Taking control of opponent's character

By BoyFonz, in Rules Questions

Some cards allow you to "take control" of another player's character.

When you move the character in to your play area, do you also take any tokens on the card?

I am thinking of power tokens gained through Renown, for example, but also it could be something like a poison token, Jorah's betrayal tokens or a stand token. I couldn't see much in the RR to clarify this, only the Ownership and Control section. It states "For all associated card ability and framework effect purposes, the card is considered to have entered that opponent's out of play area". Does this mean that attachments and tokens would be removed?

Thanks for the help!

Any attachments and tokens (and duplicates) would remain on the character.

Control of attachments does NOT also change -- the owner of the attachment still controls it.

kauai1964 is correct that when control card changes, there are no rules saying that the control of any associated or peripheral game elements changes at the same time, nor are there any rules saying those associated or peripheral game elements are discarded or returned to the treasury when control changes. Attachments, dupes, etc. continue to be controlled by their owner (assuming no control change effects aimed specifically at those cards) and their text should still be read from the point of view of the person controlling the card.

On the direct question:

When you move the character in to your play area, do you also take any tokens on the card?

The same is true. There is nothing in the rules saying that control of power tokens or other counters change control. The thing to recognize, though, is that in most cases, it doesn't matter who technically controls he tokens/counters:

- The rules say (RRG, p. 16) that, "A player's power total is equal to the amount of power amassed on cards under his or her control ...." So it doesn't matter who "controls" the power tokens - they count for the person who controls the character. (i.e., if you take control of a character with 5 power on it from renown, etc., you may not technically "control" the power counters, but they count for your victory because you control the character now, not for the person who put the power counter on the character).

- Jorah's text says, " If Ser Jorah Mormont has 3 or more betrayal tokens on him, sacrifice him." So when figuring out whether or not he is discarded, it doesn't matter who put the token on him, only how many there are in total.

- Tears of Lys says, " At the end of the phase, if that character still has that poison token, remove it and kill that character." So at the end of the phase, it doesn't matter who put the token on him, the lasting effect will kill the character if the poison token is there.

tl : dr - Technically, control of tokens does not change, but when you read the individual rules and card text involves, it pretty much never matters who controls the token.

It matters if the tokens can be used to pay cost (like the stand token on Power Behind the Throne), since you can only pay costs with game elements you control.

Perhaps, but we can worry about that when something comes along that changes control of plot cards.

Or when a new kind of token that is used to pay costs comes along.

By that reasoning, you should have mentioned only the power gained through Renown (or Consolidation of Power), since that is the only way a card with tokens can change controllers given the current cardpool. No effect can make a unique card in play change controllers and, by the time Taking the Black (the only card than can make a card in play change controllers) can be used, the poison token from Tears of Lys will no longer be on the character, even if it is still in play.

Thanks for the help everyone - you have answered my question.

I do still not get how exactly attachments work in this. If I take controll of an character with an attachemnet that attachement stays attachet to the character but it iss still controlled by the other player? So how does that work? If That attachement gives you an action that action would be still controlled by the other player and so become useless (in most cases) but if that attachement just gives a flat bonus (like a weapon that gives +X strength that would still benefit the character I took controll of?

Exactly. If you steal Arya with ice equipped, she would get the + strength but you don't get to trigger the action because you don't own the attachment.

That ... seems incredibly counter-intuitive. "Okay, I'm on your side now. Oh, but I can't draw my sword for you, that still belongs to House Stark."

Depends how counter-intuitive you feel it is when a negative attachment, like Milk of the Poppy (or future ones that may have to be triggered) are still triggered by the person who played it rather than the person on whose character it is.

Or whether the incredibly rare pro-play in stark vs stark happens, where their arya is their only potential blocker and all your military characters are no-attachments, so you stick your own Ice on your opponent's Arya. They're now obliged to either let the challenge through unopposed or block, and allow you to trigger Ice to kill a second character! Likely? No. Awesome? Of course.

But mostly the first reason (negative attachments).

Edited by -Istaril

Depends how counter-intuitive you feel it is when a negative attachment, like Milk of the Poppy (or future ones that may have to be triggered) are still triggered by the person who played it rather than the person on whose character it is.

Or whether the incredibly rare pro-play in stark vs stark happens, where their arya is their only potential blocker and all your military characters are no-attachments, so you stick your own Ice on your opponent's Arya. They're now obliged to either let the challenge through unopposed or block, and allow you to trigger Ice to kill a second character! Likely? No. Awesome? Of course.

But mostly the first reason (negative attachments).

Ok ... I thought I understood until I thought of that example ... So in that example who has to win the military challenge to trigger Ice? You or the Arya Ice is attached to?

Depends how counter-intuitive you feel it is when a negative attachment, like Milk of the Poppy (or future ones that may have to be triggered) are still triggered by the person who played it rather than the person on whose character it is.

Or whether the incredibly rare pro-play in stark vs stark happens, where their arya is their only potential blocker and all your military characters are no-attachments, so you stick your own Ice on your opponent's Arya. They're now obliged to either let the challenge through unopposed or block, and allow you to trigger Ice to kill a second character! Likely? No. Awesome? Of course.

But mostly the first reason (negative attachments).

Ok ... I thought I understood until I thought of that example ... So in that example who has to win the military challenge to trigger Ice? You or the Arya Ice is attached to?

Hah. The example is a bit convoluted, but it does help me illustrate this point; the card text is always read from the point of view of the controller of the card on which the ability is found. Ice reads "After you win a military challenge in which attached character participated". If I put Ice on my opponent's Arya, I still have to win a challenge in which that Arya is participating.

I get the mechanical reasons for the rule, just thematically it bugs me. Not a big deal though.