Council of Elrond

I played my first scenario games this week end. Games were nice to play, though deck building is a headache, especially when you haven't played for a long time.

As those games are meant to be somewhat casual i propose the following variant rules :
* starting avatar.
Each player can begin with wizards in his character starting hand, counting against the 10 characters rule.
It is obviously to lower the luck gap that exist between getting his wizard on turn 1 or on turn 6.
Sure it will change things in deckbuilding to always have a wizard in play on turn 1. But i think it will be more fun for both opponents, especially for two decks games.
* deck requirements.
After each game round, a player can add to his deck or sideboard from outside the game cards required by the main scenario he declared (cards mentionned in deck requirement or wining requirements).
I think nobody likes it to have a play day ruined becaused such obvious card are forgotten...

I wasn't really affected by either (had one game where my wizard arrived on last turn but won - i was lucky on body & call of home rolls - ) so it really is not to whine but to improve fun play ^^

In deed, the first appointment you made is a good idea.
As we played the scenarios in Hamburg since 2001, we had enough games played so the difference of having the wizard early in game play should be equalled over the time. But why not add this to the general rules. By doing so, you should also allow to have "Saw further and deeper" instead of a wizard card as there are scenarios where no wizard is allowed.
On the other Hand we did not want to change the game mechanics to much and so we decided just to ban cards and change the reward of games (in form of special tournament points) to let "normal" player play their "normal" decks with us. The intention back in 2001 was to get new players not too much confused with special rules but make the game challenging for experienced players (and by that equalling the differences between newbies and experts). You are still allowed to play a normal wizard deck within the Hamburg scenario format but you are rewarded only with the normal 3 points.