Terrain traits vs Terrain pieces

[khilin]

Hi all!

Yesterday, during a m3e match a question arise regarding what are considered terrain pieces.

We were playing Dreamer (including Widow Weaver & the Bandersnatch in his crew) vs Rasputina (with a Silent one on hers). The strategy was Turf war and one of the schemes was Search the ruins.

1. Both crew can create markers with terrain traits, are they considered terrain pieces for the purpose of Search the ruins? This is from the markers section of the manual:

   Quote

   Unless otherwise noted, Markers do not
   count as terrain and have no vertical distance
   (i.e., Height or Size). Markers that count as
   terrain will have one or more Terrain Traits
   (such as a Concealing, Severe Dust Cloud
   Marker).

2. Because of the strategy there are 5 Strategy Markers in the table each with the Impassable trait. Are they considered terrain pieces for the purpose of Search the ruins? 

We have a very lengthy discussion about these in our meta Whatsapp group with no consensus. We decided to play that they were not valid targets, but the question remains unanswered...

Thank you all!

[solkan]

7 hours ago, Houseballey said:

yeah, and, while i agree that what you are saying is probably the spirit of the rule, it's not what it actually says.

I'm simply to ignore the rest of your post, because from here on out you're just complaining that the rules weren't written how you wanted them to be written.

"Markers that count as terrain will have one or more Terrain Traits (such as a Concealing, Severe Dust Cloud Marker)."

An Ice Pillar Marker, for example, is species as "a Ht 4, Blocking, Impassible, and Destructible Ice Pillar Marker".  Ice Pillar Markers are common to the December keyword (Rasputina and friends) and the Savage keyword (Euripedes and friends). 

Note the definition of the Destructible terrain trait:

Quote

Destructible: Models within 1" of a piece of Destructible Terrain may take an Action to destroy that Destructible Terrain and remove it from the table. If a model is standing on Destructible Terrain when it is destroyed, that model falls.

In order for the rules to work, each Ice Pillar Marker is a piece of destructible terrain.

Additionally, there's are various passages in the rules like this one

Quote

Similarly, if a terrain piece with Height is atop another terrain piece with Height (most often because a terrain piece like an Ice Pillar was created atop a building’s roof), their Heights are added together as described above for the purposes of determining LoS.

in "Terrain With Height" below the diagram.  

[solkan]

1.  The rules literally say "Markers that count as terrain will have one or more Terrain Traits."  And you have markers that have one or more terrain trait.

2.  See #1, but with two additional notes:

• The new rules for Strategy Markers state that you cannot apply any effects (even simply "targeting" is called out) a strategy marker unless that effect unless the Strategy explicitly says so.  If you're playing an M2E era strategy, the rules for the strategy should be examined and updated to fit into the new style.  
• In particular, the strategy markers for M3E's version of Corrupted Idols are not Impassible Terrain, although it is easy to misread two sentences to think they are.

The rulebook suggests "Roughly a third of [the table's] surface should be covered in terrain."  The stipulation "each in base contact with a different piece of terrain" isn't a particularly onerous requirement compared to Interact's 'not within 4" of another friendly Scheme Marker' limitation.  Being able to create terrain pieces in convenient locations is a comparable advantage to being able to drop Scheme Markers without using the Interact Action.

[Houseballey]

3 hours ago, solkan said:

1.  The rules literally say "Markers that count as terrain will have one or more Terrain Traits."  And you have markers that have one or more terrain trait.

yeah, and, while i agree that what you are saying is probably the spirit of the rule, it's not what it actually says.

warning, i will be pedantic, and i'll play the devil's advocate.

The rules say "Markers that count as terrain will have one or more Terrain Traits". Let's play with a bit of propositional logic
A: "the marker counts as terrain"
B: "the marker has at least one terrain trait"

The rules state that A implies B

the problem is that saying "a marker with terrain traits is  terrain" take the form:
A implies B.
B
therefore A.
And this is an affirmation of the consequent, a logical fallacy

you need "B implies A"
Then, all markers that count as terrain have terrain traits, AND all markers that have terrain traits count as terrain.

[LeperColony]

In my opinion both markers would count for Search the Ruins.

[Kadeton]

5 hours ago, Houseballey said:

yeah, and, while i agree that what you are saying is probably the spirit of the rule, it's not what it actually says.

warning, i will be pedantic, and i'll play the devil's advocate.

The devil doesn't need an advocate. By all means, argue for how you genuinely think the rule should be played, but this isn't a high school debate. Arguing for the sake of arguing is not encouraged.

[naicigam]

In terms of wording, I agree with Houseballey. The rules do not say that having a terrain trait implies terrain, but they do say that being terrain implies having terrain traits.

Still, I think that the wording is wrong and that both markers should be treated as terrain.

[khilin]

I think solkan is right, the created markers are terrain. All of the other sections of the rulebook seem to imply that the created markers (both Web Markers and Ice Pillar Markers) are considered terrain markers.

Also, if we decide to use the ruling that they are valid targets, the Strategy markers for Turf War (m3e version) which are Impassable should also be considered valid target for Search the Ruins.

Quote

Turf War (r)
Divide the table into four table quarters. In the center
of each table quarter, Drop a neutral Strategy Marker.
Drop another neutral Strategy Marker in the center of
the table. Strategy Markers are Impassable.

 

[Houseballey]

10 hours ago, Kadeton said:

The devil doesn't need an advocate. By all means, argue for how you genuinely think the rule should be played, but this isn't a high school debate. Arguing for the sake of arguing is not encouraged.

well, yeah. But i'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. If it seemed that way, then i misspoke (misstyped? misswrote?)
I'm trying to point out that the rules, as written, are ambiguous and how i genuinely think they could be clearer and leave no room for subjective interpretation.

As of right now, terrain markers may count as terrain because "they have terrain traits, so why shouldn't they count?"
the way i see it, the problem is that the game should play according to the rules, not to assumptions. Maybe cross referencing many other rules it becomes clearer, but hunting references across 45 pages of material is just... ugh
I think a simple "terrain markers count as terrain for strategies and schemes" would have sufficed.
 

[Kadeton]

On 7/21/2019 at 12:31 AM, Houseballey said:

well, yeah. But i'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. If it seemed that way, then i misspoke (misstyped? misswrote?)

You wrote, "I'll play the devil's advocate," i.e. argue a position that you do not personally agree with. Perhaps you mistyped that, but I think it's worth explaining why we don't do this.

In general, where there is ambiguity in the rules, we try to establish a consensus. If more than one interpretation is possible, but everybody assumes it works one way anyway, then the disambiguation isn't necessary. Natural language is inherently difficult to write unambiguously without being very verbose - trying to remove all possibility of alternative interpretation is a Sisyphean torment (even before we get into the difficulties of translation). Instead, the rules rely on a "reasonable interpretation", much like all laws. 

The rules are only relevant in terms of the gameplay effect that they produce. It doesn't really matter what the letter of the rule says, only how a given interpretation affects the outcomes of the game. This is where it is reasonable to disagree - if you feel that allowing someone to score Search the Ruins with a scheme marker in contact with an Ice Pillar represents a balance problem for that scheme, and I do not, then we can have a discussion based on the relative merits of our positions. But if you're saying "Well I interpret these words this way," and I disagree, then we're just arguing semantics and wasting everyone's time.

On 7/21/2019 at 12:31 AM, Houseballey said:

I'm trying to point out that the rules, as written, are ambiguous and how i genuinely think they could be clearer and leave no room for subjective interpretation.

Yeah, that's fine. I often do that too. But if that's all you're doing, then you're not actually adding to the conversation. There are any number of ways the rule could have been written differently (and none of them are flawless) but what's important is trying to reach a consensus on which interpretation produces the best outcomes for the game. Playing the devil's advocate is doing the exact opposite - it attempts to challenge the consensus to purposely create further debate. Literally: arguing for the sake of arguing.