Fixing the Site Path

[eomund]

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but I can't see a better category. So here it will be for now.

My friends and I were talking recently about the site path, and how we're unhappy with the two implementations in the official rules. Pre-shadows has the problem that it's designed to only be used one movie at a time, and post-shadows just doesn't make much sense flavour-wise (what with the fellowship jumping back and forth between sites which are all over the place, and the possibility of Mount Doom or Cirith Ungol being "sanctuaries").

We play mostly with the post-shadows rules now, but most of us agreed we miss the flavour of the pre-shadows path. The only solution we were able to come up with was to continue using the post-shadow sites, but force you to play your sites in the order the fellowship travelled. This method leaves something to be desired, as my adventure deck could contain mostly fellowship sites, while my opponent's could contain mostly Return of the King sites, causing the jumping around to happen anyway.

Does anyone else have ideas for a solution? I'm open to any suggestions using any sites (even if it would mean designing new sites for it to work).

[Elrohir]

What happens if you have Anduin Banks, Anduin Confluence and Northern Undeep in your sitedeck. Which of these cards should you play? You need to know the movie by heart to know exactly which site comes first.

[eomund]

I'm surprised that didn't come up in our conversation. I guess our solution is even less elegant than we thought it was.

Off the top of my head, I'd say if two sites are close enough together, they can be played in either order. It's vague, but I don't imagine this particular rule would work in a competitive environment anyway. Judgement calls or a house rule would be enough to regulate what "close enough" is.

[menace64]

I'm going to do something very special for you, Eomund. I am going to singlehandedly design a new site system that will be as open-ended and flavorful as you want it to be while still utilizing the currently-in-print sites.

I have issued myself the challenge. We will see if I deliver. 

[eomund]

Good luck, Menace.  Feel free to post any of your half-finished ideas and I'll try and help out ... I won't think less of you if you fail to "singlehandedly" design the new system. 

A kind of kooky half-idea one of my friends came up with was to divide the map of middle earth into regions (about the size of the Shire or Gondor), and then do something with that. Hence the half-idea. Perhaps restrictions on how many regions you can "jump" when moving one site or a penalty for going to non-adjacent regions.

I'm not optimistic it would work, but I thought I'd give you all the help I can.

[FM]

You could design sitepaths WITHOUT decks. You come up with X sitepaths, and at the start of every game, the player who goes second gets to chose thesitepath you'll be using for the game (after all, under regular situations, the first player would be walking down the second player's sitepath. Also, notice that with this idea, you can use even pre-shadows sites, by reducing their twilight number by 6 and applying the Region rules.

[Thranduil]

Maybe you should check this link? This has part of the solution, or perhaps a different way of looking at it.

Thranduil

[menace64]

This is what I've come up with, and yes it is extremely similar with the link Thranduil posted. There are a few problems with this, which I'll address down below.

I've taken every site from Shadows, Black Rider, Bloodlines, The Hunters, Rise of Saruman, and Treachery & Deceit and reorganized them into regions. The list:

Region One (The Shire to Rivendell)
The Angle, Buckland Homestead, East Road, Ettenmoors, Expanding Marshland, Green Dragon Inn, Hobbiton Market, Imladris, Neekerbreekers' Bog, Old Forest Road, The Prancing Pony, Streets of Bree, Trollshaw Forest, Woody-End

Region Two (Between Rivendell and Mirkwood)
Abandoned Mine Shaft, Barazinbar, The Bridge of Khazad-dum, Chamber of Mazarbul, Dammed Gate-stream, Doors of Durin, Moria Guardroom, Moria Stairway, Pinnacle of Zirakzigil, Redhorn Pass, Sirannon Ruins, Starkhorn, West Gate of Moria

Region Three (Mirkwood, Great River)
Anduin Banks, Anduin Confluence, Anduin River, Caras Galadhon, Falls of Rauros, The Great Gates, Hill of Sight, North Undeep, Shores of Nen Hithoel, Valley of the Silverlode

Region Four (Plains of Rohan, Road to Helm's Deep/Emyn Muil, Dead Marshes)
Crags of Emyn Muil, East Wall of Rohan, Emyn Muil, Fangorn Glade, Flats of Rohan, Harrowdale, Mere of Dead Faces, Rohan Uplands, Westemnet Village, Westfold Village, Wold Battlefield

Region Five (Helm's Deep/Isengard/Black Gate)
Breeding Pit of Isengard, Cavern Entrance, Caves of Aglarond, Fords of Isen, Fortress of Orthanc, Gate of Mordor, Heights of Isengard, Helm's Gate, Isengard Ruined, Isenwash, Slag Mounds

Region Six (Edoras/Henneth Annun, Ithilen)
Crossroads of the Fallen Kings, Stables, Window on the West

Region Seven (Minas Tirith, Osgiliath/Shelob's Lair)
City Gates, City of Kings, Courtyard Parapet, Mithlond, Osgiliath Reclaimed, Steward's Tomb

Region Eight (Battle of the Pelennor/Mordor)
Dul Goldur, Morannon Plains, Northern Pelennor, Pelennor Fields, Pelennor Flat, Watch-tower of Cirith Ungol

Region Nine (Black Gate/Inner Mordor)
Doorway to Doom, Foot of Mount Doom, Gate of Mordor, Mount Doom, Nurn, Slag Mounds, Slopes of Orodruin

One of the nifty things of laying sites out like this is that I can make some sites have dual-region numbers - right now Gate of Mordor is region 5 and region 9. I also, for the first time, noticed that Decipher never wrote sites for The Stairs of Cirith Ungol, Shelob's Lair, or any of that section of Frodo's quest. How odd is that!?

Now, for the problems: Organizing sites in this fashion and changing none of the gametexts means a great deal of sites in region 1 are basically useless. Buckland Homestead, for example, could never benefit a Shadow player. And the bulk of region 2 sites are -centric, which leaves very little Dwarf love to go around at later sites. Without issuing some erratas, I can't see an easy way to resolve this.

Oh, and as for twilight cost on sites, I think simplicity would work best: moving to region X means adding , except when moving to region 6, which only adds .

I have a few more ideas I need to roll around some more that may resolve the issues I raised, but let me know what you think.

[Elrohir]

Nice work, but Nurn is also very useless as site Nine. How should we call this site system? Caras Galadhon should be traditionally site 6, as Valley of the Silverlode site 7 and Shores of Nen Hithoel site 8.

[eomund]

Looks good, Menace. While I don't see a way to fix problems like Nurn or Buckland Homestead, the Dwarves can have some juice if you allow the pre-Shadows sites to be played. The link Thranduil posted contains an excellent and thorough chart containing what looks like every site in the game, and assigning it a site number for a 9, 12, and 27 site adventure path. I didn't look close enough to see how their division of regions lined up with yours, but I'm sure it's similar.

You could design sitepaths WITHOUT decks. You come up with X sitepaths, and at the start of every game, the player who goes second gets to chose thesitepath you'll be using for the game (after all, under regular situations, the first player would be walking down the second player's sitepath. Also, notice that with this idea, you can use even pre-shadows sites, by reducing their twilight number by 6 and applying the Region rules.

An interesting idea, although it would be tough to keep balanced. While you often travel down the second player's site path (in a two-player game), if the first player ever falls behind in the official rules, they get to start using their sites. It would be almost impossible for a first player to regain their lead if they lost it in your method. And multi-player games wouldn't work at all, unless the site paths were tailored to not favour any deck too much over the others.