Yesterday, I had the great displeasure of running up against the O’Bannon Inner Council with five criminal henchmen at his side. And without any other counters (to a skill 7 character that invalidates the icons of any with less skill than him) in hand at the pivotal point in the game, this question became the determinator of which player would win the last story:

When Maureen de Garmeaux copies another character’s skill, does she copy the printed skill, or the actual skill?

Her text reads neither “printed skill” nor “current skill”, etc, just “Maureen de Garmeaux gains the skill, icons, and text box of that character until the end of the phase.”

Since this is the standard of most card games, I assume it is only the printed skill which is cloned (and has thus resigned my self to the loss of an epic game ), but I would certainly not be surprised if it is the other way around. CoC has surprised me before with dynamic implementations of classic mechanics.

Sounds like a cracking game!

If an effect doesn't specify "printed" then it means 'actual' (skill), so Maureen de Garmeaux would add the 7 skill of O'Bannion's Inner Council. The FAQ describes the special case when it does say "printed":

(2.26) Printed

Any reference made to “printed” be it icons, skill, cost, title, subtype etc, only refers to the referenced item physically printed on the card itself. . When a card is in play all references to printed refer only to what is printed on the face up side of the card.

Further for the reference of others...

Maureen de Garmeaux (Revelations F67) reads:

Action: Pay 3 to choose a non-Ancient One character. Maureen de Garmeaux gains the skill, icons, and text box of that character until the end of the phase. If Maureen de Garmeaux is still in play at the end of the phase, she goes insane.

O'Bannion's Inner Council (Denizens of the Underworld F3) reads:

O'Bannion's Inner Council gains +1 skill for each Criminal character you control.

Characters with lower skill than O'Bannion's Inner Council committed to the same story do not count their icons at that story.