JeffK said:

Then why would the Night's Watch have so many cards and be a playable build? If this game actually had to be about the "Game of Thrones", then there's no reason for the NW to be in it at all (arguably).

Going back to the Magic comparison, yes they have five colors, but again, because of the blending of mana types, there's actually way more decktypes so to speak, but again, only a couple which are tournament worthy but I understand what you were trying to say. Yes Game of Thrones can do it with six houses, but they could also do it with five, and they could also do it with seven, so what? The weird thing is that "Wouldn't it be cool to have a new house?" totally qualifies for me as a valid reason to make it. Anything that looks awesome, provided it's balanced, will make me want to buy it. I will want to see if a new house suits my playstyle better, and I will want to try out new tech against the environment. I would also want to take on the role of a different group of characters and see what other houses get against new mechanics. I really like the idea of faction loyalty, and playing neutral Arryns under a plain blank shield just doesn't interest me. I want to get stoked about the team that I pick, get a custom playmat, color coordinated sleeves, and bring them to tournaments no matter how good or bad their current builds are. It's one of the reasons I never play NW or Wildlings, and never will put any of them in a deck. But again, that's just me.

I will add though, upon reflecting, that one of the primary reasons the addition of a new house appeals so much, is probably because although I only recently got into the LCG, I had played the CCG since Ice and Fire. I've been seeing a lot of the same themes, decktypes, and card evolution replicated or replicating in the LCG and I'm looking for something more drastic than changing the distribution methods. I'm just saying I think the game could do with some fresh mechanics, under a fresh banner, and further, that the game should do with it.

JeffK said:

This is not a valid argument against House Arryn being included as separate faction.

I ask you, what premise are your statements above based on?

That only factions that have a 'King' or 'Queen' actively vying to wear the Crown itself can count as a House?

If that is the case then Martell should not be a House because Doran explicitly puts down any notion that Martell is actively seeking the Crown. Ok so Arianne got some crazy fantasies but House Martell itself is never actively vying for the Throne as a House. In fact, under Doran Martell is pretty much the definition of a supporting House.

And who really considers Balon a viable contender for "King" of anything other than his own water logged islanders?

Additionally if having a Royal Candidate somehow determines what faction should be its own House in the game then Baratheon should be 3 Houses not just one (or 2 Baratheon Houses, 1 Tyrell since Renly is really more a Tyrell King than a Baratheon King).

What seems remarkable to me is that people are dismissing House Arryn as supporting cast? Really? Even if we take Littlefinger into account? I mean he may not be calling himself a "king" of course, but Littlefinger is one of the most influential and MAJOR players in the entire series. Does anyone think that Littlefinger doesn't harbor fantasies of wearing the Crown for himself or at least being the power behind the Crown? For Intrigue and Power in Westeros Littlefinger alone probably wields more political influence than the entire House of Greyjoy (which might have the military but in the books they have no political power on the main continent of Westeros outside any region they don't physically control with military might). In other words, no other House gives a rat's arse about Greyjoy's opinion on the "Game of Thrones" unless Greyjoy is raiding them (and even that was considered a minor nuisance until they stormed Winterfell due to Theon).

Surely we're all missing the point here. If the game should represent all the Great Houses of Westeros, then where are the House Gardener cards?!?!?

My view is this:

Either A.) House Arryn is made a seventh house.

Or B.) Outside Littlefinger, and the rainbow guard guy.... we don't see house arryn cards in the game. When AHoTa came out I just thought the neutral arryn faction didn't really add to the game. Everyone just played the Eyrie and stark played a few arryn cards.

Magic is different since the colors do not represent in-game factions per se. (Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't). But for any given set the designers can squeeze any number of factions into the colors since they are separated. Also its not hard to make a deck dual or more colored. In Agot... you pick a house card. If you wanted it more like magic agot would not have house cards... they would have locations reducing the cost of a crest, and crests would be the colors.

Some good points above, but not enough to completely sell me on the idea of adding Arryn as a seventh house.

Sure, Arryn has Littlefinger, but his motivations are unclear and, more importantly from a thematic perspective, he's never had a POV chapter. This indicates to me that GRRM doesn't see him, or House Arryn as a whole, as a player striving toward the throne. Again, that may change (as it did with Martell), but right now there's nothing to support the idea that House Arryn is looking to crown a king from among their own.

Martell, in contrast, has had several POV chapters and one (albeit unimpressive) attempt. One attempt at the throne, however minor, is a far cry from none at all. In addition, Doran may be striving for peace and neutrality, he's old and frail and the only member of his house with that perspective. It's pretty clear that if he were to die, House Martell would probably become a lot more aggressive - The Sand Snakes would see to that.

The Night's Watch faction is neutral, so I don't really see how the concept of a "Night's Watch" deck is relevant here. Tj Granted, the idea of the Night's Watch taking the throne is pretty damned un-Nedly, but I'm not a big worrier about theme in the first place. So, really, I don't give a **** if adding Arryn is thematic or not, actually. It's just that many people are saying it IS and I still don't see how. It's a more theoretically interesting question to me than relevant in a practical sense.

I like the Neutral house card decks because I think they're good for the game. When someone flips a Neutral house card you'll have no idea what you're facing, and that adds a needed element of uncertainty - the "wild card" decks as it were. To balance that out, Neutral house decks are more difficult to build thanks to the added cost to every non-neutral card you want to include and the inability to use any "House X Only" cards. In the current state of the game I'm not convinced that Neutral decks are competitive with standard House decks, but they're a fun option for casual play and detract nothing from the game as a whole since nothing more needs to be done to support them that would take away from the existing houses.

This is the kind of fresh addition that brings new to life to the game. It opens up a whole slew of possibilities that were simply not available previously without throwing anything out of whack. If a seventh house were created that had a similar impact without unbalancing the game, I'd be all for it. It would need to offer something big that couldn't be achieved by adding neutral cards that shared a "House Arryn" trait and had some sort of synergistic effect (like the Night's Watch, Wildling and Brotherhood cards). I just think I'm approaching this differently than many others here. I don't think "I want house Arryn, how can we do that?" My thought process is more along the lines of "If we want to add this mechanic , what's the best way to do it for the game, and is it even a good idea?" Adding Arryn just for the sake of adding Arryn runs the risk of adding something that doesn't benefit the game as a whole for the sake of "thematic accuracy" (which I still don't see...) due to a perspective that colored by the desire to see a House Arryn house card. Approaching it from a "gameplay first" perspective reduces that risk, though doesn't eliminate it.

So talk about card effects we'd like to see first, disregarding how they could be introduced thematically. Pretty much any given effect can find a thematic justification in an LCG. If one happens to pop up that would require a new house, I'm sure House Arryn would be at the top of the list of potential candidates.

Kennon said:

Kennon is correct & that's why I've always argued for the 9 Houses (Arryn, Tryell, Tully), as those nine houses all represent an area within the 7 Kingdoms (I believe that's why Rings/many others cal for 7 houses) - North, Riverlands, Vale, Iron Isles, Westerlands, Crownlands, Stormlands, Reach, Dorne, and have their own bastard names.

I'm noticing a common argument amongst detractors of more houses being - what would it add to the game/what mechanics call for this? I can just as easily turn this around and say why would adding houses detract from the game - the burden of proof should lie there. And there are so many mechanics, and more being added all the time, that separating these out/distributing is easy. Throughout the history of the game these have ebbed and flowed between houses.

Personally, I'm not at all concerned with the mechanics, and as Stag Lord said, far more interested in the game keeping a feel for the books (in the regard, FFG really needs to start re-using some of the names of cards from the original sets, like the House words, the Iron Price for Greyjoy, etc). For me, when the argument becomes more about 6 houses is sufficient because of game mechanics/workings, and card names become too generic, this ceases being AGoT, and could just as easily be something else.

LaughingTree said:

Well stated. Heck, between Jon Arryn's orginally taking up arms against Aerys, and the Lysa's actions, and now Littlefinger, I think a fairly persuasive argument can be made that House Arryn has had the most impact of any House on the storyline throughout the books published so far.

I think the new houses have the potential to add flavor to the game. The game is currently fine with 6 houses, but adding 1, 2, or 3 more houses MAY create a better gaming experience. The danger is getting into the mindset that we NEED to do this to make the game better. There is the very real potential for a new house to unbalance things, and FFG may not be at a place right now where they have the time/ability to do all the testing that would be required to prevent that from happening (not to mention all the new design templating). Do we need new houses? No. Would that add to the game? I think so, only if done properly.

I'm primarily a Martell player (started playing the CCG before reading the books). Part of my problem with the house is that I'm not convinced I know the Martell characters well enough. Sometimes I feel like the game's version of a Martell character (or of certain House themes) is very different from the character from the books. I don't think we've been able to have a real deep look into what makes Martell click yet from the books. GJ may have a similar amount of exposure in the books, but they have so many character's with different personalities, I think it's easier to design for them. Part of this may be due to Martell's general sneekiness and plotting (we're unsure of what they are up to), while GJ is more up front with their personalities.

Where am I going with this....? Flavor wise, I'm not even sure I like Martell being a house in the game right now.

If FFG were to add a new house, I feel Tyrell is the only one that A) Has enough unique characters that we know well, and B) Has a distinct flavor. Perhaps House Arryn is there now, but I have a feeling we're going to learn a lot more about them (same as Martell IMHO). As for Tully, they are so associated with Stark, it would be hard to come up with anything for them IMHO.

So, I'm not against adding more houses, but if FFG is going to do it please take the time to do it well. There is no rush.

I'd be interest in knowing peoples thoughts on the following for each of the 3 remaining Great Houses (Arryn, Tyrell, and Tully):

1) What unique characters does this house have, that we know enough about to design a card with some personality to it?

2) Does this house have enough of a flavor that can be represented by the current basic mechanics of the game? What are they?

...but perhaps that's a discussion for a new thread (or 3)?

I agree that if any house ever gets added it should be Tyrell, granted they pretty much rode other houses tail coats they are still the most developed(and Tully but they are wrapped entirely with Stark) of the Great Houses, even more so than Martell who really we saw very little.

Tyrell has alot of good characters, most of which already exist in the game and they could really be added by adding some more characters and allowing them to use any previously printed ones with their Trait on them. We have Mace Tyrell, his sons, daughter, Left, Right, Queen of Thorns, various bannermen like the Redwynes, really Tyrell being added would be easier and more sense than Arryn. Much like others however, I am not seeing why we should add one as it wouldn't add much for me theme or game wise. Arryn has not done much in the books other than hide, Tyrell rides on the waves of fortune with whoever is in the ascendant.

However if a 7th house were to ever get added my vote is for Tyrell. More developed in the books by far than Arryn. Tyrell I would probably play, Arryn I would not.

LordofBrewtown said:

Yeah this is exactly what I was thinking. Not only that but really, it's not like adding a new house that does nothing new or fun would be the design. The idea would be, by adding a new house, to introduce something new gamewise and to make it more fun. Yeah, there'd be no point if they just slapped renown and power icons on all the Arryns, and made it their thing, but the hope would be they would do something different. So there's your answer. That's what the game would gain: something new and something fun. I realize there is always the chance that design flops and something this big could make the game worse in many ways, but it could also make the game better. The idea of not seeing how something like this could make the game better is the same as not risking ordering something different at your usual restaurant because you found something that you like and want it to stay the same. Forever.

All I can say at this point is, this is a lot of debate for something that FFG may or may not already be deadset against. In any case, I hope that Arryn does show prominently in the storyline to make things more interesting rather than just appearing in the books and then doing nothing. Maybe, when that book comes out, if FFG is still making this game, my great grandchildren will be able to flop a House Arryn house card.

Kennon said:

Yes, i think the neurtral faction needs a little reward for playing neutral cards or neutral themes only. The only advantage of the neutral house card is that you may play ooh cards for a gold penalty of +1 instead of +2. Which seems to be a lot, remember that the true queen agenda had a similar advantage and was rarely seen, and at this time Targ had even had some cards to reduce the ooh penalty. Long story short, this kind of deck is too expensive to make it really profitabel.

You would better run one of the six great houses as a base for neutral cards, because it´s basically the same and you can use the house x only cards and if you like to run some ooh cards there´s still the plot alliance. So why run the neutral faction. I really think some ooh cost reducer would help the house card or something like a neutral affiliation only plot/event etc.

One more word about the houses Arryn discussion. It´s true that the Arryn´s were (probably are) a powerful house. But John Arryn is dead, Lysa Arryn is also ummmh not available. So there´s still little Robert (which is really not a player in the game of thrones) and Littlefinger. But we all know that, at least according to Ned, Littlefinger is only on Littlefinger´s side.

Which brings me back to the neutral faction, it would very much appreciate it to see a circle of spies theme which could be best played out of the neutral faction.

Haha, I just want to see a Circle of Spies style deck again.

Deathjester26 said:

I think this sums up my feelings pretty well. The game doesn't require a seventh house to continue to grow, and the thematic arguments for Arryn are thin at best, IMO. I just am not seeing any lack in the game that adding a seventh house would address.

I definitely don't agree with the idea that a it's incumbent upon those of us who are wary of adding a new house of have the "burden up proof". Any change to the game of that scale needs to be justified and the concerns that have been raised need to be addressed (pack dilution, the effect on game balance and the potential to reduce the long term diversity of the existing six houses as game mechanics get spread a bit more thinly).

None of these are deal breakers, but they have to be taken seriously. On a more positive note, I'm very happy with how FFG has handled the game thus far, so if they do decide to add a seventh house I'd give them the benefit of the doubt.

I vote for a reprint of the House of Talons and House of Thorns cards. Doesn't have to be a house of it's own... maybe just a cycle...

I want to play my House Arryn Deck in the LCG!!!