So, let’s get into the gritty details of a grand campaign.
The whole point of this project is to use the various quests in this game to tell an interconnected story. Unlike a traditional storytelling project, where all of the plot twists and other surprises can be worked out well in advance, this type of project will be depending on the whims of the encounter deck.
I’m going to base my campaign on the basic ideas for Campaign Mode in the Saga expansions (with one major deviation, which I will explain below). I must keep the same heroes in my primary deck, or else take a permanent +1 starting threat penalty for each hero I swap out. A hero that ends up in the discard pile at the end of a quest will be counted as a Fallen Hero, and will be unavailable for the remainder of the campaign. Replacing them in my lineup will incur the same +1 starting threat penalty that switching out a hero does. I might be willing to make exceptions for Caldara and Folco Boffin and their discard-themselves-from-play abilities (but not Tactics Boromir, as his discard ability seems like it’s supposed to explicitly represent him valiantly sacrificing himself to save his companions), but since I don’t plan on starting out using either hero, I have some time to think that one over.
As fun as it would be to create a set of Boons and Burdens for each cycle, that is far too much work for me to handle. Not only would I have to create good thematic cards to go along with the unfolding story, I would also have to playtest them a great deal against upcoming quests to make sure that they wouldn’t break the game. So, we’ll be playing our campaign without Boon or Burden cards.
In addition to these basic Campaign Mode rules, I’m going to impose a few additional restrictions. Several years ago, Tales From the Cards started their own thematic campaign through the Dwarrowdelf Cycle. Although they never finished the campaign, they did come up with a set of rules to help make their campaign feel much more like a story where each quest had an impact on the succeeding ones. I like the rules they came up with a lot, along with many of the suggestions made in the comments to the post.
I am going to be “borrowing” the rule about unique allies and the Fallen Ally pool, and modifying it slightly. If an encounter card effect or attack sends a unique ally to the discard pile, they will be unavailable for the remainder of the campaign unless the ally is in play at the end of the game.For example, if I play out Henamarth Riversong, and end up using them as a chump blocker, they will be permanently gone from the campaign unless I get another copy into play before the end of the quest.
Like the TftC campaign, I’m not going to count unique allies that end up in the discard pile as a result of discarding cards from your hand. Because I’m giving myself a way out to get these unique allies back, I’m also going to count as fallen any unique allies that end up in the discard pile as a result of a player card that discards an ally for some effect. (Any of the Rohan ally discard events, or using Grimbold’s ability, or so on.)
At places where there is a narrative break in the story, I will allow myself to change out heroes without penalty, just like the narrative breaks in the Saga expansions allow for. Those will be called out ahead of time, in the preview posts that look towards upcoming quests.
Finally, If I lose the quest, I’ll just replay it until I win (or decide that my decks aren’t cutting it and go back to the drawing board). However, although I’ll generally take the results of successful runs as they come, I reserve the right to throw out a successful run if it ends horribly, with multiple heroes or unique allies in the discard pile. I want to avoid the phenomenon of repeating the quest over and over until I get the result I want, but on the other hand, I want to be able to tell the story I started telling. And if 3 quests in I have an entirely different set of heroes than I started with, the story has lost a lot of what made it compelling.
Saga Campaign Deviations
Since my favorite format to play this game is two-handed solo, I will be running two paired decks. I can already foresee some potential problems. I am going to be attempting to run through the entire corpus of FFG quests. By limiting myself to only a few heroes, I run a very real risk of getting bored with my decks – a situation which would not have a good impact on my chances of making it through to the end of this journey.
To help forestall that boredom, and to have a chance to explore the amazingly deep card pool we have access to in the modern game, I’m going to be making one major deviation from the Saga Campaign rules about keeping the same heroes.
I’ll only be doing it for one deck.
Thematically, that deck will represent the long-term heroes; the main characters of the story. At narrative breaks, I might slightly change up the composition, but the story is still fundamentally about these heroes. But the quests we will be overcoming will take us all over Middle-Earth, from the western seas to the deserts of the South. The second deck will represent allies that aid us during our quest. That deck will be held to thematic standards, but will change as often as the needs of both the story and the upcoming quests dictate.
This gives me a little bit of a release valve both for exploring new deck archetypes while still remaining true to the story I’ll be telling, while also giving me options to tech against specific quests that could otherwise be difficult to handle.
Thematic Considerations
The final restriction I’m going to put myself under is theme. When I build a deck, I’m going to build it with an eye towards the integrity of the story. If we’re questing in Gondor, I’m not going to bring a deck with Elrond, Gandalf, and Galadriel as heroes, all brandishing their Rings of Power. Authraw at Darkling Door has an excellent discussion on what theme might mean to different people.
For myself, I’m going to primarily orient my themes around two poles: the location of the current quest, and the story thus far. I’m not going to commit to hard-and-fast rules about theme right now, but I am going to commit to a general one. My decks will be built in such a way that they don’t do violence to the story I’m telling. Ents and Eagles probably aren’t going to show up in Moria. Dain Ironfoot and a merry band of Dwarves probably aren’t going to go sailing to find the drowned ruins of Numenorean cities.
Unless it makes sense in the context of the story, of course. That’s the nice thing about building my own campaign like this. I can send a dozen soldiers of Gondor into Moria if they are escorting Eleanor on her mission for the White Council. Thematic? On the surface, not really. Gondorian soldiers don’t have any business in old dwarf mines under the Misty Mountains. But if Gandalf tells Eleanor that he needs her to check on something in Moria for him, then it could very well make perfect sense for her to bring an honor guard or an escort of spearmen.
A final note on theme – I might play a little bit fast and loose with the chronology. This campaign is certainly happening in an alternate universe than the books – the narrative demands of the Dwarrowdelf cycle alone will demand that. I can’t promise that things will match up impeccably to the books and appendices. But I can promise that I will let you all know beforehand before I spring an Alternate Universe surprise on you.
I think that about exhausts the framework of this campaign. Looking forward to my next post, I’ll take a look at the first quest of the game, Passage Through Mirkwood, to see what challenges (or the lack thereof) it might present. I’ll also present my first deck, along with explaining the background to the story we’ll be starting.
Hope to see you there!