I was just wondering if anyone has played a campaign with LotW and Trolfens expansion and how that went? I am just curious because I wonder if having too many side expansions breaks the balance of the game or not. Thanks

I have. The mini additions don't really do it for us, 9 is a good number of quests, 11 is just a little too many.

In saying that the OL won Valyndra's bane which was deadly in the Finale for the LotR campaign. Can't remember what the heroes got, but we won one each. We also did Trollfiens once as well, I believe OL got the Taskmaster's ring.

Since then the OL couldn't be bothered playing the rumour cards.

The mini-campaigns I find a little average compared the Shadow of the Rune and LotR, but still OK. We have only played the LoTW mini-campaign all the way through (we abandoned Trollfiens because it got boring).

Threat gains is interesting as it makes the OL play Rumour cards more and opens the quests up to be played.

Thanks for the input. I played the shadow rune campaign along with LotW and that seemed to play well. I am thinking I am going to pick up when the third mini-expansion comes out and play with all three. Just want to make sure I don't break the game in any direction. So far FFG doesn't seem to indicate the need to limit min-expansions.

I just am playing a game where we just played with trolfens and LotW. The heroes ended up coming out of the interlude with 800 gold ! This was dwindled a bit by purchasing rune plate, alchemy belt, water walking belt and the stamina ring, but the heroes still had alot of gold come time to purchase act 2 items after the first quest. Sucks for the overlord because the lightning rune AND the grinding axe both popped up at the same time, the heroes purchased them both and still had money to spare to buy the stone armour which also popped up at the same time. They are still currently pondering if they want to also purchase the stone armour while we are taking out break between quests. Essentially it would be purchased just for the purpose of using on turns that the champion does not have to move, otherwise he will be wearing the single black dice relic armour he won in act 1. Talk about money to burn if this is an option !!

I just am playing a game where we just played with trolfens and LotW. The heroes ended up coming out of the interlude with 800 gold !

Yeah, that's the problem with rumours as side-quests. More quests in each Act just gives the heroes more opportunity for loot. Even if they lose the quest objectives, they still walk away with whatever they could find Searching.

It has already been observed with just one small box rumour set in play that the OL has very little reason to put the extra quests into play unless he's forced to. I imagine that problem would only be exacerbated with more small boxes in the mix.

Personally, I think the small boxes work better as mini-campaigns, for those times when you just don't want to commit to a full-size campaign. Play with everything else all the time, but leave out the rumours. The system sounded really cool at first, but it doesn't seem to have panned out.

I just am playing a game where we just played with trolfens and LotW. The heroes ended up coming out of the interlude with 800 gold !

Yeah, that's the problem with rumours as side-quests. More quests in each Act just gives the heroes more opportunity for loot. Even if they lose the quest objectives, they still walk away with whatever they could find Searching.

It has already been observed with just one small box rumour set in play that the OL has very little reason to put the extra quests into play unless he's forced to. I imagine that problem would only be exacerbated with more small boxes in the mix.

Personally, I think the small boxes work better as mini-campaigns, for those times when you just don't want to commit to a full-size campaign. Play with everything else all the time, but leave out the rumours. The system sounded really cool at first, but it doesn't seem to have panned out.

Couldn't agree more and we have found the same issue. The introduction of Threat gains when a Rumour Quest is played tries to add some incentive for the OL to play a quest, but it's still not enough.

When I drop rumors for quest I do consider whether I could achieve the item you gain from the quest, but one certainly can't discount the motivation for the OL not to drop the quests at times as well.

I will drop the quests though and play options because sometimes I think the roll of the overlord is also a game master's. Sometimes you have to do things for the sake of the story for everyone's enjoyment. For instance, sometimes I tend to go with creatures you would expect to find in a situation versus creatures that are flat out better that I can legally use. At the end of the day this isn't a tournament.

Last thought is maybe the extra gold gained from expansions can be mitigated with a house rule such as, "Spend X gold, the OL gets 1 exp point."

I have been thinking about better ways to achieve balance when playing expansions and came up with a 4 different ideas.

Here are the three basic ideas:

1) Players only receive gold if they win the quest

2) Players only receive gold stated as part of the quest rewards if they win

3) Players receive no gold no matter what

and another couple ideas you could play on top of these ideas:

1) Players only receive an extra shopping step if they win

2) Players receive no extra shopping step

The relics and cards in the quest would always be up for grabs - this includes sercret room and treasure room rewards to keep some incentives for the heroes to play (considering some of the overlord rewards can be quite good).