River Raid

House Greyjoy only.
Response: After a character card is discarded from an opponent's deck, put that card into play under your control. At the end of the phase, return that character to its owner's discard pile.

If the characters which are put into play by River Raid are killed, they are placed in their owners dead pile and do not move into the owner's discard pile at the end of the phase, correct? My reasoning is that since the last sentence refers to a character and not a character card that it would not work on a card in the dead pile.

Darksbane said:

But your outcome is correct. If the discarded character put into play by River Raid is killed (or removed from play by any effect, really), it is not moved to the discard pile at the end of the phase. The reason, though, is because cards that are not in play are generally not actionable and can only be affected by things that specifically say they work or interact with that out-of-play area. So when a card leaves play, any lasting effect or condition that has been placed on it is removed (unless that effect specifically says it works on a card that is not in play).

Like any effect, the "return that character to its owner's discard pile" effect assumed the card is in play - since it does not specifically say to return it from the dead pile, or hand, etc. to the discard pile. Granted, it would be nice if this card had the "if it is still in play" reminder text that shows up on cards like Catelyn Stark, but it is not strictly necessary.

Thanks kotm,

Is this just an example of strange templating then? If there isn't a difference between character card and character what would be the use of using the two seperate terms instead of just standardizing it to 'character'?

Editorial mishap most likely. I would imagine that when the cards are written, playtested and edited, not all template issues like this are caught, particularly when it doesn't end up creating an inconsistency. "Character card" shows up on almost no cards (3, I think), so is likely to just have been overlooked as a non-standard term that didn't produce a difference in result.

Look at the interchangeable use of the words "lower" and "reduce" when talking about costs. It's a good indication that the designers and editors are often reading for game effect rather than consistent template when the phrases are equivalents in definition.

This distinction between "character" and "character card" reminds me of another question, regarding Rakharo's Arakh. It includes the text, "Attached character gets +1 STR for each character in each opponent's dead pile." An argument arose wherein my opponent insisted that duplicates of unique characters in the dead pile don't count towards the total, since it's "each character" and dupes aren't different characters. I argued that was absurd, since characters in the dead pile are just cards that are "characters," and have no other interaction with the game.

I'm pretty sure I was right, but what say you?

Delobius said:

Anyway, the rules for unique cards do say anything about the cards being considered the "same character," especially when not in play. If two copies of a non-unique count twice for the Arakh, two copies of a unique should to.

The reasoning and comparison to other cards are on your side, here.

Of course ending up with multiple copies of the same unique card in your dead pile is certainly not a regular occurrence.

True - the only reason it came up was that I had used Aegon's Hill to put the first copy of a unique in his dead pile, and on the next turn, I used it again, and the only character he had was another copy of the same unique. I obviously did it just to power Rakharo's Arakh, and thus the argument.

Interestingly enough, Aegon's Hill makes reference to "character card" instead of just "character."