Question hanging over the table as I type:

Can an Investigator Attack when under the Restrained Condition?

We have an even split vote wise at the table, divided between the 'Thematic Players' (seriously, if you can't move, how can you attack or search??) and the 'Rule of Law Players'. (Do you see the word Attack anywhere on this card? No??)

Card Reads: "You cannot move voluntarily".

Thank you in advance! We looked everywhere in the manuals.

Question hanging over the table as I type:

Can an Investigator Attack when under the Restrained Condition?

We have an even split vote wise at the table, divided between the 'Thematic Players' (seriously, if you can't move, how can you attack or search??) and the 'Rule of Law Players'. (Do you see the word Attack anywhere on this card? No??)

Card Reads: "You cannot move voluntarily".

Thank you in advance! We looked everywhere in the manuals.

Restrained:

to control the actions or behaviour of someone by force , especially in order to stop them from doing something, or to limit the growth or force of something.

Just dont move - Pretty clear in the card. Thematic you can imagine everything, or you need yours hands to walk?

In games that are about theme and immersion, I'd stick with what makes the most sense within the given chain of events and the situation the condition was received in.

For example: If the investigator gained the 'Restrained' condition from a Shoggoth who burst through the floor and grabbed him with his tentacles before he could get away, I'd argue he could still attack it. On the other hand - if the investigator is shackled to an altar, waiting to be sacrificed in a cult's vile ritual - I'd say he won't be able to attack.

If an investigator is bound to a chair next to that odd painting - of course it would be possible to take that 'search' action and attempt a lore test to see if it has a connection to the mysterious events. That disheveld pile of papers on that desk over there... well, you can't shuffle through those while bound to that chair...

You get the gist: Envision the situation and stick with what makes sense. Use rule ambiguity to the advantage of the unfolding story, to deepen the immersion, not to break it.

At least that's my take on it.

Thematic nonsense aside, always do as written. There are no hidden rules that players suppsed to comprehend because it somehow makes or doesn't makes sense. If something prevents you from moving - it prevents you from moving, that's it. Everything else is overthinking it.

Thanks everyone, good points all round. We appreciate your help.

While two of us couldn't help feeling there is some ambiguity possible here, we decided to stick to the 'no move action' and allowed Joe Diamond to attack the Witch.

Myself, I really like the thematic nonsense!

Though, until the FAQ (..), John is probably right and this was an overthink; as enjoyable as these verbal fisticuffs can be!

Myself, I really like the thematic nonsense!

Though, until the FAQ (..), John is probably right and this was an overthink; as enjoyable as these verbal fisticuffs can be!

Is your group happens to be new to the whole tabletop gaming thing? I find it in my experience that mostly new players tend to overthink the rules based on logical or real-life assumptions.

There is one really funny example in my memory: In a card game called Ashes, there is a snake character that gets 1 status token each time an enemy character dies, and those status tokens make this snake stronger. There can be several such snakes under your control.

So, a guy was unsure if he should place a status token on both his snakes when an enemy dies, or just one. And the reason was, wait for it: "thematically, snake eats the enemy and gets stronger because of it, so if I have two snakes at once, only one of them can eat that enemy, so I place 1 status token only on one of them, right?"

As a 'group', absolutely. As an aside, as a family we have been playing on and off for years, but not a whole lot of anything other than FFG's AH until recently (we actually had to replace the board once, though I miss playing on the old dark clunky version!), and always as a passive past time. The boys hitting their teens and Descent RtL brought us back into it as a much more regular weekly pursuit.

Now we also seem to have a small group of our friends going as well, and it looks like it might just be a thing .

And YES , I admit I would have so been 'that snakes guy'. Most definitely so ..