For Red Wedding, if there is only one lord and no ladies on the board, what hapens?

also, what exactly is the Shadows Action Window, as in, what does it look like?

DerBarchen said:

DerBarchen said:

Shadows timing does not fit exactly into the game's overall timing rules, so don't even try. You'll give yourself a headache. On the one hand, bringing cards out of Shadows is like a passive effect in that the opportunity arises whether you want it to or not at the beginning of each phase. It happens because the phase starts, not because the player does something. It's kinda like the framework event for Stealth in that regard - it comes along and happens just before defenders are declared no matter what, even though the attacker can choose, for this "bypass using Stealth" choice, to not target any characters. With Shadows, after the phase starts, you have a choice to bring card out of Shadows - and "I don't bring anything out of Shadows" is still considered a choice.

However, when a player brings a card out of Shadows, it is more like using a player action than a passive effect because, after a card is brought out of Shadows, you Respond to it immediately instead of waiting until all cards come out of Shadows before Responding to any of them - as you would if it were truly a passive effect.

So bringing cards out of Shadows is something of a hybrid passive effect as "Any Phase" ability. The flow of (any) "Start of Phase" framework action window ends up looking like this:

Step I: Initiate "Phase Begins"
Step II: Cancel opportunity to "Phase Begins"
Step III: Resolve "Phase Begins" (phase officially begins here)
Step IV: Passives
Step IV.1: Shadows Opportunities

• Step S1.1: Initiate (First Player may pay to bring a card out of Shadows)
• Step S1.2: Save/Cancel opportunity to actually bringing the card out of Shadows
• Step S1.3: Resolve (card officially enters play)
• Step S1.4: Passives (any passive effect initiated by a card coming out of Shadows in S1.1-S1.3 ONLY happens here)
• Step S1.5: Responses (any Response effect to the card coming out of Shadows in S1.1-S1.3 ONLY happens here)
• Step S1.6: End Shadows 1 (cards made moribund in S1.1-S1.5 are physically removed from the board)
• Step S2.1: Initiate (Player to left of First Player may pay to bring a card out of Shadows)
• Step S2.2-S2.6: Same as S1.2-S1.6
• Step SX.1-SX.6: Keep repeating S1.1-S1.6 until each player has had one opportunity to bring a card out of Shadows

Step IV.2: Any other passives initiated by the phase starting
Step V: Responses to anything that happened in Steps I-IV (or earlier in V) EXCEPT any card coming out of Shadows
Step VI: End (remove moribund cards made moribund in "non-S" steps from the board).

I too have wondered about this, does the "if able" allow for the satisfaction of part of the cost or is it absolute --the cost must be paid in full or nothing happens. Why wouldn't it say "Choose a lord and a lady, then…" That would definitely be more clear, if you couldn't do both, then the cost wouldn't be met.

Why don't all effects texts read "if able"?

squatting monkey said:

Because sometimes you must fulfill as much of the effect as possible.

For example, if there was an effect that said:

"Each player chooses and kills a character they control. Then, each player draws a card."

If one player cannot kill a character, no player draws a card. This is because the kill part of the effect did not resolve successfully.

If the effect said:

"Each player chooses and kills a character they control, if able. Then, each player draws a card."

The "if able" part allows successful resolution of the effect regardless of any player successfully killing a character. Therefore, you may move on to the "then" effect regardless of that outcome.

In the Red Wedding, it is not entirely clear to me why "if able" is included. It's quite possible that the "then" kill effect was originally intended to be possible if only 1 Lord or 1 Lady exists. However, the "then" effect is completely dependent on doing something to one of them and then something else to the other, so if you can't completely fulfill the "then" effect, it just fizzles.

Actually, with that explanation, it would seem that the "if able" part of Red Wedding would allow you to choose only 1 lord or lady if only 1 was present. Since you just said "The "if able" part allows successful resolution of the effect regardless of any player successfully killing a character. Therefore, you may move on to the "then" effect regardless of that outcome."

So lets Renly is the only lord on the board:

Choose 1 lord and lady, if able -> I choose Renly and am unable to choose a lady

Then MUST kill 1 -> Renly is my only choice

Then the other gets 2 power -> There was no other, so no power is claimed.

Since "if able" is included, isn't this the only way to read this card? Since there are 2 "if able" conditions, followed by a "MUST then" condition and a seperate "Then" condition.

Bomb said:

So, adding the word "if able" to this effect not only allows you to consider the "kill" portion of the effect successful if fewer characters than there are players are killed, it actually lets you play the effect in the first place if a player doesn't have a character to kill.

So there is another reason not every effect says "if able." Some are not intended to be triggered at all unless every target needed is available.

This, btw, is why "Red Wedding" says "if able." It clarifies the fact that there does not actually need to be a Lord and Lady on the board for you to reveal the plot. It is not strictly necessary since "when revealed" text has nothing to do with the legality of revealing the plot card, but you can see where FFG wanted to preemptively address all the "if my last plot is Red Wedding and there isn't a Lord and a Lady in play, what do I do?" questions that would, inevitably, have arisen.

Sloth: The reason Red Wedding doesn't go any further and force the kill of just the Lord or just the Lady when there is not one of each is because the play restrictions for the "choose and kill 1 of those characters" part of the effect are not met when there is only 1 character identified in the "Lord and Lady" part to choose from. The effect would work as you say if the second part read something like "choose and kill 1 of the characters chosen by that opponent."

ktom said:

Actually, if one player cannot choose a character to kill, the effect cannot even be triggered in the first place.

This, btw, is why "Red Wedding" says "if able." It clarifies the fact that there does not actually need to be a Lord and Lady on the board for you to reveal the plot. It is not strictly necessary since "when revealed" text has nothing to do with the legality of revealing the plot card, but you can see where FFG wanted to preemptively address all the "if my last plot is Red Wedding and there isn't a Lord and a Lady in play, what do I do?" questions that would, inevitably, have arisen.

Side question: Lets say your oppenent's characters are all STR 2+ and you have a few STR 1 characters. What happens if you play the City of Soldiers plot with 1 City plot in your used pile. Are you forced to kill one of your own?

Anyways, lets consider a few other plots such as:

Marched to the Wall (each player chooses and discards 1 character)

Wildfire Assault (each player chooses 3 characters)

Fleeing to the Wall (each player chooses 3 locations).

Since none of these say "if able" if any 1 player didn't have a character, 3 characters or 3 locations (respectively) then you are saying these plots would have no effect since all players where not able to make the required choice?

because the play restrictions for the "choose and kill 1 of those characters" part of the effect are not met when there is only 1 character identified in the "Lord and Lady" part to choose from. The effect would work as you say if the second part read something like "choose and kill 1 of the characters chosen by that opponent."

Actually I think you are right before it even gets to either Then effect now that I've read Mad King's Legacy. This plot says to "discard an attachment, if able." There are two correct ways of reading the "if able" aspect. 1) If there are no attachments in play, you are obviously unable and there is no effect. 2) There is a single attachment in play but it is one you control. This is removed because you "are able" to remove an attachment, fulfilling the plot text.

So in regards to the Red Wedding, in this case I believe it is choose 1 each, if able, indicating if you are not able to choose both then discregard, but if you are able to choose, you HAVE to.

-- not sure what happened to the quote boxes, but can't seem to get it fixed…

ktom,

The new At the Palace of Sorrows plot text says:

When revealed, each player chooses a card in play which he or she controls and puts the chosen card on top of its owner's deck. Then, if this is your revealed plot card, trigger the 'when revealed' effect of the top River plot card in your used pile.

So, does this mean if one player does not have a card in play, this "when revealed" effect does not trigger? I'm just basing that question off of the missing "if able" text. Above you had said without that text, those effects cannot trigger. I'm not trying to over think things here, but this plot could be a nice starting plot in a KotHH deck.

Slothgodfather said:

Slothgodfather said:

Slothgodfather said:

First, Wildfire and Fleeing don't match this conundrum because they say "choose up to …". If I have 6 characters out when Wildfire is revealed, I can choose none of them and let them all die. (I have done this.)

As for Marched, yes, I have heard people ask if they are allowed to reveal it when a player does not have a character to target. They are confusing the limitation on initiating a triggered effect based on the unavailability of targets with the ability to do something that will eventually lead to a passive effect being initiated that does not all targets available. Not only does the "cannot initiate if not all targets are available" not apply to passive effects - which initiate when their play restrictions are met, whether you want them to or not - but you do not look "down stream" to what passives may happen in the future and then retroactively apply the future situation to your present actions. That misconception (and having to answer the question that yes, you can reveal Marched when not everyone has a character) is one of the reasons FFG put "if able" on Red Wedding.

Now, as you may have noticed in that description, I clarified the fact that the "all targets must be available" is a limitation placed on a player initiating a triggered effect. It is not a limitation placed on the initiation of a passive effect - which Marched is. So, the "when revealed" text initiates passively and everyone who can follows the text. The distinction is between triggered and passive effects.

Bomb said:

I obviously wasn't clear in my earlier post.

The FAQ is very clear that if a player wants to trigger an effect, all specified targets must be available, or else the effect cannot be initiated.

That does not mean that passive effects whose play restrictions are met, cannot initiate if it is missing targets. Passive effects initiate when their play restrictions are met, then you resolve as much as you can. The "when revealed" text on a plot is passive and will resolve regardless of whether "all" targets are there or not.

What I was trying to say above is that the "if able" text on Red Wedding is completely unnecessary from a rules point of view. However, many, many people seem to equate revealing a plot with (actively) triggering its text. That is not the case, but a lot of people think it anyway. As such, they think the "target availability" requirement for triggering effects applies to revealing plots. It doesn't, but people have asked it so many times in the past that it is hard to fault FFG for putting text on the card that serves no real "in game" function, but serves to make a number of things about its resolution clearer for people.

"When revealed" text initiates whether all specified targets are available or not because it is passive and the plot was revealed. The "all required targets must be available" rule only applies to triggered effects.

Thank you very much for clearing that up. I was clearly over thinking the topic.