Pocket Otaku: Trading Card Game

[Kudasai Hiroki]

Oh, I'm totally in!!!

[Nogrick]

So, I've decided to revisit this idea. Not really focusing so much on making the PO card game, but fiddling with the idea of making the system work and ensuring that it could be feasible for a TCG. So I came up with a test to run some ideas through. 2 Decks were created with like cards. If successful, additional mechanics will be added to the gameplay. A 40 card deck will be used and only one PO will be in play, with the goal to defeat the opponent's PO. There are also two resource setups I'd like to figure out. 1) Resource is only gained through the field type in play. 2) Resource is gained by the field in play, as well as 1 additional for each Character and Equipped Item in play. Again, these cards are very bare bones, so there aren't any special abilities added to the Characters or Constant Abilities as of yet. So here's a list of the cards I made up, in case anybody wants to try it out, and if so, I'd appreciate any feedback.

GOAL: Defeat the opponent's PO

-Player 1-
Starting PO: Generic - 5HP, 5ATK, 5DEF
(3)Ability 1: Cost - 2 Poku, +2ATK, EOT
(3)Ability 2: Cost - 2 Poku, +2DEF, EOT
(3)Ability 3: Cost - 2 Poku, +1HP, EOT
(3)Ability 4: Cost - 3 Poku, -2ATK on Opp, EOT
(3)Ability 5: Cost - 3 Poku, -2DEF on Opp, EOT
(3)Item 1: Cost - 2 Poku, +1ATK, CONT
(3)Item 2: Cost - 2 Poku, +1DEF, CONT
(3)Item 3: Cost - 2 Poku, +1HP, EOT
(3)Item 4: Cost - 2 Poku, -1ATK on Opp, EOT
(3)Item 5: Cost - 2 Poku, -1DEF on Opp, EOT
Support 1: Cost - 3 Poku, 1HP, 3ATK, 3DEF
Support 2: Cost - 4 Poku, 1HP, 5ATK, 0DEF
Support 3: Cost- 4 Poku, 1HP, 0ATK, 5DEF
Field 1: Poku Rate 5
Field 2: Poku Rate 1
Field 3: Poku Rate 3
Society 1: Cost - 7 Poku, 0DEF, 3 Rounds
Society 2: Cost - 5 Poku, Poku Cost 1/2, 1 Round
Society 3: Cost - 5 Poku, Default = Lose all Continuous Effects, Field Default Poku Rate 3
Society 4: Cost - 5 Poku, Flip Coin, Heads = +1HP Tails = -1HP

-Player 2-
Starting PO: Generic - 5HP, 5ATK, 5DEF
(3)Ability 1: Cost - 2 Poku, +2ATK, EOT
(3)Ability 2: Cost - 2 Poku, +2DEF, EOT
(3)Ability 3: Cost - 2 Poku, +1HP, EOT
(3)Ability 4: Cost - 3 Poku, -2ATK on Opp, EOT
(3)Ability 5: Cost - 3 Poku, -2DEF on Opp, EOT
(3)Item 1: Cost - 2 Poku, +1ATK, CONT
(3)Item 2: Cost - 2 Poku, +1DEF, CONT
(3)Item 3: Cost - 2 Poku, +1HP, EOT
(3)Item 4: Cost - 2 Poku, -1ATK on Opp, EOT
(3)Item 5: Cost - 2 Poku, -1DEF on Opp, EOT
Support 1: Cost - 3 Poku, 1HP, 3ATK, 3DEF
Support 2: Cost - 4 Poku, 1HP, 5ATK, 0DEF
Support 3: Cost- 4 Poku, 1HP, 0ATK, 5DEF
Field 1: Poku Rate 5
Field 2: Poku Rate 1
Field 3: Poku Rate 3
Society 1: Cost - 7 Poku, 0DEF, 3 Rounds
Society 2: Cost - 5 Poku, Poku Cost 1/2, 1 Round
Society 3: Cost - 5 Poku, Default = Lose all Continuous Effects, Field Default Poku Rate 3
Society 4: Cost - 5 Poku, Flip Coin, Heads = +1HP Tails = -1HP

Feel free to swap out the numbers of different cards, this is just what I made up for now. I hope to have some results pretty soon.

[Shino]

Interesting.
Is this how Pokemon works... you play your monster and have ability cards and cards that affect the field and your opponent?

The only CCG I played enough to know decently well is MTG so this is a large departure.

[Nogrick]

I'm not sure, as I've never played Pokemon either. The field type was more an inspiration from Yu-gi-oh. In that game, the field in play gave bonuses to certain monster types. I think that possibly Fields in this system can have that effect, but their main function is resource generation. Playing a Field at specific times can possibly give you an edge in the game. That's one of the reasons I had the two resource generation ideas. I don't necessarily want to cripple any one player either.

[Nogrick]

So, I got through a partial game last night. I used the resource strategy of the field plus any equipped item card or support character (i.e. the field had a gain of 3 and two items were equipped adding 2 for a total of 5 generated that round.), and at first I was a little skeptical because one player ended up with a large amount while the other had little to build off of. But things eventually evened out and flipped. So I think that this will work for resource generation. I believe that down the line, as constant abilities come in to play, that may even up some of the gaps.

The second issue I haven't gotten a hold of yet is a successful attack. As of right now, I was thinking that getting an opponent's DEF to 0 would qualify as a successful attack, but this gave the support characters little to no chance of surviving an entire round. So I believe this may change to require more than the DEF to hit (i.e. if DEF is 5, than ATK needs to be 6 or greater to hit.) My main concern is that this may draw out for longer games, and these only have one PO/Hero in play. I'd like to be able to move up to a 3 Hero game eventually, so I may have to see how the rest of this game plays out.

For the next version, I'd like to try to have a couple of different Hero builds and introduce constant abilities. These abilities would come into play like an item, but in order to be used require a scaling cost (i.e. 2 for the first use, 4 for the second, 6, 8, and so on), which would represent fatigue throughout the game. I don't think I'll mess with alignment or character types next time because it may be too much too soon. With any luck though, I can get a couple of play throughs with some other people to see what they'd suggest for the first run.

[Shino]

Sounds pretty interesting Nogs.

I'm a little confused by what you mean by support characters. Is that in the case of the 3 Hero game?

[Nogrick]

Well, the idea is that the PO/Hero characters are your main characters. Since the goal of the game is to defeat the Hero, these characters have varied amounts of HP and will eventually have inherent abilities attached to them. So, when beginning a game, you'll decide on how many Hero characters you have in play. I felt 3 was a decent number for a longer game. I haven't figured out how best this would work, either to have them all in at the start of the game, or each player would choose a starting Hero and the others would have to be drawn to be played.

Support Characters are characters that only have 1 HP. Generally, they're going to be weaker than your Heroes, but they can have special abilities too. This was originally intended to account for some POs who have familiars, such as Sakura's Pickle, but would include some other types that are available to any deck set up.
______________________________

I ran the game idea by a buddy of mine, who's played a number of TCGs, and at first thought he said it sounds a little similar to the Mega Man Network Battle Card Game. In that game you choose a navi, i.e. Mega Man, Skull Man, Magic Man, etc., and build your deck around that character. It's also a little similar to Universal Fight System, which you choose a character who has certain affinity. You can then use cards with that character that share that affinity. So, Ryu from Street Fighter may be Fire affinity, but that also mean he can use abilities from Kyo Kusinagi from King of Fighters, who is also Fire affinity. So, the ideas I have are feasible, but it'll take some work to see what works and what doesn't and to make it work without being too much like one of these other games. I'm pretty happy with the way things are going so far though, so we'll see how things go.

[Aindriahhn]

You have captured my interest, I demand that you return it. State whatever ransom you require in a PM, we will meet in the usual place.

I can think of a few rules. Perhaps Kilted Ale could knock non-booze aligned characters out after a few too many. Places from the POniverse might be a way to bolster or alter abilities, or generate Poku. This is interesting indeed.