text:
Is it possible to download full tournament data including every card in each deck and wins losses?
Does Wizards make this information available? This would open some some really cool machine learning problem such as:

to try and predict which decks do better against which decks
automatic deck classification into archetypes

For example, for Pro Tour Ravnica, I've found the full match lists at: https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptgrn/tournament-results but I'd need to scrape it from the web.
The decks however, I can only see:

top 8 full lists e.g.: https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptgrn/top-8-decklists-2018-11-10
archetype percentages, e.g. https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptgrn/3-0-drafts-day-1-2018-11-09

For Magic Online, it would be even more awesome if we could have full play by play data of tournaments: Is there a standard file format for Magic the Gathering games? to decide e.g. how much a turn one Black Lotus increases your win rate. Of course, this gets close to privacy problems, so likely not possible.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/wizards-data-insanity from 2017 mentions that Wizards has controlled this kind of data more and more so I'm not very hopeful.

I've not seen it on the mtg official site, but I've seen some of these at https://www.topdecked.me under the event section. Usually for a past event they show which deck played what, it's more complete for the US tournaments than for the european but it's pretty ok. Is it what you need ?

@LamaDelRay hmmm I can't find it easily, if you can link to a precise page that would be great.

I'm using the app and it's easily accessible there, their site truly needs a revamping. You can learn more about it https://www.topdecked.me/articles/updates/take-tour-topdecked-2-0/ , I've found some of the info you're looking for there too https://mtgtop8.com/

@LamaDelRay I could only find top 16 on mtgtop8.

I went and checked all the published data on wizards website and confirmed what you saw with your example and the following is all that is published.

top 8 full lists e.g.:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptgrn/top-8-decklists-2018-11-10
archetype percentages, e.g.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/ptgrn/3-0-drafts-day-1-2018-11-09

now this doesn't prevent you from ocring the frame by frame of the live matches to get all played cards [ with something like Googles vision api ] and then making your data set for which cards played in a match most often caused the deck to win. Unfortunately this is the only current way , I could find, to get win data for all decks in the tournament outside of the top 8
In response to your second question there is no established format by wizards for this information as they don't publish a public api for there data.

Wizards of the Coast does not make this data available to the public.

This is true as far as I know, but your answer would be better with sources. I know they have posted publicly about why they don't publish MTGO results anymore, but I'm not sure about Pro Tour matches.

The brevity of this answer may make it better suited as a comment.

@NeilMeyer The brevity of your comment may make it not useful.

This is the correct and only answer to the question asked.
Regarding "citation needed", it is not reasonable to ask for proof of the nonexistence of something. The converse is easily proved and has yet to be shown to be true.
Simple logic says that since there is no evidence that there is a public source of data, therefore, it is reasonable to believe there isn't.


text:
Can I kill an opponent in response to lethal activated abilities, and not take the damage?
Here's the situation.
Life totals: Not relevant
Player 1: Activates Borborygmos Enraged (Discard a land card: Deal 3 damage to any target) enough times for lethal, aims damage at Player 2. Passes priority.
Player 2: In response, uses Mirage Mirror's activated ability to copy Borborygmos Enraged, no responses. Activates the ability for lethal themselves, aims all damage at Player 1, no responses.
Player 1 dies.
Does Player 2 still live, or do the triggers persist after Player 1 loses the game?

Hey EthanK, welcome to the stackexchange. We know what game you are talking about by the tagging of the question, adding MTG: at the title is not necessary. I'll remove it for you. If you check the browser tab's title you will see that the tag is appended to the question title.

You will win; in a 2-player game, a player leaving the game for any reason means the remaining player wins immediately and the game is over, no matter the game state. In multiplayer, once a player has left the game, all cards they own and all non-card objects they control on the stack leave the game with him.

104.2a A player still in the game wins the game if that player's opponents have all left the game. This happens immediately and overrides all effects that would preclude that player from winning the game.
104.5. If a player loses the game, that player leaves the game.  [..]

Additional rules for multiplayer, when one player leaves the game but the game still continues:

800.4a When a player leaves the game, all objects (see rule 109) owned by that player leave the game and any effects which give that player control of any objects or players end. Then, if that player controlled any objects on the stack not represented by cards, those objects cease to exist. Then, if there are any objects still controlled by that player, those objects are exiled. This is not a state-based action. It happens as soon as the player leaves the game. If the player who left the game had priority at the time they left, priority passes to the next player in turn order who's still in the game.

So, in this case, the fact that Borborygmos Enraged is the source of the damage is irrelevant, right? If the example involved lightning bolts the outcome would be the same?

Yes, it's irrelevant. The game state can only ever matter in multiplayer anyway, because in a 2 player game, the game ends immediately once a player loses.

@hackworth only if there were a player 3 at the table would the outcome change to give victory to p3? Or it would the game continue with p2 (without taking damage from p1's BE) and p3

@Mindwin: see the quote for rule 800.4a: "if that player controlled any objects on the stack not represented by cards, those objects cease to exist. " - so all those Borbor damaging effects on the stack cease existing, and thus will never happen, after Player 1 leaves the game. So the game will continue between player 2 and 3 without those effects dealing any damage.

@Mindwin I was speaking generally. For this particular question, P3+ would not matter, P2 would still not lose to P1's spells or abilities because they leave the game with P1. But the departure of P1's cards and objects could have other, indirect consequences, such as P2 or P3 auras falling off P1 creatures.

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text:
Should Commander Farsight's crisis suit be blue instead of red?
In the Warhammer 40k novel Crisis of Faith by Phil Kelly, O'Shoh (aka Commander Farsight), the main character, is asked why he painted his battlesuit red. He replies, "It is to honour the Arkunashan dead. Their blood is on my hands, and I will not forget it." (The Arkunashan dead are fallen Tau soldiers.)
Under this assumption, red would be an appropriate color for a human who is seeking to avenge his fallen comrades, but according to the Tau Codex, Tau Lexicanum, and RPG-SE, Tau blood is actually blue. Meaning that Farsight's hands were (figuratively speaking) stained with blue blood.
Why is it then that he paints his modified Crisis Battlesuit in red, and not blue. Do any of the Warhammer 40k supplements or general lore explain this discrepancy, or is this just an honest mistake? Note that GW depicts Commander Farsight in a red Crisis Suit.

For now I'm assuming its an honest oversight of the novel. Still, I haven't been able to find a single reference to why Farsight and his enclave wear red. According to the Tau Lexicon, the fire caste wars armour the same color as their sept's (home/main planet's) surface. But I don't believe all septs in the Farsight enclave are red. Fluff/lore -wise, there must be something behind it. Or did GW just choose red at random?

You might be able to get a better answer on sci-fi stack exchange, since this is a very specific question that focuses on the game/novels/multimedia setting rather than the minis or game rules per se. I'm not voting to close, but I suggest migration.

@AlexP We first had this question on [rpg.se], and we recommended it for [scifi.se] and someone also mentioned that since this was about painting figurines for the tabletop game it might also be relevant for this site.

Looks like we've gotten a good (well researched & accepted) answer in scifi

@hexparrot Not really. They migrated the question from RPG-SE, and things got somehow messed up. The question over there was: "Is Tau blood blue or red?", and the answer is "Blue". But it does not answer why farsight's armor is red.

Ah, I figured from "From the Xenology book, published by Games Workshop, we have a dissected (female) tau and an audiolog describing their physiology that says that the specimen's blood is a blue fluid, and that its skin is grey/blue." (as well as the other details) suggested that it was just an oversight in the Crisis of Faith novel.  In other words, numerous places say cyan/blue is the blood color, but only one single quote (perhaps mistakenly) suggests it's red?

@hexparrot For now I'm assuming that it is an honest oversight in the novel. However, I haven't been able to find any information at all regarding why Farsight's armor (and the Farsight's enclave in general) is red. I know that the fire-caste paints its armor the same color as their planet's surface (e.g. Vior'la is a hot and dry planet, thus their armor is white), but I don't believe all planets in the enclave are red. Is there some meaning (lore-wise) behind the red armor?

In a recent article on the Warhammer Community page author Phil Kelly puts a footnote to the effect that T'au blood has always been red.

It’s been red from the first ever account of the sacred ta’lissera blood bond. We tried different coloured blood for our alien races – Orks had green blood at one point – but it just didn’t look right on the miniatures, nor in the art.

But this contradicts the Tau Empire Codex, which started to state sinceramente the third edition (or was it the second?) that Tau blood is cyan. Still your answer is completely letigimate

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text:
Where can I find the rules for "Deer Hunters Challenge"?
I recently bought a copy of "Deer Hunters Challenge" at a rummage sale. While it looks like all the pieces are there, no instructions were included with the game.
Several Google searches with various terms such as "Deer Hunters Challenge board game rules" and "instructions deer hunters challenge board game" yielded only a small number of online sales of the game and similarly themed games.
I found several sites for board game rules by searching "board game rules" but none of them turned up results for this obscure game.
Where can I find the rules for this game?
To aid in identification, given the similarly themed and named games, here is part of the top of the box including the name and the maker:

@Thunderforge, they sell it at Amazon, so it must exist: https://www.amazon.com/Deer-Hunters-Challenge-Board-Game/dp/B00YLSIFNQ

Good luck on this I can't seem to find any information on the publisher and from what I can see the game was published in 1997 so finding information may be hard.

I found the game for sale on a site called cauf.com that says

Since we are located within the heart of Ohio’s Amish community, we have access to some of the most amazing and high quality products directly from the manufacturer, saving you money.

And there is a Six Mills Game Company in Ohio, or at least there used to be. Sites that list business information aren't always good at staying up to date. But since the game is still for sale, it seems like a good bet.

Six Mills Game Co, 8076 State Route 241, Millersburg, Ohio 44654
  (330) 674-2541

You can try contacting them for the rules. And maybe the company name/location is just coincidence, because I couldn't find anything else about them.  Good luck!

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text:
Diplomacy: No units but 1 Non-Home Supply Center
Hello Diplomacy enthusiasts.
I was recently playing an online game of Diplomacy with my friends and unfortunately drew Italy. All was going well until I was overrun by Turkey who made quick work out of Austria (and eventually went on to solo) and he agreed to let me survive in Tunis with an army so long I fight France and let him take my lands, as you do.
Anyways, in Spring 1911, he supported his fleet into my poor, 1 SC nation and I disbanded my unit. After a bit of negotiating, he vacated Tunis in the fall and I had 1 Supply Center that I couldn't build in, and 0 troops. When the game ended.
My question is whether I would have gained a share of the pot if I tied with the others.
Also, does it count as surviving?

This is not a duplicate of the indicated question.  That question is about a home supply center whereas this one is about a non-home supply center (the difference being that in the other question, you can actually build a unit and potentially go on to do something whereas here you cannot do anything but may technically still be in the game).

Perhaps, but the comment on the other question does answer this one, stating that the player is still in the game despite having no units. Interestingly, the rules on Hasbro's website (dated 1999) don't actually mention elimination of players, and additionally fold the Winter phase into Fall and allow only for a single player to win.

Ok So I found the answer on this post:
All armies and fleets destroyed - Still in Game?
@bwarner said:
Even if it wasn't a home supply center they are technically not eliminated from the game. They could be included in a draw despite having no pieces on the board (and no way of getting more). You aren't eliminated until you have zero centers during a winter phase. – bwarner May 5 '14 at 13:31
So technically I would still be in the game.

Yup, the supplycenters count.


text:
Does this dice mechanic exist in other games and does it have any drawbacks?
Forgive me if this is an obvious question: I've only just started looking at board game design, so I'm still learning of the different game mechanics.
I have a concept for a dice mechanic and I as hoping to find out if it's used in any other games and whether it has any noticeable drawbacks.

For any particular skill, the play can create a pool of n number of dice, but they can be any type of dice (D4, D6 etc.). n being representative of their character's abilities, so the greater the character's ability the more dice they get.
It works on a min/max = fumble/critical basis: 1 is always a fail. A max roll is equivalent to a critical hit. Any other number is moderately successful.
The conceit here is that the player can attempt to increase the odds of a critical hit by opting for a smaller die (such as a D4 or D6), but this also increases the risk of a complete failure. Or they can play it safe and use a larger die (D12 or D20) with much lower risk of failure, but also lower odds of a critical.

In my concept for a game the successful dice are effectively used to 'buy' clues, with any critical dice being inherently more valuable.
EDIT: Here's a example of how it might be applied:

Player One wants to search for clues. Their search ability is 3× dice.
The player is feeling cocky, and really wants to find something good, so they opt to roll 3D4.
They roll a 1, a 2, and a 4: so that's 1x fail, 1x success, and 1x critical
As a result they discover 1x somewhat mediocre clue, and 1x excellent clue.
Player Two wants to search: they have a better search ability, so they get 4x dice.
Player Two decides to roll more conservatively, and opts to roll 4D12.
They get a 3, a 4, a 6, and a 9. So, 4x mediocre clues.

One consideration is the number of rolls per game/session. If the number of rolls per game/session is low (e.g. ≤10), the player using a d20 would end without any failures whatsoever many sessions.

How does it work when you roll more than one dice?

@ikegami I've added an example above. It is possible for a player to play conservatively by using a d20, and never fail: that's intentional. I'm focusing less on a binary fail/succeed mechanic and more on a risk-reward fail/succeed/bonus. I suppose it's the notion of being able to make a strategic choice on the dice used as opposed to just following a character stat that I'm interested in.

Formula D is a racing game where you select your die (non-standard D4, D6, D8, D12, D20, D30) based on your "gear".  So if you are in first gear, you roll the D4 and you can roll between 1-4.  If you are in 6th gear, you roll a D30 with numbers 20-30 printed on it.  You move forward the number of spaces specified on the die.  It also has a D20 Danger Die where specific events can happen.  For example, during the start rolling a 1 is a stall (lose a roll), and rolling a 20 is a very good start (extra roll).  It's similar to your case where you have different dice for different power-levels, and you have events where you roll critical or very bad rolls.
Zombiecide is a game where you search for weapons and roll dice to kill zombies.  In this game you'll end up with weapons such as the Chainsaw (5d, 5+).  The chainsaw lets you roll 5 dice.  For each 5 or 6 rolled, you kill a zombie in your current square.  Another one is the baseball bat (1d, 3+).  With this weapon you only roll one die, but a 3 or higher results in a kill.  It's similar to your game where you can power-up with more dice.  It also has chances of failure/success, but not quite like you described.

The Formula D mechanic looks interesting. Doesn't Zombiecide just use D6 dice though? Or am I just reading it wrong? I get the impression there's no strategic reason to not just roll the maximum number of dice for each weapon.

@Dre in zombiecide the dice are d6, but the weapon decides both how many dice, and your target number. So you have to pick between "roll a lot of dice, but only score a hit on a high number" or "roll few dice, but hit on a low number".

@Erik so to clarify: each weapon provides you with a choice(s) of pools of dice to roll, but each pool has a different target number? Interesting. I'm curious as to how the game presents that to non-statistically minded players in a manner that is intuitive. Thanks for the explanation.

usually the number of dice and success barrier are in keeping with the weapons flavour. So a mac-10 rolls 5 dice and requires results of 5+ to hit, it fires a lot of bullets in a burst but isn't very accurate. Conversely the rifle rolls 1 dice and requires a 3+ result to hit, more accurate but fewer chances to hit

I am unable to find any game with that precise mechanic, but there are many related:
Snowblind: Race for the Pole uses different sided dice to provide different probabilities. Every action you perform in a round requires you to take a die, and after every action you must roll all dice in your possession, with low numbers causing bad things to happen to you. A player may stop performing actions at any time during the round to stop rolling their dice...but then they aren't doing anything.
John Company focuses on the min/max focus you put here. When skill checks are required, players exhaust or spend a certain amount of resources to purchase dice. Out of all the dice rolled, the best single die determines the result. In this case, the designers decided that low values were good, so on a single 1-2 the action succeeds, a roll full of 5-6s results in a failure with dire consequences, and in between (at least 1 3-4 but no 1-2s) is a failure but with no further consequences save for the resources wasted. Tougher checks remove dice prior to the roll. Since all dice cost resources, you're encouraged to use as few as possible, but the penalty of a crit fail is severe. Spend the resources ahead of time, and you can greatly minimize that probability, but it never fully goes away. (John Company makes it more interesting in that usually one player sets the "budget" for a series of checks, and another player decides whether to actually take them...and is also the only one to be penalized in the case of a crit fail (whereas everyone takes a minor hit for a normal fail.))
XCOM: The board game Might fit into what you're doing more. You roll a certain amount of binary success or not dice, with a 8-sided "terrible thing" die. You can roll as many times as you want, and the amount of successes add up, but each time the minimum threshold of the terrible die increases (so on your first roll you need to roll higher than a 1, next roll higher than a 2, etc.) Fail to meet the threshold, and you get a catastrophic result. This has the bonus of allowing for situations where you both succeed AND get the catastrophic result at the same time (i.e. you succeeded, but at great cost.)
The problem with the method you propose is that a higher stat is mostly meaningless. Being able to roll more dice means I have a better chance of crit success or failure. Heck, there may be times where I willing want to roll just one die, as then I have the lowest chance of failure! It doesn't really do much for the decision as to whether to push my luck.
I've seen your edit as I was typing this. It seems like you have n separate tests, where n is the statistic. In this situation, the player will pretty much always roll the largest die "I need a clue, don't care what" or the smallest die "need the best, nothing else will do." As a result, it's a pretty simple binary decision. I don't think that's what you're looking for necessarily.

the XCOM mechanic is very interesting. It's basically 'pushing your luck' turned into dice form, which makes me wonder if I should change my idea to a 1 = completely backfires, max roll = success and everything else is a fail. This means the player has to weigh their appetite for success against the increased odds of not just failure but something bad happening.

@Dre if 1 = backfire, max = success and all other are fail, there is NO reason not to always pick the smallest die. The chances of backfire & success are always the same and failures are never desirable.

@Erik It depends on the definition of "fail." I could see a world where a "fail" would be a lesser clue, whereas the backfire would void all dice used that turn. That would make the decision making process more interesting.
As for the system itself, if this dice rolling system is "the thing", I think that you need a bit more spice. I would investigate making the "middling" dice have different side bonuses/effects. There's the "high risk/reward" small die and the "safe result" big die, but maybe there's a middle "let's look for things that aren't clues as well" die.

@Erik Very good point. I think J.John's suggestion - where a fail just nullifies that one die but a backfire nulls all the dice - is an elegant and simple solution. I suspect I need to draw up some kind of table listing the odds and see if it still works. I'm not against the idea of a 'soft' fail still providing some kind of benefit; it just puts the onus on the GM to create different 'levels' of clues which is a bit of a pain, but not the worst thing in the world.

It reminds me of DiceBag games where you roll bags of dice with more dice being better games such as Roll for the Galaxy and Orleans. Those are the closest I've seen that haven't been mentioned.
Now you ask about downsides to your mechanism and with open dice selection and only min and max mattering. It seems to put it delicately, boring. I can't think of any understanding of what you've listed that I would want to play because most die rolls would be uninteresting. On a D20 you have 1 success and 1 fail and 18 mediocre. That's a lot of uninteresting rolls.
I realize you don't have a full game concept but with a mechanic like that you're going to really need to incentivize a player to even go for that greater risk and considering it's JUST as likely to fail as it is to succeed? In addition no difference between a 2 and an 18? That's a hard sell.


text:
At what stage does combat actually start?
(Question based on the third edition)
A couple of combat scenarios had us a little confused.
Scenario 1:
Day starts
Player 1 moves into city where Dracula currently is.

Does combat start immediately?
Even though Player 2 would be able to get into that city during their move?

Scenario 2:
Night starts
There are 2 hunters in the same city with Dracula.
Player 1 needs to take an action.

Does combat start immediately?

That's two questions.  Please ask them separately so that any answers can be voted on appropriately.

The question boils down to "does combat start immediately".  I could have phrased it differently for sure and I appreciate your comment.  I feel an edit or just the suggestion would've sufficed and that a downvote is rather unnecessary though, especially to a first time question.  The question isn't that bad and we don't exactly want to scare people away from asking things, do we?

Is it for 3rd edition?

Yes.  I will add that to the tags.  I already have the answer but will accept yours if you add it.

Also, scenario 2 mentions "evening" what do you mean in game terms? Dusk? Nught?

Assuming you ask about 3rd edition rules. From rules reference:

If a hunter is on Dracula’s current location during dawn or dusk, he
  must start a combat with Dracula.

And also:

Dawn occurs before day, and dusk occurs before night.

So, combat with Dracula only happens between action phases, not immediately.
EDIT:
To clarify your scenarious:
Scenario 1: Other Hunters continue to do their actions for this phase, then combat occurs. Since movement normally only allowed during the Day, I assume combat would happen at Dusk, and night effects on combat cards would apply.
Scenario 2: Since it's just beginning of the Night, it means that combat at Dusk has just concluded (for described situation to arise Dracula already was in the city when Hunters moved in during the Day). So all Hunters carry on their actions. THEN it's Dracula's move, and if Dracula stays in the same city with Hunters or moves to city with another Hunter, combat at Dawn occurs.

Would this answer change if it was talking about a different edition of the rules?

@JoeW AFAIK combat in previous editions is very different, so I assume, this answer is only applicable for 3rd edition. OP confirmed that question referes to 3rd ed. in the comments

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text:
How do encounter card vampires work in combat?
(third edition question)
Do you also draw 5 cards from the Dracula Combat Cards pack and continue with combat as you would with Dracula?
If so, what is the point of the Escape and Flee cards for a non-Dracula vampire?

One minor correction, IIRC, dracula draws 5 cards at the start of combat.

Checked the rules, indeed it is 5 cards for Dracula. It wasn't mentioned in Rules Reference though, only in L2P guide, so it's easy to miss.

From 3rd edition rules reference:

Vampire Encounters
Combat with a vampire can be initiated from
  Dracula’s “New Vampire” and “Reckless Vampire” encounter cards. The
  rules in this section apply only to vampire encounters; when the word
  “Dracula” is used, it is referring to the Dracula player.
† If a hunter either resolves a search action or is ambushed in a hideout or
  lair and an encounter card is revealed that reads, “fight this
  vampire,” a combat occurs.
† Combat against vampires uses the same
  rules as combat against Dracula with the following exceptions:

“New Vampire” and “Reckless Vampire” encounter cards have their own health
  values. When one of these vampires suffers damage, it is tracked on
  the card using damage tokens. If a vampire has a number of damage
  tokens on its card equal to or greater than its health value, that
  vampire is defeated.
When a vampire is defeated, its encounter card
  is discarded. If combat ends without the vampire being defeated, the
  damage it suffered remains on the card.

† If Dracula plays “Escape as
  Mist” or “Escape as Bat” before he has played a number of combat cards
  greater than the number of despair tokens on the time track, the card
  is canceled.

If Dracula resolves “Escape as Bat,” combat ends, but
  neither Dracula nor the vampire are moved from their current
  locations.

To summarise: combat is played out almost exactly the same, except fledgeling vampire tracks their own health and escape cards don't move it.
Also, if a combat ends and vampire wasn't defeated, it stays in location (retaining damage), and if revealed vampire reaches end of the Trail, it still can trigger its matured effect.

Thank you for the clarification, I need to learn to read between the lines in general when it comes to board game rules.

@skepticscript This wasn't explained in "Combat" section, as one might expect, but "Vampire Encounters" was mentioned under related topics in "Combat".
You know the game takes deduction seriously when it makes you deduce rules :)


text:
Do Go players play to minimize score difference after realizing they cannot win?
I would expect that players might opt for a strategy with a higher chance of winning despite having a greater chance of losing by a greater point difference. But after they see that they will lose, do they continue to play their best to score as well as they can?
Go appears to be different from e.g. chess, where by contrast the game is typically not played out to checkmate and often ends in forfeit when a player realizes that he cannot win.

Very interesting question.  My sense is that Go, like Chess, is primarily a "battlefield" game, where the hard win/loss threshold is emphasized, as opposed to an economic game with a quantitative emphasis, such as gain vs. expenditure.

I used to play in a club in Göttingen where we used a computerised ranking system based in the score, which obviously meant that most games were played to the end. But in tournaments I expect better players (once good enough to count the game with moderate accuracy) not to plod on but to resign once their position is helpless, maybe after a last desperate attempt to turn the game around. This question also suggested to me my question https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/35599/what-is-a-place-to-resign-in-go.

Sadly I do not have a reliable source for this answer, but as far as I know, continuing when clearly behind is not generally considered rude, at least at professional level.
One reasoning was that it is good manners to try your best until the end. Of course one would still try to play good moves to minimize the loss, not just play on for the sake of it. This may be somewhat country-specific, too.
I also remember a professional game that was lost during counting, i.e. a mistake when filling dame (the order mattered). The comments commended the attention to detail of the eventual winner.
Some amateurs, on the other hand, have strong opinions on when a game should be resigned. They may be scarred from bad experiences with players who continued even though the game was over, i.e. dame was filled, but they kept playing all remaining ko threats or even non-threats, dead stones inside the opponents territory, just to avoid passing. This varies a lot for different players, so if you want to be on the safe side, it seems sensible to resign rather sooner than later.
In games that are not rated (not tournament), I would resign a lot quicker just to be able to play another game instead, and certainly many people do so.

Go endgames were famously analyzed by Berlekamp, one of the pioneers in: https://math.berkeley.edu/~berlek/cgt/go.html

I'd argue that whether it's considered rude really depends on when you realize you're going to lose. As a player, I'd much rather see a game played to finish when you're already approaching (or in) end-game, but if there's an overwhelming lead by mid-game that you're sure you won't make up, better to resign than prolong the inevitable.

@goldPseudo Yes, that sounds most reasonable. I agree that player level is extremely important, too - especially in handicap games someone may not even have realized that the game is long lost, so many 'useless' moves do seem honestly useful to them.

A useful answer, as it covers a variety of situations. What is not mentioned is that a fundamental question is “What are you playing for?”. Games for fun, study or competition (or a mixture) call for different approaches.

In general, if you realize that you can't win, you should resign. It's considered rude to make plays that will only allow you to catch up if your opponent makes a stupid mistake.
I don't think Go is different from chess in this way. I would say around half of my games end in resignation.

There are different player characters out there, some of whom may quickly resign a game of Go, while others will continue playing even after suffering a severe loss. The later is not without reason: Even if some of your stones die, it does not mean they are worthless.
The point is, that many dead stones leave tons of good aji to be exploited. Once you realize that, you realize that you still have decent chances of winning games that you would otherwise have wanted to give up.
Also, estimating final score is actually quite hard in the early stages of a game of Go. I cannot count the number of times I've been surprised by the final score of a game. Like, I was thinking I would loose, but then a win would be counted, and vice versa. I just had such a game with an opponent who resigned after less than a hundred moves, because he lost a big fight. Nevertheless, when I counted the game by playing it out, it was still him who should have won the game.
Thus, if you make a habit of resigning games early, you are not playing to your full strength, you are loosing games that you would have won.
Many Go players know this, either explicitly or intuitively, and are slow to resign consequently. The ones who don't know this unfortunately have a hard time realizing their mistake, as they never see how their resigned games would have played out.

The general answer to this question is no.
Go players play for win or loose, not for the difference of score. When a player lying behind does not see a chance to turn the outcome of the game into Eir favour, E resigns.
The caveat here is the word general:
There are some tournament formats (used, e.g., in the Go-to-innovation tournament in Berlin, Germany)  using a scoring system based on point differences. The Hahn system assign a full point only with a score difference of 40 points or more, each 10 points missing on board make the score 0.1 smaller.
Also, in the Korean gambling Go bangneki score differences (in terms of 10 points on the board) were used to measure the amount of money won or lost.

“into Eir favour, E resigns”?

Spivak pronouns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spivak_pronoun

I would rephrase the question as, "Do Go players play to minimize score difference after realizing they WILL not win?" And the answer to that question is yes.
A "cannot" win game is one where a professional player is down by 5-10 points or more with only "endgame" left. In that case, the losing pro will resign because there is no possibility another pro will blow a lead that large in a non-dynamic position.
On the other hand, a "will not win" game is when the pro is one or two points behind in an endgame situation. Against another pro, one usually "will not" win such a game. But if each move is worth two points, and the leading pro makes a two point mistake, the gap could be closed. These instances are rare, but not unheard of, especially under time pressure.
In those cases, a pro may elect to play the game to the end and try to narrow the gap, knowing he has no legitimate chance to win, but hoping to "get lucky."
Source: Appreciating Famous Games


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Do people commonly play collectible card games without shuffling?
I was watching the Garfield lecture on luck last night, and he mentioned that Magic eventually adopted a discard rule for the first hand drawn if it was a "dud", so that defeat is not so dependent on luck of the draw.
By contrast, in my Jyhad playing days, during which I amassed quite a collection of cards, I tested a no-shuffle rule, where competitors, having access to the same library of cards, could arrange their decks in any desired sequence. This actually resulted in satisfying gameplay, in that hidden information and complexity still resulted in a state where outcomes were indeterminate.
My question is:

Are there any formal variants of collectible card games that allow deck arrangement as opposed to shuffling?

I'm pretty sure than in this variant, the game would end with a first player victory on turn 1 or 2 every time.

@GendoIkari You are meaning because of super-powered cards in Magic specifically?  (In Jyhad/Vampire, at least early on, this was not a factor.)  But I specifically reference both players having access to the same library to build their decks, and over-powered cards that can result in an immediate victory can be excluded.

@GendoIkari  Magic, especially, is influence by real-world economic drivers, which resulted in massively over-powered cards being included to drive sales of decks, and create publicity based on the high dollar value of such cards.  I attempted to remove the influence of these real world economic incentives on gameplay by giving both players access to the same card library from which to build their decks.

You're vastly oversimplifying a complex situation. The set of Magic cards can't be simply divided into "overpowered cards" and "reasonable cards that result in reasonable games". There is a Modern deck called Lantern Control that is built around a combo involving junk rares and draft chaff, but it has won tournaments. Dredge decks in Modern and Legacy are built around using something that was intended to be a cost to power a combo. Infect decks make something very powerful by combining cards that were individually mediocre from a variety of sets.

@murgatroid99 Thanks for the clarification.  (I haven't played these games in years, but recognize their importance, and Garfield as one of very few designers who was able to create new, fundamental game mechanics.)  Back in the day, I was much more attracted to Jyhad.

I would suggest looking at the official banned and restricted lists for tournament formats and think about how many of those you would consider to be overpowered in a vacuum. And note that there are cards that are legal in one format but banned in another, and particularly that there are cards that are restricted in vintage but legal in Legacy.

There are card games where the deck is not shuffled but the mechanics are set up for that from the start,

@murgatroid99 I'm surprised this question garnered downvotes :)  It's a legit question, even if most players prefer variants with more luck.  In my experience, particularly with Jyhad/Vampire, building decks from a common library and arranging to bring out cards in the sequence deemed optimal resulted in very satisfying gameplay.  There are still strategic conundrums such having to discard useful card in order get subsequent cards, and decision regarding utilizing actions with non-optimal characters.  I like more deterministic gameplay, and was merely trying to gauge if this is uncommon.

I suspect that your parenthetical is part of the problem. From the point of view of a long-time Magic player, it takes a certain amount of what some might call arrogance to enter into a conversation with relatively little knowledge about the game, and claim that it would be improved by modifying one of the primary mechanics. I added a section to my answer that describes some of the cascading effects of removing shuffling.

If you would like to discuss this further, I think we should do so in chat.

Part of my problem is that this question also is based on forcing people to use no shuffle rule that appears to be created by the op rather then one designed for the game.

There are variants of Magic that remove deck shuffling and other sources of non-determinism, but they also make other major modifications that make the game very different from normal Magic.
One example is 3-Card Blind, in which any number of players each submit a deck containing 3 cards. Gameplay is as normal, except that attempting to draw from an empty library does not result in a loss, and players have an unlimited number of basic lands outside the game that they can play. The players do not play out games, instead each pairwise matchup is analyzed to determine which player would win on the play and on the draw with perfect play.

If you look at regular Magic, with decks and otherwise normal gameplay, removing shuffling would have cascading effects on the rest of the game.
Combo decks become a lot more powerful when the card order is determined in advance. A land combo deck will do a lot better if they can guarantee that their opening hand contains Dark Depths, Thespian's Stage, and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. A Goblin Charbelcher deck will be a lot more consistent if the opening hand always contains a land, 3 fast mana sources, Goblin Charbelcher, and Lion's Eye Diamond. A Death's Shadow player would (probably) like nothing more than to have 4 Street Wraiths in their top 10 cards.
Starting with a shuffled deck also generally requires that the distribution of cards in the deck matches the distribution of cards in a good opening hand, but this is not so with stacked decks. Some cards are balanced around this fact. Mind Funeral, for example, becomes a lot more powerful in a format where players will generally play fewer lands, and keep them near the top of their libraries. Trench Gorger is a lot better when you can have 40 lands and put them all of the bottom of the library without mana flooding every game.
Search effects are balanced around the fact that you shuffle afterwards. It would change the effect to be able to choose which card to remove from the sequence without modifying anticipated future draws. Scry effects in decks with search effects would becomes stronger, while cards like Brainstorm become weaker.
If you want to avoid all of these kinds of problems, you would have to remove every card that searches the library (e.g. Diabolic Tutor), or requires shuffling (e.g. Green Sun's Zenith or Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre), or cares about libraries being shuffled (e.g. Psychic Surgery) or is balanced around library order being unknown (e.g. anything with Cascade), or is balanced around card distribution being within a certain range (e.g. Mind Funeral), and probably others that I haven't thought of. And you would also want to remove any one- or two-turn combos, to avoid moving from the randomness of shuffled libraries to the randomness of the coin flip that determines who plays first. Removing that much of the card pool would have an unpredictable effect on how the remaining cards are balanced against each other.
And there are further balance issues on the rules side that would need to be considered. Does it still make sense to have 20 life, and a minimum of 60 cards in the library, and 7 cards in the opening hand? Should deck size still have just a minimum, and not a maximum? Is the second player's extra draw still necessary to balance the first turn advantage? Is it sufficient?


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Is there a formal designation for "pure placement" games?
Specifically in the context of abstract or combinatorial games.
As an example, Go and Reversi are both placement games.  Although mathematically distinct (Reversi requires placement in the center at the start, and carries a constraint that new tokens must connect,) they share the core mechanic of token placement.
Both games involve surround-and-capture, however Go utilizes a "takeaway" mechanic, where in Reversi, no tokens are removed from the gameboard.
The result of this difference is that Go can become "loopy", requiring the imposition of the Ko rule, where Reversi is natively finite, and designated as "loop free".
Domineering is another basic form of loop-free, "pure placement" games, but is distinct in terms of token size to board cells (i.e. uses dominos, which take up two board positions.)

Is there a formal term for games that utilize placement but not takeaway?

I'll add Connect4, Gomoku and TicTacToe as potential games that match your definition of pure placement

@kii really, any m,n,k-game. Thanks for the adds!  (It may seem like an unnecessary distinction, but not all games that are natively finite are placement games.  I find I even have to specify "natively", because Chess is rendered finite by the addition of special endgame conditions.)

Thinking about it, a game like Dots and Boxes would also fit IMO the pure placement category. Would Peg solitaire also fit ? The difference being that Peg solitaire starts with an almost full board and ends when the board is almost empty.

@Kii Under this definition of pure placement, tokens cannot be removed from the board.  Dots and Boxes is technically a "connection game", with a surround and control mechanic, so sort of a gray area. (The came can be played by placing tokens instead of drawing, and it is nativel finite.)

I'll add Cinco (5 in a row on a hexagon board) https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=cinco
and KingDomino (placing domino tiles on 7x7 boards)
https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=kingdomino


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First game board to use hexagonal tiles?
Hex is likely the most famous early application, circa 1942.
The wiki for Sannin Shōgi, a modernization of three-player Shogi, puts the invention of that game circa 1930.
This article Games for Three lists Three-Handed Hexagonal Chess as first developed in 1912 by by Sigmund Wellisch.

Are there earlier applications of hexagonal gameboards?

Stern-Halma (aka "Chinese Checkers") is the earliest application I've found so far.  Although the board is not formally divided into hexagons, the center region allows 6 directions for movement from a single cell.  (This is allowed because the tokens are place in the intersections of triangles--triangles seem to have preceded hexagons for three-player variants of popular combinatorial games.)

A single cell (not a tile) allows six-directional movement, that's one. Tiles is plural. I wouldn't have counted it on principle, but there's a technicality too.

@Nij Are you referring to Stern-Halma?  My feeling is that the effect of the board configuration is analogous to an hexagonal tile, but I am definitely interested in opinions on the subject.

Yes. I don't think it can be called a game based in hex tiles, but it's very close to proto-hexagonal tiling, if that makes sense.

@Nij "proto-hexagonal tiling" is a great definition!

One possible answer could be the game Agon (sometimes called "Queen's Guards" or "Royal Guards"). I ran across a reference to the game in the book "A world of chess: its development and variations through centuries and civilizations" (Cazaux, J., & Knowlton, R., 2017). They state the following:

Perhaps the earliest recorded board game using hexagonal cells is Agon, a very original strategic Pawn game first published in 1842.

There were some claims that the game originated in the 18th century, but apparently the first published record of the game can be verified as 1842.
Cazaux, J., & Knowlton, R. (2017). A world of chess: its development and variations through centuries and civilizations. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., .

Excellent answer!


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What's the least amount of pieces on an Othello board where black or white can't make a move?
Say you're following the traditional rules of Othello. What is the least number of pieces possible on the board, producing a result where one of the two players(black or white) can't make a move, thereby passing play to the other player?
What is the least number of possible pieces on the board where both players can't make a move, therefore ending the game before the grid is completely filled?
Bonus question: An othello game can end with the board being entirely filled all one color. Is it possible for all the pieces on an Othello board to be one color, but the board isn't filled entirely? If so, can you give a sequence of moves that would result in that outcome?

For the first question, does it need to be a situation that can arise in a real game of Othello or we can just lay the pieces however we want to set up that situation?

It has to arise out in a real game of othello. Same with the second question.

Otherwise the problem would be ridiculously easy.

Interesting question!  Related: https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/20539/is-it-possible-for-an-othello-reversi-game-to-end-without-the-board-being-fill

I think "fewest number" is more appropriate than "least amount."

@sirjonsnow: I find “fewest number” unidiomatic (and I am even uneasy about “least number”, in spite of “this number is less than that”), but I find “smallest” or “lowest number” fine.

D3C5D6E3B4C3D2C4F4 which is the same sequence Julia gave, not only answers the bonus question, but actually all questions. The least number for both players to not have an option is the 9 move wipe out, so 13 discs including the starting discs. It also is the answer to the first question, unless you want to say "one player of the two players can't make a move but the other can". In that case the sequence would be quite a bit longer. I remember someone posting a sequence to a very early pass and if I recall correctly the pass was in the early 20's.

For the bonus, the shortest possible game that results in all pieces the same colour (9 moves) is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ehiWOSp_wk


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Why are Elo ratings for go higher than for chess?
If we compare Elo(-like) ratings in chess and in go, we see that the highest ratings published for go (3621 for Ke Jie as of 2016-03-13 at goratings.org) are higher than those in chess (2851 for Magnus Carlsen as of 2016-03-01 at FIDE.com).
Is the best explanation one of the following suggestions, or something else?

Go is in some sense better played than chess. While many in the West think of chess as the premier intellectual game, go has, I believe, been studied more intensively, had more support in Eastern culture than chess has where it is played and is financially more rewarding.
Go is better at distinguishing slight differences in strength, e.g. because games are longer or because draws are rare (about 1 game in 50, I believe).
There is some arbitrary difference in the way the Elo approach is applied to go and chess, e.g. an arbitrary baseline or scaling factor.

In any case, an explanation of how the rating system work and, if appropriate, interact with the nature of the games is needed to make an answer complete. If it is illuminating, a comparison with other games would also be welcome — for example, what would happen with ratings for a trivial game like noughts and crosses?
I realise that the systems are not intended for direct comparison, but I hope that they still allow some sort of conclusion to drawn. They are, after all, based on the same principles, though various parameters may be differently set.

It's worth noting that the two systems use different K values, and Go appears to hit higher ranked players less harshly on a loss. I don't have time to get into the weeds on this, but it's worth considering that the math used to create the rankings at top tiers in each game is different.

@SocioMatt: I am afraid I felt the same about finding out enough about how the systems work (I know less than you, I suspect), but I hoped there would be someone here who knew more!

Don't put too much thought into this. At this point, goratings.org is an individual initiative and is not backed by any official go organization. You might want to leave a message to the author for more explanations (contact info at the bottom of the page).

Also, note that Remi Coulon is the author of GoRating and also the author of the previous top AI : CrazyStones !

@Christophe: I was also thinking of the ratings reported for Alpha Go, apparently based on Coulom, R. Whole-history rating: A Bayesian rating system for players of time-varying strength. In International Conference on Computers and Games, 113–124 (2008)., where they reported a strength of up to 3186 for the distributed version, “computed by BayesElo” around the time of the Fan Hui match. I fear I have not checked whether that is what goratings uses.

Here is the sensei's entry about PRO ELO in China : http://senseis.xmp.net/?ChineseProRatings

(correction not 3186 but 3168)

PJTraill As @Kii said, Remi Coulomb is the author of goratings.org (his contact info is at the bottom of the page), so that's a closed loop.

There is no ELO rating in go. And even no official international rating at all. A common question in go forums is "how does my rating in [whatever country or online server] compare with [other country or online server]".
The European Go Federation is maintaining an international rating system where Ke Jie is rated 2956.
goratings.org is an individual initiative by Remi Coulom. It has become popular because it gave journalists a way to assign a World ranking to Fan Hui, but this is not an official rating system.
Bottom line is your answer 3, there is some arbitrary difference in the way the approach is applied to go and chess.

There are three determining factors for how high the highest Elo rating for a given game will be:

Internal aspects of the rating system: First an foremost how the ratings are initialised. If you start out with everybody getting a rating of 2000, the numbers will stay higher than if everybody gets 1800. But also K-factor (how strong ratings fluctuate) and other details that might lead to inflation or deflation. So this is your arbitrary difference part of the answer.
The level on which a game is played, i.e. how close the top players are to the human maximum playing strength. This depends a lot on how many players do play the game, how it is supported financially and what resources there are to get really strong. It strikes me as very likely that chess is played on a higher level than go, because chess players have had the benefit of superhuman helpers for at least 15 years now.
The depth of the game, i.e. how big the difference between a beginner and the best (possible) human player would be. Here go is clearly ahead of chess, but I doubt this has much to do with the game tree complexity. Rather this is an effect of the broad drawing range in chess. If you reduce the drawing range in chess, for example by shortening the time control, you get "go-like" Elo ratings in chess. On chess servers with fast time controls ratings in excess of 3600 are not unusual.

The ELO system, as it was originally designed, has a mean of 1500 and a standard deviation of 400 points.
The central limit theorem defines how many people can exist by this model depending on their distance from the mean. For example, a rating of 3100 is 4 standard deviations from the mean (1500 + 4 x 400 = 3100). According the central limit theorem there would be 99.993666% within 4 standard deviations, or about only 1 out 16,000 players which would be outside of this. Of course, we know there are no human players rated higher than 3100 so, we can see at once that the ELO system does not work correctly. If the players followed a normal distribution, then we would expect there to be, out of 1 million or so players, about 80 with a rating higher than 3100, but this is not the case.
Now, as to an igo player having a rating above 3600, that is 5.25 standard deviations above the mean (1500 + 5.25 x 400). According to the central limit theorem there should be one person out of 10 million that has this rating. If we assume there there 10 million rated go players and there is one above 3600 then that fits with the model.
There are two problems with comparing the two ratings for the champions. One is that the distribution of the players, certainly in chess, and possibly in igo, is not a normal Gaussian distribution, so the ELO system will always be wrong to an extent. Secondly, many rating systems, especially chess's FIDE system do not use pure ELO, but manipulate the rating in various ways. Also, the FIDE system has no set mean and has only a small number of players in it, not the entire world population of chess players. Therefore, it is difficult to draw any meaning from the comparison.

If you have two games each of which ranks players using the ELO rating system, then the game with higher rankings is generally viewed as "more complex" than the game with lower rankings.  In the sense that there are more discrete levels of learning to mastery.  It is not clear to me which ranking systems are being used in your statement, but for the conclusion to hold, the ranking systems used must be identical.
All that said, Go is definitely a more complex game than Chess, and is widely recognized as such.  Anecdotal evidence to support that claim: Humans have been beat by computers in Chess for a while now, Go is apparently just happening today.
"Better" isn't a good word to use in this context, as that's a rather subjective term.  "Complexity" is typically used in these kinds of conversations.
It is interesting to note, that the highest ELO ranking for League of Legends that I could find is 3069.

That L.o.L. thread actually also mentions ratings of 3156 & 3160!

I feel complexity is not quite the same, being a measure of the “size” of a problem or, better, algorithm; I am thinking of how well humans have mastered the game — but I suppose you could tie them up quite neatly by looking at the complexity of the algorithms people use (which are of course inaccessible) or of algorithms of equivalent strength (such as Alpha Go!). Yet complexity depends on the abstract machine used by the algorithm, and human knowledge is comparable to expanding the alphabet or instruction table.

@PJTraill  Fair point.  I use complexity to both describe the combinatorial complexity and the "human mastery" complexity of games.  But, as I used it above, it is a bit ambiguous.

Any reference to support your first sentence? Based on what I have read, Elo is more about the difference of points, while the absolute values depend on how the system is anchored. The range (beginner to top) might be a better measure.

I'm down-voting this answer for the reason @Christophe (and I) mention. The values you plug into an ELO equation can change the outcome pretty drastically. It has nothing to do with game complexity, and everything to do with the assumptions that are built into the K value.

There are some good answers to the main question, and this is only to address the sub-question related to trivial games such as tic-tac-toe (because I think it is an awesome question;)

Assuming adult, competitive play, where every competitor knows the solution, then outcome of every game would be a stalemate, and all players would have the same ranking.

But this leads to the very interesting question of what would an ELO distribution look like if there was formal, competitive play among small children?
I mention that because there has been some discussion in this thread of the relationship of game complexity (problem size) to ranking distribution.


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In Santorini, does my opponent win if I pull them onto a third level with the Siren?
In Santorini, one of the God Powers is of the Siren. The Siren places a Siren's Song token next to the game board, and on their turn, instead of performing the traditional move+build, can move any of their opponents pawns towards the Siren's Song. If I pull my opponent up onto a third level, do they win, or does it not count as a win for them. Dionysus' power, for example, explicitly states that you cannot cause a win if you move the opponent's piece.

No.
The win condition is stated as follows:

If one of your Workers moves up on top of level 3 during your turn, you instantly win!

This doesn't happen in the scenario you described. Your opponent's Worker moved up on top of level 3, but it didn't happen on their turn.


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Chance Encounter/As Luck Would Have It and reflips/rerolls
I'm making an Uncommander deck based around rolling dice and flipping coins, and I'm planning on including Chance Encounter and As Luck Would Have It as alternate win conditions. Both of them place luck counters on themselves when you win a coin flip or roll a dice (respectively), and win you the game if you have enough counters. There are several cards that allow a reflip or a reroll, but I have questions about three.

Goblin Bookie
{R}, {T}: Reflip any coin or reroll any die. (Activate this ability only any time it makes sense.)

Goblin Bookie's wording is fairly standard for effects that reroll dice or reflip coins (apart from the timing), but Krark's Thumb - and its Unstable counterpart, Krark's Other Thumb - are worded a bit differently - instead of reflipping, you're ignoring a result.

Krark's Thumb
If you would flip a coin, instead flip two coins and ignore one.

Krark's Other Thumb
If you would roll a die, instead roll two of those dice and ignore one of those results.

If I reflip/reroll with Goblin Bookie, does the original roll still earn me luck counters? What about with Krark's (Other) Thumb? Does "ignoring" one of the coins means that it doesn't count as a win for me? There might not be a ruling on dice rolls, since only Unsets (as far as I know) have used dice as a mechanic, but coin flips have been used on a number of cards. Chance Encounter is from Odyssey, Krark's Thumb is from Mirrodin; heck, Mana Crypt uses coin flips. I would expect there to be an official ruling on flips at least, but neither Krark's Thumb nor Chance Encounter have any Gatherer rulings that clarify things.

Love un-questions! There are a lot of specific rulings about un-cases that have been made but they're sometimes weird to find. At least we don't have to figure out the precise timing of activating Goblin Bookie!

Seems like Chance Encounter, Mana Screw, and Krark's Thumb is almost an almost guaranteed win unless your opponent counters.

The commander for this deck is Ol' Buzzbark, so any combination of Chance/As Luck, Mana Screw, and Krark's Thumb basically wins the game (provided X isn't higher than the ceiling of the building we're in).

As Luck Would Have It works fully with rerolls.
Chance Encounter doesn't work with reflips.
The entire game only sees one result from any kind of Krarkish prestidigitation.

Mark Rosewater (the Un-Rules Manager) rules on Goblin Bookie/ALWHI in this blog post:

mikedoesstories asked: If I use Goblin Bookie to reroll a die, do both die rolls count for As Luck Would Have It or just the rerolled die?
Both rolls count.

MaRo later clarifies that it's based on whether the dice roll would trigger this ability regardless of the outcome (posted here):

tarectarec asked: In your FAQ you said that As Luck Would Have It would get counters from the original dice in case of a reroll. But would Chittering Doom give me a squirrel token if I rolled a 6 but then decided to reroll it (Rolling a 1 this time for example)?
No. Counting die rolls is different than triggering things based upon on a particular outcome.

This wouldn't work with Krark's Other Thumb since you're specifically instructed to ignore one of the rolls (as far as the rest of the game is concerned, it never happened). For the same reason, Krark's Thumb won't work with Chance Encounter.

By following this logic in the second case, we can see that a reroll can't trigger Chance Encounter twice because Chance Encounter only triggers on a particular outcome (rather than the flip itself), and there's only one outcome.
Note that we're safe following un-logic in this case, as reflips and rerolls can currently only exist in silver-border.

I'll try to answer your questions in order:

If I reflip/reroll with Goblin Bookie, does the original roll still earn me luck counters?

Well, the rulings of unsets are kinda messy, especially the older ones. As I see it, reflipping a coin or rerolling a die would imply that the first result would be ignored in favour of the second. I also wouldn't consider that a replacement or prevention effect, since you're activating the ability after the flip/roll has already been made, but before whatever effect had you flip the coin or roll the die finishes resolving.
That said, I believe As Luck Would Have It's wording is quite clear: Whenever you roll a die doesn't check whether an effect tells you to roll a die or not, so it will trigger every time you (legally) roll a die.

What about with Krark's Thumb? Does "ignoring" one of the coins means that it doesn't count as a win for me?

This one is easier: yes.
If you take a look at the rulings of Krark's Other Thumb, you'll see the following:

1/19/2018: The ignored roll never happened as far as any other cards are concerned.

According to this ruling, when Krark's Thumb ignores one of the flips, that means that flip never happened as far as any other card is concerned.

Careful! You've just used an un-card ruling to determine the functionality of a black-bordered card!

I am well aware of that. The wording on both cards is identical though, and there are no unset-related keywords on the card that would make it ambiguous, so I wouldn't consider that a problem in this specific case.

Yes, I agree (that's the meaning of the words after all), just thought it was funny that it was used as evidence!

To be fair, I just couldn't resist. The Thumb/Other Thumb thing just fits perfectly with the question.


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Does taking first strike damage before gaining life from normal lifelink cause me to lose the game?
Two creatures are attacking me and one has first strike and I have one blocker with lifelink.  If I block the creature without first strike and take lethal damage from the first strike creature, would I lose the game before I gain the life to live from my blocker with lifelink?
Essentially do you lose the game at the end of the first strike combat step or is this checked at the end of both combat steps?

You lose the game. Each player gets priority in the combat damage step, after damage is dealt. When there is a first strike or doublestrike creature attacking there is a second and separate combat damage step. So you would lose when state based actions are checked, before players receive priority in the first combat damage step.

Combat Damage Step

510.2. Second, all combat damage that’s been assigned is dealt simultaneously.
510.3. Third, the active player gets priority. (See rule 116, “Timing and Priority.”)
510.4. If at least one attacking or blocking creature has first strike (see rule 702.7) or double strike (see rule 702.4) as the combat damage step begins, the only creatures that assign combat damage in that step are those with first strike or double strike. After that step, instead of proceeding to the end of combat step, the phase gets a second combat damage step.

Yes, first strike happens first, and you lose as soon as you get lethal damage before your creature with lifelink was able to deal damage and you gain life due to it.

This isn't quite right. You lose when SBAs are performed, which is not quite "as soon as you get lethal damage". It just so happens that SBAs are performed immediately after damage is dealt in this case. In other scenarios, the loss is not quite so immediate.

What happens if your creature also have first strike and lifelink with enought power to survive? Do you still survive?

Don't ask new questions in the comments. Ask a new question after checking if it's already answered


text:
Axis and Allies 1941 planes and industry
I recently played axis and allies 1941 for the first time with a friend and at one point during gameplay he took over my capital with a bomber by destroying my only tank and used its last movement to take it over later I was doubtful so I looked in the rulebook days later and confirmed that planes can never take over enemy territory I brought this to his attention and he agreed that he shouldn't have took it over but then argued that I would have lost my economy anyway because his plane destroyed my capital making it neutral territory until I took it back I don't think this is the case but just to be sure can planes or any unit destroy your economy in such fashion. To simplify my question can industry be destroyed.

An air unit cannot capture a territory; since the territory is not captured it would retain whatever control marker was on it.  There are no rules to "destroy" a capital or industrial complex.  A territory cannot become neutral; the only neutral territories are already defined on the board.
http://axisallies.com/rules/axis-allies-rules-1941.pdf

I +1 the above answer, Only LAND units can take territory, NOT PLANES. In your situation.. when he took your tank out, thats all he did. There is no creating natural zone or destroying factories.
Just in case you didnt know, a player (allies or axis powers) wins when they take 2 capitals. and the game DOES NOT end until the end of the americans turn, so you have till then to do what you go to do!
I see this a-lot with people who dont know the rules to the game.. they make up their own rules and make it sound convincing. If it seems fishy, then its wrong.


text:
How come this solution to Tsumego is working?
From the application Tsumego Pro, I found this problem (on Today's daily):
$$ ------------------
$$ . . . X . . X O . |
$$ . . . O X . X O . |
$$ . . . O O X X O . |
$$ . . . . O O O X . |
$$ . . . . . . . X . |
$$ . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |

The application suggests the following solution:
$$ Problem Solved
$$ ------------------
$$ . . 2 . 4 1 X O . |
$$ . . . O X . X O . |
$$ . . . O O X X O 3 |
$$ . . . . O O O X . |
$$ . . . . . . . X . |
$$ . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |

How come this is solved? What should be black next move?

(I'm a beginner, so take anything I say with a grain of salt).
Two things about Tsumegos (which I actually learned on this very site):

You're looking for the best possible solution, which is not always "black lives unconditionally". If, like it seems here, black cannot make two eyes, live in seki, or run out, then living in ko is the best solution.
You should not make any assumptions what the rest of the board looks like (a tsumego is a local situation, but it's not meant to be understood as "the rest of the board is empty"). In particular, the situation elsewhere on the board might just favor black, in which case black can live.

If black has a good ko threat somewhere, but white does not, then this happens after your second screenshot:
$$ 1: ko threat, 2: response, 4: (ignored) ko threat
$$ ------------------
$$ . . O 3 O X X O . |
$$ . . . O X . X O 5 |
$$ . . . O O X X O X |
$$ . . . . O O O X . |
$$ . . . . . . . X . |
$$ . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |

After white now takes back the ko, black kills the three white stones and is out, but even more -- as far as I can tell it can actually make two eyes right here (if white 6 elsewhere, then either 8 at 6 instead, leaving the same result at what's described below, or black fills the ko with 9 and makes a second eye that way):
$$ ------------------
$$ . . O X 6 X X O 7 |
$$ . . . O X . X O X |
$$ . . . O O X X O X |
$$ . . . . O O O X . |
$$ . . . . . . . X . |
$$ . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |

If white now plays the vital point at 8, black plays 9, and a and b are miai to make the false eye true:
$$ ------------------
$$ . . O . O X X a X |
$$ . . . O X . X 8 X |
$$ . . . O O X X b X |
$$ . . . . O O O X . |
$$ . . . . . . . X 9 |
$$ . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |

If white plays 8 anywhere else, black takes that point instead, and has two eyes (even if white plays a and b in 8 and 10, black takes with c, after which a would make the false eye true, and b would create a third eye, so black lives in either case):
$$ 8: anywhere
$$ ------------------
$$ . . O . O X X . X |
$$ . . . O X . X 9 X |
$$ . . . O O X X . X |
$$ . . . . O O O X a |
$$ . . . . . . . X b |
$$ . . . . . . X . c |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |

One thing I didn't address was the possibility for white to play 4 locally like this:
$$ ------------------
$$ . . O X 6 X X O . |
$$ . . . O X . X O . |
$$ . . . O O X X O X |
$$ . . . . O O O X 4 |
$$ . . . . . . . X 5 |
$$ . . . . . . X . . |
$$ . . . . . . . . . |

so maybe one black ko threat isn't enough.
Anyway, given enough ko threats, black can live. That's not as good as living unconditionally, but if the latter is not possible, a ko is the best result.


text:
Axis and Allies 1941 :Can a submarine sneak attack a battle ship when there is an enemy sub in the same battle?
No home rules please
So heres the scenario:
I attacked with one sub.
The enemy has one battleship and one sub.
Can I sneak attack the battleship if there is an enemy sub in the same battle?
Can I do so if I had a destroy in the battle? Is this possible at all?
Thank you!

A&A 1941:
If you have a sub and the enemy has a sub and a battleship, you can make a Surprise Strike, but the defender can take the hit with whichever unit he wants (and if it's the sub, it would still get return fire if your opponent also chose to do a Surprise Strike).  Having a Destroyer prevents your opponent from making a Surprise Strike, not yourself.
Rules:  http://www.axisandallies.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Axis-Allies-1941.pdf
Excerpt:
Step 2. Submarine Surprise Strike or Submerge (Sea Battles Only)
This step is specific to attacking and defending submarines.
Before the general sea battle takes place (steps 3–5), both attacking and defending submarines choose to either make a
Surprise Strike die roll or submerge. However, if your opponent has a destroyer in the battle, your attacking or defending
submarines cannot submerge or make a Surprise Strike. Combat proceeds normally, and your submarines fire along with your
other units in step 3 or 4.
Submerge: Attacking or defending submarines that choose to submerge are immediately removed from the battle strip and
returned to the game board in the contested sea zone, removing them from the rest of that sea battle.
Players on both sides have to decide whether attacking and defending submarines will fire or submerge before rolling any dice. The attacking player decides first.
Surprise Strike: Each attacking submarine conducting a Surprise Strike rolls one die, scoring a hit on a roll of “2” or less.
After the attacker has rolled for all attacking submarines, the defender chooses one sea unit for each hit scored and moves it
behind the casualty strip. (Submarines cannot hit air units.) Then each defending submarine conducting a Surprise Strike rolls
one die, scoring a hit on a roll of “1.” After the defender has rolled for all defending submarines, the attacker chooses one sea
unit for each hit scored and removes it from play.
Once all Surprise Strike rolls have been made, remove the defender’s casualties. This step is over for this round of
combat. Repeat this step during each round of combat as long as there are attacking and/or defending submarines and no
opposing destroyers. Any hits made during this step that do not destroy units (such as battleships) remain in effect until the
end of the combat.
Note: In both cases, attacking or defending, transports can be chosen as casualties only if there are no other eligible units.
You cannot choose submerged submarines as casualties since they have been removed from the battle.

This may depend on the version of the game, but I'm going with the Revised edition, as you mention a destroyer.  Rules:  http://www.axisandallies.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Axis-Allies-Revised.pdf
In order:
Submarines
Both attacking and defending submarines fire in this step. If submarines are present on both sides, they are considered to fire simultaneously. Roll for attacking submarines before defending submarines. Submarines can fire only on sea units.
Remove Opening Fire Casualties
Clear both casualty zones,
destroying all units there.
(Return them to their owners’
inventories.) Return all
antiaircraft guns to the game
board, as well as battleships that
conducted shore bombardment.
Do not remove submarines from
the battle board.
Destroyers and Submarine Casualties
If a destroyer is present in a
combat involving enemy
submarines, the destroyer’s
player skips this step. The
submarines’ casualties can fire
back at the normal time in the
combat sequence. (The
destroyers provided enough
advance warning to allow
return fire.)
The owner of the units would get to choose what is taken as casualties; so if you attack with a single sub and hit, he could choose to lose his sub or take one hit on his battleship.  If for some reason he took the hit on his battleship and it was the second hit, his battleship would be destroyed and would not get to return fire.

This is for the 1941 edition, I'm sorry I failed to mention this.


text:
I need help to see who would of won this hand
If the board had A,A,3,6,6
In my hand I had a 9,3.
My oppents hand had a Q,5
Who wins?

From my knowledge of poker hands, this looks like your opponent has the best hand with the best possible 5 cards being A,A,6,6,Q. This translates to aces and sixes with a Queen kicker.
This beats your best possible hand of A,A,6,6,9

Thanks I thought they were lying to me cause I had a pair on the board

@Helen Yes I had that same confusion, I haven't played in a while and I was under the false impression that a pair made up of a card in your hand is better than on the flop and river and so on. Its calculated by the best possible hand between all cards in play.


text:
Backgammon: Jacoby rule with doubling cube?
As per my understanding of Jacoby rule will be applied when doubling cube is not used during the game.
If I select Jacoby rule for the game and If either of the players uses the cube, Will Jacoby rule will not be applied at the end of the game?
Or Are players not able to use doubling cube if Jacoby is selected at the start of a game?
Ref: http://www.bkgm.com/gloss/lookup.cgi?jacoby+rule
I have used this site for the Jacoby rule.
If any one has some better explanation or ref. link, please provide

I couldn't tell by the title if this was a Magic the Gathering question, or a bridge question. Imagine my surprise...

@steenbergh: It's my feeling too, that names of games should be in the title (unless it's obvious; who would think of "32 houses and 12 hotels" as something other than Monopoly.).https://boardgames.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/21/should-the-name-of-the-game-be-in-the-subject/480#480

Updated the name to give more clarity about the question

The rule (as in the link):

A rule popular in money play which says that gammons and backgammons count only as a single game if neither player has offered a double during the game.

Probably the better way to say it is: If neither player has offered a double during the game, gammons and backgammons do not count.
This doesn't turn off the doubling cube, it just means that if you or your opponent don't double, the best you're doing is a single. Once the cube has been offered and accepted for the first time, gammons will count, and the normal range of 2-6 points is on the table.
(In theory, this means that every game will have at least 1 double offered, since this rule removes the potential of a position being "too good to double" before the cube is turned for the first time.)

The Jacoby rule is a "house rule" used in most money games that encourage people to turn the cube early, by penalizing players that turn the cube "too late."
A doubling (and acceptance) voids the Jacoby rule. If the double is made and accepted, this is called "doubling in" (the opponent). If the double is declined, the result is "doubling out" (of the opponent), at which point gammon/backgammon equity becomes moot.
The Jacoby rule applies only if the cube is not turned. Then it means that no gammons or backgammons are scored, only single games,because the cube hasn't been turned. This "not scored" applies even if a gammon or backgammon is actually achieved on the board.
The purpose of the rule is to encourage people to turn the cube early enough to double their opponents "in" if they want to get the extra points for gammons and backgammons. If they wait, they always have the option of doubling the opponents "out," but such play is now rendered inferior.
What the rule does is that it takes away the "fallback" position of "Oh, I forgot to double but I can still win a gammon or backgammon if I don't turn the cube now."  (That is what another poster meant by a position being "too good to double.") Because that is specifically what the Jacoby rule prohibits. This prohibition makes waiting to double opponents "out" a "second best" choice.

That is incorrect - the purpose is (as noted above by @J. John)  to remove the circumstance where a (single value) game position becomes too good to double. Jacoby Rule

@ForgetIwaseverhere: Put another way, you must double the person in" if you want the gammon/backgammon equity under the Jacoby rule. if the position is "too good to double," you always have the option of doubling the person "out," but you have lost the option of doubling him "in"  (unless he is a fool, in which case it becomes what I call a "superinvestment double.")

That is really poor play - if your equity in the game is currently above, or even well above, 1.0, then why settle for only 1.0? There are end-game positions where one doubles as insurance (doubling the opponent out as you say). but good doubles in the early and mid-game are made when the opponent's best option is to accept.- thus actually doubling one's equity in the game.

@ForgetIwaseverhere: The Jacoby rule doesn't actually forbid people  waiting to double. It just discourages such inferior play by taking away a key benefit of waiting (vs. "tournament" play), thereby making it a "second best choice.". Which is the point I made in my revision.


text:
What are the differences between the 1st and 2nd editions of Galaxy Trucker?
What are the differences between the two editions of galaxy trucker and are the expansions compatible with either version?

Consensus at BoardGameGeek seems to be:

My impression from all of the people who have actually commented after receiving the expansion is that one can play just fine with the original base game as long as one is willing to tolerate some minor inconsistencies.

Apparently the size of cards differ between 1st ed and the expansions, but that can be remedied by sleeving the cards. There are a few inconsistencies in rules texts, but overall 1st ed seems playable with the expansions.


text:
Is the Radioactive Potato passed before the goal is checked?
The text on the Radioactive Potato says "Any time the goal changes, move this card in the counter-turn direction".
When the rule card You Also Need a Baked Potato is in affect, you must have the radioactive potato in addition to the goal requirements to win.
Suppose a player has the Radioactive potato creeper and the Milk and Cookies keepers in front of them, and no other creepers or keepers. On their turn, they play the Milk and Cookies goal. Do they win (since they have the goal requirements plus the potato) or do they not (since the potato passed to someone else)?
This is Generic Fluxx v4.0.

Which variant of Fluxx is this from?  Generic Fluxx does not have a radioactive potato.

@John This is generic fluxx v4.0

Interesting, it's not in fluxx v5.0.

Not in 3.0 either. I guess it was short-lived.

No, they do not win.
The Looney Labs FAQs include a question about timing issues:

Q. Does the total effect of playing a card have to be resolved before checking for win conditions, or could someone win partway through?
A: As a matter of fact, yes, in Fluxx all consequences of a card play are considered to be functionally simultaneous, so there are a lot fewer timing issues than people sometimes think.
A good rule of thumb is that things in Fluxx (and many other Looney Labs games) are considered to happen simultaneously, so if there are timing issues, assume that things take place all at once, and then consider the outcome.

So the Goal change and the Potato move are simultaneous, meaning that the You Also Need a Baked Potato condition is not met, and the player does not win.


text:
How to deal with a player who showed his hands to influence the robber?
As per the Catan FAQ:

Resource Cards - Do I always have to keep my Resource Cards face down?
Yes.

With this in mind, consider this scenario that I've encountered occasionally when playing Catan with my friends:

Adam has just rolled a 7 and has placed the robber on a hex occupied
  by both Brad and Charlie.  Adam has been receiving plentiful sheep
  throughout the game and would prefer to gain a different resource.
  Brad also has been receiving plentiful sheep, and currently has only
  sheep cards in his hand.  Charlie has more diverse resources.
While Adam is deliberating about who to steal from, the clever Brad
  proudly reveals his entire hand to the group, showing that if he is
  robbed Adam will certainly gain a sheep.  Adam, not wanting to gain a sheep from
  the robber, elects to rob Charlie, who is now infuriated at Brad for
  breaking the rules to sway Adam's decision and avoid getting robbed.

I believe it would be legal to say "I have only sheep", and allow that to influence the robber's choice, but revealing cards in this way is clearly a violation of the rules for personal advantage.  My question is what can/should be done in the event a player breaks the rules in this way. I feel some sort of penalty is due, but what?  It seems unfair to allow such play to influence the robber's choice, but it also seems unfair to force the robber to choose from the player with the more undesirable resource (this could be used strategically).  So how, then, should I handle this (other than choosing players with more integrity)?
Note: This question is different from
Can I show my resource cards to other players in Settlers of Catan?
My main focus is on what penalty (if any) can/should be given for this violation. Or, what incentive can be given to prevent it.

Related: https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/7183/how-can-i-play-games-with-closed-information-with-players-who-cheat.

First off, yes, what he did was cheating. However, there's more details we need to know. Most importantly, did he know about this rule; and thus was cheating on purpose? Or did he not know, and it was an accident?
If it was on purpose, then the question I linked in comments probably covers it: How can I play games with closed information with players who cheat?
If it was an accident, then simply telling him about the rule so that he doesn't do it again is probably sufficient; at least for a non-tournament friendly game. The advantage that he gained was very small. Without cheating, he could have told Adam that he had nothing but sheep, and provided pretty good evidence of that fact by reminding him of what resources were given out over the past few turns. It seems more likely than not that the outcome would have been the same either way.
Ultimately, it's going to be a question of how you and your group generally handle mistakes during game play; not something that's specific to this scenario. For example, my group is very lenient about allowing players to take back / change their move if no one else has done something based on what they did yet. Some groups, however, may prefer strict rules enforcement over being casual.

My group of friends and I play Catan quite a lot.  As such we tend to be very competitive with each other and nitpick about rules such as this.  Often, yes, we will let it slide with a "don't do that again", but as we get more advanced we tend to find it more edifying to enforce these rules more strictly.

Also, yes, the link you posted is helpful, and I'm sure my friends would accept this behavior as cheating, and change accordingly. I just wonder if you have any clever ideas for  incentives/penalties to enforce the rule.

I entirely agree with Gendolkari's answer, and finding a resolution through conversation rather than through punishment. A casual home game, no matter how competitive in spirit, still has the advantage of allowing leniency, and therefore finding a penalty is probably not a measure you should take until you believe there's no other way to fix things.
In any case, since that's what you seem to be looking for, I might as well suggest...
Make that player discard half their resource cards.
This penalty is intentionally identical to the robber mechanic when a player had more than seven cards in hand, and has several good qualities, the way I see it:

players are already familiar with how this works, as it's using an existing game mechanic
it's compatible with all occurrances of "a player revealed their resources", not just the stated one
it doesn't affect the balance of the game, as you're only touching that player's resources
it hits the player harder if they have more resources, and not as much if they barely have anything
while it might mess with that player's strategy, it doesn't kick that player out of the game

The last two qualities up there are especially important if you consider that you want to announce all house rules prior to the game, without exception, in my opinion. With many other penalties I can think of, you'll get stuck in "but which cards should we take away", or "wait, this time the situation doesn't quite allow that".

I like that idea. I also agree with Gendolkari, it is only that my friends tend to get very invested in games (we are all pretty competitive) and even if rules like this are discussed before hand, they may reveal their hands as mentioned in frustration or emotion in the heat of the moment. Also, we have been considering hosting a Catan tourney at our university, during which it would be good to have means to handle these kinds of situations. I like your idea of losing half your hand as incentive, but you are right that conversation is the best way to handle this.  I appreciate the insight!


text:
Dark Shaman vs Monsterslayer Shield
In Champions of Midgard, I've run into a bit of an "unstoppable force vs immovable object" issue.
From The Dark Mountains expansion, there's a monster card called Dark Shaman that has the special ability: "Shields block no damage against this monster".
From the Valhalla expansion, there's a card you can get called Monsterslayer Shield that: "Blocks all damage when fighting monsters".
When fighting the Dark Shaman, I rolled a shield. What should the end result be? I can think of three possibilities:

Dark Shaman trumps Monsterslayer Shield
Monsterslayer Shield trumps Dark Shaman
They cancel each other out, and shields work as normal

There's rationale for each of these outcomes. For the first, because it says shields block no damage, it might beat the shield. However, for the second, because the shield uses the same phrasing in reverse, that it blocks all damage, it wouldn't qualify as a normal shield and thus would block (especially since shield odds are already so low, and the card is rather unique). Lastly, because they use the opposite phraseology, you could easily say that they just cancel each other out (seems the most balanced to me).
The rules don't clear this situation up. Has anyone encountered this before, and what is the consensus on how to resolve it?

In situations like this, games generally favour effects that add restrictions over effects that enable. ("Can't trumps can", as Magic: The Gathering players paraphrase the second Golden Rule of that game.)
It's not very clear from the wording which effect adds a restriction until we rephrase them in terms of damage: "Damage from Dark Shaman can't be blocked by shields" vs "Monsterslayer Shield can block any amount of damage". This makes Dark Shaman's ability the winner.
In short, it doesn't matter how much damage Monsterslayer Shield can block because it doesn't block any.
Keep in mind I have never played the game, but your question has been asked on Board Game Geek before, and all three posted opinions concur .


text:
Why is having shields in AoS 'optional'?
There are some units in Age of Sigmar, Skaven Stormvermin for example, that says that "some units cary shields into battle." The units ability to carry a shield is not restricted by any weapon combos or special abilities, and the shield gives a flat +1 bonus to save rolls when the unit is equipped with them. So what reason would you 'not' equip shields to the unit since it is just better? Is it only because of the physical models that may or may not have shields on them, or something else I missed?

Age of Sigmar is very much designed with the "beer and pretzels" mindset. The main reason is that you may have a bunch of models without shields. If your opponent doesn't care, you can always say that all the models have shields.

Makes okay sense to me. Could you explain what the "beer and pretzels" mindset is?

Link to Wikipedia added. Basically fairly light gameplay, strong on theme.


text:
Quacks of Quedlingburg Crow Skull Set 2 Keep Drawing
The Crow Skull Set 2 bonus allows you to receive Victory points and Coins even if your pot explodes within the next 1/2/4 draws.
Does this mean you can make that full number of draws even if your pot explodes straight away?
To be clear, I draw a 4 value blue chip, then the next chip is white taking me over 7 Cherry Bombs. Can I draw and place the next 3 'safe' chips anyway?

No you can't continue to draw after your pot explodes.
The only ability listed for the Crow Skull set 2 is that you receive both victory points and coins if your pot explodes in the next 1/2/4 draws - it says nothing about allowing you to continue to draw after your pot explodes.
Thus the normal rules for stopping when your pot explodes would still apply.


text:
Charterstone - Does "Gain card type" via a building include the Market
Charterstone is a legacy game, so I'm trying to avoid specific spoilers. Please excuse the roundabout phrasing.
After playing the first game of Charterstone a number of new buildings and advancement card types are unlocked within the game. Generally these new advancement card types come with a building that allows you to get them directly. The behaviour of which is clarified After Game 1 section of the FAQ.
At least two of these have corresponding Persona card. These Persona cards give you a benefit if you "gain the card from using a building". Does this mean only the specific building that grants those card types, or does using the general "Market" building to gain advancement cards also trigger this bonus?

If you want to be more direct in your question you can use spoiler tags.  That way you can avoid roundabout questioning and only those that want to read the full details will do. details can be found here https://boardgames.stackexchange.com/editing-help

@StartPlayer it's a good point. Though thinking it over, the only way to be more direct would be by naming one of the card type and building involved and then spoiler blocking the whole thing. I will update with a spoiler blocked specific example when I get home and have the card numbers in front of me.

@Jontia, can you tell, which card numbers were these personas?

@AndrewSavinykh one example would be the brewer persona on card 327.

327 does not do "gain the card from using a building". You only gain 1VP and $1 from it.

So digging out the card number gave me another way to search and I found this thread on BGG, specifying this exact card with a quote from the designer saying that using the general Market building would trigger the bonus from this persona.

"whenever you use a building to gain X", it doesn't matter if the X is printed on the building or not, as there are other ways to trigger X.

It also references the FAQ that @AndrewSavinykh used to reach their answer.

So it's different than the example in the FAQ, with refers to something in Game 1 (very minor spoiler) where you have a card that says something like, "Whenever you use a building with a brick cost, gain 1 VP." That's referring to the printed cost on the building.

Additionally for what it's worth, after feeling this was important enough to risk spoilers I pushed forward into game 2 on the app and triggered the same behaviour. The persona bonus was granted when collecting a card from the Advancement mat via the Market.

If I understand your question correctly the AfterGame 1 section you linked says:

Persona cards: The first persona card with an ability that each player receives will say something like, “After using a building with a pumpkin cost, gain 1 VP” (the exact resource will vary). This ability only applies when the printed cost on the building includes at least 1 pumpkin icon, not buildings with the “any resource” icon. It is possible to have persona cards that don’t look like your original persona. Also, you may only mark personas as used if you actually use their ability during the game. This wording on Rule 5 (card 15) is a little ambiguous.

It looks to me, that if the persona specify advancement card type, but you are using Market which does not give the exact card type, you do not get the bonus.

Cost and gain are a little different, but it is solid reasoning.

@Jontia well, in 327 you gave as an example, it's a cost, not gain.

Good point, although it is a gain from the building being used as a cost for a second effects, which is probably why I was confused in my comment.

I'm not sure about accepting yet. I'll give a day or so, just in case your answer sparks someone else's thinking. But definately have an upvote.