The Ward is played in the moment (rules rev 31)

'When a player picks up one of your treasures, you may play at that
time (out of turn) this card on him' — the owner read the card and is
right: no arming ahead. When a treasure whose owner holds WARD is
grabbed, the grab hangs (new wardPending phase, outranking all other
input) and the owner alone answers: spring it (3 damage, card spent)
or let them go (card kept, silence). Automatons always spring it on a
thief of their gold. The arming mechanic is refused at rev 31 and its
button hidden; rev 3-30 games keep their armed wards and rev 1-2 keep
the automatic spring, replaying unchanged. The window does reveal that
the owner holds SOMETHING - as it would at any real table when the
room turns to look at them.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_0138A8CjeQRpvzKxuMfz1Bqc

packages/server/src/rooms.ts

@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ export interface Room {
 const rooms = new Map<string, Room>();
 
 /** Rules revision new games are dealt under (stored games keep their own). */
-const RULES_REV = 30;
+const RULES_REV = 31;
 
 const ROOM_CODE_ALPHABET = "ABCDEFGHJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ23456789";
 
@@ -275,6 +275,7 @@ function actingSeat(room: Room): PlayerId | null {
   const s = room.state;
   if (!s || s.phase !== "playing") return null;
   return (
+    s.wardPending?.ownerId ??
     s.stack?.waitingOn ??
     s.pendingDiscard ??
     s.chaosPending?.queue[0] ??