x's Tower
x's Tower is a sprawling metropolis located within a tower as tall and as deep as infinity, full to the brim with dark alleyways, dark dealings and even darker characters. Densely populated and criss-crossed with filthy canals, stone staircases, epic waterfalls and floating platforms. There is a constant struggle for power between 9 factions.
There are 3 talents: Arcana, Craft and Wisdom. No matter what faction you choose mastery of these talents is essential in victory.
Setting up
To play, each player needs a 55-card deck and a stronghold. The deck may not contain more than 3 copies of any card with the same title.
Seat all players around the table. Agree on the seating order and which player goes first. Each player then searches his deck for a starting location card, places in front of him face down and shuffles their deck. Then they must offer it to be cut by another player.
Winning the Game
The object of the game is to have 15 Power at the end of a turn. You are eliminated from the game if you have no cards in your deck at the end of a turn.
The Cards
There are four card types: Location, Character, Support and Event.
Locations make up the places in the city that are under your caim. They are your primary source of resources and generate power. Stats: Faction, Talents, Trade, Influence, Structure.
Characters are the cards that get things done. They attack locations and other characters. Stats: Influence, Cost, Faction, Talents, Strength, Trade.
Support cards help your characters and hinder your opponent?s characters. Stats: Influence, Faction, Cost, Trade and Talents.
Events: One-off effects on the game that can be played at any time. Cost
Every card has a basic cost, which is paid for with resources. In addition to the basic cost, each card has loyalty and talents. Loyalty and talents are symbols next to their cost. A card costs an additional 1 for each of these symbols, but for every card you caim of the same faction (or with the same talent) you don't have to pay for one of the symbols. So, you can play any card in any deck, but it's going to cost you more if you don't have other cards of the same faction. Talents work like loyalty except they aren't tied to any particular factions. So you could build a deck with two factions or maybe even three, but actually be focusing around one of the talents by having low loyalty but high talent.
The Turn
Each turn consists of 3 phases: Beginning, Middle and End. Players alternate clockwise, taking one action each. The player who?s action it is called the active player.
Beginning Phase
a) Ready: Refresh all your exhausted cards; each player gains one resource for each trade icon they caim. Refill your hand
b) Generate all effects triggered ?before your main phase?
Middle Phase
The Main phase is where most of the actions happen. Starting with the player with the most influence each player alternates being the active player, at which point they can either pass or make an action. When all players pass in succession the phase is over.
End Phase
a) Resolve end of turn abilities
b) Check for victory
c) End the turn
Claims
You can generate power by tapping your locations to make a Claim. Your Claim is the total influence at the location that you are tapping. Your Claim can be general (with no target) or specific (choose an opponent as a target). General claims, if successful, gain you Power equal to the tapped locations Claim value. Specific claims instead seek to steal power from your opponents, and take power from them equal to the claim value if successful. Opponents can challenge Claims by tapping a location of their own. Any opponent may challenge any claim. If the claim value at your locations is higher than theirs you gain power. Otherwise, the claim is defeated and no power is gained.
Battles
Attacks are resolved in the following order:
a) Opponents may join the Attacking side
b) Opponents may join the defending side
c) Take battle actions
If an attackers target changes location, the attack continues at the new location.
Yet another refined version of the game we keep trying to make, but never together, haha
The flavor seems well thought out, which may make further developments easier... or possibly harder, but I doubt that.
Gameplay seems straight forward because I know the kind of game you are going for. Care to explain how mastery of each 4 talents pertains to victory?
All in all, keep it up! I've got (yet another) battle system idea that I might implement into my newer ccg idea, and I still really want to finish Kingdom (which at this point only needs beta testing really). One day, either one or both of us will finish and release a game!
This sounds very cool.
Strong universe, interesting mechanical possibilities.
sounds like the MMO the secret world, yet still feels original
hopes to see a noir card game, let the artwork say it!
Quote from: Cyrus on November 08, 2010, 10:44:52 AM
Care to explain how mastery of each 4 talents pertains to victory?
All in all, keep it up! I've got (yet another) battle system idea that I might implement into my newer ccg idea, and I still really want to finish Kingdom (which at this point only needs beta testing really). One day, either one or both of us will finish and release a game!
Well, that was actually a bit of hyperbole. The 4 talents are a bit like colours in magic, except they are less restrictive. Basically playing cards in the game works like this. Cards cost gold. Your stronghold determines which clan you are a part of, and any characters not from that clan cozt extra gold (i was thinking either 2 extra gold or some kind of honour system where the more honour they had the more extra gold they would cost). Locations can belong to clans and controlling a locations from a different clan eliminates the extra cost. This system was great, but it was too flexible and didn't really make sense for the event cards. So i devised the talent system to work in tanden with the clan system. All cards you play provide you with talent (probably to be represented by little symbols ate the bottom of the card). As long as a card is in play or in your discard pile, it provides you with talent and talent isn't used up when you play cards that need it, it works like a threshold. Some cards require you to have a certain amount of talent before you can play them.
And dude, the battle system of this game is the only thing i'm not decided on, i wanna hear about yours!
Sorry if that was convoluted, i'm tired =] more updates when i have time!
EDIT: Thanks for the kind words about the universe, it's been a brain child of mine for some time. INPUT! =D
BUMP: update in first post
Quote from: Wisp on November 10, 2010, 03:24:37 PM
BUMP: update in first post
Was the update just for the movement? You know I can't be bothered to read the entire thing again :P
Regardless, I like the idea for movement, with one complaint. If both players need to have locations laying out in front of them with enough space for characters from both players on each side, as well as their stronghold closer to them or off to the side, and space for characters from both players at the city centre, do you think only those with really large tables (and appropriately matched arm lengths) could play?
tl;dr: How much space does this board take up?
Movement and the last half of the how to play section.
Nah wouldn't take up much more space then magic. Strongholds go with the rest of your locations, they just look different so people know they can't move there. Imagine you have 5 locations in front of you, as does your opponent, each with a card space between them. That's probably as wide as it's gonna get, maybe a bit more space between if there is a huge volume of characters. Your character go behind the location they are at when at one of your ones, and they go in front of locations you opponents control. So there is a location card, on the near side of it your character, and on the other side of it you opponents character. In terms on length, you just need to be aware of making sure that there is a clear destinction between the city centre (the area between the players) and characters on the far side of a location. It might take up more space than a typical magic the gathering game but not a huge amount more. I hope.
Argh i'm so busy!!111!!! >:(
doing incremental updates to the first post as often as i can.
I like the concept. I had an idea for a game named Noir too. It was months back & was a role playing game set in a dark alternate past 1930-esque. More of a Film Noir supernatural investigation theme, kind of like Call of Cthulhu meets the Dresden Files. Anyway your mechanics seem interesting and I like the secret world parallel. Best of luck.
How about for a battle system: all cards are also attack/defense cards with a primary talent the character must have. It would also use a threshold system. If the card has 1 chi symbol with a 2 on it the max atk or def would be 2. If there are 2 chi symbols, the 1st having a 2 and the 2nd having a 4 you could use it as an atk or def of 4 if you controlled the threshold of 2 chi. And so on continuing with more symbols with numbers on them. Some cards might have a second type of symbol for example 2 chi symbols and 1 politic symbol with increasing numbers of 2, 4, 5 on the symbols. Is you met the threshold of 2 chi & 1 politic you could use it as a 5 atk or def. There would also be a type of paper, rock, scissors to attacking. The 4 talents would be split into 2 pairs and the pairs could not defend against an attack of it's opposite. For example chi and politics are paired. Of a chi atk is made a politic could not be used to defend it. Combination atk's could be used in one of these 2 ways depending on what works better. An atk could be considered to have the talent of the 1st symbol of the threshold level required to use it. Or combination atk's can always be blocked by anything. On def it would always be considered the primary trait.
Mega-update in first post. Minor setting change, title change, victory condition change, resource system change.
Cy, get your ass in here.
I'm very into this, however, I'm a little confused on how the turn structure works. First you say there are 4 phases and their names, then you listed 3 phases (with different names even!). Haha, so, clarify that and you have yourself a basic rule set. I'm definitely down to help with factions and mechanics (and playtesting, duh)!
Ahh that was a typo. I used a rule book for an old game a template and left that in by mistake. All fixed now. Cool, well to inspire you for factions, the feeling I'm going for is quite sort of small. By which i mean, these aren't huge battles with thousands of soldiers fighting and countries and kings and shit. Even though the city is big (possibly infinite no one knows), the feel is much more of small factions vying for power. The battles are small scale in small places. It's all very shady.
Also i'll explain the resource system. Every character has a basic cost, which is payed for with resources. In addition to the basic cost, each character has loyalty and talents. Loyalty and talents are symbols next to their cost. A card costs an additional 1 for each of these symbols, but for every card you control of the same faction (or with the same talent) you don't have to pay for one of the symbols. So, you can play any card in any deck, but it's going to cost you more if you don't have other cards of the same faction. Talents work like loyalty symbols except they aren't tied to any particular factions. So you could build a deck with two factions or maybe even three, but actually be focussing around one of the talents by having low loyalty but high talent.
Also, in case anyone is wondering, saturn is the name of the tower's arbiter. He's a demi-god of sorts. His name is subject to change, saturn is just what i picked up from a list of roman gods (the god of time, he is).
Good resource idea. Have been playing with things like that too.
@dragoon: what timezone are you in, and can i request some help with designing a battle system?
GMT +1 (europe)
Well.. Maybe I have some stuff laying around...
Nice, that clears that up.
I like the resource system as well, a lot like the A Game of Thrones LCG but maybe even more elegant/bad azz.
Since skirmishes are supposed to be small in nature, I'd try to have the combat system reflect. Maybe just having a really, really simple combat system in place that is easily "influenced" to behave differently based on keyword mechanics on cards? So each faction/talent field sorta fights differently? This may be impossible to balance and such, but it'd be really cool! I will brainstorm on this and get back to you later...
Good idea. It would be great to have the factions reflected in combat.
Just to be clear the battles are bar brawls, back alley scraps, assassinations etc. Very small and up close and personal. If you see an opponent gaining power, go a send someone to sort him out. That idea. Simple is good =]
Game of thrones actually inspired my win system, the difference being you can't keep attacking the same weakened player and keep getting power.
A simple battle system would be the warhammer invasion one. Attack + HP, defender chooses how damage is distributed.
I'm thinking the bare bones of it should be EVEN simpler. Examplesss
You have 3 characters with Thief Talent. During the 'combat' phase you tap them to make a Their attack against an opponent's site or group of characters or however characters will be layed out. If they don't have at least 3 Security Talent, you take an item from that site or what-have-you (or maybe they just have to discard one).
So the different talents determine attack types, and there's matching defensive talents for each attack Talent (so with your dudes you're essentially deciding how you want to undermine the opponent's plans, and what plans you want to guard most carefully).
The different talents?
Assassination - Kills characters - Maybe blocked by Security as well?
Military - Kills characters - But requires something else to Block, maybe Military blocks Military?
Demolitions - Damages locations - Blocked by... Task Force? Haha this brainstorm is losing momentum.
But! I still think it might be a cool idea. Although thinkin about it it might require too much memorization of what blocks what... is there a way around that?
Instead of having a keyword security, you could have the text "can block assassins". I really like that idea, however I think all characters should be able to do all of those things, but some would be better at specific things. So you aren't completely locked out of anything, but your card choices still determine what you're best at. Or something...
If there were 2 stats, say strength and skill. If i attack a character directly or try to raid someone for power, the character they block with would need to have more skill than the one attacking. But for attacking locations, or generating power anyone can block anyhow.
...?
Cy, after serious brainstorming, I might have to steal a bit of your influence system. Is that ok? Tapping a locations to generate power (as opposed to a character) allows me to be so much more flexible with what I do with my characters. Right now i'm proposing this:
You win when you have more power than any other player has influence.
Character card have influence, and the total of all of your characters influence is your influence.
Tap a location to gain power. If someone blocks, compare the total influence at your location with the total influence at their.
You can raid other players for power with attacks.
The reason I want to use a system like this is because one the main things i want my game to focus on is how you position your cards on the board.
The main focuses of my game are (incase you're wondering):
+ Rules that don't have to edited for single or multiplayer to work, and don't involve players being eliminated (not as the main condition anyway.
+ Players having simultaneous turns where they alternate actions, to make the game is interactive and changeable as possible and to stress the importance of timing.
+ Position of cards to matter
Quote from: Wisp on March 02, 2012, 07:22:18 PM
A first draft of a template attached for you.
For some inspiration, i really like the most recent legend of the 5 rings templates. the spoils ones are really nice, and the warhammer invasion ones aren't too bad.
I'm excited to see what you'll come up with, thank you so much.
Quote from: Dragoon on March 04, 2012, 10:08:04 AM
Icons taken shamelessly from my other works. No numbers and text :(
Is this akin what you had in mind?
(http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/1972/wispccg.png)
Also, from what I see in the draft, is your new ccg (Saturn's Tower) and this one going to merge?
Quote from: Wisp on March 04, 2012, 04:50:24 PM
Well the design is fantastic as usual. It's perfect for testing out with. It doen't suit my games setting that well, but I haven't explained my games setting so that's not a surprise. Great work. EDIT: I spose you could say the setting has similarities with The Spoils and Legend of the Burning Sands. I really like the coin symbol =]
Me and Cy's game aren't merging, but we've been bouncing unfinished ideas of each other for years and have ended up in very similar places. I know it's unclear, but this thread is for cy's ccg, but the template was for saturn's tower (incase you were confused). I don't know how we ended up talking about it in this thread lol. I'll continue this conversation over in the official saturn's tower topic.
Reposted the quotes from Cygar's thread here, seeing as the templates are for Saturn's Tower.
To continue on your brainstorm idea
- Characters have talents. (Military, Politic, Subvertive)
- The number of talents on a character is equal to that character's influence.
- Influence can be blocked by other characters with the same influence.
- Other influence can be blocked with twice the number of any kind.
- Example: Characters with a total of 2 Military and 1 Politic influence attack and are blocked by 4 military influence. No power is lost/gained, as the defender used 2 Military to block 2 Military and 2 Military to block 1 Politic
thoughts?
I do like the idea of characters talents effecting the game like that. I'm not sure how it fits though.
At the moment I have.
- Locations tap to generate power (through influence)
- Locations tap to generate resources (through trade)
- Characters attack to destroy locations
- Characters attack to kill other characters
- Characters raid to steal influence
- Characters block against other characters attacks
What I like about this set up is that, in all situations, the positioning of your characters is important. A way of incorporating your idea might be:
- Characters have talents (let's say any of Trade, Combat, Politics, Infiltration, Magic and Craft)
- Characters have a Skill number
- A characters influence is equal to the number of talents they have
- Tapping a location to generate resources gets you resources from each character at that location which has the trade talent, - equal to that characters skill.
- To attack a location, that character must have the combat talent
- To attack a character or raid an opponent, they must have the infiltration talent
- Any character can block
- Magic, Craft and Politics effect which event cards can be played.
Or something like that...
You could also do something with zones, like Warhammer Invasion did.
Combat Zone: Skill = attack
Market Zone: Skill = Trade
Other Zone SKill = Influnce
Or something like that.
After my next rules revision I'm going to make a couple of decks and get play testing stuff. Dragoon, could you send me the template? Or i send you the cards texts? Who's up for play testing? I should have my next rules revision up very soon (tonight)
I will send you the gimp template, I guess that's easier.
Download http://uploading.com/files/b735e6db/wispccg.xcf/
Thanks dude. Watch this space
right, first post updated and made smaller. I'm stuck for mechanics right now so i'm going to make some cards and play and see what happens.
Was afk for the weekend plus a little bit there, my bad. You can pretty much steal whatever you want from my game, as long as when you make a million bucks you hook a brotha up a little bit :P Oh and I can keep wall-of-text idea-storming at you all the time.
deal. wall of texting is much appreciated :P
Right i have 3 basic battle systems to choose between/combine/edit/scrap.
1. Simplicity: One side puts forward attackers, other side chooses defenders (if any) then damage is assigned.
2. Simplicity + Speed: Same as above except damage is assigned in order of which characters have the most speed
3. Turn based: Damage is assigned back and forth, starting with the defender.
A good thing about number 3 is you could integrate any battle actions into the battle itself by having them replace one of your damage assignments. The speed one is conceptually good, but might require too many numbers on the cards for my taste. The simple one is simple, which is generally a good thing.
EDIT: @Dragoon:
QuoteYou could also do something with zones, like Warhammer Invasion did.
Combat Zone: Skill = attack
Market Zone: Skill = Trade
Other Zone SKill = Influnce
Or something like that.
I like Warhammer Invasion, but what makes that game so good is that all characters (for the most part) are equally good in all areas, or how good they are in an area depends of the game state. This means the choice of what goes where is live and changes throughout the game, and between games. If you give cards specialised stats, you're already getting to players to choose what zone cards go in when they build their deck, which reduces the amount of valid options when playing a game... or something...
Start out with the simple one, you could always make it more complex (like I did) when you are getting further in design.
Fair point.
Ok so i edited your template you sent me to make it quicker to edit and move things around. Thanks. First cards are done, although they are missing factions and talents.
(http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/5944/allail.jpg)
You forget the art credits :P
Are you putting trade in as a keyword? Or do you intent to add another icon for that.
Because if you did keywords, you could add battle keywords instead of adding battle icons on cards. For example Spy 2 (This character has 2 combat power. When this character deals damage to a player, that player discards that many cards instead.)
I've changed the location cards so now they don't have a cost, and the cost icon is now the trade icon. Locations will now cost = number of locations you control.
EDIT: I've forgotten who the images were by now as well :(
MORE!!
(http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/1392/thenorthernboundary.jpg) (http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/7246/skylinegarden.jpg) (http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/7094/quantumwindow.jpg) (http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/1433/mastertactician.jpg) (http://img718.imageshack.us/img718/6583/liarscrossroad.jpg) (http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/9606/freezingfountain.jpg)
Respectfully, If you don't know the artist don't use the art. In it's most base form it's a liability for lackey to host un-credited images. In it's more human form, it's just rude to make your work look good without giving credit to those who helped.
Fair enough. I'll go through my history and see if I can find any names.
I'm pretty sure its still a liability even if they are credited, and I'm pretty sure those arts are for demo purposes. Alls I'm saying is, probably not a big deal.
Gotten any test games with the base rules done? I'm excited to see this thing come along
Still a few cards short of a deck at the moment (hey, that sounds like a euphemism for madness). But I should have 2 decks by the weekend.
Sweeeeeet
I may just have some time to playtest. Maaaay. Beeeee.
You better!
(http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/645/shadowsbythecitywalls.jpg)
The core of my setting is the City/Tower. It's basically a huge venice, with a big emphasis on verticalness, but with an arabian feel to it. Playing dark souls was actually what got me back into finishing the ccg, because of the sheer up and down of it all.
Having said that, i'm still unsure as to what kind of world this city should reside within. Fantasy, sci-fi, old, new, the tower idea i have right now etc... any suggestions/comments?
Maybe different parts of the tower are vastly different in technological advances, evolution of thought, etc. So kinda a mix. It'd be hard to convey with 'borrowed' artwork, but could be really cool if you ever get some dedicated artists.
Good idea, very nice. Have to give it an overall flavour still I think... what can tie it together?
darkness and grimness, duuuuuh
ahh, so obvious.
"In the grim darkness of the tower, there is only war!"
You can also tie it together with corridors and entrances to the tower. For example by making a [tower entrance] location cycle, or something similar
Also, I liked the locations with cost in the middle better. Also, what kind of icon is the blue rectangle? It's mocking me.
It's a place holder for faction symbols, just wanted to see how it looked in that position. Honestly, don't pay too much attention to the card templates... i've even stopped looking for art and just use the same picture on every card. I just need to finish a deck (designing individual cards is something I've never been good at because I'm such a rules perfectionist. How can you make cards when the rules aren't perfect? How can the rules be perfect without testing? Ahh the cycle continues). I did like the cost in the middle too.
Ah... I know your pain.. Luckily, you need only around 15 cards for playtesting :D
15 cards you say
(http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/5944/allail.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/189/allail.jpg/)
(http://img848.imageshack.us/img848/1392/thenorthernboundary.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/848/thenorthernboundary.jpg/)
(http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/1433/mastertactician.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/806/mastertactician.jpg/)
(http://img710.imageshack.us/img710/7246/skylinegarden.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/710/skylinegarden.jpg/)
(http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/139/mastersassistant.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/705/mastersassistant.jpg/)
(http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/6583/liarscrossroad.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/27/liarscrossroad.jpg/)
(http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/7118/shadowwielder.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/37/shadowwielder.jpg/)
(http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/645/shadowsbythecitywalls.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/703/shadowsbythecitywalls.jpg/)
(http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/9606/freezingfountain.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/109/freezingfountain.jpg/)
(http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/9106/ezioe.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/28/ezioe.jpg/)
(http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5493/saboteuru.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/96/saboteuru.jpg/)
(http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/7094/quantumwindow.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/813/quantumwindow.jpg/)
(http://img845.imageshack.us/img845/1136/embraceeternalrest.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/845/embraceeternalrest.jpg/)
(http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/5773/darkfamiliar.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/577/darkfamiliar.jpg/)
(http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/3092/mrraven.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/827/mrraven.jpg/)
(http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/85/legendaryknife.th.jpg) (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/217/legendaryknife.jpg/)
I'm having trouble getting the cards to show up in the plugin.
U n00b... upload the plugin zip somewhere and send it to me, I'll check it out
(ps I haven't bothered with plugins since the very first version sooooooo......)
'ere you are http://www.mediafire.com/?jyv6pdrp6re66u6
Well, I concur that it looks like it should work. I shall stare at this in my free time and try to figure it out.
Ahh, so it's not just me
I think it is the filepaths. Now it just is the card name, but it should be "{cardname}.jpg"
And if that doesn't work, try changing teh path to "cards/core/{cardname}.jpg"
Maybe this helps (I hope)
s'not working
Got it! But then got stumped again :(
So, firstly, you've got to change your setlist.txt. It's lookin for AllSets.txt, while it should be lookin for carddata.txt
however...
I still can't get the actual images to show up, even though now you can see the list of cards in the deck editor.
So, progress is being made! I continue to stare...
Sorry for the inaction. I still haven't been able to get the plugin working. I'm going to very busy in general from monday, for about 6 weeks. If someone could fix the plugin that'd be lovely, then I could play-test on occasions that I'm not busy.