I just got Kingsport earlier this week and have been tryingt o figure out the rules.

I was wondering if someone could help my understand Charlie Kane's special ability.  He came up in the fist game we played and we just let him take allies when they went back the box.  this did not quite seem right however.

Has there been any official clarification on him, or at least unofficial concensus?

No.  Not yet.

Now RUN!  EVERYONE!!!  RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!

What our good friend who did the over the top performance means is that CK is probably the most contraversal investigator in the new set (Lilly is the only other one who comes close). Topics about him usually go on for several posts and don't actually conclude anything. While the way you guys played it is one of the interpretations of his ability it's usually agreed that it's way too strong and such not a viable interpretation.

While I could post alternative interpretations I ask you to search for past topics on the subject cause mearly mentioning one of theme is enough to light the fuse for a huge argument as about 20+ other people chime in with their interpretation or who they personally agree with ultimatly concluding nothing. Bottome line, let the owner of the game chose the interpretation he/she wants till something official has been anounced.

 http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffgforums/posts/list/8973.page#175476

Here's the old forum post for the debate if you are interested.  There's a little below too.

http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=5&efcid=1&efidt=26997

I think the "unffocial consensus" (It's not really a consensus but a plurality opinion.) is that Charlie can gain any ally he meets in any of the locations and can gain any ally if he buys one from Ma's that someone else doesn't have.  Many are still attempting to keep the total number of allies at 11, so trade in any boxed allies for allies from the ally deck. 

I do play the way you described, but you think is wrong.  It's a lot more political that way.

The plurality opinion makes Charlie a pretty weak investigator but your method might make him too strong or out of balance.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Maximum sanity is reduced by 2.

Wow, my bad. 

i looked around on here before posting but i didn't find too much about him.   didn't mean to start anything.

Thank you for your help.

Well don't feel bad. It's clear you had no idea the potential of this very topic. We just moved the forums and one of the last things that was discussed with any sort of furious passion on the old boards was the CK issue. Of course, nothing was concluded, and I don't feel to inject any of my opinion on the matter and knock the first domino over.

Just use your judgment, and recognize when an intepretation is outright absurd. I don't have the energy to dissect the semantics and implications of CK's ability.

Just for anyone else that doesn't have Kingsport Horror:

Charlie Kain's special ability, Connections, reads "Any Phase: Charlie may gain Allies that have been returned to the box."

My own interpretation on this is simple: instead of being limited to the Allies in the Ally Deck, he can also grab any allies that have been returned to the box during the game.  Allies that didn't start in the original deck of 11 allies can't be gained, no matter what.

However, the rules for making the deck of 11 allies does say that the other allies are "returned to the box", so I wouldn't argue too strongly against interpreting that he can get any ally (as long as no one else has that ally, of course).  However, since there's no extra rules about how to handle this version, I personally think that this is unintended.

I agree with LinkN. When we first played CK we didn't remember that you put the other allies to the box, insteat we removed them from the game. We assumd that CK could retreve allies send to the box (of the 11 we drew during setup) if he could earn them with encounters or bought them at Ma's. We even made an exception if the allies where killed (southside strangler, lynching mob).
After we found out that you don't remove the other allies from game we didn't find a concensus anymore in our group :-(
So like many other we waiting for a official faq.

 

People apparently love to take a clearly stated ability defined with a clear cut term and then foist their own house rules upon it. My rebuttal to anyone who tries to argue that it can't possibly mean what it means is a resounding "Big deal."

I'd play it as written.

LinkN said:

I think this means that whenever one of the starting 11 investigators is returned to the box (which means, i. e., a mythos card instructing players to remove one ally from the original 11 and putting it to the box), Charlie may take his card. But maybe I'm wrong, never tried KH yet, nor have I read the rules, I'm snowed under with things to do and I still have to play scenario 6 of the league.

That's just my impression reguarding the description of his ability as stated a couple of posts before

No, "returned to the box" means "returned to the box". You can play your way, but again, that's your house rule.

Turambar said:

I think you are misreading the past tense of the statement into present tense. It doesn't say Charlie may gain allies when they are returned to the box. It says Charlie may gain allies that have (already) been returned to the box.

thorgrim said:

Got it! I take your point, it's not that clear

thorgrim said:

Though I don't think this question will actually be decided grammatically, the phrase "have been returned"  is actually a present tense, not a past tense.   Precisely it is present perfect passive, which means the act is completed in the present by someone else (as opposed to the object itself completing it, ie, a card cannot return itself to the box).

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_passive.html

The past form would be "had been returned".  

There are other issues, so again, I don't think the answer is determined gramatically and every solution offered breaks one rule or another as far as I can tell.

The main other issue, IMO, is the term "gain". Allies are taken, but sanity, stamina and clue tokens are gained.  Sometimes these gains are passive.

A clear description of Kane's ability could have been written at the time. Too bad a clear description had not been written.  We all could have gained from it, but now we must take what we have or simply return Kane to the box if we draw him to prevent confusion.   He's not an impressive investigator IMO (unless you wildly interpret that he gains all allies that are returned to box which includes all extra allies (up to 23) after the official 11 are chosen.  (Kane comes into existance on phase 4 of  the set up and the Ally deck is created on phase 6 of the setup.))

I think someone said there are 32 interpretations of Kane's ability. I say there are zero interpretations that don't break a rule that isn't mentioned in his special ability.

the interpretation (and thus the way we play Charles) is rather simple:

any allies that have been returned to the box are fair game for him whenever he would gain an ally.

if you encounter Ruby Standish at the TSL, but her card has been removed, you still get her.  if you go to Ma's Boarding House and gain an ally, you may choose from the deck or from the "returned to box" deck.  the intent seemed as clear as Ashcan Pete's ability to pull from either the top or bottom of decks (you have two choices whenever you have a choice).

i do have to say that the context of the ability to the rest of the game wouldn't lead me to believe that you just gain all discarded allies immediately.