Yes, there are effects that need to know what kind of success it was: a win or a deal.

Saying an encounter was a "success" is like saying a student "passed" his class.  Well, what kind of passing grade did he get?  Does his father owe him a used car, a trip to Dairy Queen, or nothing at all?  Not every student needs to know this because not all of them made a deal with their father ... but some did!  And yet there are teachers who keep arguing (without merit) that all anyone needs to know is whether the students passed or not.

"Success" and "win" are not interchangeable; there is a hierarchy here. Eon understood that, but FFG does not (the FAQ is flat-out wrong on this point) and so they continue to confuse many of their players.

Just_a_Bill said:

I'd like to find out what you think of "Dud Encounters" as I described earlier-- an encounter where the offense has no encounter cards that will end at the planning phase.

When it comes to Win versus Success, I'm not sure if it can be categorically right or wrong to define the two things synonymously.  The only potential problem is that it can be self-consistent with the rest of their rules or not.  In one system, a negotiated deal between the main players would be both a win and a success for them.  In another system, it would be a success but not a win.  However, if FFG used "win" by itself to describe a power that should not apply to deals, that would make it, or the power description, a problem.  That's what you're going to need to show to make your case.

Also, I approve of Dairy Queen and their thin chocolaty ice cream shells.

Hugesinker said:

My comments are all in the context of completed encounters.  The ones you call "duds" are basically incomplete or aborted encounters. They typically do not have a Resolution phase, so the effects that need to know how the encounter ended cannot be used.  So in that sense, there is a fifth outcome that we could call "incomplete" or something.  But since that's irrelevant for the effects that care about the type of outcome, I tend to ignore it.

Hugesinker said:

It you look at the relevant effects, it becomes pretty clear that win and success are not equal.  One is a specific outcome and the other is a category of outcomes.  (Otherwise why even have two terms?)  All wins are successes but not all successes are wins, just like not all fruits are apples.

Hugesinker said:

Or, to make your case, you need to show that nothing breaks when you claim that win = deal = successful and loss = failed deal = unsuccessful.  (Everybody always want the other guy to do the research!)

Anyway, here you go.  There are quite a few individual effects that make it clear that not all successes can be wins; or, more specifically, that a deal is not a win  and a failed deal is not a loss. Last time I did the research I believe I came up with 15 or 20, but I will give just a few here:

• Wind Fungus: If a deal is a win, then when a player makes a deal Wild Fungus would capture all opposing ships. This would be contrary to the intent, and ambiguous since the allies' ships already left the encounter before the deal-making started.

• Guerrilla: If Guerrilla fails to deal and thus (by your interpretation) has "lost", each ally is supposed to lose to the warp all but one of the ships he had in the encounter. Trouble is, he has already dispersed his ships back to various colonies. No competent designer would write the function to leave this gap if it was intended that a failed deal triggered Guerrilla's power.  Wild Guerrilla would also be nonsensical if a failed deal were considered a "loss".

• Leviathan: If a deal were to count as a win, after Leviathan makes a deal he could just plop ships from his worldship onto the targeted planet for a free colony. Clearly not the intent.  On the other side, if Leviathan fails to deal and thus has "lost", in addition to the three ships he loses normally he also has to send the ships on his worldship to the warp -- leading to the ambiguity of whether these losses can overlap or not.

• Other weird crap: Mercenary as an ally would collect rewards after he has already left the encounter if the main players make a deal. Tick-tock would be completely redundant. Barbarian would make a deal with you and then still loot your hand. Void would "win" via making a deal ... but where are the "losing ships"? Loser, via upset, would make dealing players "both lose", and would make non-dealing players "both win".  The insanity would just never end.

If all these terms meant the same thing, there would be no point in having more than one term, right? There would be no point in writing "wins or makes a deal" on some effects while writing only "wins" on other effects.  And worse, there would be no clean way that a designer could create an effect that works for wins but doesn't work for deals.  He would have to write something ugly like "if you won (but did not make a deal)" or, even worse, "if you lost (but did not try to make a deal and fail)" — and there is not a single effect written like that in the entire game.  They all just say "win" when they mean win and "win or deal" when they mean both.

The evidence is very clear: win and deal are two separate outcomes that both exist under the umbrella of "success".  It just cannot work any other way.

I've had about this the other day. I had 1 encounter card left. During my regroup phase some used a plague on another player. That got me wondering, if they would have plagued me then I wouldn't have any encounter cards during my turn. I wouldn't be able to draw any because the starting phase already happened, so would my turn be over? But what about if the Philanthropist could give me an encounter card later? That wouldn't happen until the alliance phase. So... does my turn end immediately or can I keep playing because I would be receiving an encounter card before the planing phase anyway?

Tiz said:

Yes.

Tiz said:

Doesn't matter.  You're out of encounter cards, so you turn is over.  Those are the rules.

Tiz said:

My interpretation is that your turn would NOT be over immediately in this situation.  You would still have an alliance phase which would give the Philanthropist the opportunity to turn your dud encounter into an actual encounter if they are involved.

The rules say "If the offense runs out of cards later during his or her turn AND NEEDS TO PLAY ONE, the offense's turn ends immediately." The offense doesn't usually NEED TO PLAY an encounter card until the Planning phase. This is reenforced by the rules for the Planning phase (pg 9) wherein it says "The offense and defense Now each select an encounter card... and play it facedown... If the offense has no encounter cards in hand, his or her turn immediately ends." It never says that the offense must end their turn at any other phase.

On second thought, maybe what Bill and the Warp are trying to tell me here is that "If the offense runs out of cards later during his or her turn AND NEEDS TO PLAY ONE, the offense's turn ends immediately." should be read as "If the offense runs out of cards later during his or her turn AND WILL NEED TO PLAY ONE LATER IN THIS ENCOUNTER, the offense's turn ends immediately."

This would differentiate having no cards before the Planning Phase with having no cards after the Planning Phase in an encounter.  Is this how you guys are reading this?  If so, I wish it were stated a little more clearly.

Bill, I still need to look at those aliens you listed and see if the fit the bill, so to speak

Hugesinker said:

After reviewing the rule book I would agree with your interpretation.