Hello,

I have found an interesting kink in the text of Ghoulish Worshipper:

-- Shub-Niggurath --
Ghoulish Worshipper
-------------------
Type : Character
Cost : 3
Skill : 2
Icons : TTC
Subtype : Monster.
Game Text: Lower the cost to play Monster and Ancient One cards from your hand by 1. (To a minimum of 1.)
Flavor text: It bowed down in obeisance to its dark master.
Illustrator: Adam Bray
Collector's Info: Ancient Horrors F19

Now I think this card was intended to be played paying 3 and reduced the cost of playing successive Monsters and AOs by 1. Problem is the text is awfully similar to that of self-reducing cards:

-- Hastur --
Thing from Nightmare
--------------------
Type : Character
Cost : 4
Skill : 4
Icons : TCA
Subtype : Monster.
Game Text: Lower the cost to play Thing from Nightmare by 1 (to a minimum of 1) for each insane character in play.
Flavor text: The beast formed deep in the recess of her psyche, then spontaneously came to life!
Illustrator: Anna Mohrbacher
Collector's Info: Screams from Within F87

What do you guys think, Ghoulish does self-reduce?

Seems clear to me. The first card has text that won't be in play until it's in play - it's not in play when it's in your hand, is it?

The second card has a cost-reducing conditional to play.

+1 to evilidler's ruling.

I also agree that it only applies to successive monsters and AO's while the card is in play.

However I think its the text "...from the hand." Thats does it for me.

This tells me that its no longer a condition to play the card but a passive ability.

Also, another thing that strikes me is that it doesn't list a condition for its 'modified cost.' I believe this is needed for cards like Thing from Nightmare otherwise the card would just have a lower printed cost unless a pre-exsisting effect (printed or not) that would make it benefitial for a card to have such text without a condition even though mechanically its not needed.

With those two points as evidence I would rule that the Worshipper's abiltiy doesn't reduce it's own cost and is a passive ability for successive characters played only.

@Magnus:

You know I love literal interpretation of cards, right? ;-)

Regarding the absence of condition, well, as much useless as it would be right now, I can think of a few instance where having a printed cost higher than the actual cost would have been useful/detriemental (take for example the cards which target or trigger on printed cost).

Also, what about:

Anthropology Advisor
[Miskatonic University] Core Set F25 / Illustrator: Jonathan Kirtz
[Character] - Investigator.
Cost : 3 / Skill : 3 / Icons: CAI
Game Text: Lower the cost for you to play Investigator characters by 1. Investigator characters you control gain I.

No instance of "from your hand" here.

Now, it is perfectly clear to me that in the intent of the devs, neither anthropology advisor nor ghoulish would self reduce; however, from a literal interpretation, well, there is little that separates Anthropology Advisor from Thing from Nightmare.

I think a much better template for the two passive reducers would have been: "While -this- is in play, reduce...".

A card that is self-referential lowers itself. A card that creates a condition to lower sub-types but does not refer to itself by name does not. It isn't really a case of the rules of English so much as the rules CoC-ish.

Penfold said:

Care to point out which rules you are referring to?

Carioz said:

Man, I knew I should've researched this better. I tried to take it just on the originally posted examples and that was my mistake. Research must be done, for now I withdraw my original conclusion.

Magnus Arcanis said:

Ok, only thing I can find is that all of the (at least previously thought) self reducers have a condition.

Good call on the stuff against printed cost and I'll add Doppleganger to evidence.

However analyzing the individual card effects and their wording which honestly isn't very clear. I'd say.. that the advisor "for you to play" also tells me that its also only a passive ability to be used on successive cards. Really, even the "from the hand" text isn't really convincing and my only real supporting evidence is that it would be rather bad for this not to be true. As if it were the case then it would lead to many abilities becoming two types of ability. Currently we have somewhat clear identity of cost conditions (including reduction and additional costs) , passive effect, and triggered abilities and if an effect would become multiple types it could create some really undesireable situations.

Though Guardian Pillar is a bit troublesome as its a passive abilty yet within the ability it has a triggered ability but isn't a triggered ability. We have some rules that force a sqaure peg into a round hole but when it comes to that card it is making this debate increasingly difficult as it blurring lines that it shouldn't be blurred.

Really, I have a GIANT bone to pick with guardian pillar and this is actually one of the several problems I see with its current implementation. Thats another debate for a different day though.

Back on topic. bringing up Doppleganger its passive ability's wording also has me at a bit of a loss. It kind knocks out my "from the hand" ruling.

“When you play Doppelgänger from your hand, choose a nonunique character in play with printed cost X or lower. Doppelgänger becomes a printed copy
of that character.”

According to its clarification... this ability kicks in before it enters play in order for it to use play or enter play response effects. So by extention opens Pandora's box as it removes that last barrier I can come up with to say that it is only a passive ability that works on successive cards played.

After debunking (sorta) the "from the hand" theory, Fixer seems to debunk my "for you to play" theory as well.

Fixer
Type: Character Faction: Syndicate
Cost: 3 Skill: 2 Icon: ©©(A)
Criminal.
Lower the cost for you to play Fixer by 2 (to a minimum of 1) if there is at least 1 Attachment in play.

So... yep. I'm out. The ONLY thing remaining is the lack of condition. Which is really really weak as it is not defined as something needed to seperate cost effects and passive effects. But thats the best I have to keep pandora's box closed.

Oh, I have one other weak defense. What if I were trying to argue that Thing from Nightmare is actually a passive effect and can only work on successive cards? ... I know I know... but bare with me.

If the condition defense is defeated then this discussion eventually would lead to an completely tangible intent driven defense as it would functionaly break

• Yog-Sothoth
In Whom the Spheres Meet
Type: Character Faction: Yog-Sothoth
Cost: 8 Skill: 8 Icon: (T)(T)©©(A)
Ancient One
Villainous. Invulnerability.
Lower the cost to play Yog-Sothoth by 1 for each Spell card in your discard pile (to a minimum of 1).

As, by rule, you can't even begin to play another unique card.

Ok, actually I would be wrong...as a passive ability it would still lower opponent played copies as it doesn't specfically mention you...

Nevermind. I'm relying on the condition defense at this point unless someone else can come up with something better.

I fear that this may lead to yet another awkward FAQ addition that only exsists to preserve poor wording as I guess an erratta to add "While this card is in play" to already (re-)printed cards could be quite sizeable. Unless I'm missing something.

Oh, you know I love pointing out tiny flaws which erupt in game breaking scenarios (Brazier of Nodens) ;-)

Ok, I hope this doesn't come out too much confused but:

1) From a language point of view all passive (Ghoulish, Anthropology and Seeker as far as I can tell) or passive-looking (Fixer, Thing from Nightmare) reducers have the same structure: there are passive with "for you" and passive-looking with "for you". Cumbersome but easy fix: errata the passive adding "While this is in play" or/and the passive looking adding "When you play this card". Introducing a time frame when the passive ability works fixes the problem.

2) The lack of condition is not a discrimination: passive have a condition (lower the cost to play chars if they have such and such subtype ). The only, very weak defense is: passive do not reference their own title. But putting out an errata saying that passive-looking which do not reference the title of the card are instead passive would break the game in half (I seriously hope that none in his right mind thinks this is a solution).

3) I agree, Guardian Pillar has a horrible template (should have been an action ) and Doppelgirl too (the most easy errata would have been wording it response : when -this- comes into play, choose a non-unique char with cost X or lower. Do your stuff with it). As it happend in the past, the devs favoured putting out general rulings instead of errata and opened the can of worms for other cards.

Carioz said:

1. Good idea on the "When you play this card" Only needed for a handful cards would need an erratta as opposed to my first thought of all cards with a passive ability. Kinda obvious now that I think about it lol.

2. I agree to an extent. lack of condition 'could be' a discimination. Just not ideal or sensical. But really its no worse than using the word 'to' to sepeate cost from effect. Which isn't all that bad as long as you follow the same language patterns. It may also be linked to the mention of its own name. Meh. I like point 1 a lot better than this option though.

3. I would've went with "this card gains, Action: Exhaust to...." That alone doesn't solve all the problems, but I'm not quite done finding all of the problems yet.

All in all though, THIS is the kind of reason why erratta's exsist. When so many people have their hand in the pot mistakes like these tend to happen. Almost wish it could've been found earlier. Makes me wonder how many other wording issuses lay hidden within the card pool though. Me thinks we should go hunting After all its better to find these types of incosistancies as early as possible especially if reprintings aren't completely out of the question.

Magnus Arcanis said:

Well it was found earlier but it would have had no sense to post it while people had their feathers ruffled over magah bird being overpowered or not.

Also you can see how easilly the result of such hunts are easilly dismissed as: "It's obvious how the cards should be played, stop nitpicking", as actually some contributions were in the past, so I am rather not thrilled to post my findings on the boards.

As for how many, well, I can for sure count a way to have "floating" attachments, some rather obvious mistakes in the faq, a way to wound invulnerables not yet thought of... hmmm that's on the top of my mind.

I sent the question in and got a response saying that self-referential cards lower themselves as they are being played, non-self-referential cards effects only operate when in play.

Sounds like splitting hairs to me, but there it is. So like I said it is a rule about how CoC templating is meant to be interpreted/read versus how an English sentence is interpreted or read. No idea if it will be put in the next FAQ or when that will come out (though I'd guess sometimes just before regionals at the earliest, and before Gencon at the latest.

Well, first of all, WOW! You got a response to a rules question!!!

Second, I think that is the informal interpretation most of us apply to the cards - not based on any rules, but somehow it seems to make sense in terms of intent.

Especially considering the event cards that are self-referential could not possibly work any other way if they were to work at all.

I suppose if someone i actually checking the emails today, now is the time to send questions in.

Yep, getting an answer from FFG on a rules question is something really to be impressed on. Happened to me only once, and it was prompted by posting some rather un-gentleman like phrases on the forum.

@Penfold:

It's a bit of a moot point since it has already been answered by the rules guys, but your Events argument doesn't hold water.

The crux of the question is:

Due to templating it is (was before the self-reference ruling) impossible to distinguish between a passive ability and a playing restriction (I am using restriction loosely here, including all prescription on cost and timing (lower the cost to play this, play this only if it is night, etc...)).

Since Doppelgirl faq basically allowed passives to work before cards get played (yeah, picture me thrilled), there is (was) no actual way to discriminate between the two.

Events do not actually enter the picture as they cannot, by definition, have passive abilities thus all the lower this text had to be a playing restriction.

Penfold said:

I got two main problems with this. One being that Advisor/Worshipper do refer to itself (and others). It doesn't refer to its title which is what (I assume) they meant but thats leads me to my second problem. That defense is about as weak as my condition defense (maybe a little stronger, but not by much).

However if that is what they are gonna go with then so be it. Really I don't have problem with cards playing the way they we all thought they did. Just more square pegs and round holes though which... I can't say that I'm a fan of as it may lead to another problem down the road.

It has nothing to do with whether something is a constant passive or a triggered passive and lowering cost is not a restriction since it does not curtail anything.

Self-referential means in this context it refers to itself directly, by name, not inference of sub-type or faction, or which icons are present. The rules already require us to check on title before playing a card, the text for self-referential is saying what to do with cards with that name.

Nothing weak there. The logic is perfectly sound. IT also happens to be the way all the other LCG's work, so it is also not at all surprising.

Then again I'm not the best person to explain this to you. Ask the developers.

I said title, I meant name. Not sure why I did that.

@ Pen - Ya, we're on the same page here except for the perfectly sound part I guess which is moot for as long as nothing comes that would conflict with the ruling.

However, what makes it a square peg is that the round hole is normally a card can reference and/or affect itself by not only its name but any symbol and/or readable text. This ruling now adds the square peg, "unless its being played."

Which is mostly tributed to the Twilight Gate ruling that a card can reference and/or target anything if it specifically mentions it.

Still, it works. As much as I enjoyed the alternate reality of being able to play the advisor for 2... things are back to normal. I do believe that it is just an important enough of a clarification that it is FAQ worthy though.

Normally a card can only effect anything when it is in play. You are trying to extend the logic of such interaction outside of the games rules and as such you are going to run into logical inconsistencies. The self-referential bit is what determines that the effect is active before the card has entered play so it necessarily operates by a different rule.

Because we have the text telling us the ability affects how this card is played rather than cards like this we must treat it differently. Two separate effects that seem similar on the surface, but are in fact very different.

Penfold said:

Like I said, we're on the same page. With one exception... sort of, but not really. Until now, we had no offical way of telling the difference between name targeted and subtype targeted for cost related effects. The wording was the same and with the rules we had in place at the time demanded that we treated them the same.

Now, we have our bandaid that specifially seperates the two:

Only effects that either specificaly mention that they can apply or that targets its name can an effect be applied while the card is not in play. Otherwise it can only be applied while the effect is in play.

(wording still may not be right, but its close)

Not that this is necessarily a bad way to patch things up, but since it's so specific and conflicts with other rulings (mainly Twilight Gate, or at least how I've been interepting the Twilight Gate ruling) I believe it is FAQ worthy. Main reason being that we have nothing concrete, on paper, to back up this ruling. Player instinct got us this far, but it is a matter of time before someone gets them confused and the odds of them reading your post giving us the ruling is slim.

Though, it truely is up to them to decide to add it and I certainly don't expect anything for quite some time since we just got an update. Till then, this thread goes in my favorites list so if need be I can point to it.