From: phaedrus@halcyon.com (Mark Phaedrus)
Subject: Re: Question on Mayfair Void.
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 03:29:32 GMT

In article <7928@dove.nist.gov> glenn@sloth.ncsl.nist.gov writes:
>
>
>
>This might be FAQ but here goes.  The wording of the Void is something
>like, when your opponent's and his allies tokens are lost as a result
>of the challenge, they are removed from the game.  Does this include
>failed deals?

     By all means.  A failed deal is a challenge outcome; the tokens lost to
the warp due to a failed deal are lost due to that challenge outcome; and if
your opponent in that challenge is the Void, you're out of luck.  (There's
nothing quite so terrifying as being in a compromise-compromise situation,
looking across the table at that x3 Kicker in front of the Void. :) )

>    As a result, the Diplomat becomes incredibly dangerous in a game
>involving the Void.  The Diplomat calls negotiate and refuses to deal.
>The void loses 3 tokens to the warp.  The diplomat, not an opponent of
>the void, also loses 3 tokens to the warp.  The third person/opponent
>loses 3 tokens to the void.  Now that makes the assumption that the Diplomat
>is not an opponent.  Safe assumption?  Is this an accurate interpretation
>of the rules.

     We've always played that in a three-way deal situation, each of the other
two players involved are your "opponents".  That means that the Diplomat is
setting himself up for a fall by jumping into Void's challenges; Diplomat
loses three to the Void right along with the Void's original opponent.

>P.S.  We had a multi-power game the other day with someone playing the
>      aristrocrat-void.  He went and picked up the space junk and the
>      void flare and voided 2 of my planets.  We play that the super
>      is optional.  Is this correct?  

     Well, the Mayfair rules are screwed up on this point; if you read them
absolutely literally, then if you've lost the use of your power, you can't
use the Flare at all (you can't use the Super because you don't have the use
of your power, and you can't use the Wild because you can only use the Wild of
Flares that "correspond to your power" [there's no mention of having or not
having use of that power]).  I'd probably still lean toward the Eon rules,
which made the Super mandatory unless you Zapped yourself as you played the
Flare; but do what feels right. :)
     Now, as to the Voiding of two planets, be sure you read the sequence of
play carefully.  As I recall, the cards used in the challenge (including Edicts
and Flares) are not discarded to the discard pile until after the challenge is
resolved.  This translates into two effects on the game:  (a) A Space Junk can
basically pick up any one card played during the challenge, since all these
cards are technically hitting the discard pile at the same time.  (b) You
can't use the Space Junk card to pick up and then play a particular card a
second time in the same challenge.  (This is basically a formalization of the
old popular Eon house rule, "A particular card can't be played more than once
per challenge.")

>      He then followed by plaguing me.  

     Not bad. :)
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