We ran into this combo of cards tonight...

"Power for the Pious" Winter event (partial) text: "Perform an influence bid. The lowest bidder chooses 1 area..."

"Intrigue and Subterfuge" tactics card text: "Play before performing an influence bid. A player of your choice may not participate in the bid"

Our question: if a player is prohibited from bidding by "Intrigue and Subterfuge", is he automatically considered the lower bidder, OR is he immune from the effects of "Power for the Pious" ? (If he cannot bid at all, how can he be considered as a bidder, low, high, or in-between?)

I can see either interpretation as valid, and am not really interested in launching a discussion on the finer points of the English language. Corey: what is your opinion?

TK

I don't think Corey frequents these forums, but I am going to be sending a small batch of questions in the next day or two, and I'll make sure I include this one.

My guess is that Intrigue and Subterfuge's reference to participating in the bid simply means that the bid is automatically 0, but I can see a good argument for being exempt altogether as well. What I don't think will be the case is it counting as an "automatic" lowest bid; IE, other 0-bids would follow normal tiebreakers.

Thanks, Scott. I know Corey's not here very often. I was just using that line as a reinforcement to the hope this would not degenerate into a flame war over interpretation. (Not that that would EVER happen on certain game-releated sites with which we are all familiar.)

TK

To put some context on it: it is winter (I believe) of the first year, the event is "Power for the Pious" which reads something like "Perform an influence bid. The lowest bidder chooses 1 area belonging to each other player and places a dragon rune in an area he or she controls"

I am obviously going to lose this bid. I have two influence tokens and so does Tim,he is no idiot and will bid two and he holds the tie breaker. I play the "Intrigue and Subterfuge" tactics card which is played before an influence bid and reads "A player of your choice may not participate in the bid", I originally chose Tim as the target. This can now be interpreted in a number of ways:

1. Tims bid is now 0 and he will lose the influence bid unless someone else bids 0 and he wins the tie.

2. Tim does not participate in the bid at all and therefore cannot "lose" the bid. The event card text still affects him (because it targets all other players) and he will receive a dragon rune from the loser of the actual bid.

3. Tim does not participate in the bid at all and therefore cannot "lose" the bid. The event card text does not affect him since he did not participate in the bid and he will NOT receive a dragon rune from the loser of the bid.

We chose option two which would mean I would STILL lose the influence bid, so I changed the target of the card to me since it said to target ANY player. The results were that I did not participate in the bid and therefore could not lose the bid. The loser of the actual bid (Tim) had to place a dragon rune in my area (along with the other two players) as the side effect of losing the bid.

I would still opt for #1 in that case; I think the intent is that you just aren't allowed to bid, not that you become exempt from all results.

...and the answer from Corey is:

If the player cannot participate in the bid, then he is not considered the lowest bidder.

I hope this answers your question!
-Corey Konieczka
VP of R&D
Fantasy Flight Games

TK