Consider the story cards:

Come the Dreamtime, which states “After you replace this story, rearrange any revealed stories, leaving all success tokens on the board in place.”

A New Challenge, which states “After you replace this story, take all success tokens for each player and redistribute them between the revealed stories. No more than 4 success tokens can be assigned to any story on either player's side.”

Should a conspiracy card which is in play be treated as a story for one or both of these story effects?

My opinion is “no”, based on the idea that a conspiracy functions is a story, but is not a quote “revealed story”.

Other ideas?

Dark Initiate said:

1. I would say "yes", it should work. Because I think revealed is just a synonym for 'actually in play'.

2. The goal of the new story cards was to make the game more unpredictable, which totally backfired because the only useful story cards are now the volcano-thingy, the almost-the-volcano-thingy and the 'New Challenge' described by you.

So in my opinion a more chaotic approach, which could still mess with your well laid out conspiracy cards (probably "Negotium…" or a faction story card) would fit the mind of the game more.

The rule book tells us:

"Conspiracy cards are built into a player's deck and played from his hand, but when they are in play they function as additional story cards to which players can commit characters and struggle for success."

(emphasis mine)

I will second TheProfessor's take on this (backed up by the rules). The rulebook clearly states that once in play a conspiracy acts just like another story card.

Definitely yes. It's one of the answers I asked Damon about. A particularly odd situation is if a won Conspiracy card gets shuffled into the story card deck, to which Damon replied:

Shuffling a won conspiracy is weird, but as of right now that is the proper way to play it, and unless there is some serious problems that come from it, I am unlikely to change it.

So, you may have to bring identical sleeves to use for all of your story cards and any Conspiracy cards!

Was aware of the quoted passage, but it seems that there is a little wiggle room between "is" and "functions as". No?

Anyway, another question:

A player wins at Come the Dreamtime, while Negotium Perambulans in Tenebris is in play. Each player has 9 success tokens on Negotium Perambulans in Tenebris (perhaps consider other 5 plus combos). The player who won Come the Dreamtime chooses to rearrange the stories so that a regular story now takes the place of Negotium Perambulans in Tenebris, resulting in a regular story having 9 success tokens for each player. (Assume the players also don't remember who reached 5 tokens first on Negotium Perambulans in Tenebris, as if that mattered.) What happens?

Didn't see jhaelen's post before posting.

Does the case I described count as a "serious problem… that come from” that ruling?

In the case you mentioned, I believe the Active player would win the story. I make this conclusion from the FAQ entry on Simultaneous Effects:

(v1.11) Simultaneous Effects

When card effects, passive abilities, or forced responses would resolve simultaneously, all cards that are affected resolve in the order determined by the active player, one at a time. The player must fully resolve each effect before the next effect takes place.

Whenever character or support cards enter or leave play at the same time, the controlling player chooses the order in which they enter or leave play.

I don't think that the cited FAQ applies. It deals with "card effects, passive abilities, [and] forced responses", but winning a story is a game effect (cf. FAQ 1.4). Right?

Yes, but we also have the FAQ entry on the Conspiracy Theorist, which combined with above makes me think that in ALL cases of ties the Active player chooses the order of resolution:

Q: If Conspiracy Theorist (Summons of the Deep F117) which reads, “Players cannot win the game by winning story cards unless at least one of their won story cards is also a conspiracy card, or unless there are no story cards left in the story deck.” is in play, and is destroyed by a card effect. What happens if both players have 3 story cards in their won piles?

A: The active player is considered to be the winner.

But I'd maintain, again, that FAQ 1.11 (as written) doesn't apply, while the FAQ regarding the Conspiracy Theorist is an ad hoc resolution of a similar case.

However, in light of the mentioned FAQs, I agree that if the example I cited were subject to an official ruling, then it would probably be resolved as: active player wins the story. Given that probable outcome (even say it was certain), would you say that determines the rules as they stand, absent that ruling? (Just being philosophical now.)

I agree with TheProfessor and would have used the same quote to back up my opinion. Negotium Perambulans in Tenebris is pretty cool, isn't it?

It stands as precedent. It is not an exact duplicate, but it clearly shows that if two players were to have the same number of stories in the pile to win the game at the same time that tie goes to the active player. IT is hardly a leap of faith to apply that same reasoning to the success tokens of a story/conspiracy. If you are looking for a clear ruling the link for Rules Questions is at the bottom of the page. Outside of that, most of what we do here is quote from the rulebook, the faq, communication with Damon, or extrapolating from a ruling in one of those sources.