playing the brotherhood deck using the you have no house affiliation 'house' card does that mean I can play characters with no house affiliation symbol for one less gold or have I missed the point? thank you

The text on Neutral Faction only applies to cards with House affiliations. Neutral cards can never be considered "out-of-House" because they have no House affiliation of their own. You never pay an out-of-House gold penalty on a neutral card, so how can you reduce that out-of-House gold penalty by 1?

The point of neutral faction really is entirely for flavor. Some people don't like the idea of playing a Brotherhood or Night's Watch-based deck that is technically a "Stark" or "Martell" deck simply because you have to have som e House card.

ktom said:

That other point is that it allows you to play characters from as many houses as you want, and pay a flat +1 penalty for all of them.

It's a shame Neutral Faction only applies to reducing the penalty on OOH characters… wish it would work that way with all card types.

Bomb said:

Agreed. Would make it more playable.