Game Idear -- Mythos

[jettemse]

So, I'm obsessed with greek mythology. As I understand, there is only one greek myth tcg based in greece, with shoddy art and awkward rules. I have a concept for something that could hopefully expand into other mythologies, in like a ude vs. system way, in that more deity groups are added and included.

Essentially, my concept is as follows:

Players use three deities at most to build their deck around. These deities, as through myths and stories have monsters surrounding them, myths, spells, and heroes all at their disposal.

For example, some of Artemis' units and monsters would include the Cerynian Hind (a sacred elk), Calydonian Boar (giant pig, sent by artemis to terrorize cities and such), & Callisto (sacred nymph who can transform into a ginormous pig) (toi name a few). A hero for Artemis would include the famous Atalanta, who Artemis eventually became irritated with as she was noted to be a better archer than she. (this could be noted in card form, through some kind of pay 1: Atalanta gains a +1/+1 counter. godfear -> atalanta can't exceed to become a 7/7 or face being sacrificed) or something.

Most deities have sacred and powerful locations, Artemis and her sacred groves where she hunts and her animals run free, to Apollo and his temple in delphi, to the general land space of mount olympus.

Resources or Mana, I think, should be produced by peasant people, and/or heroes/characters. Mana would be referenced simultaneously as favor and worship. People could have regular people cards to provide 1 resource point, or could even play a hero for this location (sentient, mind you) to add as well should there be a limit in the battle area. Generic "lands", I think, would also be in play in the forms of temples/places of worship rather than sacred deity locations. Some of these might overlap. ie; mortal pantheon temple in athens, temple of aphrodite on knosos, etc. (with the egyptian pack could possibly include obelisks, pyramids, what have you)

Worship and favor can be applied to the deities picked to be in game, or to bring in more units. I'm thinking the deities could be like planeswalkers from mtg, where you can pay resources to add counters and to utilize generic abilities.

Other cards could include weaponry and sacred items (golden fleece, golden apple -> trojan war, girdle of hippolyta, etc)

As well as curse or spell cards that could possibly act as instants in the magic universe. pay 4, transform target character into a 1/1 pig until end of turn (or other curses/wraths that can be utilized)

I'm an artist, and have a degree in it. I'm mostly looking for feedback, and extremely intelligent individuals to offer criticism or even help to move this forward. I would love to find a couple of people to help produce cards, as I feel it could make things go faster, and I work better under a tight brainstorm session. I think I have some good ideas, but I'm only 70% there --- so thoughts, criticism, help, support? you name it. give it to me? :3

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[Trevor]

I suggest that you include mythical elements, but the core gameplay should be focused around non-mythical elements. Kind of like how the game Age of Mythology is. Most of your army consists of human infantry, cavalry, archers, and other things like that, and your army is augmented by mythical creatures (like minotaurs) that fight for your side. Keeping mythical creatures as the minority makes them more special.

Also, I suggest that you don't get too restricted by the actual mythology, and more just get inspired by it. For example, there was only one minotaur, and only one of the gorgons was like Medusa, but that doesn't mean your game can't have these sorts of creatures in multiples. That's exactly what Magic does.

Alternatively, you could try to go the other route and have your game be very true to the mythology. You can even have educational (and interesting) flavor text on cards and make your game educational to play. That could make your target demographic educators looking to purchase educational games for students to play.

As far as a resource system, I think you could have cards cost generic resource points, and specific resource points, kind of like Magic has colorless and colored mana. For one of Hades' creatures, like Cerberus, you might need to have a Temple of Hades in play.

I suggest you have a rule that allows you to play any card in your hand face down as a generic resource. This helps prevent mana-screw that can occur in Magic.

I suggest you read my page at http://lackeyccg.com/ccgdesign.html

There is already a CCG called Mythos, so you need to choose another name.

"Idear" is not a word, btw.

[jettemse]

Thank you trevor, you had some clever points, and I'll totally read that thing. I don't think I've come across it before. And, I'm so glad we are on the Age of Mythology wavelength; thats pretty much where my favor/worship concept came from (but I'm assuming you guessed that! haha). I like the idea of human military units as being the primary source, accented with the mythical units. That is smart.

I totally agree with that sort of limitation/restriction. Generic myth units will probably be in abundant. However, lets say we have a gorgon card (generic myth unit) and a medusa card. should only one specific character be allowed on the field at once? This could be in reference to heroes, like bellaphron, theseus, atalanta, etc. Only one character per card type allowed on the field, but not limiting it to one in the deck? I can't remember how Vs System does it; but surely you can't have 7 spider-mans in your attack zone...?

I was definitely thinking an educational route, with flavor text drawn from classical literature. ie; aphrodite's birth; "And so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time: and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden...and came forth an awful and lovely goddess, and grass grew up about her beneath her shapely feet. Her gods and men call her Aphrodite...because she grew amid the foam" -- Theogony. Too long, but a general concept of where they will be drawn from. I'll probably just quote lines.

As the gods themselves are mere backdrops that allow for other creature cards, locations, etc. I was thinking about limiting the first draft to 6 deities. Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hera. I was also considering making 2 versions of each primary deity card with different abilities (just to add flavor/differentiation) -- drawn from various points in their classical literature lives.

I'm all about preventing mana-screw. Should I just nix the homely city-folk cards for favor cards, and simply allow any card to be used for mana? would that be too duel masters? should this be limited to, say, military/mortal units instead of mythical units? I like the idea of colored/colorless; though I'm not sure if you mean people being used as mana (military units, what have you) is considered a colored mana, whereas the temple of hades as you mention would produce colorless? I like the idea of needing temples and stuff for certain myth units. never thought of that.

I didn't realize Mythos was taken by some kind of rummy ccg. lmfao. Theodicy? Theogony? I probably have time to think of something.

& Idear I thought made it sound cute. :/ But!... It's in the urban dictionary!?

Thank you for your help/commentary Trevor. Does anyone have any idea as to where I might advertise this to find a partner/help? My mind is powerful, but I'm sure I'm not capable of coming up with a bunch of terms and what have you. I'll post some concept art I'm working on for a card -- probably be up tomorrow. :3

[Trevor]

How can you not have Ares?

The resource system is one of the most important and difficult aspects of CCG design. You need to have ways of it limiting what can be played in a deck, and how soon. Limiting what you can do, as ironic as it sounds, makes playing a lot more fun.

As far as resource cards, I think you should do something like WoW CCG. WoW CCG lets you play any card in your hand face down as a resource, but there are also types of cards that you can put in your deck that are optimal for playing as resources. In WoW, Quest cards can be used as resources, but you play them face up and they give you a bonus when you use them as resource cards. So you want to have resources come from your temples, for example, but you aren't completely screwed if, through chance, you don't draw the ideal resource cards when you want them. That avoids mana-screw that happens in Magic.

Another way to do it is to allow any card to be played in any deck, but it is cheaper if you have a certain type of card. For example, a minotaur could cost 6, or if you have a temple of zeus in play, it costs 4.

You can't have gods actually joining the battle or that would completely undermine every other non-god card. You could have them affect the game through influence cards. Like Zeus could cast a Lightning Bolt down to do X damage to any target. Poseidon could cause a tidal wave to destroy all units on the battlefield.

You can use the symbols for the gods. That's nice you that you don't have to create new symbols.

I think your should have few unit cards with specific names, but when you do, they should be unique. You'd need to invent a rule for dealing with unique units when both players play them. The simplest thing is to have all unique units get discarded if more than one is in play at a time.

[Ascent]

Some myths got retold, rewritten and sometimes completely conflicting with other myths or with earlier tellings. I suggest you either ignore those differences and get everything you can from each one mechanically (Like when doing multiple versions of the same hero), or do that and provide a mechanic that explains the differences, such as splitting a hero to pursue two separate quests or the same hero performing in alternate dimensions. Trying to make it all make sense will only drive you mad. A card game doesn't really need to get too deep about it.