Even after all this time, there are still some rule side-effects that surprise me. This one is about winning story cards:

Once you have started resolving story cards, Responses and Actions will have to wait until all of the story cards have been resolved completely. Normally this is fine, but in the case of winning a story card, the characters are immediately uncommitted from the story.

Yesterday it occured to me that this means that a few card effects can therefore not be used in case a story is won, e.g.:

- Riding Shotgun (The Yuggoth Contract 93):

Response : After you win a © struggle, exhaust a character you control with at least © to choose and wound a character committed to that story.

- Sister Sofia (Order of the Silver Twilight 1):

Response : After you win a © struggle at a story to which Sister Sofia is committed, choose and wound X of your opponent's characters at that story. X is the number of drained domains your opponent has.

In both cases, after winning the story, there are no longer any valid targets. So, apparently if you'd like to use these card effects, you'd better make sure you don't 'accidentally' win the story.

It strikes me as slightly odd that you are 'punished' for winning the story. Is this really the way it is supposed to work?

Most similar cards seem to use Forced Response or Disrupt to make sure their effect happens regardless of the outcome of resolving stories.

Other cards using Response use a text like the one of Thomas F. Malone (Core Set 1):

Response : After resolving a story to which Thomas F. Malone is committed, choose and destroy an opponent's Villainous or Cultist character that was committed to that story.

Here, the targets stay valid, since the text refers to characters that were committed instead of those that are committed.

What do you think?

jhaelen said:

Actually, I don't think Thomas F. Malone is immune to the problem either since it says "to which Thomas F. Malone is committed". So he'll be uncommitted. Actually.... as worded, his effect can almost never trigger. Since you have to resolve it after resolving, but while he is still committed (i.e. you can't win the story) and the opponent has to be uncommitted.

So I guess in the case of the few effects that remove characters from stories (polar card, yellow dreamlands location card, etc) Malone *could* work.

Of course, I think this latter (Malone) case is an example of abusing the wording, but yeah, as written... oof.

KallistiBRC said:

Another odd situation that can come up when resolving stories is an (unexpected?) side-effect that was introduced in FAQ 1.1:

Stories will resolve only if the active player has characters at that story.

If the active player commits characters to a story, the defending player can also commit characters to the story. But if some effect uncommits all of the active player's characters before the stories are resolved, then resolving them never actually happens!

So we have another situation where the defending player cannot trigger any effects or play actions that refer to resolving struggles or succeeding at stories.

jhaelen said:

And, unfortunately, that will make his ability only useful if said story was actually won (the only normal time that he'd uncommit but the story would resolve).

You could fix him thus:

"Action: If Thomas F. Malone was committed to a story that resolved this turn, choose and destroy an opponent's Villainous or Cultist character that was committed to that story. Use this ability only once per turn."

That get's rid of all the "is/was" nonsense. Unfortunately it plays a little differently as now it's an action and not a triggered response and happens at a different point of resolution. (i.e. If the active player was the controller of T.F.M., would always have the first opportunity to invoke his response when the response window opens up from story resolution. This way, all sorts of tom foolery (pun intended) can happen before you can use his action).

KallistiBRC said:

I think this just shows how difficult it is to come up with a text that exactly represents the vision of the game designer. Particularly considering the moving target of rules that can be modified in every new FAQ.