Achaea: the Collectible Card Game

Blujixapug

So this started as a joke, but then I started to think about how it might work.

I played a little Magic, and a bit more of Pokemon, but I don't have much experience with CCGs in general.

I figured it should be a relatively simple system, if it was intended to be a game played within Achaea itself. But it would need to have enough complexity to permit a wide variety of cards, if it's going to be a truly collectible game, with the potential for new cards to be added later on.

My first draft was...

There are three card types: heroes, constant effects, and instant effects. You'd make a deck of say 50 cards, deal your hand of 6 cards, have a discard pile, have 'in play' cards.

Both players gain morale each turn, something like 1 + (1 per hero they have in play). Morale is used to play heroes, with more powerful heroes having a higher morale cost. Morale does not carry over between turns - any that's unspent is wasted. So you'd need to spend a couple of turns at the start playing 1-morale heroes, until you have enough in play that you're gaining enough morale per turn to play Tanris your higher-morale-cost heroes. If all your heroes got killed, you'd be back to playing 1-morale heroes for a couple of turns.

Heroes I guess would have a health stat and an offense stat, and may have additional effects. Not sure on this bit.

Constant effects and instant effects are self-descriptive. They may or may not have morale costs. Constant effects would remain in play as ongoing effects, things like 'Effigy of Victory: All heroes cost -1 morale to play', 'Truefavour: Attach this to a hero and they are +1/+1 stronger', or 'Starburst: Attach this to a hero and next time they die, discard all attached constant effects and return them to your hand'. Instant effects would have an effect and then be discarded, eg. 'Zap: Choose one enemy hero in play, and discard it' or 'Nerf: Choose one enemy constant effect in play, and discard all instances'.

Hero cards would primarily be themed after the six cities, plus NPC cards, and maybe a rogue type. Constant effects and instant effects would mostly, but not entirely, be more general in their themes. You could make your deck out of cards from one single city, or multiple cities. Different cities would have different themes that may encourage or prohibit this, eg. Targossian cards might have effects like 'the purity of the Light grants all heroes +1/+1 if you only have Targossian cards in play'. A Mhaldorian card might have something like 'sacrifice a non-Mhaldorian card to gain +2 strength'. Cyrenian cards might encourage diplomacy via a more diverse, multi-type deck.

I'm not sure how victory would be determined. IIRC Magic does it by giving each player 20 health and letting cards attack that health pool, and Pokemon does it by having each player deal six 'prize' cards face-down at the start of the game, draw one each time an enemy Pokemon is knocked out, and win when all six prize cards are drawn. A Magic-style health pool seems most straightforward.

Houses and Orders should probably be incorporated somehow, beyond heroes/constant effects/instant effects, but I'm not sure how.

The more I think about this the more it seems far too complicated for it to work as a game-within-the-game. Hmmm.

Ok yeah that's all I've got for now.

Chryenth

An idea: Have two systems for playing creature-type cads.

Heroes, as you described, would have health/attack or something and a powerful effect unique to that card. 'Tanris: All Ashtani cards give +2 Morale" or "Penwise: Each minion destroyed by this card grants +1 Morale immediately" sort of thing.

Additionally, Minions cost considerably less (1-5 Morale as opposed to 8-10) , have more regular stats and no special effects, or special effects that are generic: 'Tauris: Tutor. Grants +2 Morale.' or 'Naga Assassin: City Guard. Gains +1/+1 if a Mhaldorian Room is in play.'

And as well as that, Rooms should be a thing. No attack stat, but a defensive one. Some sort of support effect: 'Bank: 1 Morale point can be carried over to the next turn.' 'Barracks: Guards cost 1 less.'

More ideas can wait until today is over and I'm mildly intoxicated.

Blujixapug

Chryenth said:

And as well as that, Rooms should be a thing. No attack stat, but a defensive one. Some sort of support effect: 'Bank: 1 Morale point can be carried over to the next turn.' 'Barracks: Guards cost 1 less.'

Rooms is a good classification - or maybe Locations or something? - if only because it feels so necessary to be able to have cards like North of New Thera, Fire and Spice, Belladona's Keep, Universal Membrane, Istarion, to capture that whole aspect of Achaea. I wonder if that would fit into constant effects, or should be a separate thing...

Orzaansyn

If you want to do a serious Achaean CCG, get inspired by L5R, not by Magic.

Blujixapug

Orzaansyn said:

If you want to do a serious Achaean CCG, get inspired by L5R, not by Magic.

Its name is the extent of what I know about Legend of the Five Rings, unfortunately!

Orzaansyn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of_the_Five_Rings_(collectible_card_game)#Before_the_Game

Chryenth

Blujixapug said:

Chryenth said:

And as well as that, Rooms should be a thing. No attack stat, but a defensive one. Some sort of support effect: 'Bank: 1 Morale point can be carried over to the next turn.' 'Barracks: Guards cost 1 less.'

Rooms is a good classification - or maybe Locations or something? - if only because it feels so necessary to be able to have cards like North of New Thera, Fire and Spice, Belladona's Keep, Universal Membrane, Istarion, to capture that whole aspect of Achaea. I wonder if that would fit into constant effects, or should be a separate thing...

I would say 'Rooms' just to keep in with the Achaea theme - we already call every location in Achaea a 'room'. It depends on the level of meta we want the game to be at. I think you said it was IG, so maybe 'Locations' would be better.

On another note: Gaining cards. Location cards could probably be gained by a channeled ability in Survival or something at the required location. Minion cards would require you to either channel the same ability at the appropriate NPC, or be a random drop. Player Characters... something else. I don't know. 

Blujixapug

Chryenth said:

I would say 'Rooms' just to keep in with the Achaea theme - we already call every location in Achaea a 'room'. It depends on the level of meta we want the game to be at. I think you said it was IG, so maybe 'Locations' would be better.

On another note: Gaining cards. Location cards could probably be gained by a channeled ability in Survival or something at the required location. Minion cards would require you to either channel the same ability at the appropriate NPC, or be a random drop. Player Characters... something else. I don't know. 

A room is a room, but an area is an area, a temple is a temple, a city is a city, and places greater than a single room but smaller than an area like Linnaen Park in Ashtan, the Tasur'ke harbour, the horkval hive in Ulangi, the Ace of Spades Casino, or the artifact shop in Delos, are... some other noun. If you call it something more general like 'Locations', that doesn't have an IC connotation, it could cover them all. Depends on what you think this card type should do I suppose. If the game is explicitly city-based, ie. you pick a city and play as that city, having rooms might make more sense, with things like 'Bank' and 'Barracks' and 'Centre Crossing' as you suggested. If, like in Magic, there's no overt restriction on which types of cards you can combine in your deck, something more general would allow more variety in geographic locations.

This is theoretically meant to be a thing played in-game. It could be created IRL. I wonder how difficult it would be to set it up to be played over the internet. I have absolutely no idea how to go about doing such a thing.

How would cards be gained... It seemed presumptuous to plan that out, but this is such a pie-in-the-sky thing already, so may as well: I thought they could be a bit like talisman pieces, as a random drop from bashing, occasional random reward when you gained exp from quests, etc. And then, since this is meant to be the cash cow that replaces the income IRE loses when Veils are deleted (2000cr, ka-ching), you could buy little booster packs of a few random ones for a few credits. And you could trade them.

Shadizar

I would like to see card drops from denizens. How rare they are and attributes would depend on the difficulty of the mob itself. I also would prefer the game be more of a final fantasy 8 triple triad style of game rather than something too complicated.

Chryenth

You make a fine point, and I concede. 'Locations' is the better word.

Playing over the internet would be an excellent thing.

Jonners

This whole thread should be in 'You Know You Play too much Achaea when...'

Kresslack

I'm on board with this so long as there's a card of me on a ship pointing and shouting towards another ship that swoops in and allows the player to choose three cards at random to discard from their opponent's hand.

Eld

Blujixapug said:

Chryenth said:

And as well as that, Rooms should be a thing. No attack stat, but a defensive one. Some sort of support effect: 'Bank: 1 Morale point can be carried over to the next turn.' 'Barracks: Guards cost 1 less.'

Rooms is a good classification - or maybe Locations or something? - if only because it feels so necessary to be able to have cards like North of New Thera, Fire and Spice, Belladona's Keep, Universal Membrane, Istarion, to capture that whole aspect of Achaea. I wonder if that would fit into constant effects, or should be a separate thing...

You could also have Locations function similarly to lands in MTG, with Locations associated with a particular city providing morale points toward the cost of heroes from that city.

Chryenth

Kresslack said:

I'm on board with this so long as there's a card of me on a ship pointing and shouting towards another ship that swoops in and allows the player to choose three cards at random to discard from their opponent's hand.

1) I see what you did there.

2) 'Pirate: Take two cards from your opponents hand. Discard one and return the other to your own hand.'

Xli

Can we use the cards to build card houses that our younger siblings can come in and knock down at the most inopportune moment? )

But seriously, if you're into this card game thingy that seriously IRL, why not play it IRL... not that I don't appreciate the effort you've put in to thinking about this, @Blujixapug 

(Edit: Smilies)

Peak

Can I be an added armor/weapon bonus?

Chryenth

Peak: Ashtani Knight

Life/Damage/Cost: 4/5/5

Effect: Whenever Peak is summoned, give a friendly character +1/+1.

Needs flavor text.

Blujixapug

Let's see how butchered this gets by auto-formatting. edit: turns out, a lot! Screenshot of Notepad instead. Technology.

Silas

Forget all this shit, just make Triple Triad for Achaea.

Kresslack

Blujixapug said:

Let's see how butchered this gets by auto-formatting. edit: turns out, a lot! Screenshot of Notepad instead. Technology.

You didn't post the pirate Kresslack one!