Cult membership card and Curse! Dragged Off To Snarkham Asylum

[backstabby]

I had the cult membership card and my friend played Curse! Dragged Off To Snarkham Asylum on me. I said I was not a cultist, so I couldn't lose the cult membership card (which is an item anyway), but I also said that I was a cultist, so I couldn't become one. Can I do this?

[RL]

Typically, all of a card's effects are atomic as the card is resolved. So I don't believe you would be able to switch your Cultist status midway through resolving the card's effects.

EDIT: I still maintain this opinion, even after read the following FAQ entry:

Originally Posted by The FAQ

Q. I have the Cult Membership card. When am I a cult member? How often can I change it?
A. You can change it at will, whenever you wish, for whatever purposes you wish (and no others). For instance, you can count as a cult member for purposes of gaining +2 bonuses in combat, while not counting as a cult member so you do not give the only other non-Cultist a level. If this is confusing, you should probably avoid reading any eldritch tomes you might encounter.

[Bampop]

I thought the Cult Membership card just fools people into thinking you're a Cultist the same way Fake Beard makes monsters treat you as a Dwarf. It doesn't make you a cultist.

So if you get dragged off to the asylum, they won't try to get you to join a cult that they already think you're a part of, and you can't lose your status as a cultist if you're just pretending to be one.

Maybe?

[backstabby]

Originally Posted by Chad Cloman

Typically, all of a card's effects are atomic as the card is resolved. So I don't believe you would be able to switch your Cultist status midway through resolving the card's effects.

EDIT: I still maintain this opinion, even after read the following FAQ entry:

Originally Posted by The FAQ
Q. I have the Cult Membership card. When am I a cult member? How often can I change it?
A. You can change it at will, whenever you wish, for whatever purposes you wish (and no others). For instance, you can count as a cult member for purposes of gaining +2 bonuses in combat, while not counting as a cult member so you do not give the only other non-Cultist a level. If this is confusing, you should probably avoid reading any eldritch tomes you might encounter.

I think that this points in favor of what I did, but does not answer it completely, you could still interpret it either way.

[RL]

The reason I disagree is that, while you can simultaneously be a Cultist for some things and not be a Cultist for others, the Curse! card is a single thing, and you have to choose to be one or the other when resolving its effect.

Andrew, I can see that we need an official ruling on this. Would you please give us one?

[backstabby]

Originally Posted by Chad Cloman

Andrew, I can see that we need an official ruling on this. Would you please give us one?

Yes, yes we do.

[backstabby]

Another thing. Even if you can't change your class twice in one card, what if you say that you're a cultist? You can't lose your cultist class because it's given to you through an item, so would you lose the cult membership card instead?

[Ash Plissken]

Originally Posted by backstabby

I had the cult membership card and my friend played Curse! Dragged Off To Snarkham Asylum on me. I said I was not a cultist, so I couldn't lose the cult membership card (which is an item anyway), but I also said that I was a cultist, so I couldn't become one. Can I do this?

I don't know off the top of my head what the exact effects of the curse are, but if the gist is "Suffer X effect if you are a Cultist, and Y effect if you are not," then I would say you have to pick one effect or the other, and if one does not apply, then you have to take the other.

[backstabby]

Originally Posted by Ash Plissken

I don't know off the top of my head what the exact effects of the curse are, but if the gist is "Suffer X effect if you are a Cultist, and Y effect if you are not," then I would say you have to pick one effect or the other, and if one does not apply, then you have to take the other.

Still, if this is true (which i'm not sure it is, see forum post above) then choosing cultist wouldn't do anything since you don't have a cultist card to discard.

[Ash Plissken]

Originally Posted by backstabby

Still, if this is true (which i'm not sure it is, see forum post above) then choosing cultist wouldn't do anything since you don't have a cultist card to discard.

Hence "one does not apply," hence "you have to take the other," just like with Bad Stuff. At least that's how I see it.

From what's been said, I gather that this curse gives you the cultist class if you do not have it, and takes it away if you do. Clearly the intent of the curse is to have some effect on anyone whether they have the class or not, and I don't think the CMC is intended to make you completely immune to this curse.

Confusion over for what purposes you can use the CMC to count as a Cultist, and for what purposes you have to actually have the Cultist class, is why I hate the CMC.