TV Tropes Trading Card Game

After reading the rules (and this last page of posts, so stop me if I'm barking up the wrong tree) I have some questions:

Do writers start with influence? Is there some set amount of influence available, or can each writer be this close to winning at the same time? do tropes generally give you influence? (In the rules as written it is not clear how one gains influence in the first place.) How do cards get to the trash bin?

Apart from that, it looks good, and is quite exciting! If there are any sample cards lying around, I'd love to see them.

If no-one has any qualms, I might try writing a version of the rules for introducing players to the game - the current version seems more along the lines of a comprehensive rules for how the game works, rather than how to play it (does that make sense?). I'm thinking something more akin to a recipe or a set of directions - "each player shuffles their deck and puts it on the table face down. it is now called their "ideas pile". Each player puts their writer card down in the "writer zone" " etc.

EDIT: with regard to the "what do we do now?" question, if i may be so bold: Go forth and multiply! the rules seem to be in order, now we just need cards! lots and lots of cards! any and all ideas will be used at some point anyway, so if you're not doing anything else...

edited 4th Jun '10 6:30:44 AM by rogueshadows

If everything seems under control, YOU"RE NOT GOING FAST ENOUGH!

*pokes*

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we're ready to make cards. Anybody who wants to make cards for this can.

Also, if anybody wants the Magic Set Editor template I made, just PM me. (Though I'm not totally sure it's updated to the latest ruleset.)

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

After a few minutes of making cards, I've realized that there are a few rules we still need to add.

For one, there was an Interaction type of trope card that was in older versions of the rules and which I'm convinced is pretty vital to the game but which isn't in the current rules.

For two, we don't really have a good framework of preexisting cards, so I suggest we start with the Tropes Of Legend and then go on from there.

EDIT: Figured out (most of) the Genres again.

Genre Styles:

• Fantasy:
  • Arc Type: Get Macguffin Y, Use Macguffin Y to stop Plot Device Z.
  • Characterization types: Band of Heros(not that awesome), Kings and other allies(very powerful), Villain or villains(also quite powerful), Hordes of mooks(weak as can be).
  • Interaction Types: Allies aid heroes, Heroes fight mooks, Heroes fight villains.

• Comedy:
  • Arc Type: Humiliate Big Bad,
  • Characterization types:
  • Interaction Types:

• Drama (For the purposes of this, lets make this Death Note style war of minds instead of Shakesperian Tragedy):
  • Arc Type: Find Big Bad, Kill Big Bad.
  • Characterization types:Big Bad, "Obstacle characters", Hero, Hero's assistants.
  • Interaction Types:Hero vs obstacle, Assistant vs obstacle, Big Bad vs. assistant (assistant should lose, probably be destroyed), Hero vs. Big Bad.

• Romance:
  • Arc Type: Get character X and character Y together; give character X and character Y a Relationship Upgrade.
  • Characterization types: Hero, Love Interest, and The Paolo(sp?).
  • Interaction types: Dates, wherein characters can increase or decrease love stats for each other.

• Mystery:
  • Arc Type: Find the character with the hidden characterization,
  • Characterization types:Detective, "Murderer"(or whatever)(hidden), Suspect
  • Interaction Types:Detective finds clue, detective grills suspect, murderer attempts to kill detective or other suspect.

• Action/Adventure:
  • Arc Type: Kill Big Bad, Stop Big Bad's Plot
  • Characterization types: Hero(awsesomesauce), Villain(intelligent, slightly less awesomesauce), Henchmen(weak but numerous).
  • Interaction Types: Fight Scenes, Death Traps

• Horror:
  • Arc Type: Destroy all characters except Monster X, Destroy Monster X.
  • Characterization types: Monster characterizations (make large and dangerous monster), victim characterization (make somewhat agile chump).
  • Interaction Types: Monster vs. Victim where loser is destroyed.

As you might notice from this, Comedy and Drama are a little hard to pin down.

edited 15th Jul '10 6:50:59 PM by BlackHumor

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Got a few of the Tropes Of Legend done:

• Big Bad (SP ?)
  • Genreless Characterization
  • Villain
  • Intelligence +2, Combat +1
  • When Big Bad comes into play under your control, gain 5 Inf. If Big Bad is put into the graveyard, lose 10 Inf.

• The Dragon (SP ?)
  • Genreless Characterization
  • Villain
  • Combat +3, Intelligence +1
  • If an effect would target Big Bad while The Dragon is still in play, it targets The Dragon instead.

• Complete Monster (SP ?)
  • Horror Characterization
  • Villain
  • Cynicism +5, (Audience) Sympathy -10
  • Complete Monster may have Sympathy less then 0. Complete Monster cannot gain sympathy by any means.

AND the first Story Arc anybody's made so far, I think (I listed it a bit oddly for space reasons, but it shouldn't be too difficult to figure it out):

• Murder Mystery (SP ?)
  • Mystery Story Arc
  • 20 Inf. (reward)
  • One character of your opponent's choosing gets the "Murderer" hidden characterization and all others get the "Suspect" hidden characterization. If you can identify the murderer, you win the arc. If you have no characters with the Detective characterization at any time, your opponent wins the arc.

Also have one or two easy cards, but thoughts on these?

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Big Bad makes it seems like it's not very good to have one villain after another; you end up with net less influence. Unless a story arc requires a villain character to be destroyed?

The Dragon seems like a good way to use the Big Bad, though. Maybe the Big Bad needs better boosts to make him worth the influence loss? Or some effect?

Complete Monster: A Freudian Excuse should increase his sympathy slightly. He can gain sympathy, but not that much. Maybe a penalty to sympathy "bonuses" it acquires?

Murder Mystery Arc: It seems like it changes the game into a guessing game. Then there'd have to be cards to reveal the Murderer and Suspect traits, which wouldn't work well in any other arc.

I'll make some cards later, but I'm just going to suggest a base SP limit for each writer of 15. We don't want to crowd up the field with tons of Characterization, plus a little extra in order for Trope cards to be played each scene and for expensive tropes.

My Twitter. Mostly tweeting about Magic, sometimes anime. Needs Wiki Magic

Tying in other cards (in fact the entire mystery genre) was my plan with Murder Mystery. The idea behind the genre I was going with, like I said above, is that there's some kind of hidden card you need to find, and there should be a bunch of cards that let you find it.

For Big Bad, the idea was that it shouldn't be possible to just summon and destroy your own Big Bad, and it shouldn't be possible to totally override all the influence loss from losing your Big Bad by just getting another one.

So how about this:

• For each turn Big Bad is in play under your control, gain 1 Inf. If Big Bad is destroyed, lose 10(?) Inf.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Regarding destroying your own Big Bad, if I'm not mistaken, the game is all about making a good story and attaining X Influence. Big Bads are there to be antagonists (Read as an arc win condition?). If it would help you accomplish your story/arc goal, you should be able to get rid of your Big Bad as the plot demands.

The new Big Bad looks pretty good. It encourages having a constantly looming enemy in the story. But I think if the Big Bad had more Characterization, the audience would like him/her more and thus lead to more Influence. Maybe change it to "gain 1 Influence per characterization"? Or is that too broken?

Then I'm not sure how Character cards work. Do you have a bunch of "blank" character cards like this which you put characterizations on?

• Generic Person
  • 1 SP
  • 1 Combat
  • 1 Intelligence
  • 0 Sympathy
  • Undefined Gender

Or semi-defined, like this?

• Action Girl
  • 2 SP
  • 2 Combat
  • 2 Intelligence
  • 1 Sympathy
  • Female

EDIT: Stupid formatting. Edited for clarity.

edited 18th Jul '10 2:19:34 PM by KKSlider

My Twitter. Mostly tweeting about Magic, sometimes anime. Needs Wiki Magic

And while I'm at it, rough first drafts for some Tropes Of Legend:

Quotes stolen from their respective pages. Except Adaptation Decay.

• Adaptation Decay
  • Trope - Universal Meta
  • Cost: 2 SP
  • Both players lose 5 Influence.
  • "What is this I don't even?"

• An Aesop
  • Trope - Universal Plot Device
  • Cost: 1 SP
  • Play only when an arc resolves. You gain 3 Influence.
  • "Tut, tut, child!" said the Duchess. "Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it." - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

• Anvilicious
  • Trope - Universal Plot Device Interrupt
  • Cost: 1 SP
  • Play only when an arc resolves. Target opponent loses 3 Influence.
  • "A story forced to carry a message will get heavy and die." — Shannon Hale

• Applied Phlebotinum
  • Trope - Universal Plot Device
  • Cost: 2 SP
  • Play only when you have a Phlebotinum card is in play. Put a Phlebotinum card On The Bus to search your Idea Bin for a card and put it in your hand.
  • "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a completely ad-hoc plot device." — David Langford

• Ass Pull
  • Trope - Universal Meta Interrupt
  • Cost: 1 SP
  • As an additional cost to play this card, lose 2 Influence and discard a card. Ass Pull has the effect of the discarded card.
  • "There's plot convenience, there's deus ex machina, and then there's just pulling something out of your ass!" — The Spoony One

edited 18th Jul '10 2:48:36 PM by KKSlider

My Twitter. Mostly tweeting about Magic, sometimes anime. Needs Wiki Magic

I'd like some advice. Can anyone think of a better way to phrase this with less "character"?

• "When this Trope characterizes a character, name another characterization characterized on that character. When the named characterization is targeted, characterized character gets x2 combat until end of scene.", for Berserk Button

Also, can a Trope be applied to multiple genres? For instance, there's Badass. As of now it's sitting in Action/Adventure, but I'm thinking it could be applied to Horror or Fantasy. Thoughts?

My Twitter. Mostly tweeting about Magic, sometimes anime. Needs Wiki Magic

I think I can zip through your problem and just say that it ought to be pretty rare to target a characterization instead of a character.

And cards should be able to belong to multiple genres, but I haven't added that to the template yet, so pretty much no cards I make will be.

And in response to your old question, the idea is that most of the character cards will be pretty blank at first. Maybe something like Trope Tan, but nothing like Action Girl because Action Girl is a trope, not a character.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Soooooo, not letting this die.

I have mostly abandoned my attempt to code a program for this due to the difficulty of coding the rules for each card.

BUT that doesn't mean we can't playtest this game in this topic. I CAN whip up a script that draws X cards at random from a list of cards and then one more each time you ask it.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

Ok, not a big fan of posting three times in a row, but I've redone the rules on my own to make it easier to think of cards.

Here we go:

TVTTCG Rules:

• A player has an amount of Influence(TBD), an SP limit(determined by their writer), and a deck of min 40 cards.
• Lose all your IP and you lose the game.
  • Deck out and you lose the game.
  • If your opponent wins the game (with an Arc, usually) you lose the game.
• Total SP value of all cards in your deck must be less than or equal to your writer's SP limit.
• Each player may play only 1(?) card (of each type?) per turn.
• There are three "graveyards":
  • The Bus: Easy to get in, easy to get out.
  • The Grave: Easy to get in, hard to get out. (all non*characterizations go here.)
  • Deader than Dead: Hard to get in, impossible to get out.

Card specs:

• All cards have at least one of the following genres:
  • Comedy: makes the audience laugh.
    • Arcs odd and indefinite; comedy usually wins by Inf. instead of by arcs.
  • Horror: makes the audience scared.
    • Involves making a gigantic blob of characterizations with Idealism *10. (A "monster")
    • Lot of death and "really dead" effects, few bus effects.
    • Arcs:
      • Beginning: Monster appears.
      • Middle: Monster strikes.
      • End: Monster wins OR monster is destroyed at great cost or ambiguously.
  • Action: makes the audience excited.
    • Involves making a "hero" and a "villain" and having the "hero" defeat the "villain" (along with any "mooks")
    • Arcs:
      • Beginning: Hero introduced, defeats mooks.
      • Middle: Villain introduced, hero defeats more mooks.
      • End: Hero defeats villain.
  • Adventure(subgenre of action):
    • Arcs:
      • Beginning: Hero introduced.
      • Middle: Heros go on quest.
      • End: Heros complete quest.
  • Tragedy: makes the audience sad.
    • Involves killing off the cast/ confronting the cast with an unsolvable problem.
    • Beginning: Characters introduced.
    • Middle: Audiance gets attached to characters as they start to fall from grace.
    • End: Characters killed off.
  • Romance: makes the audience d'awwww.
    • Involves making two "love interests" of opposite genders and having them pair up.
    • Arcs:
      • Beginning: Love intersts introduced.
      • Middle: Love intersts interact.
      • End: Love interests get together.
• All cards have one of the following types:
  • (Character)
    • No actual character cards, but card type will be explained here.
    • Base upon which characterizations may be added.
    • A character may have an age(child, adult, old), a gender(male, female, alien), and a role (Protagonist, Antagonist, Contagonist, possibly with subtypes).
  • Characterization
    • A characterization has one or more attributes out of the following list:
      • Combat
      • Intelligence
      • Idealism
      • Luck
      • Love
    • Any characterization that has an attribute must be placed on a character with that attribute.
    • A charcterization must be placed on a character, which are only generated from other cards (usually Beginning Arcs.)
    • Characterizations stack; when stacking characterizations, add their attributes and their effects.
      • No characterization may stack on a characterization with a different age, gender, or role.
• All cards have an SP cost. The SP cost of permanants is constant; the SP cost of plot devices is for the turn they are played only.
  • Interaction:
    • Targets two characters of (possibly) specified types.
    • Often a comparison of stats; can be a comparison of other attributes as well.
    • Usually something good happens to the winner OR something bad happens to the loser OR both.
    • Characterizations may produce their own interactions.
  • Phlebotonium:
    • Like artifacts in MTG.
  • Plot Device:
    • A one turn effect.
  • Setting:
    • Permanant (compare to enchantments in magic)
    • Of type Tone, Location, or Time.
  • Arc:
    • Three types of arcs: Beginning, Middle, and Ending
    • An arc has a condition and a reward. Any player (usually) who fulfills the condition gets the reward.
    • Beginning arcs must not be played after a middle arc and have the condition only that the reward is doable.
    • Middle arcs must be played after a beginning has been fulfilled.
    • Ending arcs must be played after a middle arc has been fulfilled and have "you win the game" as a reward.
  • Writer:All players play their writer at the beginning of the game.
    • A writer may favor a certain genre; if so all cards of that genre cost 1 less SP.
    • The writer's SP limit sets the player's SP limit.
    • A writer also has an effect.
    • Writers with more SP generally have better effects, and vice versa.

Teel Deer Version:

1. All characters are now made by another card, usually a Beginning Arc.
2. SP is now a quality of the entire deck; there is no limit to how much SP in cards you can have out at a time. (The land-like function of SP was replaced with a one-card-per-turn rule; if anybody has a better replacement, feel free to post it.)
3. Interactions have been brought back and made more prominent. Also, the numbered stats have been brought back. (I have discovered, from trying to design Mt G cards, a defined property of a card helps a LOT. Otherwise designing cards becomes this frustrating mess where you want to make a clever rule but you have nothing to rule on.)
4. The genres have been better defined, and culled down a bit. Still a bit flavor dependent, but we can fix that after we finally playtest.

Next post will be some cards I made/remade under these rules, but first I have a question:

Writer cards kind of have the same problem of being really hard to design that character cards did. Anybody have a problem with replacing them with Beginning Arcs?

edited 27th Oct '10 4:16:33 PM by BlackHumor

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

I really like these rules in principle, but I'm going to think over the specifics a bit. In response to your question, perhaps instead of going with a Beginning, we can use "premise". The benefits that I see:

• Beginnings function like other arc cards, reducing player confusion.
• Flavor-wise, premises and beginnings are not linked in a one-to-one fashion.
• It allows for weird rules that match unusual story types (eg a premise that allows for a Q.T.-style Anachronic Order story—you play a middle before a Beginning)
• It lets you get all your crucial character cards into play without filling up space on the Arc card that would be better suited to explaining the bonuses for completion and such.

Oh, and a potential issue I see with SP as currently defined: it's impossible to check if your opponent is following the rules without knowing their entire deck ahead of time unless we find a creative workaround somehow . . .

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Well, in MTG you have to have more than 59 cards and no more than 4 of one type of card. This isn't easy to check, but the honor system seems to work there.

Ruining everything forever.

Yep; it's not possible to enforce in a casual game, but causal players are likely to break the rules anyways.

And hey, it's not like the various mana-likes are easy enough to enforce anyways. Back to Magic again, I bet you let your opponent play on the honor system on that too, right?

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

What are mana-likes?

Also, I don't follow the logic of your first sentence.

Ruining everything forever.

Mana-likes: Something we put into the game to restrict players from playing out their whole hand every turn, the same way mana functions in Mt G.

And what the first sentence means is that the casual players in any game are likely to not know what the rules are totally anyways. I know when my group of friends first started playing Yu-Gi-Oh we had NO IDEA what all those stars on the cards meant. (Turns out they were pretty important.) I know, in the first Magic game I ever played, the friend I was playing with did not know quite how the central card of his deck (Saproling Burst) worked.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

My gaming class is doing a project and i'm interested in giving this some sort of testplay. I also want to know why the character cards can't have quotes, because some characters give the best quotes ever. hoping I can get some sort of semi-finalized rules and card template to start.

There is no night without dawn. The sun is always sure to rise.

Necrofication! Can we get this thing started up again?

To add some substance to this post, here's a card.

Name: Sword Fight
Class: Interaction
Effect: Two characters equipped with swords engage in combat. Whoever has the higher Combat score wins. The player who controls the winning character may choose one of the following results:

• Life: Gain 2 inf. Loser stays in play.
• Death: Gain 5 inf. Loser goes to the afterlife.
  Flavour: "Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword." - Matthew 26:52

Ukrainian Red Cross

We can try, sure.

This is mostly a placeholder though, because I have no idea what to post here.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

hey guys' i know this is late, but I want in on this card game action! I think this card game is an awesome idea and iI want to see this come to life. also I was think about it before discovering the article. so count me in!

asks some bizare philosophical question that somehow can be tied to a piece of fiction*

what are the genres for this game? is it still going on?

asks some bizare philosophical question that somehow can be tied to a piece of fiction*

This is probably far too late, but after reading the rules of this game (which are really great!), I came up with some ideas I'd like to share.

I agree with the suggestions by Black Humor above, though

• I would go back to the old winning conditions (gain X Inf. to win, deck out to lose). Arcs will reward a great boost of Inf. if all necessary scenes have been created (see below), but shall not be an instant win (removing the Beginning and Ending subtype entirely). Most often they will make you win anyway by the amount of Inf. rewarded.
• Go back to the SP system on the wiki page (all cards you have in play may not exceed your writer's SP limit). With the Scene Creation System below, there is no need to worry about "instants".

Now for the wiki rules:

Types of Trope Cards

• Meta and Interrupt Tropes become types, not subtypes.
• The trope types are, unlike character roles or genres, distinct. A trope can only have one type.
• Interrupts no longer create stacks, they are part of a scene (which is pretty much a stack, see below). Metas still do.
• Meta and Phlebotinum are the only tropes with effects that activate or can be activated outside the scene phase (of course the writer skill may also apply this way).

Character Cards

• Reward — This is the amount of Inf. you get when your character appeared in your scene.
  • (A scene consisting only of Characters will give you no reward, because nothing really happened?)

Plot Devices

May have any of the following in the card's text (but in the given order):

• Prerequisites — Those conditions must be fulfilled for the Side Effects and Reward to take place.
• Side Effects — When the conditions are met, the Side Effects immediately take place. If the Side Effects require you to name a target, the target must be chosen when adding the trope to the scene.
  • Example: The Bus Came Backs Side Effect: "Add target character from your bus to the current scene, directly after this card (you do not require a characterization). At Cleanup Step, target character is put back on the bus." If the target character is Killed Off for Real during Reading Step, you don't get a chance to change the target — this trope was rendered useless. (Should this also subvert the trope?)
• Reward — After possible side effects took place, if the trope was played straight by the Active Player, they get the specified reward (usually Inf.). If the reward requires you to chose a target, you choose it now (in contrast to Side Effects).

Arcs

• Arcs require you to create a series of scenes in order to get the reward (usually a massive Inf. boost).
  • (Scenes created by your opponent won't help you - this could favor the player who goes first too much.)
• You can only have one Arc at a time on your Storyboard.
• Every time you created a required scene, the Arc progresses. Turn the Arc Card 90° clockwise to indicate which scene comes next.
  • This means an Arc can only require up to four scenes (indicating that a fifth scene is needed would've turned the Card 360°).
• The scenes an Arc requires must be created in the specified order, e.g. you cannot create the third scene first. However, you can progress multiple times with one scene alone.
  • Example: The Quest — "First Scene: The Hero and The Mentor appear. Second Scene: The same Hero and any Phlebotinum appear. Third Scene: The same Hero and any Positive Setting appear. Reward: 15 Inf." You create a scene with The Hero, The Mentor and a Phlebotinum. The arc progresses two times.
• Whenever a scene met an already read scene from your Arc, you can chose to reset the Arc to this scene.
  • You would like to do this when an Arc requires you to use the same Character/Trope in a later scene. For example, you have The Quest as your Arc and you're currently trying to build the third and last scene, but your opponent puts your Hero on a bus. You then build a new scene with a Hero and a Mentor and claim that being the first scene of your Arc.

Writer Cards

• Favored Genre — Instead of reducing SP costs, Tropes/Characters of the favored genre will earn you 1 additional Inf. when played straight.

The Scene Creation System

The Scene is the phase where you will most likely get Inf. There is only one Scene per turn. It is divided into three steps:

• Writing Step — The players add Tropes or Characters to the Scene alternately.
• Reading Step — The Scene is being resolved: Tropes or Characters appear in play order, side effects take place and rewards are awarded.
• Cleanup Step — Remove all cards from the current Scene.

Writing Step

The scene is a queue: Each time you add Tropes or Characters, they will go to the tail of it. The queue is build from left to right (Active Player's POV). The Active Player goes first in the Writing Step. They select one of their cards from their Storyboard or hand (remember the SP limit) and add it to the scene or pass. Then the next player may do the same and so on, until everyone has passed (This works like standard actions). Instead of adding the card to the scene, a player may also play it to their Storyboard (foreshadowed cards must be played to the Storyboard). Adding a Card to the Scene in your opponent's turn requires no Inf., only playing them. Instead, every "foreign" card requires 1 SP plus the number of foreign cards already in the Scene.*

I'm not happy with this rule. Basically, I don't want to make a player have to pay the Inf. costs twice (when playing in opp. turn + adding to scene) and also encourage them to play cards during their end phase in advance; this way, the Active Player can detect possible threads for their story much easier.

There are some rules considering the specific card types:

• Characterization cards don't occupy a place in the Scene queue, since they are attached to the Character.
• Not all Phlebotinum cards can be added to a scene. Arcs and Metas can never be part of a scene (though Metas can still be played in response to everything and create their own stack that is immediately resolved when no one wants to play any more Metas).
• Settings are placed below the queue when added to a Scene. If a new Setting is played, it is layed on top of the previous Setting (the SP of cards underneath are still consumed). Adding a Setting has a different SP cost then the other cards: If you want to add a Setting during your opponent's Writing Step, you need one additional SP per Setting already in the scene, foreign or not. Settings are said to have appeared before the first card of the queue appears in the Reading Step. Only the topmost Setting appears; all others won't do anything. Settings change attributes during Reading, award additional Inf. at the end of the Reading Step, etc.
• Interrupts added to a scene will be placed before the Scene Element currently at the queue's tail and any Interrupts that are before that.
  • Example: The Scene queue currently holds Character A, Interrupt I1, Interrupt I2 and Trope T (in that order). If you play Interrupt I3, it will be placed between A and I1.

Reading Step

You are not allowed to play Metas during the Reading Step, except that Meta says you can. (Reading Step is an automatic process) The Scene is now resolved ("read") from left to right, step by step. When you come to a card in the current Scene, it appeared. When the Prerequisites of a Trope that has already appeared are met, this Trope is played straight and the Side Effects and Rewards resolve immediately as stated above. If a Scene Element renders the Trope invalid, it is subverted. Once a trope is subverted, it can't be played straight anymore, even if the prerequisites are fulfilled later during reading. Also, a trope played straight can neither be played straight again in the current scene, nor become subverted.

Examples:

• Foe Yay — "Prerequisites: The last appearing character was The Hero, the next appearing character is The Villain (or the other way around)." The Scene Queue contains a Villain, some harmless Trope, Foe Yay, a Hero. All those cards belong to the Active Player, except for the Villain. Reading proceeds as follows: 1. The Villain appears. Because he isn't one of the Active Player's characters, neither Player is rewarded (Opponents never get Rewards during an Active Player's turn). 2. The harmless Trope appears. 3. Foe Yay appears. 4. The Hero appears. The Active Player is rewarded. Because Foe Yay is now played straight the Active Player gets Foe Yay's rewards as well.*
  That's a very artificial example — Why should your opponent play the Villain when you have passed?
• Chirping Crickets — "Prerequisites: No Character appeared or will appear in this Scene." The Scene contains Chirping Crickets, a Character and Shared Continuity Spin-Off. Once the reading reaches the Character, Chirping Crickets is subverted. Even though Shared Continuity Spin-Off puts all previous characters on a bus, Chirping Crickets can't be played straight anymore. On the other hand, to be played straight, Chirping Crickets has to wait until the last card in the Scene appeared — cards like The Bus Came Back may add Characters to the Scene during the Reading.

After Reading ist done, Arcs may progress.

Cleanup Step

The Scene is cleared. All Characters are put back to their respective Storyboard. Tropes are trashed, except for Tropes with the Recyclable keyword.

When You are Not The Active Player

• The Active Player is the first one to add tropes or characters to the current scene; he or she is also the first one to play tropes or characters in the beginning or end phase.
• The cost of Inf. for playing a trope/character during an opponent's turn is printed on the card itself. The value may differ from the card's SP cost — some cards are more useful to crush your opponent's scene (e.g. Bolivian Army Ending). You still need the required SP left to play the card.
• It is no longer possible for the Active Player to stop tropes/characters from being played by paying an Inf. cost. They should play Metas to do this or use Interrupts to remove them from their scene.

Keywords

• Foreshadowed — Tropes/Characters with this keyword may not be added to a scene during the turn they were played and their effects will not be active. You may play foreshadowed cards during your opponent's turn, but again, this costs you Inf. in addition to the SP (Hint: You will most likely not want to do this). Note that because of this, Characters can't be added to a scene if a foreshadowed Characterization is attached to it.
• Recyclable — If a recyclable Trope is removed from the Scene, it's controller may decide on whether it should go into his Storyboard or be trashed (no Inf. cost for trashing at this time).

edited 27th Jul '12 11:10:41 AM by Seldon

I've actually thought about the rules I wrote above some since then and would make the following changes:

1. Actually let's make Arcs MORE prominent, such that they are the main way to win the game. Inf is necessary but a tiny bit boring.
2. Remove writers entirely. There are few writer tropes on the wiki, for one thing, and it feels a little weird to make cards for specific writers. Besides all that, though the "constant effect" thing has been done before it's not really a thing I want to keep around.
3. Move SP back to a property of (your) field instead of a property of the deck. What your SP limit should be I'm not sure; maybe a starting set amount with extra added by intermediate Arcs?
4. Characters, along with most other cards, should generally not be tied to a player: since Inf. is a measure of your influence over the story you should gain Inf. whenever you influence cards in play. How exactly this works, I'm not sure: I kind of want to make this a derived stat instead of making it explicit on the card.

I'm convinced that our modern day analogues to ancient scholars are comedians. -0dd1

1. Maybe we should drop Influence completely then, if obtaining it is not the main goal. Though I understood the premise of the game as two (screenplay?) writers hired to work together on a script, and either of them tries to turn it into a story he or she likes, hence Influence measures how much you wrote as you wanted it.
2. Sure. While we're on it, let's limit the number of character stats. How often do you need combat as a precise value, for instance? Maybe they should have up to X possible character traits from a pool of Y ("Fighter", etc.) that can be granted by characterizations. After all, why should a characterization require stats besides the obvious ones (like "Action Girl" only for female characters)?
3. Ok. We only have to ensure that increasing the SP limit during a turn can't be abused to create neverending chains or the like.
4. For characters - ok. They are part of a story and recurring, so I can understand why both writers should be able to use them. But all cards? TC Gs most often don't use a shared game field for a reason: An important aspect is building a deck and strategies around it. I wouldn't want to build a strong deck only to watch my opponent using my cards to defeat me.