text:
Is this move permitted in Scrabble?
My wife and I had a heated discussion on whether the move below was permissible under the official Scrabble rules. In this case, I added the letters O, I to form OE and OI. She claims it was a double movement, as OE was permissible because it was attached to the ending of MAZE, but OI was not permissible because I is attached to a word I just created hence the double movement. She claimed that if I wanted to add additional letters it can only be in the horizontal direction as it’s attached to the original word on the board being MAZE.
I claimed it was permissible as I went in one direction (vertical) whilst creating a word that was originally on the board being MAZE.
Can you please confirm whether my move was permissible?

Does this answer your question? double movement in Scrabble - while that's the reverse of your case, the accepted answer contains the exact quote from the rules that you need.

@PhilipKendall The linked answer doesn't specifically mention parallel play, so it is not really an answer to this question.

Placing letters parallel to a word is a valid play in Scrabble, as long as every combination of letters formed by the play is a valid word.
From the official rules - Gameplay point #4:

New words may be formed by:
.....

Placing a complete word parallel to a word already played so that adjacent letters also form complete words.

So as long as "oe" is a valid word in whatever word source you are using, then it is a valid play.

Thanks, the rules don’t seem to be clear whether every single letter in the new word needs to be adjacent to the original word, or whether only at least one letter (which is my case) will work.


text:
In monopoly, if a player owns all of a set of properties but one of the properties is mortgaged, is the rent still doubled for the other properties?
In monopoly, if a player owns all of a set of properties (e.g. all three green properties) then the (unimproved) rent of those properties is doubled. Imagine now that one of the properties is mortgaged and somebody lands on one of the unmortgaged properties in the set. Is the rent still doubled even though one of the properties is mortgaged? On the one hand, the player still owns all three properties. On the other hand, only 2 of the properties are "active" in the sense that they aren't mortgaged.

I don't believe I've ever played with this rule, although it makes the reason for the games name a lot more obvious.

Yes, rent is doubled even if some of the properties are mortgaged.
Rules

It is an advantage to hold all the Title Deed cards in a color-group
(e.g., Boardwalk and Park Place; or Connecticut, Vermont and Oriental
Avenues) because the owner may then charge double rent for
unimproved properties in that color-group. This rule applies to
unmortgaged properties even if another property in that color-group
is mortgaged.

I think that a certain amount of confusion arises from the fact that you can't build houses on unmortgaged properties when one or more is mortgaged. But you can collect "double" rent from unmortgaged properties in such a group.

Interestingly, the Waddington rules (1996) state that:

However, an owner who owns a whole colour-group may not collect double rent if any one Site there is mortgaged.

This seems to have been different to the Park Brothers 2007 edition (and the vast majority of other editions) where you DO get double rent.

My 60 Anniversary Edition rules from Parker Brothers (1995) agree with the original answer - and are how I learned the game in the 1960's. I believe that was an error on Waddington's part.

@ForgetIwaseverhere - which is still interesting to note though, eh?

@PatLudwig: True; and noted.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Ticket to Ride "Longest Path of Routes"
I understand that the longest route means the most number of continuous trains, but does continuous mean "connected?"  In other words, are spur routes included as long as they are connected to the main route?

Right, it's not "has placed the most routes that are pairwise connected to another of your routes."

I think the problem is that “continuous” is not the clearest word to use. I was going to quote the rule book in my answer, but it turns out it really doesn’t make it explicit. It just relies on common English understanding of “continuous route”.

Spurs are not included.[1] Being connected is not sufficient; the routes must form a continuous path.

The rules say

The player who has the Longest Continuous Path of routes receives this special bonus card and adds 10 points to his score. When evaluating and comparing path lengths, only take into account continuous lines of plastic trains of the same color. A continuous path may include loops, and pass through the same city several times, but a given plastic train may never be used twice in the same continuous path. In the case of a tie for the longest path, all tied players score the 10 point bonus

Let's use the following network as an example:
   A - - B                        -, |, \, / = train
          \
           \
            C - - D - - E
            |
            |
            F

How many trains are in the longest continuous path? Obviously, it's at least 8 (A-B, B-C, C-D, D-E). Is there a way of including the two in C-F without jumping (not continuous) or revisiting a route (explicitly disallowed)?

If you travel along the path A-B-C-D-E, you'd need to jump or backtrack to visit C-F.
If you travel along the path A-B-C-F, you'd need to jump or backtrack to visit C-D.
If you travel along the path F-C-D-E, you'd need to jump or backtrack to visit B-C.

So no. The longest continuous path consists of just the eight trains along those four routes.
This is confirmed through play with multiple groups and through use of the official electronic version.
Note that at least one map (Asia) awards points for largest network, which includes forks (though this counts cities rather than routes).

Unless you can loop back. For example, the following has a continuous path of 10 trains (A-B-D-E-C):
A - - B - - C
     / \
    /   \
   D - - E

So it's not the number of trains but the number of routes?

I bought the digital edition for my kid yesterday, but he hasn't had a chance to play. Would be a great way to check!

It is the number of trains. "longest" means you count length, meaning number of trains.

@ikegami Sawtaytoes questions whether it's trains or number of routes. I answered it's number of trains.

"Longest path of routes" when routes have lengths (in trains) means the same as "longest path of routes measured in trains".

@L. Scott Johnson, No, that not how things work. I mean, sometimes it works that way, sometimes it doesn't. Consider a line of people. I ask how long the line is. You might say there's 10 people in line. Or you might say there's a one hour wait. The rules are ambiguous. BUT. You happen to have the right answer. I'm adjusting the question to reflect this.

@Sawtaytoes Number of trains. Questions edited for clarity.

uh, I edited my answer, not the question.

"Continuous" means a line starting at one end and ending at another end; branching paths will not help at all. A "continuous path" means that you can travel along that path without backtracking or skipping around; with a branch/fork in your trains you wouldn't be able to go along all of those trains without backtracking or skipping. So you only count the longest branch of a fork.
You can find more discussion with the same answer here.

I originally thought longest route meant "count the trains", but a route is defined as connecting points A and B.
In the digital version, loops count too as part of your continuous route.

This follows what's in the rules for Ticket to Ride Europe:

When evaluating and comparing path lengths, only take into account continuous lines of plastic trains of the same color. A continuous path may include loops, and pass through the same city several times, but a given plastic train may never be used twice in the same continuous path. Stations, and the opponents’ routes they may provide access to, do not count for the purpose of computing paths and claiming the longest one. If several players are tied for the longest path, they each receive the 10 point bonus from the European Express card.

You do count trains: but only the trains in the continuous path of routes. loops are OK if they form part of that longest continuous path.

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


text:
What happens if a creature has 'cant be blocked' and 'must be blocked'
Lets say i have a creature that says it can't be blocked, like a Slither Blade, and then you cast Bloodscent targeting it. Would one override the other or would it be unblockable?

Restrictions (can't) take precedence over requirements (must)

Note that Bloodscent says “all creature able to”; not just “all creatures.” If a creature can’t be blocked then another creature is not “able to” block it; just like if that other creature were tapped or said “this creature cannot block”. So “can’t block” wins and the block doesn’t happen.

509.1c The defending player checks each creature they control to see whether it’s affected by any requirements (effects that say a creature must block, or that it must block if some condition is met). If the number of requirements that are being obeyed is fewer than the maximum possible number of requirements that could be obeyed without disobeying any restrictions, the declaration of blockers is illegal.

Note that missing blocking requirements is only illegal if those requirements could be met without disobeying restrictions. So you are free to ignore requirements if obeying them would cause you to disobey restrictions.
There is no such loophole for disobeying restrictions:

509.1b The defending player checks each creature they control to see whether it’s affected by any restrictions (effects that say a creature can’t block, or that it can’t block unless some condition is met). If any restrictions are being disobeyed, the declaration of blockers is illegal.

So you must always obey restrictions, while you only need to obey requirements when they don’t cause you to disobey restrictions.

Maybe quote 101.2 for good measure? Not directly relevant because of the "able to" clarification, but it is regardless a good rule of thumb to be aware of in this problem.


text:
Train Station doesn't work correctly in Ticket to Ride Europe [PC Version]

I played the PC version of Ticket to Ride Europe recently.
I got the ticket / route for Paris to Athina.
I built a route from Paris --> Zurich --> Marseille --> Roma --> Palermo --> Smyrna
Other played put a route from Smyrna to Athina
I put a station on Smyrna, which should give me access to the route from Smyrna to Athina

According to this post, my expectations of how the stations should work is correct.
Can someone explain what is happening? Is this just a bug?

Yes, you have it right: You should be able to use that station to complete the Paris-Athina route.
I'm guessing a reason the PC version fails here could be the fact that the end point of the borrowed line is at the end of your route and not connected to any of your trains. This might happen if the check-routes routine in the program saved time by only looking for gaps in your routes at stations and somehow a gap at the end (which isn't a "gap" under certain definitions).
But regardless of the reason, it is a bug. The gap can be at the end of the route. (This is confirmed in a different question on BGG.)

Thank you for confirming. I was flabbergasted when I saw the scoring, and it showed me failing this route.


text:
What are the odds a player doesn't draw a monastery or garden tile?
I just played a frustrating 3 player game of Carcassonne with the Abbot expansion, where I didn't get a single opportunity to use my Abbot Meeple.
What are the odds a player doesn't draw a single tile usable by the Abbot in a 3 player game? Note there are 6 monastery tiles and 8 garden tiles for a total of 14 tiles the abbot can use (out of 72 total tiles).

This should happen to you about 1 in every 620 games that have 3 players, 14 tiles that an Abbot can be played on, 1 start tile, and 57 other tiles.
Given that there are 72 tiles, in a 3-player game, you'd draw either 23 or 24 tiles, depending on turn order. Although the 72 tiles divide evenly, one of them is the start tile and is removed. I'll assume that in 1/3 of games you go last, and only get 23 tiles.
Without changing the statistics, we can pretend you draw all your tiles first, without any other players taking their turns. You can think of their turns as simply showing you what was never in the tiles you were going to get without affecting it, besides that you're stopping your draws early and not drawing the whole stack.
Drawing 23 tiles out of 71 without replacement, 57 of which are not Abbot-eligible, your chance of only drawing from those 57 is 57/71 * 56/70 * ... * 35/49. This comes out to about 0.200% (or about one in 499) of games where you go last.
Drawing a 24th tile multiplies this by 34/48, for about 0.142% (or about one in 705) in games where you don't go last.
Weighting the probabilities together based on your chance of actually going last it's 0.161% (or about one in 620).
Obviously changing the number of players, introducing river tiles, or caring about whether anyone at the table can't play an Abbot rather than just you would change the chances.

You could write it more compactly as C(57,23) / C(71,23) and C(57,24) / C(71,24)


text:
Tricky 3-3 invasion
If white tenukis thrice after the 3-3 invasion, and answers Q18 with R18, then white kills with S19:

But what if white plays Q19 instead?

Can black still kill unconditionally, or ko is the best one can achieve?

I know this is a textbook situation, but I do not practice tsumego, so I had to read through this. It was quite tricky and took some time to, hopefully, get right.
The strongest (i.e. hardest to correctly answer) resistance I found is this:
$$ ------------------
$$ . X 3 5 2 . . . |
$$ . X O O 1 . 4 . |
$$ . X X X O O O . |
$$ . . . . X X O . |
$$ . . . . . . X . |
$$ . . . . . X . . |

After 5, white has nothing left.
I'll grant you that looks strange, so let's see why other moves are worse.
$$ ------------------
$$ . X 3 . 2 . 5 . |
$$ . X O O 1 4 . . |
$$ . X X X O O O . |
$$ . . . . X X O . |
$$ . . . . . . X . |
$$ . . . . . X . . |

If 4 captures, black kills with 5.
$$ ------------------
$$ . X X a O b 1 . |
$$ . X O O . O . c |
$$ . X X X O O O . |
$$ . . . . X X O d |
$$ . . . . . . X . |
$$ . . . . . X . . |

a and b are miai, and c and d, too - if white takes or prevents one, black always takes the other.
$$ ------------------
$$ . X X 3 O . 1 . |
$$ . X O O . O 2 5 |
$$ . X X X O O O . |
$$ . . . . X X O 4 |
$$ . . . . . . X . |
$$ . . . . . X . . |

White's strongest attempt is probably trying to trick black into mistakenly not playing at 3. If black replies correctly, it leads to temporary seki. White cannot play inside without creating a dead shape, and black cannot capture white directly.
However, at the end of the game this shape is dead: It is "reducible to bent-4 in the corner". Situations like this are actually quite complicated and even lead to arguments at the highest level of professional play.
$$ ------------------
$$ . X 3 . 2 . 4 . |
$$ . X O O 1 5 . a |
$$ . X X X O O O . |
$$ . . . . X X O . |
$$ . . . . . . X . |
$$ . . . . . X . . |

If 4 at 2-1, then black 5 kills. If white 4 at the other 1-2 point, black 5 kills, too.
$$ ------------------
$$ . X . . 2 . 3 . |
$$ . X O O 1 . 4 . |
$$ . X X X O O O . |
$$ . . . . X X O . |
$$ . . . . . . X . |
$$ . . . . . X . . |

If black plays 3 here, as I was initially sure is the answer, it is in fact a mistake and white punishes with 4. Black's strongest attempt is easily foiled:
$$ ------------------
$$ . X 1 . O 2 X 4 |
$$ . X O O X . O . |
$$ . X X X O O O . |
$$ . . . . X X O 3 |
$$ . . . . . . X . |
$$ . . . . . X . . |

White 2 is important. If white instead captures, she dies:
$$ ------------------
$$ . X 1 3 O . X . |
$$ . X O O X 2 O 5 |
$$ . X X X O O O . |
$$ . . . . X X O 4 |
$$ . . . . . . X . |
$$ . . . . . X . . |

This shape is the same seen earlier.
To sum it up: White's other atari is the same result.

In your 2nd diagram after black 5, white plays 6 at S19 (2-2 point). 7 R19 by black puts itself in Atari.. Black playing 7 T18 instead leads to white playing connection at 8 P19(5-1) forming eyes for white. Am I missing something?

@DavidSiegel I've added some more diagrams on this complicated situation. Does this answer the question?

The black stone at Q18 is in a ladder, albeit a short one. If black pushes this, with R18, black will eventually be killed and white will live.  R18 is a strong KO-threat, however, because if it is not answered black can kill the white group.
If black plays P29 white must capture at R18. If black pushes at O19 the capture is again forced and white will eventually have to connect at Q18. losing 1-2 points of potential territory. This also is a significant ko-threat for black, although not as large as R18.

Thanks! Do I presume correctly that white's best move after black's S19 (following second picture) is just R19?

If after the 2nd picture, black plays S19, I think white should play R18, capturing and explicitly forming eyes. But white might pass or play elsewhere, potentially gaining a point and the initiative. It is hard to see how black van make life eve with one unanswered move, so S19 is perhaps not even a good KO-threat. R19 or T18 are stronger threats, and I think S18 has the best chance at life if unanswered. But really there is no chance at life for black here unless white leaves a move unanswered so any such move is useful only as a KO-threat.


text:
Oxygen level card restriction on Terraforming Mars
The restrictions to be met for playing a card are always clear when referring to temperature; they either say "temperature below or equal to X degrees" or "above or equal to X degrees". However, when the restriction is on oxygen level, we have only found cards explicitly saying "below or equal to X% level", but none explicitly stating "above or equal to X% level". We therefore have the doubt on how to interpret the restriction for those that state only "X% level". Does it mean the card can only be played when the oxygen level is that "exact X% level"? Or can it be played when it is "X% level or above"?
Thanks!

It's a minimum.
From the designer (on this post):

All maximum requirements have a 'max' in the requirement box and have a red background color in the box. All other requirements are minimum requirements (and should have been explained as such) and have a yellow background color in the requirement box. Most requirements are of the 'minimum' type, so we thought it would clutter up the cards too much to have a 'min' there. 'Minimum' is, after all, the most natural type of requirement.

Thanks Scott! However, the requirements for temperature DO say either "max -24ºC" or when it says "-24ºC" the text at the bottom explains "Requires -24ºC OR WARMER" as in the "LICHEN" card. However, the cards with requirements on Oxygen, such as "ZEPPELINS", which at the top states "5%", in the text at the bottom ONLY says "Requires 5% oxygen", but does not explicitly say "or higher".
I think this asymmetry is not justified and causes unnecessary discussion in players that are starting to play Terraforming Mars.;-) But thanks for your clarification.

Right. the designer also agrees that it should have been otherwise: "All other requirements are minimum requirements (and should have been explained as such)"

It is "X% level or above".
The rulebook gives a few examples of cards, along with the restrictions of when they can be played. Card "D" in the example list is Livestock, which shows "9% oxygen as a requirement", and the rules state:

To play card D, the oxygen level must be 9% or higher. You also need to have plant production, since the card requires you to decrease your plant production.

(Emphasis mine).
Card E is Shuttles, and it shows the same requirement icon, needing 5% oxygen. The rules state:

Card E requires 5% oxygen and energy production.

So the rules consider "requires x% oxygen" to be interchangeable with "requires x% oxygen or more".

Great, thanks Gendolkari!
I wasn't sure of this since the requirements on temperature are really clear while these aren't. But, indeed, the first example in the rules book is clear about this (although the second is not ;-) ).


text:
Winning The game of Unstable Unicorns
If a player has 7 unicorn cards and a magic card have they won or do they need to get rid of the magic card before they can win.

They've won (besides, you can always just discard the magic card at the end of your turn anyhow).
Rules:

The first person to successfully collect the required
number of Unicorns in their Stable wins! Each Unicorn
card counts for one Unicorn (unless otherwise stated).

2 – 5 Players: 7 Unicorns to win
6 – 8 Players: 6 Unicorns to win


text:
Do Troll's Lairs remain in a region when Hordes of Trolls go In Decline if the only remaing race token is a Horde?
The rules for Trolls specify:

The Troll's Lair augments your region's defense by 1 (just as if you had an
additional Troll token stationed there), and stays in the Region even after your Trolls go
into Decline. Remove the Troll's Lair if you abandon the Region or when an enemy conquers it.

The rules for Hordes of tokens specify:

They disappear when you go In Decline, however.

Assume a Troll player goes In Decline, and one or two of their regions have a single Hordes of token, which disappears. Does the Troll's Lair remain? I have been assuming that it does. However, I just played a game on the computer where the Trolls went In Decline, the Horde token was removed, but the Troll's Lair remained behind with no race token in the region.
Looking at the rules, the region has not been abandoned, and has not been conquered. But this behavior seems unintuitive, and I suspect that it is an issue of an expansion (Small World Cursed!) creating an unintended consequence when combined with the literal text of the base game. It seems that in the base game, the Troll's Lair remains in the region because an In Decline Troll token remains in the region.
So, does the Troll's Lair token remain when the Hordes of token disappears?

Yes, the Lair is lost, for the reason you say.
It has none of your race counters, so it has been abandoned.
See also: removing declined Lairs when another race goes into decline. (Same reason: the lair gets abandoned)

You seem to be relying on a common English meaning of "abandoned", but the term abandon appears to have a specific meaning in the rules, which is that you choose to pick up tokens at the beginning of your turn to use in a conquest.

That's correct as far as it goes. That's why I linked the other source showing that usage being applied to a similar case.


text:
Skip card points count against you?
We are playing phase 10, and our rules say “To use, simply discard the skip card on your turn by placing it in front of the player you’ve chosen to skip instead of placing it on the discard pile.”
So what happens when player 1 lays a skip card in front of player 3, but player 2 goes out before player 3 can place that skip card on the discard pile for their turn? Do you count those points or has it already technically been played?

No, if you played/discarded the skip card on your turn then it is no longer in your hand; only cards that are in your hand count against you.
The rules say

Players total the cards left in their hands.

and

The winner of the hand scores zero. All remaining players score points against them, for cards still in their hands, as follow:

Note that there's really no difference between discarding a skip card on your turn and discarding any other card, in terms of how it affects you. The card is only placed in front of a specific player to remind them that their turn is getting skipped. Older versions of the rules don't say to do this. It doesn't matter if the card is physically in the discard pile or in front of a player; it has already been played/discarded by you.

I believe the question was in reference to if player 3 would get the points for the skip card played against them, not if player 1 would get the points for the skip card they played against player 3.  The point remains though that the skip card is at that point not in anyone's hand and so does not contribute points to any player.


text:
"Counter target spell unless its controller pays X" spells
If I  cast for example Miscast to counter an instant my opponent controlls, and my opponent pays 3, what happens to Miscast? Is it countered? And what about priority? Do I have a chance to put next Miscast on the stack? It's quite confusing to me.

Miscast resolves normally, it just so happens that part of resolving normally in this case involves a thing that may or may not happen. It's similar to if you cast a spell that says "destroy all creatures" (Such as Day of Judgment) while there are no creatures on the battlefield. It would resolve, but its instructions have no effect on the game - although to be more accurate, it did have an effect; it cost your opponent mana.
When Miscast resolves, that's when your opponent gets the choice of whether to pay X or not. Whether they choose to or not, the spell has already resolved. Priority would go to the active player as it always does after a spell resolves. Whether you are the active player or not, you will still get a chance to cast another Miscast or any other instant before your opponent's original spell resolves.

608.2d If an effect of a spell or ability offers any choices other than choices already made as part of casting the spell, activating the ability, or otherwise putting the spell or ability on the stack, the player announces these while applying the effect.

608.2f If an effect gives a player the option to pay mana, they may activate mana abilities before taking that action.

117.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.

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 choice to pay 3 is made during the resolution of Miscast.

If I cast for example Miscast to counter an instant my opponent controlls, and my opponent pays 3, what happens to Miscast?

It finishes resolving, and goes to your graveyard.

Is it countered?

No, it had it's effect. It cost your opponent mana.

And what about priority?

A spell has just resolved, so whomever's turn it is gains priority, as normal.

Do I have a chance to put next Miscast on the stack?

Yes, you will gain priority again before the target spell resolves


text:
Can I conduct an auction to sell my property?
In Monopoly, I can sell an unimproved property (mortgaged or non-mortgaged) to another player at any agreed price. Instead of negotiating the price with individual players, can I just conduct an auction?

+1 to @ConMan's answer; but I wish both questioner and answerer had clarified that there may be a difference between any particular English-language meaning of "conduct an auction" and the specific in-game mechanic of "selling [a property] at auction to the highest bidder," which in-game mechanism is... yikes, not defined anywhere in the official rules? Huh. Wow.

From the rules:

SELLING PROPERTY...Unimproved properties, railroads and utilities (but
not buildings) may be sold to any player as a private transaction for
any amount the owner can get; however, no property can be sold to
another player if buildings are standing on any properties of that
color-group. Any buildings so located must be sold back to the Bank
before the owner can sell any property of that color-group. Houses and
hotels may be sold back to the Bank at any time for one-half the price
paid for them. All houses on one color-group must be sold one by one,
evenly, in reverse of the manner in which they were erected. All hotels
on one color-group may be sold at once, or they may be sold one house
at a time (one hotel equals five houses), evenly, in reverse of the
manner in which they were erected.

You can see that it can be sold to any player as a private transaction. There is nothing in the rules that forbid an auction.

Strictly by the rules, no. Auctions only occur if a player lands on an un-owned property and chooses to not buy it for its listed price.
However, as you say, unimproved properties can be sold to any other player for any agreed price. The rules don't say how you come to agree on which player, or what price, so you could always ask the other players what they'd be willing to pay for, say, Mediterranean Avenue, and sell to the highest bidder. It wouldn't be a binding deal, though, given its exclusion from the rules (so if the highest bidder isn't the player, or amount, you're looking for, you're not bound to sell to them).

The rules state when an auction must occur, but even a strict reading of the rules does not prohibit holding an auction at any other time. You're expressly allowed to come to terms in private agreements, and an auction is just one way to do that.

I think this answer would be just as (or even more) correct if it was entirely the same except the first sentence said "Strictly by the rules, yes".

There are several different levels on which this question can be answered. First, there is no mechanism given in the rules for holding such an auction. So it is not possible to hold such an auction in the game.
But just because you can't perform an activity as a game action doesn't mean that you can't do it. There's nothing in the rules allowing you make a sandwich while you play the game, but that doesn't mean you can't do so; the making sandwich simply won't exist as something that is happening in the game. So you can engage in an auction as a non-game activity you are doing while playing the game, and then engage in the in-game action of selling the property based on the auction. And in fact, attempts to sell a property can naturally turn into an auction; if one player proposes to buy the property, another player will likely interrupt to offer a larger price, and so on.
But on a third level, auctions tend to be complicated, time consuming, and, at least to my tastes, boring affairs. Depending on your playing group, they might get annoyed at you for interrupting the game and making them wait while you engage in side activities before finishing your turn.
So, in conclusion: yes, but if you want to do it, you should have a discussion with the other players about what house rules they want regarding it.


text:
Help me identify a game with a large orange hooter/squeaker in the middle
About 20 years ago I had a fun/silly board game that I would love to find again.
It was a turn-based game where each player had a set of red chips, and players moved around the board by rolling a die or two.
The game centered around a set of "Do" and "Don't" cards which you would collect as you went around the board. Before each players' turn they would have to do the actions on their "Do" cards, and make sure they didn't do anything on their "Don't" cards the whole time. If they failed to do either, another player could slam a big orange hooter/squeaker, in the middle of the board, and punish them by giving the offending player two of their chips.
Each player could have at most 5 cards, so if they gained a 6th, they could put one of their old cards back - usually with some relief!
The goal was to get rid of all of your chips.
Some of the "Do" and "Don't" rules that I can remember were: "Do balance a die on your nose for 5 seconds", "Do point at the player to your right", "Don't say a player's first name".
This is my terrible "artists" impression of what the game looked like:

There was a single, large molded piece of plastic in the middle of the board. It had two bowls on either end which contained all of the chips that weren't yet assigned to players.
The big orange squeaker was that circle in the middle. And there were 10 places to put two players' "Do" and "Don't" cards (the 10 numbered slots) - although more than 2 players can play the game.

Not the game, but it looks like this game uses similar techniques: https://www.bispublishers.com/dont-do-this-game.html

Just a guess but " Outta Control" is perhaps the game.

Parker brothers 1992.

https://idleremorse.com/2018/04/30/review-outta-control/

That has to be it @karl You should add it as the answer.

@Karl Wow, this is so strange! The game I had looks the same as I drew it - I'm certain of that. However Outta Control seems to be exactly the same game (my memory is a little more hazy regarding if players had their own do/don't cards or if they were global). Maybe I had a knock-off or a different version (I'm in Europe). Either way I'll gladly upvote if you put this in an answer - and accept if nothing else comes along. Out of curiosity, how did you find it?

That is the game! The cover of mine looked liked this: https://boardgamegeek.com/image/3539785/outta-control . I guess it was green... Memory is a funny thing. Thank you so much. Put it in an answer!

I'll update with an answer tomorrow thanks.  It was a bit of a guess honestly.

The game is "Out of control"  though some versions go the name "Outta-control"
The excellent description by the OP gave me hope in finding it with a web search.  I can't provide anymore details as I haven't played the game myself.

https://boardgamegeek.com/image/3539785/outta-control


text:
Graft illegal creature

Does Graft's triggered ability use the stack?
What happens to the +1/+1 counter if the creature that graft was offloading to gets removed? Does it stay on the Graft permanent?

Example:
Llanowar Reborn is on the board. A player summons a Nyx-Fleece Ram, Llanowar Reborn Graft ability gets triggered and the player decides to move the +1/+1 counter to the Nyx-Fleece Ram. A rival player Dismembers the Nyx-Fleece Ram.

Can the rival player dismember in this case? (I assume so)
What happens to Llanowar Reborn's +1/+1 counter?

Yes, triggered abilities use the stack. /// As for the second question, you can't move counters to a non-existent object, so you would be forced to decline to choose to move counters. This choice is made in resolution. (On phone, can't write proper answer.)

Most triggered abilities use the stack. Triggered mana abilities don't.

Worth noting that the rival player has to dismember the Ram before its controler decides to move the counter - the decision is made while Graft is resolving, and at that point it is too late to dismember the Ram. Which makes the second half of this question somewhat redundant.

@ikegami, I think you can still chose to move, the rules is just going to see that choice is impossible and not move anything... Nitpick I know

@Neil Meyer, 608.2d [...] The player can’t choose an option that’s illegal or impossible, with the exception that having a library with no cards in it doesn’t make drawing a card an impossible action [...] /// 122.5. If an effect says to “move” a counter, it means to remove that counter from the object it’s currently on and put it onto a second object. If either of these actions isn’t possible, it’s not possible to move a counter [...]

Yes, Graft is a regular triggered ability and can be responded to, for example by destroying the receiving creature before it gets the counter. If that happens, or the creature becomes unable to receive the counter for any other reason, the +1/+1 counter stays on the Graft permanent.
Graft is a triggered ability:

702.57a Graft represents both a static ability and a triggered ability. “Graft N” means “This permanent enters the battlefield with N +1/+1 counters on it” and “Whenever another creature enters the battlefield, if this permanent has a +1/+1 counter on it, you may move a +1/+1 counter from this permanent onto that creature.”
603.1. Triggered abilities have a trigger condition and an effect. They are written as “[When/Whenever/At] [trigger condition or event], [effect]. [Instructions (if any).]”

All triggered abilities (except triggered mana abilities) use the stack.

603.3. Once an ability has triggered, its controller puts it on the stack as an object that’s not a card the next time a player would receive priority. [..]

If the creature that is about to receive the counter dies or otherwise becomes unable to receive the counter, the counter stays where it is, on Llanowar Reborn in your case:

122.5. If an effect says to “move” a counter, it means to remove that counter from the object it’s currently on and put it onto a second object. If either of these actions isn’t possible, it’s not possible to move a counter, and no counter is removed from or put onto anything. This may occur if the first and second objects are the same object; if the first object doesn’t have the appropriate kind of counter on it; if the second object can’t have counters put onto it; or if either object is no longer in the correct zone.

This was how I thought it worked, thanks so much for the rules to prove it!

@MilkmanMatty Note that if Graft had said "remove a +1/+1 counter from this creature and add a +1/+1 counter to the other creature", then that would be two separate actions, and as effects always do as much as possible, you would lose the counter. However, moving a counter is a single, impossible action and it just won't happen at all.

Example:
Llanowar Reborn is on the board. A player summons a Nyx-Fleece Ram,
  Llanowar Reborn Graft ability gets triggered and the player decides to
  move the +1/+1 counter to the Nyx-Fleece Ram. A rival player
  Dismembers the Nyx-Fleece Ram.
Can the rival player dismember in this case? (I assume so)
What happens to Llanowar Reborn's +1/+1 counter?

Graft uses the stack, but it does not target.
It is just a triggered ability that gives you the option to move a counter when it resolves. You can always choose not to move a counter. There is no way with the current wording of graft that a counter can disappear, even if the creature is destroyed in response to the trigger, you can always just chose not to move the +1/+1 counter, when graft resolves. When you choose not to move the counter, nothing happens.


text:
Diplomacy question involving a convoy
An army is being convoyed, with a force of 2, into a coastal region where there is an opposing fleet.
The opposing fleet(moving) is attempting to dislodge the convoy, with a force of 2.
The convoying fleet is supported adequately so that it is not dislodged.
Do the units bounce or does the army land successfully?

If the convoy is not dislodged, the army can use it as long as it has enough strength to enter the area.

The convoyed army lands successfully, dislodging the fleet, provided this description accurately resembles the problem:
Germany:
A DEN - BEL convoyed by F NOR S
A HOL sup A DEN - BEL
F NWY sup F NOR S standing
France:
F BEL - North Sea
F ENG C sup F BEL - NOR S
Since the convoying fleet is not dislodged, and the convoyed army arrives with greater force than the fleet defends with, the convoy is successful and F BEL is dislodged.

The part at the bottom is incorrect. If A BUR S BEL and F BEL-NTH are both ordered, then the support order for BUR is invalid since BEL is moving. So there is no change to the adjudication in this case.


text:
Can you trash your own keeper?
Say you have 2 keepers (Love and War for example), and the current rules allow you to play 2 cards.  In your hand you have All you Need is Love (goal) and Trash a Keeper (action).
Can you trash your own War keeper, play the appropriate goal, and win?  Trash a Keeper says you can trash any keeper; to me that includes your own.
Similar situations include when the goal is already played, and various configurations involving Peace (no War) and The Brain (no TV).
This came up in my hand in a game with my daughter the other night, I house-ruled against myself and she went on to win.

Yes, any unless the card specifies who it can be played on you are free to play it on anyone including yourself. You are free to trash your own keeper and play the other card allowing you to win.

Minor quibble - actions aren't played on anyone - you play it to the center of the table, and the follow the instructions


text:
Deeproot Pilgrimage and convoke
I have a Deeproot Pilgrimage in play, and I cast a convoke spell, tapping two nontoken Merfolks. Do I get one or two Merfolk tokens?
Deeproot Pilgrimage

Whenever one or more nontoken Merfolk you control become tapped, create a 1/1 blue Merfolk creature token with hexproof.

My expectations
I would say they are tapped at the same time, so you should only get a single token due to the wording "one or more".
On Arena
However MTG arena creates multiple tokens in this case.
Taken from a youtube video, cropped for privacy. You can see the two trigger from a single Zephyr Singer.

I suspect that it comes from the wording of convoke, which says that "for each mana in the spell's cost, you may tap one untapped creature", which then creates a separate effect for each mana.

I think Arena is probably wrong here, but no card has ever had an effect like on Deeproot Pilgrimage before, so there are no existing rulings to look at for precedent.

@ConMan "for each" does not generally mean that you perform the actions one at a time. For example, Adeline, Resplendent Cathar has that kind of wording, and it makes tokens all at once.

@murgatroid99 That's fair. I was trying to find a rules explanation for why it might be interpreted as multiple events, but it is equally likely that the answer is just that Arena is doing the wrong thing.

Like ConMan said, because convoke will allow you to tap them as separate actions. Unlike for example Aether Shockwave - if you cast that, chosing the non-spirit option, and it tapped all of your merfolk, that would only trigger once. If convoke tapped all at once, I think it would be worded more like "you may tap X creatures to pay for X of the spell's mana cost".

"convoke will allow you to tap them as separate actions" what is the justification for this statement? Many existing abilities with similar wording count as a single action. What specifically here leads you to conclude that it is multiple separate actions?

what abilities with similar wording? I might second guess myself.

Lands are tapped one at a time for mana generation.  Convoke replaces that action with tapping a creature.  Hence one at a time.

Convoke does not replace tapping lands with tapping creatures. It replaces spending the mana with tapping creatures. You tap lands to generate mana by activating mana abilities. Activating an ability is itself a whole multi-step process, and can only be done one at a time. There is no process to tapping each creature for convoke, so there is no inherent reason that it can't be done all at once.

@AdamR.Grey I was referring to abilities/effects that say "for each X, Y". Examples include tokens created by Clone Legion and life gained by Suffer the Past. Those are considered a single event, instead of multiple.


text:
Warhammer 40k 8th: When using two allied factions what stratagems and warlord traits do you use from the codices
Im playing Admech/imperial knights (seperate detachments) and I'm wondering, if my warlord is a knight, am I able to use admech strategems?/is the  trait in effect?

You can find all the information you need regarding the stratagems in your codex - right on the page with the stratagems. I'll quote from the Codex "Astra Militarum", p. 134 (of the german version):

Wenn du eine Armee in Schlachtordnung hast, die beliebige Astra-Militarum-Kontingente enthält (außer verstärkende Unterstützungskontingente), hast du Zugang zu den unten beschriebenen Gefechtsoptionen; du kannst also Befehlspunkte ausgeben, um sie zu aktivieren [...]

Very Loosely translated:

If you have an army that is battleforged and contains any Astra Militarum detachments (except whatever the english name for the detachment that allows you to just take any single unit you want for the price of one CP is), you gain access to the stratagems below. Meaning you can use Command Points to activate them

This text also appears in other codexes (I checked my codex Chaos Space Marines) and in the Psychic Awakening books (I checked Glaube und Zorn, which is the german version of Faith and Fury)
This means that as long as you have at least one full detachment from a specific army/keyword, you can use the stratagems. Note that most (if not all) stratagems are pretty much limited to be used only on the faction they come from (or even more specific units) - Your choice of Warlord is completely irrelevant for this, you have access to both AdMech and Knight Stratagems no matter which Warlord you choose.

Specific to AdMech/Knights - if the Knight is in House Questor Mechanicus, then three of the stratagems from the AdMech codex will also apply to the Knight (Benevolence of the Omnissiah, Knight of the Cog, and Tech-adept). Otherwise, as you stated, the stratagems' wordings exclude using them to target Knights.


text:
World legacy Key Ruling
I have my board completely filled with mekk-knights and world legacy key is face-up on the field. My opponent activates fiendish chain on one of my mekk-knights. Does the effect of fiendish chain resolve? I thought it wouldn't but my duel simulator let it resolve.

I'll post an actual, complete answer when I can get to the text sources I want to reference, but the reason is because there is a distinction between activating a Trap Card versus activating a Trap Effect.

Let's start from the beginning, "World Legacy Key"'s effect stated:

Negate any opponent's Trap effect that activates in the same column as a "Mekk-Knight" monster you control.

Assuming this Continuous effect already took place, your opponent activates "Fiendish Chain" with this activation condition:

Activate this card by targeting 1 Effect Monster on the field; ...

Which will now be explained by this article: Activate

A card or effect can only be activated if that card or effect meets its activation conditions.
The activation cost for a card or effect must be paid in order to activate a card or effect.
It is not possible to activate a card or effect if the effect would fail to do anything when it resolved.
It is not possible to activate a card or effect if it has no valid target.

Number 3 does NOT actually stop "Fiendish Chain". It means fail to do anything by the game mechanic or does not change any game state if it resolved, not negated by card effects (for example, activating "Raigeki" or "Dark Hole" when there are no monsters in the field). It is perfectly fine to activate cards as long as the activation condition is met, regardless if it would be negated by even Continuous effects.
Additionally, "Fiendish Chain" continuously targets the targeted monster, therefore as soon as "World Legacy Key" is no longer active, "Fiendish Chain" will automatically negate the targeted monster at the time of activation.
Therefore, "Fiendish Chain" can be activated, but its effects are negated as long as "World Legacy Key" is active. "Fiendish Chain" will remain on the field.
According to Shinji's explanation below, "Fiendish Chain"'s Continuous Effect still negates according to this ruling about "Skill Drain", so yeah, my bad. Kudos to him for finding the ruling in Japanese. Sometimes Konami make everything more convoluted than it should be.

No, "Fiendish Chain's" effect will be negated when "Fiendish Chain's" activation of the card resolves, but after that it will continue to apply its effects. That is how continuous effects work. In other words, the effect of the "Mekk-Knight" monster will be negated after "Fiendish Chain" resolves.

See my comment on your answer @Shinji-san

Ok, I responded. There are rulings for this on "Altergeist Protocol"(indirect) and "World Legacy Key"(direct) as well.

The correct answer is that because "Fiendish Chain" is a continuous card, it will continuously attempt to apply its effect. Furthermore, "World Legacy Key" can only negate activated effects. An activated effect is an effect which has been activated(in other words, the effect resolves, i.e. it reserves a chain link). In this case, you only negate the instance of that activated effect. In other words, the effect which was activated, right before it resolves it will be negated by the negating effect. So model wise it looks like this:
Building Chain
Chain Link 1: "Fiendish Chain"
Resolving Chain
---> Begin resolving chain
---> Begin resolving "Fiendish Chain" (intercepted by "World Legacy Key" ), which negates the activated effect of "Fiendish Chain". The activated effect of "Fiendish Chain" is to negate the effects of 'that' face-up monster while it is on the field.
-->[ empty  resolution, resolve without effect ]
--> End resolution of "Fiendish Chain"
--> End resolving the chain / "Fiendish Chain" reapplies and continues to negate the effects of the targeted monster. (Continuous cards will always try to apply their effects, even if negated). A negated effect doesn't mean the effect is non-existent. It is there and will apply their effects once the restrictions have been lifted.
Your question seems as though "World Legacy Key" was face-up for the entire time that "Fiendish Chain" was, and even in that case it doesn't matter. The activated effect should be thought of as an instance of activating, so you are only negating the effect when it resolves. With something like "Altergeist Kunquery", if you negate its activated effect, it will not continue to negate the effects of the monster. You can say it continuously targets the monster, but that doesn't mean it will continuously try to apply its effects, that is because it doesn't have a continuous effect', so the negation depends on whether the trigger effect resolved 100% proper.

The wording of "World Legacy Key" clearly stated that it negates ANY trap effects that activates in the same column of "Mekk-Knight". That includes Continuous Effect. As long as "Fiendish Chain" is activated at the same column of "Mekk-Knight", its effect will be negated.

Yes, and the activated effect of "Fiendish Chain" is when the activation of the card resolves. Not after. The only activated effect "Fiendish Chain" has is when you resolve the activation of the card, because it has no other effects it activates after you resolve the card. There is no activated effect that is a continuous effect because continuous effects do not activate, that is by definition.

https://snipboard.io/KE2vQG.jpg
Source: https://yugioh-wiki.net/index.php?%A1%D4%C0%B1%B0%E4%CA%AA%A4%D8%BB%EA%A4%EB%B8%B0%A1%D5
Translation: Q: While this card("World Legacy Key's" effect is applying, "Skill Drain" is activated in response to the activation of "Mekk-Knight Blue Sky's" effect, and your opponent activates "Skill Drain" in the same column as "Mekk-Knight Blue Sky". In this case, will the effect of "Mekk-Knight Blue Sky" be negated?
A: This card effect will negate the effect of "Skill Drain's" activation. Once resolving "Skill Drain", it will apply again[etc..]


text:
How to self print/self publish card game
Essentially, I'm working on a little card game. It's my big project for the next two months or so. I've already made quite a few digital designs, and this game would involve nothing but cards, and possibly a playing board. This would all be printed out on an A4 size sheet of something. This brings me to my question.
What is the best material to mass print my card game? I'm already willing to pay a local printing service to print my card game maybe 2 or 3 times at first, and I'm willing to spend the money to print it repeatedly. That isn't my problem. My problem is that I have no idea what to use for the cards themselves. Now, this would be a print and play game, but for my own personal use, for local product-in-hand sales, and for recommendations on the online print and play service, I'd like to know what the best material is. I'm thinking something like laminated cardstock, but I'd like to know other's opinions.

As for the materiel a lot of that would depend on the game itself and how the pieces are used.

This is a very broad question. It's not even clear what you want. If if it's just for a few copies, I was very pleased with the results of PrinterStudio (but I think their prices have greatly increased since I used them). They are hardly the only company doing these kinds of custom print jobs

Have you ever played a game with cards made from laminated card stock? You want something like grey core cards, printed in a standard size (poker, american, european, mini euro, etc). Rounded corners. Not laminated. "Mass produce" makes me nervous for you. Only a publisher should undertake such an endeavor.


text:
Why don't triggered abilities immediately go on the stack?
Rule 603.2 of the Comprehensive Rules says:

Whenever a game event or game state matches a triggered ability’s trigger event, that ability automatically triggers. The ability doesn’t do anything at this point.

Lower, in 603.3 the Rules continue:

Once an ability has triggered, its controller puts it on the stack as an object that’s not a card the next time a player would receive priority

Why does it work this way? Is there a compelling reason why the ability can't immediately go on the stack? I know state-based actions will now happen before the ability is put on the stack, but I'm not sure why this would affect it.

Magic is designed to avoid any interruptions to the resolution of a spell or ability
It might seem like placing triggers on the stack is a minor thing that would not cause any problems, but some triggers target and that means that now somebody is making decisions in the middle of the resolution of the spell.  Even worse, some abilities trigger when the permanent becomes a target of a spell or ability, meaning that this interstitial trigger can trigger other triggers!  (And one card, Scalelord Reckoner, targets when triggered by being targeted,  which could cause it to trigger a third trigger!).
The rules are almost certainly capable of handling such complication, but it's not really beneficial to the game to have to do so.
Having all the triggers placed all at once reinforces the general intuition about how Magic treats simultaneity - how if multiple creatures enter the battlefield all at once, they all see each other enter for their triggers.
It also means that you don't have to figure out where various objects are at the exact moment the trigger happens when choosing targets.  Everything waits until resolution is complete and everything is settled and stationary before target choice happens.
Additionally, if abilities entered the stack while a spell or ability was resolving, that would meant that you are now resolving an effect that is somewhere in the middle of the stack, which is philosophically not how the stack is meant to function.

"Fortunately, there do not appear to be any triggers that trigger on targeting that then target" Scalelord Reckoner does exactly that.

@murgatroid99 oops, missed that one. Fortunately, that only enhances my point.

Also you could have Silverfur Partisan and Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves in play. The target would trigger to create a wolf which would then trigger to fight a target.

@Tim_B, no, because the triggers still wouldn't resolve until later.  Only things that happen when an ability enters the stack matter.

Can I suggest something like “Theere are even triggers that trigger on targeting that then target!” instead? :) Here's a relevant serach

@doppelgreener Gargos and Lash only trigger when targeted by spells, so they aren't relevant.

@ArcanistLupus Good catch

This is needed to enforce Active Player - Not Active Player ordering.
Imagine both players controlled a permanent which had a triggered ability "When a creature dies <something something something>" and a creature dies. Both abilities now trigger; without the two-step process in 603.2 and 603.3 the order in which the abilities go on the stack would not be defined as both abilities would go on the stack simultaneously. However, because 603.3 specifies the abilities go on the stack only "the next time a player would receive priority", the active player's ability goes on the stack first, then priority passes to the not active player and their ability goes on the stack.

I don't quite understand this... 603.3b says "If multiple abilities have triggered since the last time a player received priority, each player, in APNAP order, puts triggered abilities they control on the stack in any order they choose." If triggered abilities went on the stack right when they triggered, instead of the next time a player would receive priority, then the rules would simply state this same information at a different time... in other words, not sure what's special about "when a player receives priority" that makes APNAP work.

I don't think it's unheard of for their to be duplication in the Comprehensive Rules e.g. a chunk of 603 is duplicated in 117.2.

You may have misunderstood my comment. My point was that the reason triggered abilities that triggered simultaneously go on the stack in APNAP order is because the rules (603.3b) say so. So if the rules were written in the alternative way that the OP is asking about, where they go on the stack when they trigger, the rules could easily still specify that when multiple things trigger simultaneously that they go on the stack in APNAP order. Waiting until a player would receive priority doesn't seem relevant to that.

This is not relevant to the question asked - If triggers went onto the stack immediately, rather than waiting until a player would receive priority, nothing stops them from being put on the stack exactly the same way they are now, in APNAP order. Nothing stops 603.3b from being written "If multiple abilities have triggered, each player, in APNAP order, puts triggered abilities they control on the stack in any order they choose." and changing nothing with regards to your answer.


text:
Do I have to pay the Equip cost each turn to equip a creature with an Artifact Equipment?
In Magic: The Gathering, once I have cast an Artifact - Equipment and then paid the Equip cost to place it on a creature, does it come off the creature at the end of my turn?
Must I pay the Equip cost each turn to attach it to the same creature?

No, you would only pay the equip cost again if you wish to equip it to a different creature. There is no rule that causes equipment to automatically fall off each turn.

702.6. Equip

702.6a Equip is an activated ability of Equipment cards. “Equip [cost]” means “[Cost]: Attach this permanent to target creature you control. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.”
702.6b For more information about Equipment, see rule 301, “Artifacts.”
702.6c “Equip [quality] creature” is a variant of the equip ability. “Equip [quality] [cost]” means “[Cost]: Attach this permanent to target [quality] creature you control. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.” This ability doesn’t restrict what the Equipment may be attached to.
702.6d An “equip [quality] creature” ability is an equip ability, and an “equip [quality] creature” cost is an equip cost. Any effect that modifies how or whether a player may activate an equip ability of an object affects “equip [quality] creature” abilities of that object. Any effect that increases or reduces an equip cost will increase or reduce a “equip [quality] creature” cost.
702.6e If a permanent has multiple equip abilities, any of its equip abilities may be activated.

In order for equipment to automatically "fall off" at the end of the turn, 702.6a would basically need to read "Attach this permanent to target [quality] creature you control until the end of turn."
The full rules for equipment are here, but really the real rules support for the answer is simply the fact that no such rule exists that would cause something to become unequipped at the end of the turn.

301.5. Some artifacts have the subtype “Equipment.” An Equipment can be attached to a creature. It can’t legally be attached to anything that isn’t a creature.

301.5a The creature an Equipment is attached to is called the “equipped creature.” The Equipment is attached to, or “equips,” that creature.
301.5b An Equipment is cast and enters the battlefield just like any other artifact. An Equipment doesn’t enter the battlefield attached to a creature. The equip keyword ability attaches the Equipment to a creature you control (see rule 702.6, “Equip”). Control of the creature matters only when the equip ability is activated and when it resolves. Spells and other abilities may also attach an Equipment to a creature. If an effect attempts to attach an Equipment to an object that can’t be equipped by it, the Equipment doesn’t move.
301.5c An Equipment that’s also a creature can’t equip a creature. An Equipment that loses the subtype “Equipment” can’t equip a creature. An Equipment can’t equip itself. An Equipment that equips an illegal or nonexistent permanent becomes unattached from that permanent but remains on the battlefield. (This is a state-based action. See rule 704.) An Equipment can’t equip more than one creature. If a spell or ability would cause an Equipment to equip more than one creature, the Equipment’s controller chooses which creature it equips.
301.5d An Equipment’s controller is separate from the equipped creature’s controller; the two need not be the same. Changing control of the creature doesn’t change control of the Equipment, and vice versa. Only the Equipment’s controller can activate its abilities. However, if the Equipment grants an ability to the equipped creature (with “gains” or “has”), the equipped creature’s controller is the only one who can activate that ability.
301.5e An ability of a permanent that refers to the “equipped creature” refers to whatever creature that permanent is attached to, even if the permanent with the ability isn’t an Equipment.


text:
Can you get a single worker for a single die if you can only use one die roll?
We were playing The Castles of Burgandy.
A player rolled two 5's, and it was late in the phase.  There was a 5 play, by putting a building on a hex, which he did.  But there was no other action he could take with a 5.  He had no worker with which to switch the 5 to a 4 or a 6.  We looked at the rule about abandoning both dice for two workers, but it did not appear clear if one can abandon one die for a single worker.
Is this within the rules: take an action on the result of a single die, and forfeit the action of the other die in return for a single worker?
We house ruled it as 'yes' since it's less frustrating for the players.  We are new to the game and are unsure if that's a good house rule or even a valid one.

You only need one die to get two workers
From the Castles of Burgundy rules, sourced here

Action "Take worker tiles"
Finally, a player may choose to use any die result to take 2 worker
tiles from the general supply. In this case, the die result itself is
meaningless.

The word 'die' is singular, indicating that you only need a single die to take this action.  This is in keeping with every other action in the game - every action takes exactly one die.
So any house rules are unnecessary.

The key is that taking workers is just a normal action; same as building or trading goods.

@GendoIkari aaah, we looked at the pictures on the right and were under the impression that you had to use two dice for two workers. Thanks to you both.

@KorvinStarmast which pictures? In my copy of the rule book, this sentence is on page 9. There is no picture of dice on this or adjacent pages.

@AndrewSavinykh probably the pictures on the bottom right of the player boards featuring two workers, if I had to guess.

@AndrewSavinykh Arcanist Lupus is right; the figure in the lower right hand corner of the standard playing board.


text:
How long is a crewed vehicle a creature
Its my turn: I crew a vehicle with a creature meaning it becomes a creature artefact and I attack with it.
Now on the opponents turn my opponent has a enchantment which targets creatures (e.g. -3 to all my creatures). Does my vehicle now count as a creature or just an artefact?

Every Vehicle in the game except one has a reminder text that crewing lasts until end of turn. Is it unclear to you what "end of turn" means?

no, I just did not read properly then ;)

No, the vehicle stops being a creature at the end of your turn.

702.121a Crew is an activated ability of Vehicle cards. “Crew N” means “Tap any number of untapped creatures you control with total power N
  or greater: This permanent becomes an artifact creature until end of
  turn.”

This is reflected in the reminder text most Vehicle cards have beside their Crew ability.
If you activate the Crew ability again on your opponent's turn, it will again become a creature and potentially be affected by the enchantment.
Source


text:
How can you ever buy a development card with 14 tokens?
How can you ever buy a development card with 14 tokens? as you can never reach this amount, even when you draw +3 on your turn, the max you can reach is 13, and you cant use them to purchase the card as your tuen is over?

The max number of tokens you can reach is 10, not 13.  You cannot get tokens and purchase a card on the same turn, and you must always discard down to 10 tokens by the end of your turn.

@John He says that already at the end of the question; that you could reach 13, but you wouldn't be able to use them to purchase the card.

I don't think players are meant to by a level 3 development card with just gem tokens. As you righty say, buying a development card costing 14 or more with just gem tokens would be impossible. Are you are aware that development cards count as bonuses? If you look at the rules here they say-

The bonuses a player has from development cards acquired on previous
  turns provide discounts on the purchase of new cards. Each bonus of a
  given color is equal to a token of that color. Thus, if a player has 2
  blue bonuses and wants to purchase a card which costs 2 blue tokens
  and 1 green token, the player must only spend 1 green token. If a
  player has enough development cards (and therefore bonuses), they can
  even purchase a card without spending any tokens.

So a player can buy a development card costing 14 tokens provided that the cost is reduced by bonuses for previously bought development cards.


text:
When there are multiple of the same character in play, which one(s) do character-based actions apply to?
There are some characters like Legion and Village Idiot that more than one player can be at the same time. So what happens when another character's ability requires selecting a character? For example:

A Courtier chooses Legion. Which Legion player is drunk? Does exactly one become drunk, or do both of them?
The Ojo chooses to kill the Village Idiot. Do they all die, or does only one die?

When an ability says "(choose) a character" and multiple copies of that character are in play, the Storyteller chooses one such player.
The ability applies to just that player, even if they later become a different character (because generally, references to "a character" apply to the player with that character, who is then explicitly marked).
We see this clarity given specifically at least for Ojo

If there are multiple copies of a particular character in play, and the Ojo chooses that character to die, only one of those characters dies.

and the same principle is applied in comparable situations.
Courtier choosing Legion only makes one Legion player drunk; Ojo choosing Village Idiot only makes one V.I. die; Philosopher choosing a multiple-in-play character only makes one of that character drunk.


text:
Does a Mastermind killed by a Vigormortis cause an extra day?
A Vigormortis kills its own minion, a Mastermind. The Vigormortis is executed and dies. The wiki says that minions only keep their ability as long as the Vigormortis is alive, so does the Mastermind see the moment of the Vigormortis' death and cause an extra day, or does it have no ability by the time its ability checks if it should trigger?

I emailed the Pandemonium Institute and asked them this question. Their response was:

This is one of those edge cases that can be actually be ruled either way, so just be consistent and make sure your players know how you're running it.

OK wow, I didn't know you could just contact them like that. I guess that makes it official.

Blood on the Clocktower does not handle simultaneous events in a way that is unambiguous in every case. The trend is that all relevant abilities will function before the game advances but some exceptions can exist.
Compare "case law" for abilities that function in similar ways or similar situations.

If a Lleech 'host' is executed when three players are alive, the game does not end immediately because only two players live; instead the Lleech also dies and only one player lives. Good wins because all Demons are dead (and not Evil). This requires both deaths to be simultaneous before the game ends.

If the last living Demon dies and Scarlet Woman's ability is active, the game does not end immediately with Good's victory; instead the player with Scarlet Woman's ability becomes a Demon and the game continues.

Thus, the Vigormortis is executed and dies, and the Mastermind ability functions: the game is extended for one more day, after which the game is lost by an executed player's team, or lost by Evil if no execution occurs (because all Demons are dead).


text:
Does a Zombuul register as dead to an Evil Twin?
The Pit-Hag turns a good player into a good-aligned Evil Twin. The Storyteller chooses the Zombuul as the other twin. The Zombuul is executed but remains alive because of their ability. Can good win now?

Yes, Good can win.
That is what "registers as dead" means. Evil Twin "sees" the Zombuul as dead, and the condition in their ability,

... Good can't win if you both live.

is not satisfied. There is no limit on Good's access to winning.
However, it does not prevent the other part of Evil Twin's ability from causing Evil to win, if the living Good-aligned Evil Twin is executed later.


text:
If somebody plays a wild card (without +4), is the next person's turn skipped?
3 of us were playing Uno, and somebody layed down a regular wild card. I tried to play the next card because it was my turn, but everybody said that it skipped my turn. I don't believe it did. Please answer soon!

Do keep in mind that Uno is a heavily houseruled game. Just because the official rules say a wild does not skip doesn't mean they won't continue to play that way. If they decide that they should keep it as a rule regardless of what the official rules say, don't be surprised.

No, it does not skip your turn. There is a separate card called “Skip” that does that, Wild only allows you to change the color being played.
From the rules:

Wild Card - When you play this card, you may change the color being played to any color (including the current color) to continue play. You may play a Wild card even if you have another playable card in hand. If this card is turned up at the beginning of play, the person to the left of the dealer chooses the color to begin play and plays the first card.

Nothing about skipping a player is mentioned.


text:
What rule prevents a card from being played if its effect is known to be unresolvable?
The Pokemon TCG Rulings Compendium contains multiple rulings that imply that cards cannot be played if it is known their actions cannot be resolved.
For example:
Can I play Accompanying Flute if my opponent's Bench is full? - No
Can I use Professor Elm's Training Method if there are zero cards left in my deck? - No, you cannot search through your deck if there's nothing there to search.
Could I [...] search through my deck for a particular card if I already know that card is not in my deck? - Yes
, you may.
These and other rulings imply that you cannot play a card to fail it if it is known that the action is unresolvable. Most players also know this to be true and play accordingly - The official rulebook, however, does not explicitly state this to be a rule and I cannot find a ruling that applies this logic to all cards.
While the rule can be inferred from past rulings to apply across all cards, is this rule stated explicitly in general terms in any official Pokemon TCG resources?

Ultimately, this is based on a rules team question from early days, now found in the compendium:

You cannot play a card if it is public knowledge that it will have no game effect. Paying a cost does not satisfy the requirement that the card has a game effect.

This does go somewhat further back, for what it's worth - for example, from 2004:

Q. Magneton's "Magnetic Field" Poké-POWER states: "Once during your turn (before your attack), if you have basic energy cards in your discard pile, you may discard any 1 card from your hand. Then search for up to 2 basic Energy cards from your discard pile, show them to your opponent, and put them into your hand." Can you discard the energy and choose none because it states "search for UP TO 2 cards"?
A. You cannot play a card to no effect when failure of the effect is known in advance. In this case, since you know there is energy in the discard, you must take at least 1 to play the card. (Mar 18, 2004 PUI Rules Team; September 18, 2007)

There is no "better" source than that; as you note the rulebook does not specify this.  For better or for worse, Pokémon has chosen to have a very simple rulebook that does not remotely contain all of the detail needed for proper competitive play, and to put that into the apocrypha that is the Compendium.


text:
Casual playing of Magic the Gathering MTG
me and my GF started playing casual MTG together. I used to play so I know alot about the game and i taught her already so we know about playing. I had alot of cards from past but now we bought "a set of 3000 cards". They are mostly common, uncommon, few rares and its mostly War of the Spark, Throne of eldraine and so on. So now we are digging into this pile of cards but we are kinda lost about what should we do.
I was thinking about some page or a software, where I could put all the cards and it would tell me what decks consist of some of my cards so I could buy the rest or something like that.
Also we were looking at the Duel decks, but there are so many and alot of people say that they are unbalanced or not worth for the money.
Or should we just find decks lists we like and go buy them to our local store?
We have lot of cards, but kinda dont know what to do with them, because most of all they are commons and uncommons.

Welcome to Stack Exchange. I must admit I'm struggling to work out what you're trying to achieve here - MtG is a game which can be played in a large variety of ways, from very casual "play the cards you have and just have fun" on the kitchen table, through semi-competitive settings like FNM to ultra-competitive tournaments. What you should do depends entirely on where you want to fall on that scale.

Hello! Thanks for answering. I meant casual like playing at home with my GF and friends. As I said i have alot of cards in my colection but im not sure, if they are actualy usable. We like to play more interesting decks, not just basic starting decks. For example we bought the Mu Yanling planeswalker deck which was kinda basic and then we bought the Ashiok planeswalker deck which was more interesting. So the best way would be finding a software or some website where I could put my whole collection and it would tell me if there are any decks made of these cards so I can just buy the rest.

One thing to watch out for: a deck can be interesting (subjective, but perhaps related to combos or unusual gimmicks), and a deck can be powerful (good at winning tournaments). If you search for arbitrary decks online, you may end up with tournament decks which are probably not what you want because they'll prioritize being powerful over being interesting (though they may be both), and also they'll be expensive to construct (because MtG tournaments are worth serious money, thus so are the decks that can win them).

Also note that for casual play, you can just proxy cards you don't own - often by taking a cheap card like a land and then either drawing on it or putting it in a sleeve behind a printout of the card you want. (In which case you can reasonably make some high-level tournament decks to try out.)

Well proxying card isnt a possibility, cause im kinda a true collector myself. :D And yea, tournnament 100+€ decks arent the thing I want.
I will give an example. We were looking at the duel decks which are usualy like 30€. So something around that or higher is good i would say. But I kinda wanted to use the cards i already have in my colection. There are so many products (boosters, booster boxes, precon decks and soooo many decks on the internet). So i really am kinda lost. The duel deck idea was very interesting to me, because it should be two decks balanced to duel each other.

Related to Benjamin's point above about different deck types: Timmy, Johnny and Spike.

This may be closed as opinion-based, but there isn't a "right way" to play MTG casually or to build decks. However, I find that you are approaching it from the wrong point of view, and are missing out on what is (in my opinion) the most fun part about playing Magic, which is the deck-building.
Sure you can find a deck list online that uses some of your cards and just build a deck that someone else has thought of. But then you are only getting half of what Magic has to offer... you are getting the play-the-game part, but you are missing out on the build-the-deck part.
My recommendation would be to avoid looking at any deck lists, and instead just look through the cards you have. Get some ideas based on the cards you have and then build the best deck you can with only the cards you have. Of course it won't be as strong of a deck as it would if you were buying whatever specific cards you need to make a great deck, but it should be balanced against the deck that your girlfriend made since it came from the same pool of cards.
It sounds from the question wording like you are thinking of a Magic deck as one of a bunch of different possibilities that you can find and use. But really a Magic deck is any set of at least 60 cards that doesn't contain more than 4 of the same card (except basic lands). So there's no "right" or "wrong" decks to make, there are just ones which will win more often or be more fun to play. But challenging yourself to build a deck without the ability to just use any card you can think of can be a lot of fun.
The one thing you may need to get outside of the cards you already have is basic lands, depending on what basic lands your collection came with. You can get a lot of these very cheap, but you will need several of them to build almost any deck.

That actualy sounds right. I just wonder what would be the best way to learn how to build decks in general? I mean I personaly "kinda know how" but i was bit struggeling to teach my GF that. :D

A question about how to learn deckbuilding skills would be a good question for this site, but please ask it as a separate question, not as a comment on Gendolkari's answer. Please review our existing deck-building questions and if you don't find your answer there, ask your question. Thanks!

I'd even dare to say that deck-building is one of the most fun, if not the most, part of allTCGs and CCGs. Yeah, playing the decks is also important and fun, but the moment you get hooked you start wondering "hey, what if I use this other card instead of..." and that is where the real joy begins :) the thrill of pulling the card you wanted from a booster pack, checking endless boxes and cards other players have to see if they have the one you seek and want to trade, etc... it goes beyond "merely" grabbing a pre-constructed deck and playing it.


text:
In Canasta, if the discard pile has already been frozen with a wild card, is a subsequent discard allowed to be another wild card?
I think my title contains the complete question, but I'll try to rephrase it here.  When playing Canasta, if the discard pile has already been frozen with a sideways facing wild card, can an additional wild card ever be placed as the current discard?
I don't believe that is allowed, but if I am wrong and you are allowed to discard a second wild card, can the pile then be picked up by the next player displaying two wildcards for a meld?

You can always discard a wild card even if one is already on the pile.  It freezes the pile for both sides, much like the start of the hand.
When the pile is frozen, it can only be unfrozen when a natural (non wild or 3) is on top of the pile and it is taken with a natural pair of those same cards.
I've played several different variants of canasta, but the above rules are the same.
Here is one set of rules for Canasta, I'm not aware of an official set of rules from a universal governing body.  https://bicyclecards.com/how-to-play/canasta/

Thanks for responding.  But the question is, once the pile has already been frozen with a wild card, can another wild card be added to the discard pile?

@Lynda Certainly.  I'm sorry that wasn't clear.

Is this true if we are not playing as teams because there are only two of us playing?  By the way, thanks for the rules link that you sent above.

Yes, you can discard a wild card. But there's no benefit in doing it.


text:
What is a technique to hold old playing cards with no corner indicators?
Old decks of playing cards often don't have corner indicators for suit and number, and it seems hard (at least to a novice) to determine what each card is without seeing it in full. For instance:

This is an Italian deck, but other old ones I see are similar. I normally hold cards more or less like this, with only the corner digit and suit visible:

This does not seem possible with old cards. Were there any techniques for holding a hand in such a deck such that the cards are easily identifiable?

No, there's no easy way to hold the cards so that the cards are identifiable without adjusting them to look at each one's full face.
The solution to that problem was the "major innovation" that led to patents being granted for the corner emblem (indicating the absence of a practical way of holding and viewing the cards prior to that innovation). Source.

A patent was issued on February 9, 1864 to Cyrus W. Saladee of
Paducah, Kentucky, under patent number 41,587. It is believed to be
the first American deck with corner indices.

My invention consists in combining a number or letter with an emblem -
such as a heart, spade, club or diamond - so that upon seeing the
emblem, which may be in a corner, the denomination of the card is at
once understood.

This idea revolutionized American card manufacture by enabling players
to fan the cards to view only the corner of each card, sufficient to
see the indices. This was soon followed by Andrew Dougherty’s patent
for “Triplicates” and other novel systems of index types which were
adopted by other manufacturers until, over time, they became the new
norm.

You could almost hold them in a line with the top peeking out, except for the 5&6 of row 1 and the 4&5 of row 2 (and maybe the King of row 3&4 [hard to see]).  +1 from me.

These cards are tall and narrow at 103 mm by 51 mm (4 in by 2 in). So holding them in one hand can be a little awkward. The 40 card deck in the question is a Primiera Bolognese pattern. Alta Carta labels them as L0061 and notes:

This pattern will soon vanish. There is only one manufacturer left that prints such cards. This does not surprise me, because these cards appear very inconvenient to play with.

The book "On Games of Chance" by Girolamo Cardano described Primero with a hand size of four cards:

Two cards are dealt each player
...
After the first round of betting, two more cards are dealt to each player

Corner and edge indices (see history below) enabled using only one hand. I printed some replica cards and held 5 in a hand with relative ease:

History of the indices we use today
The New York Consolidated Card Company began printing cards in 1832. Their patented design in 1875 is credited with popularizing corner markings to allow fanning your cards for better visualization.
It was not uncommon to hold your hand of 4 or 5 cards in two hands at the time:

Corner and edge indices enabled people to hold their cards close together in a fan with one hand (instead of the two hands previously used). [emphasis added]

They were originally called "squeezers" and not well received by customers, but are now referred to as "indices".

FWIW, you show only five cards in your hand (e.g., a poker hand), while OP shows 13 (e.g., a bridge hand). It would be intractable to fan thirteen cards in the fashion you show for five.

@L.ScottJohnson The cards in the OP photo are Primiera Bolognese cards. In some games you have 4 cards, not 13. It was also often held in two hands, not one. Every version of bridge (Biritch, Eralash, Vint, Whist) that I could research used 52 cards. The OP deck is 40 cards, so holding more than 5 cards in hand wasn't a way these cards were used. Should I change my answer to ignore the photo the OP used?

I've played several games using Sicilian cards that are the same style of deck.  You can reasonably hold 4 or 5 cards in one hand and still see them.  You only need 30% - 50% of a card to be visible once your familiar with the deck (you can see the suit and enough of the picture to tell the value).  Holding the cards aligned flat in your hand rather than fanning them at angles also helps.  If you need to hold more than five cards, you can put some of your cards facedown on the table, or use your other hand.
You could also use wooden stands like the following:


text:
What is the highest score recorded for a single play in Words with Friends
You can only play 7 tiles in one turn in Words with Friends, so that makes a maximum of eight words you can make at once. By maximizing use of the bonus squares (Triple Word Score etc.) you can get some very high scores.
What is the highest score anyone has achieved in a single turn in Words with Friends?

According to recordsetter.com the current record for a single word turn is 1674 points with the word "oxyphenbutazone".
This word has been used for various other records such as 1670, 1672 and 1673 points.
It's worth mentioning that most of these records have been set by setting up the game in a way that optimized for this specific play.


text:
If a Devotion God had a tap ability, would it be able to tap on the turn it came in if you didn't have enough devotion?
If a Theros God that requires a certain Devotion enters the battlefield where you do not have enough devotion to fulfill the requirement to make it a creature does it still have summoning sickness for the purpose of a tap ability?

You would be able to tap it to activate an ability that had the tap symbol as part of its cost, yes. Summoning sickness only affects creatures, and the Theros Gods are not creatures if they are on the battlefield and your devotion is low enough. This also applies if your devotion is initially high enough to make them creatures, and then later in the turn your devotion goes down making them not creatures any more (which, incidentally, seems like the biggest opportunity to give the God a tap ability in the first place, such as mutating it with Parcelbeast or Porcuparrot).
The rule for the tap symbol only specifies creatures as a special case, so any non-creature permanent would be unaffected by summoning sickness:

107.5. The tap symbol is {T}. The tap symbol in an activation cost means “Tap this permanent.” A
permanent that’s already tapped can’t be tapped again to pay the cost. A creature’s activated ability
with the tap symbol in its activation cost can’t be activated unless the creature has been under its
controller’s control continuously since their most recent turn began. See rule 302.6.

where rule 302.6 basically repeats the final sentence, plus some more that is irrelevant in this situation:

302.6. A creature’s activated ability with the tap symbol or the untap symbol in its activation cost can’t
be activated unless the creature has been under its controller’s control continuously since their most
recent turn began. A creature can’t attack unless it has been under its controller’s control
continuously since their most recent turn began. This rule is informally called the “summoning
sickness” rule.


text:
What is the general name for this particular game mechanic?
I'm hoping to find a common general terminology for a mechanic I have encountered in several board games.
As an example, here's an excerpt from the rules for The King's Dilemma:

At the end of your voting turn, if you are now the player with the most Power [tokens] on your Vote (no matter which side you chose), you immediately take the Leader token. Do not take the Leader token if you only equal the highest bidder’s amount of Power [tokens].

The general idea is that, if you have (say) 3 tokens on the space I want to control, it's not enough for me to put 3 of my own tokens on it; I have to put 4 or more to be in control. And if I do put 4 tokens on it (thereby gaining control), it's not enough for you to then add a 4th token of your own—you'd need to bring your total number of tokens up to 5 or more to regain control.
Is there a general term for this mechanic?

I had a look around and couldn't find a name for the mechanism. I agree that it shows up in plenty of places (e.g. the Longest Road and Largest Army cards from Catan). If I had to name it, I'd pick something like "Must Overtake the Leader" I guess?

This is called first in wins.
See for example this article on game design

First in wins.  Markers placed later are considered to fall behind those placed earlier.  The only way a later player can get ahead is to exceed the previous count. This is generally best if the game has a start player disadvantage.

This is in a broader class of tie-breakers favoring efficiency, which one author categorizes as epsilon tie-breakers:

The efficiency argument and even the game balance factor are a restatement of the epsilon argument addressed above. The game balance point is perhaps a little more subtle, but in essence is the same as the many majority/plurality games which state that the first one in is the default winner of the contest (eg Medieval Merchant, Die Neuen Entdecker, etc): another phrasing of epsilon.

(which I found interesting because of the default formulation of this rule: "first one in", a form of "first in wins")

Thanks, that's great! Is there any other source that confirms that this phrase is used by others as well?

Not that I could find. The term (and its opposite) are also used in concurrency programs like signal passing and databases -- that's where the rest of the hits go. But really, it seems like a relatively obvious/shallow mechanic, at least as far as needing a name goes (obviously it can lead to deep strategic choices), so (re)using a straightforward descriptive tag seems logical. It was the term that came to mind when I entered my search (so I searched for it in quotes).

@GregMartin A similar mechanic that is regularly used in a lot of other games (usually in things like attack systems) is known as "Defender Wins".


text:
Is the number coins a private information
Do I have to show how many coins I have, or can I keep this information private?
When I play with Cities or Armada expansion, Debts and Taxes have to be paid, and in some cases I would like to know if it makes sense to play a card, so that others need to pay. Because if they do not have enough coins, they have to take a -1 point token for each coin the cannot pay.
If a player hides the number of coins, this strategy is irrelevant.

As answered below coins are public info.  I think its good practice in all games to assume everything is public information unless the rules explicitly state otherwise.

@StartPlayer, Except hands, face-down items (cards, decks, etc). Even then, though, the count of such things is usually public.

@ikegami if I saw the words 'face down', 'in a players hand' etc then I would assume that was explicitly hidden.  If a rule is 'take a resource' then then this is clearly public unless rules state otherwise, perhaps with the use of a screen.

lol, if you have to assume something was meant, it wasn't explicitly stated!

@ikegamin There is more than one phrasing of a rule than can be said to be explicitly stating something. To me, “face-down” is essentially synonymous with “hidden” in game contexts; so either can be considered “explicit”.

Or to put it another way... even if a rule isn’t explicit that something is hidden, if it is explicit that it is face down; then that serves the same purpose as that thing being hidden. Because if it is face down then you can’t see it.

Your coins are kept on your board. The number of coins you have can therefore easily be seen or checked by the other players.
Rules:

Each player begins the game with 3 value “1” coins which they place on
their board.

While that does say it starts on the board, I would argue that does not mean it would prevent players from stacking coins or using other methods to prevent other players from knowing exactly how much they had.

And stacking wouldn't prevent other players from inspecting those stacks.

The letter of that rule can be followed in a way that makes it completely meaningless - place the coins on your board at start of game, then immediately remove them from the board and hide them, or leave them but hide any future coins. But especially because the letter can be so abused, the real question is what the intent/spirit of the rule is, and the only one I can think of is that the number of coins you have is supposed to always be public info.

Yeah, that gets much beyond this question and into the "what is the purpose of a rulebook?" and "what is a game?" and social contracts and things. The rules don't say you can't hide your coins. Or hide your board. Or grab coins willy nilly from the bank. Or build locations from the discard pile for free. The rules are there to tell you how to play the game rather than to be an encyclopedia of all the ways you can't play the game.

Exactly, the rules don't call out that the amount of coins that you have is public or private. They just state where the starting 3 coins go.

Exactly. They state you start with three and tell you where the coins are placed. They never tell you to put your coins anywhere else. So that's where your coins are.

The only secret information in 7 wonders are the cards currently in your hand and cards that have been discarded* (either for gold, wonder stage or end of age discard), everything else is public information. A player is not allowed to hide the number of coins that they have and must inform you of how many they have if you ask.
*Discarded cards for gold or end of age can be searched under certain conditions such as a wonder stage that lets you build a discarded card for free.

I think you're mostly right, but do you have a rules reference? Also, one place you're wrong: cards used to build wonder stages remain hidden information.

@BenjaminCosman I looked through the rules but I did not see anything specifically calling out public versus secret information. Also I have updated my answer to include cards used to build the wonder stages.

Aren’t discarded cards (for coins or at the end of an age) also secret information?

@KRyan Not fully as there is a wonder that lets a player search through those and build them for free when building a stage.

That’s still secret information. Anything you need special permission to see (by them being “yours,” or by you having a special effect, or whatever else) is by definition not public, and thus secret.

@KRyan Added that to my answer.


text:
Getting home in parcheesi
If I am on the home path and need a 3 to get into home, can I get in if I roll double 3's? This was my last pawn. We weren't sure if I was the winner or not.

Yes (in most rules; check your specific rules for exceptions). From Wiki

Pieces may only be moved to the home position with an exact application of the total roll, the value on a single die, or the complete application of a reward.

You cannot voluntarily forfeit a roll, but you can take part of the roll if that is your only option.

All die rolls must be taken and may not be voluntarily forfeited by a player.

If either of two rolls must be forfeited, the player must forfeit the lower number.

Thank you. We were not sure because I rolled double 3's. Thank you for helping to clear it up.

@AnthonySchoentube : you're welcome. And welcome to the site. To accept an answer, mark it as "accepted".