Hi,

Just played my first game of JitD the other day and wanted to be sure I understood this correctly: the game rules say that when a treasure chest is opened, each hero gets to draw one card (from the appropriate treasure deck) but in the quests it will often say something like "2 silver treasures".

My interpretation - and since I was Overlord this is how we played it - is that per the quest write-up, each hero gets to draw 2 treasure cards instead of just the 1 card as stated in the game rules.

Is this correct?

thanks!

madhatter said:

Yes.
Note that the rules actually say to consult the quest guide to see what the 'chest marker' contains (pg18). Each 'Treasure' equates to one treasure card draw for each hero (pg 18/19), so when the quest guide says '2 silver treasures' that explicitly means 2 draws for each hero from the silver treasure deck.
That is not an interpretation, it is the literal rules. But to get there you need to be careful about understanding the differences between 'chest', 'treasure' (general context, ie 'item') and 'treasure' (specific chest contents context) are.
This is entirely an issue caused by using the same technical term (treasure) to mean different things in different contexts which is one of many examples of poor writing throughout the rules. Still a great game though!

As an aside, being OL does not make you the arbiter of the rules any more than any other player (though often the OL knows the rules better than most of the players, especially in less experienced groups). The OL's job is not to 'run' the game, it is to compete with the heroes and try and prevent them from winning. This is completely contrary to the 'traditional' OLship style found in most roleplaying games.

Thanks for the reply, Corbon!

You've clarified it quite nicely for me. I was hung up on the conflict in quantity ("hero draws 1..." vs. "chest contains 2...") which blocked me from thinking about any other context. I couldn't get past what seemed to be a literal conflict and I was concerned that misunderstanding the rule could result in either too much or too little treasure being awarded, depending on what the correct reading should have been.

Also, I appreciate your comments about being OL and the relationship of that role within the game. And I agree wholeheartedly with what you've said. But to put a better context on why I was the arbiter in this case... I was not only Overlord within the game but also without the game. For you see, I was playing the game with my son and my daughter, so being "the Dad" made me Overlord in the familial sense and - bless their hearts - every once in a while they let Dad feel important by letting him believe that what he says matters. I was also Overlord in the sense that I was the only one of us who had actually read the rulebook before playing, so my interpretation had a bit more weight. But most importantly, I was Overlord in that it was my game and in our house the rule is that the owner of the game gets the final word on how rules are to be interpreted. Or at least that's what my son said when he trounced me at MechWarriors a while back. (I really should re-read the rules for that game because could have sworn that a "mulligan" only pertained to golf...)

madhatter said:

No problem.
Just in case you get confused reading various replies in the forum, note that in a significant number of areas (including this one of treasure allocations), the rules are substantially different in the Road to Legend expansion.

as for OLing...
There are innumerable reasons why any one person might be seen as the final rules arbiter in any particular game and frankly it doesn't matter a huge amount anyway. I only brought it up because it is a common newbie mistake to think that the OL is the boss just because he is the OL..