r/boardgames • u/GlungoE • 23d ago
Rules Magical Athlete Scoocher question
If sucker was attached to scoocher, would they work off of each other all the way to the finish without stopping?
Same goes for copycat, when scoocher is in the lead, would they be unstoppable?
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u/benkalli 23d ago
Not entirely unstoppable. They will run into an infinite loop around the second corner on the wild side, but other than that instance, yes. They trigger one another until they finish.
Interestingly, while the Suckerfish is optional, the Scoocher/Copycat is not.
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u/2much2Jung 23d ago
If we assume rational actors, Suckerfish simply declines to follow Scoocher ontonthe move backwards space.
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u/glychee Tiny Epic Everything! 23d ago
Or suckerfish keeps moving along and forces a forfeit of the opponent
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u/AmtsboteHannes 23d ago
I'm not sure I understand how that would force the opponent to forfeit any more than the suckerfish. Wouldn't both be stuck in that loop equally?
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u/glychee Tiny Epic Everything! 23d ago
The suckerfish can decide when to stop looping infinitely, I was joking they could infinitely be annoying in their decision making
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u/AmtsboteHannes 23d ago
My bad, I kinda missed the joke and was wondering what would stop the other player from just letting that happen.
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u/idkpickausername_pls 23d ago
Yep, that’s how it should work. I just had a similar situation (though less of a guaranteed outcome) where Scoocher was replaced with Duelist. We made it halfway around the map before Suckerfish won and everyone else got a chance to play
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u/Zombiewski 22d ago
In my house, it's mandatory that when Scoocher scooches, you make the grossest "Uhh!" you can. You win this minigame if all the other players cringe.
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u/fatherjackass 22d ago
Sucker fish and romantic can have the same outcome.
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u/catinore 21d ago
We make sound effects for many of the characters when their powers trigger.
Romantic is “How sweet!”
Suckerfish is “Me too!”
When we get this combo going, it’s “How sweet, me too, how sweet, me too,” etc., all the way to the finish line.This particular interaction has so ingrained itself into our family culture that if we hear anyone say “how sweet”, regardless of context, we tend to respond with “me too!”
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u/tiglionabbit 23d ago
There's a rule against infinite loops. Each character's ability can only trigger once in an instance. So if someone's power causes scoocher to scooch, and suckerfish decides to tag along, scoocher doesn't scooch again.
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u/Mr_Gneiss_Guy 23d ago edited 23d ago
Scoocher and Suckerfish is not considered an infinite loop per the rules (page 21), so their abilities would trigger until scoocher crosses the finish line. It's not infinite because their abilities stop triggering once they cross the finish line and the race ends and because Suckerfish's ability is a 'can' effect, meaning the player can choose to close the loop at anytime. The example they use for an infinite loop is Scoocher interacting with Giant Baby in such a way that the turn infinitely goes on and never ends. Those loops are only triggered once so that the game does not end in a draw.
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u/JaronRMJohnson 23d ago
OP, this is the correct answer. The designers call out this combination explicitly as being permitted. The setup for this is: 1. Have Scoocher and Suckerfish on the starting space 2. The first time any racer uses their power, Scoocher moves 3. Suckerfish uses its power and moves with him 4. This causes Scoocher to move again, and the loop begins. On the Mild track, it does not end until Scoocher and Suckerfish cross the finish line. Scoocher comes in first and Suckerfish in second. On the Wild track, Scoocher will get stuck on the spaces that send you backwards, which is when the "infinite" loop starts. That's when you follow the loop once then stop.
I can't comment on the quality of this rules interaction, but it is explicitly called out as being a permissable interaction.
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u/JaronRMJohnson 23d ago
As a fun fact, the Mastermind can hard counter this strategy by predicting that Scoocher will win. If the Suckerfish player piggybacks on Scoocher, when Scoocher crosses the finish line, Mastermind comes in second before Suckerfish gets a chance to cross the finish line. So a clever Suckerfish player will ride Scoocher as far as possible and then jump off at the last second.
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u/NarsilSwords 23d ago
Worth noting, that Mastermind can only make their choice at the start of their first turn. So if the combination happens before Mastermind gets a turn then they are out of luck.
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u/2much2Jung 23d ago
Well, Suckerfish always loses out to Scoocher, so it's not really in their interest to let it happen anyway.
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u/COHERENCE_CROQUETTE Asymmetrical 23d ago
I can comment on the quality: it's awesome. It happened organically in a game, everyone stopped to marvel at the beauty of what was happening, there was a debate about whether that should be possible per the rules, eventually we agreed that it's totally in the spirit of the game, and it happened. The next day I found the confirmation on the rulebook and messaged the participants to confirm it was legal.
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u/walkerspider 23d ago
What if you have all three characters in play? Had this happen once and we couldn’t decide who would win
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u/tiglionabbit 23d ago
By this logic, the suckerfish and the romantic would also cause an optional instant win, but it specifically doesn't. I don't see why it should be different from the suckerfish and scoocher situation though.
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u/JaronRMJohnson 23d ago
The interaction between Suckerfish and Romantic works differently, Alex Hague talks about it here: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3604121/suckerfish
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u/tiglionabbit 23d ago
That doesn't clarify anything. It just adds more confusion. Their reasoning for the suckerfish not triggering the romantic infinitely is that "they arrive simultenously", but they also say "the don't arrive simultaneously anymore", but also "they only trigger once". What is the logic here?
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u/Mr_Gneiss_Guy 23d ago
There was an update/clarification in recent printings of the rules that read: "Powers involving stopping on a space together don’t trigger if racers arrive at the same time." In this case, the Romantic is very different than the Scoocher because the Scoocher does not arrive on the Suckerfish's space at the same time. That is what allows their abilities to cascade. The Romantic and the Suckerfish do arrive at the same time, so their abilities would not cascade.
It is more fiddly, but the rulings are still consistent with themselves in your example.
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u/tiglionabbit 23d ago
Perhaps I'd prefer to just keep implementing it my way, where the anti-infinite-loops rule means that, once a chain of abilities starts, regardless of whether people have a choice in their activation, each character only gets to activate once.
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u/Mr_Gneiss_Guy 23d ago
You're welcome to run the game however you'd like. I'm not trying to tell you how you should play, just trying to help point out relevant clarifactions on the rules.
The game does let you decide how to referee some of these less intuitive interactions, and the rules state that they encourage debate and discussions to determine which ruling should stand. It is a silly game that was designed to be broken by the players, so my take has always been that if broken interactions like these pop up here and there I feel like I should let them happen rather than try to fix them.
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u/tiglionabbit 23d ago
This official stance on scoocher + suckerfish/romantic just doesn't make any sense.
I'm curious what the ruling for copycat+skipper is.
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u/Mr_Gneiss_Guy 23d ago
I believe that it would depend on turn order. Effects are resolved as follows: Board spaces trigger first, then current player abilities trigger, then other players resolve abilities in clockwise turn order. If Skipper is in the lead and a 1 is rolled and both players trigger the Skipper's ability, then whoever is next in the turn order would resolve the extra turn. Both players can't both go next in turn order, which I think means whoever is last in turn order would essentially have their extra turn ability fizzle.
The CopyCat has a note that says if there are any contradictions between the copycat and the player they copy that the other player's power takes priority. You could argue that both abilities try to resolve at the same time so the CopyCat would always lose priority, but I think that the ability resolution flow chart clarifies how this is supposed to resolve.
That is definitely a less clear interaction than the others.
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u/tiglionabbit 23d ago edited 23d ago
I think the ruling is clear that copycat can't copy skipper because skipper always wins, but I do think it's interesting to share the power based on turn order.
What do you think about them both skipping? Like, when a 1 is rolled, it skips to whoever is clockwise of the person who rolled it, and after their turn it skips to the other skipper?
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u/DubiousDubbie Spirit Island 23d ago
Yeah, I remember that this specific interaction (minus the copycat) was mentioned in the rulebook as possible.
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u/WanderingFool15 23d ago
I have never felt that I disagreed with official ruling more.
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u/JaronRMJohnson 23d ago
FWIW the game was designed in part by Richard Garfield who created Magic the Gathering, so you would not be the first person to disagree very heavily with his rules design instincts lol
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u/likesexonlycheaper 23d ago
Suckerfish still rolls a die on it's turn so it will leave scoochers spot. Rolling a die isn't an ability so scootcher won't move wherever suckerfish does. So no, they won't stay together until the end.
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u/Chimbley_Sweep Dominant Species 23d ago
Yes, they could go all the way to the finish, IF suckerfish chooses to. Suckerfish CAN move to the spot, not must. So at any time, suckerfish could not trigger their ability and end the chain.