Am I using my Cheat Right?

[elemenotic]

I've been playing steve jackson games for over 12 years now and I feel that the ruling goes against what is a very liberal spirit of the game. The Cheat card in my interpretation, is this :

"You may have and use any one item that would otherwise be against the rules."

"you may have" refers to how you get the card... whether it be on the board infront of you or an opponent or discard or in your hand. Because if it is against the rules to have it than it should be able to be acquired. Why else would someone put "have" on the card. Now "use" is easier for most people to understand... it allows you to use a restricted card in any way. Basically, if it is against the rules to "have" and to "use" it, then you can do both. Remember that in the written rules of the game it says the owner has the last ruling even over this forum.
I think the only restriction is when you can play it. Which in my opinion is up for discussion.
Let me know what you think.
If SJGAMES.COM, provides a ruling I think they should reprint with different wording.

[Doctor Poo]

Originally Posted by elemenotic

I've been playing steve jackson games for over 12 years now and I feel that the ruling goes against what is a very liberal spirit of the game. The Cheat card in my interpretation, is this :

"You may have and use any one item that would otherwise be against the rules."

"you may have" refers to how you get the card... whether it be on the board infront of you or an opponent or discard or in your hand. Because if it is against the rules to have it than it should be able to be acquired. Why else would someone put "have" on the card. Now "use" is easier for most people to understand... it allows you to use a restricted card in any way. Basically, if it is against the rules to "have" and to "use" it, then you can do both. Remember that in the written rules of the game it says the owner has the last ruling even over this forum.
I think the only restriction is when you can play it. Which in my opinion is up for discussion.
Let me know what you think.
If SJGAMES.COM, provides a ruling I think they should reprint with different wording.

"Cheat!" pertains to items that you have in play or in your hand that you can't legally use. It's recently been reprinted to clarify just that. You can find reprints of every cheat card (and a lot of other changes) for every Munchkin set through 2010 in the Munchkin: Go Up A Level set.

[MunchkinMan]

Originally Posted by elemenotic

"you may have" refers to how you get the card...

No, it has always meant Items that you are not permitted to carry, like a second Big Item, or for some unforeseen (at the time) reason that will not permit you to have a specific type of item (a later example, after the original release of Munchkin is Curse! Tiny Hands, which doesn't allow you to carry, i.e., have in play two-handed Items). It has never meant to intend stealing a card from another player or from the discards. Never.

Remember that in the written rules of the game it says the owner has the last ruling even over this forum.

No, it says that the owner of the game decides on disputes. In a situation where 5, 50, 200, or more people agree on something, I wouldn't really call that a dispute. What Andrew and I deal with here on these forums are official rulings, and I've given you the official ruling, based on my conversations with SJ himself almost 10 years ago about the intent of the Cheat! card. Where the rules don't have jurisdiction are house rules, which is what you're talking about. We happen to have a thread all set up for discussing those.

[Eben]

So a player suffering under a no helmet curse could use a cheat to equip a helmet?

[smoothhands]

Originally Posted by Eben

So a player suffering under a no helmet curse could use a cheat to equip a helmet?

From what I understand the Cheat card essentially acts as an extra free slot of any type. The wording doesn't treat it like this, but I think that's the stance taken in order to avoid conflicts with things such as Curses. I keep notes of official rulings, and in my notes I have that you can't use a Cheat card to get around a Curse.

[MIB 9966]

The FAQ Seems pretty clear on this:

Q. If my only small Item has a Cheat! card on it, and I get Cursed to lose a small Item, can I say that the cheated Item doesn't count as "small" for the purposes of the Curse?
A. Nice try, but no. Cheat! doesn't take away the Item's properties, it just makes the Item usable for you when it otherwise would not be.

It's still headgear, so I'm pretty sure you can't avoid a cruse that affects headgear, even if the cheat allows it for other circumstances. I'm sure I recall a ruling mentioning something similar about Cheat doesn't change an item's properties in the recent past, but I can't find it at the moment.

[MunchkinMan]

Originally Posted by smoothhands

From what I understand the Cheat card essentially acts as an extra free slot of any type. The wording doesn't treat it like this, but I think that's the stance taken in order to avoid conflicts with things such as Curses. I keep notes of official rulings, and in my notes I have that you can't use a Cheat card to get around a Curse.

There's a difference between a Curse not allowing you to have an Item of a certain type and a curse that makes you lose a certain type of Item.

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by MunchkinMan

There's a difference between a Curse not allowing you to have an Item of a certain type and a curse that makes you lose a certain type of Item.

Because the point of Cheat! is to allow you to put into play an Item you cannot otherwise use, it can circumvent an existing persistent Curse ("You cannot wear Armor until this Curse is lifted"), allowing you to put an Armor card into play, but cannot block an immediate Curse ("Lose Your Armor") to prevent you losing one that is already in play.

[Mister Ed]

Another Cheat! question.
I thought I remembered reading on here (though my search failed to find it) that Cheat! could be used to play an item enhancer (provided it itself was an item) on something other than what was intended. For example, you could use Cheat! to play Press-on Wings on your Mithril Armor instead of on a Steed. Am I remembering this correctly? I so, how far does this extend? Could I play those Press-on Wings on a Hireling with a Cheat! card? Could I play them on a Really, Impressive Title? Could I just play them on myself, instead of on another card? Could I play them on a one-shot item (though why I would do this, I don't know), and if I did would the bonus apply all the time, or only at the time I used the one-shot item?

[ComBAT]

Originally Posted by Mister Ed

Another Cheat! question.
I thought I remembered reading on here (though my search failed to find it) that Cheat! could be used to play an item enhancer (provided it itself was an item) on something other than what was intended. For example, you could use Cheat! to play Press-on Wings on your Mithril Armor instead of on a Steed. Am I remembering this correctly? I so, how far does this extend? Could I play those Press-on Wings on a Hireling with a Cheat! card? Could I play them on a Really, Impressive Title? Could I just play them on myself, instead of on another card? Could I play them on a one-shot item (though why I would do this, I don't know), and if I did would the bonus apply all the time, or only at the time I used the one-shot item?

I think that either this was relayed to you or you had read that Cheat! sticky:

"It lets you use a Steed/Ship/Hireling Enhancer that is an Item to enhance any Item, not only the type of Item that it could only normally enhance*"

Therefore I would think that it can be used on any item that has a gold value on it that is not a one-shot item(or at least is an item you can equip or provides a combat bonus).
I don't believe you could use it to enhance a one-shot item and generally doing so would be a waste if that was legal.

Therefore, if the Hireling has a gold value on it, you can enhance them using a cheat with any enhancer that is also an item.

Really Impressive Title is not an item so you cannot cheat to enhance it.

Cheating to enhance nothing is a good question, but it actually defeats the purpose of cheating to enhance an item. You are better off cheating to enhance nothing at almost all times if you could do that, so in my game I'd rule against that.