While playing solo last night, a thought came up - and a need for clarification from my favorite helpful FFG-people was recognized !

Things in the Ground: (Yog-Sothoth Support card) - Action : Exhaust Things in the Ground to discard the top 2 cards of each player's deck. Any characters that would be discarded by this effect are instead put into play insane.

Question: What happens when you discard character cards that could not - normally - go insane ? The situation in my game was using Things in the Ground, and flipping over a Servant of Nodens (has Terror Icon) and Yog-Sothoth itself !!! The card says if they WOULD be discarded, they instead get put into play "Insane"....but normally these two could never be Insane ?

I played it that this was a special case and just flipped them over (Insane)...restoring them on next turn, and finally turning them to "ready" on the turn thereafter, as would normally be the case with Insane characters.

Is this correct, however ? Is the fact that the cards "would have gone" to the Discard Pile - as opposed to being "in play" normally...mean that you can overlook any natural immunity to insanity that the cards normally have if played from hand or from another (more normal) effect ?

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Opening the Limbo Gate: (Yog-Sothoth spell) -

Play during your operations phase.
Action : Choose and put into play one character from each player's discard pile.

Question: What happens if your opponent doesn't have any characters in their discard pile ? In other words...let's say you've lost a Guardian Elder Thing to discard effects ...but your foe has no characters at all in their discard pile. You want to play Opening the Limbo Gate..... what happens ? Do you get to select the G-Elder-Thing and put him into play....but your opponent gets nothing since he has nothing to select ?

OR - are you actually prevented from even playing the card, UNLESS your foe DOES have someone in their discard pile ?

Some clarification would be helpful !

Rosh87 said:

Put into play bypasses Willpower and Terror icons. One of the Core Set Stories is worded in that manner IIRC. So SoN and Yog are in play, insane. Also, you say "restoring them", but you only get to restore 1 char during that step.

Rosh87 said:

Isn't this covered in the FAQ? Anyway, in a 2-player game, both players MUST have a character in the discard pile in order to use this card.

Rosh87 said:

Being put into play insane does not qualify for the exception of insanity as defined in the rules as "Characters that have a terror icon or the Willpower keyword can never (regardless of card effects) go insane for any reason, nor may such a character be chosen to go insane. So you are correct in your assumption that this is a replacement effect that puts the characters into play insane and avoids the qualifier that they would be 'going or chosen to go insane.'

Rosh87 said:

Part of the cost of the card is choosing a character from each players discard pile to put into play. Therefore you need to meet this condition (at least one character in each players discard pile) before you can play Opening the Limbo Gate.

Question 1- I have to agree with replies made to your question. I think you may be misreading card. Any characters who are selected enter game insane . Any benefits associated with a character going insane would not trigger.

Question 2- To play a card in CoC you need a " target ". In your example, if the requirementto play is a character from each players discard pile, and one player doesnt have a character in his/her discard pile, to satisfy the card, you cannot play it.

Okay - on Things in the Ground then - I was interpreting it correctly - that it effectively bypasses normal resistances to Insanity, as part of its effect...

.....but hold on with Limbo Gate.... I understand there what you guys are saying about both players needing to have a character to play it....but how does that square with something like "Sacrificial Offerings" - then ? (Cthulhu card)

Sacrificial Offerings: -

Action: Choose and wound a character controlled by an opponent. Then, that character's controller may choose and wound a character.

Are you guys saying that, likewise, I cannot play a Sac-Offerings to wound an opponents character on Turn-1...before I've played a character of my own....because I - MUST - have someone out to take a wound in return - just to play the card ?

Or is there something "different" about the wording for Sac-Offerings that allows you to play it and wound an enemy character, even if you don't have any out of your own at the time you play the card ?

They are indeed worded differently. SO text is broken into 2 parts while OtLG has only one sentence. Basically, for the card to work, you must fulfill the requirement in the first part.

Also, notice the word may in SO text, which implies that wounding performed by your opponent is optional. It is put there in case enemy has got 2 characters in play and you have none, in which case he would have to wound another one of his characters.

Wait....really ???

Here's Sac Offerings wording:

Action : Choose and wound a character controlled by an opponent. Then, that character's controller may choose and wound a character.

-

So you (Manitou) - are saying that - 1.) It's okay to use this when I have zero guys in play, but my opponent has at least 1.... and if the opponent had 2-guys of his own in play, and I had none....that he'd have to suffer TWO wounds ?

I can agree with you on the first part...but I have a huge issue thinking the second is accurate. If that were true, then Sac-Offerings would be one of the most ridiculous cards in the game. You'd never want to play any characters with Cthulhu till Turn-3 or 4, if you could afford to wait...since every time your opponent would get out 2-guys....you could play a single Sac-Offerings and essentially kill off both of them with that 1-card..... that seems a bit zany to me.

I would think - at most - you'd do one Wound...then since it says the opponent MAY - choose to wound another...if they decline that "choice" - then nothing further happens.

Maybe that's what you were saying anyways, and if so - forgive my misunderstanding.

Manitou was saying what you concluded - that because of the "May", your opponent doesn't have to choose and wound a character.

Indeed that's what I was trying to convey. I should've added "if not for this safety measure on the card" at the end of last sentence of my previous post to make it crystal clear

Thanks for the clarification guys ....sorry for having some misunderstanding at first !

Since we are on the topic of Yog-Sothoth...let me run this quick question I had from another thread (it didn't get noticed/answered since the original poster switched threads to another one I think few have looked back at it since):

* - Speak to the Dead - Yog Sothoth spell // Action : Discard the top 4 cards of your deck. Then, add any 2 cards from your discard pile to your hand.

Anyways...the way we have been playing this card is..... you pay 3 and "show it to your opponent" - IE you are playing it...but when this card is "played" - it goes to the Discard Pile. So we place it there. We then take the top 4-cards of our library, as the card directs, and flip them over into the Discard Pile. Now the player who used the spell gets to look at ALL those cards in the Discard Pile at that time....and pick up 2 of them to put into his hand. This COULD include the just-used Speak to the Dead, if they wanted, along with something else.

This is correct, yes ? We thought it seemed okay given the way the spell would resolve, and then it's normal effect...etc

Can't recall if anything about this has been mentioned officially, but I'd play the card hits the discard pile after you resolve its effect. So in this case the sequence would be: pay 3, discard 4, put 2 back, discard Speak to the Dead.

With absolutely nothing to back it up, naturally .

Dam said:

I will back you up on this one. I too am of the impression that event cards shouldn't be put into the discard pile until after all of their effects resolve (or are cancelled).

Edit: We really should create some form of petition to FFG so they would make a COMPREHENSIVE rulebook available, with detailed/updated instructions, examples for as many things as possible etc.
The rulebook available now is great for a couple casual games, but after that you start running into quirks and have virtually no way of checking them against the rules. This Advanced Rulebook could be available online, and it wouldn't really need all the fancy graphical design, what I'm interested in is the content, not the looks.
After all, the rulebook is what, 10 pages long with huge fonts and huge pictures inside? And some of those pages are product ads...
Just take a look at the game I played previously: Legend of the Five Rings, the BASIC rulebook there has 96 pages and you get everythings, from the most basic to very advanced stuff covered in detail online. All that is even without mentioning how they changed text on reprints and all new cards to be up to the current standards and very clear as to how they work.

An example of standarization as I'd like to see in CoC LCG:

Pulled Under

Action: Exhaust a character with at least 2T icons: Destroy a target exhausted non-Ancient One character.

And in the rulebook:

Costs can only be paid with cards you control.

and

Everything between the action type descriptor (bold text) and semicolon is an additional cost that must be paid in order to resolve the effects (everything after the semicolon).

This way we have brief, clear and explicit statement of what a card does/can do and how it can be used. No need to ask around the forums.

FWIW, I agree with Dam and Manit0u. The card is placed in the discard pile after resolving all of its effects, not earlier.

yep. The action have to resolved before the card is done. I can't point to a rule off-hand, but it just makes sense to me.

Okay....I'll have to play it like that in the future, then. The main reason it seemed a bit powerful if I did it as I had been is ....

Pay - 2... Sacrificial Offerings. Pay-1... Sac Cursed Skull that was in play.... Pay-3 at last Domain to play Speak to the Dead....place SttD in the Discard and then flip off another 4-cards. Now pick up ...say Deep One Assault - AND SttD again and put them in your hand.

Next turn.... DOA something... play SttD again. Pick up DOA and the SttD again, or something else. Basically, you go through your deck in like 4 turns....lol... pretty powerful / OP'd - I guess.

Though...with three in my deck, eventually it doesn't matter since you can just pick one of the SttD's that are "legitimately" already in your discard when you play the 2nd or 3rd copy that you have in your hand....

It's an awesome card though - love it !

Again you will find a lot of answers in the faq p.10. It's may be boring to read all for a new player, but it's very useful.

(v1.0) Playing Events
When a player plays an event (from his
hand), it doesn’t immediately go into his
discard pile. It is placed in his discard
pile after the action is complete.

When a player plays an event from his
discard pile, it does not remain in his
discard pile, but rather is placed back
in his discard pile after the action is
complete.

Thanks to you for the reference, Dadajef !