(Because some trainwrecky ideas are too good not to screw around with)
The Aiel has vanished, leaving behind chaos and a slew of new RPGDL managers in his wake! Of course, unlike the honorable Aiel, these new managers are willing to do whatever it takes to push their agenda... without turning the whole thing into a Trainwreck.
A game normally lasts the span of a Season (five weeks), with the winner being the individual who has accumulated the most Successes at the end of the Season. However, if a player accumulates X Trainwrecks, the game ends immediately and that player loses the game.
Successes are earned by arranging it so your duelists win during the week. The player who controls a winning duelist receives a number of success equal to the difference between their Worth and the Worth of the opposing duelist.
Of course, in the post-Aiel DL, not everything comes down to actual Worth of the duelist. During the week, players will be able to use Votes both as a means to directly inflate the Worth of a duelist, as well as a means to play cards that effect a variety of factors during the week. Thus, it is only through a solid roster of duelists, a clever abuse of voting and plenty of gaming the system that a player will be able so succeed the Aiel.
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Basic Game Flow
Update Day (Draw cards, Play Voters, Play Update Events, Activate Update Abilities)
Pools (Select four duelists from your roster and place them on the field)
Week (Vote for duelists, play Week Events, play Attributes, Activate Week Abilities)
Weekend (Determine Winners, Determine Success Values)
Results (Award Successes, Discard Losing Duelists, Return Winning Duelists to the Roster, Play Results Events, Activate Results Abilities, Empty Vote Pool)
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Voters and Votes
Votes are the basic resources in the game, and are used to play cards. Votes are generated on Update Day by voters. Each player begins with 10 Generic Voter tokens in play. During Update Day, a player may replace a Generic Voter token or a missing voter slot with a unique Voter Card.
Each Voter provides your pool with a certain number of votes (indicated by their vote weight) at the start of the turn. In general, the Generic Voter tokens provide a Vote Weight of X. Unique Voters will have different Vote Weights, as well as provide various additional abilities throughout the course of the game.
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Play Zones
Voter Row: Voters are placed in this row.
Sidelines: Continuous Events and Set Attributes are placed here.
Arena: Duelists are placed here in the Godlike, Heavy, Middle or Light slots, and attributes are placed on the Duelists.
Defeated Duelists: Where discarded duelists go.
Discard: Where discarded cards go.
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The Chain
Standard TCG thing. Last In, First Out resolution. Priority alternates, and a phase ends once both players pass priority and there are no cards/effects remaining on the chain.
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Improper Divisions
While you cannot normally use a higher division duelist in a lower division match, you can use a lower division duelist in a higher division match. However, this is generally frowned upon and, as such, a duelist. As such, a lower division duelist placed in a higher division slot takes a -2 penalty to their worth
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Anatomy of a Duelist
Worker 8 (Duelist’s Name)
FFT (Cast) -- Heavy (Division) – Steel Giant (Classification)
Draw: 4 (Number of votes that can be used in powering the duelist up)
Spoiler (Keyword/Abilities)
Activate, Reduce Worker 8’s Worth by 1 -> Reduce the Worth of any other Duelist by 2
6 (Worth) – Physical (Elemental Affinity)
The FRUE Iron Chef (Flavor Text)
Anatomy of a Voter
Axeman (Name)
Voter – Writer (Card type)
Vote Weight: 1 (Number of votes provided)
Results: Activate and Discard an Axe in play -> Your opponent scores no Successes for a victory of your choice. (Abilities)
It’s hard to argue with an axe to the face. (Flavor Text)
Anatomy of an Event
Suiko Scrub Flood (Name)
Ability – Week (Card type)
Vote Cost: 4 (Votes you need to spend to use)
Trainwreck: 1 (Abilities/Bonuses)
Continuous: If you have 4 Suikoden duelists with Worth of 1 or less as duelists, all Suikoden duelists with Worth 1 or less get a +3 bonus to their Worth. (Abilities/Bonuses)
Anatomy of an Attribute
Universal Status Blocker (Name)
Attribute – Equipment (Card Type)
Vote Cost: 5 (Cost)
Clear off all opposing effects on the duelist. They cannot be effected by opposing effects. (Abilities/Effects)
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Dueling, Revisited
The season begins with Nom Pools. You select four duelists from your roster and place one each, facedown, in the Godlike, Heavy, Middle and Light slots. Thos chosen duelists are normally one each of a Godlike, Heavy, Middle and Light, but you can substitute a higher division duelist for a lower division duelist in both selection and placing.
Once the four duelists are in place, the season begins.
At the start of the season, all four duelists are revealed and the week begins. Determine who has first priority by rolling off. The winner may choose who starts with priority.
During the week, players alternate week actions. The Week ends once both players pass priority, and Weekend Procedures begin. During the week, you may take the following actions.
-Voting: You may spend a number of votes to modify the Worth of a duelist. You may vote for a given duelist multiple times during the week, but you may not spend more votes on a duelist than their Draw.
-Play Attributes: You may fulfill various conditions to play attributes. These cards attach directly to duelists, and provide them with bonuses/additional abilities.
-Play Week Events: You may expend votes to play Week Events. These cards modify play conditions.
-Activate Week Abilities: You may activate cards in play to use their Week Abilities. These abilities perform a variety of functions.
-Pass: You may elect to do nothing and pass priority to the opposing player. If both players pass in succession, the Week ends.
Once the week ends, the Weekend phase begins. First, determine which duelist won each duel by comparing their modified Worth values, starting with Godlike and working your way down to light. The winning duelist is the one with the highest Worth. In the event of a tie, the match enters Sudden Death.
Once the winner of each duel is determined, the Result phase begins. Each player scores a number of Successes equal to the amount each of their duelists won by. If a duelist loses to a duelist two divisions lower or with half the Draw (rounded down), then that player suffers a Trainwreck.
(Implementing the playing/use of Result Events/Result Abilities)
A losing duelist is discarded and winning duelists are returned to the Roster. Any Attributes attached a winning duelist are moved to the sidelines and may be reattached to that duelist if they are revealed again. Any Attributes attached to a losing duelist are discarded.
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Deck Compositions
Nom Pool: Composed of 20 Duelists, each one different. An average Nom Pool consists of 5 duelists from division (Godlike, Heavy, Middle, Light). Higher division duelists can be replaced by lower division duelists in the Nom Pool (for example, you could run with 10 Heavy, 5 Middle, 5 Light), but not vice versa. At a very basic level, this means you will always have a maximum of 5 Godlikes and a minimum of 5 Lights. Only one duelist of each name may be used, but duelists with name variants (Ryu1 and Ryu2, for example) may be used together.
Season Deck: Composed of a 40 card minimum, with four copies of any given card max.
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Turn Order
Many of the actions in the RPGDL TCG occur simultaneously, and cannot be interrupted by cards or abilities. Once the simultaneous actions are concluded, players roll off to determine starting priority for that phase. The winner of the roll chooses which player has first priority.
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Keywords
In addition to unique abilities, many duelists have keywords that grant specific abilities that apply to a large number of duelists. These keywords are used as short hand to denote certain common abilities.
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Alternate Game Goal Concept
(Thanks Sopko) Play until one player runs out of duelists for that division. The player who runs out first loses the division and the opponent gains Championship points equal to that division. The player with the most Championship points once four champions have been crowned is the winner.
Point distribution: 5 Godlike/5 Heavy/4 Middle/3 Light
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Design themes
Off-hand, I’m aiming at two major victory conditions to begin with. Victory condition one is the default victory condition (either getting successes or the most champion points, pending what I settle on).
Victory condition two will involve causing enough trainwrecks that your opponent loses the game.
Duelist design will be systematic and try to keep certain casts as thematic. For example, Suikoden ½ Duelists would tend to provide bonuses to other Suikoden Duelists, Final Fantasy 7 Duelists would have high vote draws, etc. Each won’t always play directly to the cast theme, but having enough structure to allow thematic builds, while providing plenty of great interactions with other games, is the ideal goal.
I do want cards that interact with specific casts/duelists/etc, but in general, they should either be kept to a minimum or as broad as possible. This isn’t to say more narrow/janky cards won’t exist, but hey.
A major goal will also to be push boundaries without making anything overly broken. While snapped things can be fun, balancing a game around them =/= good plan.
Poll