They only don’t cost actions if you click them when you have 0 actions available. Otherwise, they cost actions as normal. But the stories on red-bordered cards occur without giving you any chance to back out via “Perhaps Not,” so this makes sense.
Strange, I always thought that this would just set the Action Counter to -1 internally, because I think I remember doing this and not getting a new action after ten minutes.
They don’t cost an action, but they used to reset the timer. So, if you were on zero actions but had only a minute until your next action, clicking a red-bordered card would cause your timer to be set to -10 minutes, which was almost the same as costing an action. What’s presently being celebrated is the change away from this, as now the timer remains the same even if you click a red-bordered card.
Duke, I known your niche pain! I am also glad to be able to play red cards without obsessing over the timer being as near to 10 minutes as possible. Sweet relief. :P