Zone of War

[lested]

Zone of War

First of all let me apologize in advance because English is not my first language and some of the words may seem out of place or wrong written, with this in place i continue with the rules.

Hello to all and Welcome to the beta rules of Zone of War.

Zone of War have been in development for around 2 years now, we had different rules, card frames and name but the concept remains the same.
And now I wanted to presented to the public to get some feedback from different people.

In Zone of war you are a Hero in command of your troops and have different abilities, effects and items to win the battle against your enemies.

Zone of War is based on the unique resource system called reverse-mana (name subject to change). The reverse-mana engine is a system where every card gives you a ?mana? if the card is on the field, for example... if you have 3 cards on the field on your charge phase you gain 3 ?mana?, you don?t have to tap, exhaust or do anything you just get them.


Base on this we have the rules of this game that I will explain now.
(By the Way these are the quick rules, the complete rules I will post them once the rule book is ready with all the changes)


Staring the game

1. To start the game each player shuffles their decks and gives it to the opponent to cut and or shuffle.

2. Place the hero in the Hero Zone.

3. Place the deck on the deck zone.

4. Draw 6 cards that?s the the staring hand.

5. You may mulligan once by putting all the cards in your hand and drawing the same amount of cards

6. Decide the turn order, by flipping a coin, rolling a dice or playing rock, paper. scissors.



Play Area

This is a beta design of the playing field aka the battle field


The play field or ?battle Field? is where you play your cards; it has a maximum of 14 spaces.

1. Deck Zone- This is where you put your deck at the beginning of the game.
2. Discard Pile- This is where you put your cards after you use them or has been destroyed.
3. Hero Zone- Here is where you put the hero at the start of the game.
4. Battle Zone- Here is where you put your troupes to attack or defend from your enemy; you can put some items too.
5. Support Zone- Here is where you put your items or troop before they pass to the battle zone, troop have to stay one turn on this zone before passing to the battle zone.

Type of Cards

1.   Hero card- This card represent you on the battlefield is the leader of your troops, he represent your life points, have effects than can be activate with some cost (mana or sacrifice) and can attack with some items.

2.   Troops (name subject to change) - they represent the ally?s that battle with you on the battlefield, they are elves, fairies, dragons, goblins, etc.

3.   Items- these are the item, equipment, totems and other different artifacts that are around on the battlefield.

4.   Abilities (name subject to change)- these represent the actions and the different attacks, spells and different effect that happen on the battlefield.




How to Win

1.   Getting your opponent life points to 0
2.   When an opponent deck reach 0
3.   By a card effect



What you need to play

To play the game you just need a 50 card deck with a Hero card and some dice and counter to keep track of the life points on cards and the ?mana? pool.





How to build your deck

To build your deck you choose your hero card from any of the hero classes (warrior, rogue, mage, etc.) and then build around it with troops, abilities and items from you class.

The deck must contain exactly 50 cards without counting the hero card.
A deck can only contain only four copies of a card with the same name, some cards are unique and can only have one card on the deck.



Turn Structure

1.   Charge Phase
2.   Draw Phase
3.   Prepare Phase
4.   Main Phase
5.   Attack Phase
6.   End Phase



1. Charge Phase- In this phase is when the cards give you ?mana?
And you store the ?mana? on your ?mana? pool, each card only give you one ?mana? unless specified by the card, the maximum amount of mana that you can have store on you mana pool is 14, that is equal to the spaces on your board.

2. Draw Phase- In this phase is where you draw one card from the deck and activate passive effects from your cards.

3. Prepare Phase- In this phase is where you stand your cards and activate passive effects from your cards.

4. Main Phase- Here is generally where the action happens, in this phase you may play a card from your hand, move cards around the battlefield, and activate abilities or effects from your cards, play an item.

5. Attack Phase- In this phase you may attack your opponent and the opponent may defend only with cards in the Battle Zone, you may play Reaction abilities (explain later in the rules) and/or activate effects form your cards.

6. End Phase- In this phase you check if the maximum amount of cards in your hand exceed if it exceed you must discard cards from your hand to the discard pile until you stay with seven cards on hand, you may activate reaction abilities and/or effects from your cards.




Example of an Troop card

This image is a beta design of the card frame



1. Card Cost
2. Card Name
3. Card Image
4. Type and Class
5. Effect
6. Flavor text
7. Attack\Life
8. Credits and Copyrights

How to Attack

When entering Battle Phase,
1. Declare you are entering battle pahse.
2. Select attackers, the attacker only attack the hero card unless otherwise stated.
3. Opponent select to block if he wants.
4. You may activate card effects or reaction abilities.
5. Compare the attack of the attacker with the life of the defender, if the attack is equal or exceed the defender life point the defender is destroyed and vice versa.
6. End battle Phase here you may activate effects or reaction abilities.



Glossary and Different type of cards


Abilities- are class specific.

Reaction Abilities- These are like instants on magic, you may play these on your turn or your opponent turn whenever you have initiative.

Normal Abilities- These are abilities you can only activate on your turn.

Continuous Abilities- These are abilities stays on the field permanently or for some time or until destroyed.

Items- are not class specific.

Normal Items- these are items you activate and after use they are send to the discard pile.

Equipment- these are special items that attach to the ally?s or hero cards and they don?t give mana at all and don?t occupy a space on the field.

Totems- These are items that stay on the field until destroyed and occupy a space on the field.


Effect- these are effects that the cards have.

Passive- These are effects that activate when certain things happen to activate the effect. For example while entering the prepare phase, when these card is sent to when this card is destroy.

Continuous- these effect are always activate while the card is face up on the field.

On Call- These effects activate when the ally is being call to the field.

Reaction- These effects are effect that you can activate on your opponent turn or whenever you have the initiative.



1.   Hero Cards and troop cards give mana unless otherwise stated.

2.   Continuous abilities give mana unless otherwise stated.

3.   Totems give mana unless otherwise stated.

4.   Hero cards always start on the hero zone and may not change zones.

5.   All troop cards must stay one turn on the support zone unless otherwise stated.

6.   Maximum hand size is 7.

7.   You may change cards from zone to zone on your main phase unless otherwise stated.

8.   You may change the cards from space to space on your main phase unless otherwise stated.

9.   Effects and abilities are activate first in last out, meaning that if you activate a card and your opponent activate one in response you opponent card activate first and yours second.

10.   The turn player always have priority, he pass priority, if he pass turn and every time he activate a card or effect.

11.   If the Attack of an attacking troupe exceed the defender life, no damage is passed to the hero card unless otherwise stated.

12,    You must exhaust the cards when attacking.

Here are some other examples of the card frame and how it evolve

Original Concept: Armando Luis Colon
Idea & Game Design: Sergio Murillo (lested)
Card Layout: Sergio Murillo (lested), Manuel Narvaez (vandalgyon)
Card Artwork and Paint: Manuel Narvaez (vandalgyon), Efra?n Jr Hern?ndez (Master Funk 9000)
Contact at: jace_lested@hotmail.com
Caguas, Puerto Rico.

Thinking of changing the "Mana" term for "Will", like in Divine Will. What do you guys think?

[lested]

More art from the Game

Card Artwork and Paint: Manuel Narvaez (vandalgyon), Efra?n Jr Hern?ndez (Master Funk 9000)

[Typherion]

Welcome! I can't think of very much to say so I'll just give my first impressions.

Rules
I think your mana resource system will work well, because it encourages players to preserve their creatures at the start of the game instead of using them to block. Then near the end of the game blocking becomes more important as your hero's life gets lower. I like it.

At first I couldn't understand how players get mana at the start of the game because they have 0 cards in play. But then I saw that you start the game with your hero in play so you will always have at least 1 mana.

The rest of the system seems similar to the WoW TCG so I guess it will probably play in a similar way. I like how creatures enter the battlefield in the support zone because it makes it easier to see which creatures a player can use to attack and block with.

Do items stay in the support zone forever? 

Template
I'm not sure I like the card template. You probably put the name on the side of the card so that players only have to check 2 sides: the left side shows the cost and name, and the bottom shows attack and life. But I don't like name being sideways.

If you use white text, you could use a black outline or a black shadow effect to make the white text easier to read. Similarly, for black text, you can use a white outline or shadow to make it easier to read against a dark background.

Language
You mentioned that English isn't your first language, so I'll offer some ideas for you to consider. The word "troupe" isn't good English in this context because it means "a performing group" such as a group of singers or actors.

You could use the word "troop" instead but this also means a group, which sounds strange because your cards only show one creature. Maybe you could use the word "unit" or "ally" or just stay with "creature"? 

Also, the word "totem" might be a bit strange for your game, but I don't know what flavour you are trying to achieve so I can't say for sure. The reason totems are used in WoW is because the Shaman class makes people think about tribal cultures like in Africa or Fiji. A different word may work better if this isn't the flavour you want.

Good luck!

[lested]

Welcome! I can't think of very much to say so I'll just give my first impressions.

Rules
I think your mana resource system will work well, because it encourages players to preserve their creatures at the start of the game instead of using them to block. Then near the end of the game blocking becomes more important as your hero's life gets lower. I like it.

At first I couldn't understand how players get mana at the start of the game because they have 0 cards in play. But then I saw that you start the game with your hero in play so you will always have at least 1 mana.

The rest of the system seems similar to the WoW TCG so I guess it will probably play in a similar way. I like how creatures enter the battlefield in the support zone because it makes it easier to see which creatures a player can use to attack and block with.

Do items stay in the support zone forever? 

Template
I'm not sure I like the card template. You probably put the name on the side of the card so that players only have to check 2 sides: the left side shows the cost and name, and the bottom shows attack and life. But I don't like name being sideways.

If you use white text, you could use a black outline or a black shadow effect to make the white text easier to read. Similarly, for black text, you can use a white outline or shadow to make it easier to read against a dark background.

Language
You mentioned that English isn't your first language, so I'll offer some ideas for you to consider. The word "troupe" isn't good English in this context because it means "a performing group" such as a group of singers or actors.

You could use the word "troop" instead but this also means a group, which sounds strange because your cards only show one creature. Maybe you could use the word "unit" or "ally" or just stay with "creature"? 

Also, the word "totem" might be a bit strange for your game, but I don't know what flavour you are trying to achieve so I can't say for sure. The reason totems are used in WoW is because the Shaman class makes people think about tribal cultures like in Africa or Fiji. A different word may work better if this isn't the flavour you want.

Good luck!

Thank you for your sugestions "had to get some tips from the people outside of the play test group to have more to integrate into the game" I'll consider the changes.

Rules
Forgot to write that you exhaust the "tropp" to attack.

Some items always stay on the support zone or until destroyed but you can move them to the battle zone if you want.

Like for example, if you got an equipment you'll attach it to one of your "troop" or to your Hero but don't occupy a space on either zone, and the "totem" item stays on the field it has to be called to the support zone first and then you can move it else where and it occupy on space and the normal item like potions and drinks you just use it and send it to the Discard pile.

Template

The way we put the name is:
1. Because of what you said.
2. Because when you attack and exhaust the card your opponent can see the name and the name would be facing you.
3. Because is "original" we haven't seen a lot of games with the name on the side.

But we will take your sugetion into consideration

And you are right about the text on the effect and name would make some changes to the template and post it when finnish.

Language

"Troop" was the word I was going for hehehhe. thanks for noticing.I'll consider changing the term for Unit.

And about the "Totem" word is because we will have shamans in the game but I was considering to change the word to something else, any suggestions?


And Thank You for all, remember not everything in the game is final with your suggestions we will make the game better. All the terms are subject to change, and these tule are kinda like the "quick rules" on other games or "play test" rules, the comprehensive rules will be done soon.

We will have a conference on saturday be in the mean time I'll post the updates on the template and more art.

[Typherion]

I just noticed something that may be a small problem.

If the first player puts a creature on the battlefield on the first turn of the game, it enters play in the support zone. On their next turn, it moves to the battle zone and can attack the opponent. But the defending player will never be able to block because their creatures will still be in the support zone.

As the game continues and resources increase, the first player will usually be able to attack with a more powerful creature before the defending player can try to block with a creature of the same power.

It might not a big problem but it's just something I wanted to mention.

[Kevashim]

I just noticed something that may be a small problem.

The first turn balance is usually an issue in the majority of CCGs. In this case allowing creatures in the support zone to block if no creatures are in their owners battle zone would probably suffice.

[lested]

I just noticed something that may be a small problem.

If the first player puts a creature on the battlefield on the first turn of the game, it enters play in the support zone. On their next turn, it moves to the battle zone and can attack the opponent. But the defending player will never be able to block because their creatures will still be in the support zone.

As the game continues and resources increase, the first player will usually be able to attack with a more powerful creature before the defending player can try to block with a creature of the same power.

It might not a big problem but it's just something I wanted to mention.

Like Kevashim said, The first turn is always a problem in all tcg\ccg, We Will see what we can do about it because what you notice is something we notice too but think it was something small, but we are trying to make a player friendly and balance tcg\ccg so all suggestions are welcome.

One of the options we can try is:
1. The second player may attack first.
2. Players cant attack until the third turn.
3. First player don't draw or Gain ?Mana? on the first turn.
4. The first player draw and gain ?Mana? but cant call a ?troop?.
or this

In this case allowing creatures in the support zone to block if no creatures are in their owners battle zone would probably suffice.

But I dont like the idea of ?troops? blocking from the support row but hey it may be the fix to this problem heheheheh
Any Suggestions?

And Thinking to change the Name of the Game frrom Zone of War to Zones of War, is a small change but it change they way it sound, and change the mana term for Will, like in Divine Will and we are already talking on changing the Troop term to unit and changing the way the name is place on the card frame.

What do you guys think?

[lested]

Sorry that I haven't update the thing is that both my computers broke at the same time I will update the rules and the pictures as soon as I fix my two computers, will fix them in two weeks. So if I don't answer fast be patient please.

[lested]

This game would be on a stop until further notice, thank you all for the comments.