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Proposed fix for this card and the Flying Roots:
The rules should have the following 2 paragraphs:
All card rules text is applicable when a card is in a play area or taken from the Adventure deck.
During the Result Step of an action, only card rules text starting with "when revealed during the Result step...", continuing to the end of the card, is active.
End of proposed fix

I am posting this here as there is some question about the interpretation, but all possibilities require some errata.

The first 2 results are what happens if you follow the text as written and do/don't process text outside the Result area when revealing cards from the Action deck in the Results stage.

possible Intents:


EDIT: And after 2 pages of "answers", STILL nobody has actually thought through my question and either provided a rules reference, official clarification, or even a well thought through answer addressing the problems I raised. most of the answers have been of the form "It is obvious (end of post)" or "this is what it means (no addressing of the issued associated with such an interpretation or of the other reasonable interpretation at all)"

EDIT 2:
So after all this and reading the full text of card 180 and the Flying Roots cards, it seems the only interpretation that seems that it might accomplish what the designers intended is:
During the Result Step of an action, only card text starting with "when revealed during the Result step...", continuing to the end of the card, is active.

And to arrive at that interpretation took thorough going over the various permutations of interpretation and how they interacted with the actual wording of:
Card 180
The Flying Roots
"Forewarned is Forearmed" and "Valiant Hearts Shall Not Fail"


And we still arent 100% sure that is what is intended. It's just the only interpretation that does not cause perceived problems with one or more of the above cards.

And before Card 180 and Flying Roots almost everyone "knew" that card text did not apply during the Results step of an action. (Partially because only 2 cards had text that made any sense then and prior games made us think that you generally only discard from your hand)

I don't see anything here contradicting the rules.

There are several problematic interpretations of other cards regardless of what base ruling is chosen, in addition to the effects on this card.

This is not true.
The rules state what to do in the result step, so follow this.

Really? What about for flying roots?
The rules say nothing about text on action cards either way. They DO state: "Important: card text overrides this rulebook"

While it seemed clear that action card text isn't processed when revealed in the Result step, Flying Roots and card 180 don't work with that simplistic interpretation.

I agree that the FR would need such an extra rule, but 180 doesn't. It's second effect is a ongoing effect that is gained when drawing the card from the adventure deck and that is triggered by revealing that card from the action deck.

But it needs a change to the rules about such ongoing effects then, (including if they are in effect when the card they are on is not visible - if so, then some Permanent effects have weird results). As currently written, there is nothing to make the 2nd paragraph active if it's text is not processed when visible, or inactive if it is not visible.

And since the text on card 180 overrides the rulebook as per the rulebook, and the rulebook does not preemptively disable text on cards revealed in the Results step, it gets shuffled back into the deck, and the 2nd paragraph is not in effect.

If the rules are changed to preemptively disable text on cards revealed in the Results step, then the 2nd paragraph is disabled as well,

There needs to be clarification of what is disabled on cards revealed in the Results step and a change to the first sentence regardless
This rules change is needed for both Flying Roots and card 180 or for card 180 and Forewarned/Valiant Hearts depending on whether card text is not/is supposed to be processed on cards revealed in the Results step.

There was another thread on this not too long ago with some interesting discussion:

https://the7thcontinent.seriouspoulp.com/en/forum/topic/4084/card-180-s-game-breaking-translation-lack-of-timing-error



I play with interpretation 4.


My thoughts on this:

The only change I think 180 needs to wording is to remove "back" from the first ability, and then only because it creates so much confusion, not because it actually changes how the card works. Most likely "back" slipped in because this is one of only a very small number of effects that shuffle a card into the action deck when it didn't come from the action deck vaguely recently -- they use "back" on effects that shuffle from the discard pile, from character's hands, from cards that have just been drawn in an action, from special draws like Think... Just about the only place they don't use "back" is when buying advanced skills -- which strongly implies that it shouldn't be used here either, since this falls into the category of "effects that introduce new cards to the action deck ecosystem from outside" rather than "effects that move cards to the action deck from other parts of the action deck ecosystem." I suspect it was used here just because it is the most common template.

"Back" doesn't actually do anything on the cards it appears on, it's actually totally unnecessary to have it at all, but other than this they've mostly done a good job of removing it from places where it would cause confusion.




180 has 2 abilities.

The first one, which shuffles it away, uses default timing.

The second, which provides a and the option to banish 180 for a sure success, explicitly defines when it should trigger.

So there are really 3 important pieces of rules text here -- The first ability, the timing condition for the second ability, and the second ability proper.



When you draw it from the adventure deck by taking a 180, you read and resolve the text in order. Ability 1 triggers, because that's what abilities without timing clauses do when you draw their cards from the adventure deck. Then Ability 2's timing condition is seen and resolved, and because the timing condition hasn't been met, the rest of the ability doesn't happen.

When you draw a card from the action deck, you do not ordinarily resolve any of its text. But 180 is special. Because the timing clause on 180 explicitly says it triggers now, it does. So, when you draw 180 from the action deck, Ability 1 does not trigger, but Ability 2 does.

(If you're bothered by the idea that card text can make itself "live" in a context where it ordinarily would not be, that's fair enough. After all, if it isn't "live" in the first place, you shouldn't resolve even the parts of the ability that bring the rest to life, right? A better formal way to think of this is that timing clauses are always live, even in circumstances where card text normally isn't.)


TL;DR:

They use "back" for cards going into the action deck from other zones all the time, but it is definitely a poor choice of words.
Ability 1 uses normal timing rules for an Adventure card, it triggers when you take it by number but not when it is revealed from the action deck.
Ability 2 happens when it says it happens, because it says so.

Where in the rules/FAQ/errata does it state in black and white that you don't process text on cards revealed from the action deck in the Result step?

I looked, but it is nowhere to be found.
The I searched for official rulings in these forums, but again, nowhere to be found.

Without that, since the card text overrides the rules (as stated in the rulebook), the reshuffle is in effect.

Why would the flying Roots need an errata?
They clearly state when it should be applied, doesn’t it?

That interpretation is very problematic.

1. Many other cards would require errata -- as mentioned in this thread, that would mean that Forewarned is Forearmed and anything else that can be used during or after the results step of an action would have to specify that it only works from your hand and not from anywhere.

2. If you interpret "card text overrides the rules" to mean "all card text is live all the time in any zone", what's stopping you taking actions on cards in the discard pile? Cards in the past? Banished cards? The rules don't really specify that cards are inactive in those zones, at least, they don't forbid each one specifically as you are looking for...

3. If it reshuffles itself as soon as it is revealed, and you reveal cards one at a time, which I'm 99% sure you do, isn't 180 just infinite cards if it's the only card in the deck? Seems pretty gamebreaking...

I think, in general, card text should be considered not live by default. The rulebook doesn't talk about which zones cards are nonfunctional, it talks about which zones they work. It makes quite clear that you resolve card text when you take a numbered card, it makes clear that text on permanent events attached to your terrain card is live, it makes clear that text on Satchel and Journal cards is live in the S&J zone and that cards in your hands are live in those zones and that items are live in your inventory if the durability has been spent. It isn't spelled out as a list of live zones or anything but it's made quite clear by the rest of the rules that the live zones are live. The dead zones are mostly dead by omission.

Alternatively:

If the intention were for the reshuffle to be in effect, why is it not a part of the second ability? It's the obvious thing to do, you can put the shuffle after the effect like any other card that shuffles itself away and reduce the ambiguity that exists now with the shuffle happening before the stars are actually counted, it would be 100% non-ambiguous that the two abilities both fire at the same time. Depending on the wording you end up with the card might even be more concise, and if not there's plenty of space. So, why have 2 very distinctly separate abilities with explicitly different timings if they actually both trigger at the same time? The obvious answer, I think, is because the intent is for them to have 2 different timings.

One ability says it triggers when revealed during an action and the other does not because one ability triggers when revealed during an action and the other does not.


Now, I'm an advocate for more formal rules all around, and the fact that this card creates so much confusion is evidence that it should be worded more explicitly as well. I'm not trying to say it's great and perfect the way it is. But I don't think it's truly ambiguous to the point that it needs errata to function -- an explicit timing on the first ability, rather than the default timing, would make it a lot clearer, but I'm pretty confident that the rules give you interpretation 4 for the default timing.

There needs to be clarification that the only text on an action card that is processed during an action iscthat text that specifically mentions that it is active during an action. Otherwise there will be confusion - "the text on flying roots are active when drawn during an action, so the text on Forewarned... must also be active"

The rules never state that card text outside actions/modifiers is ever active either. They do identify "card effect" areas, but don't state that text within those areas is active.

There are also cards with text outside those "card effect" areas (like character cards).

Either all visible card text is active at all times or there needs to be clarification.

And as for card 180, during discussion on BGG, it turned out that players were interpreting it three different ways, and each group was sure their interpretation was correct according to the rules.

The lack of an official ruling we can point to on the "card text is not processed during the results step unless specifically indicated" is the biggest problem here. Without an official ruling, players insist that there is nothing saying the text isn't active.

Please elaborate on these three different ways.

3 different ways it was interpreted:


All these ways are potentially supported by the rules. The rules are very vague on this point of what text on an action card is processed during the results step.

But even if there exists more then one way people read it, most would agree with your number 2

Pretty crazy if anybody's arguing for 3 in a non-rhetorical sense. I hope nobody's actually playing that way. Why would the card say it makes a star if it doesn't?


3 also assumes that shuffling a card into the action deck mid-resolution would interrupt resolution of its text, which I'm pretty sure will cause other problems.


1, on the other hand, is a reasonable confusion. I'd be amazed if it was the intent but it's a pretty reasonable reading of the card.

If 3 was true, any card with the text "discard this to..." would be discarded without effect as the normal effect comes after the prompt to discard the card and can not be read if you have to follow that prompt immediately

I think the first paragraph of the card was just worded a little poorly. The interpretation 1 is very powerful, but not as powerful as some people seem to think - how often is 1 card enough to do a successful action?

No, "discard this to..." cards would still work, as that is all 1 paragraph.

On this there are 2 paragraphs. So you can do the first paragraph in its entirety, and the 2nd paragraph is now no longer in play.

The first paragraph is definitely worded (and possibly placed) poorly. You can't shuffle a card back into a deck it never came from.

The real problem is that this card has multiple possible interpretations, all equally (un)supported by the rules which lack any support for card text being applicable outside of action consequences.

It is not possible to look at any interpretation and say with certainty "this is the obvious intent"