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DECIPHER.com > Lord of the
Rings > Expansions
> Reflections
Dogs, Cats, and Ring-bearers
by Brad DeFruiter
Decipher Game Designer
Back when Siege of Gondor was heading to the development team, the Director
of the TCG Studio here at Decipher (Tim Ellington) asked me to try and find
a way for Sam to start as the Ring-bearer. I had a nice chuckle and went
on my way. I realized the next day that he was serious when he asked me
about it again.
I had the time, so I sat down and went through the rulebook to try and
figure out what this Sam needed to say in order be the starting Ring-bearer.
I'll go over some of the issues in a bit but let us just say that he was
all text. It was a rough read. I printed out an over-sized version of him
and hung him by my desk for a few days. But it was just too many words for
it to be seriously considered.
Ghostbusters and You
Fast forward to a time where Siege of Gondor was deep into the development.
Senior Game Designer Tom Lischke came up to my desk and told me about the
Reflections product. It was to have forty-eight new cards that could pull
on all sorts of images and story. Then he mentioned the idea of alternate
Ring-bearers. After the pains I had felt from the clumsy-looking Sam and
the thoughts of big strong Ring-bearer, all I could say was, "Dogs and cats!"
My editor tells me I should put an extra '!!' there for how loud I really
said 'Dogs and cats' but let's move on.
For those not familiar with the great, scrumtrillecent, masterpiece known
simply as 'Ghostbusters,'... you should go see it and then you will understand
'Dogs and cats.' For those that have seen it but still don't understand,
it comes from the scene where the Ghostbusters are trying to convince the
mayor to help fight what they think is far too many 'ghosts.' The exchange
goes something like this:
PETER
Or you could accept the fact that this city is headed for a disaster of
biblical proportions.
MAYOR
What do you mean, biblical?
RAY
What he means is Old Testament biblical, Mr. Mayor. Real wrath-of-God-type
stuff. Fire and brimstone coming from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling!
EGON
Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes! Volcanoes!
WINSTON
The dead rising from the grave!
PETER
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!
MAYOR
Enough! I get the point!
For those that still don't get it, I was telling Tom that I thought alternate
ring-bearers would be the end of the world. 'Real wrath-of-God-type stuff.'
Now, I'm a big enough of a man to admit when I'm wrong. But the reason
why I was wrong about the alternate ring-bearers is because we had a good
team working on this set (despite the fact I was part of it).
Swinging at Wild Pitches
Since I had worked on the Sam as the ring-bearer idea I went to work on
the alternate ring-bearers. My first thought was that maybe it is a special
ring that lets non-Frodo characters be ring-bearers. When I wrote out The
One Ring, only characters with Resistance could bear it. The eight or so
characters we picked all got a Resistance X keyword. When that was
done, there was room for text on the ring that didn't relate to the alternate
ring-bearer and, in passing, Evan Lorentz mentioned that the ring could
go fetch other rings from the draw deck. I fired that text on there right
away.
When the designers (Tom Lischke, Evan Lorentz, and myself) sat down to
review the set, Tom brought up a point he had mentioned a few times and
had some great rationale to back it up. He didn't like the approach for
the alternate ring-bearers because it was a bit boring and didn't show off
a lot of the options that the game really has. If you wanted to play with
an alternate ring-bearer you had to play with this ring.
By tweaking the rules instead of overloading cards with text we were about
to get an interesting One Ring. Also, the resistance keyword eating up text
on those companions wasn't that much fun either.
Resist, Brethren, Resist!
 We
decided to move the resistance keyword to where the signet icon used to
be. It was unused area of the card that we could put a cool graphic ...
wha? Why are you confused? Oh, that's right, I'm getting ahead of myself.
One of the changes we are making for the War of the Ring block on is that
signets were to be removed. They were hard to write cards for because they
never gave a consistent value. They were hard to understand story wise sometimes.
There were some strange rules to putting these icons on certain characters
and which characters could have them and we didn't always get those rules
right.
By removing the signet icon and replacing it with the resistance icon
we actually open up the game play a bit by giving companions another value
to use – or be used against them. Not just alternate ring-bearers
will have resistance icons. You will have to wait until Shadows to see what
evil we have cooked up for the resistance icon.
Another thing that placing the resistance icon here gave us was the ability
to 'ring' it. A ringed resistance icon on a companion means that companion
can start the game as the ring-bearer.
Rules to Rule Them All
It was pretty clear now that it was going to be much cleaner and easier
if we just altered the rules instead of making a card that countered several
rules. The problem with rules is that players have to read them first.
I think I'll give you a look at the rules and then give a brief explanation
that cover some of the reasons we made these rules.
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Frodo
If a character other than Frodo is your Ring-bearer, you cannot play any
version of Frodo with the Ring-bearer keyword.
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losing the game
A player loses the game if his Ring-bearer is killed, unless he uses text
allowing another character to carry on as Ring-bearer.
Example: Many versions of Sam may become the Ring-bearer if Frodo
dies.
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Ring-bearer
The Ring-bearer cannot be discarded, and skirmishes involving the Ring-bearer
cannot be cancelled.
Example: If Sméagol is the Ring-bearer, you cannot play Be
Back Soon to discard him, or Sneaking to cancel his skirmish.
Example: If Frodo is the Ring-bearer, you cannot use Frodo's Cloak
to cancel his skirmish.
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starting fellowships
Your fellowship begins with a character bearing The One Ring. This can be
any character with the ringed resistance icon, or any version of Frodo.
That character gains the keywords Ring-bearer and Ring-bound, if he or she
does not already have them.
You may then play other companions (not allies, possessions, artifacts,
or conditions) from your draw deck, as long as the total twilight cost of
these companions is 4 or less. The twilight cost of your Ring-bearer is
not included in this total.
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The first rule is a new one. We just cannot have Frodo running around with
the other ring-bearers. Because of cards that reference the ring-bearer
this couldn't work. Having two different companions that could use Power
According To His Stature could be just a bit too good. Also, since burdens
are added to the ring-bearer (not the ring) it would just be confusing with
two ring-bearers in the fellowship. A zero cost companion is another good
reason that I don't think I need to elaborate on here.
The rules about losing the game needed a clean up as well. Without this
change what would happen if the ring-bearer dies? Pretty obvious stuff but
we had to cover these questions before these cards could be tested.
We also had to add a rule about the ring-bearer because there are cards
that specifically target characters we have chosen to be ring-bearers. We
didn't want to enter a state where players were confused about what would
happen if the ring-bearer were discarded. The part about skirmishes involving
the ring-bearer cannot be canceled was not just because of certain
cards like Sneaking but also because it opened up the wording we can use
on cards in the future. Yes, we are doing a lot of planning for the future
of this game. And it doesn't hurt to clean up the X-list a bit either.
If the rule about starting fellowships looks very familiar, that is because
it is pretty much the same as the existing rule. It just clarifies that
characters with the ringed resistance icon can start as the ring-bearer
and what happens when that companion is the ring-bearer. It also helps us
understand that a character with the ringed resistance icon can still be
played as a normal character – he or she is only the ring-bearer while
bearing The One Ring.
What About The Big Ring-bearers?
I'm going to let others people write articles about the big ring-bearers
and how the development team did a crack job of thinning down the ring-bearers
and making them work in our system so that they are not too overpowered.
Will This Article Ever End...?
Of course it will! But how about I end with a spoiler?
3 Twilight Elven
•Galadriel
Bearer of Wisdom
Companion • Elf
Strength 3 Vitality 3 Ringed Resistance 3
While Galadriel bears an artifact or The One Ring, she is resistance +1
for each [Elven] companion you can spot.
"'...I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the morning and
the Night! ...Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning!'"
9 R+ 14
March 31, 2004
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