Yeah, but the same question is still there unfortunately. The language “spend a credit from a stealth card” is ambiguous as to whether we need to:
spend [from a stealth card] a credit
or:
spend a [credit from a stealth card]
In other words is the “from a stealth card” bit attached to the act of spending or to the credit itself? You could parse the sentence either way. Do we now have to remember, as part of the book-keeping of the game state, which credits came from a stealth card?
It hasn’t mattered before since the only possible spending of credits from a stealth card were of credits that were currently on a stealth card. Now, for the first time, we could spend credits that are from a stealth card but not currently on a stealth card, and we need to know whether the “from a stealth card” bit refers to the act of spending or the actual credits.
I don’t know one way or the other, all I’m trying to say is that I don’t think the argument that one of those options would introduce a new form of book-keeping is conclusive, or even relevant.
(By way of analogy, if someone asked you to: “Ride my horse from Essex” they could be asking you to start the ride from Essex, or specifying a particular horse to ride. You would need some kind of context to decide. If they only had one horse and Essex was in the grip of horse-stealing rioters, you’d imagine they would be asking you to get their horse out of the county. If they had multiple horses that they’d bought from different places and that needed exercising, you’d imagine they were specifying the particular horse by it’s place of origin. In terms of the made-up rules of a card game, we don’t really have this kind of wider context to fall back upon, so have to ask for clarification.)
Yes, it only means one thing. As I detailed, the ambiguity isn’t in the meaning of the clause “from a stealth card”. The ambiguity is in the part of the sentence that it is modifying. Is it the verb? is it the noun? Who knows? Not me. Not you. Not anyone. Language is sometimes ambiguous. Whoever wrote it knows which they intended it to modify though, and while we might guess as to that intention, we can only really find out by asking.
Back to my first point. Read the rule book. There is only one credit pool in the runner’s play area, with no allowance for storing different types of credits. There is only a single common pool with no sorting of credits dependent upon origin.
In their credit pool, a runner only has credits, not credits of any particular origin.
It isn’t my intention to be rude, but several times in the past I’ve observed debates about cards’ intended meanings, and every single time (so far as I can remember) the side whose case was made by interpreting the card text in an English-class sense of clauses and modifiers was wrong, while the side whose case was based on interpreting the card text as rules text was correct.
Examining your example as rules text, for instance, I see no discernible difference between “spend [from a stealth card] a credit” and “spend a [credit from a stealth card].” Both statements, rules-wise, are clearly referring to credits on cards; “spend [from a stealth card]” is spending something that’s on a stealth card, as is “a [credit from a stealth card].” If I squint my eyes, I can see the English-language interpretation you’re referring to, and I grant that it’s there if we’re taking the card text as plain English, but I would assert that we shouldn’t parse card text as plain-English text and should parse it as rules text.
Am I coming across clearly? I worry that I may not be.
Oh, you’re just looking for clarification? That’s fairly simple then. Think of recurring stealth credits on cards as being cups of water, and your credit pool is a nice big bucket. To boost Refractor’s strength, you have to drink water from a cup; you can’t drink the water from your bucket to do this. Now think of Little Engine as letting us add water to our bucket. Panchatantra lets you transfer the water to your bucket using a cup! Unfortunately, once the cup of water is poured into the bucket, it’s no longer held in a cup, and you don’t actually own a cup. You have to drink from the bucket directly.
I’m afraid that while you may be understood, I am obviously not!
I am not advocating any particular reading. Quite the opposite, I am merely stating that from the language alone it is ambiguous and therefore it is impossible to determine a particular reading with any conviction!
“In the Gettysburg campaign, the Confederate forces attacked the Unionist army from Virginia.”
“The following year, Grant gradually overwhelmed the Rebel armies from the southern states.”
In each case, does the “from” clause apply to the verb (attacked, overwhelmed) or the object (Unionist army, Rebel armies)? Can you tell from the language alone? To infer one reading, you need to call upon a knowledge of context outwith the wording itself: to try to do the same for made-up rules for a card game in a made-up universe may put you on dodgy ground!
I would recommend you go to your board game cabinet, pull out all of the manuals, and carefully document each instance of ambiguous phrasing and/or grammar that cannot be precisely parsed. By the time you’re done, Panchatantra will have rotated out - problem solved!
Joking aside, we communicate in an inherently imprecise language. Sometimes that sucks! But it’s okay - humans are smart, and we can usually do a pretty good job of figuring out what was meant by a certain phrase or sentence.
On the contrary, I expect that within the context of a card/board game’s rules, “from Virginia” will always refer to a space or game zone titled “Virginia,” and never to the actual Commonwealth located on the north border of North Carolina. That is to say, first I look to a Virginia already defined within the context of the game’s rules, and I would be surprised not to find one.
The point he’s trying to make still does apply to that example though. “attacking the army from Virginia” can mean “attacking the army that originates in virginia” or “performing an attack originating from virginia against the army”
Doesn’t mean the argument about the “from” usage applies at all whatsoever to stealth cards / credits, though.
I see where @popeye09 is coming from (though I understand Little Engine doesn’t work) and while he may be labouring the point I think it was still a fair question and less weird than some of those asked in the OP. Semantics have been and always will be important in Netrunner for edge-cases and we’ve all probably been surprised by rulings in the past. Y’know it’s always straight-forward and obvious right?.. until the game creators tell us otherwise and then we have to adjust our framework.
For those of you convinced on the ‘credits in the pool have no memory’ Bad pub and stimhack credits are interesting cases. Bad pub credits are “as if they were in his credit pool” (from the rules) which is …I don’t know where that is, certainly not in the credit pool though, somewhere new I guess? And with Stimhack you just gain them … then give the unspent ones back. From that I would say that where Little Engine works or not, keeping track of where credits are from is possibly a thing. Just food for thought.
My counter-question (coming from an argument had a loooong time ago with Daily Casts and Aesop’s on another forum) to @popeye09 is:
Can you cite rules/FAQ text that backs up the assertion that if Panchatantra makes Little Engine a Stealth card that those credits remain Stealth credits? @Brodie has cited rules/FAQ text that they believe backs up their case.
Interestingly, I think you’ve had a little help from @OctopusRex there; I for example am about to go over their examples.
Then of course is the other question; has anyone submitted a question to FFG?
I really despise “pancake”. While it is sort of cute for veterans, it isn’t good at all for newbies. You basically can’t find out what it means without asking someone. This makes it harder for newbies to get included into the community. Call it chrono or adj chrono and people can find it in any of the databases for cards.
Netrunner is in itself confusing enough for new players, without adding extra complexity.
But back to topic, people gets confused because they think the cards are written in English. They are written in the language ANR-rules, a completely different language, which happens to share some similarities. Just because the english language can have ambiguity doesn’t mean anr-rules have it. There isn’t really anything suggesting you can have different pools of money. Someone mentioned stimhack which explicitly say you should add it to your pool. Bad pubs are the same really. Nothing on the card text on either panchatantra nor little engine suggest the credits are special.
