Joffrey Baratheon (TftRK)
Response: After an opponent's character is knelt, pay 1 gold to stand Joffrey Baratheon. Then, he claims 1 power.

Question: does Joffrey have to be kneeling in order to trigger the response?

I believe the precent from the "To Be A..." series applies. i.e. a character does not have to be knelt to be the target of a Stand action.

the only problem is that in order to claim 1 power on joffrey you have to stand him. The word "then" here is critical. You can stand joffrey if he is already standing, but you will not be able to claim 1 power because you haven't really stand anything.

Technically, yes, you can trigger the response even if Joffrey is standing. But as Thorin points out, the post-Then part of an effect can only take place if the pre-Then part has resolved completely and successfully. This hasn't happened here, joffrey did not actually stand, so the power-claiming does not take place. It would only make sense to trigger Joffrey's response while he's standing if you really want to get rid of a gold token.

The theme here is that while a character does not have to be kneeling in order for it to be targeted by a stand action, it does have to be kneeling in order for that action to resolve successfully. If Joff doesn't stand successfully, he doesn't "then" claim power.

Note that "To Be a..." events are not the precedent here. In those, you are standing a character for cost, not effect. If a character does not successfully stand, you never paid the cost. If you do not pay the cost, you. Ever initiate the effect. That is different from successfully initiating the effect, which never successfully resolves.

OK. I understand.

What about the same situation with Ser Dontos? The templating is slightly different, lacking the all-important "then"

Ser Dontos Hollard
Response: Stand Ser Dontos Hollard to save a Lady character from being killed or discarded from play.

Does Ser Dontos have to be kneeling in order for his response to have the desired effect? My reading is that it follows the "To Be A..." precedent, and thus standing is a cost, so the response would resolve fully saving a Lady.

I have to say that the templating could be better. Some cards, for example Bronn, explicitly (and helpfully) indicate that the character must be kneelling in the first place. Would be helpful for the development team to take casual players into account, and not require rules-lawyer level knowledge to determine how to resolve a card effect.

Dr.Cornelius said:

If standing is a cost, then the character must successfully go from kneeling to standing in order to pay that cost successfully. If you do not pay the cost successfully, you never initiate the effect in the first place. If Ser Dontos' effect never initiates, how can it save anybody?

If Ser Dontos is standing, you cannot trigger his effect because you cannot pay the cost. Same thing with the "To Be A..." events. If the character you want to stand to pay the cost is already standing, you cannot trigger the event because you cannot pay the cost.

Playing your way ("standing is a cost, so even if Ser Dontos is already standing, the response would resolve fully saving a Lady"), I never have to pay for another character again. All I need is one Fiefdom and I'll keep kneeling the already kneeling location, which will fully resolve, reducing the cost of my next character. (Obviously not, right? Same deal as kneeling for cost, just in reverse, when standing for cost.)

Dr.Cornelius said:

"Kneeling for cost" doesn't seem to require any different template or additional information for casual players to understand that if the card is already kneeling, you can't pay the cost. Why would "standing for cost" require more than "kneeling for cost"?