New TCG - M TCG

[malleck666]

Hey guys

I am currently in the process of seeking crowd funding for a TCG I am hoping to launch. I am not here to beg for backers etc. rather, I am here to look for feedback regarding my current design and any tips and ideas.

I'd appreciate if you had a look and let me know what you think.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/502738872/m-tcg


Regards

[Trevor]

At actual card size, your text will not be readable. Scale your card down to 200 pixels wide and if you can't still read things, your template is out of proportion.

[malleck666]

At actual card size, your text will not be readable. Scale your card down to 200 pixels wide and if you can't still read things, your template is out of proportion.

The card was blown up for presentation purposes. We have run some dummy prints and the text is all readable but thank you for pointing that out.
Before final printing, the text will be resized to ensure it is easy to read.

[Malagar]

i agree with trevor regarding the font size

besides that, the template looks really good. I can see you put work into it.

its just a bit too much of blank space - but thats because your font is so small and you almost have no statistics on the card. on kickstarter you described the heroes in more detail - but i dont find these rules on the cards.

BTW: is the art yours? looks good. cannot find an artist named on the cards.

and finally: i would not recommend starting a KS until you already have a (almost) finished game and a decend community to back you up. KS is (for me) one of the last steps.

all in all it looks refreshing - keep it up!

-Tobias (Malagar)

[Trevor]

I think you need less detailed icons and have them be more like icons instead of pictures. At actual card size, the dagger won't look like a dagger. Take a look at magic's portal set and the little symbols they use. Those simpler images look better at card side.

And you can't just increase the font size later on. You need to design the whole card with proper font size. For example, if you tried to just increase font size, you wouldnt have space.

I agree about KS being a final step.

[xchokeholdx]

Just a few questions that came up reading the rules:

1. How do players keep track of their Health on character, their Mana, Runes, holy power, stamina and Rage? How will a player be able to keep them apart?
2. How do players keep track of the abilities that the Curses and Blessings did? since the card is discarded after use, they should be able to see what effect is in place.
3.The whole combat phase needs to be explained better. Who will be the defender? how can a defender defend against an attack? will the defender be able to use spells as well during an attack?
4. Have you actually playtested balance? it seems like a party of 3 Rogues will kill all opposition. How do you prevent the runaway leader problem which is clearly present in your game design?

just some questions to get your mind thinking. The concept of your game is ok, but is needs much, much details and explanations.

[malleck666]

Thank you for all your feedback.

i agree with trevor regarding the font size

besides that, the template looks really good. I can see you put work into it.

its just a bit too much of blank space - but thats because your font is so small and you almost have no statistics on the card. on kickstarter you described the heroes in more detail - but i dont find these rules on the cards.

BTW: is the art yours? looks good. cannot find an artist named on the cards.

and finally: i would not recommend starting a KS until you already have a (almost) finished game and a decend community to back you up. KS is (for me) one of the last steps.

all in all it looks refreshing - keep it up!

-Tobias (Malagar)

In regards to the rules being printed on the cards, there is no intention to have the class rules printed on the cards. Each class will be represented by a class icon (see the diagram on the KS page) and the rules will apply.

I will definitely take what you and Trevor have said about the font size and look into it. I haven't had a problem with the dummy prints but you guys are the experts here. We will run some more prints and see what they look like and get back to you with any changes we make.

Just a few questions that came up reading the rules:

1. How do players keep track of their Health on character, their Mana, Runes, holy power, stamina and Rage? How will a player be able to keep them apart?
2. How do players keep track of the abilities that the Curses and Blessings did? since the card is discarded after use, they should be able to see what effect is in place.
3.The whole combat phase needs to be explained better. Who will be the defender? how can a defender defend against an attack? will the defender be able to use spells as well during an attack?
4. Have you actually playtested balance? it seems like a party of 3 Rogues will kill all opposition. How do you prevent the runaway leader problem which is clearly present in your game design?

just some questions to get your mind thinking. The concept of your game is ok, but is needs much, much details and explanations.

1. I am considering having either customised coloured dice added to the starter sets so that they can help easily track the resources. For example, 3 D20s (or 2 D20 and a D10) or using counters.

2. If a Blessing or Curse has a recurring effect, chances are that it will have the continuous key word and stay in play until destroyed.

3. The defender is the target of an attack. I was originally going to call this target the "victim" but decided against it... Attacks are either Normal attacks (labelled as Attack) or Spells. In the rare chance that a Hero has both a Spell and an Attack, only one of these will be usable on a turn (unless modifiers allow it). Think Pokemon TCG.
In regards to the runaway leader issue, I have been revising ideas to prevent that. One idea is that blessings and curses are playable from the hand on either player's turn while they have priority ((unless stated) This includes on the first turn for an opponent who is yet to take a turn) and can provide aggressive or defensive protection at the start of the game. Preventing combat on the first turn (akin to Yu-Gi-Oh) is another option but i still feel that will still have its issues.
My final solution (which is yet to be tested) is to have each player to only have 1 hero face up on their first turn, flipping their second hero on the second turn and third on the third turn. I would like feedback on this idea, however.

4. There are still a few balance issues, yes but at the moment there is nothing too extreme.

Keep it coming - I appreciate all this. This is my first TCG.

[Gargoyle]

 On your site you say that you introduced luck to create a level playing field. I don't see how that is going to work. Sure, if the newer player gets lucky, they are more likely to win, but the opposite is just as likely to occur, in which case they get dominated and may lose interest. All a dice system is going to do is complicate things. This might increase depth, but it's not going to help the learning curve. If it's something you want to include, then by all means, do so; just don't expect it to make things any easier on beginners.
Also not seeing why you need 3 different dice; your cards could just as easily work around one die, which is more convenient.

If you really want to level out the playing field, I suggest you add some sort of compensation when you lose a hero. This could be a free draw and some mana, or whatever you want, really. Whatever it is, it will also help prevent run-away victories. Probably requires testing to figure out how large the reward should be. Different rewards for the loss of your first and second heroes would make a lot of sense, as well(ie, you get more for losing your second).

I am considering having either customised coloured dice added to the starter sets so that they can help easily track the resources. For example, 3 D20s (or 2 D20 and a D10) or using counters.

In regards to the runaway leader issue, I have been revising ideas to prevent that. One idea is that blessings and curses are playable from the hand on either player's turn while they have priority ((unless stated) This includes on the first turn for an opponent who is yet to take a turn) and can provide aggressive or defensive protection at the start of the game. Preventing combat on the first turn (akin to Yu-Gi-Oh) is another option but i still feel that will still have its issues.
My final solution (which is yet to be tested) is to have each player to only have 1 hero face up on their first turn, flipping their second hero on the second turn and third on the third turn. I would like feedback on this idea, however.

I think the flipping of heroes at the beginning is definitely worth using; in my experience, staggering of some sort at the start creates a good balance between the first and second players, turnwise.

Also, not sure what you mean by the coloured dice; I think Chokehold was asking if you have counters or something to keep track of health/mana etc.

[Trevor]

I agree with Gargoyle. Dice rolling as a core mechanic is a pain in the ass.

[malleck666]

On your site you say that you introduced luck to create a level playing field. I don't see how that is going to work. Sure, if the newer player gets lucky, they are more likely to win, but the opposite is just as likely to occur, in which case they get dominated and may lose interest. All a dice system is going to do is complicate things. This might increase depth, but it's not going to help the learning curve. If it's something you want to include, then by all means, do so; just don't expect it to make things any easier on beginners.
Also not seeing why you need 3 different dice; your cards could just as easily work around one die, which is more convenient.

If you really want to level out the playing field, I suggest you add some sort of compensation when you lose a hero. This could be a free draw and some mana, or whatever you want, really. Whatever it is, it will also help prevent run-away victories. Probably requires testing to figure out how large the reward should be. Different rewards for the loss of your first and second heroes would make a lot of sense, as well(ie, you get more for losing your second).

I feel that the dice system, while it may feel like a pain to some people, is definitely the direction I want to take. With different die types, different min. max. values can be achieved and promotes the player to thin about what to do with the value (as a lot of cards can contribute towards rolls).

The compensation idea has gotten me thinking and I was considering either adding an extra card type that is in play from the start of the game and determines what the controller receives when a Hero dies (similar to a terrain). But I fear that may complicate things further. Another idea would be to have the Heroes have printed text that determines what happens when they die.

[malleck666]

Also, not sure what you mean by the coloured dice; I think Chokehold was asking if you have counters or something to keep track of health/mana etc.

It is possible to use dice to represent values. For example, the 3 could display 20, 20 and 10 respectively to show 50 mana. Counters, however, may be a better option.

[Gargoyle]

I feel that the dice system, while it may feel like a pain to some people, is definitely the direction I want to take. With different die types, different min. max. values can be achieved and promotes the player to think about what to do with the value (as a lot of cards can contribute towards rolls).

I didn't say it was a pain, just unnecesary. As to die values, using different-sided die won't change your Min values, only your Max ones, unless you number them strangely... What I don't understand is how having 3 separate values promotes thought any more than one value; any card that actually needs more than a six sided die is going to be too complex to even fit the text on a card. If you simply mean X values, than you can easily just scale them to a 6 sided die.

The compensation idea has gotten me thinking and I was considering either adding an extra card type that is in play from the start of the game and determines what the controller receives when a Hero dies (similar to a terrain). But I fear that may complicate things further. Another idea would be to have the Heroes have printed text that determines what happens when they die.

Don't bother with the terrain thing; if anything, that hurts level-play, as veterans will have terrains that work cohesively with their deck. Giving some heroes 'Recompense' clauses(or 'Martyr') sounds kinda cool, and it would help beginners if you deliberately made the starter decks include such heroes(keeping them balanced of course). Having this ability type needn't be mutually exclusive to a universal compensation system though.

That does remind me of one other issue that needs consideration; what do you do if you have a card in hand that is for a certain Class, but your Hero from that class is dead? Doesn't seem fair for all your cards to die with the hero they relate to. It does give extra incentive to play pure-class decks, but seems a pretty harsh penalty for wanting variety(not to mention pure/double-class decks shall already advantage from being able to be more flexible in regards to which hero you attack with).
Maybe you could combat this by having an extra mulligan-type rule, whereby you may discard a card to draw a card, at the end of each turn. That way, losing a hero just means you discard those cards which are no longer usable. This could be a universal rule or simply an option once you lose a hero, then allowing a discard/draw of 2 when your left with one hero.

[Malagar]

Well, i did not read all of your rules and did not follow the complete discussion yet. but i have to second:

Dice in a CCG are unneccessary, most often they over-complicate things.

* Cards and Dice dont blend well - now you have two random elements in one game
* CCGs are better suited for deterministic game mechanics (like comparing numbers for combat).
* CCGs are best created using small numbers, your numbers are too big.

Well, your game feels more like a board game than a card game already. As I said i like the templates and i can imagine this would be some DOTA style game, which is a good thing.

But personally, I would not play it - just because i have cards + dice to roll + dice to track + dice rolls that add probability chances to combat + even more cards and even more dice.

just my 2 cents - and yes, my vision and personal preference about how a CCG should be is somewhat "limited".
sorry for that ;-)

[malleck666]

I feel that the dice system, while it may feel like a pain to some people, is definitely the direction I want to take. With different die types, different min. max. values can be achieved and promotes the player to think about what to do with the value (as a lot of cards can contribute towards rolls).

I didn't say it was a pain, just unnecesary. As to die values, using different-sided die won't change your Min values, only your Max ones, unless you number them strangely... What I don't understand is how having 3 separate values promotes thought any more than one value; any card that actually needs more than a six sided die is going to be too complex to even fit the text on a card. If you simply mean X values, than you can easily just scale them to a 6 sided die.

The compensation idea has gotten me thinking and I was considering either adding an extra card type that is in play from the start of the game and determines what the controller receives when a Hero dies (similar to a terrain). But I fear that may complicate things further. Another idea would be to have the Heroes have printed text that determines what happens when they die.

Don't bother with the terrain thing; if anything, that hurts level-play, as veterans will have terrains that work cohesively with their deck. Giving some heroes 'Recompense' clauses(or 'Martyr') sounds kinda cool, and it would help beginners if you deliberately made the starter decks include such heroes(keeping them balanced of course). Having this ability type needn't be mutually exclusive to a universal compensation system though.

That does remind me of one other issue that needs consideration; what do you do if you have a card in hand that is for a certain Class, but your Hero from that class is dead? Doesn't seem fair for all your cards to die with the hero they relate to. It does give extra incentive to play pure-class decks, but seems a pretty harsh penalty for wanting variety(not to mention pure/double-class decks shall already advantage from being able to be more flexible in regards to which hero you attack with).
Maybe you could combat this by having an extra mulligan-type rule, whereby you may discard a card to draw a card, at the end of each turn. That way, losing a hero just means you discard those cards which are no longer usable. This could be a universal rule or simply an option once you lose a hero, then allowing a discard/draw of 2 when your left with one hero.

Thanks again for your feedback.

I can kind of see your point about different dice. I will consider your point about being able to scale things down to a six sided dice and get back to you on it.

I also felt that the terrain addition would just be a pain because of your point and the promotion of meta-play which is something I'm going to do my best to avoid...
I have, however, revised the cards and managed to implement a "Martyr" (thanks to you) clause to some cards that will, as you said, be a welcome addition to starter sets. I also feel that this may add an extra dynamic to the game but I'd have to be careful to avoid promoting decks that would purposefully focus on having one of their heroes killed...

I like the mulligan idea you suggested too. I'm seriously considering adapting that, if you wouldn't mind? I did consider it but I thought it could be a kind of hybrid "tax", if you like. But obviously that wouldn't be constructive...

Well, i did not read all of your rules and did not follow the complete discussion yet. but i have to second:

Dice in a CCG are unneccessary, most often they over-complicate things.

* Cards and Dice dont blend well - now you have two random elements in one game
* CCGs are better suited for deterministic game mechanics (like comparing numbers for combat).
* CCGs are best created using small numbers, your numbers are too big.

Well, your game feels more like a board game than a card game already. As I said i like the templates and i can imagine this would be some DOTA style game, which is a good thing.

But personally, I would not play it - just because i have cards + dice to roll + dice to track + dice rolls that add probability chances to combat + even more cards and even more dice.

just my 2 cents - and yes, my vision and personal preference about how a CCG should be is somewhat "limited".
sorry for that ;-)

I appreciate your points and you're well entitled to you opinion. The mechanics I have in place are mechanics I enjoy, even together, and I know a lot of people who do too. I guess this game will be liked by some, just like any other, I can't appeal to everyone.

[Trevor]

Check out http://lackeyccg.com/ccgdesign.html