In our group we has an argue about how this card is played during the setup phase of Return to the Midnight Mask scenario.

We played a four players game and during setup we spawned them with one doom Token each. But in the first mithos phase we pulled the Mask of Ummordoth trachery, followed by Masked Horrors, and this treacherys plus the dooms un the cultist and the one in the agenda, made the agenda to flip over during the second round of the game, and that leave us with a bitter taste in our experience of the campaign.

Later we checked the Acolyte wording and was quite different from these replacements. Making us wonder if these enemys maybe dont start the game with a Doom token. Because the forced effect says: "when you spawn..." But in the rules "you" refers to the investigator who drew the card, or the one controlling it.

Can anyone explain how this card actually works in the setup of the scenario?

This card is fine. It's not bad. It's not great.

As has been noted below, it gives many allies an extra use. This is definitely helpful. Of course, then there's also the more obvious utility: 1 extra point of horror and/or damage that you don't have to take.

The cost is 1 resource and 1 card, no action.

The closest equivalent cards are: Dodge and Second Wind.

In some ways, Dodge is better. It costs 1 resources and 1 card, no action. Dodge can let you avoid more damage. Odds are you're more likely to only take advantage of either the 1 extra sanity or health with Trusted, but not both. Dodge let's you avoid a whole attack which can be much more damage.

On the other hand, Dodge only works on enemies, not treacheries. Trusted lets you store damage away from your investigator. In addition, it can make scenario allies more hearty if the scenario tries to kill them (think Adam Lynch.)

Second Wind has a different cost than Trusted: +1 action but -1 card (because you draw to replace it.) It can heal more but it has a very limited play window for best effect. This card is best suited to investigators that take damage regardless of the allies they have. Mark Harrigan and Sophie, I'm looking at you.

This card is well costed and serves a useful niche. It's not bad. It's not game breaking. I'd recommend Trusted in decks that have 6 or more allies. Maybe 4 or more if you include Calling in Favors or if your allies run very useful abilities with a self-damage component, like Aquinnah or Beat Cop.

Why are there no foot slots? Don't give me that "adding slots requires rules updates" because we added Tarot slots. I was hoping we wouldn't have any examples of incredibly awkward formatting like this, but here we are.

As for this card it's 3 resources for a permanent stat boost, which is fine. What's good about the reaction is that it doesn't care how many enemies are at your destination, or how hard they would be to evade legitimately, you are probably testing +2 to leave them behind.

It's always nice to have stat boosts that aren't in the already hotly contested ally slot.

Not very impressed with this card for Preston right now. It does not count the resources on Family Inheritance and requires taking an action to get them in his legit resource pool and I just don't want to spend the extra actions when I could use those resources on a stat pump or use skill cards instead.

This card is a no-brainer for Marie Lambeau. Totally worth the 3 xp.

Need to boost your Willpower 3 times during the same round? Done. Then because you have doom on a card you control (Blood Pact), you have a free action to cast the Moonlight Ritual spell and clear all these gloomy tokens. Don't have Moonlight Ritual? Then maybe you have her Mystifying Song to delay the agenda to advance, giving you another round of crazy Willpower.

Because it's a permanent card, you can practically make sure to trigger Marie's special ability on round 1 of a scenario instead of waiting for an Arcane Initiate or David Renfield to show up.

That said, not much use of the Fight bonus unless you build her with a few Survivor cards like Fire Axe and Fight or Flight.