Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Hey, folks:

I saw a thread about this a long time ago (called Sinning Hand vs. Thinning Hand), but I searched and searched for it and it seems to have disappeared. So my question is this:

Say my opponent makes a rescue attempt (specific Hero is irrelevant -- not a FBN hero), and I block his hero (specific Evil Character is irrelevant -- not a FBN evil character). Then, I play Sinning Hand, which states:

"Remove a Hero from the game. Any player may discard half the cards in hand (rounded down) to negate this. Otherwise, it cannot be interrupted."

What happens if my opponent only has one card in his hand? Does he have to discard to negate removing his Hero from the game?

What happenes if my opponent has no cards in his hand? Can I even play the card, or can he just not interrupt it at all?

I would think that if he had 1 or 0 cards in his hand, he could still choose to discard to negate it...it's just that he would be discarding zero cards.  But that's just my opinion.

Yes, since the player cannot fulfil the second option, he must allow his character to be removed.

Quote from: Scottie_ffgamer on April 20, 2009, 11:34:22 PM

I would think that if he had 1 or 0 cards in his hand, he could still choose to discard to negate it...it's just that he would be discarding zero cards.  But that's just my opinion.

A player cannot discard zero cards.  I agree with the consensus.

I dissagree with the consensus.  Here is my reason.  In a different thread I brought up the problem of playing Assyria Conquers Israel" with no assyrians in play. 

Assyria Conquers Israel
Type: Evil Enh. • Brigade: Pale Green • Ability: X / X • Class: None • Special Ability: Discard a Site or an O.T. Fortress. Opponent may discard the top X cards of deck instead. Place Lost Souls in play instead. • Attributes: X = the number of Assyrians in play • Identifiers: OT, X = the number of Assyrians in play • Verse: II Kings 18:11

In this scenario, x=0 so the4 opponent would simply choose to discard 0 cards to negate its effect.  are you telling me that different mechanics work for different cards?  I say that if my opponent has no hand and I play sinning hand, then they would choose to discard half of 0 and negate its abiliyt

That's incorrect unless the ruling has changed. One of more-official-than-Schaef PTB ruled that because it is a cost, just as you can't Discard from a deck of zero to use Jephthah, you can't discard a hand of zero to fulfill the condition on Sinning Hand. The reasoning is that the SA specifies to discard, and if you have no cards in your hand, you can't discard anything.

A cost for the card player to use an action is one thing.  Giving the opponent an option is another thing.  Zero cards happens to be the calculated half rounded down.  It was ruled that an opponent can discard his empty hand to cancel Primary Objective.  I am going forward based on that ruling.

what does rounded down mean though? i dont get it... cause if they (your opponent) has 6 cards in hand they would discard 3 right? and if they had 5 cards in hand would they only discard 3 or 2 cards? i would asume 3 but.... idk...

Rounded down means you take half of 5 ( 2.5) and round down ( to 2)

half of 1=.5 and rounded down makes it 0

@ Bryon.  Yeah, I understand that id x=5 and you only have 1 thenyou cannot fulfill the demands of the card, but what about jepthah?  what if you have 0 cards in your deck?  can you d/c 0 cards to discard up to two EC's in an opponents territory?

I would say that you could but it has been ruled elsewhere that you cannot.  are we going to have different rules for different d/c abilitiy cards?

My vote is for polarius as the next playtester

but what about jepthah?  what if you have 0 cards in your deck?  can you d/c 0 cards to discard up to two EC's in an opponents territory?

No.  Jepthah demands you discard one card.  Zero does not equal one.

This is a change in ruling... I do agree with the recurring complaint about rulings changing with no notice or even admission that a rule changed.

It's not my impression that a rule has been changed here.  This is the way I understood it to be played since it was designed three years ago, and it's consistent with a Primary Objective ruling that has been in place for five years.  You might want to explore the idea that somebody simply might have gotten a ruling wrong.

:edit: instapost

The easiest way to understand this is to look at what the cost is.  Jephthah's cost is 1 card off the top of your deck.  If you don't have a card in your deck, you cannot fulfill the discard to use the ability.  Sinning Hand's cost depends on your hand.  If that cost happens to be 0, then you can still fulfill that by discarding 0 cards.  There's been no rule changes or contradictory rulings on this that I've seen.

PS  Here is the thread about Assyria Conquers Irael

I guess that makes sense but... How can doing nothing be a cost? It requires you to discard, which is the act of putting something into the discard pile.. if you do that with zero cards, you didnt discard anything.... 

But it's not what was ruled before, and nobody wants to admit that this is a change.

If somebody wants to come forward and say they were the ones who ruled it this way, I'd be interested to hear it.  It was never me.

What is it about this that it HAS to be change, and not just that somebody got it wrong?  That happens too, you know.

So then, the "current" ruling (in quotation marks because there seemed to be some question about whether or not it has always been this way) is that since the required discard is half the hand, then half the hand can equal zero so zero cards can be discarded to negate Sinning Hand?

Yes

I guess that makes sense but... How can doing nothing be a cost? It requires you to discard, which is the act of putting something into the discard pile.. if you do that with zero cards, you didnt discard anything.... 

If the cost IS doing nothing.  Sure, you can't do nothing if the cost is discard 1 card and negate it...but the cost is to discard 0 cards.  You are still, in essence, fulfilling the cost - you are discarding 0 cards.  Don't look at it as doing nothing, but fulfilling the cost by discarding 0 cards.

So you CAN discard ZERO cards from your hand, but you CANNOT discard ZERO cards from you deck? How does that make any sense?

So you CAN discard ZERO cards from your hand, but you CANNOT discard ZERO cards from you deck? How does that make any sense?

You CAN discard 0 cards from your deck if the COST of whatever you're trying to do requires you to discard 0.  If the cost is more than 0 and you have zero card in your deck, then you CANNOT discard the COST.  It does make sense if you actually TRY an understand....

So if a card said "discard half of the cards from your draw pile", then discarding Zero cards from your draw pile would be possible?!?!?  I wouldn't want to play that card too early on in the game...   

I want a card that has a fraction like discard 1/12 of your draw pile just to see people try to crunch the numbers in the middle of a game. 

If X=0, then discarding zero would fulfill the requirement of the card.
If X=1 (Jephthah), then discarding zero does not fulfill the requirement (one).

I understand now, since jepthah requires a "top card" then x=1  and if the draw pile is empty then it cannot be fulfilled.  but on other cards such as sinning hand or assyria conquers Israel, where the number can be variable, the number is calulated based on what is available.

2 things I'm noticing:

1) I agree with Schaef (not trying to bandwagon - it makes sense this way, as a variable in Geo CAN be zero).

2) I don't want to give Satan too much credit if credit is not due, but it would appear as if, while the U.S./world as a whole is deteriorating (in terms of accepting Christianity, allowing it to be public, etc.), this game/its players are also deteriorating.  This is not to start an argument (as Lord knows this is meant to help stop some), but it seems like there are more and more arguments over how a card should be ruled, what should happen, etc. (and this isn't just in RQ - it's all over the boards).  I realize that I am in no way the biggest "buyer" of Redemption cards, as I am fairly broke, and also don't attend anything other than Locals, but I think that to solve this problem (of constant bickering), we could:

* Have a subforum (create a new one, transform an old one, whatever) that has three parts:
1) COMPLETE rulelist that is updated constantly (weekly, if not every day or two) that is stickied, that would be locked (other than editing), so as to prevent spamming/questions.
2) Thread (stickied) containing all rules that are currently being "discussed", so players can know what is currently being decided as to add, change, or remove in the rulelist - this would help in keeping players updated on "Rule Changes", alleviating what I perceive to be quite a bit of the "pain".
3) Threads that would be discussing different rules, etc.  This would have to be extremely controlled, so as to not cause it to get clustered and "messy".  Only 1 thread would be allowed per rule, and on that thread players would calmly discuss why the rule should be changed or left the way it is.  A mod or two would need to be dedicated to SOLELY working on keeping that area clean (from extra, unnecessary threads/posts).


Again, I realize that I am a "noob" in the whole section of rules (the complex ones), but I believe that we need to work on this so as to ease "tensions" and/or help the ENTIRE community more.

I think there are 2 simple reasons why there are more arguments recently about card play:

1 - The REG hasn't been updated since Nats last year.  That is very unusual and is because the whole thing is going to be replaced at some point and people don't want to put effort into fixing something that is going to disappear.

2 - The message board was purged of old threads at the end of last year.  That caused many of the rulings that were previously made to be lost.

The solutions are equally simple:

1 - Release the new REG.

2 - Don't purge the message board anymore.  Instead each moderator should do selective trimming of their part of the board so that the space doesn't get wasted by needless stuff.

2 - Don't purge the message board anymore.  Instead each moderator should do selective trimming of their part of the board so that the space doesn't get wasted by needless stuff.

I'm not quite so sure about all the boards, but I agree with the good Prof that purging the Redemption Official Rules board an its children is not desirable.

If it's not possible to selectively purge, maybe the moderators could call for volunteers to go over the oldest threads and see if they cover anything important. For important ruligns the volunteers could create brand new threads with three posts:

1) The question and who it was asked by.
2) The final ruling, the reasoning behind it, and how it came about (Rob/Others PTB/consensus)
3) Any useful context including anything that is considered still open/under study and important dissents.

At least then the information is not lost.