Keywording the cards

I was having a conversation with my nephew (also an avid SotM player) yesterday, who was describing how everyone in his college-age gaming group wishes that SotM were more like M:tG in the way it handles card text.  Specifically, they wish that card effects were more standardized and given keywords (a term which conflicts with the way SotM currently handles keywords, so some other terminology would need to be used) to improve the clarity and reduce the verboseness on the cards.

For example, M:tG cards will say they have "deathtouch" or "flying" or "haste", which makes it so that you don't have to list out the details of what the ability does right there on the card, you are just referring to it in the rulebook where the details can reside.  This also means that if you need to errata how an ability works, you don't need to reprint the cards.

Further, any M:tG card with "flying" operates the same as any other card with "flying", so you don't have situations like we have with, for example, the many different ways that cards can be put underneath other cards (Haka's "Savage Mana", Bunker's "Omni-Cannon", La Capitan's ability, etc.).  Instead, you'd just give a SotM card the "Consume" ability, perhaps with some additional text clarifying what the card can do with consumed cards, and they can all follow similar rules (i.e. consumed cards retain their type but not their text, when the main card goes away, all consumed cards are returned immediately to their respective decks, etc.).

Lastly, there's no denying that SotM cards are chatty.  Some might even call them expansively effusive in some cases.  If these kinds of keywords could be helpful in making the cards easier to quickly scan during an end-of-turn phase, that seems like a positive thing.

I'm not sure if I'm 100% behind my nephew's gaming group's complaints, but I see the merit in them and thought it was an interesting topic to bring up here to see what other people's thoughts are.  If nothing else, now is probably the time to be discussing this kind of thing, with a new rule book for Vengeance on the way.

I would be against it. I wouldn't want to go looking into a rulebook anytime I couldn't remember what a keyword would mean, when it could of just been printed on the card itself instead. Which I believe is one thing they have stated before, is they wanted people to look into the rulebook the first few times while playing and not have to explore it again.

The keywords are great for experienced MtG players, but I always found myself trying to figure out what they meant since I didn't play a lot. I think trying to explain keywords to new players in addition to the actual rules could turn some people off. But, I do wee where he is coming from.

I don't think we need keywords, but I would support a real rule regarding the timing of effects that would make clear what happens when, for example, Wrest the Mind is used on a Sonic Mine.  

Based on the End of Days rulings, it appears that a card has effects while in play, and ceases having them when it leaves play.  Sonic Mine kind of turns that on its ear.

If we used the End of Days rules on Sonic Mine, its text would have to change to something like "if Sonic Mine would be destroyed by damage, prevent all damage to it, then Sonic Mine blows up, then destroy Sonic Mine", which would make clear that Wrest the Mind would work on it.  

I think that all made sense... been a long day.

it appears that a card has effects while in play, and ceases having them when it leaves play.

I don't think that's completely true.  If a card says, "some effect is in effect until the end of your next turn", and then you destroy it, I believe the ruling is that the effect sticks around until the time limit stated has passed.

I'm agreeing with Ronway. The people I play with in "real life" are predominantly casual boardgamers who haven't played Sentinels much. If they had to look up a bunch of keywords every time they drew a card they'd get tired of the game extremely quickly, because we don't play frequently enough for them to be able to learn the keywords. Having to consult the rulebook a million times during the game wouldn't be much fun.

We have a couple of card games that someone gave us (Lunch Money/Beer Money and Grass). They have no card text other than the card title and some flavour text, and no-one wants to play them because you end up passing the rules sheet around all the time and asking, "What does Utterly Wiped Out do again? I know it's bad, but how many turns do I miss? How many points do I lose if I have it at the end?" or "Can I chain Uppercut with Big Combo?" and similar rather than, y'know, playing the game. Okay, they're crappy games anyway, but my point still stands.

I'm not against the keyword concept per se as long as we still have appropriately descriptive card text - maybe symbols or bolded bits of text in the main text or something, but the real problem would be that then the new cards wouldn't be terribly compatible with the older sets.

I really wish that the current cards indicated more clearly start- and end-of-turn effects though. I made my own tokens which helps, but they do make the game even more fiddly.

I went ahead and highlighted phrases "the start of turn" (green) and "end of turn" (red) on the cards themselves so I don't have to use the tokens. It took a while to get them all, and I am sure it will make purists cringe... but I found it really made the game so much easier and helped me get more people to play. 

I also agree that while keywords may seem like a good idea, they will turn potential new players away... and the seasoned players that would use the keyword probably play enough to memorize what the cards do fairly quickly anyway, so it wouldn't bethat huge a benefit anyway. 

I do, however, definitely wish there wwas more consistent language for effects throughout the game... the whole thing about taking damage vs being dealt damage vs would be dealt damage and all that can get a bit messy. 

I've wanted icons for "start-of-turn" and "end-of-turn" effects since day one.  There's never been any indication from the designers that they want to do that, though.

Or even just something like:

START: This thing happens

Card text as normal

END: Some other thing happens

That'd be helpful. Jut some visual way of reminding us about those effects, since the way they are now it's really easy to miss them. Even bolding phrases like "at the start of the villain turn" would have been better than nothing, and I honestly don't see why something wasn't done from the beginning.

Except you also run into edge case cards like End of Days which is Start of Environment.

Or Start of that target's turn not the Hero that played it :S (eg, Jinx cards)

Yeah, but they're the exception rather than the rule. The majority of cards with start/end effects seem to be just that - do this thing at the start of the villain turn, do this other thing at the end of the hero turn, whatever.

With the exceptions you could use a modified symbol - a "start" symbol with a star for example, clarified with ordinary text as normal. Or to use my text example:

End of Days

START (of ENVIRONMENT): At the start of the environment turn, destroy all the things, unless they are awesome special things. Then destroy this thing. Get cursed by the other players because you're a bastard who didn't bother to tell them you were planning to play this card like 4 turns ago when you drew it.*

*Card text may not be 100% accurate.

Agreed.  A simple "SV" or "EV" for "start of villain turn" or "end of villain turn" would get the job done.

Yeah, I find the color-coded SV and EV on Spiff's oversize villain cards to be quite useful.  SE, EE, SP, and EP could just as easily be applied to environment and player start/end triggers, and would take up less space and easier to identify.

I don't really agree with keywording the rest of everything, however.  While it's good to have consistency, I would prefer that the card text simply be updated to be uniform (as needed) rather than replacing whole chunks of text wholesale.  As a veteran MtG player, I think the keywording frenzy in that game got out of hand 5 years ago, and has only gotten worse since.

~5 years ago was Time Spiral block, which is a horrible example to use for basically anything.

I like keywords in MTG. They keep the card texts mostly clean and allow for cards to reference each other (and/or their effects) more easily. Reminder text still exists on commons and core sets, which kind of defeats the purpose from a veteran's perspective but would be invaluable to newer players if they would actually RTFC.

ahem

But I don't think Sentinels needs them – any more than it already has for types and what MTG would call "keyword actions" like destroy or discard. Some of the other suggestions in this thread would be nice, though.

Well a few keywords are fine, but when you have to remember the difference between phasing and fading, or any of the Ravnica keywords (x2!), or morph versus ninjutsu versus shadow versus lifelink versus deathtouch versus banding versus hexproof versus wither versus intimidate versus fear versus provoke versus rampage versus shroud versus scry versus annihilator versus flanking, it starts to get pretty ridiculous.

SotM is great because you don't necessarily have to memorize dozens of pages of rules and abilities, you just have to remember the card order and phase order, and do what's written on the cards.

We had an extensive discussion about Keywords when first designing SotM, and very consciously chose not to include them for many of the reasons people have already mentioned. Here are some of our thoughts:

Pros of Keywords

• Similar effects are *guaranteed* to work in an identical way if they share a keyword.
• More experienced players have to spend less time reading.
• A given effect takes up less space on a card, ergo more effects can be fit on a card.

Cons of Keywords

• Teaching the game takes longer.
• Less experienced players have to spend more time reading.
• More effects can be fit on a card.

We came down firmly on the "no Keyword" side of the debate, and, as much as I like the idea of Keywords aethetically, our experience with the game and its fans since its launch has done nothing but give us even more confidence in our decision.

I like how more effects can fit on a card are both a pro and a con!

Ha, yeah.  Paul, what about shortening "at the start of the villain turn" (etc.) to an icon or an abbreviation for improved readability?  That seems like a pretty easy win.  What's your experience with the game shown with regards to that?

The card pool is small and consistent enough compared to MtG that keywords aren't strictly necessary. I'm likely to know approximately what all the cards in a deck do (and hence not need keywords) by the time I'd learn all the keywords.

Also, keywords have a way of mentally limiting the design space of the game. In a game as sprawling as MtG, that's actually a good thing because the selection of keywords they introduce or highlight for certain blocks imbues them with character and gives texture to the meta. In SotM, that would be a bad thing because inventing wacky new things for each deck is kinda the point. If you have to invent a keyword for each new deck, you're losing most of the benefit of having keywords in the first place.

That's my $0.02, anyway.

@Spiff

We decided not to include Start and End icons for the same reasons (they are something to look up in the rulebook, etc), and and are going to stick with that design choice for the rest of SotM. We are trying out the concept of "phase icons" with GSF, in large part because there are a wider variety of phases, and the game itself is somewhat more complex than SotM.

And, for those who do really want phase icons for SotM, we have the "Start of Turn" and "End of Turn" tokens in the bonus token pack that we sell on our website (and, coming soon to a FLGS near you!).

I'd be happy with colored "Start of Turn"/"End of Turn" text, or even just underlines.  Anything to make them stand out on the card.

Paul,

Are the start of turn and end of turn tokens included in Vengeance?

While I agree wholeheartedly with the "no keywording" policy, the recent discussion on Omni-X's thread (which ultimately arose from a two-year-old AZ ruling) makes it feel like there is some de facto keywording going on.  I know the designers are busy with all kinds of crap (and I'm endlessly grateful to them and >G for rescuing me from the drudgery of MTG), but consistent application of language seems like something that might need some attention.  Using one word (albeit in different tenses) to describe two different game concepts confuses the rules, IMO.  

As someone who plays a lot of MTG, and has a very similar wish: It's not missing keywords that drive me up a wall with Sentinels. It's *templating*- There's a lot of work that goes into MTG and like games so that every guy who does [something] at turn start uses the same text. Every guy who counter-attacks uses the same text. Etc. etc.- This is templating, and it is my biggest/only real gripe about Sentinels. The lack of consistant templating means so much back and forth about 'how exactly does this thing work'- and we don't even have default cases to go from since rarely do two cards agree. I don't mind if Sentinels never has keyworded rules, but I would argue that any future product would benefit massively from having a go at standardizing the templates out across cards.

I think I understand what you mean by "templating", but I'm not sure.  Could you give some examples of how you would change the wording on particular cards to be templated?

I’m still not so sold on that Omni-X rule based on the Absolute Zero rule from years ago. Until I see an official response I still thinks it works with 1 or two damage targeted to Omnitron. I totally get why GtG chose to go the route they did, as teaching the game is easier. I just wish during the play testing process, all the cards got a bit more standardized. Then again I don’t feel 40 dollars strong on the matter.

https://greaterthangames.com/comment/21787#comment-21787 There, the official ruling for Omni-X as well and not just going by Absolute Zero's ruling.

> Could you give some examples of how you would change the wording on particular cards to be templated?

So, from the base set, Legacy has the Legacy Ring and Wraith has her Utility Belt. Both grant an extra power.

Legacy Ring reads "You may use an additional power during your power phase."

Utility Belt reads "You may use 1 additional power each turn."

For my money, those are the same ability-or ought to be, but the templating doesn't match so it's hard to be sure. In this case, there would be a template for 'giving another power' so the cards wouldn't have divergent text for the same skill- and so on for other sutff which doesn't match. It's not a huge impediment to enjoying the game but it seems to me that many rules mix-ups are just the result of the same ability (or functionally the same ability) being written diffirent ways.

Ah, you're using First Edition of SotM, the Enhanced Edition they have it fixed to match the wording of Legacy's Ring.

More importantly, they fixed the wording on Utility Belt, as written it gives an extra power every turn, not just on your turn!

http://sentinelsofthemultiverse.com/downloads

The Enhanced Edition changes are all in PDFs at that link if you need them.

If played out of turn how does Overdrive work?  Do you use Strike twice immediately or do you need to wait for the power phase (which can mean that it's a dead card if played on an environment or villain turn).  Also, if you play Overdrive on your turn can you use Rod of Anubis and then use Strike twice?

Edit:  I hope I don't hijack this thread.  I just thought about this while reading some of these posts about templating.

The matter of Overdrive has been mentioned before somewhere - it specifies that you can use Strike twice "this turn", so if Mr Fixer gets to play Overdrive out of turn (eg the Adept lets him do so), he can use Strike straight away. Twice :D. And yes, if you play Overdrive and then use the Rod or the Idol (or anything else which grants you an extra power, like having Kismet's Talisman or being Infected when Plague Rat has flipped), you still then get to use Strike twice, because Overdrive specifies that you can use it twice that turn - it says nothing about other powers therefore it's extra on top of that :).

Overdrive has a good reason to be different, though.  Mr. Fixer only actually has one power, and you can only use each instance of a power once per turn.  So if it was "you may use an additional power this turn" like all the other cards, he'd get shafted because he still couldn't re-use Strike.

While consistency is usually good for everyone involved, Overdrive is a noteworthy exception.

Luckily the other things that give him additional power usages are Embolden and Pillars of Hercules. One of which isn't something you'd play on him anyways, and the second isn't something that stays wround for too long.

Well Mr. Fixer still has some opportunities to get screwed by only having one power, sure.  But at least he's not getting screwed by one of his own cards, like if Overdrive had a copy/pasted wording from Flame Spike.

I fall somewhere in the middle on this.  I'm a brand new player of the game (although I've been lurking for a long time until I finally found a copy for sale and decided to bite the bullet).  While I agree that there is already plenty of text on the cards and for the MOST part they are relatively clear, I think that the glossary needs to be greatly expanded to make things clear.  For example, the keyword "COVER".  Nowhere to be found in any rules or glossary what this means on a gameplay level.  While it may seem clear and no further explanation is needed beyond what's on the card (which is nothing, in the case of Tumbleweed which is the first time it popped up in our game), our game ground to a halt as we tried to figure out if it indicated a new type of interaction, such as, did it mean a player or villain could declare to "hide" behind the cover and let it absorb damage before it hit us.  No amount of searching through the errata/clarification document, the rules, BGG or here in the forums answered that question for us until I asked the specific question about it.  (Thanks, btw, forum!)

So keep the cards like they are, but please make sure every keyword listed on any card has a corresponding glossary listing that we can quickly reference.  

A thing to keep in mind with those keywords that appear on cards is that their not important until another card references them.

As far as the general mechanics of the gameplay are concerned, the only keyword that matters is ‘one-shot.’ A one shot card is played, resolved, and put in the trash. All other cards, regardless of their keywords (or existence of one), are played, resolved, and remain in play. Keywords on cards are only important when referred by other cards. If a keyword is not referenced by another card then the keyword is meaningless.

I disagree. There are all sorts if things that could be a key word, but in terms of ones that matter there are 3 others that matter greatly, Start of Turn, End of Turn and Out of Turn. Do they need key words, not absolutely. However they need some sort of indicator. It slows the game way down looking through each villain card at the start of each villain turn. The tokens are fine, but they still slow the game way down while you dig them out. 

In a different thread Jaracciao showed an image where he colored his cards. He just highlighted the words start of turn Green and end of turn Red. I would potentially go one further and highlight in blue things that happen out side the current characters turn. The simple red and green on environment and villain minions would be a huge improvement to the flow of the game. 

Personally what I have started doing.

Since I do not have Start of Turn and End of Turn marker.

I have been grouping cards into 3 groups Ongoing/Equipment, Start of Turn Cards with the End of Turn Cards, maintaining the order they were played. (As 3 physical row for villans like Chairman/ Citizen Dawn who have more cards in play)

This seems to have helped, keep track when cards take effect without keywords.

While I agree that highlighting the appropriate text would help a lot, I wouldn't recommend that a game use red and green (or in fact any colours) as the sole means of identifying "important" bits of text, for obvious colourblind-friendly reasons.

Sure, use green and red for "start" and "end" because for most of us that's very intuitive, but bold the words or use a symbol or icon or something, so the distinction is not totally colour-dependent.

Those aren't really Keywords by SotM definition.

Keyword: The words in the rectangular box at the top of any game text section. Any Keywords not defined in this glossary will make sense circumstantially.

Again, I go back to my example of my first game and the keyword "COVER" popping up.  While I understand NOW that 'cover' is a descriptor word along the same lines as 'dinosaur' and 'citizen' and 'fowl', this wasn't clear at first since 'cover' seemed more of a specific gameplay effect like "device", which IS in the glossary.  

I was about to just ask "Is it THAT hard to make a glossary of terms that are just circumstancial keywords for those newbies like me who are looking for clarification?" when I realized that I just need to shut up and make the very list I'm talking about.  Since these forum discussions show up very nicely in any Google search I do, I'll just make a post listing all the keywords with a brief description indicating what it is.   Easy peasy.  

It sounds like you're asking for every keyword from every expansion to be added to the glossary somehow (reprint it in full with each expansion?) which is probably not reasonable.  In this case, you seem to have expected the keyword "cover" to be different from the keywords "dinosaur" and "fowl" because of your experiences in other games.  Might be, the only way around that is to use keywords that no one can possibly misunderstand, which would be a tall order. ;)

In a perfect world, I suppose the cards would separate keywords that are mechanics (one-shot, ongoing, etc.) from keywords that are only there to be referenced by other cards (device, cover, fowl, etc.).  I'm not sure that's necessary, but the OCD project manager in me would find that attractive.

Only keyword that matters is on the back of the card so you know what deck it belongs in.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "seperate" as cards with Device, cover, and fowl are not on any other card that also have the keywords one-shot or ongoing. Infact the Device keyword is the only keyword that you listed that appears on a card with another keyword, which is in Omnitron's deck with his Drones.

Unless you are actually refering to Limited, Spell, Burst, Component, Bounty, Gun, Ammo, Relic, Harmony, Melody, Rythm, Instrument, Module, Tool, Style, Elemental, Jinx, Lucky, and the three symbols appearing in the Ennead's deck. How you suggest seperate these keywords that appear next Ongoing, Equipment, and One-shots? Would each one have their own box on the card?

Oh yeah, I also forgot ‘Limited.’ Thus the only two keywords that matter are ‘one-shot’ and ‘limited.’ Even ‘ongoing,’ ‘device,’ and ‘equipment’ don’t matter except in the case another card makes a reference to such a keyword. They are really only mentioned in the glossary due to how common such keywords are.

My thought was simply that some keywords describe a type of card which has a set of rules that govern how it behaves (one-shot, ongoing, limited).  And other keywords are only there to be referenced by other cards.  A Lucky card doesn't have any inherent Lucky behavior.  A One-Shot does.

Remember I'm approaching this as a brand new player, not someone who is already familiar with the rules.   My main point is that there's no official or unofficial online reference for the various words that appear on the cards.  The cards themselves are their only explanation unless there's an errata or clarification associated with it.  

When I did my initial search for "What does the cover keyword on the Tumbleweed card mean?" (and many variations of this search) absolutely nothing showed up.  Anywhere.   All it would have taken was a list or glossary of these words that explains "If you see one of these words on a card, it's only there for flavor or for indicitating which specific cards a villain's special powers interact with, such as 'drone'."  

It's not enough to simply say "if it's not in the glossary, then that means it's not an important keyword."  My first and second thoughts are, "I must just be blind because I can't find it anywhere, or I'm not using the right search terms."  

Anyway, like I said, sometime in the next few days, I'm going to sit down and make a complete list of these non-essential keywords that aren't included in the glossary for newbies like me.  

[/quote]
You are correct in that "At the start of your turn" is not a key word. It would be the definition of a key word. Just like "draw a card" is not a key word, but you could easily assign a key word to it. I am not actually saying that SotM needs keywords. What I am say is that it needs some kind of visual markers so that people can know at a glance if there is a start of turn or end of turn effect associated with the cards in play. I like colors as you can easily see them at a glance without actually changing the text or even the layout of the text. 

waedens - But the whole thing about 'visual markers' is a completely discussion, and as you pointed out there's another currentlly active thread discussing that very issue. The problem here is about the keywords that already exist on cards, and dragging in things entirely unrelated doesn't help either discussion. (EDIT: Maybe this shouldn't have been directed at you specifically, but it does seem that two completely different discussions, about two different types of 'keyword', are merging uncomfortably here.)

VicDiGital - I think it is enough to say "Any Keywords not defined in this glossary will make sense circumstantially", but if you're having such trouble with it then it must not be clear enough. Perhaps the solution is to put something about this in the body of the rules, to make very clear that the big four are the only keywords that actually matter. Because really, listing Acrobat, Agent, Amazon, Ammo, Anomaly, Appendage, Bounty, Burst, Cavalier, Citizen, Clue, Cohort, Component, Cover, Crew, Cryptid, Cultist, Demon, Device, Dinosaur, Distortion, Diversion, Dreadnaught, Drone, Drug, Elemental, Flagship, Flying Ace, Forensic Scientist, Fowl, Gun, Gunman, Harmony, Inmate, Instrument, Jinx, The Law, Lord of the Underworld, Lucky, Mechanical Golem, Melody, Minion, Mode, Module, Mummy, Musketeer, Nest, Plating, Primeval Limb, Private Eye, Projection, Rat, Relic, Rhythm, Ronin, Spell, Style, Thorathian, Thug, Timeship, Time Portal, Tool, Train, Trap, Treasure, Trial, Underboss, Vat, Victim, Viking, Voodoo Pin and Zombie in the glossary would just be silly.

Something to keep in mind. All of these potential "keywords" all make sense within the context of the deck in which they appear. For instance, upon a new player seeing the "Cover" keyword, a quick glance through the deck (Silver Gulch in this case) will tell you exactly what "Cover" means and how it interacts within the deck. Being a modular game, you can not take these keywords out of the context in which they opperate. That would be my only concern with making a "glossary" of these terms, because there is no use for such a list outside of the individual decks.

With all of that said, the Tumble Weed, which you specifically mention, is found in the Time Cataclysm deck. By design, that deck mashes together the flavor of most of the previously released (possibly even future?) environment decks. So seeing unique keywords in this particular environment is all about flavor and thematic immersion (as we also see an Agent keyword used from The Block) and has no mechanical impact on a game played in that environment. This environment is clearly unqiue and the sole exception to what I said in the first paragraph. 

So, in closing, give the individual decks a quick glance over before you play with them for the first time, as any "additional" rules outside of the basic gameplay rules are all clearly laid out within each of the decks. Hope this helps!

I wouldn't consider Ongoing/Equipment a keyword that determine how a card behaves. Cards that enter play will remain in play unless they are a one-shot which functions differently. As seen by environment cards that have no keywords and even villain cards that have different keywords all together. Ongoing/Equipment are there to also be used for referenced by other cards. Such as Impromptu Invention and Devastating Aurora. 

So the only keywords that would be listed in "governs how it behaves" category are One-Shot and Limited.

Edit: Also One-Shots and Limited cards are referenced in other cards as well, Ghostly Images and Altantean Font of Power. So if you were to seperate keywords there for reference and ones that effects the way a card functions, you will turn up with One-Shot and Limited being in both sections.

I appreciate you bringing that up, as one of my players is red/green colorblind.

In other news, as far as keywords on targets, it has very little to do with the game until it is brought up.  As much as I hate comparing this game to Magic:  The Gathering, it is like creature types versus creature cards.  Does it matter that your creature is a Lhurgoyf?  Not unless another card says "all Lhurgoyfs get +1/+1" or something to that effect.  Same goes with SotM targets.  Typically, it doesn't matter if your target is a Device, Appendage, The Law, or Cover.  It matters more that they are an Environment Target, Villain Target, Hero Target, or just a Target in general.  In Magic, it typically doesn't matter if your creature is an Elf/Frog/Ape/Dragon/etc. until another card brings it up, and classifying those creature types would fill a book the size of an alminac.  Typically, it just matters that it is a creature card.  Sure, sometimes "Citizen" or "Thoratian" cards are buffed, or "Gunmen" cards get DR equal to the number of "Cover" cards in play, but that's a deck-by-deck basis.  I think it would be very useful to include mention of specialized rules pertaining to individual decks (which, I believe, is already included in the rulebook, but I'm not sure), but including a glossary of every single type of target would only alienate and confuse new players rather than assist them in understanding the game.

I definitely understand the idea of Target keywords being confusing.  I played the first edition of the core, which didn't include those keywords, so my group had a solid understanding that they were mostly for flavor from the get-go.

The rulebooks mention specialized rules and keywords for hero decks. Pointing to the Infernal Relics rulebook as an example, Nightmights magic icons and Argents Perform/Accompany texts are mentioned and clarified.

The same cannot be said for Environment decks. But I believe that is due to the fact that those decks specify what to do with deck specific keywords within the cards themselves, so there is little benifit to cramming more unessesary text into the rulebook.

True.  I'd say that Time Cataclym is very much for the SotM "nerd".  If you're not terribly familiar with the rest of the Environment decks, then it can confuse and frustrate you with its seemingly meaningless and diverse keywords.

I'm late to the conversation, but I'll agree with others that the words in the rectangle above the text are more like descriptors with no power on their own.  They just let other things reference them.  I know they are called keywords in the rules, but really none of them have any meaning on their own (except I suppose the on-shot vs ongoing and equipment).

I can understand that "Cover" might sound like it should mean something, but considering it is in the same area as words like Jinx, Component, Tool, Spell, Inmate, Distortion, etc, I just went with the idea that it meant nothing until something referenced it.

Now I know this isn't true as far as the semantics of the game, but in the way I normally think of keywords, the only keyword in sentinels is power.  Power is bolded, in the text box, and has a specific meaning ie  you can do this action during your power phase.  I would like to see Start of Turn and End of Turn done similar to power.  So instead of...

At the start of your turn you may deal 1 target 2 irreducible damage

you might have

Start of Turn: you may deal 1 target 2 irreducible damage

Or maybe just

Start: you may deal 1 target 2 irreducible damage.

Similarly you could have 

End: Apostate deals the hero with the highest HP H-2 melee damage and H-2 infernal damage.

Might actually save some room on the cards too!

I think maybe things are not done like this is because you have some things that are the start of YOUR turn and somethings that are at the start of ANY turn so you would have to be careful about that.  Maybe you would need things like:

Your Start:

Any Start:

Environment Start:

Villain Start:

I think this is a big part of the problem. People can't even agree on what a keyword is. "Cover" could be one if it consistently had the same effect, I.e. gun men get -1 damage reduction. "Hero targets" also could qualify depending on you definition. Going with the MTG example creature types are not keywords in Magic, but could be in Sentinels if it made sense. Okay so why would we want keywords?  To speed up game play and make the game more fun for everyone. I think visual markers would do a better job of that, but if people like keywords then fine. Grow = draw a card, Quick = has a start of turn effect, etc. those are what key words are by MTG standards.  Just keep in mind that MTG does not use keywords to make the game easier. They are there to reward loyalty and give an edge to the people that have been playing the longest. This is important because MtG is a competitive game. Sentinels is a cooporative game so I believe it should be set up to be as inclusive as possible. Which fits with the logic I have heard so far from the creators of the game in excluding keywords. 

Keywords are clearly defined in the rules. The only disagreements are coming from those who want it to mean the same thing it does in Magic.

SotM is not Magic. Its time to accept this and move on.

lol.  It doesn't have to be in the body of the rules or even in the glossary.  Something exactly like what you just did would have been PERFECT.   If I had found that concise list, I wouldn't have had to do any more searching.  It just needs to be something that shows up somewhere in a search.  

Now a stand-alone glossary, that's updated as new stuff comes out, which has all these listed alphabetically with maybe a line of explanation or naming the associated villain or environment-- this will be an added bonus.   I understand why there hasn't been a list until now, but I don't quite understand why there was seeming opposition to a concise list, lol.  How is this a bad thing?  

Because the bulk of the descriptors would consist of "A Target in 's deck."  It isn't necessarily a "bad" thing, but it won't really explain much beyond "I should look at that deck and see what (if anything) that card does with other cards in that deck."

There aren't any hidden nuggets of information required to understand the cards beyond what is printed on them.  As stated before, this isn't Magic: The Gathering.  Everything you need to know about these cards can be found written out in the Villain Text card, cards in their respective decks, or (if both of these should fail you for some reason) the rulebook and rules inserts.  A glossary could be made, but I don't believe that it would be a terribly rewarding or useful project.

EDIT:  @Foote, I completely agree with you.  My comparison was not meant to draw further connections to Magic, as I find it to be a poor comparison that really doesn't set people up for the "teamwork" aspect of Sentinels as a co-op game.  I've just noticed a lot of Magic banter on this topic, and thought it might be an insightful enough comparison to explain why a glossary of target terms in Sentinels would be about as fruitful and informative as a glossary of creature types in Magic.  Sometimes it matters.  Sometimes it doesn't.  If it does, the card will probably say it, and a glossary would do little beyond provide some interesting trivia and prompt further questions with its answers.

It does not surprise me. MtG is a staple in the card game genre. The majority of people I know and have met through my time in this hobby have all played MtG extensivly at some point down the road (myself included). The comparison at some point is unavoidable. It is actually a GREAT jumping off point into the gameplay, as those who have played MtG will recognize the core mechanics of SotM immediatly and pick things up quickly.

The biggest difference, for me, is the fact that SotM is modular. 100%. It is this core difference that we should keep in mind when talking about these Keywords. What being a modular game allows is that special rules and mechanics can be isolated into these separate decks without them spilling out into the core game as a whole. This keeps the base games complexity fixed, eliminated the need for errata after every expansion release. And because new mechanics and rules are isolated within each deck, it is much less intimidating for new players as everything they need to know is on a deck-by-deck basis. Don't have The Block environment? Well thats ok because you wont see Agent cards anywhere else, so there is no need constantly refer to a big clunky list of terms.

The only confusion here is people wanting "keywords" as specifically defined within this game to mean the same thing as its defined within a completly separate game. It is an expectation that is rather unreasonable in my opinion. 

(scratches head, mystified)

So... you don't see any benefit in having something clear and concise that shows up when someone does a search?  When it's as easy as just making a list?   Really?

Again, using my very first game as an example, randomly selecting heroes, villain and environment brought forth the Tumbleweed card as the very first environment card that we faced.  It had the word "Cover, Anomaly" on it, and an HP.  The Anomaly part made sense as that had to do with the time travel, but the Cover didn't.  There was no explanation of Cover in the main rules.  No explanation in the Shattered Timelines manual (that was the only expansion we had at the time).  We discussed it amongst ourselves:  "Was it a special sort of action that we had just missed in the rules, or was explained in a different expansion?"  Maybe we were all just stupid, and should have clearly figured out all the rules correctly from the first read-through before actually playing the game and experiencing all the cards as they were played.  I guess that's on us.  But all of us had come from various other card games such as Magic, Game of Thrones, Yu-Gi-Oh, Summoner Wars, where there ARE lots of different main keywords, and then sub-keywords and then faction keywords and special event keywords and on and on.  So it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that the the "cover' keyword triggered some other sort of ability that we were just too blind or stupid to see.  Wouldn't be the first time a rule was in plain sight and we kept reading it wrong or skimming over it.  

But even accounting for our stupidity, we did a search for ANY explanation or clarification of the "cover" keyword.  Nothing.  Nothing anywhere.  It's like the keyword didn't exist.  We went on without any sort of answer and I'm sure we played that wrong as well as all the other rules one plays wrong when learning a new game.  But afterwards, I made it a goal to find out what this keyword meant.  No matter where I looked or how deeply I delved into BGG or these forums, or the GTG website, there wasn't a single mention of what the cover keyword meant.  I searched for more than an hour.   Nothing.  

Maybe we're the only new players of this game who've ever wondered if there was more to a keyword than it seemed at first glance.  Or wondered if we were playing it right.  

The current list of non-essential keywords is only 75.  That's a tiny list.  One paragraph (like above) that brings all the similar non-essential keywords together.  Anyone who looks for one will find all the others, and will find instant clarification.   "This keyword is like these others."

And really, I love LOVE LOVE this game.  But when there's a 38 page errata/clarification document, CLEARLY the rules and card explanations aren't as straightforward and obvious as many people may want to believe, especially when you're learning the rules by yourself and not able to have someone who already knows the game there to explain it to you and answer questions.  

What?  They give the competition and advantage becasue they know the definition?  I would say key words are there to save space by replacing common text phrases with a single word.

Actually I don't care at all what they are called, that is simply semantics.  My idea about use of bold words followed by a colon is just to save space through a standard definition and make things stand out more.  Call them Action Indicators or whatever doesn't mean a thing to me.

Edit:

Use of Symbols has the same effect, saves space, easy to identify.

Keyword:  The words in the rectangular box at the top of any game text section.  Any keywords not defined in this glossary will make sense circumstantially.

Taken from the EE Rulebook PDF on the official SotM website.  Emphasis mine.

You had a rather unfortunate start to the keyword process (the Time Cataclysm is an environment deck from the third SotM expansion, Shattered Timelines, which is quite possibly the most storyline-intensive and reference-filled expansion in this whole game), and the circumstances of understanding the "Cover" keyword were in the "Silver Gulch" Promo Environment.  You didn't have the context for this keyword because you weren't familiar with another environment in the game that was released simultaneously with Shattered Timelines.  However, there are still cards in that deck with keywords that we cannot clearly identify from a certain deck (meaning they haven't been released yet).  It is very much meant to be a deck that combines elements from many Environment decks (past, present, and future) into one, fifteen card reference powerhouse.

Sentinels is a game that typically works best when you start with the Core and work your way up.  The characters are much easier to understand, for the most part (excluding Absolute Zero) and the villains help you understand turn order, card types, and cover many effects that are used throughout the game (damage, DR, buffing, types of damage, etc.).  For players who had started early on with the Core and worked toward Shattered Timelines, the references to "Dinosaur," Marsquake, Atlantean Throne Room, Surprise Shopping Spree, etc. in the Time Cataclysm would be understood as the four environments from the Core (Insula Primalis, Wagner Mars Base, Ruins of Atlantis, and Megalopolis, respectively).  The same goes for Rook City, Pike Industrial Complex, Realm of Discord, Tomb of Anubis, The Block, and (as mentioned) Silver Gulch (not sure if The Final Wasteland has one, now that I think of it).  Each deck has a card in TC.  The keywords Trial, Cover, etc. were cute little "winks" to the players who have played the previous expansions.

Just having the Core under your belt would've given a lot of context for what the Time Cataclysm deck's "deal" is.  It's a bunch of environments from Sentinels wrapped up into one, and sometimes the references stem from keywords previously used in them.  Dinosaur, for instance, is in there for fun.  Trials allow you to obtain Treasure cards in the Tomb of Anubis.  But there are no Treasure cards in Time Cataclysm.  It's just a reference.  If there was a keyword that wasn't recognized, a player with the Core set under their belt would assume that it was from a deck that they either hadn't played yet, or a deck that hasn't been released yet.  This deck isn't terribly helpful for new players, and I highly recommend you play as many of the other environments as you possibly can before you try to play in the Time Cataclysm again.  Precedent will help you greatly when playing many of the decks from Shattered Timelines because, as mentioned earlier, it is the third expansion in Sentinels of the Multiverse, and filled with references to previous sets.

That being said, there isn't anything wrong with an expanded Target Keyword glossary.  But the >G team is hard at work playtesting a brand-new game and a mega-expansion for Sentinels, so I think you're hope for a glossary will have to be granted by a kindly forum member with some extra time to spare for SotM.

There was no explanation because there was none needed.

Tell me, during that game, when did you need to know what "Cover" did? 

But that does not change the fact that any rules not covered in the basic gameplay of the rulebook are all handled internally within the decks, and that IS something that the rulebook states (as reckless pointed out).

I am not saying your idea is bad or silly or anything like that. Trust me, I totally see where the confusion came from. I think had I been in your shoes, I would have felt the same way. I do question how usefull a list like that would actually be however. The whole point of setting the game up in the way it is, is specifically to deter the need for such massive glossery lists to begin with.

So... you don't see any benefit in having something clear and concise that shows up when someone does a search?  When it's as easy as just making a list?   Really?

Heck, why not do that?  He's right, you should be able to look something up if it confuses you, even if it doesn't confuse everyone.  It's why I have my FAQ.

There's already a keyword page in the wiki.  Maybe VicDiGital feels strongly enough about it to add the list of all the circumstantial keywords (which BlueHairedMeerkat has apparently already chronicled) to that page.

That's how we raise the average awesomeness level of the universe, by helping people out, not by trying to convince them they shouldn't have needed help in the first place. :)

Bah, it was not my intent to discourage. I hope it was not taken that way. I feel like my demeanor never translates well on forums or texting.

Tone usually can't be ascertained by words alone.

First off Sefirit I have to apologize to you. While I was writing my post you posted yours and unfortunately mine posted up after it. I was not replying to you, but none the less my post looked like a snotty response to yours. 

I was getting shot down for suggesting using color to highlight certain phrases to essentially mark them as "key" but because I focused on start and end of turn as the most important key identifiers people thought it had nothing to do with key words. 

I will disagree with you about magic. Using key words and understanding how those words interact with each other is meant to reward the devoted player. It takes a long time to fully understand how the cards interact and for players that have seen a certain keyword power before and know all the rulings about it there is a significant advantage. You see it is not just about the definition of the keyword, but about all the rulings about the keyword and how it interacts. There is nothing wrong with this in a competitive game. It is a company rewarding its base. 

From the very first moment we turned over the card on our very first turn.  

"Do we have to DO something to make the 'cover' aspect of the card work?"  

"Do we have to declare that we are taking cover behind it?"  

"Are objects considered a different type of card than creatures or people?"

"Does cover mean that any damage we do is first applied to the cover item and that it must be destroyed before damage passes through to the intended target?"  

"Dinosaur" or "drone" implies something attacking you or that you attack.  "Cover" implies something you can hide behind or that blocks you from attacking something else.  

It's one thing to set things up to avoid having to create and print a large rule book or constantly-expanding glossary.  I totally get that, lol.  Not an issue.  I also get that the designers of this game don't have time to maintain a list of the words that are associated with this game for people that might have a question about if they're understanding a card word correctly.   I'm just baffled that there's opposition to the existence of a list like this or that anyone could think that it's totally unnecessary.  Here's how simple a list it is:

Acrobat, Agent, Amazon, Ammo, Anomaly, Appendage, Bounty, Burst, Cavalier, Citizen, Clue, Cohort, Component, Cover, Crew, Cryptid, Cultist, Demon, Device, Dinosaur, Distortion, Diversion, Dreadnaught, Drone, Drug, Elemental, Flagship, Flying Ace, Forensic Scientist, Fowl, Gun, Gunman, Harmony, Inmate, Instrument, Jinx, The Law, Lord of the Underworld, Lucky, Mechanical Golem, Melody, Minion, Mode, Module, Mummy, Musketeer, Nest, Plating, Primeval Limb, Private Eye, Projection, Rat, Relic, Rhythm, Ronin, Spell, Style, Thorathian, Thug, Timeship, Time Portal, Tool, Train, Trap, Treasure, Trial, Underboss, Vat, Victim, Viking, Voodoo Pin and Zombie

I mean, that's it.  That's all that was needed.   And that's all that IS needed, lol.  Now when someone does a search for ANY of these keywords, THIS post will be one of the results.   No matter which keyword they may have been looking for (and not finding in the Glossary), this list and this discussion now exists to clarify that these keywords are all circumstantial and based on other cards that may come into play.  None of these keywords indicate any special sort of power or gameplay rule.  They merely indicate a specific target for some of the villain or environment cards that may come into play.  

Prior to this discussion there wasn't anything anywhere in the rules or online that clarified in one easy place this category of card words.

And thanks Spiff, I probably WILL update the wiki if someone hasn't already done it.   

(I put in extra words and extra explanation in this posting to further aid in someone doing a Google search)

That's a truly noble intention, and I agree with you wholeheartedly.  My point was that it would do better as a fan project rather than one done by >G.  Most of the confusion over keywords is addressed in the rulebook, and a lot of the keywords are for flavor and nothing else at this point.  I definitely understand the benefit of putting something like a glossary out for people to view, but I don't think it is a strictly necessary addition for the official team to work on.  I think a lot of the issues conveyed could be solved by playing simpler decks from the core set.

EDIT: @VicDiGital, my apologies.  I don't think anyone was outright against a list being compiled.  I think a lot of us just didn't really understand the need for one.  A lot of us have been playing the game early enough and long enough to establish an understanding of Targets and their keywords, so we're coming from a completely different background than you are.  From what I gathered, it sounded like you wanted >G to include an official printed glossary giving each and every single keyword an individualized entry in their next rulebook.  Now that I understand that you just wanted a list that was easily accessible from a quick google search provided by someone posting it up on the SotM forum, I get it.  I'm sorry if I misunderstood your frustrations and the method you wanted to implement to solve it.  That is quite the comprehensive list, and I'm sure that the >G forum will put it to good use.

Complexity or simplicty had nothing to do with anything.  This isn't a complex game.  This was simply a lack of being able to find any clarification in the rulebook or online for a simple question.   Once I posted the direct question about cover (and keywords in general) and got an answer, it was relatively smooth sailing.  

No problem!  Out of our lengthy discussion, clarification has emerged and hopefully the answers for the next noob like me who makes the mistake of randomly choosing Time Cataclysm as their first environment.  

Ok let's make this list. 

Jinx: found in Kismets deck. See her cards for effects. 

Cover: found in silver gulch. See deck for effects

Voodoo pins: found in gloom weavers deck. See his cards for effect. 

See where I'm going with this?

In all honesty here, what do you envision this glossary list saying? 

I'm glad you found the help you needed.  I love this forum and really appreciate the amount of effort people put into understanding these interesting little confusions that we encounter in SotM.  What I was saying is, had you played a few more games with less reference-filled decks than the Time Cataclysm, there would have been much more context for what TC was doing with its keywords.  But again, your situation is not typical of the average SotM player, so it is good that you had the forum to assist you with your questions.

It should say, "many cards have keywords which are only used in the context of card effects, as a way for the cards to interact.  The list of these keywords as of the most current expansion is as follows:", yeah?  Simple, and helpful.

I think you could just use that first line and add it to the definition of "Keyword" in the glossary.  It would convey the same amount of information with less text.

It pretty much says that in the rule book already which is why I'm confused about the usefulness of this "glossary" list in the first place. 

I mean add such a list to the wiki if you want, but just note that this is nothing new that can't be found within the current rule book (though the rulebook might benifit from some added clarification)

From what I can gather, it appears the best thing to do is not to create a comprehensive list of all possible keywords, but rather to better emphasize the importance of keywords. I rarely look at the rulebook, and I don’t have it handy now, but id it took him that long to try to figure out the cover keyword, and didn’t come across the section that some keywords were only for reference by other cards, then maybe the rulebook is not so intuitive.

That I can agree with 100%

 I think the biggest disconnect is that you're coming at this from a position of complete knowledge.  You know all the aspects of this game, so it doesn't seem to make any sense to you how everything is not equally obvious to everyone else.  

Maybe here's a better example using a completely different type of data.  

I live in a community called Atascocita.  It's officially in the town of Humble, Texas, but everyone on this side of town calls it Atascocita.

So using this discussion as the metaphor, let's say I tell you I live in Atascocita in Texas.  But when you do a search for Atascocita, nothing shows up.  You see Houston, Humble, Cypress, Pearland, but no Atascocita listed as a city or town.   It doesn't help that a single line in the atlas of Texas says, "If you don't see the name of the city listed here, then it's probably just a community."    You'd ask yourself if you're typing the name wrong, or if you have the wrong state, maybe.   Then if you ask me about clarifying where Atascocita is, it would be like me saying, "Well, it's pointless for me to tell you what Atascocita is, because it only has any meaning if you actually find yourself Humble.  And in Humble, we have clear indications as to what Atascocita means, so we don't see the need to explain it outside of the town itself.  What's the point of knowing the names of the communities in Humble if you aren't in Humble?"   

The easy thing to do would be to have a list somewhere that turns up in a serach that says, "Here's the list of communities in Humble: Atascocita, Porter, Kingwood, Walden, Summer's Edge…"

No!!!! The Rulebook was written by the Creators and it is perfect as it was made. Any deviation or amendment to it is pure heresy and should be destroyed along with any perpetrators thereof!!

The Book is the Way is the Life!!

ha... That was sarcasm by the way...

No, just someone who read the rule book haha. 

I think it could be much more clearly stated in said rule book. No argument there. But it is there. That's all I'm saying. 

I also said I'd probably be just as confused if I were in your shoes. I'm doing more harm than good in this thread though it seems

If a player has a problem understanding something, then that's a problem. But you're the first person to raise this problem, which implies that it's really not very common.

A list of keywords in the rulebook is kind of useless, since the statement that keywords only have meaning circumstantially has exactly the same meaning as a list of keywords would. In fact, it could actually be harmful; whenever a new expansion comes out, the list becomes incomplete. Thus, the fix to your problem is to make the existing statement in the rulebook more prominent. And if, of the tiny minority of people who may suffer from this problem, one of them still misses this bit of text, and do a search for 'cover' or 'train' or what have you... well, a list exists now. That's a thing, it's here and it's on the wiki, and people who try to find it will be able to.

Maybe it's just a matter of stating it differently since "circumranstially" is kind of ambiguous in meaning (technically a lot, if not all, of the cards have meaning circumstantially). Perhaps something like the statement made earlier about some keywords only having an effect when referenced by other cards would be a better description. 

I know that keywords have caused confusion at times in for new players in my groups, but there has usually been experienced players at hand to answer the question or the cards have answered it themselves pretty quickly. In particular, Time Cataclysm's "cover" and "agent" keywords have caused the most confusion with new players since there is no reference to those cards in the decks they are contained in. So I don't think the question brought up by the OP was out of line. 

While I do agree that a comprehensive list won't be the solution for the reasons stated above by BlueHairedMeerkat, I think a revamped definition of "keyword" would make things a little clearer. Maybe even list a couple of the less common keywords as an example in the definition. 

I totally agree that my issue was a perfect storm of situations, and relatively uncommon, but that said, it did serve to highlight a missing resource that was easily fixed.  While any mention of something like this here in these forums has never happened before, I doubt I'm the first person to have gone looking for a more clear explanation of the keywords and came up empty.  I'm just the first one to go to the trouble of joining the forums and complain about it!  

(disclaimer: I didn't join the forums just to complain. I love this game and was joining anyway, but the quick, knowledgeable responses I got for my initial 'cover' question convinced me that this was a cool forum to get active in).  I wouldn't have made the effort to join, say, a Seven Wonders forum to voice any questions about that game, even though I like that game a lot, too.  

For the record? This exists, buried deep in the exhaustive tome that is the Comprehensive Rules. And gets updated whenever a new subtype is introduced (which isn't too often, thankfully) or removed. Not essential by any means, but that's what the word "comprehensive" means, after all.

There are many, many times when I wish that Time Cataclysm were a promo/expansion deck and either Silver Gulch or Final Wasteland a deck included in the actual ST box (probably Silver Gulch).