I think it would be awesome.

Yep.

Come on Kennon, that isn't newbie hate, that is asking players to actually play the game. People will come on and give out combos, most of which won't appear all that impressive to someone who hasn't used them or faced them. On the off chance that someone does give out a combo that is recognized as awesome or a deck that is awesome, then someone will just end up copying it verbatim. Then what we have is a replica of what started driving down Invasion in my scene. People netdecking and taking something for gospel because someone they have never met said this was the best deck, or that was the worst deck. It becomes an echo chamber of self-fulfilling prophecies. I personally find the "prove to me this doesn't suck" style of posting tiresome and pretentious and refuse to play. If he had come on and said he didn't understand ST and how they worked he would have gotten the same kind of help, but from at least one more person. I'm old and crotchety. Turn your music down and stay off my lawn. I here by declare myself the Staglrod of Cthulhu!

Because a single email saying, "hey here is a thread with six people saying this is a good idea" is not ever going to be as impactful as thirty emails asking for something. It is one of th emany ways we in the US attempt to convince companies of the views as their consumers. Letter/email writing campaigns for TV shows is something that has achieved results in the past.

Wait, are you really taking insult with my saying they were lame? If was trying to be insulting rather than teasing with sarcasm I wouldn't have bothered with the ~ and I would have used something much more clear than the word "lame" which by its very nature should be considered a two edged insult, because lets face it, the use of the word lame itself is, lame. But my point still stands, were people actually confused about who Theon was, or did they note the name and just not wonder at all? And if they did assume he was a Stark, did they make the same guess about Hullen and Harwin? And does it matter in the first episode? We mostly discover that Theon is an ass in the first ten chapters. I'm confident we have plenty of time to come to that conclusion.

Who in FFG reads the boards? Does Nate? Damon? Any of the other names up top read every thread from ebginning to end? And if someone is reading every single thread, on every single board, for every single game they have (starting to realize the likelihood of this yet?) how do we know it is the right person reading it and passing it on. However if we all right in asking for more or less the same thing, it is easy to amass the emails and pass it on to the right person. If you don't want to write in don't.

The card doesn't say anything about affecting attachments or their effects, so no.

Good question... I'd say customer service personally... I mean that is more or less what we are asking for right, an additional service to their customers?

LaughingTree said: Penfold said: I'm going to comment off this post, but several other posts (here and elsewheres) all speak to this on some level and I have always had the same question... why should they? Because the small screen is a very different storytelling medium from a novel. A lot of background and clarifying information in the novels comes in form of narrative or inner-monologue and that has to be adjusted for the small screen. For example it was very clear in the early chapters just who Theon Greyjoy was and how he and why he was not a Stark but living with the Starks. This was not clear in the pilot where they chose to have no narrative and no inner monologue. LaughingTree said: Penfold said: I'm going to comment off this post, but several other posts (here and elsewheres) all speak to this on some level and I have always had the same question... why should they? Because the small screen is a very different storytelling medium from a novel. A lot of background and clarifying information in the novels comes in form of narrative or inner-monologue and that has to be adjusted for the small screen. For example it was very clear in the early chapters just who Theon Greyjoy was and how he and why he was not a Stark but living with the Starks. This was not clear in the pilot where they chose to have no narrative and no inner monologue. But what is the importance of that fact in the first episode? None as far as I can tell. We'll get all of that I'm sure as it becomes relevant.

Chains, AKA Last In First Out, are stupid and counterintuitive. IT makes the games super interactive from a tactical standpoint, but causes it to completely lose out on any sense of pressure or difficult decisions in strategizing. And explaining how you get to sacrifice a card for an effect that I just played a kill card on to someone who has never played a CCG before is difficult and frustrating for them. So much easier to have things work from the action reaction stand point with only limited amount of interrupting/disrupting actions. AGoT timing is pretty complicated, but that has a lot to do with the huge number of interlinked responses that can happen and the inclusion of moribund after the game was originally designed. I do agree that licensing the game mechanics out or adapting other licenses in-house to this one would be great fun. I doubt it would happen, but it does make me have dreams of a d20 style Card Game system where we can all play our favorite IP's using the Thrones system.

Okay, letter campaign writing time. User Support link for FFG. We should all take five minutes and write a brief note asking for what we want. Insightful articles on a monthly basis about the game design, development, direction, or other meaningful inside information on the thought process of what goes into making this game we love. If every person on the board writes in I'm sure someone would follow through with it.

I haven't read the first book in about six months so I wasn't sure one way or another. Wasn't a detail I focused on.

And there has been ongoing speculation that Will was in fact the exact same deserter that Ned kills. Don't ask me to explain it, just passing on random chatter from other boards and fans of the series. Nan called them White Walkers in the first book, so there is definitely precedent.

LaughingTree said: Karazax said: I think there is a good chance Old Nan will still be in the second or third episode, from what I have followed they didn't cut her from the show and her death was after filming completed. She is telling the story while Bran is bed-ridden after the fall in the book. I think a lot of the details that readers know and miss are not missed by new viewers at all at this point. Sure some of the stuff will have to be explained perhaps later than it was in the books, but the first episode already had a ton of names and back ground to explain. I suspect that most of the important things that were "missed" in the first episode will be explained later just to avoid information overload. I would love Old Nan to be in the next episodes! And not to be too contrary but based on my two friends who hadn't read the books I have to disagree completely about things not being missed by new viewers. At least one of them will not be viewing another episode no matter what I say or do and I will have a very hard time convincing the other friend to watch even the 2nd episode so I honestly do think an opportunity was missed by not having 5-7 minutes of narration and explanation at the beginning. I hope I do not sound critical since I enjoyed the episode enough to watch it 5 times by now. But I care enough about the series that I want people involved in the writing and production (which it sounds like you are by your comments) to have a realistic perception of how the non-Thrones, non-typical fantasy type HBO viewers perceived the first episode. And of course I am only providing anecdotal comments that are not statistically relevant but its just something to keep in mind. LaughingTree said: And not to be too contrary but based on my two friends who hadn't read the books I have to disagree completely about things not being missed by new viewers. At least one of them will not be viewing another episode no matter what I say or do and I will have a very hard time convincing the other friend to watch even the 2nd episode so I honestly do think an opportunity was missed by not having 5-7 minutes of narration and explanation at the beginning. TTwo friends of mine had not watched any of the previews, nor read any of the books. They are only aware of it because I mentioned I played the game and it was based on my favorite novels, about a year later I mentioned it was being made into a TV series on HBO. They really liked it. Both of them are women with only passing interest in fantasy and sci-fi stuff, neither of them are gamers. If it can reach a twenty something and thrity something super casual fan of the genre (if you can say that much of them) it is doing something right. Sure they were not quite up to speed on every nuance was put in that first episode, but they didn't need to be. They have "season passed" the series on their dvr and one is know planning on reading the books. All without any encouragement from me. ~ Sorry your friends are lame. Seriously though, this is just the way of things sometime. People react positively or negatively to all sorts of things, and figuring out what is going to get the positive reaction from the most people is hard. I think a lot of people forget that the strength of this series is that it is a character driven drama that happens to have sword fighting and dragons, not a series of sword fighting and dragons that have dramatic characters.

jack merridew said: I was really surprised they didnt do a Lord of the Rings style opening, they could have done a stylized cartoonish version where they explain the 7 kingdoms, the houses the targaryen conquest and the rebellion all in under 5 minutes, at least to give people watching from scratch a kind of frame of reference, i mean if your watching the show King Robert is a fat drunken oaf and nothing more but at this point in the books you at least know that while Robert is now a drunken oaf he was once the demon of the trident, Hes a shadow of a great man but in the show hes just a drunk I'm going to comment off this post, but several other posts (here and elsewheres) all speak to this on some level and I have always had the same question... why should they? I mean when you start reading the book there is no prologue that explains the history, it unfolds slowly through scenes and dialogue, and yes, inner-narrative, but it does so through the course of the novels. Why deny the new viewers that same pleasure of slowly pulling back the tapestry and revealing the richness of Westeros' history? Obviously the inner-narrative will need to be switched up and presented in a different format, but there is no real reason why the history needs to be filled in before it is particularly relevant to what the viewers are seeing.

JackT said: My review of the first episode: Yawn. I can't imagine this series generating substantial viewership beyond fans of the novels. It just seemed so very dull. Another thing: for all the much vaunted spending of resources on art direction, I think they failed at least with Winterfell. Yes, there is a grimness, but where is the beauty? They made Winterfell look like a pig farm. There should have been much more white in the color palette. Everyone looked too sweaty and dirty. These are the Starks we're talking about.There should be a degree of pristine dignity. Oh, and Catelyn isn't pretty enough. Tyrion and Jaime were good. Erm... you are aware that this series is more or less based in medieval times, yes? Those castles were dirty, drafty, and with very little adornment beyond tapestries. You are asking for white in a world without washing machines and bottled bleach... I know this is a fantasy series, but the realism of it is what garnered it most of its fans.

Really? Build a deck, try it out, make adjustments. Or wait until you show up for a regional and get trounced by a deck you don't understand. No offense intended, but you've got to be willing to put some work in.

All triggered abilities are triggered effects, but not all triggered effects are triggered abilities. If the effect is triggered, it is a triggered effect. If it is a triggered effect on a card that was already in play it is a triggered ability. Make sense? Not that in anyway invalidates your main point that Slavering Gug example was not properly edited.

KallistiBRC said: This is interesting actually. Didn't it used to be a shotgun blast in the example? There are a two problems with that text actually: For example, if Darrin plays the triggered ability on Slavering Gug (Core Set F124) on Tommy’s Jack “Brass” Brady (Core Set F61), Tommy may choose to use Jack “Brass” Brady’s Disrupt: action, which would return him to Tommy’s hand. Assuming both players subsequently pass, the Slavering Gug’s ability now resolves. However, since Jack “Brass” Brady is no longer in play and is thus an illegal target, the Slavering Gug’ is ignored and discarded without any effect. The first, is that the ability is not a triggered ability. It's just an ability. The second is that the text of slavering Gug doesn't reference discarding. Slavering Gug is a triggered ability. Anything with the bold timing word is a triggered ability. The discard thing? I have no idea. That was from the old FAQ. I'm guessing Damon hasn't had a chance to go through it all and fix some of the past mistakes. Well at least he answers questions in a timely manner, I guess that it will take some time to clean up the FAQ of these little inconsistencies.

jhaelen said: TheProfessor said: Regarding whether the Statue will destroy an insane charcter, I don't know if the answer is mathematical or "common sense"... The return value is null. Is null less than 1? It's undefined. I think it's similar to Schroedinger's kitten: There's no way to tell if an insane character is destroyed or not until you flip the card over, i.e. restore it. This. +1

Board game cards are completely different issue. Different paperstock, different product line so they are bound to have a both a different price point and profit margin in regards to what kind of budget they can get per product. Not to mention the printing is different (different coatings, different design will cause for different kinds of bleed and print, and the smaller card size would allow you to get far more on a single sheet which means every sheet gives you a bigger bang for your buck. And where are you getting a second $0.04 reduction in price? I'm not seeing anything that supports that. As to this being due to the volume of printed material... how many units is FFG moving right now of CoC stock? How many units are they printing at a time? Are they printing 15K international or 25k? Is everything coming from China/India/SE Asia from the same printer or are the EU cards being printed by a "local" printer that their international partner has a contract with? These are all basic questions that need be answered before you can even begin to guess at what the cost reduction is going to be for a reprinted product. And you still haven't really addressed three of the most important questions, what is in it for FFG, is there an actual demand for this product that is not currently being met, and how does this prevent them from undercutting the flagship product for this game? Who is running this proof of purchase plan of yours? The distributor? The FLGS? How are online retailers supposed to do this? Such a program itself would serverly eat into any possible savings because the manhours and tracking/verification process would almost certainly be passed on to the consumer by the middle or front-end (read distributer or retailer). I'm sure that a company as successful as FFG has looked at this. Either they decided it did not meet their requirements (either in the immediate future or at all) or it is something that is already in the works. They are the ones with all the numbers to determine how profitable such a venture would be, and they are the only ones who can decide whether it is worth it to them to do so. Remember when the LCG started the distribution plan was 10x1 + 10x3, and with increased sales and international distribution it went to 20x3 with only a $5 increase (which with the numbers on the original printing should have been between a $7-$10 increase). So I am not saying it could never happen. I'm just saying there is nothing to currently support the idea that they would, and the arguments for it so far have been entirely unconvincing without hard numbers regarding how many CoC units of each AP and expansion are being printed and how quickly they are selling. That there are reprints of older AP's at all is a very promising sign, but I imagine any core set supplement will be based on how well these reprints do. If they move quickly and show a nice profit, FFG may be convinced to try something new and different.

YEs, there is no return for the check. It would be like trying to kill a Guardian Pillar, who also has no printed STR. And a doppleganger duping an insane character... why would you do that? It wouldn't give you anything but a body to be made insane or to soak up a wound, because the only thing it really copies at that point is the name, since everything else is treated as a zero. This just confirms that an insane character is a character with a title, and nothing else, until it is restored.

It got there because of the lcense, IMHO, not the game play. It was clunky. Too many moving parts, and some just really weird decisions design wise.

I think more things from the designers would be awesome. I say we start a letter writing campaign. Don't they have a customer service rep? Anyone know how to contact him?

Good episode. I liked the combo's you guys had with those cards. Very cool. Damon's cards were funny. He should do one for Fox and Darryl.