Fall of the Republic: Design Notes - Part 2: Rules
By Len "RedneckJedi" Fowler

The second part of the "card creation process" in the Star Wars Trading Card Game: Independent Development Committee (SWTCG:IDC) falls under the Rules domain. The Rules sub-committee is responsible for card legality, text finalization and rulebook creation and issues. As the Rules sub-committee chairperson, it's my responsibility to oversee this process, and make any final decisions if the sub-committee comes to a deadlock on an issue.

Initial Review

When Card Development (CD) submits card to Rules, they first go through a check for legality. This is simply a cursory check to see if any of the cards fall outside the current rules structure. If any do, then we have three options. The first is to suggest alternative game text to make a card or cards work, provided it falls within CD's intent for the card. The second is to discuss the issues with CD to see if the rulebook needs to accommodate the effect of cards. The final option is to have CD rework the effects, or go another direction.

Text Finalization

Once cards pass through the legality check, they go right to text finalization. Text finalization entails many things. Rules goes over all non-numeric text to ensure that spelling and grammar are correct, card specifics accurately reflect the source, and effects are written concisely and consistency. This includes such things as validating subtypes against the card name, quotes and grammar within flavor text, and ensuring game text does what it is supposed to do and does not leave any loopholes. Once cards pass through text finalization, we return them to CD with our text corrections, as well as any questions, comments, concerns and recommendations we may have regarding some cards. While Rules does not have the authority to remake, add or remove text outside of CD's intent, we're still avid players and we do get to put in our thoughts about "opportunities for abusability or improvements." If CD chooses to heed them, that's great. If they don't, that's fine, too.

Probably the biggest "black eye" for the Rules sub-committee in the Fall of the Republic (FOTR) set was a lack of wording consistency, and some oversight and loopholes that crept into some of the cards. As the sub-committee's chairperson, I take full responsibility for these errors. Feedback and helpful tips regarding these errors have enlightened the sub-committee on its shortcomings, and now we're much better for it. The "gamer" in us too easily saw the intent in the wording of some of these cards without considering some alternatives or possibilities. Rules is working diligently to correct the oversight and loopholes and you may expect to see one last update for the FOTR cards before the end of June. After this update, all future errata will be through official notification on the IDC website only.

Close Calls

Though our mistakes are more glaring than our successes, we would like to share a near miss of epic proportions. The released version of the FOTR Battle card, Battle of the Heroes, is much different from the version originally submitted by CD to Rules. The intent of the original version was to have two Characters attack each other until one was discarded in the same turn. While this might seem straightforward, the devil was in the details.

Almost all SW:TCG players know about the Duel of the Fates Mission card from The Phantom Menace release. CD and Rules very much did not want Battle of the Heroes to have the same problems with abusability as this Mission did. Unfortunately, that was not to be. The Rules sub-committee deliberated more than a week about this one card. Rules made CD aware of the abusability issues Duel of the Fates suffered that this new Battle card would also incur. So it was up to Rules to come up with the wording to make it work fairly, and not be abusable, while maintaining intent. To cover "prevent all damage" effects, we considered giving the two Characters involved in the effect "unpreventable damage". However, this didn't seem to be in the spirit of the two battling each other based on their merits (such as having damage prevention abilities), and it also didn't get around "cannot be attacked" effects. So, then it came down to "turning off all other effects external to the two Characters." We thought we might be able to cover this, but we realized some of these abilities are built-in to units. Once we came up with text for that, we then had to take into consideration units with abilities that allowed them to retreat to prevent damage to themselves, effectively taking themselves out of the "intent" of Battle of the Heroes. We finally came up with text to cancel out retreating, "prevent all damage" and "can't attack" effects. Then the issue of pitting a small, unassuming Character against a powerful Character arose. This seemed to be outside the intent of "two heroes battling each other." So we went through another round of brainstorming to ensure that the two Characters were at least marginally matched up. The space available for the game text of a Battle card only allows for so much. Having two Characters battle each other within the same turn until one is discarded, based on their own merits, without outside effects or assistance, turning off particular problematic effects, and have them fight on relatively equal footing was simply impossible to convey on one card. It's easy enough to understand the intent, but not possible to print legibly on a card.

That's not to say that Rules didn't come up with a solution. But doing so would severely bend, if not break, two ground rules of the Rules sub-committee. An idea was put forth to create a fourth "Hero Arena" in the rulebook, and provide the rules for which the arena was used. An effect would "open" the Hero Arena and select two units to enter it. The units would then be subject to the rules within the arena. Ultimately, the Rules sub-committee members agreed that creating an additional, albeit temporary, arena was too far removed from the spirit of the original rules of the game. Furthermore, we would be coming up with rules just to make a select few cards work in a particular manner.

THE Rulebook

Last but certainly not least is rulebook creation. As of this article, we have published neither the IDC Rulebook, nor the accompanying SARD (Select Annotated Reference Document for individual cards). The bulk of our effort has been updating the Revenge of the Sith Rulebook with all known official rulings and items specifically created for FOTR. This update will become the IDC Rulebook. Our most recent issues have been the nature of Unique Equipment and the movement of Pilots during the build step. However, once we get these resolved and finalize internal references, we should have it published very soon, with the SARD to follow.

There has been a considerable amount of argument and misconception about the role of the Rules sub-committee within the IDC. Rules does not have the final say on whether cards or printed or not. CD dreams up the cards, and Rules helps make them, or bring them to, a working reality. However, it's possible that CD could make another IBC Hailfire Droid, a C-3PO with an awesome free Retaliate ability, or a Mace Windu with a poor Force-cost-to-Evade-value ratio. It's not Rules' place to veto such units, only to ensure that they work within the rules (though, as previously mentioned, we can still comment on such oddities). The Rules sub-committee relies heavily on CD's intent and Play Testing's expertise. Among other things, Play Testing (PT) verifies that our approved game text makes sense to them, and doesn't create an unfair advantage in some way.

Other Responsibilities

Outside of the card creation process, Rules is tasked with publishing errata, rulings, and FAQs about individual IDC-created cards (in the aforementioned SARD), as well as banning and restricting any such cards. If cards published by the IDC are confusing, leave loopholes, or provide in-game abuses, the IDC will take action on such cards, with a final decision and announcement made by the Rules sub-committee. In most cases, we will ban or restrict IDC cards with in-game abuses. In other cases, such as a recent release, if we can implement a quick text fix to resolve the abuse and stay within the card's intent, we will publish errata, and perhaps an updated card image. When it comes to official cards created by Wizards of the Coast (WOTC), the Rules sub-committee has no authority when it comes to banning or restricting them. In the absence of an official ruling or errata for one of WOTC's cards, the Rules sub-committee may provide a ruling or errata after an unsuccessful request for an official ruling first. However, Rules may create its own ruling for a WOTC card only as it applies to a card created by the IDC.

Working on and leading the Rules sub-committee has been a blessing and a burden. Between the workload, maintaining the scope of the sub-committee, and the revelation of some shortcomings in some FOTR card text after its release, it's been quite a challenge. There's no rest for the weary as we're already examining cards and the new ability for the next IDC set in addition to completing the IDC Rulebook (which will have to be updated with the new ability after the next set's release).

Speaking for the Rules sub-committee, we hope the part we play helps make the game-playing experience easy to understand and enjoyable. Lessons learned from the FOTR set are keeping our minds sharp for the game text in sets yet to come.

Thoughts or comments? Visit the message board thread for this article here.

About the Author
Len Fowler (RedneckJedi) has been playing the Star Wars TCG since September 2002, thanks to a subtle introduction by fellow player Brian Weeks (Skywlkr). He is a moderator on Rebelbasers, the Star Wars TCG content manager for TheForce.net and Trade Cards On-line. His primary interest and focus has been from the rules aspect, rather than the gaming aspect.

Len is married and a father of two. He is a database administrator, and has been the Webmaster and Historian for JediOKC (an Oklahoma City-based Star Wars Fan Club) since June 2001. Len is the Rules Chairperson and a Board member for the IDC since its inception.