DECIPHER.com > The Lord of the Rings > Expansions > Siege of Gondor

I Can't Figure Out This #@%*! Card
OR
Disarming Conventions

by Geoffrey Snider
Game Developer, TCG Studio

Anyone who's reading this: Take a couple minutes right now to think of a card... a new card... an idea you think would make a great card for LotR: TCG. I'll do it to. Yeah, just take some time to do it right now.

*
*
*
*
*
Got one? Okay, me too. Here it is anyway.

Keeping them Not Dead
Gondor
Event • Response
Twilight Cost: 1
Text:
If a Wraith is placed in the dead pile, exhaust a Wraith to place that Wraith in the discard pile instead.

Yeah, obviously I cheated. This is the first wording of a later version of Elessar's Edict from Siege of Gondor. Anyhow, the idea was to make sure the Wraiths had a way to 'not die' because they were adding lots of threats to play... and because they're 'undead' and can't really die unless Aragorn releases them from their oath. When you read this card, what're some things that come to mind?

First off, the wording on the card is horrendous. Any beginning player would sooner not play the card and let it sit in their hand (or discard it) than try and figure out how it works.

Second, it's totally open to 'interpretation.' An at-home player may read this card and say "A Ringwraith is a Wraith, right? So instead of killing my Wraith, I can exhaust your Ringwraith?" Gods no! How bad would that be... and how backwards!

Third, all the references to a Wraith companion can get confusing if you don't refer to them the right way.

Fourth, there are some obvious rules conflicts. If a Wraith is killed (meaning he gets placed in the dead pile, triggering threats and maybe killing other companions as well), you can now un-kill the Wraith and discard him? That's certainly not right either.

Taking some of these things into consideration, try thinking of the correct wording for this card. It's a complete nightmare! Here's the next version of it:

Event • Response
Text:
If a [Gondor] Wraith is about to be placed in the dead pile, exhaust a [Gondor] Wraith to place the first [Gondor] Wraith in the discard pile instead.

Okay, that's a little better. Added [Gondor] symbols in front of each Wraith reference, and cleared up some of the confusion as to which Wraith is getting discarded, etc. Still some glaring problems here.

For starters, we only use 'placed in the dead pile' on Free Peoples cards unless the actual card is the one 'killing' the victimized character. We say 'If a character is about to be killed.' Then there's the little matter of the card referencing 'the first [Gondor] Wraith.' That's another 'convention' that we don't use. Then there's the rules matter of being able to exhaust the Wraith that's about to be killed... instead of another Wraith. So how do we actually word this darn thing? See how confusing it can get?

Event • Response
Text:
If a [Gondor] Wraith is about to be killed, exhaust another [Gondor] Wraith and discard ...

Yeah, that's clear now, but how to finish that last part. We have to switch the two halves of the last part of the sentence so, grammatically, it works out.

Event • Response
Text:
If a [Gondor] Wraith is about to be killed, discard him and exhaust another [Gondor] Wraith instead.

Whew! No more of that, please! But wait... we still have a card that's difficult to understand. What's the cost? What's the effect? In what order does it all work? Honestly, this is a really backwards card that only exists the way it does because there was no other way to make the text work with our wording conventions and be grammatically correct... and keep the game play consistent with how it was intended to be. Somehow I feel like a circus monkey after jumping through all those hoops.

Elessar's Edict
Gondor
Event • Response
Twilight Cost: 1
Text:
If a [Gondor] Wraith is about to be killed, discard him and exhaust another [Gondor] Wraith instead.
Lore:
"'Yes, the Dead ride behind. They have been summoned... .'"
Card Info: 8 R 33

So here's how it works:

Say my [Gondor] Wraith is exhausted and he's going to lose his skirmish. I have a couple other [Gondor] Wraiths in play (one is exhausted, and one has no wounds). So my [Gondor] Wraith takes a wound because he loses a skirmish (this [Gondor] Wraith is now 'about to be killed') and BAM I play Elessar's Edict. I exhaust one of my 'not on its way to the dead pile' [Gondor] Wraiths (even one that's already exhausted!) and send my 'on its way to the dead pile' [Gondor] Wraith to the discard pile. Tricky, huh? Yep.

So you're thinking "What about my card that I came up with?" Simply put, you need to look at every other card that shares any bit of text with the card you've got. Make sure its wording conventions match those of the cards we've already got for LotR. Make sure the game play works out the way the wording suggests it should. Make sure the card works grammatically. If you can do all that, then you can actually sit down and throw your dream card in a deck and say 'I wrote this and made sure it works %100 with the rules, and anyone can understand how it works.' That's just one of the things you've got to consider when you're dreaming up cards.

But I digress. On to the other cards, and why they're confusing.

Reckless We Rode
Elven
Event • Archery
Twilight Cost: 2
Text:
Exert an Elf companion and make the fellowship archery total –X (to a minimum of 0) to wound a minion X times. You cannot use archery special abilities.
Lore:
"'... driving them like leaves... .'"
Card Info: 8 R 12

This one isn't quite as confusing as I may think, but if you'd seen what it looked like (and what kind of changes it went through), you might think so as well. Since it modifies the fellowship archery total, it's immediately going to raise a few eyebrows. Modifiers are a confusing matter, mainly because you have to remember each of them at a point after which they were applied... then re-apply them... and maybe even re-apply them a third time. Ick. Then this card shuts down your ability to use other types of actions during the archery phase. So what if I want to play another copy of this card? Is that a special ability? No, it's not, but that's a totally legitimate question. One of our playtesters (you know who you are) even insisted that you could always place an infinite amount of archery total reduction (-10,000,000 I think it was) to shoot down minions. Of course that's silly, but until we actually dug around in the rules and made sure you couldn't do it, well, you get the idea. Pretty much, you get to take all your archery that's non-directed (from Elven Bow, Gondor Bowmen, etc.) and toss it out in favor of directed archery (your 3 wounds against 7 vitality of Ringwraiths can now kill one of them!).

Mighty Steed
Gandalf
Event • Skirmish
Twilight Cost: 3
Text:
If Gandalf is not assigned to a skirmish, spot Shadowfax or exert Gandalf to have Gandalf replace an unbound companion in a skirmish.
Lore:
"'He always turns up when things are darkest. Go on! Go on, White Rider! Gandalf! Gandalf!'"
Card Info: 8 U 17

This card is rather unique, since it's the first of its kind (aside from its Dwarven counterpart in this set). We've never had cards that yank minions out of skirmishes before. This concept was developed as a replacement for making a companion straight up 'defender +1.' Defender +1 on every companion gets a bit tiresome, especially if, in the majority of circumstances involving a defender +1 companion, that companion will lose its skirmish. These cards allow your companion to fight a minion, then fight another minion... and probably beat both of them (or at least save another companion from having to fight). What's so confusing about this card? The term 'replace.' The only convention we've had for 'replace' until now has been the one we use for referring to an opponent's sites that are replaced by your sites (or vice versa). The term 'replace' had to be used because there are all sorts of confusing issues cause when you remove a minion from a skirmish and re-assign him to fight a different companion. Are the companion and minion actually re-assigned? Does all that stuff trigger again? No. One companion just 'jumps' in front of another. That's it.

•Sting, Bane of the Eight Legs
Shire
Possession • Hand Weapon
Twilight Cost: 1
Strength: +2
Text:
Bearer must be Frodo or Sam.
Response: If a fierce skirmish involving bearer is about to end, add a threat to discard a minion involved in that skirmish.
Lore:
"No such anguish had Shelob ever known, or dreamed of knowing... ."
Card Info: 8 R 113

One day, a while back, I was about to bite into an apple. I opened my mouth, shoved the apple between my teeth, began to bite down... and SURPRISE! Mike Reynolds gave me a heart attack by tapping me on the shoulder from behind. In his usually sandal-footed fashion, he'd snuck up behind me while I had my headphones on; I was listening to Rage Against the Machine's The Battle of Los Angeles and was fully absorbed in eating my apple and reading over some cards from .hack//Enemy's currently-in-development expansion.

I know you all enjoyed that little mental image of me almost choking on an apple, but it's a story to be read for a reason. What was I about to do? Bite into an apple. What didn't I get to do? Bite into an apple. I did, eventually, eat that apple. It's long gone. Yummy. The little oval-shaped sticker is stuck to one of the walls at my desk. Some of the text on cards like •Sting, Bane of the Eight Legs is confusing to players. What's confusing? The phrase 'about to' is a strange choice of words, I suppose, for us to have used on cards. To me it's clearly a phrase that fits a specific action into a specific time period. If I'm about to bite into that apple, but I haven't done it yet, that's when I would play a card that said "If Geoff is about to bite into an apple." So to truly understand Sting, you just have to look at the steps that LotR's rules lay out for you. What are the steps in a skirmish? The Free Peoples player chooses a skirmish to begin. The Free Peoples player can take an action. Resolve all responses to that action, resolve all the triggers... blah blah blah. So we've compared strength and no one was overwhelmed... the minion won and the companion took a wound but wasn't killed. All that is taken care of. Are we done with the skirmish? Yes... wait, NO! I have a response to use! "If a fierce skirmish involving bearer is about to end... " That's right. Right then. So you use the ability to discard the minion. Are we done with the skirmish? Yes... wait, yes. We're done. Yeah yeah, I know it's still confusing. Try it a few times and you'll get used to it, I'm sure.

February 19, 2004