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Is Splendor accessible to those with red-green color-blindness?
I was recently discussing Splendor with a friend who in turn has a friend who's colorblind, and my friend was wondering whether his friend would be able to play the game.  Color-coding shows up in several places; on the chips and the tops of cards the gem types also have different shapes, so someone who can't distinguish colors would still be able to tell them apart, but the prices on the cards and the nobles have consistent shapes.  Thus, it comes down to whether those particular shades of red and green can be distinguished.
Board Game Geek has the following photo of game components, though it would probably be better if the question could be answered from direct experience and not from a photo (which can distort colors):

(source: geekdo-images.com)

Note, this type of colorblindness is the most common among men.  I forget the exact number, but I think it's something like 1/3 of adult males have it (including me).  It is much less common among females, and I'm not sure how it ranks there.  But having said that, I can't advise you as to hard it would be for me to play, because I don't know which things in your picture I'm supposed to distinguish by color.  There are some things that are obvious to me, but the fact is that I can't tell which are supposed to be different.

@MAP thanks for the info.  On the larger cards, there are numbers in circles on colored backgrounds.  The first and last cards in the second row have, top to bottom, blue, green, red.  The third card has either red or green (and then black below it); can you tell which?  (You might want to click the link to get a larger version of the image.)

@MAPÈ Not 33%, but only 6#, of adult males have red-green colorblindness: http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=7255

OK, I have red green colorblindness.  It comes in a continuum from "severe" to "mild".  I am near the midpoint (sort of halfway between mild and severe, called "partial"), so there are people worse than me.  Note that while the term refers to red and green, it really isn't that red and green can't be distinguished, but is more complicated (having to do with the sensitivity of the various cells in the retina).  For example I often find blue and purple the hardest to distinguish in games that use those colors, because I'm less sensitive to the red that distinguishes them.  Also, if the game was designed with this type of colorblindness in mind, they might use, for example, baby blue and really dark purple, so that the saturation can be used to distinguish them.  Although I might not be able to name them, I can tell them apart.  I like games that have taken the care to make this additional distinction.
So, enough background, on to the actual answer.  All this later discussion is based on my red green colorblindness, if it's a different kind or a different severity, some of these conclusions might be different.  In fact, growing up I knew someone who was completely colorblind and only saw shades of gray.  That would be completely different.
In the picture in the question, I do have a little difficulty telling some of the colors apart.  However, in the larger version of that picture that you link to, I see the following colors as backgrounds to the numbers (what your comment said were important to distinguish): White, Green, Red, Black, and Blue.  If there's supposed to be an additional color, that's the one I can't distinguish.  When the red and the green are on the same card I can easily see which is which, but they are sort of close.  The card that you point out in a comment (second row, third card) is, in fact, the hardest for me to distinguish, but I'm pretty sure it's red over black.  But I got this by comparing it to a nearby card that had both, I'm not really sure how easy it would be in complete isolation.
And that brings up another point about playability that I've found important as someone partially colorblind.  Does the game have the players hold cards that are "secret" or not?  If there actually aren't any secret cards, I can ask other players about the colors I can't tell (which may give away some strategy info), but if there are secret cards that I have to do the color distinction on that are in my hand and not near the board, I can't do a side-by-side to tell, and I can't ask.  So that makes it harder.
On the other hand, if the backs of the cards need to be distinguished, I can tell you that in that picture the two lower face down stacks look like they are supposed to be different colors, but I'm not sure and definitely couldn't tell which of the two a particular card in isolation was supposed to be.
Now, the page you pointed to has a link to an even larger version of that picture.  Having clicked through to that, I can tell you that in that picture, I have no problem distinguishing any of these colors, even the card backs are clearly different in that picture.
Actually having stared at the larger photo a bit as I wrote this, I think I've actually played this game once and don't remember it as one of the "no play" games.  Having thought this, I clicked through to the description page at BGG, and, sure enough, I remember it.  So, unless your friend's friend is severely Red Green Colorblind, it should not be a problem.  I can't really be sure about more severe cases, but that's my guess.  And, again, if the nature of the colorblindness is not red green colorblindness, then none of this applies.

Thanks very much for this assessment!  The cards are what I think of as the usual size for cards, not small; the image sizing was just to fit in the post better.  And that's a good point about secret information vs. public; all the cards in this game are public, so it's possible to ask people (at a cost of giving away some info, as you say).

The colours on the cards for a "buy cost" don't show the symbols, but always appear in the same order (white, blue, green, red, black) - which might make a difference for some people.

I think it's "luminosity" rather than "saturation", but I'm not sure.

In this photo of the game components, you can see that differentiating gem symbols have been added to all those previously-ambiguous circles and rectangles! I assume this is a newer edition than the one you found on BGG, so just get a new copy and you should be all set.

Oh, nice!  I didn't realize there was an edition newer than the one we were playing with.

If no-one with actual experience can help you out, try one of these as an alternative (taken from this link).
Of course, you'll need a close-up picture of card (I'm sure there are some on BGG).

Color Oracle: a free color blindness simulator that you can install on your computer. It applies a full screen color filter, so you can see in real time how a color blind person would see your design.
If you use Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator you can simulate color blindness by creating a proof. Just go to View > Proof Setup > Color Blindness.

The gems can indeed be distinguished by their shape.
The other colour coding on the cards is entirely inconsequential, except for the cost of each card
As mentioned before, most cards are public, so a colour-blind player could ask other players what gems each card requires, but they would have to ask about multiple cards each time, in order to obfuscate their intention.
Face-down cards can be drawn blind, but you could drop this rule if it creates an additional challenge.
A development card can be 'reserved', i.e. picked up and held in-hand, until the player has the resources to buy and use it, in which case they would need to remember the cost of this now-concealed card.
If the colour of the cost circles was really an issue, you could mark each card with a letter or symbol, to identify the gems for each cost-number.

"Face-down cards can be drawn blind,..."  Are you referring to the previously reserved cards?  Or is there a rule to draw from the face-down piles that I don't know about?


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Shaun the Sheep games rules?
Recently I bought some Shaun the Sheep games from kosmos.de, but the rules are in German. Does anyone know the rules for next two games :

card game
board game

A German friend of mine translated the card game (I also bought it in Germany, but can't read German), it is available here: Translation of Shaun the sheep card game

it would be better to copy text in the answer. Thanks

I used to work for Aardman, the creators of Shaun the Sheep. The following comes straight from the lovely ladies in their Rights & Licensing department.

"The games are a German design and
  license, they don't exist in English
  speaking markets, so only German
  language instructions I'm afraid."

It might be worth trying Google Translate?

It sounds like time for someone to point out that ALL OF EUROPE is essentially part of the English speaking market place... if available in the EU, it's also available to native english speakers by postal order and English access to the EU by rail and ferry. They need to be disabused of their provincialism.

@aramis - Lol - Disabused of their provincialism, via the medium of an infant plasticene sheep?

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Boggle variations?
This summer we have company staying with us, and they greatly enjoy playing Boggle. I'm looking to spice things up a bit, though - any ideas for Boggle variations that we can try? There will be two to four of us playing at any time.

A few Boggle variants I've heard of:

Scrabble-style:  Lose the timer - take turns making words, end game when (n) words made (try about 20 to begin with).  You cannot repeat a word already made.

Collapsing Boggle:  Use a shorter timer.  After it runs out, remove 1 die at random and keep going.  Remove another die and have a third (and final) run through.

Selective Boggle:  After the dice are placed, each player may rotate one die to a different side.  (For a milder version, have one player rotate one die, changing players each round.)

Generous Boggle: Allow each die to be used multiple times in one word.

Scatter Boggle: Only try this with a large size 5x5 Boggle set.  Instead of being adjacent, each die in the word must NOT be adjacent horizontally or vertically.  (Don't count diagonals with this variant; there won't be enough options.)
I've just invented one more while typing, so this is completely untested, and may not even make sense:

Apples to Boggles.  Get an Apples to Apples set and play it, except that instead of picking a noun from your hand to match the topic for the round, you have to pick a word from the Boggle board to match, and convince people it's the best candidate as usual.  First person to call a word gets it as her "apple" for the round.  (Definitely use the "generous" rule above for this one.)

5 letter Boggle. Minimum word length is 5 letters. You can try this with 6 or 7 letters too.

Boggle Quiz: a description or question is posed to all participants. A boggle board is randomly generated containing the answer and distributed to all participants. The first person to find the correct answer (either fitting the description or answering the question) on the boggle board wins the round.

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Looking for full spoilers for the Shadowrun CCG
I'm looking for full-text (or even better, image) spoilers for the old Shadowrun collectible card game (interchangeably known as Shadowrun TCG or CCG).  Basically, I'm looking for a list of all the cards, plus their rules in one convenient package.
There used to be a Geocities site that had them, but the site is long gone now, so I wondered if anyone knows of another site that might have them.  I've done a fair amount of searching, and nothing has come up yet, for what it's worth.

It's not exactly what I'm looking for (I was preferring some sort of spreadsheet or document), but a software program called Card Vault (which allows you to create deck lists for games) has a Shadowrun module which can be downloaded here.
The program allows you to download small images of the cards, and has spoilers for the core set, 2nd print, Underworld expansion, plus promos.  I've seen a few typos, and some incorrect rarities, but the overall it's pretty solid.
I might make an Excel spreadsheet and/or XML and/or Word document spoiler based on this, and if I do, I'll update the answer here with a link here.

Here's one link to start you on your way: a full text spoiler in PDF for the "Underworld" expansion, which was the only one released for the game.

@Jadsac -- Yeah, I should have mentioned that was the one thing I did find.  I'm more interested in the core set than the Underworld set.  I think I might have found something, I'll update later

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Expulsion Card ruling in Mesopotamia
I don't have the English card text ready but the German one translates roughly like this:

Move an opponents person or hut (with or without sacrifice token) up to 3 hexes from it's current location.

Can I move an opponents person which carries a sacrifice token with this card or can I only move the bare person?
Considering the parentheses I'd say that the part about sacrifice tokens moved along only applies to the huts...

Given that text, I would rule that you could move either a person or a hut, and the ruling about sacrifice tokens applies to both.
If they had only intended the hut to have the sacrifice token clause, they should have written it as:

Move an opponent's hut (with or without sacrifice token), or move a person, up to 3 hexes from its current location.

That's how we play it.

Alternatively you could argue that they'd have left the parentheses away if they wanted no distinction...


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Should I avoid getting any pot in Poison or try to pick a color and get as much as possible?
What is the better strategy in Poison (BGG)? Trying to get nothing at all may be a good strategy, but sometimes hard. Is it better to try to get the most of a color, so that this color doesn't count for you? Avoiding the poison, without a question.

I certainly favor taking a color. With good players it's impossible to get nothing, and if you pick a single color you'll have some control.
Once you start specializing in a color other players are unlikely to take any of that color if they can help it, ensuring you'll get the majority.
Once you have that solid majority, towards the last half or third of the game, you can foist pots of that color onto other players, knowing they'll be stuck with points. This gives you power that you don't have if you take nothing.
Of course, everyone else is trying to do the same thing. :)


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Guards! Guards! starting volunteer's effects
The board game Guards! Guards! has a system of recruiting volunteers which have various effects on the players who recruit them. These effects range from permanent bonuses to stats (e.g. +1 charm to help recruit volunteers, or +1 magic) to bonus dollars, or immunity from the pox, or a number of others.
at the beginning of the game, each player starts with 3 volunteers.
Do your starting volunteers give you the bonuses printed on the card?
The rules do not seem to clarify anything about this, so I was wondering if anyone here had a convention or house rule, or if a clarification had been released.

From the rules posted on the Z-Man Games website (Page 3):

Each player begins the games with the following items: ...
  • 5 - Ankh-Morpork Dollars
  • 1 - Lords & Ladies Volunteer Card
  • 1- Man & Beast Volunteer Card
Players should collect any items/scrolls or attribute
  bonuses marked on the above cards.

This is a slightly older version of the rules released with the original version of the game. In the 2012 revision, it does not explicitly state that you get the attributes. Looking at the rulebook differences, my guess is the publisher wanted to optimize space in the 2012 rulebook and they figured people would just assume they gain the attribute increases.
Based on the original version of the rules, you do get the attribute bonuses for any volunteers you start the game with.

awesome, exactly what i was looking for!

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How to teach strategic thinking to non-gamer players?
I have some players in my gaming group that seem to have a bit of a problem with devising their strategy. How can I help them improve?
First of all, I want to clarify - I don't need gateway games recommendations. We play various types of games, from Dobble or Times Up through Settlers of Catan and Discworld to Cyclades and Power Grid. Answers found here didn't help me one bit.
I'll elaborate on my problem:
We have a quite diverse gaming group. We have some hard-core thinkers and gamers, myself included, who like to plan, devise a strategy, have an idea for their play. On the other hand, we have some more casual players. They like to think about their moves, sometimes to the point of reaching Analysis Paralysis, choose what they think is best for them, but they have a problem with long term planning.
They tend to think in terms of the turn at hand, weighing immediate outcomes of their actions against each other. For example in a game of Catan, they will think what's best for them in long term, they will cut someones longest road when possible, they will take the best spot available when building a new city.
If there is no single move that brings immediate gain better than any of the other options, they get stuck. If they can build a road in one of two or three places, they wont think "hey, Mike has a long road and is cut off on the north. He will probably build it down south in a few turns, so I could cut him off too if I go there now". They have a few similar options in their hands and have a hard time figuring out what to do. Sometimes they even mumble "I dont know what to do" during play.
That is fine in some less strategy focused and/or complex games. But when we play games that reward some long term planning or too many options, they have problems or dislike the game. When we play Thunderstone, I tend to win, because I plan out what can I possibly draw from my deck and when will I reshuffle my library. I also tend to buy things with a plan for a deck, I seek out a combo or think what sort of hand would I like to have during the game and build a deck that delivers them. Some of our players tend to just buy the best card around. If the best cards are all bought out, they just randomly buy some of the other options, not having a plan for them. Yesterday I won two or three games in a row, and it was kind of a bummer.
We wanted to try some new board games, and we got Eclipse. I really loved the game and have LOTS of fun, but some of our players felt overwhelmed by the options. It's not like they didn't grasp the rules - we made some mistakes, but that was not the issues. They knew what they could do and how to do it. They just couldn't devise a plan. They had a problem getting an idea of what they would like to do/accomplish in a given round, so deciding what to do in every turn was annoying for them - they chose kind of randomly, because they felt they couldn't make an informed decision. All in all, they decided they didn't like the game very much.
So, my question is: How could I help our casual players better at developing a strategy? They are fine on the tactical level. They experiment and play with tactics. How can I help them transfer that attitude and abilities to a more strategical level?

Have them take a class in game theory. My wife teaches game theory, and her winning percentage in our typical four-people game (two of us, plus two of our kids, or another couple) is about 40% in either Dominion, Settlers of Catan, TTR, Puerto Rico... you name it.

Talk about it.
That's it; make the game a topic of conversation. Talk about it at random moments. Talk about your strategy when you're breaking out the game to play again. Talk about other players' moves while they're moving, and what plans they might be laying. Talk about how to break up an opponent's strategy, or even how to break up your own strategy. When the game ends, talk about how the winner pulled it off.
You should try to avoid boring the other people to death, of course, but the mere act of hearing about how you can plan for (some particular game) will put more tools in their toolbox the next time they play. These "non-strategic" players haven't put much thought into how to win these games, and probably don't know how you can do long-term planning for those games. Most games have a particular strategy that works well; some work best with purely-tactical moves, some work best when you've planned your strategy 15 turns ahead, some work with a mix of strategic planning and proper tactics as opportunities crop up. If you really want these players to improve, and they haven't figured it out themselves, share your hard-earned insights into the game. Don't keep your secret game-winning strategy to yourself just because you're a knowledge miser.
To illustrate, here are a few examples of things I didn't even realize were important until long after I started playing that particular game. (I make no claims to being a genius.) Withholding key insights from games can really cripple someone's ability to play well. Share some insights like these, and they'll start seeing how the game is more subtle than it initially looks.
Puerto Rico: you can screw other players by choosing Captain to force players to ship their valuable trade goods, and Craftsman is frequently a bad move.
Glory to Rome: it's a bad idea to play Craftsman cards to lead the Craftsman role, because the player to your left will Patron, and pick up a Craftsman client. Playing Craftsman cards to follow the role is only a good move if the player to your right led the Craftsman action.
Dominion: Coppers are bad, and should be actively removed if reasonably possible. If you want to afford Provinces, you really have to get your average-coins-per-card up.
Race for the Galaxy: I still don't understand how to do a proper mix of military and trading strategies. Sure, there are plenty of developments that support both, and no military tableau should purely be military developments and military worlds, but the major source of victory points for a military strategy is the high-value military worlds, right?
Power Grid: Don't buy a power plant every round; only do it when it's a significant improvement over what you already have.

This is a common problem among beginner Go players; they tend to focus on short-term tactics and lose sight of the big picture.  Even if they win their battles, they're still likely to lose the war.
I find the best tool for teaching long-term strategy for such cases is game reviews.  In Go clubs, it's not uncommon to see a game disassembled after the match is finished, and replayed piece-by-piece from the beginning to discuss and analyze each move.  It's one thing to mention that such-a-such a move was a good or a bad idea after the game, but it's another entirely to be able to show the exact game-state when the move was played, exactly how the game evolved after that move, and point to concrete examples of how that strategy affected the game board.
Such reviews often include variations (as in, "Oh, but what if I did this instead?"), allowing both players to explore exactly how particular moves (or lack thereof) affect the particular game state of the board at that particular time.
Hindsight, as they say, is 20-20.
Go has the advantage of being a fairly simple game to review, at least mechanically.  An experienced player with a bit of practice can easily replay most of if not an entire game from memory; this would of course be complicated in other board games with more complex pieces, extra players, or elements of randomization.
The basic principle would still apply though: Recreate the progression of the game state, and show concrete examples of how early moves affected later progress.  This could, theoretically, be done simply by making a video of the game and watching it later, but I find that nothing can really replace the benefits of re-playing the physical game from the beginning (if only because it makes it easier to add and remove pieces as needed to explore variations).
I don't know if there's any game-recording standard for, say, Settlers of Catan or Power Grid, but it would be worth looking into.  This would allow one person to record each turn of the game, so it can be perfectly re-created (and reviewed) at any time.
(this of course assumes that the casual players actually care enough about the games in question to want to improve; in my experience, many casual gamers simply prefer to stay casual gamers and avoid the heavy long-term-complex-strategy-thinking entirely)

Great answer, but on a different angle than I expected. Im kinda looking for a way to teach my group strategical thinking and defining their own mid-term goals regardless of the game we play. More of teaching a mindset that strategizing technique. Also, replaying a game of, say RfTG is kinda tough... But still, I really appreciate the effort!

@K.L. After reviewing Go games for so long, I found my ability to think strategically in any game vastly improved, regardless of mechanic.  I reckon you'd get a similar effect from regularly playing and reviewing any sufficiently-strategic game you're all familiar with, rather than needing to review every different game separately.

Every bridge club I have played at, over the past 45 years in many cities, had a group of regular players who did the same type of thing. When they start remembering every card played in all 26 hands one is initially intimidated, but with effort and practice one slowly starts to catch up; and one's play improves at the same time. The two are not unrelated.

I would try to get my "non-strategic" friends to start at the end, and then thinking "backward" to the beginning.
For instance, in Settlers of Catan, you need 10 victory points (VPs), and you start with two (your two settlements). So you need eight more.
Speaking of which, how do you get those eight? You have three more settlements to place, (3VPs), and can upgrade to four cities (four more VPs, nine total). Where does the 10th VP come from?
I'm not clear on this point, but I believe that once you've upgraded one settlement to a city, you get the settlement token back and can build four (instead of three) more, then end with four cities and two settlements.
Otherwise, there are a bunch of other ways to get the 10th VP (see the link).
What does this mean for resources? Early on, you need brick and wood for settlements and roads, but later, grain and ore to upgrade to cities, plus wool to buy development cards. Managing this "transition" is probably the hardest part of the gane,
An example of this was my own question on Settlers of Catan
(This came from someone who is just learning the game, to play with his nephew and niece over Christmas.)

You're right that, when you upgrade a settlement to a city, you get the settlement token back, and can then 're-build' it for an additional VP.

This is a strategy for how to win Settlers at Catan. How do you help other people learn how to win?

@PaulMarshall: Opening sentence: "I would try to get my "non-strategic" friends to start at the end, and then thinking "backward" to the beginning." I spent the rest of the answer reconstructing the thought process to illustrate the point.

How would you get them to think that way? Talking to them in-game? Outside the game? Wall-of-text emails? Sending them links to Settlers of Catan strategy sites? Get a vanity printer to put your favorite strategy in a book? Stage an intervention? That opening sentence is the most direct answer you have to the question, and it's extremely vague; the rest of it is tangential details on the specific facts they need to learn about a particular game, rather than how they're going to learn those facts.

I"m not too sure as to how helpful this will be because I plan games all the time but 7 wonders has 3 rounds in which most of your points get scored in the last meaning you will need to plan how you will play cards in the 3rd round if it be by having the precursor building, having a lot of resource generation, or gold to trade with. In our group people that started off getting low scores seem to have found ways to plan their play to improve their scores quite a bit

How did you help them improve? I don't see anything in your answer that suggests how to teach strategic gaming to non-gamer players.


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How does Ashaya, Soul of the Wild interact with Blood Moon?
What happens when you play Blood Moon while your opponent controls Ashaya, Soul of the Wild? What happens when you play Ashaya, Soul of the Wild and the opponent already has a Blood Moon out? How do the layers work?

When Ashaya and Blood Moon are on the battlefield at the same time, no matter their relative timestamps, Ashaya will die immediately as a state-based action. Your other creatures are briefly mountain creatures with no relevant abilities.
Blood Moon's effect depends on Ashaya's effect:

613.8a An effect is said to “depend on” another if (a) it’s applied in the same layer (and, if applicable, sublayer) as the other effect; (b) applying the other would change the text or the existence of the first effect, what it applies to, or what it does to any of the things it applies to; and (c) neither effect is from a characteristic-defining ability or both effects are from characteristic-defining abilities. Otherwise, the effect is considered to be independent of the other effect.

Both effects are applied in layer 4, type-changing effects (a), applying Ashaya changes what objects Blood Moon would apply to (b), and neither are characteristic-defining effects (c). Therefore, Blood Moon depends on Ashaya, and the normal timestamp system for ordering effects within a layer is not used:

613.8. Within a layer or sublayer, determining which order effects are applied in is sometimes done using a dependency system. If a dependency exists, it will override the timestamp system.

Because of the dependency, Ashaya is applied first:

613.8b An effect dependent on one or more other effects waits to apply until just after all of those effects have been applied. [..]

Your creatures are now non-basic forests with all their abilities intact, plus "T: Add G":

305.8. Any land with the supertype “basic” is a basic land. Any land that doesn’t have this supertype is a nonbasic land, even if it has a basic land type.

305.6. The basic land types are Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest. If an object uses the words “basic land type,” it’s referring to one of these subtypes. An object with the land card type and a basic land type has the intrinsic ability “{T}: Add [mana symbol],” even if the text box doesn’t actually contain that text or the object has no text box. [..]

Next, Blood Moon is applied and can affect your creatures. By setting a land to mountain, that land loses all abilities from its printed rules text, it loses the "T: Add G" ability from the forst type, and it gains "T: Add R" from the mountain type:

305.7. If an effect sets a land’s subtype to one or more of the basic land types, the land no longer has its old land type. It loses all abilities generated from its rules text, its old land types, and any copy effects affecting that land, and it gains the appropriate mana ability for each new basic land type. Note that this doesn’t remove any abilities that were granted to the land by other effects. Setting a land’s subtype doesn’t add or remove any card types (such as creature) or supertypes (such as basic, legendary, and snow) the land may have. If a land gains one or more land types in addition to its own, it keeps its land types and rules text, and it gains the new land types and mana abilities.

That means all your non-token creatures, including Ashaya, are mountain lands in addition to their other types, and they have no abilities except "T: Add R".
Ashayas's power and toughness are defined through a characteristic-defining ability. Her power and toughness are undefined if she loses that ability, and thus treated as zero.

107.2. If anything needs to use a number that can’t be determined, either as a result or in a calculation, it uses 0 instead.

Ashaya is now a 0/0 creature, and goes to the graveyard the next time a player would gain priority. All other non-token creatures you control revert back to being only creatures, with all their abilities.
You will generally not be able to generate mana from any of your creatures while they are mountains. Mana abilities don't use the stack, but you still need to have priority (or be required to pay a mana cost) in order to activate them.

Yeah I was unsure on that, I had the alternative already written up with the exact same reason. Guess I misinterpted it after all, thanks

Are you planning to update this answer to bring it in line with Matt Tabak's statements?

I'm pretty sure these aren't characteristic defining effects, because they change the types of cards other than themselves (and only affect permanents)  but that doesn't change the result

It's probably worth mentioning that since Ashaya loses its ability that sets its power and toughness, it will usually end up with 0 toughness and die.

@murgatroid99 Good point, edited.

Can you add what would happen if an anthem effect is in play?

An Anthem effect would make the Ashaya a 1/1, letting her survive and keep all creatures as mountain creatures without abilities.

Do you have an opportunity to float mana from the mountain-creatures?

No. If Ashaya dies that way, it dies as a state-based action, before anyone has an opportunity to activate any abilities.

Ashaya is a creature, not a land, so why does she lose her ability from Blood Moon?  I'm very confused.

@John Ashaya turns herself into a non-basic forest land, along with all other creatures you control

I'll point out that Ashaya won't die if they get at least one point of Toughness that isn't reliant on a creature or land's abilities. +1/+1 counters, an Equipment or Aura attached to it, or an Enchantment or Artifact that buffs all of your creatures.

"Your other creatures are briefly mountain creatures with no relevant abilities." I presume other */* creatures similarly die as state-based actions, you meant other creatures with nonzero toughness?


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When Oko turns food into an Elk, is the creature still food?
When Oko, Thief of Crowns turns a Food token into a 3/3 elk, is the resulting creature still Food?

When I read this question, I thought for sure this would be a Silver card X_X

No, it stops being a food token and loses its self-sacrifice ability. You can't sacrifice it to its own ability any more, or use it for other abilities referring to food tokens.
We can expect a change to 205.3g that includes "food" as an artifact subtype:

205.3g Artifacts have their own unique set of subtypes; these subtypes are called artifact types. The artifact types are Clue, Contraption, Equipment (see rule 301.5), Fortification (see rule 301.6), Treasure, and Vehicle (see rule 301.7).

When an effect calls to do something with treasure tokens, it refers to an artifact permanent with the treasure subtype. Expect the same for food tokens:

109.2. If a spell or ability uses a description of an object that includes a card type or subtype, but doesn’t include the word “card,” “spell,” “source,” or “scheme,” it means a permanent of that card type or subtype on the battlefield.

When you create a Food token, it's a token with type "artifact", subtype "food", and name "food".

110.5c A spell or ability that creates a token sets both its name and its subtype. If the spell or ability doesn’t specify the name of the token, its name is the same as its subtype(s). A “Goblin Scout creature token,” for example, is named “Goblin Scout” and has the creature subtypes Goblin and Scout. Once a token is on the battlefield, changing its name doesn’t change its subtype, and vice versa.

Oko's +1 ability changes, among others, an artifact's type and subtype. Only the name remains unchanged. A food token affected by its ability becomes a green 3/3 creature token without abilities, with the name "Food", and with the only subtype "Elk". It loses the "Artifact" type, the "Food" subtype, and its self-sacrifice ability.
The Food token loses its "Food" subtype for two reasons. One, because Oko's ability directly overwrites the subtype without retaining the old value:

205.1b Some effects change an object’s card type, supertype, or subtype but specify that the object retains a prior card type, supertype, or subtype. In such cases, all the object’s prior card types, supertypes, and subtypes are retained. This rule applies to effects that use the phrase “in addition to its types” or that state that something is “still a [type, supertype, or subtype].” Some effects state that an object becomes an “artifact creature”; these effects also allow the object to retain all of its prior card types and subtypes.

And two, since the token loses the Artifact type, it also automatically loses its specific subtypes:

205.1a Some effects set an object’s card type. In such cases, the new card type(s) replaces any existing card types. Counters, effects, and damage marked on the object remain with it, even if they are meaningless to the new card type. Similarly, when an effect sets one or more of an object’s subtypes, the new subtype(s) replaces any existing subtypes from the appropriate set (creature types, land types, artifact types, enchantment types, planeswalker types, or spell types). If an object’s card type is removed, the subtypes correlated with that card type will remain if they are also the subtypes of a card type the object currently has; otherwise, they are also removed for the entire time the object’s card type is removed. Removing an object’s subtype doesn’t affect its card types at all.

Whenever an ability or effect refers to an object by name, it will always explicitely say so ("card/object named", or "card(s) with the same name" and so on). Otherwise, it will always refer to the appropriate category of characteristic, such as color, type, or subtype. Therefore, if something refers to a "Food" token, it looks for the subtype "Food", which an artifact affected by Oko's +1 no longer has.

Note that colour, type and subtype are the only characteristics referred to with the phrase "A X card / permanent" (or just "A X" in the case of a permanent type). Any other characteristic is referred to with "a card / permanent with characteristic X".

"becomes a green 3/3 artifact creature token" is it still an artifact?  'cause if so, wouldn't it be able to retain the Food subtype?

@JonTheMon, that would allow it to keep the Food subtype

The last sentence of rule 205.1a says that objects lose subtypes corresponding to card types that they are losing.


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What happens when I copy a card with awaken?
If I copy Part the Waterveil for which I pay 6UUU with Mirrorpool, do I get to turn one or two lands into creatures?

The awakened version of Part the Waterveil targets a land; since Mirrorpool's ability says "You may choose new targets for the copy." you can choose either the same land or another land. As @Arthur says in the comments, it should be noted that the copy is also awakened, since that is an alternative cost:

702.112a Awaken appears on some instants and sorceries. It represents two abilities: a static ability that functions while the spell with awaken is on the stack and a spell ability. “Awaken N—[cost]” means “You may pay [cost] rather than pay this spell’s mana cost as you cast this spell” and “If this spell’s awaken cost was paid, put N +1/+1 counters on target land you control. That land becomes a 0/0 Elemental creature with haste. It’s still a land.” Paying a spell’s awaken cost follows the rules for paying alternative costs in rules 601.2b and 601.2f–h.

and that information is copied as well:

706.10. To copy a spell, activated ability, or triggered ability means to put a copy of it onto the stack; a copy of a spell isn’t cast and a copy of an activated ability isn’t activated. A copy of a spell or ability copies both the characteristics of the spell or ability and all decisions made for it, including modes, targets, the value of X, and additional or alternative costs.

It might be worthwhile to address the fact that the copied spell is indeed awakened.


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How does Tayam, Luminous Enigma interact with Phyrexian Altar?
If I have three creatures that each have a vigilance counter on them, can I activate Tayam, Luminous Enigma by removing their vigilance counters and sacrificing them to Phyrexian Altar?

601.2f The player determines the total cost of the spell. Usually this is just the mana cost. Some spells have additional or alternative costs.
...

601.2g If the total cost includes a mana payment, the player then has a chance to activate mana abilities (see rule 605, “Mana Abilities”). Mana abilities must be activated before costs are paid.

That means you have to activate Phyrexian Altar before paying the costs, and removing the counters is part of the costs. So what you propose won't work.

I'd note that you can sacrifice a creature in response to his ability being put onto the stack, then return them back onto the battlefield when his ability resolves, however.


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Does Predators' Hour apply to creatures that come into play after it resolves?
If I control Adeline, Resplendent Cathar and play Predators' Hour, does the effect apply to the token Adeline produces while attacking?

No, it only applies to creatures you had when it resolved.

611.2c If a continuous effect generated by the resolution of a spell or ability modifies the characteristics or changes the controller of any objects, the set of objects it affects is determined when that continuous effect begins. After that point, the set won’t change. (Note that this works differently than a continuous effect from a static ability.)

And to be clear that Predators' Hour does modify the characteristics of objects:

109.3. An object’s characteristics are name, mana cost, color, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, rules text, abilities, power, toughness, loyalty, hand modifier, and life modifier. Objects can have some or all of these characteristics. Any other information about an object isn’t a characteristic. For example, characteristics don’t include whether a permanent is tapped, a spell’s target, an object’s owner or controller, what an Aura enchants, and so on.

So if it were a static ability, rather than an effect generated by the resolution of your spell, then it would apply to all creatures you control at all times.


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Sake & Samurai / Beer & Vikings: Burning up spirits while being tormented
The rules for the games Sake & Samurai and Beer & Vikings allow dead players to "torment" players that are still living by stealing their Sake/Beer tokens. But any player is always allowed to "Burn up" as many Sake/Beer tokens as he likes to perform special actions.
How should any dead player ever successfully steal a token when the target of the "tormenting" can simply burn up all tokens that might be stolen?

The creators of the game responded to my inquiry:

Yes, this is possible, but if the target burns every token, he/she loses any chance of winning! So tormenting has to be played "not too aggressively" by Spirits, in order for the target to agree to a little loss - that's usually how we see it played!

I thought that "burning your entire supply of tokens in response to a torment attempt" was probably cutting off your nose to spite your face, but not having actually played the game I wasn't sure!


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Are experience awards additive in Battlestations?
I'm having trouble deciphering the v1.1 rules in general, but especially whether some experience awards are additive.
For example, are the rewards for attempting the mission and the experience for completing the mission additive? That is, if Jimbo goes on a mission and succeeds, does he get the 50 exp for trying and 100 exp for winning or just the 100 exp for winning?
Also, if a character goes on a mission (50 exp) and dies (100 prestige) but the crew wins the mission (100 exp), what is he awarded? 150 exp and 100 prestige? Or just 50 experience and 100 prestige?
Finally, are the bonus awards for driving off / capturing / destroying enemy warships / freighters given out for the ships listed in the mission, or only when they show up for some other reason?

Unfortunately, for RPGs where the rules are the game, it is difficult to get a copy of the rules to answer questions like these. This means that we have to rely on designers answering these questions definitively on various forums.
Are the rewards for attempting the mission and the experience for completing the mission additive?
They are additive, The designer Jeff Siadek answers that question here

3. Is the reward of 100 XP for a completed mission in addition to or instead of the 50 XP for an attempted mission?
A character that completes a mission gets 150 experience. 50 for trying and 100 more for succeeding.

I have not found official answers for the remaining two questions.
If a character goes on a mission (50 exp) and dies (100 prestige) but the crew wins the mission (100 exp), what is he awarded? Players on BGG have said the following .

Killed crewmembers do not get experience but they do gain prestige for going out in a heroic manner.

Finally, are the bonus awards for driving off / capturing / destroying enemy warships / freighters given out for the ships listed in the mission, or only when they show up for some other reason? response

you don't get any extra xp for caputring/destroying the mission objective, nor extra credits. That's only for ships beyond the scope of the mission.
If say another ship arrived to assist the target and you destroyed that, then you get the size x 10 exp.


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Time's Up! rule to guess a number
In the third part of Time's Up! (the Peter Sarrett game), I have to mime without speaking. Let's say my partner has to guess the movie "Seven Samurai". Is it allowed:

to mime the figure with seven fingers?
to mime another figure (six) and mime to add one?

I would assume a normal charades-style ruleset applies to the mimed round of Time's Up.  Looking at the "Rules of the acted charade" as given on Wikipedia I see the following:

Most commonly, the actor is allowed to make any gestures other than
  blatantly spelling out the word. In more stringent sets of rules,
  indicating anything about the form of the phrase is prohibited, even
  the number of words, so that only the meaning may be acted out.

I don't see how there can realistically be a prohibition on holding up seven fingers to "mime" the word seven.  Any more than it should be illegal to mime "head" by pointing to one's head!  It just so happens that numbers are unusually easy concepts to mime...


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Discarding destination tickets in Ticket to Ride
When you choose 3 destination tickets on your turn, what is the rule in regard to if you need to keep 1, 2, or 3 of them?
It seems that you must decide before your next turn.
Toward the end of the game, players may want to discard destination tickets. Is this allowed?
Can someone share the rules to clarify this?

You may keep 1, 2, or all 3 destination tickets.
You must make your decision before the beginning of the next players turn (not before your next turn as you stated).
The only two ways you may discard destination tickets are during your beginning of game ticket selection (you must keep at least two) and when using the Draw 3 Tickets as your action for the turn (you must keep at least one). For Draw 3 Tickets, you can only discard the tickets you drew this turn.
The rules can be found on the Days of Wonder website.

each player taking one turn at a time

While User 1873 has correctly stated the official rule, in casual play, it's extremely common for players to ask for your permission to play before you've discarded. You should give this, unhesitatingly... seeing their play is usually to your advantage. If someone asks another player, you should discourage it. Not so much because it's against the rules, but because it's to the drawing person's benefit.

When playing with my family, we usually let the flow of the game continue, unless someone wants to make a route. Since the route could change the decision of the destination ticket, we forbid it. But taking trains or even asking for dest. tickets is allowed, since there is no change in the decision (at least we don't see any).

@gbianchi - If there were fewer than 3 destination tickets left in the stack, then the tickets returned by the current player could, of course, affect the decision of the player attempting to draw destination tickets - and the order in which the current player returns them to the bottom. This is, admittedly, quite rare.

Your link to the rules is broken. Try this: http://www.daysofwonder.com/tickettoride/en/usa/rules/.


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Does Bear Umbra trigger if it was attached with Sovereigns of Lost Alara?
Say I have Sovereigns of Lost Alara and attack just with Inkwell Leviathan. Sovereigns of Lost Alara lets me search for an aura and attach it to that creature.
If I attach Bear Umbra does the creature's new attack trigger trigger?
On Ilharg, the Raze-Boar the rules say:

Although the new creature is attacking, it was never declared as an attacking creature (for the purposes of abilities that trigger whenever a creature attacks, for example, such as those of Trusted Pegasus and Makeshift Battalion).
(2019-05-03)

It seems as though this is a roughly similar case, because the creature is declared an attacker before the aura is attached, but I don't know if it's close enough or if the aura can look back at the card's previous state?

I'm pretty sure that Inkwell Leviathan can't be enchanted in the first place, since it has Shroud.

@nick you fell for my trap card! Shroud prevents targeting, but Sovereigns of Lost Alara doesn't target! It's a perfectly legal move.

@nick012000 On the other hand, if it had protection from green, that would mean that it couldn't be enchanted by the aura.

why put a creature with Shroud in the question if that's not relevant to your question? If it's possible to put an aura on a creature with shroud is a different question, here it only serves to confuse.

@ikkachu it's in the deck I'm building where this interaction may happen

Bear Umbra's ability triggers when the creature it enchants is declared as an attacker. That happens at the same moment Sovereigns' ability triggers, so by definition it's too late for Bear Umbra. You have more luck next turn.

508.1. First, the active player declares attackers. This turn-based action doesn’t use the stack. To declare attackers, the active player follows the steps below, in order. ...

508.2. Second, the active player gets priority. (See rule 117, “Timing and Priority.”)

508.2b Any abilities that triggered on attackers being declared or that triggered during the process described in rules 508.1 are put onto the stack before the active player gets priority; the order in which they triggered doesn’t matter. (See rule 603, “Handling Triggered Abilities.”)

Quoting a few select passages from CR 508.1 might not be a bad idea.

@Arthur do you have any specific ones in mind? I don't think the specifics matter much there.

@Andrew 508.1m is perhaps the most relevant, stating that triggers which trigger when creatures attack trigger here.


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How to solve problems with the Invisibility power
This question is about the board game "Strange Synergy" by Steve Jackson Games - it's a rather complex game so if you are not familiar with it, please ask for clarifications before attempting to answer.
There are many questions that rise as the result of using the power "Invisibility", and as I don't like the "popular" house rule of "remove from the game any power that raises tough questions", I would like opinions about how to solve the questions that were raised. The "Invisibility" power has these properties:

The miniature is removed from the board and instead the player has to privately record the location of the character.
The invisible character "is not an obstacle"
If another warrior guesses where the character is and fires at its location, the character may be hit. The invisible character is also susceptible to any area or "line" effects.

The problems are:

If a warrior shoots another warrior (not line effect - just standard targeting), and an invisible character is in the line of sight - are they hit? My guess is that not because an invisible character "is not an obstacle" while obstacles prevent warriors from targeting each other.
If a warrior moves through a location where an invisible character is located, do they have to stop, resolve "bumping" or in any other way become aware of the invisible character? My guess would be that the answer is no because an invisible character "is not an obstacle".
If a warrior moves and stops on a location where an invisible character is, does any effect happen as a result?
If a warrior shoots another warrior that is on the same location as an invisible character (using a power with no area or line of effect, such as the "Pistol"), is the invisible character hit?
Can an invisible character, in its move, move through a location where another character is standing?
Can an invisible character, in its move, move to a location where another character is standing?
If an invisible character becomes visible in the same location that another character holds, what happens? I would expect at least normal "bumping" to happen but - the character that was invisible can't immediately move off (as "bumping" resolution requires) because it just used its entire turn to become visible. Also the rules for the "Intangible" power which behaves similar to "Invisible" in regard to not being an obstacle, say that if the character becomes tangible in the same location as another character, both characters die immediately.

I would appreciate any opinions, even from people who haven't played Strange Synergy (though do ask for clarifications for things you are not sure about, in that case).

Obstacles block line of sight and movement and Invisible characters are not considered obstacles, thus people can attempt to move and shoot through spaces containing invisible characters, as they don't "know" the invisible character is there. But that doesn't mean that characters won't affect the results of that action. I believe the "not an obstacle" is there to resolve any situations like "Well you're aiming at Garbonzo, but Invisible Sinistra is in the way so you can't".
Invisibility isn't Intangibility (as you're aware). Characters cannot occupy the same locations normally, and just because one of them is Invisible doesn't change anything. I don't remember if there's anything in the rules that say you can't choose to run into someone (thus forcing a "bump"), but I play like that can happen. So as soon as the Invisible character's square is entered, the "bump" gets resolved as normal, and then the active player's turn continues.
Similarly, as Invisible people are subject to burst attacks and line of effects, I say they suffer the brunt of any targeted effects that were going to pass through the square they occupy to get to the intended target.
But honestly, we just take out Invisibility and Intangibility because we feel it unnecessarily prolongs the game...
EDIT:
At the end of the obstacles section there is a clarification for thrown gadgets which says "Nothing may be thrown through a warrior's square". While this is in the obstacle section (which an invisible character is not) the phrasing of the paragraph leads me to believe it doesn't matter. Rather than saying "Nothing can be thrown through a square with an obstacle and Nothing can be thrown into a square with a permanent obstacle." they specified warrior. However, this doesn't cover ranged attacks from non-gadgets that attempt to pass through an invisible character, such as Zorch Ball. I would say that these other attacks don't "need" to travel in a straight line, so the invisible character gets bypassed.
Ranged attacks are aimed at specific squares rather than warriors. In the ranged strike section, it specifically says that two warriors occupying the same square do not block each other from ranged attacks. So if all involved warriors could be subject to the attack, all of them get attacked.
The rules say that permanent obstacles and living warriors are obstacles. Warriors cannot move into or through a space occupied by an obstacle. Invisibility says that this warrior is not an obstacle. Therefore other warriors can move into and through the invisible warriors space. But the other warriors are still obstacles, so the invisible warrior cannot move into or through their space, at least not without causing a bump. While this doesn't make much sense, that's how it's written.
Then there's the problem of reappearing. Since Intangibility specifically mentions the case where an intangible warrior appears in a space that another warrior occupies and Invisibility doesn't, this means either they forgot about this possibility for Invisibility or they didn't intend for it to happen in the first place. First, occupying the same space as another warrior shouldn't prevent an invisible warrior from appearing; there's no basis for that.
So there's a couple ways to resolve this

Use the same thing that intangbility does and kill both characters.
Make both characters resolve a bump and make one/both of them resolve random movement
Don't allow this situation to happen in the first place and make bumps occur when any two non-intangible warriors attempt to move into the same space.

One problem I have with this solution is that it takes a very narrow look at "not an obstacle", and I don't see how reading "not an obstacle" as "people can move through the square occupied by the character" is wrong. Also, I think comparing this power to Intangible is warranted, as they have similar effects and as I believe the game to have been developed with power balance in mind, one should read the powers as having about the same functionality. Taking your interpretation removes a lot of functionality out of invisibility, making it only useful for a long-range sniping character. comments?

Well, if you allow other characters to occupy the same space as Invisible characters and move through Invisible characters, there's no reason not to allow the Invisible Character to willingly move through them. And if you allow them to take that action, then why can they occupy the same space as a character, but not a stationary obstacle? They're both 'obstacles'.

And do you allow the Invisible Character to be specifically targeted by single square attacks, or only by area effects? Because then we'd have a Character that can ignore all obstacles on the board and do any sort of attack they want and only be affected by area effects. Which makes Invisibility significantly more powerful than Intangibility, because there is no reason to not stay Invisible forever as there are no drawbacks.

your points are interesting. Regarding moving over real obstacles, the card has no mention of this, but as Intangibility specifically allows that, I guess it could be argued that you can't do that because it is not specifically allowed. Regarding attacks on the location of the invisible character - that is indeed the major question here: Obviously this is allowed and can hit the character when the attacker specifically tries to hit an invisible character - as it says so on the card. But if an attacker tries to hit a visible character that shares its location with the invisible one, what then?

The top right column on page four states 'In the rare case where two warriors occupy the same square, they do not block each other from ranged strikes.'

Thanks for the edit - that was very detailed and covered some stuff I didn't remember from the rules. Regarding becoming visible - if something like that ever happens (which I don't think it will - it was more of a theoretical discussion), then we will probably do option 2.
Thanks again, that was awesome.


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How can I reduce the planar die "whiff factor" with house rules?
I like to play Planechase sometimes. Mostly this variant, which gives players some additional choices when planswalking.
However, the most annoying part of Planechase is that the planar die has such a high "whiff factor" (incidence of null results). A particular thing I dislike is the handling time when a player has nothing else to do or desperately wants to planeswalk — rolling the die, tapping some mana, rolling the die again, &c.
Criteria for a house rule that meets my needs:

reduced incidence of totally null results
reduced handling time (compared to multiple rerolls)
whatever you change, the vast majority of the existing planes should still be playable as-is
it's okay to replace the planar die with some other game piece (including a custom die)

Isn't the purpose of rolling a dice to add in some chances of bad things?

Numbers 2 and 3 have me a little confused. 2 seems to imply that you want a smaller chance to roll nothing, but 3 seems to imply that you still want a 1/6 chance to planeswalk and 1/6 chance to roll chaos. So what, exactly, are you looking for?

@murgatroid99 Right now you roll nothing and it just cascades. Roll nothing. Spend mana. Roll nothing. Spend more mana. Roll nothing. This is a crappy cycle.

I understand the issue. What I'm saying is that criteria 2 and 3 seem to contradict each other, and I'm trying to understand what you want.

@murgatroid99 Minor consequences for rolling the die so it's not a do-nothing action, or figure out a way to condense "do nothing" rolls into a shorter procedure, or replace some of the randomness with a cost. That sort of thing.

You know, it is possible to roll planeswalk or chaos multiple times in a turn. That fact will make it very difficult to condense multiple rolls into a single action with the same probability distribution without removing players' choices about when to stop rolling.

It seems to me that by the time the OP defines exactly what he wants, he will have answered his own question.

@Rainbolt Consider that if the goals weren't at least a little bit in conflict, the solution would be trivial. I imagine quite a few good solutions can come from deep analysis of why a Planechase game bogs down in fruitless rolling.

@AlexP If your goals conflict, and you know that they conflict, then you know that you need to assign a priority to each. Why have you not done that yet? You could just rearrange your numbering in order of greatest to lowest priority.

@Rainbolt Simplified the requirements. You can interpret this list as priority-ordered. Go forth and hack!

This is inspired by the action-choosing mechanism from Speculation.
Start of game setup:

Get six objects that can represent planeswalk/chaos/nothing: colored marbles, Scrabble tiles, popsicle sticks with symbols drawn on them, etc.
Place the objects in an opaque bag.

When the player wants to "roll":

The player pays the cost for rolling and chooses an item from the bag without looking.
If a Nothing item is removed, set it aside on the table.
If a Planeswalk or Chaos item is removed, perform that action and return all the items to the bag.

This reduces the likelihood of whiffing over time.

Normal 4/6 chance on the first roll.
3/5 chance after the first whiff.
2/4 chance after the second whiff.
1/3 chance after the third whiff.
No chance of whiffing after four whiffs.

This seems to well satisfy criteria 1, 3, and 4. Admittedly, it's not much faster than regular rolling, if you discount the fact that on average you'll get a favorable result faster than if you had used a die.

Nice solution that leads to something happening. I might suggest you make a deck of 6 cards (in alternately-coloured sleeves), which will pack nicely with the plane cards/decks and trades the time of fiddling with a bag for shuffling.

I play with a large group of people (5+) when we play Planechase, and we have a runnning rule: after 2 null rolls, you flip a coin and call it for either planar or chaos. While it assures an eventual result for spending the mana, it also limits the ability to spend it freely to achieve a result by placing a 50% chance at the end, which can be devastating.
Example:
null roll 1 (Player 1) = nothing happens
null roll 2 (player 1) = nothing happens
Chaos roll (Player 1) = Chaos event happens
null roll 3 (Player 1) = coin flip for chaos or walk.

Welcome to B&CG SE! I very much appreciate having a playtested answer. :)

Here's one option: limit the number of chaos rolls and the number of planeswalk rolls to 1 per turn.
If you roll the planar die n times, the probability of rolling at least one planeswalk symbol is 1-(5/6)^n, and of course the probability is the same for chaos. So, my suggestion is this: determine the number of rolls (and tap for that much mana), then calculate that probability and round to the nearest 1/20. Then we can map those probabilities onto a D20.
For example, say I have enough mana to pay for 5 rolls. Then the probability of success is 0.598, so we round to 0.60. Then we can say that the "bottom" 12 numbers (1-12) correspond  to planeswalk and the "top" 12 numbers (9-20) correspond to chaos. 9-12, of course, correspond to both. In those cases, flip a coin to determine which happens first.
Note that this severely inflates the probability that something happens. In the previous example, if I actually rolled the planar die 5 times, there would be about a 0.13 chance of nothing happening. However, it also removes the possibility of either planeswalk or chaos happening more than once.
For reference, here are the success rolls on a D20 corresponding to various numbers of planar die rolls:

Just use a planar die
planeswalk: 1-6. chaos: 15-20
planeswalk: 1-8. chaos: 13-20
planeswalk: 1-10. chaos: 11-20
planeswalk: 1-12. chaos: 9-20
planeswalk: 1-13. chaos: 8-20
planeswalk: 1-14. chaos: 7-20
planeswalk: 1-15. chaos: 6-20
planeswalk: 1-16. chaos: 5-20
planeswalk: 1-17. chaos: 4-20
planeswalk: 1-17. chaos: 4-20
planeswalk: 1-18. chaos: 3-20
planeswalk: 1-18. chaos: 3-20
planeswalk: 1-18. chaos: 3-20
planeswalk: 1-19. chaos: 2-20
planeswalk: 1-19. chaos: 2-20
planeswalk: 1-19. chaos: 2-20
planeswalk: 1-19. chaos: 2-20
planeswalk: 1-19. chaos: 2-20
planeswalk: 1-19. chaos: 2-20

Above 20, the probability for each rounds to 100%, so just flip a coin to see which happens first.

This is a good start, but can you describe this as a simple rule rather than a mathematical relationship to use to build rules?

Would a table of rolls necessary for planeswalk and chaos cover what you're looking for?


text:
How many cards do I need to make a collected set "draftable?"
I have very fond memories of (Triple) Innistrad, which is an absolutely amazing draft format, probably without equal.
I'd like to be able to have a playset that I can pull out, years from now, and draft amongst my friends.
I want a complete set that also serves as a rough facsimile of drafting from packs, i.e. with a card distribution roughly similar to actual Limited rather than Cube — including both the rarity distribution and the chance to see multiples of various cards, which is vital to actually being able to play the set in Limited as intended. I don't mind taking some time to set up "packs" before drafting or sort cards afterward.
How many copies of each card would I need, by rarity, to supply one draft pod (of 6-8 players), with a card distribution roughly similar to a real draft?

possible duplicate of Statistics on a booster pack (to make my own re-packs)

@Rainbolt This seems a little different - knowing the potential composition of a single pack is a prerequisite for doing this, but you also have to figure out what kind of variance you need across multiple packs, which I don't think the other question addresses. It's possible that the OP on the other question meant to be asking about drafting, but it wasn't really explicit so the answers didn't address it.

This is by no means an answer to the question, but as far as 'without equal' goes, you should definitely spin up some Rise of the Eldrazi drafts sometime too. It's a close match for Innistrad in terms of diversity and ability to go deep. (Arguably Modern Masters was also, but that's a much harder format to practice with...)

@Rainbolt If you crack a half-box worth of cards to draft, not every card will show up every time, even at lower rarities. I'm asking for information about how to compare the composition of drawing packs from a fixed pool (where there might only be, say, 3 Spider Spawnings in existence at all) vs. an unlimited one. This is not at all addressed by the question of "What's in an Innistrad pack?" (which is trivial to research).

@Rainbolt ... Err, because I want to actually enjoy Innistrad Draft, not Duplicate Innistrad Draft? Part of the technical achievement of the set is that there are really cool combo-like archetypes that emerge sometimes but can't just be forced every round, and variance in the card pool is a big part of that.

@Rainbolt You fundamentally misunderstand the question. I have no idea how to explain this to you in any more detail.

@Rainbolt That's not at all the same thing. You'll have to know how many drafts you'll ever run, forever (or find yourself trying to buy more out-of-print cards in several years, have fun with the prices...). You'll know what's in each draft's card pool (I guess you could try to find someone to randomize and buy cards for you... someone who won't also want to draft the cards they're buying...?). The point is to own a draftable set, full stop. You can't just tell the OP, don't do what you want to do, do something else instead.

I had the exact same question, and wanted to quantify this. I've both done some simulation and some research, with the results below.
The TLDR: To very accurately be able to re-create the booster box experience, you need

6 copies of each common,
6(4) of each uncommon,
4(2) of each rare, and
2 of each mythic rare
numbers in () get you close but not quite there.

Scroll down to 'Making real boosters' to look up how to do so manually.
First off, mathematically, to have the exact same experience, assuming the following:
Assumptions:

Each common card is picked at complete random1 from a 'sheet' of C commons (typically C = 100 or 101)
Ditto for Uncommon, Rare, mythic, but there are typically resp. 80, 53, and 15 unique ones.
There are 10 commons, 3 uncommons, and 1 rare in each pack (note: I haven't dealt with the complications of the land slot; it varies a lot by set, so I'm ignoring it (lands go in with the normal cards instead)).
There is a 12.5% chance your rare is a mythic instead.
There are 8 players drafting (worst-case scenario).
You don't draft small sets (expansions) without including a main-set pack or two.

Math result
The mathematically correct result for an exact match to this procedure above will require you to have N copies of each card, where N is the amount of slots of that type. However unlikely, it's possible for the 101-sided die to come up as a '1' every single time it is rolled.
That means you need:

24 copies of each rare and mythic,
72 copies of each uncommon,
240 copies of each common

Of course, in the real world, that's nonsense: the chance that such a particular draft will happen is astronomically small. Instead, we want to settle for something that gets close enough.
How many we need for a close enough result?
I wrote a little program that I used to experiment with. It does a statistical test and reports how close to pure random the result is, by simluating a truly random draft, and checking how many copies of the most common common, most common uncommon, etc. the result had. If it requires more than the collection supply (which is fixed before the start of the test to say 6/4/2/1), then it will report a fail. It then averages out to calculate the failure and success chance.
The result of this number-crunching, for a modern standard set; is as follows, checked for all combinations of 4-10 of each common, 1-6 of each uncommon, 1-5 of each rare, and 1-4 of each mythic:
+----+---+---+---+---------+-------+
| C  | U | R | M | Success | Stdev |
+----+---+---+---+---------+-------+
|  4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.00%   | 0.00% |
|  5 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.00%   | 0.00% |
|  6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.00%   | 0.00% |
|  7 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.00%   | 0.00% |
|  8 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.00%   | 0.00% |
|  9 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.00%   | 0.00% |
| 10 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.00%   | 0.00% |
|  4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0.00%   | 0.00% |
|  4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0.00%   | 0.00% |
|  4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0.00%   | 0.00% |
|  4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0.00%   | 0.00% |
|  4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0.01%   | 0.00% |
|  4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0.02%   | 0.00% |
|  4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 0.02%   | 0.00% |
|  4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0.02%   | 0.00% |
|  4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0.03%   | 0.01% |
|  5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0.03%   | 0.01% |
|  4 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0.04%   | 0.01% |
|  4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0.04%   | 0.01% |
|  4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 0.04%   | 0.01% |
|  4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 0.04%   | 0.01% |
|  4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 0.04%   | 0.01% |
|  4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 0.04%   | 0.01% |
|  4 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0.04%   | 0.01% |
|  4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 0.05%   | 0.01% |
|  4 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 0.05%   | 0.01% |
|  4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0.05%   | 0.01% |
|  6 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0.14%   | 0.01% |
|  7 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0.23%   | 0.02% |
|  5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0.23%   | 0.02% |
|  9 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0.25%   | 0.02% |
| 10 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0.25%   | 0.02% |
|  8 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0.27%   | 0.02% |
|  5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0.27%   | 0.02% |
|  5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0.39%   | 0.02% |
|  5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0.64%   | 0.03% |
|  5 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 0.71%   | 0.03% |
|  6 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1.12%   | 0.03% |
|  6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1.17%   | 0.03% |
|  7 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1.75%   | 0.04% |
|  7 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1.89%   | 0.04% |
|  8 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1.96%   | 0.04% |
| 10 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1.99%   | 0.04% |
|  9 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2.02%   | 0.04% |
|  9 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2.22%   | 0.05% |
|  8 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2.23%   | 0.05% |
|  6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2.25%   | 0.05% |
| 10 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2.26%   | 0.05% |
|  5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3.43%   | 0.06% |
|  6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 3.76%   | 0.06% |
|  5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3.81%   | 0.06% |
|  7 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3.90%   | 0.06% |
|  6 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 4.08%   | 0.06% |
|  6 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 4.10%   | 0.06% |
|  5 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 4.13%   | 0.06% |
|  8 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 4.47%   | 0.07% |
|  5 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4.55%   | 0.07% |
|  5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 4.59%   | 0.07% |
| 10 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 4.68%   | 0.07% |
|  9 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 4.73%   | 0.07% |
|  5 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 5.59%   | 0.07% |
|  5 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 5.98%   | 0.08% |
|  5 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 6.06%   | 0.08% |
|  7 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 6.44%   | 0.08% |
|  5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 6.60%   | 0.08% |
|  5 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 6.65%   | 0.08% |
|  7 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 6.96%   | 0.08% |
|  5 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 6.97%   | 0.08% |
|  7 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 7.02%   | 0.08% |
|  5 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 7.35%   | 0.08% |
|  5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 7.40%   | 0.08% |
|  8 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 7.51%   | 0.08% |
|  5 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 7.54%   | 0.08% |
|  5 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 7.57%   | 0.08% |
|  5 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 7.68%   | 0.08% |
|  5 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 7.71%   | 0.08% |
|  5 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 7.72%   | 0.08% |
|  5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 7.75%   | 0.08% |
| 10 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 7.80%   | 0.08% |
|  9 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 7.87%   | 0.09% |
|  8 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 8.11%   | 0.09% |
|  5 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 8.25%   | 0.09% |
|  5 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 8.25%   | 0.09% |
|  5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 8.26%   | 0.09% |
|  8 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 8.27%   | 0.09% |
|  5 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 8.29%   | 0.09% |
|  9 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 8.35%   | 0.09% |
| 10 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 8.38%   | 0.09% |
|  5 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 8.42%   | 0.09% |
|  5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 8.45%   | 0.09% |
|  5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 8.46%   | 0.09% |
|  5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 8.49%   | 0.09% |
|  9 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 8.53%   | 0.09% |
| 10 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 8.56%   | 0.09% |
|  6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 18.77%  | 0.12% |
|  6 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 20.98%  | 0.13% |
|  6 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 23.35%  | 0.13% |
|  6 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 25.54%  | 0.14% |
|  6 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 25.83%  | 0.14% |
|  7 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 31.72%  | 0.15% |
|  6 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 31.73%  | 0.15% |
|  6 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 34.66%  | 0.15% |
|  6 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 34.67%  | 0.15% |
|  7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 35.18%  | 0.15% |
|  6 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 35.37%  | 0.15% |
|  8 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 36.56%  | 0.15% |
|  9 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 37.92%  | 0.15% |
|  6 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 38.11%  | 0.15% |
| 10 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 38.26%  | 0.15% |
|  6 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 38.36%  | 0.15% |
|  7 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 38.88%  | 0.15% |
|  6 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 39.02%  | 0.15% |
|  6 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 39.78%  | 0.15% |
|  8 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 40.70%  | 0.16% |
|  9 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 42.01%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 42.35%  | 0.16% |
| 10 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 42.68%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 42.80%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 42.80%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 42.88%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 43.21%  | 0.16% |
|  7 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 43.21%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 43.47%  | 0.16% |
|  7 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 43.48%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 43.69%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 43.72%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 43.80%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 44.09%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 44.10%  | 0.16% |
|  8 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 44.89%  | 0.16% |
|  9 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 46.37%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 46.64%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 46.90%  | 0.16% |
| 10 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 46.92%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 46.98%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 47.65%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 47.65%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 47.75%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 47.80%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 47.82%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 47.84%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 47.93%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 48.01%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 48.06%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 48.23%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 48.28%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 48.54%  | 0.16% |
|  6 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 48.54%  | 0.16% |
|  8 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 49.79%  | 0.16% |
|  8 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 49.86%  | 0.16% |
|  9 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 51.43%  | 0.16% |
|  9 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 51.50%  | 0.16% |
| 10 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 51.89%  | 0.16% |
| 10 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 52.43%  | 0.16% |
|  7 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 53.91%  | 0.16% |
|  7 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 58.19%  | 0.16% |
|  7 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 59.10%  | 0.16% |
|  7 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 60.05%  | 0.15% |
|  8 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 62.53%  | 0.15% |
|  9 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 64.56%  | 0.15% |
|  7 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 64.93%  | 0.15% |
| 10 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 65.14%  | 0.15% |
|  7 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 65.49%  | 0.15% |
|  7 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 66.38%  | 0.15% |
|  7 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 67.38%  | 0.15% |
|  8 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 67.53%  | 0.15% |
|  8 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 68.33%  | 0.15% |
|  8 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 69.08%  | 0.15% |
|  9 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 70.22%  | 0.14% |
| 10 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 70.50%  | 0.14% |
|  9 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 71.02%  | 0.14% |
| 10 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 71.42%  | 0.14% |
|  9 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 71.71%  | 0.14% |
|  7 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 71.99%  | 0.14% |
| 10 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 72.45%  | 0.14% |
|  7 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 72.66%  | 0.14% |
|  7 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 73.29%  | 0.14% |
|  7 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 73.43%  | 0.14% |
|  7 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 73.58%  | 0.14% |
|  7 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 73.72%  | 0.14% |
|  7 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 73.97%  | 0.14% |
|  7 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 74.05%  | 0.14% |
|  7 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 74.55%  | 0.14% |
|  8 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 74.93%  | 0.14% |
|  7 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 74.94%  | 0.14% |
|  7 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 74.95%  | 0.14% |
|  8 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 76.00%  | 0.14% |
|  8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 76.58%  | 0.13% |
|  9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 77.78%  | 0.13% |
|  8 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 78.16%  | 0.13% |
| 10 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 78.71%  | 0.13% |
|  9 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 78.72%  | 0.13% |
| 10 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 79.24%  | 0.13% |
|  7 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 79.46%  | 0.13% |
|  9 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 79.55%  | 0.13% |
| 10 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 80.10%  | 0.13% |
|  7 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 80.20%  | 0.13% |
|  7 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 80.49%  | 0.13% |
|  7 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 80.63%  | 0.13% |
|  7 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 80.98%  | 0.12% |
|  7 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 81.03%  | 0.12% |
|  9 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 81.07%  | 0.12% |
|  7 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 81.46%  | 0.12% |
|  7 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 81.47%  | 0.12% |
|  7 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 81.60%  | 0.12% |
|  7 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 81.66%  | 0.12% |
| 10 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 81.72%  | 0.12% |
|  7 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 81.73%  | 0.12% |
|  7 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 81.84%  | 0.12% |
|  7 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 82.30%  | 0.12% |
|  7 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 82.31%  | 0.12% |
|  7 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 82.33%  | 0.12% |
|  7 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 82.45%  | 0.12% |
|  8 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 83.06%  | 0.12% |
|  8 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 84.12%  | 0.12% |
|  8 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 84.61%  | 0.11% |
|  8 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 84.69%  | 0.11% |
|  8 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 84.92%  | 0.11% |
|  8 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 85.42%  | 0.11% |
|  8 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 85.55%  | 0.11% |
|  8 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 85.67%  | 0.11% |
|  9 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 86.31%  | 0.11% |
|  8 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 86.32%  | 0.11% |
|  8 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 86.68%  | 0.11% |
| 10 | 5 | 3 | 1 | 86.77%  | 0.11% |
|  8 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 86.82%  | 0.11% |
|  9 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 87.15%  | 0.11% |
| 10 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 87.71%  | 0.10% |
|  9 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 87.75%  | 0.10% |
|  9 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 87.85%  | 0.10% |
|  9 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 87.94%  | 0.10% |
| 10 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 88.43%  | 0.10% |
| 10 | 5 | 5 | 1 | 88.48%  | 0.10% |
|  9 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 88.55%  | 0.10% |
|  9 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 88.68%  | 0.10% |
|  9 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 88.70%  | 0.10% |
| 10 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 88.81%  | 0.10% |
| 10 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 89.10%  | 0.10% |
| 10 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 89.40%  | 0.10% |
|  9 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 89.47%  | 0.10% |
| 10 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 89.49%  | 0.10% |
|  9 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 90.02%  | 0.09% |
|  9 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 90.03%  | 0.09% |
| 10 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 90.36%  | 0.09% |
| 10 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 90.76%  | 0.09% |
| 10 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 90.80%  | 0.09% |
|  8 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 92.05%  | 0.09% |
|  8 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 92.64%  | 0.08% |
|  8 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 93.10%  | 0.08% |
|  8 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 93.63%  | 0.08% |
|  8 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 93.72%  | 0.08% |
|  8 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 93.76%  | 0.08% |
|  8 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 94.29%  | 0.07% |
|  8 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 94.30%  | 0.07% |
|  8 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 94.37%  | 0.07% |
|  8 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 94.44%  | 0.07% |
|  8 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 94.64%  | 0.07% |
|  8 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 94.69%  | 0.07% |
|  8 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 95.23%  | 0.07% |
|  8 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 95.29%  | 0.07% |
|  8 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 95.36%  | 0.07% |
|  8 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 95.40%  | 0.07% |
|  9 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 95.45%  | 0.07% |
|  9 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 95.95%  | 0.06% |
| 10 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 96.25%  | 0.06% |
|  9 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 96.53%  | 0.06% |
| 10 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 96.81%  | 0.06% |
|  9 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 97.02%  | 0.05% |
|  9 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 97.20%  | 0.05% |
|  9 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 97.21%  | 0.05% |
| 10 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 97.23%  | 0.05% |
|  9 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 97.62%  | 0.05% |
|  9 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 97.72%  | 0.05% |
|  9 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 97.79%  | 0.05% |
|  9 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 97.84%  | 0.05% |
| 10 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 97.89%  | 0.05% |
| 10 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 97.91%  | 0.05% |
| 10 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 98.09%  | 0.04% |
|  9 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 98.15%  | 0.04% |
|  9 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 98.20%  | 0.04% |
| 10 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 98.49%  | 0.04% |
| 10 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 98.55%  | 0.04% |
| 10 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 98.59%  | 0.04% |
| 10 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 98.62%  | 0.04% |
|  9 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 98.75%  | 0.04% |
|  9 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 98.77%  | 0.03% |
|  9 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 98.78%  | 0.03% |
|  9 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 98.87%  | 0.03% |
| 10 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 99.02%  | 0.03% |
| 10 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 99.09%  | 0.03% |
| 10 | 6 | 4 | 3 | 99.53%  | 0.02% |
| 10 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 99.53%  | 0.02% |
| 10 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 99.64%  | 0.02% |
| 10 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 99.67%  | 0.02% |
+----+---+---+---+---------+-------+

Currently, the program is rather slow. It does some heavy number-crunching to get a statistically significant result. I've lowered the number of experiments from 1M to 100K to produce the data above so each experiment takes roughly on the order of a minute.
Interpreting the results
A value of 100% successes would mean the cube is (near-enough2) perfect. Since our goal is to get 'close enough' to 'every draft passes' though that means you would accept numbers that are 'pretty close to' 100%.  Conversely, it would take you about 1 / (1 - successChance) drafts to be able to notice that the cube isn't like drafting a perfectly-random boosterbox.
Pick any number α. For example, I could pick α = 0.0228 corresponding to a Z=2 test. To be 97.72% certain that your cube will pass a Z = 2 one-sided test half the time would thus mean you want a result of [Chance - Stdev * 2 = 97.72%] or better. I would need to get
Let's say I already have 4 full collections of a set, and want to be able to re-create 90% of 8-person draft boxes (24 packs). Then I would need either 6 additional copies of each common (to get to 10/4/4/4), or 4 of each common, and 1 of each uncommon (to get 8/5/4/4) added to my collection.
Making real boosters
I found a very useful source, that goes into excruciating detail as to how sets are cut and made. It turns out that for most sets there are sheets of 110 or 121 cards (for modern sets where basic lands are cut together with commons: whatever the common card count is for a set, times 11/10 to correct for the 10 basic lands that are aligned in a column on one side of the sheet), and those go into boosters by the 10, with the orders of rows being a random order (due to properties of the cutting machine). That means you can actually predict what can appear in a pack.
Commons
It also means, for our purposes, that you actually don't need that many copies of a common. Since these three things are true:

an booster box contains 360 commons,
360 / 121 = 3 (rounded up),
110/121 does not divide 360

You actually require only 6 copies of each common.
Common cards are printed from usually one single master sheet.
To make exact boosters; look up the common 'sheets' for a set. Then, repeat the following process until you end up with 360 cards. Then return 12 packs back to the pool to end up with 240.

Pick a random sheet if there are multiple.
Pick a random spot on the sheet.
Take 10 cards, sequentially, from that spot and put them in a booster.
Continue to take 10 cards sequentially until you finish the sheet. You usually end up with less than 10 (for example, 7) left over. Start a pack with these.
Pick a new random sheet.
Take cards to finish the last pack from (4), so in the example, 3, from the start.
If you don't have 360 cards yet, Go to step 3.

Modern sets: Interleaving
Modern sets will sometimes interleave their common sheets, rather than drawing 10 at a time, you draw say 5 from sheet A, and 5 from sheet B.
For original Innistrad specifically, the sheets appear to be known there are four sheets. A, B, C1, and C2, with 66, 66, 55, and 55 unique cards on them.
For example,
For C1, take 4 from A, 0 from B, and 5 from C1.
For C2, take 2 from A, 3 from B, and 4 from C2.
Then, there's also a special 'double-faced cards' sheet, which functions like the Rares sheet (all the double faced cards are on one sheet due to high-volume printing limitations, but some have more copies than others on this sheet). Thus, each pack also contains one of the double faced cards from the 'D' sheet. Then add 3 uncommons and 1 rare as normal (see below on how those sheets work). Note: This might mean there's two rares or even two mythics in the same pack in this set!
There's a topic over here covering this set specifically, which actually has some details for some of the sheets.
Uncommons
Here, there are multiple sheets, except for the oldest sets (you know when your set has a single sheet; just check if the number of unique uncommons is the same as the number of unique commons). Since there are less than 110 uncommons, some will be duplicated. Typically there are on the order of 5-ish different sheets to balance out the number of each card in existence.
Since there are only 72 uncommons in a box, they are from at most 2 sheets. Since an uncommon appears up to 3 times, you would need 6 copies of each again. However, this happens only very rarely: most uncommon sheets will have either 1 or 2 copies of each card. Thus, 4 copies get you close enough.
To randomly assign the uncommons to packs: Follow the procedure for commons, but take 3 cards at a time to add to each booster, and stop at 108 cards.
Rares and Mythics
These can be done at the same time, now taking one card per booster. Note: There's a small chance that, by randomizing near the end of a sheet, that you end up with two copies of the same card.
Thus, 2 copies of each rare and mythic is enough.
To randomly assign the rares and mythics to packs: Follow the procedure for commons, but take 1 card at a time to add to each booster, and stop at 36 cards.
Creating your own sheets
Sheet layout is only known for some sets. But you can make your own! It's just a semi-random order of the cards.  The  Here's how you would do it:
Common sheet
To make a common sheet, just randomize all the commons in the set. If you feel like the draft is very popular and will be played a lot, go ahead and create three sheets instead, so you can mix and match up to 27 combinations.
Here's how to create a set of two sheets:

Take 1 copy of each common in a set.
Shuffle them.
Divide them into two piles of 60 and 40 cards, leaving one card. Do this face-up, and ensure each pile has equal cards of each colour (so 12 blue, 12 white, ... in the first pile, and 8 of each in the second.), by say bottoming cards that aren't of the right colour(s).
Add a copy of each of the cards in the 60 pile, creating a 120 card pile with 2 copies of each card.
Add one copy of the last card to the pile.
Add two copies of each of the cards in the 40 pile, creating a 120 card pile with 3 copies of each card.
Add one copy of the last card to this pile as well.
For both of the 121 card piles, do this:
Lay out the 121 cards in an 11x11 grid. When laying out cards, make sure each row gets two or three cards of each colour, and no two subsequent cards are the same colour.
Take a picture; you've got a card sheet.

Uncommon sheet
Add one copy of each uncommon card to a pile. In a standard set with 80 of them, fill the remaining 41 spots with randomly selected uncommons.
Up to 3 copies of each can appear on the same sheet.
If you only have 4 copies of each:

Start with 2 copies of each uncommon.
Split this into two piles with 1 copy of each uncommon.
Shuffle the first pile of 80 cards and draw 41.
Add these to the second pile.
Shuffle the second pile and lay out the cards in a 11x11 grid. When doing so, make sure that there are no two cards of the same colour next to eachother (for example: bottom cards that happen to match), and 1-2 cards per colour per row.
Take a picture, that's your card sheet.

Much like with commons, you can create a second sheet to balance out the numbers, this features every card that appears once in the first sheet twice and vice versa. One lucky uncommon will appear four times.
Rare sheet
Here, the process works like this, for 110 card sheets from a set with 53 rares and 15 mythics:

Start with 2 copies of each rare, and one copy of each mythic.
Split this into two piles with 1 copy of each rare.
Remove 11 cards from one pile, then combine together.
Shuffle the cards.
Lay out in a 11x10 grid, with no two subsequent cards being the same colour, and 1-2 cards per colour per row.
take a picture.

And here for the 121 sheet sets from a set with 53 rares and 15 mythics:

Start with 2 copies of each rare, and one copy of each mythic.
Shuffle them together.
Lay out in a 11x11 grid, with no two subsequent cards being the same colour, and 1-2 cards per colour per row.
Take a picture.

You can speed up the laying of the cards by doing the final shuffle per colour individually and then 'mana-weaving' the colours. That way you don't whiff draws, but the weaving process also takes time, so this is a personal preference.
I'm thinking of writing some code to automate this whole process.
Addendum
1: This is in actuality not entirely true. Players with a lot more experience with drafts have found that their 'set cubes' don't really manage to re-create the draft experience. Compared to real boosters, they found that the 'colour variety' in each booster is lower in their cube than in a real booster.
Random numbers are clumpy. This is counterintuitive. Thus the real boosters aren't really 'true random', because the colours are too well distributed. It should be more likely than it is to find a booster that has say six cards in it of the same colour. With True random, that chance is 4.3% 15 choose 6 * 0.8^9 * 0.2^6 = 0.043, or probably twice in a box. If you've opened booster boxes before, the chance of that happening in a box is far lower than 4.3%, so real boosters are not random!
In reality, the cards are cut at high speed from large sheets, then physically mixed together. This puts constraints on the randomness: the batch size of cards determines how close to true random the end-result is.
Thus, in order to actually, actually re-create the exact experience, what you would need to know is, for each set, on the factory floor, how big are the batches of commons, uncommons, rares, and mythics? How many sheets per batch/printing sheetsPerBatch = ???
This seems to be proprietary information. However, let's assume we know this number. Say it is sheetsPerBatch = 5 for common (so sheets are made in sets of 5). Then putting in 5 of each common creates the exact result you want.
2: It's impossible to simulate the results for very high numbers of copies of cards accurately because it would take an absolutely astronomical number of experiments, on the order of 1000 * 100^100, to disambiguate between having 99 or 100 commons.

It depends on how you want to build your packs. If you plan to build proper packs then the choices are different than if you just want to grab random cards. The best experience would be from the former so I will go off it.
The double faced cards were seeded from a sheet with a single mythic, two of each rare, six of each uncommon and eleven of each common. Although you could reduce the card count by half if you wanted without killing the chances too much (more Garruk and higher or lower common chance to taste). Pretty straightforward to reproduce for either 60 or 121 cards (mostly common).
Your normal rare and mythic slot would be best served by one of each mythic and two of each rare, but you can design a system to reproduce the 1/8 ratio (remember there are 4 rares per mythic) such as using half the mythic cards you have before shuffling the rares.
Going to common and uncommon you probably want to drastically cut the number of copies. I would think two of each uncommon would be enough, although you could do three if you wanted that possibility. Similarly with commons four to six would work depending on how many dupes you want to see.
For simplicity I would either pick 1:1:2:4 or 1:1:3:5 for each card type and handle the various slots separately. Although once you have built this out (or have a tool to test) you could try just building normal packs from either ratio and see what rarity density you see.
Finally if you wanted really good packs it may make sense to pre-seed each pack with a common of each color (or two cards of each color if not segregating by rarity). While that doesn't eliminate packs that suck for some people it does stop the "nothing in my color first pick" annoyance in cubes.

Yeah, seeing a reasonable number of dupes is important. A lot of draft strategies involved stuff like picking up lots of Geistflames.

@AlexP Remember that the more copies of cards you include, the more possible variance and the more realistic of the original draft format your cube will be. I am personally building a high variance Conspiracy cube that will start at 2:4:6:10, but I may bring up to 3:7:8:14 eventually. In addition, this allows for up to 16 people to draft the cube, aka, two pods, so I can run a tournament with it eventually.

@Waterseas Did you do any math to figure out those were the numbers you wanted for acceptable variance? If so, I'd love to see an explanation of your approach.

The commons and uncommons were just rough, proportionate estimates to have the same variance as the rare slot. However, the math I did do was for the rare slot; I went on the gatherer, figured out how many mythics and how many rares were in the set, then tried to put in enough rares and mythics to get as close to the 1:8 mythic to rare ratio as possible. At a 2:4 ratio (1:2) of rares to mythics, my rare to mythic ratio is about 1:7.1. If I ever up the cube size, with a 3:7 ratio, the rare to mythic ratio will be about 1:8.2.