What if: Lord of the Rings: TCG Reloaded

[simplegarak]

Huh, cryptozoic may or may not be doing an ECG on LotR.

Think we should all pester them to bring this one back to it?

[sgtdraino]

Hmm, no response to that guy's question in 3 months probably does not bode well.

[simplegarak]

Hmm, no response to that guy's question in 3 months probably does not bode well.

Depends on why.  If it's a rights issue... yeah that's not good.  If it's because they're having problems getting the game and mechanics to work... then we all can strike now!

Says who? Not my idea! I'm interested in adding to what we've already got, not starting over from scratch. Starting over from scratch was basically the largely failed experiment of Second Edition.

Ah there we go, we were talking past each other.

Ok let's be honest, if we were going to get any company to bring back the game we love, that's what they'd do: start over from scratch to invite the maximum possible number of new players.  I would like to see a compromise where the cards at least look the same so house games could combine the new cards into old decks if they want.

Now if you're talking a continuing council, where we start releasing new, virtual cards (like Star Trek), then I agree with your points fully.  Here I'll just start a new thread for that.

[sgtdraino]

Ok let's be honest, if we were going to get any company to bring back the game we love, that's what they'd do: start over from scratch to invite the maximum possible number of new players.

I disagree. If a company brings back LOTR TCG, the largest source of potential consumers are the people who've played the game before, not new players. Based on what I've seen on Gemp with the lackluster participation in Second Edition, most of those veteran players are not interested in starting over from scratch, with no backwards compatibility. I know I'm not. If a company brought back the game, but made it so I couldn't play it with any of the cards I already have, I would probably not invest in it.

The best compromise is to do what Decipher normally did whenever they began a new "block" of the game: The first new set is bigger, and designed such that you can play a balanced game just with that set (and other sets in the same block). That's how new players get introduced to the game, by participating in block play. The rest of us Veterans will still have Expanded, Open, Standard, etc... or else I'm just not interested.

Now if you're talking a continuing council, where we start releasing new, virtual cards (like Star Trek), then I agree with your points fully.  Here I'll just start a new thread for that.

I'd be in favor of that, but the fact is the vast majority of my experience is now online play via Gemp, and the fellow who runs Gemp is not going to add any new cards, rules, formats, or anything like that. So unfortunately a continuing council is not going to have any influence over that.

[simplegarak]

Anyone experimented with mulligans in their plays?  I don't see it listed in the rulebook and was wondering how it might be put into the game in a way that's fair.  Right now I'm thinking "add 1 burden to shuffle your hand and draw 8 cards".  But then considering some god hands... maybe 1 burden for 7 cards? (then 6, 5, etc)

[sgtdraino]

Decipher does have an official mulligan rule, you can reshuffle your starting hand and draw 6 cards instead of 8.

[dmaz]

Decipher does have an official mulligan rule, you can reshuffle your starting hand and draw 5 cards instead of 8.

Is the 6 cards just on gemp?

[sgtdraino]

I mis-spoke, it's 6 cards. It's in the tournament guidelines.

[simplegarak]

I mis-spoke, it's 6 cards. It's in the tournament guidelines.

There it is.  Thanks it had slipped my mind where those were.

[simplegarak]

Hypothetical time:

Suppose Decipher kept up the trend and released a shadow side that would be ONLY in RotK (like Moria in Fellowship and Dunland in TTT).  Who or what would you pick as the side?  Corsairs?  The MOrcs?  Evil gondor wraiths?  Something else?