John Paleologus' ability

Can John Paleologus use his ability multiple times during a single untap phase? It isn't strictly forbidden by the card text, but it feels somewhat strong if not restricted. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> Bloodartist wrote: > Can John Paleologus use his ability multiple times during a single untap phase? It isn't strictly forbidden by the card text, but it feels somewhat strong if not restricted. > It is forbidden. During your untap phase, if John is ready, he may burn 2 blood to cause your prey to burn 1 pool. Rulebook - here's an archived link to the rulebook while the site is being rebuilt: “During X, do Y”: The “during X do Y” template is used in several cards. When this template is used, only one Y can be done per X with this card. For instance, you may move blood from your vampire to your pool with Vessel only once per untap phase. So anything that's phrased "during some phase or combat or something", etc. is restricted to once in the particular phase.

Thank you for response. In my opinion, if VTES ever returns to print in one form or another, this is something that should be explained more clearly in the card text. It doesn't take many words. The reason why I think its important to have clear card text, is because of the golden rule: "1.4. Whenever the cards contradict the rules, the cards take precedence." So if theres any ambiguity between cards and rules, players would be anxious to use the actual card text. Having clear card text will save new players a lot of confusion. Especially when learning the game offline, where access to comprehensive rules may be difficult. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

> Bloodartist wrote: > The reason why I think its important to have clear card text, is because of the golden rule: "1.4. Whenever the cards contradict the rules, the cards take precedence." So if theres any ambiguity between cards and rules, players would be anxious to use the actual card text. > Having clear card text will save new players a lot of confusion. Especially when learning the game offline, where access to comprehensive rules may be difficult. > I don't understand how people are supposed to learn a game without reading the rules. It's not in a comprehensive appendix, it's in the rulebook. Also, the golden rule isn't implied here. It would be if the card stated : "During.... as many times as you like" > Bloodartist wrote: > this is something that should be explained more clearly in the card text. It doesn't take many words. > Let's say we don't use the "During X do Y" pattern described in the rulebook, give a try: "Once each of your untap phase, if John is ready, he may burn 2 blood to cause your prey to burn 1 pool." That works great. Similarily, Anarch Revolt would be reworded to: "Put this card in play. A Methuselah who does not control a ready anarch burns 1 pool once each of his or her untap phase. Any vampire can call a referendum to burn this card as a +1 stealth political action." Then people start thinking that two Anarch Revolts are not cumulative. Whatever wording you use, if people don't read the rules, they will likely dont know how to properly play the game. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

> I don't understand how people are supposed to learn a game without reading the rules. It's not in a comprehensive appendix, it's in the rulebook. > The most likely scenario which I suspect concerns most players of any collectible card game, is that someone taught you the game. In such circumstances it is in my opinion important that the card texts are intuititive, and the new player quickly grasps the concepts of gameplay looking at the cards only coupled with someone explaining how they work. I am not implying people shouldn't read the rules. I am advocating removal of uncecessary sources of confusion by using simple, consistent card texts (in future publications that might or might not happen). All it would have taken in this case were words "once per turn". Or maybe "once during your untap phase". However, while writing this response, I realized what the source of my confusion was originally. I didn't recognize the ability for the triggered ability what it was. My first thought was that its an activated ability that is only usable during untap phase. Problem being the word "during". And since VTES already makes the distinction in activated abilities that can be activated multiple times per turn, I sort of expected the same here. I don't see why John couldn't have been worded in same fashion as those vampires I linked. Looking at the card database now, I can see how common the "during X, do Y" form is. Its also intuitive that triggered abilities trigger only once each time their condition is met. But "during something" sounds somewhat weird to me. It doesn't sound like a trigger, especially since you can arrange the order of things that happen during a phase differently? Magic the gathering uses the wording "At the beginning of phase X, do Y". It feels a bit more intuitive to understand its a trigger, since beginning of a phase happens only once per turn and at a specific time. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech

Apparently, you are a Magic player. I'm not sure that non-Magic player find the concepts of "triggered" or "activated" abilities intuitive. You quote a Magic template that you find intuitive: "At the beginning of phase X, do Y". Let's see it from a Magic player's perspective: as a player who hasn't played Magic for years, I really don't know what happens if more than one of these effects exist. Who order them? Do they have each their own stack? Who is the first player that could respond? I'm sure it's written somewhere in the rules, and I wouldn't assume that the intuitive way for me is correct. So I'd better read the rules to figure out what's happening in that case. Back to VTES: "Once each X do Y" ... is equivalent to "During X do Y", but as I said, having two identical effects each stating "once" could lead to confusion. It works well for vampires that are unique, but for cumulative cards such as Anarch Revolt, it's not necessarily very intuitive neither. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

I actually agree that the wording is a problem. It's not immediately obvious, for example, that cards like John Paleologus are different than Maris Streck who reads: > Camarilla Malkavian Justicar: Maris can burn a blood to give a blocking minion +1 intercept. She can take a +1 stealth action to allow you to look at and rearrange the top 5 cards of your library. > In both cases, its sounds like you can do X to get Y result (burn exactly 2 blood for exactly 1 pool damage, or burn exactly 1 blood for +1 intercept). But one can be used multiple times and the other can't. I think that we need some very clear and precise way of indicating limited (once per phase) and unlimited (as often as you want per phase) abilities. Including a "at the beginning of the X phase" actually seems like a good idea to me for limited cases. Check out my VTES blog: Gaming with BS I also host a google doc which separates the TWDA into clans . That means I track how often clans win, which crypt groups get used, and how many people attend events. You can access all of that info here:

To me, the difference in wording is quite clear, at least clear enough. During X do Y should be clear (after some games), it is a very common term in V:tES. Of course, most cards don't give you extra hints concerning the possibilities they offer, but it would take lots of card text to phrase those possibilities out (properly). The basic approach seems to be: "What is not restricted (by rule / by the card text itself), is allowed." Compare "Persia" with "Maris Streck": > Persia wrote: > Once each action, Persia can burn 1 blood to get +1 intercept. > > Maris wrote: > Maris can burn a blood to give a blocking minion +1 intercept. > National Coordinator Germany nc [dot] germany [at] magenta [dot] de

I'm not suggesting that the game is unplayable as written, I'm just saying that I think it could be improved with the addition of only a few words. I really like the "at the beginning of the X phase" as suggested by Bloodartist for limited abilities. The beginning of a phase only happens once, after all. Check out my VTES blog: Gaming with BS I also host a google doc which separates the TWDA into clans . That means I track how often clans win, which crypt groups get used, and how many people attend events. You can access all of that info here:

> brettscho wrote: > I'm not suggesting that the game is unplayable as written, I'm just saying that I think it could be improved with the addition of only a few words. I really like the "at the beginning of the X phase" as suggested by Bloodartist for limited abilities. The beginning of a phase only happens once, after all. > So I create two cards that both say "At the beginning of the master phase, you may do a thing"[0]. Card A and Card B. Two different cards, not two copies of the same card - say, a reworded Seattle Committee and Temptation . But then someone comes along and says "But the beginning of the phase only happens once, after all". So you can only use Card A or Card B at the beginning of the phase, because once you've used Card A, you're no longer at the beginning of the phase, so you can't use Card B. But we want you to be able to use Card A and Card B at the beginning of the master phase. So we could put an explanation in the rulebook of what "At the beginning of..." means, which doesn't seem like much of a step forward - card text churn without really simplifying anything. And if you can use Card A at the beginning of your master phase and it's still the beginning of your master phase so you can use Card B, why can't I use Card A again? It's still the beginning of my master phase - otherwise I can't use Card B - so why can't I use Card A again? Of course, we can clarify this by explaining what "At the beginning of..." means in the rulebook. But we seem to have just replaced "During your" with "At the beginning of your" without making anything actually better. [0] I've deliberately not picked the untap phase, because the first thing that happens in your untap phase is untapping cards. All the other "during your untap phase" cards come after that.

> Ankha wrote: > > Back to VTES: "Once each X do Y" ... is equivalent to "During X do Y", but as I said, having two identical effects each stating "once" could lead to confusion. It works well for vampires that are unique, but for cumulative cards such as Anarch Revolt, it's not necessarily very intuitive neither. > Does that mean that Montano can do his ability just one time per turn? I thought that the once each action was self-explainatory compared with the once each minion phase/once each turn that was covered with the "during x" rule Edit: repeated word

> Nac wrote: > Does that mean that Montano can do his ability just one time per turn? I thought that the once each action was self-explainatory compared with the once each minion phase/once each turn that was covered with the "during x" rule > I'm not sure how you're mangling his card text to mean that. According to www.vekn.net/images/stories/expansions/SL2015/Storyline-Rewards-2015-crypt.pdf , Montano's text is: "Once each action, he can burn one blood to give an acting minion you control +1 stealth." That could equally be written "During an action, he can..." and it would mean the same, because "During X, do Y" means "once during X, do Y". Where X is an action, it means once per action - nothing more, nothing less. The During X, do Y template doesn't magically transmogrify "action" into meaning "minion phase" or "turn" or anything else, just "action". Nor - if it was "during combat, you may" - does it transmogrify "combat" into meaning "minion phase" or "turn" or "game" or anything else, it just means "once during combat".

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > So I create two cards that both say "At the beginning of the master phase, you may do a thing"[0]. Card A and Card B. Two different cards, not two copies of the same card - say, a reworded Seattle Committee and Temptation . > > But then someone comes along and says "But the beginning of the phase only happens once, after all". So you can only use Card A or Card B at the beginning of the phase, because once you've used Card A, you're no longer at the beginning of the phase, so you can't use Card B. But we want you to be able to use Card A and Card B at the beginning of the master phase. So we could put an explanation in the rulebook of what "At the beginning of..." means, which doesn't seem like much of a step forward - card text churn without really simplifying anything. > I think what you've nicely demonstrated is that all wording can be misconstrued under the right circumstances. All we can hope to do is to have wording that is as clear as possible, and I would suggest that VTES falls short of this (admittedly lofty) goal. I also think that the vast majority of card gamers are familiar with Magic, and while I do not like that game, I think mimicking it's wording would be a good idea. That game certainly doesn't have the same volume of strange rules questions that VTES has - part of that is that VTES is a more complicated game, but I also think that part of it is that Magic cards are better written. But maybe that's just my opinion - I'm not on the rules team, after all! Check out my VTES blog: Gaming with BS I also host a google doc which separates the TWDA into clans . That means I track how often clans win, which crypt groups get used, and how many people attend events. You can access all of that info here:

First, a disclaimer: My musings in this thread have significance only if VTES should return to print or if it would be restarted as a new game (something which happened to Netrunner, yet another Richard Garfield game). > jamesatzephyr wrote: > Montano's text is: "Once each action, he can burn one blood to give an acting minion you control +1 stealth." That could equally be written "During an action, he can..." and it would mean the same, because "During X, do Y" means "once during X, do Y". Where X is an action, it means once per action - nothing more, nothing less. > When looking at simple semantics unrelated to VTES, amount of times you can do "during X, do Y" is not clear. It is clear only to those who play VTES and are aware of the wording template, and specifically are aware of VTES 'speciality' that usually you can do a given card ability only once per turn. I understand that this is done for game balance reasons, but it seems to me to be rather specific to VTES. I play some other games (android netrunner and magic and have played a number of other board games) and I haven't noticed such limitation in other games, when relating to cards own abilities. Limiting these abilities for balance reasons is usually handled in a different way in other games, such as using tapping or some resource as a mechanic to limit the amount of uses. I have played VTES now for about 2 years. Yet I made this thread because I wasn't sure, and the ruling is not intuitive to me. Since it is not intuitive, I am liable to forget the ruling if the situation does not arise often where ruling would be needed, and since all other games seem to do things differently. What bothers me in this case is that the ability is cards own special ability, not a game mechanic such as bleeding, equipping or rescuing a vampire from torpor. It is also not a keyword for an ability shared by multiple different cards such as those Magic cards often have. And despite it being a cards own, technically unique special ability, it does not directly state on the card how many times you can perform it per turn. This is what bothers me, and I cannot really defend the decision to not include the information in any way. In my opinion, when making card texts, one should strive to the situation that the players need to refer to the rulebook as little as possible. It is in my opinion rather bad design worth fixing if one needs to refer to the rulebook every time one needs to read a card text box. Smoking craters tell no tales. —Tex talks Battletech