Hey there,
Since I'm catching up, I thought I'd reply to this one too, if only to clarify what I said.
Thank you Andy, for passing on my comments. Much appreciated.
To Bryan - I think my statement of "overdoing the card text" was not quite what I wanted to say. Sorry, it was 2am. :-) It seemed to me, in your effort to clarify the text of the action, you changed the action itself. That's how you were 'overdoing it' (to stick with my original language :-). How many characters or space on the card was never the issue.
And I agree, I like Andy's solution, adding the word 'any' into the text. In fact, that's been used on other cards (trash a keeper immediately comes to mind), so it even follows the precedent set by previous cards.
Take care,
Tim
On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 11:46 PM, Bryan Stout
<bryan.stout@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Tim Wezner wrote (in an email he sent to me because for some reason the list is rejecting his email:
> One suggestion: Say, "Pick one other player."
I would disagree with that. Yes, I'm sure there will be players who
don't realize they can choose themselves as one of the two players. But
that doesn't mean we should overdo the card text to compensate. One of
the beauties of the game is the simplicity in the directions.
If the text were confusing or misleading, then I'd say change it. But
honestly, I think it's fine as it is.
I agree with the need for simplicity. But I was also concerned about clarity. It's one thing to let people figure out strategies, but it's another to leave unnecessary ambiguities about the rules. I feared that this card in particular would be especially frustrating, once players realized they could collude and make sure #6 was always chosen, so it apparently wouldn't be any good to anyone. Hence I thought it important to clarify this if possible.
I don't understand why you thought the suggestion was "overdoing the card text". It took less space - about 15 fewer characters - and if anything, choosing 1 other player is conceptually simpler than choosing 2 players.
Still, I like Andy's solution:
But just to help make it clear, I squeezed the word "any" into the first sentence, so it's "Choose any two players."
It preserves the option of choosing 2 other players besides oneself, while making it less likely to think that choosing yourself is forbidden.
Regards,
Bryan