Both Tatsuo and his optional friend cannot be in the conflict for Tatsuo's ability to work, for the reasons stated above: Tatsuo must choose himself, which means he must be able to move into the conflict, and he cannot move into the conflict if he is already there.

ETA: I'm back. GenCon was awesome. Now to find a martini.

2 hours ago, RandomJC said:

right below that bullet in RR.

That's not the case. Tatsuo IS directly affected by the ability. So it must be a legal target. And he is not, because the resolution of the ability would not affect him at all. That requirement has to be met.

Tatsuo not a legal action, Shameful Display legal.

P.S. it seems only Scorpion clan understands rules ?

As an example, Shameful Display:

If the action said, "choose a first character, and a second character - honor the first and dishonor the second", it would work differently. Because you knew that you picked one to be honored and one to be dishonored, you couldn't pick 2 honored characters. When you pick the first one, you already know it will fail to change the game state. Honored characters cannot become honored because they already are (see RR: Personal Honor, Personal Dishonor). But Shameful Display is not worded that way.

The Tetsuo action isn't worded like Shameful Display either. It is worded that you pick him and up to 1 other character. So Tetsuo always needs to be able to move. And if he is already at the battlefield, then his moving will fail as it counts that he didn't move at all (see RR: move).

If Tetsuo said instead: "Choose 2 characters - move up to 2 of them to the current conflict" then it would be closer to Shameful Display and definitely work because you don't know which characters are moving yet.

Therefore, Tetsuo will not be able to pull another character to the battlefield if he is already at the battlefield.

As a refresher here is the text from Shinjo Tatsuo: "Action: During a conflict, choose this character and up to 1 other character you control - move those characters to the conflict."

I think the non-Unicorn folks are right.

First part: You must choose Tatsuo. You *may* choose another character as well, but are not required to.

Second part after the dash: Move those characters to the conflict. As has already been pointed out, if Tatsuo is already at the conflict, it violates the rules on targeting and resolution.

Having said all that, I also agree that if Tatsuo's ability wording was changed ever so slightly, then yeah it wouldn't matter where he was, conflict or not.

Now watch, FFG will make a ruling totally contrary to this and say Tatsuo's ability still works if he is in a conflict. Heh... just to mess with people. That or an errata.

I would say that since you are not required to resolve all the text after the dash unless it states otherwise, that yes you can use the ability while already in a conflict to bring another character into it with Tatsuo.

24 minutes ago, SlackerHacker said:

I would say that since you are not required to resolve all the text after the dash unless it states otherwise, that yes you can use the ability while already in a conflict to bring another character into it with Tatsuo.

You could say that, yes, but it's wrong.

Tatsuo must target himself, and he must be able to move those he targets into the current conflict. If he's in the conflict, he cannot legally move himself, and thus cannot even announce his ability to use.

40 minutes ago, Gaffa said:

You could say that, yes, but it's wrong.

Tatsuo must target himself, and he must be able to move those he targets into the current conflict. If he's in the conflict, he cannot legally move himself, and thus cannot even announce his ability to use.

Is this what was decided bu the judges at Gencon or are you just stating your opinion?

1 hour ago, SlackerHacker said:

I would say that since you are not required to resolve all the text after the dash unless it states otherwise, that yes you can use the ability while already in a conflict to bring another character into it with Tatsuo.

I think the problem is that some people dont understand that Shameful Displays works different than Tatsuo. Yes, you are not required to resolve all the text after the dash, so you can choose two honored Charakters with Shameful Display, because both of them are legal targets (you could dishonor them).

But Tatsuo has only one effect for each target: Move them to the battlefield! This is NOT like Shameful Display. Its not relevant that you are not required to resolve all the text after the dash. You simply cant target Tatsuo with his own action if he cannot move. So you cannot pay the cost for his action.

7 minutes ago, SlackerHacker said:

Is this what was decided bu the judges at Gencon or are you just stating your opinion?

Neither, it's reading the Rules Reference.

"A card is not an eligible target for an ability if the resolution of that ability's effect could not affect the target at all." (Target, bullet 7, p. 16)

Tatsuo must target himself, as per his own ability. If he's already at the conflict, he cannot move there. That means he cannot be a legal target for his own ability, which means the ability cannot be announced (Target, bullet 2, p. 16)

I had to think hard who Tatsuo was, and then I noticed it was that Unicorn dude that I never put in a deck.

3 hours ago, SlackerHacker said:

I would say that since you are not required to resolve all the text after the dash unless it states otherwise, that yes you can use the ability while already in a conflict to bring another character into it with Tatsuo.

It is true that you do not have to be able to resolve ALL of the text after the cost (-) but that is not the only rule. Basically the things you must know are

1) Can this change the game state? If it does not change the game state, then it cannot be done. (page 7 - event cards)
2) Can you pay the cost? If you cannot pay the cost, then it cannot be done. (page 5 - cost)
3) Is the target legal? If the target is not a legal target of the ability then it cannot happen. (page 16 - Target, bullet point 7)

Number 3 is what people are overlooking. Lets say we have a situation where my opponent has Hida Kisada out, and hasn't lost a battle. I need to blow an action before I throw out a really cool buff to overcome my opponent to win the battle. The only card I have is Ide Messenger, and that card is in the conflict. I CAN NOT use Ide Messenger to spend 1 fate and target its self. Number 3 kicks in and says "This character is at the conflict, so you cannot move them there."

Number 1 also kicks in for my example as it wouldn't change the game state. Tetsuo is the only example I can find that would avoid 1 and still be blocked by 3, but the point is that 3 blocks it as well.

@RandomJC - the next bullet point in Targeting does not apply to Tetsuo. This bullet point would be like "choose a character, move another character to that character's position." In this case the thing you are targeting is not the focus of the ability, but rather a frame of reference. In this case the target does not have to be a "legal target" of the effect, because they are not actually being effected.

6 hours ago, shosuko said:

@RandomJC - the next bullet point in Targeting does not apply to Tetsuo. This bullet point would be like "choose a character, move another character to that character's position." In this case the thing you are targeting is not the focus of the ability, but rather a frame of reference. In this case the target does not have to be a "legal target" of the effect, because they are not actually being effected.

Yup, which is why I carefully removed the foot from my mouth and shut up.

10 hours ago, shosuko said:

Number 3 is what people are overlooking. Lets say we have a situation where my opponent has Hida Kisada out, and hasn't lost a battle. I need to blow an action before I throw out a really cool buff to overcome my opponent to win the battle. The only card I have is Ide Messenger, and that card is in the conflict. I CAN NOT use Ide Messenger to spend 1 fate and target its self. Number 3 kicks in and says "This character is at the conflict, so you cannot move them there."

This.

I was actually searching for this card (Ide Messenger)yesterday since it would pose a (EDIT a similar support) to the ongoing question of this thread. But all I could find was the Crane character that could pull in another character into a conflict.

As a correction to my comment above, the partial resolution rules don't help here. Partial resolution allows you to resolve some of the components of an effect, as in the Shameful Display example, NOT partially resolve a singular effect, such as in the case of Tatsuo.

However, that little realization is meaningless here. It's now pretty clear to me now that this usage of Tatsuo fails on the legal targetting requirement.