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What is the current state of the art in hearts AI?
Occasionally I google around looking for the latest research into hearts AI, and I never find anything. As far as I can tell the best hearts AI out there is still far below the level of an expert human.
I'm wondering if anybody knows of any recent papers or results. I'm particularly curious if a Monte Carlo Tree Search based approach combined with deep learning and reinforcement learning has been attempted.
(Please let me know if there is a more appropriate Stack Exchange community for this question.)

Back in 1998, Windows Hearts creamed me. Also I was 11, that may have been a factor.

Update based on your comment: I gather that you are more interested in research than making a game. In that case I'll point you to a couple of papers that might be helpful. This paper talks about what makes Go a unique challenge, and the introduction has a quote (and some references) you might find useful:

Minimax search variants are particu-
  larly effective in Chess, Checkers, Othello and Backgammon, whereas Monte-Carlo simulation has proven most successful in Scrabble and Hearts.

Regarding hearts, the reference is to this paper which is unfortunately not free but maybe you have access through an employer or university.
I hope that helps. I still recommend the programmers.SE question I linked below; there's some good discussion there about Monte-Carlo methods as they relate to card games.

State of the art? Maybe Deep Mind. It's a general purpose AI that seems to excel at a great many games. Not sure if it's been applied to hearts, but I don't see why it couldn't be.
Realistically? Maybe Monte Carlo. You can read some discussion of it here: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/213870/best-techniques-for-an-ai-of-a-card-game
If you want to make a Hearts game, as opposed to an AI research topic, remember this: Games are supposed to be fun. An AI that could beat practically any human player wouldn't be fun for practically any human players. Fun AI is what Søren Johnson focused on for Civilization IV, and he has some good thoughts on it in this video. Furthermore, it's usually easier to develop an AI that's kinda smart that one that's really really smart.

I highly doubt Deep Mind's Atari player (which maybe you are referring to by "general purpose AI") will be of any use in playing a game like hearts. I'm sure their Alphago system could be adapted to play hearts, although there are some key differences: hearts is multiplayer and has imperfect information. Those differences seem significant enough to make for interesting academic research. Just wondering if anybody has attempted it.

In the past several years, there have been several efforts in applying the ideas of AlphaGo's architecture towards games involving multiple players and imperfect information. DeepMind created AlphaStar to play Starcraft, OpenAI created Five to play Dota, and the University of Alberta created DeepStack to play poker. It seems to me the same approach will work in Hearts. Hopefully some enterprising student will come along soon and create a superhuman Hearts agent for a Master's thesis.

@dshin I don't know whether you're following this anymore, but as an update, as of May 2021 I still don't believe there is any superhuman Hearts AI. I would be gratified to hear of successful developments though if you have found any


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What is the cost of Unmortgaging Park Lane / Park Place in Monopoly?
Properties of value x have mortgage value x/2 and unmortgage value 11x/20, for 27 of the properties this is an exact dollar value but Park Place is special.
Cost M$350, Mortgage M$175, unmortgage M$192.5. Half dollars don't exist and would never be useful EXCEPT in this case.
Is there an official ruling for the unmortgage cost of Park Lane? I've always played it as $193 but an argument came up when an opponent only had M$592 and wanted to put houses on Mayfair and Park Lane and unmortgage Park lane on the same turn, it made a difference of M$105 rent the next turn.

You round up. So the unmortgage cost of Park Place is $193.
The rules for the electronic banking version of monopoly have this specifically listed in the mortgage rules.
page 12:

Repaying a mortgage
  You must pay the original mortgage amount plus 10% interest (rounded up to the nearest 10,000). Once the mortgage is repaid, turn the Title Deed card faceup.

emphasis mine.
In this version you start with $15Million instead of the normal $1500, so the nearest $10,000 is equivalent to $1 in other versions.

source: Stack Exchange

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How thick are Dominion cards?
I want to design custom laser-cut boxes to hold my Dominion sets, and I need to calculate how big a box is needed for each expansion. I can easily get the card dimensions online for height and width (91mm x 59mm), but if I'm going to put 500 cards in a box, I need to know how thick the stack will be.
I can't seem to find dimensions on the thickness of a stack. Does anyone know?

I just did a measurement of my fairly well played dominion cards.
When allowed to float up, a stack of 50 cards is 23/32 of an inch tall. I tried different combinations to account for imperfections and came to this number multiple times in various trials.
When compressed with a gentle hand to maximum compression, they compress to 21/32 of an inch for 50 cards.
Thus if you were to have a box holding 500 cards I would expect them to be at absolute minimum 210/32 of an inch, or 6 9/16 inches. If we allow for comfortable float compression that would take us to 7 3/16 of an inch. Since you'll want at least some wiggle room, I would suggest making your 500 card box of dominion 7 inches long. Keeping in mind that 500 cards is 50 types, you may want to calculate extra room for things like placeholders, extra cards, separators, etc.

My intention was to make one box per base/expansion, and size the box to the expansion size, less the base cards. So the "Dominion" set would be sized for 292 cards (more likely 300), which would be the 500 total cards, less the 208 base cards (Copper/Silver/Gold/Estate/Duchy/Province). Take out the 32 randomizers, and the 7 blank cards and there should be enough wiggle-room, even with 25 separators.

@BuddhaBuck Don't forget that Potion, Colony, and Platinum are also basic cards even though you don't play with them in every game.  There are 16 Potions and 12 each of Colony and Platinum.  If you ever need to buy a replacement Base Cards set, it comes with these in addition to the other 7 basic card types.

As for the basic cards, if you count the Trash card and the above 3 sets, there are 249 of them: 30 Curse, 24 Estate, 12 Duchy, 12 Province, 12 Colony, 60 Copper, 40 Silver, 30 Gold, 12 Platinum, 16 Potion, 1 Trash.

The idea is to create a box per expansion (counting the base set as an "Expansion") and trays to store the basic cards. I already bought the replacement Base Cards set (so I have three sets of copper/silver/gold/estate/duchy/province/curse, and two sets of potions/colony/platinum) because I like the art better. I will build a bigger outer box to hold the per-set boxes.

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Do Aftermath cards count as two or one card for Enigma Drake?

Enigma Drake's power is equal to the number of instant and sorcery cards in your graveyard.

If one has Spring//Mind (or some other Aftermath card) in their graveyard, does that grant 1 or 2 power? Does it matter if both halves have the same or different types, e.g. two Instants vs an Instant + a Sorcery)?

It becomes a 1/4.
Spring // Mind is both a sorcery card and an instant card, but it's still only one card, and Enigma Drake counts cards.
You're actually asking about split cards —the fact that they also have Aftermath is irrelevant— and the following ruling is found attached to Enigma Drake:

A split card only counts once for Enigma Drake’s ability, even if it’s both an instant and a sorcery.


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Can one choose a card with Bestow when searching for an Aura?
Sovereigns of Lost Alara says "you may search your library for an Aura card that could enchant that creature".
Could it find a card with Bestow (that can be cast as an Aura), e.g. Ghostblade Eidolon?

No.
In your deck, cards with Bestow are just normal Enchantment Creatures because that's what is written on the type line.
The Bestow ability only functions in zones that the card cast be cast from (normally your hand). Bestow does nothing at all to a card in your library.

702.102. Bestow

702.102a Bestow represents a static ability that functions in any zone from which you could play the card it’s on.

Even if the Bestow ability did function, Bestow doesn't change your card into an aura unless it is put onto the stack stack by casting it using the Bestow cost.

702.102b As a spell cast bestowed is put onto the stack, it becomes an Aura enchantment and gains enchant creature. It is a bestowed Aura spell, and the permanent it becomes as it resolves will be a bestowed Aura.

I can see it now, some 1/2 for 3 with rules text "Cards with bestow may be found when searching your library for an Aura."

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How do I create a deck of cards that generates a dungeon of an average particular size?
I want to create a deck of cards where each card is a room in a dungeon. Each will have between 1-4 doors, one door per side of a card. This will create corners, T intersections, hallways, open rooms with a door on each side, and dead-ends.
How may I go about this (or what sort of math can I do) to show me how many cards of each number of exits to make (or how many of each type of intersection, preferably) so that a dungeon caps off after an average number of draws. Say I wanted a game to last 50 turns, I'd make a 50 card deck and want to know I'd draw at least 45 of them before there are no exits to connect on the board.
It wouldn't need to fit inside a grid, but limiting it's size to fit on a coffee table (instead of generating an overly horizontal or vertical bias) would be preferable. How would the math change if I were to fit it inside a grid, say 5X5 (max 25 cards), 5X9 (max 45 cards) or 10X10 (max 100 cards)? Assuming the edge of the grid would place a cap on an exit.
How do other games go about estimating this ratio?
I say cards, but the concept would be the same using square tiles or something similar.

I asked here because the description of the Stack said it was also for design, but would I fare better in one of the more Math oriented Stacks?

Not quite what you are going for, but Labyrinth is immediately what popped into my head when you started talking maze tiles.

Upon further research I found that there is a card game version of Labyrinth that might be worth looking into.

Have you looked at how this concept is implemented in Betrayel at the House on the Hill?

For the Grid, where are you starting: edge, corner, interior? Are you using a predefined entrance card, or a card from among the pile? Who is controlling placement of the cards: you or the players? This affects the ability to avoid a dead end trap.

The game would end once the Dungeon caps off all exits. There is a starting card, the dungeon entrance, usually with one entrance facing 'North'. This would likely be placed at the bottom-middle of the 'grid'. That detail is on the unimportant side, as I'm playing with the idea of it having 1-3 exits on this card (West, North, East). 1 room card is drawn each turn and placed by the player(s).

This is a tough problem because even if every card had only two entrance/exits, and constituted an L-shaped hallway, players could still create a snaky pattern that extends off the sides of the table.  I'm sort of at a loss as to how you could do this without external constraints... Possibly a rule that incentivizes reconnecting to the main body of the dungeon, or closing loops?  The idea there would be that dungeons with a lot of exits are less desirable.

There would be cards with only one exit, so given the proper ratio the dungeon would eventually close itself. Perhaps it'd just need a certain amount of those more than others, but that's why I'm asking.

Can any side of any card connect to any side of any other card in terms of passageways, or are there restrictions that passageways have to match somehow?

For the moment I'm just assuming any exit can join with any other. For the purposes of the problem, any restrictions would probably just be arbitrary (like adding stairs that can't connect to doors; the base problem remains the same.)

I think you're on the right track re: ratio of dead ends.  It's a very interesting problem!

I've been working on an Excel sheet, and I think I'm ready to post it now.  Here is the link, and you'll need to download it and enable macros.
Here's how to use it:

Enter the number of cards in the deck.
Enter the ratio of 3 exit to 4 exit cards.  In the example image a ratio of 2 means that there are 2 3 exit cards for each 4 exit card.  The 1 and 2 exit cards will be auto generated to complete the deck.  For each 3 exit card one 1 exit card will be added, and for each 4 exit card two 1 exit cards will be added.  Two exit cards are used to fill the rest of the deck.
Click the probability generation button (takes a little while to generate it all).

For each row (data in C2:F31) the Macro will generate 300 decks and randomly pull cards until all paths have closed (NOTE: I assume there is already a starting card on the table (not part of the cards in the deck) with 3 exits).  The average, min, and max turns will be saved and displayed next to the row of input card counts, as well as graphed.  I'll note the theoretical minimum number of turns is always 3, though I haven't had that generated yet.
There are several limitations to this approach.  There is no bounding (i.e. a single path could use most of the cards and be very long) and there is no consideration for a loop in a path (this could terminate extra openings without needing a dead end, an example is a 2x2 of 4 opening cards that lose half their openings to each other instead of dead ends).
Playing around with the excel file will hopefully help you determine a ratio of 3 to 4 exit room cards, as well as a total deck size.  It will provides several potential deck configurations, and details on 300 limited simulations of games played with them and how many turns the game lasts.

I really appreciate the work that went into this.

This game mechanic introduces the problem of trying to establish the expected result of a dynamic series of events that can't be readily repeated. For common terms through out, I'll be using the following to describe the game pieces.
Tile   Doors   Effect
A      1      -1
B      2       0
C      3       1
D      4       2

Additional variables are:

M = Totel Deck Size
  t = number of turns taken cards drawn
  a, b, c, d = Number of tiles drawn of that type
  A, B, C, D = Total Number of that Tile in the Deck

In the Worst Case, if you draw every other tile before you start drawing A's, you would need sufficient A tiles to close the open dungeon. For this:

A >= 3 + C + 2*D

This is because you are starting on the south edge of the map with 3 open doors (west, north, and east). For the tiles you draw, C adds 1 door, D adds two doors, and A subtracts 1 door. If this equation is true for your deck of tiles, than there will be no open doors left.
Not yet addressed is the total number of tiles, needed to provide for an game of t turns, but I'll get there. Crunching the permutations.

I doubt you can keep your dungeon to a small range of sizes if you are drawing randomly.  Even if you start with an entry card with three exits, the next three cards you draw might be dead end rooms and you have a very small dungeon.  A real difficulty is that placing a card only uses up one door and unless it is a dead end it adds at least one so the number of open doors wants to grow.
You could think about changing the mechanics.  Don't have any dead end cards at all, just ones with 2,3, or 4 doors.  Have an outer perimeter beyond which the dungeon cannot grow, but somewhat larger than the dungeon will be, maybe 8 by 12 or so.  That will keep it on a reasonable table.  Have a way to mark doors as not existing.  If a door hits the perimeter it doesn't exist.  As you place cards if a door touches the side of a card that doesn't have a door it doesn't exist.  After you have placed as many cards as you want your dungeon to have rooms, block any doors that don't connect to anything.

I'm more worried about an average or max size than a minimum. If it capped at 4 rooms, you could just start a new game. Removing dead ends and adding a grid could work, but this answer doesn't actually address the in-depth how that I'm looking for. What ratio of cards? Deck size? Grid size? Thank you the suggestions though, but I need the meat.

I would make the deck the size you want the dungeon to be-say 45 to 50 cards.  The more with only two doors you have, the fewer paths through the dungeon.  At the extreme, if you have only four door cards you can pass from any room to any neighboring room, which doesn't feel like a dungeon to me.  I would put in mostly two door cards, maybe 60% with 20% of each other.  Try that and if you get too many long paths increase the number of 3 and 4 doors.  Does my suggested 8 by 12 fit with the size card you are thinking of?

You can't have it totally random, but you can make it random with slight boundaries.
This all depends on the number of doors left in the maze/Labyrinth/dungeon. You start with X on the first tile and every tile afterwards adds (number of doors -2) to the number. So every tile with only one door removes an open door from the maze while a tile with two doors doesn't Change the number.
So the only Thing you have to make sure to Close your dungeon is add at least as much 1 door tiles as you add doors throughout the game. So for example if you start with a 4 door tile (4 open doors) and have another 4 door tile and 5 three door tiles in your pile, you have to include 9 one door tiles to Close up your maze at some Point during the game. If you add more one door tiles, the end lowers, because with even numbers the last one door tile could be drawn on the last Card and statistically speaking in our example it will probably happen in the last ninth of the game. If you add two more one door tiles without adding 3+ door tiles, the game will probably happen in the ninth eleventh of the game (say you have 55 tiles, it would probably happen between tile 41 and 45).
This is only statistics and the most likely, but in rare cases the fourth Card will Close up the dungeon or the third to last Card will Close up the dungeon.
This can be avoided by sorting out some Cards, dividing the deck into stacks of equal sizes and then adding back the sorted out Cards to the parts, shuffling them and then putting part A on part B and so on.
Another Problem would be doors that hit walls on other Cards and it's REALLY tricky to avoid that.
IF you want a really tight control over where the maze should go to, I'd advise starting on the left and only allowing up/down/right expansions, so you can never go back left. If you then make sure that three door tiles come before one door tiles, you can make exactly sure when the maze will Close up.


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Can I redraw my hand at the start of the game in Sentinels of the Multiverse?
I was playing as Expatriette in a Sentinels of the Multiverse game and my starting four cards were all ammo cards.  As each ammo card says it has to be played next to a gun card, I effectively couldn't do anything with my hand.
Do the official rules allow a hero to trash and redraw their starting hand?  If so, is there a penalty?  I searched the official rulebook and the Rook City expansion book and didn't see anything, but I don't know if one of the later expansions or official rulebook clarifications added a provision about it.

No, the rules do not allow for mulligans and the official site has no provisions in any expansion or clarifications that add this feature.
The official sites downloads page has copies of the official rules and the rules for each expansion. None mention a process for mulligans of your initial 4 card hands. The Changes section also only notes changes to the Villian, Heroes, and Environments cards and no changes to the turn structure.
From the rule book (page 4)

Game Setup
[...] After the heroes, villain, and environment have been chosen, each player draws the top four cards of their hero deck. The game begins with the villains turn, then proceeds clockwise around the table [...]

I guess the "draw two cards if you didn't play a card or use a power" is meant to help in situations like this then.

authors: تاهت خطاوينا


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Are permanent +1/+1 counters considered enchantments?
If a creature has one or more permanent +1/+1 counters are those counters considered "enchantments"?

@WesleyMurch See the discussion in the comments on Alex's answer - the summary is "old card rules text is confusing and you should look at the Oracle text."

No. They are not objects on the battlefield, and they don't have the enchantment card type.

An enchantment is a permanent with the card type "enchantment".

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.

A counter fails to match the definition of an enchantment for two reasons.

Counters aren't permanents. They aren't even objects.

110.1. A permanent is a card or token on the battlefield. [...]
121.1. A counter is a marker placed on an object or player that modifies its characteristics and/or interacts with a rule, ability, or effect. Counters are not objects and have no characteristics. Notably, a counter is not a token, and a token is not a counter. Counters with the same name or description are interchangeable.

Counters don't have the enchantment card type. They don't even have a card type. They aren't even objects.

300.1. The card types are artifact, creature, enchantment, instant, land, phenomenon, plane, planeswalker, scheme, sorcery, tribal, and vanguard.
109.3. An object’s characteristics are name, mana cost, color, color indicator, card type, subtype, supertype, expansion symbol, 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.
109.1. An object is an ability on the stack, a card, a copy of a card, a token, a spell, a permanent, or an emblem.
121.1. A counter is a marker placed on an object or player that modifies its characteristics and/or interacts with a rule, ability, or effect. Counters are not objects and have no characteristics. Notably, a counter is not a token, and a token is not a counter. Counters with the same name or description are interchangeable.

No. Unlike tokens, counters aren't permanents in their own right. They're just... counters.
Here's a relevant bit of the comp rules:

121.1. A counter is a marker placed on an object or player that modifies its characteristics and/or interacts with a rule, ability, or effect. Counters are not objects and have no characteristics. Notably, a counter is not a token, and a token is not a counter. Counters with the same name or description are interchangeable.

Or, looking at it from the other side, enchantments are things which say Enchantment explicitly on them!

Sorceress Queen (from Arabian Nights) reads "Tap to make another creature 0/2 until end of turn. Treat this exactly as if the numbers in the lower right of the target card were 0/2. All special characteristics and enchantments on the creature are unaffected". This seems to mean that a 2/3 creature with a +1/+1 counter would become 1/3. But what about Singing Tree (also AN) which reads "Tap to reduce attacking creature's power to 0". Then my 2/3 with +1/+1 becomes a 0/4, unless I'm missing something.

@Julian That's a different question which you might want to post separately. (This is a Q&A site, not a discussion forum). The answer is "layers!" - setting P/T happens before modifying it. Also, don't read the original rules text for old cards like that, read the Oracle text, found on gatherer. Here it is for Sorceress Queen.

@Julian (Or of course, you could edit this question to ask purely about Sorceress Queen and Singing Tree; an answer along the lines of my previous comment except more in depth would sort you out just fine.)

@Jefroni, That's wrong. "Enchantments" are permanents with the card type enchantment. Some thing with "Enchantment" explicitly written on them aren't enchantments (because they aren't on the battlefield or because their type has changed), and some things are enchantments even though "enchantment" isn't explicitly written on them (because they gained the type).

@ikegami please read my comment as a simple explanation. Yes, there are always complications, but the thing that tells you something is an enchantment is the word on the card. There's not some other secret object in the game which is always an enchantment without saying so.

@Jeromi, Your "simple explanation" gives the wrong answer more often than it gives the right one. I don't call that a "mere complication". Maybe it would be close enough if you had said "permanent" instead of "thing".


text:
Does this still happen in Haunt 16 even if the traitor dies?
The traitor's instructions for haunt #16, "The Phantom's Embrace", reads:

You Must Do This On Your Turn
  At the end of each of your turns, advance the Turn/Damage Track to the next number. Then roll a number of dice equal to that number. The house blows up if you roll the following number or higher: [...]

If the explorers kill the traitor, does the track continue to advance each round?
My playgroup was divided between two interpretations:

Dead players don't get a turn. The traitor is dead, so he/she no longer does anything 'at the end of each of your turns". The house is no longer in danger of blowing up.
Dead players do get a turn, but ordinarily can take no actions because a corpse can't move / use items / etc. But they can carry out special instructions like the one indicated in this haunt. And anyway, it makes more thematic sense that the bomb would continue to tick down even after the demise of the person that set it. The house is still in danger of blowing up.

Which is the correct interpretation?

The house is still in danger of blowing up. The FAQ clarifies that the traitor still gets turns:

A dead traitor can still move monsters, etc., during his turn.

If this weren't true, the heroes could usually pull off an easy win by killing the traitor and then taking their sweet time to scour the house for helpful items. This would be imbalanced, boring, and, as you mention, thematically inconsistent.


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How can the traitor win scenario 49 in this way?
[Spoilers ahead for scenario 49]
Six players are playing Betrayal and the haunting has begun. It is scenario 49, "You Wear It Well".
One way the traitor can win is when the "Astral Spirit inhabits the soulless body of a hero". This occurs when the spirit makes six successful sanity rolls on a hero and places that many Sanity Roll tokens next to his or her body.
The good guys begin a haunting by taking six knowledge tokens and six sanity tokens and setting them aside. A hero can acquire one of these tokens by making a successful attack of that type against the spirit.
The game only comes with six sanity tokens.
The spirit needs six tokens to win by possession, but as soon as the heroes make one successful sanity attack, there are fewer than six remaining in the "set aside" pool.
Which of the following, if any, is the correct interpretation?

Once a hero gets a single sanity token, the spirit cannot ever win via possession. If he wants to win this way, he must make the possession before the heroes land a single attack. (this seems unlikely because he would need to fend off five attacks per round for a minimum of six rounds, with a printed sanity stat of 1)
Once a hero gets a sanity token, the spirit can return it to the "set aside" pool by killing that player.
If the spirit needs to acquire a sanity token and there are none left in the "set aside" pool, then he can take one from any hero of his choice.
If the spirit needs to acquire a sanity token and there are none left in the "set aside" pool, then he can take one from the hero whose body he is attempting to possess, assuming they have one.
Your game box is defective and was supposed to come with 12 sanity tokens. Make six more out of scraps of paper or similar.
You should treat the sanity token pool as if it were infinite. If it runs out of actual tokens, make new ones with scraps of paper or similar.

There's no reason to believe that the tokens are supposed to interact. Neither book mentions being able to take tokens from the other team, or having tokens taken. I think component limits should just be worked around.

This Haunt is one of those that causes... issues and debate among the playerbase due to ambiguities in it, even after revisions (one printing of the haunt actually gave the astral spirit a Sanity of 1 instead of 6, which would prevent them from even possessing a body in the first place!). Liberal use of the rule on the inside front cover of the base rulebook is pretty much required here. The exact text of that is as follows:

What If There Isn't a Rule for That?
Many hours went into playtesting this game, but it's still possible you'll run into situations where the game rules or haunt books don't clearly answer a question about game play. Don't let that slow you down. In such cases, come to an agreement as a group for what makes the most sense and go with it. (If that doesn't work, flip a coin to decide.) Then continue your experience in the house.

There are a few potential house-rulings to fix the token shortage:

Given that the revised text is that the heroes must HAVE the tokens, not HAVE COLLECTED, the tokens they gained would be lost upon the destruction of the hero's soul or body and returned to the pool of tokens the heroes set aside. An immediate rebuttal is that the tokens are used to represent damage dealt to the Astral Spirit, and a second one is that in a 6-player game, you're still going to have the token limit problem even with this.
Given that the sole reason for marking the body the Astral Spirit is attempting to affect is to count the number of successes, there is no reason why an alternative marker (e.g. a standard d6) couldn't be used. Unlike the previous house-ruling, there is no obvious rebuttal to this, and this in particular completely bypasses the physical token limit. In addition, in a 6-player game, it is actually possible for the Traitor player to place down 20 Tokens without ending the game (which is more than the total number of attribute tokens the game comes with), and these tokens are never removed.

As for the six interpretations you provided:

erroneous sanity stat aside (Astral Spirit's stats are 3 Speed, 6 Knowledge, and 6 Sanity, go grab the revised traitor's guide), in a 5-player or 6-player game, this presents a problem as the heroes would only need to score two or one (respectively) Sanity attack successes against the Astral Spirit. Also, note that the Astral Spirit must have already destroyed the soul of the body it wants to affect before it can start affecting it, and if the Traitor (not the Astral Spirit) were to deliver the finishing blow, the body is destroyed instead of the soul [same effect from the Hero's perspective, but the Astral Spirit can't use the destroyed body].
See the first proposed house rule above.
This has the problem of basically cancelling the progress made by the heroes. A potential fix would be to swap out the hero's Sanity Roll token for a Knowledge Roll token if you were to do this, as this would preserve the hero's progress while also not allowing the physical token limit to stop the traitor from winning by the special victory condition.
This is even worse than the previous as if all 5 heroes were to have scored a Sanity Roll token, the traitor is still locked out of that win condition.
Not likely, given the traitor can place 20 tokens down in a 6-player game and the game only came with 18 attribute tokens total. If the Astral Spirit destroys 4 of the five souls and then affects each of their bodies 5 times each, the game still doesn't end.
See second proposed house rule above.

Of note is I think this is the only haunt in the game where the physical limit of tokens is a problem.

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text:
What are all the previous Oracle text revisions for Time Vault?
On Gatherer, I can see the original wording for Time Vault:

Tap to gain an additional turn after the current one. Time Vault doesn't untap normally during untap phase; to untap it, you must skip a turn. Time Vault begins tapped.

And I can see the most recent errata:

Time Vault enters the battlefield tapped.
Time Vault doesn't untap during your untap step.
If you would begin your turn while Time Vault is tapped, you may skip that turn instead. If you do, untap Time Vault.
Tap: Take an extra turn after this one.

Using Google, I was able to find a few more revisions:

Time Vault comes into play tapped.
Time Vault doesn't untap during your untap step.
Skip your next turn: Untap Time Vault and put a time counter on it.
T, Remove all time counters from Time Vault: Take an extra turn after this one. Play this ability if only there's a time counter on Time Vault.

Time Vault comes into play tapped.
Time Vault doesn't untap during your untap step.
At the beginning of your upkeep you may untap Time Vault. If you do, put a time counter on it and you skip your next turn.
T, Remove all time counters from Time Vault: Take an extra turn after this one. Play this ability only if there's a time counter on Time Vault.

Time Vault comes into play tapped.
If Time Vault would become untapped, instead choose one -- untap Time Vault and you skip your next turn; or Time Vault remains tapped.
T: Take an extra turn after this one.

... But are there any more versions? For the sake of historical curiosity, I'm interested in seeing every revision listed in one place.

According to MtG Goldfish the different erratas of Time Vault are as follows.
1993, the original printing:

Tap to gain an additional turn after the current one. Time Vault doesn't untap normally during untap phase; to untap it, you must skip a turn. Time Vault begins tapped.

1996, made some power level errata to make it go from broken to useless:

Does not untap as normal. If Time Vault is tapped and does not have a time counter, you may skip your turn to untap Time Vault and put a time counter on it. {tap}: Remove the time counter from Time Vault to take an additional turn immediately before the next normal turn.

1998 & 2004, edited the template to match current rules. (this is the 2004 text):

Time Vault comes into play tapped.
Time Vault doesn't untap during your untap step.
Skip your next turn: Untap time vault and put a time counter on it.
{T}, Remove all time counters from Time Vault: Take an extra turn after this one. Play this ability if only there's a time counter on Time Vault.

March 2006, to stop an unintended combo with Flame Fusillade abusing unlimited untaps:

Time Vault comes into play tapped.
Time Vault doesn't untap during your untap step.
At the beginning of your upkeep you may untap Time Vault. If you do put a time counter on it and you skip your next turn.
{T} Remove all time counters from Time Vault: Take an extra turn after this one. Play this ability only if there's a time counter on Time Vault.

July 2006, as far as I can tell there isn't a reason for this eratta (other than bad Mizzium Transreliquat combos):

Time Vault comes into play tapped.
If Time Vault would become untapped, instead choose one -- untap Time Vault and you skip your next turn or Time Vault remains tapped.
{T}: Take an extra turn after this one.

2008, Wizards finally decides to remove all power level errata and returns Time Vault to its original functionality just with an updated template:

Time Vault enters the Battlefield tapped.
Time Vault doesn't untap during your untap step.
If you would begin your turn while Time Vault is tapped, you may skip that turn instead. If you do, untap Time Vault.
{T}: Take an extra turn after this one.

That article is a nice find, +1. I just wish the author could have found the 1998 text! I know he says that it was a small change "to keep it up to date with the latest templating", so there probably wasn't a functional difference, but I'm still curious as to what it was.


text:
Scenario 20 - when is the end of my turn?
The haunt is #20, Ghost Bride. I am playing as Vivian Lopez, and I am the traitor.
It is my turn. As Vivian, I do nothing particularly important. As the Ghost Bride, I attack the chosen groom, killing him.
The rules say that, after the groom has been killed,

At the end of each of your turns, advance the Turn/Damage Track to the next number, beginning with 1. The wedding will be complete on Turn 3.

What counts as "each of my turns"? I can think of three possible interpretations:

The end of my turn occurs after I have completed taking actions as the monster, and the player to my left starts taking actions.
The end of my turn occurs after I complete taking actions as Vivian, and start taking actions as the monster.
Both of the above. This means I get two "end of turns" per round.

Each of these interpretations affects when I advance the turn track:

After the Ghost Bride kills the groom, I immediately advance the turn track to 1. In subsequent rounds, I advance the track by one at the end of the Ghost Bride's turn.
After the Ghost Bride kills the groom, the track remains at zero. Nearly a full round later, at the end of my turn as Vivian, I advance the turn track to 1. In subsequent rounds, I advance the track by one at the end of Vivian's turn.
After the Ghost Bride kills the groom, I immediately advance the turn track to 1. In the next round, at the end of my turn as Vivian, I advance the turn track to 2. Then at the end of my turn as the Ghost Bride, I advance the turn track to 3, winning the game.

What is the correct interpretation?
In the rules under "The Traitor's New Powers", it says "After you finish your turn, you move and attack with all of the monsters, if any". This suggests to me that "my turn" ends before the monster moves, ruling out interpretation #1.
Under "Haunt turn order", it says "One player gets two turns: one for the traitor and one for the monsters". This seems to support #3 as the correct interpretation, but it seems unbalanced that the explorers only get one round to defeat me after I kill the groom. Furthermore, if that was the intent, the scenario could simply say "you win the game at the beginning of the traitor's next turn". You wouldn't need a turn track to track that.
During the actual game, I chose #2 since it gave the explorers the fairest chance at winning (IMO). But I'm interested in a ruling that has more evidence than "this seems like the most fun way".

We would need more information such as the instructions given for controlling the monster.

If you're interested in the specific rules for the haunt, https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1192404/2nd-edition-rules-pdf links to http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules/BHH_TraitorRev_120105.pdf. Unfortunately, the comments suggest that these are not the most up-to-date revisions, so caveat emptor.

You should provide that information as part of the questions using spoiler tags so that people don't have to go to an offsite resource in order to help you. Ideally you could check against your copy to ensure that it is up to date.

I couldn't find an online resource that was both 1) guaranteed up-to-date and 2) not hosted on a suspicious third-party site, so I erred on the side of not posting any links until I was prompted. I'll be happy to cross-check against my physical copy, the next time I have access to it... Six days from now :-)

Ah, the joys of trying to thrash reasonable and consistent rules out of Betrayal at House on the Hill.  Let me give it a shot.
The answer is probably either 2 or 3.  I'd lean towards 2.
The basic rulebook has this to say about turns during the Haunt:

Haunt Turn Order
  The first turn always starts with the player to the traitor’s
  left and goes clockwise (further away from the traitor). Each
  of the heroes gets a hero turn. After each hero has had a
  turn, the traitor gets his or her traitor turn. After the traitor’s
  turn, any monsters controlled by the traitor get a monster
  turn. (One player gets two turns: one for the traitor and one
  for the monsters.)

(I've found two versions of the rulebook so far.  The wording differed slightly between the two, but not materially in this section)
This clarifies two things: The traitor's turn and the monster's turn are considered separate turns, and both of those turns are considered to belong to the traitor player.
So, the big question then becomes, did the Traitor's Tome mean "you" the traitor, or "you" the player?  The rules are (of course) rather vague, but I'm pretty sure they mean "you" the traitor.
For evidence, I turn to Haunt 30, Tomb of Dracula

 In Tomb of Dracula the traitor controls monsters (vampires), and uses the turn tracker.  Specifically, the turn tracker related rules are thus:

[Setup]
 Set up the Turn/Damage track with a plastic clip at 0.  You'll use it to keep track of time

You Must Do This...
 ... at the start of your turn.  Advance the Turn/Damage track to the next number, beginning with 1.

Vampires
 Dracula needs time to awaken.  He doesn't move or attack normally until Turn 2 (he can still defend against attacks.)

 Now, if the Turn marker is advanced at the beginning of both the Traitor and Monster turns, then Turn 2 is reached on the first Monster turn, which means that Dracula wouldn't actually have any downtime.  Clearly, this is not what is intended, so clearly "At the start of your turn" means "At the start of the traitor's turn" for this Haunt.

Given that "At the start of your turn" almost certainly means "At the start of the traitor's turn" for Haunt 30, I think that it's reasonable that "At the end of each of your turns" means "At the end of each of the traitor's turns" for Haunt 20.
On a more philosophical level, having the turn tracker advance once per round is more logical to me than having it advance once for the traitor and once for the monsters.  Since my philosophical intuition, and my rules-based inferences match up, I'm going to go with that.

On the other hand, the heroes can kill the traitor but leave the monster in play, so suddenly the traitor can't ever win this game even though they've completed what is probably the most difficult part of their mission in this scenario. That makes far less sense.

@Nij That's a fair point

@Nij I suspect whomever wrote the rulebook considered the monsters movement to be the second half of the traitor's turn, so my advice would be to treat it as such.

I would think that it can’t be option 3 as that would give the players 2 turns to win worst case and 3 turns to win best case. What would make most sense to me is that it would be at the end of both turns (or the end of the turn if either the monster or traitor is dead) based on the turn order from that.

If the traitor is dead, you still advance the counter during the stub of the traitor's turn (this is the only thing that happens, as the character is dead).

The first turn always starts with the player to the traitor's left and goes clockwise (next to the left away from the traitor). Each of the heroes tales a hero turn. After each hero has taken a turn, the traitor takes his or her traitor turn. After the traitor's turn, any monsters controlled by the traitoe get a monster turn. (This means that the traitor gets two turns: one for his or her own actions and one for the monsters.)

I can understand how this could be read as either 2 or 3, however while the traitor controls the monsters, and the monster's turn, I would say they arent the monster, and only their traitor turn would count for the turn tracker.

Sorry for the late post, but to me, the question is answered in the haunt as written.
"At the end of each of your turns" - Note the 's' at the end of turns.  To me, this means after both the traitor and monster.  If either is vanquished, the other continues and it is at the end of that turn, so once per round, but after the activity for both is completed for that round - at least that is how I read it.

Every player has multiple turns, one per go around the table. This doesn't suggest the traitor and monater turns are both counted.


text:
Fluxx "Once during your turn" New Rule cards
If I play a "New Rule" that allows an action "once during your turn" (Recycling, Goal Mill, etc.) - do I get to take those action immediately, or is my turn now over because I've completed my "played one".
I understand that new rules go into effect immediately, what I'm not clear on is exactly when my turn is over for the "once during your turn" clause.

New Rules take effect immediately. Your turn is over after you have completed all the required rules and you have chosen not to perform any optional actions.
The Online FAQ and the rules both tell you that new rules take effect immediately (I didn't quote the rules pdf, but look under New Rule:, and also gives blue example boxes)

Q: Suppose the rule is Play 2 and for my second play I change the rules to Play 3. Do I play one more card or am I done because I played 2?
A: All rules take effect immediately, so you would need to play 1 more card because the rules at that point had become Play 3.

The turn order is described in the rules

On Your Turn:
1) Draw the number of cards currently required.
2) Play the number of cards currently required.
3) Discard down to the current Hand Limit (if any).
4) Comply with the current Keeper limit (if any).
Optional actions allowed by New Rules, Keepers, etc may be performed at any point during this sequence.

So for example, Recycling is an optional rule that says,

Once per turn, you may discard a Keeper you have on the table and Draw 3 extra cards.

You can choose to use its ability anytime during your turn sequence.

If there are no are no further cards to be played, and no cards or keepers to discard (steps 2&3&4 on the turn sequence), since the new rule played as the last play on step 2  does not have a required action - wouldn't that mean the turn is now over?  If so, one would not be able to opt to use the optional action on that rule until their next turn.

@Justin, No. There is a step 2,3,4 regardless if you are required to do anything or not. The way I understand "during" is that there a minimum of 3 points where you could choose to use an optional rule. Between steps 1-2, between 2-3, and between 3-4. Another possibilty is tbat the end-points are inclusive and you can use an optional rule before step 1, or after step 4, but that is uncertain in my reading of the rules.

I would say your turn is over. Once you've played that rule, you've played the one action card you are allowed per turn, and you're done.

If you play the rule as your turn of one play then you can follow the rule as long as it says that it is a free action then you can complete the new rule and then you have ended your turn.

authors: محمد القريات


text:
Countering the enchanting of a creature
I'm on my main phase.
I cast a 1/1 creature, and want to enchant it in the same phase.
My opponent has an enchantment with the ability to pay one mana to give 1 damage to creature or player.
I cast the creature - no counterspell.
I then want to cast a +3/+3 enchantment on that creature.
Can my opponent "counter" that enchantment by using said ability to give my creature 1 damage in response to me casting the enchantment. I think he can, but I'm not sure.

Yes, your opponent can deal 1 damage to the 1/1, destroying it before the Aura resolves. This will counter the Aura on resolution, since it doesn't have a legal target to enchant.
Auras are an enchantment sub-type. When cast, they require a legal target of the type of permanent (or sometimes player) that they will enchant.

303.4a An Aura spell requires a target, which is restricted by its enchant ability.
114.1b Aura spells are always targeted. These are the only permanent spells with targets. An Aura's target is specified by its enchant keyword ability (see rule 702.5, "Enchant"). The target(s) are chosen as the spell is cast; see rule 601.2c. An Aura permanent doesn't target anything; only the spell is targeted. (An activated or triggered ability of an Aura permanent can also be targeted.)

Since Auras are targeted spells, if the creature they were targeting is destroyed, then all of the spells targets are illegal and the Aura spell is countered on resolution and is placed in its owner's graveyard.

608.2b If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal. A target that's no longer in the zone it was in when it was targeted is illegal. [...] The spell or ability is countered if all its targets, for every instance of the word "target," are now illegal.
608.3a If the object that's resolving is an Aura spell, its resolution involves two steps. First, it checks whether the target specified by its enchant ability is still legal, as described in rule 608.2b. (See rule 702.5, "Enchant.") If so, the spell card becomes a permanent and is put onto the battlefield under the control of the spell's controller attached to the object it was targeting.

Note that some of this language (probably 608.3a) may change with bestow. If your aura is a bestow aura, with the new rules, you will still get your creature. Under the current rules, that aura would be countered and never enter the battlefield. The answer, of course, remains the same if you're not using a bestow aura.

@corsiKa Actually, the way it's looking is that under the new bestow rules you will not get the creature; the spell is still countered by game rules for lack of a target, since it was initially cast with a target and won't 'change' in mid-casting.

@Steven I asked mark rosewater on his tumblr and he said you get the creature. That is why I said this will probably change under the new rules.

@corsiKa, I doubt that, Bestow is likely to have CR clarification that overrides normal Aura rules, "If the target creature leaves the battlefield after you cast a card with bestow as an Aura but before the spell resolves, the Aura spell will resolve as an enchantment creature rather than being countered like a normal Aura spell. If the target creature is still on the battlefield when the Aura spell resolves, it resolves as an Aura enchanting that creature.

@user1873 I'd put a friendly wager that 608.3a (or whatever that line becomes if the numbers shift around) gets a rework for bestow. That's not to say it won't also be under the bestow definition, but I think it will be there as well.

@corsiKa, I would wager also, but it looks like we agree. Auras will still be countered on resolution like normal, but bestow will be mentioned in 608.3 (something) that it isn't countered on resolution. I misread what you were claiming was going to change.

@user1873 I'm very interested to see the language that they decide to use. This is certainly an exception to what some might call a sacred rule of spell resolution, and may indicate a shift in direction in templating (could we perhaps see a Rancor that goes back to your hand if its target fizzles?)

@corsiKa, I doubt it. They would fundamentally have to Change how Auras work, or get rid of countering spells with no legal targets.


text:
What is the point of Jacob's Ladder?
I have the artifact Jacob's Ladder (from the Patriarchs expansion). For the life of me I can't figure out its use or why I'd want to include it in a deck.
The text on the card reads:

"Holder may choose which Lost Soul is to be rescued during Holder's
  rescue attempt. Holder must have access and may only rescue that Lost
  Soul."

First, this text makes it appear that this only affects the holder (ie, owner) of the card. This ability looks like it restricts which Lost Soul you can attempt to rescue. If anything, this is a restriction placed on you the player and not on your opponent. I'm not sure why I'd want to do this.
Second, that style of restriction (ie, player's choice) is always used for Type II deck tournaments (as opposed to Type I deck tournaments, where that restriction apparently doesn't exist).
So...can anyone explain to me the point of this card? If I'm building a Type II deck, I already have to play by those rules (good idea to follow tournament rules). And if I'm building a Type I deck, why would I want to place a restriction on myself?  Is there something I'm not understanding? Is there a ruling on this card by which it is played differently? Does anyone out there use this card?

Seems like the "Holder may choose, just be the key.  As if there were multiple Lost Souls, and you get to choose one, and only one to rescue.  Perhaps this is for situations where there are multiple lost souls and you cannot choose which Lost Soul to rescue?

From the Redemption rulebook:  In the detailed Hero Wins section:  " your opponent
must select and surrender to you one available Lost Soul from his Land of Bondage. "
(Redemption Rules)
Since it's always your opponents choice, this card is valuable in situations where the Lost Soul you rescue matters.   It allows the Hero to choose instead of the Evil opponent.

I thought you always had to state which Lost Soul you were engaging in battle for. Reason being someone could pull a Son of God on you and rescue it and now you cannot rescue the Soul you declared and may have to fight for nothing.

The rules didn't seems to suggest that you had to declare who you were righting for, and it seemed pretty clear that the opponent chooses from the pool of available lost souls to give to you.  Perhaps that was an update in the rules?  It seemed like the original redemption box only came with lost souls that have no effects on them so it didn't matter very much which one you got.  Perhaps I'm wrong.  I've never played the game,  I've only read the rules.

authors: เล่าจื๊อ จางซุ่ยอู่จี


text:
Flames of War with 1/72 miniatures
I'm not a fan of 1/100 scale (and FoW infantry in 1/100 looks ugly).
Can I use 1/72 scale miniatures (infantry miniatures from Zvezda's "Art of Tactic", armor and SPGs from Italeri, etc.) with small changes in rules (for example, +25% to all ranges)?
Will the game remains playable?

15mm isn't actually 1/100 scale.  It's closer to 1/107.  You would actually need to increase all ranges and movement by about 49% for the scaling to work out. You would also need to increase your play area from the standard 6' x 4' to about 9' x 7.5'.  Otherwise your units would cross the board too quickly and mess with the scenario balance.
Base sizes become:

Small 1.86" x 1.49"
Medium 2.98" X 1.86"
Large 3.72" X 2.98"

With that, everything should be proportional and work out to be the same mechanically.  If you have a bad back, that table size could be problematic.
I think you may run into cost issues collecting armies at that scale.  Plus you'll lose the ability for quick pickup games and tournament play.  There are a few new producers of 15mm miniatures such as Plastic Solider Company that have moved to digital sculpting and injection plastic.  The detail on these models is much crisper than the hand sculpted models you are used to.  You may want to check those out before committing to using 1/72 scale.
If you want to stay at the larger scale, I suggest looking to a game like Bolt Action witch is designed for larger models(in this case 25mm).


text:
In Lords of Waterdeep, how is Accelerated Plans played?
In Lords of Waterdeep the intrigue card Accelerate Plans says:

Choose one of your agents assigned to Waterdeep Harbor. Return it to your pool, then immediately assign two agents.

Our resident "expert" says that this requires you to have one agent already in Waterdeep harbor before you can place an agent and play this card. Is this correct?

No, that is incorrect. On your turn, you first place an agent in Waterdeep Harbor, and then, as a result of doing so, you get to play an Intrigue card. So by the time you play that card, you automatically have at least 1 agent in the Harbor (the one you just played).
Now it is possible to play an Intrigue card in other ways, such as a reward for completing a quest. In this case, it's possible that you wouldn't have an agent in the Harbor.
See discussion on this same question here: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/781681/question-about-accelerate-plans-intrigue-card

I'd say "necessarily" is a more appropriate adverb than "automatically". But who cares =)


text:
Does new target need to be chosen after the original has become invalid?
Hypothetical situation:
Player A has one creature and player B has also one creature. Now the player A casts a black spell to destroy the creature  and targeting player's B creature. If creature B gets protections from black does the player A need to target the only possible target left in the game and that is his creature? What if the creature B would be returned to hand instead? Is it the same?

I am no Magic expert, but I think the answer is no.
The target is chosen and needs to be valid when the card is played. Then the stack system kicks in, so the state of the game can change. When the card is resolved, you check whether the target is still valid. If it is, the effect happens, if it isn’t, the effect does not happen. In fact, you are not allowed to choose a new target then, even if you want to.
From the basic rulebook, page 10:

Target
When you see the word “target” on a spell or ability, you have to choose one or more things for the spell or ability to affect. You’ll be able to choose only certain kinds of things, such as “target enchantment” or “target creature or player.”
You choose the targets for a
  spell when you cast it, and you choose targets for an activated ability when you activate it. If you can’t meet the targeting requirements, you can’t cast the spell or activate the activated ability. Once you choose targets, you can’t change your mind later.
When the spell or ability resolves, it checks the targets to make sure they’re still legal (they’re still there, and they match the requirements stated by the spell or ability). If a target isn’t legal, the spell or ability can’t affect it. If none of the targets are legal, the spell or ability is countered and does nothing at all.

No, you don't get to choose new targets, and the spell will likely be countered.
You choose targets as part of casting a spell or activating an ability, before it's actually put on the stack. (The full list of steps for casting spells and activating abilities is rule 601; the short summary in most cases is that you announce the spell, pick targets, pay the cost, and place it on the stack.) Once targets are chosen, they stay chosen, unless you have a spell like Redirect that explicitly changes them.
When a spell or ability tries to resolve, if all its targets are no longer legal, the spell is countered. Simple as that, no new targets. The targets could become illegal if they've changed zones (like a creature going to the graveyard or being exiled), if they were granted protection from the spell's color, if they gained hexproof, or perhaps no longer meet some restriction the spell has for its targets.
However, if the spell has multiple targets and at least one is still legal, the spell still resolves, doing as much as it can. For example, if it said "destroy two target creatures" and one is still a legal target, that one would be destroyed.
Here's the relevant rule, with added emphasis:

608.2b If the spell or ability specifies targets, it checks whether the targets are still legal. A target that's no longer in the zone it was in when it was targeted is illegal. Other changes to the game state may cause a target to no longer be legal; for example, its characteristics may have changed or an effect may have changed the text of the spell. If the source of an ability has left the zone it was in, its last known information is used during this process. The spell or ability is countered if all its targets, for every instance of the word "target," are now illegal. If the spell or ability is not countered, it will resolve normally. However, if any of its targets are illegal, the part of the spell or ability's effect for which it is an illegal target can't perform any actions on that target, make another object or player perform any actions on that target, or make that target perform any actions. The effect may still determine information about illegal targets, though, and other parts of the effect for which those targets are not illegal may still affect them.

For example, if Feast of Blood targets a creature that gains protection from black, Feast of Blood will be countered as it would resolve for having only illegal targets. You will not gain any life.
On the other hand, if just one of the creatures targeted by Hex gains protection from black, the other five will still be destroyed.


text:
Correct use of Bonus cards in Terra Mystica
Does a player take a Bonus card as soon as they have passed their turn?
Page 7 of the rule book states "Three out of the nine Bonus cards award Victory points when you have completed all the actions you wish to take in the current Action phase (called passing)"
Does a player keep hold of every bonus card until they have completed their turn and passed? Does this mean that a player who passes may not have access to some Bonus cards because other players with turns remaining may still be holding them?

Note that any time a play passes, and is choosing a new bonus card, they will always have 3 to pick from, as the rest will be in the hands of other players.

One action you can take in Terra Mystica is ending your participation for the round.
To do this, you first select a new bonus card out of the ones remaining (taking any bonus gold that exists on that bonus card).
Then you apply End-of-Turn bonuses from your existing bonus card (as you mention - there are three bonus cards that may award victory points based on how many dwellings, etc. you own).
Now the round is officially over for you, and others may now select the bonus card you just put back.
--
In other words - yes; a player takes a bonus card as soon as they end their participation in the round (and some won't be available, as other players will still have theirs).


text:
Setting up Eclipse
When I set up Eclipse do players have access to all the ship part tiles throughout the game? And is it acceptable for me to layout a couple of each tile on the Supply Board and top them up as players take them?

The supply board contains two panels for Ship Parts; those five in the left-most panel are available to everyone at all times.  The other twelve in the right panel — distinguished by the Technology icon printed on the upper right corner of the tile — are only available to users who have researched the corresponding technology.
Unlike most other pieces, Ship Parts cannot be exhausted and as such are always available.  Even if the physical tiles themselves are somehow depleted, replacements may be used as needed.  Since the actual quantity of tiles is irrelevant, there's no reason they can't just be drawn/topped-off as they're acquired rather than all placed on the Supply Board during setup.


text:
Initiating combat in Eclipse
According to the rulebook combat will take place if ships that belong to two or more players finish in the same hex.
Does combat always have to take place? Is there no rule that allows ships to pass each other without fighting? What if you are in a diplomatic relationship with another player?

Combat will always take place. If you are in a diplomatic relationship with another player, that relationship is broken the moment one player enters a hex occupied by the other player. This is covered on p11 of the rules:

Your Diplomatic relations  stay in
  effect until the end of the game, unless you attack  one of the
  players you have Diplomatic relations with, or  they attack you.
  Moving your Ships to a hex where the other player has a disc or a Ship
  is also considered an attack. Both players then return the Ambassador
  Tiles and cubes  to the owner. The cube goes back to a Population
  Track,  chosen freely by the owner

There is no possible way to pass through a player's hex without any combat, because of pinning. p14 says:

If your Ships move into a hex, or out from a hex, containing  other
  players’ or Ancient Ships, at least one Ship per each  opposing Ship
  must stay (the Ship is said to be "pinned")  and engage in combat in
  the Combat Phase

So the only way you can move a ship through another player's hex is if you already have 1 ship in that hex per opponent's ship in that hex.


text:
Eclipse diplomacy
If you enter into a diplomatic agreement can you move your ships freely through each others territories without initiating combat? And can two allies move into combat against an opponent and have their ships team up against their adversary?

Eclipse players: Is this a duplicate? Initiating combat in Eclipse

Note: a diplomatic agreement is not the same as an alliance. The expansion introduces rules for full alliances which, among other things, allows more than one player's ships to team up.

However with the Rise of the Ancients expansion you can form Alliances in which you can move through each other's territory and even fight together.

To both questions, the answer is No.
From the rulebook, page 11:

Your Diplomatic relations
  stay in effect until the end of the game, unless you attack
  one of the players you have Diplomatic relations with, or
  they attack you. Moving your Ships to a hex where the other player has a disc or a Ship is also considered an attack.
  Both players then return the Ambassador Tiles and cubes
  to the owner. The cube goes back to a Population Track,
  chosen freely by the owner.


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Star Wars Armada: does a squadron command give a squadron an extra turn?
When I move / fire one or more squadrons using the squadron command of a ship do the squadrons still get to move / fire in the squadron phase or is their activation over for the round?

TLDR: Squadrons only activate once per turn
Per the Armada Rules Reference on page 12, squadrons Activate when one of these happens:

In the Squadron Phase (with the limit of either Moving or Attacking, but not both)
In the Ship Phase when a ship resolves a [squadron] command (with the ability to both move and attack)

But at the end of any activation you toggle the Activation Slider for the squadron to indicate that it has been activated.
Further, you cannot activate a squadron if the color of its Activation Slider does not match the Initiative Token. This includes squadrons with the Rogue keyword as that keyword applies when they Activate.
The net result of this is that you can either activate during the Ship Phase or during the Squadron Phase, but not both.


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Eclipse ship parts - infinitely stackable?
Are all the ship part tiles infinitely stackable? We were ending up with Interceptors with 6 Ion Cannons (adhering to the power supply of course). And are the power sources stackable? Can you stack two or three Nuclear sources, for example, to generate 9 power?

As long as you're obeying the basic rules of shipbuilding, you can put as many of any ship part (Ancient ship parts notwithstanding) on your ship as you wish.
While the effects of ship parts are cumulative (e.g. two power sources would provide twice as much power as one), ship parts themselves can not "stack" infinitely.  Each ship class has a very finite amount of space, which is printed on the player card.  A typical (e.g. Terran) Interceptor, for example, only has four slots available for ship parts, one of which must be used for a drive.  If you want to put a new ship part into one of the spaces, you have to remove the old one (or cover up the pre-printed one).
In other words, only four ship parts can be active on the Interceptor at any time.
So between the drive and (presumably) a power supply, you could have at most two Ion Cannons on an Interceptor.

This answer is correct. I believe the question assumes by using the word "stackable" that covered part tiles are counted, but clearly that's not the intent of the rules. Page 13: "When placing the tiles, you may place the tiles on top of any of the printed starting Ship Parts on your Ship blueprints, but not on top of other Ship Part tiles." If you're replacing ship parts, the part tiles in that blueprint slot are removed first. Covered blueprint parts are not counted towards ship capabilities.


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Survival of the Fittest
Please clarify I am playing Survival of the Fittest properly.
Two of the bases in play both have two creatures on them, one is strength 3 and one is strength 2. I play Survival of the Fittest and both strength 2 creatures are destroyed.

You are correct.
The card text :

Destroy the lowest-power minion(you choose in case of a tie) on each
  base with higher-power minion.

So the Lowest minion (even yours) on each base with a higher minion (from anyone) die.

if you have a minion in your hand with a higher power than a minion on a particular base, you may destroy the lower power minion on that base and replace it with the one from your hand with a higher power. Repeat for each base until you have no more minions in your hand.

Do you have any rules or references to back this up?

This is flat out wrong. The card doesn't say anything about replacing, and Smash Up is not the kind of game where you get to interpret things that aren't written on the card.

it says destroy the lowest power minion with higher-power minion, it is ambiguous about if the higher power is already on the base of it the player gets to place the higher power minion


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Clarification about Azurite Channeler in Ascension: Deliverance
The card text of Azurite Channeler in Ascension: Deliverance states:
"Banish a card in your hand and replace it with a Mystic or Heavy Infantry".
Does the replacement card go straight into hand, or does it go into the discard pile?
It seems quite a powerful effect to upgrade one of the base deck cards straight away.

The way cards like that work in general is you place the card where the banished card came from. An example of this is Guide of Lost Souls from Dawn of Champions

You may banish a card in your hand or discard pile. If you do, replace it with a Mystic or Heavy Infantry

When using this card in the iOS app the replacement card goes into your hand if the banished card came from your hand or into your discard if the card came from there. While most other cards specify placing them in your hand I think the replacement text means to put the new card in the same place as the other one came from.
I am unable to find anything in the rules or faq in regard to this but I can confirm this is how the iOS app treats the action.

Great, thanks. Couldn't find anything in the rules or FAQ either.


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Is there an online site to play Titan Boardgame
I know of ACTS and it works quite well. But in times of Web 2.0 I wonder -- is there an alternative to play Titan against friends (and mybe foes)?

There's not a site I know of, but there is Java-based software:
http://colossus.sourceforge.net/

That is an excellent program, yes. But that one allows you to play synchronous-only, not asynchronously. For a real 3-6 player game not suited. 2... ok, but even that, not so good. A Client-Server solution with log-on mechanism would be preferable.

I think you're out of luck, then. I've played Titan a lot, using a variety of different tools, and I'm not aware of anything that's a better fit for your requirements than ACTS.

Only tinkered with this one, but it looks pretty good.

There's the Titan HD app from Dauba-Dauba Enterprises. On the amazon website it says that it features "Online multi-player".


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Saboteur 2 - How many saboteur cards do you take out for 4 players?
I'm playing with 4 players in total in Saboteur 2 and we are not sure whether we are supposed to remove the other 2 Saboteur cards so that there is only 1 Saboteur.  I guess what I'm really asking is what's the exact preparation with 4 players in regards to which cards to leave in or take out for the Miners and the Saboteurs.
The way I understood it was to take out 2 of the 3 Saboteurs and leave the other miner cards in but there may be a chance that no one is a saboteur.  We then thought of taking out 2 of the 3 saboteurs but leave in only exactly 3 miners but the question then is how do you choose between 2 blue dwarves and 1 green or 2 green and 1 blue?

As far as I can see, in Saboteur 2 you never change the available roles based on the number of players. So in your 4 player game, you could have 3 Saboteurs and 1 Geologist, and a completely ridiculous mine in the end. The rules just say "Shuffle the 15 role cards together".

Thank you ConMan.  Because what happened was we had one turn where we had 3 Saboteurs and one miner and it just seemed so unfair in that case so I thought it would make more sense to take out the other 2 Saboteurs somehow?

There's a thread I found (and subsequently lost) on BGG where the designer points out that the increased variance, and particularly the possibility that everyone is actually working towards the same goal, is balanced by the gold distribution - the more players that win, the less gold that everyone gets. That said, you could probably take out, say, one of each of the more common roles, and not break anything horribly.

In a 4-player game, all 15 new Dwarf Cards are used.
All 15 dwarf cards (4 green and 4 blue Gold Diggers, 1 Boss, 2 Geologists, 1 Profiteer, and 3 Saboteurs) are used, regardless of the number of players in the game. From the rules, under Set-Up

[...] Then shuffle all 15 new Dwarf Cards and deal one face-down to each player. Again, it does not matter how many players are taking part in the game.


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Can Android: Netrunner be played with more than two people?
I've heard that in the old CCG version of Netrunner, there were rules which allowed the game to be played with four players, similar to two-headed giant in Magic: The Gathering.
Were these rules official? How did they differ from the normal two-player rules? Do they still work in the modern LCG version of Android: Netrunner?

I do not believe that there is an official 4 player variant for Android Netrunner, however the "Big Sell Out" variant from the original Netrunner has been reimplemented, unofficially:
http://anr.phtn.de/formats/ANR_BigSellOut.pdf
A bit of discussion can be found in this thread.


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When are additional Dominion actions chosen?
At what point do you need to decide which additional actions to choose?  To make this question explicit, suppose I play the Village (+1 card; +2 actions).  Do I need to decide which two actions I will play immediately, or do I decide on the second action after choosing and completing the first action?  For example, if I play the Smithy (+3 cards) as my first additional action, can my second action be an action I just picked up?

Simply? Yes.
Imagine you have a little "action bank". At the start of your turn, it contains "1 Action" which you can spend to play an Action card. If you play a terminal card (like Smithy) then you're down to "0 Actions" and you're done. If you play a non-terminal like Market, after it uses up the action in the bank, it gives +1 Action - so it repays itself, and you can play another Action card. If you play a village/splitter that says "+2 Actions", you get to put both those actions in the bank. So you can then use one to play a Smithy, draw three cards, then use the second action to play any Action card in your hand, including one drawn with the Smithy.
"+1 Buy" and "+1 Coin" work in the same way, except that you can't use either of them until your Buy phase (i.e. once you're done playing all your Action cards), with a slight exception with Black Market. "+1/2/3 Cards" is the only one that's different, in that its effect resolves instantly without choice - when you play a card that tells you to draw cards, you draw them immediately.

This is probably one of the most common questions for first-time players, along with confusion about whether "+1 Coin" means you take a Copper from the Supply (you don't) or whether you can buy Curses to put in other players' decks (you normally can't). On a related note, it only takes one "action" to play a Throne Room, which then lets you select an Action card from your hand and play it twice, which effectively turns any "+1 Action" card into a village.

To elaborate on ConMan's answer, here is the direct text of the rules:
"+X Action(s)" – the player may play X number of additional Actions this turn. +X Action(s) adds to the number of Actions that can be played in the Action phase. It does not mean play another Action immediately. The instructions on the current Action card must be completed before playing any additional Actions."
As the bolded part indicates, +Actions are treated like a resource pool. You complete the card giving you +Actions, then you may play an additional action, completely resolving that card. You may continue playing actions until you run out of available actions in your "action resource pool" (which is not an official Dominion term, but is useful for explaining the mechanic).
So, in your case, you would resolve Village, which draws you one card and adds two actions to your "action pool." Then, since you have actions remaining, you can choose to play another action card from your hand, completely resolving it. This would be the Smithy in your example, so you would draw 3 cards. Then, you still have an action remaining in your "action pool," so you may choose another card from your hand. At this point, your hand includes the 3 cards that you drew with Smithy, so any of those cards are fair game.

Amazing how many questions can be answered if people would just read the rules of their games...


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Should I buy 2 core sets of Star Wars: the card game LCG right from the start?
I've read some posts on BGG stating that you can only make decent decks to play Star Wars: the card game if you purchase at least 2 core sets.
Also it seems that if you want decent decks for all 6 factions two copies of the Edge of Darkness expansion are also needed.
My question is how much buying only 1 copy of the core will affect my overall impression of the game comparing to a initial big purchase of 2 cores + 2 edge of darkness?
Will I like the game better with the big package or is it possible to play for a couple of weeks to feel the game and after that purchase more cards?

Hi and welcome. I think this question is a bit too opinion-based for our format. You can clearly go either way, and no one can definitively tell you which way you'll like more. You might be able to turn this into a good question for this site by giving some objective criteria and asking about that, but otherwise you'd probably get better responses on a forum, maybe BGG.

It's not that bad. See Good Subjective, Bad Subjective for some tips about how to ask questions like this in order to get good answers.

@Shujaa. I believe I might have formatted the question leaving some room for doubts and personal opinions, but from my point of view it is very clear. There are a few games that are only worth playing with a certain expansion and there are games that while the expansions are nice and add value they don't change the flavor of the original game. I want to know if Star Wars LCG would seem either broken or incomplete, though hindering my experience, with only 1 copy of the core set. For the answer I got, it seems the game is playable and adding another core set might only improve and not fix it.

@shujaa Some games might have legitimate cause to be worried about this. Expansion or no expansion? Basic set or full set? Sometimes, one of the options is crap, overloading for a newbie, or problematic in some major way. If there aren't any concerns and any way to start is a decent way, a good answer saying so is enough.

When I bought into the game, I only purchased one of the Core Set (and the first Force Pack The Desolation of Hoth, but that is an aside...). I just wanted to try a new game. A few of the guys behind the counter at the hobby store mentioned more than one Core Set, but I just wanted a new game. I wasn't going to enter any major tournaments to start with.
The great thing about the Core Set is you get a lot of cards right away, and you get playable decks. Four of them to be exact (Rebel, Jedi, Sith, and Imperial). You get a taste of the other two factions (Smugglers and Spies, and Scum and Villainy), but those are really fleshed out with decks in the Edge of Darkness set (and yes, I eventually bought that too).
I generally have recommended to anyone getting into the game to start with those. Try it. See how you like it. Learn how it plays and how to build decks.
I have also bought the Force Packs as they have come out. Unlike the Core Set and the Deluxe Expansions, the Force Packs come with two of every objective set (except for the ones labeled "only one in a deck"). I have thought about purchasing an additional Core Set and an additional Edge of Darkness set to have doubles of certain cards. But I still haven't yet. Part of it is my budget. The other part is I purely play for fun with my wife and with my friends. I dont' play in cut throat tournaments. Now in my personal opinion, I think as more cards are released, the less likely it is that you have to have two of every big set. More releases, means more cards to choose from, which means more variation in player deck constructions. So though it may once have been more important to have two of sets (especially when that was all there was), I think that is now lessened.
Again, a lot of that is my opinion and personal experience, but that is what I would pitch to any new player.


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Mansions of Madness, Custom Scenarios: where to start?
My gaming group has finished all of the official MoM scenarios a couple of times, and have been looking for some good custom fan-made ones to try out. However, I'm not even sure where to start looking, or how to tell if a given scenario is any good. Where do I find good custom scenarios for the game, and/or how do I tell if a scenario is good?

Could you define "goodness" more specifically? Are you looking for challenging scenarios that require close teamwork to succeed at, or easier scenarios that encourage random exploration, or scenarios with lots of moving parts and/or phases, or simply high-quality horror writing?

"Good" is really as close as I can get. All those sound really interesting in their own ways :) I guess What I DON'T want are scenarios that are pure monster-killin' dungeon crawling or scenarios that are broken somehow, like many of the official ones have been.

I would advise that you check out the Mansions of Madness page on BoardGameGeek. Specifically, I would look in the Files section to find more custom scenarios. Although I'm not clear how your group would define "good", a reasonable way of evaluating the good and interesting scenarios is to see how many Thumbs Up each File has been given.  A quick way to determine the most popular entries is to sort on the "Hot" rating of each file.
Please note that not all the Files listed are scenarios. Several files are player aids and reference sheets. Also the site supports multiple languages so some scenarios may exist that are written in a non-English language. A quick perusal of the Files shows several user created custom scenarios have fairly good ratings (20+ Thumbs Up).


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How do doors, locked doors, and hidden doors differ?
Passageways and Doors have already been cleared up. How does a door differ from a locked door, aside from move cost? How does a locked door differ from a hidden door? When playing as a thief, does his ability to treat it as a regular door mean movement cost goes to 1? Does this apply to hidden doors too?
Doors are a very... very poorly documented section in the rules.

Okay, I've played through a few times with some shop runners, and pored over boardgamegeek (http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/397178/rules-question-locked-and-hidden-doors) -- Here's my best interpretation.

Doors- 1 movement costFundamentally identital to a passageway. The door itself plays an important role with monsters. If a monster is tiny or human sized, they can usually open doors, unless directed otherwise with their monster card. Huge monsters generally can't go through doors unless they have a skill dictated on the card.
Locked Doors- 3 movement costThieves can treat this as a normal door, meaning it will only cost 1 movement point to pass through. Monsters generally can't pass through these unless their cards specify they can break a door down-- allowing all monsters also moving during that turn to pass through the broken doorway. During combat, the movement cost is ignored, and the room is considered "adjacent" and a neighboring munchkin can participate in combat unless the room tile states otherwise. In the rulebook, this is justified by the statement that combat movement "just happens," and doesn't cost anything.
Hidden Doors- 3 movement costWizards can treat this as a normal door, meaning it will only cost 1 movement point to pass through. Nearly all monsters cannot pass through this door, even if they have the ability to break down doors. Only monsters which can see hidden doors, Like King Tut, can pass through a hidden door. Hidden doors do not have to be "discovered", and are not treated as a wall by munchkins. All combat rules for locked doors apply to hidden doors as well.
At no point do doors get treated as corridors unless a monster breaks it down. The presence of a door has the most significant impact on monster movement and movement cost, not munchkin movement.


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When and where can scrolls, curses, and potions be used?
This is a pretty unclear portion of the rules. Potions which affect combat which can be played "at any time" are pretty self explanatory-- you have to be in an adjacent room or same to use it. What about curses and scrolls which affect combat? Some of them seemingly can impact combat without being near it.

Thus far, the best use cases I've seen have been that scrolls and curses can be used at any time whatsoever even if you aren't in an adjacent room. You do have to read some of the cards carefully, as it may determine before or during a combat phase. Potions are still as they were, only adjacent or same room. With the portal expansion, potions can be used across portals.
There's an older discussion I found on Munchkin Quest forums that seems to back up this train of thought. Seems to also be backed by Steve Jackson.


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Do 3 Boros Elite attacking trigger Battalion?
Say I have 3 Boros Elite in play, and I decide to attack a player with all 3. Does it trigger Battalion? Since the card sais:

Battalion — Whenever Boros Elite and at least two other creatures attack, Boros Elite gets +2/+2 until end of turn.

Do the other 2 Boros Elites count as the 2 other creatures? Or do I have to attack with 2 different named creatures to activate Battalion?

Yes.
Whenever a card refers to itself by name, it is referring to that specific instance of the card. Other cards with the same name are not affected or considered.
For a card to work in the way you describe, it would be worded significantly differently. Something along the lines of "Whenever Boros Elite and at least two other creatures not named Boros Elite...", or "Whenever Boros Elite and at least two other creatures with different names...". Examples where these restrictions are put in place are Escaped Shapeshifter and Gifts Ungiven

Thanks, I was playing a friendly ffa, and someone on the table told me otherwise, tried looking for some rules but couldn't find any.

the relevant rule is comprehensive rule 201.4 and 201.4a


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Statistical Approach to Winning Monopoly
There was a computer simulation run a few years ago for Monopoly which calculated the most likely properties and squares to land on and some other data. Does anyone have or know the stats of the simulation?

Here is a link to some books with such stats: http://www.amazon.com/The-Monopoly-Book-Strategy-Tactics/dp/0679202927

Your title doesn't match your question very well - winning and being likely to land on certain squares are very different things.

I know the results. Red and Orange properties are places where players most often lands on. Most often visited places are the Jail and the 3rd red property ("Illinois Avenue" in the American version and "Avenue Henri-Martin" in the French version).
I found a table here (fr). The table contains the French names so I join a french Monopoly board to this answer in order to help people who do not know French names.

Answer edited with a new French Monopoly board.

Here are the (quite extensive!) results: http://www.tkcs-collins.com/truman/monopoly/monopoly.shtml
The first part of that page is the long-term probabilities for ending up on a particular square. The last column tells you the ranking: you will end up in Jail most often, Illinois second-most-often, then Go, then the B&O Railroad, etc. This is neat, but you'll need to figure out whether those most-frequently-hit squares are profitable in the short and long term; the next part is about the expected income per roll, and after that is how long it will take you to recoup the cost of things. (Fun fact: buying the third house is the fastest thing to recoup. That doesn't mean you should buy straight to three houses, or that you should stop there; it just means that you'll earn the money-for-the-third-house back fastest.)
The problem with that page is that it doesn't point you to The Best Strategy. Do you want to earn back your initial money fast? Do you want to earn the most money overall, even if you'll have less money in the early game? Do you just take a hedonistic joy in getting people to hand you money, and want that to happen as often as possible? You'll go far by picking up the properties that recoup your costs quickly, but those properties are the light blue and orange properties - they're nicely profitable and quick to set up, but they don't rake in the gobs of money you'll want in the end-game.

I highly recommend Winning Monopoly if you are interested in such analysis.  As other answers point out, payback period (combining rent amount and frequecy) is key for making winning decisions.  One of the point from this book that I haven't seen else where is determining what version of Monopoly you are playing.  Are you really playing until all others are bankrupt, or is there some (probably unstated) time limit for the game.  Knowing how much longer the game will last is key to putting payback period statistics to use.

I am not sure which particular site you are referencing, but How to Win at Monopoly calculated the Return On Investment (ROI) of all the properties based on the liklihood of landing on them. They concluded that Railroads (especially 4) had the fastest most consistent ROI, followed by a Monopoly with 3 Houses, utilities were the worst ROI.

There are many factors to consider in this question.
The highest likely roll when using 2 dice is seven (6/36 chances, 6,1 5,2 4,3 3,4 2,5 & 6,1) so landing on Park Place is impossible when rolling the highest probability with 2 dice as the seven squares prior to Park Place is the go to jail square.
Getting out of jail for free by rolling doubles can only get you to Electric Company, Virginia avenue, St. James Place, Tennese Avenue, Free parking and chance wich could bring you back 3 spaces to New York Avenue.
Chance cards will send you to Boardwalk, Illinoi, St. Charles, Reading railroad, the nearest railroad and the nearest utility.  If you are keeping track of these cards, you could base some decisions on this.
The chance card, go back 3 spaces will send you to New York avenue one third of the time.


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When can you keep priority?
In Magic the gathering you have the concept of priority. This gives every players a chance to respond to every one's spells. But I knew you could keep priority between spells. Playing a spell and without passing priority (and without this spell to resolve), play another.
Until now, I was okay with that and understood it but I thought it was only for instant speed.
In this Video, at 4m15, Reid Duke explain a play with Kor Spiritdancer and an Aura spell. He said : "You go Kor Spiritdancer and without passing priority you cast an Aura...". This making him draw a card even if his opponent has a response to Kor Spiritdancer.
My question is, if it is possible to keep priority between non-instant spells, when can you keep priority? What is the rules for that? In my exemple, why did the Kor Spiritdancer resolved? what if his opponent wanted to counterspell it?
Thanks in advance.

you should check out the MTG comprehensive rule: 116. Timing and Priority

He misspoke, or at least was unclear, in the video. He said "you get to draw a card whether they have removal or not; whether they have a counterspell or not". Really, it's just removal that doesn't stop you from drawing a card. If they have counterspell, and they counter Kor, then you don't get a card. But you do if they counter the aura.

I believe you have slightly misunderstood the explanation in the video, and you misunderstand how priority works and the difference between instants and noninstant spells (from the Comprehensive Rules: "A player may cast an instant spell any time he or she has priority. A player may cast a noninstant spell during his or her main phase any time he or she has priority and the stack is empty"; what happens next is the same for both types).
In the video, Reid is explaining how to draw a card before losing your Kor Spiritdancer to any creature destruction effects (such as Doom Blade, which he mentioned by name). Your opponent may not cast any creature destruction effects until 1) the creature exists (i.e. the spell has resolved) and 2) the opponent has priority.
The mtgsalvation wiki has the text of the priority rules; here 117.3 and 117.4 are particularly important:

117.3. Which player has priority is determined by the following rules:

117.3a The active player receives priority at the beginning of most steps and phases, after any turn-based actions (such as drawing a card during the draw step; see rule 703) have been dealt with and abilities that trigger at the beginning of that phase or step have been put on the stack. No player receives priority during the untap step. Players usually don't get priority during the cleanup step (see rule 514.3).
117.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.
117.3c If a player has priority when he or she casts a spell, activates an ability, or takes a special action, that player receives priority afterward.
117.3d If a player has priority and chooses not to take any actions, that player passes. If any mana is in that player's mana pool, he or she announces what mana is there. Then the next player in turn order receives priority.

117.4. If all players pass in succession (that is, if all players pass without taking any actions in between passing), the spell or ability on top of the stack resolves or, if the stack is empty, the phase or step ends.

The sequence Reid is describing works like this:

Cast Kor Spiritdancer and pay its costs; it is now on the stack.
You still have priority (117.3c); pass it to your opponent (117.3d).
Your opponent may do something, e.g. counterspell. Let's say that they don't do anything. They pass priority (117.3d again).
Kor Spiritdancer resolves (117.4). You now have priority again (117.3b).
Cast an Aura; it goes on the stack and Kor Spiritdancer's triggered ability (whenever you play an Aura spell card, you may draw a card, goes on the stack).
You may now pass priority, and now your opponent may cast some instant or activate some ability that removes the creature from play, but you still got one card draw.

Note that if you have some way to play auras at instant speed (e.g. the aura has flash, you have a card like Vedalken Orrery in play), you can cast multiple auras in succession without passing priority, although of course none of them will resolve before your opponent has a chance to play creature removal.

Can I understand that my opponent does not have any priority when My create enter the battlefield? Or it is only when it has a "enter the battlefield" trigger?

@Sinity, "116.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves." If you cast the creature on your turn, you get priority when it resolves. If you cast the creature on someone else's turn (e.g. if it has Flash), they get priority when it resolves. (Avoid asking negated questions like that.)

I think what Sinity was getting at was: If I control an Essence Warden or something with a similar triggered ability, my opponent can Doom Blade my Spiritdancer after it enters the battlefield, but before I can play an aura. Even though I initially retain priority, I have to pass it to get the "gain 1 life" ability off the stack, before I can play "sorcery speed" spells. That gives my opponent a window of opportunity.

Note that in a formal setting you'll have to be careful about this - the normal shortcut is "Whenever a player adds an object to the stack, he or she is assumed to be passing priority unless he or she explicitly announces that he or she intends to retain it."

@Jefromi, I don't think that applies to this situation. In order to pull of the "trick", you don't put 2 objects on the stack without passing priority. Rather, you wait for 1 object to resolve (which involves passing priority anyway), and THEN cast another spell. Tournament shortcuts don't stop you as the active player from getting priority after a spell resolves.

@GendoIkari Oh, right, sorry. From the short version in the question, it sounded like it was playing two spells without passing, but yeah, that's obviously not the case.