Question on CCG/RPG "combo"?

[daMoose_Neo]

Hmmkay, title might seem a little bit odd, but heres the deal:
I'm preparing some PDF Demo files to send out for reviews of my trading card game, Final Twilight. Many of the places I'm looking at sending it to are Role Playing sites. I, personally, think this could work and *wouldn't* be a conflict, because of how the system works:

1) Decks are built around a central "Major Character" card. These cards determine your life, resources, and the Factions of the character determine what spells and other characters you can play, like playing with a pre-made character. Decks are customizable however, within the chosen characters Factions.
2) Die-chucking does not an RP make, but as opposed to other CGs that use a straight up number comparison (My attack of 5 beats your defence of 3), FT uses a die and HP system, each victory typically scoring a Hit, or loss of 1 HP. Other weapons and abilities can alter the amount.
3) Like an RP, I consider Twilight to be a derivitive of a world, a story. Granted, its not as freeform like your normal RP, but it is akin to working with pre-made characters in a more straightforeward adventure.
4) I chose PDF demos for a couple reasons:
A) I don't have the product just yet, printing is taking longer than I anticipated
B) Cheaper (Business aspect there)
C) PDFs and downloadable cards are actually going to be fairly common for this game: Major Character, Location and Objective cards are not a part of the normal decks, so the quality of those cards do not have to match the deck cards. So, I'm going to take advantage of the net and release free online promotional cards periodically. One expansion, if all goes well, will also allow for online, customized cards (generated by a program using certain boundaries of course).
Downside to the PDFs is the reviewer doesn't get to see the actual product and how reliable/durable it would be.

If you want to check out the rules and system, let me know.
Here, I just want to find out what other people would think. I've always considered this to be a hybred/baby brother to CG's, RPG's and Board Games (has to do with the way Locations are used in the game) and want to know if I were to submit it for reviews if anyone thinks it would be outright dismissed.

[contracycle]

I'd like to see it.  Yes, I definitely think there is room - lots of room - for CG/RPG crossovers.  I have to say up front that I believe thaier are ethical contradictions between collectability and RPG, but looking at cards as the set of props employed to play/run RPG is perfectly legitimate, possibly even necessary, IMO.

[Lxndr]

The ethical considerations with "collectibility" seem, to me, to be entirely whether or not the "rarer" cards are actually more powerful, or are simply less likely to show up.  M:TG seemed to go the route of "this card isn't common, so it'll give you tons of nifty stuff."  If you go the alternate route, "these cards are all roughly equal, in theory, but some of them won't show up as much" then you can reflect the setting, to an extent, in the rare vs. commonness of certain cards.

[daMoose_Neo]

lol - wonderful, seems you guys are having the same thoughts I did in the design process!
I always hated that, how in any other CG the power cards were almost always rares. That *usually* ment that the person with the most money had the best decks, because they could afford 4 copies of the power cards.
Trinity, my first expansion, I'm trying something out: No rarity. I'm going to have the boosters packaged like baseball or other hobby cards. Each card is as likely to appear as any other.
One benefit to being a smallish publisher (least to the players) is I simply can't afford to produce crap cards- whats the point? To have the art, the space on the card sheet and the randomized collation for a card that will never see play? Design end, I'm trying to make cards that have their uses- some WILL see a lot of play, others won't, but everything will have its use.
Power levels per card are actually pretty high- the playtest matches have had a tendency to swing, which I actually like. It means no one card/character/faction is distinctly more powerful - you can gain an advantage, but you have to do some work to keep it.
If, in the end I do some kind of rarity, yes the rarer cards will be more powerful. Its like say an ancient artifact- they're not all over the place. You don't usually find children playing with Doomsday weapons. But the story/setting will have a huge bearing on things like that, how common and what not (also Unique cards are restricted, as are "Quest Cards" needed to complete objectives). Costing and other things will also reflect the gravity of the card, but too they're not going to be so absolutly broken no one can beat a deck with that card.
Maybe this isn't so much a "Collectable" game as it is a "Trading" game. Because you're likely to end up with cards you don't want, but your buddy has some you do.

*edit* Almost forgot to note: I have some sample card packets up on the site (in my sig). I can post a copy of the more coherant Demo I'll be sending out here as well for Forge reviewers, which will be enough to actually play a few rounds and get the hang of it.

[Amadeus]

Slightly unrelated but still hopefully useful and on topic:

The best use I've heard of of ccg in use with rpgs is in cyberpunk games.  THere used to be a wonderful little hacking card game (not the sj one.. some other one...).  Well when this guy ran games he would have say... 20 decks, 10 administrator decks and 10 hacker decks because when rolling for hacking in most systems its either 1) a boring die roll or 2) a series of boring die rolls or events that leave the rest of the party waiting for up to 5 to 10 minutes to see what happens.

Just somethign that came to mind.  

As per your idea:  

Pretty cool.  I'd like to hear more about it though and see how it pans out =-)

[Marhault]

Amadeus:  The game was called Netrunner, and it was an actual license of R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2.0 by WotC, which is why it blends so well into a Cyberpunk game.  In fact, I always wanted to incorporate Netrunner into an RP game for exactly the reasons you describe, but haven't had a chance to.

I think that example represents the best niche for the combination of Card Games (trading or otherwise) and RPGs, by making the cards a special, playable subsystem of the RPG itself.  Other great sockets would be Magic (as a part of the RPG, not necessarily the card game by that name), Combat (with each character's abilities defined by his deck) and maybe even Scenario creation (Randomizing events, encounters, maybe even locations?).

[Amadeus]

Ahh great, I've been looking for that name very nonactively for a while.  Thanks.

On the same note, something I've never thought of was using the old highlander card game with modified rules as a combat system.  

But yes, I agree the best option imo is to use it as a certain aspect in a system.  Or even better use it to replace that aspect in any system.  I'll have to consider this in future as my gaming groups tend to consist of people I play cards with and it seems it might be a great way to spice things up.

[daMoose_Neo]

Would certainly be a way to bring converts to either side~
Actually, there are enough stats on the FT cards themselves to work them into a basic RP. If I get as far as I plan, a rules-variant and card-generating software for RP characters would be pretty cool as well. Alot cheaper than mini's at any rate ^_^

Anywho, as I said you can check the system out on the site, under Downloads. Would have the demo decks done, but too busy :P Business meeting on the morrow with a flim company interested in doing some pro-bono promo work for Twilight ^_^

[Storn]

I took a quick look at some of the cards that you have on the site.

I guess my intial reaction is that it looks very combat oriented.... lightning blasts and such.  Great for a CCG

But for a RPG, there is a lot more going on than combat.  My suggestion?  Come up with a social/skill mechanic that relates to the card.

Example:  "Blast of Lightning", picture: cool dude summoning lightning, a combat value is there already and some combat stuff is stated in the body text.  This is what we have now.

I suggest this.... since Lightning is fast, electric... those kind of word associations... playing this card in the RPG in a non combat situation might get "Skill task gets done with all due haste, one less round to accomplish the task"  Or "sparks fly, +1 to deal with member of the opposite sex"... Now, those are blatantly simplistic and silly... but to illustrate my point.

so you have discarding going on during scenes that aren't combat.  And you've created a mechanic that gives power to a player (because they don't have to play the card).  They get to choose what is important to them.

Now, I'm not sure how you construct "your" character.  In a CCG, a character doesn't have the same gravitas as they do in a RPG.  A RPG demands many more options... i.e. personality, different levels of abilities.  If I'm SwordBabe, is the "Dark Force Blast" card useless to me?  If it isn't, then that means every PC in this world is capable of every card.  And what if I don't want to play one of your pre-generated personalities?

I think you are on to something.  It is something that I've thought about a bit too.  I'm an illustrator, so I've always dreamed of a system that would allow pictures and cards and stats help drive a game system.  Everway, which I don't own, but flipped thru, was a decent attempt.   But I think that there are more possiblities out there.

[daMoose_Neo]

It was never intended for a true RP, though variant rules and even cards wouldn't be out of the question. As I said, I have to reach a certain point before its truly do-able.
What is posted to the site, and what I am promoting, is the CG system, not an RP system. As I said, its a CG with RP elements. Yup, its combat oriented, CG's usually are. The Objectives, which will go online when the game is available, alter the play a little - Objectives would require players have certain cards in play (Relic or Minor Character cards), achieve certain goals (Run through their deck, reach X life, etc) or so.
As for making your own character, as I said that would be something to come~ One of the planned sets I want players to be able to make their own cards/characters anyway- all it'd take is a simple retooling of the final system to allow for RP characters as well as CG characters.

As for the character bits in the CG, your choice of cards is restricted to the characters Factions (represented by the icons on the side of the card). As long as the character shares a faction with the card, it can be played.
In your instance, no, Kerra (SwordBabe) cannot use Dark Force Blast. And yes, later expansions (the next one actually) will take into account other differences in characters. Trinity lays the groundwork, the next set builds on things, giving you more options for Major Characters and more 'stat' type things (Saving Throw's against certain spells, power levels etc).

[taalyn]

Anyone ever read a book called Hobgoblin, by John Coone. It was a very influence on my tastes in rpgs (which tends towards the urban mythic).

In that book, the protagonist is a boy who plays a card-based RPG (well, sort of - definitely more combat oriented) and at first seems to be going over the edge. Until it's revealed that he's not...

At any rate, I haven't really seen one do well yet. CCG and RPG just don't mix to well, except in very certain styles of play. After that...dunno. I would really like to see one work though!

Aidan

[daMoose_Neo]

I kind of think we're wandering (I helped too though ^_^)

What I was wondering was, given the system and what I'm doing with it, do you think RP reviewers would consider giving this a once over, or is that a little much outside the realm of RPs?

[taalyn]

Well, what I've seen from the rules and the website, no, it doesn't look like an RP to me. It looks like a CCG with extra elements. So, I don't know if an RP reviewer would be interested.

I could be wrong though. :)

A

[daMoose_Neo]

I'm finding RP and and RP reviewers to be rather common and easily reached, whereas CG reviewers are harder and usually present for the major gaming mags and sites. I realize CG's have a high entry/setup cost (art for each card, printing) and are thusly more prohibative cost wise, but bothersome reviewers are fewer (though with fewer new/indie-ish CG's makes a little sense).

Suppose only way to know is to contact a couple and ask if they'd be interested~