[Fairytale Gloom] Some clarifications

So just got Fairytale Gloom and love it, though it was a bit tricky to get ahold of in the UK. Anyway I was hoping for some clarifications...

The modifier "Was Surprised By A Spider" - "Discard 1 card from your hand for each bat icon in your family, including this one." Sounds fairly straight forward, however this is an ongoing effect. Was this possibly be a typo, or should players discard a bat card each time one is played on the character, or should they discard a number of cards equal to the bat symbols every turn?

If this is the latter, when in their turn should they discard the cards? - and is it only in their turn they discard (as in if you have an ongoing/persistent effect that didn't allow you to play events, that does apply in other people's turns as you can't play response events, so although it sounds weird to discard every players' turn with this card given that example it might also seem like a confusing double standard)? There just isn't a great deal of detail on this card about what makes its effect ongoing and when they should be prompted to take action, reading much more like instant card instead. We're currently playing it as you discard persistently on your own turn, discarding a number of cards equal to the number of bat symbols you have.

The story "Rumpelstiltskin" - "Family must have two skull icons. Worth -10 points. When anyone plays a Modifier card with the star icon, you may randomly discard a card from their hand." Right so it says when "anyone" plays a star icon card, but then it goes on to say "you" may discard a card from "their" hand making it sound like discards only happen when someone else (not anyone, which includes you) plays on of those cards. Can you discard a card from your own hand when you play one with the star icon, or not?

The persistent modifier "Came Into A Crown" - "You may ignore any effect that forces you to discard cards." As it doesn't specify this cards in your hand, does this include cards like the event "True Love's Kiss", where unhappy endings are cancelled and discarded? If so, would the cancelled unhappy ending (or there's that one that does it with events) just cause the card in question to be returned to your hand so you can use if for later? Does it also extend to modifiers and events that make you discard modifiers on a characters too?

As further weird interactions with "True Love's Kiss" is if hypothetically "Came Into A Crown" does allow you to return an unhappy ending to your hand - what happens if I play the unhappy ending in question onto the "Came Into A Crown" character who has accrued enough negative modifiers (an example which came up in our game), does the unhappy ending essentially land first to cancel the effect of the persistent effect allowing the unhappy ending to be discarded or is the unhappy ending returned to your hand. The response effect of "True Love's Kiss" says that it happens to an unhappy ending "as it's played", however the rules say an unhappy ending is "played on" a character - implying that it's not until the unhappy ending has been played that it is on the character and so the persistent effect would still apply as "True Love's Kiss" only occurs during the action of playing.

Lastly, the instant action of "True Love's Kiss" allows you to "remove and discard" unhappy endings from characters and discard them. If "Came Into A Crown" only prevents a card from being discarded, where is it removed to? If it's from the game, the same negative effect has been accomplished on the opposing player anyway.

Apologies if this was pretty semantics heavy, but these cards do feel like they are worded in such a way that they are open for a lot of interpretation.

Hey JJ!

I'm sending these along to Keith and we'll hopefully have some answers for you in the near future. Thanks for your exhaustive questions!

Answers straight from Keith!

The modifier "Was Surprised By A Spider" - "Discard 1 card from your hand for each bat icon in your family, including this one." Sounds fairly straight forward, however this is an ongoing effect. Was this possibly be a typo, or should players discard a bat card each time one is played on the character, or should they discard a number of cards equal to the bat symbols every turn?

This is a typo. It should be an instant effect.

The story "Rumpelstiltskin" - "Family must have two skull icons. Worth -10 points. When anyone plays a Modifier card with the star icon, you may randomly discard a card from their hand." Right so it says when "anyone" plays a star icon card, but then it goes on to say "you" may discard a card from "their" hand making it sound like discards only happen when someone else (not anyone, which includes you) plays on of those cards. Can you discard a card from your own hand when you play one with the star icon, or not?

If you control Rumpelstiltskin, you may randomly discard a card from the hand of anyone who plays a Modifier with the magic icon. This includes yourself, but the key word is "may." It's an optional effect. If you want to discard a card when you play a magic Modifier you can, or you can ignore the ability. If you do want to discard, remember that it's a random card!

The persistent modifier "Came Into A Crown" - "You may ignore any effect that forces you to discard cards." As it doesn't specify this cards in your hand, does this include cards like the event "True Love's Kiss", where unhappy endings are cancelled and discarded?

This should say "discard cards from your hand", and should be treated as having that text. So it doesn't affect cards such as True Love's Kiss or card effects that discard modifiers on a character.

Thanks for the speedy responses, it really clears things up. You're awesome!