I am trying to figure out the point of the rumor cards in the ally decks. In the keeper manuel it said to remove cards based on the story you are playing. well I have removed the cards and read the cards that would remain for the option 1C and I then i switched to the other option they want us to remove. I do not understand the point of the rumor cards and removing certain cards. Can someone help explain the point of removing the cards when it looks like they do nothing at all?

If I know what you're referring to, the point of Scenario 1 is for the investigators to figure out which Ally is the enemy. They have to gather a certain number of clues that indicates a specific Ally is the enemy. Removing certain rumors makes it so that only one ally has as many as three (?) rumor cards that indicate s/he is the traitor.

The investigators are welcome to accuse and kill any Ally they wish at any time, but if they choose wrong they lose the game. So the only way to be certain is if they amass enough evidence against a specific ally (the three Rumor cards).

The problem is that no matter what rumor cards are taken out following the guide in the book, nothing changes. It always looks like two or three of them have done it no matter which of the two sets you take out. So unless I am missing something there is no point in taking out rumor cards.

OK I was away from my MoM set for days and only now have time to verify.

Check what I said again. Each ally has six cards. Three of them are rumors. This corresponds to each of the three allies.

For example:

Ammi Pierce's cards 2, 3, and 4 each implicate (respectively) the following allies:

2: Corinna Jones

3: Eric Colt

4: Ammi Pierce

Story choice 1A has the keeper remove the following rumor cards:

3, from Ammi's deck (which implicates Eric)

8, from Eric's deck (which implicates Corinna)

14, from Corinna's deck (which implicates Eric)

Given this setup, we have, among the six remaining rumor cards:

1 card which indicates Eric is the culprit

2 cards which indicate Corinna is the culprit

3 cards which indicate Ammi is the culprit (which is what the keeper selected)

Thus, if the investigators interview the allies enough times, they'll eventually collect three rumor cards which point to Ammi being the culprit, and can conclude with certainty that he is, as the scenario mechanics intended. For no other ally can they obtain three implicating cards.

Different story choices result in different allies being the culprit in the same manner as above (i.e., there are three rumor cards implicating that ally specifically).