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− | I switched from "this turn" to "while this is in play" because "while this is in play" has better tracking; you e.g. {{Card|Procession}} a {{Card|Highway}} and the card no longer in play no longer does anything, hooray. [In Renaissance] I switched back to "this turn" because it turned out people get more confused by "while this is in play." | + | I switched from "this turn" to "while this is in play" because "while this is in play" has better tracking; you e.g. {{Card|Procession}} a {{Card|Highway}} and the card no longer in play no longer does anything, hooray. [In {{set|Renaissance}}] I switched back to "this turn" because it turned out people get more confused by "while this is in play." |
|Name=[[Donald X. Vaccarino]] | |Name=[[Donald X. Vaccarino]] | ||
|Source=[http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20566.msg857191#msg857191 Inventor wording] | |Source=[http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=20566.msg857191#msg857191 Inventor wording] |
Revision as of 19:34, 16 June 2021
A card is said to be in play if it is in the play area—the location cards are put when you play them. Under ordinary circumstances, a card enters the play area when you play it, and leaves play when discarded during the Clean-up phase of that turn. Reserve cards also enter the play area when you call them.
There are a handful of cards, nicknamed "emulators", which instruct you to play a card without putting it in play; there are also some situations where the stop-moving rule prevents a played card from entering the play area.
Ordinarily cards leave the play area by being discarded during the Clean-up phase of the turn on which they enter play, though several exceptions exist:
- Duration cards, and emulators playing Duration cards, remain in play until the Clean-up phase of the last turn on which they are expected to have an effect; Throne Room variants playing Duration cards remain in play until the Clean-up phase of the turn when the Duration leaves play.
- One-shots, Reserve cards, and certain other cards have instructions to remove themselves from play as a result of playing them.
- Some cards, Events, and Ways have abilities that cause you to remove other cards from play before the Clean-up phase: for example, Mandarin top-decks Treasure cards from play when you gain it, and Bonfire trashes cards from play when you buy it.
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While-in-play abilities
Several cards have abilities that are activated while the card is in play; typically these are listed below a horizontal dividing line in the card text. Since these abilities begin to take effect when you play the card, it is easy to mistake them for abilities that are triggered by playing the card. However, "while-in-play" effects differ from "on-play" (or "above-the-line") effects in several ways:
- If you play the same card multiple times on the same turn via a Throne Room variant, its "on-play" abilities happen each time you play it; but there is only one copy of the card in the play area, so its while-in-play abilities only happen once.
- If a card is played by an emulator, it never enters play, so its while-in-play abilities never activate but its on-play effects do. Similarly, if a card is removed from play prematurely, its while-in-play abilities cease to operate, but any persistent on-play abilities remain in effect.
- Enchantress and Ways overrule the on-play abilities of an Action card, but leave the while-in-play abilities unchanged.
Sometimes the same abilities are present as on-play abilities on some cards and while-in-play abilities on others. For example, Bridge and Inventor provide cost reduction as an on-play ability; but Quarry, Highway, Bridge Troll, and Princess provide cost reduction while in play. Similarly, Guardian and Champion provide attack immunity as an on-play ability, but Lighthouse does so as a while-in-play ability.
List of cards with while-in-play abilities
- Seaside: Lighthouse
- Prosperity: Quarry, Talisman, Royal Seal, Goons, Hoard
- Cornucopia: Princess
- Hinterlands: Haggler, Highway
- Dark Ages: Urchin
- Guilds: Merchant Guild
- Adventures: Bridge Troll
- Empires: Groundskeeper
- Nocturne: Tracker
- Promo: Sauna
Trivia
There are no while-in-play abilities in the first two Dominion sets, the Base set and Intrigue. Donald X. Vaccarino introduced while-in-play abilities in order to avoid tracking difficulties, so that players could simply inspect the cards that were visible in the play area in order to determine what abilities were in effect.
It's fun to Throne a Bridge and so there's that. In general "while this is in play" is just better though.
Similarly Conspirator looks at how many action cards you played this turn, but Peddler counts the action cards in play. Peddler's approach is better; no tracking.At one point he contemplated revising earlier cards such as Bridge to use while-in-play wording, though he did not end up making this change.
Later, he discovered that players find while-in-play abilities more confusing than on-play abilities, and stopped using while-in-play abilities on new cards; the while-in-play mechanic has not been used since Nocturne.