Theoretical Community CCG Project

[Dragoon]

I think it should be possible to switch from peace to war easily, but it should take a (expensive) diplomacy/intrigue card to turn back to peace.

[r0cknes]

The expense to switch back to peace could be printed on the card itself. I feel that the losing of agenda progress and some other advantages switching back and forth would keep people from doing it all the time anyway.

[Ascent]

I'm not sure we want to "keep them from flipping all the time". We simply want them to have to pay for starting a war and for achieving peace. Both should have significant advantage, but both should cost, but in a balanced way that allows freedom of play.

[Ascent]

I'd like to take the time to point out the success of this project so far and to say "I told you so" . When everyone understands who the decision maker is and no one is expecting horizontal consensus, everyone cooperates easily and lends well to the project without a bunch of bickering. If this were a 100% community project with no final decision maker, the bickering could have been endless as everyone vies and politics for their mechanic to be adopted by the group. But with a decision maker, we only seek to convince the decision maker and aren't expecting that the person will adopt our ideas. It works every time.

[Malagar]

Thank you for the feedback so far (especially Ascent and his encouraging speech), i read all replies and being the "decision maker" - here is the result (most has already been said):

1. The nation cards will be renamed to FACTION cards
2. faction cards will fulfill three roles: agendas, resources and fleet. please note that they cannot attack on their own, but only help in a defense (faction cards are considered to be a factions home planet, so we can assume they also maintain some kind of defensive fleet there).
3. we now have both a SWITCH and a FLIP mechanic.

the flip costs for faction cards end up something like this:

* Factions will loose almost all ability to generate solaris income while at war (war-disadvantage).
* Progress on agendas will be lost when flipping the faction card (war-disadvantage).
* attacks are only able when you are in war mode (war-advantage).
* you loose all progress when flipping back into peace mode (peace-disadvantage).
* in peace mode your fleets can only defend (peace-disadvantage)
* you can only generate solaris while in peace mode (peace-advantage).

im also evaluating theese ideas:

A. when you attack a peaceful enemy, he is allowed to freely flip into war mode.
B. once in war, you can only flip back via special cards OR by fulfilling your war-mode agenda (!)
C. to reduce tapping, i think about a Income phase during the turn. all players gain income equal to the ratings on their cards (they look at the faction card and all resource cards that are active and add the solaris income together). factions at war do not generate income. this would remove tapping at least from the resource generation part of the game (only problem is that they can activate special abilities in the same turn they generated solaris income). i think we still need tapping for fleets and other cards.
D. there will be cards that can only be played in WAR or PEACE mode.

more later, im still at work

[Ascent]

Instead of "losing progress". How about you simply can't achieve the agenda while the Faction card is flipped on the other side? Because it seems to me that losing all progress is counter to performing such an action. At least keep it as an option to be explored, as we don't want to paint ourselves into a corner. It seems to me we should want the flip mechanic to be used multiple times per game, not just once or maybe never.

Effects can cause a fleet to tap. My only problem with tapping was hard coding it into the mechanics. It's fine for use with an ability. Perhaps you can't switch a Fleet while it's tapped along with not being able to perform an attack. Tapped means that its current mode is to the right while horizontal.

[Malagar]

@Ascent: Again thank you, your advice keeps to be very helpful while trying to get this "thing" somewhere.

But, i just had a horrible vision: Imagine a match of magic:the gathering where you can attack or play land cards and tap them for mana only every second turn or a few times during the game. would this be interesting? no - it would be horrible.

so, we have to do everything to prevent this concept going that road. there has to be a real benefit to go to war, as well as it has to be rewarding going the peace route. and players must be encouraged to focus on one - or switch multiple times during a game - depending on their play-style/deck.

EDIT: the word "horrible" was a bit extreme. but i just want to go sure we use the war/peace mechanic for good, as it could also turn out to slow the game down.

there is one good thing though: remember that i wanted a really unique feature for the game? well, there is no need for that anymore. we already have it - the war/peace switch mechanic is unique enough i guess. especially if we attach card-cycles, rules and themes to it in the future.

if done right, there could be lots of potential for both: deck building and expanding the game.

[Ascent]

Your wording seemed a little ambiguous to me. So just to make sure, you do understand that I was talking about making the flip mechanic more usable and allowing it to be used more frequently?

Perhaps the War side doesn't need an agenda. Perhaps what it needs is something to help your fleet succeed in war. This way, it encourages players to seek to end wars quickly and get back to resolving their peace time agendas. So the War side would not accomplish an agenda on its own, but it may be needed to get around to resolving the Peace side's agenda.

[Malagar]

@Ascent Yeah, it was written in a hurry - and english is not my mother language so its sometimes difficult to exactly express what i mean.

but, you got me "back on the track". the point is:

Rather then forbidding the player to perform certain actions while at war/peace, this mechanic should encourage/discourage the player to these actions, depending in what mode it is.

so war mode should make attacking easier while peace should make it harder - but not impossible.

i see the whole mechanic as a track switch, instead of stopping the train completely, it just redirects it to another track.

[Malagar]

Update: Event cards now come in three different flavors. Black events are neutral and can be played during any state. War/Peace Events can only be played when you or your target (this depends on the event card text) is in the corresponding state.

Thats all for today, more later!

[r0cknes]

I don't think that card fits the theme of the game!!! 

Just joking. The templates look awesome. I am drooling over the chance to play this game eventually.

[Ascent]

There's a matter of process I'd like to broach in regard to set development.

During set expansion development, I recommend, at first, the group should remain as it is now, with Malagar taking the lead, for about the first 3 sets, until everyone gets used to designing for the game. After that, open the floor up to let others take the lead. At the end of each set, if there's a candidate for taking the lead, they can toss their hat in the ring and the others can vote or the previous lead can abdicate to the new person. From the fourth set on, I recommend the following.

The SWTCG Independent Development Committee (IDC) has developed a process in which one person  comes up with the idea for a set (it doesn't have to be the group's lead), the group's lead takes the temperature of the group and makes the decision, or perhaps even asking for a vote, and then the person who proposed the set does most of the design work and acts as the project lead (separate from the group lead), or as much as they feel like accomplishing, We have lots of fun with this and it has provided some pretty decent ideas.

The project lead (the person who came up with the idea for the expansion), as the name implies, takes the lead in the set's development and the others try to respect his vision as much as possible and try not to change his card designs around unless necessary. The group lead, on the other hand, has the final say on what goes in. However, If a person's idea is turning out to be a disaster, the group lead may suggest a complete redesign if he has no confidence in the set, but the group has to agree to the redesign, otherwise the set goes forward as designed. Then, if they agree to redesign, everyone steps in and redesigns, from scratch if necessary, until the set works. Because, frankly, not everyone is a good card designer and not everyone is a good expansion planner.

That said, expansion design requires these things:

- An expansion theme (WOTC works in blocks, with one person acting as both group lead and project lead, who comes up with a "block" of expansions for the entire year based upon their plan.)
- A story for the expansion that is related within the flavor text. (A definitive story does not need to be written if the story is well explained in the flavor text.
- Various strategies unique to each faction included in the expansion that are reactive to each other to provide a cohesive impression.
- New mechanics introduced in the expansion. This may be a new keyword, card type, faction, game rule or other gimmick.

Everyone in the design group should read up on card design theory in the many articles available online, especially from WOTC.

SWTCG IDC does closed design, meaning we invite people into the group to be designers, graphic design, rules people and so on. But since this game doesn't have any popular base to start from, it will probably have to be purely open design from conception to retirement. If, by any strange fortune, the game becomes so popular as to have too many cooks in the kitchen, then it will need to become closed development with invitation only.

Doing things this way has kept things very loose and moving fast. There is some bottleneck that can't be avoided in graphic design, but if everyone is working together with minimal contention, the set can get finished quickly.

Encouraging people to create dream cards is a good way to train designers in the game's community and maintain interest. You will need a forum for it as well. You might ask Trevor if he's willing to create a section on these boards specifically for this game. Perhaps there would be a whole Card Game Development section in which each game's group gets their own forum. That way, it maximizes participation in the design of each game. (I don't need one for mine, I don't think anyone's interested.)

[Malagar]

@Ascent very insightful, i cannot add much because im usually working on projects all alone - but the set design process you explain sounds good and reasonable.

different story, but: i would also add a point value to all mechanics, common special abilities and attributes. this way its easier to calculate the cost of a card (roughly). i did that with previous game concepts and kept a table with ability names and a so called "design point cost". once your card is finished, you add up all the design points you spent on it and translate that number into a real card cost. But: Of course you then have to take the card text (wich is most often unique) into consideration.

About the forum: That would be a good idea, i thought about putting a forum on my site but i wonder if anyone is willing to move (tried something like that years ago and it was failure). maybe its better to have a forum section here, where we all feel at home.

Also, with the things Ascent is saying i had the idea of creating a "CCG Design Manifesto", something like a thought-cache where we can put all ideas and stuff into. Maybe, if i ever have the time i could create such a section on my site and add the most intriguing thoughts we posted here (if you allow).

[Ascent]

Fine by me. I'm more interested in spreading knowledge than hording it to myself.

[Ascent]

I forgot to mention that I've been wanting to design a game where the card's story is expressed in the wording of the effect, rather than in flavor text. Kind of like a Monopoly card, but perhaps a little more integrated.

Example: A card says, "Your opponent's suppression of sapient rights leads you to perform an embargo on carbonized cosmium, so that your opponent can't draw during their next draw step."

If you don't like that idea, let me know. I'll just use it on the other game.

Which reminds me of the 4 basic rules of a card game that should be hard coded in the rules:

1. Owner over controller. If a card would go to a controller's hand, discard pile or deck, it goes to the corresponding zone of its owner instead.
2. Card over rules. If a card contradicts the rules, the rule is ignored, except where it violates rule 1.
3. Can't over can. If one card or rule says you can (or "may") and another says you can't, the "can" or "may" is ignored, except where it violates rule 2.
4. First player first. The player who starts play first, goes first in all things, except where it violates rules 2 or 3.