Hey all. Let me first start by saying that my and my friends are having a blast playing this game. In fact, whenever my gaming group gets together, we are either playing this or Twilight Imperium. I am the owner of the game, so by default I am almost always the OL. I am also in the process of collecting all of the Lieutenant packs and have so far have Valyndra, Elisa Farrow, Merrick Farrow, and Zacheriath (sp?).

Now, my question is this: Why is it that I am not allowed to play Zacheriath as an Agent or use his plot deck if our group is playing the Shadow Rune campaign? The only answer that I can find is that it is because the campaign's story has a plot twist or two involving him. But to be quite honest none of us really care about of the "story" of the campaign. So, other than for storyline reasons, is there a game balancing/mechanic reason why certain Agents (like Zach) and banned from certain Campaigns (like Shadow Rune)?

I think they just do it for thematic purposes, there is no reason you could just ignore that rule other than it messing with the theme a bit.

I concur, entirely thematic.

The restriction on using Raythen and Serena as heroes in Labyrinth of Ruin makes sense - having them as heroes would mess with the ally mechanic. But Zach in Shadow Rune is easy enough to work around. The rule about not being allowed to summon an agent into a quest where the same figure appears as an LT already covers the potential problem.

I think you can use his plot deck, not just the summon Zach plot card, nothing else i can see would stop this.

It is almost certainly a thematic reason for not using the agent, or heroes with the ally characters, because it breaks the flow of the games narrative. That said house ruling it so you can summon Zach is the easiest way around that.

I agree with Underworld. I have thought about using Zack's plot deck in shadow rune. You can't summon him. It makes since only in thematic. He is the Overlord persona. The overlord hires the agent from the plot deck (thus them being agents, not LT already working for the OL) to help him out. He can't hire himself ^.^;;

and for Zack, there is the Shadow Rune. If won by the OL, that relic can ONLY be used by Zack in the final. I think they want to keep it that way.