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Why do creatures go back to a previous controller instead of their owner?
Say player A has a creature they own, then player B gains control of it with Blatant Thievery, then player C gains control of it with Control Magic. If the Control Magic is then destroyed, the creature returns to player B, the previous controller, rather than player A, the owner.
What rules cause this to happen? Do creatures actually always go back to their previous controller when one control change effect ends?
(this was asked in comments here; feel free to edit or suggest ways to make it a better generic question)

A change-of-control effect is a continuous effect (like a buf), not a one-shot effect (like a damage-dealing effect or moving a object)[CR 611.1, 610.1]. This allows the change of control to be temporary (e.g. Act of Treason).
Creating a continuous effect that changes the control of an object doesn't cause a similar existing effect to cease to exist. The effect of the existing effect is merely suppressed[CR 613.1, 613.1b, 613.2]. The older effect will reassert itself if-and-when the newer effect expires[1].
Effects that change text, set power and/or toughness, change types, change color and/or modify abilities work the same way. (For example, the continuous effect created by Turn to Frog does most of those.)

There are three ways a continuous effect can expire:

A continuous effect created by the resolution of a spell or ability expires when the specified duration has lapsed, if such a duration (e.g. "until end of turn") was specified[CR 611.2a].

A continuous effect created by the resolution of a spell or ability expires when the specified condition is no longer true, if such a condition was specified using "for as long as ..."[CR 611.2b].

A continuous effect created by the static ability of an object expires when the object ceases to exist (i.e. changes zone)[CR 611.3b].

610.1. A one-shot effect does something just once and doesn’t have a duration. Examples include dealing damage, destroying a permanent, creating a token, and moving an object from one zone to another.
611.1. A continuous effect modifies characteristics of objects, modifies control of objects, or affects players or the rules of the game, for a fixed or indefinite period.
611.2a A continuous effect generated by the resolution of a spell or ability lasts as long as stated by the spell or ability creating it (such as “until end of turn”). If no duration is stated, it lasts until the end of the game.
611.2b Some continuous effects generated by the resolution of a spell or ability have durations worded “for as long as . . . .” [...]
611.3b The effect applies at all times that the permanent generating it is on the battlefield or the object generating it is in the appropriate zone.
613.1. The values of an object’s characteristics are determined by starting with the actual object. For a card, that means the values of the characteristics printed on that card. For a token or a copy of a spell or card, that means the values of the characteristics defined by the effect that created it. Then all applicable continuous effects are applied in a series of layers in the following order:
613.1b Layer 2: Control-changing effects are applied.
613.2. Within layers 1–6, apply effects from characteristic-defining abilities first (see rule 604.3), then all other effects in timestamp order (see rule 613.6). Note that dependency may alter the order in which effects are applied within a layer. (See rule 613.7.)

Blatant Thievery's control change is permanent and does not disappear if another control change effect is applied later; it is only overridden by Control Magic because of Thievery's earlier time stamp. When Control Magic is destroyed, its control change effect disappears completely and Blatant Thievery is again the latest control change effect that determines the controller of the creature.

Interaction of Continuous Effects

613.1. The values of an object’s characteristics are determined by starting with the actual object. For a card, that means the values of the characteristics printed on that card. For a token or a copy of a spell or card, that means the values of the characteristics defined by the effect that created it. Then all applicable continuous effects are applied in a series of layers in the following order:
613.1b Layer 2: Control-changing effects are applied.
613.2. Within layers 1–6, apply effects from characteristic-defining abilities first (see rule 604.3), then all other effects in timestamp order (see rule 613.6). Note that dependency may alter the order in which effects are applied within a layer. (See rule 613.7.)

Control change effects are simply one kind of continuous effect. Specifically, they are applied in layer 2 when evaluating interactions of continuous effects. As with any such interaction, effects in the same layer are applied in timestamp order. If one effect is removed, then you simply re-determine the controller by re-evaluating the effects without the one that was removed.
In your specific example, once both Blatant Thievery and Control Magic have resolved, there are two relevant effects. In timestamp order, Blatant Thievery gives control of the creature to player B, and Control Magic gives control of the creature to player C. Since Control Magic's effect has the latest timestamp, it is applied last, so player C controls the creature. Then, when the Control Magic is removed, the only relevant effect that applies to the creatures is the Blatant Thievery effect, so player B once again controls the creature.


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Are there multiplayer equivalents to trading places after the first move?
In many two-player games a first move advantage can be mitigated by giving the second player the option to trade places if the first move appears desirably strong, which encourages the first player to make a mediocre first move. This is referred to as the pie rule, named after a fair way to divide a pie between two people (one person cuts, the other chooses).
Can this be generalized to more than two players in a fair manner? If so, which games would this mechanic work well with? Which is it entirely inappropriate for (such as games with secret information)?

In which games have you ever seen this?

@JoeZeng I edited the question with a wikipedia link, which includes mention of Go, Hex, and Twixt.

My first thought is this would be absolutely horrible for Magic the Gathering. But then I started thinking about it, and it might actually be a helluvalotta fun to swap decks!

Mathematically the Pie rule can be generalized. This is actually a well known problem.
One of the solutions is to let people take it in turns to add what they want from the common lot to a set of goods until one person calls that he wants that set. For example, in the 40 thieves problem, the goal is to share the bounty in 40 equal sets, which seems difficult, since there are jewels, gold, weapons etc. So the leader prepares a set and each thief adds one thing at a time until one thief claims he wants that set. Then the thief leaves with his share and the problem is reduced to n-1 people.
I never heard of a board game using exactly this principle, however in some board games the players bid point to determine the order of the players for the turn. For example, in the expert-variant of the game Tikal, each turn you draw as many tiles as there are players, and they bid to play first.
The strict application of the principle to a board game would be to have a first turn where you set up some initial position on the board. And afterwards, the players declare: "I add X money to the white meeple", "I add X pieces of wood to the white meeple", "I add X card to the blue meeple", "OK STOP, I take the blue meeple".
Actually, there are probably some games that use this kind of mechanic, I just don't recall one now.
[Edit:] You probably wonder what to do when several players wants to take a share. In that case, you just subtract something until nobody or (only one person) wants it any more, and then you continue adding.

Nice answer. Coloretto and its spin-offs would be examples of games that use the principle of everyone adding items to buckets, or taking a bucket and being removed from the process.

True, Coloretto and Zooloretto uses this kind of mechanic. This is used at each turn. There are several games which use this mechanic at each turn, however, I don't recall any game that uses the 40 thieves sharing process to determine a starting position (and then the game continues with another mechanic).

Is there another name for the 40-thieves sharing process?  I'd like to read up more about it, but I can't find anything other than this question.  The terms are too generic :/

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Can a tank attack across water within the same space (Germany to UK)?
When there is a space that has one country's tank (Germany for example) and the same space on the board contains water between the enemy's land (UK for example), can the Germany tank attack UK...even though there is water between the two contries but they are in the same space? Or does the tank have to be transported even though it is in the same space?

I don't ever recall the English Channel freezing over like that in 1940; Hitler would have loved it of course, as would Napoleon, Phillip II, and even Caesar and William The Bastard (before Hastings).

What do you mean 'same space'?  Germany and the UK are two different spaces, so they're not in the same space...

Here's the snippet of map we're talking about:

There are three spaces of interest here:

England (a land zone)
The water surrounding England (a sea zone)
Western Europe (a land zone)

These are three separate spaces, and must be passed through in turn; Western Europe is not adjacent to England. You can't just jump from Western Europe to England, you need to pass through the sea zone on the way there. Unfortunately, tanks can't enter sea zones except by boarding a transport.
So getting a tank from Western Europe to England looks like this:

A German Tank starts in Western Europe. It can't enter the sea zone, because it's a tank.
Germany has a transport in the sea zone surrounding England, and there are no Allied sea units in that zone.
Tank boards transport, entering the sea zone in the only way it can.
Tank exits transport onto England, and gets involved in the combat there.

Hmm, does that imply Ireland is a seperate zone?

@TimLymington Isn't Ireland neutral? It's colored like Sweden on the map.

@TimLymington yes, Ireland is an entirely separate zone. It's a neutral country, like Spain. It's also wholly useless; England doesn't need it, and Germany doesn't want it either: it's just as far from England as Western Europe is.

A tank has to be carried over "water" by a transport. From there, it can debark on any "land" square adjacent to the transport's "stopping" square.
But the tank unit can't traverse water square by itself (without a transport).

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Who has the winning hand in Texas-holdem (different full house hands)
The table cards were Q,Q,9,9,4
All four suits were on the board.
Player one had Q,3.
Player two had 9,8.
Which player wins?

QQQ99 wins over QQ999, so Player 1 gets it.
When comparing two full-houses, the higher triple wins; if both players have the same triple then the higher pair wins. If both players have the same triple and the same pair, then they split the pot.

Note that all suits are equal in Poker - the ranking of suits from games such as Bridge and Five Hundred have no bearing on evaluating Poker hands.

So many short explanations of poker hands leave out details like this.

@Sparr This is such a big thing I wouldn't call it a detail. Knowing if you have the best hand must be considered quite basic and mandatory for explaining anything about the game. Guides omitting stuff like this isn't half decent.

@AndSoYouCode A lot of people are introduced to poker only by learning the ranks of the different hands. I've seen multi-page rule sets and introductions that don't get into how to differentiate between different full houses.

@Sparr We'll, that makes me sad... Good thing we have boardgames at stackexchange!

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What is this game with pegs in holes, jumping and capturing each other?
The rules we've guessed so far are:

Each move is a peg jumping over another peg in its immediate proximity.
The peg that gets jumped over is removed.

The goal is to clear as many pegs as possible. Ideally, leaving just one peg at the end.
Here is a board before before first play-

And where does the empty hole start out at? Ive been playing with it at the bottom but it doesn't seem right, because every game can be the same, no?.

As a small matter of pedantry, this isn't so much a game as a puzzle; you can find more information on the triangular version specifically (a version with a square grid is more common) at http://arxiv.org/abs/math.CO/0703865 .

Cracker Barrel simply calls it the "Peg Game"

This is Peg Solitaire, also simply known as 'Solitaire'. The empty hole is usually located in the center of the board, but for variations and different shaped boards this is not always true. This size board makes it relatively easy to simply memorize a winning series of moves, but for larger boards a player may never find that series and will spend more time exploring possible games even from a single starting position.

Thanks, it did feel very similar to the Brainvita I used to play.

There are 4 distinct starting positions for the initial hole, considering symmetry:

vertex,
centre, and
side-midpoint,
side-other (for lack of a more descriptive term)

Try to find solutions for all four starting configurations. You will encounter some similarities between the four.


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Replacing center cards in Ascension
Do I understand the rules correctly in that all center cards are replaced when defeated/bought?
So I can if I have good power cards spend some runes on replacing cheap cards in order to hope something stronger with a better reward will come up to replace them cards, or is the turn played with the cards at the center and then replaced when your turn finishes?
The rules as I read them seems to suggest that they are replaced when fought/bought but that made the game feel very strange. This might simply be a feeling based on playing a lot of Dominion lately with its restrictions.

I have only played one game of Ascension, and I got the same idea.
Here is the ruling directly from the download-able FAQ:

Q:  When does a card in the center row get replaced?  If I defeat Mephit, do I banish a card
  in the center row before or after a new card replaces the Mephit?
A:  Whenever a card leaves the center row, the first thing that happens is that it is replaced from the center deck.  There should be six cards in the center row at all times.  In this instance, if you
  defeat Mephit, you replace the Mephit from the center deck and then make your decision about
  what card to banish.

FAQ Link

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Dixit variations to increase replay value?
I recently got Dixit, and it's been a big hit with a couple groups of friends, however we're already finding it's replay value to be declining. I'm sure in a few months it would be very fun again (though never again as good as the first time, marveling at the beautiful artwork), but rather than wait it out I thought it might be nice to try some variations.
We played one game where each player had a second hand of the description cards from Apples to Apples, which we used instead of coming up with our own descriptors, and that worked pretty well. (We played that you kept 4 cards in that hand, and when you played one you could discard up to 2 others for new cards.) Has anyone tried anything else to successfully vary the Dixit gameplay?

Yes! You simply have to fix rules about the sentence you want to use when it's your turn to play. For example: you must say a movie title, or lyrics from a song, or you can only make a grimace of some sort, or just a sound, and so on.
We've tried something else that completely changes the game: first, the other players give you a card of their choosing, and then you choose a title for your card. Note that it's still your card that must be guessed, but knowing what cards will be in the game, you can choose a sentence differently. This works well when all the players know all the cards and know exactly what words they have to use when playing a given card.

We had three variants:

for a more casual play, you can discard cards and draw replacements whenever you want. this lifts some of the mental blocks.
A player must play the same clue twice in a row, so he has to choose his clue wisely.
As a catch-up mechanic - the player with the least points gets to play two cards.

There are also a few expansions out there.  Increasing the pool of images helps.

Can you expand on this answer, perhaps with some descriptions of, or links to, the expansions? Or your own experiences with them?

In some cases it helps to force a theme for clues. For example, you must use song lyrics as a clue, or only movie quotes. These, sadly, depend on knowledge of particular medium in reference. But since we know each other, we tend to choose a medium that's suitable for everyone.

I play dixit a lot on http://www.boiteajeux.net/  Where several games are themed or have rules for clues such as "start with the letter B" or "5 letter words".  In normal dixit where you tell a player then can say/do anything I find some players freeze.  When you put a rule on clue giving I find the creativity comes out much more and you will find clue giving varied again.


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Is it possible for a 6-player game of BSG + Exodus to only ever have one Cylon?
The revised rules for preparing the Loyalty deck when using the "Exodus" expansion say that in a 6-player game, we should build a deck with an additional "You are not a Cylon" card (compared to the core rules for Loyalty deck.
So, in a six-player game, after the first round of dealing the cards, we will have 7 cards, and one of them is the Sympathizer card. So in theory, it is possible that one of the Cylon cards (or the Sympathizer card) will never be drawn. Since one card is added to the Loyalty deck before drawing a new Loyalty after execution, it is possible that even after an execution there will only be one Cylon on the board.
Did I get the rules for this right? Is this indeed a possible situation?

The situation of having only one Cylon in a 5/6 player game is possible if using the Exodus rules for execution and loyalty deck setup. The Exodus expansion added the concept of "You are not a Cylon" deck in addition to the Loyalty deck, and also an additional step to Human Execution:

The player adds one card from the “You Are Not a Cylon” deck to the
  Loyalty deck, shuffles the Loyalty deck thoroughly, and draws one new
  Loyalty Card,which is kept hidden from the other players.

In addition, the loyalty deck rules for Exodus always leave one extra card in the loyalty deck, after all of the loyalty cards have been dealt in the Sleep Agent phase. This occurs even if playing with other expansions.
This is done in order to prevent the certainty that comes after executing a character. In the original Pegasus execution rules, executing a character meant knowing for sure whether this character is a Human or a Cylon. In the revised Exodus rules, this means that executing a Human character might turn this character into a Cylon. It does mean, however, that in a five player game, where we have 2 "You are a Cylon" and 9 "You are not a Cylon" cards in the loyalty deck, the chances of one of the "You are a Cylon" card to be at the bottom of the deck are 18% (16% in a six-player game), and thus that card won't be drawn at the sleeper agent phase.
Each execution or personal goal revealed before travel distance is 6 adds an additional card to the Loyalty deck and mixes them before dealing a new Loyalty card to the player who got executed or fulfilled a personal goal, so this probability drops down by 50% each time this happens. Even then, this means that the second Cylon can enter the game only after significant amount of time.
Various approaches exist for this. Some claim that this isn't an issue at all, as the paranoia inherent in the game makes it challenging even if there is only one Cylon in the game. Other people disagree, and have devised various mechanics and house rules in order to deal with this situation, for example, here ("Avoiding 'Missing Cylon Syndrome'") or here (an execution variant for playing with Pegasus and Exodus). It mostly comes down to the balance in your specific game group with your play style.

I don't like adding and accepting my own answer, but I wanted to summarize the knowledge I've accumulated about this topic, plus the comments me and Ingó Vals had on the original answer. I will try to edit this answer to make it as thorough as I can in the future, perhaps adding more links to various house-rules that deal with the "Missing Cylon Syndrome".

Answering your own question is perfectly ok and encouraged, if you have a good answer - and accepting it is perfectly fair if it is truly the best answer to your question (judge as if it were an answer by anyone else)

You are correct it is possible to have only one Cylon.
This situation can occur if one player is dealt two You Are A Cylon or Sympathizer cards, and the remaining Loyalty card with that name is the last undrawn Loyalty card.
Using the standard Execution rules for Exodus, if you were human, you would add a You Are Not a Cylon card to the Loyalty deck when selecting a new character. This won't change the possibility of having only a single Cylon though, because the Loyalty deck will still have one extra card. If you were a Cylon, you just get moved to the Resurrection Ship, keeping both your Loyalty cards, which also doesn't change the situation.
The only exception to this, is if you were playing with both Exodus, and Pegasus expansions. Step 2 is revised to hand off the unrevealed You Are a Cylon card to another player. So you would have two Cylons in the game. This is covered on page 22 regarding Handing Off Excess Loyalty Cards

Execution - The rules for execution are slightly revised for the Exodus
  expansion. Use the rules as they are described on page 7 of this rulebook, even when playing with the Pegasus expansion, with the following exception. During step 2, “Prove Loyalty,” a player with one or more “You Are a Cylon” Loyalty Cards reveals one and gives all his remaining facedown Loyalty Cards to a human player of his choice, as described on page 12 of the Pegasus rulebook.

If one player is dealt two You Are a Cylon cards, then it'll be possible of him to use the Resurrection Ship to give one of his loyalty cards to another player, thus making him a second Cylon. The situation that disturbs me is the one where the second "You are a Cylon" card remains undrawn in the Loyalty deck.

Is there a justification for this, balance-wise? Seems like it'll be a horrible game for the Cylons in this case. The reason why I've asked this question is to know whether it's a situation I want to prevent via house rules. :)

It shouldn't be necessary. The odds of it occurring are highly unlikely. Haven't worked it out exactly, but I am guessing more than 1:100. Even if it did occur, you said that the Cylon can choose to give a loyalty card away on the Resurection Ship.

No - again, I'm worried about a situation where the other Cylon card hasn't even been drawn. The chances for that are approx. 9%, which isn't very high, but isn't low enough in my opinion.

I don't see how that matters. If the other Cylon card sits undrawn, then the player with the Sympathy card reveals it immediately. When they make it to the Resurection Ship, they can hand off their You Are a Cylon loyalty card.

I also disagree with your 9% calculation. Your situation requires that 1 of the 2 Cylon loyalty cards is the 13th undrawn card. The odds of that are already close to 10%. You also need the same player to draw Sympathy/Cylon cards for both of their loyalty cards. This combination is very unlikely, compared to splitting the Cylon cards between multiple players.

But the Sympathizer doesn't necessarily turn Cylon. So if we've got the Cylon Loyalty card last in the deck, and all of the resources in the blue - no second Cylon.

@idan315 I guess you mean one resource not in the blue. All in blue turns Sympathizer to Cylon. But I can't see where you or the OP are wrong. We could crunch some numbers and find out the real odds.

My calculations said 11% that Cylon remains the undrawn card when not using either Baltar or Sharon. It's highly likely that the sympathizer turns Cylon in such a game unless the humans game the system to get one resource to red. Best solution would probably be to add the Pegasus expansion and play with a Cylon leader or Sympathetic Cylon to ensure a extra Cylon but you will always have this chance. Notice however that each execution means 50% chance of a new Cylon.


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Is anyone aware of any score keeping apps (BB10 or Android) that can keep track of score (including extra meta-data)?
I know there are lots of apps (eg: keepscore, scorekeeper, endless variations of those words) that can keep a simple tally for various players for generic games. I am looking for one that can:

Keep track of current scores, for players and/or teams.
I would like to be able to track bids for current rounds of many card games, eg: spades, bidwhist.

BONUS:

Keep histories of specific players, win records, stats, etc...
Integrate a dice and or timer.
Somewhere to track custom meta-data. For example bidwhist, has a rotating trump suit. I can jot down, Round 1=Spades, 2=H,3=C,4=D, 5=NoTrump, etc...

I had an IOS app that did some of this, but have yet to find an Android, or BB10 app. Does anyone know of or use one? I hate having to dig up a notepad.

Voting to close this as too broad. "Can track meta-data" includes a crazily huge number of concepts, not all of which are handled equally, and not all of which is recorded simply or easily without the app specialising in particular games. Please define the type of metadata. Rather than trying to search for a single uber-app for all games (likely impractical), it's probably worthwhile to just make separate recommendations for apps for specific games.

I gave an example of what I was looking for, but I can clarify further if that helps.

He's pretty much asking about tracking trick-taking style card games, which is specific enough.

This is better asked on https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/

My friends and I use rankade, which has an app both for iOS and Android (but I prefer the webapp, personally, as it has the graphs). You can use it for every game, and the thing I like the most is the fact that it gives you the whole history (and rankings) for both the group (collective matches) and for each single boardgame. I don't think it can track every single metadata you're asking, though.

I use two different apps that give you a majority of what you are looking for.  I have an Android device, and I use Gamekeeper (free version) and the Board Game Geek app.
Gamekeeper allows me to keep track of scores, add dice (of any size and quantity with modifiers), and it also has a timer.  You could potentially add additional rows to the scores area to track some meta data such as bids (anything that is a numeric quantity).
With the Board Game Geek app, it's a lot more than just logging plays.  It allows you track your collection, log plays, track players who played, date played, who won, final scores, how long it took to play, etc.  You do have to go to boardgamegeek.com to manage your collection.  Right now you still can't add new games to your collection directly within the app.  However, outside of that the app is still a phenomenal thing to use, and it's a great way to track your historical plays.

I never found on that I really loved, so I wrote my own and published it. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/keep-score-game-keeper/id1140300229?mt=8

Hands down the best for Spades scoring is RenegeAid on Android.  www.renegeaid.com
We play a lot of spades and made this for serious Spades players since we couldn't find any other app that did it right.

Your profile says you're an app developer; can you disclose whether this app is or isn't yours? It's fine to recommend your own apps, but our spam policy suggests people should disclose their relationship to products they suggest, if they have one.

Yes, we do use our own products as well as others, that's why we stand behind it.  I've updated the answer for clarity.

OP is looking for something that works for "generic games" - your app appears to only be for Spades.

@BJMyers the description of talon8's question clearly states "I would like to be able to track bids for current rounds of many card games, eg: spades, bidwhist" - indicating heavy interest in Spades and Spades-like games that include bidding.  We still stand behind our answer.


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Minimum bid rule for Monopoly auctions
Other questions have asserted that many people don't actually auction properties as instructed in the rules.  Monopoly doesn't specify any rules to control the auction.  I have seen auctions stretch on with many +$1 bids, making the process painfully slow.
Seems to me some combination of eBay bid increments and/or Poker raise rules would be appropriate.
What minimum bid increment rule(s) are recommended?
Do these rule(s) lead to faster auctions?

Might want to stick with bid increments of 5%(10% of mortgage to make it easier math wise) or 10% of the property value, rather than of the current bid, particularly if playing with a first grader, those numbers are easy to calculate and are fixed for the auction, rather than needing them to think it out and ask you for help as much.
Bids for boardwalk always go up by $40 or more bids for Mediterranean Ave always go up by $6.

I now recommend a minimum increment of 10% of the purchase price.
I don't see any need to set a minimum starting bid; should be someone willing to quickly bid near mortgage value.

We have played with a minimum 1st bid of 1/4 the price of the property (to vary with property value, but to allow for unchallenged bids to be profitable from immediately mortgaging; this puts upward pressure on the 2nd bid, pushing it towards the mortgage price). Incremental bids are then at least the no-house rent amount (and so also varies with property value).

Do you also set the bid increment to 1/4 of the property value? 1/4 as a minimum sounds good but as an increment seems high.

If you're playing for "fun", as I typically do, we set the minimum bid to be face value.
Otherwise, set a minimum increase bid of $5 or $10.

The minimum bid of $5 - $10 is a good idea, and keeps bidding flowing along smoothly.  The only problem with minimum bid = face value rule is that the intent behind auctioning is that it guarantees a property will be sold once landed on.  If all players have less money than the face value of the property, there's a chance it won't be sold, unless you make an exception for that property.

I would recommend an initial requested opening bid as the mortgage value of the property.  Certainly someone should be willing to pay that much.

When I've played, auctioned properties are almost always sold for less than face value. If you land on a property that someone else wants then you buy it and sell it on for a profit.

@Tom77 - I can't think of more than once or twice where the property sold for less than face value .. even when playing not merely "for fun" :)

@warren: if the property will sell for more than face value, you should have bought it without putting it up for auction.  Auctions only occur when the property isn't worth face value, so they generally go for less than face value.

@ChrisDodd - that is not true: auctions occur when the player who lands on it cannot afford it or doesn't want it

Disclaimer: We've never played with the auctions at home. What I'm saying comes from experience with auctions in other games.
In my experience most unregulated auctions drag on with people outbidding each other with minimal increases. The minimum bid usually isn't much of an issue. If people want the item then the price will quickly rise to a certain level.
I'd suggest to use the "no house" or "one house" rent (or so) as the minimum raise amount for each auction. That also has the advantage of scaling with the value of the property.
As for a minimum opening bid I'd rather go with the mortage value than the face value.

If you want to speed up auctions, have everyone submit one sealed bid (this is known as a first-price sealed-bid auction). The property is sold to the highest bidder for the price he bid.
Note - I haven't actually played this rule in Monopoly, but I did buy a real property in this kind of auction as it is the way property is usually sold in Scotland.

I have played around with the bidding system in the years since I asked this question.  We now play, and I highly recommend the following simple rule:
The minimum bid increment is 10% of the current bid, round up.
So an example auction of minimum bids would be:
A: $100
B: $110 (+10 = 100*10%)
C: $121 (+11)
A: $134 (+13)
C: $148 (+14)
A: $163 (+15)
...
This method is still to slow for my personal preference, but it is simple enough for a group that includes kids to actually use.

Is the order of bidding strictly clockwise, or can anyone shout out a bid at any time? If the latter, what happens if the current bid is $400, and two people bid $440 at the same time, but neither would consider paying $484? How do you choose? With $1 increases allowed, it's unlikely that two players will place exactly the same value on a property.

AndyT, Simultaneous bidding is its own problem.  Professional auctions would have an auctioneer empowered to break any timing ties by recognizing who he considers the first of the bidders.  In a game, there may not be an unbiased auctioneer.
So a common process I have seen in other games and often used in Monopoly is clockwise ordering.  In Monopoly, I would start with the left of the current player.  Players can bid or pass.  Bid is not won until all other players pass.  Note a play can pass in one round, and then jump back in the bidding later.

Let the auctioneer run the auction. The Official Rules don't specify an auctioneer, but the least conflict of interest, on average, probably arises from having the player who landed on the property, and declined to buy, be the auctioneer. Then run the auction as a proper New York auction - the type everyone is familiar with from movies and TV.
It is the auctioneer's responsibility to set a minimum price by asking if anyone will bid $X (any amount made up by the auctioneer). If there are no takers at that price the minimum bid request is lowered until an opening bid is successfully solicited (essentially a semi-Dutch Auction). This is commonly done by calling out "Do I hear $X" three times before adjusting the solicitation. Then the bidding continues until no further bids can be solicited.
After each bid is recognized by the auctioneer, the auctioneer is responsible for soliciting higher bids that are any desired amount above the currently recognized bid. Bids between the currently recognized amount and the solicited bid amount can only be made once the auctioneer calls out "Going once at $Y. ... Going twice at $Y. ... Going thrice at $Y and SOLD for $Y." A valid intervening bid amount is only valid between utterance of the first "Going" and the "SOLD".
Running the auction as a proper New York Auction allows the auctioneer discretion to run the auction efficiently, so the game is not unduly slowed,  without introducing any artificial constraints on the valid bid amounts.

"I don't want to pay full price, so I'll try to buy it on auction for cheap" sounds like a significant conflict of interest to me.

@goldPseudo: Correct -when it occurs; but how often is that a realistic scenario each game? Everyone else need to be out of cash and fully mortgaged before that is a likely circumstance, and it risks not getting the property - a losing strategy in the long run. Do you have a better guideline in mind? I am open to suggestions.

I find myself auctioning a property I land on once or twice per game, typically one of the few remaining properties of less strategic value.  The property is not worth listed price for me, but at least worth its mortgage value.  At this point in the game it is typical for available funds into property development, so everyone may have little cash on hand.  Mostly these are three player games so they start with a little less total cash.

The newest standard edition (post 2008) rules say:
Auctions
If you land on an unowned Street, Railroad,
or Utility and you don’t want to buy it, the Banker
must auction it.

The Banker starts the auction by offering the
space to everyone for M$10.
Anyone can increase the bid by as little as M$1
(even the Banker and the player who originally
landed on the space).
The highest bidder wins the auction, pays the
Bank, and takes the Title Deed card.

What if no one wants it?
That’s fine. No one pays anything.

Intent of the auction rule is to insure each property is sold as it is landed on.  I always want any property if I can get it for less than the mortgage amount.

There is no official rule on this so only home rules can be suggested. Assuming that money isn't rare amongst the bidding players, the starting bid should be 50% of the face value of the property as you could simply mortgage the property immediately & get 50% of the face value in cash right back from the bank. Bids can then go up by any increment of $1 but the impatient bidding player simply has to increase the increments to end their agony. If money is rare amongst the bidding players then the starting bid should be whatever the amount of money that the player with the least amount of money has in hand. When money is rare, you can mortgage previously owned properties to get the money to pay your bid but you cannot rely on the money gained by mortgaging the property that you are bidding on as you must own the property before mortgaging it and you must win the bid before owning it.

The question does not ask for recommendation of an auction method, so your response does not answer it, which is whether minimum bid rules make auctions faster.

Note: this is an old answer.  I now recommend a 10% increment rule: any new bid must be at least 10% higher than current high bid. This is simple and enough to keep the bidding from dragging on and on. Been playing this way with my sons and need to help my 1st grader by announcing the next allowable bid.
The house rule I have come up with is that the minimum bid increment must be:
1. At least 1% of the current bid (round up) AND
2. At least 50% of previous bid increment.
Here is an example aution of a railroad under these rules
A: $100
B: $101 (minimum based on #1)
C: $103 (minimum based on #1)
A: $203 delta $100
C: $253 delta  $50 (minimum based on #2)
A: $280 delta  $27
C: $294 delta  $14 (minimum based on #2)
A: $301 delta   $7 (minimum based on #2)

How well does this work during actual play?  Seems like a high potential to stall for a bit whilst figuring out the next minimum bid occasionally.

Is this based on a similar practice in real auctions? I'm curious if you just came up with the rules out of the blue (not necessarily a bad thing BTW) or if you're re-purposing guidelines from somewhere else.

Basically these rules come from a mixing of the eBay rules (#1) and a diluted version of poker min raising rules (#2).
Rule a little more complicated than ideal, but the auctioneer can keep things moving with a "Do I hear [min bid]?" call.

The 50% previous increment allows someone to close off the auction by making a big jump. e.g. for a property with nominal value $150 someone opens with $1, someone else jumps to $150, and anyone else is then forced to 1.5x the nominal value. And it doesn't work for simultaneous bids either: if two people bid $150 simultaneously, how do you decide which one gets it?

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text:
Mansion Of Madness- Discarded combat cards specific type of combat(sharp,melee)
When entering combat and flipping the correct combat decks for the creature type, we have already flipped all of the "sharp melee weapon" cards. I want to attack with the Axe again.
When we reach the bottom of the deck, do we shuffle the cards into the combat card deck or do I need to wait to attack with this weapon until all the combat cards have been flipped and then shuffle the deck?

Not entirely sure what you're asking here? Have you discarded all the "sharp melee weapons" you're carrying or do you mean that you've used all the "sharp melee weapon" cards in a specific combat deck? If it's the second point, you keep flipping cards until you find one with "sharp melee weapons" on it. If you get through the whole deck and don't find any more, shuffle and start again.

If a deck of cards runs out, the players shuffle the discard pile to create a new deck.

Source: Mansions of Madness Core Rulebook, page 25 - "Component Limitations"

You shuffle the deck immediately when you hit the bottom of the deck, then continue flipping as if you never ran out of cards.
Effectively, treat the combat card decks as "infinite". You should never run out of cards, you should always get an effect from the action.


text:
Can you place a meeple on a tile you didn't place?
In Carcassonne, the rules (in the Z-Man games edition)  imply that your meeple for the turn has to go on the tile you just placed rather than any unclaimed and uncompleted feature on the board ("on that tile"), but they don't specifically forbid the latter interpretation or state it outright (e.g. "only on the tile you just placed")
So when you place a meeple, does it have to be on the tile you played this turn?
Bonus: If you house rule it the other way, what effect would it have on the game?

Re "If you house rule it the other way, what effect would it have on the game?", It would completely break the game. For example, you know that large city worth 20 points that was just completed? Every player could start scoring it every single turn. Nay, they would be forced to score it every single turn to avoid losing.

Sorry, unclaimed and uncompleted. Thought that was obvious because you can't (AFAIK) claim a completed feature even on the tile you just  played.

Not as bad, but still full of problems. Including the fact that you just removed a common way of getting points because you can most definitely claim a completed feature on the tile you just played.

I was wondering about that, if you had an unclaimed road on the board, and you place a tile that completes it, can you place and immediately reclaim the meeple?

yup! That's why you never want to spend your last meeple. You want to have it available for use-and-reclaim moves.

Star Wars Carcassonne allows you to attack a Planet (equivalent of playing on an occupied cloister) when you place a tile in the octet surrounding the planet (cloister). There will never be double scoring, because the planet (cloister) is only scored once the octet is complete. Also, you roll dice in that game to see whose meeples get to stay.

"they don't specifically forbid the latter interpretation" The rules also say you can't remove someone else's meeple, or take meeples from another game if you run out of your starting meeples, or ...

@AndyT Here you go, but the accepted answer is good enough.

So, to quote the rules you've linked to "The player may place a meeple from her supply onto the tile she has just placed". From where do you get that there is only an implication that it can only go on this tile? It doesn't specifically say you can't take off other people's meeples and replace them with yours, but you're not asking whether that's allowed, are you?

@AndyT I appreciate you want to make this "a thing", but the fact that the Rio Grande rules are a lot clearer about the restriction should make it obvious that it wasn't clear.

@deworde - As to "a thing" - I believe stack exchange should be about asking questions that people haven't been able to answer themselves. If you could have answered it by reading your own set of the rules, you shouldn't be asking it here. From reading your set of the rules, I cannot see any room for interpretation or misunderstanding. If you posted a question saying "here is the exact wording of the rules, I can read it in these two different ways" then that would be a valid question. If you say "my rules aren't clear", and it turns out that if you read them they are clear, it's not valid.

@AndyT That's fine, but as I had to correct another owner of the game about how this works this last weekend, and then realised that I couldn't find a clear rule to state that it had to be the tile just placed, your inability to see the room does not mean that no-one else has taken up residence there.

I'm not sure I'm getting my point across here, I apologise for that. I'll try rewording: I believe you should provide in your question body a quote from the rules you've got and not a "it implies this" or "it says something like this". I believe if you did edit in the quote, your question would disappear, because you would answer it yourself. If you do not believe that, please edit in a quote from your copy of the rules and explain why that doesn't answer your question.

I am updating my answer to include a rules quote and explanation from the Z-Man rules.

@gendolkari Thanks! Thought I'd already accepted. And yeah, the monastery part was one of the points of confusion. Rio Grande rules seem a lot clearer.

You can only place it on the tile you just placed. From the Rio Grande edition rules:

After the player places a land tile, he may deploy one of his followers, using the following rules:

The player may only play 1 follower on a turn.

The player must take it from his supply.

The player may only deploy it to the tile he just placed.

While the Z-Man edition rules don't have a specifically spelled out restriction; you can go based off of what they do allow you to do:

Placing a meeple:
The player may place a meeple from her supply onto the tile she has just placed.

The sections on Highwaymen and Knights say something similar. While the rules don't say "you cannot place a meeple on a different tile", they don't need to, because the rules are there to tell you what things are are allowed to do. You are automatically not allowed to do anything that the rulebook does not give you permission to do.
As an extreme example, the rules don't say that you aren't allowed to take one of your opponent's meeples off the board, but it is assumed that it is not allowed because they don't say you are allowed.
That being said, the Z-Man rulebook just doesn't seem as clear over all. It awkwardly states the rule for placing a tile multiple times; for each of the types of terrain, and then gives the rule about placing a meeple for each one. Under the rule for placing a meeple a a monk, it actually says "You can place
a meeple on a monastery as a monk." which fails to mention that it must be on a monastery that you just placed. You need to use the context of how placing meeples in general works to realize that you can't just place a meeple on any monastery.

Ah, is that in the boxed rules?

It is from the Rio Grande rulebook; third edition. I edited the answer to include a link.

Ah, our copy is the English edition from 2016 by Z-man, where none of this is made clear.

Yep, that's what I inferred from the rules, but as you say, it's not entirely clear and easy to miss. Thanks!

You can only place a meeple on a tile you just placed. The Princess & Dragon expansion provides an exception to that rule.
As Gendolkari already quoted, the rules in the vanilla game are clear:

The player may only play 1 follower on a turn.
The player must take it from his supply.
The player may only deploy it to the tile he just placed.

However, in the "Princess & the Dragon" expansion, there are 6 magic portal tiles:

If you draw one of those, instead of your normal meeple placement, you may place your meeple on any other already placed tile. You follow all the other rules for meeple placement. In addition, you may not "teleport" your meeple into an already scored feature.
Note that a farm is not scored before the end of the game, so even when a farm is completely enclosed and can no longer expand, as long as it's unoccupied, you can place your meeple into it.
From the Princess and Dragon rules:

When a player draws and places a magic portal tile, he may place a follower on this or any previously placed tile. When doing so, he must follow all other placement rules, for example, not on a feature with another follower. In addition, he may not place his follower on an already completed feature.

I'm not sure that this answers the question... Carcassonne with Princess and Dragon is a different game than Carcassone.

I explicitely answered for both the vanilla game and for the expansion. We don't know whether OP was interested in only vanilla, or was asking generally, and in any case, answering for both will help more future visitors than just answering for vanilla.

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text:
Room Boundaries in Blood Ties
In Blood Ties, what counts as a room boundary for the purpose of Horror Tests and Item Abilities? (e.g. Elder Sign)
For example, my girlfriend raises a zombie in the graveyard. Do all my investigators out in the open have to take a horror test, or only those in the graveyard?
Alternatively, Gloria Grant is surrounded by 4 zombies, all within 1 range. Does her successful Elder Sign roll drive all the zombies back, or only those that are on her tile?

You should go by the definition in the rule book on page 8

Room - An area of the map tile that has a name and is separated from the other rooms by solid brown walls, doors, or the edge of the map tile. ...

Raise a Zombie in the graveyard: Only those in the Graveyard room.

Whenever a monster enters (or is placed) in an investigator's room (or vise versa), the investigator must immediately make an attribute test called a HORROR TEST. ... If multiple investigators are in the room, the must each make a horror test.

Elder Sign: although poorly worded (the Elder Sign rules text), all monsters in the room are moved two spaces away from her. (Keep in mind that a map tile may have as many as 3 rooms on it, you cannot use the terms interchangeably)

Tile - A single piece of punchboard that contains between one and three rooms.
Elder Sign - "Pass: The keeper must move each monster in your room 2 spaces away from you."


text:
What happens if a target for removal becomes ineligible after a card has been cast?
When you have a card like Complete Disregard which reads "Exile Target Creature with power 3 or less", as I understand it, it becomes untargetable if the opponent's creature power increases thanks to a pump spell like Brute Strength.
But what if the Disregard is already on the stack and targeting; and they respond with Brute Strength? I'm pretty sure (and my opponent with Brute Strength was certain) that it won't exile the creature, but I don't know which rule states this, and there's no gatherer ruling on the spell.

Small note; you say "it won't kill the creature", but for clarity, the creature won't "die" either way; if the spell resolves than the creature will be exiled, which is different from dying.

Good point, was using kill in the vernacular (I mean, if whatever they do to you leaves you alive that seems bad), fixed

Possible duplicate of MTG: Making a card ineligible as a target once a card has been cast

I think that other question should be closed as a duplicate of this one... this one came first.

I vote for this question to be closed, because the other one is worded more universally. Also the best answer is more concise there, while still carrying (more or less) the same information.

What @tsuma said. As the writer of this question, I think the other question is more general, and thus going to there from here would be better than the other way around. As far as I know, closing doesn't have any negative effects except people would have to answer on the other question?

Thank you, @deworde, for being more concerned about which dupe target is best than your own question. I think this question is more well written. I think the other question has a more general title. It could go either way honestly.

@Rainbolt Certainly if mine gets picked I'm shamelessly nicking his title...

The question that this is being marked for as a duplicate of is already closed as a duplicate of this question so until that is resolved this should not be closed as a duplicate.

@JoeW It is impossible to close two questions as duplicates of each other. If you try to do it anyway, you'll see a message like this. The close votes on this question will decay at a rate of 1 vote every two days, so long as nobody casts any other types of close votes.

@Rainbolt That should have prevented it from entering the queue in the first place and not depend on code to prevent it from happening.

At resolution, Complete Disregard will instead leave the stack and be put into its owner's graveyard without doing anything, because all its targets have become illegal.
Targeting spells and abilities check the legality of their targets twice; once as you put them on the stack, and again just before they resolve. If all their targets have become illegal at the time of the second check, it doesn't resolve at all.
If some, but not all, of its targets become illegal before the second check, the spell or ability resolves but does not affect or obtain information about those illegal targets.

Resolving Spells and Abilities

608.2b If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal. A target that’s no longer in the zone it was in when it was targeted is illegal. Other changes to the game state may cause a target to no longer be legal; for example, its characteristics may have changed or an effect may have changed the text of the spell. If the source of an ability has left the zone it was in, its last known information is used during this process. If all its targets, for every instance of the word “target,” are now illegal, the spell or ability doesn’t resolve. It’s removed from the stack and, if it’s a spell, put into its owner’s graveyard. Otherwise, the spell or ability will resolve normally. Illegal targets, if any, won’t be affected by parts of a resolving spell’s effect for which they’re illegal. Other parts of the effect for which those targets are not illegal may still affect them. If the spell or ability creates any continuous effects that affect game rules (see rule 613.11), those effects don’t apply to illegal targets. If part of the effect requires information about an illegal target, it fails to determine any such information. Any part of the effect that requires that information won’t happen.

I'm sure I remember an exception to this or rather a thing that behaves differently. Something like "when X enters the battlefield draw a card if you control 2 creatures"

@deworde your example does not contain the word "target", so that is unrelated to your question and my answer, not an exception.


text:
How much worse is Rare Re-drafting for the weakest player than opening a random pack?
One way of awarding prizes in Magic Tournaments is to "rare re-draft", where you take all the higher value cards that have been opened while drafting (6-8 players, 3 packs per player, approx 1 rare per pack, so 24 rares/mythic rares (+ foils)), and the winner gets first choice of card, the player who came second gets the next choice and so on.
If I've done the maths correctly, this is appallingly bad value for weaker players, not just in terms of how it benefits stronger players, but just compared to keeping the rares they open while drafting.
Is this accurate, or have I got my maths wrong?

This seems trivially correct.. I would assume it's the entire reason for doing a rare re-draft; as a prize for the player who came in first. Giving away random packs would not provide an incentive to win.

Well, I was arguing with someone who claimed that even for the person in 8th place, they had a chance of a good card than if you randomly opened a booster. I did the maths, and as I expected found out that, no, that's completely wrong, but I'm pseudo-humble enough to want a second opinion (if only so my percentages can be strictly accurate). Also, frankly, having an authoritative source for players who don't understand this or who aren't sure to refer to seems like a worthy addition to the site.

Do you need a calculator, or another person, to tell you that if you consistently get last pick, the average card value will be lower? Isn't that obvious?

So actually it depends on a variable you didn't give in the question... how many rares is the pool of rare drafts taken from? Imagine for a moment that to make the rare draft, you took 1000 random rares and chose the best 24 of them to do the draft with. This would be very different from taking 30 random rares and taking the best 24.

Or to use your analogy; why did you use "24" dice? If you used 100 dice, then the answer would be different. If you use 1 die per player, then it becomes trivially bad for weak players.

@Rainbolt It was intuitively obvious to me, but apparently not to everybody, to the point where I felt like I wanted a second opinion from a trusted source.

@Gendolkari Generally in a draft it's 3 packs per player. Updated the question in response. I suppose a 33 man draft is possible, how would that change the maths to have the 33rd pick out of 99 cards?

And another number that factors in... how many rares total exist? Imagine once again a silly scenario where you only have 2 rares. In this case, a random rare has a 50% chance of being the best rare. But picking 33rd out of 99 cards means you get the best card almost every time.

Added that to the question, I also removed my "am I right?" changing it to a purer question.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

@deworde After reading through that Reddit thread you linked to, it seems like the guy you were arguing with understands exactly what you are saying here, but just doesn't think it applies to Eternal Masters.

@Rainbolt Which makes even less sense. EMA drafts are more expensive than regular drafts and the variance between the most expensive and least expensive rares is hundreds of dollars, so it being better to significantly lower your pack EV (and to pay a premium to do so) seems insane. That's why I'm interested in whether I've misunderstood something.

WotC pseudo-randomizes each booster box to contain consistent amounts of Mythics. The only time rare redrafting would benefit the worst player is if 1/3 of the packs contained money cards of equal value. The last place player would be guaranteed to get a money card instead of a 1/3 chance. In reality this won't happen because boxes by design are not sold with completely random boosters inside. The Mathematics SE might like a question like this. It's an example of how choice can introduce a bias in how people perceive their chances of gaining a favorable outcome vs randomness.

@deworde Rare redraft lowers your EV if you are a worse than average player. EV is raised if you are a better than average player. The total value to all players remains constant. The distribution is what changes. I think it is reasonable for some stores to choose a distribution that rewards good players and punishes poor players (rare redraft), while others stores choose a random distribution (keep what you pull). Rare redraft probably does drive away new players, but I bet it attracts competitive players. Would you still call that "insane"?

Expected value is obviously lower, but in an 8 player draft the last place player still gets the 8th most valuable card.  Imagine that the value distribution is something like this
10 most valuable cards - $50 each
14 other cards - $1 each
The total value of the cards is $514, so you could say that the EV of each card is $21, and the total EV without re-drafting is $63.  With re-drafting, the value is exactly $52.
But now think about standard deviation.  Without re-drafting, there is a significant chance the player ends up with a value of $3.  With it, they will get $52 regardless of their performance.
The moral of the story is that if there are enough expensive cards available that even the last player gets one, re-drafting gives them a consistent value, while otherwise there is a chance that they end up with practically nothing (or possibly a jackpot).

As the answer says, without re-drafting, there is a significant chance the player ends up with a value of $3. There is also a significant chance the player ends up with a value of $200. Do you want to mention that too?

It's a good point that the chance of a real whiff on value is lower under rare-redraft if there's a sharp plummet in value around the mid-point.

Could such an mtg set actually exist (in-print?)  if opening packs on average yielded a pile of cards with wildly higher secondary market value than the cost of the packs, wouldn't people keep opening packs until the secondary market prices normalized. :)  (You can see this historically with worldwake where the price of jace TM eventually became almost exactly the wholesale cost of the # of packs on average you have to open to get him while the set was still available. and maybe a bit of margin for abyssal persecutor who flopped but was sought at the time)

I'm obviously simplifying to make the math more obvious.  It is certainly reasonable to assume that there might be 8 cards that are significantly more valuable than the rest.  If you make it $5 instead of $50, the same conclusion applies, just to a smaller degree.


text:
Adding money to a game of Risk
A friend and I recently had a conversation around making a set of rules for a buy-in variant on Risk, and I wanted some help from experienced players to review them as they stand now. Risk is not a game that I know well, but well enough to ask some questions about.
The example we talked about splitting the pot on all 42 countries at $5 a piece; between 6 players, that's a $35 buy in. Players get their $5 bills (or chips that represent them) and must trade money upon losing/gaining territories at the end of each turn. As for quitting a game, a player can't quit unless they forfeit all of their money and walk away from the table, allowing for automatic defense rolls from the other players. To enforce fairness (and to avoid an annoying "winner take all" result each game), if all players from 2nd place until the current last place player all agree to "flag" their places and end the game, first place must then quit and take their money, as does all players.
With this approach, placing troops may result in one player taking all of their infantry on just a few territories; another may start with a larger amount of territories with less reinforcements. Would a French setup work better for this type of play? Are there other pitfalls that I may be overlooking? Anybody out there tried to add money to a game of Risk? What were the results?

Why would you bother trading chips after every turn? (Or using chips at all?) Unless you do something with the chips you have, just pay in at beginning, set the money aside, and pay out at end based on board position.

I do wonder if you could do some sort of bidding for the initial set-up. I'd be willing to pay a little extra for South American countries...

There is a certain satisfaction in forcing the leader to pass out $5 bills left and right when surviving a two front invasion in Asia ;).

If you want the game to finish earlier than world domination, why not use Secret Mission Risk?

Be careful. Usually tinkering with houserules, if you overlook something, you can make it up on the spot. If there is real money at stake, suddenly the game becomes much more serious and the ability to quickly tweak something which might be in one player's favor or another is gone.
From your initial idea, I see several dramatic flaws. First is that Risk is designed as a winner-take-all game. You propose to have the ability to end the game short by unanimous-save-one consent. This will not work. One player, for instance, might have relatively few territories, but be well-fortified, well-positioned and have cards prepared for a powerful game-winning strike. Will this player be considered to be in the lead? If not, he will never agree to end the game. If so, he will lose out, controlling many fewer territories although the favorite to win.
You would need to make careful rules about when the game is allowed to come to an end. Can it be ended before a powerful attack? After an unlucky turn? Before whose attack--because the last attacker can just spread himself thin, without any regard to defense, and collect an unfairly large share of the pot.
With directed attacks, you may face accusations of favoritism or collusion that are much more venomous than in a non-stakes game. In this case, I think that playing Risk for money is a questionable idea, and playing with house rules to allow any stakes other than winner-take-all would be potentially disastrous.

I took the idea of flagging from kdice: http://kdice.com/FAQ#flagging

Also, you are considered in first place by having the most territories (and therefore, the most money). In your example, the turtle would be in third or fourth, and would never agree to flagging their place. The game would continue.

watch out that flagging at kdice sometimes makes some weird situations, as who really flag first...or who should take 3 or 4 position...

Yeah never bet real money when you add house rules; someone will always end up feeling angry or cheated.

I have considered & re-considered the concept of involving a gambling aspect to the classic game of Risk.   I have come to the conclusion that playing this classic game should not involve money as people whom like money games will gravitate towards poker & people who like strategy & balance of power will gravitate to Risk.
The best games of Risk that I have played are the games that I lost.
Introducing a financial loss to theses amazing games would diminish this experience.
But if you must, I have come up with these concepts:
1)  Everybody puts a certain amount in a pot & the winner takes the pot.
OR
2)  You must buy all of your soldiers that you start with that you will place on the map at the beginning of the game & throughout the game.
A penny for every soldier or a dollar for every soldier or anything in between.  When you buy your soldiers the money goes into the winner’s pot.
As you kill soldiers on the map you keep theses soldiers as your own to cash them in at the end of the game.  You might have to make soldier swaps with other players during the game as you have their coloured soldiers & they have yours, but the swaps are 1 for 1.   When a game ends the losers get to take the money out of the pot for the soldiers that they have paid for but not put on the map yet & the money for the soldiers that they have killed & not trade with other players.  If at any point in the game it is agreed by all other players to concede a game to the obvious would be winner the game is cut short & the winner takes a smaller pot.  A longer game would make for a larger pot.  You can actually play with real coins that have been spray painted to the colour of each player.

I would recommend another approach:
Each player can buy treasury bonds for every country. You play with the countries in which you have a majority of bonds. You can still attack your enemy, but when you do that, remember that someday that country you weaken may be yours because you have more treasury bonds that the other players.
But wait! Don't bother creating a game like that, it already exists. It's called Imperial (old European version) or Imperial 2030 (World version).
Change your thinking for these kind of games, if you play them, though. They are 100% strategy games with absolutely no luck whatsoever, even for the fights.


text:
Peaceful cave too good to be true?
We've played Caverna a few times now, and the most recent time, I stumbled onto something so easy and good I felt like I must be cheating. So, help me out: am I doing this right? Or, is there some mitigating factor I don't understand?
The Peaceful Cave furnishing is described like this in the Appendix (emphasis original):

At any time, you can trade the weapons of your Dwarfs for Food. You get a number of food equal to the strength of the Weapon you trade in. You can trade multiple weapons at the same time or at different points in time. (For instance, if you traded in a Weapon of strength 14, you would get 14 Food from the general supply. The Peaceful cave works well with the Prayer chamber.)

Ore is relatively plentiful (with plenty of tiles to help if you need a boost), and the net result is that you can take the Blacksmithing space basically whenever it's available, pay 8 ore, and then immediately exchange the now-strength-9 weapon for 9 food plus whatever you got on the expedition itself. (2 more ore + 2 points + one of whatever else you need!)
Once the others have armed their dwarfs (or decided not to), the Blacksmith tile doesn't seem to be in that much contention, and anyway, this made food so plentiful that I had no problem using the Imitation space whenever it was convenient. Plus, the tile itself is worth 2 points, and as the description notes, it makes Prayer Chamber another easy 8 points.
With three dwarfs, you can basically have one doing this, one gathering ore, and the other doing whatever else you want. Probably breeding more dwarfs, because mouths to feed aren't an issue.
So: were we playing this wrong? Is there some limiting factor that I hadn't thought of? Should there be a rule that once a weapon is sold, that dwarf can't be re-armed? (There doesn't appear to be. And how would you keep track?) Or are there many other options that are actually just this good that we haven't discovered yet, and I'm just amazed because I'm used to the rounds of abject poverty and starvation in Agricola?

How many players do you play with?

@Othya That particular game was with 3 players, but so far I've played with 2, 3, 4, and 5, and I can't really see this being much different in any of those.

You're doing everything correctly, I think you and your friends just haven't discovered other strategies yet.

As said in comments you are doing it right.
With this strategy, you lose the ability to access any quest reward of level 8 or above, unless you are keeping two weaponned dwarves.  This is a significant disavantage, since you can't get the cheap dwelling, a cow, sow, breed, or place pastures/tunnels/rooms/fields.
As with any food engine, it makes the game easier, but I find the flexibility of dropping the single tiles too much to give up for my tastes.


text:
Does "one non-Logos card" on Phase Shift limit me, or just enable me?
If I play 2 Phase Shifts in the same turn, can I play two non-Logos cards? If I play Wild Wormhole, resulting in playing a non-Logos card, can I still use Phase Shift to play another non-Logos card?

It doesn't limit, it only enables. For every Phase Shift you play, you're going to be able to play one non-Logos card that turn. Here are some additional quotes from emails sent by Brad Andres (developer at FFG):

The Wild Wormhole is creating it own play permission for
  the card it is playing from the top of the deck separate from the play
  permission that the Phase shift is creating. Meaning that you can
  still play a non-Logos card from playing the phase shift.

FFG also addressed this in this video.


text:
Can I play/use a card that can't fully resolve?
Some cards (e.g. Anger - "Ready and fight with a friendly creature.") say to do multiple things. What if not all of those things are possible (e.g. if my opponent has no creatures for me to fight) - can I still play the card? Does it do anything?

Sergeant Zakiel ( https://aember-forge.com/card/sergeant-zakiel ) has the same text on play.

Andrew Vandever, do you think it is legal to replace the photo of the card with picture from aember forge ( https://aember-forge.com/card/search )?

@DenisGladkiy that would be fine with me. :D

Yes! From the rulebook, page 7:

When resolving a card ability, resolve as much of the ability as can
  be resolved, and ignore the rest.

In the Anger example, you would first gain the aember from playing the card. Then, if you have one or more friendly creature in play, you must choose one. If that creature is exhausted, ready it. If there is one or more valid fight targets, your chosen creature fights one of them. But any one of these bits fizzling doesn't prevent the others from happening. If there are no valid targets, you still get to ready a friendly creature. If you have no exhausted creatures, you can still have one of your ready creatures fight as a result of Anger. If you have a stunned card, Anger can remove its stun, as the stun removal replaces the fight use, even if your opponent has no creatures on the board.
FFG further clarified this in this video.


text:
Is a runner card turned facedown still itself?
Test Run reads:

Search your stack or heap for a program. Install that program,
  ignoring all costs. Shuffle your stack if you searched it. When this
  turn ends, add the program to the top of your stack if it is still
  installed.

Harbinger reads:

When Harbinger is trashed, install it facedown instead of adding it to your heap.

Suppose I use Test Run to bring a Harbinger out of my Heap, then trash Harbinger so that it becomes installed face down. Does Test Run put it on my deck at the end of my turn, or does it stay installed face down?

My first instinct is that it would stay in play, but I do not know for certain so will not post an answer. As Harbinger is not yet actually been released it may be hard to find a specific ruling for this case. I would tweet Lucas and ask for a rules verification. This will accomplish two things. 1) You will get your answer. 2) It will ensure this type of interaction is brought to his attention and likely get put in the next FAQ.

Good idea. I just did so. I suppose this is actually a more general question about how to treat facedown installed cards.

Facedown cards are no longer the same card they were before being turned facedown. In this example, Test Run's "if it is still installed" fails to trigger, and the cards stays where it is.
Based on Project ANCUR's answer to the question on twitter, which was favorited by Lukas (and therefore fairly authoritative, I suppose):

No. By being turned face down, it is no longer the previous instance
  of Harbinger that Test Run has a reference to (it's not an instance of
  Harbinger at all, just an installed facedown runner card)


text:
What are the rules?
I got the game, "Harry Potter: Rescue at Hogwarts" used, but there are no instructions. I've done a solid Internet search but had no luck. The Mattel site shows the game, but it has no instructions available for download. I don't even necessarily need the actual instructions, I just want to know how to play!
Does anyone have this one? It's Mattel C5555. Thanks.

it is not an answer, however I have had luck twice finding someone who had the game over at board game geeks and asking them if they would photo copy the instructions. I had to do this for Super Giant Monster Showdown. I sent the guy $10 because I really wanted the rules and he sent me a very high quality photo copy.

Thanks for the idea; I've posted one there. We'll see if there's any response.

From the entry for the game I did not see anyone who had a copy. You may not be able to find them. Another option is to find a game shop that is selling it and see if they would make the same photo copy deal. Best of luck.

It may also be worth contacting Mattel directly. The website has an email or chat form. Since they have so many of their instructions online (including a load of other Harry Potter games), it may be possible for them to post this.

Mattel came through by posting the instructions on their web site!
http://service.mattel.com/us/product_detail.asp?SearchString=c5555&displayOption=&brandName=&id=c5555


text:
Psi 0, 1, or 2 games - are credits from thin air or player's pool?
Psychic Field mentions spending credits. Are both players actually spending these credits from their credit pool, or are these imaginary credits?
If a runner has 0 credits, this is basically a guaranteed win?
Thanks

It is only a guaranteed win if the runner has no way of preventing net damage.

This card is never a guaranteed win, because it only deals as much damage as the runner has cards in hand. You need to do cards in hand +1 to flatline the runner.

@shanodin win the psi game. Not the whole game.

Yes, this card is an example of the Psi game mechanic, and credits are always spent from your credit pool. If aplayer has no credits, then they can only bid 0 during the Psi game (note: this is an excellent way of dealing with Caprice Nisei!).
From the manual (p.7),

Credit Pool: Each player has a credit pool where he keeps the credit
  tokens he has available to spend. Spent credits are returned to the
  token bank.

It's worth noting that credits can be spent from anywhere, not just the credit pool, as long as they are legal to spend on psi games. For instance Ghost Runner credits can be spent for psi games.


text:
What is this deception-based party game?
At some point in time I found the rules for a many player party game online and now I'm looking for it again. It involved two teams of players where each player is assigned two English words. Players of the same team would have words in common. The goal was to make contact with the other members of your team by finding other players with words in common with you. I think I discovered this game on the website of some indie designer. Any help finding the title or website of this game would be appreciated.

This description makes me think of Linq


text:
Bioroid 2.0 Ice: can runner spend 2 clicks more than once?
The text of the Heimdall 2.0 (https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/03015) says: "The Runner can spend 2 clicks to break up to 2 subroutines on Heimdall 2.0".
Is this a one-time use perk or something the runner can use several times, for example, spending 2 clicks twice (as two different actions)?

As both answers so far point out, this is actually a common question across all the Bioroid ice, not really specific to Heimdall. It is theoretically possible for even Viktor 2.0 to end up with more than 2 subroutines, for example with Sub Boost or Wetwork Refit.

Yep. I used Heimdal 2.0 as an example.

It's worth noting that the runner would need to have gained an extra click somewhere, since the runner starts with 4 clicks, and must spend one of them to start the run.

The runner can use this option multiple times, provided he/she has enough clicks to spend, same as with 1.0 model bioroids. Main difference from 1.0 is that runner cannot spend just one click to break exactly one sub with 2.0 bioroids.

You can spend exactly two clicks to break up to two of Heimdall 2.0's subroutines. If you have fewer than two unspent clicks when you encounter him, you cannot spend clicks to break subroutines and will have to break them some other way, or let the subroutines fire. In theory, you could spend two more clicks to break the one remaining subroutine, if you had gained an extra click and had four left at the start of the run.
N.B.: The 1.0 line of bioroid ice lets you spend clicks to break subroutines at a rate of 1:1.

I think "exactly two clicks" would be more clear than "a minimum of two clicks", since three meets the criterion of the second version but not the first.


text:
What happens if an Ice's subroutine can't be resolved?
I've got an Ice with subroutine: "Trash 1 program". What happens if the subroutine triggers and the runner does not have a program? The question is motivated by the next facts:

There are obligatory and optional abilities ("... if able", Enigma for example).
There is a rule clarification in the official FAQ: "A player cannot trigger an action/ability unless he is also able to resolve it".

Please let me know if there's a practical example you're thinking of that I failed to pick up on. I tried to answer the question as it's written. Thanks!

Well, nothing happens.

text in Enigma is basically unnecessary. If you don't have it, you can't lose it. Maybe it is just clarification that this effect doesn't carry over to the next turn.
Subroutines are not an action/ability and are not triggered by players. They trigger automatically unless something prevents them. Corp doesn't have an option to choose not to fire them.

@Deo, the interesting thing, as he points out, is that if a subroutine is a "Required Conditional Ability", which is a type of "Conditional Ability", which is a type of "Triggered Ability", then it truly can't "resolve" unless it changes the game state. But there's room for a rules clarification from FFG here, we'll see.

I don't have any practical example, unfortunately. I and a friend of mine had an argue and wanted some experts' judgment.

The craziest consequence of subroutine not being able to resolve, we deducted, is that the run is ended! See, optional abilities are always described explicitly ("... if able"). So all other abilities are obligatory by default (as Deo noted "Corp doesn't have an option to choose not to fire subroutines"). So the subroutine was not triggered at all (if it is an ability) and the ice encounter has not been fully "resolved" and the run cannot be advanced to it's next step. Looks like some kind of bug in the rules.

@Denis Gladkiy that is certainly not the case. FFG tutorial video has an example of this situation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAslVfZ9p-Y&feature=youtu.be&t=1109
"third subroutine has no effect"

The subroutine isn't broken (matters for stuff like Oversight AI), but doesn't actually do anything (so, technically, not "resolved", based on the unresolvable effects ruling from FAQ 1.5 - but there are no currently-released cards for which "resolved" matters).
Update: @user30903 pointed out that Persephone is coming out soonish, and will care whether a sub "resolved" or not. It seems to me that a subroutine should not be considered resolved unless it has an effect on the game state, but FFG could possibly rule to the contrary. We'll have to wait and see.

After reviewing every card on netrunnerdb with "subroutine" in the text, I think any question other than "is the subroutine broken?" is purely theoretical. I think technically we can say the subroutine does not resolve, based on the ruling in FAQ 1.5, but until there is some card that cares about whether a subroutine resolves (so far there are many that care whether they are broken, but not whether they resolve), it doesn't matter, and there's no reason for there to be an official ruling on it.

The upcoming Persephone [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/12042] does actually refer to whether a subroutine "resolved."

Great point! I missed that one. For now it seems like the answer should be that a subroutine only counts as resolved if it changes the game state, but I'd certainly be interested to see an FAQ entry about it. Side note: your link is broken because it accidentally includes the right bracket in the link. It was easy for me to fix so I could follow your link, but it should be easy to fix with an edit too (and I don't think I can edit it myself).

Ah thanks! On SE app and can't seem to edit comments, but oh well


text:
Identify this grid placement/guessing game
Please help me know the name of this game, i can't google it because i don't know what the proper keyword is.
Basically Its a board game played mostly by 2 or more depending on the creator of the board game.
The theme can be a Tank battle , or ship battle or anything.
You play the Game by placing your pieces, example tanks on a Grid of numbers and letters,
The objective of the game is to guess and destroy the pieces of your opponents are in the grid by guessing the Grid like A1, OR C3.

Sounds like Battleship: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_(game) You place your ships on the grid and you have to guess the positions of the opponent's ships.


text:
Has online play testing been an important part of any boardgame designs?
I am wondering if any game designers have used an online implementation of a game to balance and tweak it before commercial release.

Apparently some Dominion cards have been play tested online: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(card_game)#Online_Play

As a software developer, creating an online implementation is many orders of magnitude more difficult than getting a group of people to playtest a physical game.  So you'd only do this if you wanted to release the online version simultaneously, which seems like putting the cart before the horse.

Any designs, or any commercial designs? Are you only interested in rules design changes, or perhaps instruction rewrites, layout changes, etc. for clarity?

@bwarner you could imagine a kind of "game design funnel", where most games are rejected at a print and play stage.  Some promising candidates get turned into an online version for tweaking and balance.  The goal isn't just to minimize costs, you also want to produce something of quality.

@user1873 I clarified the question.  Certainly I am only interested in commercial games.

@rrenaud Imagine a very optimistic budget to create an online implementation of $20,000.  Then imagine how many playtest sessions of the physical game that you could get for half that amount.

Game for game, an online play test is arguably better, since you have a perfect record of it.  Often times, quality online implementations are developed for no cost to the game designer (dominion.isotropic.org, keldon's RFTG implementation).  Imagine the online version is developed by a dedicated fan/hobbyist before the game is printed.

I'm pretty sure "Day and Night" was tested online before release. But the online game was only limited to a small beta testing audience. The website used to say that the online version would reappear at some point, but the website is now dead and the developers appear to have vanished.
Since Day and Night is an asymmetric game, getting the two sides balanced is important, and the developers claimed that they were very close to 50:50 based on online testing.

VASSAL offers a way to create on online version of a game easily. I was involved in play testing Crown of Roses using a VASSAL module. The map for Clash of Monarchs has been critised as being difficult to use and the reason provided for this was that most of the play testing was done online which had a much clearer map.

Donald X. Vaccarino, the designer of Dominion, tested it with a program he wrote himself. Later expansions were playtested in a private room of the Isotropic online Dominion server. He discusses it briefly here:

I did not know Doug prior to him making isotropic; Wei-Hwa knew him. Before isotropic, I used a DOS program I wrote in Pascal, cbtest. It didn't do the internet part, we handled that via irc.

(Doug is dougz, the creator of the now-unavailable Isotropic Dominion.)

I was a beta tester for a few of David Sirlin's card games. Most of the beta testing was done online, in a combination of LackeyCCG and a very rough alpha web client for Yomi. I actually put some footage up on YouTube.
Someone brought up the objection that writing an online client is much harder than just designing the game. While it's true to an extent, you can cut a lot of corners if you're just testing. You don't need a lot of flair, or rules enforcement, or even "something that isn't dog-ugly", and your early testers won't care because it's not a finished game anyway.

A significant proportion of wargames released these days (e.g., by GMT) is playtested using VASSAL.


text:
Strongest early-game counters for a Modern deck?
Magic's Modern format has a rather large card pool, including 90-ish counterspells with a good variety of mana costs and limitations. Assume you're playing a control deck that can fairly reliably take over the late game, but really wants early disruption to get there, as well as occasional protection for your big controlling power play (whether it's a combo, a powerful fatty, or just a wrath to buy you more time). Given the constraints on counterspell power represented by the Modern set, which of the counter cards available make the strongest inclusions for early-turn defensive play, and why?
(I scoped this question to Modern because it's an "eternal" format with many options but no access to the early-edition uber-counters like Mana Drain and Force of Will.)

It all depends, I suppose, on your precise definition of "early game".  Most people would probably agree that the best counter in Modern is Cryptic Command, but at 4cc that's not anyone's idea of "early disruption"...
If you really want to come out of the gates countering, you'll want to be looking at 1cc and 2cc counters.  At the 1-drop level, Spell Snare is probably top of the heap, because so many good, fast decks will lean heavily on good 2-drops.  Spell Pierce might fit the bill if it's not fast creature swarms you're most worried about; or Mana Tithe if you want something a bit more off-the-wall (and are capable of making white mana)!
Beyond those, 2cc counters are the "classic" option.  Mana Leak is better than Rune Snag in the early game, which seems to be what you're worried about; and then there's the excellent Remand, which, while it doesn't make the problem go away permanently, hopefully makes your tempo problems go away, until you can, as you say, "take control of the late game".  Both Mana Leak and Remand are non-negotiable solutions to the problem of an opponent overrunning you in the first few turns of the game, and those'd definitely be my first port of call when working out a solid base for a Modern counter-heavy deck.

Oh, and of course, at 2cc Flashfreeze is amazing... IF you can count on red and/or green decks being prevalent in the current metagame.

Isn't Remand basically a bad Mana Leak against 1- and 2- cost cards?

I wouldn't underestimate Remand.  Yes, it's a tempo card, not a removal card, but remember that it draws you a card as well as wiping out one of your opponent's early turns (because they have to spend the next turn casting the spell again).  Remember an allegedly quite powerful card called Time Walk?  If played at the right moment, Remand is almost as good as that.

I like this answer, but I'm worried about one thing... Mana Tithe is, as you said, a more "off-the-wall" option. Do you have any experience with it in semi-competitive play? (Not necessarily Modern tournaments.)

Not personally, sadly, but here's a link to a thread (from 2011) where people seem to think it has potential, and reference it being used successfully in competitive play: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=350848

So, having tested a bunch, my conclusion is that you (and countless GP/PTQ winners, heh) are totally right about Remand. It's amazing. Double-amazing when you're Remanding a flashbacked spell or Remanding your own stuff in response to a counter.

@AlexP As some guy said on the gatherer site about Remand: "This card is only good for people who are playing with Islands against opponents who are playing with Spells."

@ghoppe I have to disagree with that assessment - I've played Remand quite successfully in decks that had no Islands whatsoever in them. :-)


text:
If James Baxter gives me a Creeper can I discard it
In Adventure Time Fluxx, the James Baxter action card has each player draw a card, and causes all Creepers in play to be discarded.
If my drawn card is a Creeper (which is immediately put on the table and replaced with another card), is it immediately discarded?

If you look at the text on the card you will notice that the instructions are broken up into 3 sections. What this says to me is that first everyone will draw a card and if they get a creeper they will put it into play and draw a replacement card. Once everyone has drawn the card the next section will happen which causes all creepers in play to be discarded. So that will mean any creeper that is drawn as part of this action will also be discarded as part of this action.
If the action was not to discard the creepers already in play it most likely would have come before the draw step or would have been included in the wording of the draw step.

All Players draw a card.
All Creepers in play are immediately discarded
All Hand and Keeper Limit Rules are immediately discarded

Text came from a picture on this site

Joe W's answer is correct.
In an answer to my email from Andrew Looney:
My Question:

James Baxter says:
  "All players draw a card. All Creepers in play are
  immediately discarded."
If I drew a Creeper from James Baxter I
  would put it in to play.  Does the discard of creepers happen before
  or after I put my new creeper into play?

Andrew Looney's Reply:

It happens after. James Baxter just makes everyone feel good. So if a Creeper shows you, you play it, and you draw a new card immediately. Then, after all that, the Creeper discard phase occurs. So if a problem shows up while James Baxter is around, he gets rid of it for you, along with any other problems! He’s just great.

To clarify, Creepers are played immediately when they are drawn and a card drawn to replace them in the hand, so the card does end up in play, albeit after the Action that would destroy it.

Interesting.  I asked the question to QA@looneylabs.com.

The important part is "James Baxter just makes everyone feel good"


text:
What actions can be taken as a free action?
I just got my first model for X-Wing Minis (an E-Wing) and received a card in the box called "Advanced Sensors". It's a 3-point card granting "...1 free action..." "Immediately before you reveal your maneuver,...". My question is What can I do as a Free Action using this card? All I can find in the rule book is that it is "something specified in a card or a game type" and nothing else.

Have you got a core set of some sort? You need one of those to play the game. The extra ships are just expansions.

Free actions are actions that are specified on the ship's action bar, other cards or special mission rules. You can normally only perform actions during the Perform Action step of the Activation phase.
Advanced Sensors allows you to perform any one of these free actions outside of the regular step at the cost of skipping that step.
From the X-Wing Rules reference (pg 12)

A free action is an action granted to a ship through a card ability or other effect. It does not count as the one standard action that a ship performs during the “Perform Action” step.
• A stressed ship cannot perform free actions.
• A ship can perform free actions even if it skipped its “Perform Action” step due to overlapping an asteroid obstacle or another game effect.
• If a ship is specifically granted a free barrel roll action or a free boost action and cannot complete the action in the desired direction, it may choose a different direction. It cannot choose to perform a different action.

Thanks for pointing out the page, I guess I didn't read it closely enough the first time...


text:
Can ionised ships return fire?
In Star Wars X-Wing if a ship has an ionising token can it shoot?
For example:

TIE Fighter skill 5
Y-wing skill 8
TIE Fighter moves
Y-wing moves
Y-wing shoots and scores damage with ion cannon

The TIE hasn't fired yet but it's been ionised. Is it still allowed to return fire?

Considering what happens in Star Wars shows and books when a ship is hit by an ion weapon, it's not surprising that people wonder if ionized ships can perform attacks. It's helpful to remember in X-Wing Miniatures, you don't do anything that the rules or cards don't specifically tell you that you can do. (That solves another common misunderstanding where people think ships normally take damage when they overlap other ships.)

According to the Ion Token reference card, the TIE Fighter would be able to return fire, as you are in the Combat Phase.