DECIPHER.com > Lord of the Rings > Expansions > Mount Doom

No Longer the Toolbox Minion

by Mike Girard
Game Designer

"But Gollum, dancing like a mad thing, held aloft the ring, a finger still thrust within its circle. It shone now as if verily it was wrought of living fire."

Nothing could stop Gollum from taking the One Ring. Sam got a rock to the back of his head and Frodo came up missing a digit. Gollum was so close to claiming his prize, nothing could stop him. Finally, Gollum had his prize, his... Precious. Unfortunately for Gollum, his sense of accomplishment would be short lived as he took a dive into the depths of Mount Doom.

Translating Gollum's unrelenting passion for the One Ring in his final hour was quite the journey. How does one translate that kind of drive and need for something into card text? A creature driven so hard that nothing would stand in his way? Design had a big task on their hands.

The first version of Gollum was the following:

This version was the first that came out of Design. It showed that the Free Peoples player had to give up a resource of some sort in order to make sure that they got the optimal assignment for Gollum. The first problem with this during testing was the resource that they had to give up was Resistance. This was quickly combined with Hidden Even From Her and Gollum was adding two burdens each assignment phase. The Free Peoples player could just not assign Gollum, but that just made things worse because then Promise Keeping and They Stole It would ensure that any 3 vitality companion died a horrible death. In this version, Gollum had too much of a "toolbox" feel to him. This means that he felt too much like a piece of a bigger machine that was slowly cranking away at killing the Free Peoples player. The Mount Doom Gollum was supposed to have less of a "toolbox" feel to him. Keeping with the assignment text, he went through a few other changes and here is a snapshot of what he morphed into:

Gollum still retained the burden adding ability, but now he had a buyout. This was a change made by Development because the original text was too automatic. Design felt that this change made him too weak because vitality on the Ring-bearer is pretty much the most abundant resource in the game, outside of twilight tokens. Design went in and reworked him again and this is what the final version came out as:

As you can see he still maintained his burden adding ability, but it took a buyout aspect to that portion of the game text. By adding the ability to make Gollum strength +3, Design felt that they had the fighting Gollum that is supposed to represent his relentless pursuit of the One Ring.

Gollum Needs Toys

Gollum still needed support cards to go along with his new Dragon-style Kung-Fu. Now that Gollum is able to win fights on a more regular basis, he can start getting cards that will inflict that second wound (like fierce and damage +1 minions do).

Unabated In Malice is close to what it was when Design handed it off to Development. The big difference is that it was not unique. During early testing, Gollum was using cards that gave him multiple strength bonuses and then four of these in the support area. The fact that it worked for Shelob as well was also a concern. The other difference was that the strength bonus only counted Free Peoples cultures. So the trade was made. The card became unique and the activated portion of the game text was opened up to include minion culture spotting as well. One of the other reasons to make this unique is that it drew comparisons to Saruman's Ambition and free non-unique strength pumps that sit on the table until needed are sort of frowned upon.

So Gollum is a fighter and can cause multiple wounds in a skirmish (without discarding cards to They Stole It). Gollum and Shelob can now rule the Shadow side of your deck.

June 29, 2004