When Infernal Obsession is discarded from play and the character in question reverts back to its original owner, what happens if that character was already committed to a story this phase (by your opponent)? Does it remain exhausted? Is it still committed to the same story but is now under your control? Or is it uncommitted and unexhaused, and can commit to a different story altogether (which seems unlikely)?

This card is getting a lot of play in our group, so I wanted to be clear about what happens when IO is destroyed as this situation is bound to arise.

Finally, my apologies if this has been asked previously, but after a search of these forums I couldn't find the answer.

Hmm... I read in the FAQ that anytime you gain control of a character already committed to a story, that character is uncommitted from the story. Above that paragraph it states that when you gain control of a character, its state doesn't change. This would seem to suggest that regaining control of a character committed to a story by your opponent would mean the character is uncommitted but still remains exhausted.

Does that sound right?

This came up in Worlds this year. It was ruled that there is nothing that uncommits the character - only control changes. So the character stays committed to a story, just changes control/ownership back to the original player.

It sounds like something that is slated for change and the FAQ has not caught up... Where is my FAQ?

Ya, it was ruled incorrectly at Worlds. Luckily it didn't cost me the game! Hergl was banking on that move... I would've been pissed!

However, I'm a fan if the rule changes to what was ruled at worlds. Seems better to me.

Magnus Arcanis said:

So the ruling at Worlds is not binding? Because it is not in the FAQ?

TheProfessor said:

Basically.

Damon simply made a mistake. The game is ruled by the FAQ and the rulebook. Judges only hand down rulings if neither of those two sources cover the problem. Otherwise you have to go with what is printed. Fortuneately... it didn't matter. This time. It has in the past for me... dark times those were.

Gonna point out though, not mad at Damon. He is human after all and it didn't matter. But just because one person says something doesn't make it binding until its in print for all to follow. We use Damon's (and other related CoC related people) rulings for when we have no reference sure, but if no one thinks to look at the forums or asks in real time its up to the local judge.

Judges don't always see eye to eye. Speaking as someone who's played in nurmerous tournaments at various different places, unless theres something officially printed one ruling given won't always be ruled the same way.

So in long. Just because it was ruled certain way at one place doesn't make it a rule until its in print or otherwise officially declared/socially accepted.

A tournament ruling is usually forced to be made in a hurry too. The judge doesn't have time to carefully think over all the implications, go through all related rules for consistency or unexpected secondary effects of their ruling, etc... They're under pressure to rule quickly so the game can proceed.

I don't blame them at all that sometimes the ruling turns out different than perhaps it should have been. I've been on that side of things myself in other games.

On a related topic I've been wondering what happens if take control of a committed character that is suffering from an Unhealthy Fixation changes, e.g. by attaching Infernal Obsession. Here's the relevant card texts:

Unhealthy Fixation :

Attach to a character.
Attached character cannot uncommit from a story until that story is won.

Infernal Obsession :

Attach to a non-Ancient One character. While attached, you gain control of attached character. (If control changes again, discard Infernal Obsession from play.

Since 'cannot' overrules everything else, I assume that while control changes, the character doesn't uncommit, correct?

Correct.

Or, since taking control requires the character to uncommit, and the character cannot uncommit, is it possible that the actual ruling would be you can't use Infernal Obsession on a character that can't uncommit from a story?

Hmm, this would be really interesting to know, especially considering we'll soon get 'Voice of the Jungle' ( www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/coc/news/ancient-relics/the-breathing-jungle/voice-of-the-jungle.png ) which is a cheaper, more expansive way of preventing characters from uncommitting.