Take another look and see if the problem is still there.  I just looked and both files are now marked 2.0.1 and have both a restricted and banned list in them.

 Hi, 

I am new to the game and I've been playing the core set + arkham secrets + silver twilight a few times. My problem is that I did not find a rule clarification on the card "shotgun" (core set, F14) regarding the following issue:

When I commit a character with shotgun attached to a story, can I, then, trigger the action of shotgun, which reads "Action: pay 1 to choose and wound a character committed to that story", multiple times? For example, if I have 2 non-drained resources, can I execute the action of shotgun twice and wound two characters of my opponent? [Additional question: Is the shotgun after executing this action still attached to the character?]

I did not read any information that indicated otherwise. However, I believe that a multiple executions of shotgun are quite extreme, so that playing with agency seems to result in unbalanced games with an advantage for agency. 

I saw some discussion on the boards, but this was in my eyes not decisive. An official ruling would be extremely helpful. 

Many thanks in advance!

Bearer of the Yellow Sign

Bearer of the Yellow Sign said:

Welcome to the game!  A minor point - this would have been better served as a new thread in the rules section.  Anyway - to your question:

You are correct that you can use the shotgun as many times as you can pay the cost.  This is true of any Action in the game.

The shotgun is a nice card, but it an attachment - if the character carrying the shotgun goes insane or is wounded, or exhausted so that he can't go to a story, then the shotgun is not useful.  Also it is necessary to keep open domains, which means you did not use them for something else...

An official ruling is not needed specifically on Shotgun.  The FAQ tell us that to perform Actions we must pay the costs and have legal targets.  Other than that there are no restrictions on the number of times an Action can be executed.  Some Actions require the card to exhaust, which puts some limitations on the frequency of use (you'd have to find a way to ready the card before using it a second time), but in general there are no restrictions in the rule book, so this doesn't really need an official ruling.  Check out section 2.4: Paying Costs in the most recent FAQ.

 Dear TheProfessor,

Many thanks for the clarification. Also my apologies for posting on this thread. Since I have some questions/comments, which directly refer to your reply, I do not know what else to do than to put them here. 

Please let me explain why I think that shotgun gives a very strong advantage. Please correct me, if I do not apply the rules correctly. 

In the games I played, it often hapened that one cannot play more than one action/character/support card. Since shotgun costs only 1, one could use all remaining domains.  [Question: Can I only execute use shotgut with domains containing agency? Does a restriction to faction costs  also apply for other support card actions (e.g. blackmore estate; core set, F114) and character actions (visiting author; core set, F26)?]

Suppose I use agency and miskatonic u and commit some characters, with one character having shotgun attached to a story as active player. Suppose further (as described above) that I have two non-drained domains. Since actions can be played after my opponent attaches her characters, I can - except my opponent has e.g. a disruption action - choose and wound 2 of her characters attache to the story, before the story struggles are resolved. This has quite extreme effect on the side of the opponent, since in most cases the opponent might not able to defend or lose some important characters of her by being wounded. Furthermore, if I take some additional characters with me, I might just let one go insane and the other be destroyed (the latter of which is unlikely if I use agency, who excel at combat). However, taking out two characters of the opponent of my choosing really turned the stories struggles and also effectively the whole game to my advantage, since I leave the opponent only the choice between loosing important characters of her or not committing characters to stories for defense at all.

The same mechanism also works for "defending" stories as passive player. 

Moreover, support cards, characters and actions which allow one to get rid of an attachment are relatively spare in the core set and, thus, my opponent is very likely not able to stop that mechanism for quite some turns.

Best, 

Bearer of the Yellow Sign

P.S.: Next time I will start such a discussion in the rules section by starting a thread. Can we, nevertheless, move the discussion to the "official" rule section?

If a card just says "pay 1" then you can pay one of anything.  If for instance it had the Agency logo in the cost, then you'd have to pay with that type of domain.  Normally though, this is not the case.

It's a nice weapon, sure, but there are drawbacks.

First, leaving domains open to pay for shotgun is not free.  Every open domain is a character, support, or event card that maybe you didn't play.  OK, sometimes one of your three domains is 1-cost and might not pay for anything that great, but go beyond that and you're giving up real card playing power.  If you're often finding that you cannot play more than one card, I would double-check that you're doing your resourcing right. (See below)

Second, if you're committing several characters to "protect" him - as you said one to go insane and one to die to combat, that's a sizable amount of commitment to that story.  Perhaps your opponent will just let you have it rather than walking into twin shotgun blasts, and then with a good chunk of your characters exhausted walk all over you in their own story phase.  There are plenty of times where I'd trade my opponent some success tokens on his turn for an equal or (likely) greater number of success tokens for myself on my own turn.  Don't expect them to commit their best guys to the story you pick just to get plugged, or to show up without a counter-plan :)

Third, any attachment makes a character a big target for wound/destroy/sacrifice/insanity/uncommit effects because you're getting a 2-for-1.  Heck, if you time it right maybe more than that, you could be netting a character, his shotgun, AND the use of those domains your opponent left free that he could have spent on something else.  Even just exhausting him to keep him out of the battle is big because you're also nullifying the domains they didn't spend that maybe could have been doing something else useful.

Wounds can also be countered by Toughness, or in some cases Invulnerability.  Sometimes all it takes is one fight where you don't kill the thing you expected to and your guys get killed.

Bottom line is that the Shotgun is useful, but I wouldn't consider it overpowered.  It adds no stats, you see it coming because it's a support and not an event, and you have to pay every time you want to use it.  Deal with the character, and you're also dealing with the weapon, and the shotgun doesn't help protect against anything for instance like the Springfield does by raising your Skill (thereby making you more resistant to some cards).

OK, back to the "can only play one card" thing...  There are a couple of potential causes you might see this.
1.  You might be resourcing incorrectly in some way.  You start the game with 1-1-1 and every turn you can add one resource.  So, for instance you may grow 2-1-1, 3-1-1 / 2-2-1, and so on.  Typically you always want to resource early on, and at some point you may stop if you have enough resources but that's generally not for at least 3-4 turns and maybe more.

2  You might be including too many expensive cards in your deck?  You should probably have a good amount of cost 2 stuff in there, and a lesser amount of cost 1 & 3, not so much that costs 4+, just as a rough guide.  If you put in too many expensive cards then it makes sense you'd be unable to afford multiple cards but overall it makes your deck too slow.

I'd also like to add that if you're often finding yourself only playing one card per turn, how can you afford to send 2 guys in to protect Mr. Shotgun?  It seems like this might be committing most of your force, leaving very little for defense?

 Dear DBoeren,

I really appreciate your discussion of the shotgun case and your tips regarding resourcing. They are very useful to me. 

However, in the four to five games I played, in which shotgun appeared, shotgun was decisive. My opponent used an agency+miskatonic deck and I was playing some of the bad guys and did not have an attachment-riddance card on my hand. I think it is very hard to win the game if the agency+miskatonic opponent has already 2-3 investigation items on 2-3 story cards (at least with the cards of the core set + arkham secrets + rituals of the order). However, that can easily occur if your opponent has shotgun, the more as she wins - as far as I know - usually also an investigation item in defending and attacking (since miskatonic is extremely strong in investigation). Unfortunately, in this scenario not defending twice for story means losing this story. Letting her win once it makes it extremely difficult to still win that story (again an investigation item in attacking and defending).

All the best,

Bearer 

Without having seen the game it's hard to say what the best way to deal with the Shotguns would be.

Can you post the deck you were using (it's probably better to move this to a new thread in the deck building forum if you do)?  Then we could point out possible counters in the deck, or suggest some that might be added as improvements.

Also, was your opponent about the same experience level, or were they someone who's been playing a good while?  They may have simply outplayed you based on that.  The Shotguns could have been the apparent cause, but there might have been other more subtle things they were doing to prevent you from removing or neutralizing their Shotgun guys that were less obvious.  Again, hard to say without having seen the actual game :)

But if you do post your deck in the deckbuilding forum and say that you're having trouble dealing with Shotguns I'm sure several people will have some ideas and suggestions for you.  You should probably also include what card packs you have so people know what they've got to build from.  If you have the opposing deck list, include that as well.  The more information - the better.

Bearer of the Yellow Sign said:

I played a ton of games using just the Core Set and the first AP cycle and Agency was always well ahead. It's not really something to be worried about, it's just something to be aware of.

If you're just playing casually, and you feel the other factions aren't able to effectively deal with the Shotgun using your limited card pool, just 'ban' it in your circle of friends. Once you have a larger card pool, allow it to be played again.

That's true, you can always get around it by leaving out problem cards until later when you get more experience or more cards.

I started with Core + Secrets of Arkham and added a few more asylum packs pretty quickly so I never really experienced it in the context of the minimum cardpool.

 I am glad to hear that the balance of the cards increases when one adds further AP cycles. I somehow assumed that the core set + arkham secrets would be already pretty balanced.

Best,

Bearer

in the news block we have

We also made several changes to the restricted list, removing one card and adding three others. Lord Jeffrey Farrington (The Order of the Silver Twilight, 18) has been removed from the restricted list.

but in the dowloadable version of the FAQ 2.1 Jeffrey is still in the restricted list.

keaSanya said:

He was just removed from both the standard and printer-friendly version.  I had to go back and re-save those documents to get the updated version (note that it's still labeled 2.1).

If FFG had kept Lord Jeffrey Farrington on the restricted list, the deck they posted online this week would've been illegal.  My guess is that they meant to remove Jeffrey but simply forgot, and that the "Saving the World... No Matter the Cost" deck was made after they decided to put Initiative of Huang Hun on the restricted list.

 I found the following errors in FAQ/Errata Version 2.3.1

The references below are for the Printer Friendly Version. Haven't checked if the errors apply to the other one too.

Card Clarification and Errata

Ancient Relics

• The Large Man, reference should be to F27 (not F28)
• Apeirophobia, reference should be to F76 (not F39)
• The Doorway, reference should be to F63 (not F3)

Frequently Asked Questions

The following four questions don't reference the card.

Can Doppelganger copy an insane character? Add (The Yuggoth Contract F79).

Can put Khopesh of the Abyss on a character…? Add (Ancient Relics F16)

Can I use a card effect to uncommit Obsessive Inmate from a story? Add (Summons of the Deep F97)

If I use Alyssa Graham's ability during the draw phase…? Add (Revelations F46)

The question What happens if I play a Neutral card with Professor Lake (Forgotten Lore F3) out?

The reference is wrong, should be F83.