TV Tropes Trading Card Game

And pertaining to Normal and maybe even Hard mode, perhaps the players would be able to turn one requirement on each of their Arc cards from a subtype into a specific card they have in their deck.

Also, some Normal/Hard Arc Cards could come with one specific Plot Card amongst the Archetypes, forcing you to have that card in your deck.

I've been focusing on balancing Normal Mode: each player brings a set of five, one from each set is in play, players have a chance to claim both arcs. I figure that once we figure that out, it'll be easier to do Easy and Hard (if we decide to keep those, anyway).

I was thinking about adding particular tropes as an alternate cost. For example, an arc card could call for Indy Escape as an alternate way to satisfy 2xEscape or 3xEscape.

New idea: we could even theme the arc cards after arcs from particular works. The "cheapest" cost would be the specific plot tropes from the work, while there would be at least one more cost that only had subtype requirements.

What cost are you talking about?

Scratch my new idea. It is against the spirit of the game.

Alternate new idea: set templates for arc cards and let players customize.

For example: 3xDiscovery 2xEscape 1xDuel or 1x[Discovery Trope] 1x[Discovery Trope] 1x[Duel or Escape Trope]

where the players chooses the specific tropes when creating the card and then gives it an appropriate name. This would allow us to balance the arc cards via the templates while letting players customize the "flavor". Of course, we'd keep a database of arc cards, just like with troper cards.

Alright, that works.

Alright, so what do we need to figure out next?

Okay, how about turn rules?

The most obvious thing here is beginning the turn by drawing a card.

And that brings up another question: Should we have a limit on how large your hand can be? I'm thinking 5-8 cards.

Oh, and should there be a limit on how many tropes can be in play at a time?

Another thing: deck size. The usual I think is 50-60 cards. But would that be too much for this or too little?

I'm thinking we go for a larger hand, if possible, considering just how specific many tropes can be.

For the turn order, I'm thinking:

• SP Phase
  • Add 1 SP to your active troper
  • Remove 1 SP from every trope in play that you control. (Remove from play any tropes that were just set to 0 SP, taking card damage as appropriate.)
• Draw Phase
  • Draw a card.
• Story Phase
  • Invoke/activate tropes.
  • The total number of invocations and activations (as a sum) is fixed because it is bad to shake too many things up at once. Viewers Are Morons and Viewers Are Geniuses may end up being tropes that change this number.
• Arc Phase
  • Claim an arc that you have satisfied this turn (no more than 1). After all, the story has to progress at a reasonable pace.

edited Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:34:15 by Ironeye

Perhaps maybe... 3 Invocations and 2 Activations?

Viewers Are Morons would reduce both of these to 1, while Viewers Are Geniuses would raise them both to 4.

As for the hand... 15 cards max?

And on that note, a 60 card deck is probably too small. having a fourth of your deck in your hand is not good.

So, how about doubling that to 120?

The trouble with 15 card hands is that they can be rather unwieldy. Maybe 10? Holding 10 is doable, if a bit annoying. Perhaps we should stick with 8, still go for larger deck sizes (maybe 90?), and have lots of cards that let you search up the tropes you need. Perhaps all tropers can search for in-genre tropes for some SP cost, perhaps plot tropes let you search up a relevant trope while they are in play, and perhaps whenever an arc card hits the table, both players can search for one or more plot cards.

Well the thing here is that if we do get around to making this real, it would be over the internet, so nobody's going to be physically holding any cards.

Also, I say yes to search for SP (2 or 3?) and search upon Arc Card play.

edited Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:06:25 by Matrix

If it's strictly internet, then I think 15 and 120 could work just fine. As for a search, 2 or 3 sounds good—let's wait to pin it down until we figure out just how much tropes are going to cost.

Well, for the regular trope cards, I'm thinking maybe 3-5.

Twist cards, and other one-use cards, probably a similar cost, or even less.

Setting Cards, I'm thinging around 10.

Plot Cards, maybe 7-9?

Given how hard it is to generate SP, I'd suggest that plot cards should be a little bit cheaper (though not much). Also, Structural tropes should cost more than Eventual tropes, given how much more powerful structural tropes are. Theme tropes, though, are probably in line with setting tropes in terms of power (even if they are structural tropes) and thus should cost a similar amount.

Okay, so then..

Eventual Tropes would be 2-4, and Structural Tropes would be.. 5-7?

As for Plot Cards, how about 6-7?

Or should Stuctural Tropes cost more than Plot Cards?

Just noting that Pokemon doesn't have a fixed hand size.

I don't know. Plot Tropes are directly related to winning the game, while Structural Tropes never directly get you any closer, but have stronger effects.

Most TC Gs I've encountered don't fix the hand size, either. We're talking about maximum hand size. Though, given the limit on how many tropes can be played per turn and the general lack of mass card drawing, maybe we don't need to set a maximum size, only a starting size.

Alright. So shoud the starting size be 15 or lower?

I think we should keep it at 15 for now. We can always change it later if we need to.

Alright.

So do we have everything down?

I think so. At the very least, we have enough of a foundation to get onto specifics.

Specifics... Hmm..

What kind of specifics?

Specifics as in start making cards?

That was kinda the idea, yeah.

Okay! Time to press the random article button and make cards!