triumph and menace

[jdizzy001]

Though the key words never took off, and many of the cards were considered too powerful, I think Triumph and menace were great.  They were a little ahead of their time.  Honestly the keywords should have functioned a little differently, and they should have been made available off-line as well.

Nevertheless, being a man of much thought and pondering, had I invented the keywords they would have functioned differently.  Thus, in jdizzy's world of the bizarre, here we have the rebirth of two new/old keywords.

Triumph and Menace

they function like aid. (at the start of the manuver phase... ... they remain active till the end of the turn.)

There you go, an easy fix for a keyword that never took off.  Of course you would have to apply a cost to each ability seperatly but that is fine.  Triumph applies to freeps and menace to minions.

[Cw0rk]

Well... What about Army of Moria? It cannot be like aid as it would have to happen before the maneuver phase.

[ket_the_jet]

Do you know how triumph and menace actually worked?

It was an online-only feature as it was an equation that activated at the particular phase. For the Free Peoples, triumph was based on how many skirmish events you played through the game. So at turn one or two, the triumph wouldn't necessarily activate, but by site eight or nine in a relatively skirmish event-heavy deck, you might activate the triumph text.

The menace text was based on how much pool the Shadow player was given throughout the course of the game. So early on, it likely would not activate. But by site 9 or so, when you have had a cumulative 60 or so twilight, the odds of menace activating were increased.

The point is, it was stupid then and it is stupid now. Decipher was just trying to sell some more subscriptions to the online game after they had announced that it was going to be closed down a year or two later. Whatever the actual dates were.
-wtk

[sharkey]

Do you know how triumph and menace actually worked?

It was an online-only feature as it was an equation that activated at the particular phase. For the Free Peoples, triumph was based on how many skirmish events you played through the game. So at turn one or two, the triumph wouldn't necessarily activate, but by site eight or nine in a relatively skirmish event-heavy deck, you might activate the triumph text.

The menace text was based on how much pool the Shadow player was given throughout the course of the game. So early on, it likely would not activate. But by site 9 or so, when you have had a cumulative 60 or so twilight, the odds of menace activating were increased.

The point is, it was stupid then and it is stupid now. Decipher was just trying to sell some more subscriptions to the online game after they had announced that it was going to be closed down a year or two later. Whatever the actual dates were.
-wtk

This.

[jdizzy001]

@ c-work: I know certain texts would have to be changed, I just think t & m would have worked better if they functioned like aid.

@ ket: Oh yeah, i know how they work.  However, i thought having it function like aid would have been more successful.

[Cw0rk]

@ c-work: I know certain texts would have to be changed, I just think t & m would have worked better if they functioned like aid.

@ ket: Oh yeah, i know how they work.  However, i thought having it function like aid would have been more successful.

Well... Of course it would work better offline if the mechanism worked like aid but... they wouldn't need to write triumph or menace... they would just write aid. It would basically remove the entire sense of triumph and menace.

[ket_the_jet]

Gotta go with c-work here. If you want it to be "aid," just make it "aid."

Of course, as far as I know, "aid" is limited to followers. Why not create your own keyword?
-wtk

[jdizzy001]

Like you mentioned Ket, Aid is a follower keyword.  I just thought it would be nice to have a comp/minion version of the word, and since triumph and menace were already in existence without being used, I thought I would borrow it.  Of course you could drop the T and M and just make them special abilities.

[jdizzy001]

Wait, I got it.  It came to me late last night.
Trumph- At the start of your turn reveal the top card of your draw deck.  If it is a free peoples card, Triumph is activated till the end of your turn.

Menace- At the start of your Shadow Phase, reveal the top card of your draw deck, if it is a Shadow card, Menace is activated till the end of your turn.

This is more closely reflects the original intent of the mechanic.  Note: origianlly, when menace was activated, you may play a minion with the menace keyword from your draw deck.  Then and only then does the keyword take effect.   If you play a menace minion from your hand, his menace does not take effect.

[Cw0rk]

Wait, I got it.  It came to me late last night.
Trumph- At the start of your turn reveal the top card of your draw deck.  If it is a free peoples card, Triumph is activated till the end of your turn.

Menace- At the start of your Shadow Phase, reveal the top card of your draw deck, if it is a Shadow card, Menace is activated till the end of your turn.

This is more closely reflects the original intent of the mechanic.  Note: origianlly, when menace was activated, you may play a minion with the menace keyword from your draw deck.  Then and only then does the keyword take effect.   If you play a menace minion from your hand, his menace does not take effect.

I'm not sure but I think these effects had less than 50% chance of happening in LOTRO.

[ket_the_jet]

That is, less than a 50% chance of happening per game in the online card game.
-wtk

[jdizzy001]

Good thing I never played them on-line.  I would have been sad

[Cw0rk]

That is, less than a 50% chance of happening per game in the online card game.
-wtk

jdizzy, this means that if you want to make to create a mechanism to make triumph and menace work, it would have to have less than 50% chance of happening per game.

Something like this would be more realistic:
Triumph: At the start of the fellowship phase, reveal the top 5 cards of your draw deck. If there are 4 FP cards, triumph is activated until the end of the turn.
Menace: At the start of the shadow phase, reveal the top 5 cards of your draw deck. If there are 4 shadow cards, menace is activated until the end of the turn.

It would be less likely to happen, but some combos could easily put 4 FP or 4 Shadow cards on top of the deck.

[jdizzy001]

The odds of t&m functioning increased as the game went along.  What happens (in LOTR online) is the computer makes a check agaisnt a Target Number which decreases everytime the Freeps player uses a skirmish event.  Once you have played a certain number of Skirmish Events Triumph became "automatic" because the TN dropped so low the check succeeded everytime it was made.  For the shadow, the same thing occurs except the check (made at the beginning of the shadow phase) is made against the total number of twilight added by the freeps player.  Eventually the TN became so low it succeeded every time the check was made.  So, in order to convert these keywords flawlessly into a non-virtual game, one would have to keep a 100-sided die on hand and roll it every time a Skirmish Event was played in adition to rolling it at the start of the shadow phase.

I tried to simplify this process by reducing the TN to 50% under all circumstances (Thus the revealing cards mechaninc).  This allows the players to use T&M without drastically altering the way LOTR TCG is played.  I for one, didn't want to bring a 100-sided die to the table every time I used T&M. Theoretically speaking of course.  Also, the odds of Triumph activating is less than 50% due to the fact 1-3 cards (comps) begin the game in play.  Odds are you will only get Menace to work.  However, as we are well aware, there are ways to filter and cycle specific cards to the top of any deck.

Thanks for the input guys.  I appreciate it.

[Witchkingx5]

Just to have said it: all the virtual cards are weird, but i love many pictures of those.