I have a problem with Dreamwalkers as a third story card won with Stealthy Zoog attached on it.

"Stealthy Zoog
Response: After you drain a domain to which Stealthy Zoog is attached as a resource, unattach Stealthy Zoog from that domain and attach it to a story. (Counts as an Attachment Zoog support card with the text: "If attached story is won, its effect must resolve.")"

The main problem here is: when do you win a game?

Core Set rules say: 5 tokens => win => effect or no => game face up. It's not clear but you win immediatly the game after you win the third story.

"If, at any time, a player has five or more success tokens on his side
of a story card, he immediately wins the story and may choose to
execute its effect (see below). When a player wins his third story
card, he immediately wins the game!

Winning A Story Card
Immediately after a player has won a story card (which happens the
moment that a player has five or more success tokens on his side of
the story card), that player takes the story card, chooses whether or
not to execute its effect, and then places it prominently in his game
area, faceup, to indicate that he has won the story. This occurs
before resolution of the next story card begins.
After a story card has been won, and its effect executed or declined,
it is replaced by a new story card from the story deck. Thus, if
a story card has been won before it is fully resolved (usually by
having the fifth token placed from an investigation struggle), it is
replaced, and the resolution of that story is over.
Characters that were committed to a story that was won are no
longer considered committed to any story."

FAQ say: introduce won story card pile and it's not immediatly it's after you have 3 or more story in this pile

"(v1.0) Story Totals
A player has achieved victory if he has three or more story cards in his “won” story card pile.
If any card effect shuffles a won story card back into the story deck, that player no longer has that story for the purposes of counting his victory total.
For example, Darrin has won two story cards and needs only one more to win the game. But his opponent then wins the story card Dreamwalkers (Core Set F164), and chooses to activate its effect that allows the opponent to remove one of Darrin’s won story cards and shuffle it back into the story deck. Now Darrin needs two stories to win the game."

Questions:

1) In this situation Stealthy Zoog gametext resolve if it's the third story? If yes, you don't win because in the end you have only 2 won story in the pile?

2) If Stealthy Zoog was a response or disrupt, should it work in this situation?

Thanks.

Question asked to FFG on the Rules forms ...

blacksun said:

I don't think it would change anything if the Zoog ability was a response or a disrupt.

Well, jhaelen, if you consider the FAQ, I would have answer the same way, but the rules are in an opposite interprétation. Can you please tell me where in the rules you can find your arguement??

In fact, the main question is to know what happens when you get your last story. Does it goes on the winning pile or do you immeditaly win ??

And the fact to have a Response or Action would change a lot of thing, as they wouldn't trigger until you resolve the story's text, which means that the passive effect status do not clarified the situation ...

I would use page 6 of the Errata 1.1 to answer this one, under the title "(v1.0)Actions, Disrupts, and Responses"

It says there that "Responses are played after the resolution of the action or framework game event that met their play requirement. but before the next player action is taken, or before the next game event resolves."

Further below it says "Passive responses are "always on" and active whenever the circumstance of their text would indicate."

So, based on this I'd rule:

Player 1 completes 5 tokens and wins story.

Passive response from Player 2's attachment triggers.

Player 1 discards story.

I thought about what if Player one actually gets 5 tokens during the investigator phase, but the passive event would still trigger in my opinion, and the story would be discarded.

Honestly, I'd like a FFG spindoctors answer though ;]

Well, I totally agree with Ephraim, I would rules the same way in tournaments

*BUT ... I'm waiting an answer from FFG ... Questions now asked for a week, so ...

PRODIGEE said:

Well that settles it then. It must be right if PRODIGEE and I agree.

i dont remember when or where i heard it but i remember something that after you win the 3rd story thats game, there isnt even a chance for you to decide to trigger the story or not. but with some of the recent cards and rulings i wont even guess here. we have so many cards right now that already go against the rule that it probably doesnt even matter what the rule for this really is. we're basically stuck guessing what the cards/designers intention were......

Yes - a clarification is necessary from the powers that be. Afterall, Dreamwalkers itself violates basic principles. You can trigger it even if you can't pay the cost (if you have no stories to lose, you can still use the ability) which before the FAQ would not have been allowed. Dreamwalkers is a strange one, and the intention of the designer is the key here, not the rules as written.

TheProfessor said:

Sorry, I'm totally being that guy here, noob challenging the common conception, but does it actually violate basic principles? The wording of Dreamwalkers is: "Each player must choose one of his won story cards (other than this one) and shuffle it back into the story deck." The effect of me choosing one of my won story cards (other than Dreamwalkers ) cannot resolve, but the effect of my opponent choosing one of their won story cards can. According to the FAQ, "Some card have effects that attempt to do more than one thing. Generally, these effects resolve independently of one another. (If the first effect of the card does not or cannot resolve, the second effect will still occur.)" The effect of me choosing a won story cannot resolve, but the effect of my opponent choosing a won story can and does. The difference between that and Opening the Limbo Gate from the FAQ example is that Opening the Limbo Gate has one effect with multiple targets, while Dreamwalkers has multiple effects with single targets. If it had been intended to require you to lose a won story card to make your opponent discard one, it could have read: "Choose a won story card (other than this one) from each player and shuffle it back into the story deck;" or if you like it needlessly verbose (and still ambiguous if there are three or more players): "Choose one of your won story cards (other than this one) and shuffle it back into the story deck, then each other player must choose one of his won story cards and shuffle it back into the story deck."

At least, to my untrained eye, that's a way for both rulings to make sense within a unified framework. Does that make any sense? Is this line of reasoning something that has been ruled out in previous communication with FFG's support? Is there another "Each player must..." effect that has been officially ruled as failing to resolve if one player lacks valid targets? Unfortunately, this doesn't answer the real question here, about Stealthy Zoog , I just really needed to get that off my chest. Sorry if I hijacked the thread...

Cosmonaut 0: That makes good sense to me. Thanks for the clarification, even if the thread did take a left turn somewhere.

PearlJamaholic: As was in the OP, the win conditions from the rule book state:

If, at any time, a player has five or more success tokens on his side of a story card, he immediately wins the story and may choose to execute its effect (see below). When a player wins his third story card, he immediately wins the game!

If "immediately" means with no time for any disrupts or anything, then the problem is resolved. Of course there is a minor confusion in the writing - when a player gets her fifth success token on the third story, she could execute the effect first before winning the game?

The confusion is you can either immediately execute the effect or immediately win. Does the winning player have a choice? I know it is a strange question to ask. The only time I could even imagine wanting to not win would be in some very specific tournament situation where tie-breaker points could be increased by extending the game somehow and executing the story would delay the game (Dreamwalkers for example). Maybe making sure that the next game doesn't happen or something due to time restrictions...

Of course since we don't know anything about tiebreakers (or even what to do when time runs out), this is a very theoretical question.

If, at any time, a player has five or more success tokens on his side of a story card, he immediately wins the story and may choose to execute its effect (see below). When a player wins his third story card, he immediately wins the game!

For what it's worth, my reading of that is that there are two simultaneous effects that immediately occur when you have five or more story tokens: you win the story and execute its effect (if you wish or are forced to). Subsequently there is a third effect of immediately winning the game if you have three story cards. That it's broken up into two separate sentences seems significant to me.

Also: it's just plain cool to have a Stealthy Zoog force Dreamwalkers to trigger and deny the win. It's these kinds of interactions that make CCGs and LCGs special, it'd be a shame to stamp this one out, IMHO. If it means errata-ing the win condition to trigger when the third card hits the pile, I think that's worth it. Having three simultaneous immediate effects is sloppy design anyway.

In any case, I'm interested to see what the official ruling (and its accompanying rationale) is. Has the question really been pending this whole time?