CCGs and Deck-Based Characters

[Jared A. Sorensen]

This starts to solve the problem, Jared, but only partially. The only advantage to this method is that the unused cards become something else. Which is cool as far as it goes, but ceases to be interesting as soon as you start playing. Now, if the resources could become part of the character on the table, somehow....

Hmmm...not sure I follow. Explicate and elucidate?

[Jonathan Walton]

Hey Jonathan?  What is the "Deck-Based Character" supposed to be doing in the game?  That will incredibly slant both the efficacy and utility of cards in a CCG role-playing game.  I'm not sure there are any approaches to role-playing games that couldn't be done with CCGs.... [snip]

So what'll it be?

You're definitely right that this thread is all over the place due to a lack of clear focus.  How about we limit discussion in this thread (though people are free to make other thread on related topics) to games that:

-- clearly make use of the card medium (Mike's guidelines)
-- use decks/hands of cards to represent individual characters* and not the plot devices of Whimsy Cards or the larger game events ("borg attack!  wrath of god!") of many existing CCGs
-- are something more than just a conflict simulation; Gamism is okay, but I'm looking for at least some exploration of Setting, Character, or Theme rather than players simply hurling rules at each other

Is that specific enough, or should I narrow it down more?

Both Mike and Fang's comments on character representation were very interesting, I thought.  Mike's thoughts on how hands/decks are limited views of characters (since not all options are available at once) was a good one, but Fang's counter that they represent opportunities also seems valid.  Another option would be to consider the hand to be the possibilities that the character is able to think of at that moment.  Hindsight might reveal better choices, but often times you can overlook some things.

* Note that I don't necessarily mean you have to conform to traditional ideas about what constitutes a character.  Look at Clandestine or Interactive History games.  A "character" is simply a game contruct and can be an entire group, a nation-state, or an abstract ideal.  This would lead to other interesting ideas on hand/deck representation.  Perhaps the deck represents the entire organization but the hand represents those parts that are active at the moment.

[Mike Holmes]

I get your design Fang. What I'm saying is in part that a cool enumeration would involve meore than a single card defining the majority of your ability. Way too old-school. Like D&D classes, but perhaps worse. In any case, as you admit, the more cards that become neccessary, or the more customization that you require, the more a piece of paper becomes the better option, given this style. What I'm looking for is a way to use the advantages of cards to make a better enumeration in some way.

For instance, to make the game as good as Hero Wars, you'd need at least a Cultural Keyword card (and I'd want racial ones as well), an Occupation keyword card, a Magic keyword card, and ten assorted abilities (perhaps these can be made into "background" cards where you get several on one card. So we're looking at quite a few cards. Say at least six. At which point a sheet is looking quite nice, unless there's something else cool going on with the cards. So, what can we do to make cards a viable option for this sort of depth?

INWO does some cool things. The relationship of the cards to each other on the table says something about them. Those close to the center are more important. Something like that could be useful in making the cards matter (record keeping between sessions could be nasty, however). Also, in that game, the "hands" that you have represent a substantial portion of your total cards. As such, the "inaccessibility" to certain abilities, or even "Combos" as you call em, Fang, is lessened.

My point is that there are neat things you can do with cards. As such, they could be made into a cool and unique form of character enumeration. But simply using them to list single abilities or sets of abilities just seems like a waste of cards to me.

Mike

[Le Joueur]

How about we limit discussion in this thread...to games that...are something more than just a conflict simulation; Gamism is okay, but I'm looking for at least some exploration of Setting, Character, or Theme rather than players simply hurling rules at each other.

Is that specific enough, or should I narrow it down more?

More, more, all this says to me is any 'role-playing game' not heavily into conflict simulation.  (Which is probably an oxymoron.)  How about this...if you had to pick one mode of game or, better yet, one game or genre you already like (or both).

See, a 'Setting Exploration game' would be full of 'interact with setting' mechanics but even that is too vague.  A 'Exploration of Theme' game (without high-power "Whimsy Card" meta-plot components might be a lot like a derivation of Mike and Ralph's Universalis - although a highly restricted one, probably) might be interesting, but you'd have to choose that one first.  you can see how different they'd be, right?

Y'know, something like a Phantom Menace role-playing CCG where you explore 'good versus evil' themes.  Then we could talk about 'deck design being about, maybe...resources or trumps for scenes (not including 'character dies tragically' cards but smaller 'scope' like 'appeal to authority figure') and interacting over 'who gets to make the final literary statement based on the collective story.'  Or such.  I dunno, maybe that's too narrow.

Both Mike and Fang's comments on character representation were very interesting, I thought.  Mike's thoughts on how hands/decks are limited views of characters (since not all options are available at once) was a good one, but Fang's counter that they represent opportunities also seems valid.  Another option would be to consider the hand to be the possibilities that the character is able to think of at that moment.  Hindsight might reveal better choices, but often times you can overlook some things.

I've come to look at card game design using a small number of traditional 'gimmicks.'  You've got your hand, your customized deck, your foundation, and your tableau.  You have cards that not only represent things 'in the game,' but also ones that call for interactions between these groupings and those of your opponent.  I'm not sure a CCG is worthwhile unless there is some built-in goal, which skews heavily towards Gamism.  (And there's no reason that Gamism can't thrust a different mode to the forefront, the way Ron describes The Riddle of Steel's 'Simulationism' thrusting forward the Narrativism in it.)

Since I like 'big decks,' I skew towards them being 'this is everything a character might do' (with a smattering of 'what it is done to' cards).  That makes the hand, 'what the character can do right now' limited by whatever you think relevant 'in game,' opportunity, forethought, or anything else.  The foundation must therefore be the 'Deck-Based Character' and the tableau is an area where 'what the character can do' is built strategically into more than the impact of any single card.  This last part, as far as I'm concerned, is the only reason to make the CCG in the first place; if each card has only a single isolated effect, forget it.  The more the cards in the tableau interact with each other (especially in 'shared tableau' type games), the better in my book.

After that you can add resource pools (and even betting) and then address layers of strategy (things like forcing them to discard, blocking gambits, and such).  I like games that are sound in two ways; they seem to have arisen from the source material clearly (there are no cards that don't seem related to the 'in game' stuff) and they are well-functioning abstractly (if you took away all the pictures and replaced the proper names with generic terms, it'd still play interestingly); that's a mighty tall order.

Right now, we are trying to code superpowers into the base 'hand to hand melee' current-version of the Scattershot CCG; once we've done that, we'll be in a better position to see if it is possible to pull in ostensibly Narrativist issues.  It's way too soon to tell, but it seems possible at this point (so close to the beginning).  What I really need are people interested in helping us bang out the dents in the third generation of the 'hand to hand melee' CCG.  (You'll either have to print or hand craft your own cards to help.)  At this point we're stuck.

Fang Langford

[Jonathan Walton]

Is that specific enough, or should I narrow it down more?

More, more, all this says to me is any 'role-playing game' not heavily into conflict simulation.

Okay, then let's try to hug the border between the "Theory" and "Game Design" threads.  I'm not actually planning on making this game, so lets talk about the multitude of ways that this could be done.

MODE: Narrativism, with a little Sim thrown in (and probably, like Fang described, supported by a fairly Gamist foundation of card mechanics)

THEME: Rock n' Roll eventually triumphs over all, despite the oppression of the man and the misunderstanding of the masses.

GENRE: Steampunk meets Metal Opera.  Mechanical guitars in the Victorian Age.  Effects pedals driven by difference engines.  Technology is scary and so is rock music.  The prudish upper classes hate the unholy trinity of sex, tech, and rock, while the PCs revel in the dark glory.

PLAY STYLE:  It's really all about the Theme, with the bit of Sim coming from the fun of exploring the strange world.  Characters are all united in their love of rock, which could be overt or secret (i.e. good, well-educated young gentlemen and ladies with a secret desire for all things loud and rawkus).  Depending on game mechanics, there could either be a group of PCs who together make up a rock band, or the players could simply share narrative power over the entire story (with no GM), or both.

Is that better?  Worse?

[Le Joueur]

...What I'm looking for is a way to use the advantages of cards to make a better enumeration in some way.

For instance, to make the game as good as Hero Wars, you'd need at least a Cultural Keyword card (and I'd want racial ones as well), an Occupation keyword card, a Magic keyword card, and ten assorted abilities (perhaps these can be made into "background" cards where you get several on one card. So we're looking at quite a few cards. Say at least six. At which point a sheet is looking quite nice, unless there's something else cool going on with the cards. So, what can we do to make cards a viable option for this sort of depth?

INWO does some cool things. The relationship of the cards to each other on the table says something about them....

My point is that there are neat things you can do with cards. As such, they could be made into a cool and unique form of character enumeration. But simply using them to list single abilities or sets of abilities just seems like a waste of cards to me.

I dunno, in a card game six doesn't seem that bad.  With Yu-Gi-Oh! you can get up to 14 pretty easy, if you get past a lot of attrition, so we'd better try to leave our personal preferences aside, I guess.

I highly agree with you regarding card interactions on the tableau (and wrote as much a minute ago).  The problem is its hard to speak abstractly about card interaction, assemblages, or 'values' without knowing 'what they're up to.'

What you've described for Hero Wars (a game I'm unfamiliar with) sounds pretty good, for a foundation, but to know 'what is in the deck,' I'd need to know 'what goes down' in the game and some intriguing ways that gets limited by usual play.  From that we could talk.  (As I understand it, Hero Wars isn't simply about 'doing stuff,' there's all this 'higher level' interaction, right?)

Fang Langford

p. s. Which I guess means we all believe it is quite doable, but the cards need to 'interact' or 'do neat stuff' with each other to promote what the game is about; certainly not an impossible goal, but if we all agree what more can we say?

[Mike Holmes]

Yep, Fang, I think that's where we're at. Can be done, but needs a vision.

MODE: Narrativism, with a little Sim thrown in (and probably, like Fang described, supported by a fairly Gamist foundation of card mechanics)

This is problematic, however. I see the Gamism of most CCGs as taking over from all aspirations to other modes. I still think it can be done, but only by converting to a less Gamist ideal.

IOW, I'm not so much interested in Fang's idea of bringing in the masses. Which would require Gamism, I think. I, too, am tempted by the Gamism possibilities, and what it whispers in my ear is that a game could be made where only a subset of the play is gamist. But that's a path that I doubt will work. I see everyone drifting playing only the Gamist portions. Instead, I'd be for looking at another mode of play as primary, and the only one supported.

Mike

[Le Joueur]

MODE:

Narrativism, with a little [Simulationism] thrown in (and probably, like Fang described, supported by a fairly Gamist foundation of card mechanics)[/list:u][/list:u]...or the players could simply share narrative power over the entire story (with no GM), or both.

Is that better?  Worse?

Definitely better.  And worse...for me.  I'm not that experienced in thinking in terms of mechanics that support Narrativism; it's really not my forte.  You'll probably need all kinds of cards and mechanics for making player character actions meaningful to a Edwardian Premise and such, outside my experience.  When it comes to shared-gamemaster power, the real heavyweight in the arena would be one Mike Holmes with 'offering Complications' and such.  He not only knows how that plays, but has many hours work creating mechanics for it.

I'll just stick to my little Gamist pushing Simulationism: 'Exploration' of System card game for now.  I wish you luck!

Fang Langford

p. s. Mike, I still believe that a Simulationist CCG role-playing game could be made where you 'tempt the masses' with Gamism and then make 'em role-play Simulationist for it.  While I don't think it was intended that way, I believe Ron's take on The Riddle of Steel could work (there it is supposedly tempting Simulationists and then making them play Narrativist; here as above).  I still don't see why you couldn't 'subset' Gamism and offer role-playing game 'Gimmicks' for crossover.

[Walt Freitag]

Changing the interpretation of cards from characteristics to opportunities makes sense, but at the same time it gets away from the core idea of representing characters with card decks. That's because opportunities are akin to situations, and cards representing situations are a natural and commonplace mechanism. (Situations are usually perceived as serial, like draws from a deck; characteristics tend to be seen in parallel, like the stats on a character sheet.)

A tableau of cards looks like a fertile middle ground between the serial and the parallel cases, but there are some issues. If the tableu can only change by means of individual card draws (whether directly or channeled through a buffer i.e. a hand), then really it's become a serial situation again. And the timing seems odd: if the cards in the tableau represent options, the change seems too slow ("My character should be able to __ but the card hasn't come up") and if they represent characteristics, it seems too fast (Munchkin, anyone?).

If the cards represent opportunities entirely in the metagame (that is, with no mechanism to match them to a current game state), then a Donjon-like game should be possible in which the situation must be narrated to retroactively justify the opportunity. For example playing a "cliff climbing" ability (really, an opportunity) it means a cliff must be narrated into existence. The difference from a Whimsy card or a Once Upon A Time card is that the opportunity is resolved for success or failure. Perhaps stakes cards must be played simultaneously with the opportunity card. Stakes could be just about any kind of card -- a resource, a relationship, or perhaps even another opportunity, as long as the narration justifies it/them as such. Then other players could play cards (and narrate appropriately) to add their own stakes, or to influence the resolution. Ah, I see the Universalis connection more clearly now.

- Walt

[Le Joueur]

Hey Walt,

Changing the interpretation of cards from characteristics to opportunities makes sense, but at the same time it gets away from the core idea of representing characters with card decks. That's because opportunities are akin to situations, and cards representing situations are a natural and commonplace mechanism. (Situations are usually perceived as serial, like draws from a deck; characteristics tend to be seen in parallel, like the stats on a character sheet.)

A tableau of cards looks like a fertile middle ground between the serial and the parallel cases, but there are some issues. If the tableu can only change by means of individual card draws (whether directly or channeled through a buffer i.e. a hand), then really it's become a serial situation again.

For "parallel" characteristics, I suggest a foundation, those cards that remain in play no matter what.  However, I'm still unsure of representing the character with a deck, perhaps better the foundation displayed before play.

To make situations single draws from the deck takes away a lot of the complex interplay that I think underlays CCGs.  I think playing out the tableau should let you build up the complexity of a single situation out of the hand (which then represents all the factors the player can draw together that turn).  Each tableau would be built off of the foundation (reflecting what the character can do in the situation).

I agree with Walt, if the tableau reflects the ongoing state of the game, it will devolve as he says.  You know what?  How about we clear off the tableau each turn?

Other alternatives could be 'decentralizing' the character, per Universalis.  And so on.  (Again, out of my league.)

Fang Langford

[Eric J.]

I did it this way:

There is your deck, your hand, the field, the discard pile, and your little pile if front of you.  That consists of cards that work with the cards with your deck.  It is your equipment, basically.  There is a row for weapons, armor, and equipment.  Obviously this could be manipulated, by summoning a flame dagger, having that sword kicked out of your hand, or that quill destroyed etc.  ( I have no idea how this is going to work.) These cards will be Role Playing derived, and will have specific rules for interacting with other cards.  

I think that the first part of the duel will be setting up your stats.  Then there will be the battle between decks, and then the resoluiton.  It should be fully funcitonal as a CCG, without any RPG elements, also.

[Reimer Behrends]

Consider these three points:

1) The one thing that I really liked about Magic:TG and some of the other CCGs from the fad-era was the ability, if you so desired and if you had enough money/cards, was the ability to give a deck a specific personality/feel.  People used to (and I assume, still do) talk about "themed" decks or those that used a specific card-combination as the basis of it's killing power.

2) Seperately, the Changeling-based cardgame that White Wolf produced, Arcadia, tried very hard to reproduce tabletop roleplaying by having cards that represented various character traits.  Together, a group of cards would repreent a character, their abilities, their magical powers, their weapons and equipment, etc.

3) If you look at Dragon Dice or other similar collectable dice  games, often time a single die will represent a character, with each side being a different part of their combat abilities, generally.  So, you roll a sword or a boot-to-the-head or fire-breath or whatever.

For completeness, you probably want to also include the card-based roleplaying game Dragon Storm.

-- Reimer Behrends

[contracycle]

Dragonstorm looks pretty interesting, although I have only had the time to scan it today.

How 'bout this idea, to tie in to some self expression.  you character is a deck, you draw 6 cards at the start of the session; the six aspects detailed on them are the powers available to your character in that session. (... or that scene... hmm).

Or, a character has categorised abilities - physical mental etc. at the most basic, tune to genre taste.  The player deals a number of cards into these slots, depending on a rating (say rating 3 puts three cards in the draw) and get to choose which slot in which category a drawn card fills.

Variations: functionally different types of cards, sub-decks, draw a card as conflict turn structure, introducing and removing cards from play etc etc.  Could enslave the Cash Cow to RPG, one set of card RULES could be used with more than one set of printed cards.  Hell, rules could be ON cards.

The downsides: takes up a lot of space if laid out which is Bad; this also mitigates potential portability which derived from physical form.  Characters may not behave consistently in sequential sessions; breaking sessions would need to be consciously controlled.

sorry, typing too fast to be coherent, but I do think this idea has potential.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

DragonStorm is a brilliant example of a poorly-designed card-based RPG. (I say this from a fair amount of Actual Play experience.) The cards are simply used as a substitute for a character sheet; in fact, a miniature character sheet is a necessary supplement to the cards, so it's not even a complete substitute.

The only function of the cards is to constrain the elements that may be incorporated into a character (or a scenario--there are GM cards as well) to those cards that you have purchased, i.e., to suck money out of the players.

[Mike Holmes]

Thanks Seth.

This has been my point all along. This is exactly how not to do a CCG RPG. The cards must be used in some fashion that makes it useful for the enumeration to take the form of cards. Gareth and Walt both have some ideas that start down the right sort of roads.

Mike