On Sun, May 21, 2023 at 12:35 PM Yachay Wayllukuq via agora-business < [email protected]> wrote:
> This is my Judgement for CFJ 4030, which asks: > > Per Rule 2680, a player can anoint a ritual number multiple times > for a single instance of a ritual act. > > This is also my first Judgement. I hope I did alright. > > Guidance in Rule 217 states: > > When interpreting and applying the rules, the text of the rules > takes precedence. Where the text is silent, inconsistent, or > unclear, it is to be augmented by game custom, common sense, past > judgements, and consideration of the best interests of the game. > > However, the text of the rule isn't clear, such text being: > > When a ritual act is performed, any player CAN, within 7 days, by > announcement anoint a ritual number, specifying the ritual act and > the new ritual number. > > The text of the rule can be understood to mean either that you can anoint > once, or that you can anoint multiple times. > > Arguments in favor of being able to anoint several times has been Agoran > custom, custom which I am personally not very familiar with, but evidence > from G. and a lack of counterarguments to this seems reasonable enough to > permit it as evidence for this case: > > I wholly agree that the "whole deck" interpretation is Agoran current > custom > and that, barring minor technical issues, this win was obtained > totally fairly > under that assumption. > > However, there are also arguments in favor that you shouldn't be able to > anoint several times, for example, from Caller nix, which seems to me to > allude to what would be "in the best interests of the game": > > To me, the intuitive reading of "When [event] happens, a player CAN > [verb]" is that a player can do the verb one time per event. This is > the > way I would mean this is plain speech, and it's the way the rules of > pretty much any board game are written. "When [event] happens, draw a > card" doesn't usually mean you can draw more than one card. Nothing > in > the rules (that I see) seems to suggest any reason that Agora would > interpret this differently than plain speech or analogous situations > in > other games. > I thought I should add my voice to this. I actually do see a suggestion of the "whole deck" interpretation in the text of the rules. The rules text in question uses "CAN", which is defined as follows: "Attempts to perform the described action are successful." Note that "attempts" is plural. This suggests that by default, a CAN allows multiple instances of the same action to succeed. This definition of CAN is very permissive-feeling, so I think you judged correctly in not restricting the CAN to only allowing a single action. -- snail
