LackeyCCG

It is possible/viable?

We all know the ups and downs of having a resource based system. If we look at Magic for example, it (mana) is used to balance power levels (powerful cards can normally not be played in the first few turns), and Lands are used to generate Mana.

This can of course lead to the well known "mana screw / flood", which some say is a must to keep the Random factor in place.

Other systems use a fixed amount per turn (startrek tng, 2.0 for example), or a gradually growing resource (VS, WoW).

Would it be possible to minimalise resources (Epic card game did this), or totally use no resource based system whatsoever?

I am still talking about your normal Deckbuilding, 60 cards card games, where little to no other elements are involved (board, dice etc).

A very minimalistic resource based system might be: Each player gets 2 actions each turn. Playing a card cost an action, drawing a card cost an action.

Card balancing will be a bitch, but it will still be no different than not drawing your 3rd land in magic, or having 5 lands in hand after t2. you would still have to draw those "good" cards.

Anyone care to chime in?

read up more about this in this topic, where we already discussed some points:

http://www.lackeyccg.com/forum/index.php?topic=1064.15

I made a game like this, where your life total was your resource, therefore you tarted with lots of resource. My idea was to include a rarity level in deck building, e.g. rares would be most powerful and expencive, an you coul only have a certain aount of rare or unncoon in your deck.

Anoter idea i had was a population amount. For exaple, eac card has a population cost, and a deck population cot can only add up to a certain number. It seems pretty good because you can have different formats with different population costs, and it gives deck builders challenges when making decks and stops people just throwing in all the biggest, best cards they can get thier hand on.

The 'action point' system is still the most viable in most simple terms.
You get 4 actions.
Actions:
- Draw a card.
- Play a card.
- Attack.

Well, this was the netrunner idea, and it works pretty well.

Another idea is the concept of sanity (form necrocomnion). Cards cost you an amount of sanity, and if you run out of sanity, bad stuff happens. (BIG Debuff on cards, etc.)

No resource system doesn't work at all. (Well, theoretically it does work, but it is HELL INCARNATE to balance.)

The deck limit idea is pretty interesting. Maybe I will make it work in my new card game. (Still in concepting, but I want to make one without a 'conflict phase'. A ccg without battles)

It's pretty much impossible to make a completely resourceless card game.
Even with nothing else, the cards themselves and how they are used are a kind of resource.

I imagine a truly resourceless card game would be very boring because you would have access to all cards at all times, with the ability to play them all infinitely without restriction. It would be like throwing your whole deck at your opponent while screaming "I WIN!".

I think what you might actually want is an elegant resource system that blends into the game so well that you don't really notice it. Maybe it's not a matter of limiting the resource system, but just making it so smooth that it's part of the fun.

I also tried a few times to create a resourceless-resource-system. I have nothing new to report about this aproach, as others explained possibilities quite well:

1. i dont like the epic CCG aproach, it completely takes out the purpose of resources and players just keep drawing cards and slam them onto the table.

2. pesudo resources like milling cards from your deck or paying life or discarding cards are interesting - but magic already did use all of theese mechanics

3. fixed systems like star trek 2.0 come into mind. also a system where every player gains exactly X resources every turn.

4. duelmasters, where you can play every card face down as a resource

5. once, i had an idea in mind where resources are centered about key-cards. example: you need a smithy and a wood chuck to play this card - but this is similar to magic, where islands produce blue mana and plains white mana. also it increases mulligan even more, as you can wait endlessly to draw the right cards.

yeah well, i kept repeating what others already said - but i think the discussion is interesting. cant come up with anything new right now and just wanted to contribute my thoughts. even my current game (wich is quite far in progress) could need a really innovative resource system, currently it seems a bit overused.

Maybe a system where your cards provide resources to your opponent (a la Lotr cct) could be refined?

then there is also the Warstorm idea: each card has a countdown number, and you can not play that card unless that amount of turns has passed.

Maybe a simple Resources=amount of cards in your hand could work? That way, you have a diminishing amount or resources as the game goes on, but you can still control a bit how many resources you save up each turn?

so lets say I have 4 cards in hand. I can pay for a card that costs 4 resources. If I have a card in hand that costs 5 or more, I can not play it, unless I find a way to draw more cards (usually done by normal game mechanics)...hmmm.. this could work..

Players could play a very high costed card early on, but it would still limit them on later turns. Maybe a mechanism would let you return cards from game back into your hand to get more resources, at the cost of card(s) in play?...hmmm..

The only problem I can see is that games generally do not want diminishing resources over time, because it can slow the game down instead of driving it to its conclusion.

If you implement the hand = resources idea you probably need a way to increase the number of cards in your hand.

It could also encourage strange behaviour if done poorly, like players only building decks with 5 cost cards and only playing one card per turn so that no resources are wasted for example.

Every game is going to have a resource system of some sort; a price to be paid for using more powerful cards.  Whether that resource is a tangible component or not is what you need to decide.

In the original design of Hexdrake, there were no elements (thus making the resource system I have in place now pointless, and changing into a "+1 each turn" intangible.)

Even YGO has resource mechanics.  The Normal Summon and Tribute Summon mechanics are good examples of this; only one card gets played for free per turn, and more powerful cards require sending others to the grave anyway.  Special Summons normally require conditions to be met.  In addition, the field itself is a resource, due to the limited space.

In other words, resource systems aren't something you can try to take out of a card game, but can try to diminish the appearance of if your game calls for it.  My game uses a familiar resource system done in a new way; the way my mana works, you are less likely to be mana screwed, although you can still not pull the element you need (or only have a Source that has a secondary cost to make that element).  But with the way that the game works, it's actually much more viable to try 3-element decks, and possibly 4.  "splashing" mutliple other colors is possible as well.

To go back on the cards in hand system. You could say that a card has cost 4, and has a value of 3. That means to play a card with cost 4 I need to discard cards with total value 4 or more.

Hmm, this could work..

Card can be discarded from hand for their resource value, or played from hand for their cost... and maybe fill up hands at the end of each turn? Lots of deck-building and design space there...

Balancing would be annoying, but I think this is a good idea.

This is the most unique card type design I've ever seen and it has proven quite fun and is quickly becoming a staple in deck design. It has innumerable applications. It could be useful as the only resource mechanic in a game, whether as a playable card or as a game's core mechanic:

SWTCG Resource card (http://skywlkr.net/idc/articles/archive/2011/112211/article%20one%20112211.asp)

You can use it to trickle draws, build and other types of resources.

Just remember, you saw it with the Star Wars TCG Independent Development Committee first. Garritt Pruim was the card type's creator.

Quote from: Ascent on November 23, 2011, 02:21:38 AM
This is the most unique card type design I've ever seen and it has proven quite fun and is quickly becoming a staple in deck design. It has innumerable applications. It could be useful as the only resource mechanic in a game, whether as a playable card or as a game's core mechanic:

SWTCG Resource card (http://skywlkr.net/idc/articles/archive/2011/112211/article%20one%20112211.asp)

You can use it to trickle draws, build and other types of resources.

Just remember, you saw it with the Star Wars TCG Independent Development Committee first. Garritt Pruim was the card type's creator.

I read it and it is indeed awesome. You can use it as a standard card for all players to use, or spice it up by faction/type of deck. Must brainstorm now!!...

Interesting idea.. Might be worth looking at..

Continuing forward from the SWTCG resource card and some of my old idea's.

The Resource Card.
- A resource card provides some resource icons each turn.
- You can add tokens to add more icons or do some ability.
- You can remove tokens for a specific ability.

- To play a card you need to have that amount of resource icons in play.
- Some cards add resource icons.

Hmm.. More brainstorming thus.

You got the idea. I'm glad you all like it. I'm rather proud of Garritt's creation. It's a real boon to TCG design, I think.

Once I started making a card game with a resource sistem like this. Cards had a cost ranging from 1 to 6 (don't remember if there was 0 too) and a value ranging from 1 to 3: the combinations were 1/3, 2/3, 3/2, 4/2, 5/1, 6/1. One card costed on average 2 cards, because value was half the cost.

Cards used to pay went to the Limbo and on the draw phase you drew one card from the deck and a card you want from the Limbo.

Of course there were interesting interactions with the Limbo, andcool cards countering these (like: remove from the game target player's Limbo) which fit well with the speed ot the game and the need of the players to have lots of side-plans to victory.

there are already things that work like that. what is the difference between those resource cards and planeswalkers, at heart, in mtg? the basic idea is the same. stuff like time being a resource and things is nothing new there

id have imagined that a game without resources would mean more than a game that allowed you to play whatever you want whenever you want. so no cost system on playing cards would fit but then your still restricted by the number of cards in your hand. cards in hand becomes the new resource on your actions per turn : while every card can be played for free, all of your cards act in themselves as limiters on what you can and cant do.

so a person with 4 cards in hand is restricted by their 4 cards and a person with 6 is restricted less. the point im making with this ramble is that we are still constrained by a resource - the resource of available options

so a more "true" version would be a card game where there is no restriction of any kind on your options. where you can play any card from your deck at any point, making the only resource possible in the game, that to the best of my knowledge cannot be removed, the deck itself - aka the list of options available. because to have permanent access to every option in the game while simultaneously having every option playable at any point means that if any counter exists to any card played, the sequence of cards will continue in a fairly deterministic manner until a card comes that has no counter. think nim or tic-tac-toe or some such solved game

so a possible outline for such a game :

each player has a 30 card deck. each deck is separated into 6 separate piles of 5 cards each. cards come in different colours of white, black, red, green, blue or yellow, with some cards having multiple colours, these can represent thematic elements. at the start of each turn, you and your opponent take turns arranging the cards in the piles until both pass or a certain number of cards are shuffled between the piles or some such thing. then people play their cards in turn from across the top of the piles or down a pile. playing matching colours strengthen the cards. or they could act as a separate way to play cards, linking matching colours in a link together : however this falls into the trap of restricting options and makes the availability of colours act as a resource system in itself, determining how fast and loose you are able to actually play. so, strengthening cards or something similar is a pretty decent way to go

the piles themselves are not a resource since you can shuffle them around any which way you want. and once you hit >6 cards, its a moot point anyway since, like said before the total number of options is the one thing that was immutable. the actual cards could be anything. for example, a nice idea would be a game that evolved out of the cards played akin to something like nomic

this is my suggestion for the topic

You speak somewhat of the Beyblade CCG; not entirely, but somewhat. And that wasn't much fun for me to play let me tell you.

I'm also glad someone mentioned all that design is was a planeswalker. And honestly, when they entered magic, it became have them or die at tournaments and even in some casual play. So no, I really don't enjoy the prospect.

L5R has an intelligent system that could be tweaked, have cards that "bow" for a resource, and allow you to play cards that give you more resources. That still isn't perfect, but it's a concept worth looking at.


I'm not entirely sure, but the system of cards having a score value and you being only able to have a certain score for a deck was already done, and it wasn't that exciting. WOW and Duel Masters took playing any card as a resource and it seemed to work. But let me ask you this; who enjoys NOT playing cards? I sure don't Yes it makes it difficult because you might have to get rid of a card that could be great later to play one now, but now I just lost my card and can't play it. That can end up being frustrating to a player, who HAD to play his big card on turn two or risk being destroyed no matter what, and come turn 5 they are still doomed because they don't have anything strong enough to win.

Now there was the suggestion of if you want to play level 4 card from your hand, you must discard cards that have levels equal to it. Yu-Gi-Oh did this already, with Synchro cards and such, and it's annoying as heck. Now synchro is the best card they have, and people only want the best ones.

I shutter to say it, but Furoticon has a curious system. If you look it up though, its NSFW that's for sure.

My idea is, make your resource relevant to your game. Even of it isn't perfect that way, people will be immersed in the game so it will go on smoothly.

I know this thread hasn't been posted on in while, but I wanted to add some of the things I've been working on in my own game. I chose a similar mechanic to L5R. My game is composed of 4 factions and each faction controls hideouts that each produce a certain amount of gold. Each player starts with one hideout. All the hideouts produce gold, although some more than others. Units in the game (characters or creatures, etc.) can take refuge in hideouts to avoid being attacked, but while they're in there the hideout cannot produce resources.

This limits the number of resource cards needed in your deck to around 5 or 6 cards. To make things more interesting, some characters also produce limited amounts of gold as well, though the same rule applies. If you're using the card as a resource, you can't use it to attack during that round. I've also added some items that provide gold, and some abilities. This gives plenty of ways to get gold.

For example, there is a card called "Adoxipham" which is a drug found in the stories my game is based from (the Everwind series). In the stories, this drug is forced upon people to keep them as a customer base. So this card can be used to hit another player's unit, and while that unit is in play that other player must pay you 1 gold per round out of his earnings.

Just another idea. I like it because it leaves room in the deck for non-resource cards.

The resource system in MagiNation is one that I like a lot to be honest. You have 3 Magi that you play with, each Magi has starting cards that you can take from your deck or your discard, so that you always have at least a few cards that you can play right away, rather than hoping that you draw something as a Magi comes in. You play w/ 1 Magi at a time until all 3 of either player are defeated. Each Magi has an ability (or abilities) that it can used once a turn, so the order that Magi are played in can also be strategic.

The Magi themselves have a set starting energy that they get, plus an energize value each turn. Your Magi's energy is its life basically, and at any time if your Magi runs out of energy and has no creatures in play to defend it, that Magi is considered defeated. Games can be either long or short, depending on how things play out and whether some combos come together at just the right time (I've been able to score a first turn KO on opposing Magi). Creatures are the same way in regards to energy, you pay an amount of energy from your Magi to play them, and creatures get discarded after all their energy is depleted (a few creatures here and there have an energize value, but it usually comes w/ a catch or restriction on how that energy can be used). Spells and Relic cards are played the same way, using a Magi's energy. Spells are typically discarded after use, while relics stay in play.

This type of resource system has you think about what you want to have played. Using all your energy to play a bunch creatures right away, could leave you open to spells that discard a certain amount of energy from all creatures and Magi in play, possibly wiping out most of your creatures (or all of them). Not having the right balance of creatures can leave your Magi open to attack from your opponents creatures (creatures must attack creatures first the vast majority of the time). Although, Magi that have a high energize value could become difficult to defeat if you're not hitting them w/ damage to their energy every turn. There are drawbacks to this system, but I've found that it is one of the simplest resource systems I've seen yet, and doesn't restrict you too much in your play options.

Two major reasons why I like the MagiNation resource system is that it is impossible to be w/o your resource, unless there is a card effect that stops a Magi from energizing (and these are typically spells that only last for a turn). There's no possibility on not drawing a resource card and just sitting there as your opponent slowly destroys you. There's also no wasted space for just resource cards in your deck, everything is a card that can potentially be played the following turn (you draw cards at the end of your turn, rather than the beginning), which also gives you an incentive to keep some energy on your Magi. You also don't have to sit there and decide what cards you are willing to give up, like the resource systems in games like Shadow Era or CoC. There's also no real chance of an opponent getting a larger and larger resource base like in WoW or VS.

Actually, my favourite online TCG has no rescource system:www.Ederon.com (http://www.ederon.com). Ederon is a first person style CCG(as in you play as a single character rather than summoning multiples units), where your deck has 1-3 class cards. To begin, you typically use your first turn to drag a Class Card into the Class Dock, and class afiiliation determines what you can play(you can technically play in 'Average', with no class equipped, but this is a pretty limited deck option). Some cards change classes for you(either as a general card or a Morph card which will change between specific classes and have an effect that reflects this duality), or allow you to do so without losing your turn.
Anyway, it's a really fun game that deserves a far greater reputation then it has ever had, so check it out. The starter decks are all Solo class ones so you don't have to worry about swapping classes while you learn.
It's mostly well balanced and stronger cards are simply given internal drawbacks. Eg, Assassin's(or rogue, as it's been changed) Shadow Approach Attack Ability deals 4 damage, which is above average for the class, but prevents you attacking in the following turn. This does create some frustrating combos at times(eg, Golden Armour prevents spells, which is restrictive in a Solo Paladin deck, but in Monk/Paladin, where the drawback has no effect on Monk due to M using Abilities, Golden Armour becomes a tad ridiculous). That said, the overall effect is a game that manages to be simple or involved depending on your preference and is consistently fun without the usual hassle a lot of games have.

I actually intend to create a similar game(in-so-far as it is first person and requires no rescource system as such) but it will likely be more complex in terms of deck structure and will deviate further from the maintstream conception of card games as dictated by their progenator Magic:The Gathering. 

Also, I notice some people have mentioned that resources still exist within games whether they have clear representation or not: this is technically true(whether it be ones health or ones ones ability to attack), but the question at hand relates to rescource SYSTEMS, and the fact remains that these are just one of many ways to create structure, and any CCG can do this in numerous other ways, from the statistical to the obscure.