...Yesterday during a play I had this doubt...

Any Phase: Name a Trait. Until the end of the phase, each character you control that has that Trait gets +1 STR (+2 STR instead if it is Winter). Limit once per round.

Marshalling phase. My opponent had in play Threat of the North and in play Dragon Pit. I had Robb Stark with a direwolf attached. I wanted to play in marshalling Eddard Stark to protect nobles from forever burning. And wanted also Eddard be able to protect himself from flamed kiss putting another wolf on him.

My question:

First Action was mine. I played frozen solid on dragon pit. Can I name The ability of Robb Stark saying "Lord +1" then play Eddard and make him a +1 strength (so STR 3???) and then put a direwolf on him so in next phase flamed kiss threat is avoid???

so the official question is: the effect of robb considers only the "trait named" at the moment in play at the moment of activation or the ones that are-will be in play during the phase???

thx

As long as you control it and it has the trait you named, it will get the benefit for the entire phase.

so i my example Eddard has the benefits also if i marshall it after the activation of the robb's effect???

To me, Robb's ability sounds like it creates a lasting effect for each character you control with the appropriate trait, ie that it is applied individually to each of the appropriate characters when you resolve the ability. So I would think that Eddard would not get the bonus if you played him after activating Robb. I want to see what ktom says about it though because I can't think of a good precedent to refer to for this question. It just seems to me like Robb's ability would need to be worded in a way that sounds more like it applies to you the player rather than to your characters for it to affect characters that come into play later.

I'm curious about ktom reply too... cause if i read the card semanticaly also a char that comes after effect should take bonus... let's wait :-)

schrecklich said:

Follow this reasoning out. Let's say that after you trigger Robb to say "Lord", I use Nightmares on Robb. He loses the Lord trait. Does he keep the +1 STR? Or let's say that it is Winter because Robb is wearing the Crown of Winter. I discard the crown so that it is no season at all after his ability is triggered. Do all the Lords keep their +2 (since it was Winter when the ability was triggered), or do they go down to +1 (since it is no longer Winter)?

Robb's ability creates a general lasting effect that says "each character you control with the specified trait gains +1/+2 STR." Because this is phrased as a general, non-targeted (you do not "choose" the characters with the trait) effect, the resolution of Robb's effect puts the lasting effect into the environment until the end of the phase, not on the individual characters. As such, it continues to interact with changes in the environment by its specified restrictions. Characters can gain or lose the associated trait, new characters can come into play and the Winter status can change.

Ultimately, Robb's ability creates a lasting effect that acts like a constant effect, impacting the environment until the end of the phase. Eddard would gain the +1 STR when he comes into play after Robb's ability is triggered, just like a character that was in play would lose the bonus if it lost the trait, or the +1/+2 could change with the seasons.

Thx, this is what I thought/Hoped :-)

ktom said:

Well, ktom, I trust your rulings, so I'll answer these questions as though I hadn't read the rest of your post yet : ) My answers would have been "No" and "they keep their +2." The way I was interpreting the ability was that it creates a lasting effect that is applied individually to each of the relevant characters in play at the point when it resolves. So Robb would get a "+1 STR until the end of the phase" lasting effect applied to him (similar to what happens to Insidious Ways). It seems instead that the controller of Robb gets a "all characters you control with the chosen trait get +1 STR until the end of the phase (+2 if it is Winter)" lasting effect applied to him/her.

If Ser Jorah Mormont were removed from play during the Marshalling Phase, would characters you Marshalled afterwards still get the -1 STR until the end of the phase?

I think ambiguity here is just a result of game mechanics requiring language more precise than ordinary English. How such effects should be applied just needs to be built into the rules of the game, and now from your post I know how that is done. (As an example of the ambiguity: in this case, I was drawing my experience from Magic: the Gathering where these kinds of modifying effects are only applied to creatures in play when the effects resolve.)

schrecklich said:

Yes. They would. It very rarely matters, but it is there.

schrecklich said:

Interestingly enough, the misinterpretation of these kinds of general modifying effects based on M:tG experience is related to another huge misinterpretation people reach in AGoT when basing things on M:tG. Targeting. In AGoT, targets are specifically defined by the word "choose" in an effect. That is, in AGoT, an effect that says "choose and kill 1 attacking character" has a target, but an effect that says "kill 1 attacking character" does not. In M:tG, both would be considered to have a target (if I understand correctly) - but AGoT does not allow for the implied or essential choice to define something specifically as a "target." That's actually coming into play here. Since the traited characters are not specifically chosen by Robb's effect, his ability creates a general lasting effect that acts as a continuous effect rather than a "personal" or "individual" effect resolving only on target characters.

Different games, different base assumptions. Both valid on the face of it, but only one works in the context of the rules - just happen to be different ones for the different contexts.

ktom said:

Getting off subject just a little, but M:tG is actually almost exactly the same as AGoT in this case. Just as AGoT always uses "choose," M:tG always uses the word "target" when spell or ability targets something. Perhaps the confusion comes about from the fact that M:tG spells/abilities are templated more uniformly - there is almost never a spell/ability that affects another single (or specific set of several) card that does not use the word "target" in its text. So it is possible that some players never give much thought to the fact that that word "target" is what is making the card target something. Then when they come to AGoT, they don't have any sensitivity to card phrasing regarding targets. There are a small subset of cards in M:tG that do not target though. Probably the most prominent example is the template "Target opponent sacrifices a creature he or she controls" - the main point of this effect is to be able to kill creatures that can not be targeted.

I think an even bigger trip-up than targeting (though it's related to it) is immunity because it seems like it should be the same as protection in M:tG, but it's really a fair bit different. In M:tG protection prevents targeting like AGoT but does not have the "ignores effects applied directly to it" functionality. It's funny - I can still remember way back when M:tG was first printed and the rules were much less sophisticated there was a lot of philosophical debate about whether Black Knight ("protection from white") could be killed by the white sorcery Wrath of God ("Destroy all creatures in play"). M:tG ultimately decided that this could happen, but in AGoT it could not.