Actually, my interpretation of Chance Meeting/We Have Come To Kill is quite similar. Contrary to Konrad's assertion, there are specific rules for bringing characters into play.
METW, Characters and Companies, Bringing Characters Into Play wrote:During your organization phase, you may perform one and only one of the following activities:
* You may play a character card. You must have enough general influence or direct influence available to control the character. You must place him at his home site or at any Haven site.
* You may play a Wizard card if you do not have one in play. You must place a Wizard at his home site or at Rivendell. You need not control a Wizard with influence-he represents you, the player.
When you play a character, you may place him into a company already at his arrival site or he may become a new company (consisting of one character). In the second case, you must place the arrival site card next to the character played.
Konrad's argument about untapping only occurring during the untap phase is not only irrelevant, but wrong, to boot. Here are the rules about tapping and untapping:
METW, Card and Decks, Tapping And Card Positions wrote: TAPPING AND CARD POSITIONS
Normally, during play, each of your cards is placed on the playing surface so that its top is towards your opponent and its bottom is towards you. During play certain cards must be "tapped" when they are used-this is a record keeping mechanism to keep track of card usage. To tap a card, rotate it 90° so that it is turned sideways-to untap a card, rotate it back 90° to its normal position.
When one of your characters is wounded, his card is placed with its top towards you (i.e., rotated 180° from an untapped position). All restrictions to tapped characters also apply to wounded characters.
Notice that the rules about untapping don't say
one damn thing about what phase it's supposed to occur in. Compare with the rules on playing characters, wherein a specific phase is mentioned.
Konrad is under the impression that the rulebook is divided into phases just like the game. This is not the case. There is a brief player turn summary and a full player turn summary at various portions of the rulebook (page 4 and page 68 in mine, respectively). All other portions of the rulebook refer to mechanisms of game play.
The standard rules allow for one other method of character play, which is influencing them away from your opponent during the site phase. Chance Meeting/We Have Come To Kill have nothing to do with this.
The only rules that Chance Meeting/We Have Come To Kill override have strictly to do with site limitations -- the necessity of haven/home site and the presence of your avatar at the site.
Override those rules all you want during the site phase. You can still only play characters by influencing them away from your opponent.
Now, back on topic.
As I've said at least two or three times:
Aiglos wrote:Unique. Playable at any Under-deep Dark-hold or Shadow-hold.
Is Aiglos playable during the organization phase? No.
Does Aiglos still tap the site? Yes.
Do you have to tap a character to play Aiglos? Yes.
Why?
Because that playability clause doesn't erase all the previous restrictions. It's an added restriction.
Gollum's Fate and Cracks of Doom have added playability restrictions that tell you under what circumstances you can play them. Neither of them replace the rule that you have to move the One Ring to Mount Doom. Otherwise, Aiglos would replace the rules on item play about the site phase and the tapped status of the site & character.
For a card to override the rule, according to NetReps past, the card must clearly and specifically override the rule, and this Cracks of Doom/Gollum's Fate do not do.
METW, Playing And Drawing Cards wrote:Except for resource long-events, you may play resource cards anytime during your own turn unless specifically prohibited by the rules or the cards themselves.
The rules can prohibit the play of cards. Thus the sentence following that one:
Unless stated otherwise, a card is playable only if its effect applies to an existing situation, hazard, attack, etc. (i.e., you may not play a card just to discard it).
Now, Cracks of Doom/Gollum's Fate have restrictions on the cards themselves -- Cracks of Doom is only playable if the One Ring is
at Mount Doom. You can't move the One Ring to Mount Doom, move back to Lorien, and then play Cracks of Doom -- even though you have moved the One Ring to Mount Doom as the
rule requires, you have not filled the playability condition that the
card requires. Likewise, Gollum's Fate.
Side Note: In order to be able to play Chance Meeting/We Have Come To Kill, the effect must apply
to an already existing situation. There is no already existing ability to play characters in the site phase outside of an influence attempt against an opponent's characters. Therefore the short events cannot be played. The situation must
already exist. They cannot create it themselves.
Of course, given the ruling on Adunaphel,
any free-hold, border-hold, or ruins & lairs actually means "any free-hold, border-hold, or ruins & lairs so long as it is their home site as stated in the rules," so I don't know why I'm complaining, anyway.
The game is flawed, but this does not mean it cannot be loved.