-agricola.com

E occ, Ratcatcher

G occ, Late Sleeper (banned Apr 21, 2011)

I minor, Wooden Hut Extension (banned April 20, 2010) (not banned May 6, 2010) (banned in 4-ERs Sept 17, 2010)

I occ, Taster

I occ, Chamberlain

(K minor, Broom) (not banned anymore Jan 1, 2010)

K minor, Reedhut (banned Sept 18, 2009)

K occ, Lover

K occ, Wetnurse

Z occ, Mail Coach Driver (banned Sept 18, 2009)

O minor, Guest Worker (banned Sept 18, 2009)

note: Z minor Maypole and Z occ Herald are always prevented.


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In Dominion, how do Duration cards interact with King's Court / Throne Room?
For example, suppose I play a King's Court on a Lighthouse. Do I get +$3 now and +$3 next turn? +$3 now and +$1 next turn?

You get $3 now, and next turn as well.
The Seaside rules contain this blurb on page 4 that clarifies most such situations:

If you play or modify a Duration card with another card, that other card also stays in your play area until it is no longer doing
  anything. For example if you play Throne Room on Merchant
  Ship, both cards stay in play until the Clean-up phase of your next
  turn. The Throne Room stays in play to remind you that you are
  getting the effect of Merchant Ship twice on that next turn.

There are some individual exceptions for some of the more unusual effects. Throne Room can't overcome Outpost's This can’t cause you to take more
than two consecutive turns clause, and you can't Throne Room a Tactician:

Because you must discard at
  least one card in order to gain the bonuses from Tactician, it is
  not possible to Throne Room a Tactician to get + 10 cards, +2
  Buys, and + 2 Actions.

So, bottom line, most Duration effects are simply doubled, but any time a combination with Throne Room starts getting confusing, it's best to check the rulebook - these situations are usually explicitly addressed.

To be clear, you can Throne Room a Tactician, it just won't do any good the second time the Tactician is played.

The answer from Pat Ludwig is correct, this is just additional clarifications of the rules regarding the tracking of actions:
Donald X writes:

If you TR or KC a duration card, leave out the TR or KC with the duration card. [It's tracking that you doubled or tripled that card]
If you TR or KC a TR-or-KC used on a single duration card (and up to 2 non-duration cards), don't leave it out. [It's not tracking anything.] [You still leave out the one that hit the duration card though.]
If you TR or KC a TR-or-KC used on two or three duration cards, leave it out. [It's tracking the extra doubling/tripling done by the latter TR or KC, which also stays out.]
Therefore I am going to go back on my ruling from yesterday for what happens if you KC a KC a KC used on 3 duration cards. The 3rd KC stays out obv. The 2nd one stays out; it's indicating that the 3rd one hits 3 things. The first KC is doing nothing and so goes.
If instead you KC a KC, and that one KC's 1) a KC for 3 duration cards, 2) a duration card, 3) a non-duration, then you would keep the first KC out, as now it's indicating that the 2nd KC got to hit 3 cards, necessary for that 4th duration card to be tripled.

Slightly complicated, but the whole thread leading up to this can be found here at BoardGameGeek.com.  TR = Throne Room, KC = King´s Court.

Note that this answer is out of date. Donald has changed his mind on this, the current rule is that a TR/KC only stays out if it directly played a Duration. So TR+TR+Duration+Duration results in only 1 TR staying out with the Durations, not both.

What Gendolkari says seems to be the way the official dominion.games client has implemented it. For example when you do KC(KC(a[Dur],b,c), d[Dur], e), both KCs stay out because they both directly touched the duration cards a and d. However if you instead did KC(KC(a[Dur],d[Dur],c),b,e), only one KC will stay out: the one which directly touched a and d. (Especially relevant for cards like Hireling.)

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Pandemic and Forbidden Island - How similar are they?
We have Pandemic at home. When browsing for some new games I stumbled over Forbidden Island made by the same designer. I thought it could be interesting to have another cooperative game but when I read about the gameplay I got the sneaking suspicion that it would feel too much like Pandemic.
From what I read the selection of flooding tiles works exactly like the infection deck in Pandemic and obtaining the treasures exactly like finding the cures. So my question is: Do these two games feel different enough to warrant buying both?

While I have both and definitely notice the similarities, I don't regret the purchase.  Here's why:
1)  Forbidden Island is easier to teach.  Not that I think Pandemic is very complicated, but I've been able to teach Forbidden Island to my 8 year old where Pandemic was a bit too much.   Also, the fewer number of bits (cubes and such) has made the game less intimidating to spouses.
2)  Forbidden island is easier to vary.  Beyond raising the "damage coefficient" (number of infections in Pandemic, beginning water level in Forbidden Island), you can alter the tile layout to form a new challenge.
3)  Forbidden Island plays quicker.  Faster setup, faster game play, faster tear down.
Having said that, my usual gaming group prefers Pandemic with expansions to Forbidden Island because they feel it is a deeper experience.
So to sum up:  I would only get Forbidden Island if difficulty, approachability, or time is keeping Pandemic from hitting the table more.  Otherwise, I'd go for another coop game such as Ghost Stories or Castle RavenCroft.

Our family managed to learn Pandemic without many problems and now that we got the hang of it we've never lost on normal difficulty anymore. So based on your answer I believe we would be better served with the Pandemic expansion than Forbidden Island.

I would agree then.  I hope my comments helped.

While Forbidden Island is very similar to Pandemic in gameplay, it is worth purchasing both games.
Forbidden Island is definitely easier to teach to new players and has an overall shorter play time.  It is also worth noting that this game is dirt cheap, and has been seen as low as $10 on sale.  Games are only as fun as the people you have to play them with, so starting with Forbidden Island is well worth the cost.
There is one key gameplay difference in that after the 4 treasures have been found, players still have to meet up at the helicopter and escape the island.  This makes the end game strategy slightly different than Pandemic's.
I disagree with another answer here that claims Forbidden Island is more varied due to tile layout.  The initial seeding of disease tiles in Pandemic gives that same variety on a fixed physical board.  Still, it is worth owning both games.

But forbidden island tile layout has two effects: first, which tiles already "sank" (in Pandemic: which cities infected), but second: which tiles are connected to which. In Pandemic, travel between cities is always the same, as it represents the Earth.

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Does Small World's Dragon Master allow conquering non-adjacent regions?
Dragon Master:

Once per turn, you may conquer a Region
  using a single Race token, regardless of the
  number of enemy tokens defending it. Once
  conquered, place your Dragon there...

Does this allow you to conquer any region on the map, even if it's not adjacent to a region you already control? In a game I played last night, it was ruled that it could do this. However I don't agree with that ruling since it doesn't explicitly grant that exception.

The Dragon does not fly or give the race flying.  (Therefore you can normally* only conquer adjacent areas).
The Dragon does not do the conquering, only allow you to conquer an area with a single race token.  You place the Dragon after you conquer the area.
*normally used as I don't have all the expansions and for all I know there is an edge case out there!

One edge case would be the Dragon Master Spiderines:
For conquest purposes, your Spiderines consider all Regions  bordering a Chasm as adjacent to the Regions they already occupy. For your first conquest, you may enter the board through any Region bordering a Chasm.

A humorous reminder of this rule is actually the artwork on the dragon token itself. If you look closely, you'll see that it is a walking dragon, not a flying one, and that it is being coaxed forward with human bait dangling from a long stick.


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Do chest traps happen before loot is distributed?
If the player says they're opening a chest, and the overlord plays a trap card, does the trap effect take place before or after the chest is opened?
This is particularly important in the case of death or being monkeyed, as neither monkeys nor dead people can open chests (and hence collect the loot).

The trap effect resolves before the contents of the chest are distributed. From the FAQ (page 4)

Q: When a chest contains curses, can the overlord use the threat generated by the curses to play a trap on that chest? Does the trap go off before or after the rest of the chest
  contents are distributed?
A: Curses are always the first thing distributed from a chest, and threat from curses may be used to play a trap card in response to opening the chest. The rest of the chest
  contents are only distributed after the trap card (if any) resolves. In the case of a Mimic or similar card, this could be several turns later!

Ooh, there's a FAQ? +1 for just that.

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The New Dungeon lengthening
Now and again I play the The New Dungeon (with people who don't normally play board games), but I'm always struck by how fast the game is over. It seems like you're barely getting started on the higher levels before someone's off back to the staircase with a winning bagful of loot.
Does anyone have any simple custom rules for lengthening the game, or even to make it more interesting?

Wow, I was just looking at this game again the other day, too funny.
While I haven't played in a few years, I do remember our group has used one (or both) of he following rules to make things play longer:

Increase by 50% or 100% (depending on how long you want the game to play) the amount of loot necessary to win the game.
Require that in addition to collecting enough loot, you must have collected at least one piece of treasure from each floor, or from a specified number of floors.


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Descent Campaign Shortening
Myself and some friends meet up for some games every so often, and enjoy a good game of Descent to Darkness.
We recently tried a campaign over an extra long weekend (the idea of carrying equipment and characters over to a new game sounded appealing) but found that we'd barely scratched the surface, and that a lot of time was spent setting up and messing around in markets etc.
Does anyone have any recommendations (or even better, tested method) for a middle ground between an evening's single dungeon and full-on month-lasting campaign?

I've only played Descent a couple time, but it does seem like the games have lasted weeks...  While I'm not sure that there is a good way to shorten the campaign, there are a few websites that will save your data (characters, location, etc) so that you can put the game away and then come back to it later...

While this may seem disappointing, my advice is: don't.
Descent is a great game in its single-dungeon mode, and while it might look appealing to bring your characters from a dungeon to another, it actually "just doesn't work".
One of the fun things about this game is the weapon progression: as you go on, you might find cooler weapons to use. This works well in a single dungeon, but is crap in the campaign: after just a few encounters it is likely that every player will have the best-in-slot weapon for that campaign level, and anything else they can find will just be sold away. This takes away a lot of fun from the game.
Moreover due to setting and stuff you end up wasting so much time playing just a couple of (short) encounters in the campaign, that you could have played a whole (much longer) dungeon in the standard game.
If you really want to keep a few things from one dungeon to another, you could keep the same characters, follow the standard rules about xp and progression, and change a character with another one if he dies.

Ooh, reincarnation; now there's an idea. It also gives a good hefty penalty for getting yourself eaten.

If you are really having every player having the best-in-cycle weapons after just an encounter or two in the advanced campaign, then you're doing it wrong.

With the Road to Legend or Sea of Blood campaigns you can start the campaigns at the silver or gold level to make them go much faster.
I think the campaigns are designed for about 20 hours per campaign level so starting at a each higher level cuts about 20 hours.


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Possession and Masquerade - are these too powerful in 2 player games?
Just encountered this yesterday.

Player A plays Possession
Then, it's player B turn (with player A deciding), and there's a Masquerade in the hand.
Player A decides to play the Masquerade,
Player A chooses the card to swap in both hands!
Swapping a province for a curse is so delightful.

But also it seems too much powerful. Am I doing something wrong?
Note that it does not work with 3 players or more, because of the rotation of the swapped cards between the 3 players.

As keithjgrant said,  it's not an overpowered combo because the player B could have simply chosen to not buy a Masquerade.

Possession and Masquerade are just known to be wacky when used together.  That's just what happens when you have 100+ cards at this point.  Donald X. Vaccarino said "Possession is a case where Masquerade ends up being a weird exception", but it's basically not worth special rules or changing the card for this one interaction.
keithjgrant is also right that if Possession is out, you'd better not buy Masquerade. :)

What? Where did Donald admit that this combo is broken? Buying Masquerade (or Ambassador) when Possession is on the board is a risky move. You don't have to buy the Masquerade. And if you are able to use Masquerade to give your opponent a Masquerade, all while having the type of deck where you can play enough Possession to use it on your opponent's turn, then you probably have a deck that could win either way. This most certainly is not a broken combo.

Man, this was a long time ago... I might have been referring to http://boardgamegeek.com/article/4910970#4910970, perhaps? "Broken" is probably too strong a word, I'll edit the answer.

Wow, sorry, didn't notice the date on this! It showed up on the front page because the question was edited. Thanks for the link.

The only person doing something wrong is the one who buys a Masquerade into their deck while Possession is on the table!  You can also do a similar thing with Ambassador.

Masquerade is a powerful card, but buying it in a game with Possession is of course a big risk. (Even in a 3p game, if you get a lead, an opponent who Possesses you might have you pass a Province to an opponent who's not doing so well.) If there are Cursing attacks that will make it difficult to assemble the $6 + Potion cost, Masquerade can be worth that risk since it will also help dispose of Curses.

authors: Αντώνιος Κελεσίδης


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Carcassonne - The Tower and The Dragon
While it has been a while since I last played Carcassonne using The Tower expansion, I seem to recall a level of confusion as to how the rules surrounding The Tower interacted with the rules of the Dragon.
For example, can the Dragon destroy towers...?

Dragons can't eat tower pieces or barns (only followers). Dragons can eat followers on the tops of towers. This is discussed in the huge annotated rules clarification on Board Game Geek, which has the following to say.
Page 45:

If a follower is deployed to the top of a tower, the construction of the tower is finished
and it may not be built any further. The follower remains on top of the tower until the
end of the game and is not removed or returned to the player unless eaten by the
dragon or captured by another tower. This action may be useful when a player
wishes to protect a more valuable follower from capture.

Page 54:

A barn cannot be removed by the dragon (from The Princess and the Dragon), nor taken prisoner by a tower (from The Tower).

Some relevant related rulings (footnotes in the document):

(105) Q: If there are 2 followers on 1
tile (tower and city) does the dragon
eat them both?
A: [It eats them ] all.
(116) Q: If the dragon can eat a
follower on a tower, can the follower
also be seduced by a princess?
A: The tower is not a part of the city: they are two separate areas.
(133) Q: If you place a dragon tile and add a piece to a tower, what happens
first: follower capture by the tower, or dragon movement?
A: Prisoners are taken first; placing a tower piece is an
alternative to deploying a follower, so occurs before dragon movement.

Dragon food clarifications can be found on p.68-70. To summarise:

Dragon food: Follower, Big Follower,
Mayor, Wagon, Builder Pig, [Follower on] Tower
Block
Not dragon food: Barn, Count,
Fairy


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In Magic, when can I tap my opponent's creatures to prevent them from attacking?
Whilst I haven't played Magic in a while, use of the stack was something that I always found a little confusing. When I first started out, our group could tap an opponents attacking creature after attackers had been declared and effectively take it out of combat? Is this right? Or did we have the stack order backwards?

Declaring a creature as attacking taps it. Even if it didn't, if the creature had Vigilance, once a creature is attacking, it's attacking unless an effect removes it from combat, being tapped does not do so.

This is not so much about the stack, as the order of the turn:

Beginning Phase
Main Phase
Combat Phase

Beginning of Combat step
Declare Attackers step
Declare Blockers step
Damage step
End of Combat step

Main Phase
End Phase

After the first main phase, there's a step where you can play abilities like tapping, but before they can attack you: Beginning of Combat step. Every turn goes in this order (with minor exceptions) But when we play, we usually don't bother talking about every phase and step, often because nothing happened in them! But they're still part of every turn, if we need to do something then.
So there's nothing wrong with your opponent playing a spell, then moving right on to "I attack you with this guy." All you have to say is "wait, I want to do stuff at the Beginning of Combat" and back up to that point. Then you tap whoever you want to tap. Just remember, after the tapping your opponent gets to decide how they want to attack, knowing their creature is tapped!
And after they know you can tap things, in future turns they should stop and ask you before they declare attackers. (You can ask them nicely to do this.) That way they don't give away the info of who they want to attack with!

This is correct. If you're playing in MTGO, note that Beginning of Combat is the strategically correct place to stop in order to preemptively tap attackers, since of course MTGO doesn't allow you to "back up" into a step that you've already skipped.

When I'm playing a competitive game, I try and be pretty strict about this step. When I'm ready to declare attackers I say something like "moving to attack…" or "I'm going to declare attackers…" and then wait for a "Go" or "OK" — that way there's no confusion and my opponent doesn't have to say "oh, wait I was going to tap that guy…"

@ghoppe - If there is something like Tumble Magnet on the field, you should also take the steps more slowly.

I find the shorthand players actually say is one of the following: "combat" "declare combat", and less often "attacks" "declare attacks" - even though one could say that declare attacks is the second step of the combat phase, not the first, the tacit pause they put after the declare attacks is shorthand for "I'm about to declare attacks. Are you doing anything for the beginning of combat step?" while declare combat is "I'm declaring the beginning of combat. Do you have anything before I move on to the declare attacks step?" - like so many things in magic, same outcome, different derivation.

So it's not legal to tap a creature in response to someone declaring it as an attacker to prevent it from being able to attack?

@mgarciaisaia That depends. Do people understand what you mean when you say that, and will they let it work? Yes, usually. Does attacking go on the stack and get responded to so you can tap in response? No, on a technical level that's not how the game works. (Also, Combat is special, but in general you can't tap something in response to it being tapped as a cost, it's too late!)

Spells, activated abilities, and triggered abilities go onto the stack when they are cast, activated, or triggered.  Before they resolve, any player is allowed to play other (instant-speed) spells or abilities, which themselves go on the stack and can be responded to.  If no player responds to an item on the stack, the top (most recently played) spell or ability resolves.
There are, however, several actions that do not use the stack.  Among them are the turn-based actions, the game actions that happen automatically when steps or phases begin or end.  Declaring attackers is one of those turn-based actions: As soon as the "Declare Attackers" step begins, the attacking player declares any attacking creatures, before anyone gets to play any spells or abilities that step.  This action cannot be responded to; once a creature is declared as an attacker, you cannot tap it to prevent it from attacking.  Even if it has vigilance, tapping it will not remove it from combat unless it's due to regeneration or an effect that explicitly removes something from combat.
However, there are occasions before the Declare Attackers step when opponents are allowed to tap potential attackers; in particular, the end of the pre-combat main phase, and the end of the "beginning of combat" step.  For convenience, most players respect "In response to your declaration to attack" as shorthand for playing something at the end of the main phase.  Note, however, that the attacker is not obligated to declare attackers before such a response, and is free to change any declaration that was proposed before you interrupted it.
For example, if your opponent plays Arc Runner and immediately declares it as an attacker, you may play Twitch on that Arc Runner "in response," by which you really mean at the end of his or her pre-combat main phase.  However, if you do, your opponent is then allowed to attack with any other creatures he or she controls.  On the other hand, if you specifically ask which creatures your opponent is attacking with, you have implicitly given up the ability to play Twitch until after they're attacking.
As for tapping a creature to remove it from combat, something similar used to apply to blockers, not attackers.  That rule was removed in the sixth edition rules update, when the stack was introduced.

+1 for "This action cannot be responded to; once a creature is declared as an attacker, you cannot tap it to prevent it from attacking."

Once attackers have been declared, tapping them usually has no effect, but there are exceptions.
Suppose a creature with Vigilance has been declared as an attacker.  You can surely tap it, and perhaps gain an advantage thereby (e.g. being able to attack next turn without it being able to block); it just won't remove the creature from combat.
A little confusingly, if a creature is regenerated mid-combat, it is both tapped AND removed from combat.  But the removal from combat is a property of regeneration, not a property of becoming tapped.

I deleted my answer as it was not quite right and other answers are better.  Just notifying you in case you wanted to modify your answer.  Please flag this answer when you are done (either way) to remind me to come back and delete my comment.  Thanks!

I think the OP was conflating the beginning of combat with the declare attackers step. As pointed out in other answers, each player has priority at the beginning of combat to do things, like tap down potential attackers, before the declare attackers step.

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How many creatures should be in a draft deck?
How many creatures should the average, typical draft deck contain?
Obviously this depends on a multitude of factors, including the kinds of creatures in your deck, the kinds of non-creatures you have available, and the overall composition of the block you're drafting. Nonetheless, what's a good baseline for the number of creatures in a draft deck? And how should I decide if I need to run more or fewer creatures than the baseline?

I created the tag [tag:mtg-drafting] for this question, as MTG draft is a distinct enough creature to warrant its own tag IMHO.

Usually, my draft decks tend to aim for 16-17, 6-7 other spells, and 17 lands.  Generally, if you end up with 19-20+ creatures your deck is going to be aggressive but insufficiently versatile.  If you end up with 11 or fewer creatures your deck may have lots of "answers" but a shortage of ways to actually win the game.  As ever, striking a balance is key.
There's nothing wrong with having 12 creatures or something if your deck is packed with sweet removal: take a red/black deck for instance; the creature quality in these colours tends to be low, but you make up for it in the strength of the removal cards.  Obviously it'd be daft to be adding bad creatures to a deck to "make up the numbers" when you have excellent removal at your disposal: being able to take out one of the opponent's best creatures is almost as good as playing a creature of your own.
Also, make a note of cards in your pool which aren't creatures but basically count as creature cards.  Mind Control is one of the very best cards in the latest Core Set because not only does it remove an opponent's creature, it gives you one as well!  And most sets have an instant or sorcery that generates token creatures these days.  If you draft a lot on Magic Online where it keeps a running total of creatures for you, you'll be familiar with having to take that figure with a pinch of salt - because often it lies!
Anyway, 16-17 creatures or equivalent is definitely "average and typical".  If you're often drastically over- or undershooting that baseline, then (unless you've created some kind of insanely broken rogue decks that crush all comers 3-0) I'd definitely try to steer closer to the 40% creatures mark and see if that works out better for you.

Creatures are what makes you win and what makes you lose games in Limited. Therefore I would consider the baseline types of spells for Limited not only creatures, but creatures + creature removals. Creatures with evasion are powerful in Limited, so sometimes the only solution to a sticky situation is a targeted removal.
So, assuming a 23-17 distribution, you want a total of 23 creatures and creature removals as the baseline.
Then you start replacing your worst creatures with, in this order:

Non-creature bombs (such as equipments, token generators),
Direct Damage (might already count as removal depending on card and environment)
and finally, if you still have room, a little utility, such as mana fixing/acceleration, card drawing/searching, graveyard recycling, or cheap cantrips for thinning the deck.

You probably shouldn't go below ca. 15 creatures + removals in most cases. There is nothing worse than sitting on a hand and battlefield full of utility and equipments and getting beaten to death by a 2/2.

LOL. Looking at a hand full of utility cards while I'm dying to a 2/2 is exactly what happened to me in my last game, and the thing that prompted me to ask this question.

I feel your pain :)

I mostly agree with the accepted answer, but i think the numbers are a little off. so i will try to be concise:

15-18 creatures is average, and the best answer for draft with no other information.
14 creatures is the absolute lower limit without a good reason
11-13 is the range for decks that are built that way, ex. tempo, prowess, etc.
<10 are rarer special cases decks ex. Rise from the Tides decks in SOI draft can run ~5 actual creatures (n.b. normally spells that create token are counted as creatures)
>18 creatures is also a rare special case, in older core sets 20-22 creature decks could be extremely viable.

Decks usually have a number of control/defensive cards, evenly balanced between anti-creatures, anti-instants, anti-enchantments etc.
I found more useful to put my attacking cards only in one category (creatures, enchantments, sorceries, etc.), so that a big part of my opponent's deck defenses becomes useless or less useful.
You can see that, if you follow this phylosophy, there is no "proportionate" or "disproportionate" number of creatures, but it would be rather more interesting having significantly more or significantly less creatures than "normal". Or even no creatures at all. :-)

You could argue this for decks in general, but I think draft (as the question specifies) tends to be particularly creature-heavy.

10creatures, 24 land,10 spells, 10 artifacts 6, of anything

Limited decks have a minimum of 40 cards, so this seems like too much. And in many sets, you can easily go through an entire draft without drafting 10 artifacts.


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Is there a viable corn-only strategy for Puerto Rico?
In the last Puerto Rico game I played I wound up with all corn. I tried to make this work with the following strategy:

Office + large market + small market for income
Harbor + wharf to ship all my corn for maximum points

This didn't work as well as I had hoped. In particular, even with the markets my income was lower than any other players, so it took me a long time to build the other buildings I needed for this strategy. I didn't get the large building I wanted, and I never occupied it. At the end of the game I did have the most point chips of any player, but the other players more than made up for it with their large buildings and other bonuses.
Is there an alternate strategy that would make all-corn a viable route to victory?

With most games of this type, the key to winning is balance.
My Puerto Rico strategy is to think of the game in 3 equal strategic phases

Phase 1 - get money
Phase 2 - get money/VPs
Phase 3 - get VPs

You can make a corn only strategy work, but only if you are playing against below-par players. But to get money in phase 1, corn doesn't really help you. To be able to make victory points in phase 2 and 3, a corn only strategy really stops you from preventing your opponents from shipping. Whilst a Wharf will help you, it will not be enough to win in most cases.
If you are playing against solid players, balance is the only option. I try to have 3 to 4 different goods being brought in, which gives great options for shipping and selling.

Agreed -- it's easy to take off with corn, but you really need either indigo or sugar to make sure you can take advantage of as much shipping as possible, and trade as well.  Every resource you have that another person doesn't is a chance at blocking them out of shipping.

A corn-heavy strategy can be a good one, but corn-only is vastly inferior.
In your example, you spent 12 coin on the office, large market and small market, and you will be trading for three coin each time. You could have bought a coffee roaster and tobacco storage for less (11 coin), and be selling those for four and three respectively.
Even worse, if your opponents are even of average strength, they will never choose captain, and rarely choose craftsman. You will rarely benefit from their choices. Plus, you will probably have to waste several turns calling settler, to ensure that you get corn whenever it is the only one available. Your opponents will be able to play more opportunistically, mixing up their choices and collecting all of the bonus coins.
You are forced to make decisions solely on the basis of how much it helps you, while your opponents will be able to make decisions based on how much it helps them AND how much it hurts their opponents.

I think that in general Codemwnci's answer is a good one (+1), but I think the one thing missing from the discussion is that the game length in Puerto Rico is variable.  If you are playing with only corn, but other people are also aiming to ship large quantities of goods then the game may end earlier than usual due to lack of VP chips.  One way to try to improve your chances is to encourage others to invest in shippable goods, and also the other wharf/harbour.
Sidenote: Whenever someone seems to be going for an all out corn strategy I feel obligated to quote Teen Girl Squad - "It's Corn and Corn Alone Day!".  In my experience this starts to get thin on the third repetition.

Corn is a tempting commodity, because it is cheap to produce, meaning that you can get off to a fast start.
That said, it is easy to fall behind with a corn ONLY strategy, because of its lack of synergy with certain other parts of the game. For instance, corn is the only commodity that can't be upgraded to a finished product, meaning that you can't get the extra money, at a time (early game) when money might be important. Also, as you found in your game, it doesn't always co-ordinate so well with other aspects of the game such as building.
"Corn only," may beat unskilled players using a similarly naive strategy. But more advanced players will devise building/shipping/captaining strategies that will defeat your "corn only" play. To win, you'll need to "mix it up" with other commodities, and/or buildings.
In general, an "X-only" strategy is a bad idea in ANY game, even if "X" is a good thing. For instance, in poker, its a good idea to USUALLY have good cards when you bet. But if you NEVER bet with a bad or mediocre hand, your opponents will save too much money by "folding" mediocre hands when you bet.
If you bet the occasional mediocre hand, and bluff with "nothing," one of two things will happen: 1) You will "steal" some extra hands that you wouldn't win in a showdown, or 2) You will get "caught bluffing" in a showdown, and having seen this happen once, people will "pay you off" more often when you bet a good hand.


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Ponder: to shuffle or not to shuffle
You know the situation. You need something specific: a land, say, or a removal spell, so you play Ponder. You find the thing you're looking for. Hooray! Unfortunately, the other two cards that Ponder shows you are completely useless at this point in the game, so if you put the card you want on top and draw it, you're guaranteeing yourself two dead draws afterwards. On the other hand, if you shuffle, you might have better draws on the upcoming turns, but you leaving it up to randomness whether you draw the card you need right now.
What do you do? What factors do you take into account in order to decide the correct play?

believe in the heart of the cards!

In general, the only time it is worth it to shuffle your deck is if you are looking for a land card. When you are looking for removal, a win condition, or more than a single threat card, you are usually better off keeping the cards that Ponder reveals. This question essentially boils down to a probability question. The deciding factors are:

How likely are you to draw the specific card you are looking for if you shuffle?
How soon do you need to draw the specific card?
How likely are you to improve your draw if you shuffle?
Do you have in hand a way to search for the specific card, or to shuffle your library? (I would assume that you didn't, otherwise the question is moot. i.e. If you had another Ponder in hand, Polluted Delta, or some other means to shuffle your library then you should keep the revealed cards.)

Except for the specific probability, the only real controlling factor here is how soon you need to draw the specific card. The gray area here though, is what exactly do you mean by need and dead draw? Are the "dead draws" 1/1 chump blockers, can you survive for 3 turns if you keep this draw? I will make some assumptions about what those dead draws likely are, and run some calculations using the Hypergeometric Distribution function to give a general idea what the best course of action is.
Probability
Looking for Land and Ponder reveals a Land, and 2 other "useless" cards (high converted mana cost).
At one extreme, you might have kept a hand of a single land card and hoped that Ponder would help you find at least another one. In a 24 land deck, if you choose to shuffle, you have a 44% chance of immediately drawing  the land. After three draws, you only have a 17% of not getting any land, and a 41% chance of getting two or more land. The fourth draw looks even better for shuffling, with a 60% chance of getting 2+ land, and keeping the useless cards only having a 45% chance of 2+ land.
That extreme case is not very likely though. Usually, you will mulligan a hand with fewer than 3 land. If instead we examine Turn 3, casting Ponder to find the 4th land. If you shuffle, you have a 42% chance of immediately drawing a land. The remaining calculations have very similar percentages as the extreme case. Late game, after drawing a quarter of the deck, perhaps you are looking for your 6th land so that you can cast some game winning spell. Obviously, if you have already drawn the "winning" spell, you should probably just keep the cards since Ponder revealed the one land card you were looking for. If you haven't drawn the winning spell, the odds that you don't draw your 6th land by your third draw are only about 18%, which drops to only 10% on the forth draw. Once again shuffling is the best move, because not only is it unlikely that you won't draw your 6th land, you also have an increased chance of drawing your game "winning" spell (about 32%).
Looking for Removal and Ponder reveals removal, and 2 Lands. For one extreme, we will assume Turn 2, two lands drawn, 4x copies of Swords to Plowshares (StP).  If you shuffle, the odds of drawing StP are only 8%:1st draw and 21%:3rd draw. In fact, the odds of drawing removal after shuffling only exceeds 50% on your 8th draw. Clearly, if you need removal any time soon you shouldn't shuffle (Considering you start at 20 life, a 3/x or larger creature will kill you in 7 turns).
In a more likely scenario, lets assume you have 8x copies of removal in your deck, it is Turn 4, you have drawn and used one removal spell and are looking one of the remaining 7 (these could be targeted removal, or WoG). In this situation, if you shuffle you have a 14%:1st draw, 25%:2nd draw, 33%:3rd draw, and >55%:5th draw. When you compare these results with the certainty of drawing the removal you need immediately, you are likely better off keeping the cards and the 2 "useless" cards. If you can last +5 turns before you need removal, you might want to shuffle.
Looking for a Win Condition and Ponder reveals the win condition, and 2 Lands. The win condition will be a card that completes a combo, some sort of fattie with evasion, or an instant win card. We will assume that you have drawn enough lands already, so that is why the cards are dead draws. Since it is a rather obvious choice to keep the cards if all you need is one copy of the "win condition", the chart below will examine the increase/decrease in odds of drawing 2+ copies if you decide to shuffle. Only after you have drawn half your deck, and when 20% of the cards left in the deck are win cards, are the odds equal or better that you have drawn 2+ win cards. When you take into account the fact that keeping the cards ensures you get one of those win cards immediately, you nearly always should keep the cards Ponder reveals.
        |  2 |  4 |  6 |  8 |Win Cond
        +----+----+----+----+--------+
      50| -2%| -4%| -4%| -3%|
      40| -2%| -4%| -4%| -2%|
      30| -2%| -4%| -2%| +3%|
      20| -3%| -1%| +5%|+12%|
      10| -1%|+12%|+17%| -- |
 Library|

Another possibility is that Ponder revealed a single threat, and 2 Lands. What you would really prefer at this point, is any threats in your deck. If you shuffle, you have the possibility of getting fewer dead land draws. In this situation, you are interested in the odds of drawing 1 or fewer lands in the top three cards (2 lands within the top 3 would be the same situation a third of the time). The situations where it would be worth it to shuffle are extremely unlikely, as 60% or more of the deck needs to be land.

I'm having trouble visualising lots of "dead draws" in a reasonably well constructed deck.  Your deck should have good cards in it!  Things to do with mana!  Ways to shuffle excess lands away!
Still, let's suppose you need one land to cast the expensive bomb in your hand, and Ponder shows you three lands.  Maybe if you don't cast the bomb you're going to lose?  Well, then, your choice is easy.  Otherwise it all completely depends on how urgent your predicament it is.  Land flood over the next three turns sounds pretty bad, so if your situation isn't actually that bad and you can survive a few more turns without the land, you might want to offer your fate up to the will of the gods instead.
I think a key concept is: don't get TOO greedy.  Ponder doesn't entitle you to perfect draws over the next 3 turns.  If the three cards you look at are mediocre, but keep you well in the game, gambling in the hopes of better may not be the smart move.  Fortunately, most Magic players have enough experience of mulliganing to have a reasonable idea of what cards are keepable and what must realistically be "thrown back".  I'm not convinced that any special rules apply to Ponder that don't apply to mulligans!

Probably the most common situation where this happens is when you have plenty of mana and need a removal spell, and Ponder shows you removal and two more lands.

@JSBձոգչ Mmm, I guess.  Ponder is a blue card and I don't associate blue decks strongly with removal, but I guess you could be UW and looking for a board-sweeper.  Wrath followed by two dead turns is probably better than being savagely beaten down, especially if your opponent's hand is empty or nearly so.

Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Ancient Grudge, Lightning Bolt... these are just the first four removal spells that I thought of that you might play alongside U in a UW, RUG, or UR deck (of which there are plenty).

Factors that could influence your decision:

Do you have cards in hand that you can play for the next few turns?
Do you have other means of shuffling your library?
How valuable is the card you would draw if you didn't shuffle?
Do you have other means of obtaining the card you would draw if you shuffled it away?

Community wiki. Go ahead and add more.


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Factory bonus when some supply piles are exhausted
In a recent game of Puerto Rico, I had a Factory with a colonist on it, and I had manned plantations and production buildings to produce four different kinds of goods. However, when the Craftsman was taken, by the time it was my turn to take my production all but one of the supply piles was exhausted, and I was only able to take one barrel.
In this case, do I still get the +3 doubloon bonus from the Factory since I could produce four types of goods, or do I not get any bonus since I only did take one?

No bonus is received.
You only get credit for what you produce. See the rules, page 10.  The answer is clear within the Example for the factory.

That is pretty darn clear. The person holding the rulebook in our game didn't notice the example for some reason, and so we ruled that I got the bonus anyway.

@JSBձոգչ That happens, writing rules that are clear is hard and even if a designer succeeds some folks will have blind spots about certain things!


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Can Morbid be triggered after the Morbid creature is cast?
I have a Deranged Outcast and no other creatures in play, and I have an Ulvenwald Bear in hand. I would like to:

Cast the Bear and put the Morbid trigger on the stack
Have the Deranged Outcast sacrifice himself while the Morbid trigger is on the stack
Put 4 +1/+1 counters on the Bear

Is this play possible/legal? Is there some other order of play that could achieve the same effect?

No, but not for the reason corsiKa states. The reason that you cannot do this is because the Ulvenwald Bear's triggered ability has an "intervening if clause." For triggered abilities with intervening if clauses, the condition is checked both when the triggered ability would be put on the stack and once again when it resolves.

603.4. A triggered ability may read “When/Whenever/At [trigger event], if [condition], [effect].” When the trigger event occurs, the ability checks whether the stated condition is true. The ability triggers only if it is; otherwise it does nothing. If the ability triggers, it checks the stated condition again as it resolves. If the condition isn’t true at that time, the ability is removed from the stack and does nothing. Note that this mirrors the check for legal targets. This rule is referred to as the “intervening ‘if’ clause” rule. (The word “if” has only its normal English meaning anywhere else in the text of a card; this rule only applies to an “if” that immediately follows a trigger condition.)

This is correct, but corsiKa's point stands: you can't put the Morbid trigger on the stack because it won't trigger. As you note in 603.4 the ability triggers only if the condition is true when the trigger event (enters the battlefield) occurs.

@ghoppe, it's not clear to me what corsiKa's point actually is, since I find his answer very unclear. This answer covers the relevant point: my plan fails in step 1, because the Morbid trigger never goes on the stack unless the Outcast has already died.

Simply put, no. The text on the bear states when it enters the battlefield. That is the only opportunity to apply such effects.
It would be different if the text said morbid - this creature gets +4/+4 if a creature died earlier this turn.


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When should I make an accusation in Clue?
In Clue, I can usually use careful observation of my own and others' suggestions to gradually eliminate possibilities. But when should I make the final accusation? Should I wait until I am 100% sure I am correct, or eventually take a chance? How can I tell if the other players are close enough to making their own accusations that I should make mine first?
Since I only get to make one accusation in the game (if I get it wrong I get no further moves), I figure I should at least be 50% sure that I am correct, but I'm curious as to when suggestions should be made earlier or later than my general guidelines suggests.

I don't think your general guideline of 50% certain is accurate. When you make an accusation is more dependent upon how much your opponents know, and how likely you are going to be able to make another useful suspicion before the end of the game. BTW, there aren't that may possibilities for certainty at which you would make an accusation:

100% - Deduced all cards
50% - Know all cards except 2 of one type.
33% - Know all cards except 3 of one type.
25% - Know all cards except 2 of one type, and 2 of another (or 4 of one type).
16.7% - Know all cards except 3 of one type, and 2 of another (or 5 of one type).
... doubtful you would make an accusation at this point.

I have played quite a few games, and I am pretty sure that in most of them, a player that won made an accusation before they where 100% sure. It is very difficult to be so far ahead that only you know will be 100% sure before everyone else knows enough information to be 100% themselves, or close enough that they shouldn't risk a guess before you get your next turn. I will give some concrete examples below for illustration (when I can think of them).
How can I tell if other players are close to making an accusation?
There are multiple ways to determine what your opponents know (or should know).

A suspicion does not get disproved. If a suspicion goes all the way around the table, there are only two possibilities. The player making the suspicion has none of those cards in their hand, in which case that player is 100% sure and should make an immediate accusation and win the game. The player player making the suspicion has one or more of those cards in hand.

A suspicion for a particular Suspect, Weapon, or Room is not disproved by a player that previously disproved a suspicion with that element.

Imagine that you suspect: Col. Mustard, with the Candlestick, in the Billiard Room, and Player A immediately to your left disproved them.
At a later point, you suspect: Col. Mustard, with the Candlestick, in the Conservatory, and Player A cannot disprove them.

Your opponents should know, even without seeing Player A's cards that Player A has Billiard Room in their hand (and doesn't have Col. Mustard or Candlestick).

A player continually uses the same Suspect, Weapon, or Room. While this cannot be directly deduced from the process of elimination as in the above examples, it is highly likely that the player that is continually reusing the same Suspect, Weapon, or Room is their suspicions because, they are trying to make a suspicion that will go all the way around that will tell them with certainty one or more of the elements that they don't know. You know that either: 1) They have that card (or multiple cards) that they keep reusing, or  2) They don't have any cards of that type (Suspect, Weapon, or Room), and are using the card in the envelope because they have no choice.

I wish I could provide some concrete examples to illustrate when you might venture a guess at 50%, 33%, ..., but it has been ages since I played a game of Clue. It is difficult to envision a situation that doesn't sound contrived without playing a real game, and using a real world example in which you almost sure of the answer, and you know exactly which cards your opponents still think might be in the envelope. I might try to convince the family to play a game of Clue, so that I can edit the post to be more helpful.

I have played Clue in a group where there was an implicit house rule that you could only accuse when you were 100% certain. In other words, if you accused and were wrong, the penalty was worse than just losing the game - you were ridiculed for your poor logic skills that led to an invalid conclusion. (We have always found the sheets provided for recording information ridiculously inaccurate, BTW - basically everyone would record a complete transcript of every suspicion, of who proposes the suspicion and who did and, more importantly, did not disprove it.)
So I guess my answer would be: it depends on the group you are playing with.

The question is when should you. It is clearly implying a question of strategy with regard to trying to win the game. Ridicule doesn't come into the equation.

I have two critera for when to accuse...

when I'm reasonably certain I know (No more than 2 unknowns in one type) - because I'm 50% likely to guess correctly.
When I'm tired of playing, because, right or wrong, I'm done. (Not really, but it's going to speed things up since I only need to pay attention to people's suspicions for proving them wrong.)


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When should I choose an Explore card in Race For The Galaxy?
On a VERY basic level, my RFTG choices work like this:

Pick Develop if you want to build a development
Pick Settle if you want to settle a world
Pick Trade if you want to trade
Pick 2x VPs if you want to get extra VPs from your consumption of goods
Pick Produce if you want to produce goods
Pick Explore if you want to ?????????

Where do the 2 Explore cards come in? I guess the obvious choice is "If you need more cards and have no better way of getting them." I've gone through a few games without ever picking explore because it essentially gives you a 1 card advantage if you pick the 'look at 1 more, keep 1 more' card and an advantage of maybe getting a slightly better card than your opponents with the 'look at 5 more cards' card. Both Develop and Settle give you a 1 card advantage at the very least, both Consume phases can lead to big card advantages, and Produce can set you up for an amazing next turn and sometimes give you card advantage in itself.
Is my analysis roughly correct? With all these things going against it, when should I pick each different Explore card in my phase selection? It seems to be a desperate pick when you have virtually no other options, so at the very least you can be happy with getting a net advantage of 1 card over all of your opponents, or are hoping for a certain card, have a lot of cards in you hand already, and have no better options.

I very often chose explore when I think my opponent is already choosing the thing I really want.

How do you currently find cards to play that will best complement/expand your tableau and maximize score? I don't see anything in your list that commonly lets you look at, say, seven cards.

@Jefromi Although I've had several games where I was able to trade a certain good in and keep 7 or more cards, admittedly this is not always the case. If you were truly desperate enough for a certain card to the point where no other action would give you more benefit than the slightly improved chance to get a single card that you really want given by drawing 7 and keeping 1 instead of drawing cards with the other explore card or trading, I suppose that explore card would be the way to go, but how often does that really happen?

@CrazyJugglerDrummer: I'm talking about finding high-value cards, e.g. large military worlds or something that fits with your existing six-cost. It's definitely not about looking for a single specific card. That's a bad idea. But your current analysis doesn't mention anything about striving for more than playing what you already have, or happen to have drawn in a trade, so I asked to see if you really play that way.

Your analysis is not wrong, but it is a little simplistic, mostly because you are ignoring the existence of the other players, and the state of their games.

Explore is the only option that doesn't depend on anything else. You can always play an Explore. Yes, it's not as efficient as Trading. But Trading isn't always possible. If you've run out of cards, or your cards just plain suck, then Explore is pretty handy.
Explore prevents your opponent leeching, and taking advantage of your action. For example, an opponent playing a military strategy may be waiting for you to choose Settle, so he can dump a military world for free. Playing several Explores in a row can force opponents to choose actions they would rather you chose for them.
Similarly, you don't want to choose Settle, and settle something rubbish, if that gives your opponent the opportunity to play something amazing. So if an opponent has many cards in hand, or has a clear strategy developing based around obvious Phase choices, then you're going to want to avoid those when you can. Explore is often a good alternative.
Explore is crucial if you think an opponent is planning to Develop or Settle, and you want to take advantage of that, but don't have a card of that type in hand, or, even worse, you have a card you want to play, but don't have enough to pay for it. In this case the fact Explore happens before anything else is really valuable.
Cards that generate Explore bonuses, particularly things like Research Labs, can make Explore much more lucrative for you than for anyone else. These also allow you to leech other people's Explores. Obviously, they will try to avoid this, but as we've noted, often Explore is the only option, particularly early game, or with rash plays that have emptied one's hand unhelpfully.
In general, Explore +1/+1 makes more sense in the early game, because your hand is smaller, and later on you will usually have alternative ways to generate card flow. Explore +5 makes more sense as a later-game play, particularly to maximise your strategy. For example, finding large military worlds, getting more blue production worlds, finding that killer 6 development etc. are all things that might justify a late-game Explore.

So, overall, while Explore is often not what you want to do, it does have wide versatility, and can occasionally be fantastic. I think careful tactical use of Explore is an essential tool.

You seem to be playing completely head down, ignoring your opponents.  This is not how to play Race well.  You pick develop if it will help you more than your opponent, given your opponents expected moves, not just because you want to build a development.
Exploring is generally not something you want to be doing often.  You don't want to build a strategy around explore.  Often, you are exploring because you want to slow down the pace of the game.  You might want to find a 6 cost development late game that fits in with your strategy, and so you call explore +5.  Or maybe it's early game, and you just don't have anything good in your hand yet (even if you could build something, your opponents will likely build something better).

I definitely agree that you need to watch your opponents, I just left most of that out to keep the question text short. :D

Pick Explore if you don't have cards (worlds/developments) that fit your strategy, and need to dig for some.

Especially if you have worlds or developments with icons like this:

You'll find that it doesn't take long to dig through your supply to find those big bomb 6-cost developments that are going to win the game or those sweet worlds that fit into your production/alien/mining strategy or whatever.
You are correct that if you don't have worlds that help you extend the card and/or search advantage of the explore phase, it is generally a less optimal play than consume phase card advantages or even a simple develop or settle.

Early in the game
Like the nice answers already state, this will help you get cards or find something
Late in the game
After an expensive 6cost dev or planet you may have just gotten nice bonunses, and left with little cards on your hand. An explore here may give you an option to not lag behind if someone develops and/or settles; most likely if you are playing 1v1 you can explore/trade , explore/consume
Last round of the game
You may want to explore because you are stacked on bonuses and one of the players is clearly going to finish the game and you know someone will develop or settle.  You may explore here to pay for your last cards or simply find something worth playing

Explore +1/+1 is a good option to refill your hand, particularly when you have good cards you would like to play, but either can't, or don't want to pay the costs with the other cards in your hand.  It then lets you get new cards in to your hand, to let you either change what you will play, or pay the cost with those cards.  You can then leech off of the opponent's develop/settle, or do one yourself in a later round with more efficiency.
Explore +5's utility depends somewhat on which expansions you have.  If you are playing with just the base game, it's more effective, due to a smaller deck of cards to search through.  Each expansion decreases the possibility of getting a specific card, and tilts what the overall deck composition is friendly towards.  Most of note, though, is the final expansion in set 1, which gives you the Search action--an action that, while one-time-only, effectively replaces the main use case for Explore +5.


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Strategies for playing Fido in Cosmic encounter?
I've played about 7 games of Cosmic Encounter, and by now I've learned that you need to adjust your strategy to take full advantage of your alien power in order to get the best odds of winning. Most of the aliens had powers for which it was clear both why it was good and how I should use it to its maximum potential.
However, I still haven't been able to figure out how to best play my very first alien, Fido:

You have the power to Fetch. After encounter cards are discarded at the end of an encounter, you may use this power to retrieve one of the discarded cards and offer it to another player. If the card is refused, you may keep it. If the card is accepted, the other player keeps the card, then you may either retrieve one ship from the warp or draw one card from the deck.

If I offer bad cards, I get stuck keeping them. If I offer good cards, my opponents keep them and all I get to do is draw a card. If I offer mediocre cards, I get a result somewhere in the middle. How do I take advantage of this power with maximum benefit to myself and minimum benefit to my opponents? How do I determine what cards to offer to whom? Is it just me, or is this one of the weaker powers?

It's not one of the strongest powers, but it's well suited for diplomacy.  First, some general principles of Cosmic diplomacy that apply with this power:

Diplomacy is active.  Don't wait for compromise cards, get out there and make pre-emptive deals.  Arrange to be everyone's offensive ally whenever possible.
Powers are not all equal.  If the game has a dominant power, strengthen other players against it - it's good for you too.  If not, Cosmic shifts the attacks and alliances every encounter, so re-evaluate your advantage constantly.
Form defensive alliances for extra card draw when you think the defender has a good shot - this is vastly overlooked, especially with Fantasy Flight's new 'reward' deck.
Always hold back one good encounter card, if remotely possible.  You don't want to be on 4 colonies with no chance to win by yourself.

Now some specifics about Fido:

Don't underestimate the value of steady resource gain.  Fido should gain a card every single encounter.  Your aim should be to offer the lowest-value encounter card that a player might actually accept; in the long run your constant draws will pay off with just a few useful cards - which is all it takes in CE.
Offer strong cards to players who are down to 1 card (or who you think are out of encounter cards).  Redrawing is a big deal in Cosmic; they'd often be better with a whole new hand than taking the card.  Whether they take it or give it to you, you're up on the deal.  (Obviously, does not apply if player has 4 foreign colonies and a turn coming up!)

Against Anti-matter, Tripler, or other powers that hate high cards, you're golden.  Scoop up and offer them the highest cards, all the time.  (Don't give the Tripler 8s or 9s!)  Consider offering 5-7 to the Tripler or negatives to the Anti-matter, but not if they're already in a good position to win.

Offer medium cards to players who've shown several useful flares.  They're probably low on encounter cards, and don't want to redraw and lose the flares.  So they have reasons to accept.

If any other power has good trade / support uses for excess cards, make them your favoured trade parter.  Philanthropist, etc. all have good reasons to accept your excess card whatever it is, so you can bid low and still get a draw.

In negotiations, trade for a good flare if you don't have one, even giving up strong cards.  Because your power lets you draw cards reliably, you should take a long time to redraw your hand, if ever, so a good flare is better than usual for you.  (Does not apply with Mayfair-style flares.)
Make people promise to invite you as offensive ally in exchange for good cards during or after.  That's a win-win for you - with a good card in hand, they can win the battle.  (Repeat four times with different players and you only need one good card in hand to win.)

Obviously, don't do this with players who are ahead of you in foreign colonies, except at the very start.
Important subtactic: When allied offensively, get the player to play his best attack card, not a medium-to-good one.  Promise to retrieve it and offer it back after the encounter.  You greatly improve the odds of a challenge win, find out a player's best attack, leave the cards no worse for you than they were at start of turn, and are paid a defender reward for it.

In smaller games, use cards as bribes to restrict alliances too.  If you make yellow promise not to invite red as offensive ally on a winning fight, then do the same in reverse next time, you've slowed them both up for a turn compared to the scenario where they cooperate.
Try to talk the other players into house-ruling that Fido can make the extra draw from the reward deck.  (This is a common and reasonable house rule, given the wording of the power is the same as a defensive reward.)

Fido is one of the powers that was a popular homebrew before FFG brought it in to the new edition, and there are reasons for that.  It's not a great power for solo wins, but it's not at all terrible.  It's a reasonably good power for arranging joint victories in 5-6 player games.  It does require practiced judgement and persuasive diplomacy to use well, though - if that's not your play style, ask your group for a mulligan rule!


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What does protection from [quality] do?
Example 1) Let's say I have some random creature with protection from white, and my opponent plays Day of Judgment, a white card with the effect "Destroy all creatures." Can my creature with protection from white be destroyed by a white card that isn't actually targeting it specifically?
Example 2) I was playing a match with a friend where I had Elite Inquisitor on the field against his 3 zombies. Is he able to declare his zombies as blockers even though Elite Inquisitor has "protection" from zombies?  If he can declare them as blockers, does protection mean that no damage is dealt by the zombies to  Elite Inquisitor?

Yes, Day of Judgement will destroy a creature with Protection from White.
(from AlexP) No, Elite Inquisitor cannot be blocked by Zombies. Elite Inquisitor can, block Zombies normally. If a Zombie would assign combat damage to him, it is prevented and he takes no damage instead.
Protection from {quality}, grants four different things that can be easily remembered from the acronym, DEBT.
Creatures with Protection from {quality} cannot be:

D amaged, by sources with that quality (the damage is prevented).
E nchanted / E quipped / Fortified, by cards with that quality.
B locked, by creatures with that quality.
T argeted, by spells or abilities from sources with that quality.

Regarding the E for Equipment/Enchantment, this skill could work against my creature, right? Let's say I have protection from White, and that I have a nice White Enchantment or White Equipment in my own hand that will give my creature +3/+3, but since my creature is "Protected from White" it won't be able to assign the Enchantment/Equipment to my creature, I am right? Or the protection is only from cards played by other players?

@AbelMorelos, normally you should ask this in a different quesrion, but...It works regardless of the controller of the Enchantment/Equipment. I.E. Pasifism won't be able to enchant a pro-white creature, and neither will Behemoth Sledge.

Protection also prevents Fortification by cards with {quality}, but that breaks the nice mnemonic, and there's only one card with Fortify anyway. :) (The technical term replacing Enchant, Equip, and Fortify is that you can't Attach objects with {quality} to the protected permanent.)

That the damage is prevented is relevant with a card like [mtg:Skullcrack], which says that damage can't be prevented this turn. After that resolves, the D stops working.

Protection is a rather busy keyword. The easiest way to remember it is the mnemonic "DEBT".
A permanent or player with protection from a quality cannot be: (from user1873's answer)

D amaged, by sources with that quality (the damage is prevented).
E nchanted / E quipped / Fortified, by cards with that quality.
B locked, by creatures with that quality.
T argeted, by spells or abilities from sources with that quality.

So, in your example:
Elite Inquisitor cannot be blocked by Zombies.
Elite Inquisitor can, however, block Zombies normally. If a Zombie would deal combat damage to him, it is prevented and he takes no damage instead.

Nit: s/and he takes 0 damage instead/and he takes no damage instead/. One cannot deal 0 damage.

To clarify why this is important, if you could deal 0 damage then you would have an extra way to trigger abilities that are triggered "when x deals damage" or "when x is dealt damage".

Yes, it can.
In a nutshell, Protection from X on a creature means:

The creature can't be targeted by X spells or abilities from source with X.
It can't be blocked by X creatures.
Damage from X sources is prevented.
Auras with quality X on that creature are destroyed, equipments with quality X fall off (but are not destroyed).

Day of Judgment or similar cards do not target any creatures, and they deal no damage. Therefore, Protection would not protect that creature.
Reference:

702.15. Protection
702.15a Protection is a static ability, written "Protection from [quality]." This quality is usually a color (as in "protection from black") but can be any characteristic value. If the quality happens to be a card name, it is treated as such only if the protection ability specifies that the quality is a name. If the quality is a card type, subtype, or supertype, the ability applies to sources that are permanents with that card type, subtype, or supertype and to any sources not on the battlefield that are of that card type, subtype, or supertype. This is an exception to rule 109.2.
702.15b A permanent or player with protection can't be targeted by spells with the stated quality and can't be targeted by abilities from a source with the stated quality.
702.15c A permanent or player with protection can't be enchanted by Auras that have the stated quality. Such Auras attached to the permanent or player with protection will be put into their owners' graveyards as a state-based action. (See rule 704, "State-Based Actions.")
702.15d A permanent with protection can't be equipped by Equipment that have the stated quality or fortified by Fortifications that have the stated quality. Such Equipment or Fortifications become unattached from that permanent as a state-based action, but remain on the battlefield. (See rule 704, "State-Based Actions.")
702.15e Any damage that would be dealt by sources that have the stated quality to a permanent or player with protection is prevented.
702.15f Attacking creatures with protection can't be blocked by creatures that have the stated quality.
702.15g "Protection from [quality A] and from [quality B]" is shorthand for "protection from [quality A]" and "protection from [quality B]"; it behaves as two separate protection abilities. If an effect causes an object with such an ability to lose protection from [quality A], for example, that object would still have protection from [quality B].
702.15h "Protection from all [characteristic]" is shorthand for "protection from [quality A]," "protection from [quality B]," and so on for each possible quality the listed characteristic could have; it behaves as multiple separate protection abilities. If an effect causes an object with such an ability to lose protection from [quality A], for example, that object would still have protection from [quality B], [quality C], and so on.
702.15i "Protection from everything" is a variant of the protection ability. A permanent with protection from everything has protection from each object regardless of that object's characteristic values. Such a permanent can't be targeted by spells or abilities, enchanted by Auras, equipped by Equipment, fortified by Fortifications, or blocked by creatures, and all damage that would be dealt to it is prevented.
702.15j Multiple instances of protection from the same quality on the same permanent or player are redundant.

Zombies cannot be declared as blockers against a creature with Protection from Zombies.
The Comprehensive Rules:

702.15f Attacking creatures with protection can't be blocked by creatures that have the stated quality.

If the Zombies somehow deal damage to the Elite Inquisitor, like with an Ulvenwald Tracker:

702.15e Any damage that would be dealt by sources that have the stated quality to a permanent or player with protection is prevented.

See Section 702.15 for more information about Protection.


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How does trample interact with damage prevention effects and indestructible blockers?
Say I have a 4/4 creature with trample. I attack, and my opponent blocks with a...

0/1 creature that is indestructible: Does my 4/4 trampler's extra 3 damage carry over even though the blocking creature wasn't dealt lethal damage? Does the situation change if my 4/4 trampler also has infect?
0/1 Creature that cannot be dealt damage: Can I even deal lethal damage to it?
0/1 Creature with protection from my creature's color: Can I deal damage to it at all?

When does the damage carry over to my opponent? I made all of these hypothetical creatures 0/1 for simplicity's sake. I know the creatures actually linked to are slightly different, but I believe this will simplify the answers.

this seems to be the millionth time this question has been asked. Maybe we just need a single question for "how does Trample work", and then link all these other questions as duplicates of it.

@user1873 I agree that trample corner-cases are a constant bugbear around here. In fairness, though, this particular one is about an aspect of damage-assignment rules that even the designers don't seem to remember correctly.

Damage assignment ignores damage prevention and damage-modifying effects. Just look at toughness, previous damage marked, and deathtouch to figure out how to allocate trample damage (or damage in a group block).
Here's the most relevant bit of comp rules:

510.1c ... When checking for assigned lethal damage, take into account damage already marked on the creature and damage from other creatures
that’s being assigned during the same combat damage step, but not any
abilities or effects that might change the amount of damage that’s
actually dealt.

In other words, you only have to assign damage that would be lethal -- based on the creature's toughness adjusted for any damage already marked on it, or 1 point of deathtouch damage -- without adjusting for other game rules like damage prevention, damage multipliers, or indestructibility. So my 4/4 can trample right over your Fog Bank as if it were any other 0/2; the Wall just won't die in the process.
As a side note, since there seems to be a bit of confusion about this in the question: protection is a damage prevention effect. So don't go blocking any Excruciators with your Kor Firewalker if you want him to live.

I'm +1'ing this for commendable brevity.  I'd rather see a concise, to-the-point answer most of the time that long essays with multiple citations of the Comp Rules (correct though those may be)...

@thesunneversets Then again, this site is supposed to give qualified answers. Always going the extra length to cite rules references is what sets us apart from a regular forum and should be encouraged. Nothing keeps you from summarizing an answer and additionally providing a solid reference.

@thesunneversets, I like to give brief answers too, but if people don't understand what Trample actually does and what Lethal Damage actually is how will they have any hope of understanding the answer. See David's answer, and your comment to my answer.

Yeah, your answer was good too, I was just being a bit grumpy.  I think there's definitely room for fully completist answers and also brief, to-the-point ones... I just find the full weight of the MtGO rules exhausting sometimes!  But I'm sure others find the full background valuable.

After you assign it to the defending player, after assigning lethal damage to the creatures blocking the attacking creature with trample. Lethal damage only considers toughness, it ignores any abilities that would modify the actual damage dealt to the blocking creatures. (i.e. Double damage effects like Furnace of Rath, Damage prevention effects like protection from [quality], etc.)
First, it might be important to understand what trample does. Trample modifies the rules for how combat damage is assigned. Specifically, it allows trampling creatures to ignore the rule that they can only assign combat damage to the creatures blocking it.
Trample

702.18a Trample is a static ability that modifies the rules for assigning an attacking creature’s combat damage. ... (See rule 510, “Combat Damage Step.”)
  Combat Damage Step
510.1c A blocked creature assigns its combat damage to the creatures blocking it. If no creatures are currently blocking it (if, for example, they were destroyed or removed from combat), it assigns no combat damage. ...

Trample and the Combat Damage Step, both describe how to calculate lethal damage.

[510.1c | 702.18b] ... When checking for assigned lethal damage, take into account damage already marked on the creature and damage from other creatures that’s being assigned during the same combat damage step, but not any abilities or effects that might change the amount of damage that’s actually dealt.
Lethal Damage - An amount of damage greater than or equal to a creature’s toughness. See rules 119.6, 510.1, and 704.5g.

Deathtouch is the only ability that modifies what lethal damage is.

702.2b Any nonzero amount of combat damage assigned to a creature by a source with deathtouch is considered to be lethal damage, regardless of that creature’s toughness. See rules 510.1c–d.

Finally, to answer your question, Under what circumstances does an attacking creature with trample assign damage to the defending player?

Your attacking creature is attacking a player, not a planeswalker.
Your attacking creature has additional combat damage that it can assign to the defending player after assigning lethal damage to all creatures blocking it.
You choose to actually assign the additional damage to the defending player. (Trample allows this, but it is not mandator to assign additional damage to the defending player instead of the creatures blocking it)
The defending player is still in the game. (important for multiplayer, where it might be advantageous to leave the game than allow an opponent's Lifelink creatures to damage you)

800.4e If combat damage would be assigned to a player who has left the game, that damage isn’t assigned.

And so to answer the three cases as presented (mostly out of curiosity that I read this correctly): no because in none of these cases can the creature assign lethal damage. Right?

@Circeus It's the opposite. "You can ignore all abilities that might modify the damage after it is assigned when determining if a blocking creature has been dealt lethal damage, because the rules specifically tell you to ignore abilities and effects that might change the amount of damage after it is assigned." A simplified way to think of it is that the game rules say that prevention effects alter damage as its actually dealt, not when it is assigned.

@AlexP thanks... I misunderstood the "Once all those blocking creatures are assigned lethal damage" part and completely missed the "ignore abilities" bit. So I got confused by the nuance of damage assigned vs. dealt. Were it not for that I would have gotten it right. Actually isn't "ignore all abilities that might modify the damage after it is assigned when determining if a blocking creature has been dealt lethal damage" using "dealt" incorrectly? (if I'm reading 510.1c right)

As a complement to the other answers:

0/1 creature that is indestructible: Does my 4/4 trampler's extra 3 damage carry over even though the blocking creature wasn't dealt lethal damage? Does the situation change if my 4/4 trampler also has infect?

The blocking creature has toughness 1 and has accumulated 0 damage so far in the current turn, so lethal damage for this creature is 1. Period. That number is not changed by indestructibility, protection, or any sort of prevention effect; it is also not changed by the presence or absence of infect or any other ability (except perhaps deathtouch). So in this case, yes, the remaining 3 damage tramples over to the player.
It may seem paradoxical that "lethal damage" is not actually lethal to the creature (i.e. doesn't kill the creature) in this case, but that's not the damage's fault. You have to think about the phrase "lethal damage" as a technical term that has a meaning slightly different from what you'd get just by putting the meanings of its words together.

0/1 Creature that cannot be dealt damage: Can I even deal lethal damage to it?

There isn't really such a thing as "cannot be dealt damage." If you look at the Oracle text, it's worded as "Prevent all damage that would be dealt to [creature]." So the same logic from the previous case applies. The creature's toughness is 1, and it has already accumulated 0 damage this turn, so lethal damage is 1. The fact that the damage will be prevented doesn't change that. So again, in this case, the 3 damage would trample over.

0/1 Creature with protection from my creature's color: Can I deal damage to it at all?

This is exactly the same as the previous case, because one of the effects of protection is "Prevent all damage that would be dealt to [creature] from sources with the given characteristic." None of the other effects of protection matter here. So again, the 3 damage would trample over.

I think this is why people keep asking these Trample questions, and why my answer was so long. I wanted to clearly define what Trample does, what Lethat Damage is, so that people stop giving bad information. " in this case, yes, the remaining 3 damage tramples over to the player." No it doesn't unless you specifically assign it to the player.

The fact that remaining non-lethal trample damage can be explicitly assigned to the creature is important for certain cards like Swans of Bryn Argoll (if you're trying to deck the opponent) or if an effect like Purity is in play; the most common thing is to assign extra damage to the creature if some of it is prevented to save the creature. Of course you still have the option to let that creature live and roll that prevented trample damage over…

@user1873 Yes it does in the normal situation where you assign the maximum possible amount of damage to the player. The fact that the OP proposed this scenario indicates that that is what was intended. In any case, you have to make an explicit damage assignment, it's not like assigning all the damage to the creature is a default, so saying "no it doesn't" is misleading. "No it doesn't have to" would be more accurate.


text:
Can I counter a land-creature?
Say my opponent plays Dryad Arbor. Can I counter it with a Cancel from my hand? I know that lands can't be countered because they don't go on the stack, but what about land-creatures?

The short answer is that Dryad Arbor can't be countered because it can only be played as a land, not a spell. Here's the supporting statement from the card's Oracle rulings:

Dryad Arbor is played as a land. It doesn't use the stack, it's not a
  spell, it can't be responded to, it has no mana cost, and it counts as
  your land play for the turn.

And the card's reminder text:

(Dryad Arbor isn't a spell, it's affected by summoning sickness, and
  it has "{T}: Add {G} to your mana pool.")

If you prefer rules over rulings, let's start with the rule saying you can't counter land:

305.1. ... Playing a land is a special action; it doesn't use the stack (see rule 115). Rather, the player simply puts the land onto the
  battlefield. Since the land doesn't go on the stack, it is never a
  spell, and players can't respond to it with instants or activated
  abilities.

Moreover, you'll want to note this section of the comp rules:

305.9. If an object is both a land and another card type, it can be played only as a land. It can't be cast as a spell.

Essentially, this rule is saying that the Land card type overrides the normal behavior of the various spell card types.
This rather esoteric rule isn't actually required for Dryad Arbor to work the way that it does -- simply having no listed mana cost would mean that you can't play it like a normal spell, while being of the Land type would allow it to be played as a land. My best guess as to why it's there is that the original multi-typed lands, Mirrodin's artifact lands, were much more "land" than "spell," so this was codified in the rules for playing them. I take it as not so much saying that a land with a mana cost would still be uncastable as precluding the existence of such a card altogether.

What's the difference between rule and ruling?

@Pacerier The comprehensive rules are the actual rules of the game. Rulings in Oracle are statements about how to apply those rules correctly to the case at hand. Basically answers to common judge questions.

Ic, so rulings are the rules on how The Rules should be interpreted and have more weight than The Rules in terms of correctness and accuracy. So shouldn't you quote the rulings instead because they would have more authority over The Rules?

this is also the case of artifact lands that are also not spells and cannot be countered by annuls


text:
Limiting the number of silver and gold cards available in Dominion
One of the interesting aspects of Dominion is how you have to plan which kingdom cards you're going to get while they're still there. If there's 2 attack cards available and somebody's snagged all the moats, you're going to be in trouble. Victory cards are obviously in limited supply as well. The basic treasures, copper, silver, and gold however, are pretty much unlimited, at least that's what I've found in my games. We've never even come close to running out of any of them, even with 5 players. There's 60 copper, 40 silver, and 30 gold.
Then I had the idea of limiting the treasures, like all the other cards. Not very restrictively, but enough to come into affect if multiple people are playing big money. Maybe 8 silver per person and 5 gold per person. They're silver and gold, they should be rare!
Has anybody ever played this way before? Do you think it would have a huge difference on the game? Do 8 silver and 5 gold per person seem like good ratios?

This sounds like you want to change the rules to solve an issue your group is having. But I'm wondering: what issue are you trying to solve exactly? Is it just "these cards are weird special cases and I don't like that" or is it "too many people are playing Big Money?" Or something else?

@Mag actually we aren't having any issues, I was just curious. I like to ask questions about why rules are certain ways because I end up learning a TON about the game's mechanics, how it really was designed to work, and why. :)

That's a cool idea, actually.  I know I enjoyed thinking through this hypothetical and formulating my opinion on how it would affect the game!

Personally, I don't think this seems like a good idea.  The game is balanced around the availability of these treasures.
The Kingdom piles change from game to game, so the only reliable element for your deck is treasure at 3 and 6 coins respectively.
The first player to buy a Gold already has a statistical advantage in Dominion, but this would enhance that advantage even further, since late-peaking players might not be able to GET any Gold.
It seems to me that, depending on how MUCH you limit, this change would have one of two effects:

No effect, because there's still more Silver and Gold than your players buy anyway.  In many of the games my group plays 5 Gold per player would seldom run out, for example.
An overly punishing effect.  You got 6 coins this turn, but there are no decent 5-cost Kingdom cards and the Gold is gone!  You just got screwed.

You say "This would create a little more competition in getting treasures into your deck" but when I play Dominion I'm always competing to get treasures into my deck.  If an opponent lands 2 or 3 Gold before I get one, I know I'm in trouble and had better pull off something amazing if I'm going to have a chance.  Making the piles run out won't make me any more competitive, it'll just harm everybody later.  I'm already always keeping other players' treasure levels in mind, because that determines how soon the Provinces may run out and whether I can even count on being able to afford Provinces or should just go for Duchies.
If the intent of this change is merely to discourage players from playing Big Money, I don't think this is the way to do it.  Big Money is not an optimal strategy and will lose frequently to even relatively simple Action-based strategies once players figure them out.  Play the base set a few times buying one Smithy or Laboratory+Chapel and see how long they keep playing Big Money!
It also feels like this change would bog down the middle-to-end game of every game as you would be unable to keep the treasure and victory levels of your decks balanced.  Even if everybody got exactly the same amount of Gold during the build-up, your decks will all get slower and slower as you start buying the Provinces, since you won't be able to offset those with more Gold.
All in all, the game was definitely designed so that Treasure is not expected to run out - the Intrigue rules even say "these cards are intended to be in abundant enough supply to not run out".  I think there are good reasons why Silver and Gold are effectively unlimited, and I don't think limiting those piles would make for much more fun in the long run.  Experienced players will already be competing for Gold regardless of the supply, and will already be tracking their opponents' treasure levels to adjust their strategy.

Dominion is balanced for 2- and 3-player games.
If you're playing with more players, and find big money to be too good too often (which it is compared to the 2-player baseline, as it gets better with more players, especially if you deliberately play without attacks such as Witch or Militia, which many groups do), it's mostly because the game ends quicker with more players. There are less turns to build out an engine, meaning faster boards are needed for engines to be competitive.
I would suggest actually adding more victory cards, to give engine players time to catch up. Include at least 4 victory cards per person in each victory pile. That means playing with 16 provinces, 16 duchies, 16 gardens, etc. if you have four players (or 20 of each with 5). To take this even further, I'd suggest to do these three things:

Play with 4 cards per player in each green pile. If you don't have the cards, use blank cards or add spare standard estate/duchy/province.
modifying the '3 piles ending' to be a '1+n' piles ending, where n is the number of players. So you need to empty 4 piles with 3 players, 5 with 4, etc.
Adding an extra pile of kingdom cards for each player beyond 2 (play with 11 choices with 3 players, 12 with 4, etc.).

This makes multiplayer games closer to the 2-player game n # of turns. It does make them last longer time-wise (so it's more like 20 minutes per player rather than always ~40 minutes).

What has you say 2- and 3-player games? The box says 2-4 players. Is there something else that indicates its real sweet spot is 2-3 players?

@doppelgreener Read: http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=81.0. Essentially: Game sells more if you can put a lower time to play in minutes on the box.

This would create a little more competition in getting treasures into your deck before they run out. You'd think this would make big money more attractive as you'd want to limit the other player's treasure supply, but as you often buy gold when you have 6 regardless of strategy I don't think it would have a huge impact. You'd be able to play big money at the beginning, but would later be forced to look at kingdom cards to keep improving your deck's power (if there's any good ones left!)
Overall I think it would make the game more interesting by challenging the assumption that treasure if always available and making you take that and other player's treasure levels into account. You'd be racing to get treasure as well as good kingdom cards at the same time.
I think 8 and 5 per person wouldn't mess with the game too much as treasures are a huge part of any deck, but would make the game a little more interesting as you'd have to consider other options if they ran out. If you just wanted a slight impact, 8 and 5 would probably be good. If you wanted to change the game even more and make actions that produce money and give +cards even more important, you could try limiting down further.
I'd probably leave the copper at 60, because I'd rather keep the strategies that make the otherwise weakest card in the game more powerful for variety's sake. Plus, copper should be more plentiful anyway. I'd also say depleting a treasure pile does NOT count toward game end, just like in the normal game.
(Once I've tried this a few times I'll report back again :)

Interestingly, even though Vaccarino intended these piles to not run out, the Intrigue rules DO say that if by some chance one of them does run out, it does count toward the end of the game!


text:
When I put the robber on someone in Settlers of Catan, does the resource I take HAVE to be random?
Say I have 3 ore, 2 wheat, and a wood, and player B has a wheat, a wool, and a brick. Player B puts the robber next to one of my settlements and has to take one resource at random. Player B wants to get my wood so they can build a settlement, and I actually want them to take the wood so I can upgrade one of my settlements to the city. If they had to take a resource at random, they might get something else that would be sub-optimal for both of us. If I could just give them the wood, it would be to both of our advantages.
Is the resource taken with the robber required to be random? If they want a specific resource and I want to give them that resource, can we just do that instead of player B having to pick randomly, possibly resulting in a situation that would hurt both of us, me by losing some I needed and them by not getting what they wanted?

It must be random as Pat said, but you could immediately offer to trade whatever he draws with the card you'd rather give him.

Excellent answer.  Of course "technically" it has to be random, but in practice there's nothing to stop the players coming to an arrangement just like this one.  They just need to think slightly outside the box!

Yes, the resource must be random.
Settlers of Catan has one of the best online FAQ's that I've seen:

“Seven” and Robber - Can I voluntarily give a card to a game partner, instead of letting him draw it?
  Answer
No.

Unless you play with house rules that allow for extortion...

@neilfein - couldn't all rules answers have an appended, "Unless you are playing with house rules" clause?

@PatLudwig the FAQ is only for the latest edition, and without the latest edition's rules, it's in several cases going to violate the wording of the rules in use... without there being house rules, mind you... so the FAQ really isn't the final answer.

@aramis - In general I don't agree with you as to the uselessness of the FAQ.  In this particular case, I believe the rule has been the same forever in that the card must be chosen randomly.

They have the pick the card from your hand without seeing what it is. I don't see why you cannot tell them the one on the left is a wood if you want to. They wouldn't necessarily trust you though, as you might be trying to trick them into taking something else knowing they wanted a wood. (You might have 3 corn and 3 ore and want them to take a corn, for example.)
They might also tell you they wanted a wood, when in fact they wanted anything OTHER than wood in order to progress. You revealing which card is wood then allows them to take anything else.
I don't think its ever in your interests to give useful information about the cards in your hand to the robber; you can always trade afterwards.

Where did you find the rule that it must be "without seeing what it is"?