User:Morbus Iff/notepad

Ghyll Collectible Card Game
I've wanted to do a card game, of any sort, for a while. Here's one take.

Introduction

 * Inspirations: If you know Magic: The Gathering, think of it as an equivalent of what I'd like to build, and what this game should be. The rules will be a lot simpler, however, but the amount of deck possibilities, and support for expansions, should be similar.


 * Goal: The goal of the game, as a player, is to defeat your opponent. Your character does this by enforcing enough consensus reality that your opponent has to believe it. The metric for believability is measured in Intellectual Stamina: when your opponent's Intellectual Stamina is depleted, he can no longer disbelieve in your reality, and must accept defeat.


 * Implementation: It'll be PHP, browser-based, and integrated with the Drupal content management system. This is not up for discussion, for numerous reasons. No, I will not get into those reasons, because you won't sway me from them. Simple!

Who are the player characters?
Each player represents a character and faction in the world of Ghyll. To enforce consensus reality requires resources, and each faction requires a different type of resource, although they can use other resources as need arises (at the expense of spreading themselves too thin: think of playing a three-color M:TG deck). Initially, there'd be one faction (to simplify coding and test out the rules, etc.):


 * Fortune tellers, prophets, etc.: These folks use the power of Pinky and Perky, per the lunar phases. As opposed to requiring resources (like "5 printing presses, 2 paper mills" for a writer's guild, as a horrific example), this faction requires the moons to be in a certain phase. Cards would have a moon phase ("Perky, Waxing Gibbous"), and an on-screen graphic would show the current phases of each moon: cards could only be played under their proper moon phase (the no-cost of the card is balanced by the chance to use it). There are two subfactions: those who prefer Pinky (and thus, would predominantly use cards that can be played when Pinky is in varying states) and those who prefer Perky (same). There would also be a "shared" pool of cards: those that can be played in any phase ("Either Moon, Full") or uber powerful cards that require both ("Pinky, First Quarter", "Perky, Full").


 * Other faction possibilities are quite endless, but should be sufficiently generic enough so that new cards are always a possibility (ala expansion packs). Instead of a faction for Bute University, for example, there'd be a faction of Educational Elite (or whatever), and subfactions of the individual top-tier universities. Somehow, subfactions should be able to have a generic pool of cards available to them, as well as their own specific, but similar, "house" resource (this requires redesigning - it was cleanly possible with the moons, but not so much for EE). Another example could be the theo' arts, comprising subfactions of theoalchemy, theoarchaeology, etc.. Each faction has a different "feel" to how they enforce consensus reality: fortunetellers and prophets do it via the moons' power, but the educational system would do it by teaching others their version of the truth (and thus require resources of printing presses, with more printing presses allowing them to create a more "well-known" [ie., powerful] reality). The magical and 'chemical arts could simply do it by the sheer force of creation with their own mystical trade skills.


 * Hrm, I don't really like the resources idea any more - at least, not from a M:TG standpoint (where you need "5 printing presses", etc.). For simplicity's sake, in both coding and playing (ultimate goal: you don't need to read the rules), maybe a card should be playable at any time, without cost. Somehow. I just don't like the idea that you'd have to have "mana generators" like Land and so forth, which would have to appear in a "playarea" on the board. The easy way around that is simple: "every turn, you get 2 $resources". Certain cards could increase the resources gained per turn. But, that doesn't metaphorically play out, really: you'd have to justify how a resource is used up each turn. If I have 10 printing presses, and I use 5 to release a new book, where did those 5 presses go? Do I just assume they're busy printing off the books, and can't be used again until they're replenished? How far would we have to go for metaphoric explanations like this?

Card types and attributes
Forthcoming.

Game play and flow
Since this is web-based, it's one card per turn. No instants.

Unresolved questions

 * The faction approach is great for deck possibilities, but has problems with generic cards: there's a ton of stuff within Ghyll that isn't strictly one faction or another. Take, for pisspoor example: "Blammo!: If opponent doesn't play a Heh! card in the three turns, they lose 1 Intellectual Stamina". This card is sufficiently generic, and thus, should have a generic, non-faction-specific resource (so that it could be played in any deck - think artifacts or colorless cards in M:TG). I'm not entirely sure what sort of resource this should fall under. It shouldn't be based on IS since that'd create a horrific slope - if you were below 5 IS, it'd be nearly impossible to win. The only constant, it seems, is the moons: what if that card was always "free" - it'd apply under any moon condition. That approach fails, however, when we try to have a powerful generic card. A free rare is never good balance.


 * The generic resource would just be the Ooo, I'd think.

Go

 * sbp is white (○)
 * morbus is black (●)
 * thanks deltab for unicodespiration (!)

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