Questions about translating TCG rules

(Hopefully this is the right section to post this in; apologies if not.)

I’ve been translating the rules for a Japan-only TCG, partly so I can play with my non-Japanese speaking friends and partly to share with the community (and partly to justify my purchasing all those cards…). I have most of the rules translated, but there are a few sections I’m not too sure about, and I wanted to see if you guys could help me here to verify what they should be saying. I’ll try to give as much context as I can when needed, but if anything is unclear, please let me know. And please let me know if it looks like I mistyped something. Ignore any rough English; I can polish it up later, this is just for accuracy.

I’m pretty sure I understand this right but wanted to double-check for accuracy category

  • 「アッタク」で選ばれたキャラカードは何の影響も受けません。
    A Character card that is being Attacked will not be affected by other effects.

  • スキルカードが使えるのは基本的にターンを進めているプレイヤーです。例外としてアクション中に、ターンを進めていないプレイヤーもスキルカードを使うタイミングがあります。
    The player who’s turn it is is generally the only one who can use Skill cards. An exception, however, is when an Action happens: the other player can also use Skill cards then.

Not 100% sure category

  • スキルカードに書かれた「使用部隊」をすべて行動不能状態にし、行動不能状態になった「使用部隊」の中からそれぞれ1枚を選んで、自分のスタンバイゾーンからアクションゾーンに移します。
    Take all of the Units who can use the Skill card and put them in an inactive state. Then, from among those, choose one card from each Unit and move them from the Standby Zone to the Action Zone.
    (Context: Skill cards can only be used w/ certain Character cards, labeled on the Skill Card. Character cards w/ the same name are grouped together to form a Unit/部隊.)

  • あなた の「サーチポイント」の合計が5点以上、10点以上、15点以上になった場合、それぞれに つき左隣のプレヤーは自分の山札からカードを1枚引きます。
    When your Search Point total reaches 5, 10, or 15, the player sitting to the left of the player who’s action(s) earned the points draws a card from their own deck.
    (Context: This is an alternate set of rules for the game, where multiple players sit in a circle around the playing field. I think the それぞれにつき is what’s tripping me up; I’m not sure if it’s just the one player to your left to draw a card, or all of the players.)

No clue; the text seems to be contradicting itself

  • Q: 「ガード」を宣言したキャラカードが戦闘力を比べる前に場を離れた場合、「アタック」はどうなりますか?
    A: 「ガード」は失敗となり、元々の「アタック」されたキャラカードと戦闘力を比べることになります。
    Q: If a Character card using “Guard” is removed from the field before comparing its Power with the opposing card’s, what happens to the “Attacking” card?
    A: The Guard fails, and its Power is compared with the Attacking card’s. (<-???)
    (Context: Normally when a card Attacks, and another card Guards that Attack, the Power of the two cards is compared, and the card with the lower Power is discarded from the field.)

  • Q: 「サーチ」や「ドロー」を宣言した部隊は、アクション中にそのアクションを失った場合どうなりますか?
    A: すでにアクションの宣言はされているので、そのままそのアクションの処理を行います。
    Q: If a Unit has declared the “Search” or “Draw” action and that action is interrupted in the middle of the action, what happens?
    A: The action had already been declared, so the action must be canceled. (<- mostly just not sure about the 処理 here.)

I actually have a few more questions after these, but this already feels like a lot. If some kind community members don’t mind helping me out, I’d be extremely grateful!

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Oh man–I play some MTG so I’m familiar with the problems that keywords and rule phrasings can cause. I’d like to help more than I probably can, since I’m not 100% on a lot of grammar phrasings, but I’ll try to point out the things I see, and I’ll take a closer look at them after dinner!

A: すでにアクションの宣言はされているので、そのままそのアクションの処理を行います。
A: The action had already been declared, so the action must be canceled.

This is the main one that jumps out at me–since you’re familiar with the rules this is probably how it works, but I’m not sure where you’re getting ‘cancelled’ here. From what I can see it looks more like “Since the action had already been declared, the action proceeds unchanged.”

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Thanks for the help! I play a few other (English) TCGs myself, including Magic, so I’ve been pretty wary when translating these; I know how easy it can be to introduce ambiguity or confusion. My goal here is to at least not introduce any from my translation; there’s no guarantee the same can be said of the original rules, at least. There’s one or two spots I’ve seen already where the rules seem really ripe for abuse; granted, I haven’t done any sort of survey of the cards themselves beyond the starter decks I bought, so maybe the designers have a few counters already built in.

The ‘cancelled’ came from me not quite knowing how to understand 処理; re-reading it now, I see where you’re reading that, and it does make more sense. But I would think that the very process of interrupting means that it would be canceled. :face_with_monocle: Why interrupt otherwise?

One of my goals after I finish this draft of the rules is to do some thorough play-testing with them, see if what I’ve translated makes sense in context. Actually playing with the cards might be enough to clear this up, if there are reasons why you’d want to interrupt these particular Actions without actually canceling them.

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I don’t know anything about TCG’s so I might not be incredibly helpful here, but I’ll try to point stuff out as I notice them.

One thing:

I think the mistake here might be 元々の「アタック」されたキャラカード - I don’t think it’s the attackING card, it’s the “originally attackED card” because of された。
I take it “guard” lets a card with high defense jump in and “defend” another card when targeted?
In that case I think it’s saying that if the guardING card has to leave the field or whatever before that guarding, then the guard doesn’t work and the originally targeted card is attacked as normal.
(so guard doesn’t persist if the guarding card isn’t on the field anymore, essentially)

EDIT to add thing I noticed #2:

I think since you’re translating rules that need to be taken very literally, in general you might want to hedge your bets more. For example, here:

スキルカードが使えるのは基本的にターンを進めているプレイヤーです。例外としてアクション中に、ターンを進めていないプレイヤーもスキルカードを使うタイミングがあります。
The player who’s turn it is is generally the only one who can use Skill cards. An exception, however, is when an Action happens: the other player can also use Skill cards then.

I don’t think the original necessarily means that the other player can always use skill cards during actions, but your translation would if someone were picking it apart for clarification.
I think a closer, safer interpretation would be something like “there are times during actions when a player can play skill cards outside their turn”
(but that said if you’re sure it is every time I’m definitely prepared to be overruled!)

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You’re right about interrupting, I was a bit uncertain about it myself. I was thinking the fact that they were ‘Draw’ and ‘Search’ meant they might be a bit of an exception; that you have to shut certain types of actions down immediately, and that you can’t wait until after the action’s started to decide. Since the text specifies ‘in the middle of the action’, I figure it might be something like “you can’t decide to cancel an opponent’s card draw after they’ve already started drawing” or something like that.

The Search Point total one is a bit weird, as you mention. At first I’d assume that it’s only the player sitting to the left, because if it was all other players why mention the left-hand side specifically, but…now I’m kind of wondering if it could be something like “when your search point total reaches 5, 10, or 15, draw a card for each player sitting to your left”? That’s a shot in the dark, though–the 自分 kind of feels like it implies ‘the player to your left themselves draw a card’ or such. It’s a weird one, I wish I could help more.

Re: what @rodan said, I was thinking it might be that too but wasn’t sure about it since I hadn’t seen された before, but ‘the card that had become attacked’ or such would make more sense. (I also misread the translation, which upped my confusion–I thought ‘Guard’ was just another word for a ‘defense mode’ type-thing and not that there was definitely another card involved. With that, ‘the guard fails, the original attack goes through and the cards compare power’ make a bit more sense ruleswise. Hopefully at least some of this is cleared up in playtesting, too!

the “interruption” oddity might be resolved with a different translation of アクション中にそのアクションを失った場合 ?
It sounds more like “in the middle of the action they lose that action” which isn’t quuuuite the same as interrupting the action in progress.
I think it might be saying that if for some reason “search” or “draw” makes them lose an opportunity to do just that, it doesn’t apply retroactively.

Like I don’t play TCGs, but I play the game Dominion, and if say, I have 1 buy and I buy a card that said “when you buy this, -1 buy” that wouldn’t mean I don’t get to buy the card, you know? (not that there would be a card like that but still)

Maybe, anyway? Again if you’re more confident in the original sense from the other rules, feel free to overrule!

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I think you’re 100% right here; I went back and read the rules on Attacking, and there’s no reason why a third card couldn’t jump in to Guard.

And I’ll definitely take this into consideration when I go through and do a more non-Engrishy rewrite. That’s a really good suggestion, since I’m sure even the writers wouldn’t know if you would always be able to interrupt with a Skill card. Nice catch!

Okay, so I went back to check to see what the rules say specifically about declaring actions. Here’s my current translation; I can type out the Japanese if needed, but I’m fairly confident about what I’ve got now:

Action Flow

Actions occur in the following order:

  1. Attacking Side’s Action
    *The active player’s turn
    Attach, Search, Draw, and Recover can be used. All Units performing an Action are flipped to inactive; one Character card is taken from each and placed in the Action Zone.

  2. Defending Side’s Action
    *The inactive player’s turn
    Intercept can be used against Attack, Guard, Search, Draw, and Recover Actions. All Units performing an Action are flipped to inactive; one Character card is taken from each and placed in the Action Zone.

  3. Attacking Side uses a Skill card
    *The active player’s turn
    Up to 1 Skill card in your hand can be used.

  4. Defending Side uses a Skill card
    *The inactive player’s turn
    Up to 1 Skill card in their hand can be used.

  5. Action Verdict
    The effects of the Actions taken play out.

So there’s built-in time between the declaration of the Draw/Search and when it actually executes.

(New post because I was getting lost in my old one, sorry.)

Whew, that would be rough in a game where you have a minimum of three people playing. haha. But anyhow, I don’t think you’d draw for each person, as the rules for a normal game (this rule is a for variation of the standard ruleset) has the other player drawing a card when one player reaches that Search Point milestone. So it’s definitely not the one who scored the Search Points drawing, I’m pretty sure.

I misread this myself the first time, and it was only after I thought about and realized that a player would never attack a card they would lose against that I went back to re-read. :stuck_out_tongue:

@rodan I’m still thinking over your thoughts. :face_with_monocle:

I don’t really understand the rule but I would go with
それぞれにつき ~ “in accordance with each”
and
左隣のプレヤー ~ “the player to your left”
so I think the person on your left draws 1 card each time you pass 5, 10, 15 search points (is あなと a typo?)

I don’t think it’s “all players to your left” because 隣 is neighbor, and so I think it implies nearness.
and I think につき might be nitsuki - Jisho.org, making それぞれ apply to the point thresholds, not the players.

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Typo on my part; that’s supposed to be あなた; will go back and fix.

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(heh, I noticed a typo of my own thanks to that…)

for the “interruption” part it might be worth checking the phrasing on “interception.”
I’d be more confident in my own take, also, if certain actions skills that could be played by either player in the action skill phases might disable them from declaring draws the next turn. Then I would think that might be the kind of 失う the rule in question is talking about.
Whereas on the other hand if there’s no actions like that and the phrasing on “interception” uses 失う I’m probably wrong.

Let me type out the Japanese for “Intercept”, just to be on the safe side: (Unless you meant something else? This is what you would use to interrupt those Actions, though.)

Intercept

「インターセプト」を行った場合、相手の行った「サーチ」「ドロー」「リカバー」は失敗し、アクション判定では何も行いません。
If you use the Intercept Action, your opponent’s Search, Draw, and Recover Actions will fail during the Action Verdict stage.

I’ll have to dig through some cards and see if there’s anything like that; I’ll see if I can get that done this weekend and report back. o7

Aah, good point! I’d looked up 隣 but was still unsure of it, and good catch on につき–I’d tried to look up that but was looking up に as attached to the other part, so それぞれに, which didn’t seem to be anything particularly different. Referring to the point thresholds in a sort of ‘once per each time this happens’ would make sense.

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Hmm… yeah it’s a bit inconclusive still, but I do think the 失敗 here and the 失った in the other rule are different, since they do mean different things (fail vs. lose as in you don’t have it anymore) and like you said, this rule makes it pretty clear that if it’s intercepted, the search or draw doesn’t go through.

Aah, good point! I’d looked up 隣 but was still unsure of it, and good catch on につき–I’d tried to look up that but was looking up に as attached to the other part, so それぞれに, which didn’t seem to be anything particularly different. Referring to the point thresholds in a sort of ‘once per each time this happens’ would make sense.

It’s definitely a tricky one! I’m not 100% positive on につき since I don’t think I’ve seen exactly that phrasing before, and it being right up against the noun of the players to the left is confusing… but I’m fairly confident at least…

P.S. last comment for now but I think the quote we haven’t talked about about the units and the inactive states looks okay. This game sure has a lot of state-changes though!
I’m not sure myself about the very first quote so I won’t try to comment on it. (just not sure I know enough about the effects it’s talking about)

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Also, thanks for clarifying the Action Flow–the fact that actions are declared long before they resolve makes it make a bit more sense to interrupt something that’s been declared. Unfortunately that makes my initial assumption, that it’d be a game-balance thing to prevent you from cancelling actions in progress, not hold up too well anymore. :') If you can name the game, I’m kind of tempted to look up gameplay videos to see how these interactions might resolve in an ongoing game, ahaha…

Looking at something else now:

スキルカードに書かれた「使用部隊」をすべて行動不能状態にし、行動不能状態になった「使用部隊」の中からそれぞれ1枚を選んで、自分のスタンバイゾーンからアクションゾーンに移します。
Take all of the Units who can use the Skill card and put them in an inactive state. Then, from among those, choose one card from each Unit and move them from the Standby Zone to the Action Zone.

I might just getting caught up on a phrasing here, but this looks maybe reversed? Like it looks to me more like something like “move all the skill cards with “Use (with) Unit” written on them to an inactive state…”–but then, that wouldn’t work with your turn-order rundown describing Character Cards as the ones that get moved between zones, with skill cards just getting used. On the whole I guess this is a situation where your translation makes the most sense, but I’m getting confused on subjects in the original sentence. I think the starting line is throwing me off–I’m reading that as referring to ‘skill cards with [使用部隊] written on them’, rather than the units who are associated with them. Maybe this is just a rephrasing according to how things would work out in the game, though?

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I think you’re just getting a little mixed up here - スキルカードに書かれた is modifying 「使用部隊」, so I think it’s “the 「使用部隊」written on the card” (the quotes do make it confusing).

Actually, looking at it more closely, I think I’ve realized something that was confusing me, I don’t think 「使用部隊」 is “the units who CAN use the skill”, I think it’s “the units used BY the skill” which makes more sense to me since they all go inactive. (whatever it is though I take it it’s written on the card)
(not sure what a snappy English label for this would be… “utilized units?” “unit deployment”?)

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It’s the D. Gray-Man TCG! I’m a big fan of the manga, and when I found out there was a TCG using colored manga art… :o I don’t regret a cent, let me say.

Being active/inactive simply refers to the card’s position; it’s the exact same thing as in Magic, if your’re familiar with it. Chara cards in an upright position are able to be used, chara cards in a horizontal position have already been used that turn and cannot be used again.

I do like “unit deployment”, personally. The organization the characters are a part of is a military one.

rodan is right in terms of that’s how that’s supposed to be read, I believe. For reference, though, the skill cards do have XX部隊 labeled on them, where XX is the character able to make use of the skill card.

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Aah, okay–something like ‘units written/named on skill cards’ adds up. I’m glad you pointed out the ‘can use/used by’ though! It wouldn’t be unheard of to have cards in play ‘use’ cards, but usually in game rules the player’s the only one who’s described as using cards from their hand…

I think I also tripped up on “[使用部隊]” both hooking into をすべて行動 and being the target of 書かれた there. So, if I’m understanding it right: the thing you’re moving is still units, but it’s all the units named on a skill card…or several skill cards…?

…Actually, I think singular/plural is tripping me up a bit here too–I think I was making a big assumption which I could explain more if anyone wants to know, but ‘take all the units who can use the skill card’ and ‘choose one card from each unit’ reads to me more like…‘take all the units’ refers to each individual unit that can use the card, and then ‘from each unit’ feels like it’s referring to a bigger squad-type, or category? It feels like a shift between ‘unit’ as in ‘one’ and ‘unit’ as in ‘a specific group’.

Sorry for adding so much confusion to what was supposed to be an explanatory thread, ahaha–I hope some of this confusion has nudged in useful directions, at least. :')

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It might help breaking it down without letting too much bias seep in via translated game terms:

スキルカードに書かれた「使用部隊」をすべて行動不能状態にし、行動不能状態になった「使用部隊」の中からそれぞれ1枚を選んで、自分のスタンバイゾーンからアクションゾーンに移します

I’d break it down as:
on the スキルカード are written 使用部隊, and all of those enter 行動不能状態, then you pick 1 card from each 使用部隊 in 行動不能状態 and move it from your スタンバイゾーン to アクションゾーン

So to me I’m picturing playing 1 skill card, on which are listed some groups of agents it depends on in some way. You take those groups and put them in an inactive state, and then from each of those groups, you take one agent to take over the skill in the action zone. (I guess).

So I think a スキルカード can indicate multiple 使用部隊, and those can consist of multiple cards, only 1 of which (from each) ends up in the action zone at the end of this process.

I think that squares with eefara’s description. It might make more sense if I knew about Magic!
What I’d be most curious about is whether you can still play the card if you don’t have at least 1 card from each unit listed on the card active beforehand. I’d guess no? Since it sounds like the skill is using them as it’s played to me.

Don’t worry, it’s a very complicated description to figure out not knowing the game, and you definitely helped me figure the stuff I figured out, that’s for sure!

No worries; we’re getting there for sure. There’s already been one or two lines where I’m pretty certain I see now how/where I went wrong, so that’s a win in my book.

Potential clarification time, for Unit composition, at least. Units are composed of Character cards that all share the same name. So I could have a rodan Unit with two rodan cards and a Notebooked Unit with four Notebooked cards. A single Character card can still be its own Unit, however, so I could have an eefara Unit with just one eefara card.
So it’s a single Unit with multiple components. I guess my ultimate question, assuming my translation is close, is why you’d want to take a Chara card from each Unit when using one Skill card; that’s what’s making me think I’ve mistranslated it. If I have a rodan Skill card and two rodan Units, I would make both units inactive and pull a rodan Chara card from each? For the one Skill?

On a partially-unrelated note, there are Skill cards that my little rulebook almost doesn’t cover, and I’m not sure how they’re supposed to be played. :stuck_out_tongue: Their 使用部隊 isn’t a character, but instead listed as 部隊x0, 部隊x1, or 部隊x2 (there might also be a 部隊x3; I don’t recall). The only mention of it in the rulebook is in the “Quick Battle” section, a set of rules for faster play, and it’s only mentioned as a footnote:

Rule

「使用部隊」が異なる、または「部隊xO」のスキルカードは使用できません。
You cannot use Skill cards marked “UnitxO” if they do not match with a corresponding Unit.
(This is also a translation I’m not sure of. >.>

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