Case File #1: Trains and Tracks

The Case Files is a place for diving deeply into specific rules questions. In each case file, I will look at different interpretations for a single question - including any precedence before them, any arguments supporting them, and any ramifications that follow them.

This has its limitations. While I endeavour to find and understand all of the different interpretations and represent them fairly, this is not always possible. Similarly, though I try to be unbiased, I often have one or more interpretations I personally favour, so take any endorsements of interpretations with a grain of salt. Finally, the interpretations presented here are not the official rules of the game, nor is this blog intended to supersede the official rules. It is simply a reference point for discussions before an official ruling is established.

With that out of the way, let us delve into our first case.

Of Trains and Tracks

Joe Diamond takes a swig from his trusty flask - he'll need the rest of it before the night is done. The case is laid out before him in a mess of notes, newspaper clippings, photographs, and other evidences. "The answer is in here somewhere", he thinks to himself, but nothing seems to make sense. He takes another swig. "Maybe I should start from the beginning, see what I've missed".

It all began when a man walked into a train car, wearing steel studded shoes.

The Question

Does Track Shoes' [react] ability resolve before an ability with "Forced - After you enter a location", such as the one on Passenger Car?

Discussions

This question was discussed on the Arkham Horror LCG subreddit, the MythosBuster discord server, and the Arkham Horror: The Card Game Facebook group.

Interpretations

1. Yes, Track Shoes' ability resolves before abilities with "Forced - After you enter..."
2. No, Track Shoes' ability resolve after abilities with "Forced - After you enter..."

Investigation

On the surface, this interaction appears clear enough. Thanks to the following rule:

For any given timing point, all forced abilities initiated in reference to that timing point must resolve before any [react] abilities (see below) referencing the same timing point in the same manner may be initiated. - Rules Reference

It seems clear that since Track Shoes' ability must trigger after Passenger Car's, since Passenger Car's  ability is Forced.

But are the two abilities initiated in reference to same timing point? Passenger Car refers to "After you enter..." whereas Track Shoes refer to "After you move...". Are these the same timing point, or is one before the other?

To that end, the most relevant rules entry seems to be:

Any time an entity moves, it is considered to leave the previous location, and to enter the new location, simultaneously. - Rules Reference

This does not conclusively answer our question, but seems to hint that a "move" is composed of leaving and entering at the same time, so after the move is the same time as after you enter.

However, even if "After you enter..." and "After you move..." are the same timing point, Track Shoes actually refers "After you move, but before enemies at your new location engages you..", which is either a different timing point entirely or at least a different manner of referring to the same timing point. So we still need to determine which one happens first.

Since Track Shoes' ability resolve before enemies engage, we can use this as a reference point. If we can find when Passenger Car's ability trigger in relation to enemy engagement, we may be able to use it to determine when that ability trigger in relation to Track Shoes'.

For this, we turn to Graveyard. While there are no Rules Reference or FAQ entries on this, a question submitted by a community member yielded the following answer:

If there are any ready enemies in the Graveyard when you move there, they will engage you even before the Forced ability resolves. So if you fail the test and choose to move to Rivertown, they will move with you. - ArkhamDB FAQ

  

Extrapolating from this, it seems that "Forced - After you enter" abilities do resolve after enemy engagement. Since Track Shoes' ability resolve before enemy engagement, I conclude that Yes, Track Shoes' ability resolves before abilities with "Forced - After you enter...".

Limitations

It bears repeating that my conclusion is one of two (or more) interpretations that I personally favour. It is not an official ruling. It is not a community consensus. It is the conclusion of one investigator who spent too much time reading into the question and the discussions surrounding it.

In particular, my conclusion hinges on "After you enter" and "After you move" being the same timing point. It could very well be that since entering a location is a part of moving, a player enters a location before they finish moving. If this is the case, any abilities with the timing point "After you enter" may resolve before any abilities with "After you move".

Ramifications

Track Shoes' ability resolving before abilities with "Forced - After you enter" has a few interesting implications on some card interactions. Namely:

• With the original example of Passenger Car, it means an investigator with Track Shoes may enter Passenger Car, activate Track Shoes, then use some effects (perhaps Drawing Thin) to find relevant icons before having to discard or take horror from Passenger Car's ability.
• Fieldwork would not be able to provide a bonus to Track Shoes' skill test.
• Track Shoes would allow an investigator to enter Le Marais and leave it before its Forced ability resolves.

Follow Up

The question is put to a vote in the MythosBuster discord server, which at the time of writing had:

• 11 votes for Yes, Track Shoes' ability resolves before abilities with "Forced - After you enter..."
• 3 votes for No, Track Shoes' ability resolves after abilities with "Forced - After you enter..."

The same vote was conducted in the Arkham Horror: The Card Game facebook group, which at the time of writing had:

• 8 votes for Yes, Track Shoes' ability resolves before abilities with "Forced - After you enter..."
• 34 votes for No, Track Shoes' ability resolves after abilities with "Forced - After you enter..."

The question was submitted via the Fantasy Flight Rules Questions form by the Discord user dr00 on the 25th of August, 2019.

Preamble

The purpose of this blog is to document the discussions surrounding rules questions in Arkham Horror: The Card Game. It seeks to record various interpretations, the reasons behind those interpretations, any queries submitted, any conclusions drawn, and any consensus reached.

But why?

The first deluxe expansion for Arkham Horror: The Card Game - The Dunwich Legacy - was released in January of 2017. With it came the Rogue skill pictured above, Double or Nothing.

What this card is meant to do was clear enough - it lets players gamble by raising the difficulty of the test in exchange for a bigger impact. Instead of discovering one clue, you can discover two! Instead of dealing one damage on an attack, you can deal two! It is a wonderfully thematic card, playing into both the Rogue faction's go-big-or-go-home identity and the back of a restaurant card room theme of The House Always Wins, one of the scenarios that came with The Dunwich Legacy.

Then the rules questions started

Those rules questions deserve their own post, but Double or Nothing still holds the reputation to date as one of the most problematic cards. Nevertheless, it got its own entry in the February 2017 update of the FAQ. A few rules questions still remain, but the FAQ entry was mostly effective and prompt.

Yet many more questions remain unanswered. Are story assets player cards or encounter cards? Where are event cards while they are resolving? Can you activate Fieldwork when moving with Duke's Investigate ability and immediately get the bonus? If Diana Stanley shoots an enemy with .45 Automatic (2), when can she trigger her ability to put the weapon under her card (and does it matter if that enemy has Retaliate or if the attack succeeds)? How does Double, Double work? Most recently, does Track Shoes' ability activate before or after Passenger Car's? The list goes on and on.

Most of those questions have been submitted through the Fantasy Flight Rules Questions form, some of them many times. However, a conclusive answer eludes us still. These questions surface from time to time, often to much debate. Each time they are debated, duplicate queries are submitted and little progress made, leaving the players frustrated and the game's staff swamped.

That is the motivation behind this blog. By documenting the prominent discussions surrounding oft repeated rules questions, I hope to  provide a starting point for future debate, or at least an accessible reference to past arguments. By documenting the conclusions drawn and consensus reached (if any), I seek to provide a suggestion for how the rule can be interpreted in the absence of official ruling. Finally, by documenting any queries submitted and who submitted them, I aim to reduce the load on the game's developers and hasten official responses to those queries.

Welcome to Crack the Case.