The situation occurred right after the staging step.

1. Before resolving questing Player 1 triggers Asfaloth clearing Methredas (triggers Search).

2. Player 2 reveals Mugash's Guard as a part of his search.

3. Player 3 triggers Ride them Down and chooses Mugash's Guard.

4.1 The players move to quest resolution.

This is where it got confusing to us. At this juncture, we have determined that our willpower is > threat. It is sufficient to clear the active location AND kill Mugash's Guard from the effect of Ride Them Down. However, we are uncertain as to exactly how things should resolve...

4.2 We must trigger the response on Searching for Mugash before resolving Ride Them Down

Option 1: You cancel all progress that would be placed on the stage, therefore the progress still clears the active location because it still may be placed there, but the overflow does not kill Mugash's Guard because no progress could be placed on the current quest.

Option 2: You cancel all progress that would be placed on the stage, therefore the progress does not clear the active location because zero progress is being placed.

4.3 You can wait to trigger the response on Searching for Mugash until after progress/damage is placed from Ride Them Down.

Option 1: You place progress on the active location and then place overflow onto Mugash's Guard killing it. Players trigger the response on Searching for Mugash since they have quested successfully "canceling all (zero in this case since it all went to damage from Ride Them Down as developers have said all can include zero) progress that would be placed on this stage".

The reason I suppose for the confusion is that the rulebook states "If the willpower is higher [than the threat], the players have successfully quested, and they make progress on the quest." It seems that this is one simultaneous resolution since they use "and" instead of "then" so there is no clear distinction as to whether you must use the response on the Searching for Mugash quest card before or after you make progress. Perhaps it is a choice.

My interpretation is that you must trigger the response on Searching for Mugash first (if you wanted to), which would negate Ride them Down, but I not think it is so clear and I can see arguments for various interpretations.

CARD REFERENCES

Ride Them Down - Quest Action : Choose a non-unique enemy in the staging area. Until the end of the phase, progress that would be placed on the quest from questing successfully is instead assigned as damage to the chosen enemy. (Progress must still be placed on any active location first.)

Searching for Mugash - Time 2. Forced: After the last time counter is removed for this stage, shuffle the discard pile into the encounter deck and reveal 2 encounter cards per player. Place 2 time counters on this stage.

Response: After questing successfully, cancel all progress that would be placed on this stage. Then, place 1 time counter on this stage. Or, if Mugash is in play, advance to stage 3.

Search X Keyword (Note this is paraphrased) - Look at the top X cards of your search deck. Add any enemies to the staging area. The player may take one of the cards into his hand. Discard the rest.

EDIT - I think I was able to fine the answer in a different thread when I excluded Ride Them Down from the situation. I find it strange he (Caleb) referred to it as a Forced Effect and not a Response, but I do not believe that impacts the decision as he mentions that questing successfully and placement of progress are two separate game instances.

Here's the official ruling from Caleb:

The Forced effect on stage 2b triggers after “questing successfully” which actually occurs before any progress is placed. Placing progress is only done after determining whether or not the players have quested successfully. That’s why it goes on to say “cancel all progress that would be placed on this stage…” (emphasis added). Since the Searches X keyword only triggers when a location is explored (and that only happens after placing progress on it), it is not possible to bring Mugash into play and advance to stage 3a in the same quest phase (unless you use a player card effect to explore a location before resolving the quest).

Yeah I was going to say the same-- questing successfully and placing progress are different things, with the 'questing successfully' happening first. That's a timing issue that's been worked out in previous rulings. So you would have to resolve the Response on the quest card before you would resolve any progress for Ride them Down. Caleb's referring to this as a Forced effect was probably an error.

Interesting to note that, from his answer, it sounds like you would NOT be clearing the active location when you choose to trigger the response-- I guess that makes a lot of sense, since any progress that 'would be' placed on the quest stage is first placed on the active location. I hadn't made that connection before and I'm sure I've played this scenario incorrectly every time (triggering the response AND putting progress on the active location at the same time).

I sure hope that was not the intent. Otherwise you could never clear the active location (unless you had Asfaloth or something similar). Because nobody would ever choose to remove a time counter when the consequence is 2 cards per player.

The rules are that you place progress on the active location and then on the quest, so I think the only progress that "would be placed" on the quest card is the progress in excess of the active location.

I think I was just misunderstanding things when I wrote that earlier. I think you can trigger the response to add a time counter, then still place progress on the active location right...? You're only canceling progress that would've gone past that.

Caleb's remark that you can't bring Mugash into play and advance to stage 3 at the same time was simply meant to clarify that you can't clear the active location (via questing), bring out Mugash, and THEN trigger the response the advance to stage 3. Because you have to choose to trigger that response before you actually clear the location.

First things first:

1. Responses are always optional (Rulebook p 23). Caleb's usage of "Forced" instead of 'Response' which is what the quest card says (see Caleb's clarification above post wherein he says The Forced effect on stage 2b triggers after “questing successfully” of Stage 2B: Searching for Mugash of 'To Catch An Orc' scenario, VoI) may have been a mix up because Stage 2B has two separate triggers (Forced and Response). For this discussion we are concerned with the Response trigger of stage 2B.

2. Questing successfully and the physical placement of progress tokens are two separate game occurrences that happen in sequence during the Quest Resolution step (FAQ 1.7, section 1.24). Any Forced or passive effects initiated by questing successfully resolve before physically placing progress tokens.

3. Timing of effect resolution (FAQ 1.7, sec 1.37): When resolving multiple effects with a shared condition, players should use this order of resolution: passive abilities first, Forced effects second, Response actions third.

4. Triggered abilities vs Passive Abilities (FAQ 1.7, sec 1.36). Triggered abilities have bold trigger word such as Action or Response . These abilities are only applied when they are triggered. Passive abilities are abilities on cards that have an ongoing effect without a bold trigger word. Because passive abilities don't have a trigger they are always active and cannot be 'triggered'.

So what's Ride Them Down's effect, Triggered or Passive? The answer to this is critical. Though the card has Quest Action trigger, that trigger is only for 'playing' the card, not for resolving its effects which happens later. I believe, and this is the debatable part, after you triggered RTD, its effect (which is until the end of the phase) of replacing progress tokens into damage becomes a "passive" ability. It certainly fits the definition of what passive ability is, as defined above.

So, during question resolution,

1. You have determined that you have successfully quested.

2. Let's say you optionally trigger the Response on "Searching for Mugash" card.

3. You will resolve passive abilities first (Ride Them Down's effect) before the optional Response on "Searching for Mugash".

4. You place enough progress tokens on active location to explore it, then remaining progress tokens are placed as damage on the orc.

5. There is no progress token to cancel (from Searching for Mugash Response). You place 1 time counter or progress or move to stage 3 (because you optionally triggerred the Mugash Response).

If you don't trigger the optional response on the quest card, then it becomes simple. Even if the Response is actually a Forced trigger (as Caleb stated above, though in error, I believe), the passive ability will still resolve first. Ride Them Down's effect has to be considered 'passive' because there is no trigger for its effect of turning the progress token into damage (which lasts until end of the phase) and because it's a Quest Action: it has already been played during Staging step.

These are how I would handle the situation. Any disagreements?

I agree that after you trigger the Quest Action on Ride Them Down, you have created a passive effect.

I disagree that Ride Them Down shares timing with the Response on the quest stage. The Response has a clearly defined trigger ("after questing successfully"). Ride them Down does not have a trigger and isn't activated after "questing successfully" (it was already active), so there is no shared timing and in my estimation the 'timing of effect resolution' FAQ entry 1.7 is not relevant here.

If you remove the idea of a shared timing for Ride them Down and the Response, what you have is a Response with a trigger of "questing successfully" and a passive effect that redirects progress generally. So you're free to trigger the Response, then do your progress on the active location, then do progress on the quest. Then that progress (and therefore damage) should be canceled, since the Response's effect is to cancel potential progress, and not progress that you've actually placed.

But sill that's not entirely clear, since with Ride them Down you were never going to place actual progress anyway...

Grandspleen ninja'd me, but I agree that triggering the response (your step 2 above) cancels any progress that would be placed. So by the time you would place progress (or deal damage, your step 4 above), it has already been cancelled and would do no damage.

The reason why I think Ride Them Down and quest response share a timing condition (which is not really triggered, is that wrong?) is because of the wording of RTD " progress that would be placed on the quest from questing successfully" which kind of implies that 'questing successfully" is acting as a timing condition. But that's just my interpretation (so as to use the Timing of Effect Resolution as framework for the analysis). Your argument that there is no shared timing is also valid.

The quest Response only cancels progress tokens that would be placed, if you were to place them, on the quest card. Could we interpret it as "if you were to put progress tokens on the quest card, don't put them; the tokens 'disappear/are canceled"? What if those progress tokens are to be placed elsewhere? The Response does not cancel them. I kind of see the similarity between active location and enemy to be damaged by RTD. If progress token are to be placed on quest, put them on active location first, any excess cancel them. If progress token are to be placed on quest, put them as damage on enemy, cancel any excess.

Ugh. Messy. I can't work out what should happen.

Currently it seems that both Ride Them Down and the Quest Response create passive cancellation effects, but who knows how the two interact. Passive effects don't usually have a resolution order, do they?

I sent an email to Caleb for clarification.

Ugh. Messy. I can't work out what should happen.

Currently it seems that both Ride Them Down and the Quest Response create passive cancellation effects, but who knows how the two interact. Passive effects don't usually have a resolution order, do they?

If they are simultaneous the first player would choose the order of resolution and then it would obviously be entirely advantageous to choose to resolve Ride Them Down. I am not so sure they are simultaneous, however. I can totally see ppsantos' argument, but I also originally thought the way GrandSpleen is interpreting it.

I believe the intent would be that Ride Them Down would not work, but ppsantos' clarification as to why he thinks they share the same trigger is legitimate and it makes it ambiguous. From his interpretation it produces another question. They already clarified that "When" and "After" resolve in a certain order given shared triggers, but they have never clarified what "from" means (in the case of Ride Them Down).

I got an answer from Caleb that I was not expecting. Apparently you can only trigger the response on Mugash's search if you would actually place progress there. So Ride Them Down would prevent you from triggering the response. Placing progress on the active location without overflowing onto the quest would also prevent you from triggering the response.

If you play Ride them Down while at the quest stage, Searching for Mugash, then you cannot place progress on that stage at all. Therefore, you cannot trigger the Response effect on that stage.

It is not enough to quest successfully, you must cancel progress that would be placed on the quest. If you quested successfully, but did not make enough progress to fully explore the active location, then you would not place progress on the quest, and you could not trigger the Response. T hat is an important part of the tension of the scenario: deciding where to travel to and asking yourself if you think you can make enough progress to fully explore the active location AND place progress on the quest.

Hmm, so is this kind of like Erkenbrand and his damage? If you cancel Erkenbrand's damage, he doesn't cancel the shadow effect. So there needs to be some damage that actually can be placed (?). Likewise here you need to have progress tokens that actually can be placed, so that you can cancel them and perform the rest of the Response.

Yeah, that's how it works. It's all about the word "Then".

FAQ (1.15) The word “then”
If a card effect uses the word “then,” then the preceding effect must resolve successfully for the subsequent dependent effect to resolve.

Yeah, I definitely wasn't expecting that ruling either. I find it interesting that RIde Them Down prevents the ability to trigger the response. Based on the ruling I believe that we need to interpret the response as "After questing successfully, if one or more progress tokens would be placed here, cancel that progress and..."

This would eliminate the confusion around "all" including zero as has been stated in previous rulings with other cards.

This would also explain why you can't trigger the response when Ride Them Down is active because the clause "if one or more progress tokens would be placed here" since all progress was already converted into damage.

Or even "After questing successfully, cancel one or more progress that would be placed here, then..."

I took out the "if" so that it reads as if you must have some progress to cancel.

So, basically, the cause of these confusion is vague wording of the response trigger for the Mugash card? The response trigger is not the "questing successfully", as we all thought it was, but actually if player were to actually put progress token on the quest card from questing successfully. So Legolas' ability (put progress token by destroying enemy) will not trigger it either because it's not from questing successfully.

Correct.