Re: Undead Persistence, wording of optional press

<nystulc@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:72ff2fa4-4caf-4207-946a-6691697c0612@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jun 3, 6:03 pm, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<nyst...@xxxxxx> wrote in messagenews:
65df3704-fb14-479f-bc37-61e31d7f991a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Jun 3, 10:49 am, "Frederick Scott" <nos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I was arguing to drop the near meaningless and hard-to-
express exception to the end of combat because it can easily be
confused for that clause. Basically, if that clause doesn't turn
Undead Persistence into superior Conquer the Beast, then let's get
rid of the clause altogether so no OTHER gaming groups accidentally
turn inferior Undead Persistence into superior Conquer the Beast (because
they're ignorant and mostly because they'd NEVER SUSPECT IN A MILLION
YEARS that people would waste any ink on such a nit :-P ).

The problem, basically, is that because it contains language similar
to "Trap" and "Conquer the Beast", people assume it does the same
thing. They fail to read it closely, and read in a clause that is not
there.

Well, it isn't _only_ that, no. It's also because it's a natural thing
for people to expect that if the designers bothered to write so many words,
there was a good reason. It tends to surprise people to have so much
bother made over such a minor nit.

In order for them to know that there is "no good reason" for the
clause -- in order for them to know that it is merely a "minor nit" --
not only do they need to be familiar with "Trap" and "Conquer the
Beast", but they also need to be familiar with virtually every other
press-granting effect in the game. They have to know, for instance,
that Meat Hook has been fixed to grant a press only once per combat.

I didn't say they knew there was "no good reason". I said players
would tend to expect there _was_ a good reason - which is the problem.

And no, they don't need to be familiar with any other cards to have
that expectation. As I said, it's a natural expectation. I agree that
to make the assumption about the clause granting one press every round,
they would have had to have seen it on another card. But I'm just saying
players tend to make mistakes when something about a card is naturally
surprising - in this case, the whole lotta complexity over nothing.

Currently, the combat-ending clause has minimal significance, and will
have effect only in corner cases. This could change with the printing
of the next expansion.

As I said, read by itself, the card is just not that confusing.

I disagree. Putting a pointless, long, complex clause in a card that
actually does almost nothing is, in and of itself, confusing. It sows
the ground for making mistakes because players will naturally want to
read something more significant into such a clause.

It confused you, because you knew too much.

No, it confused us because of its nature. The actual form the confusion
took was based on the printing of other cards, but it doesn't matter in
the end. Even if you insist on blaming 'Trap' for confusion over 'Undead
Persistence', the fact is that the mistake was made and, IMHO, it's a very
natural one which points at a bad practice in card design.

Fred


.

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