Final Fantasy CCG???

[spartan116chris]

hey guys i was taking a look at another dudes post about how he is creating a half life ccg and i thought it would b cool to take a video game(or video game series rather) that im a big fan of and start making a plugin for it. So i landed on final fantasy; pretty fitting universe that can b easily crafted into a fun card game form i think. So what with there being pretty much no interest in playing the Digimon TCG(shocking! no one else grow up watching and playing Digimon???) i decided to draft the rules and basic mechanics of a FF ccg instead and see if there was any feedback or interest in this project. heres what i came up with:


Card types   
   Party Member- party member cards are used to form your team of 3. you are only allowed one of any party member in your party; different versions of party members or party members with different card art are still considered the same. Example: you cant have Cloud Strife and Cloud(kingdom hearts version) in your party as well. You are allowed one action through each party member(unless otherwise stated by another card). Every Party Member has a particular Wield Type which designates what attack cards they may activate. Party member cards come with abilities and will have the following stats: HP, MP. They may also obtain LP(limit points) when damaged or Status Effects  by other card abilities or added effects.

   Attack- attack cards are used to deal physical damage to a party member. They come in 2 subtypes: weapons and limits.
   
   Weapon attack cards are used to deal damage equal to their printed attack(though this number can be enhanced by other cards). With the exception of Ultimate weapons you may have as many copies of a weapon attack card in your attack deck as you want. Every Attack card has a particular Wield Type which designates which Party Members are able to activate them. Some have added effects. Weapons have the following stats: Att(attack)- damage dealt by this card to a party member. Miss- a value of 1-20. when attacking roll a d20 and if this value is rolled your attack misses. Crit(critical)- a value of 1-20. when attacking roll a d20 and if this value is rolled your attack damage is doubled.

   Limit attack cards are used to deal massive damage equal to their printed attack(though this number can be enhanced by other cards). You may only have one copy of any limit attack card in your attack deck. Limit attacks only have one stat(Att) because they never miss or land critical damage, but they may also have added effects. They do however have a cost that must be paid in order to be used: LP(limit points).

   Magic- magic cards are used to deal magical damage, heal damage, and inflict or remove status effects on party members. Magic cards are divided into 3 subtypes: black magic, white magic, and summon magic.

   Black magic cards are mostly used to deal elemental damage or inflict harmful status effects on party members. With the exception of Ultimate black magic cards you may have as many copies of a black magic card in your magic deck as you want. To play them you must pay the MP cost printed on the card. The MP must be paid by the party member who is being used to activate the magic.

   White magic cards are mostly used to heal damage, revive party members, inflict beneficial status effects, and remove status effects from party members. With the exception of Ultimate white magic cards you may have as many copies of a white magic card in your magic deck as you want. To play them you must pay the MP cost printed on the card. The MP must be paid by the party member who is being used to activate the magic.

   Summon magic cards are cards with varying abilities. They can deal massive damage, inflict status effects, remove status effects, or heal damage to 1 or all party members. You may only have 1 of any summon magic card in your magic deck; different versions of a summon magic card are still considered the same. Example: you cant have Ifrit from the FF7 set and Ifrit from the FF8 set in your magic deck. To play them you must pay the MP cost printed on the card. The MP must be paid by the party member who is being used to activate the magic.

   Item- item cards are used to heal damage, revive party members, inflict beneficial status effects, remove status effects, deal damage, and inflict harmful status effects. They cost nothing to play but are one time use only cards as the item discard is not shuffled and put back onto the item deck zone when the deck is empty. With the exception of Ultimate item cards you may have as many copies of an item card in your item deck as you want.

   Skill- skill cards give the party member they are attached to special abilities or enhancements. You can attach up to 3 skill cards to a party member. You can stack enhancement skills such as attaching multiple HP plus cards but special abilities such as 2x cut will not stack. If multiple are attached the extras will be redundant and have no effect.

Starting the Game
   Setup- There are 7 zones on the play area: Attack Deck, Attack Discard, Magic Deck, Magic Discard, Item Deck, Item Discard, and the Battle Field. Each player MUST have 3 party members. Each player may have up to 9 skill cards. Each player MUST have either an Attack or Magic Deck or both. The Item Deck is optional. Each deck being used must contain exactly 20 cards. Each player may have a Side Deck with exactly 15 additional cards to be used for enhancing strategy between matches, and must contain that same number when the player is finished trading out cards.

Each player starts by setting their 3 party members face up on the battle field and attaching up to 3 skill cards to each of them. Each player must then set the appropriate number of HP and MP counters on each of their party members; taking into account any enhancements. Each player then shuffles their decks and places them face down on the corresponding zones, then draws a total of 5 cards choosing from any combination of decks. Both players roll to decide who goes first.

On your turn you draw a card from any deck you own to start your turn. You may perform 1 action with each of your party members in any order u wish. These actions include:

-Activate an Attack card
-Activate a Magic card
-Use an ability(that this party member has)
-Activate an Item card
-Defend and draw 1 card from anyone of your decks
-Pass and do nothing

You win the game when all your opponents party members are KO'd and/or incapacitated. The status effects Stop, Freeze, and Stone incapacitate a party member. So if at any time all of a players party members are KO'd OR all are inflicted with any combination of these status effects OR if a players party members are unable to act because of a combination of both circumstances then that player loses.

   Basic Rules- you may only have one of any Party Member card in your party. During the game when your Magic or Attack Deck becomes empty you then shuffle that discard pile and place them face down on the deck zone again. The Item Deck does not get replenished when it is empty. KO'd or incapacitated party members stay on the battlefield with all cards attached to them. Ultimate cards can be any type of card and are marked with a certain symbol following the card type and subtype. All Ultimate cards are restricted to 1 copy per associated deck. If an attack ?Misses? no damage is dealt but the attack is still made. Added Effects differ from Effects in that Added Effects are purely effects that are taken as a result of combat. LP are given based on a damage threshold. If a party member takes 500 or less damage during the damage step 1 LP is awarded and if more than 500 damage is dealt then 3 LP are awarded.

   Combat Step- when a player uses a Party Member to activate an Attack or Magic card targeting another Party Member(s)(either yours or your opponents) the combat is handled in the following order:

-Cost payment: any MP, or other designated cost required by the activated Attack, Magic, or ability must first first be carried out accordingly

-Roll: roll dice accordingly for action taken

-Trigger abilities, added effects, effects: any abilities, added effects, and/or effects from any cards that would be triggered by the action being taken are resolved accordingly

-Damage dealt: deal any damage that would b dealt after all dice rolls and abilities are resolved by removing HP from corresponding Party Member(s) and add any LP as well

-Trigger abilities, added effects, effects: any abilities, added effects, and/or effects from any card that would be triggered by damage being taken or dealt are resolved accordingly

[Saethori]

Isn't there already an actual Final Fantasy TCG in Japan? o.O

[spartan116chris]

lol hmmm if there is i never heard about it. plus im guessing its probly not any good as it hasnt exacly caused any excitement anywhere to my knowledge

[Cyrus]

While I think that rule set would work fine for a battle-based game using ff characters to bash on each other, I don't think it really captures the feel of final fantasy at all. I think the same goes for the japanese one. I'd like to see a game that really pushes the envelope in card game design in order to more closely match the play-style of the final fantasy games.

Have you ever played the middle-earth ccg by ice? That games rules involve taking your party around the world of middle-earth to battle monsters, gain items, and thus points towards winning the game. While the game had a sort of solitaire feel to it when you first learned it, there is a good deal of interaction as well. Player's played monster cards against their opponent's party as they moved from location to location, and I think there was at some point a way to directly attack characters with other characters.

Personally I'm just not as excited by games that are just battle games, especially when there is such a vast license attached to it that they really could have shaped in to a great game, even if it felt more like a board game than a card game.

For your game rules it'd be as easy as shuffling up the Attack, Magic, and Skills cards into your Party Deck, and adding a Monster deck used to fight your opponent. Then you'd have to come up with the questing rules part of the game, so, I guess it wouldn't be all that easy

Don't let me discourage you though, just perhaps think of renaming the game Final Fantasy Battles or something so that us die-hards don't get excited for another questing game.

Lastly, I would still be in to trying this out regardless of rules/name/whatever, I'm always into learning new games.
GL!

[GnKoichi]

I had the same thoughts as Cyrus. While your rules sound like a good way to simulate a single battle in an FF-style, I would rather have a FF card game that covers a full game.

I might actually draft up some rules for that tonight if I get around to it.

[spartan116chris]

hmmm i didnt expect that reaction haha. acualy i purposely designed it to b a sort of FF all stars battle game because i wanted it to b a competitive action based game thats typical of other similar ccg's. in my mind i thought, i dont want to just recreate a FF game in card form because in that case i would rather just pop in the game an play the real thing lol. but it seems as tho the rest of u r leaning in just that direction haha so much for that idea

[Cyrus]

hmmm i didnt expect that reaction haha. acualy i purposely designed it to b a sort of FF all stars battle game because i wanted it to b a competitive action based game thats typical of other similar ccg's. in my mind i thought, i dont want to just recreate a FF game in card form because in that case i would rather just pop in the game an play the real thing lol. but it seems as tho the rest of u r leaning in just that direction haha so much for that idea

Or, as I suggested, you could rename the game to Final Fantasy Battles (or something similar) and continue doing what you were thinking. We're 2 people, I'm sure there's others out there that would like a more typical ccg with a ff background.

And obviously playing a ccg based on the game will not ever be the exact same as playing the game on a console, if only because it would be a multiplayer game

[Iokua]

while i dont have any real input on how to build the FF CCG i would be intrested in playing either version of it.

[Ripplez]

i had an idea for this way way back. it basicly ran like -

there was the normal : character card, item card, event card (sorceries/instants), ability card (sorceries/instants that are cast by a specific character)

but it was to try and capture how the game would unfold. so it had a few more additions :

1) it had a game state called The Story Phase. it consisted of the early phase, middle phase, late phase. these corresponded to like what point of the "story" your game was. so if you had a card that was like "A Meteor Crash! (Galuf)" in the final fantasy 5 set, you could only play it in the early story phase (cos in that game that event only happens then). similarly a monster called "The Midgar Zolom" can be played in the ff7 set during the early-mid story phases. you could pay like a main phase to add a counter and when you had enough (2~3), it would shift to the next story phase. you could do it through events and abilities and stuff too. this was generally irreversible and was supposed to add an element of competition in the game since late phase stuff would involve power items like ultima spells and ragnarok and bahamut summons, while the early and mid game stuff would have more development (since those sections develop the plot) like "A Meteor Crash! (Galuf)" could let you search for a Galuf Character card and add it to your hand. so there was supposed to be a struggle to control the pacing of the game as a power player would want to advance as fast as possible while a control player would want to keep it as slow as possible.

2) there was a morality value - Good/Evil. Hero Characters and Villain Characters. you can only play one type in your deck. heroes typically had the better gear (since ingame those equipment is usually for them) while villains had better plot event cards and more specialised cards. this combined with the story phase system had alot of timings for things. like the aforementioned "Ragnarok(Sword)" could only be equipped by a Hero character while in the Late Story Phase. or "The Deepest Cut" can only be played by Sephiroth in the mid-game story phase. that sort of thing. also governed the playing of minion characters and things

3) there were neutral areas for both players, the most obvious of which was playing Monster cards onto the field for either player to attack or be attacked by. this was the trickiest to design because it could very easily break the flow and feel of the gameplay which is why i will sometimes straight-up pretend it doesnt exist lol

4) one of THE most important points : there was ONE rules card for each set, that each player had to pick one of for their deck to revolve around. a rules card for ff1, ff2, ff3.... it governed the speed at which you could advance the plot, some small rules like drawing and an optional effect for your deck. each player could only play cards from one game but there were some cards that were common to more than 1 set. like the black chocobo card and variations of it (with the same name for deck construction constraints) would be present in every set that featured the black chocobo ingame but in no others. and was legal to play in any set that it appeared in. but what this meant is that if you played the ffX-2 set, you had a rule for advancing the plot, a rule for drawing (to balance how the set works at its core) and one more rule to help govern the ability to use dress spheres, a unique element to the x-2 game. because normal rules do not account for all the variations of the game systems and because to me, importing every important aspect of the game was, the rules were entered on the rules card, NOT on each individual dress sphere because the rules card would help you do something like find dress sphere cards or re-equip them to relevant characters later. as a result, EACH set was supposed to be different in how they worked, with some updates every now and then for new cards or card tweaks

those were the three, er four points (point 3 exists after all....) that governed how the game would be designed. anyone interested in it? it might be a little more generic than a make-your-own plot game but it had some more unique aspects. i never really shared it till now. a key thing was that EVERY game would be converted to a set, from ff1 to ff12 (the latest at the time), including ff tactics, ff tactics advance.... it was very ambitious at the time lol. but if theres any interest in it, i might go back to it, eventually

EDIT : wow its been so long i made a really bad mistake. rules cards didnt have an additional rule for drawing, they had an additional rule for changing battle systems. there was another game state called The Battle System that would change between "Wait" and "Active" which would basicly determine how easily you could play your cards. "Wait" systems caused your cards to be played  at usually slower paced but more reactive stages while "Active" would cause your cards to be played faster and looser, closer to an aggro dec situation. it was inspired by the Legend of the Five Rings imperial favour mechanic and was supposed to be another resource you could manage to take control and initiative of the game

[r0cknes]

I was thinking about how to make an RPG style card game. Here is what I came up with.

Player 1 is the Hero
Player 2 is the Villon.

Card Types:

Hero:

1. Characters - Characters are those who are in the hero's party. Each game you start with 4 level 1 characters. As the game goes on you may upgrade these characters with other cards with the same name. The upgrades must be sequential, meaning the cards must be placed in level order. A level 1 character may not become a level 3 character until it has been a level 2 character first. Any tokens on the previous player card is added to the new card. Each character has several stats.

1) Symbol -There are 4 symbols. The symbols are simply a small circle with one of the following colors: Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue. All cards have these symbols as they are necessary to complete locations.

2) ATT - This is the strength of the character's physical attack. Damage received by a player or monster is the same. you subtract the DEF stat from the ATT. If the number is less then or equal to 0 then the damage taken is 0.

3) AP - This is Ability points. This is different from ATT. This number will give you a restriction as to what ability cards may be used by this character. If a character has 3 Ap and and Ability requires 3 then that Ability may not be played by that character.

4) SP - This is speed. This will determine the order of the battles.

5) DEF - See ATT

6) AD - This is your character's defense on ability cards. subtract this amount from the ATT power of the ability card. same rules apply for damage.

7) Evade - This number is 1 through 9. If a player has an evade of 1 they must roll a 10 sided die and land a 1 in order to evade the attack. If the character has a 2 then they can roll a 1 or a 2 and so on.

HP - Lastly the hit points. This number is reduced to 0 the character is killed.

2. Items - These may be played in or outside of battle. these are like potions and things of that nature.

3. Ability cards - These are cards played only during battle. I am not sure the best way to restrict the users of these. I was thinking of just having symbols determine users or just some text information to do that. These cards have an AP requirement and they also have and ATT strength that is for the most part stronger than a physical ATT. If it is a healing ability the ATT is the amount of HP recovered.

4. Equipment - These may only be played outside of battle. Only two pieces of equipment may be on any given character and one time. One weapon and one accessory. These add attack and defense to the character and may also protect from other status effects or may allow the character to hold 2 weapons. the ideas are endless here.

Villon:

1. Monsters: All the stats are the same as the hero's characters although these tend to be much weaker. There are no levels for monsters. Also the Villon has all of his monsters in his deck to start the game. As the Game progresses the Villon will play these cards to battle the hero characters. The symbols on these cards must match one of the symbols on the location card. There are 2 types of monsters, Monsters and Bosses. Monsters may be played as bosses, but bosses may only be played in the event that a location is completed. Bosses are connected to the given location, they are not in the deck. Monsters when they are played may be put in groups no greater than 4. All battles are started by the Villion player.

2. Ability Cards - See Ability Cards for Heros

3. Locations - These are the location cards that will determine the flow of the game. These will be placed face down by the Villon player at the beginning of the game. Boss cards may be placed at this time as well. Each location has three stats.

First is the level. When the Villon player places these cards he must have atleast a level 1 location. He also must have 4 location cards. The Villon must place these cards in sequential order. If the villon has a level 4 location, but does not have a level 3 location, then the level 4 location may not be used. A player may use all level 1 locations if he chooses to.

Second is the Party restriction. This number tells how many character's may go into this location. The number will range between 1 and 4. When the level is complete the character's in the location may receive a upgrade token while the others not in the location will not.

Third is the symbol requirement. This acts as a two edged sword. First it tells the Hero what symbols must be played in order to complete this location. Second, it tells what type of monsters may be in this area.

Objectives:

Hero: To complete each location.
Villon: To kill everyone in the Hero's Party.

The Hero has 4 level 1 characters on the table to start the game.

The phases of the game are where I am messed up so these ideas are very subject to change and I know of several problems with them already. I will post those in time. For now I must take my leave. Spartan feel free to implement these ideas into your game if you like. I have no copyright.

[magnaangemon01]

Technically, you could use monster cards. The Blue Mage had the ability to learn Monster abilities (i.e.; Kimahri from Final Fantasy X). You can use monsters to hinder your opponents and a Blue Mage can use the abilities of 1 monster on the field each turn. Just an idea.