Can Ipiutak be triggered by player A when player B plays Forcing the Truth and chooses Player A's character to exhaust while readying his own character with the second part of the Action?

Ipiutak

The Bone CIty
Type: Support Faction: Miskatonic University
Cost: 1
Game Text:
Lost Civilization.
Response: After a character you control was chosen as the only target of a triggered effect, exhaust Ipiutak to copy that effect choosing another character as the target of that effect.

Forcing the Truth

Type: Event Faction: Syndicate
Cost: 2
Game Text:
Action: Exhaust 1 non-Ancient One character. Then ready 1 non-Ancient One character.

I ( player B ) said no because I believe FtT is a single triggered effect with two parts and two seperate targets therefore it does not meet the 'only target' requirement.

My opponent believes FtT to be two seperate triggered effects, each targeting a single character. I understand his thinking but couldn't explain well enough to convince him otherwise so I promised to appeal to the greater wisdom of the community.

Ipiutak wouldn't been usable with FtT. The reason is that FtT isn't targeting anything at all. In CoC, an effect is targeting something if the effect uses the word "choose". This is not the case, so FtT is only affecting 2 characters, but not targeting them. (Compare e.g. with Small Price to Pay (Core Set 19), that card is actually targetting 2 characters.)

About wether FtF has 2 or 1 effects: I'm not sure here myself. I'd say it has 1 triggered effect (the whole Action), consisting of 2 effects (seperated by "then"). Usually this distinction isn't important.

(More detailed: It's not important because most cards either refer to the whole triggered effect (e.g. Writhing Wall, Secrets of Arkham 40) or just state that all effects are cancelled (e.g. Dagon, Core Set 42). And even if this were not the case, it is usually still unimportant. Example: Guardian of the Key, Dreamlands 71: "Disrupt: Exhaust Guardian of the Key to cancel 1 effect that chooses a support card as a target." . The Guardian is trying to cancel Thunder in the East, Forgotten Lore 34: "Action: Choose and destroy a support card. Then, draw a card" . You could argue that the Guardian only cancels the choose+destroy effect, but not the card draw effect. But since both effects are connected by "then", even if the Guardian only cancels the 1st effect, the 2nd can't be resolved because the first hasn't been resolved successfully.)

I was Hybrid's opponent and after reading the FAQ, I was wrong.

Relevant entries:

(1.3) Multiple Effects

If a card has multiple effects, all effects on the card are resolved, if possible, independently of whether any other effects of the card are successful (following targeting restrictions as normal), with the following important exception: If a card uses the word “then,” then the preceding effect must have been resolved successfully before the subsequent dependent effect can be resolved.

With just this part, I think I would have been correct, since each effect is resolved independently, I still feel each is a separate effect. Had Forcing the Truth used the language "choose", my position is I would be able to use Ipiutak to exhaust one of Hybrid's characters after he exhausted one of mine. I'm not sure if there are any multi-effect actions that use the word choose, so the distinction may not matter anyway. Not that it matters in this case either, because of:

(1.9) Choosing Targets

The word target is used to indicate that an effect is directing a player to choose 1 or more cards for an effect to resolve on. Not every effect that resolves on a card is targeted. An effect that resolves on 1 or more cards without specifically using the word “choose” is not a targeted effect

Thanks for your reply HP! I failed to read the 'Choosing targets' entry when trying to resolve the rules question during the game. I apologize for not being able to work it out during our game BR! I felt that was the proper way to rule it but couldn't explain or find the appropriate faq entry at the time.

@Hybrid:

You're welcome. It's just natural to forget/overlook some parts of the rules for the more complex CCGs/LCGs…

@bitraven:

bitraven said:

I also thought about this FAQ ruling, wich distinguishes a preceeding and a subsequent effect, indicating that they are 2 separate effects. With only that part (and FtF using the word choose), Ipiutak could be usable. (Depends on wether or not the 2 effects are also considered to be triggered effects, but I'd guess so.) But there's also this passage from the Core set rulebook:

Triggered Effects
A triggered effect is any effect with preceded by the following text in bold: Action, Disrupt, Response, or Forced Response.

So someone could also argue that FtT has just 1 effect, its Action.

I think both rule passages are true, since I found no passage anywhere that an effect can't consist of multiple sub-effects. This is why I think that FtT has 1 triggered effect consisting of 2 effects.