Questions about Quests

[jojo]

So I've been reading the ORC quick rules. I learn best through practice, so I've been working towards playtesting the rules with the cards currently available and a bunch of Shadow League ones that I've made up for testing (so that rangers having flying creatures to shoot down etc.). In the process, I've been trying to get my head around quest cards and how they work in play.

Quest related Questions
- Can a quest be accepted at any point during your turn, on any turn, or only on your play phase, or on your play phase and your reaction part at the end of an opponents play phase?

-Why do unaccepted quests have to cycled around after each round? Isn't tracking when the quest was turned over a needless waste of player attention? Much better I think is if a quest can be cycled around only when both players dismiss the quest (perhaps with a dismiss token, or by common agreement?)

-The Confrontation quests are particularly confusing. What happens if both players accept the quest? Who controls the confrontation card in that case? I think a better option would be, when a player first accepts the confrontation quest card, it unleashes the confrontation on to the world, and the card itself will have rules on how it is played (rather than getting an opponent to play the card). So (a particularly difficult) one might look like:

Elder Dragon
dragon, creature
At the start of each player's turn flip a coin: If heads, Elder Dragon attacks the player.
Gargantuan: The creature is considered to be in all zones at the same time.
9/9

- You could then have fun things in the rules for any given confrontation, things like 'At the end of each turn, all zero threshold creatures are consumed by the Bog Monstrosity', 'The maddened Mayor attacks at the beginning of each player's round (1/1), whomever kills the mayor loses five influence' or 'The Twisted Crone gains +1/+1 for every magic played. Never attacks directly.'

Unrelated to Quests Questions
- Am I right in assuming that marking equipment or equipped magic doesn't mark the creature that it's equipped to?
- Can cards that are used as resources be played as if they were in the player's hand, or are they effectively out of the game? The rules document is unclear on this point.
- It's on the rule's to do list, but I had my own assumptions about when an event card be used: I imagine the attack phase to look like this:
Player one chooses which creatures to attack with
Player Two can use events and abilities
If there are still attacking creatures, Player Two chooses whether to block the attack, and which creatures to block with
Player One can use events and abilities
If there is still attackers and defenders, the damage is worked out
Everyone has a chance to use events and abilities
If there is still damage, then damage is resolved

Or in short: The inactive player always gets a play phase after each one of the active players actions in all their phases. Is that about right?

[snowdrop]

So I've been reading the ORC quick rules. I learn best through practice, so I've been working towards playtesting the rules with the cards currently available

None of the cards we have are adjusted to what is in the ORC right now, although doing so shouldn't be that hard. I'd advise against it right now as the ORC is still missing a little before it's worth doing. I'll try to wrap it up these days, as it should have been done a week ago.

Sadly new problems keep appearing, this time around with our new webhost, and they eat all my time.

- Can a quest be accepted at any point during your turn, on any turn, or only on your play phase, or on your play phase and your reaction part at the end of an opponents play phase?

Good Q. I'd say only during any one of your play-phases.

-Why do unaccepted quests have to cycled around after each round? Isn't tracking when the quest was turned over a needless waste of player attention? Much better I think is if a quest can be cycled around only when both players dismiss the quest (perhaps with a dismiss token, or by common agreement?)

I agree it isn't the smoothest right now and that we could change it into something better.

What you suggest has it's own problem though: It makes it possible to "questblock" the opponent. Say you want to dismiss a quest and clearly state you want to. Since it is your will it is probably not my interest that it will happen, so I will always deny you the request, leading to almost no Quests appearing, especially since you'd do the same to me as a result (prisoners dilemma at it's greatest failure).

Maybe we should think of something else or a way to resolve that situation without ad-hoc-ery?

-The Confrontation quests are particularly confusing. What happens if both players accept the quest? Who controls the confrontation card in that case?

Nobody ever controls the card in the meaning where they can attack the other player with it. Whoever is Questing against it runs the risk of the opponent boosting the Confrontation Creature with Event cards and/or other abilities.

So for example, P1 attacks Confrontation Creature 1. When doing so P2 gets a chance to cast Events on CC1 or use any of his creatures abilities on it, as if they were in the same zone.

I think a better option would be, when a player first accepts the confrontation quest card, it unleashes the confrontation on to the world, and the card itself will have rules on how it is played (rather than getting an opponent to play the card). [/quote[

That is the case. I hope.


So (a particularly difficult) one might look like:

Elder Dragon
dragon, creature
At the start of each player's turn flip a coin: If heads, Elder Dragon attacks the player.
Gargantuan: The creature is considered to be in all zones at the same time.
9/9

Yes, I think this is a valid example of how a CC could look like. However, the text "Gargantuan: The creature is considered to be in all zones at the same time." is redundant due to the rules. All CC's are always considered to be in all zones at the same time.

I think a CC could potentially be used to launch an attack on a player by itself, but in general I would advise against it and only reserve such behavior for a very few of the CC's. The reason is that the CC, by being that aggressive, will be used more and more as some kind of mercenary by the opponent. CC's aren't supposed to be regular creatures that threaten you in the same way that the oppositions creatures will. If we'd standardize that every CC could in some way attack the player "by itself" then we end up just re-creating what was already in the game - casual (overpowered and more random) creatures, hitting on you.

My intention with the CC is that they should really be a card type of their own with a role of their own. Their role is told by the fact that they're in the Quest-deck. They are obstacles that could be won over, if the player chooses to. Not obstacles that you must solve and that will eat you alive if you don't (we still have a opponent that does that already).

- You could then have fun things in the rules for any given confrontation, things like 'At the end of each turn, all zero threshold creatures are consumed by the Bog Monstrosity', 'The maddened Mayor attacks at the beginning of each player's round (1/1), whomever kills the mayor loses five influence' or 'The Twisted Crone gains +1/+1 for every magic played. Never attacks directly.'

I think you still can, even if they don't attack directly.

- Am I right in assuming that marking equipment or equipped magic doesn't mark the creature that it's equipped to?

No, you're not. (Good to hear these questions and read this post, it makes it more obvious how poorly I've written the rules...)

1. Magic never marks. As a matter of fact, magic isn't even a permanent. It works like Events, but only on your own turn. It is played and then discarded.

2. Also, Magic is never "equipped". Only equipment can be equipped. I know I'm a word-monkey now, but it's important in the end Magic can also not be attached to anything. Enchantments however can be and are always attached to x. Enchantments can't mark.

3. Equipment can't mark. Marking can probably only be done by Creatures, So, the carrier of an Equipment can mark. When that happens it will appear on the table as if the Equipment is marked as well since usually the players would have the cards overlap each other and marking would mark both. That is no problem with that - it just has no meaning in the game.

(Alternate scenario: Imagine you could have marked and unmarked states on Equipment, and those states were unrelated and indepenendent of the marked/unmarked state of it's carrier. That would open up ver exciting possibilities! However, I'm against that notion since it doesn't work on a real table: It doesn't scale well due to it eating almost double the amount of table estate for every additional equipment that is played.)

-

Can cards that are used as resources be played as if they were in the player's hand, or are they effectively out of the game? The rules document is unclear on this point.

Sorry, will try to clarify: This will be in the rules:

- There are between 1 to 3 resource piles with a max of 4 cards in each.

- Instead of drawing cards from the Army Deck a player can decide to pick up all the cards in target resource pile under his/her control into hand. Those cards can now be played with, and they are no longer resource cards.

So, to answer your question - yes - in a sense a player can play them as if they were in hand. But only after sacrificing the whole resource pile and, by doing that, making them a part of the hand.

Or in short: The inactive player always gets a play phase after each one of the active players actions in all their phases. Is that about right?

Yes, all correct. Only it is very important to not call it a "play phase" since the only one that has a play phase is the active player.

Here's your example:

Player one chooses which creatures to attack with

Player Two can use events and abilities

P1 may respond with Events or abilities.

P2 may respond with Events or abilities.

and so on...

eventually:


If there are still attacking creatures, Player Two chooses whether to block the attack, and which creatures to block with

Player One can use events and abilities

P2 may respond with Events or abilities.... and then P1 again.. and so on, untiL:

If there is still attackers and defenders, the damage is worked out

Everyone has a chance to use events and abilities

If there is still damage, then damage is resolved