Things I've Learned From Different Card Games

There's Magic, and then there are a lot of card games that have been made in Magic's image. At least in the US and Europe, Magic has been going for so long with so many players that it's established itself as the default for trading card games. You play dudes, and then those dudes whack your opponent until they die. You get one resource each turn, and your resources refresh each turn. Hearthstone is Magic. Lorcana is Magic. Gundam Card Game is Magic.

But some games tweak things further away from the formula of get a land per turn and bash your opponent. As I brainstorm card game ideas in my spare time with no regards for commercial viability, those are the games and the points that I think about. Some will not be trading card games, but games using the form factor of cards where the lessons still apply.

Time is a resource

Games: Netrunner, Primal

Magic is a game where there is no constraint on the limit of your actions. Early on, you have to weigh the tempo impact of playing this card instead of that card, but if you have the resources to do so there is no limit that stops you from playing this card AND that card. Your time is a constraint but not a resource to consider.

Netrunner however allows each player to take a variety of actions that is not limited to drawing a card, but the number of actions that you take is limited. Primal lets you play one Character and one Strategy card per turn.

So, it's a freedom to consider placing constraints on actions per turn directly.

All Cards Are Resources doesn't mean All Cards Are Exactly Lands

Games: Primal, Sortie, Megaman NT Warrior, Call of Cthulhu

So, you play a land. You tap that land for a resource. Your land untaps and your resources refresh each turn. This is a big part of why I was saying that Hearthstone and Lorcana are Magic. But lands are “dead cards.” You need them, but you don't really want to put them in your deck. Losing to drawing the wrong ratio of lands and spells happens, and leads to bad beats stories shared in game stores and tournament halls.

The alternative is to say that All Cards Are Resources. Lorcana and Altered do this by having you turn cards facedown. You flipped them upside down in Duel Masters so that you could still see the color. I'm not a lands hater (though I don't know if I would replicate it whole cloth in a new game) but I do see the complaints and appeal, even if All Cards Are Resources opens its own problems. But that's not how it has to be!

In Megaman NT Warrior, cards are automatically put facedown into your power meter. Which can be spent like a resource, you can drain it for things. But it is also just a meter of how powered up you are and if you discard power cards to play something you may not have the power required to p lay something in your hand.

Call of Cthulhu has a similar system to Duel Masters above, but adds in a twist. Those cards aren't played into a general resource pool, they go into three separate pools and you may only use one pool at a time to pay costs. And only the whole pool. If your pools are at 2, 3, and 4 then you will have to overpay for that 1-cost card you want to use. It blends All Cards As Resources with a time-based constraint on actions.

In Primal, All Cards Are Two Distinct Resources And Transmute From One To The Other. Your Characters and Strategy cards may require you to place a card from your hand with a matching element symbol into your Essence pool. But your Essence isn't used to play Characters or Strategies, those cards are spent and discarded to play Abilities, the game's combat tricks.

And cards might be resources but that doesn't mean they have to be sitting on the board in play! In Sortie, you discard cards from your hand to pay for the cost of a dogfight maneuver. Because this is a game of WWII dogfights, and your hand represents your altitude. The number of options provided to you by your cards is directly the potential energy a pilot would have available to them. You discard cards to pay costs, you turn your potential energy into kinetic energy. I have something sitting around where your hand represents a stamina bar and the number of cards you can discard each turn increases to give you more resources.

The Turn Structure Is Mutable

Games: Altered

In most every game, the turn structure is that one player does all their things and then the other player does all their things. This also raises a question of “Can you do things on your opponent's turn?” that many solutions exist for. Magic passes priority back and forth for Instant-speed effects. The Gundam Card Game and Primal chunk the complexity and say there are specific things at specific moments that you can do.

Altered's structure has a single, shared turn. Each player draws a card and places a card into their mana at the same time. And then the alternate who takes one action at a time until both players choose or are forced to pass on taking further actions. And then the turn resolves simultaneously.

It reminds me of intense turns in Magic, but replicated into every turn of the game. The tense standoffs, the brinksmanship of each player choosing their actions carefully to try to push their opponent into drastic action first- Or those moments where you look at the situation and realize it doesn't get better so it's time to go big or go home.

Simultaneity

Games: Marvel Snap, Sortie, Level 99 Game's Exceed System

For the purposes of THIS post, I'm defining simultaneity as: All players commit their actions in secret, and once all players have committed their actions they are revealed. Put something facedown and flip it up at the same time. This requires some method of determining the order that cards resolve, but it offers a more immediate form of mind-reading. It brings the yomi level exercise to the forefront.

Asymmetry of Contest

Games: Decipher's Lord of the Rings

I may change the name of this later. Decipher's LOTR card game isn't an asymmetric game, as both players are building their decks out of the same pool of cards and have the same victory and loss conditions with no division in their roles. However, there is clearly asymmetry in the game's contest phase (e.g. magic's combat step, running a server in netrunner, determining movement in altered). Each player's deck is exactly 50% the heroes of Middle Earth and 50% orks and uruk-hai and ringwraiths and all. You're never in a situation where it's your Elrond against your opponent's Gandalf, but the heroes that your opponent plays on their turn allows you to play your evil cards and drop a warg rider or balrog on them. It's an alternative to full asymmetry where each player is exposed to the both “sides” of a game but are in a position where they are their own hero and their opponent's villain. It can suit for stories where you want to avoid a hero vs. hero conflict. It's in my notes as a possible structure for a tokusatsu game, play your own heroes and the villains for your opponents, so by default there's no scenario where Cure Answer is punching Kamen Rider Zeztz in the face.

Full Asymmetry

Games: Netrunner

In Netrunner there are two entirely separate roles: The Runner and The Corporation. Your Runner deck and your Corporation deck are entirely separate, and every game is Runner vs. Corporation. Each side has different goals and means of achieving those goals, and while there is overlap in function between the card types that are available to them, there is no overlap in card types. They even have different card backs so that you cannot mix them. Yes I know sleeves exist but we pretend they don't.

Why have asymmetry? It tells a specific story in a better way. WOTC was going to sell Monster Hunter Secret Lairs for Magic. But is Magic the best way to express Monster Hunter? Yeah sure Magic is a game where big monsters can be hit with big swords... but that's not all Monster Hunter is. It's a game about hunters versus the monster, and it's another candidate for an asymmetric game (it's another ideas doc sitting around somewhere). Asymmetry also doubles the play experiences that the game offers. When both sides play differently, you can have them use different resources or acquire those resources in different ways. You can set up separate ways that they engage in contest.

It does force a consideration in how you distribute your game. Asymmetric games may be better suited to expandable/living card game distribution with non-randomized products and players allowed to buy whole playsets at once. With symmetric TCGs, every card is in theory useful to every player. Sure I don't play the Ordis faction in Altered (BUT NOT FOR LACK OF THE GAME THROWING BROKEN UNIQUES AT ME) but in theory I could. But for an asymmetric game, perhaps if every pack was collated to be 50% of each faction (maybe, 4 commons, 2 uncommons, 1 rare of each side?) it could work, but then in a sense players only get 50% of the cards from each box that they would from another game. Something to think about. But not a game structure to write off.