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Colonel_Coo
03-30-2006, 04:35 PM
In your responses here, the rules forum has clearly followed certain statements.
Can't trumps can is one.
The direct interpretation of the rules is another.

Please explain the reasoning of the meaning behind the following paragraph:

Page 23 1st paragraph

If a defensive-fire attack scores a number of successes equal to or greater than the target's defense, the target ends its movement in its current hex and is disrupted immediately.

Now you'll notice a couple of things. The use of the AND: a conjunctive. You'll also notice the lack of a semi-colon or colon to denote two ideas; one idea linked to the other. Next you will notice order. Order in all areas of presuasive writing or instructional writing is used to denote meaning.

See, the single sentance is giving a "if then" condition: if certain requirements are met, then other condition will be applied. In this case, two things have to occur first. 1. A defensive fire has to occur. 2. Successes must equal or exceed the defense of the target. The first requirement is not linked to the second requirement; however, the second requirement only matters if the first requirement is met.
Next, we see that the consequences of these two conditions being met.
"...the target ends its movement in its current hex and..." is a statement of what happens first. The target ends movement. Now something really interesting occurs. The rules use the word AND: not the word Because. The and is conjunctive statement not a causal statement. Continuing "...AND is disrupted immediately". A second effect.

So we have 2 conditions that have to met. The first is a defensive fire must occur and second that defensive fire must score successes equal to defense of the target. Once those conditions are met, two results are caused. The first is the unit must stop moving while the second is the unit becomes disrupted.

I know that "it's not ruled that way" has been given before. What I want to know is how the English language is interpreted any other way. When does And mean Because?

That's my first question.

Secondly, when does Can trump can't? Clearly, the rules say the unit cannot move as a first statement. Referring to page 2 under the bold title, Can't Trumps Can, how does an ability that allows movement in a one condition (such as SS Determination allows movement while disrupted) overcome a condition unrelated?

That's my second question.

Right now, the rules as written seem clear on the subject. Heck one could even do a survey.

Y2UAsk
03-30-2006, 10:00 PM
One could do a survey if game rules were established by a majority vote of players.

I tend to agree with your argument -- the defensive fire rules as written seem to state that temporary immobilization is in addition to immediate disruption. When I first read that rule, that was how I took it.

But that was not the intention of the rule, and that's not how the game was playtested.

So, which should take precedence? The way the game was designed and playtested and how the designers intended it to work, or an unfortunate string of eight words that imply something that wasn't intended? Should the game be amended to match the words or should the words be amended to match the game?

Great effort went into making those words state precisely what was meant, and in 99% of the cases, they do exactly that. This one doesn't. That's unfortunate, but we've tried to make it clear on this website exactly how the rule works whenever the question comes up.

Steve

Colonel_Coo
03-31-2006, 06:09 AM
Fair enough.

In the future, will AAM be getting on-line updates to the rules books, glossary of terms etc?

Y2UAsk
03-31-2006, 08:27 AM
Yes. In fact, one is being worked on now.

Steve

P.S. I don't know it's ETA, so don't bother asking. :)