On Friday, August 08, 2008, at 03:33PM, "James Hazelton" <jameshazelton@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >This reminds me of the time I was playing Fluxx in the Border's Cafe with my >Wednesday night game group, and we invited a stranger who was waiting for a >game of chess to open up to come play with us. I was a little worried that >the game would be too complicated for him, as he had never played Fluxx at >all before, and it's not uncommon with my deck to have a dozen New Rules out >at once. But the stranger kept up quite adeptly; he would read each card as >it was played and never seemed to get overwhelmed. As it turned out, he was >a computer programmer, and keeping all of those rules in his head proved no >challenge at all. Midway through the game, he began commenting on some of >the custom cards I made with Blanxx. He would bring up loopholes and >exploits that came about because of my word choice--loopholes I had never >even considered before. Oftentimes, I don't have room to explain on a card >just how it interacts with other cards, but our group has an understanding >that the cards work as I intended them to. But the computer programmer, who >hadn't been in our group long enough to know how we play certain cards, and >who was reading the text, word by word, for the first time, insisted that we >play the way the cards are written. He pointed out loophole after loophole; >I hadn't realized just how flawed my text had been. We did allow him to play >cards as written rather than intended, but I told him that I would be going >back to the drawing board and revising each card so that he couldn't pull >these stunts again. That's why the "Draw up to 7" new rule* in my deck has so many dang words. It's a really simple concept, but difficult to cram all of the words required to handle that concept on to the card. Topher ----- I'm tired of choosing the lesser of two evils. Make a real choice for President: www.BobBarr2008.com *That new rule is "Draw no cards per turn. If it isn't your turn you should have at least 7 cards in hand. If you don't, immediately draw cards until you have 7 cards. (No hand limit.)" It replaces any draw and/or hand limit rules in play and makes you draw until you have seven at the end of your turn.