A recurring discussion on this forum is how HiG does not provide clarifications about some open issues in the rules and even less if they involve interactions with minor expansions.
Since 2016, a disclaimer is included in the rulebooks of all the mini expansions stating their will be no official rules or clarifications when combining the mini expansion with others... What I call (tongue in cheek) the Prime Directive:
This expansion has been developed for the Carcassonne basic game. All the basic game rules still apply. You can combine it with other expansions - but at your own risk – that is, there will be no official rules for these combinations.
This is really frustrating since you may feel like combining several of them in a game. And you can't get an simple answer from HiG (after more than a year asking) about scenarios as trivial as the abbot and the dragon when combined... First answer: we should not answer your question, since it involves a mini expansion (The Abbot)... Come on! It comes with the base game... You should address all its interactions properly.
For more than a year, I've trying different approaches to get questions from HiG though Christof Tisch, Andreas Kramer and since January 2021 though Jonannes Natterer on Discord (#rules-questions channel). The latter helped us (Bumsakalaka and Sinscerly were also pushing there for answers) a lot but the channel went silent and dozens of questions remained unanswered... After several months Johannes asked me to put all my questions in a document and send it to him by email. I did so and added all the other pending questions I had... This was the end of September 2021. I have updated the document twice since and have some additional questions for them...
It's been a busy year for HiG full of challenges and production issues... and Paleo's success. So I understand it would take them some time (if not a long time) to reply... If they comply in the end.
My list of questions is a mix of open issues affecting one expansions and tons of questions about (forbidden shameful I interactions. So the Prime Directive may be the answer to many of them.
So this morning Danisthirty suggested again to prepare a set of unofficial clarifications (Meepledrone & Friends, or MDF for short as it was coined on the spot) to cover all those open issues not addressed by HiG. Some sort of companion set of rules approved by the Community that would go beyond the realm of house rules (not just a particular rules tweak). This concept of Community Rules was first suggested by Decar when we had to integrate the clarifications from 10/2015 affecting Halflings into WICA (these clarifications are now obsolete by the way). Back then we noticed that these clarifications fell short, so some gaps had to filled in to cover all the expansions not considered directly in the clarifications.
I will create some threads covering different topics in this board away from official and unofficial clarifications. I will be pulling materials from the document I prepared for HiG (so this endeavor can be useful after all). Your comments are most welcome. Hope the experience and the outcome will be useful to all.
Linkback: https://www.carcassonnecentral.com/community/index.php?topic=5589.0