Can Maester's Path still put chains on a character with the printed maester trait if it has milk of the poppy attached?

Yeah it says treat everything blank except for traits. So it still has the maester trait.

On a related note, if a printed Maester loses the Maester trait(via Old Nan for example), then it still technically has the "printed Maester trait", but is no longer a Maester for all other purposes. So responses and player actions can still be played that require "printed Maester trait".

You've got to look at the big picture on this question:

"Printed" means "printed." Bomb is absolutely correct that it is defined solely by the ink on the card and is completely unmodifiable. So whether you have a blanking effect (think "Nightmares" instead of "Milk of the Poppy" since it takes out traits, too) or something like Old Nan taking away its effective Maester trait, it still has the "printed" Maester trait, so you could theoretically move a chain attachment from the Agenda to the character when you won the challenge.

HOWEVER , (and this is a big "however"), short of "Apprentice Collar," you are not going to be allowed to do it in that circumstance. That's because every chain attachment (other than "Apprentice Collar") has the "Maester character only" attachment restriction on it. That means, in order for the attachment to be legal on the character, it must have the effective Maester trait. Without that, it is illegal to try to put the chain attachment on the character. So just like it is against the rules to play the attachment from your hand on a non-Maester, then discard it as illegal, it is against the rules to move the chain from the Agenda to a non-Maester, then discard it as illegal.

So, in order to move a chain attachment (other than "Apprentice Collar") from the Agenda to a character, it must have the printed Maester trait in order to satisfy the play restrictions of the Agenda, and it must also have the effective Maester trait in order to satisfy the play restrictions of the chain attachment itself.

I have a problem with that explanation, actually. Milk of the Poppy says "its text box", while Nightmares says "printed text box ... as blank." So based, on those two wordings I'd say that Nightmares should literally blank Maester in a "printed" way and it should prevent Maester from getting a Chain (since its PRINTED text box is blank till the end of phase)

BBSB12 said:

You are correct. Nightmares includes Traits when blanking the text box.

You may be misunderstanding the explanation a little bit when it comes to the difference between "printed" traits and gained and lost traits. A printed trait is what is literally printed ink on the card. A trait that is "printed" comes into play with that trait. If that trait is lost in anyway through blanking effects or some other trait losing effect, it is no longer considered a card with that trait. HOWEVER, it still has the "printed trait", but that only means something to cards that need to identify with that trait for the purposes of it being eligible for an effect.

No matter what happens to a card, it retains all its "printed text", but that only matters when you need to identify with the card.

If I put the Apprentice Collar on The Red Viper, he becomes a Maester, but he is NOT a "printed" Maester simply because his card does not have Maester printed on it.

If Archmaester Ebrose has Nightmares put on him, he is no longer a Maester for play restriction and effects purposes, but he is still a "printed" Maester. Therefore you can attach the Apprentice Collar on to him from the Maester's Path agenda since the "printed" Maester trait is the is the only thing that would allow you to attach anything from the agenda.

Try not to overanalyze the difference between "treating a characters text box" and "treating a characters printed text box" as there is technically no difference.

I hope this explanation makes sense and good luck!

and regarding some cards saying 'text box' and others saying 'printed text box', they both effectively mean the same thing so don't sweat that. i think its just ffg evolving and trying to make their verbiage clearer over newer printings. another example would be that some plots actually say 'limit 1 per plot deck' even though that is now an inherent rule.

It may be worth noting there is an FAQ entry specifically saying "blank a card's text box" and "blank a card's printed text box" ARE the same thing. So all the advice above about them being essentially the same are actually pretty definite.