New Freeps Culture

[Gwaihir]

I was thinking about certain cards like Grima Chief Counselor, Orc Insurgent and other similar cards that work by spotting freeps cultures and thought it would be cool if there were a way a shadow player could add to the number of freeps cultures.

I had a couple ideas.  One is to do something with the Palantirs.  Saruman had one and so did Denethor, but Denethor's was controlled by Sauron.  So one could be culture and another  What I thought was that there could be two new Palantir cards that the shadow could play on a companion.  They would become free peoples cards, yet retain their culture.  I thought they should confer some benefit to the bearer to balance their power.  They should probably have a spotting requirement as well each requiring spotting a minion of that culture to play.

So my initial idea:

  The Palantir of Orthanc, Stone  of Foresight.  
Artifact * Palantir
Vitality +1
To Play exert a   minion.  Plays on a companion.  This artifact cannot be transferred and becomes a free people's card when played.
Fellowship or Regroup.  The free people's player may exert bearer to reveal the top card of the free people's draw deck.  The free people's player may take the card into hand, discard it or put it to the bottom of the draw deck.  (Limit once per phase).

The Palantir of Minas Arnor, Stone of Despair.  
Artifact * Palantir
Strength +2
To play exert a minion.  Plays on a companion.  This artifact cannot be transferred, and becomes a free people's card when played.
Assignment.  The free people's player may exert bearer to make another companion Defender +1 until the regroup phase.  (Limit once per turn).

So what do you think?

[MR. Lurtzy]

Why would the shadow player play these cards?

[Gwaihir]

Grima Chief Counselor, Orc Insurgent, Mordor Pillager.  There may be other shadow cards that work by spotting free people's cultures, but these are the ones that come to mind.

Orc Insurgent and Mordor Pillager would really make use of the card, and the freeps player may kill off the companion to protect against them.

[MR. Lurtzy]

Wow, that's very creative. 

[Cw0rk]

Very creative indeed.

However, I have the feeling things would become pretty nasty with Grima, CC. These cards are too easy to play. Maybe you could specify what type of companion it can be played on.

[Thranduil]

The basic concept is good, but some details of the cards I'm not a fan of. Why does a Palantír pump your strength? Or vitality? Seems a bit weird to me.

It creates rules issues with Shadow cards becoming Free Peoples cards (do they also remain Shadow cards?) which you might need to clear up. I wonder if it's cleaner to leave them as Shadow cards and include a sentence "Add 1 to the number of Free Peoples cultures you can spot" but this might not be flavourful or intuitive so I would not necessarily suggest this.

Thranduil

[Gwaihir]

I thought of approaching it with the "add 1 to the number of free cultures" approach.  One reason for doing it the way I did, was to get around cards like Roll of Thunder.  As written now, Roll of Thunder won't work since they become free people's cards.  (Though as you say, I probably need to make it more clear about it not being a shadow card anymore).  The best way for the free people's player to toss the card is to kill or discard the companion.

My thought on the strength and vitality pumps is that the palantirs allow the users to gather intelligence.  This leads to better preparation in fights.  Defenses can be prepared (vitality) or even offensives planned (strength).  In the books Aragorn uses one palantir to discover the corsair navy moving to attack Gondor.  That is what leads him to go through Dunharrow and gather the army of the dead.  He destroys the corsairs, and uses their ships to bring reinforcements to the siege on the city of Minas Tirith.

That said, I am not certain that the strength and vitality pumps have the right feel.  Part of it though, is that these cards activate some shadow cards that can be quite powerful, so the pumps are part of the attempt to balance it.

[ket_the_jet]

I think that the original way of "adding 1 to the number..." actually makes more sense.

I think that Roll of Thunder should discard the card.
-wtk

[Gwaihir]

I don't like the idea of specifying what type of companion it can be played on.  That would make them worthless quite often and they wouldn't be used.  You have to devote a fair number of cards to this idea and if you aren't able to use it, it would likely fail.  As it is against decks like pure or Grima will still be useless, and those sorts of decks are quite common.

If the cards are too easy to play, and I can see that point, perhaps the way to address that would be by requiring two exertions rather than one.  This would limit the shadow minions that could play the card since not as many can exert twice and may force Grima to play the card, and not be able to use it until the next turn rolls around.

Also, many decks have only one or two cultures and for Grima to work, both palantirs would need to be played.  That would require a lot of deck space for the minions to activiate the palantirs, and the palantirs themselves.  I think just one palantir would be unreliable, for Grima at least.  Even for the orcs just one palantir would often be useless; any single culture fellowship would make them of no value.  To the contrary it would actually hurt the shadow as the freeps just got some cards that make them stronger with no down side.

That all or nothing aspect of the cards helps balance them I think.  (Not entirely sure though).  The freeps may have multiple cultures, then kill a companion after the palantir is played.  Then the freeps side has a boosted companion and the shadow benefits dissappear.

[Gwaihir]

Ket.  Here is the flip side of that.  Say the fellowship starts with 2 cultures and you play one palantir to make the number of freeps cultures 3.  Orc Insurgent and Mordor Pillager will now work.  But then the freeps player kills the one companion of the 2nd culture and now has a companion that is stronger.  The Palantir now greatly benefits the fellowship and does nothing for the shadow.  The shadow may now want to get rid of it with Grond for example.  The shadow can't if the Palantir is a shadow card.

The cards do some very useful things for the freeps side, and there are ways other than getting rid of it to counter the sole benefit it provides to the shadow.

[ket_the_jet]

But I think that clearly represents the danger of a Palantir. It can either work very well for the Shadow (converting Saruman, alerting Sauron of Pippin, etc.), but it can also work for the Free Peoples (Aragorn challenging Sauron, Denethor being prepared for Sauron's attack).

I think that if you made a few different Palantirs (all of them of the culture): Palantir of Minas Tirith, Palantir of Orthanc, etc.
-wtk