The reason this doesn’t work:

char = {[contestant.consumableList]|[host.consumableList]}

Is because you’re essentially defining a “list” where [contestant.consumableList] or [host.consumableList] will be randomly chosen every time you write [char]. So, to be clear, you’re basically creating a fresh consumable list every time you write [char].

This is unfortunately a bit confusing for newbies - it’s a common misunderstanding.

What you probably want is something like this:

output
  [makeChar] ..........

makeChar
  [char = contestant.consumableList, ""]
  [char = host.consumableList, ""]

So, at the start of your ‘output’ you ‘execute’ the makeChar which creates the char variable for you based on a random choice between those two makeChar items.

Hopefully that helps!