Alright, I feel very stupid for asking this question but for some reason it's cloudy when I think about it.

I was looking at the card Arrogant Contender. It reads: "Response: After you win a challenge in which Arrogant Contender attacked alone, it claims 1 power for each opposing character."

Now, when I read that it doesn't specify the opposing characters have to be participating in that challenge. Just "for each opposing character." I looked through the Core Set Rulebook along with the updated FAQ but could not find a definition for the term "Opposing character". Whether an opposing character is considered to be one against you in a challenge or if every character not under your control is opposing you. The way I'm reading it, it seems Arrogant Contender would claim 1 power for every character not under your control. However that seems far, far too overpowered to me. Which is why I thought maybe somebody out there has come into this problem before and might be able to clarify for me.

I just wasn't able to find a previous case of this here or in the Rulebook/FAQs to help me understand the "Opposing character" term. It's my assumption/common sense that tells me it would only claim 1 power for each character on the other side of the Challenge, but I can only find the term "defending characters" anywhere. Not "opposing characters". Also, because this Response requires Arrogant Contender to be attacking alone, would that mean whichever side of the challenge you are on, the other side would always be considered opposing you as well? Offensively and defensively?

Again, I feel very stupid for seeking an answer to this but I don't want to go into my group tomorrow saying "Well, this is how I read it to work." and then get laughed at or get frustrated looks if I try to argue how I see it working.

Rogue Cypher said:

The term "opposing characters" only has meaning during a challenge. It's the only time that direct, explicit conflict between characters takes place, so "opposing characters" are those characters participating in a challenge that would (or did) count their STR to the opposite side of the challenge. Hence, defending characters "oppose" the attacking side and attacking characters "oppose" the defending side. This is really an off-shoot of the rules for winning and opposing a challenge, which say that you must have a character participating (and a total challenge STR greater than 0) to oppose or win a challenge. If characters "opposed" you just by being controlled by the person you attack, you could only ever get the "unopposed" bonus if the other player had no characters whatsoever.

Note that "control" and "opposing" have nothing to do with each other. If Player A attacks Player B with Arrogant Contender and someone jumps Horseback Archers onto the defending side, the Archers will count as an "opposing character," even though they are not controlled by Player B. Heck, the Archers could be controlled by Player A, the attacker, and they would still be an opposing character if they are participating on the defending side of the challenge.

That's what I figured but I thought for some reason it was a weird way to phrase the character's text. I thought it should've been something like "claim 1 power for each defending character." since it only works when Arrogant Contender is attacking alone. Just seemed weird to me they specified it has to attack and do so alone without referencing only defending characters that you're attacking in the first place. It just chose "opposing characters". Not being able to find a clarification or term definition for it also kind of confused of me about it.