[Final Twilight] Could someone here review please?

[daMoose_Neo]

Hmmkay-
Kinda feelin a bit odd (bad reviews tend to do this)- just heard back from the editor of Scrye, they had wanted to review Twilight and give it some coverage. Finally heard back from them, the reviewer of the game had a "strong opinion about the game -- and not in a good way."
I realize that it, being a card game and not an RPG, might not be anyones cup of tea, but could someone here take a look at it? I would prefer a designers outlook on the game, especially since I don't know why the game was held in such regard, especially after the player feedback I've gotten. Maybe it was simply a bad reviewer, but I'd like to think that someone employed by a magazine such as Scrye is a little more objective.
Anyone who could take a look at it would be much welcome. Will provide copies (either PDF you can print and cut or a real set I can mail) if anyone is interested.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Why what a coincidence! I just went through the rules and the cards in my deck in detail in the past couple of days.

You have caught me at a terrible time, though. I'll post a big ol' rundown on the game in a minute. It will also give us a chance to discuss CCG publication here, which definitely is a topic that has gone long-fallow here. It's on topic for all kinds of reasons.

Best,
Ron

[daMoose_Neo]

^_^ That would be great ^_^

On your set, I will cite one thing: there is are two exclusions in the rulebook. That is since been corrected by an insert into each deck, which I know the Scrye decks had. Your pack is a full set & factory print rulebook.
The exclusions:
1) Relics and cards without a faction can be played by anyone
2) Damage is dealt 1 point at a time (both players roll, higest roll deals 1 damage)

These are in Version 2 of the rules online and in an insert as well, so I know the reviewer had to have seen that.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

This post has been a bitch to put together.

I have to start out by saying that this is not a review. I hope it'll give people a good idea of what Final Twilight is, but the main point for this thread is to examine CCG publishing, 2004. I especially want to consider the relationship between publishing a card game and publishing a role-playing game, although I won't get there until the end of the post.

FINAL TWILIGHT
Basics. Anyone familiar with Magic knows the drill. People build customized decks, minimaxing as much as possible. There are factions or (let's call'em what they are) suits, and you try to play within a single suit or some combination of suits.

Anyway, as Magic showed us and as modified/tweaked by what must be a hundred post-Magic games by now, there are two basic issues with the model of play it introduced. (1) It is boring and annoying to have to wait and suffer until you have enough resources to play good cards; (2) it is also boring and annoying if there is no "screw down" or tension-tightener as play proceeds. Nearly every CCG since Magic has attempted to fix #1 and #2.

A further elaboration, which should surprise no one since Magic is essentially a pocket wargame, is to introduce the concept of "terrain" into the field of play, among which played cards move or to which they otherwise relate in terms of physical position. On the Edge probably gets the credit for breaking this ground, and Shadowfist was all about contested "land" cards, although the one that I enjoyed the most was Wyvern. Other ones include Dark Ages which started with controlled terrain, and as I recall, Heresy, which used two different "spaces" (cyber and material).

Final Twilight matches all this to a T. You don't have to wait to get a character out; you start with the biggie. You can get little ones out easily before anyone has to worry about being attacked. Most of the cards are playable without waiting for monstrous resources, with a couple of fun exceptions. As for the terrain, you lay out a number of cards before play. Play is apparently one on one. There's a single main character per player, laid out face up, and terrain cards are laid one by one in a line, and your main characters (you only get one) start at each end. The rest of the game is about play characters into terrain you control, which you get by visiting it with the original or another character. Sooner or later you're fighting over control over the various spots, which provide useful resources when you control them. The winner is the last main character standing, either by the character getting killed (or run out of resources, same thing) or players running out of cards.

So, well, it's basically better-organized Magic. There are fight rules which include rolling dice, there are some colorful add-ons here and there, but if you understand Turns, Summoning, Tapping, Instants, and Interrupts, well, ya got it. My friends' and neighbors' kids are forever showing me their Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards, and it's all the same stuff too. I'll talk about that as publishing issue below. For now, I'll focus on the straightforward observation that Richard Garfield was onto something - this is a fun thing to do. The basic idea of customizing your deck and playing against others in this way, using the concepts I listed just now, is pretty nifty.

Specifics. As I said before, this is not a review. I'm not posting to say "buy it!" or "don't buy it!", and I'm not going to run down all the features in detail. Does it work? Yeah. Seems to work fine. There isn't a lot of waiting around, cards get played, characters appear and get killed, ownership of locations changes hands, and endgame definitely hits when Moren gets low and when locations are all full of various minions. Climactic personal showdowns between the two major characters are almost inevitable. As far as I can tell without playing it yet, winning requires actual strategy, which is something that I always look for and rarely see in CCGs. (I miss Wyvern.)

The cards are pretty and well-printed, the layout is the standard and familiar Magic layout, the art is all consistently good at producing a given "look." In other words, and this is extremely relevant to the points I'll make in the next big section, there's nothing glaringly wrong or badly-done about the game as an object. It is right up there with any number of CCGs on my shelf: Heresy, Dark Ages, On the Edge, Shadowfist, Blood Wars, and so on. Any issues of which art is better or which specific tweaks of Magic are more satisfying are strictly a matter of customer taste.

Questions. I have some questions about playing Final Twilight. But first, no, I don't have any problem understanding the whole "Relics are general" concept, although I think it would have made lots more sense to leave off Relic, Citizen, and Neutral icons altogether; have'em all be icon-less, and have icons only be Vampires, Undead, Corruption, Warriors, Storm, Law, and Knowledge. That's a minor blip and no big deal. You seem a little sensitive about it.

#1. Am I right that you would have to begin play by moving the main characters onto the end-of-line terrain cards? Or are their starting positions in the diagram already indicating that they are "on" those terrains?

#2. On page of the booklet with Melee Combat on the left and Resolution on the right, there are two paragraphs which puzzle me, in the same way. One pertains to Ranged Combat and one to Melee Combat. The first states: If the defender wins the tie in a Ranged Combat round, the attacking character does not take a hit. The second states: if the defender wins a tie in Melee Combat the attacker takes a hit.

The problem is the term "tie." Tie usually means rolling the same number on the dice (or arriving at the same total, if we include modifiers). But the above texts indicate to me that they are not talking about ties, but about the defender winning the roll. Now, defenders do win ties, but that is a subset of winning, not an interesting category in itself. Can you clarify for me?

Note: don't get distracted. I do fully understand that the attacker cannot be "hurt back" when firing at range, and that the attacker can be "hurt back" when striking directly.

#3. Is it possible to play with more than two players? Since there are three major characters, one would think so. Maybe I'm missing the rules which explain how, which as far as I can tell, would need some kind of different layout for the location cards.

#4. What is "exerting" a character? Does that only mean that the character has "gone" this turn? Is it like Tapping, in that the character may not now defend? (Pretty sure not) If the only point is that a given character may only move and/or attack once a turn, then I don't see any need for a game term ...

Are any of these questions game-breakers? Nope. Minor terminology stuff, worth exactly one little belch on the website, or a couple of quick fixes in the next printing of the booklet.

PUBLISHING
I talked above about how most of these games are streamlined Magic. That isn't a bad thing. I'm not criticizing Final Twilight for that. The game-design philosophy in publishers' minds seems to be, "streamline Magic and attach a neat setting," so that's what they do. However, I am surprised and fearful when I consider, given this game design, what their publishing goal is.

As far as incredible fad-wave buying goes, it seems to me that the primary market (kids) is already sewn up and being bitterly contested by those who are already privy to it, and who have the enormous sums needed to capture various kids' and pre-teens' attention, for whatever brief span it can be captured. So let's put aside visions of one's CCG suddenly storming GenCon, leaving all the big game companies gazing wistfully at 99% of the attendees playing your game. (Why did it happen ten years ago? Because an entire gaming generation who'd never seen a wargame was suddenly presented with a fast, portable, and fun one. Also because RPG design and publication standards of the time were in my view just about orthogonal to actually playing the fucking things.)

Then what? What does the publisher want? Who's the market, how many people do we expect to see playing it, why would they play? How many decks do we expect to sell? How fast, and through what channels? I suggest that most CCG publishers are starting themselves off, for some reason, in a bear trap.

Issue #1. Why publish customizable in a hopefully-collectable context?

Iif you ask us old dogs who bought Alpha Magic first thing off the shelf, the first C stands for "customizable." We had no idea anyone would collect these things. My Pit-Fiend was pretty dog-eared by the time I sold the cards off ... What I'm saying is often overlooked: back then (and later as well), a Magic Starter was, if not optimized, at least playable for a damn good time. You can even play Magic from a single deck, with both of you drawing from it.

This is my point: most CCG products are sold in the mistaken impression that the purchasers are already committing themselves to a bulk-buy relationship with the game. Although Magic did become very successful because people did enter into such a relationship with it, publishers shouldn't overlook the point that the game was fun to play even in its most basic form: two starter decks, played against one another, with no customizing at all.

So looking at Final Twilight, you have all three major characters in one purchased deck, with only enough cards for one playable deck, and with the specialty cards scattered evenly in it. In other words: unplayable without mod. Including the mod isn't the point - I'm trying to parse out (1) "buy it, play it," from (2) "buy it, get friend to buy it, then you both buy more, play it, then you both buy more, play it." I think the latter approach is starting oneself off at risk, as a publisher.

Final Twilight might be playable with one deck ... let's see, in my deck, if you take out (e.g.) Charles Faust and all his stuff and put them aside, then separate out the eight location cards and the two major characters to play against one another, then you're left with 32 cards. Can two people play a game by sharing a 32-card deck? I'm skeptical. One could relax the rule about losing when you run out of cards, and just recycle the discard pile when the deck empties, in which case winning is only about Moren. But see how much modification and CCG experience that took, on my part, in order to arrive at this playable version of the single deck?

Issue #2. Why be customizable at all? Ultimately, most Magic customizing served to decrease the annoyance factors that I described in the previous section - getting critters out fast and always having at least something playable in your hand. Most of the streamlining in modern CCG design has taken care of that already - e.g. in Final Twilight, you have your best and most powerful character on the board already, and before anyone will be able to attack anyone else, each player will have garnered a few resources via locations. Why bother customizing, then? In this case, it only means getting rid of those annoying cards you bought but are not playable with your main character.

The other aspect of Magic customizing is increased efficiency, which as we all know can become a fascinating strategy-level exercise. Most new CCGs do not suffer from the broken cards which makes it irritating in Magic except for adolescents. A game like Final Twilight (or Shadowfist, Heresy, or Dark Ages, etc), broken cards are rare to absent because these games are better playtested than Magic. Therefore the fun powergaming comes from focusing on specific tactics and loading one's deck with them, e.g. turn management (drawing more cards, forcing your opponent to lose turns, etc) just to pick one. My point is that this kind of fun should be an add-on for the people who do want to buy more cards, not the baseline assumption of how people are going to purchase it.

To be very clear about how this issue ties into my main point for this post, sometimes I think CCG publishers are not trying to sell a fun, playable object, but instead trying to shift  customers' existing habits and relationship with Magic (or equivalent) to their game instead. Strikes me as a little dubious.

What about entirely non-customized cards? I think I can state flatly that Guillotine, Lunch Money, Give Me the Brain and multiple other Cheapass games, Munchkin, Dungeoneer, and similar games are simply easier, quicker, and better games, in publishing terms. They each offer a non-customized, single deck for play, and they work. Buying an expansion or any other cards at all is reasonable but not necessary. A slight compromise would be for the game to include a fixed and well-understood range of cards, then permit smaller customizations for individual decks or subdecks using it, again, meaning a standard purchase means the players can sit down and play. In application, Illuminati was kind of like this about ten years ago. This makes the most sense for Final Twilight.

For Final Twilight, I recommend a complete overhaul of how the cards are distributed in the decks for sale. The safest way is to have two main characters and specialty cards for them, then have people play out of the shared deck. The next-safest is for each deck to be a single character, with every card in there compatible with that character. You want to sell fun play? Then sell it in such a way that a purchase delivers it.

REVIEWS AND MARKETING
Given all of the above points, and recognizing as well that one wants to publish a CCG, dammit, then what are the things one can do to make sure that you don't lose a ton of money for your dream? In other words, given that you want to publish a game which essentially streamlines Magic, how can you avoid publishing a Magic Heartbreaker with no hope of making money? Well, I don't know, but here are some things you'll need to consider.

1. Reviewers. Your game is a danger to people who are seriously committed to CCG acquisition. It threatens people because it is not a well-advertised, familiar CCG with which they have identified (and believe me, when you drop thousands of dollars on a game over a year or so, your identity is bound up in it, bwah). It upsets them because they haven't published a CCG (and believe me, they all have notes for their perfect fix-Magic CCG in their little spiral-bounds too). Threatened and upset, they swing into "industry defense," to keep the "amateurs" out; "game defense," to preserve the integrity and mind-share about their favored game; and of course, "self defense" which is what the former two are from the get-go anyway. Here we see the self-perceived expert reviewer, gatekeeper to the industry, smiting with his pans and blessing with his praises.

So some kind of tactic about promotion and review is necessary. You should most especially have a back-of-pocket policy already in mind for when the worst of the folks I describe above get their little poison pens going. Conversely, you should also know already which reviewers are really about promoting games and about enjoying the diversity of publishers and products. These are the guys who get the free copies. You think that Scrye would necessarily utilize the latter instead of the former? Don't be naive. They (anyone!) utilize whoever writes entertaining reviews, regardless of content.

2. Stores and distributors. I can't give you major advice here because I am not as familiar with CCG print costs, means of advertisement, and retailer needs as I am for RPGs. I can say this: three-tier distribution has changed a lot over the last ten years, and you need to discover which retailers are operating from habits developed back then (which includes some of the new ones, who are operating on older ones' advice), and which ones (new or old) are practicing effective store-nurturing habits now. Then promote, release, and follow up on the latter.

3. Non-CCG content. I don't think emphasizing the imaginative or story context of the game matters one bit. Final Twilight seems to me to have gone a bit off the beam in this regard, based on the website content which is all about the story of how the heroes Mark and Laura clash with the villainous Charles. With respect to all the effort that went into the novel about this, for purposes of playing the card game, who cares? If I'm playing any of the three characters, I'm trying to kill the other one, period. None of the story content makes a lick of sense for this goal.

So your point of contact of generating interest, especially at the website, needs overhauling. What makes the damn thing fun to play? I suggest, again based on not playing yet, is the strategy per se during the second half of a given game. It seems neat, and seems as if it's the kind of game one can get better at through practice, which I think is a big deal in competitive play of all kinds.

My key point for this section: Final Twilight has a lot going for it. As long as you iron out some of your tactics about the stuff in this section, and recognize where the threats and hassles are going to be no matter what you do, there's nothing the game will do to screw itself up.

FINALLY
Like I said, this post was serious business to write, because it draws on a lot of experience, observation, and specialized knowledge on my part. Nearly every point is worth a whole essay, many of which would probably require other people to write. I don't mind continuing our discussion of Final Twilight here, but since this website is about RPGs, I suggest that we spawn a series of threads, slowly, about how RPG and CCG publishing have intertwined over the past decade. Many of you remember, do you not, that by the late 1990s, the "multiprong" publishing tactic was in full force - RPG, CCG, board game, miniatures, etc? Wah! Not happening now, is it? Lots to talk about there. Or similarly, we can talk about goals in the various media, and why or why not they even can serve as mutually supportive products.

Best,
Ron

[daMoose_Neo]

Actually, you're right on the questions- they have been addressed in version 2 of the rules ^_^ Can clairfy (though the ranged/tie issues aren't):
#1 - The players start AT the location - the diagram is of how the game looks when you start playing (falls under the Setup)
#2 - I think I know what you're asking, and I do believe I had that in their for additional clarification (though it's confused you, hm). Simplified: Defenders win all ties. On a ranged attack however, the attacker doesn't take the Hit.
#3 - Actually it is. There isn't an "official" ruleset to do so, but there was a lot of experimentation at GenCon on it, including some "story mode" objectives and what not. One of my friends is really enjoying trying these things out, so I'm working with him on a multiplayer ruleset.
#4 - Yes, exerting is tapping. Also covered with its own section in the version 2 of the rules.

Publishing:

#1 - Slight issue - as I said in the above post, your deck was a full set of the cards. The decks, as sold, are for each individual character. Same cards, different quantities to give each player a 50 card deck.
#2 - Actually, I've considered it, producing/marketing it as a non-collectable yet still customizable. Idea I had would be to sell "decks" that are nothing more than a collection of cards for a given character or faction.
So yes, the games ARE sold with one character per deck, and thats gone over really well among the people who have bought it.

Review and Marketing

#1 - Confession - I can be naive. Apperently I was. Have to do a little more research I suppose- any tips on what to look for, as odds are I don't know enough products myself to know "Wait, that IS a good title, whats he saying that for?" or "How much did the company pay for THAT review?" when reading some of their others.
#2 - Costs, on this, came out to around $2.25 per deck, leaving me operating on a very tight budget for anything like marketing or such. To be honest, I don't *want* to plaster ads all over the place. Currently, I'm doing a promotion giving away demo sets of the game completly for free- I'd like to have the game speak for itself.
Something else I'm doing is watching for several people from one area ask for the cards and then try to contact local stores directly, explain who I am and what we're doing for the game and that several people in their area are interested in the title. If they'd like, can then send them some infromation on the game and demo packet as well.
Three-tier, not sure how well thats going to work for me. Almost have to, as shop owners I've spoken with generally will not buy outside of that. Maybe I can get lucky with this promotional thing, get a couple stores who would take a chance on a box from me (thats 12 decks, not much really considering each player needs a deck to play). I've sent out information, e-mails, trying to contact buyers for distributors and heard nothing. Blackhawk distributors has been "talking" to me all summer, finally saying "No." apperently because I wanted to handle my own shipping (ie not through fullfillment house). I AM looking at Key20, so that might help the "image".
#3 - Nothing I can really say about that, suppose you're right though - fair bit of the site does feature the story and not so much play. Am working on that with some alternate rules for various stuff (including the multi-player, when Troy and I iron out the kinks). But, can do that, will be some work in generating content.

Do want to seperatly look at my view of the term CCG and what not- I see it both as customizable AND collectable, but in that order. Which I am trying to apply to Twilight.
Personally, as a player, I can't stand how Wizards is handling Magic. I love the game, but its to a point I can't play with new players- I'm better than they are, but my cards and their cards are totally incompatable (ie their "Indestructable" monster card walks all over me- think giving a medeval shield to a guy in the middle of a machine-gun war). They're producing too many cards per year (around 500) which are simple re-named reprints but with the new, cool mechanic of the block.
Twilight, I want to release around 1 set a year, around 120 cards per, support the older Characters, introduce new ones, support some older mechanics, and introduce some as well. Major Characters will ALWAYS come in a constructed deck to start with, so no one ends up screwed out of a playable deck. I'm trying an experiment with the set of Booster packs by going with no "Rarity", just random packs of 15 cards. I want it to be enjoyable to swap cards back and forth, not having to pull out a guide to see how rare they are or what they're worth. Same rarity ensures same number of each card, meaning you'll get one sooner or later if you keep buying, but your pal has a copy now.
Story does have a huge role to play in my game design. Each set is based on one of these novels- I sit down with my notes, look at what the character does or can do, and what it "costs" them to create the first set of cards, then balance and tweak as playtests indicate. This means no reprints. No clones of older cards. Which also means each set is relevant by itself.

Maybe I will go to "Customizable/NonCollectable" here. The game itself, from player response and from what I see in your post, is solid. Costs are a bit much, but I think it warrents continuation. Will have to re-examine some approaches though.

Thanks a lot for checking this out though ^_^ I really do appreciate it!

-Edit-
Just caught a note on my "sensitivity" toward the icons and what not- maybe its because most of the magic players in my area are rules-lawering tight@sses, but when I started running events and what not in my area and dropped off some demo copies, the MtG players were all over that. Has almost become force of habit to explain that up front.
AM at the least considering dropping the "Neutral" faction. Citizens do have a niche to fill in a greater picture. Relics may lose the icon as well, time will tell.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Sigh ... no, no, I'm not confused, Nate. Read carefully.

What the rules do NOT say is what happens when the attacker rolls lower than the defender (or rather, when the final value is lower).

They SHOULD say:

a) In Melee combat, when the defender's total equals or exceeds the attacker's, then the attacker takes 1 point of damage.

b) In Ranged combat, when the defender's total equals or exceeds the attacker's, neither combatant takes damage.

As the text stands, not one word addresses what happens when the defender's total exceeds the defender's. The text only addresses ties.

Really. It is axiomatic that CCG rules-writers can only read what they think they are saying. Take the word of someone who is reading the rules and doesn't know how to play.

The one-character deck is exactly the right way to go, I think. I suppose if I buy one each of those, already owning my threebie deck, I'll be all set for a nice bit of customizing too.

I strongly advise against any sort of blanket advertising aimed at retailers and distributors. You're definitely on the right track about that. I also think that Key 20 is the best of the currently-available fulfillment groups by a very wide margin, but that may be a matter of my own publishing biases. Check out the various different ways people do it.

Oh, and if you end up selling well through direct-only, then all those skeptical distributors will change their tune. It's a lot more fun to say, "I'm making money, ya want some?" than "Oh pleeeeease help my game live!"

By the way ... $2.25 per deck? That's pretty good! What was your print run?

I'm trying an experiment with the set of Booster packs by going with no "Rarity", just random packs of 15 cards. I want it to be enjoyable to swap cards back and forth, not having to pull out a guide to see how rare they are or what they're worth. Same rarity ensures same number of each card, meaning you'll get one sooner or later if you keep buying, but your pal has a copy now.

Yes!! That is fabulous. I shake your hand. Playability > putative collectability.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

I think non collectable non customizeable CCGs are probably the next wave of card games.  CCGs introduced alot of VERY cool things to do with cards beyond trick taking and set making.  Those elements are now being incorporated into games that are standalone 1 copy is all you'll ever need card games and some of them are really fun.


I just picked up Camelot Legends from Z-Man at Gen Con.  Aside from being faithfully based on Pendragon-esque Arthurian Legend (Peter Corless was a consultant) its also a kick ass game.  

You have various Arthurian Locations to visit,  Various Quests that require different combinations of abilities to complete and provide different bonuses to those who complete them and, various Knights and Ladies who provide those needed abilities and who each have interesting "special powers" to activate and use.  The cards are 100% CCG-esque cards from lots of established CCG artists (including Drew Baker BTW) and anyone who's played a CCG can pick it up pretty darn quick.

But here's the thing.  There are no additional cards to buy ever.  100% of all of the cards in the game are present in the box.  BUT one could easily concieve of expansion games that would add new knights and ladies or focus on different aspects of the legend (like the Grail Quest or the Roman Campaign).  Plus there are no individual decks.  There is 1 Quest Deck that everyone draws from.  1 Character Deck that everyone draws from.  And 1 set of locations that everyone uses.


I don't know how far along committed you are to course you've set yet, Nate, but I'd recommend trying to make the game as stand alone complete and ready to play out of the gate as possible.  

Columbia Games and Pinnacle both had some killer CCG wargames (Dixie, Eagles, and The Last Crusade) which were absolutely amazing to play, but completely ruined by the collectable random booster paradigm.  Both now offer the games as a complete set all at once.

[daMoose_Neo]

Actually Ralph, I am fairly comitted, but I'm also commited to keeping it as player friendly as possible. As I said in reply to Ron's post, the game is packaged as 1 totally playable deck and six sided die, everything a single player needs. Could make it even better by having 2 decks, but in my situation I prefer it more- player can choose the character, card types and playstyle they want most.
Faust's deck is spell oriented. Like the character, the deck will shy away from involving Faust in combat and send more minions and stooges out, knocking off additional points with direct damage spells. When he IS in combat, he can rock when properly outfitted.
Kerra's deck utilizes direct combat and weaponry. Fairly simple and direct.
Mark's is a little rougher to play, combining both play styles. Its a little trickier trying to manage resources.
All three are totally ready to play out of the box. Expansions will add some twists, make new avenues available. Different versions of Mark, Kerra and Faust will allow different play styles even from within that characters options.

And forgive me Ron, right again. Fun little difficulty, knowing what someone new to it is thinking and reading vs. what I am.

As for print run: 2016 units, 53 pieces of artwork and some minor layout and icon work. Artwork is what sucks up most of the expense: a piece per card :P PAYING $40 per piece, but I'm getting some folks interested in the game who are talented artists interested in donating artwork.
Other thing: I'm charging $7.95 ($8) per deck of 54 cards & die. It's quite a bit cheaper than other games, shooting for an "Eh, its not that much, I can try it." Which is also working- as is the promo. Its expensive to get into a new card game, so I want people to feel able to take a chance on it.

I just like having a game I can play. So do the players. So far, its working with the players ^_^ Just need to get more people to play ^_^ And stop thinking of it in terms of "Its not Magic because..." or "It's not Yu-gi-oh because...", which I have a feeling the reviewer was thinking.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

H'm, I wonder what the issue with GenCon sales was. Given my knowledge of the game (again, limited but not uneducated), given the play-heavy context of CCG demos and sales, given the high traffic of potential buyers at GenCon ...

... do you think maybe we should discuss closing techniques in face-to-face sales? I betcha you missed out on moving more cards.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

Having 1 deck fully playable right out of the gate so I buy one and you buy one and we're ready to play is a pretty good paradigm.  What percentage of total available cards for a given character are present in a starter deck?  Are the starter decks random like the boosters or are there set cards in each character starter deck?  How many cards in a starter deck are character specific and how many are universal?

About how many boosters would I expect to have to buy to be reasonably sure of getting all the important cards for my character (not necessarily every last one, but enough to have the full range of deck strategy open to me)?

[daMoose_Neo]

1) Yea, we did miss out some. Part of it was display- for the first day or two, we were running the demos without any product on display, quite stupid of me, but I was a little more concerned with the incredible headcold and inability to think or function ^_^ We did have someone, Mary Lee of Holtzman Distribution, next to us who had done the con for years and was helping out in just advice and what not- a treasure trove really for us ^_^
Also didn't help my best booth monkeys ended up running games saturday for Wizards The other monkeys...well, two of them are never doing anything with me again for one of these :P Also other point- we were *too* close to Wizards I think - the people who were over there were there for Wizards, nothing else. Had we been at another end, might have had a little more open-minded traffic. Had ALOT of walkbys "No, I don't like ccgs" (we were right next to the D&D sector of the WOTC booth) or "I only play Magic" - They even turned down the free packs!
It was a combonation of illness and inability to effectivly delegate on my part, issues with the booth monkeys, poorer forethought, and location that bit into the sales. The game was great, everyone who played it loved it, but it was us who let the game down~

2) Right now, between the three decks, there are 50 cards to the total set, really small for a CCG by any definition. Had to for production reasons.
SO, when you buy a starter right now you're getting ALL of the cards for that given character and every deck is the same. What you can change are some quantities (Ron would be in a good position to do that w/ his set and a deck), some of the universal cards (Temporal Suspension *lets you take another turn* has one copy per deck- can have up to four), and some of the weapons and all relics can be swapped between decks.

When the boosters become available, I suppose a lot of its going to depend on the play style you're looking at. Kerra will remain about the same, I think there are about 11 new cards *just* for her. Mark has about 15 for him and Faust 8. Mark ended up with more out of this set cause he kinda got the shaft in the precon decks- where Kerra and Faust are fairly direct, Mark is straddling the fence, so the additional cards allow players to more distinctly choose a side.
Then there are the universal cards: Neutral spells, Attachments, Relics and Citizens. That totals up to about 40 of the 75 card set. So, out of a given 15 card booster odds are fair you'll pull a number of cards you could use. With the way people are buying all three decks, the boosters should help them out with everything they get.
That gives me the 125 card set I wanted for Trinity, and thats about the same goal for Entropy, though might take that 150 being I'm supporting these three characters and introducing 2 if not 3 new MAJOR characters (still deciding if one warrents its own MC).
As for what it'll actually run you, can't really say without pulling out my old stats book (I never did remember enough of that class). Can say one box of boosters would almost certainly get you a play set of 4 of each card (average box = 32 packs, *15 cards = 480 cards, 75 card set and no rarity). Offhand, 10 packs is 150 cards, playing 1 character, should get you several copies and plenty of trading material. Might end up less.
Also looking at $2.50 MSRP for the boosters (still even less than the rest), so $25 per expansion for an 'investment' is incredibly low for a CCG, and personally I'd say thats the high end.

3) Mebbe that'd be a good discussion Ron. If nothing else would be good for Origins for myself and a good thing to have here on the site~