This will surely work out fine

[HerrMetik]

I like Twilight Imperium 4 a lot, and I have encountered the faction in question in a recent game session. The potential difficulties in regards to timing and order and whatnot did not occur to us. So, just to clarify and be sure that I am on the same page:

According to PhoneLobsters interpretation of the rules, it should be allowed to:

1. Activate a system and explore one planet in that system which contains one or more of your units,
2. place or move one sleeper token onto a planet that was thusly explored and does not yet have a sleeper token,
3. remove the freshly placed sleeper token and replace it with a PDS.

Am I getting that right?

If so, I do squint a little and scratch my head and go, "wait a minute...".

I do not think that such a sequence of actions would be particularly over powered or unbalanced or what have you, but it does make me wonder how and when conditions and states are checked. My gut feeling in this particular instance is, "That cannot be right", based on the following reasoning: The rule says, "After you activate a system that contains 1 or more of your sleeper tokens, you may replace each of those tokens with one PDS from your reinforcements." So, basically I say, "Hey, I am going to activate that system over there! It does not contain one of my sleeper tokens at the time of declaring the activation, so any 'after activation' effects do not see any tokens and therefore do not interact with them!".

That is a using of the word "after" and the concept of time and order of events that I would intuitively apply in an everyday, garden variety sort of way. I kind of put a mental bracket around the whole "activate a system" activity, and since at the starting point of "activate that thing!" there is no token, there will be no interaction with such a token after all the activating is done. But. That would be a "when"-situation in the context of the game, wouldn't it? A "When"-event would check if there is a token, unravel all its effects, and be done with it. If there is no token "when" the system is activated, then there is no interaction with it, period.

So... the mistake on my side occurs when I think of the declaration to activate a system as the definitive point to check fo all states of a given system, regardless of qualifiers such as "Before", "When" or "After". I basically equate all three of these.

The knot in my head is created by my everyday concept of "doing X" - I activate a system without a sleeper token, therefore it cannot trigger any effects that require a sleeper token. When I declare that I activate a system, it does not yet contain a sleeper token, so how could it trigger an effect that requires such a token? In my everyday concept of time and space, "Activate" is a singular event: I declare that I activate a system, I put a token onto that system's game tile, done. Everything that follows comes after the activation. But I am mistaken, the situation is not that simplistic - instead, the game does kinda pry this "activation" process open and allows to cram all sorts of sub-processes based on "when" into it, doesn't it?

So, in layman's terms the rules do actually say, "Activate a system. Apply any potential "On Activation" effects. After you have done that, check if there is one of your sleeper tokens in it. If there is, you may replace it with a PDS."

Is that about it? That would be sneaky - instead of putting the whole "Activating a system that contains X", the conditions would have moved from the beginning to the activity to its end. After working through all the steps involved, I can totally see that this might be the intended way things should work. By changing the wording to "After[wards] [...], check if...", we would remove ambiguity about the whole "activating a system that meets a condition" thing (although we would still have to deal with the correct order of multiple "after activation" effects, of course). It feels to me that a lot of the controversy stems from different assumptions what the terms "after" and "when" should mean and how they should be applied.

Am I being to simplistic here?

[PhoneLobster]

The existing text doesn't have ambiguity. Its specific in it's timing, it's timing is after no other timing related wording or tenses exist and the other timing rules tell you explicitly when to execute afters.

The other timing rules also explicitly say that "whens" modify timing events and replace them, and by reading actual abilities and their references to timing events they also CREATE them. By reading other rules you can even find a reference telling you that every timing window MUST be given a chance for abilities to be played on it.

You can in some cases incorrectly interpret the timing event of "Activate a System with conditional statement" to be a separate timing event, or a different timing event. It doesn't matter, whens can both change, replace and create timing events and timing events MUST give access to timing windows to play abilities on.

Look arcane extra stuff about timing window bullshit aside. Plain text reading of the ability in question does not have the language required for a call back to any board state other than the "after" state.

It would need to say "After you activate a system that has had a sleeper token in it since the beginning of the activation," THEN you could make an (at that point correct) argument that it is a call back executed in the after window referring to the before window. Otherwise this isn't a matter of ambiguity, the text isn't remotely ambiguous.

It does not say that, it does not come close to saying that, some people after failing at several other excuses are saying it says that, that's basically the problem here.

[HerrMetik]

The existing text doesn't have ambiguity. Its specific in it's timing, it's timing is after no other timing related wording or tenses exist and the other timing rules tell you explicitly when to execute afters.

Easy there. I was not trying to prove you wrong, nor do I disagree with you. I was simply working thtrough my mental process of understanding what the issue is in a kind of stream-of-consciousness way. I am not one of the "they" over at the rules-nerd-fan-board.

The other timing rules also explicitly say that "whens" modify timing events and replace them, and by reading actual abilities and their references to timing events they also CREATE them. By reading other rules you can even find a reference telling you that every timing window MUST be given a chance for abilities to be played on it.

[...]

Look arcane extra stuff about timing window bullshit aside. Plain text reading of the ability in question does not have the language required for a call back to any board state other than the "after" state.

It would need to say "After you activate a system that has had a sleeper token in it since the beginning of the activation," THEN you could make an (at that point correct) argument that it is a call back executed in the after window referring to the before window. Otherwise this isn't a matter of ambiguity, the text isn't remotely ambiguous.

Yet, what the rules actually say does not seem to bother those who insist on their very own, very specific interpretation. Looking at your explanation of what the rules say and how timing works I'd like to paraphrase a Vietnamese general: "That is correct. It is also irrelevant".

Relax! Don't shoot! I am still not disagreeing with your description of what the rules say and do. Instead, it seems to be the case that those people who have their very own, very special interpretation of how these rules should be applied, do so not because the rules' text has some large wiggle room or is particularly unclear, but because

a) of a insufficient level of language comprehension skills on their part
b) a lot of unspoken assunptions of how things "should work"
c) both of the above.

I get the impression that those people think about the game inside their very own head space, where things should work out in a very specific manner, and this manner is entirely disconnected from the actual, written rules. I know such people. I have met such people. Talking to them about such topics is no fun.

When it comes to the wording of the rules, "ambiguity" was a poor choice of words on my part. What I was trying to express was: "There might be a clash between what people intuitively assume about timed events when they use their everyday parlance as reference, and what the qualifiers 'when' and 'after' actually identify quite precisely. This clash seems to break their brain." Sometimes, people tend to be sloppy in their everyday use of words like "when" or "after". The term 'ambiguity' came to mind because sometimes people are imprecise in their use of those words, and it is not always clear what they are intend to mean, and that they are, thus, ambiguous in their use of language. Those words are not ambiguous, but people do sometimes misuse them and do not mind or care. "When I drink coffee, I have to poop" is strictly speaking different from "after I drink coffee, I have to poop", but in everyday conversations, a lot of people don't mind, care, or even notice. After all, as Thaluikhain has pointed out in this thread, even from a first glance at the rules it might look to the casual observer like there isn't much difference between "when" and "after" (although there is), and a lot of people are not used to make that precise distinction in their everyday manner of speaking.

I am not defending people who misread, misinterpret or misrepresenting the rules. I am not their advocate. I am not on their side. I am merely trying to understand how such a divergence between what is written and what people think is written can occur. In doing so, I noticed my own confusion about the correct timing and went through it step by step to work it out. As I wrote before: I subconsciously equated "after" with "when" and got puzzled after that.

Looking at the situation at hand I would guess the following:

People have assumptions about the order of events - what "feels right". People have expectations of how the game "should work". Both these assumptions and these expectations are often implicit, unspoken, and not concioussly reflected upon by to those people. They kinda sorta are used to things working out this way, and if things don't, they get upset without being able to give you a sane reason why.

Correctly identifying what the rules explicitly say is irrelevant to them - otherwise, doing so would have changed their opinion. Explaining what the logical consequences of the rules as they are written is, is irrelevant to them - otherwise, doing so would have changed their opinion. Pointing out that there is no ambiguity, or that the language of the rules is clear, or that the consequences for all the other rule interpretations make it clear that there can only be one correct interpretation is irrelevant to them - otherwise, doing so would have changed their opinion. One might be tempted to exclaim in frustration, "But this is how it is! How can that be irrelevant!", but the facts seem to be clear: It is irrelevant to them. Otherwise, their opinions would be changed.

My attempt to disassemble the rules and reorder them in a way that I deemed more readable or understandable was not meant to change the meaning of the rules, or to change the consequences of the rules in such a way that it would be more agreable to some people out there, nor did I intent to imply that the rules were unclear, or ambiguosly written. I merely intended to exaggerate the use of the word 'after': "First do this, and all activities immediately pertaining to this, and after everything is concluded, perform a final check of the state". I do believe that such an application of the rules would be on par with how the given example with sleeper tokens and PDS should work out.

This phrasing is not meant to improve upon unclear or uncertain rules, but to be used as a blunt instrument on people that are too dense to be reasoned with.
To reiterate: I do not believe that the rules are unclear as they are written. I do not believe that they are ambiguous. I do believe instead that they are written in such a way that people constantly misread, misunderstand and misinterpret them, and that the game rules as a whole could benefit from some blunt, direct, and even repetetive application of language to make it absolutely and unmisrepresentable clear how things work out. The problem at hand is not the sequence of actions that the game describes. The problem are people, and how they process information.

[PhoneLobster]

Correctly identifying what the rules explicitly say is irrelevant to them

Well, I think this is fairly obvious in large part from the way one of their major defenses, unsolicited, is to constantly rant about how they don't think hard formal rules are good things.

It's somewhat of a give away when someone stops mid way on explaining which rules are right or wrong to attack the very concept of rules being right and wrong as some sort of bad thing in and of itself.

It just amazes me that a community might raise that sort of person up as their rules gurus and look to them for rules clarifications that they then will (try to) treat as as hard formal rules.

"Look at that, there's our rules guru, going off on another rant about magic the gathering and how rules are bad for games, yep, that's the guy I'm going to go to next time I don't understand a complex technical rule interaction, so trustworthy, so wise!"

[MGuy]

One of the things having a lot of social currency in a community will do is get people to interpret your actions, or just the people, in a more positive way. Combined with the likely fact that none of them have had major issues utilizing the rules for the most part I would say that's pretty normal if off putting for people who haven't bought into it. What would be interesting to me would be to delve into why there would be resistance to improving on the rules. If this is a small community, in my experience, adjusting rules to tackle perceived problems usually doesn't get a lot of pushback. It also has the added benefits of continuing to improve the whatever the thing is and giving the community the feeling that they can influence the thing. The gurus could even gain clout if they are instrumental in the improvement process.

[PhoneLobster]

They already maintain a community rules wikki, that IS at least very slightly different to the most recent publisher released official rules document.

(I think?) the rules Gurus DO gain clout for maintaining it. That and I think at least one of them either has at least once met a game designer, or reads a game designers tweets, or something. However fuck knows because these guys are about as trustworthy and good at explaining who they are and why the fuck you should listen to them as they are at reading the rules. If you were part of the community you would know, and since you have to ask you are an outsider and fuck you.

But the bizarre thing is, they don't present the rules in the wiki as different, for almost all purposes including these they are not different. And they don't even present the wikki period. They don't quote their own wikki at people, they quote literal grabs of the official PDF instead.

I only even know the wiki exists because I asked them "hey has anyone made a printable version of the PDF rules reference that won't eat all my ink?" and one pointed me to a a version of the rules reference split over multiple html pages without proper formatting and for no reason a default purple background. Which I guess might be slightly easier to turn into a printable document?

You would think they'd be like "no no, we are the keepers of the community rules, and the community uses those instead, they are different, and better, for the community" and just add a line to the community rules making them right, in the community, while pointing you there and telling you to accept it or leave.

Instead they really do seem to have the basic fan boy cultist issue. The rules cannot be flawed, only our interpretation must be wrong. The words are sacred, your sanity while we pretend to read them is not.

[Orion]

If I were playing a board game about building buildings in provinces, and I had an ability that said "after you build in a province, gain $2 if it has 3 buildings," I would expect to gain $2 after building my 3rd building. But if the ability said "after you build in a province with 3 buildings, gain $2" then I would not expect to gain $2 until I built my 4th building.

If you had "before you activate a system, you may explore a planet" and "after you explore a planet, place a sleeper" and "after you activate a system with a sleeper, get a PDS" then I think it would work out. Before you activate the system, you would explore and then place a sleeper. Then you would activate the system (which has a sleeper) and get a PDS.

But because you don't explore the planet until "when you activate the system," the sleeper gets placed during/as part of the activation. I think that means the system doesn't contain a sleeper when you activate it, which means you don't "activate a system with a sleeper," which means you don't do the things that would happen "after activating a system with a sleeper."

[PhoneLobster]

But because you don't explore the planet until "when you activate the system," the sleeper gets placed during/as part of the activation. I think that means the system doesn't contain a sleeper when you activate it, which means you don't "activate a system with a sleeper," which means you don't do the things that would happen "after activating a system with a sleeper."

The text explicitly executes during the after activate a system window, including, explicitly, the text that checks the state of the sleeper token. That is not just agreed upon but demanded by the people pushing this view.

Also the entire text including condition text MUST be executed together at the same time with no splitting in timing, something something, magic the gathering. This is also demanded by the same people.

The argument presented is that "after you activate" is explicit text telling you to, during the after you activated window, check the before you activated window for the condition that follows those words, or that the words "that has a" are referring to a past tense situation.

Something, notably, the same words definitely do not do on countless other abilities.

Personally I note the lack of words such as "has had" and "since the beginning", which could have and should have existed to support this argument. If those existed. Fine, that would be how it worked. But "has" isn't "has had" and " " isn't "since the beginning of that activation".

The space was there, if that was intended it could have been written. It could be an oversight or error, but it doesn't get to be current RAW.