TV Tropes Trading Card Game

Y'know, I don't know at this point why we don't want "attacking with the serial numbers filed off". We've made the game plenty different from all the other TC Gs even if we had attacking in.

That said, I don't really want a standard interaction if we have to do the same thing with it every time. Just leave the stats and figure out how they interact each time.

I'm all for the stats just being there to be referenced by tropes.

Incidentally, the situations I wanted to avoid were:

• My character's COMBAT is higher than your character's COMBAT. Your character gets killed off. (It'd make it far too easy to eliminate characters that way.)
• My character's STAT is higher than your character's STAT. I gain (or "you lose") 2 IP! It places too much emphasis on character stats and it goes against one of the core principles of the game: for the purposes of story tropes (as opposed to meta tropes), what's in play matters more than who controls it. (The two aspects where "controller" matters are taking up SP and using abilities.)

Ah, and now it's beginning to get confusing again.

So, do I assemble the rules or do you?

I was putting the rules doc on hold until we figured out this (rather important) issue. I'll try to continue as best as I am able.

Alright, would this solve everyone's problems? We have Interaction Trope cards.

For instance,

• Duel to the Death
  • SP Cost 6
  • Genre Action/Adventure
  • Trope - Interaction - Combat
  • Choose a Villain and a Hero in play. The character with the lower Combat stat is Killed Off for Real. In the case of a draw, both characters are Put on a Bus until the end of their controllers' next turn.

• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man
  • SP Cost 3
  • Genre: Genreless
  • Trope - Interaction - Love
  • Choose a character in play and target a character with Heroic BSoD, Freak Out or a Mind Control trope attached. If the chosen character's Love stat is higher than the targeted character's Cyncism stat (Treat -5 Idealism stat as 10 and +5 Idealism as 0), detach one of the tropes mentioned above from the targeted character and place it in the Trash Bin.

• Thirty Xanatos Pileup
  • SP Cost 4
  • Genre: Mystery
  • Trope - Interaction - Intelligence

(any suggestions? I have no bloody clue what this one should do.)

There, Ironeye. Everything now relies on another card. And we have diversity of effects. Anyway, all I really felt necessary were that Interactions made it into the game. Well, this might open up some of the genre stats again.

But I do have a bit of a problem with characters being more important than the controller. If that's true, then what's the point in playing him/her. All that the characters seem to be doing is being a massive SP drain. They're not really helping you to win. What would be the point of having a character with, say, 10 in every stat if he/she ends up taking up too much SP and a quick Breaking the Fourth Wall, for instance, will make you go over your SP Limit.

Anyway, please update the rules first. We can work out the tweaks later.

Anyway,

• Blood Knight
  • SP Cost 5
  • Genre: Action/Adventure
  • Characterisation - Male Adult
  • Combat 6 Idealism -1
  • Once every two turns, you may pay 5 SP to invoke Duel to the Death (Except for SP Costs, treat it as though you have played Duel to the Death.) [reminder text: Choose another character in play. If that character's Combat stat is lower than this character's, that character is Killed Off for Real. If the opposite is true, then this character is Killed Off for Real. In the case of a draw, both characters are Put on a Bus until the end of their controllers' next turn.]

(Is this guy too powerful?)

• Breaking the Fourth Wall
  • SP Cost 4
  • Trope - Meta
  • Reduce all Writers' SP Limit by 5 until end of turn.

edited 26th Aug '09 11:56:11 PM by catch_the_sun

The card concept for Breaking the Fourth Wall seems a bit, erm, random.

Anyway, while I was writing up the rules, I just had a new idea:

• Players start with 0 IP (60 IP still wins the game)
• Tropes are normally only played during your own scene (turn). Nevertheless, you can play tropes during other player's scenes by spending IP equal to the SP cost of the trope (in addition to the trope taking up SP as normal). The flavor of this is hopefully clear.

I had considering a payment of IP to the player you're interrupting, for balance purposes, but I rejected that idea for two reasons:

• IP=SP is the easiest way to implement the system without being broken because it's too cheap, but a score swing of 2 X IP is broken in the other direction.
• It causes weird interactions in multiplayer where it could be to your advantage to play a trope during another player's turn to "tribute" IP to them.

Yeah, that works.

Well, the logic for Breaking the Fourth Wall was that it broke the Willing Suspension of Disbelief and made every writer (except for those with an ability that allowed them to ignore Meta Tropes) closer to quitting. It was just for the moment so I had an "until end of turn" clause. The other Fourth Wall tropes are probably going to be worse.

Ah, so if it's not your scene, you lose reputation for interfering? Yeah, that'll probably work. I think.

As we currently have it, you can freely play tropes no matter whose turn it is. However, the flavor is better and the mechanics are easier if we consider each player's turn as a "scene" with a lot of effects ending or changing at the end of a "scene".

Because "temporary" (no, that's not their rules name) tropes cost SP the turn you play them, we'd either have to make my "turn" end when my next one begins or otherwise have things broken (especially in multiplayer) by having the SP reset every time a new turn was taken. I figured it was just easiest to use the "scene" model and charge players "influence" for interfering in scenes other than their own.

As for the Fourth Wall tropes, SP just represents how much the writers are able to juggle at once. Reducing SP means that they can't keep track of as they used to, not that they are closer to quitting. Thus, the effect is quite disconnected from actually Breaking the Fourth Wall.

Alright then,

• Breaking the Fourth Wall
  • SP Cost 4
  • Trope - Meta
  • You may pay 4 IP instead of paying for Breaking the Fourth Wall's SP Cost. For the next interaction, you may choose to target a Characterisation card from your hand. Treat it as though it is in play. If an effect would call for that card to be Put on the Bus or Killed Off for Real, place it in the Trash Bin instead.

(I hope that's meta enough now.)

Heh, I don't "get" that version either.

Edit: The trope is for when a character acknowledges the audience or the author, so we need to build a card that evokes that.

edited 17th Aug '09 11:33:04 PM by Ironeye

But that's not possible unless you have the characters interacting with a writer. Like say...

• Breaking the Fourth Wall
  • SP Cost 4
  • Trope - Meta
  • Reduce target Writer's SP Limit by a number equal to the total number of characters in play.

(Or maybe)

• Reduce target Writer's SP Limit by a number equal to the highest stat that target character possesses.

(Even then, it's probably a bit of a stretch.)

edited 17th Aug '09 11:39:25 PM by catch_the_sun

Right, so we should hold of on defining that trope card until we have a good idea for it. Ideally, we should be making cards for tropes when we have good ideas for the mechanics, not because we come across a trope and think it ought to have a card. We may have to do the latter eventually, but I would rather we hold off on a trope until we have a good idea for it instead of pushing it out ASAP with a mechanic that doesn't match.

I've got an idea for that:

• Breaking the Fourth Wall
  • SP Cost: 4
  • Trope - Meta
  • Until end of turn, you may treat any characters or tropes your opponent controls as if they do not exist.

(The logic being that now the opposing writer is the only thing on the field.)

BH, that's pretty shaky as well. Why can't you have a character introduced by your opponent break the fourth wall?

Sorry, I haven't read all 33 pages. Hopefully my post is relevant anyway.

It seems you are having trouble coming up with the set of basic mechanics. Why not go for an Illuminati style game.

Try to build up a story out of trope cards that work well together and help you achieve your goal, while using special meta trope cards to attack your opponent's stories or alter the rules of the game.

I guess I'm not really good at explaining it, but I figured it was worth consideration.

That's more or less what is going in. Implementing it is the problem.

So, I was thinking about this, and I don't think I'm saying anything we haven't said already, but this kind of thing always makes the thread more lively, so here I go:

Well, let's start by assuming there are two players fighting over a shared story (we need two players because solitares are no fun). How do we tell when someone's won the game?

Well, one measurement would be who gets their ending in, because after that the other guy can't do anything, and you had the last laugh. So playing an Ending Trope is victory condition #1.

But suppose you have a Long Runner, and it's probably never going to end. Who wins then? Well, then whoever gets total control of the project wins. (So far we've been representing control with IP; I really think we should call it "control" or "influence" or something because we also have SP and these will get confusing fast.)

• For an example of this, take a look at Megatokyo; originally control of it was split evenly between Piro and Largo, then over time Piro got more influence until eventually Largo wasn't doing anything and Piro took his name off the strip.
  • Incidentally, I just realized about 10 minutes ago that Megatokyo-before-Piro-took-over makes a pretty good model for this card game.

And another random thought: how many cards should we have before we start testing this? I think 10-20 per card type should do it.

I'll go switch IP to Influence in the rules doc.

I think that now Apoc left I'm keeping the official list of cards, and by my count then we've got 6 Characterization cards (Determinator, Kid Hero, Manipulative Bastard, The Chessmaster, Tsundere, Wide-Eyed Idealist), 5 Plot Device cards, all setting type (Anyone Can Die, Crapsack World, Everytown, America, Not Important To This Episode Camp, Sugar Bowl), 3 Story Arc cards (Happily Ever After, The End of the World as We Know It, Xanatos Gambit) and one Trope card (Xanatos Roulette).

I'll be going through the last few pages to get any cards I missed now and then edit this post.

EDIT: (moved to next post, in order to bump the topic and make people notice it.)

edited 26th Aug '09 8:54:43 PM by BlackHumor

WOW, did I miss a lot. Assuming Apoc doesn't care anymore if we use his cards:

• 12 Characterizations: Blood Knight, Cartoon Creature, Com Mons, Cosmic Horror, Determinator, Heroic BSoD, Kid Hero, Manipulative Bastard, Olympus Mons, The Chessmaster, Tsundere, and Wide-Eyed Idealist.
  • Com Mons, Determinator, Manipulative Bastard, Kid Hero, Olympus Mons, The Chessmaster, and Wide-Eyed Idealist all affect Influence in some way. Pretty much none of them should from a flavor point of view.
  • Only Cartoon Creature, Cosmic Horror, Kid Hero, and Tsundere have genres. Pretty much all of them should.
  • Cosmic Horror needs a cost.
  • Kid Hero's effect doesn't have anything to do with the trope.
  • Manipulative Bastard references a "relationship". Should that be an interaction now, or should we totally change that effect?
  • Cartoon Creature is just generally weird. VB, it's your card, take a look at it again.
• 9 Plot Devices: Anyone Can Die, Cool Tank, Crapsack World, Duel to the Death, Everytown, America, Get A Hold Of Yourself Man, Not Important To This Episode Camp, Sugar Bowl, and Thirty Xanatos Pileup.
  • Out of those: 5 settings, 1 vehicle, and 3 interactions.
  • I assumed that interactions would go under Plot Device. Should they really be under Story Arc? They were originally under Trope, which I thought didn't make any sense at all.
  • Everytown, America affects Influence and shouldn't.
  • Cool Tank no longer makes any sense at all. (Eriksson, you mentioned once that Apoc fixed it for you, but I didn't see that.)
  • Thirty Xanatos Pileup doesn't do anything. Suggestions, anyone?
  • Again, most of these need genres.
• 4 Story Arcs: Happily Ever After, Luck-Based Mission, The End of the World as We Know It and Xanatos Gambit.
  • That's 2 endings, 1 filler, and 1 rising action.
  • End of the World as We Know It says something about Social Norm cards, which we still don't have any of and should probably remove from the effect.
• 20 Tropes. Here I'm not gonna list all of them because it would take FOREVER, just the problems.
  • Yet again, most of these need genres. (Out of all 20, the only one that's got a genre is Xanatos Roulette)
  • Also, about half of these need SP costs.
  • And types; only Bus Crash, Deader than Dead, McLeaned, and Never Found the Body do now.
  • And a lot of them affect Influence when they shouldn't.
  • A lot of VB's death tropes should cost more. (Bus Crash, McLeaned, Never Found the Body)
  • Various small problems, like all the other types.
• 6 Writers: Captain Obvious, Evil Overlord, Largo, Piro, Random Number God, Trope-tan.
  • Ignore Piro and Largo, I just started writing them right now.
  • Captain Obvious, Evil Overlord and Random Number God should not be writers. (I like their effects, though.)
  • Trope-tan's effect is really boring considering it's, you know, our mascot.

And now, I'm gonna go wander off and do something else. See you guys later.

Actually, he requested that we not use any of the cards he created.

Yes, I noticed that.

I meant assuming he doesn't mean it anymore.

I've updated my cards and I've nuked Yandere - didn't quite fit.

• Flanderisation
  • SP Cost 3
  • Genre: Genreless
  • Trope
  • Choose a Characterisation card attched to target character. Detach all other Characterisation cards attached to that character and place them in the Trash Bin.

edited 26th Sep '09 7:34:22 AM by catch_the_sun

Alright, yours are all fixed.

VB and Matrix, you guys both made a lot of cards. Please fix them or I have to.