(another) New Game Idea!

[Cyrus]

Just another idea I've been brainstorming up so I thought I'd type it out and see what you all thought. The premise is basically a mixture of the Magic format EDH and some elements of the WoW ccg, with a bit of my own stuff thrown in for good measure

Deck Building:
Decks would consist of 60 cards, 1 Lord, and 3 Items/Attachments. Your Lord determines what other cards can be in your deck, based on their faction. You can only have 1 copy of each card in your deck and they must all be the same faction as your Lord. You may have more than 3 Items in your deck, but 3 of them start in play equipped to your Lord. Some Items/Attachments would allow "treaties" between different Factions, allowing you to use a wider variety of cards in your deck at the cost of a possibly powerful free starting Item/Attachment.

Number of Players?:
Ideally, 4, although each 60 card deck should have a 20 card sidedeck to switch out for "duals" between only 2 players. In addition, each deck should have a 10 card Tactics deck that can be used to switch out cards between games, bringing the grand total for a deck to 84 cards (80 plus the starting 4).

Starting a Game:
Each player reveals their Lord and his/her Items or Attachments. Each player starts with 3 Settlements (you can use blank cards or even just pieces of paper to represent Settlements) that each start at 10 Health (trying to think of a better term than Health for a Settlement... any ideas?)

The Factions:
Unlike many other games, including usually 5 or so distinct Factions (or colors) each with its own agenda, this game will have closer to 20. This does mean that without Treaties some Factions are not playable alone without the aid of many Neutral cards (of which there will be fairly few) until later expansions add to that Faction. That is a big part of deck building in and of itself.
Also unlike other games, however, once you have sacrificed a starting Item/Attachment slot for a treaty, you're a pretty much in the clear because most cards from all Factions use the same Resources.

Resources:
There are 4 different kinds of resources, each allowing you to play different kinds of cards. Mines generate Gold, Mills generate Wood, Mana Pools generate Mana, and Factories generate Oil. More may be added to the game in expansions.

The Cards:
Units - These cost Gold and are used to attack the opponents Settlements
Structures - These cost Wood are added to Settlements to provide Defense or added Resources
Resources - These are free, and add Resources to play other cards
Items - These can require any of the 4 Resources and are added to Units to enhance their abilities in or out of combat
Spells - These cost Mana as well as requiring a Mage Unit to be in play, and have a variety of powerful effects, and are discarded after use
Actions - These can require any of the 4 Resources and have a variety of effects. There are 3 types of Actions, Quick, Slow, and Attachments. Attachments stay in play Attached to another card, adding an effect, whereas Slow and Quick Actions are discarded after use, like Spells

The Turn:
Turns are taken simultaneously by all players, with one player having the Initiative, which passes to left at the end of each turn. Players go through these steps starting with the player with Initiative and going left until all players have chosen to make a move or pass.

Draw - Draw a card

Gather - Once per turn, a player may Gather a Resource by removing a card in their hand from the game. After doing so the player searches their deck for a Resource and puts it into their hand. Be careful though, because having only 1 copy of each card in your deck means making this decision could cost you the game.

Dawn - It is the Dawn of a new day. Some effects trigger during this step. Quick Actions and Spells may be played during this step.

Main - Players may play Units, Structures, Items, Slow Actions and, once per turn, a Resource. After the player with Initiative plays a card or passes, the player to his or her left then can play a card or pass. The player with Initiative will not be able to play another card until all other players have had a chance to play a card or pass. Only once all players have passed in succession will the turn continue. This is true of all steps, but most important to remember during the Main step.

Battle - Players all separate, face down, their Units (including their Lord) into two piles. Once all players have done so they turn their Units right side up and designate each pile's Stance, either Attackers and Defenders (once they are revealed Units cannot change Stance). You may bluff by placing Units in different piles and declaring both piles to be Attackers or Defenders. Starting with the player with initiative, players can now choose to make Attacks against other players. If Units in the Attackers pile do not Attack, they cannot be used as Defenders.

So a player chooses which Attackers attack which Players. The Player who is defending can then choose to use any Units from there Defenders pile to defend against the Attack, or let the Attackers through to their Settlements. For the simplicity of explaining to this here forum, attacks basically work like Magic in terms of comparing stats between Attackers and Defenders.

If an Attacker gets through to a Settlement he deals damage to it equal to its Attack, unless there are Structures on that Settlement. Most Structures add Defense to the Settlement. If a Settlement has Defense, subtract this number from the Unit's Attack to see if they still deal damage to the Settlement. Alternatively, the Attacker may choose to deal its Damage to the Structure itself (which has its own health), removing it from the Settlement to make destroying the Settlement easier in the future.

Diplomacy - Some factions prefer using words over weapons, and will try to Influence other Settlements into moving off the contested land instead of pummeling them into submission. During this step, starting with the player with Initiative, players may use their Units with Influence to try and remove Health from a Settlement. To do this a player simply taps the Unit a announces which Settlement they are trying to Influence. Note, however, that you may not attempt to Influence a Settlement belonging to a Player that you attacked in the same turn. If the Player being Influenced cannot prevent the Influence by either A) tapping a Unit of theirs with Influence equal to or greater than the incoming Influence or B) tapping Units equal to the incoming Influence.

For example, I am trying to Influence Fred's Settlement with an Influence of 3. He has a Unit with Influence 3, so he taps it to prevent the Influence. I have another Unit with an Influence of 2, so I tap him to Influence Jon. Jon doesn't have any Units with Influence, but he does have Units that were not tapped during Battle, so he taps 2 of them to prevent the Influence. I have one Unit with Influence 4 left, and use it against Sue. She does not have any Units with Influence of 4 or higher, and only 3 Units total, so she cannot prevent this Influence, so one of her Settlements loses 1 Health.

(I'm thinking of adding rules for Assassinations that could be carried out by Units with Stealth, but I'm still working on that)

Main 2 - Just like the first Main step

Discard - Each player discards down to their Limit, as denoted on their Lord.

End - The Initiative passes to the player to the left.


So, there you have it. Before anyone says anything I'd like to state that yes, I am aware that this is sort of a flashy Magic variant, but I think it has enough that is different about it to attract a different type of gamer, while also possibly piquing the interest of some Magic players who are tired of the game. Once I have some put together I will show you guys some of my ideas for Factions, but rest assured knowing they are even more specifically tailored than Magic's colors. To put it in common (Mtg) terms, instead of having one color such as blue excel at counter magic, drawing cards, and returning cards to their opponent's hand, in my game each of those three "topics" would be covered by its own Faction. Thus a lot of the 3 starting Item/Attachments you will see will be Treaties allowing player's to mix and match different Faction's strong points. Because of this I am also thinking of reducing deck size to 40 cards, and will probably test at that before committing to 60. The entire purpose of allowing only 1 copy of each card, however, is to make each game play out slightly differently and/or specifically rewarding more consistent deck construction, while also punishing too much consistency by having a wide array of threats that overly focused decks won't be as equipped to deal with.

Anyway, I know this is a huge block of text, and I hope some of you take the time to read it and give me your feedback. I think at first I am going to make simple card mock-ups that can be easily put into MSE so that I can play test with any of your that are interested as soon as possible, focusing on better card templates once the game is actually finished. Before I start rambling again I better cut myself off haha.

Let me know what you think!

[Alastair]

It sounds like it could be an interesting strategy type game, but I really don't like restricting deck building to 'singleton' aka only 1 of any 1 card right off the bat like that. I think that would be better suited as an alternative style of play.

[briggs]

This does seem more like a bored game rather than a card game.

Instead of "health" how about structures for settlements?

[Cyrus]

Already using Structure as a card type, but if I think of something better for that, then maybe
What else is board game-ish, besides having to keep track of your three settlements? Just curios honestly

I think since no game has been designed around singleton (at least that I've played) it'll be interesting, and who knows maybe a lot of fun? When the designers (aka me) know that a game will be singleton, the ideas for cards themselves change drastically, which could lead to a really cool game, I think.

[Turonik]

I think since no game has been designed around singleton (at least that I've played) it'll be interesting, and who knows maybe a lot of fun?

There's been a few but not many that used highlander rules. Gundam MS War Used it as did a few other Japanese games but can't remember off the top of my head who else. Though VS did have mechanic that rewarded players for using a highlander deck, Insanity.

As far as it being fun.... it could be. The highlander format, at least in the games I've played with (never did magic's "singleton") is a test of deck building and play skill due to the randomness of the draw being upped. If the game is meant to be fun and enjoyed I say go for it.

[Cyrus]

That's what I was going for. It really rewards good deck building AND playing skill, because there's no way you could just rely on your deck being turbo consistent, and if it is, it would be at the sacrifice of the diversity that other decks would have.

I should also mention that many Structures will create token creatures every turn, so that there will be ways to amass armies of simple dudes that way.

[Turonik]

That's what I was going for. It really rewards good deck building AND playing skill, because there's no way you could just rely on your deck being turbo consistent, and if it is, it would be at the sacrifice of the diversity that other decks would have.

Though having consistency is a sign of good deck building. And my main concern is without consistancy it brings too much luck to the table. But since it's rarly used I'm willing to see how highlander would work out instead of it being just a format.

[Cyrus]

That's a big reason I'm thinking of dropping to 40 cards plus the starting cards... that way it will be pretty random and have a decent amount of luck to it, but not a complete wasteland of hoping to draw the right cards that 60 or more cards might see... only problem there is there might be a good deal of running out of cards during 4 player games

[Turonik]

That's a big reason I'm thinking of dropping to 40 cards plus the starting cards... that way it will be pretty random and have a decent amount of luck to it, but not a complete wasteland of hoping to draw the right cards that 60 or more cards might see... only problem there is there might be a good deal of running out of cards during 4 player games

In that case why not just have a a free recycle of your deck?  and if you really want you can always add in a penalty for it like lose health, or remove so many cards from the game but really, you don't have to have "decking out" as a lose condition so I say try 40 or even 30 with free recycling when you run out of cards.  depending on how many cards you typically draw in a game, it could totally void out  the randomness fear (see games like doomtown, warlord, 7th seas, and UFS)

[BrotherM]

I think it sounds pretty interesting, but Highlander style deckbuilding plus 20 exclusive factions means everyone's deck will be basically the same unless you design like a couple thousand cards to begin.

Even if you account for the treaties (which is a really cool idea for dealing with exclusive factions):

If I have faction AB deck, and you have faction AC deck, how many of our faction A cards are going to be the same?  Even at a 40 card deck, you'd have to a LOT of unique cards for our decks to not be very similar or even the same.

If you've got that many card ideas then god bless you and good luck.  I just think it's a very ambitious project.

But then again, I just don't like exclusive factions period.

[Cyrus]

Each faction will start with only 20 cards to represent them. This leaves tons of room for improvement through expansions, and it'll keep players guessing as to what factions will be enhanced as each set is released.
So each deck has the choice to have only one faction (meaning they'll need 20 neutral cards if they use one of each of the factions available cards), but this will probably not become a viable deck idea until more sets have been released. For now, let's assume that 2-faction decks are the most popular, allowing you to use 1 treaty and 2 free global attachments or free items as starting cards.
So, each faction has 20 cards you can choose from, and you'll need room for Resources in your deck (in most cases you'll need only about as many Resources as your most expensive card because of the Gather step, but you may want to include extras if you expect to see Resource denial as a strategy at your table, or if you're using lots of cards with activated abilities). So let's assume you'll want around 8 resource cards in your deck or so. So that leaves 32 spots, only 16 from each faction if you go for an even split. However, like EDH has artifacts that make sense in a good deal of decks, so will this game have Neutral cards that many decks will want to play. Maybe somewhere in the 8 or so range there too, leaving you only 24 spots for cards from factions.
So, all top-tier decks using the same factions may look the same within the first set, but there will be many variations as well.
You may also be thinking that because a faction is focused on one goal then they only have one way of achieving that goal. That is not the case. So far I have only designed the card drawing "Advant" faction. Within only 20 cards they have strategies involving card draw based on units, excess resources, deck reorganization, and structure building. So each subtheme may only have a few cards dedicated to a strategy, but within a singleton format using only 40 cards, a few cards is all you need.

Once I have a few factions and the neutral cards designed, at least to a point, I'm going to start mocking the cards up in magic set editor using the magic templates. I don't want to focus on making the templates on my own until the game is ready to be played, or at very least playtested on a beta-release type scale.

I'll keep everyone posted

[BrotherM]

^ This was a very reasonable response to my comment.  Thanks for the further explanation

I think it sounds like a really interesting concept TBH.  Will be looking forward to seeing some card samples.

[Wisp]

I'll read the long text when i get round to it, but if you;re looking for a better word than health, what about fortitude?

Edit: sup cy?

[Cyrus]

not a lot man, same old stuff, got a cool job that allows for lots of game design time though!
and, you know, still designing games and not finishing them

and fortitude is awesome, well played