Ye Olde Inn

Infje wrote:In that case, I don't understand the added value of having custom playcards for the armory as posted on this site by drathe. Not to offend his great work of course. But it would only be helpfull if you print more of them right? Normally you would allow your party to write down the weapons they have bought?

True, but the European set has no armory, only cards. Sometimes, when searching a weapons rack in a quest, you are allowed to draw a card from the equipment deck, and you receive a random weapon or armourpiece. You write that down on your sheet, and shuffle the deck. Inbetween quests, you may purchase additional equipent. You then use the equipment cards as a reference to see hwat they cost, and what they do.

The US set only has the armory leaflet, no deck. It's more convenient, but makes it impossible to get a random piece of equipment from a draw of the deck.

Thank you for clarifying that. I take it that's only a problem when you play the official EU quests? Or does this still happen in the US releases? (being allowed to draw a armory card?).

I would say no, because the US don't have equipment cards. They probably just state what you get in the quest notes rather than a random draw.

Sjeng is right, they state outright what you get.

For example in a quest of ROTWl, you get 2 longswords and 2 shortswords.

If the Ogre and Morcar ones have the random equipment and you don't use the modifed versions from this site when playing by the american rules, I can see that being a situation where you get random equipment.

Infje wrote:In that case, I don't understand the added value of having custom playcards for the armory as posted on this site by drathe. Not to offend his great work of course. But it would only be helpfull if you print more of them right? Normally you would allow your party to write down the weapons they have bought?

My players like to have cards to reference when playing. Especially since we can go months between games and they may forget the stats for each item and don't want to repeatedly ask to reference the clunky Armoury board. The original equipment card file had four of each item from the Armoury, however, having only one of each cut down on file size tremendously, saving us storage space on the server. People who want multiples can print more.

Cards are also a useful way to limit the equipment the players can buy. That might sound like a weird thing to do, but bear with me...

As kids, playing the EU game, we always assumed that you could only buy one of each item--because there was only one card for it. For instance, only one player could have the Crossbow at any time. It seems a bit silly and unrealistic now... I guess the shops are pretty poorly stocked out in the badlands! But it did make for plenty of competition.

Players would try to save up as fast as they could to buy their favourite weapon before anybody else could get their grubby mitts on it. Or they'd wheel and deal like in Monopoly to buy equipment off each other. Which meant they would try to beat everyone else to treasure. Which meant they'd rush out alone and take risks. Which made 1BP monsters actually scary. Not to mention greedy fellow players hitting you with a treacherous Ball of Flame from behind.

We ought to have run out of things to spend gold on really soon, but it didn't seem to happen much. Because taking risks and exploring alone made players more likely to die, at least one Hero would get killed off every couple of Quests and have to start with a new character. That meant they didn't run out of things to spend gold on too soon, even though only one of each card was available for purchase.

Unfortunately it kind of broke down when we reached Kellar's Keep, because the Quests got tougher and the players had to work together more often. Not that it stops me being a dastardly backstabbing traitor when I play the Wizard, though. It just means I die a lot.

I've thought about doing a compromise, where you print out multiple equipment cards, but still not enough for all players (e.g. you might have four shield cards, but only two crossbows). You could change the deck after each Quest to represent what the local shop has in stock, with better items being rarer.

We played so that multiple users could buy the same items if wanted.
The heroes just wrote it down on a piece of paper (advanced-hero-sheet )

I see the value of the North American Equipment Cards as a pimping-your-game bonus for those who want to show more love for the game. No need to write down your weapon or armor, as you now have a spiffy card and picture to display. Yes, you need to print three of each if your want to be prepared for everything, but that probably wouldn't be necessary for all of them. The Plate Mail or Shortsword cards spring to mind as examples that would likely need only one or two cards ready.

Taking things further, some have suggested using counters for Mind Points, Body Points, and gold coins. Some see this as more convenient, while others may disagree.

There are some other uses that aren't immediately apparent. An Ice Gremlin stealing attack or a Rust spell could be randomized if Morcar/Zargon so desired. Quests could include a Weapons Rack that allowed a random draw [like Sjeng said-edit]. I plan to use a randomized equipment-damage houserule. Basically, there's all kinds of houserule uses that could be exploited.

I imagine someone who wanted to modify the EU rules could print a limited set of extras as a compromise between the Armory and the only-one-of-each Equipment Cards [like Zenithfleet said-edit].

They also could be expanded more easily than the Armory which has a limited area for introducing additional equipment.

Well, that's my brainstorm. Maybe your post will lead someone to printing those excellent cards, so good query.

This is really a very friendly and helpfull community. Lots of love here. I really respect how everyone is pitching in and sharing ideas. Thank you guys!
I'm going to try and find the us cards on Ebay or perhaps an entire game system. I know I can print them. But I always prefer the real thing

Infje wrote:This is really a very friendly and helpfull community. Lots of love here. I really respect how everyone is pitching in and sharing ideas. Thank you guys!
I'm going to try and find the us cards on Ebay or perhaps an entire game system. I know I can print them. But I always prefer the real thing

I hear ya mon. This is definitely one of the best online communities I've ever encountered! No drama-queens or anything. Just friendliness and games