We are gearing up for the "Winter is Coming" event in NYC http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=970 playing multi player 'Melee" style and a few questions have come up:

1) Joffrey Baratheon from Kings of the Sea: This card piles up spent gold from other players and uses it as STR. Does the gold persist from round to round? If so, this guy becomes an unstoppable powerhouse with 2 - 4 golds adding STR every round.

2) Lannister Brothel: Do you get to play (re-kneel a standing character) every round or every other round? We originally thought that if the Brothel was knelt at the start of Standing then it spent the phase standing up and didn't get to use it's 'charms' that phase, but a more experienced player said it stands then kneels to kneel an opponent every turn.

3) Is it possible to give a House card a trait? We had a situation where they player wanted to give the House card a "Raven" trailt to allow it to discard the Raven card attached to it.

4) Questioned Claim event: It got played in the Marshalling phase and it says each player must select one type of challenge and only do that kind of challenge this round. The question came up as to whether the challenge had to be selected when the Event was played (my assumption) or later during the Challenge phase when the player was about to announce a challenge.

Thanks.

1) Yes, there is nothing saying the gold wouldn’t stay. So Joffrey become stronger and stronger. But he isn’'t unstoppable. You still can kill him, discard him, kneel him, stealth him… Just put some devious intentions on him and laugh !

2) You can use it every turn. All cards stand together, then you can play responses. So the Brothel is standing when you have to kneel it to trigger its ability.

3) Yes, it is possible to give a house card a trait. However you can’t discard it. The house card never can be discarded. And if you meant to do it with the Lion’s gate, you have to know that this card has been errated and can’t target a house card.

4) The event says to choose a challenge type. So you have to do it when the event is played.

Sorry for my poor english. Hope I brought you some help.

This is excellent, I'm sure I'd be no where as well understood in your language. Thanks.

To go a little deeper into some of this:

1. During the Taxation phase, gold in your gold pool is returned to the Treasury. Since the gold on Joffrey is not in your gold pool, it stays where it is. As for him being unstoppable, maybe, but all I have to do is play another King character, and the effect that gives him +1 STR for each gold is turned off. Then he's pretty weak. Just about everyone seems to run at least one King around here.

2. Remember that in the action window's "Step 1, Step 2, Step 3, etc." structure, the Brothel will be standing completely in Step 3, then have the opportunity to kneel again immediately in Step 5 as a Response. The timing does indeed work out to let it kneel a character each and every round.

3. The House card is considered to be "in play," but it cannot leave play by any means. There are specific entries on this in the FAQ. There's a lot of good supplemental and errata information in there. You should check it out.

4. You are correct that the challenge type must be chosen when the card is played. However, you're going to want to check the duration again. The text on Questioned Claim reads

"Any phase: Each player that does not control a King or Queen character must choose a challenge type. Until the end of the PHASE, that player may only initiate challenges of that type."

Duration is to the end of the PHASE, not the end of the ROUND. So, if someone plays this in the Marshaling phase as stated, everyone would have to immediately pick a challenge type. They would only be allowed to initiate challenges of that type during the Marshaling Phase. Then, when the Marshaling Phase is over and the Challenge Phase begins, the effect wears off and players can initiate all types of challenges again. Essentially, playing this event in the Marshaling Phase is kind of a bad play. It's better to hold on and play it at the beginning of the Challenge phase.