I have an idea that I could use some help with so consider this brainstorming mode!

So this is my idea: how about mixing together cards from different adventure decks! What I want to create is the feeling of traveling over larger regions, spanning larger scale of time, with lots of different random encounters taking place. Of course the conditions for winning needs to be different and perhaps allso the conditions of losing/elimination.

Just to illustrate what I mean, imagine mixing several of the cards from the base set adventure cards together combined with the cards from the Mirkwood cycle. So we choose excatly which enemies, locations and events that we add in and perhaps even adding in some cards from the Nightmare decks for that extra possible tension showing up.

So what we can create is a story taking place in Mirkwood, we are obviously traveling/exploring and while the rounds continue so does our journey. When it comes to the goal of this mode that is one of the things I nedd help with. Perhaps we add in a couple of specific enemies, like bosses, that needs to be defeated, perhaps all the locations need to be explored, perhaps we need to find a certain object? With the card range of adventure cards today the possibilites are almost endless. We can create one big mega adventure that we can alter every time. So we can create our own sand box versions of the game which we then could share with eachother. Deckbuilding but in a new direction!

So these are the thing that of course needs to be thought through - and where your help/playtesting would be very useful:

- Which cards to mix and which ones not to mix? Or rather - which ones to add for a great adventure!

- Which player cards need to be banned to not make it to easy?

- How to handle threat? Perhaps increasing the limit of it (where the implications of course needs to be considered)? Perhaps not using the +1 per turn effect or continuing using it as the count down of the game?

- Winning conditions - whats your best large scale ideas?

- How to handle Hero deaths? Perhaps a Hero death can be replaced with a new Hero but with some form of negative consequence (more then just loosing attachments etc).

- If combining cards from different regions/cycles how to handle the back and forth locations effect? Or see it more like it all take place over larger scale of time?

- Is it possible to have more then one stagin area? Perhaps this is one way to deal with different regions at the same time with different clusters of locations/enemies where engagement of heroes meaning the Hero needs to choose wich cluster to engage? How to handle Sentinel/Ranged with this - only works on a specifik cluster?

- Is it possible to use the Quest cards as well quests showing up over time? How to handle them - just mix all the fitting ones together or time them somehow?

- Would it be possible for one player to play with the adventure cards acting like Sauron?

So what do you think of the idea? Playable? Is this something we wanna explore further? Do you have any more ideas?

I've played around with the idea of drafting the encounter deck kind of like Beorn's Bear Draft. The basic idea was that you pass around both player cards and encounter cards. If you choose an encounter card, you're removing that card from the deck, but after some set number of cards have been chosen, the encounter cards that remain would get added in. (You would pull any key cards out of the deck before drafting it though--anything that would break the quest if it were removed from the deck).

You'd probably have to use nightmare decks so that the players have interesting dilemmas between picking a good player card or a bad encounter card. But you would also need more encounter cards than exist in a single quest deck, so I figured it would be fun to go grab some other encounter sets and just shuffle them in as well. You could choose sets that make thematic sense with the current quest (lots of encounter sets are pretty much just "orc" themed) or just pick randomly and end up fighting Smaug the Magnificent at The Battle of Helm's Deep.

It sounds like you're talking even larger than just shuffling in extra encounter sets, though--you want to build some sort of meta-campaign with all of the encounter cards? I'm not sure how to wrap my head around that.

Have you heard of Banania's Tale of Years Mega-Campaign? That might be up your alley.

I don,t know if this would actually work, and it would be complicated to do... A lot of encounter cards are make to work specificaly with their quests.