The Art of Nen · 3:07am Mar 8th, 2017
Did you know that we only use 10% of our brains??? Imagine our potential abilities if we could use 100% of our brains!!!
Well, 100% brain activity is a seizure. Everyone would be incapacitated, but that's the price you pay for marvelous mental powers. 
EDIT: (let's begin with random unimportant observations of MLP so I don't bore everyone!)
Why is Twilight Sparkle so good at magic? What makes her the best in her world?
Some fans will answer, "she's the element of magic!" She was born that way, or it happened when she got her cutie mark. Either way, it's a part of her destiny. She just has it on the inside.
Wait. Is that right?
Spike: Twenty-five, Twilight. Twenty-five different kinds of tricks and counting. I thought unicorns were only supposed to have a little magic that matches their special talents!
Spike isn't impressed by her power level, he admires her breadth of knowledge. She already learned more tricks than any unicorn bothers to learn, and she'll learn many more in the future. Whenever an episode needs her to cast something new, the script is sure to specify that she learned it from some book. Her magical power comes from the effort she spends studying.
From this, it seems perfectly plausible to me that Starlight Glimmer can be equally powerful, or even better, than our Element of Magic. She read the same books Twilight did, practiced them just as much, but also discovered new ways to combine existing spells into new effects. Even Rarity once went mad with magical power from reading a cursed spellbook, not from inborn talent. And going back to the same episode of the above Spike quote, Trixie has impressive real spells, just they're not practical outside of her stage act. Twilight pacified the Ursa Minor with her diverse set of spells.
But on the other hoof.... Twilight was mostly just levitating large objects. Any unicorn can do that, but perhaps not on that scale?
Filly Twilight studied that huge stack of books, but isn't shown to successfully cast a single spell. She failed her exam by doing nothing. Until the sonic rainboom jump-started her magic, and then she uses too much magic. Despite her efforts, she was no good until destiny touched her. Princess Celestia chooses Twilight to help her learn to control this overwhelming raw power. Her study skills were irrelevant. Cutie Marks are what make a pony special, after all!
The Cakes' baby unicorn can do things like walk through walls, long before she learns to read. Maybe natural ability does matter a lot more than acquired learning. Maybe I was wrong. Or maybe the show isn't entirely consistent. Wouldn't be the first time.
So which theory is correct? Your headcanon's as good as mine! 
EDIT: I'm not saying this is a flaw, because I'm really not that picky about this canon stuff like some fans might be. This is just to show how different writers of different episodes can accidentally come to different conclusions about the setting without thinking too deeply about it. Which is fine, because it proves that Twilight's spellbook really isn't the focus of the show.
I said something a few months ago.
I came up with my own theory on how [Hunter X Hunter] has the most elegant and consistent «magic powers» system I've seen in ANY kind of fiction. Maybe I'll save that for another time, because it's a huge topic by itself.
That time is now. Actually, every time I tried to write this, I discovered something new that required me to revise my theory and totally start over. This is like the 4th time, dangit. 
[Nen] is a common manga trope: the user controls aura produced by the body to attack and defend on a superhuman level. I can't explain every detail, yet it's also difficult to summarize the basics. It would simply take too long, and the best introduction is to read/watch HXH yourself. Entire story arcs are centered around teaching the characters (and audience) how Nen works in this universe. I'll try my best to make it understandable to the unfamiliar, though I'll summarize most of this because it'll take way too long.
It took me a long time to catch on that the explanations and teachings in the story weren't just world-building for the sake of nerdy technobabble (magibabble? 
). The author was doing something unique and special here. Here's the three theories I developed over time, to try to make sense of this children's comic.
1. Where Does Magic Come From?
A lot of eastern stories are not about characters that have flaws, they're about characters that are expanding their potential. Like characters in a lot of karate/samurai movies, they don't conceive of humans as having limits. Like in the western notion there's "this is what a human is supposed to be, but this is the limit of what a human is," and in the Eastern tradition there's no limits to what a human can be. Maybe you can use your mind to levitate your opponent if you're sufficiently highly trained.
- Bad Horse @ Advanced Writing panel, Bronycon 2016
(ask him for sources and citations, lol)
Going back to the Twilight Sparkle example, it switches back and forth within a common dichotomy. Inherent powers versus learned powers. They lead to contradictions when they overlap.
I bet you can think of a hundred examples of inherent powers. Superman and the X-Men were naturally born that way. Other superheroes got powers later in life from an accident, such as the Fantastic Four, Spiderman, or the Flash. From Japan: Ultraman, Super Sentai, Monkey D Luffy. The feature (or bug) is that these characters almost never get stronger, because they already start out at maximum power. They don't need to suddenly discover new powers to succeed; the challenges are in how they choose to use what they already have. Within their universe these powers usually don't overlap, because each character must be special and unique.
Back to the other side: characters who learn powers externally. Very common in the martial arts tradition, such as Goku or Naruto, who learn new techniques from elders. It also seems common for fantasy mages. Just look at wizards in Dungeons & Dragons, or wizards in the Harry Potter books. Maybe there's some initial talent required, but it's just a measure of potential. These characters can keep growing stronger and learn new powers the same way they got their first ones. Anyone in Harry's world, great or weak, is equally killed by Avada Kedavra. Voldemort's the exception, not because he was inherently special, but because he learned one more trick to cheat death. Harry had to figure out this secret before having any chance to defeat Voldemort. Learning and growing is everything!
Unlike the other category, powers do overlap, because teachers are a shared source. There can be a wide variety, and each character chooses what they want to learn, but it's not feasible to simply create something new. It'd be too easy to pull a solution out of nowhere, so characters aren't allowed to do that. It's rare to have a power nobody else has, but it's all based on knowledge, and knowledge can always be copied or stolen by others.
This is the common dichotomy (a false one, because I have more categories in mind, though they're not relevant here (ask me about them if you're curious)). Characters who get powers by fate, or learn them by choice. Combining the two, like in Twilight Sparkle's example, leads to some inconsistencies. It can still work, it's just that the two halves don't mix, like water and oil.
Hunter X Hunter breaks all those rules. It doesn't fit in either category, because it's partially both, yet neither. Nen is about creating your own unique powers. It took me a long time to notice how odd that nobody else ever did this (Full Metal Alchemist comes close though). How did Togashi do this?
Nen isn't an inherent power, because anyone can learn it. Yet it is not necessarily learned; many are guided by a teacher, yet some figure it out intuitively on their own, sometimes completely unaware of what Nen is. Once awakened, there's no limit to how far one can grow. Yet at the same time, it's just as personal and individual as inherent powers, without sharing a common pool of knowledge. You could copy someone else, but it won't do you much good.
This isn't the ancient idea of martial arts with mysticism sprinkled over it. It has much more in common with a philosophy like Zen being applied to martial arts. Think of the movie The Karate Kid, where Miyagi doesn't teach "fancy moves"... because he doesn't know any. He teaches the fundamentals and philosophy, then Daniel's strength blossoms naturally along the way.
Similarly, the system of Nen is something grand that just happens to be commonly applied to fighting. Just as the story itself isn't exclusively about fighting, but anything one may desire in life, so is this power system. There's even a subplot about painters and sculptors and such who unknowingly left traces of aura on their work, through intense dedication and passion.
Nen is about the power of art, creativity, and personal expression.
2. Metaphor for Art
Scary thought, that: show me how magic works in your universe, and I'll show you how you think this universe should work.
- Bookplayer's blog, which is quoting a comment by TheJediMasterEd
(did he get it from somewhere else? I dunno, don't ask me! they're the smart ones)
You could easily make a dumb college essay about that inherent vs learned dichotomy and what beliefs are hidden there. Individuality vs conformity? Destiny vs free will? Eh, it's probably all subconscious anyway, as they're imitating what they saw in previous stories. They just wanted to make a fantasy setting to have fun.
I'm very certain Togashi didn't create Nen by accident. It's too easy to fall into that dichotomy when improvising. He put a lot of careful thought into this system, with the intention of making it his metaphor on art.
Like Mr. Miyagi, teachers of Nen explain the basic exercises, and leave the student alone to create their own Hatsu (expression of aura). Kinda like graduate studies, I guess. The first teacher, Wing, explains the 6 Nen types, but doesn't hold the characters' hands on actually creating a power. Even the second teacher, Biscuit, refines Gon & Killua's understanding of aura fundamentals, but doesn't guide them on their powers. The lesson is to drill those fundamentals over and over, because the last step - expression - can't be taught.
Much like in writing or drawing, where the common advice is not to focus so much on choosing a style. That's just surface-level stuff. First, master what's really important (story structure, visual structure, etc.) and you'll figure your own "style" naturally as you go.
Nen types are important, yet not as a hard restriction. The early battle between Hisoka and Kastro is used to show how these can become strengths or weaknesses. Kastro has an impressive and flashy ability, yet he still loses. Not because he was weaker, but because he misuses his talents. He can't be flexible with his ability, can't adapt it for when things go wrong, and it requires takes too much concentration. He can only do one trick with it, and Hisoka sees through that trick to exploit its weaknesses. Now, Hisoka has a boring simple ability by comparison, not nearly as flashy, yet it suits his personality. He can improvise endless ways to use it, while hiding it with his creepy magician act of tricks and misdirection. It's so much in tune with his personality that it doesn't have any weaknesses at all. Simply knowing how it works isn't enough to beat it.
This is why imitating others's powers is useless in this story. Nen type is influenced by both nature and nurture, a reflection of personality. Even though you're not locked into a type, it's more difficult to work against it. The lesson is to know yourself, and not try to be someone else. With inherent/learned powers, this isn't even an option! There are many types of creativity, and it's best to follow what calls out to you
Nen abilities aren't erased on death. In certain cases, it can become much stronger when the user dies. Maybe this one's a stretch, but it's how art can outlive the artist. Strong ideas and emotions can't be killed so easily.
Kurapika learns to conjure chains by spending entire days studying them, sketching them, thinking about them. Much like visual artists, but it's almost like method acting too. What I found more interesting is how he made them powerful, not by faith or determination or force of will, not by numerical POWER LEVELS, but discipline. He sets his own restrictions on his ability, which allows him to fight the most dangerous criminals in the world on even terms. I instantly think of Chuck Jones saying something very similar about disciplines in cartooning. When you can do anything you want, what's important is what you choose not to do. Art through adversity.
Disciplines and self-imposed restrictions in Nen abilities goes pretty deep. Ironically, it's also how the author sets his own disciplines. He defines what he can and can't do within his own story's universe. This is the third and final piece of the puzzle.
3. Setting Up the Rules
The limitations of a magic system are more interesting than its capabilities. What the magic can't do is more interesting than what it can.
Brandon Sanderson's Magic: the Gathering design blog, or something like that
Everyone knows, "it's magic, I don't have to explain shit." Sanderson's laws are also becoming common advice lately. Even if you can't explain magic, making it consistent might make it work better for the reader.
Nen powers can't do the physically impossible, but with self-imposed limitations and stakes it could come very close. Kurapika's teacher directly compares it to games like Mahjong and Poker. In Mahjong, you need to fulfill a condition (yaku) to win a round, but having multiple yaku earns you more scoring multipliers (fan). Each fan doubles your hand's value, so the winnings increase at a frightening exponential rate. One monster can more than make up for a series of cheap losses. The point is that multiple limitations are hard to follow, but doing so can reap huge returns. And in poker, betting tends to be more important than the actual cards. Setting a huge wager can effectively make a weak hand into something much stronger. If the opponent folds, does it really matter what your actual hand value was?
(I'm shodan rank in Mahjong, but lousy at Poker. Just so you know which part here to take with a grain of salt.)
It's probably no secret from his readers that Togashi is a fan of games. No, not like that. A huge fan. As in, he's designed games as a hobby. He even creates his own simple boardgames in the "author's notes" of chapters, and invites readers to mail in character sheets to play. Then he rolls the dice himself for thousands of entries, despite all the extra time this takes, then reports the results in later chapters. Rumor has it he spends a lot of his hiatus time playing Dragon Quest instead of working. 
I think this gives him a unique perspective that I've very rarely found in other comics writers. Or any writers, really....
Togashi is so clear about laying down the foundations of Nen's rules, that he devoted two big story arcs for the characters to learn these rules. Each of these worldbuilding arcs precedes a bigger dramatic arc where the implications of these rules are put to practical effect. "Heavens Arena" arc leads to "Yorknew City" with its dozens of dangerous Nen users. "Greed Island" is advanced training for the "Chimera Ant" saga, where tiny differences in skill can lead to life or death.
I find the "Greed Island" arc rather underrated. Biscuit's training exercises explore so much of Nen's rules, and reveals more of the philosophy creating them. Unlike Dragon Ball and its numerical power levels, HXH's world is where mass amounts of raw aura don't matter much compared to where you concentrate them. Redirect it to your eyes so you can see aura, into the arm to block a hit, then into the fist for an attack. Aura can be wasted easily, so Biscuit teaches the characters to be efficient -- focus large amounts of aura in the fist only for that brief instant when you attack. Yet aura must be balanced between attack and defense, not in a static 50/50 that can be easily overpowered, but shifting focus back and forth when necessary.
Remember that myth about using your brain at 100%? In reality, you don't need that. Real brainpower comes from forming connections between ideas in your mind, and learning to use different parts of your brain together. Going 100% means you burn out very fast. Speed and flexibility is everything, so you can shift that 10% you actively use to exactly where you need it. With practice, it becomes second-nature. This is what Nen is about. This is why I mentioned it in the beginning.
Well... "Greed Island" is supposedly about something else. The characters enter a videogame world that looks and feels like reality, with the risk of real death. It's not a simulation, it's a real island created by Nen. It sounds like such a cliche, yet there again Togashi establishes all his rules up-front, so the reader knows exactly what the limitations of this game world are, if not the actual contents.
The great irony is that with all the training and fighting, so little of this videogame story arc is about the game itself. This is where almost all writers slip up, especially with this particular trope, because they don't think of games in the same way Togashi does. How often have you seen a game-related story that focused on what the game represented? Like knights and pawns, or space marines, or blue-eyes white dragons, or street fighters? Games as another level of fantasy, like the original stories that they're based on. Yet basing a story on them never really feels like a game, just a story diluted through a filter.
The big secret is that at a high enough level, gamers don't care about the content. They look at the rules and ask "how can I win?" This applies to competitive e-sports, speedrunning, or finding optimal builds. The real drama isn't in flashy combos and cutscenes, but that surface level is all that most writers experience in games. Since Togashi plays a lot of games, and even designs some himself, he knows how important the rules are. "Greed Island" is not interested in the contents of this real-life videogame (which is mostly fantasy RPG cliches anyway), so the act of exploring the towns and quests is done in montages. The exciting moments are when characters learn how the rules work, sharing tips about exploits and loopholes, and the strategies and meta-games that have developed over the years. In other words, it's not about the nerdy technicalities of the game, but the human behavior of those who play it.
That's another thing Chuck Jones said was vital in art, learning about human nature. Really, all those rules about Nen or Greed Island aren't for making it more «convincing», since you don't need to memorize them to enjoy the story, but to give a context for humans making choices. Even subplots like the treasure counterfeiters are presented as back and forth games between two sides trying to win. Gon makes no moral judgement on the crime one way or another, he just finds the clever techniques fascinating (like magic tricks, he calls them).
Now that I think about it I can go back to my previous HXH essay, about how battles aren't the focus of the story, because the author keeps the characters his first priority. Strange, by focusing on the rules, he actually makes his story... not about the rules at all.
4. ... and Tearing Down the Rules
'What does it mean to be invincible'? Musashi, 'invincible'... it's merely a word.
The more you think about it, the more you squint your eyes in desperation to see, the more obscured the answer becomes. If something's too obscure to see, then try closing your eyes.
Well...?
Do you see how infinite you are?
- Yagyu Shekisusai, Vagabond, by Takahiko Inoue
Well I spent all those paragraphs on Biscuit's advanced training, about shifting aura to attack and defend at high speeds.... yet that's still completely disconnected from the abilities themselves. You can make abilities stronger with restrictions and stakes, but none of that determines what you can make in the first place.
The rules don't matter. Togashi wrote himself a system where he's allowed to invent any crazy special ability for a character he wants. As long as he balances them by the rules of Nen, he doesn't have to follow any rules at all. It's about creativity and expression, after all. Anything goes, do whatever you want, there are no limits.
You can read hundreds of quotes from famous people about learning the rules so you can break them. If so many come to the same conclusion, they're probably onto something wise.
The strange thing I've noticed in Togashi's works that sets him apart is that he doesn't just break rules, he makes the story itself a celebration of tossing aside rules and becoming free. Multiple problems in HXH are solved with a little out-of-the-box thinking, breaking through rules that turned out to be illusions. Killua and Alluka's arc is about a family trapped by rules that they only assume exist. In the ending to Yu Yu Hakusho, the entire demon world is thrown upside down by a few well-placed words, and the claustrophobic power struggle just melts away into something so liberating and exciting.
The current arc, which might never get finished, is the author's ultimate use of a world of people discovering that the world is far bigger than they ever imagined. The small boundaries they lived in were just the training wheels to prepare them for exploring the larger one. There's this transcendental feeling every time Togashi pulls back the veil to reveal there's infinitely more to the world around you than you thought.
It's like building a rocket to get to space. Once you're out there, you don't need those huge boosters anymore. Just let them go. They were just stepping stones to help you begin to fly in the universe.
Or to put it another way.... it's like a trading card game. You have rules for how cards work, but anything written on a card has priority over the rulebook. The cards can do anything, and so great variety is born. Though in practice I dislike most TCGs for always ending up with choking metas, where only very few decks can thrive competitively. "No two games are ever the same" merely by random shuffling, but most tournament matchups will be identical. 
This is why I loved V:TES so much. Five players, heavy social interaction. I've seen crappy decks win because they had brilliant players. Everyone constructed decks according to their personality, because understanding human behavior was more important. It was transcendental game design where the rules didn't limit you, but allowed you to fly free.
Very intriguing... also go enter FoME's contest and blog about it
you are a best
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uhoh, that's a close deadline.... and a lot of good writers....
*ninja smoke bomb* run awayyyyyyy
4447627 The deadline might be extended, and you're allowed to say no.
V:TES = ?
Well... perhaps that is defining the word "gamers" as "people who don't care about the surface content." Then there are the people who will only play Monopoly if they get to be the racecar.
I twitch at the line 'They look at the rules and ask "how can I win?"' because I hate German games. I am so sick of them. Games that have this abundance of utterly useless and unimaginative surface content, and in reality they are just a giant set of "if...then" conditionals and probabilities, and you're supposed to figure out the optimal strategy, and the game is supposed to be fun because there are enough rules to make that a major computational crunch. I hate that. I hate games that a computer can play perfectly. Screw Carcassonne, Catan, Puerto Rico, Dominion. (Why do German games have French and Spanish names, anyway?) They are like cryptosystems which work just by having a lot of rotors / scrambling mechanisms instead of by carefully designing those mechanisms to be one-way and high-entropy. Ugly.
By contrast, go is one of the simplest games I know, and it's far more interesting than any German game. I think there has lately been a tendency to use surface content as an excuse for arbitrary, overly-complex, ugly internals.
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Vampire: the Eternal Struggle
Though I do like German/euro games, I actually had videogame examples in mind. much like the infamous Sirlin "Playing to Win" article, wherein «scrubs» build up their own narrative of how the game "should be played" in their head, rather than being objective. it reminds me of those who romanticize Chess as intellectual. or the videogame references like coins and super combos in the Scott Pilgrim movie. it's those details that people remember from watching games, not the act of playing them.
actually, here's a better example. Hackers vs WarGames. one movie's about the power fantasy of controlling computers, while the other is grounded in how people learned to manipulate computers at the time. nevermind that it has "game" in the title.
anyway, I don't mean that content is unimportant, but I've seen many writers focus far too much on it that the game is ignored. whether they're actually writing a game, or basing a story on a hypothetical game.
yet what game isn't about winning? or rather, a goal? I'm not sure how you singled out German boardgames for that.
is this a bad time to mention that computers are starting to win against Go masters?
I am curious of more examples of games you respect, other than Go.
I think because Germans were late in the race for exploration and colonization, which is the setting for 50% of the genre. Or maybe their language is considered less marketable internationally?
Actually I totally agree with you on hating Puerto Rico, for the same reasons. Neutral-positive at Catan and Carcass, and I enjoyed Dominion. Those are the games with random chance, though admittedly with too much variance. My personal favorites are Macao and Castles of Burgundy, because they are built around randomness with decisions of strategic risk. And with the multiplayer interaction, I doubt a computer could "solve" them any better than an average human.
I am unsure if this is what you seek in games, or is only a metaphor for the ones you hate?
to be fair, they aim at the broad "family-friendly" demographic with their systems, for better or worse.
Hrmm... I think that German games are usually criticized of the exact opposite, that their surface content is too boring to attract sales by itself. the public widely trusts the critics of Spiel de Jahres for recommendations.
*coughs discreetly*
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I'm not sure how, either. My attitude towards them, anyway, is that their surface narrative is an excuse for an ugly game design. I didn't explain well why I think it's ugly. I think those games are all more like videogames than they are like deep games like chess or go. In chess or go, you need to predict farther ahead than you can exhaustively search, so you learn to look for special patterns that have long-term implications. They're strategic. In a German game, I think you're usually playing tactically, using short-term heuristics, trying to guess how certain specific chains of events will work out rather than trying to set up good strategic situations. Yet they don't have the physical involvement that videogames do, that makes tactical games fun.
Though perhaps I hate them because I like a mix of game mechanics and a fantasized narrative. For example the player's role in Diablo (the videogame) could be reduced to a finite state automaton or lookup table; it's the surface narrative & presentation that make it fun to me. Pretty much any first-person videogame needs a solid surface narrative to make it fun to me.
There are games that aren't about winning--games that are ruined if even one player plays to win:
- LARPs
- Roleplaying games
- Once Upon a Time
There are people who play RPGs (and I mean not computer RPGs, but eg Call of Cthulhu, GURPS) to win, and LARPs as well, and they usually play D&D or White Wolf games, and that's fine as long as they stick to their games and roleplayers stick to theirs. But you can't mix roleplayers with minmaxers. And the card game Once Upon a Time just crashes and burns if even one player is trying to win. Anyone can win the game in a few minutes if they try. But you can't say it's a design problem, since no similar game exists which is as great that doesn't crash & burn if one player is trying to win.
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I mean that having a lot of rotors / scrambling mechanisms is ugly. Carefully designing mechanisms that achieve the same result with fewer moving parts is elegant.
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I think I can see what you mean. eurogames tend to be like 3 or 4 mini-games assembled together, and hopefully they spin together like cogs. since they're aimed at children and casual players to play on a level with experienced gamers, it seems intended to scramble the gamestate like a cryptograph to prevent perfect predictions and reads.... all so that the game isn't dominated in the first 5 minutes by supposedly optimal play. more "wide" than "deep"
fair enough if you don't enjoy that.
though I did feel confused at how you described the examples you listed. Carcassone is a random game, playing one tile optimally at a time. Puerto Rico I hated because everything is too easy to predict, and the game is focused so much on that. I literally had an expert telling every player what they should do because there is no other option, and it pissed me off so much because I had no agency. those 2 games are opposites, but I do get why they're ugly.
Settlers and Dominion feel like a different sub-species. these two games depend heavily on each player's opening setup, and I think you might be underestimating the long-term strategy involved. well, maybe not so much in Settlers, because every move is limited by the whims of the dice roll and it's easy to get stuck, even if you build on 6s and 8s. but I've played a lot of Dominion and found that it's not as easy to "solve" as it first seemed. the 2 opening turns are vital, but the midgame has a lot of subtle variation. and not just play cards, buy most valuable option
I'd talk about Mahjong but it's so difficult to learn that it might not be worth it.
by "surface narrative" do you mean Diablo's aesthetics and presentation? I can understand that, it's got a very cool atmospheric style and mythos. and the game flows well from one combat to another (if that's what you mean by narrative). but I've found the actual story (dialogue, cutscenes) to be so weak and forgettable in those games, that it was easy to ignore the plot to keep on clicking on monsters.
this might be a whole new can of worms because I've got some Opinions on how videogames use narrative, and often very badly. Diablo isn't the worst offender because it's primarily a dungeon crawler, but it's a minor example of a story that feels bolted-on. much like German boardgame mechanics.
ack, I had a whole blogpost about this. somewhere.
all those games are still goal-based, though. just not as cut-throat, because failure doesn't mean the game has to end. but completely ignoring the goals and rewards is what drives those games to a halt. a minmaxer might not get along with a roleplayer, but both are playing to win in their own seperate way (and sometimes a DM can manage to keep both happy).
rather, these are not weaker games when someone doesn't play optimally, but they are much more vulnerable to someone actively sabotaging the game in bad faith. someone who plays a card in Once Upon A Time will try to make it so it can be connected to other thoughts and plot twists, particularly his own cards... and that's exactly what allows other players to interrupt. but telling a story that goes nowhere makes it much harder for anyone to play/win, including that player. (unlike Baron Munchausen, where this bad faith behavior is punished by coins)