Ever Onward

Response: After players quest unsuccessfully, choose a player. That player does not raise his threat.

1. Is using this card in a single player game disallowed because it specifically states "after players" (plural)?

2. If you are playing with multiple people and only 1 player remains, is using this card disallowed?

The card could have easily been worded as "After questing unsuccessfully, choose a player. That player does not raise his threat." if they wanted to allow it for single player.

I don't own that particular card so have never played it myself, but I am almost certain you can use it in a one player game.

See the comments on Card Game DB: http://www.cardgamedb.com/index.php/lotr/lord-of-the-rings-card-spoiler/_/khazad-dum/ever-onward-kd

I'm not sure I trust those comments as it might have been them reading in haste not realizing the word "players" was plural.

However, I also suppose the designers were still fairly early into the game design when they released Khazad Dum, so perhaps they didn't word it as carefully as they should have. As they've created more and more expansions, it seems they have become more clear in their definitions.

Though I agree the plural in the card text could be avoided as in your example, you could argue that Ever Onward's text is consistent with the language on page 14 of the rulebook. The possible outcomes of questing are all described for players (plural), so maybe it makes sense from a rules perspective for card effects to be worded the same:

"Finally, the players compare the combined willpower strength of all committed characters against the combined threat strength of all cards in the staging area... If the (threat strength) is higher, the players have unsuccessfully quested , and they are driven back by the encounter deck..."

We know that the core rules apply even if the number of players is just one, and that the plural is meant to apply to any number (1-4) players. Note that several encounter cards also use the same language.

http://hallofbeorn.com/Cards/Search?Query=after%20players

• Forced: After players quest unsuccessfully or a character leaves play, deal 1 damage to Celador.
• Forced: After players advance to stage 3, remove Lake in the Cavern from the game.
• Response: After players travel here, the first player puts 1 ally into play from his hand.

If they changed "After players" to "After the players," perhaps that would fix the ambiguity.

You can use the card with only 1 player.