So let's say The Night is in play. The relevant part is

If it is Night , treat all exhausted non-unique characters as if their printed text boxes were blank.

Some non-unique characters have abilities that apply at a story. For example, Ravager from the Deep says

Forced Response: After Ravager from the Deep is committed to a story, wound all other characters at that story.

And Chess Prodigy says

When Chess Prodigy commits to a story on your turn, name a struggle type. ..

The Rules say

When a character has been committed to a story, that character’s controller exhausts that character and moves it in front of the specific story card.

My question is, would either Ravager or Chess Prodigy have their abilities when committed to a story assuming The Night is in play.

I note that Ravager is "After" and Chess Prodigy is "When". I don't know if that makes a difference. For example, maybe Chess Prodigy works because the ability is "when", but Ravager doesn't because it is "after", so Ravager is already exhausted.

What do you guys think?

TheProfessor said:

I am a little unsure of whether or not the character exhausts first or not. The rules don't make this clear to me. Note the use of the present perfect continuous tense in the rules

When a character has been committed to a story, that character’s controller exhausts that character and moves it ...

In English, the present perfect continuous can have one of two interpretations - an action that has just stopped, or an action that is continuous until now. It seems to me that the sentence could be re-written to something like

After a character commits, exhaust that character and move it

And it would have the same meaning. What I mean is there is a sequence: Choose a character, commit the character, exhaust the character, move it.

If that is correct, then "After a character commits" would apply between commit and exhaust.

Even if I'm wrong on this interpretation (entirely likely), there must be a difference between "When" (concurrent) and "After" (next step in the sequence)? Otherwise why would the designers use different language?

TheProfessor said:

Rulebook: page 9 (note: retyped since cut and paste isn't working. ignore typos please)

"Step 1 - Active Player Commits

The active player decides which of his ready characters in play will commit to which of the three stories, and then commits all of those characters to the three story cards at one time. When a character has been committed to a story, that character's controller exhausts that character and moves it in front of the specific story card. The active player may commit any number of characters to each story, as long as they are not already exhausted. Each character may only be committed to one story."

A very strict reading of the rules as written here would have the characters exhaust *after* they're commited. (The "has been" clause above). So it would seem that it opens this:

1) Player picks characters to commit. 2) All characters commit. 3) Characters exhaust and move in front of story card.

Seems to me that in both Ravager and Chess Prodigee's case, they take effect between 2 and 3. However, if that was the case, you *could* make an argument that since no other characters are actually *at* the story until 3, nobody gets wounded. Obviously that's not the intent of the card.

I think the intent of the cards in question is that prodigee would take effect ('when it commits') and ravager would not ('after it commits'). The idea being that prodigee can cancel an effect even if he meets his demise (checkmate!) before story resolution while the ravager is there to eat everybody else who is at the story.

And, of course, I think this is a case for an Official Ruling. (We should really collect all open questions in one place for them to make it a little easier)

I like the idea of a thread with all the open questions on it. The hard part would be to keep it clear and uncluttered without distracting posts.

TheProfessor said:

We're doing this actually on the cenacle, in a way to build the French FAQ for the tournaments of the National Events.

Strictly speaking of the exhaustion, I agree with KallistiBRC : the rule use the "has been committed", which means that the forced response of the ravager and the passive ability of the Prodigy would trigger anyway ! But this is only my opinion, I would love an answer ....

* I still beg for a FFG guru to give us hint about the 20 more interrogative points submitted on this forul and on the french one ....**

guys, look at the faq p.6. It says a different thing :

" Characters are Exhausted as costs for card effects, by card effects, and to commit to a story (unless a card effect states otherwise)"

You exhaust a character to commit him in a story as you can't choose an exhausted Character to commit him in a story.

Look at a card text like the The Barque Miskatonic. The text is clear also, you have the idea to exhaust (or not for the barque) to commit to stories

•The Barque Miskatonic, Sturdy Transport
[Agency] Mountains of Madness F2 / Illustrateur : Trevor Cook
[support] - Vehicle.
Coût : 2
Descriptif : Action: Exhaust The Barque Miskatonic to choose a character. Until the end of the phase, that character does not exhaust to commit to stories.

So with the example of The Night in play.

You commit your characters (by exhausting them) in all stories at one time (it' a unique action to commit everybody)
- case Prodigee : he has a passive ability, the Night has a passive ability too, so the rule of Simultaneous effect applies (the active player resolve its effects first) so generally you will choose to apply the Prodigee's effects before the Night effect.
- Case Ravager : he has a Forced Response. We used to play effect with the priority : Passive ability > Forced Response > Response > Action. So the text of the exhausted Ravager will be blank by the Night before the Ravager triggers its Forced Response.

+1 in agreement with Dadajef's interpretation.