Official Rules Question Thread

See the quoted part above in which jakodrako says that “simultaneous effects” and whose turn it is only matters for conditional abilities, not constant abilities.

For the same reason Snare doesn’t trigger from Archives or Shi.Kyu from R&D : because the cardtext says so.

Maybe a better wording for QPM would have been something like : When Quantum Predictive Model is accessed, add it to your score area. Ignore this ability if the Runner is not tagged.

If it was obvious to you from the first reading of the card that it works differently from Underworld Contact, and that you cannot combo it with Casting Call, then I can only congratulate you on your perfect understanding of ANR templating. The rest of us are a bit confused. Still.

Why are you assuming Hayley and Housekeeping are constant abilities? They do not have the text “if”.

I believe Lukas said something like : “every abilities are constant unless they use the words when/whenever or use colon”.

1 Like

They do not have “When” or “Whenever” either. ANCUR says Gabe has a constant ability. See also the Abilities Explanation Ruling.

1 Like

My guess is that “must” (housekeeping) takes precedence over “may” (Hayley) in this case, but I could be wrong. I still would prefer all simultaneous effects to be resolved like the rulebook says:

If players ever want to perform simultaneous effects at the same
time, the player whose turn it is resolves all of his effects first.
pg 22 core rulebook

The rulebook says “simultaneous effects” and not a kind of trigger.

1 Like

I don’t think that it is relevant whether a conditional ability is optional or required. I agree that for this particular interaction, the active player should resolve his ability first. Still, i’d like to have it clarified.

I agree. It’s quite confusing. Also, sorry for being curt earlier.

1 Like

In case it helps, there’s not a ‘check for triggered abilities’. The sequence isn’t 1) Event Happens 2) Check for Triggers. The sequence is 1) Event Happens 2) Resolve anything that Triggered. Think of cards with Triggered abilities like Parasite, Leela, QPM, as being always watchful for their Trigger to be a game state. When they see their trigger event happen, they immediately throw up their hand and go ‘Ooh, ooh, me! I got something to do!’ The game will finish with whatever it’s doing, and then call on each ability that has its hand raised, resolving all the hands of the active player first.

Imagine: in this classroom, the teacher is named Game. There’s two students, Cerebral Static and Leela Patel. Leela is watching to see if Game ever puts an Agenda into her desk. Mr. Static is in the way of Leela so she can’t see anything Game is doing, but will move seats when Game puts an Agenda away. Game puts an Agenda into her desk, and Static moves to the back of the classroom. Leela never saw Game put an Agenda into her desk, though.

Now there’s three other students, QPM who watches for when Game puts his Agenda away, but only raises his hand if the runner is tagged when that happens. Casting Call who watches for when Game puts QPM’s Agenda away, and Film Critic who watches for when Game puts any Agenda away. The runner isn’t tagged, and Game puts QPM’s Agenda away. This makes Casting Call and Film Critic raise their hands, and since it’s the runner’s turn, Film Critic is called on first and does her thing, taking the Agenda for herself. Casting Call is now called on, but goes ‘Nevermind, it’s not in your desk anymore…’

Does this sort of explanation help?

Nice flavor :slight_smile: But this doesn’t really explain the timing difference between static and conditional abilities, nor the difference between QPM and Underworld Contact’s wording. But yeah, apparently there’s no gap between an event and the check for triggers.

Here’s one for the timing difference:

New Sol Agency, Leela Patel, and Paywall Implementation are at the front of the class. Cerebral Static is snoozing in the back of the classroom (in Archives). Game says ‘Runner has made a Successful Run’, and Paywall Implementation raises their hand. Game calls on them, so Corp gains a credit. Game says ‘Runner accesses Agenda’, but nobody’s looking for that one, so we move on. Runner steals the Agenda! Leela and New Sol both raise their hands. Paywall Implementation moves to the back of the classroom. Leela is called on first, and does her thing. New Sol is called on now, and can choose to put either Cerebral Static or Paywall Implementation back to the front of the classroom. Even if Static comes up and sits in front of Leela now, she’s already done her thing. Also notice that this handily explains why New Sol can put a Current that was just trashed on Runner Steal back into play, regardless of whose turn it is.

For QPM/UWC differences:

QPM checks his instructions again… “If the Runner is tagged…” then he stops reading and shrugs, since he doesn’t need to know the rest of his instructions until “the Runner is Tagged” is a true statement. Underworld Contact looks at his instructions… “When your turn begins…” Ok, so he’s going to raise his hand whenever the runner starts his turn… What about what he does when he’s called on? “gain 1credit if you have 2link” Ok, so when he’s called on, he’ll check to see how much link he has, and gain a credit if it’s at least 2.

UWC Shenanigans:

1 Link Runner, Supplier with UWC on it, PW with Dyson Mem Chip on it. Game says ‘Runner begins his turn’. Personal Workshop, Supplier, and Underworld Contact raise their hands. PW is called on, and puts Dyson Mem Chip into play for the second link. Supplier is called on and puts in a second UWC into play, but his hand isn’t raised. The first UWC is called on, so he looks and sees he has 2 link, so gains a credit.


I’m not so concerned with flavor here as building a narrative framework to help with understanding the sequence of events that occur. Anthropomorphizing is fun! (I also really hope I’m not wrong in any of these. xD)

1 Like

I’m confused as to what the problem is between the Underworld Contact wording and the Quantum Predictive Model is?

This is a conditional ability triggered by the start of the turn. So it always gets triggered whenever the turn begins, and sits and waits for its turn to resolve. Resolution involves checking link (“gain a credit if you have at least 2 link” is the resolution after the comma).

This is (apparently) also a conditional ability. The checking of tagging is part of the trigger, not a part of the resolution. It comes before the comma. So it only waits in line to resolve when all of the trigger is fulfilled. And the resolution itself includes no test, only “add it to your score area”.

The bit that confuses me is that Quantum Predictive Model is seen as a conditional rather than a constant ability. The way it is written seems to indicate to me that it ought to be a constant ability where the “when accessed” bit only determines when the constant ability applies its effect, in the same way as “is encountered” does for Ice Carver. If it were supposed to be a conditional ability, it would make more sense to me for it to read:

That would put the entire trigger (QPM is accessed AND Runner is tagged) into the conditional “when” language rather than the constant “if” language that we actually have.

2 Likes

I’m generally the only person working on Ancur (edit to add: I have several amazing volunteers who have provided fantastic content such as deck archetypes, card trivia, spoilers, etc., I mean that I’m the only one working on the rules aspect of the site). I also have a full time job, a wedding to plan, my own games to design, and a lot of other side projects - most of them Netrunner or FFG related. I’m working as fast as I can to get the website back up to date. It actually has the text of all but the most recent FAQ update, and once I format that I can focus on getting all the proper citations back up. Then I can begin tracking down any uncovered rulings from Lukas.

I know that Ancur is only fully useful if it is properly up to date - if it is, then it is the fastest way to find this type of information available (it was until a few months ago when I started slipping behind on updates because of Rules Architecture 2.0). I take this responsibility very seriously, so I’m working as fast as I can and apologize for the issues along the way.

12 Likes

I’d say this is one of the best illustrations of the way conditional and constant abilities are triggered.

Ugh… my head hurts. This whole time, I thought it was worded “When…, if…” but you’re right. It’s “If…when…” Which does seem to change things back to what I had originally thought.

Are we all in agreement that if QPM is ruled a constant ability you wouldn’t be able to FC it and if it’s ruled a conditional, you would? Meaning that the debate we’re having here hinges solely on whether the presence of “If” at the beginning makes it a constant ability regardless of the presence of “when” later (which is usually used to determine if an ability is conditional)?

Well yes that is the crux of the “issue”, but it’s not a debate. The way the card has been ruled by Lukas and officially clarified in the FAQ proves that it is a conditional ability.

Also, “the first time” is a conditional ability, not a constant one. Constant abilities define a state of being, but “the first time” does not define a state, it indicates a particular time at which something will occur. “If”, “until”, and “while” are the types of words that define a state of being with some form of requirement - these ones are the constant abilities.

However! A constant ability can’t necessarily “override” an ability from being conditional. “If…when…” is still a conditional ability. Lukas explained that they try to put the indicator word first when possible, but sometimes they prioritize how an ability reads over the most technical form.

4 Likes

Is this official? I thought Lukas didn’t mention this, and ANCUR says Gabe’s ability in constant. Could we get a clarification please?

I mean, I’d love it to be true! Just need to refer to somewhere.

I have updated Gabe’s page, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

(For proof that “the first time” is a trigger condition, the ruling I linked above explains it pretty well, and the following card offers pretty substantial evidence.)

4 Likes

What if this is an An Offer You Can’t Refuse run? Now Leela’s trigger does not resolve because Static happens first?, right?