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Is there an in-game mechanic reason for placing action cards face down during the planning phase
I've just picked up Space Alert, and read through handbook (as yet un-played), the thing that I can't understand is the reason for placing your action cards face down during the planning phase.
The only reason I can think of is that it adds to the chaotic-ness of the planning phase, being unable to instantly see what another player is planning.
I just wanted to check there's not a mechanic somewhere that I've missed. (Was thinking along the lines of BSG game, where any cylon players are trying to undermine the success of the mission but negatively contributing towards the goals)

It is to promote communication between players.
If you and I (try to) use the same lift/elevator in the same turn, one of us will be delayed - and this send all of that player's subsequent plans back a turn!
Likewise for shooting guns, firing missiles, certain energy transfer actions... you can get really messed up if two players "do" the same thing in a single turn.

So what does that have to do with why it is required?
The crux of Space Alert is solving a puzzle in a short amount of time. One aspect of the puzzle is the face-down action cards.
It is common for new players/teams to play with cards face-up. This is, obviously, a "house rule". If you feel that the missions are too challenging, or just want an easier pass at things, then go for it!
Playing with cards face-up allows you to avoid duplication, and make it easier for someone to verify that the mouse is going to be wiggled this phase!

Also, when you put the cards face down, you won't remember what YOU did...

@Ramiro: Sure, but you can quickly check. For others to check, they have to communicate to you what they would like checked!

One addition: Space Alert seems designed to counteract "quarterbacking", one player taking over. The time pressure does a lot for this issue, but as your comment hints the face-down cards are a big part too. Even an experienced player can't tell a novice exactly what to do next because they can't determine at a glance where the novice is at any particular time! Which all comes back to your main point: communication.

not to forget: when a disruption in communication occurs, it really means that - you cannot just look at other player's boards to see what they have done in order to get information important to you, you need to wait until communication is re-established and then ask them


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First modern Naughts and Crosses/Tic Tac Toe?
When was Naughts and Crosses first released in its current form?
I see there were Egyptian and the Roman versions, but these are very different games.

Having spent a little while looking into this, the only clear thing is that there is no firm evidence for any distant historical first date for Tic Tac Toe. Although many people claim the Romans played this game, in the form of Terni Lapilli, and point to the large number of historical boards that exist, scratched into walls, this seems unlikely, not least because Tic Tac Toe isn't a very interesting game:

Terni Lapilli is considered to be identical to modern Tic-Tac-Toe.
  However, although Terni Lapilli boards are found throughout the
  Empire, scratched on walls, floors, and roofs, no X's and O's
  accompany the markings. Obviously playing pieces were being used for
  this game and the would surely be the same ones used for both
  Latrunculi and Tabula. Bolesden says that three pieces were used in
  this game but if that is true, this is not Tic-Tac-Toe.
Judging from the number of Terni Lapilli boards found around Rome it
  would seem this game was more popular than Tic-Tac-Toe, and therefore
  we must conclude that it was not, in fact, Tic-Tac-Toe since this is
  not really a game and could not sustain such interest.

Three Men's Morris, on the other hand, which uses an identical board, is much more challenging, and has a board from Egypt dated to 1400 BCE.
One suggestion is that the etymology of "Tic-Tac-Toe" is based on "Tit-Tat-Toe" (as in tit-for-tat retaliation), apparently from the 16th Century, but this is completely unsubstantiated.
Wikipedia's information, dated definitively to 1864 and widely re-gurgitated across the internet, is based on the OED, which quotes a Boston periodical, The Living Age:

1864   Littell's Living Age 22 Oct. 182/1   Mr Babbage..has proceeded
  some way towards the invention of an automaton intended to play at the
  very simple game called indifferently ‘noughts and crosses’ or
  ‘tit-tat-to’.

You can read the full reference for yourself online: The Living Age, 22 October 1864, p.182.
It is known is that there are many historical examples of so-called "games of alignment", from all around the world:

...in Europe, Asia, and Africa many people have long been playing similar
  games which require the alignment of five or nine symbols in a row.
  Most of these latter games are played on boards scratched in the
  earth, carved into wooden or stone benches, or cardboard or wooden
  boards constructed for these variations. There are at least nine
  different board configurations for these games.
These games are grouped together because they all have the same
  purpose - that is for two players to each place a symbol on the board,
  one symbol at a time during alternate turns of play, with the goal of
  aligning a series of agreed upon symbols in a "row", while at the same
  time attempting to prevent the other player from doing the same thing.
  In each version of the game, as the number of symbols are increased,
  the goal does not change, nor does the primary mode of play. In
  versions using five or nine symbols, additional procedures are added
  to the play of the game.

It seems very likely that the game existed in the distant past, but being a less than engrossing pastime for anyone other than young children, distant historical references are lacking.
Key references for further research:

H.J.A. Murray, A History of Board Games Other Than Chess
Claudia Zaslavsky, Tic Tac Toe: And Other Three-In-A Row Games from Ancient Egypt to the Modern Computer
R.C. Bell, Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations
An extensive bibliography of books covering board game history
Many links to period board game references and reconstructions

Noughts and Crosses/Tic Tac Toe belong to a family of games, (and in my opinion Noughts and Crosses is the runt of the litter.)
Achi, (from Ghana) and Tapatan, (from the Philippines) show that such games are well distributed across the world. If we search for the oldest abstract board games we usually run into one of the Mancala family of games, (Bao, Kalah...) which are clearly very old. This family includes Oware, (again from Ghana) which resembles Achi, and I would not be surprised if Achi is a simplification of Oware, (a child's version or someone partly remembering the rules). Staying in Africa but returning to the original question we find Three Men's Morris in North Africa 1400 BCE AND carved into English cathedrals. This leads us to the game of Nine Holes which is another alteration of the rules of TMM.
(There are records of people being punished for carving Nine Holes boards into Cathedral - and I believe it was suppressed or banned in some parts of England.)
Over and over we see simplification and efficiency until we find Noughts and Crosses emerging as a rather childish descendant. Despite claims that, "The Romans played tic-tac-toe" I would suggest that this is false: They were limited to three playing pieces each which is clearly not the case with "modern Naughts and Crosses", (thank you, alan2here, for a well worded question), which seems to have emerged in the middle of the 19th Century, but as it was not patented and no one seems to have taken credit it probably evolved naturally from Nine holes in many locations at similar times, (hence the other name for it in North America.)

Wikipedia mentions the following under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tic-tac-toe
'The first print reference to "noughts and crosses", the British name, appeared in 1864. The first print reference to a game called "tick-tack-toe" occurred in 1884, but referred to "a children's game played on a slate, consisting in trying with the eyes shut to bring the pencil down on one of the numbers of a set, the number hit being scored".'
And since this game is mostly played by children, I would assume that this would be the first reference to the current form.
The game evolved from Three Men's Morris where each player had to keep 3 pieces each alternately on any of the 9 boxes and move the pieces around to form a straight line. To simplify it to children, the latter part of the game was replaced by continuing to keep more pieces and fill all 9 boxes.

The 1884 game of "trying with the eyes shut to bring the pencil down on one of the numbers of a set, the number hit being scored" is quite different to modern tic-tac-toe despite the similarity in name. Again "Three Men's Morris" is also significantly different and seems more similar to how the roman version was described by the wiki article. However from this and that my parents can remember it always having been around we could determine that the date was between 1884 and ≈ 1960.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Does a player become immune to the Magician when getting murdered or robbed?
We are wondering if a killed or robbed character is immune to the Magician or not.
Can the Magician force to swap district cards with a player who has been assassinated or robbed?

The Magician targets a player, not a role, so I don't see why the fact they were targeted by the Assassin/Witch would have any impact on this.

Because it's so sad to see someone getting killed or robbed then you swap its cards and to finish you swap a district lol

Further to bwarner's answer:
Not only are the players not immune, but there's no way you could even make them immune based on the other rules of the game.
The assassination target isn't revealed until the round is finished. Until then, you can't know for certain whether someone has been assassinated or not. For the magician to know this, the assassinated player would have to reveal early.
This is similar with the thief. Unless the thief stole from the magician, the thief won't yet know if they've hit or not.

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


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Can the Armory district card destroy a district in a completed city?

Armory/Powerderhouse/Poudrière: During your turn, you may destroy the Armory in order to destory any other district card of your choice in another player's city

We are wondering if this district can be used against a player who just finished it's citadel.

Apparently Bruno Faidutti (the game designer) intended to allow this.
The Warlord has the following limitation (as found in the official Citadels rules):

You may not, however, destroy a district in a city that is already completed by having eight districts (or seven districts when the Bell Tower is in play).

But apparently Faidutti intended for the Armory not to have this limitation.
As found on BoardGameGeek, the Warlord would even be able to destroy a district from a city that once was completed, but became uncompleted because of the Armory:

Nonetheless, here is how, according to Bruno Faidutti's ruling, a the final round may play out:
Assume Ashley (a Magician) should build an eighth district first, triggering the end of game condition.
Brad (the Bishop) pops his Armory to destroy Ashley's Cathedral (her only religious district). Even though she has seven districts, the game will still end when the round finishes.
Clara (using the Architect) builds twice, bringing her district count to nine.
Finally, David (acting as Warlord) wants to destroy a district (the gold is useless to him otherwise). David cannot destroy anything of Clara's, since her city is complete, and Brad is the Bishop, so he is safe. Ashley's is no longer complete, so David destroys another of Ashley's districts.

There is some ambiguity as to whether the game would still end after such a round (imagine that Clara in the previous example would not have completed her city) and as to which bonuses Ashley in the previous example would receive.


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Opener's rebid of 2NT (system: Simple SAYC)
I opened with 1H - Partner bid 2C - (I have 5 hearts, 12 pts, 3spades 3diamonds 2clubs). I have to respond, but responding 2NT would mean I have 18 pts (my written source on this is: http://www.math.cornell.edu/~belk/opening.htm#1.5Notrump: "With 18 or 19 HCP and a balanced hand, you should open in a suit (usually a minor) and then jump to 2NT on your next bid.")
I've been told that in this case (the case where partner responded on 2-level) - 2NT rebid would not mean 18pts (e.g. that it's ok to bid 2nt here). Can someone point me to the appropriate material on the web that discusses this?

What is your actual hand? Beginners often think that shape and HCP is sufficient, but your actual honors often matter. Do you have a S honor? Do you mostly have Qs and Js or do you have As and Ks? For example, Axx AKJxxx xxx xx is a much stronger hand than xxx AQxxx QJx QJ (in general and especially in this auction).

The keyword being "jump". After 1H - 2X, 2NT is not a jump...

@ruds: I never evaluate 14-card hands; I call the director.

@PieterGeerkens: Yes, too many spots in the heart suit. I was attempting to illustrate the difference between 3=5=3=2 12-counts. The first hand should have been Axx AKJxx xxx xx

PLEASE DON'T EDIT QUESTIONS TO MAKE EXISTING ANSWERS OBSOLETE; Unless you want to get down-voted that is. Ask a new question, or append to your question if it is a minor variance.

The SAYC card specifies strong jump shifts by responder after a 1H opener, further explaining that it invites a slam. This suggests a 17-19 HCP range with 5+ cards and a good honor holding in the bid suit (though I warn you that point-count is insufficient to evaluate many slam invitational hands, and e.g. AKJxxxx Axx Kx x is a 15-count that suggests a strong jump shift).
Though 2NT only promises a minimum opener as explained by Aryabhata, your first priority must be to show your support for partner's spade suit. Your proper rebid is 4S by the principle of fast arrival. You know enough to sign off: your hand is not good enough to accept a slam invitation (thus the game), and you know your partnership has a spade fit (thus the strain). Bidding 3S here suggests to partner that slam is still a possibility.
If you'd like to read more about opener's rebids after a strong jump shift by responder, the bridge bum has a good summary.
Edit The question has been updated to make the auction start 1H-2C instead of 1H-2S.
SAYC suggests that 1H-2C-2NT should show a balanced hand, 12-14 HCP. Be aware that if the club bidder is an unpassed hand, 1H-2C promises a second bid from responder, and so you're forcing your side to the three level with a 2NT response. You should probably consider a different rebid if your hand doesn't stop the other suits (especially spades, the other major, as defenders prefer to lead majors against no trump contracts).
1H-2C-2H does not promise a 6th heart (as opposed to 1H-1NT-2H or 1H-1S-2H, which do). So if your 5-3-3-2 12-count is something like Jxx AKJxx Qxx Jx, I would rebid 2H. If instead it's AJT KJxxx QJx xx, 2NT seems better.

thanks for good site link. Please note: I've slightly modified the example in my question (1H-2S --> 1H-2C) it doesn't change the essence of 2nt 18pts rebid (wanted to make the question more succinct).

I should add that even though 1H-2C-2H doesn't promise 5, it's not a comfortable rebid with 5. I suggest it here because you don't have a 2D rebid or a comfortable 2NT bid.

The ACBL booklet (quick reference) on SAYC can be found here: http://www.acbl.org/documentlibrary/play/sayc_book.pdf.
According to that (page 3), NT rebids by opener at the lowest available level show a minimum hand. (Of course, that probably does not apply when responder initially bids 1NT).
Based on your edit, it looks like you have some confusion regarding what a jump rebid means.
A jump is when you skip a level, i.e. you could have bid the suit/no trump a level lower, but you chose to "jump" over it. For example opener 1D - responder 1S - opener 2NT. 2NT is a jump, as opener could have bid 1NT. In this case, it would indeed show 18-19 balanced hand.
After partner responds 2S, 2NT is not a jump rebid. It is a rebid of NT at the lowest available level.
For more detailed reading, there is also a book by Ellen Pommer, http://www.amazon.com/Standard-Bidding-With-SAYC-Downey/dp/1897106033 which you might find useful (I haven't read it).

Oops! I meant to add that comment to my answer, not yours. Please decline edit if desired; I was unable to revert.

@PieterGeerkens: No worries, I have reverted.

A non-jump rebid by opener of 1NT or 2NT shows a balanced 12-14 HCP hand (sometimes with a singleton in responder's suit). A single-jump rebid of 2NT or 3NT by opener shows the 18-19 HCP balanced hand.
Partner's jump-shift in spades shows a very good hand, and a very good suit; you should always reveal 3-card support promptly, when you have it, by raising to 3S. If playing fast arrival, the jump-raise to 4S should show a hand both minimum in strength and soft, ie rich in queens and jacks in short or un-bid suits.
Many partnerships play that a jump by opener is a splinter, showing 4-card support and a singleton in the bid suit; however don't attempt this unless you have already agreed to play splinters in more obvious circumstances. Unlike in my answer yesterday, this is not a situation where partner can read it without an agreement.
Questions edited to change auction. This answer addressed the original question.


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Responding to a simple overcall (SAYC)
LHO opened with 1C – Partner overcalled with 1S – (I have 6 pts, 4 Spades) → Do I respond with 2S?
P.S. rho pass.
EDIT : what my gripe with this is, that according to textbooks, you respond to opening (which is 12+pts) with minimum 6 pts. Now overcall shows 8+ pts, so shouldn't I respond then with only 10 pts (e.g. 6+4)? (looking for logic in here...)

There's a few reasons to take a bid here.
The bidding has gone 1C-1S-P. This indicates that RHO likely has fewer than 6 HCP. Let's consider a few different scenarios.

If partner has only 8 HCP, LHO has an extremely strong hand. You would like to force LHO to take a second bid at 2NT or above, rather than at the one level. 2SX is likely to be fairly lucrative -- you will most likely take 5-7 tricks in trumps alone (partner won't open on 8 HCP missing both top spade honors, and your 9 card fit suggests multiple ruffs are possible), while opponents likely have a game, which they will find if you allow the inexpensive 2-level call.
If partner has 12-14 HCP and balanced shape, 2S is likely to make and nobody is likely to take another bid; if you pass 1S you'll likely allow opponents to find a making 1NT or 3C, or even a making 4H if opponents have a good fit and LHO is allowed to make a 2H call (even worse, partner may double a making 4H if you don't warn that their spade honors likely aren't cashing).
If partner has 15-16 HCP and 6-3-2-2 shape you may find yourselves in a making 4S, but only if you speak up now.

You don't give much detail about your hand, but with a known 9+-card fit and weak values you should consider Tom Au's suggestion of making a 3S call with a hand that suggests it will be the right thing to do. A singleton or a void with few HCPs suggests this, especially if the shortness is in clubs. A hand that is likely to take fewer than 2 tricks on defense should also consider 3S.

+1 for the last paragraph. The offensive/defensive analysis is very important in these competitive decisions.

Yes! Never hide support and a smattering of points if it can be shown at the two level. Especially with 4-card support, any 4-4-3-2 hand with a couple of Q's is worth a raise to the 2 level. This is especially true in spades because of locking out the 2-level from the opponents.
This gives partner a wealth of valuable information:

Don't double on tricks in the overcalled suit (vs a trump contract).
Do consider competing forward on extra values.
Game investigation is possible on a two-suiter.
The opponent's have a fit in 1, and maybe 2, suits.

In the given situation, where you now know that the opponents have a fit in 1 or 2 suits, either partner or opener or both has extra points. If partner, let him know that game might be on; if opener, make it more difficult for him to come back in. a 2S call is perfect here.
I like to play that a new suit (by an unpassed hand) by overcaller's partner is a one-round force, showing support for overcaller's suit. In essence, a long-suit game try. The premise is that if no fit exists, let the opponents balance or double if they must. A NT call by overcaller's partner shows good values but exactly 2-card support.
Update
In regard to addendum about comparing responses to advances:

Virtually all 12 HCP hands should be opened, but only 8 HCP hands with a good 5-card or longer suit and offensive orientation should overcall at the 1-level. The total points on these two hands may be quite similar after a complete evaluation.
Virtually all 6 point hands should respond at the 1-level, but only 6 point hands with 3-card support or better should advance an overcall. Likewise.

Re terminology: Opener's partner is responder, and overcaller's partner is advancer.

Pieter: thank you very much for responding, please see edit to my question:

@user5185: It is very hard for a 2-level contract to be doubled confidently if your side has 8+ trumps, because a trump stack against you is very rare. Even if you frequently go down 1 or 2 tricks, being doubled into game occasionally will slow the opponents back a bit. Also 3C or 3D is a much easier contract to double confidently than 2S or 2H.

Overcalls have more offense and less defense than openers. Ironically, this means that your responses should be about the same for overcalls as for openers, for different reasons.
Your partner's overcall shows about eight points as you said. Together with your six, that means 14 for your side and 26 points for your opponents. They probably have an eight card fit, and the ability to make four clubs, four diamonds or four hearts. If their suit is hearts, they have game; otherwise they have a part score. If that's the case, you don't mind "going down" by say, one or even two tricks, as much as if they didn't have a four level contract. Ironically, your weakness (and oppoents' strength) causes you to bid more aggressively.
Your partner's bid showed five spades (as in an opener) headed (probably) by three honors. Between the two of you, you should have five "natural" spade tricks, one ruff, and one to two side tricks, for a total of seven or eight. On offense, your hands are worth more than 14 points because your spades are solid. If you raise to two, you might make it, and worst LIKELY case, you'll go down one. Given this fact, you probably won't be doubled, and "down one" is better than letting the opponents have a part score in three or four diamonds or clubs.
Because of the opponents' potential for a heart GAME, some experts say that you should go to THREE spades if not vulnerable. That's down one or two, 100-300 points if doubled. Down one (-100) beats their likely part score, and down two (-300) beats their possible game. You can be more aggressive if your opponents are timid doublers because the penalties will be less.

The hand should have a singleton or void to consider three, and at most 5-6 HCP, offensively rather than defensively oriented.


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Question on leading
In bridge, what is the priority in leading when partner bid spades, and contract is clubs, and I have ace and queen of spades. Does the rule "do not underlead an ace" here override the rule "lead with the suit that your partner has bid"?

Consider a few different scenarios:

Partner overcalled 1S and contract is 3NT: Lead the spade A followed by the spade Q to unblock the suit. Presumably partner has 6 to the JT, and declarer just might be adventuring on a singleton K.
Partner opened 1S and the contract is 3NT: Same reasoning, same lead.
You opened and partner made a 1-over-1 bid of 1S, contract is 3NT: Find another suit to lead, and hope partner can get in to lead through declarer's spade K. Partner's spade bid was length-showing, showing 4, and nothing more. You have the bulk of the partnership assets, and the best chance of establishing (and cashing) length tricks to set the contract with.
Partnered opened a weak 2 Spades and the contract is 3NT: Treat this like case (1).
The contract is in a suit (below slam)and the opponents bid it to make: Lead something else unless you really trust partner to be holding the spade K. Partner bid, so has a realistic chance to get in and lead spades. Lead a card that invites partner to switch rather than one that asks partner to continue.
The contract is in a suit (below slam) and the opponents bid it as a sacrifice: Probably best to lead the spade A.
The contract is a suit slam: Usually best to lead spade A.

These are general guidelines, and not "rules". There are other factors that will affect your choice of lead:

Consider the bidding as well. Did the opponents reach 3NT tentatively or aggressively? In the former case an aggressive lead of the spade A is more appealing than in the latter.
Are you playing Matchpoints, IMPS or Rubber? Conceding an overtrick in Matchpoints is as costly as forgetting to set opponents game in IMPS or Rubber, so be wary of leading spades against confident opponents. In IMPS or Rubber lead the spade A because a lost overtrick means nothing compared to a best chance of a set.
Is your partner one who likes to psyche frequently? If so, find another suit to lead than spades; You know it is likely that partner psyched, but the opponents don't now that yet. This is fair dinkum because the bidding and visible cards drew you to this conclusion, not any tells on his part.
Is your partner one of those who insists that his suit be lead?  If yes, and this partner is one you wish to continue playing with, lead the spade A (unless something else is overwhelmingly better). One bad result is nothing compared to playing with a partner you enjoy and respect.

You will notice that the latter guidelines for the most part contradict the former scenario suggestions; this is deliberate. Leading well is part science, part art, and part black magic.

+1. I suggest you emphasize the point of it depending on the bidding and the rest of your hand as the very first sentence of the answer. For 4) (partner opened weak 2), you should also consider leading the Q from AQx.

Lead the ace of spades. Partner probably has the king for his overcall. After you take the ace, lead the queen to his (presumed) K. If he has, and can take it (no ruff), you will have two tricks in the bag, meaning that declarer will have to take all remaining 11 tricks for game.
Hopefully, partner will have an additional trick to take that will beat the game.

I'm probably too 'distracted' to understand your answer (must draw this on paper to grok), but thanks for answering.


text:
Is responders suit change after 1NT rebid by opener forcing? (System: simplified SAYC)
Auction: 1C - 1H - 1NT - ? (opener has 3 hearts, 12 pts ; responder has 5 hearts, 13 pts)
In case of responder having 13+ pts yet lacking NT distribution, how does partnership get to game with 13+13 total points and 3+5 major fit, after 1NT rebid by opener?
P.S. This is an unfinished question, I might edit it in the future to further elaborate my inquiry on partnership getting to game with 12+13 points by both partners and 1nt rebid by opener.
P.S.2. The inquiry is about the very basics, as this page says: http://larryco.com/BridgeArticles/ArticleDetails.aspx?articleID=462 -- paraphrasing: "The worst mistake I see: Not reaching game when there is enough for game.  If your partner opens the bidding and you have 14 points, please don't ever make any bid which your partner can pass"

Why is your partner not rising to 2H with that hand? If a real partner failed to reveal 4-card in that auction I'd be promptly looking for a new partner.

To continue that quote: "You must know which bids are forcing (partner can't pass) and which are non-forcing (partner is allowed to pass). "

Please clarify what you mean by Simplified SAYC. SAYC is already very simple and intended as a beginner system. Once you change it, you need to precisely define how you have changed it, or link to a fully filled out convention card.

@PieterGeerkens you are correct the actual hand I played had 3 + 5 fit, with 4+4 opener would have rebid 2H. My mistake. Corrected the question.

This link outlines the system behind SAYC in fairly simple terms. The bottom of page 7 notes that on the auction of interest, responder must reverse or jump shift to create a game force. However, a simple new suit bid should be treated as a one-round force, 10+, game invitational.
Most established partnerships now play some form of either Check Back Stayman (CBS) or New Minor Forcing (NMF). Both of these are predicated on the requirement that Opener's 1NT rebid categorically denied 4-card support for Responder's major suit response.
If partner rebid 1NT over your 1H response with 4-card Heart support, rightly take that as a gross insult to your card-play. Find a new partner promptly , before this one ruins your bidding.

I think New Minor Force is the best bid to go with i.e 1D which clearly tells partner that I have a 5 carder heart, do you have 3?

Suggesting that OP play a different system fails to answer the question for the system he is playing.

If i'm playing with an amateur partner using just the simplest system ever, then I would bid 2S. This bid promises 5-card hearts, at least invitational values (10+ points) and it is forcing. Have in mind that 1NT rebid by opener denies 4-card spades, so there is no danger of playing in spades. Partner will bid hearts if he has 3 of them.
in the simplest system ever i think that after 1C-1H-1NT:
2C =sign-off
2D =sign-off
2H =sign-off
2S =5h,4s 10+
2NT=4h, 10-11
3C =4?h, 4+c, 10-11
3D =5h, 4d, 12+
3H =5h, 10-11
3S =6h,5s FG
3NT=4h, 12+

if you want to improve your bidding you should use the CBS(checkback stayman) convention, along with canape-bids.

The question was about a SAYC-based system; describing how it should be bid in a completely different set of methods isn’t particularly helpful.
And plenty of people manage to bid quite well without taking up canape methods.

@jl8e how is this bidding NOT SAYC? what is the meaning of 1C-1H-1NT-2S in SAYC?

New suits are forcing in SAYC. Pretty sure reverses are a game force, as well. I was reading your “simplest system ever” as a different system, which doesn’t appear to be what you meant.

ok. so 1)what's wrong with bidding 2S? 2) new suits are not always forcing. eg 1H-1S-2C

New suits by responder are forcing. As for what’s wrong with 2S? You don’t have four spades. Partner’s implied not having 4 of them, but people do bid 1NT on this auction with four, either as a matter of partnership style (which is probably unspecified in SAYC), or because it looks right to deviate. (4333 shapes, or a weak suit) If partner has 4S, you have no way to backpedal. That’s why, when people need to invent a suit, they invent a minor. (Which eventually became systemized as New Minor Forcing.)


text:
Overcall of 3S over 1C opening, what does it show? (assuming bidding system SAYC)
I assumed it was 10+pts, and 7 Spade suit -- am I correct?

This question isn't going to be answerable unless you give more details about the bidding system that you were using.

@bwarner: edited my answer...

What was the vulnerability? Who was dealer? Was either partnership playing a strong club system? The answer to all of these questions will weigh in on the fine details of the answer.

A jump overcall is pre-emptive and generally shows the same values as a pre-emptive opening bid.
So in this case 3S could show as little as 6 HCP with 7 spades.

the first sentence of your answer is what i was missing. Thanks


text:
Analyzing bidding sequence
My left opponent opened 1S - Right-side opponent responded 2H (I understood: 11+, 4+ card heart suit, shortness in spades) - L.O. responded 2S - R.O. responded 3D (has shortness of spades).
R.O. : 4 diamonds, (almost) game values (?)
L.O. eventually responded 3S ---
I can't analyze it properly?

a) Could you be clearer about what you are actually asking and b) could you say what bidding system was in use?

At this point in the auction, system divergences have almost eliminated themselves. Any natural system, including various strong club systems like Precision, will likely be showing very similar hands. About the only difference left is that LHO might be a point lighter, and RHO a point heavier, so just move a jack across. LHO's spade rebid shows 6 in every system, and RHO's heart response shows either 5 hearts, or 3-4 in the majors, in virtually every system.

@TimLymington: I assume they used SAYC.

So what were the actual hands?

@PieterGeerkens: actually I'm not very interested in actual hands. I want to learn to understand what the bidding moves that happened to me during the game mean

Fair enough; reading your particular opponents is useful also.

I assume you made a typing error or something as opponents have just made an insufficient bid after bidding 4 Diamonds, they can't bid 3 Spades.

LHO has a hand with just too much defense for an opening 3S call. In particular, it probably has an outside Ace. Perhaps something like:
AQJxxxx-x-Ax-xxx

RHO's 2H call almost always shows 5 hears, unless a 2-over-1 must be bid first to show a limit raise in spades. This is confirmed by the diamond following bid. So RHO's hand looks something like this:
x-KJTxx-KJTx-Qxx

or this:
void-KJTxx-KJTxx-Qxx

RHO's failure to bid clubs at the second turn denies 4 of that suit (unless perhaps 4 little, but that would be amateur), and the failure to rebid hearts denies 6, so the reds are 5-5 or 5-4. The repeated failure to tolerate spades or bid clubs shows the blacks to be 1-3 or 0-3.
RHO's reluctance to spades also infers an absence of aces; this because a couple of Aces, or an Ace and a KQ combination, would be golden to LHO.
LHO might hazard a leave in 3H with two little and diamond tolerance, so I infer a likelihood of 1-2 in the reds.


text:
Abstract "move holding" service for simultaneous-move board games
Background
I am looking to play a variant of Diplomacy over email or other messaging system. The specifics of Diplomacy and of the variant are not important, suffice it to say that the root trouble is simultaneous moves.
Consider scissors-paper-stone as an example: how would you play that over, say, email?
One possibility is a neutral person. Both players email their throw to the arbiter. He holds the first email until he has received the second, then he forwards each email on to the other player.
This neutral person could be replaced by a computer, as this function is pretty brain-dead.
I am aware there are services for online Diplomacy (and scissors-paper-stone for that matter), but they are specific to that game. The variant I am looking to play is not supported. I am also aware that this could be done using cryptographic hashing, but there are practical issues with that (like player education).
Question

Is there a simple service that just collects messages from a given list of recipients, and then forwards all messages, unaltered, once it has received a message from everyone on the list?

This can be over any internet messaging system that would not require too much player education. (EDIT: I meant to include things like web interfaces also, as long as they're easy to use.)
It seems like the sort of thing someone would have already come up with.

Would you also need things like automatic time-out if someone does not submit a move?

This is also discussed at http://ask.metafilter.com/136502/How-to-simultaneously-exchange-information

I coudn’t resist; expect this to exist soon (implemented in Meteor). It is already working, it just needs a lot of UI polishing.

The answer might have been no by the time you asked, but now it is yes: Check out You Say First!
I tried my best with the UI design, but any help there is welcome. Bugreports and feature requests can be submitted on https://github.com/nomeata/you-say-first.

Thanks!!! Had a quick try but I guess I am behind the wrong sort of firewall or something. I will have a closer look a bit later. PS: tic-tac-toe is not another name for rock-paper-scissors it is something else entirely, and doesn't need this system :-)

Ah, got them confused, as I am working on formal stuff related to tic-tac-toe at work right now.

@Fool, did you get it to work? It was my first attempt to use Meteor; I don’t know how well it works in other browsers and stuff.

Tried yesterday, it sort of worked, but it's not persistent in the face of disconnection. And from where I am sitting right now, it doesn't work at all. I'll try again a bit later, and give feedback directly to you. Thanks again for doing this!

It works great where I am; would be good to know what fails. For now, it is tailored towards live usage, e.g. where all player keep their browser window open. Oh, and now there is an in-game chat as well.

If it is fine for your to wait up to a specific time, sending delayed mails via a service like timecave might be an option (although suboptimal).

Thanks. Yeah, if we set a specific time, then timecave would work by itself for 2 players. For multiple players, I guess also create a mailing list, everyone sends a delayed message to that list. Timecave includes the time the message was deposited in a mail header, so we can confirm that nobody deposited a message after any message was sent. Doable...

No arbiter is needed if you use encryption. Player A sends encrypted move Am1 to player B. Player B sends encrypted move Bm1 to player A. Once A receives Bm1, she sends the decryption key Ak1 to B, and B sends his decryption key Bk1 to A. This can be done over any messaging service, but does require a bit of overhead. (And you have to trust that the other player sends you valid move data, but you can set up the rules that if the initial message doesn't contain a valid move than the sender loses.)
Simple encryption tools can be found online. For example,
http://www.alltextencryption.com/

Thanks, but this would have the exact same problems as cryptographic hashing, which I already excluded. (1) Player education is one big problem, as I said. (2) "The sender loses" is not a good solution especially in multi-player games, and especially especially Diplomacy. Especially especially especially if the sender might have messed up by accident, see (1).

@Fool: Isn't sender messing up by accident a problem regardless of technique described? How would an independent (hopefully automated) arbiter know whether the move data sent is valid without detailed knowledge of game rules and current state?

Yes, but you've introduced entirely new ways for a player to screw up. Also, Diplomacy has ways of dealing with partially or completely invalid moves. In the worst case the country goes into "Civil Disorder". Now you might think I could just have CD be the default if a player fails to decrypt his orders, but this is no good, it gives the player the option of either executing his original orders or pretending not to be able to decrypt and go into CD, and the player can get this option after having seen everyone else's orders. This can make a difference!

EG: even if it's not Diplomacy and the rule is "sender loses", if there are more than 2 players it can matter. Say there are three players, and one of them is about to lose anyway. You may be giving that player the choice of losing in two different ways after having seen the other two player's orders, this choice may affect which of the other two wins. The losing player may be secretly colluding with one or the other (such collusion is permitted if not mandatory in Diplomacy), and this option may give the coalition an advantage.

A third, unrelated objection is time: this is a two-phase protocol. Say it is played over email with players on opposite sides of the world. Now we have an extra delay of half a day or so each turn for no good reason.

Long story short, I was aware of cryptography when I asked the question.


text:
Identify Tree-Themed Trick Taking Game
I'm trying to find the name of a Tree-themed Trick taking game I played a few years ago (say around 2014). Unfortunately I don't remember much more about it. I thought it was Arboretum as the artwork style was similar, but when I was trying to get more information I realised that Arboretum was published after I'd played this game, and the mechanics were totally different.
If I recall correctly the cards were in suits of species of tree, each card then had a value (say 1 to 10). I think players would have a changing hand of 5 cards, and you'd play to win a "trick" like in bridge, the player with the highest on suit card would win the round. But I can't remember why you would want to, or how scoring was done.
I've a vague recollection of the box art being green. And yes, I'm aware how lame that is.

Can you give any more specifics that might help?  Any specific mechanics, how did scoring work?  Were cards just trees or were types of tree specific suits?  The more detail the more likely someone will recognise it.

@StartPlayer sorry about that, I've expanded what I remember a bit, but mostly it was covered by the "trick taking" bit in the first line. Everything else is a blur.

No need to apologise,  just trying to encourage as much detail as possible to help get an answer.  The detail like 'hand of 5 cards'  is a useful bit of specific info that might jog someones memory.

Sounds a lot like Preferans. You can see some of the cards here. Is this what you were looking for?

@user1853181 No I don't think so. The tree theme was much more obvious than the subtle acorns across some of those suits. Big pictures of trees.

I've come to the conclusion that this must have been Arboretum all along.
Trawling through the images section of BGG turned up the cover below.

And it's the only thing with full on Tree art on the cards I came across following the link in another answer. I can only conclude we played some variant that I can't find any mention of on the BGG page, or a different game the owner made up using the same cards.

Eternity is a tree-themed trick-taking game with green box art, though unless you're misremembering the year, it was published too late.

There are 9 pages of results on BGG when searching for this.  Not too many have green boxes, but after a couple pages I realized there was no way for me to know for sure if it was the right one.  Try clicking the link below though and look through the 9 pages of results.  The results are filtered by "Trick-Taking" mechanism and published between 1910-2014.
Beyond that, not sure how else to locate this.
BGG Search Results

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


text:
Problems with learning curve and player elimination in Eclipse
I've just played my first games of Eclipse, and I kind of like it, but it hase some features that kinda bug me.
First of all - player elimination. For the first two games, I got crushed around round 5-6. Worse still, I was not eradicated, so I got to sit at the table feeling bored and frustrated, being able to do nothing of meaning but still not being able to leave and play something else. I know this is typical for Amerithrash games, but I would like to at least mitigate this effect in some way, or at least make the game shorter.
Second of all - randomness everywhere! In this game, you've got two enemies. The other players, and the game's random elements. Not only do you have to learn how to play and what to do in the first place, you learn how to work your way around the bad tile/technology draws AND you have to fight your opponents! This means you need at least a few games followed by a good analysis to start playing at least somewhat correctly.
Those two elements make a killer combo. The random tile draw mechanism just helps you make a bad decision or provides hurdles to get through before you can get to the realisation of your plans/hunting down other players. In both my games I put a loop around my own neck, but that would be fine - if it wouldnt mean sitting at the table for another hour doing nothing.
While I like the game, I like the theme, I like the action economy and almost simultaneous actions, the technology and ship building, but I cant imagine showing it to my playgroup. A game that needs  at least 4 plays to get a real hang of it, while each of them takes at least 2-3 hours and makes someone miserable for half of that time WONT see enough table time to our group to like it.
I really like most parts of the game:

Space theme
Tile placement
Fleet production and battles with other players using it
Resource/economy management
Some sort of tech upgrades for military/economy
Actions tied to economy with increasing costs per action (another example of a game using this mechanic would be the Expansion to Attack!) and players doing only one action at once to prevent huge downtimes.
I like that military conquest is not only way to win the game, and usually its not enough to win by itself.

What can I do to get the play experience of the elements mentioned above without discouraging my playgroup at the game introduction stage? How do I get all the cool stuff from eclipse without getting the steep learning curve and hard knocks during learning the game?

This question, alas, isn't a good fit for B&CG. As it stands, this is a recommendation question, a.k.a. "give me a bunch of ideas." The highest-voted answer won't be the "best" one, it'll just be the most popular, and the answers can never be complete - there will always be new games released in the future.

@Paul Marshall I thought this through, and I disagree. This is a VERY specific recommendation question, with little subcejtive matter. A game being similar to eclipse is possible to define strictly and I can do that in the question if you like. The list of such games is not quite so long, else I would find them easily on BGG. And as for including new games - well, if I ask "how to do X in Java" on stackoverflow, nobody is worried about a new Java version that might change the correct answer. I have a concrete problem im trying to find a solution for,s so stack exchange looks like a good fit

@K.L. Sorry, this question is subjective. How do you define similar? Broadly, Puerto Rico is similar, but not space-themed. Is Twilight Imperium similar because it has a hex tile setup? If you found a game that's similar enough, wouldn't it be because it is random? By the way, randomness is a good thing in a game like this. It levels the game a little. It means that those who don't have the same knowledge/strategy strengths still have a chance with a little luck.

@ghoppe totally disagree with the last part. Being unexperienced just means you dont know how to handle bad luck and how to use luck with tile draws. An expert on the other hand knows how to cope with bad tiles and how to use the advantages given by good tile draws. The randomness just makes it harder for the beginner instead of levelling the game. As for your objections to my question, see the edit.

@K.L. I was mostly referring to the random element of ship battles. But even the greenest novice will recognize the advantage of a tile with two or more planets to colonize, or that paying resources for an empty tile isn't advantageous. I really don't think there is a lot of deep strategy in coping with the random element of tile draws. The real strategy is knowing when to explore tiles and where to explore for them on the board.

@ghoppe - I believe there is. Care to join the chat to discuss this further?

Sorry. This has been discussed before, and this question is explicitly disallowed. "Games like X", regardless of specificity, are not on topic. Please see Should we ban game recommendation questions? - Done and Is this a game recommendation question? for the reasoning. Feel free to raise this on meta for further discussion if you feel this question should not be subject to our recommendation policy.

Question edited to remove the game recommendation part

In light of the edit, I've reopened this.

Hehe wait until you get to the plasma missile arms race xD

Make it fun!
Our group turns it into a social event. Playing casually, we don't "gang up" or try hard to get eliminations, but we do try to win. Even so, eliminations are pretty rare and randomness is fun. Finally, if the game is too long for you, play another game.
As everyone gets more skilled, you can make it more and more competitive.

I agree with this. It is all about the type of play style of the other people playing. In my group, the first few times we played, no one really crushed or got crushed. We could have, but that wouldn't have been fun. So, we  would skirmish, takes some points, and weaken our opponent but not give them no chance to get back in it.

Full disclosure: I have never played eclipse.
From what you describe about what you like and what you don't like I have some suggestions to make this game shorter and easier to learn.
House rules to the rescue!
I would start by making the game semi random. In really though draw based games where I am struggling with a multifaceted mechanic, I remove some of the facets so that I can focus on learning how to play with the others. In this case I would say eliminate an amount of 'bad' tiles/cards to perhaps focus on one facet of the game's strategy.
A game that does this flawlessly(where I got the idea) is Fluxx. With each 'flavor' of Fluxx there are new keepers and other cards added that are not core to the game. By removing them you can get the hang of the game and then incorporate the new content, modifying your strategy as you go.
This strategy often comes with a minimum of two benefits: it makes it easier to play at the outset and it also will usually unbalance the game and thus shorten time to a win condition.
If you don't like the idea of playing with fewer tiles or removing some of the bad ones, set up a limited number of times that you can 're-draw' if you truly think the card you drew is going to ruin you.(Think bennies from Savage Worlds)
This allows you to keep most of the balance and length of the game, but allow for exceptions with new players who are struggling to learn the strategy that may be totally destroyed by one bad draw because they had no idea that horrible thing could happen and thus never planned for it..
I would also enforce a team play situation: You can not win if player X has lost the game. In another answer I made this same suggestion. Play with 'conditional' alliances until there are only two players left, then it is all out war. This has the benefit of freeing up at least two players to play something else while the game goes on.
By eliminating some of the randomness and by enforcing 'conditional' alliances, you will see that the games will become shorter and the mechanics can be focused on. Eventually when everyone has a handle on the most basic strategy, you can include all the games original content little by little.
This also adds the benefit of making the game a bit 'new' each time you play and can make it a bit more interesting to learn.

This game (eclipse) with all of its additions is my favorite game.
Its randomness is one of it key strengths with no game being the same. Played two games last weekend, both 3 player ones with new or near 'noob' players. Both took over 7 hours to finish )including dinner). As there is indeed a certain learning curve which is not for everyone, do not make it more difficult than need be for beginning players. Explain before hand which races are best (mentioning why and the drawbacks) and let them pick races first. secondly do not select the most aggressive/best race yourself but try new ones, in short give them a chance. Explain during the game either after or during their turns if they are going to make a big mistake. Winning is one thing but losing potential players of this game of champions is worse. However are you going to get 7+ players for those mega games. Use Alliances, and team up a weak/new player with a more experienced one. If need be make alliances unbreakable completely. And for faster games, remove tiles with no planets or no stations, no more unlucky draws...
Ix...


text:
Why do you need to set aside 10 cards when setting up the game?
The rules of Saboteur 2 state you should set aside 10 cards from the main deck when you set up the game, then at the end of the game you put them back in the deck but set aside 10 cards again for the next round.
What is the purpose of these 10 cards set aside? And also, is it the same 10 being set aside each time, or are the previous ones reshuffled back into the deck and new 10 set aside?

This is a setup mechanic used in several games, for mostly the same reason as described in the answer below: it makes card counting unreliable. I can think of No Thanks (where you want to connect straights, and you sit there with 9 and 11, but 10 might never show up) and Love Letter (where knowing exactly what cards your opponents have on the final play of the game would be overpowered) off the top of my head.

It's to create variety and uncertainty between games. It's a different, random set of ten cards put aside each time — after you shuffle the deck, take ten cards off the top or bottom, put them aside, and don't look at them.
Saboteur 1 and 2 both play out until every single card in the deck is drawn and played, or until the miners find the treasure. This means if you played without setting any cards aside you'd be guaranteed to see a certain number of rockslides, broken tools, and so on. But you'd also be guaranteed a certain number of ladders, and a certain number of fix tools, so you can usually depend on being able to counter every act of sabotage the same way every time. It's just a matter of when those get drawn and which team draws them. Those guarantees would create a very uniform experience because there's a lot you can simply depend on being inevitable, and you'd have to play your cards mindful of what is guaranteed to be played eventually.
Removing ten cards from the deck removes the guarantee and makes the game uncertain: you can no longer be sure which cards you'll see in this game or how many. If someone hasn't played a rockslide or a break tools yet, you don't know whether it's been drawn and being held for the right moment, or whether there won't even be one this game. If someone breaks your tools, there's no guarantee you'll be able to repair them ever. If someone caves in your tunnel, you can't play assuming you'll see a ladder later. And it goes without saying you can't depend on finding even one map.
That uncertainty creates a tense and unpredictable game and creates variability between any two play sessions. It's for the same reason that the game varies how many saboteurs there will be, so you're not guaranteed you've found the correct number of them.

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


text:
Can you collect a resource of your choice if you have no production due to the robber?
In "Cities and Knights" there is a city improvement which allows you to "collect a resource of your choice" if "you don't receive production on a turn."
Does this privilege apply when the following are true?

a number near which I have a settlement is rolled
the robber is on that hex
I own the city improvement described above

In other words, can I collect a resource card of my choice in this situation. According to the description of the privilege I should be able to because I received no production. A friend, however, is saying that I received production but the robber stole it away. Is there a definitive answer for this scenario?

From the original Catan rules:

Important: If the production number for the hex containing the robber
  is rolled, the owners of adjacent settlements and cities do not
  receive resources. The robber prevents it.

I think it's clear from that that a player doesn't receive production in the scenario that you outline, even if production in some sense occurs.
As such, you should be able to collect a resource of your choice from your improvement.

We always put the robber directly on top of the number for the hex, so it's really like the number no longer exists at all. The fact that there's a "5" under the robber is meaningless; that hex doesn't do anything when a 5 is rolled.

If these are the exact words, the rules are not precise even for the basic game. It should be "owners of adjacent settlements and cities do not receive resources for this hex field.". The city improvement which was referred to does not directly depend on any hex field, but only on whether the owner got resource/commodity cards in this turn.

@Tim: Well, I think it's implied that "the owner of adjacent settlements and cities do not receive resources [for the hex containing the robber, that was just mentioned]".  I see the ambiguity in the wording though, good call!

@thesunneversets What I wanted to say with this statement is the following: The rule you quoted only affects one aspect of getting resources (having a city near a hex with the number that has been rolled). It does for example not affect the resources you get with an invention card. The city improvement in the question acts like half an invention card played whenever you get no resources in the production phase. No matter what the reasons are. The only exception to this is when a 7 is rolled, because then there is no production phase (instead the robber is moved).

That's all true, but I think it's still worth answering what (seemed to be) the main thrust of the question: does having production stolen by the robber count as "receiving production". We agree that it doesn't!

Indeed we are. Sorry, I misread your answer yesterday and did not read it again.

You receive your resource.
In the German version the aqueduct description specifically states that it does not work if the seven is rolled. In all other cases it works as usual. You can find this clarification In the largest German FAQ for Catan, but I did not find an English source.
This does however only apply if you did not get any resources and commodities this turn. So if you have a settlement near both fields with the number you will not get a compensation if one of them is blocked. You may receive progress cards without losing the aqueduct's function.

Yes, you may use the ability if the robber prevented your production.
The answer from the latest version of the Cities and Knights rulebook seems very clear:

Aqueduct (green): If, when the dice are rolled for production, you do not receive any resources or commodities, you may take one resource of your choice from the bank. You may not, however, use this ability when a "7" is rolled.

All that matters is whether or not you received any resources or commodities. It doesn't matter [i]why[/i] you didn't receive any, whether it was because of the robber, or because the resource pile was empty, or because you didn't build on the rolled number. As long as you did not receive any resources or commodities (and the roll was not a "7"), you may take one resource of your choice from the bank.

You can argue either side, here. The rule is the ambiguous as written.
My opinion is that getting production any time you roll a number that you don’t occupy is a large enough benefit and avoiding the Robber as well is too much of an advantage.
Make your own House Rule and avoid the long discussion

Have to disagree; I quoted the rulebook directly in my answer and I can't see anything ambiguous about it as written.


text:
Cities and Knights: Lose to a barbarian attack, but no settlements.
The barbarians come, and the player with the least amount of active knights has a city and 5 settlements on the board.
What happens?
The city would normally get knocked down to a settlement, but all of his settlements are already on the board.

You turn your city marker, and treat it as if it were a settlement. From the Catan FAQ:

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions Barbarians III: Players are Defeated
  - What happens if I have to downgrade a city to a settlement but don’t have another settlement in stock?
Answer Turn one of your cities on its side and treat it as a
  settlement until you have upgraded it to a city again.

In 3rd edition, the Sabotage card says to turn a city on its side until it can be repaired (Ore + Wood).  Turning a city on its side to mark it as a settlement as well can lead to confusion... best to use a different kind of marker when playing 3rd edition (e.g. put a coin under it).

In the games we play I turn the city upside down (to act as a marker for a town) and declare the village supply to be at -1. The player will need to build at least two cities before (s)he can build another new village.
I tried finding an official ruling, but it does not seem to be mentioned in a manual.
Page 11 only has this, which completely ignores this not-quite-so-rare situation.

[Edit] The computer game Catan: Cities and knight from Catan GmbH seems to agree with this.


text:
What are "Centipede" and "Greedy Roach"?
Just played Mice and Mystics for the first time and we had a few issues with spawning monsters with encounters. Specifically, we had two monsters spawned my encounters that we were not 100% sure what they were.

"Centipede" had no initiative card, so we assumed that the "Cave Centipede" initiative card was correct (and we couldn't find any references to Cave Centipedes anywhere after a quick search)
"Greedy Roach" had no initiative card, so we assumed that the "Roach" initiative card was correct (but "Roach" is also referenced on encounter cards)

Are these substitutions correct, or are we missing initiative cards?

This thread states that there are 19 Initiative cards. There are Initiative cards for "Roach" and "Centipede", but not for those adjective versions. My guess is that the storybook is modifying the normal rules for those encounters, for example the Sample Storybook has Hungry Roaches (page 5) that have a Special Rule that breaks the normal actions a Roach would take (they eat cheese instead of moving closer to the Heroes)

The issues described are not with storybook related minions, just normal minions spawned by encounter cards.

Standard 9 encounter cards

Yes, those are the correct Inititive cards
From the rulebook (page 15, or 17 of the PDF)

Greedy Roaches
Some encounters include ’greedy roaches‘. Greedy roaches use the same initiative card as normal roaches. When greedy roaches are placed on the board, all roaches in play become greedy roaches. When a greedy roach steals a cheese from a mouse, that cheese is placed on the minion cheese wheel on the story control board.

Jerry Hawthorne the Mice and Mystics' game designer, said in this thread to the question:

Q: When you fill the cheese wheel and a surge occurs, if the surge on the encounter card is a Centipede, which initiative card do you use? There doesn't seem to be a 'normal' centipede card - and there are two to choose from. Which one is used? They both appear to be 'named' centipedes with different special abilities and stats.
A: Use the Cave Centipede card.


text:
How to resolve illegal targeting that was allowed?
I was recently playing Theros, and the set being new, was not familiar with the cards I was playing. Here is the situation that arose:
I had a Stormbreath Dragon out beating face, when my opponent played Chained to the Rocks, targeting my dragon. I, at the time, have forgotten that my dragon has protection from white (and so can't be targeted by Chained to the Rocks), and allow it to be exiled. A couple turns later, I remember about the protection from white.
What is the correct way to resolve this situation? Would the resolution be different if my dragon had not been exiled and instead enchanted by a card such as Pacifism?
(Note: this took place in a limited pre-release tournament, not in a casual game)

wont provide as an answer as im not certain, but i think its too late with an exile like this, its just gone. as for pacifism, i believe it would just fall off when you notice.

@Rawrgramming that is my instinct as well

To be clear, it's the ability of Chained to the Rocks that targeted your dragon, not the enchantment itself - right?

@DavidZ yes, the ETB trigger targeting the dragon

The right answer, regardless of REL, starts with "call a judge."
Consequences to rules violations questions always vary depending on the REL (Rules Enforcement Level) that the event is operating under. Prereleases are held at Regular REL, so the IPG (Infraction Procedure Guide) does not apply there - only at Competitive REL.
There is a guide to judging at Regular REL, which refers to the following for miscellaneous mistakes:

A player makes an in-game error not mentioned above
This will cover the bulk of player errors, and we will usually leave the game as it is. Fix anything that is currently illegal (e.g. an Aura enchanting an illegal permanent or a card in the wrong zone) and continue the game. If the error was caught soon after and rewinding is relatively easy, you may choose to undo all the actions back to the point that the illegal action happened. This can include returning random cards from the hand to the library to undo card draws (though don't shuffle the library if you do this!), and reversing various other actions (such as declaring attackers or blockers). Don't go crazy with this!

At the judge's option, he or she can alter the existing game state to best adjust for the mistake. That same guide also calls out:

Keep in mind that the philosophy or fixes found in other documents (such as the Infraction Procedure Guide) are designed for a stricter environment and should not be applied at a tournament run at Regular REL.

There are a number of other articles published by Wizards about judging at Regular REL - see both http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=judge/article/20080605a and http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=judge/article/20101111a.

The correct answer (since this appeared in a tournament setting) is to call a judge as soon as you notice.
The judge is likely to act according to section 2.5 Game Play Error
— Game Rule Violation of this pdf: http://www.wizards.com/contentresources/wizards/wpn/main/documents/magic_the_gathering_infraction_procedure_guide_pdf2.pdf
If the error is discovered in a reasonable time frame one possibility outlined is a rollback of the game state.
If the error is not discovered in a reasonable time frame (likely you scenario as a couple turns have passed) the judge can leave the game in its current state after resolving state based actions.
From my interpretation of the pdf, your dragon remains exiled in the Chained to the Rocks example, but in the pacifism example the pacifism would be removed.


text:
Do I need to reveal a face-down card if it is put on top of my library?
If I have a face-down card (such as a morph or manifested card), and an effect puts it on top of my library, do I need to reveal the card (as I would if it was destroyed or exiled)?
Example:
I attack my opponent with a manifest creature, and they cast Whisk Away to put it on top of my library, do they get to know what the card put on top of my library is?

"Do I need to reveal a face-down permanent if it leaves the battlefield?" My suggested title edits are in bold. The latter is might be taking it too far, so I thought I would ask first.

Yes, you must reveal all face-down cards as they move zones or when you leave the game.

707.9. If a face-down permanent moves from the battlefield to any other zone, its owner must reveal it to all players as he or she moves it. If a face-down spell moves from the stack to any zone other than the battlefield, its owner must reveal it to all players as he or she moves it. If a player leaves the game, all face-down permanents and spells owned by that player must be revealed to all players. At the end of each game, all face-down permanents and spells must be revealed to all players.

The other players must be able to check that you were able to cast those cards face-down. Making an exception for manifested cards (which are not required to have the morph ability or any other property) would needlessly complicate the rule, and if you have both manifested and morphed creatures on the battlefield, it might be obscured which was which, again making room for error or even cheating.

The reasoning of checking that it was legal doesn't really apply to manifest. Manifest creatures are not cast face-down, they are put in play face-down by another effect (and can be anything).

It's true that the original reasoning is no longer always relevant, but that's still the rule, and it doesn't change in Fate Reforged

@bengoesboom, It's better to keep the rule simple than to carve out an exception for Manifest.

Also, there could always be effects in the future that allow you to bring into play any non-Morph card face down as long as it has a certain property. For example: "T: put a creature card from your hand into play face-down. [etc]", only that the opponent doesn't know which creature it was.

@Hackworth - You mean like Illusionary Mask?


text:
How does Perplexing Chimera work with multiple triggers on the stack?
Perplexing Chimera is a new card in Born of the Gods. It reads as follows

Enchantment Creature - Chimera

Whenever an opponent casts a spell, you may exchange control of Perplexing Chimera and that spell. If you do, you may choose new targets for the spell. (If the spell becomes a permanent, you control that permanent.)

3/3

As I understand it, the following can happen if I have a Chimera on the battlefield:

My opponent casts some spell (say Shock), and it goes on the stack.
The Chimera's ability triggers. It is put on the stack.
My opponent really wants his Shock to resolve, so in response he casts Lightning Strike on my Chimera to kill it before its ability resolves. This is put on the stack.
The Chimera's (which is still under my control) ability triggers again. It is put on the stack.

At this point, nothing else happens and we start resolving the stack.

The Chimera's ability resolves. I choose to perform the swap. I choose my opponent as the target of the Lightning Strike. My opponent gets control of the Chimera.
Lightning Strike resolves. My opponent takes 3 damage
??????

What happens next? Does the ability on the stack fail to resolve? Who (if anyone) gets to choose to use the Chimera's ability on the stack?

Quoting directly from the Born of the Gods Release Notes:

In some unusual cases, you may not control Perplexing Chimera when its triggered ability resolves (perhaps because the triggered ability triggered again and resolved while the original ability was on the stack). In these cases, you can exchange control of Perplexing Chimera and the spell that causes the ability to trigger, even if you control neither of them. If you do, you'll be able to change targets of the spell, not the spell's new controller.

Note that, because both Perplexing Chimera and Shock are controlled by your opponent when the first triggered ability resolves, exchanging their control doesn't change anything by itself, but it does give you (yes, you, even though you still don't control anything) the option to change the Shock's target.
I'd also like to quote another item in the section on Perplexing Chimera which addresses a misconception you seem to have:

You make the decision whether to exchange control of Perplexing Chimera and the spell as the triggered ability resolves.

That is, the triggered ability goes on the stack regardless of whether you want to make the exchange at that time; you don't decide whether or not to do the exchange until the ability resolves.

Yes, you are correct about what goes on the stack for the ability. I will edit my question to correct it.

So basically, you'll have paid 3 mana to take 5 to the face and have ended up with a Chimera you'd have already owned after paying 1 to take 2 to the face? Do not play that Lightning Strike before you own that Chimera!

The resolution of your stack would look like this:

Perplexing Chimera's last trigger resolves. You may exchange control of Perplexing Chimera and Lightning Strike. You now control Lightning Strike, and your opponent controls Perplexing Chimera. You may choose a new target for the Lightning Strike.
Lightning Strike resolves and deals 3 damage to your newly chosen target
Perplexing Chimera's first trigger resolves. Even though you control neither Perplexing Chimera nor Shock, you may still exchange control and may still choose new targets for the Shock. Your opponent will retain control of both Perplexing Chimera and Shock, even though you changed targets.
Shock resolves and deals two damage to your newly chosen target.

You controlled Chimera when both triggers happened, so you get to make all of the choices when they resolve.


text:
How can I destroy Possibility Storm?
If an opponent plays Possibility Storm , what would be the best way to destroy it? If I played a card which allowed me to destroy target enchantment, would this destroy Possibility Storm before my card becomes exiled or would I need to rely on one of the cards I need to draw?
Also does Possibility Storm trigger when playing creatures or lands/basic lands?

It triggers whenever you cast a spell from your hand, no matter what kind of spell. This includes an instant or sorcery you might play to try to destroy it, as well as creatures. (Playing lands is not casting a spell - it's a special action you can do.)
So yes, it's difficult to destroy. Keeping it from ever reaching the battlefield by countering it is of course the easiest way. If you happen to have something on the battlefield with an ability that can destroy it, like a Keening Apparition that'll work too. Similarly, if you're lucky enough to have a spell with Flashback already in your graveyard like Ray of Revelation, you could use that - it's not cast from your hand, so it's not affected.
But otherwise, yes, you'll have to rely on luck - cast your spells, and hope you hit something good. Do note that you don't necessarily have to destroy it; you could well cast a vanilla 1/1 creature and luck into something enormous, and your opponent is just as dead if you kill them without being able to control what you cast!

There are some lands that can help you pitch Ray of Revelation to the graveyard. Spells with cast triggers (e.g., Ulamog) will also work, though the Possibility Storm trigger will still resolve in that case.

re: cast triggers;
Conspire on Gleeful Sabotage will work. (since the copy is not cast from hand)

This question can be answered just like a question about Standstill that was asked earlier this week, by User Akedren.
Basically one great way to get rid of enchantments, which are permanents, is to pull them off the table or otherwise destroy them without casting a spell from your hand.
To quote the answer I mentioned above:

You can cycle Resounding Wave targeting [Possibility Storm] and a
  land, as cycling is an activated ability it won't cause [Possibility
  Storm] to trigger.

702.27a Cycling is an activated ability that functions only while the card with cycling is in a player’s hand. “Cycling [cost]” means
    “[Cost], Discard this card: Draw a card.”

.- Akedren

Also if the board is not empty you can easily use creatures that have abilites that allow you to destroy enchantments.

Casting Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre will destroy possibility storm, as the "when you cast" ability on Ulamog still triggers, even though Ulamog gets replaced with a different creature.
Possibility Storm only affects cards cast from your hand, so if you have ways of casting removal spells from other zones, that will work.  If you have Ray of Revelation in your hand, you could wait until you have 8 cards in hand and then discard it, thus enabling you to play it via flashback.  Alternatively, Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind can let you play removal spells from exile.
Baring those specific cards in your deck, play a card with the same type as your removal (for example, if you have Disenchant in your deck, play other instants) and eventually Possibility Storm will have your spell turn into the removal spell you need.

I built A Nikol Bolas deck and recently added this card and had the same question. this was the answer. The player casting the spell has the choice as to whether or not the card ability happens first as cased below..
603.3b If multiple abilities have triggered since the last time a player received priority, each player, in APNAP order, puts triggered abilities he or she controls on the stack in any order he or she chooses.
And again below.
101.4. If multiple players would make choices and/or take actions at the same time, the active player (the player whose turn it is) makes any choices required, then the next player in turn order (usually the player seated to the active player’s left) makes any choices required, followed by the remaining nonactive players in turn order. Then the actions happen simultaneously. This rule is often referred to as the “Active Player, Nonactive Player (APNAP) order” rule.
Hope this helped you with your playing :) Good Luck and Have fun!

What is the other trigger here?

sorry let me fix what I said. If you are the one that controls possibility storm you get to choose if you get the effect of the card that you cast. If you do not control it then really you are somewhat screwed. there are ways to get rid of it and one way that I found works relatively well is to have Liliana Vess on the field so that you can use her -3 effect put a destroy enchantment card on top of your deck activate a card of the same type on top of your deck and then cast that spell. Also the second spell goes into your grave not into exile if anybody needs to know that.

I don't think you fully understand how Possibility Storm interacts with spells. The sequence of events is:
(1) player casts spell;
(2) storm triggers;
(3) storm resolves, exiling spell, cast second spell from library;
The original spell's effect never happens because it is removed from the stack before it has a chance to resolve.
The rule you quote is for the case when multiple triggered abilities would be put on the stack at the same time.


text:
Damage Cleanup and Toughness Boosting Effects
Suppose my opponent is playing Slivers, and has a Muscle Silver and a Metallic Sliver on the field. On my side, I have a 1/1 Goblin token. My opponent declares both Slivers as attacking, and I block the Muscle Sliver with my Goblin. After combat, I Overload an Electrickery, killing the Muscle Sliver. Since it took 1 damage and the +1/+1 from the Muscle Sliver is removed, would the Metallic Sliver die?

Meant it to be a Muscle Sliver, not Might, sorry for the confusion.

Aye, it seems to be the same situation. Thanks for the link!


text:
Am I allowed to shuffle my hand when ever I want?
A friend just told me I'm not allowed to, when he played a spell that lets him instantly chose a blind card from my hand to graveyard it.
As I played with my decks first card open, I knew which he wanted to destroy.
I was going to shuffle my hand to make it harder for him to pick the one I drew, but he said as it is instant, so I'm not allowed to shuffle my hand.
How is this dealt?

When you say "blind", did the card say "at random?" Are you sure that the card didn't say to look at your hand?

What spell was your friend using?

Unless I messed up my search, there is no instant (or sorcery) that allows you to exile a card from someone else's hand.

@murgatroid99: Sorry, I edited it I was talking about graceyard, not exile

@Zaibis Mugatroid's answer covers it, of course, but still - you'll get better answers if you just name the card.

@Jefromi I don't remember the name, otherwise I would have named and/or cited it.

"but he said as it is instant, so I'm not allowed to shuffle my hand." This is somewhat beside the point, but it's probably worth noting that "instant" is not synonymous with "happens too quickly for you to do anything in response". The colloquial term "instant speed" only indicates when a spell or ability can occur, not how fast it is.

I think it's worth noting that, while "instant speed" is colloquial, the equivalent phrase "any time you could cast an instant" is actually explicitly defined in rule 304.5.

Side note: if it's supposed to be random, you should lay your cards flat on the table and clearly indicate them 1-6, and roll a die. It's just better that way. (If you have 7, roll a d20 until you get a 1-7 if you have to.)

When you are playing a game, you can reorder your hand whenever you want. Your opponent is not supposed to know which card is which in your hand unless your hand is revealed.
If a spell allows you to make your opponent discard a card, it will either say

[Player] discards a card at random from their hand.

In which case, you should shuffle the hand before allowing them to chose a card from it.
Or, it will say

Look at [player]'s hand (or "[Player] reveals their hand"). You choose a [quality] card from it. That player discards that card.

In that case, they are looking at your hand, so they will definitely be able to know what card they are choosing.

Also the premise of the original question is a bit flawed in that there is no rule that says the resolution of discard at random happens by your opponent choosing a face down card.  You can always simply lay your hand out and use a fair dice roll or some other method if you prefer.

In actuality - if the card is at random, competitive tournaments would not consider you shuffling and your opponent picking to be sufficiently random. It HAS to be by Shuffling followed by dice roll or some other completely random method.

Just for posterity's sake, this is the relevant rule that governs this scenario:

400.5. The order of objects in a library, in a graveyard, or on the stack can't be changed except when effects or rules allow it. The same is true for objects arranged in face-down piles in other zones. Other objects in other zones can be arranged however their owners wish, although who controls those objects, whether they're tapped or flipped, and what other objects are attached to them must remain clear to all players.

So if the zone in question is not the library, graveyard, or stack (which it isn't, we're talking about the hand, although there is also the battlefield and exile) then the order of objects in that zone can be arranged any which way but Sunday.
Also, while technically the graveyard is an ordered zone, you're allowed to fiddle with the order of the graveyard:

3.14 Graveyard Order
  In formats involving only cards from Urza’s Saga™ and later, players may change the order of their graveyard at any time. A player may not change the order of an opponent’s graveyard.

Only a select few cards actually care about the order of the graveyard, and it was decided early on (apparently, around the time of Urza's Saga) that maintaining the order of the graveyard just wasn't important enough to justify a game loss for failure to maintain board state. So in reality, the library and the stack are the only zones whose order actually matters, and let's face it - most people don't even realize the stack is a zone. I mean, we construct the stack in our head from memory of what was played and triggered when. We don't put the cards out on the table or anything.
So the good rule of thumb is, for the casual player, if it's not a library, you can probably shuffle it any time you want. Just don't be a jerk.

The order of your hand in Magic the Gathering is never part of the game.  You are always allowed to reorder your cards in hand, and do so secretly.  You might most commonly do so before playing something like a morph card, so as to obscure which card you're playing face down.
In the case described above, if you are playing in any type of competitive setting you should never allow your opponent to select a card when discarding at random, or pic their's.  All cards should be laid out in a row, and then a die should be used to select the card.  This makes it actually random, as the card instructs, and not a game of remembering order, or hiding cards.

Your comment regarding morphs is incorrect. While what a facedown creature actually is may be secret, you cannot take actions to obscure what order they came into play.

@bengoesboom I am not saying that.  I am saying you are slowed to obscure what card you used from your hand to play face down

@Andrey What you've written appears to be saying you're allowed to reorder your morph cards and do so secretly. I suggest you rewrite or replace that last sentence.

@Andrey it just clicked for me why you're mentioning morph, and I've edited your answer slightly to try to make what I think you're saying clearer. Could you check it and see if you're happy with it, and if this is what you mean? Naturally edit further or roll back if you like.


text:
Is the quest leader required to be part of the team?
One of the players suggested that the team leader should be able to pick the team and not include himself in it, so we decided to try that for one game. We were playing with 10 people. As we tried this out, I got the role of Merlin and immediately knew who all (except mordred) the bad guys were. The first team that the team leader picked was all good people and we passed the first quest. The next quest leader was on his left, and he was in the first quest, so logically we told him to pick that same team and add one person. And after we added that person, he was also good and we passed the quest. However, now the next quest leader was a bad guy, but because we are allowed to pick the team without the leader in it, we basically forced the bad guy to choose the previously same successful team without the quest leader (who was bad), because after all, if the bad guy didn't, then obviously that guy is bad or else why would they not pick the team that had no troubles? This strategy ended up in a 3-0 match, and the assassin didn't guess me correctly. So the good guys won quickly and easily.
We all thought that this rule seemed kinda weird, so I wanted to ask you guys who played more than us to explain this to me. Should the quest leader have to include himself? because if not, than the game could happen like what happened before.

As Percival in a small game, I once picked Merlin and Morgana as the starting team to try to sort them out.

It is legal to create a team that does not have you on it.  It should be very rare though.  Here's why:
The argument that the previous teams succeeded is not logically strong enough to force the leader to leave himself off the team.  He could argue that the previous teams had a sleeper spy (which is not provable either way with the information public at the time) and replace one with himself.
Consider that a person can always make the argument that he trusts himself more than any other single person, and that argument is essentially irrefutable.
After all, if he is a resistance member, he knows with 100% certainty that he is a resistance member and should put himself on the team. Therefore, a resistance leader would need a very good explanation for why he would be excluding himself from the team he builds.
Since a spy should frequently act like a resistance member to be convincing, a spy leader also has a strong reason to put himself on the team and needs a good explanation to exclude himself.
In my opinion the third leader in your game played poorly in that situation.
That player should have replaced one of the earlier team members, had some discussion about it, and put it for a vote.

Therefore, a resistance leader would need a very good explanation for why he would be excluding himself from the team he builds. Could you give an example of when a leader (ordinary good) should choose a team that he is not part of. I struggle to find even a single case where this would be the "rational" decision.

I've always played the leader can choose whatever team they want with themselves on it or not their choice. Sometimes people get convinced, or bullied not to put themselves on it because of the results of the previous round, or because everyone threatens to vote their team down if they are on it, but ultimately I think it should be up to the leader.


text:
Phytohydra vs Trample
My friend and I were playing an epic game a few days ago (in the end, he smacked me for 117 damage, only 16 of it was trample, but I only had my Phytohydra out).  I'm kind of the rules guy in my circle, so, the way the Phytohydra's worded, I let the trample damage from his Liege of the Tangle through it the turn before. Now, I know there was no way for me to win after that point, but was I supposed to let the damage through like I did? or should it have completely massacred that LotT?

He still has to assign at least lethal damage to Phytohydra before any remaining trample damage can be assigned to the defending player.  The fact that the damage will be replaced later on when it is dealt and not actually be "lethal" does not change anything about how it is assigned.  Toughness - Damage Marked (minimum, no deathtouch) goes on the creature, then the rest can hit you.

702.19b The controller of an attacking creature with trample first assigns damage to the creature(s) blocking it. Once all those blocking
creatures are assigned lethal damage, any remaining damage is assigned
as its controller chooses among those blocking creatures and the
player or planeswalker the creature is attacking. When checking for
assigned lethal damage, take into account damage already marked on the
creature and damage from other creatures that’s being assigned during
the same combat damage step, but not any abilities or effects that
might change the amount of damage that’s actually dealt. The
attacking creature’s controller need not assign lethal damage to all
those blocking creatures but in that case can’t assign any damage to
the player or planeswalker it’s attacking.

Bold added by me

But importantly, he doesn't need to assign any more than lethal damage.  At the time he assigns, an unmodified Phytohydra would only need one damage to be "lethal" and the rest could be assigned to trample.  It doesn't grow until you start resolving the damage.

@Affe Alright; that's what I thought.  I was sure the damage would get through the 'hydra. He didn't block it at all, leaving it at its 1/1 state before attacking with the Liege, so trample damage was definitely getting through, I just wanted to make sure I understood the setup correctly.


text:
Shipwreck Singer: When can the first ability be activated?
Shipwreck Singer has the ability:

1U: Target creature an opponent controls attacks this turn if able.

When can I activate this ability?
e.g. My opponent has a Manaweft Sliver. I say "attack if able" at the beginning of the draw step of my opponent. Can he now use the mana ability or does he have to honor my attack order and can no longer use its mana ability?

Blue mana is abbreviated with "U"; "B" is only for black mana.  Shipwreck Singer's first ability thus costs 1U, not 1B.

For this particular ability, you usually want to activate it at the beginning of your opponents combat step, before they declare attackers

He does have to attack you when he's able to. But when your opponent taps for mana, the creature stays tapped (tapping is part of the cost and cannot be interrupted), therefore it's not able to attack in his attack phase.
Even if your opponent activates the creata mana-ability in his main phase (later than your ability was activated), he still won't be able to attack. He's allowed to do that to prevent his sliver(s) from attacking.

"Attacks this turn if able" means: when the Attack phase comes around, if that creature is able to attack, it must. That doesn't come with an obligation to leave it able to attack, though, and your opponent may rightly wish to do something that leaves that creature unable to attack.
Your opponent can use Manaweft's Sliver ability. Then, when the Attack phase comes around, Manaweft Sliver won't be able to attack, and won't do so.


text:
Do Triggered effects stack?
Lets say I have a Suture Priest creature that says "Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may gain 1 life."
and I currently have all 4 of them in the battlefield. Then I cast another creature and : Do I get 1 or 4 life? Does that effect trigger for every priest or just once? thanks for help

You get four lifes in total: one when each of the four triggered abilities resolves.
Since you have four copies of Suture Priest on the battlefield, you have four copies of the triggered ability. Each time the event a triggered ability is indicating happens, it triggers. Since you have four copies, it trigger four times.

603.2. Whenever a game event or game state matches a triggered ability’s trigger event, that ability automatically triggers.

Since there is no rule that stops several copies of the same triggered ability to trigger at the same time, they all work.

Re "You get four life", More precisely, you get 1 life four times. There's no actual "stacking" (in the OP's meaning of the word). If you think in terms of "stacking", you're thinking about it wrong. (It's also confusing, since "stack" means something completely different in MTG.)


text:
Does Rupture Spire turn your Reflecting Pool on in time to pay for the Spire's ability?
If I play a Reflecting Pool turn 1 and then a Rupture Spire / Transguild Promenade turn 2 does the spire turn on the Reflecting Pool in time to pay for the spire's activated ability?

Yes, you can use the pool to pay for the spire.
As the spire enters the battlefield, its ability triggers. That ability is then put on the stack, where it waits until all players have passed priority, just like anything else on the stack. Once it is time for that ability to resolve, the spire is definitely on the battlefield, which means that the pool can see it and the mana it could produce.
Note that the spire doesn't "turn on" the reflecting pool per se. When you want to tap the pool for mana, it is the pool that will look around and see what lands you have available. The spire takes no active part in this interaction. If the pool can see the spire, it will be able to use the spire. Thinking about it like that might make it a bit easier to see why this will work.