Playing Cards

[TuathEicse]

I'm willing to work on both of these tracks. That's why I suggested the other two archetypes in the first place - the abstract poker-deck style and the victory cards. I think they would be closer to your original vision.

So let's do some design in that direction.

The big category you want to include are toys and rules. You generally describe both of those as short-term persistent effects. You also seem to like the idea of modifiers that can attach to toys and rules. Everything else has run into immediate conflict, so let's pare it back to those two basic types for right now - independent toy/rule cards and dependent modifier cards. Let's call them 'noun' and 'adjective' cards. These broad categories can be broken down thematically and mechanically later.

These two concepts would suggest a third type - verb cards. These would be cards that had some high-level effect that interact with and depend on the nouns. In your previous designs you proposed Challenges. These seem a bit contentious and optional even in your own suggestions. I feel like Challenges fit this broad mold. They shape the overall nature of what's going on, set an end and means, and you tie nouns to them to contextualize them. Game Changers also fit here. They have a dynamic effect on their own.

I think the reason this category has been so contentious is that this is where games would differentiate themselves. Your first big design decision would probably be whether to include any kind of verb cards at all. Noun and adjective cards fit your original vision - they're simple and they mostly exist to be shuffled around by rules or other cards. Challenges and Game Changers, on the other hand, exist on a higher level and build a specific ruleset by their very nature.

I think there are three ways to go within this framework. First, only include nouns and adjectives. The way nouns and adjectives are played, moved, drawn, and discharged are entirely up to local rulesets. That would be more like the playing cards I talked about. Second, try to build generic verb cards that can fit into a variety of larger structures. This is definitely the trickiest approach, but with some careful design it could maybe work. Third, keep nouns and adjectives basic but let verb cards go wild. Basically, let verbs define how the game works - how you get and spend cards, how you win. Basically, use verb cards to cumulatively build a ruleset. This would probably involve designers building sets of verb cards that mostly used the common set of nouns and adjectives. You would have Challenge cards, but they wouldn't be an inherent part of the game. They would just be persistent verbs that let you attach nouns to them. You would have Game Changers, but they would just be verbs that affected the general game state. I feel like you've been oscillating between the second and third models here. You've suggested things like Challenge and Game Changer cards, but they're not integral categories like Toy and Rule (noun) cards are. They're game specific, except for a handful that might be able to be cut down into generic versions.

The way to mitigate the chaos of the third approach would probably be curated sets. Basically, designers would build lists of verb cards that constitute a game type. This may involve making new verb cards, listing existing verb cards that work, or a combination of the two. Then other designers could put verb cards together for sets they like, which may be added to the original set or become their own spinoff. This would create a way for players and designers to figure out what cards they wanted to include in a given game without having to put together lists of individual cards. You could even just put together a whitelist of sets for a given game and let players throw in whatever they want to use.

Is this more what you were aiming for? Also, I agree. It wouldn't be a bad idea to fork off a new thread and pursue both design models separately.

[Simon]

Yep, yep yep.

[hajtos]

I guess the discussion pretty much died down. Too bad, the idea seemed interesting to explore.

I guess debating on which of the multitude of directions to go leads to nowhere until some playable version actually appears. I could create some decks for the rule set I described or some other but I fear that it being a multiplayer game would mean it will never be actually played. An online version would help, but would require a sizeable amount of coding and a dedicated server.

All in all, an interesting concept but, sadly, practical issues mean it probably won't see the light of day.

[Simon]

Yep, this tread's quite slowed down sadly. I think I'll see if I can make something workable soon; exams are coming up though, so those might take priority...