I am pretty sure this wasn't an oversight because Moonlight Ritual existed prior to all of the Ritual traited cards... but I am curious if errata ever comes out for player cards to add traits. It is listed as an insight, which means Joe COULD take it, which is weird, but not listed as a ritual.

At the moment, I don't think it matters as the only cards that have ritual conditions are Uncage the Soul and Sign Magick, and Moonlight Ritual is 0 cost and not an asset anyway.

Does anyone else think it's odd to have a Trait listed in the Name of a card, but not have that card be traited with said trait? I'm wondering if it was just a release timing thing, or if rituals have some other commonality that Moonlight Ritual does not follow mechanically (I can't think of any.. I was going to say that all rituals are maybe intended to be assets, but sacrifice is considered a ritual and is an event).

Just wondering what other people's thoughts are.

Similarly, I wish Lightning Gun would have had the Science trait.

Joe can't take it, because it's a Mystic card.

But, yeah, there are plenty of weird traits in the game. Police Badge doesn't have the "Police" trait. Scrying doesn't have the "Augury" trait. Diana's Twilight Blade doesn't have the "Melee" trait (which is probably just an oversight). A number of early treacheries don't have any traits at all (eg False Lead should probably have the "Blunder" trait, Towering Beasts should have "Power," etc), and a handful of Dunwich treacheries use "Tactic" instead of "Scheme."

As far as I know "If it bleeds..." is still the only player card which has no traits whatsoever. Surely it could have had something, maybe Spirit?

I'm sure there are plenty of cards with odd traits or without obvious traits, but I honestly don't tend to look too closely at them most of the time. I like to imagine if a trait is missing it is for balance reasons rather than the designer simply forgot and leave it at that!

3 hours ago, Assussanni said:

As far as I know "If it bleeds..." is still the only player card which has no traits whatsoever. Surely it could have had something, maybe Spirit?

I'm sure there are plenty of cards with odd traits or without obvious traits, but I honestly don't tend to look too closely at them most of the time. I like to imagine if a trait is missing it is for balance reasons rather than the designer simply forgot and leave it at that!

Me too! I'm curious if there is precedent for traits being added to cards as errata. It's messy, so I imagine they tend to avoid it, but I'm new-ish to LCG's so was curious if it's something that they have done, say, for the LotR game.

Some things are never going to be future-proof because new things are introduced during the game's lifespan, but I'm curious, particularly with traits, because they seem to be leaning into them for deck construction options (I actually am one of the people who love this sort of thematic deck-building though I know it is not always elegant).

Thinking of the LOTR LCG, there was a lot of early weirdness with traits there, too. They never added traits in errata, but there were a number of early traits that quickly disappeared, many cards that didn't have traits they thematically should, and many of the traits ended up being properly developed only much later.

For example, there's the Archer and Steward traits. Only Denethor has the Steward trait, and only the hero versions, not the ally versions. It appears on 2 cards and does exactly nothing - you can't even use the handful of effects that care about matching traits between cards rather than a specific named trait because there's no way to grant it. The Archer trait appears on a horse-archer and a Silvan archer ally in the core set. It doesn't appear on Legolas, also in the core set, nor on any other card representing a bowman (not even Bard The Bowman). It doesn't do anything, and thematically it overlaps with the Ranger and Scout keywords, which were expanded on.

Dáin Ironfoot (or to give him his proper title, King Dáin II Ironfoot), was released in the first cycle as a hero, but he despite being a literal king, of two different kingdoms, didn't have the Noble keyword that appeared on everyone from miscellaneous Gondorian noblemen to every other royal in the game. He also didn't have the Warrior keyword, despite being one of the greatest Dwarven warriors to ever live. He was recently released in a new form as a hero from a different sphere, and that version does have the "missing" keywords.

Speaking of Ranger and Scout, there were a lot of keywords that appeared early on and mostly just as thematic descriptions, or to enable certain cards to target them. Legolas was a Silvan, but all that did is recognise that, yes, in the setting Legolas is an elf, and mean that the occasional card could target him (like an elven knife that only Silvan or Noldor heroes could wield). As the game progressed, a lot of traits started to get mechanical themes and deck archetypes designed for them. This started with Dwarves, with the aforementioned Dáin Ironfoot, who gave all Dwarf characters hefty stat bonuses while he was ready. Later trait themes added were that Silvan characters had weak stats but strong effects when they entered play, and had a slew of effects that bounce them back to hand (a bit like certain Rogue cards in Arkham); Noldor is all about discarding cards from hand to pay for effects, and then being able to manipulate your discard pile (a bit like certain Survivor cards from Arkham); Rohan is more about discarding allies from play to trigger powerful effects; Hobbit synergy is all about flying under the radar and making up for weak effects; Gondor is all about having loads of resources and spending them on expensive stuff (another Rogue-y theme), and so on and so forth. But in most of these trait themes were developed long after the traits first appeared, and the earlier cards with those traits don't really fit in the newer synergies (for instance, Legolas is a strong hero, but he doesn't really have anything that synergises with the other Silvan effects about bouncing allies to hand).

These trait-based synergies partly compensate for "sphere bleed", where as the game went on resource colours meant less and less, because it ended up being just as possible to have a deck capable of killing enemies in Spirit (traditionally the quest-oriented sphere, think like how Seeker is about clue-gathering) as in Tactics (traditionally the murder-based sphere, think like Guardian). Now, certain traits had specific spheres associated with them (almost all Noldor are Spirit or Lore, for instance), so the colours still mean something.

So basically, I wouldn't sweat it too much. Almost all the trait-based cards we've seen so far are little more than targeting restrictions (Dr Elli Horowitz, for example, can only fetch Relic cards, but it's not like there's a cohesive Relic archetype); or flavour-based effects (fast flying monster harder to hit with a Melee weapon than a Firearm); or parts of someone's deckbuilding restrictions (like how Ursula can get a lot of Relics). The closest thing to a proper keyword synergy so far is the handful of cards that target Illicit cards, and even then it's little more than standard Rogue effects, just with keyword descriptions. It might be more difficult to make LOTR-style keyword synergy work in Arkham with the broader range of card types, the inherent restriction on deckbuilding, and the smaller decks, but I think we'll probably see more keyword-based archetypes in future. I think they just haven't planned that far ahead, and/or are interested in developing different parts of the design space first.

Who knows, we might see player cards that reference investigator keywords! There's already an inkling of that in some of the resolutions for the newest cycle...

What's really weird is the way TFA gives investigators traits at certain points, with no effect on game play.

4 hours ago, CSerpent said:

What's really weird is the way TFA gives investigators traits at certain points, with no effect on game play.

I noticed that as well. Either they planned to do something and it was dropped or there will be something in Return to TFA ...

TFA had a lot of dropped ideas that never really went anywhere. One of the main complaints I have with the campaign, aside from supplies and some of the chaos token effects, is that it felt like they tried to do too much and it all started bursting at the seams a little.

The most egregious example is in Depths of Yoth. At a certain point, if you have a canteen in your supplies, you can "collect a strange liquid". This doesn't do anything at all, and is never even mentioned again...

17 hours ago, ricedwlit said:

I noticed that as well. Either they planned to do something and it was dropped or there will be something in Return to TFA ...

If it doesn't so something about Supplies, I'm not sure I want to play a Return to TFA - that mechanic just feels vindictive on a blind run, especially in a 4 player game.

16 minutes ago, dysartes said:

If it doesn't so something about Supplies, I'm not sure I want to play a Return to TFA - that mechanic just feels vindictive on a blind run, especially in a 4 player game.

Houserule I played with in our most recent run was to use 1-player supplies, and have them affect the entire group (e.g., everyone gets the exp from binoculars, everyone counts as having a pickaxe, if you use medicine everyone who's poisoned heals the poison) - it makes a few things easier and eliminates a certain layer of strategy, but it's such a huge increase in quality of life. Same applies for using some of the "Normal" symbol token effects instead of the "Hard/Expert" ones - "you're poisoned if you fail this test" and "place a doom on your location, regardless of whether you pass" are both the wrong kind of difficulty...

With those, I found myself far better disposed towards TFA, though the first 2 scenarios and Heart of the Elders still feel pointless.