Playing a character "even if you do not have enough influence to control them"

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Nico1920
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Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2015 8:21 pm

I've been trying to understand a mechanic I've seen exploited many times consisting of playing a character without enough influence to control him to intentionally do something and bounce him back to your hand at the end of the organization phase. The relevant rules I've found are these:

BRINGING CHARACTERS INTO PLAY

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.(...)
These was then changed (I think in Lidless Eye) to this:
If you bring a character into play during your organization phase and then do not have enough influence to control him, the character just brought into play must be returned to your hand at the end of your organization phase.
But the Turn Sequence Ruling changes it further to this:

Playing Characters

Rules Erratum: You may play a character even if you do not have enough influence to control them. However, if there are any characters you do not have the influence to control at the end of your organization phase, the character you brought into play this turn must be returned to your hand.
Considering these rules, people do stuff such as using The Mouth's ability to bring a resource from the discard pile to the deck or playing a sage only to play Mavel's told/Voices of malice. Or nastier things, such as playing the new character using an untapped copy of an already tapped Haven.

So after this introduction, here is my question:

Let's say I play a character without enough General Influence to control him. Am I forced to do whatever combination of moving characters between general influence and direct influence to make room for the new character? Can I intentionally organise my company in a way that makes the new character going back to my hand?

If I must do any available combination to make room for the new character, does this include moving character between GI and DI, but also things such as transferring items affecting direct influence, transferring items affecting the mind, moving leader commands back to the hand, etc?

Some examples:

Making room just by organising characters between DI and GI:

A company with Aragorn, Fatty and Sam uses 16 GI. I want to play marvels told so I bring Cirdan to do that, but I want Cirdan to go back to my hand because I want him to do his thing once Pallando is in play. If I play Cirdan, Fatty could become follower of Aragorn, Sam can be follower of Cirdan, and I'll be using 17 GI so there's enough room. Am I forced to do this? Can I intentionally maintain the hobbits under GI so Cirdan can bounce back to my hand?

Transfering items:

Gimli with elf-stone controlls Bard Bowman and Annalena. Celeborn is under GI so I am using 12 in total. If I play Elrond there is not enough room and should bounce back to my hand. Juggling with character under DI and GI does not solve the issue either. But there's a way to keep Elrond in play: I could transfer the elf-stone to Elrond, who could control Celeborn, and Gimli could keep controlling Annalena leaving Bard Bowman under GI, totalling 18 used GI. Am I forced to make room for Elrond this way?

Leaders:

Lt. of Angmar, Lt. of Morgul and Tros are using 20 IG. Orders from Lugbruz is in play and I'll report you is in play in both troll leaders. I want to play Doeth to use Voices of Malice, but I do not want to have him around after that. There's no room for Doeth, but if I move one I'll report you to my hand (as allowed by the card) I could keep Doeth in play under the influence of one of the troll leaders. Am I forced to do so?
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Theo
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First,
Nico1920 wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:18 am These was then changed (I think in Lidless Eye) to this:
If you bring a character into play during your organization phase and then do not have enough influence to control him, the character just brought into play must be returned to your hand at the end of your organization phase.
This does not actually change the preceding requirements on playing a character. This refers to situations where you might legally play a character with enough influence to play them but then lose the influence to play them. E.g., storing an Elf-stone.

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Nico1920 wrote: Tue Nov 29, 2022 2:18 am Let's say I play a character without enough General Influence to control him. Am I forced to do whatever combination of moving characters between general influence and direct influence to make room for the new character? Can I intentionally organise my company in a way that makes the new character going back to my hand?
I know of nothing that forces making room for new characters.
I know of nothing that prevents you from organizing your company as otherwise legally allowed and then bringing a character into play that exceeds influence.
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CDavis7M
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The idea of this change is to allow for characters to be played which otherwise could not be played if the requirements were strict. For instance, if you only have 6 unused GI and you want to play Elrond, you cannot. But if Elrohir is at the site, Elrond can be played and then he can take control of Elrohir such that you are only using your 20 GI.

But there is a limitation (CRF, Organizing Companies): "Company composition changes that you choose to make, including bringing a character into play, must all be done at the same time during the organization phase. During this time no other actions may be taken"

This means that you cannot play a character, transfer them an item (with a bonus to influence), and then have them take control of another character. Like, if you have 3 unused GI, you cannot play Thorin, given Thorin The Arkenstone, and then have Thorin Control Balin to get within 20 GI. Also, you may not play Elrond, then play Vilya, and use the DI from Vilya to get within 20 GI.

This limitation makes sense given that the original rules do not allow playing a character beyond GI at all. With the change, characters own influence can be exerted to get additional characters in play, but resources cannot.

The only other catch is that you cannot discard a character if you are beyond GI while also keeping a newly played character. The discarding should have been done instead of playing because the rules don't allow both.
Nico1920
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2015 8:21 pm

Thank you both. Crystal clear.

I am trying to understand what can be done (and what cannot) to play untapped copies of a Haven. This seems like a way of doing it, but it is easy to screw things up. I am not sure if dividing the company would allow me to play an untapped copy (knowing I would have to move out of the haven the company that ended with the tapped copy of the site). I also think that I could play a character at an untapped version of the haven and not join him with the main copy: and since this is not the same as splitting, I presume I could keep both companies in their own copies of the Haven.
What else should I keep in mind?
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CDavis7M
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Under "organizing companies" the CRF states "Company composition changes that you choose to make, including bringing a character into play, must all be done at the same time during the organization phase. During this time no other actions may be taken."

There is a bunch of discussion on this here already. And some old answers from the ICE Netreps on this topic were posted.

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Many rules changes and clarifications were incorporated into the Challenge Deck and Balrog rules and this is one of those cases. The question that came up before is whether "same time" only means "no other non-company composition change actions may be taken" (as the rules say) or whether it means that they all have to be done at once and not sequenced with respect to each other (as in, play a character under GI at their own new untapped site and then join another company immediately and get the new untapped site for the entire company). Of course a company must have a site but the action of moving a site card from the location deck to the play area is not itself a "company composition change."
Organization.PNG
Organization.PNG (126.91 KiB) Viewed 856 times
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There is also the ruling in the CRF "If a company splits, all but one of the split companies must attempt to move to a different site this turn. The company may not rejoin in the same phase."

And there is discussion about this on here and Ichabod's rulings were posted. But I noticed that he sort of changed his tune from "yes, yes, you can do all these things" when he was simply a player and free-lance writer for ICE to "no, no, you can't do any of these things" when he was brought on in an official capacity.

And then I noticed that Ichabod did have an opportunity to clarify his rulings but then he did not. But this is a deep thing to dive into and I haven't bothered.
Nico1920
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Joined: Wed Feb 25, 2015 8:21 pm

Cheers mate. Quite deep indeed.
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