Hybridisation of the RPG and CCG model

[Callan S.]

Besides, CCG Printing is EXPENSIVE. My first run cost me $3600 for the printing, about $2000 for art. The market is also a vastly different creature than RPGs.

That's a good point. Say I go the cheap ass games route, just having cardboard with black ink prints on them...I suppose I can't do the collectable thing then, as they are quite copyable. But the customisable game should be quite viable.

Also, on the collectable thing...does it have to be as blood sucking as you say it is? I'd imagine you could have a customisable core, but also a collectable market of cards which don't statistically effect that core too much, but are nice to have (and their sales help pay the rent).

[greedo1379]

What would really distinguish such a game from any other CCG? Except that "deck" is substituted for "character" and "card" for "ability", what exactly makes up the "roleplaying game" aspect of the game?

I assumed that various beastie cards and NPC cards would be included in the DM packs.  Role playing itself would be handled like any other role playing game.  Just that the cards would be an added framework.

[greedo1379]

That's a good point. Say I go the cheap ass games route, just having cardboard with black ink prints on them...I suppose I can't do the collectable thing then, as they are quite copyable. But the customisable game should be quite viable.

Also, on the collectable thing...does it have to be as blood sucking as you say it is? I'd imagine you could have a customisable core, but also a collectable market of cards which don't statistically effect that core too much, but are nice to have (and their sales help pay the rent).

This is basically how other CCGs work.  You can play the game just fine without a Black Lotus.

[daMoose_Neo]

Heh.

Yes, you can play Magic without a Black Lotus. In fact, due to the rules, regulations and judging system, you'll never see a Black Lotus hit the table. According to the more recent Type 1 format of play, Black Lotus is technically illegal (If I remember correctly, they rotated out the original sets from play.)

Collectable Card Games are bloodsuckers, pure and simple. The design is such that tournaments and artifically developed systems are what drive the sales. They are meant only to make money, quality of a design be damned.*
The best cards, in professionally produced and market games, are always the rarest. The common cards suck more than anyone realizes. The ONLY competition lies in Sealed Draft tournaments, whereby players open decks and pick amongst only those cards. The open tournaments are ruled by those with money.
Case in point, look at the tournament system for Magic, Type 2.
Legal sets are: The Current Core, on its 8th iteration, redefined every 2 to 3 years, the last Block (1 Major release, 2 smaller releases) and the prior Block (again, 1 Major release, 2 smaller releases).
To play in a Type 2 tournament, your deck must fall within these guidelines.
Wizards publishing schedule for a given year: February, release 1 143 Card set. May/June, release 1 143 Card set. September, release 1 37X card set. Numbers vary slightly. To be 'competative' in Type 2, you have to be buying within these series only. Doesn't matter you've played for the last 5 years. Your SKILL means almost nothing, especially when the playtesters allow broken cards in.

From what I've seen of Yu-gi-oh, its worse than Magic. The regulations aren't as bad (there are some bannings/exclusions in official events), but all boils down to is who has the best card on the field. The cartoons even emphasis this: if I lost any of my Magic decks, I wouldn't care as a player- myself, I'd be bummed, my decks are special because they're so different. But Yugi was devistated when 5 cards were lost, because without them, he couldn't win. Thats not a competative game, thats Russian Roullette- who gets the bullet first.

Simply put- COLLECTABLE Card Games are bloodsucking fiends, for both players and publishers. If Wizards is right and it costs them $.10 per card, I can't see how they stay in business. I managed $.03 per card, and thats STILL quite an expense for myself. Start factoring Wholesale discounts of 60% MSRP and they have so very little they could be making.
CUSTOMIZABLE Card Games on the other hand are a blast, especially if a play system is handled right. Release reasonable sized sets of cards that are easily accessable and emphasis play over power and you have a good game. From what I've seen in my own unending testing and playing, I'd like to think Twilight achieves that.

*In my opinion this is truth, for when a company reprints cards with different names, it is in my opinion poor design. A product should be evaluated and appreciated on its own, not because its "X, except not!"

[jknevitt]

The issue with games like Magic is the sheer bloody-mindedness. Take a look at the aforementioned Platinum Angel:

www.arenamagica.com/imagens/PlatinumAngel.jpg

What would be better for an RPG with a collectible/customizable aspect is that the power gulf between the more common "cards" and the rarer "cards" be not as great as in Magic.

As for copy-protection... ever play SimCity? The original SimCity that had the code card? That was black text on textured red card that was incredibly difficult to photocopy. You could simply just use shades of ink and/or paper that are hard to copy legibly. There's always the other option of serilization. You could just uniquely number each one. Of course, copies are easy to spot, regardless of copy-protection methods. I'm yet to see a good copy of a card from any CCG -- even if produced from a hi-res scan.

[jknevitt]

CUSTOMIZABLE Card Games on the other hand are a blast, especially if a play system is handled right. Release reasonable sized sets of cards that are easily accessable and emphasis play over power and you have a good game.

Case in point: Illuminati.

[daMoose_Neo]

1) CCGs are the bastard cousin of RPGs for a reason. RPGs cannot and do not need to be CCGs. You want to make a hybred, make a CCG more RPG'ish, as opposed to taking an RPG and making it CCGish. The restrictions, in my opinion, are too great.
Twilight *is* a poor attempt to bridge some of this. I ended up with a combat oriented RP with combat-magic system and a game where the players have a face. From a CCG perspective, I feel this is a great leap. From an RPG perspective, it is still lacking and limited in so many ways. On its own, its a wonderful system and I love it to pieces. After some time, however, I refuse to refer to it to others as a hybred or as a collectable card game.

2) RPGs don't need a rarity. As someone else said, its enough for the die mechanics to say "Okay, you have 18 strength, you have enough strength to use AZZ KICKIN SWORD, so here you go."
$10-$20 investment into one book plays for years and so many people. For a CCG of any kind, thats barely enough to get started. Currently, $24 buys you everything available for Twilight.

3) If you wanted to do this, skip the collectability and go with the customizable. Develop the thing to be used on business cards. If you wanted them professionally printed, you could get 1000 14pt glossy coated cards for $40 (These are nice- I've ordered some at Poker-size for promotional events for Twilight). Bear in mind, however, this is one design. If you have a set of say 300 cards, you'll need to order 300 different designs, which totals to $12,000.

4) The other thing to consider- the CCG Market is much more difficult to enter for the above, bloodsucking reasons. Magics the most widely played because it is the most widely played, for the same reason that d20 is. Players KNOW d20, new players know they can find others to teach them, they know about it. A new CCG is an unproven creature. How many people play? How much does it cost? Is it good? How do I know if no one else plays it?
CCG players are a scared lot. Hell, I'm GIVING my game away in 15 card introductory packs and people are still leary of it. My MSRP is $2-$5 less than Wizards or others (who run $10 to $13 per deck in stores) and people still don't want to spend the money.
As I said, a single RPG book fuels any number of players, characters and sessions. 1 pack of 15 cards is 1 pack of 15 cards.

[greedo1379]

The best cards, in professionally produced and market games, are always the rarest. The common cards suck more than anyone realizes. The ONLY competition lies in Sealed Draft tournaments, whereby players open decks and pick amongst only those cards. The open tournaments are ruled by those with money.

I can certainly argue this.  I've won a couple tournements before with mostly common cards.  Even against the 5 mox, lotus, time walking twistering super decks its possible.  It depends on setting things up right.

The issue with games like Magic is the sheer bloody-mindedness. Take a look at the aforementioned Platinum Angel:

I know you're trying a prove a point but a 4/4 artifact creature isn't too much trouble to take out.  Basically every color has a "destroy target artifact" spell and a "destroy target creature" or equivalent spell.

Regardless, I think talking about how crappy you think Magic is doesn't really get us anywhere.

RPGs don't need a rarity. As someone else said, its enough for the die mechanics to say "Okay, you have 18 strength, you have enough strength to use AZZ KICKIN SWORD, so here you go."

Well sure its enough.

OK, I admit it: I'm confused what the point of The Forge is.  Maybe I missed something.  Should I just start marching through every thread that suggests new mechanics and say "What are you doing?  Just use D20! It can handle anything you need it to."

Magics the most widely played because it is the most widely played, for the same reason that d20 is. Players KNOW d20, new players know they can find others to teach them, they know about it. A new CCG is an unproven creature. How many people play? How much does it cost? Is it good? How do I know if no one else plays it?

So... Magic is the most widely played CCG so making another one is a waste of time.  I see.  I get it now.  But wait, D20 is the most widely played RPG so making another one should also be a waste of time.  Why are we all still here?

Maybe it was a mistake to reference Magic and D&D at all.  I usually try to pick examples that everyone knows.  It looks like I picked some examples that carry a bit too much baggage.

[Nathan P.]

Aye. My thoughts on this are going in a totally different direction, but I really don't have the time to write them up atm - hopefully over the weekend? Anyhow, I'm not thinking about this in terms of "cards" at all. I am thinking about it in terms of focused Gamist design and a kind of honor system. I think the comments about customizable, not collectable, are good ones. I think there would be multiple modes of play, maybe strict and relaxed, where strict play is dependent on the actual chunks you own, and relaxed is where its all open to you.

Another thought - you have your rulebook, it has everything organized into chunks with different rarities, etc. For relaxed play, you can use all of them. For strict play, each player rolls some dice and determines a random set of chunks they can use. For tournement play, each player is provided with a premade folder full of random chunks ("sealed deck").

Supplements basically just contain setting information and new chunks.

Sorry if this is a somewhat empty post, but maybe some more thoughts to chew over.

[greedo1379]

Another thought - you have your rulebook, it has everything organized into chunks with different rarities, etc. For relaxed play, you can use all of them. For strict play, each player rolls some dice and determines a random set of chunks they can use. For tournement play, each player is provided with a premade folder full of random chunks ("sealed deck").

Supplements basically just contain setting information and new chunks.

I had started writing up a little table of D20 type stats and an assigned rarity (C/U/R) with the idea that you would roll X # of times on the C table, Y# of times on the U table, and Z # of times on the R table to develop your "pack".

Of course, this is basically just a different randomization of stats.  Like I said earlier, rather than rolling 3D6 to get your Str score you roll 1D100.  Or whatever.

The difference would be that all your stats are randomized rather than just your base stats.  I guess.

[Nathan P.]

This whole deal would need its own system to avoid that problem. That is, I don't think you could CCG-ize d20 or GURPS or anything like that.

Completely un-thought-out example - say theres attributes (strength, dex, intelligence). Say theres a lot of them, and some are more rare than others. Say that when determining your chunks, you are actually finding what attributes the character possesses. Other chunks may rely on only some attributes, so if you don't have that one, your SOL. Basic things are strength and stuff like that, uncommon ones are things like magical/psionic/spiritual attributes (faith, soul, cosmic understanding). Rare ones are things that are rare, like physical mutations or a connection with a diety.

So one character, say a priest, could have Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom (common), Faith, Divine Favor (uncommon) and Connection with Diety (rare) on his char sheet as his attributes. Say another, a rogue-type has Speed, Quickness and Toughness (common), Danger Sense, Animal Magnetism (uncommon) and Chameleon (rare) on his char sheet. The priest can't use chunks that require Speed, while the theif can't use chunks that require Faith. That kind of stuff.

So this would have a prerequisite system built in, in addition to a rarity system. I envision a lot of time gleefully spent building that perfect character.

[jknevitt]

See, now we're getting somewhere!

[TonyLB]

What strikes me immediately about Nathan's example is how much more interesting the imperfect character would be.  The rogue with Speed, Quickness, Wisdom, Danger Sense and Faith, for instance.


Does the CCG deck-design metaphor lead naturally to the phenomenon of the character whose entire history is a training plan for their eventual career?  Or is there a way to shake that up, if one wanted to?

[kaotmus]

Completely un-thought-out example - say theres attributes (strength, dex, intelligence). Say theres a lot of them, and some are more rare than others. Say that when determining your chunks, you are actually finding what attributes the character possesses. Other chunks may rely on only some attributes, so if you don't have that one, your SOL. Basic things are strength and stuff like that, uncommon ones are things like magical/psionic/spiritual attributes (faith, soul, cosmic understanding). Rare ones are things that are rare, like physical mutations or a connection with a diety.

So one character, say a priest, could have Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom (common), Faith, Divine Favor (uncommon) and Connection with Diety (rare) on his char sheet as his attributes. Say another, a rogue-type has Speed, Quickness and Toughness (common), Danger Sense, Animal Magnetism (uncommon) and Chameleon (rare) on his char sheet. The priest can't use chunks that require Speed, while the theif can't use chunks that require Faith. That kind of stuff.

Idea: wrestling game

Wrestling has colorful characters, a simple setting (but with lots of elements that can change), some attributes can be more or less common (if you want to broaden the range make it superhero wrestling), there are common moves and signature moves etc. and it is a simple game of conflict. You can play one on one or tag team matches if you want more players. And it's possible to add continuity between games if you want.

[daMoose_Neo]

Greedo- What I'm trying to drive home is that the Collectable CG nature is inherently expensive, for both publisher and player. Not that d20 is the be all to end all, or that Magic is. There are a number of ways something could theoretically work. Realistically, however, it won't. Not as a Collectable game.
Magic works because of its tournament driven system. That is the only reason for new expansions. It sounds like you're an early player. If you haven't seen the game in a few years, its changed considerably. Some argue this is good...I argue otherwise, obviously (Why else spend $8,000 and three years of my life on a project?).
The tournaments are structured so that only the newest cards are eligible, with Type 1 accomodating the oldest, though as I understand it, even the original sets are now illegal.
As to the Angel, did you know of "Indestructable"? Artifacts with that cannot be destroyed. There are also spells which grant that. These newer sets are a victim of its popularity, the game produced in such a way that people are driven to spend scads upon scads of money on nothing. Players are encouraged to seek out "instant win" cards instead of playing with their wits. Skill is destroyed, the 'best cards' put above that.
For the record, yes, you can win with with pure 'commons', in any game. I've played against decks that cost more than I make in a month with a deck of my own that cost me maybe $5 to make, and I owned.

And these comments can be applied to any Collectable Card Game out there. The goal of Collectable games is to make money. The rarity is to ensure players will keep buying, the vast majority of the common cards are literally chaff, because if you're content to play with the common cards, you have no drive to purchase more cards to get more powerful cards.
Yu-gi-oh - "God Cards" so powerful they were banned before even being released, on top of chase and power cards for currently in print sets going for $100's of dollars.
Pokemon- Little kids spending $40 for one card? 5 year olds robbing each other?
Duel Masters - Taking some steps in the right directions, but the focus is still on the power of the cards, not the skill of the game.
VS - Seems to be following the Magic model, of releases, set structure and tournament regulations.

And, I am not saying that creating a new CCG is a worthless expediture. I'd be a damn fool if I did- I developed one! 6 years of design, 3 years of serious research into the market, and $8,000 later, here I am. Look at my signiture- Final Twilight -Trinity Preview, the first set, with the new set, Trintiy Premere due out next month. Twilight embodies all of my beliefs of the card game:
The decks are constructed and designed so not one of the decks has a distinct advantage. Each deck, however, is distinct in play styles and flavor. Each deck also supports a number of options. I've even gone ahead and adapted some of RPG's points to the card game- the Decks are, essentially, a character's toolkit. Cards can only be used by a given Character if they share the same faction as the card (essentailly, meeting the base value). Combat is die oriented, modified with equipment and spells.
Mark Jarus is of the Law, Knowledge and Storm Magic factions. He can use spells, Police tactics, enlist police officers, use police equipment (Firearms, Bullet Proof Vests, Riot Shields).
Kerra Neil is a Warrior, through and through. She relies only on the company of warriors to hunt Mages, and her allies reflect this. Additional Warriors recieve bonues to equipment use, immunity to certain forms of magic.
Charles Faust's deck is very much like his character in the stories. Dark and mysterious, Faust has a tendency to to sit in the background, hiring weaker Thugs, mercenaries, and creatures of darkness to do his work. If he DOES join the fight, thats usually a bad thing for his opponant, as Faust is a wielder of Corrupt Magic, Undead Powers, and is part Vampire.

The expansion system for Twilight is also highly unique. I'm releasing them in what I call Modular Packs- packs of 12 cards, three different cards but four copies of each, a full play set. They're packaged with regard to character and theme. Series one focuses on Faust's necromanic powers, Mark's storm sorcery and Kerra's own techniques. Series Two, planned for release in February, focuses on Faust's underworld connections, Mark's official connections, and Kerra's ties to other Warriors of the Order. Each series will also see packets of Universal cards, cards any one deck can use. Entropy, slated for release around July (In time for Origins), will introduce new characters, factions, and spell and card types.
The difference is there is no NEED to buy. A starter deck gives you everything you need to play. A starter deck will play a modified deck just fine, a Trinity/Entropy deck will play a straight Trinity deck just fine. Organized play will support all sets. Twilight has no rarities, no reason to seek out scads of cards in search of one in particular.

An RPG with a card resolution system is a wonderful concept and different. I'd go along with Nathans idea, maybe even use the deck for normal resolution and use, playing it like a CCG, using like business cards written up with pertinant information.
But on another hand, I can't help but feel you're just trying to call an RPG something else. Most games are already balanced to the point that you have X% chance to have stats high enough wield a given item, just as you have X% chance to pull a Power Card from a booster pack. RPGs do this just as well with prerequiste stats, feats, traits or expenditures.

Designing a card game or custimizable and a collectable card game are vastly different creatures, and different creatures totally from RPGs. I'm one man in both camps, trust me, I know these to be true. Magic and D&D are loaded examples, and I will concede my venom for Magic partially colors my perceptions. The collectability flaws are present though in all of the currently popular CCGs, and that bothers me as a player.
I think RPGs have a fine random system built already with the dice, there are many tools and many ways to work with them. It complicates matters extreamely and makes it more expensive to both play and produce when you to try to make "collectable cards to build characters". And, I also think, making an RPG Collectable in the sense of Magic, Yugioh, Pokemon, VS, or any other CCG out there, destroys much what makes RPGs financially enjoyable- one investment, unlimited opprotunities. Your imagination is the only real limit in RPGs.