Hi again, got a question about one of the Cult Encounter cards from the Black Goat of the Woods expansion:

Its title is "Questioned Loyalty"

The card reads: "Discard 2 Clue tokens, if able. You may reduce this loss by 1 for each Corruption card you have. If you cannot or will not, lose 2 Stamina and move to the street."

The main question is - shouldn't the phrase "If you cannot or will not," be just "If you cannot," since the loss of clue tokens is not optional but just reduced by Corruption cards?

If you can refuse to lose the Clue Tokens then shouldn't you discard your "One of the Thousand" Cult Membership card if you do refuse? This is what happens on the other Cult Encounter cards if you refuse to give the cult what they want, and from the title of the card this would seem to be appropriate.

The other card I have a question about I think is just a misprint:

The card is a Arkham Encounter card with Ma's Boarding House, that section of the card begins: "Ma asks you to give her a hand moving a piano into the house." The card then goes on to give a Fight check, then it says: "If you pass Ma gratefully tucks $3 into your pocket. If you pass, you lose 1 Stamina and are delayed by the frustrating struggle."

Is the last sentence a misprint? Should it say "If you fail, ..."?

Thank again for your help everyone!

Dragon-D1 said:

Uhm, honestly I don't know why this card is worded in this way.

Dragon-D1 said:

Yep, I think it should be "if you fail.."

Uhmm, for the Questioned Loyalty encounter, the intent might have been to give you a choice between either losing 2 stamina and moving to the street or losing 2 clue tokens. But the loss of clue tokens, the way the first sentence is worded is obligatory. It may be a misprint.

I think with the first one it just means you can choose not to lose the clue tokens, in which case you lose the stamina. A lot of the expansions have some questionably worded cards.

Yeah, the only sense I can make of "if able" is that it's not saying you have to take that option if you have enough clue tokens (as would be the more natural reading), but is instead saying that you can't do it if you have fewer than two. Interpreted this way, it's not contradictory, merely redundant, but Zealot's reading clarifies why they would have wanted to emphasize that fact: since, in effect, you're choosing to lose either two clue tokens or two stamina, they're pointing out that while you're allowed to choose the option that would make you lose more stamina than you have, you can't choose to discard more clues than you have. Which, yeah, is a terribly confusing way to make a really obvious point.