My opponent wants to play "He Calls It Thinking" without a response to cancel, just to get it out of his hand so that I can discard something else for the intrigue challenge that he's about to lose. Is this allowed? Or does there have to be something to cancel for him to play it?

Okay, that makes absolutely no sense to me on a couple of levels.

First, no. He is not allowed to play He Calls It Thinking when there is no Response to cancel. For one, without a Response to cancel, the play restrictions for the event are not met - and you cannot trigger an effect if its play restrictions are not met. For another, Response effects are not actions in their own right. They must be played as part of some other action window. So if you just play it from your hand to get rid of it, you are breaking all sorts of timing rules.

On the other level, the reasoning of "let me 'play' this event card for no effect - and have it end up in my discard pile - so that you cannot pull it out of my hand for intrigue claim - and have it end up in my discard pile" completely escapes me. Playing it for no effect so that you will pull something else for intrigue claim essentially increases your claim by one. Two cards end up in the discard pile instead of providing me any benefit.

So in addition to being illegal, I'm not sure what would actually be accomplished.

Well sounds like his opponent is playing Mart so he likely has one of the 'if I get discarded I go into play' cards. Thus by ditching He Calls he can have a greater chance of getting that character into play.

Darksbane said:

OK. That does indeed make more sense.

I should also clarify: You cannot play an event card if the play restrictions are not met, you cannot play the costs and/or you cannot satisfy the timing conditions to trigger it. At least 2 of those were the case with the "He Calls it Thinking" example, so it would not have been legal. However, if you can do all those things, you can play an event card even if the effect has no practical meaning. For example, suppose instead of "He Calls it Thinking," your opponent had had "Distinct Mastery" in his hand. He could have played the event, choosing a crested character that was already standing. There would be no difference in anything on the board, but since the timing, play restrictions and costs of the event were all good, the event card could be played.

So the answer to the original question is really that you can play an event card that "doesn't do anything," but only if all the requirements to initiate it are met. In the case of a cancel, part of those requirements is having something to cancel.

I assumed he wanted to play it (illegally for all the reasons ktom mentioned) so he could attach it to a character and get the +2 bonus.

dormouse said:

Ah. I figured that was not the case here because the attaching part is a " then , attach the card..." effect. Because the word "then" is used, the cancel part of the effect would have to be successful before the attaching could happen - and it cannot be successful if there is nothing to cancel in the first place.

Thanks, I thought as much. And yeah, he was trying to get me to pull Darkstar or those House Dayne Reserves out of his hand. I forget which.