Inconsistency in the FAQ regarding response opportunities

By Amante, in CoC Rules Discussion

I haven't played CoC for a good long while, so I'm going over all the cards I've missed. One that caught my attention was Lookout, a Syndicate character with a triggered ability that reads, "Response: After a character enters play, exhaust Lookout to exhaust that character. Until the end of the phase, treat that character as if its text box was blank." I started wondering if Lookout could be used to shut down characters with disruptive 'entering play' Responses (Hard Case, Hungry Dark Young, Victoria Glasser, et cetera). Obviously, Lookout's Response would have to take place first for the text blanking to "stop" the Response on a the character that just entered play. It was at this point that I realized I wasn't entirely sure who got first priority on Response opportunities, so I opened up the FAQ to check. Inside, I found two seemingly contradicting answers. Hopefully you guys can tell me which of the two to go by:

'Action, Disrupt, and Response Effects', Page 17: "Any number of responses can be played in response to any occurrence that allows them to trigger, with response opportunities passing back and forth between players, starting with the active player."


'6) Responses', Page 18: "After all disrupts, passive abilities, and/or forced responses to an action are resolved, players may now play normal responses in clockwise order (starting with the player to the left of the player who initiated the action)."

Amante said:

'Action, Disrupt, and Response Effects', Page 17: "Any number of responses can be played in response to any occurrence that allows them to trigger, with response opportunities passing back and forth between players, starting with the active player."


'6) Responses', Page 18: "After all disrupts, passive abilities, and/or forced responses to an action are resolved, players may now play normal responses in clockwise order (starting with the player to the left of the player who initiated the action)."

I don't think these passages contradict each other. They explain different things:

The first quote clarifies that it is possible to trigger several responses triggering off the same trigger event, e.g. if you have two copies of a card in play. However, after triggering your first Response, your opponent gets an opportunity to trigger a Response of his own before you get to trigger your second Response.

The second quote clarifies the order in which actions of the different types are resolved, i.e. first all disrupts are resolved, then all passive abilities, then all forced responses before any responses can be triggered. I.e. if a character with a Forced Response enters play, you cannot use a Response to act before it is resolved. Likewise you couldn't trigger an Action ability before your opponent's triggering of a Response ability.

Well they do contradict:

"starting with the active player."

"in clockwise order (starting with the player to the left of the player who initiated the action)"

I always played thinking that active player starts when playing disrupts and responses, so i was really surprised to see the second quote. I think it's some kind of mistke but maybe i played wrong.

.Zephyr. said:

Well they do contradict:

"starting with the active player."

"in clockwise order (starting with the player to the left of the player who initiated the action)"

I always played thinking that active player starts when playing disrupts and responses, so i was really surprised to see the second quote. I think it's some kind of mistke but maybe i played wrong.

The active player does not get to take an Action to put a character into play and then trigger its Response before the defending player can trigger a Response (or Disrupt or Passive Effect). Agreed?

So both sections are correct: The active player starts by putting a character into play and the defending player gets the first opportunity to react to it.