Forum Based Card Game

[Aix]

Working Name: Chaos, after the formless void/primordial soup.

 

Preface: The idea of a forum-based card game has been stewing in my mind for a while now, and I've finally come up with a concept that I believe would not only deal with some of the issues of basing a card game on a forum, but also take advantage and make maximum use of the forum as a card game medium. That is: to allow cards to be created on the spot for use in the game!

 

This is a work in progress, suggestions are very much welcome, in fact I'd prefer it if the community came together to make this game work. And if it garners enough interest we could actually create a new subforum(s) for discussing and playing this game.

 

CORE CONCEPT

Let us start with a basic card game model. You have X* Life, and you have Mana. Starting off with X Mana, you also gain X Mana at the start of each turn. Cards each require a varying amount of Mana to use that is directly correlated to their usefulness in the game. For the sake of starting this concept off, let's say players start with 100 Life, 20 Mana and gain 7 Mana per turn.

 

Now, for the cards themselves. We can have that you can only play X number of cards per turn (and this may be a good system to consider with this game's cost system), but for the sake of starting off, let's say you can play an unlimited cards per turn. You decide each card's stats and abilities. All cards will be what other card games may consider units/creatures/monsters, and they will have the basic system of [Attack/Health], however, you can give a card 0 Health and it will simply die at the end of the turn. Each card's base cost shall be equal to the Attack and Health combined, and the limit for Attack and Health is to be decided. Then, you can add one effect from the List of Abilities that shall be created (similar to MTG Keywords).

 

There is an idea to consider to have as a rule that each additional ability on a card in addition costs 1 Mana or even n Mana or 2^(n-1) Mana (where n is equal to the number of effects) to prevent a single card from having too many abilities (whether this is a good or bad thing, we'll see).

 

Each specific Ability has a cost you must pay to give it to a card, and some abilities allow for variation in strength which then the cost for that ability shall vary. See the examples below.

 

Holy: This card cannot be affected by Curses.

Evidently, this ability allows for a creature to be immune to some mechanic called a Curse which shall be developed later. Anyway, this is just an example. We could, say, make this ability cost 1 Mana to give to a card. So when playing a card, you can also pay 1 Mana to give it this ability.

 

Flying: If your opponent has no card with Flying, this card can attack directly.

This is a simple ability that has no variation. Though, it may be awfully overpowered to have a card that has a great deal of Attack have this ability. So we may consider the way of making this ability cost half the card's Attack rounded up or something like that.

 

Mana Generation: Once per turn, gain X mana.

Now here we have an effect that has variation. You could make your card generate 1 Mana or even 5 Mana per turn. We could say giving Mana Generation to a card costs 3X Mana, where X is how much Mana it generates.

 

Now for battle, one good way of going about this is that each card can choose a target to attack, and then they all attack at once. Then, your opponent may be able to respond to said battle. The specifics can be sorted out, I don't think I need to lay out the options here for you because they are quite obvious/easy to think of.

 

Here's the actual outside-of-playing card creation part that we need to really make this a CCG: Trump Cards. Trump Cards are special cards that are created before the game. They will need balancing and they may have special unique abilities, or especially low costs. Each player can have maybe 1-3 Trump Cards, this has to be decided.

 

Anyway, I believe I have lain out the basic concept of this game. Comment suggestions and what you think below. There are many rule variations/additions that I have thought of, but I will post them later and let you guys dwell on the base concept first.

 

*Note: X is not a consistent variable, but merely a placeholder for a number.

[Kazooie]

I would love to get involved with this, I really would. But my biggest concern is that because it's a forum based game, how do you handle the actual card pools? I mean, the reason dueling over forums hardly works is because drawing cards and the luck involved with it is a huge part of Yugioh and making it easy to lie about is just... Bad.

 

Is there just no drawing mechanic?  Can you only use one of each card in your deck highlander style? I really do want to get involved with this just because I love the idea of a forum based card game, but that question really grates at my nerves and I feel like it just becomes back-and-forth "well i have all my best cards"

[Aix]

I would love to get involved with this, I really would. But my biggest concern is that because it's a forum based game, how do you handle the actual card pools? I mean, the reason dueling over forums hardly works is because drawing cards and the luck involved with it is a huge part of Yugioh and making it easy to lie about is just... Bad.
 
Is there just no drawing mechanic?  Can you only use one of each card in your deck highlander style? I really do want to get involved with this just because I love the idea of a forum based card game, but that question really grates at my nerves and I feel like it just becomes back-and-forth "well i have all my best cards"

Oh, I probably didn't explain this well, but you create the card the moment you play it, except for the Trump Cards which there'll be a Database for accepted Trump Cards.

[Kazooie]

Oh, I probably didn't explain this well, but you create the card the moment you play it, except for the Trump Cards which there'll be a Database for accepted Trump Cards.

 

Ooooh, okay... Well that makes a little more sense for sure, but...

 

How do you handle balancing during a game if all the creation happens during it? If a player makes a card that the opponent thinks is just silly, do you just get a person in charge in the thread?

 

As for beginning stuff, I kinda want to say life seems fine at 100, and starting with 20 Mana doesn't seem bad, but gaining 7 per turn is a really awkward number, any particular reason you chose that or just the first think you though of for an example? :'o

[Aix]

Ooooh, okay... Well that makes a little more sense for sure, but...

How do you handle balancing during a game if all the creation happens during it? If a player makes a card that the opponent thinks is just silly, do you just get a person in charge in the thread?

The cost of each card varies depending on what stats you give it and how many effects you pile onto it and you are only allowed to give effects from a predetermined list of possible effects. So it's an in built balancing function. Then, in addition should abuse occur anyway, rules/restrictions can be put in place.

7 is the magic number and I thought 10 would be too much and 5 too little.

[Kazooie]

The cost of each card varies depending on what stats you give it and how many effects you pile onto it and you are only allowed to give effects from a predetermined list of possible effects. So it's an in built balancing function. Then, in addition should abuse occur anyway, rules/restrictions can be put in place.

7 is the magic number and I thought 10 would be too much and 5 too little.

 

Ah, I guess I shoulda figured that out, but I was kinda reading the first post and it wasn't registering in my head. ^^''

 

It actually sounds pretty fine to me. A list of the abilities that could be added along with a cost for them could easily be developed over time if needed.

 

Ah, that makes more sense. Once stuff starts happening, it should be easy enough to see if 7 would be too much or not enough, so it is a good starting point.

[.Rai]

To be honest, it's nothing like a traditional TCG at all. It's got most in common with chess, since it's almost entirely a skill-based game except for the presence of trump cards. The concept has promise, but I don't think it would appeal to any standard TCG-farer (since it's glorified chess). It's pretty much a test of sequencing the best counters from your opponent's moves.

[Aix]

To be honest, it's nothing like a traditional TCG at all. It's got most in common with chess, since it's almost entirely a skill-based game except for the presence of trump cards. The concept has promise, but I don't think it would appeal to any standard TCG-farer (since it's glorified chess). It's pretty much a test of sequencing the best counters from your opponent's moves.

Hm, what if the Trump Cards had greater relevance?

[Excalibur the Divine]

Soo...How do members play against each other? Pm?

[Delibirb]

Apologies for the 4-day Necrobump, but I dont want to see this idea die so easily.

 

I like this skeleton so far, Aix. I've been wanting to help out with this forum-wide CCG you've been mentioning from time to time for a long while, and as I always have, I hope to help and see this progress in any way I can.

 

For card creation, I have a little idea in mind. As you said, an idea for the card's cost is its Attack and Health combined. Well what if, in addition to more and more ffects costing more mana, they must also reduce the card's Attack and/or Health.

 

For this to work as I am imagining, the card creation process of one's mind must go through 2 stages.

 

First, here's my base card

['Starduston', Attack: 4, Health: 5]

 

Making this card's cost 9. Now, lets say each of the potential effects has 2 things standardized for them: how much more they add to the cost, and how much attack and/or health they have to reduce. Lets pretend this is an effect I intend to give to Starduston:

 

Dustonkick: this card can attack all monsters once each (Add 3 to cost, subtract 3 Health)

 

Now, in order to keep the cost the same, despite the health begin reduced, the card looks like this

['Starduston', Attack: 4, Health: 2, Cost: 12, Dustonkick]

 

If you adopt this idea, we'd have to put the cost in as a separate note in the card, because obviously if we just counted up the Attack, Health, and cost of the effect, it wouldnt equal 12 as it is supposed to, it'd still be just 9. 

 

This is all assuming I correctly understood your current ideas.

[Aix]

Apologies for the 4-day Necrobump, but I dont want to see this idea die so easily.
 
I like this skeleton so far, Aix. I've been wanting to help out with this forum-wide CCG you've been mentioning from time to time for a long while, and as I always have, I hope to help and see this progress in any way I can.
 
For card creation, I have a little idea in mind. As you said, an idea for the card's cost is its Attack and Health combined. Well what if, in addition to more and more ffects costing more mana, they must also reduce the card's Attack and/or Health.
 
For this to work as I am imagining, the card creation process of one's mind must go through 2 stages.
 
First, here's my base card
['Starduston', Attack: 4, Health: 5]
 
Making this card's cost 9. Now, lets say each of the potential effects has 2 things standardized for them: how much more they add to the cost, and how much attack and/or health they have to reduce. Lets pretend this is an effect I intend to give to Starduston:
 
Dustonkick: this card can attack all monsters once each (Add 3 to cost, subtract 3 Health)
 
Now, in order to keep the cost the same, despite the health begin reduced, the card looks like this
['Starduston', Attack: 4, Health: 2, Cost: 12, Dustonkick]
 
If you adopt this idea, we'd have to put the cost in as a separate note in the card, because obviously if we just counted up the Attack, Health, and cost of the effect, it wouldnt equal 12 as it is supposed to, it'd still be just 9. 
 
This is all assuming I correctly understood your current ideas.

Well, unless we put a limit on Health, that's actually no different from making the cost 3, since you could just make your base monster have more Health and add on the effect.

I suppose we could start developing this game now, since it's a pretty simple framework. It's best if we started without the Trump Cards to sort out the basic balance, and then fit in the Trump Cards after we've decided the basics.

[Delibirb]

Well, unless we put a limit on Health, that's actually no different from making the cost 3, since you could just make your base monster have more Health and add on the effect.

I suppose we could start developing this game now, since it's a pretty simple framework. It's best if we started without the Trump Cards to sort out the basic balance, and then fit in the Trump Cards after we've decided the basics.

That sounds fine. What sort of ideas did you have for the trump cards?

[Aix]

That sounds fine. What sort of ideas did you have for the trump cards?

Trump Cards can be anything, but I imagined them to be important cards, from essential combo pieces to win conditions. This way, while you still have the freedom to choose whatever play style you want, you will have to weigh between using a play style that fits your Trump Cards, or a play style that best counters your opponent's moves.

 

Example:

 

[Horakhty 2.0 | Attack ? | Defense ? | Mana Cost 100]

When you play this Trump Card: You win.

 

In the above case, you may shape your play style around generating Mana (I intend that there is no stall in this game, of if there is, it would be extremely costly, so the play style would be instead to play economically). However, that may not be the best play style if your opponent decides to play extremely aggressively.

[Delibirb]

Alright, so then I guess firstly we should decide the actual values for starting Life, starting Mana, and Mana regen. 100 seems like quite a bit of health, I think 40-50 sounds a bit more reasonable unless i've missed something.

 

For the mana, I actually do think 20 is a fairly good amount, but I definitely agree that a maximum should be set on cards that can be played per turn. Regen at 7 seems a bit high to me, I think i'd rather encourage people to play cards to regenerate their mana faster then to just give it to them via game mechanics.

[coolspy74]

OMG. I've waited so freaking long for something like this! I wanted to mae one fore myself, but i'm not that good at what Aix does. Thank you Aix. Now, I'll be trying to make cards. In the meantime, I'll be around.

[KindredTether]

Hey Aix, if / when you get around to writing up an ability list, mind if I chip in?

Also, if you are to include a Mana Generation (MG) ability, it would require a bunch of balancing, or even a [i]"You cannot use this ability on the first turn this creature is played."[/i] Otherwise you could just loop MG creatures and basically OTK. Having the MG be less than the Mana cost would make the card practically a minus, so that's not really a solution.


Aix I know you're here. D: Say something!


EDIT: I'm creating everything with a counter, not necessarily because they deserve it, but because as of right now, I have no clue if they do.

In the meantime, here are some abilities I think would be cool. :D

[i]Hidden / Stealth [/i](/ whatever the name ends up as)
Basically means that this creature cannot be attacked if you have another creature in play.

[i]Observance[/i]
Counter of Stealth

[i]Armor [Insert Numerical Value][/i]
Like the armor value from Hearthstone.

[i]Armor Pierce[/i]
To act as a counter, so the game has more going on.

[i]Ballistics [/i][i][Insert Numerical Value][/i]
Makes it so that when a creature with this ability attacks, all other creatures (and maybe players?) (also, just enemies creatures or all is questionable) take a certain amount of damage.


Actually is there anywhere we could make a thread to accumulate ideas for abilities?

[Aix]

Alright, so then I guess firstly we should decide the actual values for starting Life, starting Mana, and Mana regen. 100 seems like quite a bit of health, I think 40-50 sounds a bit more reasonable unless i've missed something.
 
For the mana, I actually do think 20 is a fairly good amount, but I definitely agree that a maximum should be set on cards that can be played per turn. Regen at 7 seems a bit high to me, I think i'd rather encourage people to play cards to regenerate their mana faster then to just give it to them via game mechanics.

Sounds reasonable. We'll go with that for now and see how it plays. I think, indeed, it would be good to have strategies require setup like that, otherwise it could purely just turn out to be a counter game.

 
 
Actually now that I think of it, a battle system is quite vital to everything. I think we'll go with the MtG system of you choosing which Units attack (choose them all at once) and your opponent then decides which Unit counters which. Also, each time a Unit is destroyed, you take 1 damage. How's that?
 

Hey Aix, if / when you get around to writing up an ability list, mind if I chip in? 
 
Also, if you are to include a Mana Generation (MG) ability, it would require a bunch of balancing, or even a "You cannot use this ability on the first turn this creature is played." Otherwise you could just loop MG creatures and basically OTK. Having the MG be less than the Mana cost would make the card practically a minus, so that's not really a solution.

Yes, we got to get to making an abilities list now. 
 
I've been thinking that Mana Generation would have a base cost of 3 Mana, and then for each additional Mana you want to generate, add 1 Mana to that number for a maximum of a 3 Mana generation? This prevents abuse by making it infeasible to create a ton of little guys who generate Mana. And indeed, it should not generate Mana the turn of.
 
Mana Generation [2+X, X=1-3] Once per turn, except the turn this card was played: You can gain X Mana.
 
Does the above formatting make sense? In the brackets, the first thing is the cost, and then after the comma is the range of X.
 
Just a few I thought would be nice
Salvage [1] When this card is destroyed: Gain 2 Mana. You can only use Salvage once per turn.
Kamikaze [2] When this card is destroyed: Inflict 1 Damage to your opponent. You can only use Kamikaze up to twice per turn.
Flying [2] Can only be blocked by cards with Flying.
Trample [2] If this card battles: Inflict any extra Attack as Damage to your opponent.
First Strike [2] If this card would destroy a card without First Strike by battle, this card takes no damage.
 
Yes I stole some from MtG.
 

EDIT: I'm creating everything with a counter, not necessarily because they deserve it, but because as of right now, I have no clue if they do.

Counters sound good. Just post everything here and I'll edit the OP later.

[KindredTether]

Kamikaze needs to do more than 1 damage, also, I was thinking 30 for starting hp? 

Any of the abilities I think up, I will not write costs for, I'm not good with those.

 

Anyways: 

Infection [Insert Numerical Value]: Do damage over time to any enemy this creature hits. (eg. Once per turn damaged creature takes X damage.)

Moral Compass: This creature is unable to inflict killing blows. (Used on high attack creatures?)

[Insert Faction / Archetype / Nature etc.] Summon: Summons a creature of aforementioned grouping from your hand.

Chain Lightning: After dealing damage to an enemy creature, destroy all armor on a target enemy creature.

Double Agent: This creature can change it's typing or whatever it's called. Can only be used once per turn.

 

 

 

I was thinking of making Archetype-based abilities, ie. getting more health / attack when a creature with "___" in it's name is on your side of the field.

[Delibirb]

So I've been thinking around a bit about the turn structure, and these are the ideas ive got atm.

 

Turn Start: Mana is regained by game mechanics. Other actions may occur by card effects.

Turn Player Activation: The turn player gets to summon/activate up to the maximum number of new cards simultaneously. 

Opponent Response: May or may not actually be implemented depending on what kinds of effects Trump cards or normal cards may have, but this would be where the opponent could activate counter-based effects to stop the above summons or activations, or use an effect to negate an effect from being able to activate in the next stage.

Turn Player Resolution: Turn player gets to activate trigger-based effects of cards they control/still control that haven't been negated in the previous stage.

Battle: self-explanatory, turn player gets to declare their attacks and wait for the opponent to block/whatever.

Turn End: Actions by card effects may occur.

 

We should also consider an actual standard for the card layout, since we dont have that yet.

[Brinolovania]

*Jumps in*

 

Just wanted to say, I feel like it would make sense to not have any counter mechanics. As in, no effects activate during your opponent's turn except effects that are already shown on your cards. That would make it easier playing on a forum, so every post can just be one turn without needing to ask for your opponent to respond.

[KindredTether]

Turn Start: Mana is regained by game mechanics. Other actions may occur by card effects.

Turn Player Activation: The turn player gets to summon/activate up to the maximum number of new cards simultaneously. 

Opponent Response: May or may not actually be implemented depending on what kinds of effects Trump cards or normal cards may have, but this would be where the opponent could activate counter-based effects to stop the above summons or activations, or use an effect to negate an effect from being able to activate in the next stage.

Turn Player Resolution: Turn player gets to activate trigger-based effects of cards they control/still control that haven't been negated in the previous stage.

Battle: self-explanatory, turn player gets to declare their attacks and wait for the opponent to block/whatever.

Turn End: Actions by card effects may occur.

Sounds good, assuming damage over time effects would happen at Turn Start?

 

 

Just wanted to say, I feel like it would make sense to not have any counter mechanics. As in, no effects activate during your opponent's turn except effects that are already shown on your cards. That would make it easier playing on a forum, so every post can just be one turn without needing to ask for your opponent to respond.

Actually this makes more sense, so maybe:

 

Turn Start: Mana is regained by game mechanics. Other actions may occur by card effects.

Turn Player Activation: The turn player gets to summon/activate up to the maximum number of new cards simultaneously. 

Opponent Response: May or may not actually be implemented depending on what kinds of effects Trump cards or normal cards may have.

Turn Player Resolution: Turn player gets to activate trigger-based effects of cards they control/still control that haven't been negated in the previous stage.

Battle: self-explanatory, turn player gets to declare their attacks and wait for the opponent to block/whatever.

Turn End: Actions by card effects may occur.

[Aix]

That sounds good. For the Opponent's Response phase, the opponent should declare what effects will be activated at the end of their turn, so that each post can be one turn.

 

Also, slight change for the Battle system. It makes more sense to be able to choose targets, or simply try to attack directly, and your opponent can block if you try. If your targeted card survives, it is still allowed to block.

[Brinolovania]

Wouldn't blocking also require waiting for your opponent during your turn, though? I think it may make sense to use the Hearthstone battle system, where you can hit them in the face at any time, and if your minion attacks theirs, they both deal their damage to each other. Or something similar, IDK.

[Aix]

No, you simply declare your targets. Attack happens all at once.

[.Rai]

Wouldn't blocking also require waiting for your opponent during your turn, though? I think it may make sense to use the Hearthstone battle system, where you can hit them in the face at any time, and if your minion attacks theirs, they both deal their damage to each other. Or something similar, IDK.

The wait doesn't really affect anything, because there's no main phase after combat, so after combat finishes, it's straight to the opponent's turn either way.

Which is a problem, because there needs to be a second main phase. There is are certain effects in which that does affect things. Of course, it matters less because there are no instant speed effects, but even Hearthstone lets you do things post-combat on your turn (the game doesn't have instant speed effects either), because it matters at times.

Unfortunately, that would mean that the current combat system becomes forum unfriendly, with the waiting in-between. Which means the game would really have to run on a Hearthstone turn system to be logical.