Hi.

In Encounter at Amon Din scenario does Lord Alcaron's response "After a villager token is discarded, exhaust Lord Alcaron to place that villager token on a location instead" prevent placing a damage token on Dead Villagers card that says "If a villager token is discarded from a location, objective, or quest statge, place a damage token on Dead Villagers"?

I'm not sure if the Dead Villagers text triggers before Lord Alcaron's response and if the "instead" in his text means "instead of being discarded" or "instead of placing it back in the token bank" which is what is done with discarded villager tokens as stated in the rules.

Yeah, it's a confusing way to word it. From a strict rules standpoint, the card does say "after it has been discarded" so this must have happened before Alcaron's response could be triggered. But I have always played this from the thematic standpoint and interpreted the "instead" part of Alcaron's response to mean that the token should be treated as if it were not discarded. I think that is the intended way to do it too: Alcaron's response is meant to be saving a villager, so there shouldn't be a dead villager after he prevents one's death.

I used to play it the same way but yesterday the Orc Ravager card got me thinking. That card has a when revealed effect that discards 1 villager token from the active location and if it doesn't discard any then it gains surge.

Now if I "save" this villager using Lord Alcaron's response then Orc Ravager must gain surge even though it removed a villager token from active location. Otherwise the token would be in state "discarded" to prevent surge but also in state "not discarded" in order to not trigger Dead Villagers card effect.

I keep looking at the wording again and again and the only way it seems consistent to me is that in order to trigger Lord Alcron's ability the token must be discarded and that means damage token goes on Dead Villagers. That nerfs Lord Alcron's ability quite a bit so somehow I doubt that is how it was meant to be but I just thought I'd ask in case I played it wrong the whole time and this quest is a bit harder after all.