If Chrono-Ranger plays Ranger's Mark to put a bounty into play, but no legal targets for that bounty to be put next to exist, can the bounty still be in play with no target, adding to the damage of the Masadah and so forth?
I would say yes. I would even allow playing the bounty directly.
Of course this is currently only possible against Miss Information, unless I'm missing something.
A bounty needs to go on a target, if no legal targets exist then it can't be played.
You couldn't play Wrest the Mind (or any targetted ongoing) on nothing, why would a bounty be any different?
I'll admit that playing the bounty (or wrest the mind) normally without a legal target is a bit iffy. But if something puts it into play or forces it to be played, what would you do? Is it destroyed, simply leave play, never enter play? To me it seems reasonable to just leave it in play without an assigned target. Particularly with Ultimate Target which is already allowed to stay in play without a target.
(Though only if there is no valid target. If a valid target exists, then the card must be assigned to one.)
It does not enter play, just the same as if a card says you can hit 3 targets and only 2 are in play you only hit 2.
Fulfil as many conditions on the card as you can, don't do the ones you can't.
I can see the logic in the bounty or Wrest the Mind staying in play without a target if an external cause like a villain or environment card forces you to play them, but Ranger's Mark is a hero card that you choose to play. And rules with those cards you'd have to apply with other cards as well. I really don't think you should be able to play cards like No Executions or Mutiny and just be able to wait for targets to appear. That seems a bit mechanically and thematically unstable to me.
Do Ammo cards not enter play if there is no Gun card in play with Expatriette?
No, they have a restriction on them
"Play this card next to a gun card"
No gun card=no ammo card
Well I still think the simplest solution is to just let these cards (bounties, wrest the mind, ammo) sit in play with no target.
But I just wanted to add that I was missing something on the bounties. "No Executions" requires a non-character target, meaning that for that one it is more than just a Miss Information corner case.
Source? I see nothing in the rules saying that those cards can't sit on the table just like non-targeted Ongoings; they just won't do anything. (404: Victim Not Found)
You are missing something. Several bounties including No Executions cannot be played on a character card.
I was never suggesting that; my thought was that you could put the Bounty into play, but it would do nothing until it left play and returned again, at which point you would again try to find a target to assign it to. Think of it this way - if we hypothetically say that there was a card similar to Ranger's Mark that worked on a One-Shot, and you used it to put out a One-Shot which said "Deal 1 damage to a non-hero target", and you were fighting Miss Info so there wasn't a non-hero target in play, should that mean you're not allowed to play the not-Ranger's-Mark card? I don't see why. You could play the damaging one-shot normally, and it just wouldn't do anything. Targeting for Bounties, or even putting out Ammo, should be no different as far as I can tell. If you can't fulfill their conditions, they aren't useful, but they can be played just to get them out of your hand, or for the sake of count-me effects such as The Masadah. That's my attitude about it.
Source- the cards themselves.
The cardinal rule of Sentinels is do what it says on the card, do not read anything into the card. Can you play this card next to a non-hero card target? No? Then don't put it into play.
Thematically, it makes no sense for a bounty to exist if it isn't placed on someone/something. It's like saying, "If you kill *nothing* and bring it back alive, we'll pay you a reward of $100."
It doesn't say "this card can't be played unless you can find something to play it next to", though. You can't start to follow the instructions on the card until you play the card…therefore, you play the card, then you stick it next to something, and it has an effect relative to the thing it's next to. If you can't stick it next to something, then most of its text is ineffective (Dead or Alive would still cause CR to gain 1 HP per round even with no target, that's about the most "broken" interaction I can see coming out of this assumption of mine). But it doesn't magically put itself back in your hand because you failed to find a target for it…any mechanism of putting it into play ought to be effective, if generally irrelevant, whether its "mate" can be found or not.
But the rewards (cards drawn for Kill on Sight, another target killed by The Whole Gang) depend on the bounty's target, not its existence. You can legitimately say "If you kill the man who isn't there, I'll pay you $0", and it's a valid bargain - there's no reward because no task completion, but the "contract" is still a gramatically correct sentence, and you're completely within your rights to agree to it and then go on about your day. Therefore, having a bounty in play with no target (which we already know is possible due to The Ultimate Target) means that CR is pursuing some vague, nonspecific goal with no particular reward or endpoint…it still leaves him with more of a sense of direction than if he had no bounty at all, and so it powers up the Masadah and Danny Boy and Hunter & Hunted, despite the fact that he has no specific creature he's attempting to kill - he's still a man on a mission, just one with no defined parameters and no particular endpoint.
To say that you can't put a bounty in play if there is no target puts a precedent that you can't play a card if its text is unable to be fulfilled. The Bounty does not say this card must be played next to a target, it just says to put it next to a target. If you didn't the card would simply sit there and have no effect other than being in play.
Can you play Tachyon's destruction card (name excapes me) if there are no cards to destroy? Can you play a one-shot that only deals damage if you cannot deal damage?
Obviously there are cards that have optional text, but ones that don't, do you have to be able to fulfil the text to play the card.
A very good question.
I could see there being a case made for playing cards like bounties without targets if you're being forced to play them from either the environment or villain decks, but I don't think the player should get the choice of playing those cards if there is no valid target in play.
I will say this. IF you are indeed able to play bounties without a legal target (btw how would there never be a legal target? You always have a villain character card), it would stay in play and not be able to re attach to a target later.
My question is, when could you ever play a bounty with no legal target to attach it?
Edit: Miss Info. Right. Missed that. Carry on
"No Executions" is restricted to a non-character target, so that is always a possibility. The rest to non-hero targets, which is only possible against Miss Information.
I think playing a bounty without a legal target goes against the intent of the card. Considering the specific instruction to "play on a non-character target", that seems like a reasonable assumption.
Just because a card is put into play doesn’t mean it has to stay inplay against its conditions. You cannot Timeshift a second limited card and keep both in play.
Yes, but to handle cases like that we were given specific rules on what happens. (The second limited card does not enter play and is discarded instead). So are you thinking these cards end up discarded?