Healing Herbs

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Konrad Klar
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Thorsten the Traveller wrote:In the case of Healing Herbs, one can (and should) read "alternatively" not as constituting a whole new set of properties for the card, but one building on the previous sentence. Otherwise the "that is not wounded" would be totally redundant.
This is perfectly acceptable when it concerns playability requirements, for example,
Darkness Wielded writes:
Playable on an attack against The Balrog's company if Great Shadow is in play. The attack receives -2 prowess....Alternatively, cancel this attack and a latter attack.
Clearly you cannot use the cancelling ability on The Balrog if he's not in Great Shadow.
Darkness Wielded (full quote) wrote:Balrog specific. Playable on an attack against The Balrog's company if Great Shadow is in play. You may bring this card from your sideboard into your play deck and reshuffle during your organization phase. The attack receives -2 prowess, -1 body, and is reduced to one strike. Alternatively, cancel this attack and a latter attack of your choice against his company this turn.
Following rule:
CRF, Rulings by Term, Active Conditions wrote:If an "alternative" or "additional" effect does not have any "playable ..." conditions,
then the "playable on ..." conditions from the primary effect of the card apply. The
following cards are exceptions to this rule:
• Gloom
• Good Sense Revolts
• Half an Eye Open
• Heedless Revelry
• Here is a Snake
• In the Name of Mordor
• Inner Cunning
• Nobody's Friend
• Withdrawn to Mordor
• Wolf-riders
says about playability, not about conditions of use of card that is already in play.

Phrase "Alternatively, cancel this attack..." refers to the description of the attack, given earlier in the same text. That is sense of use a word "this" - to not repeat a description of something, what has been described earlier. If this attack would not be described earlier, the phrase would not make a sense.

So it is not that without this rule, the second effect of Darkness Wielded could be used against other attack, or under other conditions than first effect.

Even if second effect of Healing Herbs would have a condition "in his company", conditions of first and second effect would not be 1:1, as they are in case of Darkness Wielded. Character that can heal is not the same character that can untap.

Conditions of alternative uses of an item do not need to have anything in common with conditions of primary use. See the text of Phial of Galadriel.

See also text of Secret Book, and Records Unread. ICE's authors had tendency to correct a problems by not touching their sources. Instead to correct a texts of some cards, they issued class-actions. One of them is:
CRF, Turn Sequence, Combat, Attack, Annotation 15: wrote:[...]In order to cancel an attack or to directly affect an attack, the character doing so must be in the company facing the attack.[...]
Other are:
CRF, Rulings by Term. Site wrote:To untap a site the character doing so must be at that site.
and mentioned above "CRF, Rulings by Term, Active Conditions".
That works but does not eliminate the problem which is a badly written text of a card.
Secret Book wrote:Cannot be included with a starting company. Discard: to untap a Free-hold [F] or to make Information playable at any Ruins & Lairs [R]. Cannot be duplicated in a given party. 'I must be the only one in the Shire, besides you and Frodo, that has ever seen the old fellow's secret book.'-LotRI
Thanks to "To untap a site the character doing so must be at that site." to untap a Free-hold a bearer must be at the Free-hold, but nothing stops them to discard the card to make Information playable at any Ruins & Lairs in play, where he is not.
Minor items from Dark Minions that may be discarded to make Information playable at some site are free from such problem. Texts of Forgotten Scrolls and Lost Tome include condition that bearer must be at such site.

Sometimes a problem is text of particular card. There is no need to make a corrections in rules.
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Bandobras Took
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Technically, Secret Book is untapping a site. Not the bearer of Secret Book. Does the CRF say anything about items that untap sites? :)

edit:

Compare Hero Dwarven Ring of Durin's Tribe, where the bearer taps to untap the site.

edit 2:

Actually, compare Thror's Map with Look More Closely Later -- both from the same set. One clearly designates a character (sage) as tapping and is played on the same. The other, an item, is merely discarded -- no bearer is mentioned at all. This is interesting . . .

edit 3:

And Mallorn is clear evidence of a resource being able to untap a site regardless of the presence of a character. So Secret Book does not and never has needed the bearer to be at the site in question -- a valid site must merely be in play and tapped. This is very, very interesting.
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the JabberwocK
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Vastor Peredhil wrote:Council is about 2 activ players , Who already said their main focus would be new Dream card sets, we accomplish a Lot on GCCG you People just Do not want to see or appreciate it.

So shout out to the 7 other members or would be members to step up their game
Hi Vastor,

I am in the process of working on this issue now.

Also, not sure who your comment was directed towards, but I certainly am interested in both dream cards and GCCG and I will get there eventually (as I mentioned to you awhile back via PM). I do appreciate the efforts you guys are putting in.

Best Wishes,

Gavin


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Konrad Klar
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Bandobras Took wrote:Technically, Secret Book is untapping a site. Not the bearer of Secret Book. Does the CRF say anything about items that untap sites? :)

edit:

Compare Hero Dwarven Ring of Durin's Tribe, where the bearer taps to untap the site.

edit 2:

Actually, compare Thror's Map with Look More Closely Later -- both from the same set. One clearly designates a character (sage) as tapping and is played on the same. The other, an item, is merely discarded -- no bearer is mentioned at all. This is interesting . . .

edit 3:

And Mallorn is clear evidence of a resource being able to untap a site regardless of the presence of a character. So Secret Book does not and never has needed the bearer to be at the site in question -- a valid site must merely be in play and tapped. This is very, very interesting.
Does a discarding an item for effect not count as activity of bearer?
If does not count, then what stops a player from discarding for effect a Secret Book possessed by Ringwright?
What stops a player from discarding for effect Lost Tome possessed by Orc?
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Bandobras Took
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I would say that discarding an item for an effect is not automatically an activity of the bearer.

Many items specifically mention the bearer (Potion of Prowess, Orc-Liquor, etc.), but many do not. That seems to me to be an excellent dividing line.

I do not know that items must be used *by a character* in order to function.

Playing an item through storing Mithril is using the item, but there is no bearer of the item at the time -- Mithril must be stored to use the effect.

The bearer of the Ithil-Stone does not discard Bane of the Ithil-Stone -- that effect happens so long as the item is in play, and is not done through the bearer.

The bearer of Keys to the White Towers does not take Fortress of the Towers to hand -- you simply have the option as the player to do so.

Item effects that in no way mention or affect the bearer do not operate through the bearer.
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Konrad Klar
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Bandobras Took wrote:Playing an item through storing Mithril is using the item, but there is no bearer of the item at the time -- Mithril must be stored to use the effect.
I strongly disagree with this example.
This is an possibility created by storing Mithril. Similarly a facing a Trap attack is mandatory action created by playing Lost Tome. This time there is bearer.
If facing a Trap attack would count as using an item, then minion bearer would be freed from it (name it "inability to use").
Bandobras Took wrote:The bearer of Keys to the White Towers does not take Fortress of the Towers to hand -- you simply have the option as the player to do so.
If Fallen Radagast with Shifter of Hues has Keys to the White Towers, does its controlling player still have this option?
Bandobras Took wrote:The bearer of the Ithil-Stone does not discard Bane of the Ithil-Stone -- that effect happens so long as the item is in play, and is not done through the bearer.
The same as for Lost Tome plus: continuous effect of The Ithil-Stone (as the item is in play) is inability to play Bane of the Ithil-Stone and reduced hand size of Lidless Eye's controlling player; not discarding Bane of the Ithil-Stone.

So if text of item card says "discard for X" and does not mention bearer, a player is that who drops the bomb?
Btw. even Potion of Prowess and Orc-Liquor do not say that bearers discard them.
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Thorsten the Traveller
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hmm, not sure you guys are still on topic. :)

@Konrad. I didn't mean to suggest that the Healing Herbs instance of "alternatively" is similar to the case of Darkness Wielded. Playability conditions obviously apply, imo CRF didn't even need to clarify that.
But I gave this example to show there is an analogy, a precedence if you will (though Herbs was way before meba) for reading the "alternatively" section as a continuation and not as totally different part of the card. Some aspects of the "alternatively" part are different, but not all need be different. The addition on Healing Herbs of "that is not wounded" indicates that this is the case here, otherwise it would be moot, as one cannot untap wounded characters (or you'd have to consider this as an added clarification for dummies).

I personally like this use of "alternatively", as it avoids repetition and thus makes it more readable, that's why I added the DC example, though granted it's not an official card.
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Jose-san
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Thorsten the Traveller wrote:Muad'Dib writes:
Its amazing how this game is going to be broken after 20 years since was published. This is the reason why less and less people want to play it.
That's a very in-depth analysis of the situation :wink: It's a bit more complicated than that, but the frustration is understandable. In fact, some people (as this board attests) definitely LIVE to find loopholes in our game to exploit and to find an edge over other players, so you might say the level of complexity of meccg is what keeps it interesting for them.
I feel alluded :) I'm rereading cards and asking these questions because I've been asked to help in a project of which I'm not allowed to say much. As part of this project, some people have rewrote all the cards in the base game (and some of Dragons and Dark Minions) so new players can learn the game without the burden of errata. I'm assisting in the review of the rewritten texts. I knew there was a lot of errata in the Spanish edition but I couldn't imagine how many new errata and ambiguous texts I was about to find. The Spanish edition is plagued with errata (on top of the English errata).

About Healing Herbs, I'm pretty sure (although nobody can tell for sure) that the intention of the designer was not to allow to untap characteres in another company. Anyone can guess that that's not in the spirit of the card. Same thing with the cancelling effect of The One Ring. I think that the CoE should issue new CRF clarifications (i.e. "The second effect of Healing Herbs only can target a character in the bearer's company"). There's no need to be a perfect justification behind if the CoE agree to a clarification on a rule or card. Authority is just enough and the CoE has the authority.

I know that the CoE is not active enough and it's a lot to ask of the few active members, to whom I express my sincere gratitude. I was once in the CoE and, to my shame, I didn't make a significative contribution. I'd like to be involved again, but I don't know how much I can do.

Now, in more general terms. The game is already broken, finding loopholes is not breaking it more. The game is not dying only because it's broken I think it's more complicated than that too.
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Bandobras Took
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http://www.councilofelrond.org/forum/vi ... =17&t=1638

Just in case anything I did there would help.
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Konrad Klar
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@Thorsten the Traveller
Imagine that intention of Healing Herbs creators was to restrict a target of primary use to wounded character in bearer's company and to restrict a target of second use to any tapped character.
Would not current text of the card reflect such intention?

This text may be perceived as problematic because:
- players may want that a card will act similarly to an object that it symbolizes. (Almost) no one imagines a herbs that can change someone's condition remotely.
AND
- players may want to play precisely. They may want to know how close must be target character to bearer; must be he in the same company, or maybe at the same site, or any of them, or both? However, instead specifying a restriction to the target's localization, text of card does not specify any restriction.

Solution may be:
a) changing text of card in such way that both demands will be satisfied.
b) changing rules to solve whole class of similar problems. As I understand this is what you are suggesting.
And this is what I consider impossible here and even (if it would be possible) unfeasible. Alternate uses of some items may be so different as they are in case of Phial of Galadriel, or Secret Book. Conditions of second use may do not have anything to inherit from conditions of primary use.
Unfeasible because class of items with not enough restricted target of their uses is not big.
Healing Herbs, Secret Book, Record Unread. Something else?
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Thorsten the Traveller
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José-san writes:
I feel alluded :) I'm rereading cards and asking these questions because I've been asked to help in a project of which I'm not allowed to say much.
haha, apologies José, I wasn't in fact thinking about you at all, you're not that kind of player (not that I know), but now I can see that might have been the impression.
So, a super secret project is it? Are you afraid the CIA is on to you? :wink:
I think that the CoE should issue new CRF clarifications
No, the NetRep makes clarifications and rulings, the CoE makes errata and rules. Just like a democracy really, we separate the legislative and judiciary powers.
The game is already broken, finding loopholes is not breaking it more.
To call a game broken, I believe, means it's no use playing the game because there's 1 or 2 strategies that guarantee you a win. Clearly that's not the case in meccg. If you mean there are certain things that can be improved or "fixed", sure, but if we call everything that has flaws broken, that makes it a broken universe.

Really this merits its own topic, but having flawed cards is not the main problem, though it doesn't make meccg more appealing to be sure. Having just ANY cards in the first place, that could be problematic for new players, unless you want to make it a digital experience.
Hundreds of players managed this game since 1995, many have stuck with it, and those are the real fanatics, some of whose interest has been maintained by exactly these card controversies, because there haven't been any new cards for 20 years, so in fact re-inventing (re-interpreting) old cards is their hobby. :wink:

This game tries to find a balance between having solid game mechanics, being player/reader-friendly, and allowing diverse and cool stuff to happen. That's a very tricky balance to maintain, and often the first two suffer to the cost of the third. I'm personally fine with that, as meccg was supposed to be a role-playing game with cards. Remember, ICE was always a producer of role-playing games. Furthermore, meccg was one of the first ccg's on the market. So I take a very forgiving stance towards ICE's design flaws.

Rewriting the whole things doesn't work for me as a veteran, as I have to unlearn a bunch of stuff (=more energy to waste), and also I have a pile of useless cards at home then. So to all the re-writers I'd suggest: make a smartphone app, and good luck keeping the lawyers of your back :D
But more seriously, we're dividing the meccg community this way, designing parallel games. Though the same can be said of Dreamcards, I'm aware of that, we might have gone overboard with DC rules and errata. But at least the cards are new ones that can be used in combination with the old ones.

@Konrad. It seems we are mostly in agreement then. And no, I was not suggesting b), I'd go with the case by case interpretation, if needed accompanied by a NetRep clarification. So far there has been no call for a major change that affects as you say a whole "class", except CoE erratum1. So perhaps they're not needed, or perhaps it's too complicated to tackle such an issue without creating a new problem?
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Jose-san
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Thorsten the Traveller wrote:José-san writes:
I feel alluded :) I'm rereading cards and asking these questions because I've been asked to help in a project of which I'm not allowed to say much.
haha, apologies José, I wasn't in fact thinking about you at all, you're not that kind of player (not that I know), but now I can see that might have been the impression.
So, a super secret project is it? Are you afraid the CIA is on to you? :wink:
No need to apologize, I was tongue-in-cheek :) Not afraid, only that it's not my project.
Thorsten the Traveller wrote:
I think that the CoE should issue new CRF clarifications
No, the NetRep makes clarifications and rulings, the CoE makes errata and rules. Just like a democracy really, we separate the legislative and judiciary powers.
I stand corrected :) Then I think that the CoE should issue new errata because in cards like Healing Herbs the text as written doesn't work as intended (presumably). Is Mikko still the NetRep? How can he be addressed?
Thorsten the Traveller wrote:
The game is already broken, finding loopholes is not breaking it more.
To call a game broken, I believe, means it's no use playing the game because there's 1 or 2 strategies that guarantee you a win. Clearly that's not the case in meccg. If you mean there are certain things that can be improved or "fixed", sure, but if we call everything that has flaws broken, that makes it a broken universe.
I mean by broken that the rules and the cards text are often inconsistent. There are cards that according to the rules don't work (see Bill the Pony in a recent thread). Even by your definition of broken, there are broken decks (Carambor, Characterless One Ring dunk...) that most of the times guarantee a win. And I don't want to start on the state of the meta.
Thorsten the Traveller wrote:Really this merits its own topic, but having flawed cards is not the main problem, though it doesn't make meccg more appealing to be sure. Having just ANY cards in the first place, that could be problematic for new players, unless you want to make it a digital experience.
Hundreds of players managed this game since 1995, many have stuck with it, and those are the real fanatics, some of whose interest has been maintained by exactly these card controversies, because there haven't been any new cards for 20 years, so in fact re-inventing (re-interpreting) old cards is their hobby. :wink:

This game tries to find a balance between having solid game mechanics, being player/reader-friendly, and allowing diverse and cool stuff to happen. That's a very tricky balance to maintain, and often the first two suffer to the cost of the third. I'm personally fine with that, as meccg was supposed to be a role-playing game with cards. Remember, ICE was always a producer of role-playing games. Furthermore, meccg was one of the first ccg's on the market. So I take a very forgiving stance towards ICE's design flaws.

Rewriting the whole things doesn't work for me as a veteran, as I have to unlearn a bunch of stuff (=more energy to waste), and also I have a pile of useless cards at home then. So to all the re-writers I'd suggest: make a smartphone app, and good luck keeping the lawyers of your back :D
But more seriously, we're dividing the meccg community this way, designing parallel games. Though the same can be said of Dreamcards, I'm aware of that, we might have gone overboard with DC rules and errata. But at least the cards are new ones that can be used in combination with the old ones.
I agree with you. I can't say much, but the project I refer hasn't originated within the Spanish meccg community but within the Spanish boardgames community, I have little control over it, I'm just a consultant. It's not a rewrite to make a new game, but to add all existing errata (both CRF and Spanish errata) to the cards. The texts should be completely compatible with current cards. This is not the only scope of the project, but I'm only involved with the texts to ensure accuracy and compatibility.
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Vastor Peredhil wrote: Sun Aug 21, 2016 12:49 pm Council is about 2 activ players , Who already said their main focus would be new Dream card sets, we accomplish a Lot on GCCG you People just Do not want to see or appreciate it.

So shout out to the 7 other members or would be members to step up their game
No one disputed, huh?
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