Universalis is already a card game

[Tony Irwin]

This thread got me thinking.

The way that everything (not just PC stats) in Universalis is recorded as facts, kind of matches card games where every game entity is defined and visibly recorded (usually on the cards but often as tokens and stuff).

A MtG card could be viewed as simply a component with a record of its facts. Interestingly I've read of many people using index cards to represent different components in Universalis (we just scribble everything down on a big sheet of paper). Imagine you had a deck of those index cards which you paid to bring into play instead of building up the components step by step through play. Bang, you have a ccg!

Of course that takes out the fun of creating components and facts, all you can do is bring premade ones into play. Still, it got me thinking. Bet the zombie decks would sell well ;-)

I guess events would just have to be remembered rather than recorded (although we do that already) I guess you could modify the components after complications by increasing or decreasing the stats already on the card. Use tokens to show if a fact has been removed or had its value altered.

If people are playing from separate decks then you might say they have default control over any card in front of them. Player framing the scene has to take them over to do anything.

Alternatively you could just have everyone drawing from the same deck ala the Sim City card game (yeah I bought it, and even worse i enjoyed it!) so the host gets the fun of stacking a deck with interesting possibilities and seeing how it plays out differently every time.

Just thinking out loud.

[ethan_greer]

Just to travel a tangent thought: So, in theory, a group could use Universalis to invent a card game, creating Gimics for the rules of play, and using regular Facts and such to create the cards themselves.

Could it be done?

[Valamir]

Heh, well alot of the game was inspired by Once Upon a Time, so I guess its not surprising that you could reverse engineer the game back to that.

And as for the deck of component cards idea.  That was exactly my plan for doing supplements.  Genre books where the stock Components and Gimmicks were already worked out in advance and just dropped fully blown into a game.  Like having an entire Wild West town fully populated with Component buildings and props and people.  Bam, here's Dry Gulch...

I hadn't made the leap to doing them as cards, though that makes perfect sense given the index card idea.  

Hmmm, I wonder how sensible it would be to make up a file of cards that could be printed out on those DIY business card sheets...

You could have the Space Cantina set straight out of Star Wars.  The 5 mile long space station set right out of B5.  The Roman Collesium set...

Heh, it would be like those Microtactix minis and play sets... :-)