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With the proliferation of tablets, there have been several board games ported to the medium, that either by hot seat play, or using the tablet as a board, can be utilized in place of the actual game. These games sometimes have adapted rules that are different from the rules of the physical board games.

Is it OK to ask questions about the specific rules of such games? And should they be tagged with the same tag as the physical game if so?

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This is addressed directly in our FAQ,

Questions about computer implementations of board games are fine.

I don't see any reason for separate tags in the general case.

Computer implementations for board games are most likely on topic both here and and Gaming, and that's OK. I wouldn't be encouraging migrations either way. Whichever site the questioner uses is fine and folks will likely get quality answers wherever they ask it.

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  • I guess the reason I ask about separate tags is that the computer implementation can be subtly different than the physical one, and I thought it might get confusing in that respect, especially when searching for an answer.
    – Chuck Dee
    Apr 13, 2012 at 15:36
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    @wraith808 - I guess the question I would ask is "Are both groups (computerized and regular) likely to benefit from questions in the other group?" In most cases I think the answer is positive. If so, then we shouldn't seek to split the groups, especially prematurely before either one gets a significant number of questions. Instead, we can note differences/problems on the tag wiki.
    – Pat Ludwig Mod
    Apr 13, 2012 at 16:25
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Yes, they are on topic and are a great fit for the site.

Yes, they should be tagged with the same physical board game tag, and they should also use the tag.

If there are any differences between the computer implementation, and the physical implementation, when users answer the question they should use knowledge of the computer implementation if possible, or should note that their expertise comes from the board game not the computer.

Answers can always be corrected in the future if it is found that the computer implementation is different.

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  • I'm not sure how this site treats secondary tags, but I know on Gaming we would definitely frown on using the computers tag to modify the board game tag like this.
    – bwarner
    Apr 16, 2012 at 12:27
  • Gaming only allows 1 tag? Why? For example, what if a question was about 2-player strategy for Street Fighter II (fireball trap), specificly and not about playing against the computer. Wouldn't you tag it 2 player or multiplayer. Visa versa, wouldn't you tag a question about beating a computer opponent differently, with computer or AI, etc.
    – user1873
    Apr 16, 2012 at 13:33
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    There's lots of discussion about this on Gaming's meta. This is a good summary, meta.gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/3320/…
    – bwarner
    Apr 16, 2012 at 15:51
  • @bwarner, I don't think the link post applies. Computer implementations marked with the computer tag help identify several key differences between a physical implementation. The linked post is more analogous to publisher (what specific differences are there when playing Cosmic Encounter by Fantasy Flight). I would argue that rules changes are the heart of many questions, and if rules differences exist between a PC and board game a tag denoting the difference is useful.
    – user1873
    Apr 17, 2012 at 13:32

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