Saturnine said:

It follows the logic in the sequence above, but I don't really like how it works. I feel like a Raven card was not played, but more so a card was played and then given the Raven trait.

If I hit a pedestrian with a car and got drunk later on that night, does that mean a drunk person hit the pedestrian with a car? No.

I know - it's different as a game but the "if this card was played and it currently has the Raven trait" just seems like a very weird condition.  I am guessing that it is because "card x with these properties is played" is not a constant "effect" where the properties of that condition are not any reviewed until you are ready to use Samwell's "Any Phase" ability.

Just weird because technically a Raven card was not played that phase.

Saturnine said:

It's a "take the good with the bad" kind of thing. It all comes down to the fact that no matter how a card gains the Raven trait, it is considered a Raven card. Just like it doesn't matter how a card gains the Maester trait, it is considered a Maester card. If it didn't work this way, Apprentice Collar would be pretty useless for loading Links on some random guy because he wouldn't "really" be a Maester.

Like I said before, this is one of the reasons people tend to dislike trait manipulation as a concept.

ktom said:

Yes, I just have trouble getting my head around the fact that the restriction of "playing/revealing" the card is so disconnected from the trait restriction.

Then playing a Raven card and then somehow removing the Raven trait from it will keep Samwell Tarly from being able to use his ability based on that card.

Question:

Let's pretend that I marshaled the Carrion Bird this phase.

Carrion Bird is killed or discarded by some kind of card effect before the end of the phase.

I want to use Samwell Tarly's ability before the end of the phase, but Carrion Bird is no longer in play.

Does this mean I can't use Samwell Tarly's ability since there is no card currently with the Raven trait and has been played this phase?

Bomb said:

You are talking about my fictitious version of Samwell, right? Because the actual ability of Samwell is a response, so you would have to trigger it right after playing the Raven card, before it had any chance of leaving play again.

Saturnine said:

Correct.  I am just trying to get to the point of understanding what can and cannot be done with trait manipulation and "if this happened this phase you can do this" because the situation is weird to me.

I'm sure you can trigger imaginary Samwell's ability even if the Carrion Bird leaves play. The was a point this phase where you played a Raven card, so the conditions are fulfilled. Take for example if you played Ill Tidings instead. It will still fulfill the "played a Raven card this turn" requirement, and it will definitely not be in play when you trigger the effect.

Your hypothetical is breaking down a bit here because there is a logical difference between "Play only if you have played a Raven character this phase..." and "Response: after a Raven character is played...". It is pretty much the reason you will never see a hypothetical card like the Sam you have proposed here. This kind of condition will only be attached to initiating/winning challenges of a particular type, winning Dominance, or some other framework action, rather than a voluntary/conditional player action.

What you are running into here is the conceptual difference between "if you have done X...," which would look only at the player actions as initiated to see if X did indeed take place (the way that limits look at what has initiated rather than what has resolved) and "Response: after X happens...," which would look at the condition of the play field when the Response is triggered.

That's where the "hypothetical Sam" reasoning breaks down: the difference between triggering an Action and triggering a Response.

 Well, given that this is the way the rules work, you can count me amongst those who think that all "when an X card comes into play" and "when an X card is played" effects should be templated to include the word "printed".