I have recently been thinking about how permanents are one of the more complex parts of the game. For example, someone played the game who thought you could destroy a permanent card that’s in a player’s hand. You are only supposed to be able to destroy a permanent that’s in play on the table (and is no longer in a player’s hand for that reason). I am now thinking it might be a good idea to rephrase some of the cards to help make it easier to understand how permanents work.

There are many reasons I was inspired to make Crazier Eights. For example, I wanted a somewhat easy game that could have cards that do pretty much whatever I want. I wanted a game that have cards with neat effects and permanents similar to fantasy games like Magic: the Gathering, but I also wanted the game to be vastly easier to learn. That could also make Crazier Eights a game that could help people learn much more complex games. There are many games that use permanents and Crazier Eights is an opportunity to find out how permanents work.

Right now the rules for permanents are the following:

A permanent card that is played is put into play face up on the table in front of the player who plays it, and it is controlled by the player who plays it. Permanent cards do whatever is stated on them while they are in play. They are only considered to be permanents when they are in play.

Permanents are cards that are in play under a player’s control. Permanent cards that are in a player’s hand don’t count as permanents. You can’t destroy a permanent or put a permanent into a player’s hand unless the card is in play. For example, Tempest returns a permanent to a player’s hand. You can only play Tempest on cards that are in play.

Some cards mention permanents, so it is important to know that only cards in play are permanents. For example:

It is important to know that Tempest can’t put a permanent card from your hand into another player’s hand, and it’s important that people know Devious Dragon doesn’t destroy permanent cards that are in your hand. These cards can only have an effect on cards that are in play (on the table).

Reading the rules might be good enough to understand how these cards work, but perhaps rephrasing the cards would be a good idea as well.

Here are some options for how these two cards could be phrased differently:

Do you have preference about how these things are phrased? I am especially interested if you have never played a game with permanents before.