AOL’s Moviefone.com website has an image on it’s site advertising the Lord of the Rings: FotR preview during the season premiere of Angel on Monday. The site also describes this as the “Final Lord of the Rings preview”, which contradicts rumours that there would be two trailers between now and December 19th? [More]
Month: September 2001
Media company Vivendi, the owner of Sierra Studios and Houghton Mifflin have pledged 5 million dollars to the Tribute To Heroes charity. This should be particularly noteworthy for ‘Ringers since Sierra are behind the upcoming computer games based on the Lord of the Rings books, while Houghton Mifflin produce the books themselves. [Tribute to Heroes]
And so it ends. After Twelve hours of celebration, the Decipher birthday bash has come to it’s conclusion.
There was no lack of action towards the end, and while I was busy nourishing myself of a much needed dinner, the Decipher folks were working hand in hand with the fans. The names of employees are numerous, and it seems from all walks of the game, be it designing, marketing, or production, everyone’s been on the boards spilling out trivia and answering questions.
I’ve taken some samples of the questions and answers from the stretch run of the party, so kick back, and do a little investigation into the intricacies of Decipher’s LOTR card game.
Questions fielded by Tom Lischke (Design):
How is it decided which member of the fellowship fights a shadow-character? And what happens when there are multiple shadow-characters against you?
Say there are 5 minions (A, B, C, D, and E) and 4 companions (1, 2, 3, and 4).
First, The good guys assign any defender (1 defends A, 2 defends B, 3 defends C, and 4 defends D).
Now, there is no one left to defend, and there is still one minion. The owner of that minion gets to assign it to attack one of the caracters (and that will almost always be the Ring-bearer).
Once all assignments are made, the Fellowship player decides which skirmish to resolve first.
Are there any known gameplay idea that are not in the first set?
There at least a couple of things that existed in the playtest for the first set, and we shelved them because they weren’t working yet.
For instance, the concept of a Captain (on the bad guys), who could either deploy inexpensively or add strength to guys from his culture or something.
I’m sure there are more that I’m not thinking of, but I’d hate to give to many away, as they are what you’ll see in the next sets.
When will more card images be released?
We have to get special permission from New Line for each one that we release before the game actually releases, and there are a couple of cards that aren’t in the first set specificly because they can’t preceed the movie release.
What is the difference between a possession and an artifact?
One is older 🙂
Other than that, changing them to a new class gets them out of a lot of the cancelation that will effect possessions. For instance, a card called rust might be appropriate to whack a possession, but nobody is going to leave a palantir out in the rain. See?
Steve Long (RPG Project Leader) had a long, in depth post worth reading.
Well, generally speaking, I don’t make my notes and outlines available to people; it’s not really appropriate. However, part of the reason for assembling the five-page list is to be sure I include all those effects in the “Magic” chapter — so you’ll get the all-important end result. 🙂
<< It looks like there will spellcasters other than Istari in the game. Though I haven't read every word of Tolkien's Middle-earth work, it looks to me like there is the Elven and Dwarven magic of being and making, and there are Wizards, but there isn't a whole class of magicians among Men.
>Please show me that’s wrong, as long as you’re not bent by people’s desires to play wizards.>>
There are definitely going to be users of magic other than the Istari. As I mentioned in a previous post, there are lots of subtle references to the traditions of magic and magic use in Tolkien’s works. For example:
— mentions of Dwarven magic runes and enchanted toys
— Gandalf’s mention of knowing “dozens” of spells in the “tongues of Elves, Men, and Orcs” — and that on the single subject of doors
— various subtle Elven magical stuff (which is dealt with as a racial ability, not spellcasting per se)
— the mention that the people of Bree suspected Frodo of being a “traveling magician of unknown powers and purpose”
String all that, and other references, together, and you can create a fun, game-able system of magic and magic use that remains true to the nature and feel of Tolkien’s work.
Dunedain, Middle Peoples, Easterlings, Wild Men — similar, but not identical, to Faramir’s classification system in TT.
<<& some comments you can comment on if you want:
>>Will you people be able to get anyway near the huge wordcount of the MERP books?<<
I don’t have exact figures on the wordcounts in any given MERP book, so I can’t really answer that. The core book is nearly 150,000 words, and the supplements will likely be 60,000-80,000 words.
I have little familiarity with MERP; I don’t own any of those books.
<< Do you have first-rate cartographers and put a lot of thought into mapping the places that Tolkien didn't?>>
I feel confident in saying that I have absolute faith in our graphics guys to do a *superb* job with maps and every other graphic element of the line.
There are certainly plenty of options for tailoring a campaign to suit your preferences and tastes! Just as you might want an all-Men game, I bet there are people out there planning all-Dwarf chronicles. 🙂
<<>How familiar are you with Hero Wars, the Gloranthan RPG partly designed by Robin Laws? It’s my first choice of rules system for a Middle-earth campaign (not having seen yours, though it sounds like it has too many ‘crunchy bits’ [rules excess to what’s in the world] to be ideal). >>
I own the books, but haven’t read them. I have the deepest respect for Robin’s talents as a writer and designer (and he’s a great guy, to boot).
What constitutes “too many ‘crunchy bits'” is difficult to say. One person’s excess is another’s deficiency. 🙂 Fortunately, the great thing about RPGs is you can always change ’em to suit yourself!
[[SNIP]]
Fourth Age: would either be pointless for the same reasons Tolkien discovered when he tried to write his sequel, or very challenging to make work>>
Au contraire! I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that games aren’t novels, and novels aren’t games — what works in one doesn’t necessarily work in the other. Just because Tolkien didn’t think that he could write a good sequel to LOTR doesn’t mean that there’s not *LOTS* of game-ability in the very late Third/early Fourth Ages. After all, *someone’s* got to help King Elessar mop up those pesky lurking evils. 😉
There’s lots more, the posts are as numerous as the stars in the sky, and thus, sadly, I can present only this fraction of the wealth of card gaming wisdom imparted by the Decipher folks. Go Here to meander through the wealth of trivia, gossip, and newly released tidbits about the game.
The party at Decipher.com is in full swing, and though I haven’t seen quite as many questions and answers as I would have expected, it seems the atmosphere is staying true to the theme; a party.
The Decipher team has been sociable, conversational and fun loving from everything I’ve observed. They’ve loosened their ties and gone at it, trivia, jokes and general conversation over this massive, constantly expanding message board. At times it can get a bit hectic, having to refresh every ten seconds and noticing five new posts at the top of the page, and twenty more added to previous threads.
The trivia has been the biggest hit, engaging the party goer’s minds with true Middle-Earth trivia. The questions have been geared towards everyone, from simple facts, “Where did Frodo meet Aragorn?” to brain benders such as, “What road is the Ivy Bush on?”
Everyone’s a winner, whether your there to ask a question, let your thoughts be known, or even to conquer the trivia challenges and find yourself the recipient of prize merchandize.
Kyle Heuer (Marketing) has been around for the long haul today, delivering trivia and answers to sporadically up and down the numerous message threads.
There are many ways to heal a Companion:
1) play a copy of that companion from hand during Fellowship phase
2) game text on a card that removes a wound from a Companion
3) starting your Fellowship phase at a Sanctuary
I’m sure there are more, but that is the quick and dirty.
Tim Ellington (Taskmaster and Design) stepped in to deliver his services to the fans questions, and participate in the trivia mayhem.
How much contact have you had with the Tolkien Estate?
We did not have design interaction with the estate. I (and others) have worked with New Line Cinema in New York and Los Angeles, Tolkien Enterprises in Berkeley, and we have had some contact with Mr. Jackson’s group in New Zealand.
It has all been wonderful!
When doing the design and fields of the cards do you consider artistic rules concerning the proportions?
I’m not in the art department, which does all of the template designs… but I would guess they do. One element I know that was very important on some of the cards was to retain as much of the aspect ratio to the movie frames as possible to keep the “cinematic feel.”
Are there multiples of each character, and is there a variation in their rarity?
There are two versions of each Fellowship member from the story. One rare of each, and the others are uncommon, common and/or fixed.
Chuck, among others among the Decipher team, has been busy on the boards as well.
For example, there’s a version of Frodo with the Gandalf signet, and a version of Frodo with the Aragorn signet. I think.
Anyway, you’ll find game text (like the Gandalf we showed) that lets them work together.
Like in JK, each companion card will only have one signet (if any…many don’t have any at all).
UNLIKE in JK, the signets are not any kind of deckbuilding restriction. You can mix and match your companions with signets however you like.
It’s just another “layer of texture,” like cultures, which you can use when you’re building your deck. It’s also a readily identifiable icon that helps players new to TCG’s build decks.
And they look pretty cool, too. Like wax seals. Very nice.
I don’t claim to know everything their talking about, not being an avid RPG card slinger myself, but to those who are well versed in this medium of entertainment, I hope you’ve learned something.
Remember, the party lasts till 9 PM Eastern time, so if you haven’t participated, go Here and procrastinate no longer!
The all day event at Decipher continues with Sandy Wible, Monica Jones, and Tom Lischke, who stuck around beyond the call of duty.
Unfortunately Monica Jones had computer trouble, by Kyle from Decipher held contact with her on the phone and did his best to entertain the masses with trivia, and short answers for the avid fan’s questions.
So what did we learn? Well, to start a fan asked the question, “Are there any Tolkien games being made by EA or Sierra?” and our very own Ostadan came to our aid, putting this complicated question into an understandable perspective.
EA has the license for LotR games based on the _movies_. Sierra (actually Vivendi/Universal) has the license for games based on the _books_. Several games are planned — I know that Vivendi will have a “Fellowship” game for the X-Box planned for early next year, and have revived the online roleplay project. I do not know what EA’s plans are.
Tolkien sold the movie/media rights (and derived rights) years ago, and they are held by Tolkien Enterprises. The book copyrights and derived copyrights are held by the Estate, and of course the publishers.
And of course, it’s more awesomely complicated, since the rights for the Silmarillion and other posthumous works are separate. It took about half a page of tiny print in the rulebook for the Iron Crown CCG to explain the whole mess.
Sandy Wible (Production) then came on the scene:
For those who don’t know, I handle a lot of the production details, as well as helping the Art and TCG people with all kinds of odds and ends.
Lately, I’ve been working hard getting the press sheets ready to go to the printer, and also finalizing the foil templates for the cards.
She was asked:
What does most of the art consist of. Still, publicity shots?
We have always desired to use images that are _not_ publicity shots in our games. You see the publicity shots all over the place… which is great for their purpose, but we like to show you something unique and different.
Also, film images tend to have more “real life” in them. You know what I mean… you can look at a publicity shot and tell right away that it was staged.
In some of our other games, we have resorted to using stills and other things only where the film images turned out blurry or too far away or something.
We have gone to great trouble and expense to wheedle (and yes we wheedled big time) images from the film that NOBODY else has access to. When you get your cards, you’re going to see images from the film that aren’t available anywhere else!!!
What’s in a deluxe starter set?
We plan to have the special precon deck made just for the Deluxe Starters (based on hobbits and Ringwraiths), glass damage markers, glass Fellowship tokens, a booster pack, a collector’s card list, and more. Now, some of this might be eliminated (such as the card list) since we’re still finalizing the contents, but this is the basic idea.
Tom Lischke (Design) stuck around to answer more questions:
Adventure Path: a line of up to nine sites. When the game starts, only a site 1 is in play (a Hobbiton or Bree site, most likely). As fellowships move, sites are added to the path as necessary until at the end, there will be nine (site 9s are stuff like Amon Hen, Falls of Rauros, etc.). Rivendell is at 3, Lorien is at 6.
Adventure Deck: each player has an Adventure Deck with nine sites in it (one of each number).
The player who goes first puts out their site 1, and both players put their fellowship marker on it. When a fellowship moves, if the site they are moving to hasn’t been revealed yet, one of their opponents plays that site from their adventure deck (for instance, if the furthest advanced fellowship was at site 5, and choose to move, one of their opponents would play their copy of site 6).
What will Decipher be using for advertisement and giveaways? Monica Jones (Vice President of Marketing) gives us a peak:
We’ll be producing posters, static window cling, etc. for retailers and posters for giveaway to guys like you. Have you seen any of the oversized LOTR TCG cards? I think they’re pretty cool.
Well folks, this will be going on all day, so if you have any questions, or just want to hang around and answer the ongoing trivia in hopes if winning prizes, go Here and tell ‘em Berendir sent yah.
A few months ago, we were one of the first sites to report here that Kinder would be making confectionery to tie-in with the release of the Fellowship of the Ring. Well, Kinder’s German website have unveiled some great photos of the LotR figures that will be included in their chocolate eggs, as well as a display which will likely to be found all over Europe when the special chocolates eggs are released on the Fifth of November. [More]