TV Tropes Trading Card Game

It would have to be quantitative, though, if Fetish Fuel can double the bonus.

Well it would have a variable in there somewhere.

Though since now the only number is SP...

Though wait, aren't Tropes able to do SP damage to other Tropes, or just block effects?

I think the way we currently have it, narrative tropes are unable to do SP damage, but may have effects to lock down other narrative tropes or send them to one of the discard piles. Meta tropes, on the other hand, are able to directly affect SP. In fact, I would assume that meta tropes would remove all SP before sending a trope to a discard pile (thereby causing card damage), while narrative tropes would not (but would allow the completion of plot cards from the effect).

What exactly do you mean by Meta Tropes, and are Characters included in Narrative Tropes?

Yeah, I really do need to find better names for those...

As I have been using them thus far, "Narrative Tropes" are any tropes that are part of the events, characters, and setting of fiction itself. This would include most character, plot, phlebotinum, characterization, etc. In contrast, "Meta Tropes" are those tropes that are about the structure of the the fiction. (Wow, those names sound even dumber than before, now.)

The distinction is perhaps demonstrated in an example. Early in the story, a character mentions that he hides a Sawed-Off Shotgun on the top shelf in his closet. Later, he needs a gun and runs to the closet to get it—in other words, it was also Chekhov's Gun. (Yeah, pun not funny.) The former would be "narrative" under my poorly-named distinction, because even if the events were happening for real, it'd still be a Sawed-Off. The latter would be "meta" because it applies to how the story is being told: the audience has to be informed of the gun well in advance of its use, despite the character already knowing quite well that the gun is there. Killed Off for Real via Suicide by Cop? meta and narrative, respectively. I'm sure you get the idea. Now they just need better names.

edited Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:28:16 by Ironeye

Ah, okay. I get it now.

Hmm, how about Eventual Tropes and Structural Tropes?

I like.

I think we've scared off everyone but VB. Any ideas on how to get some more input?

I dunno.

Public relations is not my thing.

I've been reading, although I admit I'm having trouble following these rules. I'm not very good at card games, and you two seemed to be doing a good job there, so I figured I'd just lurk unless I had something interesting to say. Which I don't.

I have no idea what you guys are talking about, though not for lack of trying. Perhaps a basic summary would help?

We already did a summary.

O_o

edited Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:54:31 by Matrix

You did, about four pages back. This is looking to be a very complicated game.

I'll try to compile the rules into one post either tonight or tomorrow night, depending on how long my homework takes.

Silly me. I completely overlooked that post. Sorry about that.

I'm still around, although mildly confused. A new summary would be nice.

Also, this is probably getting ahead of your planning, but how exactly is this going to be played? As in, are we going to get somebody to design some sort of app that'll let you do deckbuilding, find other players, send game requests, and actually play, too? Even without the player-finding (which is probably unnecessary considering the group size, but we need some sort of way to get both players connected), it'd be a pretty complex piece of work.

</rain on parade>

Regardless, this is really cool, and I think you guys have done a good job figuring it out.

edited Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:53:22 by intuition

Practicality? Who cares about that?

Uh.. *raises hand* I do.

I do. If only so I can actually, you know, play this thing when we're done designing it. :P

Alright, I know I'm probably in the minority of people who care more about the designing than the playing, but I certainly wouldn't mind a playable version. If we ever get that far, I'll gladly help you guys make it work.

Well, I do enjoy design-y type stuff, and I'll probably think about like a billion possible cards once the rules are totally figured out, but it'd be nice to be able to play it, too.

Maybe someone could send up the Trope Signal to get Fast Eddie here with advice? I have nowhere near the know-how to build something like what we'd need..

Also, Ironeye brought this up a page or two ago, but it wasn't really resolved- are Structural/Meta tropes paid for with SP, or a separate type of point?

[At this point, I typed a whole bunch of stuff on how they could be allocated based on finishing Story Arcs, but I realized that I was thinking of those as only happening one at a time, which I think only happens in Easy right now. I'd say that having them as rewards for finishing arcs still makes sense, though.]

There are many ways to do a client... PHP scripts, telnet servers, etc.

Matrix, correct me if I'm wrong, I think we're going with SP. The idea is that with all tropes, the Troper is using their control over the story to change how it plays out.

In the case of Eventual Tropes, something is added to the events of the story. In many cases (particularly, tropes with active abilities), the trope having relevance to the plot will reward the troper some amount of SP because they have furthered the story somehow. These tropes are typically the ones that help complete Plot Cards and thus win Arc Cards.

Structural Tropes also affect the story, and thus also cost SP. On the other hand, they are outside meddling instead of an in-story justification for events, so they generally do not have a way to directly reward SP (and they typically cost a bit more). On the other hand, these tropes tend to be more powerful because they don't have to fall within the logic of the events—I can have a character Put on a Bus without a decent explanation, but it will take a lot of influence on the story (SP).

Yep, that's it.

Alright, this has been bothering me for days now. There is a typo in the title of this thread. I will now call it "TV Tropes's Very Own Trading Game Cards!" rather that "Televison Tropes And Idiom's Latest Product: The Trading Card Game!"

And if that is TV Tropes's latest product, I would hate to see the inevitable quotient.

Oh damnit.

G and C have the same vowel in their verbal names and are graphically very similar. Leave it to me to mix them up.

Damnit >.<

edited Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:57:47 by Matrix