Douglas Buel
United States
Orlando
Florida
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Bill Martinson wrote: Yeah, I'm not really getting Sting.
Fundamentally, it's a power that comes into play when its hand is terrible. Terrible hand => loses challenges => Other people lose ships and Sting gives away bad cards.
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Kweku Abraham
United States
Oakland
California
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dbuel wrote:
Fundamentally, it's a power that comes into play when its hand is terrible. Terrible hand => loses challenges => Other people lose ships and Sting gives away bad cards.
I thought that at first, but looks like Sting's ability says the opponent "may" draw one card from Sting's hand. So if your opponent knows you're probably fishing for a new hand, they might just turn you down unless they want to help you
It'll still probably work out at times though, and could make for some interesting mind games
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dbuel wrote: Hmm, no, they're totally related. Poison's first ability punishes you and your allies for attacking it (and therefore landing with) too few ships, encouraging you to attack with a larger force. But then, as you send more ships, Poison's second ability allows Poison to win encounters even though you brought more ships. This is classic "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" power design.
That's reaching pretty hard to find a connection. If we're allowing that sort of stretch, I'd be willing to bet that given two random alien powers, I could find a similar rationalization "justification" for splicing them together.
In fact, let me draw a few random pairs of FFG powers and try it out.
Hacker plus Shadow? Makes perfect thematic sense; they're both about targeted destruction, removing the key pieces your opponent can't afford to lose, instead of random pieces or the opponent's least necessary pieces. Void plus Calculator? Calculator undoes the Void's soft disadvantage of constantly being opposed by the opponent's strongest Attack card out of fear of losing ships. Amoeba plus The Claw? It lets you use all your ships to defend even though having more planets would make them more spread out normally; that one's almost too easy.
And so on, and so on. Name any two alien powers and I'll give you a reason for why they fit together that's at least as good as this argument for Poison's two halves being related.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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salty53 wrote: Name any two alien powers and I'll give you a reason for why they fit together that's at least as good as this argument for Poison's two halves being related.
This reminds me of James "The Amazing" Randi's famous horoscope demonstration. He prepared a horoscope for each student in a classroom of perhaps 30, handed them out, and asked the students to rate their accuracy. Even though he had not known his subjects in advance, they rated his horoscopes highly accurate.
The he asked them to exchange papers with each other and the students discovered that they had all been given exactly the same horoscope. They were amazed to discover that they had all unknowingly rationalized a correlation that obviously did not exist. It's a fascinating demonstration of our ability to make ourselves believe whatever we want to, or need to, regardless of the facts.
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Jefferson Krogh
United States
San Leandro
California
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How does that change whether or not they found the experience to be interesting or pleasant? How does that change that some of us like Poison, and some of us don't? Are you saying that our tastes are invalid, somehow?
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Kobold Curry Chef wrote: How does that change whether or not they found the experience to be interesting or pleasant? How does that change that some of us like Poison, and some of us don't? Are you saying that our tastes are invalid, somehow?
No, tastes are tastes; they are by definition subjective. It's good that we like different things. If I think Poison is a dumb power, it's good that others are there to champion it. If somebody else thinks the classic flares are dumb, it's good that I am there to champion those. The debate is healthy, and the various arguments give each side the opportunity to examine their own viewpoint and see if it could benefit from revision.
At the same time, it is an objective fact that Poison's two effects are among the least well thematically linked in the game. If we were to somehow rank the aliens on a scale of how well their various parts went together thematically, Poison would certainly not be on the "makes perfect sense together" side of the spectrum.
Human brains are pattern-matching devices. We naturally group, categorize, and generally try to fit things together. Also, as humans we tend to be good at rationalizing defenses for the things we like that somebody else is criticizing. (All of us ... I'm not holding myself out as immune from this!) For me, the defense of Poison as having two parts that fit together thematically seems more the latter than the former. And Roberta's very interesting premise that we can take any two powers and rationalize a connection between them reminded me of Randi's experiment. I didn't intend it as a mathematical proof of how evil Poison is, just a reminder of how our brains are so "subject to subjectivity".
(Although I am a little disturbed at the (apparent) implication that "finding the experience pleasant" might somehow trump the fact that everyone in the room believed a complete lie so easily. I don't think that's the lesson of the story.)
Anyway, the Randi story does not have direct application to the Poison debate. It was just a thought-link from Roberta's little experiment.
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Douglas Buel
United States
Orlando
Florida
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salty53 wrote: dbuel wrote: Hmm, no, they're totally related. Poison's first ability punishes you and your allies for attacking it (and therefore landing with) too few ships, encouraging you to attack with a larger force. But then, as you send more ships, Poison's second ability allows Poison to win encounters even though you brought more ships. This is classic "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" power design. That's reaching pretty hard to find a connection.
Naah.
Anyone can insist that two related things are unrelated, and what can you do? You already explained it. All you can do is file under "Refuses to believe correct answer when told." The fact is, the first clause point-blank encourages you to attack with more ships; and the second clause works against the fact that you did so. These are therefore related. Now, maybe they're not related in flavor. But the relationship in gameplay is definitive.
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Jefferson Krogh
United States
San Leandro
California
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Allowing ourselves to be entertained by what is not actually true is an essential part of human nature; it allows us appreciate art, drama, fiction, and invention of all sorts. Making associations between things we had not considered before should be pleasant -- it's how we experience ideas. That Randi knew nothing about these people does not necessarily mean that the people did not nonetheless find new insight in the words he gave them.
Anyway, the point is that associations come from inside, from a person's total life experience and memories. When I look at Poison's second clause, it makes intuitive sense, because of the experience of having a live, wild rattlesnake slither two inches in front of my feet when I was 12 years old. I wasn't bitten, but for the twenty years it seemed to take that snake to move off, I didn't know I wouldn't be. I just knew I was too close to Poison, and bad that things were likely to happen. Easy for me to translate that into the game mechanic that was presented. Other people, with other mental associations, may not buy into it.
Anyway, that's my deep thought for the week. Back to scooping cat crap!
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Douglas Buel
United States
Orlando
Florida
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Bill Martinson wrote: salty53 wrote: Name any two alien powers and I'll give you a reason for why they fit together that's at least as good as this argument for Poison's two halves being related.
This reminds me of James "The Amazing" Randi's famous horoscope demonstration. He prepared a horoscope for each student in a classroom of perhaps 30, handed them out, and asked the students to rate their accuracy. Even though he had not known his subjects in advance, they rated his horoscopes highly accurate. The he asked them to exchange papers with each other and the students discovered that they had all been given exactly the same horoscope. They were amazed to discover that they had all unknowingly rationalized a correlation that obviously did not exist. It's a fascinating demonstration of our ability to make ourselves believe whatever we want to, or need to, regardless of the facts.
This reminds me of a famous incident with The Beatles. The Beatles auditioned for Decca Records, and Decca Records said, "The Beatles have no future in show business." I guess they just didn't get it.
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Douglas Buel
United States
Orlando
Florida
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Kobold Curry Chef wrote: Making associations between things we had not considered before should be pleasant -- it's how we experience ideas.
This is very true.
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Douglas Buel
United States
Orlando
Florida
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SirHandsome wrote: dbuel wrote:
Fundamentally, it's a power that comes into play when its hand is terrible. Terrible hand => loses challenges => Other people lose ships and Sting gives away bad cards.
I thought that at first, but looks like Sting's ability says the opponent "may" draw one card from Sting's hand. So if your opponent knows you're probably fishing for a new hand, they might just turn you down unless they want to help you It'll still probably work out at times though, and could make for some interesting mind games
Yeah ...
I tend not to like the powers that only help you when you're losing, or only help you when you're winning. The ones that lend themselves to more situations are more fun for me.
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dbuel wrote: Kobold Curry Chef wrote: Making associations between things we had not considered before should be pleasant -- it's how we experience ideas. This is very true.
Speaking of associations, I can't help looking at Poison's illustration and thinking of Schrödinger's Cat. Am I nuts?
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Alex Pseudonym
United States
San Diego
California
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dbuel wrote: salty53 wrote: dbuel wrote: Hmm, no, they're totally related. Poison's first ability punishes you and your allies for attacking it (and therefore landing with) too few ships, encouraging you to attack with a larger force. But then, as you send more ships, Poison's second ability allows Poison to win encounters even though you brought more ships. This is classic "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" power design. That's reaching pretty hard to find a connection. Naah. Anyone can insist that two related things are unrelated, and what can you do? You already explained it. All you can do is file under "Refuses to believe correct answer when told." The fact is, the first clause point-blank encourages you to attack with more ships; and the second clause works against the fact that you did so. These are therefore related. Now, maybe they're not related in flavor. But the relationship in gameplay is definitive.
Poison's power is "Has hazardous home system." Not sure how the encounter bonus fits in there. There's my two cents.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Kobold Curry Chef wrote: Allowing ourselves to be entertained by what is not actually true is an essential part of human nature
Oh, I allow myself to be entertained by fiction all the time. But I don't believe things that are demonstrably untrue. There's a big difference between being entertained by astrology and believing it's science.
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Just a Bill
United States
Norfolk
Virginia
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Okay, so the debate about Poison's thematic cohesiveness (or lack thereof) is largely moot — the power is official and it's going to get played. Even I will play it; I just won't totally respect it.
The more important question to me is, what's the best way to correct its mismatched presentation? After further consideration I now see Poison as a snapshot of an alien design in transition from mandatory to optional ... one that simply ran out of development time to complete its metamorphosis.
If you'd like to comment on this and help crowd-source the best corrective solution, please follow this link to find the nitty-gritty details.
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