You are correct in what you are saying, but I may not be making the distinction clearly, and the FAQ is a bit weird in the regard. The FAQ talks about actions and actions, but makes a distinction between them when one is a player action and the other is an Action: effect. Triggered effects and effects just triggered are synonymous and both refer to the type of effect, not any effect that has a trigger (which could be argued to include the reward/penalty for winning/losing a struggle).

Damon should probably be consulted for specifics or made aware so the wording is made more explicit one way or another.

HilariousPete said:

Having said that, I doubt we will ever see such a card. There's a reason the rules use the word 'cannot'. Imho, the implications of being able to cancel passive abilities would be too complicated for the rules to handle because there are so many different types of passive abilities.

                               ^^^THIS +1^^^

I just got a super-fast reply from Damon. You were right Penfold, passives are only "initiated" and "resolved". He will include this in the next update of the FAQ.

@jhaelen: I think your reasoning is similar to my "there is no direct contradiction between Ward's text and the rules" reasoning. Which I did dismiss at first ;-)  

Greetings,

Pete

Another question did come up: If the Guardian Pillar's ability is used to transform him into a character and he is committed to a story, may Binding or Obscure Linguist remove his icons?

I think so, because they are printed on the card. But I'm not sure, because the icons are part of an effect (and aren't located at the usual position of icons), and the Guardian Pillar is a character only because of this card effect.

HilariousPete said:

Ok, then I play it that Binding and likewise effects don't work on Guardian Pillar. Thx for answering!

 I think they do. Pillars effect creates "character with those icons". I'd say they are its printed icons as its the normal way character has icons.

FAQ on printed doesn't address this issue IMO, but if anything i would say it would suggest they're not printed.

I'll submit a rule question and post the results here.

Again a really fast answer from FFG, thx to Mr. Stone! Answer (in my own words, since I read somewhere that FFG doesn't like direct quotations): No, Guardian Pillar as a character doesn't contain the usual features of a character card. The icons and skill are gained, not printed. (Subtype+cost remains.)

Thanks for getting an official answer!

Where did you read that FFG doesn't like direct quotations? Quoting the original answers to rules questions make a lot of sense. It's too easy to omit an important detail otherwise, leading to more confusion. At least in the context of rules questions I don't see why a quote would be discouraged. It's basically nothing but a preview of a new FAQ entry.

I read it here. I also think direct quotations would be better for us players because of the points you stated. But perhaps FFG doesn't want to create too much situations where a designer's decision has to be revised later on in the next FAQ, so I'll just adhere to that.

I think maybe that post was revealing too much about designers preferences rather than actual rulings.

Rephrasing rulings seems like a really terrible idea in general.

 Yeah, I just decided to completely ignore the warning as it was nonsensical in every possible way and I had not violated any rules posted on this forum nor in the agreement when I joined the forum a couple years ago. I suspect the problem was the quote I gave was not in full context and someone got their undies in a bind over it because it gave the reasoning behind a ruling rather than just the ruling. You shouldn't let someone bully you into conforming to how they think you should act when you haven't done anything wrong. Until such a time as that is an official policy I'm going to carry on the way everyone else has since I've been a member and a lurker on these here forums.

HilariousPete said:

I'd like to add that moderators don't necessarily represent FFG's official opinion; on many forums they aren't even connected with the company. Instead they are more like dedicated fans and can thus be a bit overzealous.

The context is also important: In the thread you've linked, Damon basically stated he hadn't made a final decision, yet. So, it's understandable he didn't want something he said to be stated as a 'fact', particularly if quoted without the complete context.

Rule reversals are usually bad for a game, so, in a case where a ruling is 'temporary', as in: 'I need to carefully think about the implications of ruling it one way or another, but this is how I'd judge it, right now', not posting it right away might be prudent.