Hi

Just playing my first practice game and I'm struggling with the concept of control. Many cards use the wording. The rules reference states that you control cards in your out of play areas but doesn't say you control cards in your in-play areas. Is this an error because it doesn't make much sense?

Just realised I've posted in the wrong section. How do I move this to the rues forum!

No way to move it that i know of. Your answer is in the RRp14

So you control characters in out of play areas too?

So what happens if you want to play a card like Treachery and you have no unique lannisters on the table or dead pile? Would you have to show one from your deck to prove you have one?

I did think it odd that under the rules entry for control they didn't clarify that in play areas are under control as well as out of play areas. Because they've put the in-play areas bit under in-play area it confused me when I didn't see it confirmed under the control section

So what happens if you want to play a card like Treachery and you have no unique lannisters on the table or dead pile? Would you have to show one from your deck to prove you have one?

Only cards that are in-play are actionable and can be used to satisfy play restrictions. The fact that you "control" the unique characters in your dead pile, discard pile, deck and hand doesn't help you play Treachery. You have to have a unique Lannister in play .

"Abilities (RRG, p. 2)

Card abilities only interact with, and can only target, cards that are in play, unless the ability text specifically refers to an out of play area or element."

(i.e., since Treachery can only interact with cards that are in play, only controlling a unique Lannister character in play can satisfy its play requirements.)

So you control characters in out of play areas too?

So what happens if you want to play a card like Treachery and you have no unique lannisters on the table or dead pile? Would you have to show one from your deck to prove you have one?

I did think it odd that under the rules entry for control they didn't clarify that in play areas are under control as well as out of play areas. Because they've put the in-play areas bit under in-play area it confused me when I didn't see it confirmed under the control section

The entry I quoted was from the 14 "Ownership and Control" - probably the best place to look for information on who controls what. I'm not sure where else you'd expect to find that answer?

The card Treachery requires that you have a unique lannister character (under your control), but, as stated on p2 (below), card abilities only interact with with cards in play, unless otherwise specified.

Card abilities only interact with, and can only target, cards that are in play, unless the ability text speci cally refers to an out of play area or element.

Ah I see I thought that the card ability was only the part that had the key word and referred to things in play.

I didnt think the first part was an ability, I thought it was a triggering condition. The rule book is very helpful but also incredibly difficult to make sense of due to everything being all over the place and a distinct lack of examples.

Take the ability section... It states that card abilities fall into one of the following types... And then lists them, but there is text in Treachery that proceeds the ability type ;interrupt. To my thinking this text wasn't the ability and therefore could then reference cards not in play, even though the ability could only target cards in play.

There are some other things I've learned, but only spending hours seaching and cross referencing multiple entries and even then I have my doubts.

I think there should be more meat in the learn to play rules and more examples that explain the entries in the rules reference.

At first, I had the same perception as "The Thing In The Attic".

I am very new to this LCG world... and I was trying to understand what "control" meant and got puzzled by the RRp14 section "Ownership and Control".

I wanted to use the "Wildfire Assault" plot card which reads "Each player chooses up to 3 characters he controls; kill each character not chosen"... and thought this would destroy EVERY characters (minus three) found in my deck, my hand, my "in-play area", my dead and dismiss pile ...

So, If I get it right (thanks to Istaril and Ktom), only the unchosen characters still facing up in the "in play area" will get killed. Is it correct ?

Thank you

Yes. I've studied the rules reference really hard. The confusion is cleared up in two sections in the Glosary. Page 2: Abilities: an ability is the special game text that a card contributes to the game. Card abilities fall into one of the following types...constant abilities...

Then look up constant abilities on page 5 which explains my question raised over cards like Treachery which have text before a keyword ability.

Now for your wildfire example go back to page 2 Abilities fourth bullet point down: card abilities only interact with and can only target cards that are in play...

So there are three states.. 1. You own all of the cards that started the game in your deck. 2. You control all the cards in play areas. 3 you control all cards in out of play areas. The distinction is made because of the above rule where you can only target in-play areas you control. Your opponents cards are in play if face up too but you don't control them so that's why certain cards specify "...that you control"

I'm getting it all slowly but I wish they'd been more comprehensive in the rules sometimes you only 'get'a rule by cross-referrencing 3 or more sections.

I struggle to think how the rules could be made MORE comprehensive. The more comprehensive you make them, the more you have to compromise the layout in order to make reference less of a pain. Alphabetical by subject is ideal for looking up questions. Yes, you had to cross reference three sections, but you did find the answer, and the answer is well-defined. If you muddled all three of those subjects together, you'd either be bloating the rulebook with redundancies or you'd render it useless for lookup of questions that only touch on one of the three terms involved.

I can somewhat understand your confusion, but rules reference or not, reading 3 sections or not, I think it's pretty intuitive and obvious that you:

- own your cards

- you control cards in play

- you control cards in out of play areas like your hand, deck and discard/dead piles

I don't know how anyone could read Wildfire Assault and think that they'd have to rip all of their cards out of everywhere. Not least because it'd be completely broken...