Token replacement for viewfield argument does not work

I enter [nid] into the argument field

I see this in my template

$node->field_event_rsvps (array)

$node->field_event_rsvps[0] (array)

$node->field_event_rsvps[0]['vname']
event_RSVPs
$node->field_event_rsvps[0]['vargs']
[nid]
$node->field_event_rsvps[0]['default'] (boolean)
TRUE
$node->field_event_rsvps[0]['view']

instead of returning a list it returns the empty string. but the url/nid returns the proper value.

If I do not enter anything in for the argument field, then i get all the signups per the output of the view without an argument.

What am I doing wrong?

Chris