Hi Everyone!

Next week, my group and I are going to start playing the RtL Campaign for the first time (yay )
Because I'm the OL, i wanted to make sure I understood all the rules correctly.

A few questions that came up by reading the Rulebook (and i couldn't answer with the FAQ):

1. Party Actions in the Game Week : Is it correct, that the hero party doesn't need to be in a Town to Recuperate (pay 50 coins to restore all wounds and fatigue)? The description of the Temple in the Buildings section, is basically the same and could lead to the assumption that a temple is required to heal.

2. Unexplored Dungeons : I own a german copy of RtL, and used the english one (found on ffg) as reference when something was not clear, but got confused when i stumbled upon two different statements.

Page 10 RtL Rulebook:

- German: When the heroes end their movement on an unexplored dungeon area, they may choose to enter it. If they do so, the heroes receive one CT.

- English: "If the heroes end their movement in a dungeon area, they receive one conquest token if they’ve never been to that area
before. They may then may enter the dungeon according to the rules under “Dungeons” on page 17." --copy-paste from the rules

Which is correct?

3. Trait Upgrades : How do you handle Trait upgrades? Example, a hero has 3 black dice in Melee printed on his sheet , than he upgrades a black one to a silver one and takes the silver token. After a suspended play this could either mean, he has 2 black dice and a silver upgrade or 3 black and 1 silver upgrade

4. Dungeon 17 : If the heroes remove both sarcophagi in the room, can they proceed anyhow? (you need to put a skeleton in there or something in order to kill it) Is it carried like an item, i.e. pick up for 1 Movingpoint und wander around?

Qion said:

1) The rulebook is misleading. You can not take a Recuperate/Train action unless you are in a city (Recuperate would be at the Temple) or at a Secret Master area. Recuperate can not be done anywhere else on the overland map.

2) The English version. Once the heroes go to a dungeon location they have not visited before, they receive 1CT. They may then choose to enter if they want or bypass it and come back later. However, they do not get the 1CT for revisiting the location.

3) Honesty on the player's part When they add a black dice, they use one of the training tokens from the base game. Its common practice in my group that if you don't have one of those training tokens but have a silver die token, then you have upgraded one of your printed dice.

4) No, if they remove both of them by searching them, then they have screwed themselves and are stuck. They can just pick it up and carry it, but it doesn't take up an inventory slot.

4) I would handle the situation similar to Level 27, as per the FAQ:

Dungeon Level 27: The Monastery
Lord Aktar may be summoned regardless of whether or
not the sarcophagus has been searched. If the sarcophagus
is missing, simply place Lord Aktar adjacent to its original
location.

Parathion said:

Definitely don't do this. It is a very different situation, and I don't think Parathion realises it (we are often on opposite sides of an argument, but he is usually much more 'sensible' than this answer, just coming at things from a different reading or theory).

On Level 17 the there are two sarcophagi and to kill the boss the heroes must reduce his wounds to zero, whereupon he temporarily turns into a bone heap, then before the boss' next turn (when he reanimates from teh bone heap) dump him into a sarcophagi. The heroes need the sarcophagus to end the level. If they search both sarcophagi then they are stuck and they only have themselves to blame. Frankly, having had the card read out to them at the beginning of the level (so they know the requirements), any heroes who search both sarcophagi before dumping the boss there are too moronically stupid to deserve the label 'hero'.

On level 27 the OL needs the sarcophagi because when certain conditions are fulfilled that is where the boss demon (who is not on the level initially) appears. It is jjust too cheap for the heroes to sprint through and search the sarcophagus to remove it and then not have to make an effort to prevent the preconditions for teh appearance of the boss.

I was fully aware of the requirements of both levels, yet I still maintain my suggestion.

Heros should never get "stuck" on any level, leaving fleeing as the only option, even if it was their own fault.

The OL is implicitly disallowed to block the heros´ progress completely in any level. By extension of this ruling, this should apply in general.

Parathion said:

Then we completely disagree.

Just because the OL is not allowed to implicitly block the heroes progress completely does not mean that the heroes should be unable to completely block their own progress purely by their own gross incompetence . Further, they should never be allowed a 'shortcut' in any level, which is the very purpose of the Level 27 FAQ ruling - to prevent the 'shortcut' that the heroes could take. What you propose is a shortcut even if only simplifing things by making the heroes move one space less.

It is worth noting that there is no circumstance in which the OL can contribute in any way, shape or form to the heroes blocking themselves like this. Only a hero player can possibly decide to search a sarcophagus. The only, repeat only, reason that the heroes can ever get into this situation is their own greedy stupidity. Rewarding them for this is... well, very nearly as stupid as the heroes who got into this situation.

Note: plenty of punches were pulled in the descriptive passages of this post.

If the OL is not allowed to do anything that totally eliminates any possibility of progress, I think the natural extension would actually be that the heroes are not allowed to, either, so they cannot search the second sarcophagus.

Sometimes I really can't tell what to think about this game, though. Was there a conscious decision to create certain conditions whereby a dungeon can be irrevocably failed, or is this instance just an example of really lazy level design?

mahkra said:

I think it was more of a case of "Okay, we can leave it like that because the heroes won't be stupid enough to search both of them and prevent themselves from leaving the level".

100% agree with Corbon. If the heroes are that blindingly dumb, especially after the victory condition on the card is read to them and are told that searching them removes them from the board then it their own fault.

mahkra said:

It's probably lazy level design (forgetting that searching a sarcophagus will remove it when drawing up the level rules.)

The question of what constitutes "totally eliminating any possibility of progress" in RtL has been brought up before, IIRC, but I don't recall how the community in general landed on that one. After all, in a vanilla game if the heroes can't progress through the dungeon then it's clearly unfair. In RtL though, fleeing the dungeon is a valid tactic for the heroes and the campaign will continue. So is it really eliminating all possibility of progress if the OL (or heroes) find a way to oust themselves from progressing through one dungeon?

Again, I don't recall how the community eventually felt about that idea and personally I'm not too worried about it happening in our games anyway. That said, I do agree with Corbon that if the heroes know the rules (which they should in an RtL dungeon level) and they do something to stop themselves from progressing, then they deserve the fate they've brought upon themselves (ie: fleeing.) Were this to happen at my table, I as OL would make a point of reminding them before they searched the second sarcophagus that they would then not have any way to kill the boss. That's just sporting, after all. If they still did it anyway then they really don't have anyone else to blame.

If the hero still does it anyway, at least the other heroes know he's a Cylon.

Thanks for the detailed answers

I think i will do what Corbon said. If they are too greedy in the beginning, they won't be able to end the dungeon. xD

mahkra said:

Straight to the brig! Nice ref btw... BSG is one of the few cooperative games I can tolerate....

Steve-O said:

While I think that in this case it's down to the heroes and their own stupidity, if that dungeon level occurs in the Overlord's Keep, then there'd definitely be a problem!

BatintheBelfry said:

What problem?

OL: I guess you lose then. Congratulations, defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, despite my best efforts to allow you to win. <turns head> Here, have a doggy biscuit. <toss>
Stupid Morons (heroes): <drool> <jump/catch> <crunch, crunch>
OL: No you idiots, that was for the dog!

Corbon said:

True, it would allow me to win my current campaign, which I seem to have mucked up in fine style. My conscience would probably get the better of me though and I'd be inclined to give them a *gentle* nudge in the right direction.