Reposted, because I know Frank could appreciate it

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

Lay with the pigs as they say, but I still have to vent. (This may become a regular feature)

So there's a new Collectible Card Game (CCG) coming out from Decipher in October. Its mechanics are based on their Star Wars:CCG system that is my favorite CCG of all time. I've started following their design strategy and posting on their message board some so that my voice can be heard on changes. In a lot of ways it's sort of like going through 3.5 again, but with a company with a history of screwing things up at first (and then occasionally fixing them) . . . wait that makes it exactly like going through 3.5 again.

Anyway, my conversations with the "salt of the gaming earth" or CCG'ers as most of us know them have lead to the following.

Random Annoying Conversation #1

SomeDude: I hate the damage overflow system they had in SWCCG (basicly you took the difference in power in damage, this can be sizable at times.) If I want to deploy my loan Stormtrooper to a site how is fear that Luke, Lando, Han, and Obi-Wan get to finish me off by beating the crap out of that one Stormtrooper?

Me: Think of it conceptually. That one Stormtrooper was defending your flank against the best the Rebellion had to offer. Not a good tactical decision on your part. The current damage overflow system works fine.

SomeDude: No it's not fair, I will now provide an example of poor play and tactical thinking in an attempt to make my point.

Me: So you didn't think leaving a single TIE Fighter out against the entirity of the Rebel fleet was a bad idea? Sounds like you want the system to protect you from bad decisions.

SomeDude: No it wasn't a bad decision. I will now provide an example in which not only was it clearly a bad decision I also don't know the rules to the game.

Me:

Random Annoying Conversation #2

SomeDude#1: To be honest there's nothing I find more fun than finding an exploitable loophole and winning a tournament with it.

SomeDude#2: That just ruins the game for everyone don't show up at my tournaments. You have no integrity.

Me: Wait a minute. While I agree that exploitable strategies are no fun or good for the game. Let's not call our integrity into question here. The tournament scene is about winning tournaments. It's Decipher's job to keep things balanced, not mine as a player.

SomeDude#2: No, we must all regulate ourselves and you must make sure I feel like a delicate unique snowflake after our games. Integrity!

Me: My only responsibility in competitive games is to win within the rules. Any strategy I apply within the rules is valid whether you enjoy playing against it or not. If there is a problem with the rules or the strategy the arbiter of those rules need to fix the problem. Not me.

SomeDude#2: Integrity! You just want the company to baby you. Integrity!

Me: I'm the one that needs babying here? You're asking me to voluntarily level the playing field because of some ambiguous moral code that hasn't been defined. That's the job of the game company. If you can't handle the competition don't play in competitive events. Not everybody can play in the NBA.

SomeDude#2: Integrity . . .integrity . . .integrity. Cheater!

Me: So it's cheating to play with any advantage I can get within the scope of the rules. Maybe we should just get rid of victory conditions and give everybody a plastic trophy at the end of the tournament. Maybe have a banquet at Denny's, give the spirit award to the retarded kid at goalie. Thats a brilliant plan.

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

And the new one from today:

SomeDude: Decks that rely on the same card to win are degenerate and need to be stopped.

Me: What do you mean by rely on the same card? That I can play that card over and over without my opponent stopping me to win every time, then yeah I agree.

SomeDude: Well that, but also when you build your deck around a single card hoping to get it out, because it can help you win. If you plan on playing the same way eveyr game then that's totally degenerate.

Me: Uhm, some of us call that strategy or in certain cases a deck archetype. As long as my opponent can throw that strategy off it's fine. As they say "God laughs when we make plans."

SomeDude: No, as long as you plan on trying to get that strategy off every time then it's degenerate . . . degenerate.

Me: So let's get rid of winning conditions then, because I plan on winning every game and that's utterly degenerate then. I mean I'm playing towards a common goal and must be stopped.

[Josh_Kablack]

Wow. That's kind of funny.

Funny like watching a train wreck kind of funny, mind you.

[Lago_AM3P]

You have the keenest quote ever, Dan.

[Absentminded_Wizard]

Well, it could be worse. If we were living in France, these guys might be in charge of the National CCG Academy, charged with protecting the integrity of the game against degenerate strategies, even if such strategies are well within the rules.

But how are these guys any worse than the RPGers who say that cheese "isn't a problem with the system; it's a problem with the player"?

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

They're definitely not. That's why the whole thing reminds me of 3.5.

Although on one hand an RPG is quite as much a competitive game as a CCG. The victory conditions are temporal really, but yeah the principle is the same.

[fbmf]

Moved to In the Trenches.

Good stuff, Dan. I'm just sorry it has to be based on a true story.

Game On,
fbmf

[Absentminded_Wizard]

1090073619[/unixtime]]They're definitely not. That's why the whole thing reminds me of 3.5.

Although on one hand an RPG is quite as much a competitive game as a CCG. The victory conditions are temporal really, but yeah the principle is the same.

And arguably, they have a more concrete incentive to complain. I imagine losing out on tournament money to a "cheesy" deck might make someone less than rational in analyzing these things.

That doesn't explain the guy who thinks single-card strategies are "degenerate," though.

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

1090230873[/unixtime]]

And arguably, they have a more concrete incentive to complain. I imagine losing out on tournament money to a "cheesy" deck might make someone less than rational in analyzing these things.

True, I can understand being upset about it. My bigger complaint was who the blame needed to be placed on. I've tried logic, analogy, and even moved to nigh insults and the dude just couldn't see that you can't lay the regulation of abusive strategy at the feet of the player. I finally just let it go, before I tried to strangle him through my monitor.

That doesn't explain the guy who thinks single-card strategies are "degenerate," though.

My explanation is pretty simple. He's an idiot.

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

This one didn't have much back and forth from me, because I have given up on trying to teach monkies how to play cards.

SomeDude#1: This is the kind of deck that I like to play. (Followed by suck-ass decklist.)

SomeDude#2: That deck is what is wrong with the game. Totally non-interactive and cheesey.

TKD to himself: Ugh, I could pound that thing with my eyes closed. But let's set back and watch the net monkies throw turds at each other.

SomeDude#1: Well then how about this one. I also play this kind of deck (Another suck-ass deck, but it tries to make use of a former abusive strategy that has long ago been killed.)

SomeDude#3 (you'll recognize him in a minute): I'm telling you don't come to my tournament. You just better walk out the door. You have no integrity.

TKD to himself: Jesus people, both of these decks suck major donkey balls anymore. Do you play the same fucking game that I do?

Although I am hoping that these no talent ass-clowns are representations of my future opponents, because baby World Championship here I come.

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

One more, because this is just to rich after this guy argued the whole degenerate deck thing with me.

Backstory: The original Star Wars CCG had no card limits, but you were limited to a deck of exactly 60 cards. If you wanted to put 59 copies of Wicket in your deck and 1 starting location go to town. One of the most hotly contested changes was that they were going to add a 4 copies limit like most other games while keeping the 60 card deck requirement. Most old schoolers like myself prefer utter deck building freedom, but in a show of willingness to compromise have agreed that we could live with a 6 card limit. They have created a topic to present our reasoning for removing or increasing the card limit.

SomeDude#1: Well for one thing a 6x limit ups the odds of getting a card you need in your starting hand of 8 cards.

Assume you start only a single location and have 4 copies of a card in your 59 card reserve deck. The odds of getting that card in your starting hand of 8 is 45%.

If you go with a 6x limit then your odds go up to 60% of being able to get your deck running on the first turn.

SomeDude#2: No your math is totally wrong. If you have 4 copies in a 59 card reserve deck you just dive 4/59 and then multiply that by 8 to get your odds or 54%. I hope the laws of probability enjoyed the level of monkey butt sex I just performed on them.

Me:

[Username17]

Card Games don't even have Rule Zero, so people pulling the Oberoni Fallacy in that context is just lame.

Regardless, they do have a point with the damage system. Since the more you win by, the more your opponent loses relative to you, it makes people who are winning right now win proportionately more later in the game - it's a game mechanic which discourages coming back from set-backs.

I don't know about you, but I think that's a problem. Or at least, not especially fun. I much prefer a basic game mechanic like Shadow Fist combat, where fighting characters inflict their own hit points as damage - and thus someone who wins by 3 only has 3 points left (rather than losing nothing and causing a loss of 3 points to the opposing side). But that's flavor, really. I prefer it when coming back from set backs is a definate possibility, since I don't especially have fun pulling the wings off of flys or waiting for death.

I understand the counter argument however, which is that a snowballing victory system gets the game over with quicker, rather than potentially flip flopping back and forth a bunch of times. Still, I like having the game flip flop a bunch of times, so I don't see that as an advantage.

-Username17

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

For the damage system to have a huge effect on the game in a single battle one of three things really need to happen:

1. The losing player made a really poor tactical decision. I mean really poor as in super poor.

2. The winning player had the world's luckiest hand.

3. The losing player had a really crap hand.

Cards in the game have a forfeit cost that takes away from battle damage after its been calculated. You only take overflow damage when there is nothing left at the location to be forfeited and there is still damage left. So taking a "beatdown" as we call it in the game usually means you failed under option 1 or option 3 (there are cards that cancel battles or satisfy all battle damage without you taking any damage.)

The game itself also doesn't have separate life force. Your deck is your life force, so a punch in the nose for 10 force doesn't cut you in half like M:TG, but in 1/6th since the game uses 60 card decks.

It's a very different mechanic than a lot of other games and is card of hard to explain without a demo. You can trust me though when I say that beatdown based decks aren't really that successful, because there are so many strategies that beat them.

[Username17]

Oh, and the reasoning for a lowered card limit is deck accessibility.

If there is a 4 card limit, then in order to make every possible deck you need 4 copies of every single fvcking card ever printed. If there is a 59 card limit, you need 59 copies of every single card ever printed to make any possible deck.

So if a strategy turns out to be really good, then the larger the deck limit is, the larger a benefit people who have enormous amounts of money invested into the game will enjoy. Simply put, the lower the card limit, the lower the amount of money is required to stay competitive in a constantly evolving environment.

As such, I think all card games should have large card lists and a one card limit, as this maximally benefits people with small amount of monetary investment. I'm unaware of any card game which is actually set up to work properly under such a rules set (in such a setup, basic cards that would be expected to come in large numbers would actually have multiple identical or near identical versions - there'd be Bob the Storm Trooper and Carl the Storm Trooper, but just one Vader, for example).

-Username17

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

That model is interesting, but since the primary goal of a game company is to make money it's always beneficial to them to support a model in which people have to buy more cards. Although a somewhat similar suggestion I saw is a nice compromise which was getting rid of the concept of Rare cards all together. Just have common and uncommon cards in the same same distribution they give now and substitute another uncommon card for the rare slot. So instead of a pack that looks like this:

7 Common
3 Uncommon
1 Rare

You got:

7 Common
4 Uncommon

Traders would have fits, but since most of those assholes seem to think that CCG's should carry the same investment opportunities as mutual funds; I tend not to listen to them.

You could argue though that non-restricted card amounts help the player economy as well, because it removes that overwhelming desire to get 4 copies of card. I also played Decipher's LotR's game which had a 4x's limit and definitely saw exactly what you listed above. Hell I kept 4 copies of shit cards just in case they later released a card that made it work better.

In SW's though you kind of gave up on tracking down multiples of certain cards, just because who knew how many you would ever need. Besides with a fixed 60 card deck limit giving 10 slots to Vader might seem cool, but it's usually a bad plan.

I think it's an unfortunate side effect of CCG's that the person with the most money has a distinct advantage, but I will also say that SWCCG more than any other game has the most deck archetypes that could win with a limited number of rare cards of any CCG I ever played.

Hopefully card limits or no, the new game will keep that level of evenness.

[canamrock]

I've thought about making a card game before, and I'd worked on an idea where the copies of one care allowed into a deck would scale by rarity, 4 for commons, 3 for uncommons, and 2 for rares. I always hate games where the 'winning' decks are all but entirely comprised of rares. Makes it hard as hell to get into... kinda like Warhammer in that regard. I also figure rarity ought to give new and different abilities, as opposed to being plainly better; they should facilitate different strategies, not be necessary for the same basic ones to work well.

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

ARGGGHHH!!!!!

Somebody just posted a message that basically said "I want the game mechanics to stop my opponent from being a better player than me."

[Josh_Kablack]

1090350442[/unixtime]]ARGGGHHH!!!!!

Somebody just posted a message that basically said "I want the game mechanics to stop my opponent from being a better player than me."

The obvious rebuttal here is as follows:

Perhaps this game requires a type of strategic thinking you are unsuited for. Perhaps you should consider taking up the eminently more fair and quite venerable card game of hi/low instead ?

[Count Arioch the 28th]

1090350442[/unixtime]]ARGGGHHH!!!!!

Somebody just posted a message that basically said "I want the game mechanics to stop my opponent from being a better player than me."

I think that I said something similiar in backj in the days I was getting my arse constantly handed to me playing Magic in high school. Good stuff.

[MrWaeseL]

On another D&D forum I visit, someone is whining about Sense Motive being "not fair".

[Absentminded_Wizard]

So does this guy want all Bluff checks to be unopposed?

[Username17]

I think that he probably lives in a world where all NPCs have a Sense Motive check of like +30 and always know what the PCs are holding back, and it gets really frustrating.

I think.

Or maybe he's just pissed about how 3.5 Combat Feint never ever works because it is opposed by two level-dependent quantities added together.

-Username17

[MrWaeseL]

He dislikes the fact that the players can always tell when one of his NPC's is lying. (Which I don't understand at all since it doesn't make any difference wether they do or don't - scripted events happen anyway)

[Count Arioch the 28th]

Well, he should invest his NPCs with some ranks in bluff. Or a potion of glibness.

I know a lot of DMs dislike designing tactics around stuff their PCs do, but really, if the PCs figured it out, then someone probably figured it out themselves a long time ago on their world.

Besides, there are ways to get around sense motive without a check anyway.

[Tae_Kwon_Dan]

Well the story to the new game thus far has managed to rip-ff at least the following, Babylon 5 and Firefly. I'm sure more is coming.