The Last Homely House
Middle-Earth => Chamber of Mazarbul => Topic started by: Thranduil on April 13, 2010, 08:17:13 AM
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It took me a while to get my computer going again, but now here I am! And I'm ready with this. 8-)
These are my initial thoughts. All comments are of course welcome.
A Note on Format
The poll in the other thread (http://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/index.php/topic,4339.0.html) about what format the set should be catering for was incredibly split. So I have decided to make a compromise:
• Legality: I think there's no reason we can't make a set that works with Standard and Movie block. So it will be built for both.
• Shadow cultures: Shadow cultures will be a compromise. We will use [Men], [Orc] and [Uruk] and obviously [Wraith], but rather [Isengard] and [Sauron] being splash cultures, they will also be major players. I think this works because the set title The Great Eye does not allow us the luxury of ignoring [Sauron] and [Isengard], which at any rate have much more evocative flavour than the new cultures. We can also use the [Raider] keywords for [Men] like Southron.
• Sites: The set will use post-Shadows sites. I feel as though making more King sites for Movie Block is difficult and unnecessary. Of course naturally there's no reason why cards built for Shadows sites would not work in Movie Block.
• Resistance/Signets: With the set's themes, I'm not sure we can avoid resistance. But I think we should perhaps include signet love alongside if that's what we want. This in particular I'd like some feedback on.
Set Themes
As far as I can see, the set's themes can be broken down to these main headings:
• The One Ring: Obviously, this is key to this. Making the RB wear it, corrupting the Ring-bearer, searching for the Ring, burdens and the whole shebang are major players. This can also lead to resistance being important.
• Search/Stealth: Part of the search for the Ring is search and stealth cards as the minions of the Dark Lord try to find the Ring and the Free Peoples try to hide and protect it. This also leads to the natural enmity of trackers/rangers. Connected issues are the Palantíri, Gollum/Sméagol duality, and the Saruman/Sauron conflict.
• Twilight: Hand in hand with the Ring is the creatures In Twilight. Nazgûl and Wraiths are what we've seen before with the twilight keyword, but we can extend its flavour and its relevance.
These themes have led me to think up a few mechanics which I'll share a bit later.
Set Layout:
What I'm currently looking at for set layout is as such:
TOTAL: 250 (115 F, 115 S, 18 Sites, 2 Rings), 90C/80U/70R + 10S
[Cult] No. (C/U/R) Starters
[Ring] - 2 (1/0/1)
[Dwarven] - 15 (6/5/4)
[Elven] - 16 (6/5/5)
[Gandalf] - 16 (6/5/5)
[Gollum] F - 12 (4/4/4)
[Gollum] S - 12 (4/4/4)
[Gondor] - 21 (7/7/6) + 1
[Isengard] - 16 (6/5/5)
[Men] - 16 (6/5/5)
[Orc] - 18 (7/6/5)
[Rohan] - 20 (7/6/6) + 1
[Sauron] - 18 (7/6/5)
[Shire] - 15 (6/5/4)
[Uruk] - 16 (6/5/5)
[Wraith] - 20 (7/7/6)
(W) - 18 (4/5/1) + 8
So those are my introductory thoughts. Now, discuss! :mrgreen:
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If this set is meant to be for movie block fans as well, why isn't there any [Moria], [Dunland] or [Raider] card in there?
I suggest you include 2 P cards in case someone wants to make starters.
EDIT: NVM my first comment as I reread your first post.
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• Legality: I think there's no reason we can't make a set that works with Standard and Movie block. So it will be built for both.
What about power escalation? How do we make cards that are neither weak post-Hunters nor overpowered in Movie?
• Shadow cultures: Shadow cultures will be a compromise. We will use [Men], [Orc] and [Uruk] and obviously [Wraith], but rather [Isengard] and [Sauron] being splash cultures, they will also be major players. I think this works because the set title The Great Eye does not allow us the luxury of ignoring [Sauron] and [Isengard], which at any rate have much more evocative flavour than the new cultures. We can also use the [Raider] keywords for [Men] like Southron.
Do we have anything for [dunland] or [moria] (maybe a Balrog splash like many post FOTR-sets)?
• Resistance/Signets: With the set's themes, I'm not sure we can avoid resistance. But I think we should perhaps include signet love alongside if that's what we want. This in particular I'd like some feedback on.
How about giving companions resistance but having cards like Horn of the Mark that add signets? For that matter, what do you think of making signets more fluid (e.g. "Exert Gandalf and spot an unbound companion of resistance 5 or more to give that companion the Gandalf signet until the end of the turn." or even "Skirmish: Make a [gondor] companion strength +2 and gain the Aragorn signet.")? I think it might fit the theme of the Free Peoples rallying to fight the Great Eye.
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If this set is meant to be for movie block fans as well, why isn't there any [Moria], [Dunland] or [Raider] card in there?
Do we have anything for [dunland] or [moria] (maybe a Balrog splash like many post FOTR-sets)?
Here's my take on this: What cards really deserve to be [Moria] and not [Orc]? The Balrog, the Watcher in the Water. That's about it. We could splash some [Moria] cards, but I feel like [Orc] very well subsumes its role (there's also no real reason why there couldn't be an [Orc] Balrog). But essentially, it doesn't quite fill the same flavour niche as [Isengard] or [Sauron]. But yeah, there could be a [Moria] Balrog. I wasn't sure it was exactly the sort of thing you needed for The Great Eye.
As for [Dunland] and [Raider], again my feeling is that both cultures are expressed in the [Men] culture and so having all 3 would be a bit ridiculous. I personally like the [Men] conglomeration of earlier [Raider] and [Dunland] strategies, and again we lose hardly anything in flavour by using [Men].
Side note: Also at the moment, quite coincidentally, there are an equal number of Shadow and Free Peoples cultures represented in the set... ;)
How about giving companions resistance but having cards like Horn of the Mark that add signets? For that matter, what do you think of making signets more fluid (e.g. "Exert Gandalf and spot an unbound companion of resistance 5 or more to give that companion the Gandalf signet until the end of the turn." or even "Skirmish: Make a [gondor] companion strength +2 and gain the Aragorn signet.")? I think it might fit the theme of the Free Peoples rallying to fight the Great Eye.
Yeah, absolutely great! I think that's brilliant. You could also make Shadow cards that care about signets.
I suggest you include 2 P cards in case someone wants to make starters.
There are 10 Starter cards, 8 sites and 2 characters. My current idea is for there to be one [Rohan] and one [Gondor] starter (probably Éomer and Faramir or similar). There are 8 starter sites because there need to be 9 sites for each starter deck and so with the 10 with normal rarities, it makes 18. I expect most of those starter sites to be reprints.
What about power escalation? How do we make cards that are neither weak post-Hunters nor overpowered in Movie?
Just because some Hunters cards are very powerful doesn't mean that a following standard environment would have to be equally powerful. And working with Movie block might actually temper some of the power in The Great Eye. But I wouldn't worry about this.
Thranduil
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Thanks; yeah, that makes sense.
How about this card:
[1] Gondorian Recruit [gondor]
Companion • Man
Strength: 4
Vitality: 3
Resistance: 5
To play, spot a [Gondor] man.
While this companion has the Aragorn signet, he is strength +4, damage +1, and a knight.
While this companion has the Gandalf signet, he is resistance +3.
"From the Anfalas, the Langstrand far away, a long line of men of many sorts, hunters and herdsmen and men of little villages, scantily equipped..."
Note: This card borrows a bit from one of ket's ideas (http://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/index.php/topic,4262.0.html).
Here's another:
[2] Pride and !Despair [sauron]
Condition • Support Area
At the start of each regroup phase, spot a [sauron] minion and remove a threat, or discard this condition.
Each unbound companion with resistance less than 4 loses the Gandalf signet (or all signets if that companion has resistance 0).
"So! With the left hand thou wouldst use me for a little while as a shield against Mordor, and with the right bring up this !Ranger of the North to supplant me. ... I will not bow to such a one, last of a ragged house long bereft of lordship and dignity."
And in fitting with the theme of the expansion:
(0) •!Seeing Stone of Orthanc, Tainted by Sauron [gondor]
Artifact • Support Area
Stealth.
Maneuver: Exert Aragorn and make X unbound companions with the Aragorn signet strength -1 until the regroup phase to make the Ring-bearer strength +X until the regroup phase (limit +4). Discard this possession.
"'Now in the very hour of his great designs the heir of Isilduir and the Sword are revealed; ... He is not so mighty yet that he is above fear; nay, doubt ever gnaws him.'"
U (so it can be in the [gondor] starter)
Note: This would, I think, be an appropriate form of Frodo protection for the [gondor] starter. Alternatively, this could go in the [rohan] starter (which could use [rohan] companions with Aragorn signets to reflect the joint attack on the !Morannon) while the Faramir starter could be more Ring-bound Ranger-oriented (to reflect their earlier protection of Frodo).
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Yes! Excellent examples of what we could do with signets.
I think we'll leave a bit more space for comments on the ideas posted so far before moving onto some mechanics ideas.
Here are my main questions:
1) Do we want to make such a large set? Perhaps a smaller Mines of Moria type thing would be easier?
2) What other themes fit the set title? Knowing the answer to this question will really help us fine-tune the mechanics.
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Some thoughts off the top of my head:
1] Site Control - the armies of the great eye spread their shadow over middle-earth.
I know I dislike site control but I wonder if we could do it better. Something that approximates site control in a better way. Manipulation of the Adventure Deck?
2] Huge Armies
Sam and Frodo sneak their way into mount doom while huge armies of orcs clash with the armies of the Free Peoples. Big armies and little people avoiding them unnoticed.
3] Palantiri and the manipulation of information
Revealing and withholding information. Deck and hand manipulation. The corrupting effect of power and the vision of the eye.
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In Star Wars there are caracters that are two "cultures" For example Mara Jade is an Alien and Imperial. Perhaps we can have a few minions that are both [Moria] and [Orc] or [Men] and [Raider] or [Sauron] and [Orc] or [Isengard] and [Uruk] or [Dunland] and [Men].
Just a brainstorm, but I'm sure we could dream up a new layout for the card to acccomidate both culture icons. That way the cards would be usable by both cultures without too much worry about block.
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In Star Wars there are caracters that are two "cultures" For example Mara Jade is an Alien and Imperial. Perhaps we can have a few minions that are both [Moria] and [Orc] or [Men] and [Raider] or [Sauron] and [Orc] or [Isengard] and [Uruk] or [Dunland] and [Men].
Just a brainstorm, but I'm sure we could dream up a new layout for the card to acccomidate both culture icons. That way the cards would be usable by both cultures without too much worry about block.
Was thinking the same thing. We could give them affinity (as in SW Miniatures). In that case Freca for example can become playable in standard.
Example:
A [men] card
Affinity (gains culture icon): [Dunland].
Also nice new keyword
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In Star Wars there are caracters that are two "cultures" For example Mara Jade is an Alien and Imperial. Perhaps we can have a few minions that are both [Moria] and [Orc] or [Men] and [Raider] or [Sauron] and [Orc] or [Isengard] and [Uruk] or [Dunland] and [Men].
Just a brainstorm, but I'm sure we could dream up a new layout for the card to acccomidate both culture icons. That way the cards would be usable by both cultures without too much worry about block.
Was thinking the same thing. We could give them affinity (as in SW Miniatures). In that case Freca for example can become playable in standard.
Example:
A [men] card
Affinity (gains culture icon): [Dunland].
Also nice new keyword
If we do this, we could also do it with companions, such as a [rohan]/ [shire] Merry, a [gondor]/ [shire] Pippin, or even an [elven]/ [gondor] Arwen or [rohan]/ [gondor] Eowyn.
Problems I can see include:
- The risk of broken combos (probably greater with FP cards than Shadow cards).
- The danger of trying to change too much in a single set (especially if we do the signet thing).
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In Star Wars there are caracters that are two "cultures" For example Mara Jade is an Alien and Imperial. Perhaps we can have a few minions that are both [Moria] and [Orc] or [Men] and [Raider] or [Sauron] and [Orc] or [Isengard] and [Uruk] or [Dunland] and [Men].
Just a brainstorm, but I'm sure we could dream up a new layout for the card to acccomidate both culture icons. That way the cards would be usable by both cultures without too much worry about block.
Was thinking the same thing. We could give them affinity (as in SW Miniatures). In that case Freca for example can become playable in standard.
Example:
A [men] card
Affinity (gains culture icon): [Dunland].
Also nice new keyword
If we do this, we could also do it with companions, such as a [rohan]/ [shire] Merry, a [gondor]/ [shire] Pippin, or even an [elven]/ [gondor] Arwen or [rohan]/ [gondor] Eowyn.
Problems I can see include:
- The risk of broken combos (probably greater with FP cards than Shadow cards).
- The danger of trying to change too much in a single set (especially if we do the signet thing).
It will mean that we should be carefull, shoudn't we :)
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Sam, the combos could be a big deal. That is a good point. I would be completely against using double cultured companions. That would get broken fast. Minions may be a little more do-able. I dunno.
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The Great Eye could also involve actions related to revealing or looking at hands, or top cards of the draw deck. There could even be a card allowing to look at the opponent's discard pile.
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The Great Eye could also involve actions related to revealing or looking at hands, or top cards of the draw deck. There could even be a card allowing to look at the opponent's discard pile.
In that case, maybe we could have more cards like Eye of Barad-dur (or even EoBD as a reprint, although its rarity might hinder that); not too many, though, lest we make revealing an opponent's hand too dangerous to be worth the trouble. Maybe something like:
[1][6] •Sauron, The Great Eye [sauron]
Minion • Maia
Strength: 24
Vitality: 5
Site: 6
Fierce. Twilight.
For each threat and search card you can spot, and for each shadow condition borne by a companion, Sauron is twilight cost -1.
Each time the Free Peoples player reveals this card from your hand, he or she must exert an unbound companion with resistance 4 or higher or add 3 threats; if he or she cannot, you may play this card from hand (its twilight cost is -16).
As you may have noticed, I like the idea of Free Peoples actions that carry an inherent risk or burden with them; I think it fits the theme of this set.
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Sam, the combos could be a big deal. That is a good point. I would be completely against using double cultured companions. That would get broken fast. Minions may be a little more do-able. I dunno.
You can also do it other way round, For example:
Affinity: If Freca is played this character's culture Icon is replace as [dunlend] for the remainder of turn.
Affinity: If you can spot Eowyn then Faramir's culture token is replaced as [Rohan] for the remainder of turn.
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It could also be:
Affinity: While you can spot three [Dunlend] this character becomes [Dunlend].
This should replace the existing culture (a ruling might be needed so that they don't end up with both) and as far as strategies goes it will be harder to keep it triggered because once there are less than 3 [Dunlend] in play the character reverts back to other culture. This might work better with Free Peoples Characters.
Eg. An Aragorn that says:
Affinity: While you can spot 3 [Elven] companions this companion becomes [Elven]
It might work better for minions if they say:
Affinity: While you can spot three [Dunlend] minions this companion becomes [Dunlend] until end of turn.
I have no issue with it being a big set thereby creating a new format or block. How likely is it to design this set to do these three things:
1) Work as a stand alone expansion (so all cards will need to work together to complete finished fellowships and finished minion decks)
2) Enhance movie block
3) Enhance standard
I like what is going on with the Affinity keyword, I also like wha is happening with gaining Signets whgilst retaining resistance. All :up: from me.
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Yeah, IMO, we might want to limit it to [men]/ [dunland] and, to a lesser degree, [orc]/ [moria] (although [moria] already has post-movie cards) and maybe [orc]/ [sauron], [orc]/ [isengard], and [men]/ [isengard] (although we already have normal [sauron] and [isengard] cards in this set).
IMO, we don't need to do [men]/ [raider] or [uruk]/ [isengard] because many of the [raider] cards use keywords and many of the [isengard] cards refer simply to "Uruk-hai."
But I think Free Peoples' culture switching is probably too risky unless it's very limited.
As far as size goes, I think we'd need a big set to do everything we're trying to do here.
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But I think Free Peoples' culture switching is probably too risky unless it's very limited.
* Is it risky because they can work with the cards from two cultures at different times?
* Or is it more of a risk if they can use the cards of two cultures at the same time?
If the answer is the first one - switching cultures is a bad idea. If the answer is two - this is less risky because you can design cards that switch cultures rather than gain a culture.
I guess in the end you need to ask what is gained from doing so. Perhaps it is more trouble than it is worth.
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I don't think cards having 2 cultures is in any way an issue - not mechanically nor for balance. Broken combos? I'm not sure there are any. Better deck-building options? Sure as anything it gives you that.
There are several ways I've seen this done in the past:
1) Just put the cultures on the top of the card. Literally it would be [Dunland][Men], and the card background theoretically would be split between them.
2) Do culture-shifting rather than dual cards. So things like [Elven] Gimli, [Rohan] Merry etc. Aragorn, DoR is obviously the prime example of this.
3) The keyword alliance. This was used by menace64 a while back. Alliance [Isengard] means you can replace any culture symbol in the text of this card with [Isengard] at any time. So you might have a [Sauron] card that says:
(0) Pump [Sauron]
Event • Skirmish
Alliance: [Isengard]
Make a [Sauron] minion strength +2. If you can spot a [Sauron] condition, draw a card.
4) Culture keywords, which was my idea when you couldn't change the templating. Basically you might have an [Isengard] Orc that has in his keyword box: Damage +1. [Orc]. This means that he is also an [Orc] minion and it functions exactly like a normal keyword.
Also like to share a quick idea I had about signets. Why couldn't you conceptually use the pictures of the signet, or the character's black and white faces, when you mention them in card texts? Horn of the Mark would become "Bearer gains [Théoden]."
This also allows you do a template like:
[2] Guard of Meduseld [Rohan]
Companion • Man
Str: 6
Vit: 3
Res: 6
Valiant.
[Théoden].
Imagine a card with all three stats and then a big Théoden signet over his text box? See what I mean?
All that said, we're going to have to make some choices about what can fit in this set and what can't. I'm not sure there's room for both revamping signets and dual culture cards, as well as dealing with the themes that the set title gives us (like corruption, search/stealth, deck/hand manipulation).
But, taking a lesson from MTG, when they introduce a new concept, they often introduce only a small amount of it at first. Then if it turns out to be popular and interesting, they'll bring it back in a big way later. Main case study being hybrid colour cards that began with only a few cards in Ravnica block, then a whole hybrid mini-block with Shadowmoor/Eventide.
So, what we could do is do sprinklings of signet/cultural stuff rather than making a huge deal out of it.
Thranduil
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3) The keyword alliance. This was used by menace64 a while back. Alliance [Isengard] means you can replace any culture symbol in the text of this card with [Isengard] at any time. So you might have a [Sauron] card that says:
(0) Pump [Sauron]
Event • Skirmish
Alliance: [Isengard]
Make a [Sauron] minion strength +2.
It should probably be "any culture symbol of this card's culture"; otherwise, you'll have issues if you ever want to make card that spots different cultures (like Living Off Rock or even Stampeded, or even Aragorn, DoFP). Of course, this still wouldn't help with cards that affect cards of a certain culture (e.g. your pump couldn't be pulled by a card that took an [isengard] event into hand) and is probably best paired with idea 1 or 4 rather than as an alternative to it (3 diversifies the culture of the things referenced in the card's game text, 1/4 diversifies the culture of the card itself).
Also, would alliance work with toil? For example, could Sauron, DLoM be written "Damage +1. Fierce. Alliance: [dunland] [gollum] [isengard] [men] [moria] [orc] [raider] [uruk] Sauron is Toil X, where X is the current region number."?
Good idea about signets by the way.
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3) The keyword alliance. This was used by menace64 a while back. Alliance [Isengard] means you can replace any culture symbol in the text of this card with [Isengard] at any time. So you might have a [Sauron] card that says:
(0) Pump [Sauron]
Event • Skirmish
Alliance: [Isengard]
Make a [Sauron] minion strength +2.
It should probably be "any culture symbol of this card's culture"; otherwise, you'll have issues if you ever want to make card that spots different cultures (like Living Off Rock or even Stampeded, or even Aragorn, DoFP). Of course, this still wouldn't help with cards that affect cards of a certain culture (e.g. your pump couldn't be pulled by a card that took an [isengard] event into hand) and is probably best paired with idea 1 or 4 rather than as an alternative to it (3 diversifies the culture of the things referenced in the card's game text, 1/4 diversifies the culture of the card itself).
Also, would alliance work with toil? For example, could Sauron, DLoM be written "Damage +1. Fierce. Alliance: [dunland] [gollum] [isengard] [men] [moria] [orc] [raider] [uruk] Sauron is Toil X, where X is the current region number."?
I can't remember exactly what m64 did, but it could be he meant that card's culture. But I don't see an issue.
You could be right about Sauron's toil, I think it does mean that given that toil is gametext.
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I think it's time to think about mechanics. These are my initial thoughts, and I have divided them by theme. Obviously the names are not hard and fast!
Burdens/Resistance
The obvious - spotting burdens, removing burdens, adding burdens, doing things for each burden (Enduring Evil) etc.
The One Ring - making the RB wear the Ring (Resistance Becomes Unbearable), taking the Ring off (O Elbereth Gilthoniel), caring whether the Ring is on or off
eg.
[4] •Úlairë Lemenya, !Drawn to Its Power [Wraith]
Minion • Nazgûl
Str: 9
Vit: 2
Sit: 3
Fierce.
While the Ring-bearer wears The One Ring, ~ is strength +3.
!Unyielding - (this companion's resistance is not reduced by the number of burdens).
Yes I know I've used this before, but it could be worthwhile in this set.
eg.
[2] •Gimli [Dwarven]
Companion • Dwarf
Str: 6
Vit: 3
Res: 6
Damage +1. !Unyielding.
While Gimli has resistance 6 or more, he is strength +2.
Creature of Twilight - (companions skirmishing this minion use their resistance to resolve this skirmish instead of their strength).
A minion keyword for resistance.
eg.
[1][6] •Sauron, The Great Eye [Sauron]
Minion • Maia
Str: 24
Vit: 5
Sit: 6
Creature of twilight. Fierce. Damage +1.
Each companion (except the Ring-bearer) is resistance -2.
"'I see you!'"
Search/Stealth
Foresee X - (to foresee X, look at the top X cards of your draw deck; place any number of those cards on top of your draw deck in any order and the rest beneath your draw deck in any order)
Again I've used this before, but it might very well express the theme of searching for the Ring. It also allows a better telepathy side theme. Take a look at Light & Shadow (http://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/index.php/topic,4075.0.html) to see some examples.
Cards in hand - revealing, discarding your own, stripping your opponents', putting cards on top of draw deck, reconciling
This might lead to initiative, but I'm not excited about using it explicitly - it's not a very interesting mechanic. Just having hand manipulation will allow it to work well with initiative.
I did have an idea of a theme of having no cards in your hand representing putting forth all your strength. Something like "Desperation - While you have no cards in hand, this minion is strength +2 and damage +1."
eg.
[3] Orkish Inquisition [Orc]
Event • Shadow
Search.
Spot an [Orc] minion to reveal the Free Peoples player's hand. Choose and discard a revealed Free Peoples card.
"'Nobody expects the Orkish Inquisition!"'
Top card of draw deck - telepathy (Forearmed), mill (Desperate Measures, Dwarven Axe)
Alliances (Fighting the Eye, gathering all his strength)
Multiculture strategies - Song of the Shire, or the sort of dual-cultures we were talking about above
Signet shenanigans - making signets matter between putting them around, counting them, spotting them, for both FP and Shadow (minion signets?)
More thoughts?
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Creature of Twilight - (companions skirmishing this minion use their resistance to resolve this skirmish instead of their strength).
A minion keyword for resistance.
eg.
[1][6] •Sauron, The Great Eye [Sauron]
Minion • Maia
Str: 24
Vit: 5
Sit: 6
Creature of twilight. Fierce. Damage +1.
Each companion (except the Ring-bearer) is resistance -2.
"'I see you!'"
So how will a companion get 13 resistance to avoid being overwhelmed? I'm not sure I'd like the idea of "resistance pumps" since choosing between them and strength pumps would be little more than a guessing game about what you'll be facing.
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Creature of Twilight - (companions skirmishing this minion use their resistance to resolve this skirmish instead of their strength).
A minion keyword for resistance.
eg.
[1][6] •Sauron, The Great Eye [Sauron]
Minion • Maia
Str: 24
Vit: 5
Sit: 6
Creature of twilight. Fierce. Damage +1.
Each companion (except the Ring-bearer) is resistance -2.
"'I see you!'"
So how will a companion get 13 resistance to avoid being overwhelmed? I'm not sure I'd like the idea of "resistance pumps" since choosing between them and strength pumps would be little more than a guessing game about what you'll be facing.
I mean yeah it's sure broken that particular card. I was just trying to point out a possibility. Probably wasn't a great example.
But you might play resistance boosters anyway if you needed to count resistance for yourself.
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I mean yeah it's sure broken that particular card. I was just trying to point out a possibility. Probably wasn't a great example.
But you might play resistance boosters anyway if you needed to count resistance for yourself.
Ah, okay, that was just an example and not typical of the sort of cards you'd make (personally, I'd limit the strength of "creatures of twilight" to around 8).
Actually, you might want to give creatures of twilight resistance instead of strength, so that their strength can't be increased or decreased by pumps: although the fact that most strength -X pumps, which would be especially effective against such minions, are [elven] or [gandalf] does fit flavor-wise, it would give those cultures a bit of a boost over other cultures. Also, throwing, say, a couple of Houses of Lamentation on a [wraith] creature of twilight makes killing comps way too easy.
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Creature of Twilight is a good idea in theory but in practice is terribly broken. Add a few burdens and you have some easy overwhelms. I don't know how easy is would be to balance all of this. Probably better to just not go there IMO.
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Unyielding is incredibly lame and unflavorful.
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yeah discarding :Rohan: possessions to liberate sites---pshh.
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Funny.
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Yeah these are just my ideas off the top of my head. I will be thinking more about it and I really would prefer you guys to give some thoughts on the other non-resistance mechanics I was proposing (I'm not sure it's the best idea to run them at all), and to think about your own.
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Search/Stealth
Foresee X - (to foresee X, look at the top X cards of your draw deck; place any number of those cards on top of your draw deck in any order and the rest beneath your draw deck in any order)
Again I've used this before, but it might very well express the theme of searching for the Ring. It also allows a better telepathy side theme. Take a look at Light & Shadow (http://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/index.php/topic,4075.0.html) to see some examples.
Hmm...it seems a bit powerful.
Cards in hand - revealing, discarding your own, stripping your opponents', putting cards on top of draw deck, reconciling
This might lead to initiative, but I'm not excited about using it explicitly - it's not a very interesting mechanic. Just having hand manipulation will allow it to work well with initiative.
I did have an idea of a theme of having no cards in your hand representing putting forth all your strength. Something like "Desperation - While you have no cards in hand, this minion is strength +2 and damage +1."
eg.
[3] Orkish Inquisition [Orc]
Event • Shadow
Search.
Spot an [Orc] minion to reveal the Free Peoples player's hand. Choose and discard a revealed Free Peoples card.
"'Nobody expects the Orkish Inquisition!"'
Top card of draw deck - telepathy (Forearmed), mill (Desperate Measures, Dwarven Axe)
Sounds good in general, although I'm not sure we need the new keyword (we already have initiative, and one number-of-cards-in-hand keyword is probably enough).
Alliances (Fighting the Eye, gathering all his strength)
Multiculture strategies - Song of the Shire, or the sort of dual-cultures we were talking about above
I really like this one, especially for Shadow. I've often thought there was a shortage of multicultural shadow decks and that we needed more cards like Hate and Anger. Especially ones that take advantage of the ways two shadow cultures might complement each other, for example:
[1] Fires of !Vengeance [isengard]
Condition • Support Area
Each time a [dunland] possession is discarded from play, you may exert an [isengard] Orc to stack that possession here.
Shadow or Regroup: Choose one: play a possession stacked here; or exert an [isengard] Orc and discard this condition to play a [dunland] possession from your draw deck.
The forges of Isengard armed the wild men of Dunland.
Note: This card takes advantage of the fact that the high vitality [isengard] Orcs can protect the 1-vitality Dunlendings, and helps them both by recovering Hides to protect them from archery (maybe in a joint site control deck). This is just an example, of course, but you get the idea.
Signet shenanigans - making signets matter between putting them around, counting them, spotting them, for both FP and Shadow (minion signets?)
Yeah I think they're good, although I don't think minion signets would add a lot (minions are already factionalized enough, and this set already has too many new concepts for minion signets to be in the running).
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The set name implies that this set should perhaps feature Mordor and Hobbit (Sam and Frodo) and perhaps Smeagol more than other cultures. Perhaps there is not the need to include so many cultures in this set.
Perhaps more with Palantirs?
Definately burdens, resistance and stealth should feature in this set. Stealth doing something more interesting than canceling skirmishes, does it make sense for stealth to manipulate the assignment phase? Revealing cards from opponents hand, top of decks etc also seems to make sense.
Is there a reason or logic to putting both [Isengard] and [Uruk] in the same set. Perhaps only one needs to feature - perhaps some could be cross-culture minions as previously discussed.
Further exploration of putting on the ring for some gain but at a high risk seems to match this set as well and it might lead into further use of the Twilight keyword. On that note - does it make sense for Frodo to gain the Twlight keyword when wearing the One Ring? If so perhaps this could be explored with Fellowship cards triggering off the Twilight keyword - this might encourage Frodo (or the Ring-Bearer) to wear the One Ring.
So - how about this for a different ring:
* The One Ring, Ring of Twilight
Strength +1
Vitality +1
While wearing the One Ring bearer gains Twilight, and each time he is about to take a wound add 2 burdens instead.
Fellowship or Assignment: Add a burden to wear the One Ring until the regroup phase.
Not really sure of the point of it. Other cards would bring it to life i guess. Balance is probably all over the place. But the goal of this ring with support cards would be to wear it all the way to Mount Doom and try and not get corrupted (you would need some good burden removal). Probably supports a solo deck? Fellowship cards that trigger of Twilight would be useless without the keyword so it is probably a bad idea unless the cards are designed to work without the Twilight keyword, but get better when the keyword is in play. Sorry for my incoherent ramblings - hope some of it makes sense.
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Not sure I would want to put your keywords in this set, just because I think it would be more fun to explore something new. Some of my thoughts below.
BURDENS/RESISTANCE
-One ring stuff
Agree with this, I have always liked this theme.
-Resistance-Enduring
What about getting a resistance boost for each wound a la enduring? Or the reverse, losing resistance as you get more weary.
-Creature of Twilight
I love this. Think its clever, flavourful and really entertaining.
SEARCH/STEALTH
Not sure I'm a fan of foresee here, but the basic idea is good. Perhaps more in the way of telepathy for all cultures?
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I know what you're saying about initiative, but I'm really not a fan of it. Firstly, it is not very interactive as it only applies to one player, and secondly it rewards you for not playing cards, which is much less fun than playing cards. I'm not saying we should use my idea (I didn't think it was that good!), but it beats initiative on both of those counts: it applies to all players, and it rewards you for having fun. Also we don't need to reference initiative in order for some cards we make to be good with it.
I've always loved that idea of the twilight Ring. A card something like:
[1] Call of the Ring [Wraith]
Condition • Support Area
Spell. Twilight.
While the Ring-bearer is wearing The One Ring, the Ring-bearer and each Nazgûl gains twilight.
“Their cold eyes glittered, and they called to him with fell voices.”
If we use creature of twilight (which needs a better name by the way!), we could also run something like companions skirmishing this minion use their resistance instead of their strength (except for twilight companions) or some other advantage for being twilight.
Resistance enduring is a cool idea, and could be a great FP resistance keyword (given that creature of twilight is the Shadow one).
I think the key for search and stealth is the manipulation of information. We can utilise a lot of design space with cards in hand that so far doesn't have much of a look in (eg. revealing hands, bouncing cards to hand, forcing discard, discarding for effect, mini-games á la Hosts Still Unfought, revealing cards á la Meant to Be Alone).
Side issue: do we want only search Shadow cards and only stealth Free Peoples cards? Or should they be spread out in both?
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only that card sounds almost exactly like pull of the ring...
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only that card sounds almost exactly like pull of the ring...
Again I'm not posing possible card titles or card details, just overall concepts.
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I would be wary of creating more than 1 loaded keyword. The Creature of Twilight concept would be better handled by an event I think.
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I would be wary of creating more than 1 loaded keyword. The Creature of Twilight concept would be better handled by an event I think.
Or just put it in the text, for example:
[4] Reaching Wight [wraith]
Minion • Wight
Resistance: 11
Vitality: 3
Site: 2
Twilight. Damage +1.
Each character skirmishing this minion is resistance +5. Skirmishes involving this minion are resolved using resistance instead of strength.
The "resistance +5" is so that overwhelming isn't as big of an issue (mathematically, giving companions a resistance bonus is better than just making the minion weaker, because it creates a bigger gap between the win-loss point and the overwhelm point); instead of being resistance 0-8, companions will be resistance 5-13.
One problem is "cannot be overwhelmed unless his strength is tripled" cards, which would keep a companion from ever being overwhelmed by such minions (since it makes overwhelming require a strength difference, even when winning the skirmish itself is based on resistance).
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Sam is right about it being better in the text. I think he solved it very well in his idea.
Personally, the more I think about it, I think it might be better to just keep strength vs. strength and not go into resistance vs. resistance. Strength and vitality represent both the will and the physical strength of those characters. Look at the twilight minions in Two Towers block. I don't think giving minions resistance would be a great idea to further the game. But thats just me.
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Sam is right about it being better in the text. I think he solved it very well in his idea.
Personally, the more I think about it, I think it might be better to just keep strength vs. strength and not go into resistance vs. resistance. Strength and vitality represent both the will and the physical strength of those characters. Look at the twilight minions in Two Towers block. I don't think giving minions resistance would be a great idea to further the game. But thats just me.
Agree.
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So what we have for a set of mechanics is this:
• Search/stealth, Palantíri (manipulation of information)
• Twilight, The One Ring
• Burdens, resistance
• Alliances (big armies, multiculture)
I think that's enough.
Most of them are fairly straightforward - it looks like we're dealing with resistance and burdens in a fairly standard way and not trying anything particularly crazy.
The one that needs sorting is the Alliances theme. I posted some of the main ways I've seen this dealt with in the past, which briefly summarised are:
1) Altered template dual culture
2) Culture-shifting (eg. Defender of Rohan)
3) Cross-culture cards (eg. Hate and Anger, Alliance keyword)
4) Culture keywords (non-altered template multi-culture)
Obviously we can do more than one of these approaches, but particularly between 1 and 4 (and any other ideas people have) we should make our focus clear.
What we also need to clarify is a couple of new keywords (loaded/unloaded) / game verbs - something essentially new.
Thoughts?
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2 in moderate amounts (one or two companions).
3, especially for shadow cultures (I'd prefer 4 and "[dunland] or [men] minion"-type language over a new keyword, though).
4 for Shadow cultures (a Dunland keyword for [men] and maybe Sauron, moria, and isengard keywords for [orc] and [men]).
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I like your idea Sam. Perhaps you could add keywords such as Moria, Mordor, Southron, Easterling, Dunlending, Saruman, etc to some of the [Men], [Orc] and [Uruk] minions.
Then produce conditions or other cards for [Isengard], [Moria], [Dunlend] etc that trigger off these keywords. This might be a way to promote cross culture without changing templates. or producing cards for so many different cultures.
This way you would only need minions for [Orc], [Men], [Uruk], [Gollum] and [Wraith] in this set and splash cards for the [Dunlend], [?], [Isengard], [Moria] minions to link the cultures together for whatever formats it is we are supporting (at least it will be relevant for open play).
For example: (Not sure about formatting and wording)
[2] * Call to Arms
[Moria] Condition
When you have three [Orc] Moria minions in play all your [Moria] minions are damage +1
Something like that (it could probably be a [Orc] card so that no [Moria] cards need to be put in this set) - hope you get the concept. Just my 2 cents.
As for options 1-4 ...
Option 1 - not a fan.
Option 2 - I like the idea of fighting to change you companions culture. Take Rohirrim Aragorn for example - he could have been [Gondor] but changed to [Rohan] under the right conditions. If those conditions are no longer met, he revets back to [Gondor]. This makes it harder to use him in a Rohirrim deck and probably useless for a Gondor deck. If Rohan wants an Aragorn, they should have to fight for him. The same should be true for an Elven Aragorn and so on.
Option 3 - Above may be another option for how to do this.
Option 4 - I guess this is also what i have mentioned above.
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Okay that's some great thoughts. I can definitely see a few splash culture-shifting and mainly Shadow cards with culture keywords - that looks great. And we definitely ought to be using Southron et al. So the question becomes, if that is the main avenue, should we bother with any cards of the old culture templates at all? Or all new cultures and keyworded?
I think m64's alliance has potential though. Let me find some sample alliance cards for you guys...
[3] All Powers Assembled [Sauron]
Condition • Support Area
Alliance: [Gollum] or [Raider] (You may replace [Sauron] with [Gollum] or [Raider] anywhere in this card’s gametext). To play, spot 3 [Sauron] Orcs.
Shadow: Play a [Sauron] minion to reveal the top card of your draw deck. If that card is a minion, you may play it; it is twilight cost -1.
“…but Gothmog the lieutenant of Morgul had flung them into the fray; Easterlings with axes, and Variags of Khand, Southrons in scarlet…”
M1C72
[2] The Hour of Men [Gondor]
Condition • Support Area
Alliance: [Rohan]. To play, spot 2 Man companions, each of a different culture.
At the start of the regroup phase, you may exert a [Gondor] Man to heal a Man of another culture.
Skirmish: Exert a [Gondor] Man companion to make another [Gondor] Man companion strength +1 (limit +2) and damage +1 (limit +2).
“…and there fair and desperate was raised the NOLINKbanner of the White Tree and Stars. Upon the other hill hard by stood the banners of Rohan and Dol Amroth, White Horse and Silver Swan. And about each hill a ring was made facing all ways, bristling with spear and sword.”
M1R26
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I think m64's alliance has potential though. Let me find some sample alliance cards for you guys...
[3] All Powers Assembled [Sauron]
Condition • Support Area
Alliance: [Gollum] or [Raider] (You may replace [Sauron] with [Gollum] or [Raider] anywhere in this card’s gametext). To play, spot 3 [Sauron] Orcs.
Shadow: Play a [Sauron] minion to reveal the top card of your draw deck. If that card is a minion, you may play it; it is twilight cost -1.
“…but Gothmog the lieutenant of Morgul had flung them into the fray; Easterlings with axes, and Variags of Khand, Southrons in scarlet…”
M1C72
[2] The Hour of Men [Gondor]
Condition • Support Area
Alliance: [Rohan]. To play, spot 2 Man companions, each of a different culture.
At the start of the regroup phase, you may exert a [Gondor] Man to heal a Man of another culture.
Skirmish: Exert a [Gondor] Man companion to make another [Gondor] Man companion strength +1 (limit +2) and damage +1 (limit +2).
“…and there fair and desperate was raised the NOLINKbanner of the White Tree and Stars. Upon the other hill hard by stood the banners of Rohan and Dol Amroth, White Horse and Silver Swan. And about each hill a ring was made facing all ways, bristling with spear and sword.”
M1R26
Can you play alliance cards as cards of a different culture (for example, can you recover All Powers Assembled with Ships of Great Draught)?
If so, what about cards like It Burns Us: How many times would you wound a minion if you only had All Powers Assembled and [raider] cards in hand?
If not, why not just use "or" phrases instead of a new keyword ("Play a [sauron], [gollum], or [raider] minion to...")? It's a little longer, but a lot simpler than adding a new keyword (especially considering all of the other new concepts we want to do).
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Can you play alliance cards as cards of a different culture (for example, can you recover All Powers Assembled with Ships of Great Draught)?
If so, what about cards like It Burns Us: How many times would you wound a minion if you only had All Powers Assembled and [raider] cards in hand?
In this form of the keyword, the answer to both those questions is no - it is only the culture it is printed.
If not, why not just use "or" phrases instead of a new keyword ("Play a [sauron], [gollum], or [raider] minion to...")? It's a little longer, but a lot simpler than adding a new keyword (especially considering all of the other new concepts we want to do).
You could be, but I'm not sure there are actually that many new concepts really on the table - just reusing old concepts, like The One Ring, twilight, search/stealth. The culture alliances is the only new thing we've got going at the moment.
I like alliance a lot for cards with toil and other things that care about culture. Could we use this in conjunction with another keyword that cared about cultures? Maybe counting cards of cultures, doing things to each card of a culture (like MTG Radiance)? That would perhaps make it more relevant, though it might be unnecessary.
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Random thought: two of these ideas can be combined.
Say if you redefine Alliance: X to mean (you may replace the symbol of this card's culture with X anywhere in this card's game text; this card is an X card). So it has functionality always, and it replaces the culture keyword idea.
Something like:
[3] Uruk Siege Band [Uruk]
Minion • Uruk-hai
Str: 8
Vit: 3
Sit: 5
Alliance: [Isengard]. Damage +1. (You may replace [Uruk] with [Isengard] anywhere in this card's game text; this card is an [Isengard] card).
Skirmish: Exert this minion to make an [Uruk] minion at a battleground strength +2.
G C
Good idea?
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I probably won't help with this but why not just make your alliance keyword like this
[2] Some Random Dude [Rohan]
Companion - Man
Strength 6
Vitality 3
Resistance 6
Alliance [Gondor] . This card may be spotted as a [Gondor] card.
that way you accomplish almost the same thing, only this way you could play say Banners Blowing on him cause he can be spotted as a [Gondor] man
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Random thought: two of these ideas can be combined.
Say if you redefine Alliance: X to mean (you may replace the symbol of this card's culture with X anywhere in this card's game text; this card is an X card). So it has functionality always, and it replaces the culture keyword idea.
Yeah, although how would this be affect by, say, It Burns Us if you only had this and [isengard] cards? If you only had this and [uruk] cards? If you only had this card?
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I probably won't help with this but why not just make your alliance keyword like this
[2] Some Random Dude [Rohan]
Companion - Man
Strength 6
Vitality 3
Resistance 6
Alliance [Gondor] . This card may be spotted as a [Gondor] card.
that way you accomplish almost the same thing, only this way you could play say Banners Blowing on him cause he can be spotted as a [Gondor] man
I'm not a fan of the spotting keyword as it could be confusing, and only applies when the card is actually in play (though this could be what we want). I think a mechanic that made it straight 2 cultures would be cleaner. And if we're going to just do that, then I suggest we use the culture keyword mechanic whereby you might have a guy like:
[3] Cool Uruk [Uruk]
Minion • Uruk-hai
Str: 8
Vit: 2
Sit: 5
Damage +1. [Isengard].
G C
making him an [Isengard] card without changing the card template. It would also be affected by things that remove game text keywords like Northwoman.
Yeah, although how would this be affect by, say, It Burns Us if you only had this and [isengard] cards? If you only had this and [uruk] cards? If you only had this card?
There are 2 ways you could go down that route:
1) Make it so that you can always choose it to be its printed culture OR its alliance culture (in which case when you used It Burns Us, the card's owner can choose it to be whatever culture he likes)
2) Make it so that it is always 2 cultures simultaneously (in which case It Burns Us revealing just that card would spot 2 cultures.
If we use my latest suggestion for the alliance keyword, then it makes the most intuitive sense to allow you to always choose which culture the card is at any given point (as you can do with its game text), making it a bit more like L3333's point, except that it also works when not in play.
If we just run with the culture keyword idea and lose the alliance, then it makes the most sense to use the second option.
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Another card game has had this issue and it was dealt with as follows:
If a card is two cultures at the same time .. say [Rohan] and [Gondor] then the card is both cultures at the same time. It burns us will spot 2 cultures which provides a negative to the obvious advantage of using a much larger card base to support this companion. There are other cards that make this a negative as well.
However, it has been mentioned before that companions that are two cultures simultaneously may lead to issues with culture bleed and may become OP. Perhaps the negatives will balance out some of the positives but allowing a companion to use cards from two cultures increases the chance of a broken combination of cards.
I prefer that cards switch cultures. I also prefer that you have to work to make a companion change cultures. For example - Aragorn is [Gondor] but if you want him to be [Elven] you will have to work for it by deploying X Elves. He then switches (is no longer [Gondor]) to [Elven]. If you lose too many Elves he reverts back to [Gondor]. This attaches a risk to uses an [Elven] Aragorn because if you start to lose, he will lose the cards that support him. A good deck designer could perhaps work out a way to change the number of Elves in play, so Aragorn reverts from [Elven] to [Gondor] in the same time to take advantage of a larger pool of cards. You could take this concept further, rather than spotting a culture, you could spot a named companion:
* While you can spot three [Elven] companions, this companion (Aragorn) becomes [Elven]
* While you can spot Arwen, this companion (Aragorn) becomes [Elven]
I have mentioned this idea a few times but it seems to have little support. Is this because it might be a little weak as a concept and perhaps not used very much? Or is it messy to keep track of? Or am i overlooking something more obvious?
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I think your idea works fine. It is also not exclusive with any of the ideas we've been talking about (it is in fact an sub-set of culture-shifting). What's to stop us making a line of text like: "While you can spot 3 Elves, Aragorn loses [Gondor] and gains [Elven]" (for the culture keyword model) or "While you can spot 3 Elves, Aragorn loses the [Gondor] culture and gains Alliance: [Elven]" (for the alliance model). You could even make cultures exclusive by default, ie. that cards can only be 1 culture and if they become a new culture, they lose their old culture.
On the other side, I'm not at all sure that cards having more than 1 culture makes any broken combos at all. I would challenge you to name some.
What it does do is dramatically increase deckbuilding creativity and options, I think much more so than making guys switch cultures.
I'm working on some culture-matters mechanics. I'll post them when I've got some good ideas.
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On the other side, I'm not at all sure that cards having more than 1 culture makes any broken combos at all. I would challenge you to name some.
Load Aragorn, RotN up with Endurance of Dwarves for a free site 9.
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On the other side, I'm not at all sure that cards having more than 1 culture makes any broken combos at all. I would challenge you to name some.
Load Aragorn, RotN up with Endurance of Dwarves for a free site 9.
Well that doesn't work because Endurance of Dwarves cares about race not culture. But even so, Endurance of Dwarves is not that good (it still gets discarded easily), and you can already pump Aragorn's vitality with things like Ranger's Cloak, Andúril etc. Even say Endurance of Dwarves on Greenleaf, that's quite good, but I still don't think it's broken.
And anyway most (if not all) of the time, we'll be making the guys who have 2 cultures and so we can regulate them ourselves.
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Check these ideas out. I'm taking some culture-matter mechanic ideas, and also throwing in some of the information manipulation business to see what comes out.
• Mono-culture hate
[2] Spying [Gollum] (F)
Event • Maneuver
Search.
Exert Sméagol and choose a Shadow culture to reveal an opponent's hand; place all revealed Shadow cards of the chosen culture beneath that player's draw deck in any order.
[3] Valiant Charge [Rohan]
Event • Regroup
Exert 2 valiant companions to wound a minion and each other minion that shares a culture with it.
• Multi-culture boost
[2] Union of the Two Towers [Isengard]
Event • Shadow
Spot an [Isengard] card and a [Sauron] card to reveal the top 6 cards of your draw deck; discard a Free Peoples condition for each Shadow culture revealed. Place the revealed cards beneath your draw deck in any order.
• Target culture hate/boost
[2] Corsair Wimp [Men]
Minion • Man
Strength: 6
Vitality: 2
Site: 6
Corsair.
Each time you play a [Sauron] or [Raider] card, ~ is strength +2 until the regroup phase.
(0) Great Enemy [Gondor]
Event • Response
If a [Sauron] or [Men] event is played, spot a [Gondor] companion to cancel its effects.
• Imprinting (an MTG term, but hopefully you'll see what I mean)
[1] Friend of the Free Peoples [Gandalf]
Condition • Support Area
When you play ~, you may stack a Free Peoples card from your hand here.
Gandalf gains alliance for the cultures of cards stacked here.
[4] Uruk Quarreler [Uruk]
Minion • Uruk-hai
Strength: 9
Vitality: 2
Site: 5
Damage +1.
When you play ~, you may stack a minion from your hand here.
While there is an [Orc] or [Sauron] minion stacked here, ~ is strength +3 and fierce.
• Culture tokens
[3] •Boromir, Valiant Defender [Gondor]
Companion • Man
Strength: 7
Vitality: 3
Resistance: 5
Valiant. [Aragorn].
While you can spot culture tokens of 3 different cultures, ~ is defender +1.
[2] Corsair Ship [Men]
Possession • Support Area
Engine.
When you play ~, add a [Men] token here, and then reinforce a culture token of each Shadow culture you can spot.
My overall aims here are to reward multi-culture and punish mono-culture.
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Most of these cards are pretty good (I especially like Union of the Two Towers)
[2] Spying [Gollum] (F)
Event • Maneuver
Search.
Exert Sméagol and choose a Shadow culture to reveal an opponent's hand; place all revealed Shadow cards of the chosen culture beneath that player's draw deck in any order.
It seems too powerful and kills event-based Shadows (even if you have a second Shadow culture, they'll just choose the more important one). Maybe "Exert Smeagol to reveal an opponent's hand and make one of that player's minions strength -1 for each card of that minion's culture revealed in this way."
[2] Union of the Two Towers [Isengard]
Event • Shadow
Spot an [Isengard] card and a [Sauron] card to reveal the top 6 cards of your draw deck; discard a Free Peoples condition for each Shadow culture revealed. Place the revealed cards beneath your draw deck in any order.
I really like this one.
[1] Friend of the Free Peoples [Gandalf]
Condition • Support Area
When you play ~, you may stack a Free Peoples card from your hand here.
Gandalf gains alliance for the cultures of cards stacked here.
[4] Uruk Quarreler [Uruk]
Minion • Uruk-hai
Strength: 9
Vitality: 2
Site: 5
Damage +1.
When you play ~, you may stack a minion from your hand here.
While there is an [Orc] or [Sauron] minion stacked here, ~ is strength +3 and fierce.
I'm not sure about stacking cards on characters (maybe make it "When you play this minion, you may discard an [Orc] or [sauron] minion from hand to make this minion strength +3 and fierce until the end of the turn."), and making Gandalf able to easily adopt any culture is bound to create a broken combo somewhere (even if not, it's really powerful).
[3] •Boromir, Valiant Defender [Gondor]
Companion • Man
Strength: 7
Vitality: 3
Resistance: 5
Valiant. [Aragorn].
While you can spot culture tokens of 3 different cultures, ~ is defender +1.
[2] Corsair Ship [Men]
Possession • Support Area
Engine.
When you play ~, add a [Men] token here, and then reinforce a culture token of each Shadow culture you can spot.
These are pretty good. I really like Boromir, although I think Corsair Ship should cost more.
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I'm not sure about stacking cards on characters (maybe make it "When you play this minion, you may discard an [Orc] or [sauron] minion from hand to make this minion strength +3 and fierce until the end of the turn."), and making Gandalf able to easily adopt any culture is bound to create a broken combo somewhere (even if not, it's really powerful).
Well essentially I'm using stacking as a memory aid. It's quite easy to forget that you discarded a minion in the Shadow phase to pump your guy, but harder when that minion is stacked under your guy. But I do get your point.
I'm glad some of the concepts I used you thought were good. I now want to invite everyone to post their own concepts for culture-matters mechanics!
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I'm glad some of the concepts I used you thought were good. I now want to invite everyone to post their own concepts for culture-matters mechanics!
How about companions like Aragorn, DoFP, or cross-cultural cards along the lines of "Do something involving both Culture A and Culture B to do something they're both good at." For example:
[3] The White Council [elven]
Event • Maneuver
To play, spot a [gandalf] Wizard and an [elven] Elf. Until the regroup phase, each minion who is skirmishing a [gandalf] or [elven] companion is strength -1 (or -3 if the companions you spotted both had resistance 7 or higher).
[1] Age of Men [gondor]
Event • Maneuver
Spot a [gondor] Man and a [rohan] Man to play a possession or fortification from your discard pile.
[5] •Treebeard, Keeper of Lists [gandalf]
Follower • Ent
Aid - Exert an unbound [gandalf] or [shire] companion.
When you transfer Treebeard to an [elven] companion, take an [elven] event into hand from your discard pile.
When you transfer Treebeard to a [gondor] or [rohan] companion, play a mount from your hand or discard pile.
When you transfer Treebeard to a [dwarven] companion, reveal the top 10 cards of your draw deck to play an artifact revealed in this way (or every such artifact if at an underground site). Shuffle your draw deck.
"First learn the four, the Free Peoples..."
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Great stuff!
I was thinking, exactly on the lines of your points, that in order to make a culture-matters set, we need to strongly and continuously consider the strengths of each culture.
So I've prepared a little summary whereby each culture that I've put in the skeleton has keywords, themes, phases, card types or effects associated with it, in a 3 tier system.
1) indicates major strengths - should appear at all rarities for very good cost.
2) indicates good strength - should sometimes appear at common, but usually higher rarities, for a decent cost.
3) indicates minor strength - should appear at high rarities, but normally with a high cost.
This is obviously not hard and fast, just my initial thoughts. Any suggestions on it would be greatly appreciated, and I will update it as necessary. Just use it as some reference for now. As soon as I've spent the awful amount of time it takes to make a table in BBcode, I will post the embryonic design skeleton in a new thread.
(Couple of minor points: mill = discard from top of draw deck, bounce = return to hand, the words "follower" and "ally" are essentially interchangeable, I included the unloaded traitor keyword just in case it was any use, not because I particularly want to use it, twilight = the twilight keyword, not the tokens, and words surrounded by *asterisks* are either themes that I have moved from where they are in the current state of the game or have simply been added)
[Dwarven]
1) fellowship draw, mountain, conditions, mill, pumps, recursion, damage, tales, *valiant*
2) underground, search, foresight, tokens, maneuver wounding, possessions
3) healing, choke, archery, pipeweed, regroup wounding, artifacts, maneuver/regroup draw
[Elven]
1) forest, sanctuary, events, direct wounding, adding threats for effects, shrinking minions, healing, stealth, tale, archery, foresight
2) river, artifacts, revealing, burden removal, liberating sites, *spells*, culture tokens, alliances, resistance, maneuver condition discard, maneuver draw
3) conditions, discard from hand, moving, choke, twilight, The Ring, cancel skirmishes, rangers
[Gandalf]
1) battleground, events, adding burdens for effect, pumping, shrinking, sites, flood the pool, spells, alliances, condition discard, resistance
2) dwelling, mountain, followers, revealing, threats, healing, discarding minions, search, pipeweed, culture tokens, skirmish/maneuver wounding
3) underground, fetch, bounce, tales, foresight, burden removal, moving
[Gollum]
1) marsh, events, skirmish wounding, burdens, threats, pumps, sites, moving, choke, search, stealth, *traitor*, Ring-bound, regroup actions, resistance, The Ring
2) revealing, fetch, recursion, healing, *ambush*, cancel skirmishes, cancel events/abilities
3) mountain, character discard, follower discard, twilight, possessions (for Shelob), Shadow/Free Peoples interaction
[Gondor]
1) battleground, possessions, maneuver wounding, healing, sites, regroup choke, defender, ranger/knight, culture tokens, fortifications
2) conditions, threat removal, cancel skirmishes, liberating, artifacts, damage, *valiant*, alliances, pumps, stealth
3) sanctuary, fetch, archery, tales, pipeweed, moving, Ring-bound/unbound
[Isengard]
1) battleground, events, condition discard, exerting, damage, search, spell, tracker, *besieger*, *traitor*, *engine*
2) conditions, revealing, mill, site control, bounce, archery, weather, foresight, The Ring, alliances, wound prevention
3) *dwelling*, discard, fierce, *pipeweed*, culture hate
[Men]
1) plains, events, skirmish wounding, threats, *fetch*, ambush, archery, *search*, raider keywords, *traitor*, culture tokens
2) battleground, possessions, pumps, site control, fierce, stealth, possession discard, mounts
3) *sanctuary*, damage, *engines*, resistance, *follower discard*, alliances
[Orc]
1) underground, conditions, adding burdens, shrinking companions, recursion, flood pool, stealth, *besieger*, *engine*, swarm, condition discard
2) battleground, possessions, skirmish wounding, mill, damage, tracker, search, resistance
3) adding threats, sites, moving, archery, mounts
[Rohan]
1) plains, possessions, events, liberation, moving, valiant, villagers, culture tokens, possession discard
2) battleground, healing, bounce, defender, *knight*, fortification, alliances, fetching
3) followers, regroup draw, discard, sites, direct wounding
[Sauron]
1) *battleground*, conditions, discard from hand, direct wounding, burdens, mill, shrinking, site control, search, tracker, besieger, The Ring, *resistance*
2) *river*, events, shadow draw, fierce, *spells*, *traitor*, engine, swarm, condition discard
3) recursion, twilight, archery, revealing, assignment
[Shire]
1) dwelling, followers, removing burdens, cancel skirmishes, healing, stealth, pipeweed, *villagers*, Ring-bound, The Ring, resistance
2) forest, removing threats, fetch, choke, tales, *valiant*, culture tokens, alliances, events
3) recursion, sites, twilight, revealing, assignment
[Uruk]
1) battleground, conditions, wounds, site control, healing, damage, *search*, *trackers*, assignment, wound prevention
2) shadow draw, adding threats, mill, pumps, fierce, *besieger*, resistance
3) possessions, *engines*, culture tokens, follower discard
[Wraith]
1) forest, conditions, burdens, sites, fierce, search, stealth, twilight, The Ring, resistance, follower discard
2) *marsh*, threats, recursion, healing, spell, Ring-bound, assignment, possession discard
3) artifacts, Shadow draw, *weather*, foresight
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And obviously an extension of Sam's idea above is to have guys like:
[3] Númenorean Descendant [Gondor]
Companion • Man
Str: 7
Vit: 3
Res: 6
While you can spot an [Elven] companion, ~ is resistance +2.
While skirmishing a [Men] or [Raider] minion, ~ cannot take wounds.
ie. culture love and culture hate, allowing you to have effects that you would not normally have in a particular culture.
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Hmm...I prefer culture love over culture hate. Culture love you can build decks around; culture hate is only useful if the set is so unbalanced that a single culture dominates the meta, and tends to turn the game into a rock-scissors-paper guessing game.
Also, the second sentence is too powerful against Whirling Strike/ Red Wrath wounding decks. I really dislike single cards that kill decks (again, it creates the rock-scissors-paper phenomenon above).
I like the concept, though. Just remove the second sentence with another [elven] booster (or even another culture). Ideally, instead of just saying "while you can spot an [elven] something," add game text that boosts the joint strengths of the cultures. Basically, think about what sort of deck provides a good symbiosis between the two cultures, and figure out a way to make it better. For example:
[3] •Ranger of Fornost [Gondor]
Companion • Man
Str: 6
Vit: 3
Res: 6
Ranger.
While you can spot a unique [gondor] companion in your starting fellowship, this companion's twilight cost is -1.
Each time another [gondor] or [elven] companion exerts during the manuever, archery, or skirmish phases, you may exert this companion to place no token for that exertion (limit once).
The survivors of Arnor long remembered their ancient friendship with the elves.
R
This sort of symbiosis-mindedness is especially important with shadow cards, where the impermanence of minions makes multi-cultural decks weaker.
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Each time another [gondor] or [elven] companion exerts during the manuever, archery, or skirmish phases, you may exert this companion to place no token for that exertion (limit once).
The survivors of Arnor long remembered their ancient friendship with the elves.
R
Wait, what does the "limit once" even mean? Once per phase? Once per companion? Also, for consistency, his ability should be a Response: action. I'd definitely take out the archery phase there (otherwise Greenleaf gets sick) and maybe maneuver. (otherwise think Fellowship Aragorn)
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And obviously an extension of Sam's idea above is to have guys like:
[3] Númenorean Descendant [Gondor]
Companion • Man
Str: 7
Vit: 3
Res: 6
While you can spot an [Elven] companion, ~ is resistance +2.
While skirmishing a [Men] or [Raider] minion, ~ cannot take wounds.
ie. culture love and culture hate, allowing you to have effects that you would not normally have in a particular culture.
Change to "cannot take more than 1 wound". Flat out invincibility hoses two entire cultures, especially as a gondor player might stock 4 of them and, if he's facing those shadows, drop them all in his fellowship. Then you're only hope of getting the ring-bearer is a swarm.
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Another card game has had this issue and it was dealt with as follows:
If a card is two cultures at the same time .. say [Rohan] and [Gondor] then the card is both cultures at the same time. It burns us will spot 2 cultures which provides a negative to the obvious advantage of using a much larger card base to support this companion. There are other cards that make this a negative as well.
However, it has been mentioned before that companions that are two cultures simultaneously may lead to issues with culture bleed and may become OP. Perhaps the negatives will balance out some of the positives but allowing a companion to use cards from two cultures increases the chance of a broken combination of cards.
I prefer that cards switch cultures. I also prefer that you have to work to make a companion change cultures. For example - Aragorn is [Gondor] but if you want him to be [Elven] you will have to work for it by deploying X Elves. He then switches (is no longer [Gondor]) to [Elven]. If you lose too many Elves he reverts back to [Gondor]. This attaches a risk to uses an [Elven] Aragorn because if you start to lose, he will lose the cards that support him. A good deck designer could perhaps work out a way to change the number of Elves in play, so Aragorn reverts from [Elven] to [Gondor] in the same time to take advantage of a larger pool of cards. You could take this concept further, rather than spotting a culture, you could spot a named companion:
* While you can spot three [Elven] companions, this companion (Aragorn) becomes [Elven]
* While you can spot Arwen, this companion (Aragorn) becomes [Elven]
I have mentioned this idea a few times but it seems to have little support. Is this because it might be a little weak as a concept and perhaps not used very much? Or is it messy to keep track of? Or am i overlooking something more obvious?
Forgive my ramblings a moment...
The Rohan Aragorn was one moment I really, REALLY geeked out. As soon as I saw him I wished they had done something similar with the alternate ring-bearers. I mean, gimli being an RB makes no sense! Why not just have a dwarf culture Bilbo? (referencing the Hobbit)
How about instead of worrying about changing cultures and all that, you just simplify it to "old cards in new clothes" sort of thing? Try to put as many people into cultures they have never been in before.
As for shadow cultures, either slap two culture icons in the top right, or just fill in their text boxes. i.e. "You may exert this minion to pay for [Isengard] cards."
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[Dwarven]
1) fellowship draw, mountain, conditions, mill, pumps, recursion, damage, tales, *valiant*
2) underground, search, foresight, tokens, maneuver wounding, maneuver draw, possessions
3) healing, choke, archery, pipeweed, discarding Shadow cards, regroup wounding, artifacts
I'd say possession should actually be in 1 and "post fellowship" drawing should be in 3. Well, the way the game is, not what I think it should be.
[Elven]
1) forest, sanctuary, events, direct wounding, adding threats for effects, shrinking minions, healing, stealth, tale, archery, foresight
2) river, artifacts, revealing, burden removal, liberating sites, spells, rangers, culture tokens, alliances, resistance, maneuver condition discard
3) conditions, discard from hand, moving, choke, twilight, The Ring, cancel skirmishes
You forgot that elves gained "post fellowship" drawing as a #2 from Kings onward. Spells should also be ** as is cancel skirmishes. I'd probably put rangers in #3.
[Gandalf]
1) battleground, events, adding burdens for effect, pumping, shrinking, sites, flood the pool, spells, alliances, condition discard, resistance
2) dwelling, mountain, followers, revealing, threats, healing, discarding minions, search, pipeweed, culture tokens, skirmish/maneuver wounding
3) underground, fetch, bounce, tales, foresight, burden removal, moving
i.e. Jack of all trades. :hey:
[Gollum]
1) marsh, events, skirmish wounding, burdens, threats, pumps, sites, moving, choke, search, stealth, *traitor*, Ring-bound, regroup actions, resistance, The Ring
2) revealing, fetch, recursion, healing, *ambush*, cancel skirmishes, cancel events/abilities
3) mountain, character discard, follower discard, twilight, possessions (for Shelob), Shadow/Free Peoples interaction
Not bad.
[Gondor]
1) battleground, possessions, maneuver wounding, healing, sites, regroup choke, defender, ranger/knight, culture tokens, fortifications
2) conditions, threat removal, cancel skirmishes, liberating, moving, damage, *valiant*, alliances, pumps, stealth
3) sanctuary, artifacts, fetch, archery, tales, pipeweed, Ring-bound/unbound
Gondor canceling skirmishes? Since when? If I assume moving to be +1 move limit, then it should be under 3 and artifacts should be in #2.
[Isengard]
1) battleground, events, condition discard, exerting, damage, search, spell, tracker, *besieger*, *traitor*, *engine*
2) conditions, revealing, mill, site control, bounce, archery, weather, foresight, The Ring, alliances, wound prevention
3) *dwelling*, discard, fierce, *pipeweed*, culture hate
Don't forget the regroup phase. (probably #2)
[Men]
1) plains, events, skirmish wounding, threats, *fetch*, ambush, archery, *search*, raider keywords, *traitor*, culture tokens
2) battleground, possessions, pumps, site control, fierce, stealth, possession discard, mounts
3) *sanctuary*, damage, *engines*, resistance, *follower discard*, alliances
Evil men culture does seem a natural for anti-follower tech doesn't it? maybe even "stealing" followers to represent their corrupting influence?
[Orc]
1) underground, conditions, adding burdens, shrinking companions, recursion, flood pool, stealth, *besieger*, *engine*, swarm, condition discard
2) battleground, possessions, skirmish wounding, mill, damage, tracker, search, resistance
3) adding threats, sites, moving, archery, mounts
Shadow side needs more mount love! :uh-huh:
[Rohan]
1) plains, possessions, events, liberation, moving, valiant, villagers, culture tokens, possession discard
2) battleground, healing, bounce, defender, *knight*, fortification, alliances, fetching
3) followers, regroup draw, discard, sites, direct wounding
I can't help but salivate at the idea of an Eowyn knight...
[Sauron]
1) *battleground*, conditions, discard from hand, direct wounding, burdens, mill, shrinking, site control, search, tracker, besieger, The Ring, *resistance*
2) *river*, events, shadow draw, fierce, *spells*, *traitor*, engine, swarm, condition discard
3) recursion, twilight, archery, revealing, assignment
I'd just like to say... I HATED the [orc] culture and always thought Sauron should have never been removed from the game.
[Shire]
1) dwelling, followers, removing burdens, cancel skirmishes, healing, stealth, pipeweed, *villagers*, Ring-bound, The Ring, resistance
2) forest, removing threats, fetch, choke, tales, *valiant*, culture tokens, alliances, events
3) recursion, sites, twilight, revealing, assignment
Not much was ever done with the "villager" keyword. It would be interesting to see it on Hobbits.
[Uruk]
1) battleground, conditions, wounds, site control, healing, damage, *search*, *trackers*, assignment, wound prevention
2) shadow draw, adding threats, mill, pumps, fierce, *besieger*, resistance
3) possessions, *engines*, culture tokens, follower discard
Eh, moving on.
[Wraith]
1) forest, conditions, burdens, sites, fierce, search, stealth, twilight, The Ring, resistance, follower discard
2) *marsh*, threats, recursion, healing, spell, Ring-bound, assignment, possession discard
3) artifacts, Shadow draw, *weather*, foresight
Why "marsh"? I know a Nazgul flew over one during TTT but... Dwelling seems more their style than any other (didn't some dwelling sites gives Nazgul their biggest boost?).
Hmm... I was thinking what if as a balancing mechanic, some cards got weaker at certain sites? i.e. Some Nazgul is strength -2 at a river. Hobbit exerts at a mountain. etc etc They had some of that in the past (mounts discarded at underground, or adding twilight when moving from something).
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[Dwarven]
I'd say possession should actually be in 1 and "post fellowship" drawing should be in 3. Well, the way the game is, not what I think it should be.
Well I put possessions after conditions, but you can make the argument to make possessions 1.
[Elven]
You forgot that elves gained "post fellowship" drawing as a #2 from Kings onward. Spells should also be ** as is cancel skirmishes. I'd probably put rangers in #3.
All fair. But skirmish cancelling actually is in the Elven culture as in Voice of Nimrodel.
[Gondor]
Gondor canceling skirmishes? Since when? If I assume moving to be +1 move limit, then it should be under 3 and artifacts should be in #2.
There is a card from Towers but I can't remember what it was. Curse Them?
[Wraith]
Why "marsh"? I know a Nazgul flew over one during TTT but... Dwelling seems more their style than any other (didn't some dwelling sites gives Nazgul their biggest boost?).
I put marsh sites on for the Barrow-Wights.
I will make some changes to the reference in a bit.
Hmm... I was thinking what if as a balancing mechanic, some cards got weaker at certain sites? i.e. Some Nazgul is strength -2 at a river. Hobbit exerts at a mountain. etc etc They had some of that in the past (mounts discarded at underground, or adding twilight when moving from something).
Yeah definitely worth considering.
Change to "cannot take more than 1 wound". Flat out invincibility hoses two entire cultures, especially as a gondor player might stock 4 of them and, if he's facing those shadows, drop them all in his fellowship. Then you're only hope of getting the ring-bearer is a swarm.
Good call. We'll get on to card details later - right now we should be caring mainly about concepts.
Hmm...I prefer culture love over culture hate. Culture love you can build decks around; culture hate is only useful if the set is so unbalanced that a single culture dominates the meta, and tends to turn the game into a rock-scissors-paper guessing game.
Great stuff. You need some culture hate, especially in a culture matters set. What I would say is that most cards should have some utility anyway with some extra power against a particular culture.
Also, the second sentence is too powerful against Whirling Strike/ Red Wrath wounding decks. I really dislike single cards that kill decks (again, it creates the rock-scissors-paper phenomenon above).
Also, magic bullets are an important tool in card design. You should be careful about them, but in MTG there are always hosers that destroy decks (like removing graveyards from the game against dredge strategies).
I like the concept, though. Just remove the second sentence with another [elven] booster (or even another culture). Ideally, instead of just saying "while you can spot an [elven] something," add game text that boosts the joint strengths of the cultures. Basically, think about what sort of deck provides a good symbiosis between the two cultures, and figure out a way to make it better. For example:
[3] •Ranger of Fornost [Gondor]
Companion • Man
Str: 6
Vit: 3
Res: 6
Ranger.
While you can spot a unique [gondor] companion in your starting fellowship, this companion's twilight cost is -1.
Each time another [gondor] or [elven] companion exerts during the manuever, archery, or skirmish phases, you may exert this companion to place no token for that exertion (limit once).
The survivors of Arnor long remembered their ancient friendship with the elves.
R
This sort of symbiosis-mindedness is especially important with shadow cards, where the impermanence of minions makes multi-cultural decks weaker.
Yeah, great thoughts! We should keep this stuff in mind.
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All fair. But skirmish cancelling actually is in the Elven culture as in Voice of Nimrodel.
There is a card from Towers but I can't remember what it was. Curse Them?
See? Told you I was rusty. XD
Hmmm... part of me thinks maybe the list should be divided into what cultures SHOULD have and things they were given which should be forgotten. Like canceling in Gondor - nononononono. I dunno, may be part of me is misreading it all there. I'd say if we were going to make a new set we'd have to decide:
1) Will it or will it not rotate?
2) Are there any strategies we can beef up and explore more before we go throwing more new ones out there?
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1) Will it or will it not rotate?
Nothing is going to rotate. One of the main reasons the culture-matters theme emerged was to help the set act as glue between Movie and standard.
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Check out the first draft of the design skeleton (http://lotrtcgdb.com/forums/index.php/topic,4622.msg52790.html#msg52790)!
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This died somehow... or is there any progress?
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This died somehow... or is there any progress?
I think that it died or it is in a coma. It's sad but it's what happen with at least 80% of all DC sets.
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we could try again if Thranduil is interested but the idea was to get the community involved and by the end there was not many people posting ideas or comment regularly.
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we could try again if Thranduil is interested but the idea was to get the community involved and by the end there was not many people posting ideas or comment regularly.
I'm still interested. I became very busy soon after I started it, unfortunately, and I can't guarantee that I'll have enough time to run it now. But essentially there was a lack of flowing ideas.
I will think on this and probably make a reboot at some point. Though any of you could attempt the same sort of project! ;)
Thranduil