Second Edition Brainstorm

[Hobbiton Lad]

Now that templating is complete, I'd like to start brainstorming some ideas on what the community would like to see in Second Edition. There should probably be a child board dedicated to this, but moderator activity seems to be minimal as of late so this is probably the best place to talk about the project.

You can view the 2E Promotional Index here if you're not familiar with the look and feel of the templates.

These are the thoughts/ideas I have. Please feel free to submit your own. This is very much a community project.

I feel strongly about the following concepts:

• No Ring-bearers other than Frodo and Sam.
• Linear site path from Eriador to Mordor (no bouncing all over the map).
• Movie Block Cultures only.

Ideas I'd like to throw out there:

Rotation: Rather than a block structure, I'd like to see a release format that includes a single core set that is always legal for competitive play. Added to that core set would be various "cycles" that comprise small-ish expansions that represent a particular theme. The cycles would rotate in and out of legality, but cards from the core set (which would be the largest card pool) would always be eligible for play.

Development by Committee: While 2E is my brain-child, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that developing balanced, competitive cards and deck themes must be done by committee. There are smart, experienced people out there who have a deep understanding of this game system and it's my hope that I can get them on board with this project.

Errrata Is OK: Because 2E is a print-to-play and online project, I feel that errata is acceptable when it's clear a card isn't functioning as intended. In a traditional game, I'd much prefer an outright ban over errata because it can often be difficult for new players to learn all the changes to the printed cards. When players are printing their own cards and/or depending on online resources, however, making changes to cards can be done quickly and immediately distributed to the player base.

Anyone with thoughts, questions, or suggestions is welcome to chime in.

[hsiale]

First thing: the link is broken - it redirects me to postimage's main page. My thought on the project below - in no particular order.
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General idea

I think there should be one format we primarily think about: the format allowing all cards in the game. Rotating a subset always decreases possibilities (and if it somehow increases them, then the subses should be rotated out of the game completely). A game of 1000-1200 cards, with 25-30 viable decktypes for each side, with subtypes, cards for finetuning and so on should have enough replayability value to not need additional twists for quite a while (Movie Block format is very popular all the time despite only 10 or so top level possibilities for each side and a few a bit below the top level).

Achieving this is of course a lot of work. So, having no people paid to do this work, we should aim at saving ourselves as much of this work as possible. You wrote that Goblin Scimitar is one of the few cards you'd like to see reprinted. I think we can safely reprint a lot of cards. We have them, they are perfectly OK and playtested really thoroughly by hundreds of players. We just need to look through list of all cards and choose the ones we need - filtering out those that are over- or underpowered. This should give us a base of a few hundred cards. And then we can add to this - some completely new cards, but mostly versions of rejected cards - fixed so that they're on the correct power level.

This allows us to save really a lot of playtesting. And I don't think we have manpower to completely playtest a brand new game. Testing a fixed version of a game that was mostly OK is way less work and way easier to do (as when a lot of cards can be copied from 1E, setting up a playtesting environment at Gemp does not require tons of new code).

Of course creating new cards is fun. But there will be enough of this fun anyway. I see no need to reject what is good in 1E

Allies

Allies are interesting. But with a site path stretching all the way the fellowship travelled, I think they should no longer have a home site. Instead, each ally should have unloaded keyword saying where he's from - available keywords being Shire, Bree, Rivendell, Lorien and Edoras (I think each ally in the game is connected to one of those places). Maybe also Minas Tirith allies could be introduced if needed.

Cultures
Movie Block cultures are fine. Though I never understood why all FP cards which had no place to go ended up with Gandalf. So I completely wouldn't complain if Fangorn culture was introduced. I don't think symmetry is really important - some of the shadow cards have the same culture icon but nothing in common, for example Orcs and Uruk-hai are practically different cultures, the only common card that comes to my mind is Servant of the Eye. So those could be divided as well, but could also stay together. No difference. So I wouldn't hold to symmetry so much, it's nice if it exists, but if there's any reason to let it go, it can go without problems. I'm definitely against adding post-Shadows cultures. Though some of their cards definitely can be added to the old cultures. There are good ideas in those sets, just in lower density, more needs to be rejected.

Alternate ring-bearers

If we get rid of them, we need to cope with consequences. Without Isildur knights are dead. Gimli is important for decks and useful in rainbow wounding. Noble Leaders need Boromir, archery needs Galadriel. If we remove this all, we need extra work to somehow replace this, as removing viable deck types is the worst thing that can be done.

[Air Power]

I like it, but you might want a Fangorn ally keyword as well (unless you want to only print ents as companions).

[MarcinS]

Here are my suggestions:
1. As stated in my previous posts, I'd like to see some changes to the rules, particularly around timing of responses. They do not translate well to online game play, for example:
- if Nazgul is taking wound and the game pauses, you can be sure your opponent is holding All Blades Perish,
- if you exert a minion and the game pauses, you can be sure your opponent is holding Unheeded.
2. Avoid making quirky cards that introduce a mess in the rules. As an example - The Witch-king's Beast, Fell Creature  or A Dark Shape Sprang (still noone knows how to play out this card, if it is played during an existing skirmish).
3. Do your best to have clear and simple rules that do not require clarifications.
4. Avoid having similar words and phrases or keywords for two different things/actions. Took me a lot of time to understand that "discard" is the same as "discard from play" but different from "discard from hand".

[hsiale]

MarcinS - could you explain what's your idea about good timing of responses? I know it's similar to how M:tG works, but as I never played Magic I have no idea what the rules are.

Fangorn allies - probably yes, I forgot there were some, but if there are some which make it into the final game, they'd definitely need this keyword. Maybe some of those allies are what's needed to make an Everyone Knows deck playable.

One more issue I forgot about:

Move limit

I don't know why, but LotR move limit rules are really bad. I think that when a card providing constant move limit modification (like Radagast, The Brown) somehow leaves play, or when a condition that provides move limit modification no longer is met (7th companion dead with The Number Must be Few in play, or mounts discarded when Riding Like the Wind is used), the move limit should revert back to original state.

[Hobbiton Lad]

I think we can safely reprint a lot of cards.

I realize that there's an upside to doing this, and there's a big temptation not to screw with what works, but my vision for 2E goes far beyond just making a "fixed 1E" version of the game. I don't see any reason why we can't develop sets from the ground up, with reprints being the exception rather than the rule. I'm willing to put a lot of time to this project. If we just get a few people who are willing to put in just a little bit of time, then I think developing new cards won't be a problem.

Allies

Allies are interesting. But with a site path stretching all the way the fellowship travelled, I think they should no longer have a home site. Instead, each ally should have unloaded keyword saying where he's from - available keywords being Shire, Bree, Rivendell, Lorien and Edoras (I think each ally in the game is connected to one of those places). Maybe also Minas Tirith allies could be introduced if needed.

I like this idea, actually. I definitely prefer it over Followers. Although instead of an unloaded keyword, I would recommend the origin of the ally be included in the Type field. For Example, Albert Dreary would contain "Ally - Bree - Man" instead of "Ally - Home 2 - Man" in his gametext.

Alternate ring-bearers

If we get rid of them, we need to cope with consequences. Without Isildur knights are dead. Gimli is important for decks and useful in rainbow wounding. Noble Leaders need Boromir, archery needs Galadriel. If we remove this all, we need extra work to somehow replace this, as removing viable deck types is the worst thing that can be done.

Developing sets from the ground up with consideration that we have only Frodo and Sam as potential Ring-bearers should be sufficient to address this issue. I'm not looking to modify current Knight decks that work with Isildur. I'm looking to develop a Knight strategy from scratch that works in 2E with Frodo as the Ring-bearer.

[MarcinS]

MarcinS - could you explain what's your idea about good timing of responses? I know it's similar to how M:tG works, but as I never played Magic I have no idea what the rules are.

Basically, playing a card or an effect in Magic follows these steps (in a simple version):
1. Choose targets, pay costs.
2. Put the card/effect on the stack.
3. Here is where opportunity for responses being played is, also all triggers from paying costs are put on the stack. Proceed playing cards/effects until both players pass consecutively.
4. Resolve the effect of the card/effect.

The main change needed to the cards in LotR we have now, is about cards that have "is about to" Responses. Most of them can be easily translated to create "replacement effects". So for example, if a card was preventing wound, the wording now would be "Next time target character would take a wound this turn (or until end of Regroup), prevent it". This of course would allow anyone to play these cards freely, as there is no requirement for the character to be actually taking wounds, as the effect prevents future wounds.

To give an example:
Hate after change would have a following text: "Exert a Orc to wound target non-Ring-bearer companion."
Intimidate now has a following text: "You have to spot Gandalf to play Intimidate. Next time target companion would take a wound, prevent it."

Here is how they would interact:
1. Shadow player plays Hate - pays costs (exerts a orc, removes twilight, etc), chooses target - a non-Ring-bearer companion.
2. Hate goes on the stack.
3. In step 3 (above) for playing Hate, FP player plays Intimidate - pays costs (adds twilight, spots Gandalf), chooses target - the same companion.
4. Both players pass in step 3 of playing Intimidate.
5. Intimidate effect resolves - it creates a wound shield on the companion.
6. Both players pass in step 3 for playing Hate.
7. Hate resolves - wounds the companion, but the wound is prevented by the shield.

It's much simpler and doesn't reveal any information to the opponent, as there is only one point at which you may play any kind of responses to either the costs or the incoming (you already know all targets the card will affect) effects.

[hsiale]

I don't see any reason why we can't develop sets from the ground up, with reprints being the exception rather than the rule. I'm willing to put a lot of time to this project. If we just get a few people who are willing to put in just a little bit of time, then I think developing new cards won't be a problem.

A few people would have to put really a lot of time into it. I'm afraid something close to a full time job. When the game was done and tested properly, Decipher had a true design team. We aim at a better game, if we want to create it from scratch, we'd need really lots of work and testing. I don't think we'll have it. And doing this the other way round (lots of people putting a little bit of time each) will be even worse, with noone really knowing what's going on.

instead of an unloaded keyword, I would recommend the origin of the ally be included in the Type field. For Example, Albert Dreary would contain "Ally - Bree - Man" instead of "Ally - Home 2 - Man" in his gametext

This works exactly the same, but needs introducing a rule (while an unloaded keyword needs no rules). I think that whenever possible, rules should be simplified.

[Hobbiton Lad]

This works exactly the same, but needs introducing a rule (while an unloaded keyword needs no rules). I think that whenever possible, rules should be simplified.

It's not introducing a new rule as much as it's modifying the existing home site rule. For example, if you include "Bree" in the type field, then perhaps Bree allies could participate in archery fire and skirmishes at sites that contain the "Bree" keyword.

I'm all for simplifying rules. I'm also for streamlining and expanding game play options.

[hsiale]

It's also good to remove an existing rule if it's no longer needed. I don't think having allies participating in skirmishes at home site will be important - home site of all except Edoras ones will be too early on the sitepath to make it matter.

[Hobbiton Lad]

It's also good to remove an existing rule if it's no longer needed. I don't think having allies participating in skirmishes at home site will be important - home site of all except Edoras ones will be too early on the sitepath to make it matter.

The participation part was just a suggestion. I'd just prefer to implement the rule in the type bar rather than use a keyword, because the text boxes are already pressed for space as it is.

[Hobbiton Lad]

Well. It seems clear that there aren't many people interested in contributing to this project. I'm not giving up on it though. I'll just design the Core Set myself and then people can fix my design mistakes if they want.

[MarcinS]

Well. It seems clear that there aren't many people interested in contributing to this project. I'm not giving up on it though. I'll just design the Core Set myself and then people can fix my design mistakes if they want.

I'm afraid it might be just a matter of stating, what kind of help you need, and what you want people to post in this forum.

[bign19]

Id like to see all new cards (with a few reprints). There was always something special about trying to figure out a new block that had just been released

[Cw0rk]

When it comes to creating new sets, new rules, new erratas, new format, I prefer to adopt a "free market" approach rather than a unique "committee" approach.

I think that if the tools (e.g. templates) would be available to everyone, different people or group of people could create their format or dreamcards. The bad formats would die, the best ones would live.

For example, if a "Movie Block (without LR)" format would exist on Gemp, I would play it and I'm pretty sure many people would do it.

If you just have one unique committee, you will have a lot of trouble to reach consensus, and might not end up with the best results.