THis 3 cost Neutral attachment says:

Action : Pay 4 and sacrifice Whately's Diary to redistribute in any manner all of your success tokens onto stories among your side of the story cards in play.

If' I'm reading this correctly, I could, for example, sacrifice 5 characters, put 5 success tokens on Ritual of Summoning and 5 more success tokens on Ritual of the Lance, then do Whately's thing to automatically win 2 stories. (For example)

Or, is it supposed to be just success tokens that are currently on my side of the story cards that get redistributed?

TheProfessor said:

I was wondering the same thing but if you read the article they make the example on how to use it and they mention only the success tokens at the stories. I think you cannot use other success tokens. (and if this turns out to be the correct interpretation, the card, from potentially a combo enabler, it would become a maybe "for fun" card, in my opinion).

Konx

I'm pretty sure it is referring to tokens on stories.

I think you could use it to win stories though, especially ones that you haven't been able to really win at, letting you ****** it from your opponent's hands. If he is throwing characters at one story, commit yours to the other two, use the Diary and move those five total success tokens to that one story, winning it for you and your opponent having lost out on making progress across the board.

Definitely situational, but I find most really strategic cards tend to be. When they work they come out of nowhere and screw your opponents carefully laid plans. What they really need is a way to move your opponents, letting you keep him from winning a story by spreading his out. Less situational, but a little more risky.

TheProfessor said:

ALL OF YOUR success tokens are fair game.

Let's dissect the effect.

Pay 4 and sac whateleys diary : Pay any and all costs in order to trigger the Action's effect. Check

Redistribute in any manner all of your success tokens... : It doesnt state where the success tokens must come from. The only stipulations are that they are your success tokens and that it is all of the success tokens. If you control the Order cards (Ritual of the Lance/of the Construct/of Summoning, Silver Twilight Collector) or the miskatonic card (Pagan Hall) that holds success tokens on the card, they are fair game as an indirect target for this effect. It does say "ALL of your success tokens" afterall. It is inclusive.

...ONTO stories among your side of the story cards in play. : There is no stipulation in this part of the sentence either which seeks the success tokens to be targetted from the story cards themselves.

The way it is worded, it quite clearly shows that Whateley's Diary indirectly targets ALL of your success tokens , regardless of where they originate from.

Are cards that you control considered to be "Yours"? IIRC the FAQ says yes.

The FAQ however doesn't cover counters in regards to ownership, but ipso facto , this could and likely should be construed to be true as an extension of the card ownership logic. The success tokens that you have accrued (on a story card or otherwise) are not the opponent's success tokens, so they must be yours.

Unless you invoke the Cthulhu Rule wherein it states "Cthulhu owns everything, including your face".

Hellfury said:

Well, I got a rapid response from Damon:

You may only use success tokens on stories. In this case the wording is ambiguous, but the term "redistribute" is intended to indicate that the success tokens are your success tokens and must come from the stories themselves and can be moved around in any manner you wish amongst the stories.

If it was going to allow for success tokens to be taken from non-story cards it would have used phrasing more along the lines of, "Move all of your success tokens you have in any amount to any stories among your side of the story cards in play."

In the future this type of mechanic will be more carefully worded.

I don't disagree with the intent as it will solve the potential abuse, but I am failing to understand the difference between the actual card wording and what Damon replied it would say if the intent was to affect all success tokens regardless of its origin. What am I missing?

*shrug* either way we have an answer though.

move versus redistribute seems to be the key to his ruling. Redistribute implies taking things form one grouping and place them in new amount amongst that same grouping. Move implies taking things from one or more groupings and placing them amongst one specific grouping.

IOW redistribute shifting amongst the entire group. Move goes from one group to another.

Or at least that is how I am reading his ruling, admittedly that is a more well thought out/explained base for my own reasoning.

He freely admits the wording is ambiguous, but then gets to the designer's intent. That works OK for me.

I agree with Penfold's reasoning, but I have to say that the distinction between the two semantically and pragmatically is tenuous at best when such inclusive wording (ALL of your success tokens) is used. This will likely require a FAQ entry to clarify since the wording doesn't exactly support the intent.

Thanks for taking the time to email Damon, Prof.

I am a little disappointed with this ruling, I thought I remembered when this asylum pack came out that you could use the diary to save Wilbur from becoming a story (he collected success tokens on himself). Here I was hoping that he could, you know, actually use his diary. I wonder if the designers regret silver twilight using success tokens. Thanks for asking about this, I would have played this card wrong for sure.

sbmriatdh said:

jhaelen said:

I have seen this type of token placement mechanic work quite well in M:tG and would hazard to guess that is where the initial inspiration for such was gleaned from. The problem seems to arise from consistency in how it is implemented, or rather, the lack thereof.

It could work in the case of CoC too and would add a decent expansion on the idea of more resource management.