My opponent is the first player and he takes a player action that resolves.

The question is: who is the next player who can take an action? Me or him?

The FAQ 3.1 (page 14) states "When the game flow arrives at a player action segment, the first player is always allowed to take the first action. After the first action has been fully resolved, the opportunity to take another action goes to the player to the left, and so on (continuing in clockwise order)."

To give an example: if my opponent plays 'Dragon Lore' on his maester during the marshalling phase, can I kneel my 'Maester Aemon' (with 'Tin Link' and 'Valyrian Steel Link') to discard 'Dragon Lore' or am I forced to watch while he plays 'Balerion' at no cost?

Tankre said:

This should be pretty obvious from the FAQ passage you quoted.

The FP gets the first action. He plays Dragon Lore. That is his action. Then you get the chance to take an action. You kneel Aemon, draw a card and discard Dragon Lore before he gets a chance to use it.

Seems pretty straightforward. So let me venture a guess: You figured this out, but your opponent staunchly refused to believe you, all your eloquent elaborations notwithstanding, so you came here to get confirmation. Am I right? If so, tell your opponent he's out of luck and should deal with it.

It's just like that. That stupid 'Balerion' was driving me crazy!

Thank you!

The real question here is why your opponent didn't play Dragon Lore and kneel it (and the maester) immediately to bring out Balerion before you had a chance to do anything.

Because he can't kneel the maester before the other person gets a chance to do anything. He plays Dragon Lore, and then has to let you perform an action if you choose to before he can take another action.

BARF said:

Hm. I was under the impression that Marshalling was an action in of itself and can't be interrupted by other player actions. I will have to look at the faq again.

Or is it that his Maester with the links has a 'response' when an attachment is played?

Alright, I looked at the FAQ and I'm not sure I follow this ruling.

I see that Player Actions are allowed in Marshalling.

However, it says nothing about another player being able to take action immediately after a card is played. I don't see why the opponent in question couldn't make his player action the laying down of Dragon Lore and then Ballerion without any interruption.

Are you guys saying that a player action is as simple as laying down one card and everyone has a chance to respond to that card being played?

I think I answered my own question. Here is what I found in the FAQ.

To "take a player action" is to do one of the
following:
1) Play a character, location, or attachment
card from your hand (during the marshalling
phase, and by the active player only).

This makes sense now. There is an action every time a card is played, pretty much. Which makes the game a little bit more unpredictable. Am I following this correctly now?

Haha. Thanks guys!

That's right. Each action taken by any player presents an opportunity to the other player(s) in response to that action. It does make it much more unpredictable. The more familiar you get with the game and the strengths of certain Houses, the less you leave yourself open to responses.

For instance, I haven't played against Greyjoy very much, but this House is known for cancelling abilities. I was playing Stark and went for a military challenge with 2 claim and chose not to include Greatjon Umber, thinking I would add him in after defenders were declared if I needed to. My opponent's defense exceded my offense so I knelt him to trigger his ability. My opponent cancelled it, leaving Greatjon knelt and leaving me without winning my 2 claim military challenge. Had I been more familiar with Greyjoys, I'd have inlcuded Greatjon in the challenge right from the start.

sabrefox said:

What BARF seems to have discovered - and what is the decisive thing in the original question - is that if it is Player A's turn in Marshaling, when Player A pays gold to play/Marshal a card from his hand, it counts as an action. Playing a card when it is your turn in Marshaling is absolutely no different than triggering a "Marshaling" or "Any Phase" action. So after he plays the attachment, the clockwise progression of "Marshaling"/"Any Phase" actions goes to your opponent before you get to play another card or trigger another "Marshaling"/"Any Phase" action.

So in this case, Dragon Lore was played (Player A's action) - with no "after an attachment is played" Responses, then Aemon was knelt to trigger Valyrian Steel Link (Player B's action) - with an "after this character is knelt" Response using Tin Link to discard the attachment. The Player A could take another action.

The moral of this whole story is that when you are the active player in Marshaling, you are the only one allowed to pay gold and play characters, attachments, or locations from your hand. But be aware that doing do counts as your action in the chain of "Marshaling"/"Any Phase" player actions and your opponent gets a chance to do stuff in between your actions. Usually, that's not a big deal because the other player doesn't have a lot to do when you're the active player in Marshaling. But is is important to remember that "I kneel Street of Steel and discard my Sunset Sea to play this 3-cost character" really provides your opponent with 2 opportunities to do their own stuff before the character hits the table (once after you kneel the Street and once after you discard the Sea).

And no, it does not make the game less predictable. Quite honestly, the guy playing Dragon Lore should have predicted this sequence because everything about it was on the table - other than his Dragon Lore. The only thing the "new" information does is change the basis upon which predictions are being made.

ktom said:

Agreed, this specific scenario should have been predicted by the person playing Dragon Lore. However, the comment about the game being more unpredicable came after BARF's realization that Marshalling was not "an action in of itself and can't be interrupted by other player actions". Seeing how he went from an understanding that all Marshalling actions occur in a protected bubble where your opponent can only observe, to an understanding that every action can be intercepted by the opponent if they have the appropriate card on the table or in hand - from that perspective I agree that the game, for him, just became much more unpredictable.

sabrefox said:

ktom said:

You are right about my "Aha!" moment. The whole Player Action definition really sunk in.

As always, very helpful! Thanks guys.