Recent discussion made me think. And here what I've thought:

Players here hail from different TCG and LCG backgrounds. And what really few in LotR LCG is keywords. Especially on player cards.

So, I wanna talk about keywords. What keywords could be good for this game? What keywords can you come up with? Or what keywords can you adapt from other games like MtG?

We could use a few new keywords to condense some common card text. For example:

Immune: Immune to player card effects.

Remote: progress tokens cannot be placed while in the staging area.

Distant: cannot travel to this location

Sneak: on reveal, this enemy immediately engages the current first player.

Stuff like this would leave more empty space in the text box for designers.

Oh and I forgot the most important one:

Banish: after you play this player card, add it to the victory display.

Similar to MTG's exile, the game could really use less recursion to stop some broken combos and loops.

Slightly Tangential, but we could do with a policy shift when it comes to keywords. Currently any keyword which is added in a small expansion has to be repeated in every other small expansion. Any keyword added in a large expansion is repeated in any other large expansion.

This means that keyword and rules explanations are repeated frequently but also that those words don't reach the same level of recognition as any from the core game.

Magic in contrast keywords any rules that have been in the game for a while (more than a year I believe) and updates their online rules to reflect this. I feel an online rule book that had all the information for any printed content would really be beneficial for FFG to provide.

On the other hand we only need more keywords on cards if the designers are finding they lack room. There's something to be said for writing the words out more clearly.

I would like to see some gameplay keywords, not just restricitve ones.

Like Exalted from MtG, for example. I doub't it can be implemented with balance and stuff, but it was cool.

Heroic.

While a character with Heroic is the only character committed to the quest by his owner or is declared as an attacker alone, he gets +X Willpower, +X Attack and +X Defense, where X is total Heroic value of all other ready Heroic characters of the same owner.

Only Heroic keywords with numbers provide bonuses, Heroic without numbers allow to benefit from other Heroic character, but they do not generate any stats themselves.

I would like to see a couple:

- unavoidable (placed on enemy cards so that when an enemy attacks you cannot avoid it using event cards)

- courage x (placed on player cards to indicate that they get +x added to attack when they attack alone)

I would like to see a couple:

- unavoidable (placed on enemy cards so that when an enemy attacks you cannot avoid it using event cards)

This is one I really want to see. I called it Relentless in my First Age expansion, but whatever you call it, this would be a good way to make sure that enemies attack without the total restrictiveness of immune to player card effects.

When designers want that, they just slap "Immune to player cards effects" over an enemy

Infamous X.

As an additional cost to play a card with this keyword, a player must discard X ally cards from his hand.

I actually prefer that this game doesn't load cards with too many keywords - the more keywords you have, the more you need to remember or refer to a rule book. I know there *are* keywords, but compared to some other games, the amount you need to remember compared to functionality thats just written on the card is pretty low.

I actually prefer that this game doesn't load cards with too many keywords - the more keywords you have, the more you need to remember or refer to a rule book. I know there *are* keywords, but compared to some other games, the amount you need to remember compared to functionality thats just written on the card is pretty low.

seconded.

I like your Heroic idea Trololo, but I personally prefer keywords to be simple and to the point, where you don't have to do much mental work in adding up values and whatnot. As said above, son you don't have to look up the rules each time to know what they mean. Take Archery for example. It took me one read of the rules to know what Archery means, and I've never forgotten, since it's so simple. Ambush is another good example.

I'd like to see player attachments, similar to MTG's global enchantments. Some ideas off the top of my head;

Cost: X

Attach to player's forehead.

Response: At the end of the round, if the player has a ready hero...

Spirit ideas; ... place 2 progress tokens on the active location, if able OR switch a location in the staging area with the active location.

Tactics ideas; ... deal 2 damage to an enemy engaged with you OR choose an enemy not engaged with you for each ready hero you control. Engage those enemies.

Leadership ideas; ... add 1 resource for each ready hero you control.

Lore ideas; ... draw a card for each ready hero OR heal 2 damage on a character you control.