by a1bert
Hermjard wrote:
The rules must be known completely in advance, by all players.
...
So, in fact, I think, your statement, and not mine, not knowing the rule completely could be of any value, is silly.
You talk so much about rules, and completely overlook what I was saying. Good rules are consistent. Good rules help you decide how to resolve each situation.
But rules do not list everything that happens in a game. You can not go through all cards, game board locations and effects and their combinations before the game and check what the result of each combination is. The interactions are just too vast in even a medium complexity game. Take an extreme example of Cosmic Encounter and you are never going to be able to start the game if you check how each power interacts with each other power and encounter, artifact and flare cards. The basic rules of Cosmic Encounter are very simple, the interactions are not. You follow the rules when applying the effects, but you can not expect what happens to be written down somewhere you can reference.
Also in Battlestar Galactica we still sometimes stumble on situations that need referencing the rules and are surprised by the interactions. That is not a flaw to us. It is good to find new things.
In KoT the interactions between cards are much fewer, but still you can't get every interaction pre-approved by your group or you'll never play the game. You have identified a few corner cases now, and thought about how to (ab)use some interactions, and then referred to the rules that settle how to operate in that situation. There will be other interactions that you have not thought about. Even in those cases you refer to the rules and operate according to those. If the rules are good enough, you will not have problems resolving each situation. But you can not know that beforehand! So, good rules or bad rules, you either never start playing or are ready to talk with your group about how new situations should be ruled when they come up. (I suggest you use hypotheticals, how would the group rule it before you make your action.)
Hopefully what I mean is a bit clearer. I'm all for good rulebooks, well thought-out rules, but in reality most (non-euro) games worth playing (for us, YMMV) have immense amounts of interaction and situations that do not come up in design phase, not in play-testing, and not even during thousands of plays, until that one time.
If you're up-to it, let us know who much time you spend with your group going through the rules and what can happen in the game of King of Tokyo before you start playing.