TCG Card Stats: How many is too many?

[Liosse de Velishaf]

I'm having trouble deciding how many stats my Character cards should have. I'm wavering somewhere between 2 and 4 stats. I know that forcing players to keep track of too much stuff makes a game less fun, but I'm trying to get away from the standard Attack/Defense * Power/Toughness mechanic that a lot of games use for combat.  In fact, I'm trying to add some non-combat features in general. Also, I'm hoping the interaction between the stats will lead to more innovative strategies. Since the game has only a very limited version of spell/magic cards, I'm hoping that will help keep it interesting.


Currently, the set-up I'm leaning towards is Skill/Endurance/Loyalty/Confidence. For every round of consecutive combat, a Character loses 1 Endurance and they also lose one Confidence if they lose the round, + the less Skilled Character loses Endurance equal to the difference between their Skill and the opposing Character's Skill. If the total loss of Endurance is greater than their Confidence, or their Confidence drops below their Loyalty, the Character retreats from battle, unless they reach 0 Endurance that turn, in which case they die and are removed from play. A Character regenerates one Endurance per turn.

Generally, I try to avoid a lot of counters, but it seems like Doubt and Fatigue counters would be a good way to measure lost Confidence and Endurance respectively.

[Trevor]

Try to avoid mechanics that require you to put counters on cards. Magic has a nice system where damage goes away at the end of the turn, and people can remember over the span of one turn, so you don't need to bother with tons of damage counters. WoW CCG uses damage counters, but that's because healing is a major wow mechanic, and you can't really do that without damage counters to remove. There are healers in magic, but they use mechanics like "prevent the next x damage to target creature" and that kind of fails the flavor of healing. Healing, by definition, requires the damage to get done in the first place. Counters or not, both are valid options to consider for your game.

One way of combining an attack and defense stat is simply something like a "power" stat. The one with the higher power wins, rather than comparing one unit's attack stat to the other's defense stat. There is a lot more flavor opportunities when you split the stats up, but you need to weigh the pros and cons of that.

As far as a number it really depends on your game. 2-4 is very likely the range, but no one can say without knowing your game. That is really a core part of your CCG design, so asking others about suggestions on how many to use is a little like asking them to design a large chunk of your CCG. My point is just that the number and kind of card stats have a lot more impact on the entire game design, and you can't decide anything about them in a vacuum.

With regard to the actual stats mentioned:

Skill is a very vague stat. Skill at what? Skill means how well you can do something... anything you can do. In other words, its too vague for a card stat.

Endurance seems kind of like stamina, but it has more of a "getting tired" feeling than a "getting damaged" vibe. Endurance seems more like a stat for a marathon based game, which would be terrible.

Loyalty would only work if your game design revolves around treachery and that is a core part of the game play.

Confidence is pretty lame stat. If there is actual combat, confidence is not a good stat. People don't lose battles because they lack motivation. With combat, your motivation is not to die. Unless you're suicidal, confidence isn't the issue when its either win or die.

As you explained your ideas for confidence and loyalty, it seems too clunky as a core mechanic.
Also, doubt and loyalty are pretty lame stats to bother to keep track of. Damage counters are interesting and important because it is how close that thing is to dying, and it adds a lot more flavor. When one unit damages another, the damage is part of what resonates in the mind of the players about the flavor of the game. It's not unit A interfacing with unit B and unit B gets counters. It's unit A does <insert cool damage action here> to unit B, and this leaves B with obvious and apparent damage because of it. Loyalty and confidence and endurance are a lot less visual and apparent than, say, a huge gash on a body or an arm being lopped off. Flavor like loyalty and courage and such should be a part of a game, but that's not how to do it. It should be a lot more subtle. For example, in magic, a white card might be some instant that untaps all your creatures when you are attacked, and gives them a bonus to their power. The card name could be something like "Righteous Defense" and it would convey the flavor of valor and loyalty and all that sort of stuff without explicitly making those as core game mechanics.

With stats, don't make people do math, and don't make people do anything tedious.

[Liosse de Velishaf]

As far as asking about the number of stats, many people have a preference for the number of things they have to keep track of.  Pokemon takes a lot of flack for all the counters and coin-flips.  I just wanted to get a feel for whether I was within a reasonable range.  For example, I think most people would absolutely refuse to deal with 7 or 8 stats on a single card.  I'm not trying to dump off part of the load of game design, just looking for a rough estimate of what people are comfortable with.

Skill works thematically, in terms of how the stat functions.  The game is not pure combat, so Skill fits with some of the other uses for that stat.  Even if it was, I think a plyer could figure out what it means from context.  If it's being used in a battle situation, there's a high probability it refers to skill at arms/combat.  "Attack" might fit better in terms of combat situations and items, but for some Characters, their skill in combat isn't all that relevant, even though they can technically fight if forced into it.

There's a retreat option in combat, so Confidence plays into that.  If you think you'll lose, and you have an option to retreat, many people would take it, especially if there's little or no penalty.  I thought about calling it morale, but that would only apply to the combat-oriented characters.  (I used combat as an example of the stats, because it's a situation in which all of the play a part.)  Also, people absolutely lose battles because they lack motivation.  They may not "lose" an individual fight in the physical sense, but as a group in a battle, morale is very important.

I agree that "endurance" would be a completely lame name in pure combat terms, but it's not necessarily a pure combat stat.  I'm not sure if you're implying that "stamina" would be a better name or not--it might be.  "Toughness" has such an association with Magic, and the Endurance stat is not really a "defense" stat, so I've been unsure what to call it.  I thought about maybe calling it "constitution", but I didn't think that was quite right either.  I could use "health", I guess, although I'd prefer something less conventional.

The game does involve treachery as a mechanic, and Characters do not automatically obey all orders you give forever, so it works thematically and as a mechanic.  You can buy off opposing units under the right conditions, or convince them to retreat, etc.

I am worried about the counters.  I might be able to avoid the Doubt counters by having Confidence take a resetting, per-battle drop based on the difference in Skill between opposing characters.

I really appreciate the feedback.  You've pointed out several issues that at least warrant consideration.

[Trevor]

The player should control when a unit attacks or retreats. If you leave it to the confidence mechanic, then you are essentially letting the unit decide, not the player. That makes players less immersed when the cards are doing the "thinking".

Not to argue semantics, but a battle is a fight. The war is the overarching conflict which can consist of many battles. When a battle happens, the motivations are clear and a lack of confidence isn't going to change the specific battle. Lack of confidence in a war can lead to the war being ended, but confidence doesn't really apply well to the individual battle at hand. Soldiers are heavily trained (indoctrinated) specifically to not disobey orders regardless of any confidence.

If you really want the confidence mechanic in play, don't do it with a player stat. Do it with an active keyword. Like magic has "Defender" which makes a unit unable to attack. Or keyword the ability to "attacks each turn if able" or other things like that. Make it a simple binary thing, rather than a number that you need to keep track of and calculate. You could also have other cards that render other cards able to change their keyword. Kind of like how mechanically, Rolling Stones in magic lets a creature with Defender attack as though it didn't have defender. That's the same basic flavor, but more elegant (if done right) than an actual stat on every card.
You can have as keyword something like "Brave" which makes them immune to Fear attacks, for example.

[Liosse de Velishaf]

Um...  No, morale(confidence) is a pretty important issue in a battle.  That's why sometimes you have a battle to the death, sometimes you have an orderly retreat, and sometimes the unit/army breaks and you have a rout.

But I do see your point about players not liking it when things are out of their control.  That's definitely something I want to avoid or at least minimize.  Thanks again.

[Typherion]

This just goes to show how important words are.

Confidence sounds like something that belongs to a single person, or perhaps a non-European share market.
Morale definitely sounds right for an army unit but wrong for an individual.

Perhaps it would help if you explained what your game is about a bit more?

[Liosse de Velishaf]

Well, I've pretty much decided to drop Confidence.  Several people on different sites have pointed out how awful it would be to keep track of two types of counters, and since confidence is only relevant in combat, it's not worth the overhead of a second set of counters.  Semantically, I still think it makes sense, but from a mechanic standpoint, it doesn't work very well.  Trevor made some really good points against it, but I was too busy being overly defensive to realize it.  I do think there will be some active keywords based on the idea, but as a a stat it's out.

I'm still trying to figure out  what to call the "Endurance" stat, but I think my three stat system is pretty stable at this point.

The game is about controlling territory.  Each territory produces certain resources used to recruit Characters.  To win, you have to control all the territories currently in play.  From a flavor standpoint, it's basically two factions competing in a turf war, with the player as the leader.  While it's necessary to have a strong combat aspect to the game, there's also Characters that deal with generating more resources and sabotaging the other player's operation.  That's why I wnet with "Skill" instead of "Power" or "Attack" or something similar.  I wanted it to be a little bit general.

[Ascent]

Maybe you could make the Morale/Confidence mechanic a general mechanic in which you just keep track of a single group of Morale counters. With each round, you remove 1 morale counter, and there could be cards that give you more morale. Each permanent (unit) would require you to have a certain number of morale points. If your morale points fall below the number listed on any particular unit, that unit suffers a related penalty, such as against its endurance.

Example:

Unit A
Character - Badass
Skill: 4
Loyalty: 3
Endurance: 4
Confidence: 5

So if the player's morale points fall to 4 (Confidence 5 - 4 Morale = penalty 1), the unit gets -1 Endurance and -1 Loyalty.

Your game here is a very interesting and unique approach to mechanics. I might be interested in playing it.