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Thanks for your clarification, Tim.
Yes, I was quite aware I was changing the action a
bit in my proposed rewording. That card already had a lot of text on it,
and I was afraid that no clarification in the wording would be done because
there wouldn't be room. So, I threw out a proposal that shortened the
wording as well as simplifying the situation; I thought little would be missed
with the change if adopted. Fortunately Andy fixed it in a way that didn't
require the change.
Bryan
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 4:13
PM
Subject: Re: [Fluxx] More thoughts about
Hovercraft Eels
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:
Thanks to Andy for passing
on Tim's comments.
>
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
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