Plant Action
This action represents the nitty-gritty of ministry. You will be interacting with the different populations, providing for their needs and giving of yourself. God works through our willingness to love others as He would love us. We show this through relationships, wisdom, supplies, and protection. We must depend on God for all these things and give glory to Him. Once we show others this love, we will see hearts softened and even some hearts hardened. All we know to do is to continue loving others to the best of our ability. Just know that we must always make sure to balance the passion that we express with the action that we produce.
Step One
You must place a tactic card from your hand as an outreach card by placing it up against either an already reached population (revealed) or an unreached population (unrevealed).
Your tactic cards have three help prongs, each with a symbol (representing either relationship, wisdom, supplies, or protection) and a value. The population cards you will be placing your tactic cards (as outreach cards) against have four need prongs which you will be attempting to match and exceed values as much as possible.
You will position the outreach card so that each help prong is across from one need prong. The fourth need prong is not considered during the next step. These coupling of prongs are called interactions.
Step Two
For each interaction (a total of three interactions) you will attempt to increase the values of your help prongs by choosing to either give or provide for each individual interaction. Depending on if the value is less than, equal to, or greater than will determine if populations are hardened or softened and if your disciples increase or decrease in loyalty.
When you give, you will discard any number of tactic cards from your hand that have the same help prong type as the help prong a part of the current interaction. You will add the values on the help prongs from the discarded tactic cards to the value on the help prong a part of the current interaction. For every tactic card discarded this way, you will gain +1 Action.
When you provide, you will roll the faith die any number of times until you roll an "X", increase the help prong value above the need prong value, or choose to stop rolling. The faith die is set up like this (X,-,-,1,2,2 +1 Softened population). When you roll a side with a value, add this to the help prong value. Every time you roll the faith die like this, no matter what you roll, gain +1 Passion.
Depending on the comparison between the help prong value and symbol and the need prong value and symbol after giving or providing, there will be a particular outcome.
If the help prong and need prong are the same type, this need is met. If the help prong value is greater than the need prong value, gain +2 Loyalty and +1 Softened population. If equal to, gain +1 Loyalty. If less than, gain -1 Loyalty.
If the help prong and need prong are different types, this need is unmet.
If the help prong value is greater than the need prong value, gain +1 Loyalty. If equal to, gain -1 Loyalty. If less than, gain -2 Loyalty and +1 Hardened population, but, you must first retire one discouraged disciple for every loyalty lost. Any left over loyalty loss is distributed as normal.
After the last interaction and its outcome the plant action is complete!
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The beauty of this action comes from a few different places. First, almost all other actions hinge on the results of this action. What you place down as your outreach determines what support abilities can be executed since all tactic cards have a support ability and can be executed during the water action. Depending on how much loyalty you gain can determine your decisions during the grow action. And most importantly, the outcomes of the interactions will determine if you will gain disciples or cause the conviction of those with hardened hearts during the harvest action.
Second, it introduces the ongoing differences between passion and action and the struggle to balance these. Giving and providing are similar in their outcome, but the way they are represented are very different. Seeing how trust (the faith die) is presented through passion and how preparation (discarding tactics) is presented through action gives players a lot of choice of how they want to approach a situation while preserving the tension. The dichotomy is so cool and represents the theme seamlessly: we must balance our trust in God with the wisdom of being prepared; the "here but not yet" of the Kingdom of God.
