Saturn's Tower CCG

[Wisp]

@dragoon: what timezone are you in, and can i request some help with designing a battle system?

[Dragoon]

GMT +1 (europe)

Well.. Maybe I have some stuff laying around...

[Cyrus]

Nice, that clears that up.
I like the resource system as well, a lot like the A Game of Thrones LCG but maybe even more elegant/bad azz.
Since skirmishes are supposed to be small in nature, I'd try to have the combat system reflect. Maybe just having a really, really simple combat system in place that is easily "influenced" to behave differently based on keyword mechanics on cards? So each faction/talent field sorta fights differently? This may be impossible to balance and such, but it'd be really cool! I will brainstorm on this and get back to you later...

[Wisp]

Good idea. It would be great to have the factions reflected in combat.

Just to be clear the battles are bar brawls, back alley scraps, assassinations etc. Very small and up close and personal. If you see an opponent gaining power, go a send someone to sort him out. That idea. Simple is good =]

Game of thrones actually inspired my win system, the difference being you can't keep attacking the same weakened player and keep getting power.

A simple battle system would be the warhammer invasion one. Attack + HP, defender chooses how damage is distributed.

[Cyrus]

I'm thinking the bare bones of it should be EVEN simpler. Examplesss

You have 3 characters with Thief Talent. During the 'combat' phase you tap them to make a Their attack against an opponent's site or group of characters or however characters will be layed out. If they don't have at least 3 Security Talent, you take an item from that site or what-have-you (or maybe they just have to discard one).
So the different talents determine attack types, and there's matching defensive talents for each attack Talent (so with your dudes you're essentially deciding how you want to undermine the opponent's plans, and what plans you want to guard most carefully).
The different talents?
Assassination - Kills characters - Maybe blocked by Security as well?
Military - Kills characters - But requires something else to Block, maybe Military blocks Military?
Demolitions - Damages locations - Blocked by... Task Force? Haha this brainstorm is losing momentum.

But! I still think it might be a cool idea. Although thinkin about it it might require too much memorization of what blocks what... is there a way around that?

[Wisp]

Instead of having a keyword security, you could have the text "can block assassins". I really like that idea, however I think all characters should be able to do all of those things, but some would be better at specific things. So you aren't completely locked out of anything, but your card choices still determine what you're best at. Or something...

If there were 2 stats, say strength and skill. If i attack a character directly or try to raid someone for power, the character they block with would need to have more skill than the one attacking. But for attacking locations, or generating power anyone can block anyhow.

...?

[Wisp]

Cy, after serious brainstorming, I might have to steal a bit of your influence system. Is that ok? Tapping a locations to generate power (as opposed to a character) allows me to be so much more flexible with what I do with my characters. Right now i'm proposing this:

You win when you have more power than any other player has influence.
Character card have influence, and the total of all of your characters influence is your influence.
Tap a location to gain power. If someone blocks, compare the total influence at your location with the total influence at their.
You can raid other players for power with attacks.

The reason I want to use a system like this is because one the main things i want my game to focus on is how you position your cards on the board.

The main focuses of my game are (incase you're wondering):
+ Rules that don't have to edited for single or multiplayer to work, and don't involve players being eliminated (not as the main condition anyway.

+ Players having simultaneous turns where they alternate actions, to make the game is interactive and changeable as possible and to stress the importance of timing.

+ Position of cards to matter

[Dragoon]

A first draft of a template attached for you.

For some inspiration, i really like the most recent legend of the 5 rings templates. the spoils ones are really nice, and the warhammer invasion ones aren't too bad.

I'm excited to see what you'll come up with, thank you so much.

Icons taken shamelessly from my other works. No numbers and text

Is this akin what you had in mind?


Also, from what I see in the draft, is your new ccg (Saturn's Tower) and this one going to merge?

Well the design is fantastic as usual. It's perfect for testing out with. It doen't suit my games setting that well, but I haven't explained my games setting so that's not a surprise. Great work. EDIT: I spose you could say the setting has similarities with The Spoils and Legend of the Burning Sands. I really like the coin symbol =]

Me and Cy's game aren't merging, but we've been bouncing unfinished ideas of each other for years and have ended up in very similar places. I know it's unclear, but this thread is for cy's ccg, but the template was for saturn's tower (incase you were confused). I don't know how we ended up talking about it in this thread lol. I'll continue this conversation over in the official saturn's tower topic.

Reposted the quotes from Cygar's thread here, seeing as the templates are for Saturn's Tower.

To continue on your brainstorm idea

- Characters have talents. (Military, Politic, Subvertive)
- The number of talents on a character is equal to that character's influence.
- Influence can be blocked by other characters with the same influence.
- Other influence can be blocked with twice the number of any kind.
- Example: Characters with a total of 2 Military and 1 Politic influence attack and are blocked by 4 military influence. No power is lost/gained, as the defender used 2 Military to block 2 Military and 2 Military to block 1 Politic

thoughts?

[Wisp]

I do like the idea of characters talents effecting the game like that. I'm not sure how it fits though.

At the moment I have.

- Locations tap to generate power (through influence)
- Locations tap to generate resources (through trade)
- Characters attack to destroy locations
- Characters attack to kill other characters
- Characters raid to steal influence
- Characters block against other characters attacks

What I like about this set up is that, in all situations, the positioning of your characters is important. A way of incorporating your idea might be:

- Characters have talents (let's say any of Trade, Combat, Politics, Infiltration, Magic and Craft)
- Characters have a Skill number
- A characters influence is equal to the number of talents they have
- Tapping a location to generate resources gets you resources from each character at that location which has the trade talent, - equal to that characters skill.
- To attack a location, that character must have the combat talent
- To attack a character or raid an opponent, they must have the infiltration talent
- Any character can block
- Magic, Craft and Politics effect which event cards can be played.

Or something like that...

[Dragoon]

You could also do something with zones, like Warhammer Invasion did.
Combat Zone: Skill = attack
Market Zone: Skill = Trade
Other Zone SKill = Influnce

Or something like that.

[Wisp]

After my next rules revision I'm going to make a couple of decks and get play testing stuff. Dragoon, could you send me the template? Or i send you the cards texts? Who's up for play testing? I should have my next rules revision up very soon (tonight)

[Dragoon]

I will send you the gimp template, I guess that's easier.

Download http://uploading.com/files/b735e6db/wispccg.xcf/

[Wisp]

Thanks dude. Watch this space

[Wisp]

right, first post updated and made smaller. I'm stuck for mechanics right now so i'm going to make some cards and play and see what happens.

[Cyrus]

Was afk for the weekend plus a little bit there, my bad. You can pretty much steal whatever you want from my game, as long as when you make a million bucks you hook a brotha up a little bit Oh and I can keep wall-of-text idea-storming at you all the time.