text:
Can a resource card be used more than once in a turn when allowed to build more than one structure?
Scenario:

Player is using Babylon (side B)
2nd wonder has been completed (allows playing last card of each age instead of discarding)
Player has a Mine in play (can produce either Stone or Ore)
Player has no other way to produce Stone or Ore and no money to purchase from a neighbor
It is the 6th turn of Age I
Player has a Barracks and a Baths in hand (resource cost of one Ore and one Stone, respectively)

Can the player play both Barracks and Baths?
The 2nd wonder allows the player to play both the Barracks and Baths (assuming he can pay the costs), instead of having to discard one. The Mine can produce both resources, but the rules regarding cards that can produce more than one type of resource state:

the player can use one OR the other resource to build a structure (or a wonder phase) but NOT both in a given turn.

Both cards would be played in the 6th turn, so it would seem that the player cannot use the Mine to pay the cost of each card. However, is the limitation on using resource cards only once per turn really meant to be once per construction?
This question really applies to any resource producing card, not just the multi-resource producing cards. It was just simpler to explain this way, and the issue is more fuzzy due to the specific prohibition on multi-resouce producing cards being used more than once in a turn.

Same question: http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/8039/7-wonders-question-about-babylon-guild

The consensus opinion, based on asking the games' creators how situations such as these were intended to be resolved (see this BGG thread), is that you should treat Babylon's "play last card of each age" power as, in effect, a 7th and separate turn.  If you do, then naturally you would be able to use your resources once per build, not have to divide them between the last two cards.
I think this is definitely the way to go, just for pragmatic reasons: Babylon's power seems pretty poor if you have to pay for your last two cards in an Age with one set of resources.  It's hard enough to buy one card with the resources available in the final stages of the game - buying two at once would be an almost impossible feat!

The gamer designer (Antoine Bauza) answered a similar question:

When playing both cards in round 6 to build two buildings: Can you use one resource twice for each of the buildings?

Yes, it's two different cards, like two different turns... The first could help you to play the second (discard the 6th for money and use the money to play the 7th for example...)

(found by user1873, who posted it in an answer to a duplicate question)
So there is no actual 7th turn, but the commerce and building rules work like there would be one. This means, for example:

You can build the relevant 2nd wonder stage in the 6th turn, and then make use of your last card.
You can build a resource card in the 6th turn, and use it to build the last card (same if a neighbour builds it).
You can earn money in the 6th turn, and use it to build the last card.
You can use the same resource card (and for resource cards that let you choose, make different choices) for building your last two cards.
If your neighbours benefit from played cards or built wonder stages (thanks to a card they played in the 6th turn), they only benefit from your 6th card, not from your 7th card (… I assume).
If a player may go through the discard pile (e.g., thanks to Halicarnassus), and you discard your last card for money, this card gets added to the discard pile before the player goes through it.


text:
What is the timing of the Hidden Pocket effect?
When does the Virulent Strain Epidemic effect for Hidden Pocket happen? The way the card is laid out, it would seem that it happens after the three epidemic steps; however, that would negate the effect as there would never be any cards in the discard pile. It could happen before step 1, but that could be pretty nasty and seems to go against the title of the effect, as "hidden pocket" would imply only a small amount of the disease.
When this situation arose in a game, resolving the effect before step 1 would have been pretty bad as there were a lot of cards in the discard pile. We chose to resolve the effect after the Infector phase, since there would only be a few cards in the discard pile, but that seems like a stretch.

The first time I hit this card, I immediately said "what?", pulled out the rules, found nothing about it, and said, well, given the nature of the game, it probably happens at the worst possible time. Probably a good method for resolving any Pandemic rules questions in a pinch!

This card is definitely ambiguous, which is strange, as all the other virulent strain Epidemic cards are quite clear about when they take effect. However, Tom Lehmann, the game's designer, has actually answered this specific question on BoardGameGeek:

Hidden Pocket is resolved after Infect (and before Intensify).
So, if the Virulent Strain disease has been eradicated and a city of
  that disease is drawn during the Infect step, you don't place 3 cubes
  on it (as per the normal eradication rules).
However, that card then goes into the Infection Discard Pile (see page
  6 of the Pandemic rules), and therefore will end up with 1 cube on it
  when Hidden Pocket is applied, before resetting the Infection Discard
  Pile.

So yeah, it's pretty nasty!

Wow, that would have been very nasty in our case. We had quite a few cities of the eradicated, virulent strain in the discard pile at the time. It also seems to go against the theme of the card. To me, "hidden pocket" would imply a small amount of the disease had gone undetected and cropped back up. I wouldn't think it would mean a disease has instantly reappeared across an entire continent. But, I guess I'd be wrong. :)

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Does Consult The Prisoner move jump track again, after an auto-jump?
Here's the scenario:

The fleet is one away from
auto-jumping, i.e. at the -1 location
on the jump track
Consult The Prisoner is drawn during
the Crisis step
Current Player chooses to attempt the
skill check
Humans pass the skill check
The jump track is advanced to
auto-jump (from passing the check)
The jump is resolved

What happens next? Do we still resolve the Activate Cylon Ships (there are none) and Prepare For Jump steps? I see no reason not to, but it just seemed a little odd. So the fleet moves to the second spot on the jump track, right?

Yes.  The situation is a little strange, but it's clear that the card is intended to increase the jump track twice on a passed check, and the rules for resolving cards are clear.

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


text:
How does Flute of the Outer Gods work in Arkham Horror and when should I use/buy it?
First of all, what's the sequence of events in using this item?

If I would go insane/unconscious before using the flute, does that mean it would be useless to use the flute as I would be unable to actually make the combat check?
What is the difficulty of the combat check?
By area, does the the card mean all monsters currently in the exact same street area or location as you, or all monsters in the same street area and 2-3 corresponding locations?

according to the AH wiki:

You must pass a Horror Check before using the Flute. If there are more than one monster in your area, you only need to pass one Horror Check.

What is the difficulty of the horror check? Is it as if you were making a normal horror check before engaging in combat?

Second, how can I know when to buy/use the Flute? It's extremely expensive in terms of both cash and sanity/stamina. It seems as if most of the time you'd be better off saving the money for an actual weapon that you can use more than once, and with the massive sanity/stamina cost it seems like it would only be worth using on the absolute strongest of monsters, like the Hounds of Tindalos or God of the Bloody Tongue.
Am I underestimating the power of this item? How do you tell if it's a good idea to buy it if it comes up in your 3 unique items? How can I tell if a situation warrants the tremendous cost of its use, especially since the investigator will be so weakened afterwards they will likely have to rush to both the hospital AND the insane asylum before being able to continue fighting without fear of loosing half their items, which would've been the penalty of failure against the monster you were fighting anyway?

This card is notoriously unclear. Although many of us have house rules that address some of your questions, a full and official answer will have to wait for the next Arkham FAQ, which will supposedly provide a ruling. There is no date for when that FAQ will be released, though.

If you're interested in (protracted) discussion about the pros and cons of various ways you could interpret the card, these discussion threads are useful: BGG, FFG

The card specifies area because it could be either a location or a street. I'm pretty sure they already had the 'neighborhood' terminology worked out when the base set came out and they didn't use it here for a reason. The flute's use is basically 'Instead of rolling a combat check against a monster when you normally would, you can use the flute instead.' So you need to survive the monster's horror check before you can use the flute. If you don't survive the horror check, you don't make it to the combat phase, so you can't use the Flute.
Note that as the flute kills everything in the location/stree that you use it in, you can enter combat with a weak monster(Cultist, horror check auto-success), use the Flute, and kill everything in that space, which happens to be a Gug/Dhole/Color/Servitor/Mask/etc.
So with a regular gate opening, the flute doesn't give as much bang as it could, as there's usually only 1-2 monsters in a location. But after a monster surge or two and there a location full of monsters that just happen to all move on the same symbol, the flute becomes a great way to take out a horde that would've dealt that damage to someone anyway.
Granted, the Flute is also useful if you just happen to not have the resources available to take out something with good odds, as you strictly only need enough sanity to survive failing the horror check to use it. You don't even need the 3 stamina 3 sanity to use it you know! As the Flute does damage and isn't a cost, you could use it at 1/1! You'd be devoured of course, but that's the cost...
In my gaming group, it's pretty rare that someone will choose to buy the Flute over something reusable when they go shopping, but if it happens to be gotten for free, no one complains.


text:
Do events that occur "After the Activate Cylon Ships step" occur on revealed Cylon turns?
Revealed Cylons can choose to enact Crisis cards from Caprica. At least one of these cards - Fulfiller of Prophecy - says something along these lines:

After the Activate Cylon Ships step, return to the Resolve Crisis step [Draw a new Crisis card and resolve it.]

The rules state for a Cylon player's turn:

There are no "Activate Cylon Ship" and "Prepare for Jump" steps during a revealed Cylon player's turn.

So, if a revealed Cylon uses this card, do we draw a new Crisis card or not? It's obvious the Activate Cylon Ships step doesn't happen, but it's not clear whether "after the step" occurs or not.

This question was apparently put to Fantasy Flight Games and their ruling was that the current player would simply discard the Crisis card and then resolve the top card of the Crisis deck (as instructed in the parenthesis).
(According to this link: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/398485/rule-question-revealed-cylon-caprica-and-fulfill)
I've only played BSG once and I was quite drunk at the time, so I'm hesitant to unpack things any further than that, but I hope this link is enough to settle your doubts!

Crisis cards can be taken by human players, so the reasoning for the After the Activate Cylon Ships step, return to the Resolve Crisis step [Draw a new Crisis card and resolve it.] is that, if a human player draw that card, they must activate the cylon ships and return to the deck to take another one Crisis (and resolve it, what a mess...).
Since revealed Cylon don't have the Activate Cylon Ships Step, they will not trigger this effect. Just discard the card and take another one.

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


text:
Is bribing off the robber a good addition to Settlers of Catan?
When I play Settlers of Catan with my family we sometimes allow bribing of the person placing the robber to not place it in a particular spot.  Does anyone else play this way and if so do you find this a net benefit to the game?
Clarification: This is a house rule and we realize it is not part of the normal rules.  The question is more to determine whether anyone else plays this way or not.

I have played this and it absolutely degrades the fun factor of the game.
You end up getting everyone paying off to not get robbed.  The person who will pay the least gets the robber.  We had the person rolling the seven getting huge amounts of resources.
It really disrupted the flow of the game.
NOTE: we did not change the rules to allow this.  It was done as an agreement that was payed at a legal trading time.  One fun aspect is that, because it was not part of the rules, you could renege on your "payoff" commitment.  (Though this meant you were a sure target the next time around.)
While there was some fun elements (and gave us a few really fun games), I would absolutely not recommend it for more that variation in a game or two.

+1 Interesting.  We don't always play with this rule, so perhaps we have a good balance of frequent enough to keep it fun.  I have seen someone get a huge amount of resources, but seldom is it one of the front runners in the game.

According to the rules of Catan, players can't trade unless they're both exchanging resources.  Thus, it's not legal for one player to pay a bribe to keep the knight from being placed on their tiles.  If you can come to a gentleman's agreement about placing the robber that's fine, but I've never played it with people using it to extort resources from other players.  I imagine playing like that would be rather unfun if you had to pay protection money to the other players.
Plus, if you have to give up a resource to keep the robber away, you're still being robbed.  Your tiles just aren't blocked.
Edit - How this could affect play
You are strengthening the robber mechanic in the game and changing the game balance.  If each player is willing to give up one or two resources to keep the robber away, this can be huge boost to the person placing the robber.  You're also encouraging people to buy more development cards so they can place the robber more often by playing knights.  Following that logic, wood and brick could become much less valuable resources to collect since they can be demanded from the other players, and don't directly let you buy knights.  This could shift how people choose settlements in the game and encourage all players to try push this mechanic ahead.  It would also punish those not willing to pay bribes by being the target of the robber.
It's certainly one way to play the game and depending who you're playing will determine how it plays.  This can also reduce the effectiveness of using the robber to hold back the leader from getting further ahead.  I personally can see this producing more tension among players, and don't think I would enjoy this rule change myself.

I think it's against the rules to 'Give' someone resources, as stated in this answer. Also, if the placement of the robber is due to a 7 roll, this event occurs outside of the 'trading' phase of a turn, so immediate action would not even be possible.

Often a player likely to have the robber placed on them would rather give up a resource or two so that the robber is not placed on them rather than be potentially stuck with it.  Sometimes a player will have an abundance of a resource and be more than willing to give up a resource so that the robber can be on another player.  Sometimes multiple payers will give up resources limiting the robber placement options.

I've played with bribing allowed in several groups, and I've found it adds strategic depth and increases liquidity for trades.
Because players in my groups always keep deals, we've actually commoditized protection -- a player often sells the right to be left-alone the next time he moves the robber, a right we call a "Not-Hit."
This isn't worth a full resource card, so it's usually used to sweeten some borderline deal. For example, if I'm selling my sheep to someone who has a rock, a wheat, and a brick, I might request he give me a single Not-Hit in addition to the brick, lest I help make a Knight that will harm me later. Or I might simply offer a Not-Hit for a single use of someone's 3-1 port, which ordinarily isn't worth a whole card.
Often players are willing to accept a Not-Hit as a bribe, at least from 1-2 opponents, so fewer real resource cards trade hands than you might expect. We also sometimes perform coerced trades -- I agree not to rob you, but you have to trade your valuable brick for my worthless stick.
Late-game, it's so valuable to rob the winning player that bribes simply don't happen. It's important enough to slow down the winner that the robber isn't a credible threat to the losing players.
On balance:
My groups play with resource-cards face-up*, which strengthens the robber as you know whom you're going to target, but despite that we find bribes make Development cards much less variable in value. Monopoly, Road Building, and Year of Plenty all just-about pay for themselves (if not more-so), but without bribes, Knights aren't so great, despite letting you chase Largest Army.
In our games, playing a Knight usually gets you 0-2 crummy spare resource cards and 1-2 Not-Hits, plus 1 random resource card. In a certain sense, it's a hybrid between a Year of Plenty and a VP card (as it chases Largest Army), making it about even with the rest of the deck.
The main harm in having bribes is that rolling a 7 is luckier. However, this isn't much worse than the standard variability in the game -- some rolls generally help certain players much more than others.
*The robber takes a random card from the face-up hand.

Interesting.  I've never played face up - have to try that some time.

This deserves more votes, but I think the popular way to play is without this game mechanic. We always play with elements similar to this, and as you say, no extra resources trade hands; it just sweetens the deal.

Maybe it can be a good addition, but beware of the chance to backfire.
If you are known to bribe easily, you are a prime first target for the robber.
A better solution would be to place the robber where it hinders the front runner the most. It's almost the only mechanism to hinder (not stop) the leader in the game.

For us bribes often occurred before the robber placement was even seriously considered.  As soon as it was clear that it would be placed often at least one player would offer up a bribe, sometimes several players.  Sometimes the bribe would occur as the player was moving to position the robber.  It worked not only to keep the robber off their land, but also to protect certain cards in their hand from being robbed.

You make a good point about potentially not being able to hinder the leader in the game.  If the leader is offering the bribe the player placing the robber will have to determine if the bribe being offered is sufficient to merit the risk.  Often they will only accept the bribe if it obviously hurts the leader or allows significant building.

+1 There are other ways to hinder the leader such as not trading with them and building against them, but this does indeed diminish an effective tool.

+1 for the way the rule actually rewards the leader for having extra resources. Placing the robber on a hex that harms the two leaders is a real pleasure (if you're not one of them!).

@MatthewFrederick And you can still do that.  You don't have to accept any bribes.

I have always considered this fair game (with the bribe always being just a promise to pay off, which could be reneged on), just like you can offer a bribe (technically, I guess, a trade of zero resources for some nonzero number of resources) if another player is willing to not build a road in a direction that would impede you.
As I understand them, the official rules do not forbid this, since all you are doing is just talking to other players and then performing some actions that are legal within the game. In fact, I don't even see how you could write house rules that forbid this type of shenanigans, short of restricting the communication between players.
(A more determined house rules writer could try to restrict this behaviour by specifically stating that both parties have to trade a nonzero number of resources whenever a trade takes place. An attack against that would be to propose "I'll trade you one wood plus two bricks for one wood if you put the robber there". You could counter that by requiring that there is no overlap in resources between the two batches of resources offered by the parties. Then still, you can promise "I'll trade you three bricks for a wood and then I'll trade you one wood for one brick, if you put the robber there", or just offer a single very good trade. I don't think you could shut it down completely.)
Possibly as a consequence, I've never enjoyed Catan as much as many other games.

+1 for a good answer.  A rule forbidding all trading except with the bank would shut down bribes, but it would also take away some of the fun factor.

See the bottom of page 13 (http://www.catan.com/en/download/?SoC_rv_Rules_091907.pdf) You may not give away cards. The way I interpret the rules (and enforce in games) is that zero-card trades are forbidden. I also forbid "wood for wood" type trades, since it is against the spirit of the rules. Combined with the fact that trade occurs only after resource production, I wouldn't allow bribing in Catan. However, I would allowing bribing if the rules were agreed to ahead of time.

A "trade" according to the official rules of Catan, is strictly a resource for a resource. A trade of X resource for X influence is against the rules plain and simple. Not sure why this concept is difficult understand for some people. If house rules dictate otherwise, then its whatever.

This does not answer the question being asked; as such it will likely be removed.

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


text:
Non-disclosure agreement or no?
I told some of my friends and co-workers about a board game I designed, and we're hoping to play it sometime soon. However, I am not sure if I should let everyone sign a non-disclosure agreement or not.
It is a board game that I have put a lot of time into. I haven't made anybody sign an agreement so far (Played various times with friends and family), but as the game is getting closer to a finished product, I feel like it would be professional to do so.
What type of agreement/document would be appropriate, if I do get an NDA?

What would be the point? It's too late. The whole point of NDAs is to be able to show someone something without fearing they "steal" it. If they have already seen it... unless you plan to point a gun to their head until the sign (hint: not a good idea; quite illegal too)

The answer is no. I've played early and late prototypes from dozens of published boardgame designers including several who are successful enough to do it for a living and I've never been asked to sign an NDA by any of them. Boardgame ideas just aren't worth stealing.
The only time I've been asked to sign boardgame NDAs is by unpublished designers who were inordinately fond of their ideas (no insult intended). Most ideas don't actually turn into publishable games, and even when they do, a very small percentage of them actually get published.
Worse, boardgame ideas aren't actually protectable: the only law that protects ideas is a patent, and no boardgame patent has been successfully defended in court (the only exceptions are games with mechanical designs, like Hungry, Hungry Hippos or MouseTrap). If you want to see money wasted search the patent office for boardgame patents: I've paged through hundreds and have yet to find one that actually became a recognizable published game. I know of two examples of patented games that were published, and only one of them, Magic: The Gathering went on to make any money.
Don't worry about your idea being stolen. Focus on playing the game with as many people as possible, and then when you think you've got something publishable, get as many people as you can that you don't know to play it without you there, just with rules and a prototype (called "blind playtesting").
If your idea survives all of the changes you'll discover you need to make after you work through the results of blind playtesting, then start approaching publishers. You'll discover that none of them will sign NDAs either, though for a more practical reason: they may well have something in development that is astonishingly like your game, and they'd lose the ability to publish it due to the NDA. That, or they've already received submissions that are remarkably similar to yours, with the same problem.
It turns out that most ideas, including game ideas, build on what already exists, consciously or not, and that very similar or even identical ideas come to multiple people at about the same time, as they're exposed to much the same things. It doesn't mean it's not worth pursuing, it's just a matter of the reality of ideas.
Anyway, I don't mean to discourage you; rather, I encourage you to go forth and test, redesign, and test some more until you've polished something really great. And then I look forward to playing it!

Note: I am not an attorney, so do not take what I've told you as legal advice. I am relaying what I've learned from publishers and designers while involved in the game design world over the last ten years.

Patents do not protect ideas - they protect implementations. This is a common misconception. And remember that if you are in the US, UK or New Zealand (and probably most other jurisdictions) you will retain copyright whether you enforce it or not. You just need to be able to prove that you made the design first. No need for (c) symbols or anything like that - they are legally meaningless. Dates on your design notes will probably work fine. If anyone publishes an identical (or substantially similar) game then you can exercise your copyright. (This is also not legal advice.)

There only one thing I could say that Matthew didn't already say: I've worked as a game developer at Steve Jackson Games, had two games published through a publisher (AEG) and playtested over 120 of my games with co-workers and friends.
In that time, I've never-ever had anyone sign an NDA.  Your co-workers and friends aren't going to steal your idea, and a publisher (who wants to keep getting outside submissions) will not steal your idea.
If you're unconvinced, float your question over at the Board Game Designers Forum.  I guarantee you'll get a similar response.
Best of luck!

@Cameron I understand the distinction you're making, but the point is that patent protect an implementation of an idea, whether a process or design patent. Copyright does not protect ideas in the same sense; rather, they protect a specific expression only, and therefor offer no protection for anything but the artwork and specific text of the rules and cards and such. Gameplay is not protected by copyright. In fact, the copyright office devotes a page to it: http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html

@Cameron While you do not legally need to file a copyright claim in the US (since 1974), there are two very real advantages. First, you have much stronger proof of origin than your own records, which is much better protection in court. Secondly, and more importantly, if you do not file then the most you can recover is direct damage -- sales someone else made instead of you -- plus court costs. If you do file then you can also recover indirect damage to your business/brand, often more than the direct damages. It's only $35 in the US, well worth it.

Fair enough. I'm not so familiar with US law. All the more reason to consult an IP lawyer in your own jurisdiction!

Disclaimer: Ask a lawyer. Unless you happen to find one here, I wouldn't rely on information from the internet to be legally accurate. I'm not a lawyer and what I do know about laws pertains to Swiss Laws and is likely different in your location.
What I was once told in a class about laws is that in such a situation you should make a copy of your drafts and deposit it with a notary and have him date the draft with a legally recognized "certificate". That way if someday you need to prove that you had that particular idea first this will go a long way.
Assuming that in a few months Hasbro (for example) publishes a game suspiciously similar to yours. What is it you really want? I assume it's:

Recognition for the idea
Getting them to stop selling the thing
Getting compensation from them

An NDA would only allow you to go after the person that passed the information along (if you even find out). But this is probably the least of your concerns. I'm no expert but I don't think you really need a formalized agreement to go after an imitator once you have established that it is you who is being imitated.

I've done lots of playtesting and never been asked to sign anything. My friend Jay has recently gotten some games published and he's blogging about the experience. You might find his posts on playtesting interesting.


text:
Why is this move illegal?
I'm trying to learn 3-D chess by playing Parmen against the computer.  I've read the tournament rules and am fairly confident I've got a good, basic understanding of the game.  However, in my first game, I've quickly encountered a situation where the program is telling me I'm trying to make an illegal move which I think would be legal.
The moves so far (I'm playing white):

a4N, Nc6N
c4N, Nb6N
Nb3N, Nxc4N
d3N, N4a5B

The move I'd like to make now is Nxa5B, but I'm alerted that it is an illegal move.  Can someone explain to me why this is?

@Iszi, would you mind using the full notation, and perhaps showing an image of the board (with the rank and files) showing the board position just before the illegal move?

@user1873 The notation above is the same notation that is output by Parmen and, according to my understanding, is in alignment with the notation used in tournament rules.  Getting a solid screenshot that effectively shows the position of all the pieces on all levels of the board is a bit tricky.

Also, I've quit the game in question and am not sure if I can reliably reproduce it with this particular software.

Just a display of the screen?

@chac Firstly, I'm not currently familiar with how or if I could reproduce the game progression since I've closed the game without saving it.  Even if I could, I'm currently experiencing some crashes in the game.  See this thread on [gaming.se] for more details:  http://gaming.stackexchange.com/q/52333/6274  Also, as I've already said, getting a good screenshot that effectively shows all the pieces on the board is very difficult due to the three-dimensional nature of the game and two-dimensional nature of screen captures.

Your King is in check from your opponent's Queen.

While I can't put together a visual representation to check this at the moment, this does sound about right now that I think about it.  It probably never occurred to me before, because I'm so accustomed to the King & Queen being in the center of their row.

@Iszi, I am considering putting a visual together myself. I had to look back and forth at the Tournament Rules with the board visual and your move list to try to see the board in my mind.

Well, drat.  I was going to attempt reproducing this in Parmen tonight, but now the program's going all crashy on me.


text:
In chess, why is 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Bxc6 rarely visited?
This opening begins by copying the Ruy Lopez/Morphy Defense for the first three moves, but White branches off with 4 Bxc6.  I've read that 4 ... dxc6 5 Nxe5 Qd4 is effective for Black to recover his pawn - but what if White does not play 5 Nxe5, say 5 O-O instead? In short, why has this opening been largely ignored?  Is there a disadvantage to White after 4 Bxc6?

This is called the "Exchange" Variation of the Ruy Lopez. Not only is there an early exchange of bishop for knight, but it usually soon leads to an exchange of queens on d4.
This queen exchange brings about an early "endgame," effectively cutting out the middle game. Most players are not particularly fond of the endgame, so they don't consider this an advantage, and therefore don't play this variation.
But in a famous game in St. Petersburg in 1914, the world champion, Emmanuel Lasker, played this variation against future world champion Jose R Capablanca---and won. By Capablanca's own admission, "Lasker had no superior in [the endgame]" at the time. On the other hand, he already (and later) feared Capablanca's middle game.

@blueraja: I don't like to see things happen this way. But it does happen from time to time. But an upvote for you, too.

So the opening does not necessarily disadvantage either player; it merely makes for mediocre play - is that it?  Thanks!

@drm65: I wouldn't say mediocre play; but yes, like most openings where neither player made a mistake, it doesn't confer an "advantage" to either player, it just gives them different imbalances to work with; for instance, black now has more space due to his open D file, while white has a better pawn structure.  At this point the "advantage" will go to whichever player can make better use of the imbalances they have.

@drm65: "Mediocre," in the sense of "unexciting" play without the queens. Of course, either side can win, but it's a little harder. But that's EXACTLY what Lasker wanted, and got!

@Tom: as I mentioned in my answer, 5. Nxe5 is extremely rare at higher-level play (only 6 out of the 2693 master games on chessgames.com).  Much more common is 5. O-O, in which the queen's don't get traded right away.

It hasn't been ignored; this is called the Ruy Lopez Exchange variation, and is extremely popular in tournament play.
5. Nxe5 is considered a small mistake (for the reasons you mentioned), but moves like 5. O-O and 5. Nc3 are perfectly acceptable, and are played by grandmasters all the time.

I wish I could divide my acceptance between these answers; they each address a different facet of the question.  I didn't know it was popular.  Then again, I only have old books.

I think you meant to type Ruy ...


text:
Developing Chess Game After 20 moves
Suppose I start out a chess game in this manner: http://goo.gl/reCxP

From this advantage, I have a few questions:

Which item should I sacrifice so I can gain better ground position?
Should I advance the pawns on the right, or leave as protection for the king?
Any other advice?

Thanks.

Why do you feel the need to sacrifice something?

Because as the game develops, I get jammed up by my own pieces, or I find myself staying on defense as the opponent attacks.

I was trying to recreate one of the scenarios I find myself in; this may not be a true representation of that, as I do have some attacking moves in this example.  I was trying to include an example though for the purposes of advancing a discussion.

This position is one where you should start thinking about gaining space, giving your opponent weaknesses and reducing their mobility -- not about sacrificing pieces. In one word, strategy. Incidentally, your comment above seems to indicate that this is exactly what they end up inflicting on you.

Blacks have to play, right? So an idea would be the following: try to exchange your Bishop on Black squares with the opponent one. For example, try to put it in g5. But Whites will try to prevent this playing h4, so you have first to play the Bishop in h3 in order to block this pawn.

First of all, and more important than anything else by far:  if you are a beginner, don't worry about positional stuff (yet) !  Learning chess theory (positional chess) will teach you how to form a correct plan, but that skill is completely useless if you can't execute it skillfully - a poor planner with good tactics will beat a great planner with poor tactics, every time.
Thus, if you are below 1800 USCF rating, or you don't know what your rating is, I would suggest focusing solely on tactics, and ignoring everything I'm about to say until you've improved more.

So, you're over 1800, you're satisfied with your tactics, but too often you end up with positions like the one shown above, and have no clue what to do next.  Now what?
Now you learn about the various imbalances in the game, how they work together, and how to take advantage of them.  This also means learning about endgames, as having the favorable imbalances will usually turn into having a favorable endgame.  These are book-length topics, far too large to explain in one post; fortunately, there are lots of good books out there.
The best books for learning the basics of both of these things are both written by the same person:  Jeremy Silman.  For chess theory, I would recommend How to Reassess Your Chess, 4th Edition (make sure you get the 4th edition - it is vastly different from the earlier editions).  For endgames, check out Silman's Complete Endgame Course.  Both are very easy to read, and are geared towards players between 1400 and 2100 levels.

Now that you're comfortable with tactics, and have read the books I recommended above (right? :P), and know all about the various imbalances in different positions, let's take a look at your position in-particular.  What are the imbalances in your position?

Pawn structure: The first thing to note is that it's a closed center - this means, unless you can rip open the center, play will likely occur on the flanks (sides) of the board.
Control of important squares:  White has clear control of d5, while black has d4 - these are excellent outposts for knights.  However, white also temporarily has b5 and f5 available for his knights (temporary, because they could easily be pushed away by pawns), while black does not even have the option of knight-to-b4/f4, as they are guarded.  Both b4 and d4 knights would threaten Nc7+ (forking king and rook).
The move g3 has white committed to the push f4, but has left white with a glaring weakness at h3 - he should work quickly, or black will take advantage of it.
Development: Black is actually hindered in development, because he made the (poor) choice to bring his queen out in front of the rest of his troops.  This will likely come back to bite him, as white can push the queen around with his pieces, forcing black to waste time moving his queen, while white happily develops his own pieces in the process.
Bishops: White's light bishop is his poor bishop (ie. most of his pawns are on light squares), while black's dark-bishop is his poor one - so white would like to trade light-bishops, while black would like to trade dark-bishops.
King safety:  Black hasn't castled yet, but still has the choice of either king- or queen-side castling.  White already castled, but moved his g-pawn, leaving a weakness on h3.

So, what does all this mean in the end?  Here is my interpretation of the above (note that I could be completely wrong - I am a strong player, but no grandmaster):
Either player could still (hypothetically) have good play on either flank.  White could play the queenside by playing for a b4 push, or the kingside by Ne1, f4.  As white, I would prefer the queen-side play, simply because opening the kingside with black's queen and both bishops right there is ominous.
Black could play the queenside by a6, b5, or the kingside by playing for h5, h4, hxg3, bringing the rook into the attack as well.  As black, I would prefer the kingside right now, knowing that white will probably try to play the queen-side (or lose the fight if he tries to go kingside, due to black's better development, and white's king being there).
Unfortunately, due to black's poorly-placed queen, white has an immediate threat:  1. Nd5!, forking the queen and c7.  Then after 1.. Bxd5 2. cxd5 Nb8 (to answer white's next move) 3. Qa4+ Nd7 4. b4 White is quite obviously winning:  he has the double bishops, the initiative, better development, and his attack on the queenside if moving along while black's kingside attack hasn't even started.
It's black's move, but he doesn't have a good response to this threat; his best move appears (to me) to be 1.. O-O-O, but then after 2. Nd5! Qg6? 3. Nh4! Bxh4 4. Bh5 the queen is lost; thus after 1.. O-O-O 2. Nd5, black's only response is 2.. Bxd5, leading to a position similar to above, favorable for white.
So white has a way to force a highly favorable position, but the game is still not won.  As black, don't give up - you still have your kingside attack!  Make sure to deal with white's queenside-threats, but don't allow yourself to be lulled into playing defensively!

Note that this analysis would be very different if black's queen were still on d8 - in that case, I would probably say black has a slight-edge, since he can still choose to castle on the kingside, his strong side, and attacks in otherwise-even positions tend be slightly stronger when they are on the side the enemy king has castled.  So the real answer is, stick to your first-principles; don't move the queen out too early! :P

d4 by white to open the diagonal..this pawm sac then Ne5 attacking Q..after bhshop taker it we take it by pawn and the knight on c6 moves..then check by queen and bishop move next by white

Can you answer the actual question that was asked? What should the asker be doing strategically? (Just giving moves without explanation is not going to help.)


text:
Monopoly Deal: My Bank Pile - Private or Public Information?
When we play with more than two people on Monopoly Deal, we have devised a rule:
Your only exposed card in your bank pile is the top card. All other cards
may remain hidden, as to add an element of strategy during action card play.

This does introduce a possible element of cheating, as a player who wishes to deposit two or more bank cards in a single play would have little trouble concealing their effort by stacking their cards directly on top of each other, and then burying those cards in a nice, straight pile that no other player can gauge value on. Of course, we're all friends at the Monopoly Deal table, so cheating would just be a silly waste. In order to pay a fine, a player may pick up their entire bank, and select without revealing its contents to the others.
As you can imagine, this creates a new element of strategy to the game. At one point, I was about to win, and was charged money by everyone on the table. The person before me had no idea I was holding the $10M bill, and I survived the ordeal and won out. Had they known sooner, they may have pinched my bank previously, and I would have had a harder time winning.
Does anyone have any suggestions? Official responses? Does anyone else do this besides me?

What exactly is your question. Is your rule an offical rule variant, Does it make it easier to cheat, does anyone have suggestions for what (preventing cheating?), why would it matter if anyone did this variant besides you?

The rulebook clearly shows the bank piles splayed out with all cards showing, so it is likely that the Bank is public information. Since total cards in hand is also public information (since you can only have 7 cards in hand at the end of your turn), cheating shouldn't be too much of an issue.
Reading the forums on BGG, many groups actually play with all cards in players Banks face-down, with the only public information is the number of cards in a players bank. This didn't seem to break the game.
The Rulebook and the Official FAQ do not clarify if Bank contents are public information, and no official variants exist to my knowledge. But, since other groups have found no issues with keeping the Bank private, and since you could catch cheaters by keeping track of other public information, I don't see anything game breaking about your variant.
You variant actually does influence some other strategic decisions. If you can charge rent that equals or exceeds the top card of a players Bank, you might be able to force them to reveal a different "top card" on their bank.

The "What The Game Looks Like" info graphic in the Monopoly Deal rulebook strongly implies that the bank pile is public information - the bank piles in the picture are quite carefully arranged so that each card is partially visible (in much the same way as Magic the Gathering players conventionally arrange their graveyards).
With that said, "strongly implied" is not the same as "explicitly stated".  If everyone in your playgroup enjoys the new element of strategy that playing in this way adds, then I say definitely go for it.  As you say, you trust your group not to cheat, so the potential major cheating problem you envisage is not a problem at all.  If there is such a thing as high-stakes Monopoly Deal tournaments, I imagine those would have to enforce the keeping of bank piles as public information.
In the end you just have to decide which of two different play styles your group wishes to subscribe to.  With hidden information, some very exciting play scenarios are created, where with a good poker face you may be able to trick people into believing you're not doing as well as you are.  With public information, you create a much more calculated game, where players have to find an objectively best strategy in the face of all dangers.  Do you consider yourself more of a poker player, or a chess player, that's the question?
Personally I'm not generally a big fan of concealed information for its own sake.  Having to count cards, watch other players' movements and demeanour carefully, and keep track of information in my head - that can turn into a lot of work for the player who wants to do well!  But of course your mileage may and probably does vary.  If the game seems boring to you when all the cards are on the table then you aren't wrong to want to spice things up with a house rule, and you almost certainly should do so!


text:
MtG: making makeshift cards for home play
A friend and I got into Magic and get together to play a few games once a week. Each of us has ~110 cards, the bulk of them being a Magic 2012 intro pack, the rest boosters.
We thought we'd mix things up a bit with booster draft or sealed deck, but since our budgets are way too limited to make a cube or buy boosters every week, I thought we could improvise. The current entirely theoretical setup is to use a simulation website for those formats every time we play, then using a home-written program assign a number to each card that is chosen for a deck. The tokens representing the cards chosen with the draft simulator could be simple sheets with numbers 1 through 100 written to them (or as many as needed), inserted into card sleeves with a colored back.
Is there a better way to approach this, in particular the token creation?

Are you set on having physical representations of the cards? If not, there are a couple free digital platforms.

Ideally we'd do it without a computer, but I reckon that's impossible. The physical representation is a must :)

Maybe your memory is 1,000x better than mine, but I can't imagine it being at all fun to try to play with a bunch of numbers in your hand and constantly having to look up what's what.  Print proxies and stick them in sleeves.

A sensible method is to get hold of some commons - I know "your budgets are limited", but if there's a game store that does drafting near you, quite often people just leave their commons lying around on the tables for anyone who wants them, they're that desperate to get rid of them; and even if not, there are other ways to buy them in bulk for cheap - put stickers over the text box, and use cards with like casting costs as proxies.  So if you want to represent e.g. a Primeval Titan (casting cost 4GG) you would use a Craw Wurm or Yavimaya Wurm instead.
Otherwise it seems like you'll end up doing WAY too much cross-referencing - what was a #73 again?  The casting cost should be a useful cue for remembering which card you have in your hand, and you can write any extra information you need on the sticker of course...

Because of how Magic Online "cashout" works, you can find full 4x common/uncommon playsets of a set for the cost of a couple of boosters (I was able to get recent sets for $20-25). Check auction sites. It's probably cheaper than actually printing a whole pile of proxies for basic cards.

The store visit is a great idea, I'll ask at a local one this Monday. Indeed, if I get enough commons cheaply/free there, they'd be perfect substitutes. Do you think the stores themselves store the cards left over?

@Fadeway Most stores will probably take them to resell them, either individually or in bulk. You'll likely still be able to get them cheaply, even from the store.

When I used to play, the shop near me sold commons for 5p(~7c)/each which is pretty cheap!

Magicprinter.net should solve your problem. They are running code that is found here, in case you'd rather just run it on your own computer. Print off what you need and put it in front of land / commons.
Hope this helps!

This is definitely cool, but do be aware of the costs of supplies, especially if you're using card stock, and an inkjet printer - you might only want to do it for harder to come by cards, if you can find cheap bulk commons and uncommons.

In my opinion an Ink Jet B&W printer on ordinary paper could do the work. Just cut and sleeve them, using your currently owned cards as a backbone.

Yep, I use my inkjet on the fast draft B&W setting on cheap paper. I then replace the proxies with the real cards as I trade for them.

What it sounds like you're proposing:

Google up a card list for the set you want to "draft" from.
Roll a random booster pack worth of cards.
Write a proxy version of each card rolled on a scrap of paper.
Insert that scrap in a sleeve with a magic card.
Then draft and play with those proxies.

Sounds like a plan. The only trick I see is rolling up the decks. The easiest approach I see to that just takes some percentile dice and persistence, as you re-roll cards that have the wrong rarity. That is, if you're rolling for an 8 card booster pack with 2 uncommons and 6 commons, after 4 rolls you might have 2 uncommons and 2 commons. From then on, you'd ignore & re-roll any uncommon cards you rolled until you filled the remaining 4 common slots.
If you wanted the draft to be 100% accurate, you'd need to simulate the sub-rarities in Magic. That is: If there are 100 rare cards in a set, and 121 cards on the printed sheet of rares before its cut, some of the rares will be double printed. (Likely 21 of them.) They take up the rare slot in a deck the same as any other rare, but show up twice as often. For this You'd need a list that had two entries for each of these "R2" cards that are double printed.
For example, if you were simulating Beta Set Magic, you might have a spreadsheet of rares that started like this:

Island
Island
Black Lotus
Mox Pearl
Mox Sapphire

...and so on.
(Trivia: Two islands were on the rare sheet in alpha and beta. Rares were supposed to be so rare that some boosters might have none! WotC also thought that the decks would be shuffled prior to packing, so the players wouldn't know which cards were rare when they opened the pack. So you wouldn't know that you'd gotten an island in your rare slot and feel gypped. It would only be after seeing hundreds of packs opened that you'd be able to deduce which cards were the rares, which were the uncommons, and which where the commons.)

Actually I was planning on using a website (for example, http://www.magicdraftsim.com/). Rolling for an an entire deck manually every time would be unnecessarily slow.


text:
Dice with an average roll of zero?
Are there dice that have both positive and negative numbers, where the average result is zero?  I'm imagining a die labeled something like: -2, -1, 0, +1, +2.  I feel like I've seen dice like this, but I'm not sure what they'd be called or how to find them.

Probably the most commonly available ones are called Fudge dice, as used in the Fudge/FATE roleplaying games.
A Fudge die is a six-sided die with the following sides: minus, minus, blank, blank, plus, plus.
Games generally have players rolling a couple of Fudge dice together and adding them up, which creates a curved probability distribution centered around zero. 3dF, for example, gives you a range from -3 to +3, with 0 as the mean, median, and mode.
This Wikipedia article has more information.

You could take any two normal dice of different colors and denote one as the positive die and one as the negative die.

Yup. This gives a triangular distribution rather than a bell curve approximation, but it is quick, easy to find dice for, and is close enough that it's often suggested as a drop-in replacement (using d6s) for the harder-to-acquire four Fudge dice. +1

If you lack dice of different colors, you can just roll them both and flip a coin (heads positive, tails negative) or a third die (even positive, tails negative). A bit more of a pain, but considering the absurdly high number of plain Jane white dice floating around my house, it would be reasonable.

@SevenSidedDie If you want a bell curve approximation, just take a hundred dice instead of two.

@JoeZeng 50d6 - 50d6 actually gets you a narrow bell with long flat tails—not a nice distribution at all. For a nice bell curve approximation you only need 2d6 - 2d6. Everyone knows that adding more dice gives a nicer bell when you're summing them, but that intuition absolutely does not hold when subtraction is involved.

Whoops. I forgot that about subtraction.

In that case, use a hundred dice and subtract 350 instead.


text:
In 7 Wonders, does getting a VP for all yellow cards include the card mentioning it?
In 7 wonders, there is a yellow card whose icons say "get a VP for each yellow card I have played".   If I already have 3 yellow cards in play, is my total VP from yellow cards 3 or 4?

If you look at the last page of the rules, it clarifies that the card does count itself, so you would get 4 VPs.

Right, I meant game board instead of cards in hands.


text:
Should I shuffle the Zombicide zombie "deck"
The rules for Zombicide just state:

Make a deck with the Zombie cards and another one with the Equipment cards, then place them face down, close to the gameboard.

Clearly the equipment cards needed to be shuffled as when supplied, they are sorted so all the cards are grouped together.
The Zombie cards are all numbered in the upper right corner, and do in general get harder as the numbers increase.
In a recent game with a shuffled deck the first spawn resulted in the Abomination appearing, which completely outclassed our party and resulted in a very quick finish.
The flip side of that would obviously be the fact that with the harder cards spawned earlier, if we had survived, we'd be playing against less zombies in the later stages of the game.
Should I be shuffling the deck or playing it in order? The order of the rooms and which spawn point we start from should provide a reasonable amount of variation even with an ordered deck.

The version 3 rules have been updated to read:

Shuffle the Zombie cards into one deck and the Equipment cards into another, then place them face down close to the board

Which makes things clearer. I still stand by my point that for a "gentler" start, having the Zombie deck in order is a good way to start, but for greater challenge a shuffled deck is the way to go.

I would say that any games that include decks of cards and do not specifically tell you to arrange the cards in a particular order assume that the cards are shuffled prior to playing.  Getting them in order is time consuming and unusual, so it would need to be specifically mentioned if that was the intent.

Cheers - I agree it is fairly time consuming to order them if they are muddled, but it's not that hard to keep them in order :) Most other games do seem to explicitly state "shuffle the cards"...


text:
Does the bonus die for Captain of the Guard's Battle Steed ability have to be assigned a target color before the roll?
One of the new heroes in Expansion #1 is Captain of the Guard, and he gets a bonus die when initiating attack in a new location. Does this extra die have to be assigned to a color of minion on that location?
For instance, I move to a location with 1 red and 1 blue minion, I can roll 1 red and 1 blue die, plus 1 bonus (assume I choose a green die for my bonus). If this is my roll: Red 3; Blue 2; Green 5.  Can I use the green die to eliminate the blue minion? Can I  choose after the roll, or do I have to assign a color to my bonus before the roll?
The Elf Lord character has a similar bonus, but has to choose before the roll. The Captain of the Guard character card does not specify. We played a game last night with both of these characters, and for the Elf Lord, he chose before the roll. For the Captain, I used my bonus die as a wild card and assigned it based on the roll results. I want to know of I played correctly or not.
I am looking for official errata or clarification from the game designer. I've been told it exists, but have not found it for this question.

This is not a wildcard -- instead, you choose which die to focus on.  If you're in an area with 2 red minions, and 1 blue minion, you can roll 3-1, or 2-2.
Link:  Official Clarification by Richard Launius (designer.)


text:
Does the game end immediately when one player reaches 0 life?
Player A is at 6life, Player B at 20 life. Player A resolves a Scapeshift and sacrifices 9 lands for 3 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacles and 6 Mountains. This will trigger 18 times 3 damage (I think). In answer to that, Player B resolve Divine Deflection where X=6 targeting Player A. Is this game a draw, player A or player B wins?

The answer to the question in the title is actually no.  A player loses the next time state based actions are checked after they reach 0 or less life.  This rarely matters but it means you could, for example, cause a draw by targeting your opponent and then yourself with Arc Trail, even though it deals damage to them before you :) //useless-nitpick

Player A loses.

Eighteen instances of Valakut's triggered ability will go on the stack.
Divine Deflection is cast and eventually resolves.
Trigger #18 resolves. It deals no damage and Divine Deflection deals three damage to Player A.
Trigger #17 resolves. It deals no damage and Divine Deflection deals three damage to Player A.
Player A loses the game for having non-positive life.
Player B wins the game for being the only player left.


text:
Firefly - getting rid of parts (dumping cargo)?
I just played Firefly the board game for the first time. I ended up with a ship modification that made spare parts invalid, but I had about 6 of them in my cargo hold. I was on a supply planet and wanted to buy fuel, but all of my cargo and stash spots were full. I looked for any thing in the rule book that talked about selling the spare parts (or dumping them)...couldn't find anything. What's protocol for getting rid of fuel or parts to make space?

From the official FAQ,

Question: How do I get rid of stuff on my ship I don’t need or want anymore?
Answer: On your turn, you may dump Fuel, Parts, Cargo or Contraband at any time. You may drop Fugitives and Passengers off in any sector with a Planet. You can’t toss them out the air-lock in deep space! This does not use an Action and can be done during another Action, on your turn.

You also have the option to trade with other players. From the rules,

When two or more players’ ships are stopped in the same Sector, players may buy, sell and trade Crew, Fuel, Parts, Cargo, Contraband, Ship Upgrades and Gear to one another without restriction. Players are free to discuss and make these deals outside of the normal turn order and other players may take their normal turn while bargains are struck. Dealing with others players in this fashion does not require using an Action. The opportunity for Trading ends when one of the players leaves the sector.

There doesn't seem to be any option of selling back to the house, but we house-ruled they can be sold off at half-price at Suppliers. This has allowed people that would otherwise have been eliminated from the game to keep on playing.

Your house rule is of course fine, but if you felt it was necessary, did you by chance miss the "make work" rule that allows you to take $200 for a Work action on a planet?

@sitnaltax, No, I am aware of it.

Thanks. We used a house rule that it could be part of a buy phase, but will make it part of any action in the future. i also like the idea of the sell at 1/2 price when on a supply planet.

You can space (dump out the airlock) anything, but you cannot dump passengers or fugitives unless there's a planet in the sector.  There is a crew member you can hire that allows you to sell parts to any solid contact, in addition to cargo and contraband.  You can also buy, sell, or trade any of these items (or fuel) with another firefly in the same sector.  These are the only ways to get rid of items in your cargo hold and stash.
Spacing things, selling to contacts, and trading with another firefly does not require an action, and can be done even if it's not your turn.


text:
Are Basic Lands (Mana) Block/Set Agnostic?
What is the point in Wizard creating RtR Forests and M13 Forests, for example?  It seems like it would be a lot more efficient and cost effective to everyone involved if these basic land types were not specific to a set.  Wizard wouldn't have the cost of manufacturing (as many of) them and we wouldn't need to buy new ones just to stay legal.

Interesting question. In my opinion it's about the flavor of the set it allows to create a setting so you can imagine the world. It's forests, islands, swamps, plains, and mountains.

This probably has to do with releasing new artwork for lands that are in-line with the set themes, although I don't have any evidence to support this. If you look, lands from Mirrodin are supposed to be metallic looking, as opposed to Ravnica lands, which are more city based. This is just to add a little flavor to the set.

The question is a mistaken one.  Basic lands ARE block/set agnostic.  Though we all love new art on our basic lands, I hope, Magic would get very dreary if we had to look at the same pictures for decades on end.

I love my unglued & unhinged basic lands. Best part of my tourney legal decks.

You don't need to buy new ones just to stay legal.  You can use any card that has been reprinted in a recent set in Standard.  All the basic lands are printed in just about every set.
For Instance, it's perfectly legal for you to use your Urza's Saga Rancors or Onslaught Pacifisms.
Secondly, some people like collecting different land arts, so they produce lands with new arts every set, and many people try to collect one or more of each.

I would include text that mentions that the rules text on an older card might not be correct.

@ColinD and then there are the cards where they changed the rules text, but then changed it back, like Kismet

As has been said in the comments, the point is largely the art; functionally the basic lands are always the same and always legal. Sets are designed with a coherent theme and world in mind, and the lands should fit with that as much as the other cards should.
You can see a fairly convincing demonstration of this in view of lands in Innistrad and Avacyn Restored. They're all the same locations, but while in Innistrad they were dark, cold, and barren, in Avacyn Restored they're brighter and warmer, often with more life. It's well worth looking at the link for all the full-sized art, but for example, here's one of the mountains:

Alternatively, you can just go to Gatherer and click through the various sets to see the huge variety in art! Here they are: Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest.

The flavor involved to use the same picture with a different environment is part of what made that set awesome.

As long as it has the same English name as a legal card, a white or black border[1] and a normal back (including shape and size)[2], you can use the card.
You can even use a Forest from Unhinged or an Island from a Japanese set of Lorwyn if you so desired.
Keep in mind that a card's characteristics is determined by Gatherer, not by what's printed on the card. If you use a card that has received an errata, Gatherer overrides the characteristics printed on the card. For example, despite the print showing otherwise, a Mountain from Arabian Nights is a Basic Land — Mountain with no ability besides the one granted by rules.

Some promotional cards have a Gold border. These aren't legal for play.
Alpha's rounder corners rule them out, and oversized cards are novelties.

since this answer is more generic than just talking about basic lands, I would recommend adding text that explains that the rules on older prints could be inaccurate due to errata.

@Colin D, There you go.

Nitpickery: (1) Alpha corners aren't square; they're actually more rounded than 'normal' Magic cards.  Square corners were used for the collector's edition (and neither is generally tournament-legal).  (2) that Japanese Island is from Return to Ravnica, not Kamigawa.  :-)  Maybe you want to point to an Arabian Nights Mountain (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/magic_single_card.asp?cn=Mountain&sn=Arabian%20Nights) instead?

@Steven Stadnicki , Doh! fixed.

As others have noted, lands fall under the same rule as any other Magic card - any version sharing the same English name is legal in any format where any version is legal. (If they reprint Lightning Bolt, you can use your 20-year old Bolts). The same is true for the basic lands (because I don't think there's been a moment where the five basics haven't been legal. :) )
As for why they reprint them, there's a really simple reason - accessibility for new players. At any given moment, there is a new player starting the game, and no matter what product they pick up, Wizards wants to make sure there's lands for them.


text:
Cribbage pone strategy for hands involving a run and a pair
In two-player cribbage, when the pone is dealt a hand that includes a run and a 5+pair (e.g. 3,4,5,6,Q,Q) is it better to keep the run (3,4,5,6) or the 5+pair (_,5,Q,Q)?
It seems like there should be a statistically optimal play here.
In the specific example above, either choice leaves the pone 6 points, but the run has a chance of improving to a double run (12 out of the remaining 46 cards) and is improved by 24 other cards (2s, 7s, Ts, Js, Qs, Ks). The main downside of that play is it concedes a pair to the dealer. On the other hand, the 5+pair can improve through any 5, Q, or ten-value card. If the connecting 6 is kept, it can also improve through a 4 or 7. Overall, there are 24 cards that improve that hand. It also concedes a 3,4 to the dealer - which seems less likely to give the dealer points.
My intuition is to keep the run, but a mathematically sound analysis of expected value would be nice.
P.S. For the purposes of this question, we can ignore the exact position of the players, and assume it's somewhere mid game (as opposed to really close to the end where pegging considerations become more important).

If your opponent had the crib, I'd throw him a 3 and a Q

I'm pretty sure the 'optimal' play is neither of the ones you mentioned!  Keeping 4,5,6,Q counts 7, gives you essentially equal opportunity for another 2 points off of any face card (you lose out on four extra points if one of the other two Qs comes, but that's only a 1 in 7 chance), still earns you all but two of the points you'd have had from 3,4,5,6 if you hit a double-run (though it slightly lessens the odds of it by cutting out the 3 as a double-run card), and gives your opponent just about the worst of the possible combinations for their crib (3Q).
To match Basicpract's analysis: you score two extra points off of any Ace (4), one point off of any trey (3), seven points off of a four or six (6), 9 points off of a five (3), one point off of a seven (4), two points off of a 9 (4) four points off of a Q (2), and two points off of any other face card (12).  This is 8 + 3 + 42 + 27 + 4 + 8 + 8 + 24 = 124 points off of the remaining 46 cards, for an average of more than two and a half points improvement and an average overall hand value of 9.7 points, compared to the 8 points from keeping 45QQ and the 9.61 points from keeping 3456 (but with a much worse crib to your opponent).

Interestingly, a number of online Cribbage hand analyzers recommend this exact play. Nice work.

So using some statistics, lets see what happens!
Keeping 45QQ is the best chance if you want to keep the pair.
Aces(4): +2; Twos(4): +0; Threes(3): +3; Fours(3): +2; Fives(3): +6; Sixes(3): +5; Sevens(4): +0; Eights(4): +0; Nines(4): +0; Tens(4): +2; Jacks(4): +2; Queens(2): +6; Kings(4): +2.
There are 46 cards left that could be cut from, 30 of them give you points.
19 give you 2 points, 3 give three points, 3 give 5 points, 5 give you six points. The average number of points you will gain then is 2 points (92/46).
Keeping 3,4,5,6 is much better!
Aces(4): +2; Twos(4): +3; Threes(3): +6; Fours(3): +8; Fives(3): +8; Sixes(3): +8; Sevens(4): +3; Eights(4): +2; Nines(4): +2; Tens(4): +2; Jacks(4): +2; Queens(2): +2; Kings(4): +2.
Of the 46 remaining cards, all of them give you points. 26 cards give you 2 points, 8 cards give you 3 points, 3 cards give you six points, and 9 cards give you 9 points. On average than that is 3.61 points. Clearly superior.
If your run is not with 456, or containing 7,8, then the point values go down quite a bit. Also runs beginning with A or ending in K have less potential value, as the straight only goes one way. If the par is Jacks, that is a 50% chance of getting one more point.

I lost you when you said throwing your opponent two queens in his crib was much better... Your average of 3.61 points, minus the two points you are giving your opponent, means you only gain 1.61 points on average, while the first option averages 2. Clearly superior.

This looks like a pretty good start. Shouldn't we also look at the opportunity for the dealer to get points from each option? I agree with corsiKa that the two points (Q,Q) should count against the expected value of the hand - but it may actually be worse/better depending on the potential for the dealer.

Hmm, I got so caught up with the numbers, to be honest, I forgot about the crib completely. I think it is fair to say that with the opponent's crib taken into account, throwing a pair into the opponents crib will help them, but I am not sure yet what average crib values for a QQxx crib and a 36xx crib are. I will spend some time (probably more time than I should) to see if I cannot figure those out. The question boils down to "is a QQxx crib 1.61+ points better than a 36xx crib", and corsiKa, looking at that now it seems quite likely, but I will try to get some numbers!


text:
Start of the First Day
Do effects that occur at the start of a day happen at the beginning of the first turn?
Does the Fellowship player draw two (due to Pippin being in play) additional cards at the start of the first turn, as they would during a Refresh Step?  My assumption is no, since most of what happens during a Refresh Step is explicitly spelled out in the Setup instructions, implying to me that there is no actual Refresh Step at the start of the first turn.
Does the Lead Nazgul player draw an extra Sorcery card as they would during the Refresh Step?  Again, I assume no for the same reasons above, although it does seem strange to me that the first player misses out on this card draw.
Does Frodo's passive ability trigger, which causes him to draw a Fellowship Token if he has less than 2 already (which is true)?  I assume yes, as it is "the beginning of a new day", which does not seem to interact with the Refresh Step or be otherwise ambiguous.


text:
How inappropriate is it to track semi-secret information using paper or other memory aids?
Many board games have information which is semi-secret, where it's possible to keep track of it, but not easy.  For example, which resources you get and spend in Catan is public knowledge, but which resources you currently have is secret.  If I was able to mentally count every player's income and expenditures, I'd know exactly what they were holding, but that's a lot of information to keep track of.  Similarly, many games make earning victory points public, but the total number earned private.
This gives an advantage to players with better memories.  It's not necessarily an unfair advantage, and there's only so much you can generally do with the information, but it is an advantage.
Given this, how appropriate or inappropriate would it be to keep a record of this information?  I can write down every resource card someone collects, and scratch them off when they spend them, or keep a running total of points earned.  Assuming I'm accurate, this would be even more precise than the people with good memories.  But is it good sportsmanship?
Obviously, a group of friends who regularly play together can establish whatever social norms or house rules they want.  I'm more interested in the general case, where you're playing with people you may not see regularly or may not know at all.

Given your Catan example, would it be bad form if you remembered that 10 wheat resources had been earned by rolls / development cards in the last 3 turns, then you play monopoly?

@BrianRobbins - If it's purely your memory, absolutely not.  I don't think anyone would disagree about that.  But if you jot a reminder to yourself that 10 wheat has been handed out...

Speaking of Catan, robberies are not public knowledge, so you can only (reliably) track how many overall resources are on hands. This is much easier to keep track of by tracking the resource deck ins and outs. With a little practice you can do it mentally without slowing the game pace down.

It's a jerk move. If the game is about being a jerk, go right ahead.

I think that this very much depends on what game you are playing. For example, the Magic: the Gathering tournament rules explicitly allow both taking notes and figuring out whatever you can based on information you were previously given.

Tournament settings obviously have their own rules, I think the question was pretty clearly asking about more casual environments.

You might want to think about this in terms of per-player handicaps as well. If you're playing with someone who has problems with short-term memory or some other cognitive impairment, then they may need to take notes in order to experience the game as it was meant to be experienced. On the other hand, if you're playing against someone with an eidetic memory, then they might want to let you take notes so that you're on more of an even playing field.

Honestly I see this in trick taking games more then any other game since I can easily track how many cards of a suit and have had family change how the game is played because I can do this without thinking about it.

There's two schools of thought on this subject - one is that you can do anything unless the rules say you can't, the other is that you can only do what the rules say you can. I believe there's a better argument for the second case, because the rules are generally written to define the game, and can't expressly prohibit everything you might try to do. The rules of Catan don't specifically say you can't look through the Development Card deck, but I don't think anyone would consider that fair play. By-hand tracking is never mentioned in the rules, so I don't think it should be included.
In my opinion, a board game should be one person's brain and luck against the other's. Would it be fair to run an app computing my odds of winning a Risk battle? Or compute my chance of drawing that straight flush in a poker game? These are things I could figure out myself if I had the time and math skills, but are much easier with an aid. Similarly, tracking resources could be done with a good memory, but augmenting that with paper and pencil doesn't seem right.
TL;DR: I would consider by-hand point or resource tracking at best unsporting, and at worst, against the rules.

It's also a LOT of work. Keeping track of events happening in real time would require near constant scribbling, and if you miss a trade or something while you're still writing the previous event down, your whole log becomes corrupted. So putting whether it's against the rules or not aside, it's waaay more effort than it's worth.

@mfoy_ - For Catan, probably.  But there's other games where the information is less dense and easier to keep track of (such as a sum of victory points earned in Small World, or train cards taken in Ticket to Ride).

There are a number of good answers to my question posted here, but I think the other comparisons in this answer (searching the deck and odds calculations) make it the best.  It's hard to justify counting cards on paper in a poker or blackjack game, which is fundamentally the same question I started with - just applied to a less complicated game.  Thanks for the perspective on it!

I agree that there's a better argument for the second case. The first case can be fairly easily countered with a "you can't have it both ways" argument. For example, in the case of Catan, the rules do not actually state that resource cards must be revealed when turning them in to purchase items. So if somebody thinks it's ok for them to keep notes about what they think I have, then they must also agree that it's ok for me to not reveal my cards when I buy things.

I think you have to understand the game sufficiently to gauge whether the information really is secret or not. For games where information isn't secret due to being calculatable, it sounds like a good, sporting house rule to instead play openly rather than punishing less acute players.
Good etiquette would mean communicating why you wish to invoke this house rule clearly and accepting how the players feel about doing so. Some may perceive having a good memory as part of the challenge and therefore not a candidate for being removed in the name of sportsmanship and ultimately it is better sportsmanship to come to a compromise and play according to whatever rules are agreed, without reluctance or resentment.

I like this perspective on it.

I'll take the other side here.
Keeping private notes is always ok (unless the rules specifically forbid it.)
When I'm playing a game like Settlers of Catan, I can keep track of what other players have in their hands without too much difficulty.  Am I acting against the rules by simply remembering what's happened so far?
Using a piece of scrap paper to augment your mental capacities is perfectly acceptable.

I don't know yet whether I agree with that viewpoint, but realizing it existed is exactly why I asked the question.  Thanks for being the voice of opposition.

By OK, do you mean "not cheating", or do you mean that you think it is socially acceptable in all circumstances?

@bwarner, that raises a different question.  As far as I'm concerned, if it's not cheating, it's socially acceptable unless the group comes to a social agreement otherwise.

This does sound reasonable on the surface, but I think you get into trouble when you start applying this to games where note-taking is clearly just straight-up extra information, stuff that no one but a savant would be able to keep track of otherwise. At that point, you're effectively replacing (partially) hidden information with known/public information, which inevitably changes the game - and changing the game is not in general socially acceptable without prior agreement.

It's against the rules.
The rules call for playing with the cards kept secret, but tracking everyone's resources on paper would be virtually no different than playing with all cards revealed.
It makes the game less enjoyable.
It slows the game down. It leads to "what did I miss" type questions. It takes your attention away from players, reducing social interactions. etc. People will rapidly lose interest in playing with you. If this isn't the definition of poor sportsmanship, I don't know what is.

In my particular view, there are two kinds of information in games.  Hidden, and Known.  Things which are hidden you do not know, and methods of gaining that information are limited to whatever rules the game supplies.  Things which are known, you already know.  Nobody would claim that it is unethical to remember that which you know.  Further, outside of certain very specific games (i.e., the classic "Memory") the goal of the game is not to out-memorize your opponent.  Most games center on decision making and weighing odds and risks.  So I would say that as long as your memory (be it in your head, on your notepad, on your laptop, whatever) does not bog down or ruin the gameplay for others (i.e., it is non-intrusive and doesn't result in you constantly asking harassing questions) that it is perfectly acceptable.  Note that the game itself defines methods of moving information from Hidden to Known, and any method that is not laid out in the rules is clearly cheating (i.e., peeking at cards)
To address some of the other points raised regarding other games:
1- I would be in favor of letting someone use an odds calculator in Risk.  The point of the game isn't "I am better at calculating odds than you", it's "I am going to take some Risks, whereby I know certain actions are risky and others are less so, and I must choose what level or tolerance I have for those risks based on how they tie into my grand strategem."  Allowing a player to use an odds calculator allows them to make a more informed decision, which makes the game more strategic and enjoyable for all.
2- Many players play Poker while holding little index cards on them that list the hands in order of probability.  The core gameplay elements in Poker involve the secret information of what's in the opposing hands, and how likely you feel your hand is to win on that basis.  Knowing how likely any particular combination is merely puts you in a position to make an informed decision, thereby elevating the overall level of gameplay.

The thing is, the mere fact that your memory has suddenly become perfect and complete (or at least much more so than without taking notes) is extremely likely to bog down the game and make it less fun. Asking questions isn't the big concern, it's analysis paralysis and forcing others to do it too in order to compete.

Forcing people to analyze the game to win sounds like a feature, not a bug.  Shouldn't the player who is able to best analyze the data and make decisions win more games?  Obviously we expect the player to do so within reasonable time constraints; the definition of reasonable will vary from group to group.

Some people play games for a casual experience.  Extensive analysis is neither their goal, nor fun for them.  But neither is feeling that they are likely to lose because someone else is doing extensive analysis.

Wouldn't these casual experience gamers gravitate towards games which feature more randomness and thereby offer less opportunity for analysis anyway?

@GWLlosa I'm not talking about forcing people to analyze; they're doing that already. I'm talking about about analysis paralysis, forcing people to drastically overanalyze. Often, if you give people complete information, they'll start spending many times longer to decide every single action. A two hour game can turn into a three or four hour game. And often it's all for tiny little advantages. See for example Power Grid, where the designers deliberately said to keep money secret to avoid this in the endgame.

And to be clear, I'm not talking about a casual experience. You can have a very thought-provoking, competitive game without complete information. Perhaps it's helpful to look at it this way: given a choice between a 4-hour game where you agonize over details and wait for others to do the same, and two 2-hour games with incomplete information but still plenty to think about, which would you pick?

Among people you don't know as well or don't know at all (the key here is familiarity, not exactly what you stated at the end of your question about people you don't see regularly per se), it's typically safe to fall back to the assumption that games are played more socially and less competitively. You can imagine any number of brutal or brilliant competitive plays that are shrugged off or laughed off among friends but would easily make gaming situations with less familiar people awkward, such as repeatedly assaulting one player or loudly declaring a convincing argument why someone needs to be attacked.  These situations easily antagonize even people who are close within a game group.
Given this, you wouldn't necessarily offend anyone by taking notes, but, to put it bluntly, they'd think you were weird, do the eyebrow raising thing, and go into high alert from a competitive standpoint.  Even ignoring the negative social ramifications, you compromise the ability to divert attention from yourself and surprise opponents. That's the best part!

In situations where certain information would be available perfectly to an observant player, little would be generally gained by allowing all players to keep records of such information which would not equally be gained by having the information continually public.  There are, however, at least two situations where allowing personal record-keeping might be useful:

If players have different levels of skill, and granting novice players a handicap would make the game more enjoyable than it would be if they were simply outclassed, it may be helpful to allow the novice players to keep written records even if more skillful players were not allowed to.  To keep the game "fair", it may be helpful to have a house rule that any player may select between either being allowed to keep written records, or receiving some other advantage/ability which would only be relevant to more skillful players, though such advantage must be chosen carefully to be worth enough that skillful players wouldn't want to give it up, but not worth so much as to unbalance the game against the novice.  Alternatively, if novices are unlikely to reach level 20 while still being novices, one could have a rule that recordkeeping would be allowed by all players below level 20 (though few people who expected to spend most of their time over level 20 would want to bother prior to passing that point).
In some games, the state of a player's hand may have public and non-public aspects.  For the situation where a player's initial cards start be private, but the motion of cards into or out of a player's hand might be public, a player might leave all of his hands which have been publicly seen face-up, but not expose those which haven't.  Such an approach may offer some benefit to the player with the cards as well as the opponents, since leaving publicly-exposed cards face up would help the player remember which cards the opponents had seen.  I'm not sure, though, how best to handle situations where most acquisitions and disposals would be public but some disposals might not be (e.g. if a player does a "sneak thief" attack on another player and takes a randomly selected card, and only the thief and victim are supposed to know which card the player no longer has, I don't know any way for an "open-hand" game to effectively convey the notion "the player has acquired these five cards, but presently only has four").  For such games, written records might be more convenient than other open-hand approaches.

What's most important is that players agree upon what the rules should be.  Many games could be enjoyable as light-hearted fun without record-keeping or as a competitive exercise with note-taking allowed.  Neither approach should be considered "better" than the other; what's important is that the approach that's in use matches the game people presently want to play.

In the general case, I would say writing down semi-secret information is definitely frowned on.  You're giving yourself a competitive advantage over others, unless they are willing to put in the same amount of effort, which will be upsetting to a lot of players that are trying to focus more on enjoying the game than winning at all costs.  These players don't want to spend the time to track everyone's resources, but they will resent that they are less likely to win due to this (even if the reality is that you get little or no advantage as a result).  Having more information also contributes to analysis paralysis, and is likely to make your decisions take longer as you try to assess what choice you should make based on what everyone else is holding.
I would only do something like this in a group you are familiar with and where everyone is interested in a highly competitive environment where as much information as possible is available to all players.  And if you're making that agreement, you could just agree to make it public information by playing with open hands or whatever.

At that point though, why not all agree to play with open hands to save each-other the effort? I mean once it's been established you're all willing to maintain immaculate transaction logs...

@mfoy I agree, if you're establishing that it is OK for everyone to have perfect information, playing with open hands seems like a much better solution.

I believe the propriety depends on what the other players are doing and what you've agreed upon beforehand. If the other players appear to emphasize quick play and thinking intuitively, then do it; if one or two are obviously mathing everything out and slowing the game to an extremely deliberate pace, then follow to give yourself a level playing ground. Afterward, make your own decision on whether the play style of the group is something that fits your opinion on how the game should be played.
On a larger issue, beware of games where the primary thing that makes it tick is the semi-secret information, where having a better memory of things contributes significantly to your chances of winning. The more reliant the game is on this, the more this issue can be a sore note (and in my opinion, the likelier that the game was lazily designed, and the more I should avoid it and look for a better game).

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


text:
Agricola Solo "Campaign" professions
In my solo campaign I played the "Home teacher" (The card that shows Obi Wan) and chose that as my first fixed profession for the following rounds. The card says something like:

At the end of the game you receive one bonus point for every profession you play after this one.

1 In the second game when I already have the teacher laying on the table and choose profession. Is that profession free or does it cost 1 food?
2 Also from the third game on I had the Teacher and other professions laying on the table from the start. Do all these professions give bonus points at the end or just the ones I actually play in that round?

Yes, you need to pay 1 food for your second occupation.  Note that the action space on the board reads:

A player's first occupation is free, each additional one costs 1 food

It doesn't say anything like "first occupation played from your hand" or anything like that.

Yes, you get bonus points for any occupation played after the Home Teacher.  Per the solo rules, you choose the occupations as you play them.  There is an implied ordering, just make sure you chose the Home Teacher first!