Blood Siege

One of the guys from my group happened to actually read Blood Siege as printed instead of as intended. We suspect it needs clarification....and I mean more than the strange "that that" language.

Note the bold underlined part below.

Blood Siege
Type: Political Action
Requires an archbishop, priscus, cardinal or regent. Title.
No action modifiers can be played during or after this referendum. Choose a ready Sabbat vampire and a ready prince. Successful referendum means that that prince loses his or her title; put this card on the Sabbat vampire to represent the unique Sabbat title of Archbishop of that city. Any ready vampire can gain votes during this referendum by burning one blood per vote gained.

Read as written and using the LSJ "card text" default approach, Blood Siege creates an effect that prevents the play of action modifiers as soon as the referendum is reached.

That's not a problem, until you notice that there is neither defined duration nor endpoint. Strictly as written, if you reach a referendum, no action modifiers may be played for the remainder of the game. Oooph.

Background procedural nitty-gritty supporting the case: there are already examples of cards which are not put in play but create durable effects - so saying this defaults to "until this action ends" doesn't seem to fly. Charming Lobby would be a fine example where nothing put in play, but then there's a hanging effect to pass the next referendum. Clearly, creating durable effects without any book-keeping card in play has precedent (see also, Shatter the Gate).

With the action modifier restriction coming first, it triggers simply on the referendum being reached - and applies regardless of the result of that referendum (e.g., failing the vote doesn't allow the acting minion to Freak Drive). So as written, the restriction sticks pretty much no matter what.

This is clearly not design intent, but I could find no errata or rulings for Blood Siege on VEKN or the old rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad google group.

Vincent?

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

OThis is clearly not design intent, but I could find no errata or rulings for Blood Siege on VEKN or the old rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad google group.

[LSJ 20020423]

LSJ wrote:

> No action modifiers can be played during OR AFTER THIS REFERENDUM.
> Choose a ready Sabbat vampire and a ready prince. Successful
> referendum means that that prince loses his title and the Sabbat
> vampire becomes archbishop of that city. Any ready vampire can gain
> votes during this referendum by burning one blood per vote gained.
>
> I assume this doesn't mean that AFTER THIS REFERENDUM no action
> modifiers can be played...(commons sense) but it could be read that
> way, right?

It cannot be read that way by anyone who is capable of playing the
game, no.

"after" means "immediately after".

jamesatzephyr wrote:

It cannot be read that way by anyone who is capable of playing the
game, no.

What? Of course it can. What is intended and what reads on the cards are two different things.

Bloodartist wrote:

It cannot be read that way by anyone who is capable of playing the
game, no.

What? Of course it can. What is intended and what reads on the cards are two different things.

Helpfully, we also have an explicit ruling explaining what it means, and a smiley indicating that a comment may have had some amusement value intended.

Unhelpfully, we have card text on Blood Seige that prompted 2 people to ask the same question 17 years apart, with nothing appearing in the card rulings section on this website about what the card text actually means.

TwoRazorReign wrote:

Unhelpfully, we have card text on Blood Seige that prompted 2 people to ask the same question 17 years apart, with nothing appearing in the card rulings section on this website about what the card text actually means.

Thanks for volunteering your labour to create a comprehensive database of every ruling ever!

Or are you just moaning that other people won't do that for you?