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| The creepy vibe I'm going for. |
I've rearranged the steps for each round to simplify the
rules.
I originally had this thought that a change of location was
logically the best place to start a new round, but that meant that there was an
extra third of a round at the beginning of the game, which seemed odd.
It also feels odd to me to start a round in a place other than a
location change, but it feels slightly less odd than the extra third of a
round, so I took the lesser of two evils.
For clarity, I also changed "Vortex cards" to
"Location cards" because that's what they really are, and the term
Vortex is now no longer being used to describe to completely separate things
(Location cards and the pile for dead devotees and other used cards).
I've also created placemats for first time players so they
can get used to the number of piles and have a more visual representation of
how to place cards on the table, instead of having to imagine my terrible
instructions.
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| At the most, there will be this much in front of each player. |
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| And then there's this bonus mat somewhere else. |
I've also added a few easy or "house rules" for
beginners, such as playing without Rogations, using only the Location cards
that don't have special rules on
them, and if you're playing with less than four players, don't pick Red.
Red is being picky to me.
The current rules say that Red gets and additional 1/2 point at the end
of the game for every non-Red devotee in the Vortex at the end of the
game. This evens things out in a four
player game (I think), but doesn't work nearly as well in a two player
game. I may have to adjust the rules so the
number of points Red gets changes depends on the number of players, or find
some fraction that works in all cases, or change the winning condition.
I am also considering adding a few more cards of each type,
if I can come up with enough new and interesting rules. Sometimes I look at the current cards and
think that the mechanics are too simple and obvious, and need a little more
variety.
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| Just a tad simple to me. |
Part of me wants to create resource cards (like Magic: The
Gathering lands), to allow me to make better cards that are more expensive, but
another part of me thinks that's copying other games far too much. I liked the idea of creating a card game
where all cards are equally valuable, or useful in different situations.
I'd say it's up to you whenever you want to create resource cards or not (or even another form of resource or limiter to play cards). I wouldn't say having a mechanic that is similar to another game would automatically make it copying the other game. However, trying to make every card equally powerful is going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible. As long as your game has a wide variety of cards, some are going to naturally excel over others and be more useful in a wider variety of situations than others.
ReplyDeleteThough I do agree that too much wordiness on a card can be too difficult to remember. It also can create rulings nightmares with other players debating how a card worked. I remember all too well with several players debating on how Ditto worked in the Pokemon TCG.
I wouldn't go in the direction of making cards equally powerful, as that can end up making the game dull. Having some cards be more powerful than others actually makes these sort of games more fun, in my experience. The power can simply be balanced by rarity and/or being *very* effective under specific circumstances. That's what made a game like Cosmic Encounter so interesting.
ReplyDeleteI would check out Mage Knight at some point if you get the chance, as it does a good job of having a lot of various cards that can feel very powerful without unbalancing the game.