Due to the number of increasingly complex rules questions popping up on the forums lately, I broke down and emailed Damon a list of questions to help resolve some of these issues. Here's the reply I received:

1) THE DOORWAY

Q: When can this card be triggered? This card doesn't have any trigger requirements, so can you exhaust it and return a character to your hand at any time?

A: Not precisely. It can be triggered anytime a disrupt can be triggered, that would be as any action, player or framework, is initiated, but before it resolves. Check the timing structure in the FAQ.

Q: Can I trigger The Doorway to return a character to my hand that was chosen to receive a wound from a lost combat struggle, and therefore avoid taking the wound? If I do this, must I assign the combat struggle's wound to another character I control, or has the wound been avoided/negated?

A: From the FAQ:

1. Framework Action is initiated.
2. Disrupts
3. Framework Action is executed.

The combat struggle resolution is a framework action, the character is chosen to be wounded at the point of initiation, The Doorway can be triggered, and then the framework action is executed. The character is no longer in play so cannot have the wound token actually placed on it. Because the designation of the character to be wounded happens at the point of initiation a new target cannot be chosen since that moment has already passed. This is precisely the same timing for canceling a wound with a disrupt effect during the combat struggle.

Q: Can I trigger the Doorway to return a character to my hand that was chosen to receive a wound from Khopesh of the Abyss? If I do this, does the character attached to Khopesh still take a wound or is the effect canceled entirely?

A: From the FAQ:

1. Action is initiated.
2. Disrupts
3. Action is executed.

Just like in the combat struggle resolution, the Khopesh of the Abyss effect is divided into two separate pieces, the initiation and the execution. In between these is a disrupt window where either character that is designated by the effect to be wounded could have that wound canceled or some other form of disrupt that keeps the wound from being placed on the character. This is again where The Doorway and any form of wound cancel would be triggered and resolved before the Khopesh's ability is executed. Because the effect removes the target from play (or in the case of a wound being canceled) but does not cancel the effect itself (just prevents the wound from being placed) the effect finishes resolving, in this case on the attached character.

It is worth noting that Invulnerability prevents the effect from even being triggered since it is illegal for any card to wound in any fashion a card with the Invulnerability keyword. Canceling the wound is not canceling the card's effect.

STAY TUNED!  More questions and answers to come…

2) LABORING GUG

Q:  Can cards leaving play that have a Response respond to more than 1 trigger, or do they only receive 1 response option before entering the discard pile? For example, what happens when Laboring Gug is targeted by Short Fuse?

A:  There is no interaction at all if Laboring Gug cannot survive the wounds from Short Fuse. Cards can only respond "on their way out" if the card specifically states in a self-referential manner, that it triggers if the card leaves play. If Laboring Gug had a toughness of 7 it could respond to each wound from Short Fuse, as each wound would open up a response opportunity. If it said instead, "Response: After Laboring Gug receives 1 or more wounds, draw 1 card" It could only respond to each effect that caused it to be wounded, rather than the wounds themselves.

3) PERFORMANCE ARTIST

Q:  Can I sacrifice Performance Artist to cancel Chess Prodigy's ability (or other passive abilities)? What about cards that aren't in play, such as Rampaging Dark Young's ability?

A:  No to Chess Prodigy and to Dark Young. They both have text that has a point of initiation which as the FAQ shows is followed immediately by a disrupt window and then followed by an execution of the effect (regardless of whether it is triggered or passive).

The difference is Chess Prodigy's character ability is a passive effect and passive effects cannot be canceled and Rampaging Dark Young's text can only be triggered after it is placed in the discard pile (versus when it leaves play) so it's a card effect not a character ability in game terms. It is a rather fine point, so I understand the confusion. I'd simplify it if I could, but it is part of the base rules of the game.

This next question is from a situation that came up in one of our "Cthulhu is Calling" events. I ruled that Repo Man's passive ability can't be turned off - allowing a player to revert back to the normal combat struggle effects - and that is indeed correct.

4) REPO MAN

Q:  What happens when I win a combat struggle where Repo Man is committed, but my opponent doesn't control any support cards? Can I decide not to use Repo Man's passive ability to resolve the combat struggle normally?

A:  No. It is not an optional effect nor a triggered effect, it is a passive replacement effect.

5) UNDERGROUND ASYLUM

Q:  Does this only protect against card effects that drive a character insane, or does it also protect against game effects (e.g. the terror struggle)?

A:  Underground Asylum does work when a player loses a terror struggle.

The question/answer in the FAQ is not written clearly enough to realize this, it seeks to provide a general distinction and then refers the player to the specific rules and definition section of the FAQ.

It is important to note the questions at the end of the FAQ are not rules themselves, but attempts at explaining how the previous sections of the FAQ which are rules would be applied. If there is a conflict between the two sections, the rules section takes precedence. In regard to this specific answer it would read better as the following:

"The word effect refers to different things depending on the context. Game effects are when the game rules cause something to happen. Card effects are when the text on a card causes something to happen. Generically, when a card text, refers to an unspecified effect it is referring to a card effect. When it is specific it refers to any effect that meets that qualification. (see Card Effect vs. Game Effect, FAQ)"

You can see how Underground Asylum refers to a specific effect, that which makes a character insane, and not an unspecified effect such as Arcane Tampering (Ancient Relics F64) "Response: After a character exhausts to trigger or pay the cost of an effect…"

 Thanks for answers .  I have to say these are good answers ad make sense for me. Just surprised of that Khopesh wielder takes the wound if the Doorway is used but I feel this makes sense too.

 Sweet, I think I called them all right except for the Underground Asylum… and I had no idea how to handle that one, but his ruling makes perfect sense once it was layed out that way. I like that he admitted that the wording in the FAQ was unclear. Rare to hear someone admit to making mistakes or being less than perfect in the corporate world.

Thanks for asking the questions Yipe.

Thanks for getting these answers, Yipe!

Some comments:

Answer 1) I'm a bit surprised about how The Doorway interacts with the Khopesh but I understand the reasoning. I still don't like that The Doorway doesn't specify a trigger because I'm sure if that card should ever show up in a tournament game it will cause lots of discussions followed by a time-consuming attempt to figure out if it can or cannot be played according to the timing structure. The card is destined to cause wrong judge calls - I'm already looking forward to it!

Answers 2) & 4) are fine and what I'd expected.

Answer 5) is also fine and I'm particularly glad about the (minor) revision of the FAQ text.

The part of answer 3) referring to the Rampaging Dark One, however, simply blows my mind. Of course it means that Surreal was right about the distinction between card effects and character abilities. However, searching the current FAQ for the word 'Ability' turns up several instances where the term is used incorrectly:

• page 4/5: Working Effects (The Thing Behind You)
• page 5: Card states
• page 6: Put into Play vs. Play vs. Enters Play (The Terror of the Tides)
• page 12: Dreamlands Fanatic

This is just sloppy.

I'm pretty sure this will also trigger a couple of new questions that now require an official response.

jhaelen said:

Damon answered my questions almost immediately (especially considering I sent him a fair amount to sift through), so I wouldn't hesitate to email him with any follow-up clarifications.

There's still a long, unanswered discussion going on about Expendable Muscle.  I simply forgot to include it in my laundry list, but I'll probably email him that question later today or tomorrow and update this thread with his response.

Glad I could be of help resolving some of these issues.  I mainly did it to make things easier on me and the other judges for our upcoming regional.  It is a daunting task to judge an official event for the first time.

jhaelen said:

I didn't realize there are so many wrong uses of ability in the FAQ. I don't think I have anymore questions about abilities but there still might be some. It is quite clear now that ability is only a triggered effect coming from a card in play and that card has to be in play when that effect triggers. Totally different thing is why there even needs to be an ability. Why just not to say that triggered ability = triggered effect and triggered effect = triggered ability always. Would clearer and only 3-4 cards would be slightly affected.

But I am still wondering about Underground Asylum. It says to cancel the effect. Lets I have Underground Asylum and two characters and opponent plays Lost to the Madness. I use Underground Asylum for one character to cancel the effect. Does the effect mean that whole card effect is cancelled or just effect on character I targeted with Underground Asylum is cancelled. But I will ask these questions later and couple more when have more time.

Surreal said:

I've just searched for a few cards that might be affected by this ruling, here's two examples I found:

Dreamlands Messenger
[Shub-Niggurath] Spawn of Madness F13 / Illustrator: Anders Finer
[Character] - Servitor.
Cost : 3 / Skill : 2 / Icons: T
Game Text: While Dreamlands Messenger is committed to a story, each player cannot play events or trigger card abilities.

Since it refers to card abilities rather than card effects this would e.g. not prevent the following effect from working:

Living Mummy
[Yog-Sothoth] Core Set F104 / Illustrator: Matt Dixon
[Character] - Monster.
Cost : 4 / Skill : 4 / Icons: CCA
Game Text: Forced Response: After Living Mummy enters your discard pile from play, wound all characters.
Flavor text: The book had warned of this, mused Vaughn. He had succeeded in raising nothing but the liveliest awfulness.

Likewise

Eye of the Deep
[Cthulhu] The Path to Y'ha-nthlei F108 / Illustrator: J.P. Targete
[Event] -
Cost : 3
Game Text: Action: Choose every character in play with printed skill 3 or lower. Those characters are considered 1 skill characters with no abilities and CCA until the end of the phase.

While the characters would lose any abilities, they'd keep 'card effects' like the Living Mummy's.

This is really quite interesting and will definitely affect my choice of cards for my next tournament deck!

@Yipe: I just sent three rules questions to Damon (well actually it was five questions ). I'll post the answers in case they reveal anything new or surprising.

jhaelen said:

@Yipe: I just sent three rules questions to Damon (well actually it was five questions ). I'll post the answers in case they reveal anything new or surprising.

Please do.  I think it helps to get out as much info to the general community as possible.

I am confused how Dreamlands Messneger works, a clarification on what it exactly prevents would be great.  I'm still not sure if Forced Responses would trigger. 

I had a comment about some card in the latest AP that my wife and I had a disagreement on. I'll let you know when I get back home and look at the cards again, and we'll have it out on the forums until one of us asks Damon

One of the answers I received my be of interest to others, so here it goes:

Museum Curator
[Miskatonic University] The Wailer Below F70 / Illustrator: Tom Garden
[Character] - Faculty.
Cost : 2 / Skill : 2 / Icons: A
Game Text: Response: After Museum Curator enters play, search the top 5 cards of your deck for a support card and put it into play. Put the rest of the cards on the bottom of your deck.

Q) What happens if the only support card among the five searched cards is one that is (usually) attached to an opponent's character, but currently none are in play? E.g. Called By Azathoth or even stranger Infernal Obession?

A) The player must put the card into play (even if it means it is discarded. Not finding a card that is present is not a legal option. This is where good sportsmanship comes into play. If a player does not trust their opponent they should call a TO over to ensure that no cards meeting the criteria is present. I will include this in the tournament rules during their next update so every player knows that calling a TO over is something they can choose to do and that pretending not to find a support card when the effect would otherwise for you to put one into play is violation of the rules.

This is an interesting answer, because there are several other similar situations that might come up in a game.

The following question was raised in the Deck Construction sub-forum.  I'm answering it here (and there) to get the conversation back to its proper place.

RE: EXPENDABLE MUSCLE

Q:  What happens when Expendable Muscle and another friendly character are committed to a story where all characters are wounded simultaneously (e.g. through Feeding Frenzy, Dynamite or Ravager of the Deep)?

A:  Expendable Muscle becomes an attachment that grants +1 Toughness to any character you control after it would receive the wound. Since all the other characters at that story have been wounded at the same time Expendable Muscle becomes an attachment unless they have Toughness already they will be destroyed and will not be legal targets to receive him as an attachment. If you would like I can show how this works in the Timing chart.