The new example of Louis Blaine's "Sara" plot contains the following:

"Louis gains one Good Baggage each time he sacrifices 2 Time or three light cards."

Normally, it requires 1 Time to voluntarily discard a twilight card. In what situation does this card expect the player to get rid of three Light cards without spending 3 Time? A more refined definition of what and when Sacrificing occurs would be helpful in understanding this mechanic.

Now I wanna see what Caprice Nisei's sanity does!

Maybe if she looses it, you have to get your copy of Arkham Horror, set it up and move her to the Arkham Asylum?

Big Head Zach said:

You Discard Light cards to reduce the cost. So "discarding" implies that you get rid of a card to gain another benefit. But in this case, you are not getting a doubel benefit - the effect fo which you discard plus the benefit of this Plot card.

So it is called a Sacrifice instead. You are specificlaly "discarding" for this plot card to gaint he plot card benefits. But this will prevent you from gaining any other benfit of discarding that might be in the game.

The rules also seem pretty clear in defining what a Sacrifice is so maye you overlooked them on page 12:

Sacrifice:

When something is sacrificed , it is discarded without its normal effect taking place. A given item may only be sacrificed towards one effect.

ColtsFan76 said:

Noticed that. But what I'm looking at is the section on page 13:

"Alternatively, a player may spend 1 Time to discard a light or dark card from his hand without playing it. The card is then discarded faceup to the bottom of the deck it came from. Although this is never a desirable course of action, it is sometimes necessary, since a player cannot draw any more cards if his hand is full."

What I'm looking for is a clear distinction of sacrifice (since it, like discarding above, does nothing in and of itself besides emptying your hand). If Blaine's Plot card now gives him a means to effectively discard 3 cards from his hand without spending Time, does this mean he can do so outside of his own turn?

Basically, when any card/game effect says to sacrifice something (not just cards), given that there is no inherent Time expenditure in the act, can it be done out of turn, or is there still a timing aspect involved? When I do it, must it be its own activity, and not part of something else I am doing?

For example, see page 28, "Discarding Cards For Discounts":

"Sometimes a player may want to play a card from his hand that he cannot quite pay the twilight cost for. Other times a player may simply want to get rid of excess cards in his hand. In either case, a player may discard twilight cards from his hand when playing a twilight card in order to reduce the card’s twilight cost."

In this case, the player is discarding card(s) from his hand without their normal effect taking place. Is this considered a Sacrifice and if so (I know, not likely), would it count towards some condition which triggers on the sacrifice of cards?

You can only sacrifice on your own turn. Consider it as though the plot gave you an extra action that you could take on your turn.

That wraps things up nicely! Thanks, Kevin. Can't wait to get this one on my table.