I just got this scenario and I'm having a lot of fun with it! But I came to an interesting result. After I finished the quest, I had 10 villagers on each objective. Rescued villagers says you win if you have more tokens on it than on Dead villagers. Dead villagers says the opposite. So what happens if there's a tie?
Encounter at Amon Din
Happened to me a while back. Consensus was that it's a loss.
The rule sheet for this quest stats...
"In order to win the game, the players will need to collect more villager tokens on Rescued Villagers than damage tokens on Dead Villagers."
Therefore a tie would mean a loss unfortunately.
Only if you define a tie as losing.
Well it's not winning
Here I think is more the case of "greater than" vs "greater or equal".
So if you have a number of rescued villagers greater than captured villagers (or more), then you win. Otherwise you lose.
Edited by Jekzer3 hours ago, Jekzer said:Here I think is more the case of "greater than" vs "greater or equal".
So if you have a number of rescued villagers greater than captured villagers (or more), then you win. Otherwise you lose.
What you say didn't work because both cards use the same wording: if you have more rescued villagers (ie dead villagers) thant dead villagers (ie rescued villager) your win (ie loose). To me the only thing is he finish the game and don't win so even if it is not written on a card he have lost the game.
The quest has explicit win conditions, they were not met. The quest has explicit loss conditions, they were not met either. The core rule book has player elimination criteria (auto loss), they were also not met. The quest was neither won nor lost, merely completed. If a label must be applied to that state, the long-established game outcome known as a "tie" would seem to apply best.
I would say, in case of a "tie," the quest has been completed, you have decidedly not won, therefore you have lost.
This conversation is very technical but I'd say that there's no "tie" possible against or Sauron. If you don't win, then you have lost. It fits the theme.
I'd also add that it'd be a good application of the "Grim Rule" if there was such a thing in LOTR, that should have been faqqed a long time ago.
The Encounter at Amon Din is about saving a village from Orcs, not defeating Sauron. In terms of Sauron's long-term plan for that particular cycle, the players "winning" at Amon Din fits into his plans just fine. (If viewed from the long-term context, some of the "wins" from Ringmaker cycle should also be critically examined.) . The quest itself lays out explicit win *and* loss conditions related to saving villagers, so absent errata a player cannot lose from tied villagers *by rule*.
Since it's a cooperative game, players are certainly free to consider a de jure non-win, non-loss to be a de facto loss. A similar situation occurs in the online solo Legendary leagues -- there are explicit win and loss conditions, and it's possible for the game to end without either being met. For league purposes, the scoring only considers wins, so a "tie" is effectively a de facto loss.
Thematically, if my goal is to save more villagers than were destroyed, and the orcs goal is to destroy more villagers than were saved, I think it's entirely appropriate to consider a tie a tie -- I didn't meet my goal, but I at least thwarted the forces of evil from achieving their goal, and that's worth something.
Edited by dalestephensonGot a response back from Caleb...
QuoteHi Mike,
If the number of tokens on Rescued Villagers is the same as Dead Villagers, then you have neither won nor lost. I suppose you could call that a tie, but the rules don’t say anything beyond that you have neither won nor lost.
I hope you enjoyed Encounter at Amon Din!
Cheers,
Caleb
Personally if I'm playing and this happens I'm considering it a loss strictly from a thematic standpoint. It doesn't seem right in the end to meet with the orcs in the center of the village while it's all burning around us and shake their hand and say, "Well, lets agree to disagree."
How about if you kill all the orcs and then count the bodies of the dead, and find that exactly half of the town was killed?
Who decide that saving more than the half of the village is a victory? It is still many peoples killed so I don't see any victory possible in this, except against the enemies who have been killed. It is really more about gameplay, not lore don't you think? ^^
Well, Amon Din is easy enough, almost to the point where you can end the game with nearly no dead villagers. Nightmare mode, however . . .
On 06/03/2018 at 3:02 PM, Wandalf the Gizzard said:Well, Amon Din is easy enough, almost to the point where you can end the game with nearly no dead villagers. Nightmare mode, however . . .
Don't tell them it is too easy. They may have very few cards, awful restriction (only gondor card with no e inside for example :p) or simply don't want to go to deep in deckbuilding. But yes the scenario is one of the easiest scenario of the game. And the nightmare is to me the 5th hardest scenario to me (and could be upgraded to 3th place right after Dol Guldur NM and battle of the five armies NM, since both mount doom and black gate open are a little bit too special to be rated). He is definitely the scenario who earn the most with his nightmare version. I am happy that someone know this too, I sometime felt alone to hard test those NM ^^.
On 3/7/2018 at 3:40 PM, Rouxxor said:Don't tell them it is too easy. They may have very few cards, awful restriction (only gondor card with no e inside for example :p) or simply don't want to go to deep in deckbuilding. But yes the scenario is one of the easiest scenario of the game. And the nightmare is to me the 5th hardest scenario to me (and could be upgraded to 3th place right after Dol Guldur NM and battle of the five armies NM, since both mount doom and black gate open are a little bit too special to be rated). He is definitely the scenario who earn the most with his nightmare version. I am happy that someone know this too, I sometime felt alone to hard test those NM ^^.
You're not alone! We recently did a podcast episode specifically about nightmare: https://cardboardoftherings.com/2018/01/29/episode-128-the-nightmare-after-christmas/
In the episode we discuss the results of a poll that was filled out by 77 listeners. You can see the results here: