augh

B&CG has a really unfortunate situation with its magic the gathering questions

@doppelgreener what, specifically, are you referring to?

we get a lot of questions like the ones from BolasStone, which are pretty well explained in the basic rules... but I can't fault BolasStone for asking them, because the basic rules are not included in any product I've found yet.

instead there's a foldup sheet that doesn't cover all these bases.

Yeah, I was sure the land color question was a duplicate too, but nobody's actually asked that before

@murgatroid99 that one is a really good one, because the answer is surprising.

"my island -- the embodiment of blue mana -- isn't blue...?"

For a lot of those questions, I kind of wish he had asked them a little differently

Like I wish he had worded that one "What color are lands?"

But it's a big enough edit that it would make the answers read weirdly

Overall, though, I think it's good that he asked those questions (well, the basic rules ones)

on rpg.se, we can downvote absolute beginner questions, close them as unclear, and leave a comment saying - I'll quote - "While we're happy to help where the rules are confusing, this site isn't for reiterating basic rules. If you haven't read {the relevant section of the rules, e.g. mana costs or abilities}, please do. If you're still confused after studying the rules, you can ask us about which specific part of the rules you're having trouble with."

--- but since the basic rulebook isn't included in stuff, they wouldn't know any better.

@murgatroid99 we can create canon questions and close more specific ones like that as duplicates of the canon questions.

@doppelgreener this is why I think it's good

there is a lot of pushback on several sites against outright banning simple/beginner questions

because even if the question is obvious to you, it's easy to Google once it's one one of these sites and we don't need more than one of each before we close the rest as duplicates

oh, man, we take beginner questions in droves on rpg.se, even the ones where someone says: "these rules seem to suggest I can do X. does that really mean I can do X?" - and the answer is "yes, you can do X, it says so right there." but we just don't take RTFM questions... but the manual is actually distributed with the product when it comes to RPGs.

RTFM questions being questions that are trivially answered by opening the book to the chapter on the thing you just asked and reading.

Most of his questions are actually good because they cover non-obvious interactions that beginners are likely to encounter (timestamps, the different types of abilities, color of land, multiple extra turns, interchangeability of counters, the exact meaning of flashback)

like, here, a RTFM question would be: "so how do I attack with monsters?"

I checked, and the specific question he asked about flashback isn't answered by the current reminder text

@murgatroid99 yeah, some of them are very good.

And, with his commander question, I'm still wondering if there's going to be a rule change that handles the planeswalker commanders

the ones that bother me are: "can I use a card from eighth edition in this format?", and asking about interaction between coloured mana and generic costs (which is... semi reasonable, but answered in the basic rules, which I commented pointing them to)

TBH, though, before I even came to this site, the only rules texts I knew of were (a) the little fold-up sheet in the basic decks and fat packs, and (b) the comprehensive rules.

@doppelgreener that first one is downvoted for a good reason. I think that's sufficient

@murgatroid99 i suppose so

That is the point of downvotes, after all. To separate good questions from bad ones