Official Rules Question Thread

From ANCUR & the FAQ: ‘“Additional” is a keyword that indicates a conditional ability that occurs simultaneously with its own trigger.’

So if I have the chance to refuse to pay an additional cost, that means that it must have triggered, which means that the “rez” trigger condition must have happened. That’s why I came up with the weird model above: it’s the only way I can square the “additional cost” triggering with everything else dependent on rez not even meeting its trigger condition.

If additional costs were a constant ability, I’d be entirely in agreement with your interpretation.

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Here, have a brain damage. Passes token.

I think there is a conflict perhaps in the ordering of the “choice” path if you take the additional cost rejection to prevent the thing even being chosen (since it seems to be the choosing that’s important, not the resolution). If you want to suggest that rejecting an additional rez cost prevents you from choosing the rez option (since the act of rezzing would be the same as the choice to rez, under this understanding), that doesn’t sit well with the “prevent effect” case. In that case, the choice definitely of which option will happen has to be made before it happens (since a prevent effect can jump in in the middle of the two).

Certainly as far as prevent effects are concerned, the “initiated for the purposes of the must X or Y condition” seems like it needs to happen before the resolution of the chosen effect. And in terms of rezzing the resolution bit would be where you decline the additional cost (or not).

Okay, I see your point, and think your model makes sense. Though, I think the important thing here is that additional occurs concurrently with its trigger.

So long as it is considered simultaneous, I’m not sure if it’s different if you consider it as a constant ability monitoring the event, or a conditional ability that is considered to trigger simultaneously with the event, or even as something completely different that just “happens at the same time”. It will lead to the same end result for all cases I think, because it is atomic in each example.

I think we agree on the outcome though. :slight_smile:

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So, again, prevent is an important word in Netrunner with special meaning (alongside avoid). If something doesn’t say prevent on it, then a prevent effect didn’t occur. Not paying Archer’s additional rez cost (either because you cannot or choose not to) is not preventing; it is simply refusing or being unable to.

In terms of how that is functionally different, we can go to Net Shield + Pup. If I choose to take damage on the first pup routine, and prevent that damage with Net Shield (somewhat pointlessly), on the second routine, if I choose damage, I can’t prevent it; the first damage did happen (it just got prevented after happening). A similar interaction for replacement effects can be demonstrated with Tori + Pup.

If you cannot or do not do something, it never happened on any level. It is fundamentally different.

Wait, I think I see what you’re saying. Parsing this discussion is rather difficult with all the parties and perspectives…

Don’t mind me, just passing thro-- OOPS, I appear to have dropped this.

If anything ever needed to be put in the official FAQ, this one was it.

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An Additional Cost is … an additional cost. They don’t trigger on Rez, they trigger on Paying the Cost. So it’s Pay Cost → Pay Additional Cost → Rez, not Pay Cost → Rez → Pay Additional Cost. (Because then you could get away with accessing Gagarin remotes for free by declining the Additional Cost.)
Costs are paid before doing the thing that you paid the costs for. You can decline/refuse to pay an additional cost, and you don’t do the thing that you should’ve paid the cost for.

So, if we decline to pay Archer’s additional cost, it isn’t rezzed. Because we didn’t rez Archer, FAO is still waiting for us to choose something. If we don’t rez Archer, we must Trash it instead. For more hypotheticals, just as in theory we could choose to Trash it and then Prevent the Trash, we could Rez Archer and then Prevent the Rez. (I don’t think anything currently does this.)

[quote=“FAQ 3.1”]“Additional”
The word “additional” denotes an ability that modifies another
ability or a game state. The additional ability is resolved
simultaneously with any ability it is modifying, and under the
same conditions as that ability.[/quote]
Found it!
‘Additional’ is modifying ‘Cost’ here. A Cost is paid as a requirement to do what you wanted to. This ruling in the FAQ just says that you definitely have to pay the normal cost AND the additional cost before resolving the ability. (Mostly the ruling applies to things like The Cleaners, instead of to “Additional” Costs, but it still applies?)

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Yeah, I think this discussion got a little lost in the details (probably my fault; I like discussing the details and how they might internally work).

Additional is just that; an added component. It is a part of the whole; not forfeiting an agenda means that you haven’t paid rez costs, which means Archer was never rezzed (since that comes after costs), which means that the first choice for FAO was never taken.

Thanks, that makes sense. I’d been assuming that paying the costs was rezzing. (I’m not sure how this squares with the whole discussion about whether paying the trash costs is trashing, but whatever.)

On a more general note, is a good understanding of ‘must’ conditions that they prevent the game state from moving on until either they are satisfied (by initiating, but not necessarily resolving, one of the conditions) OR the player can show that all of the conditions are impossible to perform? (With the added wrinkle that if I refuse to pay an additional cost, an action counts as impossible to perform.)

If something says “must”, you have to do it to resolve the event listed. Additional costs, however, can always be refused. IE: not forced to steal NAPD, but don’t steal it if you don’t pay the costs.

If something says “either/or”, you have the option to do one or the other. You have to do the “or” if you cannot or do not do the “either” (and vica versa).

If doing both of the things in “either/or” is impossible, then the game continues.

And, on the note of the squaring, paying trash costs is not trashing, just like paying rez costs is not rezzing.

You could look at almost everything in Netrunner as a process of paying costs and then doing the event, but in most cases the costs are free. If costs aren’t paid, event doesn’t happen; if they are, it does.

IE: stealing a 2 advancement GFI is free usually, but stealing it while there’s a Utopia scored would result in an additional cost of 4c on top of the normal costs.

OK, this makes sense. I’d got confused earlier by the endless Slums/CtM stuff and forgotten which one was the correct answer. More generally, I think I was confused by the FAQ about ‘additional’: additional costs probably are constant abilities, but constant abilities which cause a required conditional ability that occurs simultaneously with ‘paying the cost’.

(I could grumble a bit to the use of ‘must’ in additional costs though, when it doesn’t mean the same thing it does elsewhere in the game. This is part of what bamboozled me - it seems to me that additional costs could have been written as ‘The [runner/corp] may not X unless they pay Y as an additional cost’, which would have been functionally identical to how they do act, and would have been clearer.)

Anyway, I’m convinced that we consider only fundamental game state and constant abilities when evaluating whether ‘must’ conditions are possible. The discussion has definitely helped clarify things for me, so thanks for that!

I still have a couple of possible mental models for how exactly the resolution of ‘must’ works on a fundamental level, and specifically when and how we figure out which options are possible. I’m going to use label the models A and 1. “The compelled player” always refers to the player under the ‘must’ condition.

Model 1

  1. ‘Must’ condition fires
    1.1 Evaluate whether it is possible for the compelled player to do X (or Y, or Z…)
    1.1.1 If all options are impossible, advance to 1.3
    1.1.2 If only one option is possible, it resolves. Now advance to 1.3
    1.2 If multiple options are possible, the compelled player picks one
    1.2.1 Resolve the option the compelled player picked.
    1.3 End resolution of the ‘must’ condition and advance game state

Model A

  1. Subroutine fires
    1.1 Set up a constant condition “If the runner does X, (or Y, or Z…), or shows that all options are impossible, end resolution of the ‘must’ condition and advance game state”
    1.2 The compelled player becomes the active player, and the only available actions are “X” (or “Y”, or “Z”…) or “Show that all options are impossible”

I suspect that model A is actually closer to what’s going on (even though it’s arguably more clumsy). Consider cases like Blackguard/Archer: it makes more sense that we determine whether additional costs will be paid as a fundamental part of the choice (we can choose the “it’s impossible” option instead), rather than having to ask at step 1.1 of model 1 whether we are willing to pay additional costs, before we actually have a chance to pay them.

In conclusion: I probably thought about this too much.

Honestly, you’ve considered this interaction on a more fine-grained level than I have, so I can’t really state with certainty, but your models seem plausible to me.

If I was writing Jinteki 2.0 (more likely 0.8 if I’m the one actually writing it), I would use a logical flow akin to the following for handling this:

Either/Or Flow

  • Determine choice possibility (factoring in associated additionals).
  • If all choices impossible, end.
  • Choosing player makes a choice from possibilities (or automatic if only 1 available).
  • Initiate choice.

So pretty much exactly your Model 1, now that I’ve had a chance to think about it.

With consideration for the Blackguard/Archer interaction, my Jinteki 0.8 would contain the following:

General Event Flow

  • Confirm
  • Initiate
  • Trigger
  • Resolve

Blackguard ability

  • Conditional (Expose X): Confirm rez on X.

Confirm Flow

  • For each additional cost: confirm player is willing to pay costs.
  • If any additional costs declined, end.
  • Else, Initiate event.

Initiate Flow

  • Pay all costs.
  • Trigger event.

Under this model, I believe the BG/Archer interaction is handled. But I haven’t thought about this too much, so it might be insufficient on some level.

Thinking about this gives you a deep appreciation for the authors of programs that automate stuff like this (Jinteki, OCTGN plugin).

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Interesting note here:

Also, from his doppleganger/Data Breach ruling, you either get your Dopple run, or your R&D run. It can then be extrapolated, due to similar wording, that you don’t give back credits and take brain damage with doppleganger/stimhack.

Unsure that follows. With Doppelganger/DB, I see it as:

  • Successful DB Run ends; both DB and Doppel abilities (conditional) being evaluated.
  • Evaluate Doppel. Success; running a server.
  • Evaluate DB. Fails (already running from Doppel).

Alternatively, they might both succeed, but one overwrites the other (no precedent to discern currently). You can’t run two places at once, and there’s no deferring in Netrunner (outside the cascading rule).

As opposed to Doppel/Stim:

  • Successful run ends; both DB and Stim abilities (conditional) being evaluated.
  • Evaluate Doppel. Success; running a server.
  • Evaluate Stim. Success; taking brain + returning money.

Basically, nothing is preventing Stim from being repaid, but Doppel is preventing DB.

Possible I’m wrong on this, but that’s how I see it currently.

I’m guessing he’s using a similar rationale for his Encore ruling. After playing two encores:

  • Turn ending. Evaluating both Encores.
  • Evaluate Encore 1. Success; taking a new turn.
  • Evaluate Encore 2. Ineffective (Already entering a new turn, or triggering the same flag to).

Kind of like how “make a run” from doppel puts you into a new run, preventing DB from doing the same; “take another turn” from Encore #1 is starting you on a new turn, preventing Encore #2 from doing the same.

It’s not like other games where effects are placed onto a delayed stack/queue.

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You can defer triggers, Jak Sinclair allows you to make a run before collecting money from daily casts if you choose to resolve triggers that way.

That isn’t deferring (or at least not in the context of my point). You choose to Jak Sinclair, initiating a run, and then you choose to Daily Casts, but you do not progress beyond “when your turn begins” until both are fully resolved.

Note that “make a run” just triggers a run initiation. You do not complete (or even meaningfully progress on) Jak Sinclair’s run before grabbing DC money.

EDIT: The point I made here is likely incorrect. See below.

I’m having trouble squaring the Doppel/Data Breach ruling with the Doppel/DRT ruling. I don’t see why making a run negates only particular pending triggers.