I interpret this as the minimum cost for the entire action being 3. Note that a Shadow score is a score, not a cost, so the “minimum cost” must be referring to the cost as a whole as it’s the only cost mentioned in the rule.

The “(to a minimum cost of 1)” was originally added to the Ruleset at a time when Shadow scores could be negative. At that point, it was clear from the way everyone was behaving that they interpreted it as applying to the total cost (e.g. the cost of Exploring a Room was reduced from 5 to 3 when we discovered that everyone was placing the two -1-cost features into every room they Explored). It isn’t just Brendan’s and Jumble’s actions that would need upholding if Clucky’s interpretation is correct; it’s pretty much every Exploration in the early part of the dynasty.

Goodness, words really CAN mean anything if you try hard enough

phrasing of the rule seems pretty clear to me.

if we don’t uphold the actions, then Jumble and Brendan are dust and we also potentially have to go undo a bunch of stuff which feels like a headache

This CfJ seems lightly factional / tactical so I’m going to try to stay out of it, except to say that ais’ interpretation of the text seems more defensible than Clucky’s.

I think your interpretation is insane and I was surprised that anyone can read it that way; and it applies to a lot more than just two actions.

For example, Raven1207 spent 7 Puissance for this construction+sigil:
https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=Zahndorf_Crypt&type=revision&diff=15385&oldid=15378

Under your interpretation, this should have cost 8 (6 for the exploration because the features have a minimum cost of 1 and Exploration cost 5 at the time, and 2 for the Sigil because that was the cost of the Sigil at the time).

If we were supposed to apply to the total cost, the rules should state to use the total cost. Instead they didn’t.

If there were other parts that didn’t get properly applied, we should CfJ to properly resolve that too, not use ablest language to put down an attempt designed to prevent two players from getting taken out of the game due to honest mistakes. I understand you have a vested interest in shooting this down so that Brendan and Jumble get dusted, but that just feels super cheap to me.

@Clucky - why do you think that this getting voted down would result in Brendan and Jumble being dusted? Do you not accept that this failing would at least suggest that there is a quorum prepared to believe that Brendan and Jumble interpreted the rule correctly and thus performed the action properly?

No, I don’t want Brendan and Jumble to get dusted. I’m shooting this down because it upholds two actions that worked anyway, and removes 2 Puissance from two players for no reason; additionally, your reading seems to me to be in bad faith, in that I find it hard to believe that you could intentionally read the rule the way that you are, given that you didn’t object to actions taken it earlier in the dynasty.

(Note that a CFJ should normally, in addition to fixing the gamestate, change the rule so that it unambiguously reads the way you think it should read; that way, there will be no future disputes about what the rule says. Given that you still seem to think it’s ambiguous despite the explanations, I’m going to counter-CFJ.)

If we fail to uphold the actions that should’ve set their dust to zero, they get dusted

Sure, someone would then be free to pose a CfJ upholding the actions anyways without the cost penalty but its clear AIS doesn’t want to do that. Otherwise they would’ve suggested modifying the CfJ in the first place rather than immediately trying to vote it down.

Thinking about it further, the clause

Lighting a Room is a Power Action with a cost of 3 plus the total Shadow scores of the Features being placed in that Room’s Effect (to a minimum cost of 1).

could genuinely defensively be interpreted in either Clucky’s or ais’ way, depending on whether the parenthetical is being read as referring to the whole sentence or just the clause starting with “plus”.

This CfJ doesn’t resolve that tension though; if both reads are defensible then the CfJ should come down on one side of that, rather than upholding the actions and then penalising the players.

So CoV in favour of a game action that actually resolves the ambiguity.

Actually I don’t think its ambiguous. Hence why I didn’t change any rules and instead went “lets just enforce this the way it was written but be nice to Jumble and Brendan”.  But I understand your need to put words into my mouth.

I’m not putting any words in your mouth, and I don’t really have a need here; I do think it’s ambiguous and am voting accordingly.

I don’t feel like there is any ambiguity.

Also this is doing the opposite of upholding the actions and then penalizing the players. Its intentionally limiting the penalty actually upholding the actions (and making them pay the full price) would’ve imposed.

You’re not the one putting words into people’s mouths. That’s all AIS. I made my reply before yours popped up.

If we want to resolve the ambiguity I don’t mind that. But I don’t see the harm in going “Brendan and Jumble aren’t dust even if a technical reading of the rules implies they technically should be”

I don’t think it’s ambiguous either, but my opinion on what the only, unambiguous reading is is different from Clucky’s. (And even if Clucky’s were correct, this CFJ wouldn’t fix the issue.) I agree with Josh that the position of the parenthetical could apply to either the total cost (the whole sentence) or the sum of the scores (half the sentence); however, the actual content (which talks about a cost) can only reasonably apply to the sentence as a whole because it uses the word “cost”.

I’ve now made a counter-CFJ to enforce my reading of the rule (at least four players have taken actions on the basis of that reading so far, implying it’s probably a pretty natural one).

Per Ais, although I’d say that the only thing “to a minimum” could apply to in this sentence was the “plus” verb. I don’t think you can apply it to a clause that only states a number being equal to another number - we wouldn’t write “Roaming is an action with a cost of the number of lit rooms, to a minimum of 1”, would we?

I feel “Roaming is an action with a cost of the number of lit rooms, to a minimum of 1” makes sense if you want to clarify that even if there are 0 lit rooms, it still costs 1.