For me it is most certainly a “spirit of the game” objection. Dudes attach spirits with the same restrictions–normally–regardless if they are a totem or not. It’s simply that as a totem they ultimately attach to the location my shaman is present at rather than to the shaman itself, after meeting all of the requirements. Anything that differentiates non-Totem and Totem spirits further than that I think will lead to confusion to players, especially new ones.
The Jia Mein ruling introduced the concept that you can bypass requirements for being unbooted and being at a controlled location for attaching cards to dudes when it is done so using a card effect. I dislike that ruling, personally, but it’s fine, whatever, it is what it is.
As that ruling came out prior to Totems, and while some on the rules team may likely have already been well aware of plans for them, it feels like they have been inadvertently disadvantaged by the technical way in which things are worded within that ruling.
Pretend I am teaching the game to a new player and they are playing Eagle Wardens. They have a General Store in play, a booted Shaman at Town Square, and both a Spirit Dance and The Pack Awakens in their hand. They aren’t sure if they can attach their spirits in their condition, and ask me to clarify.
I now have to explain to them that normally they can’t attach either of them because both (a) the shaman is booted and (b) he is in an uncontrolled location. These are normal restrictions for attaching spirits, including totems. I then have to caveat this by stating they could use the General Store to bypass these restrictions. I then have to caveat that caveat by clarifying that this doesn’t affect his Totem spirit, actually, because of some legalese mumbo-jumbo technicality that arose from a ruling reversal during the waxing days of the game.
Result? One confused gamer, most likely. At the bottom line that’s what I dislike. I think the entire Jia Mein ruling muddies the water for everyone and has resulted in a string of even muddier and more convoluted rulings ever since. I think it’s bad for the game’s health.
The right way to make the rules consistent and keep Totems work as originally intended is not to differentiate how General Store works with them and other goods/spells, but to revise the Jia Mein Reversal altogether.
This would be my recommendation as well. If we must live with the Jia Mein reversal, I think it would be better potentially to further revise it to include the attachment of all cards and not just to dudes. Currently this should only affects Totems, again because of the wonkiness of the Jia Mein ruling in general so that it doesn’t impact Mad Scientists (which are the source of 3/4 improvements so far).
I assure you that Totems were not inadvertently disadvantaged and that the corrected ruling represents the way they were intended to work.
Well I’m with you for most of that but instead of saying:
some legalese mumbo-jumbo technicality
you give him the better sounding (and more accurate) reasoning of:
The Totem rules say specifically say “Unlike a normal Spirit, when a Totem enters play it must be attached to a location you control, at which you have an unbooted Shaman”
The way you present it has a massive effect on the way it will be received.
Not for the ones that there are currently, correct. But inventing via a card effect is still yet another difference created by the Jia Mein reversal because they’ve ruled the “boot in a location you control” clause for inventing is a single requirement rather than two (i.e. 1. boot the dude, 2. be in a location you control). So even if I invent using a card effect such as William Specks’ ability, the Scientist who invents using that card effect cannot do so while at an uncontrolled location even if they are unbooted.
The entire Jia Mein ruling is just colossally bad, to be honest. If the intent of the base set cards such as Jia Mein, General Store, Concealed Weapons etc. was to work as they do now it would have been much better to errata them to work within a well defined framework. Y’know, rather than breaking the framework.
Concealed Weapons was never affected by the Reversal, and neither were Auto-Revolver or William Specks. The only cards ever affected were Jia Mein, General Store, and Horse Wranglin’ (and now also Junior) *. Of all these, I’m fine with them attaching cards to booted dudes in uncontrolled locations, except of course for the General Store, which is the most commonly played card, and the least limited. And the only one that actually says “As Shoppin” on it. Now, the rules team said that the italicized text in parenthesis is help text only and cannot be used as a basis for differentiating the effect of this card and others. I think this the actual root of the problem we are now facing. It would be so easy to explain it to new players:
“Look, Jia Mein says ‘attach’, so you attach a spell to him, even if he’s booted and in town square. General Store says ‘attach as Shoppin’, so you need to meet the requisites of a Shoppin’ play: attach only to an unbooted dude in a location you control. See, it’s all on the cards, nothing else. Simple.”
Dammit, if they gave technical errata to Bunkhouse (and bothered to reprint it even! I’m playing my old copies, without all that new junk text), surely they could reprint General Store with the text “Attach as Shoppin”, not italicized, no parenthesis, if they think that a simple ruling is not enough.
*Drew Beaumon was also affected by the Reversal, in the strangest way: it was stated that if he can invent without booting, then he can also invent while booted, and in a location you don’t control. I think the latter part is very unintuitive, but for the sake of ‘one problem at a time’ let’s not focus on this one just yet.
I think it should just read: “Make a shoppin’ play, reducing the price of the good/spell by 2 ghost rock.”
It’s simple, it keeps the same spirit of what the design team had probably originally intended, and it’s more useful then an errata of Bunkhouse (of which, imo, public outcry for a correction was nonexistent).
I agree with Darghouth, it is a headache to explain why a ruling is what it is. I prefer a much simpler solution, Keep it simple.
I think it should be something to the effect that, if you are using an ability that follows standard game rules, but modifies the cost or result, you follow all game rules. Ie. If you use general store, you make a standard shopping play, following all rules, but it is modified by a reduced cost. If you use Max Bain xp1, you hire a dude, follow all noon hiring rules, but it costs less.
But, if the action intentionally breaks the rules, you break all the rules. Ie. Jia lets you attach a spell during shooting (plus stud bonus). Attaching spells is a noon action with it’s own rules, but we aren’t attaching during noon, so we break all the rules, and do exactly as the card tells us to. Auto revolver says you get to play it in shootouts, you don’t get to play goods during a shootout, but Auto revolver says you can play it as a shootout action, so you do exactly what the card says, and break all other rules.
Tl;dr. I want the rules to be so simple they are intuitive. If a card says to do a normal action but slightly modifies the result, follow all rules. If a card is breaking the rules do exactly what the card says, and break all other rules.
I’m just riffing here, I only have a handful of Reloaded games under my belt and don’t fully understand the nuances, but…
How important are the Shoppin’ rules for game play? I mean, why even bother with the attachment restrictions in the first place? It seems like a hold over from the dark days of CCGs and a bit needlessly complicated.
Again, I’m just a Reloaded noob, so no offense intended to any of the rules guys.
I really like jayjester idea. And btw shopping restriction are important, and I feel like they are imroving gameplay. Being able to buy anything, anywhere seems like a bad idea.
Very important, to be honest. Requirements like being unbooted and being at locations you control provide cost-versus-benefit decisions for players and create potential sources of conflict and opportunity.
There are inherent cost vs benefit decisions with attachments anyway, regardless of the restrictions to attach them. The opportunity cost vs reward has always been a delicate balancing act in card games.
It just brings me back to clunkier times, where I have to keep track of which ruleset era we are in and if bowed characters can perform actions this time or not. Just doesn’t intuitively flow with me, is alls I’m sayin’
I am also in agreement with the feeling here regarding the General Store.
Today at the tournament in Montreal, I discovered that some of the players there have been playing this entire time thinking that to use General Store you must be in a controlled location and unbooted, like the card says. When I explained to them that this was not the case, an argument broke out so I had to show them the FAQ that I brought to back me up (I go to all events expecting disagreements with how the rules work).
I would assume that most players will not be reading the entirety of the AEG rules forums. Keeping up with everything requires a significant amount of free time. I do - it’s a daily affair which I enjoy and do with entusiam, as I feel devoting time to this fantastic game is worth it.
If you throw in language barriers (all players save myself and one other were Francophone) it becomes understandable that someone who spends most of their time reading and thinking in another language hasn’t read all 13 pages of the AEG forums, the FAQs, the composite rules, the discussions on Gomorra Gazette, FB, BGG, etc. and isn’t as “up” on the rulings as they could be.
It’s also a non-trivial analytical exercise attempting to understand why the question is being asked and what it means, and then to understand the ruling. It’s logical, but if I am too tired then I can’t parse what is being said properly and need to do something else.
This would be even harder to do in a second language, and this game has a lot of fans to whom English is not their first language.
It was a Sheriff Event; knowledge of the rules was very important. I knew more about the game as a player, which placed me in the awkward position of trying to correct my opponent during my matches.
Given some of the arguments that came up, it almost becomes worth it to play the way most players do and accept that it’s not technically correct rather than playing the role of the Rules Lawyer.
tl;dr: Today in an official Sheriff event it was shown that General Store works differently than what players think the card does.
I believe that if General Store were re-worded to be more intuitive or explicit, then it would create less conflict with rulings at official events and would in general be good for this game.
Or what @jayjester said
For @PaxCecilia, here is Jia Mein Reversal from the forums. It was posted January 26th 2015 and is located on page 7 of the forums at the time of this writing.
