Obviously ina living card game, not every card will be useable to its full potential as soon as it comes out. A new theme might take a while to get fleshed out, a previously under-powered card might get a later boost from new synergies.

But bearing this in mind, I can't help but feel that there are some traits in this game that seem to have little, or even no point whatsoever.

First example that springs to mind is "bastard." obviously it's thematic - lots of characters with the trait, and cards like "son of a King" or "bastard" itself are negative effects- but is there any card which actually targets the trait itself?

I'm sure there are other examples- septon, captain, conscriptor, loads of stuff that only appears on a few cards.

There are also some that feel like they were meant to be the start of a theme that never really got going - Bannerman seems the most obvious example here.

I guess my overall question is - what exactly is the point of traits? when a "king" "queen" "ally" "knight" etc. hits the table, that instantly tells you a lot about that card and has dozens of potential impacts, what is the point of the others though? should we have traits just for theme? or is it time to narrow down the list of traits we have, but make sure that the ones we do see actually mean something?

I really have no problem with any of the traits being primarily Nedly. And really, it makes sense that some of the traits don't really have any interactions. Who really cares who the Septons are? They're not in cahoots, and no one has it out for them, so they don't get any synergy or trait-hate. It's like the Houses, most of those traits are fairly meaningless--there's synergy for Dayne, Bolton, and Tully, and some effects for Tyrell--but it's just nice to have from an in-universe perspective.

alpha5099 said:

You haven't read book 4 or 5 yet, have you?

Mighty Jim said:

Even a trait that isn't being used at this time, could be used at a later date. The Dothraki trait was used on some cards since the core set but was never utilized until Brotherhood Without Banners chapter cycle.

Its better to have accurate and numerous traits just in case they get used at a later date. Bear in mind, that old CCG cards are still reprinted and there are more trait specific cards from the CCG. I suspect that the House Florent trait for example might get used in the next CP.

Some of them used to have synergy that wasn't reprinted or re-imagined in the LCG.

Queen's Assassin(?) was a come into play character that used to take care of ally, merc, or bastard. It was like 4 gold, and an ally itself, but it was nice if you had the resources for bastard x3, queen's assassin x3.

Kennon said:

I have actually. I realized after I posted that that I chose the wrong trait for that example -- I was thinking along the lines of someone like Septa Mordane, who definitely isn't scheming much and is just an innocent bystander. But yeah, the Septons in King's Landing definitely are ramping up a push for political power.

~I can't wait to have more storytellers.

Danigral said:

If you're saying that trait is pointless, I will say that you are wrong, sir.

...it's by far the easiest way to search for Old Nan in the deck builder on Cardgamedb.

There are cards that don't look for specific traits, but still care about traits: A House Divided, LoW Robb Stark, Ser Amory Lorch... Even an otherwise useless trait could impact the game with those cards out there.

imrahil327 said:

You have no idea how long I laughed at this.

conscriptor was more active in the ccg and, wile i dont hink they did anything, there were a few more septons then too. i assume house umber and house karstark (and white harbor/house manderly?) will slowly gain a degree of interaction like house tully in the current card pool. as for bannermen and siege, i really hope they finally see some love. kinda a pointless stack of legal cards otherwise

I predict that a future CP cycle will revolve around septons - and sooner rather than later. I also predict that we're very close to seeing more effects that will do something with Bastard .

Sure, there's traits around right now that don't serve much of a function right now. Some of them will probably never see any kind of synergy ( Storyteller or House Celtigar , for example). Others have received some card interactions in the past, but nothing has been done with them for a long time, and it seems doubtful at this point if they'll be revived any time soon ( Siege and Bannerman fall into this category). Yet others do not have any effects interacting with them right now, but it seems conceivable that they will get some love in the future (House Mormont or House Umber could be mentioned here).

I'll go out on a limb and venture a third prediction: If we haven't seen a trait outside the ACoA cycle, don't expect it to get any synergy anytime soon.

Generally, I don't have a problem with unutilized traits. There's no harm in having them, and they can be pretty nedly (Old Nan being a prime example).

House Umber > House Celtigar!

HOW DARE YOU SPEAK ILL OF HOUSE CELTIGAR! House Celtigar will bury you! They shall join forces with House Brax and trample Westeros under their might!

I feel like, with a few exceptions, House traits are pretty much just there for flavor. There're a few that have had some serious synergy support -- Tully, Bolton, Dayne -- but you need a good number of those cards to make synergy worthwhile. I would rather see the support base grow for existing traits and tribes before we decide House Umber and House Clegane are serious business.

I do, however, want to see some support of House Florent that allows some overlap with existing Asshai tech.

Terminal schemes 2.0 - After you win a Power Challenge by 4 or more, choose and kill a non-House Celtigar character.

It seems to be a good card, but in fact it's just too restrictive...

Out of curiosity, I decided to check and see what other Houses have a single representative in the card pool. Useless information ho!

House Celtigar -- Claw Island

House Brax -- Hornvale

House Tarly -- Randyl Tarly

House Payne -- House Payne Enforced

House Goodbrother -- Maester Murenmure

House Botley -- Fishwhiskers

House Karstark -- Rickard Karstark

House Blacktyde -- Baelor Blacktyde

If I design a card, expect some Karstark.

Goodbrother and Karstark both had a small number of CCG cards.

In Goodbrother's case, I'm not sure it's worth designing non Ironborn, Raider or Ally cards for GJ at this point though, since Ally already covers cards that the designers dont want to have any Harmony. (and Raider seems almost dropped at this point)

Karstark never had much and, as much as they could get some harmonies along with the other less explored stark sub houses (Mormont, Umber, White Harbor/Manderly, Reed) it would take so many cards to do it and those cards would have to be so meaningfully different as to not just feel like they were mechanically wasted/missed opportunities for the other currently supported traits that I dont think it's worth it. At least, not unless FFG wanted to seriously sit down and dedicate all of stark's slots in a cycle to expanding each trait, one cycle at a time but… ugh I'm not sure that would even be that good an idea. As is, we could use a little more support for Direwolves, Tullys and Boltons…