This may seem like an odd question but it came up during our recent playing of voice of isenguard quests

Is it possible to play an event and choose not to do its action, we came to the conclusion probably.

As for why we may want to do this, some of the quests punish you both for having cards in hand and drawing cards, so sometimes if we have card draw in hand and want rid we could be inclined to play the card but not trigger its action

The main purpose when this came up was actually hidden cache, i prefered this card to be in my discard due to the nature of the deck and had no need for the card draw, hence the question came up can i play it for 0 and not trigger the action, given as how it does not say "forced action"

It depends on how it is worded.

I think if the card says something like "Each player draws a card." by playing the card it is forced.

If it is worded, each player may draw a card. Then it is optional.

i get that aspect its more to do with "Action:" on an ally or an attachement its optional, you trigger it when you want to/ if you want to and "Forced Action:" is used to say you have to do this, however on events its usually "Action:" therefore do i get to choose if i do or do not do the action

For event, playing the event is part of the "action", so you can't really play something that does nothing, nor can you discard freely cards.

Yeah, I agree with alogos, I don't think you could do this. Here are what I think are the relevant part of the core set manual:

"An event card is played from a player’s hand, its text effects are resolved, and the card is then placed in its owner’s discard pile." (pg 9)

And then on pg 23:

" Actions are always optional, "

... BUT, "Event cards are actions that are played directly from a player’s hand. "

So, by paying the cost of the card, you are choosing to activate the card's action. For your idea to work, the play sequence would have to be: 1) pay cost to play the event (which itself does nothing), then 2) optionally trigger the action, 3) discard the event. Instead, I think it is 1) pay cost to trigger the action (which is the same thing as 'play the event'), then 2) discard the event.