Thrall of the Voice: multiple on character clarification

Any rule erratum or clarification submission for the upcoming 2019 ARV should be posted here.
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Bandobras Took
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Not to discard it, no, which is what you "may" do.
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CDavis7M
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I'm going to put aside the questions of when the character can be played in relation to Thrall and how many copies of Thrall may be played each turn.

The original post concerns placing multiple copies of Thrall on one character.

Was this the best argument for how multiple copies of Thrall can somehow be placed on the same character?
Bandobras Took wrote: Tue Sep 17, 2019 12:36 pm Using one Thrall to bring the character into play does not necessarily preclude using the others to bring that character into play. All three Thralls allow you to bring in an alternate character according to specific criteria. If you do so, place Thrall with the character.
Unfortunately, the above argument is just not based on the mechanics of the game.

The game already provides the passive condition mechanism for triggering actions later in time. Thrall does not establish a passive condition. Thrall does not define a later action that is the passive condition for triggering its card placing action.

Instead, Thrall is placed with THE character that was played by its character playing action.
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Bandobras Took
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Yes, Thrall allows the possibility of taking a later action.

When you take that specific action, you place Thrall with the character that was played.

Therefore, all three copies get placed with whichever character was played using Thrall's ability. As you mentioned above, Thrall's wording does not create three separate abilities to bring characters into play. It enables one option, which, when used, requires that Thrall be placed with the character.
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CDavis7M
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Bandobras Took wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2019 12:37 pm As you mentioned above, Thrall's wording does not create three separate abilities to bring characters into play. It enables one option, which, when used, requires that Thrall be placed with the character.
This is not an accurate reflection of my statements above.
Bandobras Took wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2019 12:37 pm you place Thrall with the character that was played.
Correct.
Bandobras Took wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2019 12:37 pm [Thrall's wording] enables one [character playing] option, which, when used, requires that Thrall be placed with the character.

Therefore, all three copies get placed with whichever character was played using Thrall's ability.
There is no basis in the card text or the rules for this conclusion. The game provides Passive Conditions as the mechanism for taking actions based on other actions. If playing a character was the trigger for the Thrall-placing action, then the placing action would establish the passive condition. But it does not.

Instead, the character playing action and the Thrall placing action are resolved in order according to the timing rules. Therefore, a 2nd copy of Thrall can only be placed on the 2nd character, who is played by its effect. This happens when the actions resolve in order. There is no possibility for the 2nd copy of Thrall to be placed with a 1st character played by a 1st copy of Thrall.
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Bandobras Took
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The game provides Passive Conditions as the mechanism for taking actions based on other actions. If playing a character was the trigger for the Thrall-placing action, then the placing action would establish the passive condition.
Condition, Passive: An action that causes another action to take effect. The triggered action will be the first declared action in the chain of effects immediately following the chain of effects that contained the passive condition.
The action is character play according to Thrall's limitations. The triggered action is placing.

I have no idea what "the placing action would establish the passive condition" is supposed to mean. Playing a character establishes that a passive condition (placing Thrall) is triggered. Since the character is in play and continues to remain in play, the passive condition of placing Thrall with the character then is declared as the first action in a chain of effects immediately following the chain that resulted in the character play. And does so for each copy of Thrall you have in play, since the passive condition (character play) triggered all three placing actions.
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CDavis7M
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Bandobras Took wrote: Fri Sep 20, 2019 9:57 pm
The action is character play according to Thrall's limitations. The triggered action is placing.

Playing a character establishes that a passive condition (placing Thrall) is triggered. Since the character is in play and continues to remain in play, the passive condition of placing Thrall with the character then is declared as the first action in a chain of effects immediately following the chain that resulted in the character play. And does so for each copy of Thrall you have in play, since the passive condition (character play) triggered all three placing actions.
But there is no connection between the placing action and the character-playing action. They are completely separate actions and one just follows the other. "Instead of a normal character, during your organization phase you may bring into play one character (including a minion agent) with up to a 6 mind. Place this card with the character." There is no term (e.g., "when ___," "if ___", "each ___," "all ___," etc.) in the card text to define a later action that will trigger the placing action.

The sentence "Place this card with the character" only defines 1 action, and a passive condition requires 2 actions. The phrase "you may bring into play one character (including a minion agent) with up to a 6 mind" defines a single separate action. There is no cause and effect described in these sentences.
MELE wrote:Condition, Passive: An action (1st action) that causes another action (2nd action) to take effect.
Still, no passive condition is created or needed for Thrall because when Thrall is played the Thrall-placing action and character-playing action are immediately declared and they will resolve one after the other. So the character for the Thrall to be placed on is already established by the playing action.

Compare Thrall to other resource permanent events that actually DO get played and then have the possibility to be placed elsewhere later. Unlike Thrall, these cards use a passive condition or active condition to later trigger the placing of that same card.
Anduril wrote:...Once stored, you may discard a stored reforging and place Andúril, the Flame of the West with Narsil...
The action of discarding a stored reforging is the active condition for placing Andúril with Narsil.
Sacrifice of Form" wrote:...If the Wizard is put back into play, return his items to him and place Sacrifice of Form with him...
The action of playing the Wizard is the passive condition for placing Sacrifice of Form with the Wizard.
Helm of her Secrecy wrote:...If the attack is a Nazgûl, place Helm of Her secrecy with Éowyn following the attack...
The action that ends a Nazgul attack (e.g., placing the Nazgul in your discard, out-of-play, or MP pile) is the passive condition for placing Helm with Eowyn.
Map to Mithril wrote:...If Map to Mithril is at a Dwarf-hold and it is tapped, the bearer may tap himself and place this card with a non-unique weapon in his company...
The action of tapping of the bearer is the active condition for placing Map to Mithril with the weapon.
Bade to Rule wrote:...Place this card with your Ringwraith when he comes into play...
The action of playing your Ringwraith is the passive condition for the action of placing Bade to Rule with the Ringwraith.

All of these cards establish a passive condition for the playing of a character to trigger the permanent-event placing action: Bow of Alatar, Huntsman's Garb, Give Welcome to the Unexpected, Grey Embassy, The Grey Hat, Ring of Fire, Pallando's Hood, Stave of Pallando, Glove of Radagast, Master of Shapes, Pocketed Robes, Shifter of Hues, Winged Change Master, Many-coloured Robes, Saruman's Ring.

All of these permanent events can be played first and placed later. And they all establish 2 actions. The 1st action being some active or passive condition and the 2nd action being the card-placing action. Thrall does not do this. There are no cards that enable the player to place them somewhere else later at whim with no active/passive triggering action.

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There are other cards that are like Thrall, in that there is a placing action without an active or passive condition. Like Thrall, these cards are played and their effects are implemented immediately.
Ready to his Will wrote:Place this card with the creature.
Remnants of Old Robberies wrote:Place this card with the attackʹs card.
Just like Thrall:
Thrall of the Voice wrote:Place this card with the character.
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Bandobras Took
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Still, no passive condition is created or needed for Thrall because when Thrall is played the Thrall-placing action and character-playing action are immediately declared and they will resolve one after the other. So the character for the Thrall to be placed on is already established by the playing action.
This was already proven false.
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CDavis7M
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Bandobras Took wrote: Mon Sep 23, 2019 6:43 pm
Still, no passive condition is created or needed for Thrall because when Thrall is played the Thrall-placing action and character-playing action are immediately declared and they will resolve one after the other. So the character for the Thrall to be placed on is already established by the playing action.
This was already proven false.
It was not. No passive condition is created for placing Thrall. Even if Thrall is played and the character-playing action may be taken later, that would not allow the placing action of duplicate copies of Thrall to trigger such that multiple copies can be played on the same character.
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Bandobras Took
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You misunderstand. The idea that you have to declare an action that a card says you "may" take when you play the card is false. The card gives you the capacity to declare that action whenever you choose, within its own guidelines.

As a refresher:

https://councilofelrond.org/forum/viewt ... =15#p32874

You said you thought there was a difference between Thrall and every other card in the game, but didn't explain what it was or how to tell.

Anyway, on to the important point.

You said:
Thrall states "Place this card with the character." There is antecedent for "the" character. The antecedent is the "one character with up to a 6 mind" which "you may bring into play."
And now say:
But there is no connection between the placing action and the character-playing action. They are completely separate actions and one just follows the other.
Either the two sentences are connected by the antecedent, in which case play of the character is the passive condition that triggers the placing action, or else the two sentences have no connection, in which case Thrall may be placed whichever character I decide is "the character."
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CDavis7M
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Bandobras Took wrote: Mon Sep 23, 2019 8:39 pm You misunderstand. The idea that you have to declare an action that a card says you "may" take when you play the card is false. The card gives you the capacity to declare that action whenever you choose, within its own guidelines.

As a refresher:

https://councilofelrond.org/forum/viewt ... =15#p32874
Most of the cards in that list provide some active condition or passive conditions to enable the effect later.

Lost in the Border-lands had its text changed in MELE. It increases the hazard limit.

Discarding Bill the Pony is an active condition for the site-replacing action.

Discarding Daelomin at Home is an active condition for the hazard limit increasing action.

Discarding a dragon/drake hazard is an active condition for the attack cancelling action

Discarding Folco is an active condition fro the hobbit-playing action.

Bade to Rule creates an effect that lets the player can discard it. This does not have an active or passive condition. There are a handful of other cards that also let the player take some action without an active or passive condition, but they are the exceptions and do not create a rule. Cards like Armory, Rumours of Rings, A Strident Spawn, etc. All of these cards are problematic because they conflict with the statement that "The effects of a resource permanent-event are immediately implemented." And while all of these cards could easily have been written with "tap Card Name to perform some action," with "perform the action in response to the end of the turn," etc, they weren't written that way. Still, I think these cards have issues and are not evidence for Thrall being able to be played without immediately declaring the character-playing action.

But, as I said before, I can concede the point for now about whether or not Thrall can be played to be used later.

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Bandobras Took wrote: Mon Sep 23, 2019 8:39 pm
Thrall states "Place this card with the character." There is antecedent for "the" character. The antecedent is the "one character with up to a 6 mind" which "you may bring into play."
And now say:
But there is no connection between the placing action and the character-playing action. They are completely separate actions and one just follows the other.
Either the two sentences are connected by the antecedent, in which case play of the character is the passive condition that triggers the placing action, or else the two sentences have no connection, in which case Thrall may be placed whichever character I decide is "the character."
You are missing the context of these 2 statements. The placing action has antecedent in the playing action (e.g., the played character). But the placing action lacks a triggering connection to the character-playing action.

Furthermore, merely having an antecedent in a previous statement in the card text does not create a passive condition trigger. As explained above, the Thrall-placing statement would need to define the 2nd action that would act as the passive condition. And it does not. There are many cards that list actions where an entity that is targeted by a later action in the card-text is referred to by "the entity" without creating a passive condition.

BUT, if the 2 sentences really did have no antecedent connection, then Thrall could potentially be placed with any character. For example, if Thrall stated: "you may bring into play one character (including a minion agent) with up to a 6 mind. Place this card with the character a character" -- then I could see some validity to the arguments that Thrall could be placed with any character at the players whim (if this is a legitimate trigger).

Or, if Thrall stated: "you may bring into play one character (including a minion agent) with up to a 6 mind. When a character is played, place this card with the character" -- then I could see some validity to the arguments that Thrall creates a passive condition for placing multiple copies on a one character that was played.

However, Thrall is not worded in either of these ways and so multiple copies cannot be placed on the same character. You can only place 1 Thrall for each character played by its effect.
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There are a handful of other cards that also let the player take some action without an active or passive condition, but they are the exceptions and do not create a rule.
But they do create a precedent. Therefore, we include Thrall among this group.
You are missing the context of these 2 statements. The placing action has antecedent in the playing action (e.g., the played character). But the placing action lacks a triggering connection to the character-playing action.
What constitutes a "triggering connection?"
CRF, Ready To His Will wrote:Note that cards like Rank Upon Rank are applied as a passive condition, once an attack of the right type is in play.
All non-agent Man attacks receive +1 prowess and +1 strikes.
ICE stated that this is applied as a passive condition, but there's nothing remotely constituting a triggering connection, so far as I can tell.
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Bandobras Took wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 12:29 am
There are a handful of other cards that also let the player take some action without an active or passive condition, but they are the exceptions and do not create a rule.
But they do create a precedent. Therefore, we include Thrall among this group.
But these cards aren't similar to Thrall. Unlike Thrall, they only have a single action that would be performed "at whim." And so they could easily fit the tapping-active-condition paradigm (e.g., Tap Rumour of Rings during your organization phase to take one ring special item...). Many cards use this paradigm: the Dwarven rings, Saruman, all of the Fallen-Wizard Stage Cards, etc.

Thrall is different, it would require 2 actions to be performed at whim and so the tapping-active-condition paradigm would not be able to fit.

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Bandobras Took wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 12:29 am
You are missing the context of these 2 statements. The placing action has antecedent in the playing action (e.g., the played character). But the placing action lacks a triggering connection to the character-playing action.
What constitutes a "triggering connection?"
CRF, Ready To His Will wrote:Note that cards like Rank Upon Rank are applied as a passive condition, once an attack of the right type is in play.
All non-agent Man attacks receive +1 prowess and +1 strikes.
ICE stated that this is applied as a passive condition, but there's nothing remotely constituting a triggering connection, so far as I can tell.
Anything that happens later (except for those handful of exceptional cards) requires some active condition or passive condition as the trigger for the other action to happen.

Rank Upon Rank follows this paradigm -- it relies on a passive condition. It does not use an active condition. You do not tap it or discard it to do something (like Power Built by Waiting, or Daelomin at Home). Instead of the player taking an action, some other action happens "out in the wild."

Rank Upon Rank states: "All non-agent Man attacks receive +1 prowess and +1 strikes." Basically this means "all non-agent Man attacks that are in play now or that are created later receive +1 prowess and +1 strikes." At resolution, Rank Upon Rank does 2 things: (1) give non-agent Man attacks that are in play +1 prowess and +1 strike and (2) establish a passive condition (an action) for triggering the +1 prowess and +1 strike actions. The passive condition is the creation of a non-agent Man attack. For example, when the creature resolves, an attack is created. This acts as a passive condition triggering the "+1 prowess" action and the "+1 strike" action, which target the Man attack. These +1 actions are declared in the chain of effects following the chain of effects that created the attack (e.g., the play of the creature).

Rank Upon Rank does not have to state "creation of a man attack is the passive condition for triggering the +1 prowess and +1 strike actions." There are no cards that I know of that are this explicit. Instead, you just look for the ACTION. Everything in the game is an action. All actions have targets. Almost everything on every card either (1) sets the active conditions for playing the card itself, (2) creates an action, (3) describes the created actions (e.g., when, where, how. e.g., establishing an active/passive condition for the action), or (4) alters some rule of the game for taking actions. Other than that, card text can have a keyword or an indication of alternative play options (e.g., "alternatively," or "may be played as a short event", etc.). There might be something else, but this is pretty much it.

You can apply this to Rank Upon Rank -- Attacks must be created. Creating an attack is an action. +1 prowess is an action. So the action creating the attack (e.g., playing a creature) is the passive condition established by Rank Upon Rank.

No cards spell out the passive conditions this way because its even harder to read than plain English and plain English worlds 99% of the time. Active/passive condition rules were retrofit to the game to allow for the original LIFO timing rules to work. So this is what we're left with.
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Bandobras Took
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So there doesn't need to be a printed triggering connection after all, it seems.

A card may supply the possibility of an action that triggers its own passive condition, in which case, Thrall only has a single action that may be performed at will. You can't place Thrall unless you have used its ability to play an alternate character.

Open to the Summons does the same thing. There are others that can be read that way, depending on whether one wants to think of a given action as a straight up action or as one requiring a previous action to be performed.
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Bandobras Took wrote: Tue Sep 24, 2019 12:47 pm So there doesn't need to be a printed triggering connection after all, it seems.

A card may supply the possibility of an action that triggers its own passive condition, in which case, Thrall only has a single action that may be performed at will.
Establishing a passive condition requires a printed triggering connection. Otherwise you would just have players making stuff up.

All cards with passive conditions establish the triggering connection. Rank Upon Rank literally says "attacks" get "+1 prowess." There are 2 actions, one action created outside of the card (the attack) that triggers another action created by the card (+1 prowess). The triggering connection is printed on the card.

From what I've seen, there are no cards that use their own created action as a passive condition for triggering another action created by that same card.

It's also not possible to play multiple copies of Open to the Summons and then place them on the same character as Open to the Summons fails to create a mechanism to do so.
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Konrad Klar wrote: Thu Sep 19, 2019 8:14 am Open to the Summons contains the phrase "Cannot be duplicated on given character.".
That would not be needed if agent character would be played in result of Open to the Summons (i.e. when the card resolves).
The phrase make sense if there are multiple copies of Open to the Summons on company and agent character is played later.
That is not necessarily true. Open to the Summons (A) may be played during the game or (B) "may be played with a starting company in lieu of a minor item." Given these two possibilities, it is both possible for (A) duplicate copies of Open to the Summons to not be able to be placed on a character brought into play during the game (if that character was not played by OttS's effect) and (B) have the requirement of "cannot be duplicated on a given character."
Open to the Summons wrote:Playable on a company. One agent minion may be played with target company at a Darkhaven -- place this card with the agent. -1 to his mind to a minimum of 1. This card may be played with a starting company in lieu of a minor item. When played as such, reveal it when starting companies are determined as if it were a character. Cannot be duplicated on a given character.
Thrall of the Voice wrote:Instead of a normal character, during your organization phase you may bring into play one character (including a minion agent) with up to a 6 mind. Place this card with the character. -1 to his mind to a minimum of 1. Such a character may also be in your starting company.
The character draft and other setup activities performed as part of "Getting Ready to Play" do not follow the normal rules of the game for playing characters and playing minor items, etc.

During the "Getting Ready to Play" process, 2 copies of Open to the Summons may be revealed during the character draft. Open to the Summons is played in lieu of a minor item and minor items are assigned after the draft is complete and the starting company is formed. However, if a player drafts 2 agents and one of the agents is bounced/duplicated during the draft, then the 2nd copy of Open to the Summons may not be assigned to the sole agent in lieu of a minor item (since it cannot be duplicated).

Thrall can be played as a starting stage card. Thrall cannot played "in lieu of a minor item."
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