Hello People,

I have a question, I couldn't find the answer to in these forums:

What happens to used Dungeon, Encounter and Location Cards in Road to Legend?

Are they reshuffled into their respective decks, once used or are they discarded into the Graveyard-Box?

And if Dungeon Cards are re-shuffled, does that happen between Dungeon-Levels or after one entire Dungeon is resolved?

Couldn't find the answer elsewhere and it might just be a small question but I would like to hear your opinion on this!

Thx!

Incident cards are re-shuffled every time before an incident is drawn, page 13 of the rulebook, and the same applies to the location cards (page 13 as well):

"When an encounter occurs, the overlord shuffles the Incident deck and draws cards until he draws one that has a shield in the lower right corner matching the shield color of the trail that the heroes are on."

"When these cards are drawn, the overlord shuffles all of the Location cards and draws one."

The same applies to rumors, page 17:

"the overlord shuffles the Rumor deck and then draws the top Rumor card."

Only a rumor that is actually completed is placed in the graveyard box, page 19:

"The Rumor level is played according to the Quest Guide description and rules, which also specify the conditions the heroes must meet to receive the Rumor reward. The reward is granted immediately when the conditions are met. The Rumor card is also then removed from the campaign (being placed in the graveyard box), unless the card instructs the heroes to keep it."

Dungeon levels on the other hand are merely "drawn", and it is not explicitly stated what to do with them and when to re-shuffle them. I guess it makes sense to read "draw" the same as every other kind of "draw" in RtL and assume that things need to be re-shuffled every time before drawing as well.

Nothing goes to the graveyard where the rules do not explicitly say it does, so neither locations, nor dungeon levels, nor incidents, go to the graveyard after they are resolved.

For all these things however, I find an apparently common house rule to make sense: Keep two decks for each of these things, draw from the pile of cards you have not yet drawn from, discard them to the other pile, and re-shuffle only when you have seen each card at least once. If nothing else, it will increase variation and make the random nature of the encounters less obvious. The main issue with this will be labelling the different piles for storage between sessions - which is, I assume, why the rules go with the easier storage method of just having one deck of each. This interpretation is also consistent with the way the overlord deck is stored between sessions if the players decide to finish the session between dungeon levels (where merely a card total is written to the campaign sheet, and the actual cards will be different on the next level).

A lot of players put the Dungeon cards in the graveyard (there's plenty of them even in the base game, let alone mixing in ToI and SoB dungeons) for the sake of variety and dare I say common sense (if dungeon A was in Thelsview Highway, how can it be up in Red Echo River too?).

-shnar

haslo said:

We have only ever done this for dungeon levels. Encounters, rumours and outdoor terrain maps are a matter of luck and rare enough to not be a major problem if repeated (although I grew to hate the Ancient Oaks terrain I drew three or four times in a row for Lt encounters as OL, as none of my monsters could hide in the trees and long range heroes frequently butchered them).

And if you write small, or have a custom campaign record sheet, it is easy (and good for recalling past events and timings) to write the numbers of levels played in or around the area where that dungeon is supposed to be marked off as explored. Ie when exploring a dungeon we would put a slash to show explored, a second slash (cross) to show one level opened, and the level number written small above the dungeon name, a vertical slash and second number for level 2 and a horizontal slash (2 crosses, like brit flag - yes, I know there are actually three crosses there) and level number for level 3.
This gets you around the packing up/labelling problem as well. It also lets you draw the next level card at the end of a session so players can plan ahead and, more importantly, the OL can preset the map for the next session before players arrive next time (assuming Ol owns the set). So all thats needed when the heroes arrive is for them to set up their characters and start playing - saves 20min every session!