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I have a question about the spoiled card Diplomatic Gift-Giver ("Action: During a conflict in which this character is participating, each player chooses a character controlled by one of their opponents - each player moves 1 fate from their fate pool to the character they chose.").

Can this action be used when there is a player who has no fate? I am assuming the characters are "referential targets", and what we know about those is "A card is only eligible to be chosen as a referential target for an ability if that ability’s effect (using the referential target) would result in a change of game state."

But how exactly do you tell if the ability's effect would result in a change of the game state? If there is a different player with fate (and an opposing character), then the actual ability would cause a change in the game state, but we would only know that by looking at its other targets. Or are we supposed to somehow evaluate the ability as if it involved only one target?

The short answer is: if either player has no fate, Diplomatic Gift-Giver’s ability cannot be triggered. You’re correct that the ability utilizes referential targets, and thus a character can only be chosen if the result of choosing that character would result in a game state change (ie, fate is moved onto it). Each target’s validity is measured separately.

[Tyler Parrott, Aug 7 2020]