I was thinking the other day that AGoT could really use some different ways to win the game. There are a lot of different strategies but only one way to win, get to fifteen power first. Sure we have mill strategies, rush, control, murder etc but they all need to do the same thing to win. Other games like Magic you can mill your opponent to zero cards and deck him, reduce to zero life or get him up to ten poison counters. In L5R you can military win by destroying all four provinces, enlightenment win by playing all five rings, honor win by getting to forty honor or dishonor win by reducing your opponent to negative twenty honor.

I am sure it has come up before for this game but just curious what others think.

Toqtamish said:

If you want an alternate win variant, you should try playing with the 6 cards from the Greyjoy set.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

FFG's attempt at this in the CCG/Winter block was an epic failure IMO. Your opponent(s) is playing a completely different game than you. Maybe I just have a bad taste in my mouth from the doomed mechanic (I think it's fairly safe to call this easily their worst introduction ever), and it is possible - but I don't see it.

Well, part of the reason "Doomed" didn't work was because it wasn't really an "alternate win condition" so much as an "alternate loss condition." People were far more likely to "Doom themselves out" than for an opponent to do it for them (thus winning the game) - and it was designed that way, I think. It was an excuse to make some really, really powerful cards that had the drawback of bringing you closer to losing if you used them. Unfortunately, the power of those cards often out-weighed the danger of them ending up in your dead pile. If Doomed had been limited to events - so that you really couldn't put more than 4 in a deck - it might have worked for what it was really supposed to be: a limiter on card power.

It's interesting to note that not a single Doomed card has been reprinted in the LCG, despite some very strong thematic ties between the Winter CCG cycle and the Defenders LCG cycle.

Along with LOB's observation that opponents effectively end up playing different games, alternate win conditions effectively neutralize the power challenge - and a 3rd of the challenge phase as a result. I also find it far more thematic that no matter what you do or how strong you are in this world, you don't win the throne without the "power" and political capital to back it up. That's why I don't like the idea of alternate win conditions.

Well I had no idea about this doomed thing and thought it would be nice to see a different way to win the game. Or at least have a discussion about it.

What was the doomed mechanic? (only played LCG)

Toqtamish said:

Having played Dune, a very L5R style game doomed by a poor distribution mechanic (Rolling Thunder), where there were several options for winning the game. You could have the "standard win" earning 15 spice and 10 honor (and a standing house card or Dune), a Mlitary victory (optional rule), where you control all 6 of the major fiefs on Dune, or a Mill victory; you lost the game when you needed to draw cards, but couldn't. Either you were decked or you had negative honor and needed to draw. (you refilled your hand to 7 at the end of your turn, if you didn't play cards, you didn't need to draw). Interesting, but that games complexity is roughly the cube of AGOT's.

Obviously I must be in the minority, but I liked the doomed mechanic. While I would be the first to agree that the execution wasn't everything I wanted out of it, I liked the idea of overpowered cards that moved you closer to losing the game. It had the potential of making some really interesting decision trees both when deckbuilding and playing.( ~But I know Dan doesn't like powerful cards, so I really should expect that. )

On a serious note, I wouldn't mind cards that created something similar to alternate win conditions. For example,some way to allow you to win for milling your opponents draw deck would really help Greyjoy. For example:

Pike-unique-House Greyjoy-2 gold- If your opponent has no cards in his draw deck, you win.

If you don't want an alternate draw condition, make it that you claim 15 power.

In general, I'm opposed to the idea of alternate win conditions for the same reasons others have already brought up. Interaction with your opponent is reduced when one player wants to hit a home run, and the other wants to score a touch down. That's the main reason I dislike GJ mill decks that just try to deck you, and then play the game.

I don't want to say I never want to see an alternate win condition. But, I would be very surprised if some one came up with one I am ok with.

As for Doomed:

In the CCG Winter Edition Block there were cards that had a doomed symbol on them. If at any point you had 5 doomed cards in your dead pile, you lost. A lot of the doomed cards were Deathbound, so there was a good chance of them making your dead pile. Other cards played off of how many doomed cards you had in your doomed pile, getting stronger as you pushed you luck more and more.

What Deathjester26 said about the Doomed mechanic. He explained it better than I did.

If FFG had added a "City" trait to all the Cities with named Locations, they could've added a "Sac" alt. win victory. Where you have to "Sac" X amount of Cities to win the game/throne, just like in the books... well, kinda.

Rogue Cypher said:

If "City" was so common that locations with the trait were staples in any deck, this would be a pretty cool thing to try. But as is, I can build a deck without any named or unique locations quite happily, completely shutting down any deck that would be looking to the mechanic to win.

That's the hardest part part about adding in a new win condition, especially if it is trait based -- making sure that it cannot be completely side-stepped in deck building.

Fair enough, didn't really consider the fact even though most of my own decks don't really have any prominent locations that would have such "City" traits either.

ktom said:

Ktom makes some important points... and I'm definitely agreed on the premise that an alternate condition that doesn't interact with the standard game is bad. In debate parlance, it's a lack of clash... and it sucks. I thought of two ideas while driving today; they're rough, but a starting point.

Take your concept of "Sacking" and merge it with Ktom's suggestion above, and something between the CCG-era "Five Kings Edition" Kingdom locations and the Multiplayer Title cards. Create a cycle of seven unique locations (North <+1 Claim>, Vale <+3 STR in POW>, Westerlands <+3 GOLD>, Riverlands <+3 STR in MIL, Stormlands <+5 INIT> , Reach <+3 STR in INT> & Dorne <+4 INF>), at a value (2?) that makes them aggressively costed (and therefore an incentive to be universally played). Give them all the text "You may not play or put into play [CARDNAME] while any opponent controls [CARDNAME]... essentially making them "unique to the table."

Then you add a central location (a new King's Landing or Red Keep) <doesn't Heart of the Kingdom sounds like something from "Lost?"> or a plot that gives you the victory if you control 5 of 7 Kingdoms... something very like a war game, like Diplomacy, Axis & Allies or the AGOT Board Game. Heck, you could fiddle with the win "percentage" even adding the Iron Islands or Dragonstone, if you wanted to add granularity to the percentages. The "unique to the table" condition on top of the powerful abilities make this more than a simple race. To make the system work, you'd have to balance the strength/emphasis on location control necessary for the this sort of victory against the general weakness said deck would have at achieving a standard win/delaying your opponent's victory. Strangely this would be thematic, as Greyjoy tends to have a history of "discard power from your opponent's house card" effects.

The other direction to take things is more like Magic: The Gathering's card "Coalition Victory," which read: You win the game if you control a land of each basic land type and a creature of each color. My initial attempt at this would be a plot card (let's recycle the old name "Against the Common Foe" and use the art from "First Snow of Winter," and have the stats/text: 0 Gold/0 Initiative/0 Claim: "At the end of the standing phase, ~kneel characters with all affiliations to win the game." You have crappy stats, and at the bare minimum, you have to have Ser Arys Oakheart (PotS), Brienne of Tarth (PotS), and Dragon Chaser (SB) alive & standing after five phases of a turn with that plot revealed. If you want to make it harder, require it to be six separate characters at _the beginning_ of the phase.

In both of these instances, a good deck is going to have location and character control and should be able to interact/inhibit a deck built to pull this off, and in a competitive setting, any deck that wants to try to pull of a Shagga achievement of this magnitude is going to likely have an alternate win condition when the opportunity falls through. Realistically, you're going to run into a wall of disagreement about "the spirit of the game," a nebulous concept that has varied over the course of it's history. The viability of Character-less/lite decks, effects that look at your hand, and any form of "steal" that is not attachment-based" are all propositions that have cultivated robust disagreement, and varying levels of occurence. If you're running tournaments locally, they're is no reason that you couldn't try a special rules event, or create proxies of "promo cards" for your players to try. Back in the day, there were several events that used a combination of promo cards & special rules to create terribly entertaining, though not necessarily long lasting, one-offs.

I've ruminated on the idea of FFG kinda-sorta redoing Doomed.
Consider this:

The Doom crest: A black raven.
-All Doom crest cards have the Deathbound keyword.
-Every Doom crest in your dead pile raises the amount of power you need to win the game by 1 (or possibly 2).
-Many of the less ridiculous Doomed cards would be reprinted with the Doom crest.

This would eliminate the biggest problems with the Doomed mechanic, namely:
1. Having 1-4 Doomed cards in the dead pile has no drawback at all, meaning that a good deckbuilder/player will never have to worry too much about it.
2. Forced Doom decks were anti-fun, consisting entirely of getting Great Pyramid of Meereen and 3x The Doom That Came (4x using The Twins agenda before the ruling that prevented force Dooming from working if the player has no actual Doomed cards in the dead pile) into play.
3. Having a loss condition in the game (rather than a win condition) screws up Melee.

Running Doom crest cards would carry a significant drawback (needing extra power to win) for extra power. However, certain cards (Massing at Twilight, I'm looking at you!) would simply not be remade.

Xenu's Paradox said:

Fun fact: I just looked up the card "Massing at Twilight" to see what the fuss was about. Then I tried to look up the card "I'm looking at you!" and was surprised that I couldn't find it

I kinda like your general idea for a new "Doom" mechanic. Would it be very difficult to balance?

Ratatoskr said:

I remember there being discussion about this after all the complaints about loss condition and doom out, and I think the biggest issue is the same one with any Agenda that raises your win total... Control decks invariably don't are (assuming they can still get the victory in time. But I'd think 2 power per might be a good starting point. Or reversing it to "Opponents need X less power to win" and make it 1.

Reducing opponent's power needed to win would be great. It's a much more immediate threat (brings you closer to losing instead of further from winning), and control decks can't use it with impunity- even the best control decks can't stop opponents from claiming SOME power unless they get an incredibly lucky draw and their opponent an incredibly poor one.

re: Kingdom locations-

Here's a hypothetical set of cards, building on Luke's concept. I thought it would be interesting and fun to have a "conquest" type of mechanic, similar to the Kings of the Sea agendas.

(1) *The North (Neutral)
Location
Kingdom.
You cannot play The North if The North is already in play.
Add 3 to your total STR in (military) challenges while you have at least 1 participating character.
After a player wins a (military) challenge against you, that player takes control of The North.

(1) *The Vale (Neutral)
Location
Kingdom.
You cannot play The Vale if The Vale is already in play.
Add 3 to your total STR in any challenge initiated against you while you have at least 1 participating character.
After a player wins a challenge against you as the attacker, that player takes control of The Vale.

(1) *The Stormlands (Neutral)
Location
Kingdom.
You cannot play The Stormlands if The Stormlands is already in play.
Add 3 to your total STR in (power) challenges while you have at least 1 participating character.
After a player wins a (power) challenge against you, that player takes control of The Stormlands.

(1) *The Reach (Neutral)
Location
Kingdom.
You cannot play The Reach if The Reach is already in play.
Add 3 to your total STR in (intrigue) challenges while you have at least 1 participating character.
After a player wins an (intrigue) challenge against you, that player takes control of The Reach.

(1) *The Westerlands (Neutral)
Location
Kingdom.
You cannot play The Westerlands if The Westerlands is already in play.
(+3 income)
Dominance: Pay 2 gold to take control of The Westerlands. Any player may trigger this ability.

(1) *The Iron Islands (Neutral)
Location
Kingdom.
You cannot play The Iron Islands if The Iron Islands is already in play.
If you win a challenge by 4 or more total STR, it is considered unopposed.
After a player wins an unopposed challenge, that player takes control of The Iron Islands.

(1) *Dorne (Neutral)
Location
Kingdom.
You cannot play Dorne if Dorne is already in play.
(3 influence)
Dominance: Kneel 2 influence to take control of Dorne. Any player may trigger this ability.

(0) *King's Landing (Neutral)
Response: After a player plays or takes control of a Kingdom location, draw a card.
At the beginning of the Taxation phase, if any player controls The North, The Vale, The Stormlands, The Reach, The Westerlands, The Iron Islands, and Dorne, that player wins the game.

I love your idea Xenu

I can't really take full credit for it. I was building off Luke's idea and brought in a bit of Bolton/KotS Titles. But thank you.