Gollum's Russian Roulette 1.0

• Versions
• 1.0

You know what this game needs to be even more difficult? Russian Roulette.

It's a running gag among my friends to reveal an encounter card and add the text "when revealed: the players lose the game" before reading the actual card's text. Well, now that can actually be a thing--at least if you're playing solo. Too bad I can't add The One Ring to this deck.

As you may know, when you play with Sméagol, you have to shuffle two copies of the treachery "Stinker" into your encounter deck, which, if revealed, will flip Sméagol over to Gollum and, since you only have one hero, make you lose the game.

"That's awful!" you say.

"It is," I reply. "And that is Russian Roulette--the wrong card drawn may be your last!"

"So where's the fun in that?" you ask.

Ah! So now the fun becomes staying alive. Passage through Mirkwood too easy of a quest? Fresh out of the nightmare packs? Consider playing "Passage Through Mirkwood-Gollum's Russian Roulette"

The deck is designed to keep you alive as long as possible. That's it. It will struggle to attack, quest, or defend, but that's not the game of Russian Roulette--all that matters is ensuring that you never draw a copy of "Stinker" and that you stay alive.

To do this, it's scrying time! Firyal (made cost effective by Timely Aid) and Henamarth Riversong are your chief allies to look at the top card. If you discard one nasty card with Firyal, you can look at the next with Henamarth Riversong, etc. Don't like what you find? You can Risk Some Light and move that card to the bottom (that will come in handy later) or use Ravens of the Mountain to just shuffle the encounter deck and try your luck elsewhere. If you're confident you can get at least one "Stinker", use Scout Ahead to remove it from the game. Did Henamarth Riversong find an enemy with a surge? That's no good, what if it surges into a Stinker? Never fear, Ithilien Lookout is here.

Interrogation and Needful to Know are other helpful tools to keep you going. Once you master (no pun intended) enough resources and drawn enough cards, you may have the chance to ensure you will always survive and use Sword-thain on Firyal so that you have cheated the Russian Roulette and will live regardless of the next encounter card. Huzzah!

The contract The Grey Wanderer allows for you to play the first non-unique card each planning phase out of sphere, which accounts for many of the non- cards in the deck. Jubayr is meant to be a great find with Timely Aid, or something you save up for to use with A Good Harvest.

In a multiplayer game, if you ever have enemies engaged with you that you can't do anything about that planning phase, you can always Desperate Alliance yourself away to another team, take the attack "undefended" and "live" to fight another day.

So, enjoy the game! And remember, never bet on Gollum.