RulesFest: Stop Playing With the Drinks!

Welcome to another installment of RulesFest!  Here’s a fairly common interaction:

Experienced RDI Player: I drink… (flips over a card)… Wine.
New Player: I spike it with firewater!
Experienced Player: The Wench thinks you should stop playing with the drinks.
New Player: The Wench thinks YOU should stop playing with the drinks!
Experienced Player: Um…no…

Unfortunately, the funny nature of “Wench thinks…” sometimes leads players to believe that it can negate any card that has anything to do with drinks.  That’s not the case, for two reasons.  Let’s look at the card!

The first reason it doesn’t work (and the reason we use when explaining this interaction to new players) is because of the text at the bottom of the card: “This card can only be affected by I don’t think so!

But here’s the dirty little secret of this card.  That line about “I don’t think so! is almost entirely redundant anyway!  In fact, the only other card that could potentially affect “The Wench thinks you should stop playing with the drinks.” is Wizgille’s “I didn’t activate my temporal dilation field. It’s just deja vu.

An important general RDI rule to remember is that a card only affects (or changes the effects) of another card if it directly impacts that card when it resolves.  So, let’s look at the hypothetical interaction where “Wench thinks…” is played on another “Wench thinks…“.

“Negate a Sometimes Card…”

So far, so good.  “Wench thinks…” is, in fact, a Sometimes Card.

“…that changes the effects of a Drink Card”

Here’s where things get tripped up.  “Wench thinks…” is not changing the effects of a Drink Card.  It’s negating a Sometimes Card.  So, in the example above, Experienced Player’s “Wench thinks” is not affecting the Wine at all.  It is simply negating “Spike it with firewater.”  Because of this, “Wench thinks…” can never be a legitimate target for “Wench thinks…

In general, when determining whether a card affects something, ignore any ways in which that card might affect things indirectly.  This means, for example, that spiking a drink does not count as “affecting your alcohol content” and that losing a round of gambling does not count as “affecting your gold”.  And it also means that “Wench thinks…” can’t be affected by another “Wench thinks…

Hopefully that clears up this common misconception.  Until next time, SlugFest Rules!

-Jeff

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