So i just started a new campaign with Labyrinth of Ruin expansion today.

I noticed that the Ruinous Whispers quest has no open groups...

The interesting part about this is that there is a skull and a cave monster traits at the top of the page; despite the fact there is no open group. With the current expansions as far as i am aware (correct me if i am wrong) there is absolutely no point in having these monster types on the page for this quest as there is no open groups in this quest. Looking back at the shadow rune campaign there is also monster traits for the first blood quest aswell, despite the fact that there is monster traits listed on the top of the page.

Which led me to thinking that this must have been intentionally done to leave room in the future for some sort of game mechanic that uses these monster traits for more than just choosing monster groups!

I doubt i am the first person to notice this, so please excuse me if there has already been a thread about this!

Now if only we knew what that could be It does bring up an interesting discussion however: What sort of interesting mechanics could be introduced to the game that utilises these monster traits ?

One idea that pops to mind is a new overlord deck, with specific cards giving extra abilities if the quest in play contains the monster trait listed on the card.

I am sure lots of people would like to see seldom used condition cards from expansions somehow implemented using these symbols for instance as has been discussed in some previous threads.

Or perhaps we might see some plot decks utilise these symbols in some way ?

There are nearly limitless ways that these monster traits could impact the game. I thought this might be a nice to pitch these ideas to help get the ball rolling on what you guys might think could be some interesting mechanics using these symbols for more than just picking open monster groups.

We had the same discussion when we played the quest. I think they left it open for any future ideas they may come up with

I don't know that FFG has any future plans for those "unused" trait icons on old quests, although it's certainly an interesting observation.

In general, I think it's good practice in game design to assign values for things like this even if the specific quest doesn't use them. For one thing, it leaves the door open in case you do come up with a way to use them in some future expansions, or in case creative fans come up with something like that in homebrew (wink, wink.)

Different heroes could experience enhanced (or reduced) abilities under different environments/traits. Like, Grisban could have +1 health in buildings (i.e., saloons ).

Different heroes could experience enhanced (or reduced) abilities under different environments/traits. Like, Grisban could have +1 health in buildings (i.e., saloons ).

Yeah, something like that could be really cool.

You could do something similar with monsters, though it could be confusing to some players since monsters already have one specific use for these traits.

Also, since they introduced OL cards that work "better" for certain hero archetypes, they could also make OL cards that work "better" in quests with monster trait X.

I'm sure the possibilities go on. =)