Talk:Mario Bros. deck

This reminds me of the Platform Game deck (which I should upload since nobody else will) Zaratustra 16:38, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't really surprise me since Mario is pretty much the original platformer. Just about anything related to a platformer would also relate to Mario. MagiMaster 17:48, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

CashCrazed, thanks for sorting the cards. I was planning on doing that myself later. MagiMaster 15:41, 26 March 2007 (BST)

Resolved Issues

Resolved Issues have been backed up to this page: /Resolved

Victory Condition

So, the only way to win is to play Princess Rescue when Bowser's Castle is in play? Zaratustra 04:40, 26 March 2007 (BST)

Yeah, on the last Level. I added a question under 'other thoughts' about whether Levels should be for the whole game or each player. MagiMaster 15:25, 26 March 2007 (BST)

I'm pretty sure neither player will play Bowser's Castle on the last level if they don't have Princess Rescue to play immediately after. Zaratustra 19:05, 26 March 2007 (BST)

Hmm... that's a good point and a very good argument for using personal Levels. A player might still play Bowser's Castle if they're on the last level, but their opponents aren't. Do you have any suggestions on this though? MagiMaster 19:35, 26 March 2007 (BST)

Shine Sprites, Crystal Stars, etc.

I was just thinking, we could possibly make the victory condition more logical by saying you have to collect some number of random plot coupons. Most of the newer Mario games do this (Shine Sprites, Crystal Stars, etc.). The only problem is that this could have a major effect on a good number of cards. MagiMaster 06:40, 21 April 2007 (BST)

I think the Victory Conditions should have One card to rule them all. For example, my Star Spitits could have the Star Beam as their Lord of the Cards.

Star Beam

Thing

If you have Eldstar, Mamar, Klevar, Kalmar, Skolar, Muskular and Misstar either in your hand or in play, you win.

--BM 15:23, 21 April 2007 (BST)

Now that I think of it, there is another set that would work. The Pure Hearts and the person who helped save the world in Super Paper Mario. If you've played it, you'll know. Otherwise, go get it. --BM 15:27, 21 April 2007 (BST)

I certainly intend to get it, once I get a Wii. Anyway, I was just talking generically. I figure we could make up something new rather than copy a specific existing game. MagiMaster 20:58, 21 April 2007 (BST)

Your no fun! =*( But your the boss, what you say goes. Still, we have these Star Spirit cards lying around, and an idea. It could work. When you get a Wii, post your Friend code on my Talk Page, we can keep in touch. And while your here, I might as well say that this deck doesn't get much traffic. Maybe you should advertise it on your other decks or something. --BM 23:11, 21 April 2007 (BST)

Well, I think the plot coupons shouldn't be actual cards. They should probably just be an abstraction like Levels. In fact, they would probably simply replace Levels. The thing is, making that replacement would require changing cards like Rescue the Princess and You Forgot the Princess. MagiMaster 05:12, 22 April 2007 (BST)

Oh yeah. I can't advertise for a deck on another deck because that's not how a wiki works. I have this listed as one of my decks on my user page, but that's really all I can do as far as that goes. Feel free to try organizing a playtest on the Upcoming games page though. I might do that myself sometime. MagiMaster 05:17, 22 April 2007 (BST)

Okay, I'm just saying that maybe on your other decks, you could add something like "Check out my other decks on my User Page." or something. Not that it matters, we can keep working on it. Another way we could make a winning condition is by the inclusion of Bosses. For example, Bowser.

Bowser

Boss

This card belongs to no-one. This card has 4 counters. Every turn, Bowser will destroy a card of someone with less then 3 Jump Check. If a player has more then 4 Jump Check, they may use an Action to remove a counter. If this card has no more counters it is remove and the last person to damage it gets a token.

Who ever has X number of Boss Tokens wins. It could work. And why would we have to remove the Levels. All Mario games have different ways to win, why not his deck? If I just broke the "not exactly like the games" rule, ignore me. P.S. I just added a Game Appointment, hope you can make it. --BM 21:52, 22 April 2007 (BST)

As far as I remember, none of the Mario games had multiple ways to win, just multiple ways of getting to the last boss. The problem with the boss token is that if the boss has 2HP, no one will attack it, because it's almost garaunteed that someone else will kill it. I think the current setup has a similar problem with playing Bowser's Castle on the last Level. If the goal was to gather plot coupons, I think we could dodge most of the problem. MagiMaster 22:27, 22 April 2007 (BST)

I just checked the time on the game. I can't make it then. Maybe next time. MagiMaster 22:32, 22 April 2007 (BST)

What Time Zone are you? I could set something else up, but I want to be sure. --BM 00:23, 23 April 2007 (BST)

Central. MagiMaster 02:46, 23 April 2007 (BST)

I'm 2 hours ahead. When will you be free? --BM 04:05, 23 April 2007 (BST)

Your time, I mean. --BM 04:05, 23 April 2007 (BST)

I suppose the best times for me would be Monday around 8:00pm or Tuesday around 10:00pm (both Central), or sometime on the weekend. MagiMaster 18:01, 23 April 2007 (BST)

Back to the discussion of the victory condition, what would be a good name for the plot coupons? Previous games have used Shine Sprites, Crystal Stars, Crystal Hearts and others that I can't remember the name of. It feels to me like it should be something a little bit silly, but I can't think of much. (Maybe Golden Tickets or something.) MagiMaster 18:01, 24 April 2007 (BST)

Not Crystal Hearts, Pure Hearts, but that's more RPG's. Now that we have RPG's separate we should have bosses or something like that. Maybe we should have it so you have to destroy a number of enemies to win. Or we would have a ton of stars and when the game ends (now that I think of it, we have no game ending thing either) whoever has the most wins. --BM 23:18, 24 April 2007 (BST)

Well, from a game play point of view, plot coupons would be a good thing IMO. I don't think the deck is currently set up correctly to deal with beating up bosses as a victory condition. Just beating up random enemies has never been the goal of any Mario game, so I don't think that'd work very well. (Besides, then people would be reluctant to play enemies.) The stars are basically what I'm talking about when I say plot coupon. It's just some arbitrary collectible. The end condition would be 'someone gets x stars/coupons/whatever.' (It doesn't really matter what they're called, as long as we're consistent.) MagiMaster 00:03, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Go for a whole whack of stars. Also, I think either the most stars wins or, using an idea from a Might of the Boodles deck, you'd have to collect a specific one. (Though that one might not be as good.) --BM 00:57, 25 April 2007 (BST)

I don't like the idea of 'most coupons wins' since that means there has to be a separate end condition. Also, I don't want to copy the Might of the Boodles, so having a random specific coupon is no good either (plus it's not really in the spirit of a Mario game). If we go with plot coupons (call them stars or whatever you want for now), I think the best goal would be 'first to collect 10 (or whatever) wins.' Besides those three though, what other options are there? MagiMaster 01:30, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Well, actually, we could combine the Levels and the coupons like so: the game ends after the last level; the player with the most coupons wins. I still don't really like that as much as just 'first to 10 wins' though, but it's a thought. MagiMaster 01:32, 25 April 2007 (BST)

If we wanted to be like Mario 64, then a combo would work. If we wanted to be more like the RPG's, we'd use the first to 10 rule. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. --BM 01:44, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Specific Cards

Cards by MagiMaster

Star Road

I don't really like how the math works out for Star Road at the moment, but I can't think of a better way to word it either. MagiMaster 06:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Koopahari Desert

I want one location that doesn't really have anything special about it, but should it be this one? I can't really think of anything for this to do (even though it might have more 'Play only here' cards). MagiMaster 19:25, 28 March 2007 (BST)

I think Peaches Castle would be the best subtle location because it's the HUB in SM64. It's purpose is for people to go other places with it. Maybe just have it say "This card cannot be your last level." Short, sweet and to the point. --BM 01:54, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Peach's Castle works, but then what should Koopahari Desert do? There's already one or two cards that refer to it, so it can't simply be deleted (or renamed). MagiMaster 02:55, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Yoshi Egg and Baby Yoshi

I can't seem to get the wording on Yoshi Egg and Baby Yoshi right. I want it so that Baby Yoshi and Yoshi can only be played permanently by using the previous card, but requiring them to all be drawn is a little unrealistic. Does anyone see a better way to write that? MagiMaster 19:34, 9 April 2007 (BST)

Here's a suggestion for Baby Yoshi, which you can adapt to the other two. It's clearer, but ends up being slightly longer.Jtwe 20:38, 18 April 2007 (BST)

When this card comes into play, destroy a Yoshi Egg you control or destroy this card. Reduce your Jump Check by 1.
Action: Destroy target enemy and add a counter to this card.
Action: If this card has at least 3 counters, you may search the deck for a Yoshi card, put it in your hand, and reshuffle. Then, you may play Yoshi.

I don't know... I'll leave it alone for now. If anyone else comments, I'll probably change it though. MagiMaster 18:02, 20 April 2007 (BST)

Peach's Castle

I added Peach's Castle as a Location that doesn't do much. Right now, it just says that you can't advance while there. However, if we get away from Levels, this will likely just become a blank Location. MagiMaster 18:37, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Cards by BM

Other Star Spirits

Specifically, it seems like Mamar, Skolar, Klevar and Kalmar are extremely powerful. For example, using Mamar/Klevar's ability every turn, no enemy could every do anything. Actually, you wouldn't even have to use it every turn. Skolar's ability is worse since you could just use it every turn and the opponent wouldn't ever be able to do anything. Kalmar's isn't so bad, but you can pretty much count on it wiping out all Enemy cards. MagiMaster 04:25, 21 April 2007 (BST)

I tried to fix things, but I'm not sure if it helped. I made everyone's abilities 'flip a coin' moves and made some other minuscule changes. If we continue to have trouble with these cards, I'll just delete them. Maybe their just too powerful for a card game. --BM 05:23, 21 April 2007 (BST)

I can't tell if the new versions are too powerful or not, so they're fine for now. (Whether they are too strong or not will show up in play testing.) What's the difference in Mamar and Klevar though? MagiMaster 06:25, 21 April 2007 (BST)

I made it so the opponent actually has a chance to get the enemies back in play, if you didn't notice. --BM 15:02, 21 April 2007 (BST)

I meant, 'What is the difference between Mamar's sleep and Klevar's paralysis?' MagiMaster 20:58, 21 April 2007 (BST)

I just said Sleep and Paralysis so I could make the cards different. The difference is when you can stop it. --BM 23:23, 21 April 2007 (BST)

Future Cards

Pipe Maze

I think Pipe Maze should shuffle the Location stack if it's destroyed. I don't know about when another Location is played though (which would cause it to leave play, but not be destroyed). Also, I don't know what else it should do. MagiMaster 19:58, 28 March 2007 (BST)

Boat

I was considering adding the locations Isle Delfino and Rogueport and making it so that they couldn't be played unless you control the Boat Thing. I don't think the Boat would really do much by itself (perhaps allowing some small modification of the Location Stack). Does this sound like a good idea, or do you think it'd be too difficult to play those locations? MagiMaster 08:02, 21 April 2007 (BST)

That could work. What if the boat could automatically make someone play Soda Lake. --BM 23:31, 21 April 2007 (BST)

I don't know. I suppose it would require some playtesting to make that kind of distinction. MagiMaster 05:12, 22 April 2007 (BST)

Actually, I take it back. I don't think forcing someone to play their location on you is very fair. Also, I think a Plane would be better. Or a Boat Action, to take you straight to a place, while directly playing them does nothing. Or, we could get rid of this all together, create an Ocean card that doesn't count towards the total and say on the Rogueport card "This card can only be played if Ocean was played. Though with Ocean in Player A's hand and Rogueport on Player B's hand, you'd have a bunch of pretty useless cards. --BM 22:03, 22 April 2007 (BST)

Play Testing

The deck isn't quite ready for play testing yet, but it's getting close. These issues still need to be resolved before the deck can be used. (Feel free to expand this list if you thing of anything.)

• Blue Shell is still undefined. The card should reference the Blue Shell from New Mario Bros. (I think).

There are also several issues that will probably only be resolved by play testing.

• The victory condition is fairly rare and may slow the game down too much.
• The issue with global vs. individual Levels is unresolved.
• The balance of Actions, Things, Enemies and Locations needs to be checked.
• The balance of discard/destroy actions to draw actions needs to be checked.
• A concrete decision on the scope of the deck will probably be easier to make after playing the game a couple of times. (This may have been resolved.)
• Several cards have the potential to be overpowered or underpowered. This is something to watch for during the first few games.
  • These might be overpowered: You Forgot the Princess!, Bill Blaster, Bob-omb, Minus World
  • These might be underpowered: Starman, Warp Whistle, Bowser

If anyone does play test this deck, list any issues you found somewhere on this page.

I predict a shortage of cards. You only draw one card a turn, and there's so many cards that cause discards and so few that cause draws that people will probably be sitting around with empty hands most of the time. Also, there's always the online game area on this site for playtesting Dvorak games. I wouldn't mind doing it there. CashCrazed 21:34, 30 March 2007 (BST)

Do you mean the Dvorak MUSH? I can't find another online play area. MagiMaster 06:06, 31 March 2007 (BST)

Yeah, that's it. Last time I put up a time nobody showed up, but that might just be because I only gave a day's notice, or because the time zone shift made the time awful for people in Europe. But it looks like there's some days already scheduled next week, so let's try then. CashCrazed 08:34, 31 March 2007 (BST)

I'm not sure I'll be able to make it. I can try though. (Of course, I've also got to remember to do so, which is a problem for me :) MagiMaster 21:43, 31 March 2007 (BST)

Okay, I got a tiny bit of playtesting in. Yoshi is just a bit too overpowered. I got him on the first draw and was able to knock out every single thing the other guy played, well, until he had to leave. Tanooki Suit also seems overpowered to me, since a lot of the actions available come from enemies and it'll be hard to do anything to you. CashCrazed 02:36, 2 April 2007 (BST)

Any suggestions? For Yoshi, I could make it so that you had to use the Yoshi Egg to get him. As for the Tanooki Suit, I could make it so that enemy actions prevented you from performing actions. Actually, I'll go ahead and make those changes, but let me know if you have any better ideas, or if these are too much or not enough. MagiMaster 07:43, 2 April 2007 (BST)

Special Rules and Terminology

Would it be a good idea to define some special terms for common game mechanics? (For one thing, what game mechanics are common enough to warrant special terms?)

Two I've thought about are:

• HP n = This enemy comes into play with n counters on it. If it'd be destroyed, remove a counter instead. If there are no counters on it, destroy it instead.
• Armor n = This enemy cannot be destroyed by a player whose Jump Check is n or less. (There's probably a better name for this.)

Right now only Pokey has HP (although Rex and Yux probably would too if they get made), but 1 HP is basically an ordinary enemy. Lakitu, Boo and Bill Blaster have Armor already. If we wanted, we could say 0 Armor is default, but this is a little different than the normal enemy (since it's possible to get less than 1 on a Jump Check).

It'd also be possible to abbreviate this even more by making those two into corner values, but I'm not sure if I'd want to do that. MagiMaster 19:40, 18 April 2007 (BST)

Armor could be a Corner Value, but I think that the amount of enemies in Mario games with 1 HP would probably make it best to have in the card. e.g.

Some examples:

0

Goomba

Enemy

Action: Target player whose last Jump Check was less than 3 must discard a card.

0

Pokey

Enemy

Play only in Koopahari Desert. This card has 3 HP.

5

Lakitu

Enemy

Action: Create a Spiny Token. This counts as an Enemy with 4 armor.

So it's easier for people to make cards IMHO. Then again, would we really need Armor stats. I mean, Mario isn't really Final Fantasy, every hit does 9999 Super Damage, so the enemies shouldn't need an armor stat. --BM 15:12, 20 April 2007 (BST)

It's just an abbreviation for a mechanic that already exists in the game. I fixed the example cards to reflect what is already there. For example, Pokey had the text: "This card comes into play with 3 counters. If this card would be destroyed, remove a counter instead. If there are no counters on this card, destroy it." which is exactly the same as "HP: 3". Right now, Pokey is the only card with HP. Like I said though, Lakitu, Boo and Bill Blaster all have Armor ATM. (Admittedly, Armor isn't the best name for it, but I can't think of a better one.) The question is, is it worth making this change? MagiMaster 15:27, 20 April 2007 (BST)

Just a thought, but we could push this a little more towards the Mario RPG and Paper Mario style. There most enemies had HP and a few had armor. Whether this would be better than the Super Mario World style of things, I don't know. Any opinions? MagiMaster 18:12, 20 April 2007 (BST)

Well, I've played the Paper Mario games, and they really didn't have a very good view on HP. Even the Goombas had like 4/5 HP, but if we're going by Paper Mario/SMRPG it would help you with the Armor problem. Call it DEF, end of story. --BM 23:17, 20 April 2007 (BST)

I supposed DEF is a better name for it. So then, the question is, is this worth the change? In Paper Mario, Goombas may have had 4 HP, but it wasn't hard to do 4 damage in one hit. I suppose I don't really want to completely change the deck at this point without some serious playtesting though, so I'll put this idea on a back burner for now. MagiMaster 04:07, 21 April 2007 (BST)

I actually have Super Paper Mario, and I wouldn't mind going to check how many hits it takes to kill a baddie. The question is... what level should should I be at while doing this? Level 1 would not have enough ATK, but level 10 makes most enemies 1 kit K.O.'s. And there's the enemies that you have to use Pixls to kill. YOU DECIDE! --BM 14:59, 21 April 2007 (BST)

Let's leave that for later. If, after playtesting, it's decided that enemies die too quickly (or something similar) then we can work out something like an HP/DEF system. (Or we could even copy the Paper Mario stat set if we wanted to get that complex.) MagiMaster 05:12, 22 April 2007 (BST)

I suppose we can ignore this. Too few cards use it for now. MagiMaster 00:12, 29 April 2007 (BST)

Size!?

This deck is too big. It currently has 93 cards, of which only five advance the level and one can cause victory. Also, the small and limited number of Locations can stop play for a while when the level does advance. Also, it's increasingly being diluted by cards from specific cards that aren't from the "classic" Mario games. I think we ought to remove the 20 Paper Mario series cards as well as any others that only apply to a single game besides the core series. We should also make duplicates of "Save the Princess" and a few cards that are common across many Mario games, such as Super Mushroom and Goomba. Finally, we should prune out a number of "less-important" cards, until the deck reaches a reasonable size (say, 60 cards).-Bucky 07:42, 23 April 2007 (BST)

Personally, I'd prefer a deck larger than 60 cards, but I do agree that the card balance is off. We've been discussing alternate Victory Conditions that would make it easier to win. Plus, there are some more ideas for Location cards. It's likely that a few important cards may still need duplication, but I'd hold off on that until the victory condition is finalized. We've agreed that the scope for this game covers any Mario RPG or Platformer, so Paper Mario cards are fine (as long as there aren't too many). At the moment, I don't want to delete anyone's cards, so for now, I won't worry about the size. Once some other stuff is fixed, I'll work on card balance.

Having this many cards makes me think of starting a Mario RPG CCG. Would anyone be interested in converting some of these or making new cards for such a game? We'd have to work out a whole new set of victory conditions and special rules too. If there's any interest, I'll start a new page for it. MagiMaster 18:01, 23 April 2007 (BST)

IMO, there ARE too many Paper Mario series cards, especially given that they're all Things. The deck would benefit if we replaced them with extra copies of useful cards and "classic" cards. Suggested replacements:Save the Princess x2, Jump x4, Jump Combo x2, Goomba x2, Koopa Troopa x1, Super Mushroom x2, Fire Flower x1, Yoshi's Island x1, Donut Plains x1, Bowser's Castle x2.-Bucky 20:11, 23 April 2007 (BST)

Well, there probably are too many of certain kinds of cards, but it's not that they're specifically Paper Mario cards. Also, I'm not sure about duplicating Locations. I think they work better when they're unique. There might not be enough of them though. (Isle Delfino and Rogueport are two locations that could be added.) MagiMaster 21:49, 23 April 2007 (BST)

Actually, I just went ahead and made a new page for the Mario RPG CCG deck. So let's make the distinction that this deck is based more on the platformers and the other is based more on the RPGs. Both technically have the same scope though, but this deck should be kept simpler. MagiMaster 19:48, 23 April 2007 (BST)

I moved several cards to a 'proposed deletion' section. I basically kept one of each of the Star Spirits, Pixls and Paper Mario partners. I won't actually delete the cards until I get some more input though. (Although, the cards are still in the other set.) MagiMaster 18:34, 25 April 2007 (BST)

I went ahead and deleted the cards I had proposed for deletion since there has been no response. Plus the cards still exist (in better form) in the CCG set. MagiMaster 04:23, 2 May 2007 (BST)