Dev Log: The Vortex #35 - Rules Revamp & Rogations

[Edit 10/5 to cover all changes: This post has had and will have cards removed as I get in touch with artists and ask for their permission to use their art.  I want to do things right to make sure everyone is okay with use of their art and that I'm not stepping over any copyright claims. All cards that disappear from this post will reappear in a later post with new artwork that I've been given permission to use.]

I've changed around quite a few rules now, and brought the game back to one of my original intentions: making a customizable deck-based card game.

From the beginning, I wanted to make this some kind of collectable card game, but after making so many initial cards, and getting some burnout after struggling to come up with so many unique ones, I thought I would run out of ideas and would never be able to make a full-fledged CCG.  However, I've got a few ways to expand rules and gameplay styles, so I think I can fulfill the bigger vision I had.  Of course, being that this is free and you don't buy random boosters, this will be closer in spirit to a "living card game"... or something.  I'll be rounding out the starter pack (what I've been working on so far), and then I'll start coming up with expansions later.

The rules have been modified in a lot of ways, some minor, some major.  One of the big ones was in figuring out how to allow players to take other players' cards without getting them mixed up.  Naturally, I already have that in place by not allowing more than one color of Devotee in a deck to begin with.  So if you're Blue, and you have some Red cards, then at the end of the game you can just look through your Deck and Fearful Pile and hand them back.  So there's no way there can be any confusion.

But I did have to alter rules so when you use Rogations, they don't get mixed up in the Vortex.  Instead, you just Discard them after using them.  Similarly, if you kill a Zealot, the attached Frenzy just goes in the appropriate player's Discard Pile, rather than the Vortex, so those don't get mixed up either.  I'm thinking there will soon be some cards that force Frenzies and Rogations into a Player's Fearful Pile, so it's out of the game, but won't get mixed up in the Vortex Pile.

A few fixed Location cards.

I did have to change the Paradox Location card, because applying your Frenzy to another player's Devotee would cause confusion later.  Fortunately it's not a big loss because I was never quite satisfied with Paradox anyway.  So I've got a new version that works much better.  While I was at it, I fixed a few other Locations I wasn't happy with, though primarily for their placeholder art and flavor text, so there's no gameplay change with those.

Next, I added a term: "Crusader" just means "A Devotee or a Zealot in the Field of Play".  I managed to cut out a lot of text from the rules and cards by adding that one new term.  This is especially helpful on the cards where the text real estate is small.  However, now a single color card might be referenced by about four terms, so I hope it doesn't get too confusing.

I have also now made it so Refill is one of the actions you can take, instead of happening every turn automatically.  So basically, a Location card is flipped over, and each player can do one thing (unless they play a Rogation), and then the next Round begins with a new Location card.

That required fixing a couple of other Location cards, particularly Excursion.  If Excursion stayed the way it was, it would be basically Capitalia, so I changed the rules on Excursion to provide more variety.

Plains of Filth had to be similarly modified to work with the new way the Refill Phase works, and I reworded Waterfall just for clarification.

Also, now, the rule that used to affect Red only at the end of the game, where Red gets extra points for Killed Devotees, has been changed so everyone gets a bonus.  Basically each player gets a bonus based on the number of Killed Devotees of other colors, so their own color Killed Devotees don't count for them.

Speaking of endgame, the game doesn't end after all Locations have been played.  Instead, the game is a Last Man Standing fight, where a Player loses when they have no more Devotees to Crusade with.  The points only come into play with house rules, where you can limit the game to a time limit or turn limit.  I've put a few house rules in the instructions, and I'll probably add more to help with quick games and beginner games.

I've also gone through the Rogations that same way I went through Locations: adding new art, flavor text, and making sure the rules are clear enough.  Also, since the game is now a deck-building game, and players are not randomly dealt Rogations anymore, a lot more balance has to be created with them.  There is already a piece of a "cost" involved, in that a player must meet a certain requirement about how many Crusaders are in play at the time, but I'm not sure if that's enough.  Having lots of Rogations might be a prime strategy, and I don't necessarily want it to be that way; I'd prefer if players could create decks with different strengths and ratios of card types, and have many play styles be equal.  So one player may concentrate on Devotees, another on Frenzies, and another on Rogations, and they still have an even chance at each other.  But that will come through in testing.

In any case, here are the reworked Rogations:

Some are wordy.  Click to enlarge.

Blessing has been hugely clarified in the text, although it is basically the same.  I think it's far more wordy this way, but there should be no questions about how it works.

Miracle and Rapture are both the same as they were before, though with Miracle, I think I changed the "<" to a "1" for requirement, and put the "less than" aspect in the text.  That way you have to have at least one Crusader in play to play it.  Continuity!

Brainwash was Bacchanalia, but it was rather absurd to require 4 Crusaders to play one Frenzy.  After all, other simple actions like that are far cheaper.  Brainwash corrects that.

Now with Resurrection, the Player can decide whether to put the Devotee in their Fearful or Discard Pile.

Palm Reading is basically the same, I think, just adjusted for the new lack of Refill Phase.

I've been going back and forth with myself on rules for Deck Construction.  I wouldn't want a Player to spam certain cards, and Palm Reading is definitely one of them that could be easily spammed.  I've been considering a cap on how many copies of a card allowed in a deck (generally one or two), but now I'm also thinking that perhaps some Rogations might be discarded after used, allowing them to come up again, while other, more powerful cards are one-shots that must be sent to the Fearful Pile after use, so they can't be spammed.  That, combined with a reasonable cap, might help to fix imbalances.

When I originally found the placeholder art for Pestilence, I knew it was one of the standards for how I wanted the game to feel.  Although with other pieces of placeholder art, I've moved on when I couldn't find attribution, with this one, I knew I had to find it again.  This art is excellent, and it stays. Oh... rules, right... the rules are the same, I think.

Burial Rites has been reworked to fit with the theme of the card, so rather than a simple "No players may Frenzy", it is instead a little more complex and wordy, but I think more interesting, and allows the Player who uses it to get some breathing room, and also not feel it's too much of a waste of a card.

Revelation has been adjusted so instead of looking at one opponent's hand, or all of them, the number depends on how many Crusaders you have in the Field.  (I should probably rename "the Field of Play" to just "the Field" for brevity.

The needle in Tithe is coincidental, the one in Cure is intentional.  I might make it a running theme if I can, though.

Phantasmagoria and Charity are both relatively untouched.  I like Charity as it is because it's like other Rogations that force Players to discard, but it's more powerful, and so it comes at a cost to you.

Sermon is one of those cards that's probably overpowered right now, especially if spammed.  To get rid of it, one player would have to waste a Crusade, knowing that their attempt at True Conversion would fail.  So this is a prime candidate for a limited number in the deck, as well as having it removed from the game after being played once.

Tithe has been fixed for the new Refill mechanic, but other than that I think it remains steady.  Perhaps I added the "including yourself" part.

Cure originally said Frenzies got sent to the Vortex, but we wouldn't want the Frenzies to get mixed up in there, so I changed it to the Player's Discard Pile.  Though I think thematically it would work better to send the Frenzy to the Player's Fearful Pile so it's removed from the game.

Prayer is untouched.  It's a simple card, and sometimes simple is better.

I considered adding flavor text to Warcry, but it would have just been "Rrrrrrraaaaaaaaaarrrrr!"

Warcry used to allow the player to Crusade using any tactic, but I changed it to only Killing.  I'm positive that soon I'll add a couple more Rogations for Crusading using the other attributes to round it out.

I think Psalms used to force the (non-)Converted Crusader to be discarded, but I prefer that it remains in play.  Though this is basically Sermon for a different Attribute, so I still need to think carefully about how to keep it from being overpowered and spammable.

The flavor text from Goodwill came from a fortune cookie.

Hex is the simpler, less nasty version of Charity.  It and Raindance are pretty much untouched.  Wedding has only been clarified, but is still the same rules as it had before as well.

Rally going a bit more with the Amphitheater of Noise theme...

Rally used to move cards from the Fearful Pile to the Discard Pile, but I didn't feel that was true to the spirit of the card, nor was it terribly useful.  However, immediately Reinforcing with those Fearful Devotees would be too powerful, so the compromise is to put them in your uhand.

I think Mercy and Whispers here are both the same as they were, just clarified a little in wording.  I could have said with Whispers "Immediately Reinforce", but the wording of the rules in the rulebook gives you different options for Reinforcing (you can also remove cards from the Field if you wanted).  So this clarifies you only positively Reinforce.

As far as the complete instructions goes, I'll post the full text of it later (posting it here would make this twice as long, and 90% of the instructions remain the same as before anyway).  I've still got to finalize them, do some editing on them, and make sure they're consistent.

After making sure the core rule set is up to snuff, and after reworking the Frenzies and Devotee cards in the same way I've been doing with the Rogations and Locations, then I'll either expand the core "starter" set, or I'll come up with expansion sets.

I always overscope my projects...