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Author Topic: Council of the Ring (Second Edition design team)  (Read 6545 times)

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July 12, 2019, 11:12:28 AM
Reply #15

MarcinS

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Re: Council of the Ring (Second Edition design team)
« Reply #15 on: July 12, 2019, 11:12:28 AM »
For those interested in card design - here is a series of articles on how Magic the Gathering cards are designed:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/nuts-bolts-three-stages-design-2015-03-30
New/old way to play Lord of the Rings online.
Give Gemp-LotR a try.
All sets are finished

July 12, 2019, 12:42:39 PM
Reply #16

Hobbiton Lad

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Re: Council of the Ring (Second Edition design team)
« Reply #16 on: July 12, 2019, 12:42:39 PM »
I 100% understand, and I fully respect your decision to withhold the templates. That's fine! We can always circle back around to graphic mock-ups later on; and if you're cool with being the sole graphic artist in this project that'd be your right, I suppose. But, again, I'd like to reiterate that focusing on putting graphical cards into playtesting without a detailed design process is coming at this project backwards. I believe you when you say your cards were written in collaboration, but if those other parties aren't here and aren't prepared to share a design space, then everything should stay open to continuing innovation.

I'd still appreciate an answer to my tertiary question regarding the assignment of specific cultures/sub-cultures to individuals or groups of designers, with the expectation that after a certain period of time we'd all reconvene to share/critique/playtest what's been produced. That'd give everybody a horse in this race, but I'll refrain from further opining until others have a chance to swing by.

Well, also I'd like to add that this is why we are having a testing phase. I fully expect the cards in this first set to change. I would be disappointed if they didn't. If it helps, just think of them as a starting point. I've done the up-front work of throwing this out there and now the collaborative design team gets to do the work of tweaking and balancing.

While I am very attached to the templates, I am in no way attached to the game text of these 311 cards. Do with them what you will, but I will say that I think the concepts in place are good ones. Will they need revision? Of course. But that's mostly in your guys hands now. All I ask is that we do the work of getting them coded as-is so they can actually be tested in a live environment. Then the team can look at the data and decide what changes need to be made.

Does that sound fair?

EDIT:

Sorry I missed your follow-up question. If we want to assign cultures and sub-cultures to specific people that's totally fine. I'm for whatever. At this point, I'd say that I'm actually more inclined to let the Council be the major force behind the gameplay design and I can just do the graphics, because I think that's what I enjoy the most. Creating beautiful looking cards to give the game a legitimate feel.
« Last Edit: July 12, 2019, 12:45:45 PM by Hobbiton Lad »

July 12, 2019, 01:09:24 PM
Reply #17

Hobbiton Lad

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Re: Council of the Ring (Second Edition design team)
« Reply #17 on: July 12, 2019, 01:09:24 PM »
Since there's been a lot of talk about design, I want to share some of the concepts that were first discussed when these cards were designed for the first set--most of them some time ago. Feel free to change/expand on these as the Council sees fit.

Dwarves - Strong skirmishers with weapons and events. Stacking cards on conditions. Lore-wise, they are hearty so experimenting with higher vitality. Weak to conditions that play on companions, as well as conditions as a whole.

Elves - Archery and -X skirmish cards. Telepathy. Galadriel/Elrond healing allies or themselves. Condition removal. Arwen/Glorfindel strong against Nazgul.

Gandalf - Bonuses from having initiative. Strong fighter. Condition removal. Card draw. Burden removal. Limited healing. The single strongest FP character.

Gondor - Rangers. Site manipulation. Bonuses from being at sites from your adventure deck. Boromir as a strong fighter who gets stronger when injured/his opponents are injured. No condition removal. Limited archery.

Isengard - Ninja Saruman with threats/wounding. Beat-down Uruk-hai. Battleground mechanics.

Moria - Swarm. Reprints of 1E cards plus some other new mechanics. More stacking on conditions, a shadow counterpart of Dwarves in that respect.

Ringwraith - Black Breath/Blade Tip. Burdens/Resistance/Corruption mechanics. Forest Nazgul.

Sauron - Punish mono-culture decks (i.e. the Free Peoples have to band together). Trackers. Archery. Making the fellowship feel the weight of the quest (effects when moving, when assigned to skirmish).

Shire - Sneaky. Some stealth events. Skirmish cancelling. Pipes. Burden removal.

General considerations:

All skirmishes can be cancelled. Not allowing the Ring-bearer's skirmish to be cancelled was a band-aid fix for bad design in first edition. Skirmish cancelling is a fair mechanic, and it's up to the game designers to make sure that those kinds of effects can't be exploited at later sites. This is totally manageable.

Limited discard and choke to promote a more positive play experience. Players should be able to play their cards. This is a fundamental design philosophy that should be carried out throughout current and future sets.

Keep expansions small to promote a constantly evolving metagame and allow for faster releases of new cards.

July 20, 2019, 10:52:02 AM
Reply #18

Chrispy77

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Re: Council of the Ring (Second Edition design team)
« Reply #18 on: July 20, 2019, 10:52:02 AM »
It does not appear that there has been much interest overall in the idea of a community driven project. If there are few who are willing to take the ring to mt doom, it must be those few.

Let's create a forum for a 2.0 project where cards are discussed/designed/rebalanced. HobbitLad would you like to get this thing going?

"I wish the Ring had never come to me- I wish none of this had happened."

"So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for you to decide. All that's left for you to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you."

July 22, 2019, 03:30:56 AM
Reply #19

Hobbiton Lad

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Re: Council of the Ring (Second Edition design team)
« Reply #19 on: July 22, 2019, 03:30:56 AM »
Let's create a forum for a 2.0 project where cards are discussed/designed/rebalanced. HobbitLad would you like to get this thing going?

Are you talking about creating a sub-forum on TLHH or hosting a forum somewhere else?

July 22, 2019, 10:47:40 AM
Reply #20

ket_the_jet

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Re: Council of the Ring (Second Edition design team)
« Reply #20 on: July 22, 2019, 10:47:40 AM »
On record, there is a board for the development of a players' committee on these forums already. If that doesn't work for you, I'm happy to make you a new sub-forum in the same section. But I think you should fall to the resources already available to you, particularly as this is a maximum of five people with real interest.
-wtk

July 23, 2019, 08:45:32 AM
Reply #21

Hobbiton Lad

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Re: Council of the Ring (Second Edition design team)
« Reply #21 on: July 23, 2019, 08:45:32 AM »
On record, there is a board for the development of a players' committee on these forums already. If that doesn't work for you, I'm happy to make you a new sub-forum in the same section. But I think you should fall to the resources already available to you, particularly as this is a maximum of five people with real interest.
-wtk

Thanks! I agree we should use what we have. I'll set up a post there later today.

August 08, 2019, 12:01:07 PM
Reply #22

leokula

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Re: Council of the Ring (Second Edition design team)
« Reply #22 on: August 08, 2019, 12:01:07 PM »
I just took a look at the "2E" cards in page 1.

What is the difference between LOTR TCG and "2E"? I mean, apart from the templates and cultures. It seems like just a virtual expansion of LOTR TCG.

Also what is the purpose of rarity in these? Will there be draft events, or something?

August 10, 2019, 05:59:14 AM
Reply #23

Hobbiton Lad

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Re: Council of the Ring (Second Edition design team)
« Reply #23 on: August 10, 2019, 05:59:14 AM »
The main purpose was to open a new avenue for the game's development. It was easier to just "start over" rather than try to keep going where Decipher left off, plus there were some different design philosophies in 2E (static site path, for example) that we wanted to go back to.