booored said:

From the FAQ:

(1.23) Attachments
Any card that attaches to another card is treated as an Attachment in addition to its other card types.

booored said:

If the attack is undefended, then I completely agree with you because that falls in line exactly with the condition of the shadow effect.  However, I completely disagree when the Condition Attachment is attached to the defending character and this shadow effect is revealed.  It makes no mention of the need to control the attachment you choose to discard.  You should not read past that part of the effect's text because you do not meet the conditional requirement to trigger the undefended portion.

I don't think it's right to dismiss any debate on this subject without a pointer to the ruling.

If the effect said "Discard a Lore character from play (If this attack is undefended, discard a Leadership character from play).", we wouldn't discard a Leadership character from play if the attack is defended, right?

I have no issue with there being a preexisting ruling made from the game designer, but in this case I think the text is clear enough that it would be unnecessary.  Normally, undefended shadow effects are supposed to be a lot stronger, so in this case it is even worse when undefended.

 If there truly is a ruling by Nate on this very subject...it only heightens once again the need for a clarified rulebook...

 I'm aware of no such ruling, and after searching these forums and the BGG forums, I can't find reference to it.  (Not that the search function here is anything to be confident in...)  But If the attack is defended, Driven by Shadow does not specify that you need to control the attachment you're discarding, so you can discard any attachment, even Caught in a Web (since once it attaches to a character, it is an attachment.)  If the attack is undefended, Caught in a Web stays.

Your probably looking for the wrong thing, the ruling wasn't on condition attachments but on how card costs and conditions are met. The condition attachment may be on your card but you do not control it, it is still part of the encounter deck. It is just cast on you. You can not sac it as a cost payment, anymore than you can use any encounter card for any other function. This is highlighted with the keyword "condition attachment" to separate it, but it is the global rule about how card costs work that dictates that this can not be sacked.

I don't understand what you mean by card costs.

radiskull said:

It still doesn't make sense that a card named "Driven by Shadow" frees one of your heroes out of a spider web. It just doesn't make sense. And I need no BGG forum to know that.

Imagine everyone is looking for missing Frodo, and then he shows up and everybody is puzzled how the hell he made it out of that trap, and he says: "Guys, you won't believe what happened, but just as the spider wanted to eat me and my second breakfast, a drug driven Orc junkie came along and slew that beast with his bare hands. He must have been driven by a shadow!" Everyone nods in agreement.

And no one would ask him if he controlled that web.

though my memory be crap im siding with booored- i remember this coming up but it was several months ago, infact could have been last year- so dont ask me for links :P

and i also agree with leptokurt- doesnt make any sense thematically

Infact reading the card i read it like the words controlled were missed out on the first text, it seems to read that the 2nd shadow part is a follow up of the first

richsabre said:

Maybe not, but there are a number of encounter card interactions that happen to prove "beneficial," even though the cards themselves appear designed to hinder the players. Freezing Cold can prevent a character like Glorfindel from becoming committed to a potentially fatal Avalanche!-induced quest to complete Stage 2B of The Redhorn Gate. When Many Roads shuffles locations back into the encounter deck, it minimizes Cave Torch's drawback. As much as I enjoy thematic consistency, the rules don't always conform to how card effects "should" play out. 

Personally, I'd be all for an errata to add a control requirement to Driven by Shadow. Unless that happens, or unless someone can produce an official ruling from Nate, the wording is pretty clear. But I don't see a big problem with playing it your way, since you'll only be making things more difficult. If that keeps your conscience clear, so be it--it's the opposite of gaining an unfair advantage. 

Basically, if you want to hamstring yourself, feel free But the text doesn't obligate you to do so.

noted- im not so much trying to be right here- im just trying to satisfy my own curiosity- i could have sworn that there was an official ruling, i just cant remember when..............

richsabre said:

You'd think that if it was as long ago as you say, that it would be addressed in the FAQ today.  I think that is what is hanging most of us up on following the text literally.  I mean, the effect makes perfect sense as it is.  The undefended portion is just that much more harsh.

starhawk77 said:

well the thing is that YOU are playing incorrectly and YOU are making it EASIER for yourself. ... now on the surface I do not care about this.. I have said many times that as this game is not pvp it is all about player experience.. make up w/e the fuck rules you like... Just know there is 2 things happening here.. 1 you are invalidating all your scores, on this quest and most likely others.. and this is one of the reasons we will never see a torny play system and as much as I admire Juice all this stats and scores are meaningless... as everyone is playing incorrectly, due to no one getting check by there assonants in a competitive environment. Still. this is only the most minor of results.

The real problem here and what i am concerned for you about is that you are failing to understand a basic "supporting structure" of the game so to speak. What I mean is that the game has some basic core rules that everything is built off. The reason you can not sack a condition attachment is from one of these core conceptual rules. So you will make similar mistakes all the time for as long as you play. The card text doesn't specify condition attachments as the core rule dictates what cards you can sac already. The attachment type is just a reminder of this....

It has been said so many time... you can not satisfy the cost of a card or the effect of a card though the payment of a card you do not control. This card is cast on you by the encounter deck, you can not choose to discard it as there is never a choice on your part.. it is not your card to go.. "yeah I choose that". As you need to satisfy the cost of the shadow effect from your own card pool. Ask Nate if you do not belive me... as rich said this came up when teh game 1st came out and there was a ruling about how card payments function.

Edit... Found the ruling.... from the FAQ

(1.06) Control of Non-objective Encounter Cards Players do not gain control of encounter cards unless control of the card is explicitly granted by a card effect. When an encounter card (such as Caught in a Web, CORE 86) becomes an attachment and attaches to a character, that character’s controller does not gain
control of the attachment.

booored said:

That doesn't matter. Driven by Shadow does not require that you control the attachment. Like I have said approximately ten million times now, Nate may issue an errata/ruling that the card functions as you have suggested. But that would be a change or a clarification: the card as written and the body of rules we currently have mean Driven by Shadow CAN discard Caught in a Web.

As for the argument about paying costs, let's look at the actual rule book text (p. 25):

Paying Costs
Many cards are written in a “pay or exhaust X to do Y” manner. When confronted with such a construct, everything before the word “to” is considered the cost,
and everything after the word “to” is considered an effect. Costs can only be payed with cards or resources that a player controls. If an effect is canceled, the cost is still considered to have been paid.reset back into the encounter deck.

If Driven by Shadow said something like, "Discard an attachment to cancel this effect," that would fall under this section, since that fits the clearly defined formula of paying costs. You could not discard Caught in a Web to pay that cost, since you don't control the treachery attachment (per the FAQ ruling you yourself cited). DbS doesn't say anything of the sort. There is no cost being paid. There is simply an effect. 

In short, I still see no evidence that suggests Caught in a Web is immune. I appreciate your concern for my invalidated scores, but I'll bet on my interpretation of core rules principles and take my chances. 

Look, we all know that the wording in this game is often less than ideal. This may be one of those cases where Nate intended for a card to function a certain way, but where the execution of the text muddled the original meaning. That's fine, and I'll acknowledge it if I see proof. Short of that, though, there is no reason to assume DbS works in the way you have posited.

exactly... . you are simply failing to understand some basic core concepts on how the game is played...

So are a lot of other people, apparently. Those of us who play the cards using, you know, the text on the cards. 

I'm going to stop feeding you now, since I don't have radiskull's patience. You've made your case, and I've made mine. The debate is there for players to consider and decide for themselves until such time as someone produces an actual ruling from Nate. I don't think one is even necessary, since the resolution seems clear, but that might be the only way to get clarification here.