Furthermore, these rebuttals feel unsatisfying. I believe that you believe them, but at this point it sounds more like wishful thinking. Some in particular:
Except the MELE p42 rule I quoted before stating that these cards "must be played during your site phase." Or what am I missing here?Konrad Klar wrote: ↑Sat May 19, 2018 5:42 pm The procedure itself is phase-agnostic (there is nothing particular in site phase that would allow a character to tap and take played item under its control).
It sounds like you are confounding where a faction is played with where a faction card lists that it can be played. Indeed, Old Road allows the play of any faction by a character at a Haven. It replaces the requirement "at the site specified on a faction card" (requirement (c) in previous post) with "at a Haven".Konrad Klar wrote: ↑Sat May 19, 2018 5:42 pm If to assume that Old Road allows to play a faction at , then the text does not make a sense. Because now a some faction may be played at it would turn out that "The length of the site path from this Haven to the site at which the faction can be played**" is always zero. This effectively would allow to make attempt to bring any faction into play.
So no. The faction cannot be considered to be played at this .
I am not saying Old Road couldn't be played whenever you want. There is the matter of the rule that you can't play cards for no potential effect. But enabling a player to skirt 1 of 5 requirements when the other 4 requirements for a mechanic aren't met is at least a potential effect in my mind, since it is conceivable that other cards might be played that allow the other 4 requirements to be satisfied or otherwise avoided. So go ahead and play Old Road any time you could play any resource, but don't expect to get a faction out of it.Konrad Klar wrote: ↑Sat May 19, 2018 5:42 pm Because not restricted by its text a resource short-event may be played in any phase of its player turn, any action that happens in its result may happen in phase in which the event is played.
I would not expect from most resource short-events, and resource permanent-events a containing of phrase "playable in any phase". This would be absurd redundancy.
Except that it is: the "Bringing Characters Into Play" section. There is a rulebook exception to this section in the form of character influence attempts, which have a number of other stipulations.="Konrad Klar" wrote: ↑Sat May 19, 2018 5:42 pm Unlike factions, items, allies, that may be played only in site phase, factions, playing a characters is not limited by rules to organization phase.
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Consider what your desired high-allowance interpretation would mean for cards beyond those we've already discussed:
Items could be played at Tharbad at any time. (And it doesn't specify what type of item so greater all you want! Except this would be too absurd for anyone... right?)
Burat, Tuma, and Wuluag could be played during any phase in the turn one of the others is played.
Rumours/Whispers of Rings could play rings at will.
Roac the Raven allows the play of a faction at any time. Perhaps this makes thematic sense? Oh wait, this was "fixed" with errata.
Gwaihir: could move any time, except more errata.
Ringlore: errata.
So at this rate each of these will individually get an "errata", rather than just backing up a step and realizing that a work around for one requirement out of many should not make a card playable, yes an official printing misled the community for 20 years on A Chance Meeting but it's high time to get over it, and (with that behind us) ALL of these cards (along with the original rules themselves) do deserve some clarifications,
Well, can't blame me for trying to earnestly study this matter.