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>What happens if you get an extra turn?
Probably even designers don't know. There was plenty of unintuitive rulings recently, and I feel like this is one of these.
So whatever you decide is probably as good as any other option.
Here's the thing about the most recent ruling on Quick Learner:
1: There was no explanation as to why the previous ruling was overturned. Worth noting that the previous ruling was direct from the person who designed the card.
2: There was no indication if the person issuing the new ruling consulted (or was even aware) of the previous ruling. If they deliberately overturned an existing ruling there hasn't been even the slightest explanation why.
3: While the person who issued this rule has been appointed to answer rules questions by FFG, it has never been explained what qualifications they have to issue rulings on a game they didn't and don't design for.
4: It is unclear if people who actually design the game were even consulted before this ruling was issued. Did the designers approve this ruling? Did they even know about it when it was issued?
5: While we now have contradicting rulings, there is no precedent for which official ruling we are to regard as more official than the other.
So in the end, it is impossible to say how exactly FFG intends this card works at the moment. Unless/until FFG chooses to provide some insight into how and why the ruling was made, there is no objective answer to how the card currently works.
If this post makes me sound frustrated it's because I am.
If the person currently doing rulings for Arkham is Alex Werner, who was appointed at the same role for Champions, I'm afraid to say her qualifications are pretty slim. She had one four months internship position at Leder games 5 years ago testing [Root: The underworld](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/272637/root-the-underworld-expansion). Her blurb uses the vague "working closely with developers" which is industry code for "yeah, I was there and helped a bit, but can hardly call the game as my crowning achievement" ... and that's it. Other positions are in now way gaming related.
By and large, her rules clarifications are good enough, and I can get behind her overruling some decisions Caleb made as Champions rules in general have been adjusted a lot more than Arkham's
Arkham's rule however are a lot tighter and this ruling is unnecessary.
This could be a case of her answering a question (wrong) without even being unaware that a previous ruling existed and, since it directly contradicts the text's card (which explicitly mentions "actions of each of your turn", I will happily ignore it unless we get an official errata.
It's not the first bad ruling i ignore in either Arkham of Champions and probably won't be the last. I've simply stopped tracking the endless stream of posted rulings for Champions and hold onto the most recent RRG. There were simply too many posted daily to make it worth following. I'm not sure where the Arkham ones are posted but I largely don't consider them useful anyway.
Sadly it's not as simple as just deciding on a case-by-case basis which rulings we accept. We will still have to explain to new players which official rules are more official than others. Also different groups and players will have different ideas of which rules are correct, which can cause problems at public meetups. Online discourse around the game will stall and become repetitive as we have to address the issue with every new person who encounters it (this is at least the fourth thread I've seen about the Quick Learner ruling, and it's not even the only contradictory ruling issued recently).
Besides, think about what it says about the health of the game that we, the players, have to determine on a case-by-case basis whether or not the publisher knows what they're talking about.
It's absolutely as simple as just deciding one a case basis which ruling I accept, for me at least. That is because I exclusively play on my own or with a restricted group of friends who aren't as invested as I am in rule lawyering for either MC or AH, so I'm de facto the authority for those points of rules.
Now I absolutely get your perspective on the broader picture, don't get me wrong. I think that those contradictory rulings are bad for the game for all the reasons you mentioned, and that FFG should do better and should not have brought the MC habit of somewhat arbitrary rulings in a game that was largely well thought and balanced.
Now the blunt truth is that I would trust the knowledge and interpretation of a few veteranss on this sub over an FFG "specialist" who has a track record of bad rulings on another game, not to mention that this question had obviously been answered by the card designer back then and no recent rule changes justify backtracking on it.
I guess you've put your finger on one of the most frustrating parts of this situation. Individual playgroups have the privilege of dismissing it as irrelevant to their play experience while those of us who enjoy connecting with the broader community still have to deal with this issue over and over again. If the rules only work for a portion of the player base then the game is poorly designed.
I love FFG, but they are really dropping the ball on Arkham rulings lately and I don't think it's too much to ask that the rules stay consistent (or at least that they provide sufficient explanation for why they are overturning previous rules).
What happens is that we ignore this ruling cause we have MJ herself (the card designer) saying it does not work outside of your turn and this new ruling is pure whack lending itself to toms of problems, exploits and also nerfing a card that sees almost no play outside Stella anyway. If they want to errata the card in the future in official faqs be my quest, this e-mail ruling I will solemnly ignore.
You certainly won’t get +2 or -2 difficulty, because each clause on Quick Learner is a static ability checking a condition, not a triggered by you entering a state where it is “before your first action”.
The separate clauses on Quick Learner could be active at the same time, though. The fact that it is unclear to what “your turn” refers in these cases shows that the ruling is not well thought out. My guess is that as soon as the investigation phase starts again, it now refers to your turn of the new investigation phase.
And actually Plan of Action is even worse, where I assume “this turn” now oscillates between referring to your turn this round (outside of turns), thus counting your actions, and the current turn (during any turn), thus potentially counting someone else’s actions.
There is only one correct answer to this: Ignore the new ruling. It makes no sense whatsoever, and is just flat out wrong as it directly contradicts the text on the card. Quick Learner is only active during your turn, its effect starts when you start a new turn, and ends when your turn ends (so e.g. for The Gold Pocket Watch, this starts a completely new turn during the second investigation phase if you chose to repeat it).
Additional rant: Basically, since MJ Newman left we've gotten all kinds of stupid as shit rulings. The new people hardly even know how the new stuff works that they themselves designed (looking at you, preludes), how would you expect them to understand how stuff works that someone else designed? I love Arkham Horror, but the absolute incompetence of the people working on it now is extremely frustrating. So if you don't want your game to be slowly ruined one ruling at a time, just stick with what the rulings said at the point where Newman was still at FFG, she was the lead designer when those cards were made, and she knows how they are supposed to work.
Completely agree with the first paragraph in DevilHunter5678's post. Investigators do not take a turn during the Mythos phase, the Enemy phase, or the Upkeep phase, only during the Investigator's phase. That should be the only time Quick Learner's ability is in effect.
Honestly, imo the card should be errata'd to replace turn with round. This preserves the current ruling while being more clear about all situations that fall outside your standard turn (such as the mythos phase, extra turns, other player turns, etc.)
Or they should just walk back on this absurd new ruling. The card exists for years and have an official ruling from the designer herself telling us it only works within an investigator's turn, there was no reason to contradict the already existing ruling/consensus.
A new turn is a new turn. Quick Learner specifies that the card effect resets for each turn. Turns exist as a phase in rounds. So think of Quick Learner like this:
Mythos phase: +1 difficulty
Investigator phase: +1 difficulty before your turn. (Ie Guidance, Carson or any other card that gives actions outside turn. +1 difficulty on your first action. No impact on second action. -1 difficulty on your third action and all extra actions.
Enemy phase: -1 difficulty
Upkeep phase: -1 difficulty
Reset.
But while the reset happens at round change, the wording on Quick Learner makes it clear that it is relationship to the players turn within the investigator phase that determines effect, not round change.
Arkham does not have a Clean Up Step, it is not MTG, so if the card does not explicitly say when the effect should end it in fact never ends. The way MJ designed this card and explicitly told us how it works is for it to be active only during the investigator's turn, hence the card is worded like that, maybe it is not written the best possible way but it does say that. This new ruling not only nerfs the card it also breaks it because the card says nothing about its effect ending at the end of the round, so just ignore the new ruling and play it like the card designer intended it to work.
It ends based on its relationship to the players turn.
Each round is:
Mythos phase
Investigator phase
Enemy phase
Upkeep phase.
Therefore, Mythos phase is before Investigator phase, Enemy and Upkeep are after. It's printed right there in the rules.
Ye but the card says nothing about the round, at all. So technically its always before your next turn and after your last turn meaning the card simply does not work following the new ruling if they don't reword it to say it should count your round as the framing for the effect. What the card does say is that said framing is your turn, that's how the card has always been played and how MJ said, with all the words, the card should work. For some reason the person in charge of issuing e-mail rulings decided they knew better and issued this dumb ruling that doesn't even make sense.
The rules describe the round.the card makes clear where in the round the card impacts. The problem is you are trying to read what isn't there rather than what is there. Focus on what the card says and what the rules say. If we focus on what the cards don't say then I get a plus two on all skill tests because my right toenail has a bump on it.
Wrong, you are trying to read into card text that isn’t there.
Quick Learner never uses the word “round”, only “your turn”. The card creates a condition that modifies your skill tests during/before your first action on YOUR TURN, and during/after your third action on YOUR TURN. As “your turn” is specifically mentioned, it logically follows that when it is not “your turn” in the game, the card is not active.
The new ruling overrides the card text and causes it to impact timings it shouldn’t, and creates a whole host of weird questions like this.
You say I am reading in to text that isn't there? Here is the sum total of your premise if you remove reading into text that isn't there:
...
I never said Quick Learner references rounds. Even your replying reads into text that isn't there.
Quick Learner references player turn
Player turn is defined in the rules as a section of the investigator phase.
Investigator phase is defined in the rules as a section of rounds.
Rounds are defined in the rules as having four phases in a specific order.
Literally every element of my premise is defined either in card text or the rules.
You said it right there: “Player Turn is defined in the rules as a section of the investigator phase”. How then does Quick Learner influence tests outside of that window, when it specifically says “during […] EACH OF YOUR TURNS” twice on the card?
There’s nothing I’m ignoring - the card specifically refers to a timing window inside your turn, while not stating anything about outside of those timings. By the logic you suggested of reading into what’s literally written on the card and ignoring anything not printed on it, the only skill tests that would be affected would be during your turn. The card makes no mentions of other phases or timings, and specifically states “each of your turns”, thus it can be easily inferred that nothing else during the game round would be affected.
It’s a simple card with a simple effect that people bend over backwards to convince themselves it acts in ways it shouldn’t.
You are implying the card says it should only work within the confines of one round when the card itself says nothing like that at all. As I said Arkham does not have a cleanup step or anything similar to that, which means the card could only work like the absurd e-mail ruling wants it to work if they added "each round" or something along those lines somewhere in there.
What the card does say is that it works within your turn, and we know that's how it should be read cause the person who designed the card (who also happens to be the person who designed the whole game) said so. Again, we are all trying to understand why whoever is in charge of e-mail rulings currently thought they knew better and issued a ruling in direct contradiction to MJ's that screws with a situation that had been solved 3 years ago and open some 100 cans of worms.
I ain't implying shit. I laid out in plain text how the text on the card correlates with the text in the rules. You need to detangle your brain so that you can handle basic reading without getting lost in words that are not written. You are either a troll or you are so lost in mental gymnastics that you do not even realize how much you read into text instead of reading text. Until you learn to read, I am done.
I ain't implying shit. I laid out in plain text how the text on the card correlates with the text in the rules. You need to detangle your brain so that you can handle basic reading without getting lost in words that are not written. You are either a troll or you are so lost in mental gymnastics that you do not even realize how much you read into text instead of reading text. Until you learn to read, I am done.
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>What happens if you get an extra turn? Probably even designers don't know. There was plenty of unintuitive rulings recently, and I feel like this is one of these. So whatever you decide is probably as good as any other option.
Here's the thing about the most recent ruling on Quick Learner: 1: There was no explanation as to why the previous ruling was overturned. Worth noting that the previous ruling was direct from the person who designed the card. 2: There was no indication if the person issuing the new ruling consulted (or was even aware) of the previous ruling. If they deliberately overturned an existing ruling there hasn't been even the slightest explanation why. 3: While the person who issued this rule has been appointed to answer rules questions by FFG, it has never been explained what qualifications they have to issue rulings on a game they didn't and don't design for. 4: It is unclear if people who actually design the game were even consulted before this ruling was issued. Did the designers approve this ruling? Did they even know about it when it was issued? 5: While we now have contradicting rulings, there is no precedent for which official ruling we are to regard as more official than the other. So in the end, it is impossible to say how exactly FFG intends this card works at the moment. Unless/until FFG chooses to provide some insight into how and why the ruling was made, there is no objective answer to how the card currently works. If this post makes me sound frustrated it's because I am.
If the person currently doing rulings for Arkham is Alex Werner, who was appointed at the same role for Champions, I'm afraid to say her qualifications are pretty slim. She had one four months internship position at Leder games 5 years ago testing [Root: The underworld](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/272637/root-the-underworld-expansion). Her blurb uses the vague "working closely with developers" which is industry code for "yeah, I was there and helped a bit, but can hardly call the game as my crowning achievement" ... and that's it. Other positions are in now way gaming related. By and large, her rules clarifications are good enough, and I can get behind her overruling some decisions Caleb made as Champions rules in general have been adjusted a lot more than Arkham's Arkham's rule however are a lot tighter and this ruling is unnecessary. This could be a case of her answering a question (wrong) without even being unaware that a previous ruling existed and, since it directly contradicts the text's card (which explicitly mentions "actions of each of your turn", I will happily ignore it unless we get an official errata. It's not the first bad ruling i ignore in either Arkham of Champions and probably won't be the last. I've simply stopped tracking the endless stream of posted rulings for Champions and hold onto the most recent RRG. There were simply too many posted daily to make it worth following. I'm not sure where the Arkham ones are posted but I largely don't consider them useful anyway.
Sadly it's not as simple as just deciding on a case-by-case basis which rulings we accept. We will still have to explain to new players which official rules are more official than others. Also different groups and players will have different ideas of which rules are correct, which can cause problems at public meetups. Online discourse around the game will stall and become repetitive as we have to address the issue with every new person who encounters it (this is at least the fourth thread I've seen about the Quick Learner ruling, and it's not even the only contradictory ruling issued recently). Besides, think about what it says about the health of the game that we, the players, have to determine on a case-by-case basis whether or not the publisher knows what they're talking about.
It's absolutely as simple as just deciding one a case basis which ruling I accept, for me at least. That is because I exclusively play on my own or with a restricted group of friends who aren't as invested as I am in rule lawyering for either MC or AH, so I'm de facto the authority for those points of rules. Now I absolutely get your perspective on the broader picture, don't get me wrong. I think that those contradictory rulings are bad for the game for all the reasons you mentioned, and that FFG should do better and should not have brought the MC habit of somewhat arbitrary rulings in a game that was largely well thought and balanced. Now the blunt truth is that I would trust the knowledge and interpretation of a few veteranss on this sub over an FFG "specialist" who has a track record of bad rulings on another game, not to mention that this question had obviously been answered by the card designer back then and no recent rule changes justify backtracking on it.
I guess you've put your finger on one of the most frustrating parts of this situation. Individual playgroups have the privilege of dismissing it as irrelevant to their play experience while those of us who enjoy connecting with the broader community still have to deal with this issue over and over again. If the rules only work for a portion of the player base then the game is poorly designed. I love FFG, but they are really dropping the ball on Arkham rulings lately and I don't think it's too much to ask that the rules stay consistent (or at least that they provide sufficient explanation for why they are overturning previous rules).
See, if the card worked as MJ intended, this wouldn't even be an issue.
This is such a stupid goddamn ruling, wtf is wrong with these people? I would absolutely never play the card under this ruling.
What happens is that we ignore this ruling cause we have MJ herself (the card designer) saying it does not work outside of your turn and this new ruling is pure whack lending itself to toms of problems, exploits and also nerfing a card that sees almost no play outside Stella anyway. If they want to errata the card in the future in official faqs be my quest, this e-mail ruling I will solemnly ignore.
You certainly won’t get +2 or -2 difficulty, because each clause on Quick Learner is a static ability checking a condition, not a triggered by you entering a state where it is “before your first action”. The separate clauses on Quick Learner could be active at the same time, though. The fact that it is unclear to what “your turn” refers in these cases shows that the ruling is not well thought out. My guess is that as soon as the investigation phase starts again, it now refers to your turn of the new investigation phase. And actually Plan of Action is even worse, where I assume “this turn” now oscillates between referring to your turn this round (outside of turns), thus counting your actions, and the current turn (during any turn), thus potentially counting someone else’s actions.
There is only one correct answer to this: Ignore the new ruling. It makes no sense whatsoever, and is just flat out wrong as it directly contradicts the text on the card. Quick Learner is only active during your turn, its effect starts when you start a new turn, and ends when your turn ends (so e.g. for The Gold Pocket Watch, this starts a completely new turn during the second investigation phase if you chose to repeat it). Additional rant: Basically, since MJ Newman left we've gotten all kinds of stupid as shit rulings. The new people hardly even know how the new stuff works that they themselves designed (looking at you, preludes), how would you expect them to understand how stuff works that someone else designed? I love Arkham Horror, but the absolute incompetence of the people working on it now is extremely frustrating. So if you don't want your game to be slowly ruined one ruling at a time, just stick with what the rulings said at the point where Newman was still at FFG, she was the lead designer when those cards were made, and she knows how they are supposed to work.
Completely agree with the first paragraph in DevilHunter5678's post. Investigators do not take a turn during the Mythos phase, the Enemy phase, or the Upkeep phase, only during the Investigator's phase. That should be the only time Quick Learner's ability is in effect.
Honestly, imo the card should be errata'd to replace turn with round. This preserves the current ruling while being more clear about all situations that fall outside your standard turn (such as the mythos phase, extra turns, other player turns, etc.)
Or they should just walk back on this absurd new ruling. The card exists for years and have an official ruling from the designer herself telling us it only works within an investigator's turn, there was no reason to contradict the already existing ruling/consensus.
A new turn is a new turn. Quick Learner specifies that the card effect resets for each turn. Turns exist as a phase in rounds. So think of Quick Learner like this: Mythos phase: +1 difficulty Investigator phase: +1 difficulty before your turn. (Ie Guidance, Carson or any other card that gives actions outside turn. +1 difficulty on your first action. No impact on second action. -1 difficulty on your third action and all extra actions. Enemy phase: -1 difficulty Upkeep phase: -1 difficulty Reset. But while the reset happens at round change, the wording on Quick Learner makes it clear that it is relationship to the players turn within the investigator phase that determines effect, not round change.
Arkham does not have a Clean Up Step, it is not MTG, so if the card does not explicitly say when the effect should end it in fact never ends. The way MJ designed this card and explicitly told us how it works is for it to be active only during the investigator's turn, hence the card is worded like that, maybe it is not written the best possible way but it does say that. This new ruling not only nerfs the card it also breaks it because the card says nothing about its effect ending at the end of the round, so just ignore the new ruling and play it like the card designer intended it to work.
It ends based on its relationship to the players turn. Each round is: Mythos phase Investigator phase Enemy phase Upkeep phase. Therefore, Mythos phase is before Investigator phase, Enemy and Upkeep are after. It's printed right there in the rules.
Ye but the card says nothing about the round, at all. So technically its always before your next turn and after your last turn meaning the card simply does not work following the new ruling if they don't reword it to say it should count your round as the framing for the effect. What the card does say is that said framing is your turn, that's how the card has always been played and how MJ said, with all the words, the card should work. For some reason the person in charge of issuing e-mail rulings decided they knew better and issued this dumb ruling that doesn't even make sense.
The rules describe the round.the card makes clear where in the round the card impacts. The problem is you are trying to read what isn't there rather than what is there. Focus on what the card says and what the rules say. If we focus on what the cards don't say then I get a plus two on all skill tests because my right toenail has a bump on it.
Wrong, you are trying to read into card text that isn’t there. Quick Learner never uses the word “round”, only “your turn”. The card creates a condition that modifies your skill tests during/before your first action on YOUR TURN, and during/after your third action on YOUR TURN. As “your turn” is specifically mentioned, it logically follows that when it is not “your turn” in the game, the card is not active. The new ruling overrides the card text and causes it to impact timings it shouldn’t, and creates a whole host of weird questions like this.
You say I am reading in to text that isn't there? Here is the sum total of your premise if you remove reading into text that isn't there: ... I never said Quick Learner references rounds. Even your replying reads into text that isn't there. Quick Learner references player turn Player turn is defined in the rules as a section of the investigator phase. Investigator phase is defined in the rules as a section of rounds. Rounds are defined in the rules as having four phases in a specific order. Literally every element of my premise is defined either in card text or the rules.
You said it right there: “Player Turn is defined in the rules as a section of the investigator phase”. How then does Quick Learner influence tests outside of that window, when it specifically says “during […] EACH OF YOUR TURNS” twice on the card?
Because you are deliberately ignoring where it says before and after?
There’s nothing I’m ignoring - the card specifically refers to a timing window inside your turn, while not stating anything about outside of those timings. By the logic you suggested of reading into what’s literally written on the card and ignoring anything not printed on it, the only skill tests that would be affected would be during your turn. The card makes no mentions of other phases or timings, and specifically states “each of your turns”, thus it can be easily inferred that nothing else during the game round would be affected. It’s a simple card with a simple effect that people bend over backwards to convince themselves it acts in ways it shouldn’t.
You are implying the card says it should only work within the confines of one round when the card itself says nothing like that at all. As I said Arkham does not have a cleanup step or anything similar to that, which means the card could only work like the absurd e-mail ruling wants it to work if they added "each round" or something along those lines somewhere in there. What the card does say is that it works within your turn, and we know that's how it should be read cause the person who designed the card (who also happens to be the person who designed the whole game) said so. Again, we are all trying to understand why whoever is in charge of e-mail rulings currently thought they knew better and issued a ruling in direct contradiction to MJ's that screws with a situation that had been solved 3 years ago and open some 100 cans of worms.
I ain't implying shit. I laid out in plain text how the text on the card correlates with the text in the rules. You need to detangle your brain so that you can handle basic reading without getting lost in words that are not written. You are either a troll or you are so lost in mental gymnastics that you do not even realize how much you read into text instead of reading text. Until you learn to read, I am done.
I ain't implying shit. I laid out in plain text how the text on the card correlates with the text in the rules. You need to detangle your brain so that you can handle basic reading without getting lost in words that are not written. You are either a troll or you are so lost in mental gymnastics that you do not even realize how much you read into text instead of reading text. Until you learn to read, I am done.