Talk:Technopoly deck

Suggestions for MUSHing with this deck

Make all cards Actions, so that played cards go straight to the discard pile (which then quickly becomes the draw pile) and players have some sort of chance of drawing them again without creating obscene (and limiting, no matter the degree of obscenity involved) numbers of duplicate cards. Then, when an Object is invented/discovered, the player creates and plays a new card using the Object's name as the title and its attributes as the text. The amount of the object a player posesses can be indicated with status; to give Mining Rights or Technology, merely create an exact duplicate of the card in question and givething to the other player.

Your thoughts. I desire them.

--CK 00:17, 8 September 2007 (BST)

Good thinking. I've added it all to the page. --Kevan 15:28, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Robot

Thing

Attacker, Automatic, Manipulator, Worthless.

Put a robot into play under your control (set the status of this card to 1) if, at the beginning of your turn, you have own none (the status of this card is 0).

Perhaps one per player of these should be in the deck by default. --Fuso 15:16, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh and an important note.

Don't play this game with two players. It sucks. Really, really badly.--CK 15:46, 9 September 2007 (BST)

I know what you mean. ;) --Xahn Borealis 17:38, 19 September 2007 (BST)

Rule and card suggestions

I really like this: "(From this, Robots are essentially Machines with the "Automatic", "Manipulator" and "Worthless" attributes.)". How about adding a "foundational" positive attribute which makes it so that everyone who has this technology but owns no copies of it at the beginning of their turn gets one for free? Are then not robots precisely the object {Automatic, Attacker, Foundational, Manipulator, Worthless}?

To make it more interesting, each player could also have access to an initial fuel that is "Common, Foundational, Worthless" and used by the robots to operate and one with which new robots are created. The robots could furthermore get a miner trait restricted to the first fuel (or else, only one robot will be available for work each turn). I think this would make the opening of the game more interesting, the number of robots under your control does not increase as quickly and gives the players something to work on directly.

"Carry out research. The Player skips their entire turn to either draw a new Attribute card from the draw pile, or draw back up to a hand of three cards. (There is no maximum hand size.)" To draw up to three cards encourages randomness in the game as you will want to expend your cards as quickly as possible. A game that is too random is no fun. You will want to encourage the players to save their worst negative cards in case the opponent plays a really good positive card. Perhaps you could just make it "draw two cards"? This would also lessen the effects of the researcher trait.

Inventing should perhaps be an optional turn by the player instead of researching and working the bots. Although I think the bots should be worked regardless since you otherwise let them stay inactive while you try to invent something good enough, any fuels at all, in particular.

I believe the game is too short as it stands. With the proposed way of ending the game (roll a d20 after each round and end the game if the roll is less than or equal to the turn number), the expected number of rounds is just 5.3. I think the number of turns should be roughly the double. The expected number of rounds with 2d20 is 10.2 and 12.2 with a d100.

I understand the logic behind giving a transmitter the ability to add or remove 10, but it might be more fun as far as gameplay mechanics go to make it add or subtract 1 and with no restriction on the number of uses (possibly capping the di(c)e from going above its maximum value).

Instead of saying that some actions can only be executed by one object per turn, you could have some increasing sequence dictating the number of required activations for another effect e.g. powers of two or the Fibonacci numbers. In other words, if one researcher is activated, you may draw one more card, if two more researchers are activated, you may draw an additional cards, if four more researchers are activated, you may draw an additional card, etc.

Whenever a player play two or more cards that provides an activation, the player needs to announce if the new card augments the old action or provides a new one. Likewise, many of the negative effects may perhaps target a specific activation.

One could then also have a card as follows. Engineer (pos): When this attribute is played, reveal another attribute card on your hand. Activate: Create a copy of the chosen attribute card. If the copy is on someone's hand the end of their next turn, it must be discarded.

Monitor seems like they could upset the game easily. Perhaps they need to reveal, of their choice, a number of cards equal to the number of uses of Monitor? I think the attribute could be removed entirely.

As an additional rule, you could let a player play copies of the same characteristic as a single characteristic with a stronger effect (assuming you're playing with a deck that supports this). For instance, if you have two miner cards, you could play it as an action that provides 4 units of a fuel per turn instead of two per turn. An opponent may not play two different characteristics in response but could play three copies of e.g. pollutant.

Elaborate could probably be changed to require an additional robot to be activated or created instead of specifically three.

Manipulator could be split into (Inventor (invent a new object) (not necessary)), Worker (create a known object), Operator (can activate machines), and Supervisor (can oversee an object (e.g. to defend or for the high maintance attribute). One robot can supervise all objects of a certain kind as far as defense is concerned.). One or more categories could be merged or cards could be provide two different categories at once. If a supervised object is targetted by an opponent, change the target to the supervisor. If the same object appears again in the chain of supervisors, then target that object. This could happen of two robots supervise each other.

To encourage players to possibly choose combat, you may want to clarify how machine-machine combat works and also add cards such as

Offensive (pos): Add five to attack rolls when attacking.

Defensive (pos): Subtract five from attack rolls when attacked.

Ranged (pos): This machine is not destroyed if it loses a roll while attacking.

Supportive (pos): Activate: target object may add (subtract) two from all attack rolls when attacked (attacking) until the beginning of your next turn.

Weak (neg): Add (subtract) three from all attack rolls when attacked (attacking).

Some more cards:

Common (neg): Every player gains mining rights to this technology.

Upgrade (pos): Play this card only on an object with no characteristics and target a technology you have access to. This invention inherits the traits of that technology. Your opponent may still respond to this card.

Secret (pos): The next characteristic you add to this object is played face down. Reveal the card at the end of the design phase and choose the targets, if any.

Specialized Miner (pos): Choose a fuel you have mining rights for. Activate: gain three units of the chosen fuel.

Undo (pos): Move to your hand a characteristic added by you to this invention and the characteristic added by your opponent in response.

Experimental Fuel Selection (neutral): The next fuel to be chosen for this invention is chosen at random among the legal targets.

Carnivorous (neutral): The next fuel to be chosen for this invention may and must be a non-fuel object.

Perpetual (neutral): End the end of your turn, if this object was not activated, destroy it.

Activatable (neutral): Activate: nothing. (Every characteristic that provides an activating ability is considered a subcharacteristic of this one.)

Generalization (pos): Modify the last characteristic given to this invention by making a group more general. Choose a group and remove a trait that the objects must or may not have (one or the other). (Fuels is the set of objects without the Activatable trait and Machines the set of objects with it.)

Second Thought (neutral): You may redo a target of a characteristic given to this invention.

Delayed (neutral): The effect of the action are not realized until the beginning of the owner's following turn. All targets must be chosen upon activation.

Charging (neg): Choose an activation of the invention. The activation cannot be used unless the following activation has been used and expends the charge. Activate: Charge this unit.

Exotic Resources (neg): The next fuel to be chosen for this invention must be chosen from an opponent.

Specialization (neg): Modify the last characteristic given to this invention by imposing a restriction on a group referred to the group. Choose a trait, the group is restricted to objects with or without that trait (choose one or the other). (Fuels is the set of objects without the Activatable trait and Machines the set of objects with it.)

Neglected (neg): This object cannot be supervised.

Erratic (neg): This object always targets a random legal target.

Special Requirements (neg) (a/c): Choose a (positive?) trait. This object can only be activated (created) by machines with or without that trait (choose one or the other). Operator and Manipulator (Worker and Manipulator) are not valid choices.

Evolving (neg) (a/c): Choose an object that the inventor controls; in order to create this object, the player must destroy an object of that type which he or she controls.

Reliant (neg): Choose an object that the inventor controls; no player can control more objects of this kind than the chosen kind. At the end of each player's turn, he or she must destroy the excess number of objects of this invention.

--Fuso 14:40, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Wording Notes

For a Robot to be "Attacker, Automatic, Manipulator, Worthless", "Manipulator" should be modified to include the ability to Monitor high-maintenance objects. On a related note, it's confusing that the "Monitor" attribute has nothing to do with the ability to Monitor devices. Also, to make Manipulators useful several attributes should be modified to say "Manipulator" or "Machine" instead of "Robot" - for example, "Hazardous" machines, when activated, destroy "the activating Robot" instead of "the activating Machine", leaving it ambiguous what happens when they are activated by a non-Robot.

Wonko 07:14, 16 February 2009 (UTC)