Rules Team HQ - Open for Business

[MrNobody]

There are a few cards in the “additional context” column that would technically be “worded illegaly” then, but they’re all clear what the designer’s intent is so I personally wouldn’t think it’s vital to update them.

[Lord Pyre]

I'm pretty sure that on any of my designs, I used Start of the round to mean before OMs unless stated otherwise. But also could just be inconsistent. I don't think I have any that really MATTER mechanically outside of things like YJ Robin where you pretty obviously have to place the OM before revealing it.

[tcglkn]

Originally Posted by Lord Pyre

I'm pretty sure that on any of my designs, I used Start of the round to mean before OMs unless stated otherwise. But also could just be inconsistent. I don't think I have any that really MATTER mechanically outside of things like YJ Robin where you pretty obviously have to place the OM before revealing it.

So you think you used it one way but it doesn't matter except the one time you used it the other way? Just sounds completely contradictory.

[Lord Pyre]

Yes, we're trying to hash out the contradictions, that's the point!

In Robin's specific case, you still have to time when you reveal an X OM. We could probably have used "Before any player takes any turns." Otherwise since start of round isn't defined, it also covered it. So once we get this defined fully, we'll be good to go going forward.

[IAmBatman]

Sorry, guilty of skimming here. Rereading MrNobody's first post grouping various items, looks like we'll need some updates no matter what. His second post is just a breakdown of the middle list. Looks like the last list would mostly need updates, and that has 14 cards on it.

[MrNobody]

Personally I'm fine leaving cards like YJ Robin un-updated. I don't feel like we need to ask Art Team to make 14 card updates when it's pretty clear what the cards intend to say.

[IAmBatman]

Are there any cards that clearly would read incorrectly if we rule that start of round means before Order Markers are placed and are there any that would clearly read incorrectly if we rule that start of round means after rolling for initiative?

[quozl]

What if we ruled "In any case where it is not clear when start of round should occur, assume it means before Order markers are placed."

[tcglkn]

How would you define what was and wasn’t clear?

[MrNobody]

Originally Posted by IAmBatman

Are there any cards that clearly would read incorrectly if we rule that start of round means before Order Markers are placed and are there any that would clearly read incorrectly if we rule that start of round means after rolling for initiative?

Yep and yep. If we're not okay with slightly 'incorrect' but still decipherable cards remaining, we'll pretty much have to do updates no matter what.

After doing research, I'm very much in favor of defining the 'start of the round' as before placing OMs.

In the "unspecified" section, we've now shifted every design that matters* into the "Yeah, this was intended to be before OMs" column. So if we vote the 'start of the round' is after initiative, all of those have to get changed. If we want to go back and just individually clarify each card, we're looking at probably about 33 card updates.

Anyone is willing to check my work or call me out on something they feel like I did wrong in my research. But after doing said research, I feel like that's the clear path forward.

*AKA would undergo a significant gameplay change if we defined what 'start of the round' means, one way or another.

[IAmBatman]

I'll try to take a deeper look at what you've compiled tomorrow. Thanks for spearheading this. Hopefully we can vote on a recommendation for the Heroes and leave it up to them soon. Seems we have two fairly clear options, both of which will require updates.

[IAmBatman]

OK, I think it's pretty clear in practice that we've used "start of the round" to describe an entire grouping of actions that includes placing Order Markers and rolling for initiative.

Right now it's been used messily, like if we said "at the start of your turn, after revealing an Order Marker, before moving" or "at the start of your turn, before revealing an Order Marker." Which one is the start of your turn? Is that whole wide period the start of your turn? Probably, as currently used.

Which leads me to this. The most straightforward, internally consistent thing is to probably push ourselves to always include additional context, acknowledging that "at the start of the round" is kind of like saying "during your turn." It gets you in the neighborhood, but not to the right house. So we need to add another direction.

It looks like there's about four spells (one unreleased), one glyph, and between 22 and 36 cards that would require updating to put this clarification in there correctly. Technically Killer Moth could use more exact language as well, but updating him seems less essential.

The plus side with going this route is that in a lot of cases we don't have to say "at the start of the round" at all, but can say things like "before/after rolling for initiative."