Developing the Rules

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Frodo
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In this thread we will discuss the rules or mechanics of the ARDA game. If something gets a lot of discussion, we’ll pull it out and make a separate thread.

--Frodo
Frodo
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Eric, here are some questions and comment from me, in no particular oder

The rules say stuff is storable during the “SITE” phase. The site phase? Was this on purpose? I think we should keep the understanding of a permanent “Safe From the Shadow” effect during the end-of-turn phase.

Roving Character Pile: I recommend not using all the dwarves! Gets too dull seeing their ugly beards over and over again. I only just realized this. I would use two 2-minders, and two 1-minders only. We can put this in the arda construction notes.

Simultaneous Turn Games: Are we in agreement that in sim games, hazard play can only be passed once, then it stops; and hazard play must be passed clockwise? (I can’t remember whether we agreed on this.) My main argument is that in a sim game, if a second haz player is directly across from a res player, he’s playing long and perm global hazards that shouldn’t affect the active player, since the active player is outside his sphere. I realize we can add rules to figure a way around this, but I don’t see the reason to make it more complicated; we will still have the problem that some of his global hazs will not have been played on that active player, which means some global hazs DO follow sphere rules and some do not. That seems very silly.

Underused Strategies: By the way, there were no nazgul or unique dragon attacks in 4 games that I played; no u-deeps visits either. Sigh. Basically, nobody goes to Mordor, nobody goes to Carn Dum, nobody goes to Dragon Country, save sometimes a sneaky visit to Lonely Mountain. What to do?

Five Card MP Hand Placemats: Remember those cool MP placemats I made? People do find tthem very beautiful, but in a few games I realied that I was quite naturally using htem NOT to hold my MP hand so much as to hold my MP Pile! That’s right; they seem like the perfect (and somewhat needed) thing to actually put ones out of play marshalling points into, creatures, factions, etc. So I think I’ll rename them as such.
Frodo
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NEW HOARD ITEM/SITE CARDS: Eric, here is the list I have so far. Is this correct?

Durin’s Axe/Torque of Hues/Wormsbane: “Hoard item”
(Joe’s Add) The Arkenstone/Book of Marzabul: “Hoard item”

Shelob’s Lair: “Special: contains a hoard.”
Moria: “Special: contains a hoard.”

*I left Orcrist as a non-hoard, but gave it 3 corruption.
*Setup Suggestion: for ALL SITES that contain a hoard, including the new sites of SHELOB’S LAIR and MORIA, consider placing a red glass bead or some other marker next to those sites on the map.

--Frodo
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Thorsten the Traveller
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Storing in site phase or end-of-turn doesn’t matter of course, if the latter is easier to remember because of similarity, then fine.
Edit:actually, there might be some differences, as you might be able to play certain stuff when things are stored, during site phase. But the main objective is to be able to store things last turn when council is called, so you don't have to plan 2 turns ahead to go and store. So if we keep it end-of-turn that is fine with me.

Sim turns: afaik, by current rules, hazard play skips the resource player, so hazards are always played in the currently active sphere….don’t know why you seem to think this would be otherwise.

Edit/clarify: this means that your 1st hazard player sits to your right (as normal), and second to your left, so any hazards played will be in the resource player's Sphere. You may only pass hazard play once. nb. With 7 players (see optional rule), it might be passed twice, but the Hiding from Sauron player's hazards will only affect the resource player that current turn, i.e. when played on him, as if in his sphere (not any subsequent turns).

The benefit of adding Moria to the hoard site list is of course more options to plan your trips. But as you say, people will avoid dragon country even more. I thought about it before and decided that Moria is dangerous enough, at least in my Arda deck, it just seems that people fear dragon country so much, the dragon’s terror is everywhere it almost becomes irrational. But, since we made hoard items a category you can double on, that should be enough lure for people to visit the region. Only we just taken that lure away by making Moria a hoard site. So, I suggest we skip that and just agree with the available options: shelob’s lair, under-deeps, isle of ulond, or dragon country. Should be enough, then you just have to plan more ahead. The Wondrous Maps/Ancient Stair can get you down quickly enough also.
People don’t go to Carn Dum? Where to get your greaters then? Only The Stones, Moria, Dead Marches? I’d say those are nastier than Carn Dum, especially in Arda. So, this is not my experience, in my arda games angmar was visited quite enough.

Hoard items: actually as per rule I suggested Arkenstone/Wormsbane, I simply excluded orcrist/durin’s axe/torque from my deck because they are already in every deck, and they would be unbalanced in Arda, so I’m totally fine with adding these to the hoard item list. Book of Mazarbul is a special item anyway, so no need there.

Roving characters/deck: indeed, I also took Nori and Ori from the deck as I realized that from the beginning on, yet, I don’t think we should make such rules on deck construction, great thing after all is there are no rules for deck constructions and people can put in whatever they like. I shall add it as a consideration however, something like “you might want to make a diverse mix of characters, so leave out a few smaller dwarves..."

Influencing factions: as in my earlier post about the half-use of factions, I think we can make the general rule that factions influenced go also to opponents MP pile, as with characters. This will create big balance fluctuations possibly, and it might decrease the power of big MP factions like Southrons, because they can lure others to make the attempt for a net 10 mp gain/loss.
Stone-age did not end because man ran out of rocks.
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