this isn't an original idea by me (i first saw it made by nssxxx on the BGG forums at www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/820711/totally-new-kinds-of-card-that-wed-like-to-see-/new -- i'm SimboSmith, by the way) but i think it is so great i've been hoping that FFG will introduce it for ages. mr.thomasschmidt mentioned that they already have something similar in Game of Thrones as well, so that makes it even more of a possibility. so let's get a petition going to catch FFG's attention (do they participate in these forums? i guess they do)

The idea is this -- weather cards.

They would give us a whole pack of weather cards, which we could pick and choose from to bring a little variety to the existing quests. the idea is that we would drop them into the encounter deck, to change how it plays.

Do you fancy doing the 'Hunt for Gollum' in the driving rain? Just drop the card into the deck and away you go. Or with dirty grey skies and fog? How about searching for him in a snowstorm?

What you do is pick a handful of weather cards at the start and choose one of them one at random (eg: "Driving Rain"). You place this to one side, and shuffle the rest into the encounter deck. The entire game will now be played in the driving rain, with the card affecting every single round. And it will carry on effecting every round until it is either cancelled by one of the new event cards, or replaced by another of the weather cards that you draw from the encounter deck.

Here are some of the effects which I have come up with so far…

"Fog" -- reduce your threat by 1 at the start of each round. players cannot travel to any locations (unless directed to by a quest card)
"Howling wind" -- Each player must discard 1 card from their hand at the end of every round, if able
"Snowstorm" -- Exhaust all wounded characters at the beginning of the round
"Driving rain" -- Remove 1 progress token from the active location/quest card at the end of every round, if able
"Approaching storm" -- Each player must discard 1 resource token from a hero of their choice at the end of every round, if able
"Clear skies" -- Add 1 to the player's combined will during the quest phase

These aren't weather-related, by they are so similiar i thought they could be included as well…

"Dawn" -- Each hero may spend 1 of their resource tokens to heal 1 point of damage at the beginning of the round (maximum of 1 per hero)
Flavour text: "The morning dawned bright and fair; the air was clean, and the light pale and clear in a rain-washed sky. Their hearts were encouraged" [The Fellowship of the Ring]

"Dusk" -- Add 1 to the total threat in the staging area during the quest phase
Flavour text: "It was getting deep dusk, when the eyes made things greater than they should be." [The Two Towers]

"Night" -- Players cannot optionally engage enemies in the staging area, and all enemies return to the staging area at the end of the combat phase
Flavour text: "This night we must all be sleepless! Dark hides us now. But what the day will show who can tell? Have your weapons close to hand." [The Fellowship of the Ring]

And here is an event card…

"Take shelter" -- Discard 1 'Snowstorm', "Howling wind" or "Driving rain" card that is in play

The thing i really love about this idea, is that it brings some new life to all the old quests that we have got bored of. You can make the quests a bit more of a challenge, or even a bit easier, just by dropping in some weather cards.

Petition: /signed

Idea sounds cool enough. Though some of these suggestions sound like something you´d expect from the encounter deck thematically.

Something like taking shelter has the ring of a player card and could be pretty interesting

i like the idea but im still undecided on whether to sign this or not…it would depend on how they distribute them as i have trouble keeping up with the monthly packs as it is…..perhaps it is something they could consider dropping into the encounter sets of future quests? that way we could take them out and use them in old quests at no extra cost…….or maybe something to add in the next deluxe box?

and i agree with above -they already sort of do this……snowstorm/treacherous fog/frozen etc, but dedicated weather cards would be a nice addition

oh and by the way they do read the forums- i started the petition that got us sub catagories

rich

richsabre said:

not really… if you look at ANY of the games they see that they start with a small forum, and then as the game gets more popular they add more. The new forums had nothing to do with you Rich. It has to do with the volume traffic the forums gets and the sales amount of the games.

Incidentally more fourms is a terrible thing imo… just more places to check for posts instead of being able to just load a page and see what is new and reply … much better .. then having to go into all these lame sub-forums… wish I COULD blame you… but alas it is a lame FFG policy.

I love this idea, gives a great sense of realism, and I love the idea that a simple weather card (say, "Thudering Storm") can change a quest completely, making it more of a challenge or even help the quest.

booored said:

so it was a coincidence that after about 20 sigs and sending the link to ffg we just happened to get it straight after? was it a coincidence that after so many people complaining about glorfindel we get a new and far better version….sorry but no

im not saying that as soon as a player posts a petition ffg go 'oh crap we gotta do this' but that petition that myself and other took part in did in fact help at least bring forward subforums

and is it such a chore to check 3 extra sub cats? i see you post on bgg, cardgamedb and here at least….so you have to check 3 entire forums as it is

and while im here what exactly is the point in coming to this thread if you have nothing to add but pointless arguing? just answer the OP for once

exactly right…please dont encourage booored to moan about the forum. he does it in every single thread, with his signature. cant we just talk about the weather cards? i hate it when the usual two members (you can guess who) hijack threads just so they can have an argument about something totally different to what the thread is about

Cunir said:

my exact point in my last sentance of the above post- but i am english and we find it hard not to argue haha…..

bringing this back on track, i do think if you pitch the idea well ffg may consider it, i think the main thing you have to convince people of is how is it going to be different enough to treachery effects to make it worth an entire pack?

personally i really like your rpg style ideas that youve posted here and on other posts, and think theyd add alot to the game, though it may be hard to implement them in the current system of 60 card pack

rich

Gizlivadi said:

I also think this is kinda cool.. but we have seen "weather" in Darrowdelf as treacheries. I do not think the idea of a "new" deck type will work for as Rich said there is enough crap to buy already.. and as Nerd said this effect is more suited to a Encounter Card than a player card.

This environment idea is pretty much in existence with the location cards, all we need is a new keyword called "weather" on the location… A location pops up, it is raining at it, if we travel to it there is a passive affect witch modifies monsters and players alike. Not a bad idea.

I do not see why this wouldn't work if they wished. Just start adding them to the encounter deck.. the problem I think with this ideas is player mistakes. One of the greatest things that this game has in its negative is that there are so many passive effects that run further than the life of flipping a card. What I mean is that you flip a card and then there is an effect that modifies other cards on the table. This means that as the game progresses you need to hold a vast amount of passive effects in your mind. You gotta remember to add +1 Defence form that troll or that each location now has +2 Threat or your Heroes are -1 Defence or w/e

This idea is just adding one more thing you need to remember and check every time you do anything. LoTR needs to be very careful with what it is doing ot try and make sure that these affects do not keep stacking up until a player is unable to make correct plays… witch if course is already true for many players.

Cunir said:

Never understood this logic in forum members. This is a chat forum.. conversations have lives of their own, wile threads are supposed to be wandering around the topic the idea that a conversation can not flow and grow seams a bit ridicules to me.

Also a common forum thing is to place a "place holder" reply (As I did) to notify that the thread is being watched and then move into a full post with lost of detail. It is more common on popular forums were a post can be knocked off the front page in minuets as a way for conversations to be marked as active while people post more thoughtful responses.

richsabre said:

That is exactly what I am saying. If you had more experience at FFG forum you would realise this.

This is an awesome idea!

(I mean the one presented by the OP, please stay on topic to avoid confusion)

if you want to set up a petition id recommend starting to put names on the original post so its obvious who has signed it

rich

oh ps. SIGNED/ (at least for adding them to the encounter deck rather than player deck to keep costs down )

booored said:

i actually agree with you here. im sure most of us miss the odd thing (probably without even realising it). but i dont think these weather cards will be difficult, because they dont change every go. you draw it once at the beginning, and then it stays the same every single round (or until you draw another one, which might not even happen, depending on how many you choose to put into the encounter deck). so its not like its complicated.

i kind of look at these cards as a modifier for the difficulty. you can stick them in an existing quest to make it play a bit harder. i suppose all of us find the hunt for gollum one of the easiest quests, but these cards will give us a way of making it play harder by introducing a one-time modifier at the beginning. it doesn't complicate the game at all.

as more and more player cards are introduced, i imagine that the earlier quests will just get easier and easier. so this is a simple way of keeping them alive -- and all you've got to do is add an extra couple of cards into the deck.

Now, now. Can't we just all get along and just talk about the weather??

Seriously though, the way it works in aGoT, as I understand it, has to do with the seasons. When it's a particular season some cards that has that season as a keyword is affected. This will transcribe to LotR poorly I think. But the idea of the OP is really good. In a future expansion like KD one of the encounter decks could be weather card only. Then they could slip a different weather countering player card into the 6 following AP's. Like the songs from Mirkwood cycle. Tis way we wouldn't really loose any cards, get to buy more extra extra stuff but still get this nice mechanic. Sadly I think I have read somewhere FFG mentioning something about NOT reading the forums. But one can always hope, eh?

SIGNED

Yes, they should be made for the encounter deck as "enviroment" cards or something. Forogt to say SIGNED in my previous post.

I'm not sold on the idea. I certainly don't want to get an additional deck of "environment cards". On the one hand I think they ought to be placed in the encounter decks. On the other, if they are in the encounter decks, then we must use them (even if we don't want to). A few have noted that we already have a few of these, strewn about in encounter decks, perhaps that is how it should continue to be. I need to think more about this one.

I think is very cool idea to have some additional things for old quest. But why we need to be limited only weather cards or some?

Any additional cards which one you can add to old or current encounter decks welcome. It can be some special things like a weather, some new enemies and so on. So the old quests will shine a in different way and bring new challenge for the game. Not bad not bad.

I don't mean to /sign just yet, but this is a very intriguing idea! I love that folks are always thinking up new stuff for the game.

Like Booored said, there is already a few weather type effects in the encounter decks and they could easily expand that. Adding a side deck of weathers seems redundant when they can keep making more treachery cards and locations with weather-themed effects on them.

A fun idea, but adds unneeded busyness to the game.

John85 said:

Well, I agree with you to some degree, but it wouldn't be a deck so much as just a small group of cards. Take the core set for example. I have forgotten the name of the encounter deck but think its the one with the spiders. There's around 10 cards in the "deck" which isn't much, but when you add it together with other encounter decks you get a great effect. (which of cause is the idea about devising the encounter cards into different decks)

So all I'm really suggesting (not the idea as someone I couldn't find the name on came up with that, you know who you are, but the way of distribution) is maybe a small "deck" around 10 cards in a future expansion and then say 4-8 player cards to counter it (2 in the expansion and one in the following 6 AP's. 1-2 per sphere)

And of cause with a lot of nice wording that will lead to various interpretations and doubs and again leading to the expansion of this lovely forum give us all something to do between playing, eating, playing, earning money for cards and more playing

I can see, at some point, implementing a difficulty tier…

What I mean is they already have a ruleset where you don't count shadow cards. It is official rulebook to play that way. However, it is meant to be for beginners and then you advance to add shadow cards.

Well, you could easily add in a supplemental card set which would put you up to expert level. With more and more cards coming allowing for more dynamic deckbuilding, it is conceivable that it would add a refreshing element to some of the older quests which are predictably beaten.

With that said, at the moment I'm happy with the difficulty level and I see no value in adding the weather cards above and beyond the treachery cards already implemented. I very rarely see folks complaining about it being "too easy"…except for maybe Glaumrog…

The Lord of the Rings online video game came out in 2007…and they finally implemented the RIders of Rohan in 2012. 5 years later, and data elements which are crucial to the basic components of the universe are finally being released. I bring this up as an example that the world is large and every attempt to deliver the Lord of the Rings Universe is met with a bitter end without touching all of the available content. In my opinion, weather was not a big element in the story other than trying to cross the mountains and then redirecting to Khazad-Dum. And the game already tackled that through quest specific treachery cards.

THere is so much more to see and do…so many heroes not yet implemented, so many synergies not yet explored. I don't want to see the devs wasting time on mechanics or elements like weather when there is so much more to add and do which are primary to the Tolkien universe.

i've just seen a story on the Cardboard of the Rings page from Gencon which says "Game night kits for LOTR LCG to include new cards to ramp up the difficulty of classic scenarios!"

That sounds like something similar to this… crossing my fingers it is good. At the very least, it seems like we will be getting some new cards which affect the old quests

Cunir said:

Yeah I just saw this, and it looks like it will be an optional addition, so everyone is happy.

I'd be even happier if they made a core set completion box, but that's another thread.

I feel like a drunken, mad man/child left alone in a sweet shop, and the sugar rushes keep coming with all this news that is coming out of GenCon! Maybe it's a sign I'm involved with too many FFG games, there is just SO MUCH NEWS coming at me!!!

This idea of additional cards to add in to classic scenarios is really heartwarming though. Nice to see they won't be leaving the old games languish. Though weather cards would be slightly redundant in the deeps of Moria, of course, so I hope they tailor them for specific quests. Specific cycles, at the very least…

I agree with this and I sign this with some adjustments however.

First) make it as a separate optional expansion that you can add to any expansion or set.

Second) the Night card is a killer as it will require you to quest and defend at the same time while increasing your threat level taking you down the downward spiral. When I started to play LOTR I misrepresented the rules and I was actually playing this way. It is impossible. So if you get a location with high threat values at the beginning together with a night you are dead. The night card should be discarded after you move all enemies back to the staging area.

But I would really like to see this in the game.