Take away Birthday card

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matt186
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Joined: 21 February 2021, 20:10

Re: Take away Birthday card

Post by matt186 »

Well put Meeplelowda.

This debate has been going on for a while and has started to go around in circles :? . Meeplelowda has summed it up neatly and come to the only workable conclusion (keep the status quo). Can we close this topic now please?
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Zozoken
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Joined: 14 September 2016, 19:42

Re: Take away Birthday card

Post by Zozoken »

Great post Meeplelowda! It's wild that this card has generated 5 pages of discussion.
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n00lesscluebie
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Joined: 22 October 2020, 16:22

Re: Take away Birthday card

Post by n00lesscluebie »

The solution isn’t “leave it as it is so those who want to exploit it can exploit it”. And we’ve seen that it is unenforceable to do some kind of date check thing.

Rather the solution is to PUBLICIZE the exploit and make it obvious and clear beforehand that players can choose whichever if the options they want. That way it’s an even playing field. A simple note on the Games page would be sufficient
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DField82
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Joined: 20 April 2023, 16:02

Re: Take away Birthday card

Post by DField82 »

I'm quite new to this site. I have been playing Fluxx IRL since the early 2000s but I don't own a deck with this stupid holiday/birthday card in it, so this was new to me. Seemed fun at first, but everyone abusing it has totally ruined the game for me. To the point where I just don't want to play it.

People trying to excuse the behaviour by saying that you have to choose 1/2/3 BEORE seeing whether it's an advantage or not clearly don't understand probability. I mean, let's overlook the fact that you're just plain wrong - saying it's your birthday when it's not is lying and therefore totally against the spirit in which the card was intended to be used, i.e. getting a birthday gift.

But back to probability. I'm not getting into a massively detailed breakdown here, but there are many, MANY more advantageous outcomes by playing 3, than there are negative ones. You people make it sound like it's a 50/50 and there's an equal chance of getting lucky or getting unlucky by lying. But that's simply not true. The cheat option benefits you a disproportionately large number of times and therefore you are incentivised to cheat.

Sometimes, cheating can end the game there and then. It's a hugely dissatisfying way to lose, when you watch it unfold and can clearly see that you wouldn't have lost if they'd played the correct number of cards.

Because people cannot be trusted not to cheat, something should be done. Having the game automatically choose it randomly, as some have suggested, makes no sense to me, but I'd still prefer that to letting people cheat willy nilly. Because then you're at least all bound by the same rules. That's all we really want, to have everyone playing the same set of rules, so it's a level playing field.
FunBoardPlayer
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Joined: 10 May 2023, 08:07

Re: Take away Birthday card

Post by FunBoardPlayer »

Here are the scenarios:

1) Keep the card, and players are free to "cheat" around it.
2) Keep the card, and burden the developers with instituting some sort of "verification system" to "keep it honest".
2A) And even if such a system were reliably put in place, players could merely only choose to play the game on those "special days".
3) Recognize that regardless of how or whether this matter is resolved, we are talking about virtually having little to no impact whatsoever in a game that has heavy variance (luck), which of itself makes this thread quite amusing.

My $0.02. Oops, I mean $0.03 (Today's my friend's birthday).
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TheDemonPickle
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Joined: 26 January 2023, 09:45

Re: Take away Birthday card

Post by TheDemonPickle »

I'm sure someone has brought it up before but officially:

"Q: For Today’s Special, does it have to be a holiday you celebrate yourself, or could it be any recognized holiday?
A: We would rule that any legitimate holiday you can think of should work. No making stuff up…”Yeah, it’s National Elevator Day! That’s the ticket!…” unless it really is National Elevator Day.* You don’t have to specifically celebrate that holiday yourself.

It may be a good idea to apply a house rule about “no looking up today’s date during the game to see what holiday it might be.” I think in our house, we’d probably rule that you could use the internet to verify, but not search for a holiday mid-game. But that would be up to your gaming group.

IN FACT, you could even choose to look up any possible holiday BEFORE the game, so everybody knows (and agrees on) exactly what “special day” it is if that card comes up for them. “Well, we’re about to play Holiday Fluxx, and, just so everybody knows, it happens to be International Day of the Nacho, so, if everybody agrees, that will be what counts for the card Today’s Special!”

Perhaps the most important part of this FAQ is that deciding what is and is not a valid “special day” is something you and your gaming group should agree on BEFORE you start playing. It’s more important that you AGREE than that you be CORRECT about what counts, and that agreement needs to be established before the game starts, not when the card comes up in play.

For example, if you can’t agree what counts as “a holiday” in the broader sense, then you could alternate which way you will play. One game, before you start, agree that you will use one person’s definition/rules. Another game, before you start, agree that you will use another person’s definition/rules.

* There does NOT appear to be a National Elevator Day, but there IS a National Talk in an Elevator Day. It is on the last Friday in July and nobody seems to know where it came from, though you can find it on numerous sites that list silly daily “holidays.”

So IMHO everything except "it's my birthday" is likely entirely fair game. But, that being said, if someone chooses to use birthday I'm not going to care, even if it is a lie. As I see it people bothered by the 'cheat' are limiting themselves under a self imposed rule but are upset others aren't adhering to it as well.

Use birthday if you want to, use holiday or just another day if you can't beat them join them.
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DField82
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Joined: 20 April 2023, 16:02

Re: Take away Birthday card

Post by DField82 »

You're right, but you're wrong. It's not a "self-imposed" rule. It's a *literal rule* put in by the creator of the game, that people are deliberately breaking to secure an advantage. Which is why we're upset.

If a flaw in the code meant you could draw 3 cards every time instead of 1 by pressing a button, and you did that but your opponent did not, it would ruin the game for you. So you'd have to cheat in order to level the playing field, but you'd be sitting there angry, thinking that they should just fix the problem because it's changing the game for the worse. You know the real rules, and these are not the rules.

That's what is happening for me when people play 3 cards instead of 1.
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DField82
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Joined: 20 April 2023, 16:02

Re: Take away Birthday card

Post by DField82 »

FunBoardPlayer wrote: 10 May 2023, 23:03 3) Recognize that regardless of how or whether this matter is resolved, we are talking about virtually having little to no impact whatsoever in a game that has heavy variance (luck), which of itself makes this thread quite amusing.
This is the most smug and illogical post in the thread. Yes, obviously it's a variance-heavy game. Obviously. So guess what that means? One lucky card *often* changes the entire game.

So if you cheat and get lucky, guess how that makes me feel, knowing that I don't lose if you don't cheat. And it happens a lot.

Fine margins make a huge difference in this game. Hence the annoyance at the cheating.
StevenW686
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Joined: 15 January 2024, 06:52

Re: Take away Birthday card

Post by StevenW686 »

It honestly does not seem that is the case. Even at the higher echelons I have never seen people choose three, only two at most.
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Meeplelowda
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Joined: 14 March 2020, 10:31

Re: Take away Birthday card

Post by Meeplelowda »

Meeplelowda wrote: 01 December 2021, 13:39 So then just get rid of the card, right? Well, no, because BGA does its best to implement the game as published without alterations. Removing a card from play that is in the standard deck would be such an alteration.
I cannot fathom how this thread did not die on the vine. That said, with the permission of the current rights holder, the deck can be altered as an option (see the removal of OP cards in Wingspan as an example of this). Note, this was not a unilateral decision by BGA because a bunch of people said "pretty please." They had to get permission. So the best way to direct your energy is to contact Looney Labs (or whoever the current rights holder is) to request permission to remove this card. Then report back here and tell us how that went.

Also, I notice that neither wolmot nor Alex_erson, the devs for Fluxx and Star Fluxx, have chimed in on this thread. They are the most likely people who would implement this change, unless someone else wants to register as a dev and step up to the plate.
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