This discussion started about here over in this thread. Lets get a thread specifically for this topic so that we can stop muddying up that other one.
The purpose is to discuss the problems players see with the words "Before the Encounter" and "After the Encounter", offer some alternatives, and have a fruitful discussion that might benefit PACG long term.
Posting my suggested "streamlining" of the encounter sequence from the other thread:
1. Encounter the card. Apply effects here that happen when the card is encountered.
2. Evade the card (optional) - Shuffle the card back into the location deck and skip the remaining steps. The card is neither defeated nor undefeated. If you don't evade, apply any effects that happen when you don't evade. If you do evade, apply any effects that happen when you do evade (these don't exist yet as far as I know, but it opens up the design space for them).
3. Attempt the check
4. Attempt the next check, if needed
5. Resolve the encounter. First apply any effects that happen when the encounter is resolved. If you succeed at all of the checks required to defeat a bane, banish it and apply any effects that happen when it is defeated; if you don’t succeed, it is undefeated— shuffle the card back into its location deck and apply any effects that happen when it is undefeated. If you succeed at a check to acquire a boon, put it in your hand, and apply any effects that happen when it is acquired; otherwise, banish it, and apply any effects that happen when it is not acquired.
Perhaps a bit wordy at the end, but I was trying to be explicit as possible. Could definitely be improved upon.
But the idea here is that "If not evaded" effects in step 2 replace "Before the encounter" effects. "When resolved" effects in step 5 replace "After the encounter" effects. I basically took out the "Apply any before the encounter effects" and "Apply any after the encounter effects" steps and combined them into previously existing steps. I think the basically functionality of the mechanics is still preserved. Any thoughts on this approach?
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First, I just want to thank Vic and Mike and all others for such a great game! We play every week after our PFS sessions at the FLGS. You know you like a game when you think about it all the time...
On topic:
I agree with other players that there should be a change in terminology for "before/after the encounter." Since there is time (I hope) to make the change for printing of S&S, I think it would clear up a lot of questions about when certain powers trigger. To me, the whole flipping a card over to when it's acquired/defeated is the encounter, while the check (or multiple checks) can be put into a 'subcategory' such as engagement, contest, or a whole litany of synonyms.
1. Encounter card (Flip card and read it)
2. Evade card
3. Apply before engagement powers.
4. Engage card
4.1 Make check.
4.2 Make additional checks.
5. Apply after engagement powers.
6. End encounter (banish/acquire)
One thing to think about is when Magic: The Gathering cards receive errata, the cards aren't updated until they are printed in a new set. Not so recently they changed 'comes into play' to 'enters the battlefield.' According to magiccards.info, over 3000 cards received that errata. So updating cards with a specific word change would only need to be done in errata, which can be updated just like the newer printings of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook and when new cards are printed. Hawkmoon269 has great little inserts that you can put into sleeved cards if you so choose. Also the idea of ordering the updated cards through the PoD is great once that's finalized.
I see it basically like this:
1) Encounter the card. For practical purposes, this means flipping it over, reading it and apply any effects that should be applied "when encountering" the card.
2) Evade (you desire to do so and are capable of doing so). You encountered the card, but it didn't encounter you, so nothing it says applies at that point, other than text which says you have to skip this part (i.e. you may not evade this card).
3) Before the encounter effects. (I've always thought this should be called "before the check" but I'm sure that comes with its own set of problems.
4) The Check. This is quite well described in the rules, step by step.
5) After the encounter effects. (Again, I prefer to call this "After the check" rather than "encounter" as it is in my mind something that is included in the encounter but comes after the check resolution.)
I think my version and QN's version loosely agree, albeit perhaps with some minor differences.
Chief Technical Officer
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Any thoughts on this approach?
Most of what you're doing is just merging things together, causing some new problems. The biggest problem is you the "before the encounter" effects apparently now happen someplace far less clear: "If you don't evade, apply any effects that happen when you don't evade." Not only does that provide no clues as to how one might identify those effects, but it also happens under a heading called "Evade the card (optional)", which suggests that I can just avoid all of those effects by opting out of the step.
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Chief Technical Officer
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I think all the attempts at rearranging here are, while well-intentioned, not actually helpful. Things currently happen in the order that we want them to happen, and the rules are pretty clear about it. The real problem is that the terms for "before/after the encounter" suggest that they might happen at a time other than the time that the rules clearly state they do happen. It's a collision with intuition, not functionality.
Right now, I'm leaning towards fixing this for S&S by simply changing "before/after the encounter" to "before/after you engage" (and, of course, defining that in the rules).
Logically, the "engage" suggestion works, but my concern is that it introduces extra terminology into the game. For all practical purposes, "engaged" means "did not evade". Why have two different terms for the same idea?
QuantumNinja has just paraphrased one of my mantras: "Use no intermediary terminology."
We have a ways to go on this, but I expect we will have an answer that works before we send S&S to the printer. Thanks for your feedback.
Maybe the solution is to just change the "Evade (Optional)" step to the "Engage or Evade" step, such as this:
Encounter. Flip over the top card of the location deck and put it on top of the deck. Apply any effects that happen when the card is encountered.
Engage or Evade. If you have a power or card that lets you evade the card you’re encountering, you may immediately shuffle it back into the deck; it is neither defeated nor undefeated, and the encounter is over. Otherwise, apply any effects that happen when the encounter is engaged.
Attempt the Check. Same as before.
Attempt the Next Check, If Needed. Same as before.
Disengage. After any and all checks are complete, apply any effects that happen when the encounter is disengaged.
Resolve the Encounter. Same as before. Apply any effects that happen when the encounter is defeated or undefeated.
QuantumNinja has just paraphrased one of my mantras: "Use no intermediary terminology."
We have a ways to go on this, but I expect we will have an answer that works before we send S&S to the printer. Thanks for your feedback.
Indeed, I was definitely inspired by you when I made that post Mike :)
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Chief Technical Officer
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Logically, the "engage" suggestion works, but my concern is that it introduces extra terminology into the game. For all practical purposes, "engaged" means "did not evade". Why have two different terms for the same idea?
I don't agree that they're the same. In the current discussion, the act of not evading *triggers* an engagement, yes, but the engagement is its own thing, with distinct things that happen "before" and "after" the engagement.
Also, I'll note that your most recent solution requires the extra terminology as well.
Believe me, I really really really don't want to introduce a new term to the game, but more than that, I don't want to continue using a term that's confusing people.
I have one more option besides engage.
Before attempting to defeat.
After attempting to defeat.
I've not seen this language on a boon that I can recall, so I am not sure if it is necessary. But if it were, before attempting to acquire and after attempting to acquire would work for boons.
The only cards that wouldn't work on would be cards like blessings of the gods or haunts, since those have no attempts. But perhaps such steps could just be avoided on such cards.
Even the mass encounter barriers you attempt to defeat, by dealing with all the summoned cards.
Maybe there is a card out there that makes that not work, our maybe someone had suggested it already. But it popped into my head, so I thought I would share.
Also, I'll note that your most recent solution requires the extra terminology as well.
That was me conceding that the "engage" suggestion is perhaps the cleanest way to handle this, despite my opposition to it previously.
I also see your point that not evading triggers an "engagement", so it's not really correct to say that "not evading" and "engaging" are the same thing. But I could argue that "engagement" in this case is referring to the "attempt the check" and "attempt the next check" steps of the encounter, so it is still introducing another name for something that already has a name.
What I was getting at with my suggestion above was to point out that instead of defining "engagement" to refer to the "Attempt the check" / "Attempt the next check" steps, you could alternatively define "Engaged" to mean "Not evaded but before any checks are attempted." The difference here is that the terminology is being introduced to define something that doesn't have a simple name already, instead of being introduced to refer to something that already has a name.
Similarly "Disengaged" is introduced to mean "After all checks are attempted."
So for those not keeping track at home, here's a brief recap of the issue and most of the suggestions that have been made so far.
The issue at hand is how to refer to effects that happen "Before the encounter" (let me abstractly refer to these as "X") and effects that happen "After the encounter" (which I'll abstractly refer to as "Y"). You could come up with any labels for X and Y that you want, and functionally, it wouldn't really change anything about the game's mechanics. The goal is to come up with the most intuitive/logical labels for X and Y that will result in the least amount of confusion to players.
Proposed solutions: (NOTE this isn't meant to be comprehensive, and I'm para-phasing ideas here, not necessarily reproducing them verbatim)
Suggestion #1:
Refer to X using "Before the encounter"
Refer to Y using "After the encounter"
What it entails:
-This is the current terminology already used in the game.
Possible Strengths
-No updates to the rulebook or cards would be necessary if this terminology stuck
-The community may already be comfortable with this terminology
Possible Issues
-Since X and Y happen inside an encounter, it clashes with logic/intuition to say they happen before/after the encounter. This has caused confusion for some players.
Suggestion #2:
Refer to X using "At the start of the encounter"
Refer to Y using "At the end of the encounter"
What it entails:
-Rename the "Apply Any Effects That Happen Before the Encounter, If Needed" step in the encounter sequence to "Start of the Encounter"
-Rename the "Apply Any Effects That Happen After the Encounter, If Needed" step in the encounter sequence to "End of the Encounter"
Possible Strengths
-"Start of the encounter" is more intuitive/accurate than "before the encounter"
-"End of the encounter" is more intuitive/accurate than "after the encounter"
-Doesn't involving adding new terminology
Possible Issues
-Still potentially confusing, because the opportunity to evade, which is part of the encounter, happens before the "start of the encounter". See Vic's post here.
-Also "end of the encounter" happens before "resolve the encounter", which may be confusing
Suggestion #3:
Refer to X using "Before the first check"
Refer to Y using "After the last check"
What it entails:
-Remove the "Apply Any Effects That Happen Before the Encounter, If Needed" step in the encounter sequence, as it no longer necessary
-Remove the "Apply Any Effects That Happen After the Encounter, If Needed" step in the encounter sequence, as it no longer necessary
Possible Strengths
-Reduces the number of steps in the encounter sequence
-Potentially makes it clear that X and Y effects trigger immediately before and after attempting any checks, which is consistent with what happens mechanically
-Doesn't involve adding new terminology
Possible Issues
-"Before the first check" is vague in the sense that this could literally refer to ANY time before the first check (e.g. before you even decide to evade the card).
- Also, see the end of Vic's post here.
Suggestion #4:
Refer to X using "Before you engage"
Refer to Y using "After you engage"
What it entails:
-Introduce the new terminology "engage". "When you engage" refers to the moment before you "Attempt the checks" and "Attempt the next check, if necessary"
-Remove the "Apply Any Effects That Happen Before the Encounter, If Needed" step in the encounter sequence, as it no longer necessary
-Remove the "Apply Any Effects That Happen After the Encounter, If Needed" step in the encounter sequence, as it no longer necessary
Possible Strengths
-Reduces the number of steps in the encounter sequence
-Potentially makes it clear that X and Y effects trigger immediately before and after attempting any checks, which is consistent with what happens mechanically
Possible Issues
-Introduces extra terminology to the game that doesn't refer to a new concept in the game. "When you engage" and "When you attempt the check" are essentially two names for the same concept.
-Same issue as Suggestion #3. "Before you engage" is vague in the sense that this could literally refer to ANY time before you engage (e.g. before you even decide to evade the card).
Suggestion #5:
Refer to X using "When you engage"
Refer to Y using "When you disengage"
What it entails:
-Replace the step "Evade (Optional)" with "Evade or Engage" in the encounter sequence.
-Introduce the new terminology "engage". This refers to the moment where you choose not to evade.
-Introduce the new terminology "disengage". This refers to the moment when all checks on the encounter have been completed.
-Remove the "Apply Any Effects That Happen Before the Encounter, If Needed" step in the encounter sequence, as it no longer necessary
-Rename the "Apply Any Effects That Happen After the Encounter, If Needed" step in the encounter sequence to "Disengage the Encounter"
Possible Strengths
-Reduces the number of steps in the encounter sequence
-Makes it clear that X effects happen at the exact moment you choose not to evade
-Makes it clear that Y effects happen at the exact moment you finish all checks on the encounter
Possible Issues
-Adds extra terminology to the game
-Other criticisms welcome (as this is my current suggestion, I'm biased, so I may be missing something)
Suggestion #6:
Refer to X using "Before attempting to defeat"
Refer to Y using "After attempting to defeat"
What it entails:
-Remove the "Apply Any Effects That Happen Before the Encounter, If Needed" step in the encounter sequence, as it no longer necessary
-Remove the "Apply Any Effects That Happen After the Encounter, If Needed" step in the encounter sequence, as it no longer necessary
Possible Strengths
-Reduces the number of steps in the encounter sequence
-Potentially makes it clear that X and Y effects trigger immediately before and after attempting any checks, which is consistent with what happens mechanically
-Doesn't add new terminology
Possible Issues
-Same issue as Suggestion #3. "Before attempting to defeat" is vague in the sense that this could literally refer to ANY time before you attempt to defeat (e.g. before you even decide to evade the card).
Suggestion #7:
Refer to X using "4"
Refer to Y using "6"
What it entails:
-Associate a number to each step in the encounter sequence
-On all cards, use the number associated with one of these steps to indicate when an effect occurs
Possible Strengths
-Provides a way to refer to the timing of each effect with minimal amount of characters (i.e. could save text space on cards)
-Makes the order in which effects resolve very clear
Possible Issues
-Would require updating tons of previously released cards to fit the new format
-Replacing "Before the encounter" with a number like "4" obscures away when the effect actually triggers. Players would have to memorize exactly when a type "4" effect triggers, in addition to all the other numbers.
Suggestion #8:
Refer to X using "When you don't evade, immediately..."
Refer to Y using "At the end of the encounter"
What it entails:
-Remove the "Apply Any Effects That Happen Before the Encounter, If Needed" step in the encounter sequence, as it no longer necessary
-Rename the "Apply Any Effects That Happen After the Encounter, If Needed" step in the encounter sequence to "End of the Encounter"
Possible Strengths
-"End of the encounter" is more intuitive/accurate than "after the encounter"
-Doesn't involve adding new terminology to the game
Possible Issues
-"End of the encounter" happens before "resolve the encounter", which may be confusing
-"When you don't evade, immediately..." may be slightly wordy (uses more text real estate)
I don't think any of the "Before X" and "After X" should entail removing the "Apply Any Effects That Happen Before/After the Encounter, If Needed" step, only to reword it to use the proposed terminology. That fixes the issue of when exactly to resolve these powers.
You're right, those steps could just as well be kept in the sequence and renamed appropriately in most circumstances. I used my discretion in cases where I thought those steps could safely be removed or merged with other steps, but it definitely is not necessary. I may have gone a tad overboard applying that approach to most of the suggestions.
No one has yet given a cogent reason why "before the encounter" cannot just be deleted from the card.
How would you know when to resolve those effects?
Everything happens before the check, when there is a check, unless it says "after the encounter..." No need to change that text, unless to change it to "at the end of the encounter..."
If there is no check, it happens in the order it is written.
"When encountered" effects happen the moment you reveal a card, before you can even choose to evade it. "Before the encounter" effects happen after you choose not to evade but before you make any checks.
Both kinds of effects happen before any checks are made, but they have distinct timing. There needs to be a way to distinguish between these two timings.
I'm not suggesting the removal of "When encountered...", only the removal of "Before the encounter..." Just that one phrase. It serves no purpose that I can see, since it prefaces a condition that can be evaded, the same as the rest of the card text that isn't prefaced by "when encountered", or with the suffix "...may not be evaded". It can easily be replaced by "then attempt the check(s)" at the end of the sentence, or simply deleted entirely if there is no check on the card.
My understanding is that evading doesn't allow you to ignore *any* powers of an encountered card, because the rulebook never says anything about ignoring powers when you evade. Evading allows you to bypass certain steps of an encounter, so you can *effectively* ignore any effects associated with those particular steps when you do evade. But for all intents and purposes, all powers of an encounter are "recognized" the moment it is revealed, whether you choose to evade it or not.
So to me, when you suggest something like "Recharge 2 cards of your choice from your hand, then attempt the check", I see that as almost an unavoidable instruction that must be done the moment the card is encountered. It potentially suggests that you have no opportunity to evade.
Why? You'll agree that you can evade the Zombie Horde card, yet it specifically instructs you to summon and encounter a Zombie Minion henchman. All cards have instructions on them. Very few of these instructions override evading the card. You're reading "cannot be evaded" into what I wrote when it is clearly not there. If it could not be evaded it would say "When encountered..." or "...may not be evaded".
Nope, I do not agree. I think the moment you encounter the Zombie Horde, its power immediately activates. It should probably be prefaced with "When you encounter Zombie Horde..." to be clearer, but my interpretation is that you cannot evade the effect.
Basically, I don't see evading as an action that lets you ignore powers on encountered cards. I see it as an action that lets you skip certain steps of the encounter sequence and nothing more.
Hmmm, I never knew about that thread, so thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Clearly I was in the wrong, but I'm not really satisfied with the correct rule. It makes an implicit assumption that when you first encounter a card, the only effects that trigger immediately before you can choose to evade are immunities (X), things that prevent evasion (Y), and "When encountered" effects (Z). The rulebook does not spell this out explicitly.
So the rule is essentially "When you encounter a card, first check to see if it has powers of type X, Y, Z. Apply those effects immediately, then you may evade the card."
I personally think it would be cleaner to have it be "When you encounter a card, apply all powers at the specified steps in the encounter sequence. If no step is specified, apply the effect immediately."
If the intent is that X, Y, Z powers have special timing in relation to evading, that definitely needs to be spelled out clearly in the rulebook, in my opinion.
One thing I'd like to point out. There is a lot of customizable options you can do with this game to make it harder or easier.
If your one of those people who think the game is easy from beginning to mid. point then you can make it harder by changing some text around to do so. For example Burglar if you want these cards to be a early annoyance you can by house ruling/changing its text to your desire. Personally I think Burglar should be a nasty card if you don't alley with him or helpful if you do. Make it impossible to evade this guy, forces you to deal with him. After all he is a burglar he probably knows all about evading himself anyway.
I relies card(s) should say weather it's evadable or not but it really isn't game breaking. Still I'd like to know what they come up with.
All they probably need to do in future base sets is put key word Evadable at the bottom of each card. If it isn't their then you can't evade it.
But most cards in the came are evadable, the few that aren't say "you can't evade this card."
Then not evadable. Since there will more then likely be more skills like evade why not at the bottom just say.
Keyword: Evade (or not evadable)
Skill #2 unusable unless blah blah
Skill #3 usable unless blah blah and so on.
This will avoid lengthily typing that sometimes leads to confusion. Simple and to the point.
OK... here is a rulebook change. Move Evade to something you do when Exploring (p.8)... not something you do when Encountering a Card (p.10.)
So you Explore and flip over the top card of the deck. Now you choose to Evade it if you can. If not you Encounter the Card.
If you remove Evade from the Encounter a Card sequence does Before/After an Encounter make more intuitive sense.
OK... here is a rulebook change. Move Evade to something you do when Exploring (p.8)... not something you do when Encountering a Card (p.10.)
So you Explore and flip over the top card of the deck. Now you choose to Evade it if you can. If not you Encounter the Card.
If you remove Evade from the Encounter a Card sequence does Before/After an Encounter make more intuitive sense.
What would you propose to handle evading encounters that are summoned?
What would you propose to handle evading encounters that are summoned?OK... here is a rulebook change. Move Evade to something you do when Exploring (p.8)... not something you do when Encountering a Card (p.10.)
So you Explore and flip over the top card of the deck. Now you choose to Evade it if you can. If not you Encounter the Card.
If you remove Evade from the Encounter a Card sequence does Before/After an Encounter make more intuitive sense.
Treat the Summoned card as as if it were just revealed as though Exploring.
p.12 say "Sometimes you will be told to summon a card and encounter it..."
I feel those are two separate actions. Summoning the card is the action of getting the card from the box and placing it on the table. Encountering the card is the action of dealing with the card text. Between Summoning and Encountering is where you Evade.
I feel Exploring has the same process. First you Explore and expose the top card of the location deck. Next you Encounter the card and deal with the card text.
Evade should occur after you expose(i.e. Explore or Summon) a card but before you Encounter it.
In fact defining the concept of "exposing" a card is interesting. [wanted to use term "reveal" but that is already used in the game to represent showing a card in your hand.]
The basic process would look like this:
Expose Card (aka Explore or Summon, etc.)
Evade if Possible
Encounter Card
A more detailed breakdown would look like this:
Expose Card
Apply When Exposed Effects (aka When you first encounter)
Evade if Possible
Encounter Card (sub list below)
* Apply Before the Encounter Effects, If Needed
* Attempt the Check
* Attempt the Next Check, If Needed
* Apply After the Encounter Effects, If Needed
* Resolve the Encounter
Anyways the gist is that Evade seems to be in the wrong place as part of Encountering a Card. Move it outside of this to when a card is Explored or Summoned or "Exposed" and to me at least "Before the Encounter" effects begin to feel cleaner.
Also feel there is a better word that "Exposed" but couldn't come up with it myself.
Honestly, regardless of the words that are used, all that needs to happen is to use two different terms for "encounter the card" and "all the stuff that has to happen if you don't evade". Currently, "encounter" is being used to describe both of those things. Doesn't matter what the terms are...but they need to be different.
This is essentially the heart of the issue. Suggestions to address it so far fall into these two categories:
1) Modify the terminology for "before the encounter" and "after the encounter" effects (for examples, see my post above)
2) Modify the terminology for "encountering a card" (e.g. the recent suggestions of "activating a card" or "exposing a card")
Personally, I think approach 1 is the simpler and cleaner fix. Looking through the rulebook, almost all instances of the word "encounter" seem to be used to describe the entire process of dealing with a card that was revealed through exploration or summoning. In other words, the usage of "encounter" in that sense seems to be much more deeply engrained throughout the rulebook than in the other sense (i.e. describing the steps that happen between "before the encounter" effects and "after the encounter" effects).
Approach 2 would mean a much more substantial update to the rulebook and a lot more cards would have to be issued errata. Basically, nearly every instance of the word "encounter" would have to be replaced throughout the game. Why make a drastic change across the board like that when "encounter" in the more common sense is perfectly functional as is?
Approach 1 would require updating a smaller amount of rules and would require a much smaller subset of cards to be updated.
1) Modify the terminology for "before the encounter" and "after the encounter" effects (for examples, see my post above)2) Modify the terminology for "encountering a card" (e.g. the recent suggestions of "activating a card" or "exposing a card")
Personally, I think approach 1 is the simpler and cleaner fix. Looking through the rulebook, almost all instances of the word "encounter" seem to be used to describe the entire process of dealing with a card that was revealed through exploration or summoning. In other words, the usage of "encounter" in that sense seems to be much more deeply engrained throughout the rulebook than in the other sense (i.e. describing the steps that happen between "before the encounter" effects and "after the encounter" effects).
Approach 2 would mean a much more substantial update to the rulebook and a lot more cards would have to be issued errata. Basically, nearly every instance of the word "encounter" would have to be replaced throughout the game. Why make a drastic change across the board like that when "encounter" in the more common sense is perfectly functional as is?
Approach 1 would require updating a smaller amount of rules and would require a much smaller subset of cards to be updated.
I guess feel that changing the card terminology would mean every card with the "Before the encounter" or "After the encounter" effect would need to be errataed. That feels like a lot of cards to me. Approach 2 would leave those terms in place and modify the rulebook which has already been re-released twice (I believe) and the cards with the "When you first encounter" which are far less than "Before the Encounter."
I'm also not convinced that Encountering a Card is well defined in the rule book.
p.8 says "Explore: You may explore your location once each turn without playing a card that allows you to explore; this must be your first exploration for the turn. When you explore, flip over the top card of your current location deck. If it’s a boon, you may attempt to acquire it; if you don’t, banish it. If it’s a bane, you must try to defeat it. (See Encountering a Card on page 10.)..." bold emphasis mine.
This section certainly implies that flipping over the top card of a location deck is the same as Encountering it but never actually defines Encountering a Card.
Then on p.10 under Encountering a Card it says "When you encounter a card, you—and only you—can go through the following steps..." It continues explaining what you can do and what others can do on your turn and then the last paragraph of that section says... "After you flip over the top card of the location deck, put it on top of the deck and read it, then go through the following steps in order."
Again it implies that flipping over the card is the same as Encountering it but never comes out and says it.
So the question for the designer is whether the act of flipping over the card is the same as Encountering it. If these are the same then Approach 1 is the way to go for the least amount of pain. If there is the possibility that flipping over (aka exposing, activating, revealing, whatever) the card is separate from Encountering the card then a window exists to Evade and insert what are currently called "When first encountered" effects.
I'm of the the opinion that Approach 2 is cleaner but either which way we are talking about defining clearly what an "Encounter" is in PACG. Does is start with the flip or does it start after the flip? Inquiring minds want to know.
I guess feel that changing the card terminology would mean every card with the "Before the encounter" or "After the encounter" effect would need to be errataed. That feels like a lot of cards to me. Approach 2 would leave those terms in place and modify the rulebook which has already been re-released twice (I believe) and the cards with the "When you first encounter" which are far less than "Before the Encounter."
Approach 2 is a bit more far-reaching than just cards with "When you encounter" effects. Literally every instance of the word "encounter", except with "before the encounter" and "after the encounter" effects would have to be replaced.
Examples:
Skeleton Horde: "Each character at an open location summons and encounters an Ancient Skeleton henchman" would need to be changed to something like "Each character at an open location summons and exposes an Ancient Skeleton henchman." In fact, all instances of "summon and encounter", which is fairly common, would have to be replaced to reflect the change in terminology.
Tangletooth: "Each character at this location encounters Tangletooth" becomes "Each character at this location exposes Tangletooth." "Encounter" sounds much more natural in this context to me.
Bruthazmus: "Encounter Bruthazmus twice. Bruthazmus is defeated or undefeated based solely on the results of the second encounter." becomes "Expose Bruthazmus twice. Bruthazmus is defeated or undefeated based solely on the results of the second time you expose." Again, I find encounter to be the more natural and intuitive sounding choice here.
Blessing of the Gods: "If you encounter this card, you automatically acquire it" would need to become "If you expose this card, you automatically acquire it." I see a lot of potential for confusion here amongst new players. "Does playing BotG from my hand count as exposing the card?" "Does flipping a BotG from the blessings deck count as exposing the card?"
More examples surely exist, but I just wanted to provide a flavor for the kinds of things that would need to be considered when going with approach 2.
I guess I don't see it like that. I don't want to replace Encounter with Expose. For me Expose is what you do when you place the card face up on the table. Encounter is what you do when you start interacting with the card.
What I advocate is defining a term (aka Expose) as the process of placing a card face up on the table and that this happens before Encountering the Card. A side bar could do that and acknowledge that both Exploring and Summoning are means of Exposing cards.
Then you change the placement of Evade to after Exposing but before Encountering. If this is the case then...
Skeleton Horde: "Each character at an open location summons and encounters an Ancient Skeleton henchman" No change. Each character summons which we would understand to mean expose and then either evades or encounters.
Blessing of the Gods: "If you encounter this card, you automatically acquire it" No change. You expose the card and then either evade or encounter it. You have the choice of evading it and leaving it for someone else.
Bruthazmus: "Encounter Bruthazmus twice. Bruthazmus is defeated or undefeated based solely on the results of the second encounter." Possible change if you rule that you can Encounter him once and Evade him the second time. If you only get one chance to Evade him then no change.
Tangletooth: "Each character at this location encounters Tangletooth." This one you got me. You'd need something like "Before encountering each character at this location must chose to Evade Tangletooth if they can. Each character that did not Evade Tangletooth encounters him."
Like I said I don't want to replace Encounter with Expose. I want play order to look like this.
* Expose a Card (Explore or Summon currently)
* Choose to Evade the Exposed Card if Possible
* Encounter the Card