I want to say that I respect you, and am not wanting to anger/annoy, but you seem to be missing something. See the bolded part below.
@AcesWild5049 said in Classic rules, and some disagreements.:
This, to me, seems to be an exercise in reaching for a desired conclusion. Your extrapolated argument is so tangential that if the folks at MB and LH himself had intended the exception of simply buying additional playing pieces to circumvent this rule, they would have said so. Instead, it is clearly stated three times with multiple supporting examples to the contrary.
Firstly, it isn’t a rule and never was. please bear with me, while I explain why this is so. I promise, even though I have a very tough time explaining things, I am doing my best to shed light on an area where folks are making something out of nothing, and coming away with a misconception. I apologise if this takes more time and effort to straighten out than it should, but in the end, I’m 100% sure that everyone is going to see the mistaken beliefs as what they are. :)
Actually, let’s approach this from a different angle, and perhaps this will shed some light on the subject, and get my point across.
Once upon a time, a really great game designer Larry is working with MB, back when A&A was young, and they made massive numbers of extra playing pieces, which cost them a lot of money, and if folks can use whatever they like to designate a particular piece, rather than, say, buy the actual pieces that are being offered for sale in the official rules {and, to reiterate a point I have already made, that have already been paid for by MB}, then they are going to be taking a financial loss for any of these additional plastic playing pieces, that they have made and are offering for sale.
Along comes a question and answer session, where Larry Harris does indeed make clear, “You cannot use anything else to substitute for an actual plastic playing piece!” And, as noted, this is indeed done several times, in various places, both in the rules and in the FAQ.
Now, let’s look at this from the perspective of a toy company. The facts:
#1 You cannot use substitute for the real thing, you must cap every stack with a plastic playing piece.
#2 We are offering additional playing pieces right in the rules.
#3 We already paid for these, and need to sell them or suffer a loss.
So, my contention is that, they want folks to buy their pieces, not limit the ‘stacks’ within their game, and this is probably a very good example of how they went about it wrong!
MB wants to sell these pieces, rather than waste the money on their production, so the whole thing with the FAQ/rules is NOT about making folks be limited in their gameplay, but rather, to get them to buy the pieces! :)
Hopefully, this attempt clears away all the misunderstandings and misconceptions about what Larry Harris was really saying way back when, and everyone can now put the flawed concept of there being a rule against buying and using the extra pieces to rest.
It isn’t in MB interest to make the pieces, and try to sell them, only to make a rule against their use, for then no one is going to buy them.
Like the kid in the Matrix said: “There is no spoon” === “There is no rule”.
:)