CCGs and Deck-Based Characters

[Jonathan Walton]

This thread is influenced both by Matt Snyder's "Nine Worlds" concept (yes, Matt, someone was paying attention) and the ideas currently be discussed on the thread on "Pre-Game Fortune."

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.

Now put all this together and consider the possibility of deck-based PCs...

Take several identical decks of playing cards and build a deck of 30+ cards that represents your character.  Hearts represent emotional/willpower, Spades represent quickness/wit, Clubs represent brutality/bluntness, Diamonds represent elegance/charm.  All Face Cards and Aces have specific meanings.  Is your character full of knavery?  You might want to take a whole bunch of Jacks.  Etc.

Now, during conflict resolution, you simply draw the top card off your shuffled deck and that determines how you handle the situation.  So there's Fortune, determined by what card you draw, but all the cards have be predetermined to be appropriate to your character, based on the guidelines layed out for deck-building.

If you think playing cards are too stright-forward, try it with various Tarot decks, or mix in those cards with normal playing cards.  Or allow players to choose from different types of playing cards, each deck having slightly different connotations.

You could have predetermined decks for various common NPCs or monsters.  You know that the PCs are going to fight a horde of orcs in this session.  Prepare an "orc deck" that you can pull out whenever you need to.  Otherwise, create custom decks on the fly from a "bank" of cards (pull three 2's, two 4's, a 6, and a 7; shuffle and go).

I've just been thinking about RPGs traditional reliance on dice and how silly it is, when there are so many other ways to deal with Fortune.  Is there any real precedent for this kind of thing?  What problems do you all forsee in using these kind of systems?

[Mike Holmes]

There have been "real" RPGs made of both card and dice collectable games. A somewhat influential one hereabouts was "Throwing Stones". Click here for a review.

None of these has seen great implementations, IMHO. Fang Langford has also mentioned cards as a nifty idea for an RPG to attract new people. I think it's a good idea, and would like to see a really good implementation. I started one myself, but haven't gotten anywhere with it. Lot's of weird technical problems with card appearance.

Mike

[Cassidy]

Jonathan,

I can relate to everything you've said - and I mean everything.

I love cards. Dice are nice but cards have just so many possibilities. Just think of all the great things you could do with all those Pictures and  Numbers. Strategies, suspense, luck, there are just so many typical gaming elements that could make use of cards it's easy to get excited and think "if only".

Jeez, Imagine an Amber game where your "deck" is synonomous with your Trump.

One real BIG practical problem for me was, surprise, surprise, the cards themselves.

Yeah, I could just use normal playing cards. But isn't that limiting? Any game design you work around a normal deck of playing cards is going to be restricted  by the fact that they are just that - playing cards.

I always thought the idea to be practical but a bit gimmicky.

The cards NEED to be evocative of the game itself, whatever that may be. They need to make sense. Look good. Feel right. Playing cards just don't cut it really. You need pictures, words and numbers on the cards. Just think what words could liven up player narrative.

I guess you could tweak an existing CCG and with a lot of thought and use those as your cards. Again though, I'd still feel as if it were still a bit of a gimmick and resticted. A bit like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole if you know what I mean.

If I were going to do the idea real justice then I would feel an over-riding need to do it right.

Ideas first. Playtesting with mock cards. More ideas. More playtesting. More ideas.

Eventually with luck you might end up with somethng that actually workable.

Then the practical bit. I need my own cards. I just would. Proper cards, that look great and that are pertinent to the game. That would mean a great deal of time spent designing some on my PC. Again feasible, (i've tweaked some LOTR cards in one of my more deluded moments) but it's bloody time-consuming. Print them out on card, good stock card. Colour print cartridges. Cut them to size. Put them in little plastic sleeves and away you go. Playtime.

Time spent thus far? Dunno, lets be optimistic and say 6 months assuming that it's a part-time thing, a labour of love as it were.

Probably cost about $150, for a do-it-yourself print run of say about 500 cards?

That's a lot of time spent (and some money) creating a game that's likely to be played only by my group. Much as I love my hobby the investment in time and effort would be far too much even IF the game was a resounding success among the players.

However, if I were looking at this as a commericial venture with the aim being to produce a viable retail product then the effort might be financially very rewarding.

I'd love to be able to do something like that. While I'm not short on ideas I have the Storyteller equivalent of 2 dots in resources and 1 dot in time.

[bluegargantua]

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.

Ah, the Ornithoper Deck....I remember you well...

Now, during conflict resolution, you simply draw the top card off your shuffled deck and that determines how you handle the situation.  So there's Fortune, determined by what card you draw, but all the cards have be predetermined to be appropriate to your character, based on the guidelines layed out for deck-building.

Does it determine what you do or how well you do it?  Both?  Personally, I'd prefer to be able to pick my own response to any given situation.

I've just been thinking about RPGs traditional reliance on dice and how silly it is, when there are so many other ways to deal with Fortune.  Is there any real precedent for this kind of thing?  What problems do you all forsee in using these kind of systems?

Note -- I soured on CCGs real fast (much to my wallet's relief) so I'm probably somewhat biased.

I've already mentioned that people may not like having their responses determined at random.  This may be less of a factor under the right circumstances.  The game's premise may support characters who behave in somewhat random ways.  It might be better to have a hand of cards so the player has some options.

Actually, you could play into that a little bit and suggest that when a conflict or problem arises, the group must determine how to resolve it.  Each player can "bid a suit" to influence the choice.  So if I've got a lot of Hearts, I'll want to lead Hearts.  If I've got a lot of Clubs, I want to try and stop that.  If I've got a little of everything...mabye I want to partner with a winner, or have lots of high cards to play against the problem or soemthing...

I'm not sure here because the logical next step is to have people play cards against the GM and "take tricks" with some sort of benefit for those who take the most, a penalty for those who lose and a big penalty for people who won the bid but couldn't cover it.  I'm just composing as I go so I don't know how it would all work out, but it's an idea.  

Statistician freaks will quickly point out that the system isn't completely random unless you shuffle the deck after every draw.  This will likely be impractical or inconvenient during play.  By not doing so, the draws become less random over time and card counting becomes a great meta-ploy.

I'd almost certainly get away from regular playing decks unless the game's setting is appropriate (Wild West, Gambling, etc.) and I'd avoid the Tarot deck or at least drop the Major Arcana because that's about two dozen special cases I have to memorize.  Far better, I think to come up with a custom deck (even if it's a thinly veiled playing deck) to help set the mood.

Of course, I've completely forgotten to mention the SAGA series used as the basis of the last Dragonlance RPG and Marvel RPG.  Nine suits from 1-10.  You tried to play as high as you could on-suit.  The suits represented different attributes plus the Dragon suit which was just all bad.  Character creation involved drawing cards from the deck and arranging them to create your character.  That was pretty wild since on a good draw you could swing swords, cast spells, disable locks, and charm the masses, while on a rotten draw you couldn't get out of bed without injuring yourself.  That system was really pretty interesting and it's worth a look-see (and you'll find it in the bargain bin to boot!).  There was no "character-deck" like you're suggesting, but it's a great source of ideas.

later
Tom

[Cassidy]

Note -- I soured on CCGs real fast (much to my wallet's relief) so I'm probably somewhat biased.

You're probably wealthier than I am then :)

I've already mentioned that people may not like having their responses determined at random.  This may be less of a factor under the right circumstances.  The game's premise may support characters who behave in somewhat random ways.  It might be better to have a hand of cards so the player has some options.

A hand of card means more options and could enhance the ability of a player to influence play. Maybe a less than full handsize could be rationalized as meaning that your character is 'hurt' or 'hindered' in some way.

I'm not sure here because the logical next step is to have people play cards against the GM and "take tricks" with some sort of benefit for those who take the most, a penalty for those who lose and a big penalty for people who won the bid but couldn't cover it.  I'm just composing as I go so I don't know how it would all work out, but it's an idea.

Assuming that the goal is to create an RPG that uses cards I would try to disguise or mask the use of of traditional card game elements like bids, trumps, suits, tricks, etc.

I'd be concerned that if those elements are obvious or significant aspects of gameplay then it may convey the impression that the players are playing a card game.

They may then start treating the game like a card game and not an RPG.

The 'trick' for me (no pun intended) would be to merge some of the gamist and strateagic elements in found in traditional card games whilst still retaining and ideally emphasizing a free-flowing style of play that is common in many traditional RPGs.

I'd love a game where the cards are used to "create" or "guide" gameplay rather than being there to impose rigid controls on the actions of players.

By the by, "Once Upon a Time" is a great game (not an RPG mind you) that uses cards to create on the fly stories.

[Eric J.]

That's it.  I'm going to do this.  I am good at CCG and RPG design.  I've toyed with this before, but I think that I can go through with it.  Think about it.  I'll use a generic fantasy setting (I mean a setting that is new and not clique but doesn't entail any unique premise), and the card game will symbolize duels.  I will report when I can ;).

[Le Joueur]

Fang Langford has also mentioned cards as a nifty idea for an RPG to attract new people.

It's been slow going on my project also.  Here's what I've gotten written out so far.

My concept is that the game is a 'combat game' where you manage a number of resources, like Combat Advantage, an expendable Power Stat, and Hit Points; you use a number of chains of cards to 'build up' an attack or turn a defense into an attack.  Your hand limits your choice of moves (some special skills and weapons can be revealed during play).  The rest of the game (outside of combat) is about building up the Experience Dice to fuel the combats.  (Spell and superpower cards will have uses outside of combat and I'm still undecided about non-combat skill cards.)

I take part of my inspiration from a number of DVD combat sequences (like Darth Maul and the Jedi in the Hangar) that I can step through one frame at a time to reveal the choreography of cinematic combat.

I still don't know if it will go anywhere in terms of 'attracting' CCG players to role-playing gaming, but it's been a kick to develop.

Fang Langford

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

One of the most interesting developments in the hobby in the mid-90s was the subtle shift in the meaning of the first "C" in "CCG." Do we mean ... collectable? ... or customizable?

I think the latter is a wonderful thing. I also love the idea of a character - or better, a whole bevy of "play-action options," ranging from character actions to metagame events - defined as a deck, expressed time-unit by time-unit as a hand of cards. I'd play a game like that in a shot.

But the former? We have a solid decade, now, of belly-up projects to look back upon.

I wouldn't want this discussion to get off track by any confusion of collectable vs. customizable. I trust we're talking about "customizable" specifically? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Best,
Ron

P.S. I think that both Throwing Stones and Dragon Dice were fascinating game designs; the latter, in fact, is one of the few wargames that I've ever liked. But I also think that their collectable aspect was disastrous, in terms of both design and marketing.

[Jonathan Walton]

Total agreement with Ron, here.

The whole "collectability" issue is what turns games from something you enjoy playing into something you enjoy owning.  Not interested in the latter, personally.  While the original CCG craze did see some latecomers (like Chaosium's Lovecraft-based card game) that emphasized deck-building over card-buying, it was woefully absent from much of what went on.  Only people with a ton of money to invest in a game could actually do serious deck-building.

The whole reason I started by talking about using multiple decks of standard playing cards is because they're cheap and easy to obtain.  Honestly, the whole concept of "indie CCGs" is flawed unless the first C means "customizable."  "Collectibility" only works when there are a bunch of other people interested in the game and there is a standard stream of new cards coming out, both of which are going to be hard for indie publishers to come by.

I created this thread to discuss how specially-crafted decks/hands of cards could be used to simulate in-game entities (specifically, characters, but, like Ron said, it could include other things as well).

Another issue... I think it's a shame that most CCGs are designed to be competative, with a clear winner and loser (because "that's the way card games work") while most RPGs are designed to be cooperative, with no clear winner or loser (because "that's the way roleplaying works").  Things like Rune have shown that it's okay for RPGs to be competative (though few have followed its lead), but I can't recall many non-competative card games.

[Eric J.]

My game will primarilly be gamist, and I think that I've coming along nicelley.

[Le Joueur]

while most RPGs are designed to be cooperative, with no clear winner or loser (because "that's the way roleplaying works").

Only "clear" as far as 'defined by the rules,' role-playing games lend themselves to 'winning' at user-defined (and often changing) goals; otherwise you couldn't do anything successfully.

(I never liked the 'there are no winners in role-playing games' mentality.)

Fang Langford

p. s. As far as 'describing a character with cards' goes, in Scattershot's CCG you play a base card (just Stats and a few skills/Advantages/Disadvantages) along with Martial Art style cards, Magical Specialization cards, Disguise cards, Equipment cards, and even single skill cards.  Many of these can be 'held back' and only revealed as needed.  Is that what you were thinking of?

[Mike Holmes]

p. s. As far as 'describing a character with cards' goes, in Scattershot's CCG you play a base card (just Stats and a few skills/Advantages/Disadvantages) along with Martial Art style cards, Magical Specialization cards, Disguise cards, Equipment cards, and even single skill cards.  Many of these can be 'held back' and only revealed as needed.  Is that what you were thinking of?

Um, why bother? That is, in my first stab at the idea, I started going along with somthing like this. But very quickly I realized that I was just creating a way to record a character, and a poor one at that. I mean, cards are just clumsy. They have certain advantages, but if they are just enumerating a character, that's not taking advantage of any of them. Enumeration in the traditional manner, writing on a page, is much more efficient (don't have to search for he card you need) and effective (finding the stat you need is as simple as looking at a sheet, as opposed to having to sort through cards that, even if laid out neatly can get disturbed).

Patently the cards need to do something else. The traditional use of cards is to have a "hand" of them drawn from the deck. But that leads to weird assumptions as well. If you only have access to a few cards at a time, and the deck isthe totality of the character, then you don't have access to all the character's resources at once. Which can be rationalized to an extent, but not to the extent that most hand constructions would indicate.

The whole "hold back" option sounds like Gamism to me, possibly Sim. In the latter case, however, the enumeration problem springs up in spades. Shouldn't the player have access to all their abilities at once? If so, isn't it easier to just list them on a page? The Gamist option may work, however. But it's not what I'd be looking for, personally.

All the most basic options seem broken to me. There has to be something much more complex about how it works for such a game to take advantage of the design of cards, and to enumerate characters effectively.

I've got some theories, but nothing particularly coherent. So I'll leave it there for now.

Mike

[Jared A. Sorensen]

All the most basic options seem broken to me. There has to be something much more complex about how it works for such a game to take advantage of the design of cards, and to enumerate characters effectively.

One of the ideas I had when I wrote Sex & Violence (which, granted, needs a lot of work) is that the character is represented by cards. Not just the "hand" component (like in Castle Falk. or Dust Devils) but also in terms a separate group of cards used to define the character (in this case, you take out all the Face cards and use them to create your character, then the remaining cards are used to generate a hand, which becomes an expendable resource).

http://www.memento-mori.com/sex in case you wanna review it (er, check it over...not like, "review" it).

[Mike Holmes]

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....

Mike

[Le Joueur]

Hey Mike,

You make some excellent points, let me clarify.

As far as 'describing a character with cards' goes, in Scattershot's CCG you play a base card (just Stats and a few skills/Advantages/Disadvantages) along with Martial Art style cards, Magical Specialization cards, Disguise cards, Equipment cards, and even single skill cards.  Many of these can be 'held back' and only revealed as needed.  Is that what you were thinking of?

Um, why bother? That is, in my first stab at the idea, I started going along with something like this. But very quickly I realized that I was just creating a way to record a character, and a poor one at that. I mean, cards are just clumsy. They have certain advantages, but if they are just enumerating a character, that's not taking advantage of any of them. Enumeration in the traditional manner, writing on a page, is much more efficient (don't have to search for he card you need) and effective (finding the stat you need is as simple as looking at a sheet, as opposed to having to sort through cards that, even if laid out neatly can get disturbed).

Actually, most of the "enumeration" takes place on the first card laid on the tableau.  The extra cards are addenda and things a character might want to 'keep secret.'

For example: you could lay a 'character card' face down with a 'disguise card' face up on top of it (say "The Hooded Man").  The 'disguise card' stipulates certain equipment restrictions that are superceded by laying 'obvious equipment cards' next to it (say "10' staff").  When the character 'throws back his hood and reveals his identity,' which would be a psychological attack employing reputation (if not on the other character, on the other players), the 'disguise card' is discarded and the 'character card' is revealed (say revealing the "Samurai Jack" card

and his concealed 'Mystical Katanna' card).

Let's say part way through a battle or a scene, the character reveals a special ability (not printed on the 'character card' - this allows more customization than just having a set of character cards), the player plays the ability card into the tableau (say the "Jump Good" card, enabling him to leap four times normal his heights).[/list:u]This way the hand of cards represents unobvious abilities of the card that is the foundation of the tableau.  It's worked well in the battle side of the game, but I haven't concluded how well it'll work on the role-playing game side.

Patently the cards need to do something else. The traditional use of cards is to have a "hand" of them drawn from the deck. But that leads to weird assumptions as well. If you only have access to a few cards at a time, and the deck is the totality of the character, then you don't have access to all the character's resources at once. Which can be rationalized to an extent, but not to the extent that most hand constructions would indicate.

Actually, in our practice the tableau is the totality of the character, the deck is every combination of maneuver and ability he could possibly perform, and the hand is the randomization of what his opportunities are at any single instant.

The whole "hold back" option sounds like Gamism to me, possibly Sim. In the latter case, however, the enumeration problem springs up in spades. Shouldn't the player have access to all their abilities at once? If so, isn't it easier to just list them on a page? The Gamist option may work, however. But it's not what I'd be looking for, personally.

We're trying to get it to work for both, sorta.  I'm not communicating this very well.  First of all, the bulk of enumeration takes place on one card.  Additional abilities can be sought out of the deck before play and played into the tableau immediately.  Provided that the player wishes to hold something back, they are allowed to play these later in concert with an action that makes use of them.  Since most of the information is on the first card, usually only a few extras need to be played.

In playtest, since we are making these up as we go, many playtesters use a 'reduced information' character sheet as their foundation (the focus isn't on character describing detail, but on action describing detail).  The 'hold back' option is totally Gamist; we expect people who are not only Gamists to play that way, but also people who aren't the least bit interested in "role-playing" (at least at first is the hope).  If strategy isn't important to you, there's no need to go that route.

All the most basic options seem broken to me. There has to be something much more complex about how it works for such a game to take advantage of the design of cards, and to enumerate characters effectively.

I think the important point is that such a CCG shouldn't be 'about' character enumeration.  It should be 'about' something else first, but not forget to enumerate the character for that purpose.

I guess that gets at the problem this discussion is foundering on.  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, but one like mine (mostly a battle emulator) will look, feel, and act, is so totally different from a Narrativist game based on a "Whimsy Cards" concept.  I don't think that we can discuss both in one thread, other than some broad generalizations.

So what'll it be?

Fang Langford