Council of Elrond

Not sure if this is the right place for this, or if anyone else has tried to do this, but I've been trying to make a modified play version of the game that makes it more like a board game. Many people I know, including my family, tend to give a funny look if you suggest playing a card game, but a board game they are all in on.

My goal was to take the MECCG map and get a blown up copy and laminate it.

From there, I used miniatures to represent companies and place them on the map to show location.

The game itself plays exactly like MECCG, and is compatible with all cards and decks, though I focused on making it a little more simplified and eliminated some of the more complex mechanics from what I am calling the "standard" version. The advanced version would allow for anything and everything.

Looking for feedback from others, especially if anyone else has tried this, but here is basically what I did:
-Decks are pre-constructed by me: when talking a board game, it needs to be something that can be set up quickly and played easily with requiring a lot of prep work by players. While experienced players can obviously build their own decks for it, I made it so all I need to do is teach the rules and give everyone a deck.
-At this time, I am not including minions. While they can be a cool mechanic, they are overly complex, especially for a newer player
-Given the power level of the Balrog decks, I have not included the Balrog as an option at this time. Though cards in some of the decks may come from the Balrog set, there is no Balrog avatar deck currently.
-Same as the Balrog, at this time I am not including Fallen Wizards. While they are a very cool concept in the core card game, I feel again the balance of such a deck in a board game format is a little too strong. I want to focus the attention on Hero and Minion as play avatars at this time.
-All decks are designed with the same amount of Marshalling Points attainable from their resource cards. Again, as a board game, you need to have balance. If one deck only had 25 MP possible and another 35 MP possible, it could really push balance in favor of one over the other
-Rings and the One Ring are playable, but I have not made these into a constructed deck at this point. I find those decks, especially a One Ring deck, to be an all or nothing style that doesn't fit well into a board game format.

Changes to core play mechanics:
-Each player has two decks: a resource deck of 40 cards and a hazard deck of 40 cards
-Players each have two hands of cards: A resource hand and a hazard hand. Each hand is made up of 5 cards
-Discarding & Hand size: At the end of the turn, draw cards until both hands are to their maximum size. If your hand is higher than the maximum allowed, discard down to the maximum, and then you may discard an additional resource and/or hazard card in order to draw a new card.
-Drawing cards: Cards are drawn as normal when moving, with the exception of each player is allowed to draw a minimum of two card, even if no movement happened or the number on a site is lower than 2. This is designed to streamline the game further and ensure players have something they can do on their turn.
-Movement for the standard game uses only Haven movement rules. Region movement can be used in the "advanced" game.
-Corruption Checks: Slightly simplified that if you roll equal to or greater, you pass and if you roll less than the character is corrupted and discarded.
-Combat: Was left the same (at least for now)
-To win the game and call the council the MP required has been increased to 25. The rule that no more than half of your MP can come from a single source remains in effect
-Calling the council is modified to 3 conditions: You may call the council if any one of the 3 conditions is met. Note, the option is "may", but not required to. So even though you achieved 25 MP and exhausted your deck, you may not want to call the council yet to build up more MP first
a) You have achieved 25 MP and exhausted your resource deck once
b) You have achieved 25 MP and your opponent exhausted his resource deck once
c) Your opponent has achieved 25 MP, even though neither one of you has exhausted your resource deck
-Hazard deck rules: Each player hazard deck must contain a minimum of half creatures. So in a 40 card hazard deck, you must have at least 20 creatures. Cards that can be played as a creature or even still count as half. This is to ensure more combat occurs
-There is no sideboard: With the changes to separate decks and hand sizes for each deck, decks in theory will cycle much faster
-Characters eliminated now subtract from your MP total at the end of the game (this change may or may not be kept)
-Your avatar (wizard/Ring Wraith/etc) cannot be eliminated. If a card would normally eliminate your avatar, such as in combat, the character is instead discarded along with all cards attached to them. They may be played again in a subsequent turn. The one exception to this rule is through corruption. This change was made to ensure a game could be played through to conclusion, but the corruption part was left in to prevent people from just loading up their wizard/Ringwraith with everything. While I know this does eliminate one strategy to try and kill someone's avatar, I felt this was balanced by the negative points received by eliminating opponent characters.

Anyways, would love some feedback and suggestions. The goal is to make it something a bit more interactive and more conducive to bringing in new players.

Neat idea. Let us know how it goes. I have some suggestions to further simplify the game, especially for first time players.

Markie7235 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:03 pm -Players each have two hands of cards: A resource hand and a hazard hand. Each hand is made up of 5 cards.

This seems more complicated. I would either stick to the standard rules or else use the solitaire rules: no one has a hazard hand but the hazard-player can draw 2 cards + twice the number indicated on the site. If you have plenty of creatures this will be fine. This way no one even has to worry about hazards. You could even have an experienced player be the "dealer" that just plays the hazards drawn from the deck.

Markie7235 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:03 pm -Movement for the standard game uses only Haven movement rules. Region movement can be used in the "advanced" game.

I suggest allowing every player to use Bridge whenever they like (Playable at the end of the movement/hazard phase on a company that moved to a Haven. That company may move to an additional site on the same turn. Another site card may be played and a movement/hazard phase immediately follows for that company.) This way there is always a chance to play something on their turn. You could also just combine the 2 starter site paths and have only 1 movement/hazard phase instead of 2.

Markie7235 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:03 pm -Combat: Was left the same (at least for now)

I'd remove the possibility of using -1 for excess strikes. I believe that the ICE Starter Set rules remove this feature as well. You could limit the number of companies to prevent abuse.

Markie7235 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:03 pm -There is no sideboard: With the changes to separate decks and hand sizes for each deck, decks in theory will cycle much faster

Good idea.

Markie7235 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:03 pm -Characters eliminated now subtract from your MP total at the end of the game (this change may or may not be kept)

Seems harsh.

Markie7235 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:03 pm -Your avatar (wizard/Ring Wraith/etc) cannot be eliminated. If a card would normally eliminate your avatar, such as in combat, the character is instead discarded along with all cards attached to them. They may be played again in a subsequent turn.

One thing we do in Arda, which is another board game style format, is to FORCE the player to save their wizard regardless of risk. Meaning, characters MUST tap to support corruption checks so that they are automatic. If this can't be done, the resource cannot be played, etc. But we do let all of the players start with their Wizard already in play.

Another idea might be to completely do away with Mind and Direct Influence of characters. If you prebuild the decks you can keep this in mind for fairness but then the players would not need to worry about it.

I also think it would be a good idea to include a lot of the combat resources. These are just fun.

I like the bridge idea, and was looking at something like that to keep players engaged versus feeling like they lose a turn.

The elimination of general influence and/or starting with the wizard in play is interesting, I'll have to look at that. Where this becomes problematic is that I'm leaving it open for people to make or use their own decks also, so the no general influence could become abused with characters unless I limit a total mind value that can be included in a deck.

The negative MPs for Character elimination was a little harsh and I'm probably removing that from the rules.

I do like the idea also of removing the -1 for excess strikes. While this may reduce the odds of killing a character, the point is it does get a little complicated. And while I know some people make it a focus, I always looked at hazards and the game as a resource for resources where hazards are there to slow down your opponent, not necessarily beat them into submission.

I'd be interested to know more about what combat resources you mean or to include.

The reason I did the two separate decks was to help ensure a player always had something to do whether they were in their resource turn or hazard turn. This ensures you don't get a hand full of resources and/or hazards. I had also considered doing a communal hazard deck where you don't have a permanent hand, but draw let's say 8 card each turn, play what you can, and discard the rest at the end of the turn. I think this is similar to what you suggested below....This was just too difficult to balance and falls apart quickly if you have a player using hero and the other minion unless you eliminate "detainment" strikes all together. Even then, let's say you have a deck with mostly elves, dwarves, and the maia as your hazard deck...If you eliminate "detainment" strikes, then the hero player would get brutalized. On the flip side, if you keep detainment strikes, then the minion player is at a severe disadvantage. It just would cause another level of imbalance. If both people play hero or minion, then this is a non-issue and can be done. I was trying to make it so it wasn't mono-faction in terms of the rules. The nice thing also of making it into two decks is each person only has to focus on one hand at a time.

I also forgot to mention this can be done with more than 2 players. The only change is if there's more than two players, the person who plays hazards on a player during their resource turn would be the player to the right. So you really could have a game of 2-5 or more players. The challenge here would be uniqueness, especially as far as characters go. One solution is to simply eliminate uniqueness rules for the purposes of in play for each player. So you still can only have one of a unique card in your deck and in play yourself, but multiple players could have Gandalf out, or Aragorn out for example. It ruins a little bit of the continuity of the game by doing this, but would again allow for a more streamlined and simplified game, especially for starting characters as you don't need to go through a whole draft process now basically.

This is basically what Arda is isn't it? There's a sub-forum on here somewhere...

Good idea, Meccg should have been a boardgame....
Especially with the region movement rules...

Markie7235 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:26 pm The elimination of general influence and/or starting with the wizard in play is interesting, I'll have to look at that. Where this becomes problematic is that I'm leaving it open for people to make or use their own decks also, so the no general influence could become abused with characters unless I limit a total mind value that can be included in a deck.

As long as the revealing rule apply, players may want to play the best characters, with the risk of seeing them go to the deck. So I think it is still balanced if you eliminate GI.

Markie7235 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 7:26 pm I also forgot to mention this can be done with more than 2 players. The only change is if there's more than two players, the person who plays hazards on a player during their resource turn would be the player to the right. So you really could have a game of 2-5 or more players.

That's already in the original rules, and I've played most of my games in the 90es that way.

Markie7235 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:03 pm My goal was to take the MECCG map and get a blown up copy and laminate it.

How would you add all the sites in the map (the board)? ...or, have you done it already?

bosquet wrote: ↑Sun Apr 19, 2020 11:00 am

Markie7235 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 16, 2020 3:03 pm My goal was to take the MECCG map and get a blown up copy and laminate it.

How would you add all the sites in the map (the board)? ...or, have you done it already?

There is a nice version of the map showing all of the sites posted here: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2904

I use it for Arda and deckbuilding.