Talk:New CCG/Archive

Dividing Up the Page?

People may have noticed that when you edit this page it's giving the message "WARNING: This page is 37 kilobytes long; some browsers may have problems editing pages approaching or longer than 32kb. Please consider breaking the page into smaller sections." Should we do this? If so, how? --James 13:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

We definitely should; just create some sub-pages (eg. Talk:New CCG/Subpage) and move stuff off into them, linking them from somewhere on this talk page. Probably better just to throw everything into Talk:New CCG/Archive and make some bold statements about where to go from here, rather than worrying about having multiple subpages running in parallel for different aspects of the game design, but it's up to you. --Kevan 13:59, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, Ive made one. Talk:New_CCG/joker Where I invent all to discuss mine and your ideas. --So 18. Feb 07 03:00

Other Approaches To Development

So far people's ideas and suggestions (including mine) have been concentrating on specific rules/mechanics ideas.

Maybe another way to look at it would be to take the Dvorak rules as is, or a variation on them like the Hitchhikers Guide game, and see if this theme could work with it. --James 13:51, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

The Guide CCG started with one person coming up with a basic rule structure by themselves (which were sufficiently advanced from the basic Dvorak rules to suggest how random concepts could translate to the game universe), and encouraging other people to build cards on top of that. Getting to that stage is the priority, really, even if it's done sketchily and improved on later. --Kevan 15:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Yet Another Approach: Wishlist

What is the one thing you'd most like to see in this game (interpreting 'thing' however you like)? --James 14:06, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

A Theme That Isn't Time Travel

Here's an idea taken largely from the role-playing game Torg, which 'explains' how different genres can interact, without using time travel.

Each player represents a different parallel universe, with different laws (which correspond to the conventions of a particular genre), which cover such things as whether magic works, whether advanced technology works etc.

Players can cross over to different universes, but are partly subject to the laws of their 'host' universe eg magicians might find that their spells don't work.

I'd suggest three main variables:

• to what extent magic is allowed.
• to what extent advanced technology works.
• to what extent evil exists/is dominant - for example in the Care Bears universe evil basically doesn't exist, in a superhero comic it does but is pre-destined to lose, in the World of Darkness series it's pre-destined to win.

Presumably each deck would feature a 'universe card' giving the initial stats for the deck's universe, and there would be various cards to alter these stats during the game. --James 07:28, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, this sounds like a good theme to go with. How are the universes interacting, if you're thinking of one per deck - each player is dividing troops between their own universe and the one they're invading, attempting to conquer their opponent's universe without letting their own one fall?

Not sure about the "alter these stats" aspect of the universe cards; although it could be a nice way to control the speed of the game, in the same way as Magic the Gathering's mana (on the first turn when your universe is only slightly suited to mine, I can only send small things through; on later turns when I've made it much more suitable, I can send the bigger cards in), I'm not sure how well it works when there's not a neat balance between the universes; if one player's having to work hard to make their opponent's universe more magical so that they can get a dragon through, while the other is cheerfully sending out vampires because both universes happened to already be evil, it sounds a bit foregone. --Kevan 21:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

That's partly a reason to make it multi-player, to reduce the importance of that sort of 'rock-scissors-paper' interaction between decks.

Presumably there'd be some sort of balance between usability of units, and their power. So that eg dragons and tanks only work in particular types of universe, whereas spearmen work everywhere.

Ditto presumably decks with 'delicate' units would also include cards which allow them to maintain their universe as is.

The above could lead to a situation where offensive decks use lots of small, versatile units & cards to change other universes' rules, whereas defensive decks use powerful, 'delicate' units and cards to maintain their own universe (which is a little bit not what you'd expect ie you'd expect such things as dragons and demons to be offensive and spearmen to be defensive).

You could also build in a tendency for the universe's rules to move in a particular direction over the course of the game.

Anyway, if most people want to do time travel then I'm happy to go with that. --James 06:56, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

As I say in the "number of players" section, it's easy to avoid the rock-paper-scissor problem by allowing hybridisation between universes. If I have the option to kit my Care Bears out with machine guns and holy water from other universes, then it's not a boringly foregone conclusion when I come up against a World of Darkness deck. (It also makes deck design more interesting, if you have a wider pool of cards to choose from. And would help balance all the different universes out, to some extent - if the Superhero set had a single, insane power card in it, then everyone would have the option of splashing that card into their decks.)

I'm fine with either theme, anyway, there's not really much difference between them. I'd just like to see things getting started. --Kevan 11:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Publicising the Project

Would it be a good idea to put a message on some google or yahoo groups (for example) saying that this project exists and wants input?--James 06:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

If you know any good, relevant groups, then go for it, by all means. --Kevan 18:40, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Is everyone else OK with me doing this? If so, here's a possible wording. Please leave comments here --James 10:39, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

That you even ask???? GO FOR IT!!!!!!!! B-) --Joeyeti 10:51, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

If this idea is acceptable, I'll leave the wording here and a list of where I've put it, so that other people can do the same if they want without people getting it twice. --James 10:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Some people on this list [in this group / on this forum] might be interested in this. We've recently started working on a project that, as far as we know, is pretty unique. The idea is to set up a game which works like a collectible card game, but which is 'open-source': free, non-profit, and created entirely by its players. The game will also be multi-genred (like GURPS for example), which will allow people to create decks based around whatever theme they're most interested in. If you're interested, please go to the page for the project, which is http://www.dvorakgame.co.uk/index.php/New_CCG. This page is a wiki (like Wikipedia), so while you need to set up an account, you don't need to give your email. Thanks, [your name].

If you send the above message anywhere, please list it here so it doesn't get sent to the same place twice. --James 18:16, 10 February 2007 (UTC) usenet/google groups: rec.games.design yahoo groups: BoardGameDesign (its description says it's also for discussion of card games) pdx-gamers wwfrawdealcustomcards Cardgame80 Magiccardscreator forums: boardgamegeek.com forum (site is also about card games)

Actually, people do need to set up an account, I'm afraid - MediaWiki sites get spammed to hell if anonymous IPs can edit pages, so I changed a setting to require account creation. --Kevan 11:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I've changed it based on this. --James 12:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I suppose we should move this page to a more generic placeholder name, as well, if we're giving the URL out. Feel free to use the "move" tab to retitle it. --Kevan 13:44, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I've done this. --James 18:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Name

Did "History ReZap" come from anywhere particular? Maybe we should throw some names around. I'm a bit of a sucker for "chrono" prefixes - "Chronopocalypse" and "Chronogeddon" are a bit clunky, but "Chronowar" isn't bad. --Kevan 12:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Joe: Nope, it was the third thing that came to my mind after some obvious and cliché names ;-) Chronowar is not bad... until a different suggestion! --Joeyeti 13:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Apparently there's an online-only CCG called Chron X, though. --James 06:37, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd like a game that suggests that the theme is 'anything', rather than that the theme is 'time travel'. --James 10:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh. How wide are you casting "anything"? Surely it wouldn't be appropriate to insert a load of computer hacking cards, or microbial lifeforms, or city construction mechanics, or chess pieces? "Summoning troops from throughout time" seems enough to keep us going for a very long time.

Or are you seeing this more as sketching out a very generic CCG system (goals, combat, etc) that can be split off into GCCG: Chronowar, GCCG: Microbia and so on? --Kevan 11:19, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking this way: if you're going to start a project like this, I'd imagine that people who are interested in it are likely to have a particular theme that they want to do - maybe they play a particular game and they'd like to do something with all those card ideas they have, or they've always wanted a game based on a particular film, or whatever. So the challenge is to come up with a way that everyone can get what they want.

My suggestion of time/'dimensional' travel was intended to be a way of 'explaining' how these different genres can be interacting. Obviously some people might like the theme of 'time travel' itself, and that's fine, and it does offer ideas for various cards and mechanisms as we've seen here, but if it's presented to people as "this is a game about time travel" then that's just effectively picking a particular theme.

I think that the examples you came up with could easily be integrated into the 'story' as we've come up with it so far. --James 12:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

That's fair enough. Having a tighter theme makes design more focused, though, and I'd have thought that was an important thing for the early days of a collaborative CCG. Diversity is fine if there's a tested archetype to work from, but I think we need to work together to build that archetype, first. It's much easier to design solo expansions if you know the basic shape of the game, the stats of an average card, which types of mechanics are and aren't allowed, and what sorts of cards and effects are going to exist in other people's decks.

At the moment we're still sitting around discussing things purely theoretically - we need to start venturing example cards and eventually building enough so that we can playtest the system, playing out a lot of games against each other, building decks from the same small card pool. It seems a bit early to be asking people to write their own personal-favourite expansions. --Kevan 13:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, no, sure, I think the initial set should be the basics. --James 15:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

"Joker:" Well, I'd say, we'd start the game with a particular theme, in this case (not time travel) but development. Later, if someone likes the system but dislikes the genre, he can change the names and texts on the cards. It's much easier to create a game that way. We just have to pick up the ideas and don't have to talk long about very theoratical things. The cards speak their own language and mine is german.

I would suggest the name: civilizations clash 12.02.07 Mo 00:40

Theme

I suppose we should get the theme clear, before going too far anything else. The basic concept of the game is going to be "a war fought by soldiers from different time periods", from what's been said on the list, yes? With the players' characters being some sort of time-controlling generals able to summon forth troops from anywhen in the past or the future? Are we going to worry about the mechanics of time travel between years to fetch things, or are the players just pulling units and buildings straight into existence on the battlefield? --Kevan 17:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Joe: Yup, I would see it like that. I guess Time Travel would not need to be involved that much, maybe just as some Actions, affecting the Battlefield or some Things that would be persistent and would be a result of a mishappened Time Travel. So just minor affections. --Joeyeti 08:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Another take - trying to control history by moving other people through time. Have a set of eras, winner is the one who controls a large majority of them. (To mix examples, something like LotRs "site path" (where each location is in order, say Stone Age -> Dark Ages -> Age of Sail -> WW1 -> WW2 -> Space Age), combined with classic SW's "converting" (multiple versions of each location, that players can replace to show their control. Could also have helpful/hindering game text). AnyGould 23:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Number of players

Basic question: would this game be a "1 on 1" or "1 on many"? --Joeyeti 11:54, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd prefer it to be multi-player. The reason for this is that we all seem to be assuming that there's going to be a 'rock-scissors-paper' element to the game, where decks of one type might tend to beat decks of another, even if the two decks are equally well-constructed. Even if we didn't want to have such an element, it would probably tend to happen anyway.

If this is true, then you might tend to get situations in a two-player game, where it's obvious who's going to win as soon as you start. "I'm playing superheroes, you're playing ancient Romans, I'm going to lose, how about we save 20 minutes and I just give up now."

A multi-player game would tend to create more complicated, and therefore more interesting situations, and have an evening-out effect where "OK, we're both playing 'rock', and you're playing 'paper', but if we gang up on you we can clip back your advantage". Thus making the game more interesting. --James 10:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

When I talked about the rock-paper-scissor thing, I didn't mean that it would lead to foregone conclusions - like the aggro-control-combo trinity in Magic, there'd still be the random element of which cards actually get drawn, and a lot of hybridisation to stop a given deck from being too specialised ("My mediaeval deck can defend very strongly against far-future attackers, but I'd better throw a couple of rayguns in, even if they're tricky for my troops to operate, just in case they come up against a WW2 deck").

I'd like to see a game that worked as both 1-on-1 and 1-on-many. --Kevan 11:31, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I as well would like to see it work for both duel and multiplayer, as well as team formats. In reality, such things would happen anyway, depending on the number of available players. Besides, even a duel player can have fun playing the metagame. -- Eswald 21:10, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Structure

Washing up and listening to Circulus, it struck me that past/present/future makes quite a nice paper/scissor/stone model, which is a good base to build a CCG on. The post-industrial present beats the distant past because it has science and technology, the alien future beats the present by having better science that's geared to defeating or seizing control of puny 20th century weapons, and the mediaeval past beats the future either through its lack of reliance on technology, or (probably more interestingly) through its vague mystic powers. We needn't explicitly define the three eras, but a general tendency for each of them to be vulnerable to the people and artifacts of one other might be a good thing to keep in mind. --Kevan 17:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Joe: Question is if only 3 different time Epochs would be sufficient for such a game? Maybe from the Start yes with possible other Epochs coming in after testing the basic Idea first. --Joeyeti 08:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I deliberately avoided the word "Epoch", I just meant that there could be a general tendency for the present to beat the past, the future to beat the present and the past to beat the future. Narrowly-defined Epochs seem like probably the best way of defining who can use which equipment, I'm completely in favour of those. --Kevan 12:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

(old ideas)-Joker I tried to make a game like this once. Few years ago. I tried following things out: To have all the time intervals (I had 5) in one deck: But when i was in stone age, it was quite likely that I hadn't one single card of the stone age in my hand. So i tried out to make several decks: When you achieved the goal of a certain epoch (for example a priest and a city hall) you achieved the next Status (f.e. industrial age) & you mixed the next deck in your card stack. Than I had the problem, that i got the well very late in the future. Maybe its better to exchange the whole card deck. The Apeman whos in front of the player allready can stay, he wont survive the WWII, I'll bet. (new ideas)But I had a system which worked quite well: There are some "stones": Religion, Market, Industry, Community.... representing the advantages of your civilization. You could just play cards like "Gods intervention" with the religion button or "Monopol" with the Market button.You can figth for these buttons from Stone age onwards, some may be introduced later (or maybe you cant get more religion points after renaissance or so). The player whos the first to achieve FUTURE STATUS wins. But maybe its much too complicated to make 3 or 4 decks and then play through the whole history of mankind that way. So, I don't know exactly maybe its already mentioned anyway: You could split the time intervals: Apeman can just fight against apeman - Tanks against Helicopters and so on but the technologies develop out of each other, so you cant build helicopters in the future if you havent invented "flying" in the past (in medieval times) -Joker 00:50, 12 February 2007

Better science: The alien future could be based on biotech, which is particularly susceptible to mediaeval magic, but highly resilient against industrial attacks. -- Eswald

Joe: Good idea. So Biotech is minor to medieval Magic, medieval Armor and Weapons are minor to present Weapons and Armor and present Weapons and Armor are minor to future Biotech. What about the other way around? How can present armies beat future, how can medieval fight against present and how would future crush medieval warriors with magic? --Joeyeti 08:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

We don't need to make a specific way for the reverse direction. Just ensure that both sides at least have the possibility to win, but let the rock/paper/scissors model apply as a general tendency. Wins in the other direction would still occur due to disparities in luck, skill, and/or inclusion of a few cards from the third category. -- Eswald 21:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Another option is to have multiple RPS models working at once. For example, small teams beat solos beat mobs beat small teams. So in medieval times, adventurers beat mighty wizards beat mobs. AnyGould 23:35, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

There could be a card based on the Grandfather Paradox, where if a character is destroyed, then a character from a later era is also destroyed - or which stops an attempt by a character to destroy another from their past. --James 12:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Joe: Good Idea! Of course we have to make the mechanics and dependencies as to which Unit or Thing is depending on what... if that "what" becomes destroyed (and/or possibly otherwise influenced?). --Joeyeti 13:09, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Mechanics

What cards should exist? Troops? Buildings? Weapons? Armour? State-based effects like Fog and Festivals? What's the object of the game? Is there only one way to win? --Kevan 17:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Joe: Troops for basic fighting, Buildings for defense, Armour for defense, Weapons for offense, Magic for offense (Medieval), Stand-alone effects (raising attack and/or morale), Time Events (influencing the Battlefield), general Events (influencing certain Rules in the Game or other conditions), Win Conditions (for each Epoch or Army), Lose Conditions (maybe)... Any other Ideas? --Joeyeti 08:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

So tightening that up...

• Troop cards. Which can be generic soldiers, individual heroes, groups, or monsters. Probably lump "vehicles" in here as well.
• Terrain cards. Rather than 'building', it's probably useful to be more generic (and "terrain" could include things like Fog).
• Equipment cards. Any card which gets attached permanently to a troop card. Should we lump weapons and armour and gadgets and everything together? Or at least have them as subtypes. Could treat vehicles as equipment, if we're considering them to be driven or piloted by specific troops.
• Event cards. As standard Dvorak Actions. Subtypes of "Temporal" for cards that delve into timelines, and "Spell" for magical effects, if we're using magic in the game. (Given that only a small percentage of the troops will be capable of magic, spells probably wouldn't merit an entire card type to themselves.)

Extra victory conditions can be attached onto random troops or terrains or anythings, if we need them, although we haven't really discussed victory conditions yet. --Kevan 14:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

How are we going to stop cavemen from driving tanks? Give each card a simple Epoch and have a global rule that troops can't operate things that come from a later Epoch? Or give each card a detailed year, and ban a soldier from 1916 from being able to drive a 1941 tank? --Kevan 17:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Joe: We should set some basic Rules for the entire game (whether based on the current Card List - with possible Amendments with future development - or set generally independent of the existing Cards) with some Cards influencing those basic Rules. Depends on the Number of different Epochs. --Joeyeti 08:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Victory conditions

Basic question is if Victory Conditions will be set-up for the whole game generally - like obliterate the enemy, or will be Cards with limited amound in each player's deck which he would lay down and try to achieve? Another question would be if they can be influenced somehow by other players or are "invulnerable"? --Joeyeti 15:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

If it's a "war" theme, straight obliteration seems best. We could always some bury some weird and difficult victory conditions in the cards, though, the same way the Magic The Gathering does.

"Obliteration" is tricky to quantify, though, as both players should have a chance to build up an army before it can be obliterated (if you play a single troop card on your first turn, and I obliterate it with an action card, that shouldn't mean I've won). Giving the players their own life totals and having them attacked directly when they have nothing to defend themselves is the usual way to go. Might be thematically elegant to use the draw piles for this, with direct player damage translating into cards being discarded from the top of the draw pile - your draw pile would be your "time rift", and when there's no longer anything to come through it, you're eliminated from the game. --Kevan 12:43, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, good idea Kevan! Dont know if any other game uses that, but it is quite original! Thus the player would have no means to prepare any strong cards as he cant see the shuffled deck at the beginning. Only catch would be if he gets only weak or unplayable cards up-front so the opponent can crush him until he catches breath.
Therefore we would need to establish a mechanism maybe for building up the armies... --Joeyeti 13:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

This mechanism is used (and probably patented) by a horrible Harry Potter-themed CCG.

Decipher used a similar system for the original Star Wars CCG (and the similar Wars TCG) - "damage" was dealt through your deck (cards that you play cycle underneath). AnyGould 03:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see some special victory conditions, although there could still be a general one encoded in the rules. A mechanism I was thinking of was a goal which requires you to steal or destroy a particular card or cards, and those cards are in your deck but get played into the control of another player. For example assassinate someone, steal x number of treasures from particular epochs, see x number of wonders of world history, capture villains etc. --James 06:24, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I really like this idea: Wha not have several quests in your deck, ,like those James listes above. For every quest you get 2 points and every advantage button 1 point (see above: structure): Someone with 5 or 6 victory points wins the game [User:Joker, Joker]. So you can have several tactics: quests or getting buttons like religion, market, technology,... [Mo 12. Feb. 07]

"Alter the timeline" has some interesting possibilities, but it would be a very different game than "clobber your enemies". AnyGould 03:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC) I agree [User:Joker, Joker]

The suggestions so far for victory conditions seem to be:

• control a number, or all, eras (in 'time zones for cards' below) - where control means something like 'having units there when no other player does'.
• each player having some factor which starts at a high level and is then reduced, with players being eliminated when it reaches zero. This factor may be the cards in the deck itself.
• reaching a victory condition which is specific to the deck - like 'goal cards' in some other games on this site.

--James 22:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

• I want to add: be the first to gain future status. Maybe there are 5 zones on the table, represented by cards saying "Middle age" "Future" "Stone Age"... You can develop through the centuries, by reaching the goals of every or the conditions of every era. But Id like the first vc James suggested. Press Talk:New_CCG/joker to view the subpage

Banned mechanics

And oh, what format are we developing this for? Apprentice, Gatling, real-pieces-of-cardboard, web-turn-based, or what? We should all be aware of which mechanics and assumptions we can and can't use, accordingly. --Kevan 19:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Joe: Depends. Best thing would be a basic real-piece-of-cardboard game (for me). If anyone would find or make a Web Client for this, it could be modified for it. Again, only my idea ;) --Joeyeti 08:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

blunderis: Hey, I'm new around here, but I'm really interested in this idea since is sounds similar to an idea I had once. With regard to what format we are developing this for: what if we designed the cards as some type of XML document in such a way that it could be implemented on many platforms ranging anywhere from gameboy to web-browser? My idea is to allow people to design their own cards (by either writing XML by hand or by using some simple card-builder tool). With card design fully decentralized, everyone would be free to design cards like "Mega-Powerful Beast" or "Your Opponent Dies Instantly". The solution to this would be the creation of community moderated deck-validators. These would work kinda like the W3C's XHTML Validator or similar. The validators would check the XML deck-file against their approved list of cards. Everyone keeps a whitelist of what validators they trust and when two players meet, they find the intersection of their whitelists, then they submit their decks for approval. This way, players can only play against other decks that are deemed to be fair by a trusted party. So this would entail coming up with a simple xml schema like "<deck> consists of 1-N <cards>", "<card> consists of <name><type><abilities>", etc. Then the groups who build validators would create rules like "<card> with hash 3795hk14j53kg is allowed", "<card> with hash 11s61qbx5fg is allowed no more than 4 times in a <deck>", etc.

Card Ideas

Card ideas, based on the info so far:

Card Name: Sea / Land / Air
Card Type: (Thing) Location
Card Text: Sea / Land / Air space is brought into play, a conflict can be forged with aquatic / land / air units.
When this card is destroyed, all remaining aquatic / land / air forces must withdraw to respective player's hand.

Comments: This card could be destroyed with a Victory Condition or another type of Action Card.

I think we need to come up with a few very basic cards to get an idea of their scope, before we start throwing out ideas for special ones. (Nobody had even mentioned "locations" or aquatic/land/air troop types, or even troop types at all, before this!) We should pick a range of card types, back in the Mechanics section, so that we know what scopes we're working in. --Kevan 14:48, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Joe: I know I know :) I just didnt want to lose that Idea that crept into my mind... happens often you know ;) --Joeyeti 15:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

Why don't you do a small deck with what you have and see how it works? Zaratustra 02:44, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we've got enough of a skeleton yet - we need a victory mechanism and presumably some sort of combat system, before we can know what the cards are going to do. --Kevan 12:38, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Time Zones For Cards

• Every Thing has a 'year' which represents 'where' it's meant to be when it comes into play.
• Cards can be said to be 'earlier' or 'later' than each other, and can be said to 'near' each other (eg if they're within 10 years) or not.
• Various cards modify a card's year.

sub-suggestion, based on the film Time Bandits:

• fantasy cards have a year of X, and so are 'near' each other but not earlier or later than any other card.

--James 06:13, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Simpler version of the above, based on the Dream Park role-playing game:

• Things have one of a few tags, for example Ancient, Historical, Modern, Futuristic, or Magical. --James 07:03, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Tags seem easier and make more sense, I think; there's no reason why a soldier from 1945 couldn't drive an SUV from 2003. Having to pay careful attention to years seems like it'd make deck building more arbitrarily restrictive, and gameplay too easy to make tiny mistakes with.

Might be nice to use years and tags at the same time (maybe an Epoch symbol in the corner, with the year printed underneath); years would mostly be an aesthetic detail, but could be invoked for occasional cards like Grandfather Paradox. --Kevan 12:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I would also vote for more general Epoch distinction than with years, as 5 or 6 different Epochs are more distinguishable than years. --Joeyeti 13:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, so perhaps something like this:

• All Things have two Epoch values: Current Epoch (C.E.), and Originating Epoch (O.E.).

• C.E. represents where in time the Thing is 'now'. O.E. represents where the Thing comes from.

• When a card comes into play, its C.E. and O.E. are the same, and are taken from what's printed on the card.

• Both C.E. and O.E. must always be one of Ancient, Historical, Modern, Futuristic, or Legendary(?)

• Things are near each other if they have the same C.E.

• If there are two Things, and neither of them have an O.E. of Legendary, and their O.E.s are different, if Thing A is from an earlier Epoch than Thing B then Thing A is earlier than Thing B, and Thing B is later than Thing A. Note that earlier and later are based on O.E. whereas near is based on C.E. --James 17:49, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Interesting; how are you keeping track of CE during the course of a game? You could split the table into physical "zones" and have cards moved between them. Could mark the zones by having "Epoch" cards as part of the game - players can choose up to three to have in their deck, and both players put all their Epoch cards on the table at the start of the game, to divide it up into 3-6 Epochs. --Kevan 18:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking of having cards, which aren't part of the deck but just used as markers, which have the name of an Epoch on them, and they're put under a Thing if that Thing isn't in its original Epoch. --James 06:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Moving units around through time opens up some new ideas, and might make for some neat game balance - a Mecha-Colossus is invulnerable in the Future, but if your opponent can force you to fight on his home turf in the Ancient Epoch, there's no electricity to power it and it just gets dismantled by stone axes. --Kevan 18:17, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Which, hm, maybe suggests a victory mechanism similar to the Provinces in Legend of the Five Rings; there could be some way for Epochs to be won or lost, and if you lose X of your Epochs, you lose the game. Maybe some mechanic for "closing a rift" if you've achieved supremacy within that Epoch, however we define that - the Epoch card gets flipped over, and you leave your troops trapped in that Epoch to show that you've won it. First to claim more than half the Epochs on the table wins the game. --Kevan 18:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Having looked at my suggestion again, Current Epoch and Originating Epoch could become Location and Origin. The downside being that some games use 'Location' to mean a type of Thing (eg cities or bases), so that type of Thing would need to be called something else.

The earlier/later mechanism might be a bit complicated. Although it suggests some interesting cards. --James 06:02, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Joe: I would say it is enough to mark the Cards with Origin. As they will be played they could be collected in front of the player above a Supplemental Current Epoch Card as you suggested above. Then all players would battle in various Epochs (if they would have the Cards in that Epoch - marked with their Supplemental Cards) with the units they have in that Epoch. If none, then a player would not participate in that Epoch Battle. --Joeyeti 10:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I think if we use Epoch marker cards to divide the table up, it'll be easy enough to see which are earlier and later - we can put the actual years on the marker cards, since the cards are only aesthetic, and players would only have to arrange them in the right order once, at the beginning of the game. Once you're playing, it's easy enough to see that all the cards to the right of the "Mediaeval" battlefield are in its future. (Although I'm not sure how weird it'll be to have one player viewing the timeline from the wrong side, if they're facing each other across a table. It'd be fine in online engines, though.) --Kevan 13:24, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Joe: Or the Epoch cards could be of a different Colour to be distinguishable, with a possible small Patch of the Colour of the Epoch that is "inferior" to that one. Say, Future is Dark Blue and Present is Dark Green. Then Future would have a patch of Dark Green on the right side of the Title to indicate it "can" beat the Present (or is in some cases stronger against it). --Joeyeti 13:34, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

That would limit the insertion of later Epochs, which seems needlessly restrictive. If we give them start years and end years, it's easy enough to sort them by "start year" when playing them out across the table. --Kevan 11:09, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Joe: Maybe giving Centuries rather than start and end Years.... I dont think that much things change in a Century ;) --Joeyeti 12:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I've got a few ideas on this.

• Only three times: Medieval (1000 AD), Present (2000 AD), Future (3000 AD). The first has knights, magicians and dragons; the second had guns, tanks and a lot of available recruits; the third has aliens, robots and lazers.

• You can be in a different period than your Opponent(s). You have to chase them (or vice-versa) around the timeline. You may not need cards representing epochs.

• Times are significant because you can't face off against your Opponent if they're a millenium behind you (though you may do a little damage if they're in front of you, by invoking the Grandfather Paradox).

• You cannot recruit new creatures/pawns/Things from another time period without invoking a special card or getting rid of Time Points (or something like that). However, when you zip off to another era, they (aside from your fortresses, which stay there until your return) come with you. Thus, you can wander around the timeline with a well-rounded crew, or fortify yourself in the Future and try to make your Opponents come to you.

• A possible victory condition: You have a agent in/from each time period, and your enemy(s) have none. The game could be made harder to win too quickly by putting five madatory moves between each timejump.

-Depressi

Zara's Proposal

• Time periods are cards played on table, kind of like lands from Magic. They represent a gate to that time zone. You need the 20th Century card to play Tanks, or Cenozoic Era to play T-Rexes, for example.

• Two approaches I can see for combat:

• • Magic standard - all creatures in the same nexus, all fight each other.

• • Time specific - You need to send creatures to a specific time zone and attack their targets there. Time zones' ownership could be moved around as players win and lose battles.

Zaratustra 20:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

A sample card

Here's a proposed format for military cards, and a sample card using that format. Edit it as necessery.

Name(Era)

Thing - Sample

Modifiers;l TS (Strength in past)/(Strength in present)/(Strength in furure)

Card by Bucky

Light Tank (Present)

Thing

Motorized, Armored, Requires Fuel; TS 50/30/5

Card by Bucky

Any epochs other than Past Present and Future could do something like "Treat Electric and Limited Ammo units as if they were in Past, Magic units as if they were in the Future, and all other units as if they were in the Present." PS: How do I do a newline inside of a template? -Bucky 06:59, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Shaman (Stone Age)

Person - Special

Counts as 1 Religionpoint / 2 Defense

Action: sacrifice one card (lay down under the shaman) and you get 1 Religionpoint and the shaman has 1 more defense

Needs: at least 2 other persons in the same age

Card by Joker

Cathedral (Middle Age)

Thing - Building

You get 2 Religionpoints and 1 Politics

< >

Needs: Shaman, Prophet or Priest

Card by Joker

Ballista (Middle Age)

Thing - Warfare

Block one building (of creating persons in the same age or making damage) Needs: Something that chops wood or a genius person?

Card by Joker

My proposal: there are 4 or 5 ages, and several buttons you fight for Religion, Market, Politics, Technology, Land... Some just can be played, when you have the superiority in the needed advantage. In the stone age just religion and land is important. Maybe later Technology and politics are more required advantages. They can only be played in their special era and maybe are required "in the future" -Joker 13 February 2007

Archiving Old Discussion

Not sure this was a good way of reducing the size of the page, at least not without asking people. Maybe a forum would be a better format for a discussion if it's going to attract a lot of contributions. --James 10:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, just seemed the quickest way, since nothing else was happening to it; it's easy enough to open the archive page in a new tab or window, for reference. Feel free to paste it all back. --Kevan 22:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's good because there's a lot of stuff here, and for someone coming to it for the first time it could be confusing. However, it could be seen as an editorial decision. I think a forum could solve the problem, because you can look at the date a thread was last posted and so it's easy to see which discussions are active and which ones have been abandoned or taken up in other threads. --James 14:29, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Proposal Including Some Possible Cards (updated March 3 '07)

Here are some ideas for cards.

They are assuming a rule that there are different Eras or Epochs, and that each Thing is 'in' one of these Eras at a time (and presumably that Things can usually only interact with Things in the same Era).

This rule seems to me to be worth adopting, but otherwise it seems to me that the game could probably use the basic Dvorak rules, or close to them.

Fu

Jurassic Labs

Thing - Location UNIQUE

Action: Put a Character which normally can be played in the Pre-Historic or Pre-Human Eras into play, in the same Era as this Thing.

Banishment

Action - Spell

Requires a Wizard. Move any Character in this Wizard's Era to its starting Era.

Summoning

Action - Spell

Requires a Wizard. Move any Character from any Era, to this Wizard's Era.

Hi

Leonardo's Contraption

Thing - Equipment UNIQUE

Action: Each character simultaneously writes down and reveals a number from 0 to their hand size. The player with the highest number wins. You pick the winner in a tie. The winner moves this Equipment and its Character to the Era of their choice, and discards a number of cards equal to their bid.

Ph/Pr

Trapped In the Ice

Thing - condition

Put this card on any Thing you control in the Pre-Historic or Pre-Human Era. This Thing may not be attacked. At the start of your turn, move this Thing to the Era one later than its current Era (unless it's in the Future). Any Thing in the same Era may take an action to destroy this card.

Fu

Time Machine

Thing - Equipment

Action: This Character moves to any Era.

Grandfather Paradox

Reaction

Triggered when a Thing you control is destroyed in combat by a Thing from a later Era. Toss a coin.

• Heads: The destroying Thing is also destroyed.
• Tails: Neither Thing suffers any effects from the combat.

Butterfly Effect

Reaction

Triggered when a Thing from the Pre-Human Era is destroyed in combat by a Thing from a later Era. You must discard two extra cards if you have them. Toss a coin.

• Heads: Every Thing from any Era later than Pre-Human takes 1 Damage.
• Tails: Neither Thing suffers any effects from the combat.

Forward Planning

Action

Choose another player. There must be at least one Era where you and that player both have a Thing. That player reveals their hand to all players. They then discard any cards that they have more than one copy of in hand. If there are no such cards, you must reveal your hand to all players and discard two cards.

Le

Guardian of Time

Thing - Character

Any game effect which moves any character from one Era to another, actually has the effect of making the Guardian lose 1 Stamina. The Guardian may not attack.

• Damage 1
• Stamina 1

Le

The Unbearable Being of Light

Thing - Character UNIQUE

Any game effect which moves any character from one Era to another, actually has the effect of making the Being lose 1 Stamina (this over-rules the similar power of Guardians of Time). The Being may not attack.

• Damage 2
• Stamina 2

Mo/Fu

History Department

Thing - Location

Action: Put a knowledge counter on any Character in the same Era as this Thing, who doesn't already have one. This Character has +1 Damage against Characters from Eras earlier than that of the History Department.

Loot

Reaction

Triggered when

• a Character you control destroys another Character in combat,
• Your Character isn't destroyed, and
• the other Character had any Equipment.

Your Character takes the Equipment.

--James 10:39, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Looks good. So what about combat - a simple "Action: Destroy a Thing in the same Era." system with variations, or something more complicated, with numbers? --Kevan 11:24, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Maybe cards have two numbers; a 'hit points' and an 'attack', and there's a cardless action you can take to pick two units in the same Era, one of which you control, and each one loses hit points = to the other card's attack. Then any more complicated ideas such as armour, evasion etc can be done as card text. --James 18:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

That works. Using a Magic-style "healing back up to full at the end of the turn" system rather than keeping a permanent track with counters, I suppose?

I actually thought you'd put counters on the Things to represent 'Wounds' - maybe any Thing can take an action to remove 1 Wound from itself. --James 06:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, okay. I suppose the details of healing will shake out in playtesting (one Action to heal one wound seems very expensive, when you could use the Action to attack or play a card instead; I think we'd be okay with having healing as an optional card mechanic), but counters are fine. --Kevan 15:00, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but that's a card-less action that anyone can do, so it has to be not very good. Presumably there'd be cards/characters with the ability to heal more. --James 12:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps; I'm just wary of cluttering the ruleset with obscure minor rules, particularly something so weak that nobody would ever actually use it. But maybe a set of actions that a troop can always perform (attack/self-heal/time-travel-one-Era-forward-or-back?) would be elegant enough to remember. --Kevan 13:18, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Also we were talking before about players being able to take multiple actions in a single turn (because it makes more sense when playing via the web). --James 12:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

We were? How many multiple actions? And does this mean multiple attacks? --Kevan 13:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

How many Eras are we starting with, and how open should we be to unknown Eras being introduced later on? (Cards like Jurassic Labs would probably be better worded as "Play a character from an Era earlier than 4,000BC", rather than naming any specific Eras.)

How about the victory mechanism? Achieving dominance of a particular Era sounds like the way to go - perhaps have the Era cards played facing their owners, representing some sort of time portal into that Era (so that if two players are using the Roman Era in their decks, there are two Roman Era portals on the table, one owned by each player). If you're the only player with troops in an Era, you can target attacks against your opponent's Era card directly - either needing a single Strength X attack, or a free but two-turn "portal closing" thing; flip a face-up portal face-down (with some mechanic for the owner to reopen it), or remove a face-down portal from the table.

I think that's all we need before we can start brainstorming cards... --Kevan 19:11, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Can you make some cards illustrating what you've said above? --James 12:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It's more mechanics than cards. The actual Era cards would just say "Roman Era (31BC-476AD)" (some might have special rules like "cards requiring electricity cannot be used here", but that doesn't matter yet). I'm imagining the core mechanics as being something like:-

• Each deck has any number of Era cards, which represent "time portals" - they all go into play at the start of the game, to represent the timeline. Era cards face the player who played them, and if both players happen to have the same Era in their deck, both cards go into play, one facing each player.
• To play a Thing, you put it into play next to the Era card it belongs to, provided that it's your Era card and it's still face-up on the table.
• If you're the only player with Troop cards in an Era, and it has an Era card belonging to your opponent, you can declare an attack against their time portal directly. This automatically succeeds - if it's face up you flip it face down; if it's face-down you remove it from play.
• If one of your Era cards is face down, you can't play new cards into that Era. You can move cards from other Eras into that Era, though (via whatever time travel mechanics exist). If you have troops in an Era with a face-down portal, you can take an action to repair the portal and flip it face-up again (and presumably there'll be other random cards to open and close portals).
• If all of your Era cards have been removed from play, you lose the game.

I'm not sure how well that'd play in practice - whether there'd be too much of a domino effect once you lost one Era, whether two identical-Era opponents would make for a much more boring game than two players with completely different Eras (or vice versa). It should be enough to get started, though, if others agree that it's a good direction. --Kevan 12:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't you get basically the same effect from saying i) you can't play cards from your hand into an Era if only one player has units there, and that player isn't you, and ii) if you end your turn with no units, you're eliminated (and if only one player isn't eliminated, that player wins)? --James 16:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Pretty much, but this slows it down by a couple of turns so that it's not a sudden ending. If my Space Marines wipe out your final Roman Phalanx card, I have to spend the next turn closing your time portal (if you don't play a card on your next turn to defend it), and the turn after that destroying your portal (if you don't play a random card on your second-next turn to somehow prevent it).

This might just be dragging things out needlessly, though, so it'd need playtesting to see how it worked in practice. --Kevan 17:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Another question: what is the 'cost' of cards? --James 16:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't had anything specific in mind; it'd probably work to keep the game at "play one Thing per turn", and have the more powerful cards requiring other cards to be in play before they can be used (weapons and vehicles that need other troops to operate them), or simply having arbitrary drawbacks (only working within certain Eras, or requiring cards to be discarded to play or use them, or whatever). If you've got any ideas for a better system, though, it'd be good to hear them. --Kevan 17:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

How about play one Thing per turn per open Portal you control, and one Action per turn per Era you have Things in.-Bucky 17:30, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm still not sure how Kevan's suggestions would work, could you do some example cards? --James 10:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Ph

Natural Portal

Thing - Portal

You may play one extra Thing per turn into the Pre-Human era. Action: Move a non-Building, non-Portal Thing from any Era to the Pre-Human era.

Pr

Ancient Portal

Thing - Portal

You may play one extra Thing or Action per turn into the Pre-Historic era.

Of what Kevan's talking about:

SF

Orbital Defense Station

Thing - Unit

You may not play this unless you control an Advanced Factory(Fu) and a Launching Pad

??

Demon Impersonator

Thing - Unit

At the beginning of each turn, you must feed a Unit in the same era as this card to the Demon Impersonator. If you fail to do so, it departs and destroys a random Portal you control in revenge.

I'm not really sure which aspects you're asking about. Maybe an example tabletop layout would help?

The top player is playing a Roman/WW2 deck, the bottom player is playing Roman/25th Century. Because both players have the Roman Era card, they can both play cards directly into the "Roman" section of the table. Neither can play cards into their opponent's other Era, but on the bottom player's next turn, he can use the Stasis Field to move his Gladiator to the WW2 section.

(Interesting that making up some example cards helps get a better idea of how the system should work. In retrospect, maybe Thing cards should have "year invented" on them, rather than naming specific Eras, allowing them to be played in any Era that includes or follows that year. Maybe a "year of obsolescence", as well, to stop siege engines being played into the 25th century.) --Kevan 23:36, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

So the Stasis Field card would move the Gladiator to WW2 although the bottom player doesnt have that Era's Card? --Joeyeti 07:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're allowed to move into Eras controlled entirely by your opponent, otherwise there'd be no way to attack the troops they have stationed there, or to close the time portal. You just can't play cards directly into those eras; you have to play them in Eras you control, then move them. --Kevan 10:35, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that you should be able to play stuff into Eras, and not mess about with physical dates that make it too realistic. One more thing: The way I see it, things should tend to get more powerful as you go towards the future, BUT all the fun stuff (time paradoxes and so forth) would only work if you control an earlier Era than the target. Also, you should have buidings and stuff that can't move between Eras as well as units that can.--Depressi