The key to new/unlisted keywords is that under this guide, they would always initiate in step 2. Then they would be carried out according to the rules in the rulebook for that specific effect.

Prowl happens "when it is revealed". It would be carried along with Wingfoot I think. I should probably rename that step.

Hide also happens "when it is revealed". In accordance with the rulebook, this must resolve before Step 5 (Resolving the when revealed effects). So this is also in the Wingfoot step.

I feel like "enters play / enters the staging area" is the same trigger, unless you can find a ruling that separates these.

After reading Underworld X and Villagers X, I think that "enters play" is meant the same way as "enters the staging area". It talks about placing cards underneath it or adding tokens to the cards, which don't make sense if the card is in some limbo state waiting to be cancelled. For that reason I don't think cancelling an underworld card would mean that you still need to reveal and resolve X underworld cards.

After reading Underworld X and Villagers X, I think that "enters play" is meant the same way as "enters the staging area". It talks about placing cards underneath it or adding tokens to the cards, which don't make sense if the card is in some limbo state waiting to be cancelled. For that reason I don't think cancelling an underworld card would mean that you still need to reveal and resolve X underworld cards.

That would simplify things, but how can an enemy take damage if it is not in play? Thalin and Expecting Mischief can damage out of play enemies under the current construct. The fix here would be that the enemy/location is in play at some early stage, but the keywords that say "when something enters play" need to have errata that says it "enters the staging area" instead.

A Test of Will. Cancel the "When revealed" effect. In other words, ignore Step 5 of this chain. So effects in Step 1 and Step 2 are unaffected.

A Test of Will. Cancel the "When revealed" effect. In other words, ignore Step 5 of this chain. So effects in Step 1 and Step 2 are unaffected.

This whole framework is awesome work, but I'm a little confused by the wording of your clarification. It implies that A Test of Will will cause Step 5 to be ignored, but that would mean the resolution of, say, the Doomed keyword would never happen. Which is not the case, as Doomed DOES resolve. Did you mean Step 6?

Yeah, I've been frantically editing this thing since I posted it, occasionally forgetting to change some numbers.

I found clarification on what "enters play" means and you're right. If you look up the Ambush enemies, it says this exact thing on the card

Ambush (After this enemy enters play, each player makes an engagement check against it.)

Due to this, and due to knowing when Ambush resolves based on prior rulings, we can say that an enemy necessarily enters play AFTER Thalin/Expecting Mischief. This is odd, however, as it seems that the enemies/locations damaged/progressed by cards like Thalin/Expecting Mischief/Warden of Arnor all happen in some unspecified non in play and non out of play limbo state where enemies/locations are allowed to be defeated/explored.

If it is in play, which we have proven it is not, it would necessarily enter play before Thalin/Expecting Mischief

If it is out of play, cards cannot interact with it as per the Core set rule book.

Therefore, it is neither in play, nor out of play. I feel like this might have some negative ramifications and follow up questions and cause more confusion than it is worth.

Quest Points: The number of progress tokens that must be placed on this location to fully explore the location and discard it from play.

Obviously Warden of Arnor is allowed to explore a location with only 1 quest point, however it is impossible to "discard it from play" if it is not in play. Hence, why I think locations and enemies enter a limbo state that is neither in play, nor out of play and may be explored/defeated as if they were in play. This would be consistent with the rulings as we know, and fit the construct above. I think it is a bit of a reach on my part to "make up" this limbo state. But based on the current state of the game/rulings, it seems to exist, in theory. It might be worth noting it.

I found clarification on what "enters play" means and you're right. If you look up the Ambush enemies, it says this exact thing on the card

Ambush (After this enemy enters play, each player makes an engagement check against it.)

Due to this, and due to knowing when Ambush resolves based on prior rulings, we can say that an enemy necessarily enters play AFTER Thalin/Expecting Mischief. This is odd, however, as it seems that the enemies/locations damaged/progressed by cards like Thalin/Expecting Mischief/Warden of Arnor all happen in some unspecified non in play and non out of play limbo state where enemies/locations are allowed to be defeated/explored.

If it is in play, which we have proven it is not, it would necessarily enter play before Thalin/Expecting Mischief

If it is out of play, cards cannot interact with it as per the Core set rule book.

Therefore, it is neither in play, nor out of play. I feel like this might have some negative ramifications and follow up questions and cause more confusion than it is worth.

Quest Points: The number of progress tokens that must be placed on this location to fully explore the location and discard it from play.

Obviously Warden of Arnor is allowed to explore a location with only 1 quest point, however it is impossible to "discard it from play" if it is not in play. Hence, why I think locations and enemies enter a limbo state that is neither in play, nor out of play and may be explored/defeated as if they were in play.

Yes, this was something that I brought up to Caleb way back when he clarified the timing of Thalin's passive effect. It seems odd to me that an enemy could die before it has even entered play and that damage can be assigned to it while the card is still in "limbo". The thing that makes this especially problematic is that "Immune to player card effects" only applies while a card is in play - which implies that Thalin could effect such enemies revealed from the encounter deck since they are not technically in play while his passive effect is damaging them.

This game is starting to accumulate some rather interesting rules cruft. It's fine once you understand the errata, and is especially benefitted by efforts like Seastan's above (which absolutely should be part of the rule back). The real challenge comes when trying to explain a particular ruling to new or more casual players. I remember when I was trying to explain to Mrs. Beorn one of the timing issues with Thalin and she looked at me like I was making the rules up. Not that I can blame her, as some of these corner cases feel almost arbitrary.

So I just made a massive re-edit. I came across a ruling that pointed out the Prowl resolves before when revealed effects, meaning you couldn't use test of Will to cancel the when revealed effect if it got rid of your resource to do so. But this can't work in the case of Quick Ears, which is supposed to cancel the entire card including keywords. So despite A Test of Will and Quick Ears using the exact same wording as their trigger, we need to put Quick Ears ahead of Prowl and A Test of Will after.

I found it easier to just go through every card and effect case by case based on official rulings rather than try to sort out the wording mess. Here is version 2.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/18Z-F6r0f2aIlEF8QTuVgHuGQYKsObkxyGwwM4_W978Y/edit?usp=sharing

The thing that makes this especially problematic is that "Immune to player card effects" only applies while a card is in play - which implies that Thalin could effect such enemies revealed from the encounter deck since they are not technically in play while his passive effect is damaging them.

This is exactly the kind of thing I was referring to when I said "It might cause more problems than it is worth", but I hadn't thought of an actual in game problem to list. You raise a really good question with this. Was it ever ruled on that cards like Thalin can defeat an enemy immune to player card effects? I assume the answer, if it was ruled on was "No". If that is the case, is it possible for us to fit this into the above guide?

I cannot find in the rules explicitly that a location/enemy is immune to player card effects only if it is in play. However, I believe you are carrying to ruling over from Beorn/Fortune or Fate since its text box is blank when in the discard pile.

I think in describing interactions within the limbo state, saying "may interact with cards in this state as if they were in play" would indicate that the text of immune to player card effects would be active and as such, Thalin/Expecting Mischief/Warden of Arnor could not interact with them. This would mean the enemy has not yet "entered play", but it is considered to be "in play", similar to how they say an enemy is considered to be "engaged", but it never actually engaged you.

Hey Seastan, with the newest edit, it makes it seem like Eleanor would negate Surge since you only list Surge in step 12. I'm probably just reading it incorrectly.

I presume that Warden of Arnor keeps on getting special treatment from you all due to the ruling that makes it akin to Expecting Mischief. (See https://boardgamegeek.com/article/19454378#19454378 )

But it seems to me that it's an issue if you state that a 1-quest-point location (like Tharbad Hideout or Streets of Tharbad of the BGG question) explored via Warden of Arnor doesn't enter play at all, since then you wouldn't be able to use A Watchful Peace ("Response: After a location worth no victory points leaves play as an explored location, return it to the top of the encounter deck.").

And what about Leave No Trace in this situation? Did we really "explore" a location that never entered play? Or None Return'ing an Eastern Crows killed by a questing Thalin?

An enemy is considered to be engaged (but has not engaged). An enemy is defeated. It is no longer considered to be engaged with you, but did not formally "disengage you".

An enemy is considered to be in play (but has not entered play). An enemy is defeated. It is no longer considered to be in play, but it did not formally "leave play".

As such, I do not think you would be be able to trigger such effects, so the theoretically, limbo state gets very complicated and for that reason, seems that we cannot include it in Seastan's guide. We would have to get clarification from the developers.

Does this problem go away if they tell us that Thalin/Expecting Mischief/Warden of Arnor do not happen first? It might be better for them to reverse that ruling if it's really this messy...

Hey Seastan, with the newest edit, it makes it seem like Eleanor would negate Surge since you only list Surge in step 12. I'm probably just reading it incorrectly.

Thanks, let me fix that.

Does this problem go away if they tell us that Thalin/Expecting Mischief/Warden of Arnor do not happen first? It might be better for them to reverse that ruling if it's really this messy...

It kind of seems like Sauron's revenge: what you just listed are almost all the official rulings that went the players' way for once.

Does this problem go away if they tell us that Thalin/Expecting Mischief/Warden of Arnor do not happen first? It might be better for them to reverse that ruling if it's really this messy...

It kind of seems like Sauron's revenge: what you just listed are almost all the official rulings that went the players' way for once.

Hey! They reversed Blood of Numenor and Gondorian Fire too! What's it matter if we lose a few more?

I wonder if this game could've benefited from a "stack" like Magic has, where things are waiting to resolve but can be interacted with and creates an order of operations working with the newest item on the stack resolving first. So in this case an Enemy is revealed and placed on the bottom of the stack. Effects that key off an enemy being revealed, like Thalin's damage, or Wingfoot, or the enemy itself (like Angmar Orcs). Before the whole thing resolves from top to bottom, the players can now respond with card effects and responses. Quick Ears is played ontop of the stack. It resolves first, canceling the enemy. The stack checks to see "if true, resolve, otherwise, ignore" each item on the stack, and those effects that relied on the now canceled enemy is ignored. The initial trigger is no longer true.

With Wingfoot being a player response, a player can just "stack the deck" so it resolves before Quick Ears, but at least with a Stack, we can manage and see the order of effects waiting to resolve. To me it's just clearer that way with no time traveling needed. But wishful thinking I guess haha. (It's not too late FFG, WotC didn't implement the stack for Magic when it was first released, it was later added in 6th Edition ).

I presume that Warden of Arnor keeps on getting special treatment from you all due to the ruling that makes it akin to Expecting Mischief. (See https://boardgamegeek.com/article/19454378#19454378 )

But it seems to me that it's an issue if you state that a 1-quest-point location (like Tharbad Hideout or Streets of Tharbad of the BGG question) explored via Warden of Arnor doesn't enter play at all, since then you wouldn't be able to use A Watchful Peace ("Response: After a location worth no victory points leaves play as an explored location, return it to the top of the encounter deck.").

And what about Leave No Trace in this situation? Did we really "explore" a location that never entered play? Or None Return'ing an Eastern Crows killed by a questing Thalin?

According to my (probably incorrect) guide, the card does not enter play until it enters the staging area, quite late in the chain. This means that a card can't "leave play" until this happens, and so the effects you mentioned (A Watchful Peace, Leave No Trace) couldn't trigger.

I don't know if time traveling, or "rolling back" the game state, is the right way to look at this... because of:

" When a player uses a Response to cancel an effect, the result is that the canceled effect never resolves. For example, when a player uses A Test of Will to cancel the ‘when revealed’ effects of The Necromancer’s Reach, the players do not deal 1 damage to each character in play and then remove 1 damage from each character in play. Instead, no damage is dealt."

Yes, so if you play Quick Ears, it is as if no card was revealed. But only once you play Quick Ears. I'm not seeing the problem of readying your hero with Wingfoot first, if it is indeed the same trigger.

So people seem to be saying that if you trigger Wingfoot first then play Quick Ears, you need to go back and undo the readying of your Wingfoot hero. I love stuff like this because they allow me to come up with ridiculous scenarios. Here we go:

You have a Ranger hero with Wingfoot and Spiders-Web ("Each time attached hero readies, deal it 1 damage.") attached to him. Then an enemy is revealed and you ready your Ranger and deal him 1 damage, which happens to kill him. You also have a lore hero with Horn of Gondor attached and currently 0 resources in his pool. So you trigger the horn and give your lore hero a resource. Since this was a nested response triggering off the Wingfoot readying, we still have not moved on from the revealing of the encounter card, so there is still an opportunity to play Quick Ears. Luckily you now have a resource to afford Quick Ears so you play it and cancel the card that was revealed. Now what? You go back in time, bring your hero back to life, and undo the Horn of Gondor resource that allowed you to play Quick Ears in the first place? This is a paradox.

Fantastic! Gödel would be proud, Seastan - you've just proved the incompleteness of the game. I will now formalize this.

Beorn's Law:

Any LCG with a large enough card pool to be interesting has rule loopholes which create paradoxes and break the game.

I wonder if this game could've benefited from a "stack" like Magic has, where things are waiting to resolve but can be interacted with and creates an order of operations working with the newest item on the stack resolving first. So in this case an Enemy is revealed and placed on the bottom of the stack. Effects that key off an enemy being revealed, like Thalin's damage, or Wingfoot, or the enemy itself (like Angmar Orcs). Before the whole thing resolves from top to bottom, the players can now respond with card effects and responses. Quick Ears is played ontop of the stack. It resolves first, canceling the enemy. The stack checks to see "if true, resolve, otherwise, ignore" each item on the stack, and those effects that relied on the now canceled enemy is ignored. The initial trigger is no longer true.

With Wingfoot being a player response, a player can just "stack the deck" so it resolves before Quick Ears, but at least with a Stack, we can manage and see the order of effects waiting to resolve. To me it's just clearer that way with no time traveling needed. But wishful thinking I guess haha. (It's not too late FFG, WotC didn't implement the stack for Magic when it was first released, it was later added in 6th Edition ).

And thus we would satisfy Clarke's Third Law of Card Games: "Any sufficiently advanced ruleset is indistinguishable from Magic"

After reading Underworld X and Villagers X, I think that "enters play" is meant the same way as "enters the staging area". It talks about placing cards underneath it or adding tokens to the cards, which don't make sense if the card is in some limbo state waiting to be cancelled. For that reason I don't think cancelling an underworld card would mean that you still need to reveal and resolve X underworld cards.

That would simplify things, but how can an enemy take damage if it is not in play? Thalin and Expecting Mischief can damage out of play enemies under the current construct. The fix here would be that the enemy/location is in play at some early stage, but the keywords that say "when something enters play" need to have errata that says it "enters the staging area" instead.

This is the way I plan to think about it. Damaging enemies that are not in play doesn't appeal to me!

After reading Underworld X and Villagers X, I think that "enters play" is meant the same way as "enters the staging area". It talks about placing cards underneath it or adding tokens to the cards, which don't make sense if the card is in some limbo state waiting to be cancelled. For that reason I don't think cancelling an underworld card would mean that you still need to reveal and resolve X underworld cards.

That would simplify things, but how can an enemy take damage if it is not in play? Thalin and Expecting Mischief can damage out of play enemies under the current construct. The fix here would be that the enemy/location is in play at some early stage, but the keywords that say "when something enters play" need to have errata that says it "enters the staging area" instead.

This is the way I plan to think about it. Damaging enemies that are not in play doesn't appeal to me!

I like cmabr002's suggestion, so I will repeat it here. The enemy is "considered to be in play" so it can take damage, but it has not yet "entered play". This is similar to the construct we already have with engagement. An enemy cannot leave the staging area but is "considered to be engaged" with you does not "engage you" but you can still damage it with attacks.

I have done a bit more research on what "defeating" and "exploring" mean to try to come to a resolution. For the purposes of this, I am assuming that when the rulebook/player cards/encounter cards use the determ "defeated" or "destroyed" they are entirely synonymous and there is no distinguishable difference between the two terms (Please correct me if this is wrong). I have good news and bad news!

Hit Points: The amount of damage required to destroy this card.

Quest Points: The number of progress tokens thatmust be placed on this location to fully explore the location and discard it from play.

The good news...

P.20 Rule Book - Any time one of these cards has 0 hit points, it is immediately defeated. Defeated characters are placed in their owner’s discard pile, and defeated enemies are placed in the encounter discard pile.

This means that the enemy can be "defeated" and placed in the discard pile. Nothing seems to indicate the enemy must "leave play" so this works quite nicely with the "considered to be in play" framework.

The bad news...

I can find no such text explaining what "exploring" means without it also requiring you "discard it from play" as opposed to "place it in the discard pile". Due to this, it seems that a location must necessarily leave play when it is explored however, I'm not sure what you do if it is not actually in play. For the sake of consistency, it might be better to treat locations/exploring in the same way we can seemingly treat enemies/defeated (destroyed). This would allow us to move forward with the current guide and the assumption that enemies/locations are "considered to be in play". Again, this might be too much of a reach and this may have unintended consequences. At best, this is a bandaid...

Here is an attempt at discussing how a location that is "considered to be in play" might resolve if it can have progress placed on it, it can be explored (not leave play), and then only leave play once it has formally "entered play".

1. Location with 1 Quest Point has 1 progress placed on it "as it is revealed" by Warden of Arnor.

2. The location is considered "explored", however it cannot be "discarded from play" since it is not yet "entered play". Effects that trigger off a location being "explored" may trigger here, however effects that trigger off a location "leaving play" may not.

3. The location resolves its (currently step 4) keywords

4. The location resolves its When Revealed effects

5. The location formally enters play and is a) immediately discarded from play (due to having required progress), b) has Underworld X applied, c) has Villagers x applied. Due to all these effects being passive effects, the first player can choose the order that is most beneficial.

Or...we can just treat it like we can treat enemies and make it much simpler

Remind a forgetful and confused fellow: When Thalin defeats Eastern Crows, do they go to the discard pile or back into the deck?

I seem to think they go into the discard pile, but I can't work out why they should.

Remind a forgetful and confused fellow: When Thalin defeats Eastern Crows, do they go to the discard pile or back into the deck?

I seem to think they go into the discard pile, but I can't work out why they should.

I am fairly certain Caleb said the crows goes into the deck. With that said, I am not sure if it first goes to the discard pile and then the Eastern Crows trigger shuffling themselves into the encounter deck, or if the Eastern Crows immediately shuffles into the deck without ever going into the discard pile.

I think what you are remembering is that Eastern Crows does not trigger Surge if is defeated by Thalin.

Edit: Come to think of it...isn't Eastern Crows the entire reason the developers ruled that Thalin's ability damages enemies before they do stuff like Surge? If Thalin didn't damage the Eastern Crows before Surge, you would create an infinite loop if Eastern Crows was the last card in the encounter deck. So this card alone, is why they ruled the way they did regarding Thalin perhaps...

OK, that's good. Everything just about seems to work OK now.