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Timing and Order of Operations

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Christopher
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Timing and Order of Operations

Since the beginning of Sentinels of the Multiverse, the official order of operations has always been to resolve actions in the order they came into play. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the primary reason was to keep the game moving smoothly. At the end of each villain turn, there shouldn't have to be a big, round-table discussion about each card in play that has "end of turn" text and what order they should go in. It's simple enough to keep the cards lined up in the order they came into play and to follow the text instructions in that order. Thus, when cards would activate "simultaneously", what determined the card order fell to what had been in play longest.

However, there are certain interactions in Sentinels of the Multiverse which are made significantly less smooth by forcing simultaneous actions to be determined by card play order, such as Legacy's cards "Superhuman Durability" and "Fortitude". Therefore, to clear up such interactions, there is a new ruling.

Any cards with "start of turn" or "end of turn" text happen in order of cards played, as before. However, anything else that acts "simultaneously" goes in whatever order the players choose, as with all ambiguous situations in Sentinels of the Multiverse. 

This will affect certain interactions in the game, but all of them in ways which benefit the players. Enjoy your newfound control, heroes!

 


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Pydro
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Thank you!

EDIT: Wouldn't this completely mess up an attempeted fix to Hair-Trigger Reflexes and Matty?


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Foote
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This certainly clears up the Pillars/Mistbound question from the other thread. Player choice.

This also has an impact on our notion of "static effects". For example, Imbued Fire and Close Quarters combat. It sounds like Christopher is saying that if both of those cards were in play, that the players are now able to choose the order of the damage type change. You could choose Fire and get the +1 damage, or you could choose melee if it is more beneficial for whatever reason, like if you are doing self damage and dont want it increased.

Matchstickman
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Foote wrote:

This certainly clears up the Pillars/Mistbound question from the other thread. Player choice.

Really? Because they are both start of turn effects so I was thinking the exact opposite.

 

This is not the place for this discussion, in fact I'm surprised we can still post inthis section.

Discussion continued here


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Foote
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Matchstickman wrote:

 

Foote wrote:
This certainly clears up the Pillars/Mistbound question from the other thread. Player choice.

 

Really? Because they are both start of turn effects so I was thinking the exact opposite.

The point is that the interaction is "ambiguous" at best. The proof for that is that the thread was created at all and generated debated discussion. Sounds like all "ambiguous" situations fall under this new ruling.  

"Until" vs "At" sounds a whole lot like "dealt damage" vs "would be dealt damage" debate (its all a timing issue). If Fort/SHD is coming down on the side of player choice, then this will as well.

Pydro
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This might also answer the question on when something is destroyed if it has an "on destruction" effect.


Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
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Foote
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Pydro wrote:

This might also answer the question on when something is destroyed if it has an "on destruction" effect.

Which question are you refering?

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Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
-Robert E. Howard, "The Tower of the Elephant"

Foote
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Ok I see. So it would seem that you could choose to resolve those destruction effects in any order you choose, but Wagon would stay in play until its own destruction effect was resolved.

Envisioner
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This ruling makes it easier for the heroes to win, which is not always a good thing - certainly in tough matches it will help, but in matches that were already so easy as to be underwhelming, it makes the heroes even more likely to curbstomp the villain into patheticness without breaking a sweat, versus if they were forced to accept that sometimes they get hosed by a combination of cards.  It's like how the "players always choose in a tie" rule means that the Environment spends more time helping the heroes than hurting them; sometimes it's awesome to see the Sherrif and the outlaws working together to help the heroes defeat the villain, but other times it's kind of sad that the heroes can sit back and do nothing and rely on the environment to kill the villain for them, when if they actually hit the villain themselves, the villain would live and the environment would hurt them.

I like this ruling only in terms of it being an easy answer if you need one, to prevent arguments.  But I think I'm likely to choose not to obey this ruling in all cases, likely depending on whether my recent games have been on a winning or losing streak.  I've been known to go somewhere between five and ten games without getting a single hero incapacitated, and in the midst of a series like that, the last thing I'd want to do is do the heroes any more favors.  But if they're going up against Advanced Chairman for the first time, I'd certainly be inclined to give them a hand.


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Foote
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Envisioner wrote:

This ruling makes it easier for the heroes to win, which is not always a good thing - certainly in tough matches it will help, but in matches that were already so easy as to be underwhelming, it makes the heroes even more likely to curbstomp the villain into patheticness without breaking a sweat, versus if they were forced to accept that sometimes they get hosed by a combination of cards.  It's like how the "players always choose in a tie" rule means that the Environment spends more time helping the heroes than hurting them; sometimes it's awesome to see the Sherrif and the outlaws working together to help the heroes defeat the villain, but other times it's kind of sad that the heroes can sit back and do nothing and rely on the environment to kill the villain for them, when if they actually hit the villain themselves, the villain would live and the environment would hurt them.I like this ruling only in terms of it being an easy answer if you need one, to prevent arguments.  But I think I'm likely to choose not to obey this ruling in all cases, likely depending on whether my recent games have been on a winning or losing streak.  I've been known to go somewhere between five and ten games without getting a single hero incapacitated, and in the midst of a series like that, the last thing I'd want to do is do the heroes any more favors.  But if they're going up against Advanced Chairman for the first time, I'd certainly be inclined to give them a hand.

If games get too easy, thats what Advanced Modes are for. Plus the ruling leaves those situations to "player choice". Who says that the players have to "choose" the easier route?

I won't really be changing out I play much, and still will resolve clearly simultaneous triggers in card order. But for Ambiguous situations (like "would be dealt damage" and "dealt damage" for example), there is now room to play with different interactions.

 

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Foote wrote:
If games get too easy, thats what Advanced Modes are for.

They don't always help.  In particular Gloomweaver's is entirely irrelevant in about half of games.

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Plus the ruling leaves those situations to "player choice". Who says that the players have to "choose" the easier route?I

Point, they could choose to make the game harder on themselves, but I feel like it would make their victory more meaningful if they didn't have to, if the difficulty were an immovable bar that they were measured against, and not something that they subjected themselves to.  I'm not really upset or anything, I'm just saying there's a certain measure of downside to letting the players have their way too often, without them ever having to suffer some consequences.  (Of course, it depends on the players.)


"Is there beauty in a forest, if no creature stops and calls it lovely, now and then? Isn't that what 'sapience' is for?"
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Envisioner wrote:

 

Foote wrote:
If games get too easy, thats what Advanced Modes are for.

 

They don't always help.  In particular Gloomweaver's is entirely irrelevant in about half of games.

I do not see how that changes or refutes what I said. Gloomweaver is notoriously irrelevant regardless and has been since he was introduced. This ruling does not change that. 

Envisioner wrote:

Quote:

Plus the ruling leaves those situations to "player choice". Who says that the players have to "choose" the easier route?I

 

Point, they could choose to make the game harder on themselves, but I feel like it would make their victory more meaningful if they didn't have to, if the difficulty were an immovable bar that they were measured against, and not something that they subjected themselves to.  I'm not really upset or anything, I'm just saying there's a certain measure of downside to letting the players have their way too often, without them ever having to suffer some consequences.  (Of course, it depends on the players.)

I think anything "meaningful" always relates to player choice in some way. If things were automatic, thats not meaningful at all. Once you start getting into games, you will see that this will not change things all too often. Talk about theoretics all you want, but from a pragmatic standpoint I do not see this being a game breaker in the slightest. 

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Foote wrote:
I do not see how that changes or refutes what I said. Gloomweaver is notoriously irrelevant regardless and has been since he was introduced. This ruling does not change that.

I wouldn't go that far; he's a decent difficulty-2 villain who dishes out respectable amounts of damage.  To date, the only houserule which I think he needs is to make his advanced text regular text, and his new advanced text becomes "Gloomweaver is immune to damage" - it makes sense, he's being summoned from another dimension, so why can you even attack him at all before he arrives?

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I think anything "meaningful" always relates to player choice in some way. If things were automatic, thats not meaningful at all.

The weight of a big rock is "automatic", but it's "meaningful" to prove whether you're strong enough to lift that particular rock or not.

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Once you start getting into games, you will see that this will not change things all too often. Talk about theoretics all you want, but from a pragmatic standpoint I do not see this being a game breaker in the slightest.

Never said it was.  At most, it's a slight downtick in the challenge, and I think the game is swingy enough already (in my experience, very few matches are "close"; I usually either win easily or get steamrolled, with only rare matches having outcomes that remain ambiguous until the end), that it maybe didn't need anything that would lead to more foregone-conclusion victories.  But even that is probably overstating the point.  We really don't actually disagree here.


"Is there beauty in a forest, if no creature stops and calls it lovely, now and then? Isn't that what 'sapience' is for?"
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This is not the place for this discussion.

If a mod or admin would come through and bud all this conversation off that would be great.


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Foote
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Envisioner wrote:

I wouldn't go that far; he's a decent difficulty-2 villain who dishes out respectable amounts of damage.  To date, the only houserule which I think he needs is to make his advanced text regular text, and his new advanced text becomes "Gloomweaver is immune to damage" - it makes sense, he's being summoned from another dimension, so why can you even attack him at all before he arrives?

He is offcially listed as a 3. Not a 2.

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Foote wrote:
He is offcially listed as a 3. Not a 2.

I know that.  I'm saying he's actually a 2 and the official listing is inaccurate.  I would say the same about La Capitan, in the other direction.


"Is there beauty in a forest, if no creature stops and calls it lovely, now and then? Isn't that what 'sapience' is for?"
--David Brin, "Brightness Reef"

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Unfortunately, I can't lock this, but I will say: Please stop posting here. There's conversation in the Rulings area - please post there, and feel free to copy anything you want to that area.


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There was some debate about whether or not we should allow postings in this board, and we wound up never resolving it (and leaving it open, obviously). I'll see if I can disable it for now. Let us see...


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