Design a TCG for my TTRPG with me

[Old Gumphrey]

In a fit of...something...I declared that two guards were playing some sort of collectible/trading card game. My players instantly incapacitated the guards, wanting stats for their new decks, and wondering who else they could play against. So I need some kind of "rules" to make this more fun, since it's obviously going to become a regular part of our Saturday game.

All I have so far is that each player has a deck rating which is added to a random die roll to determine the winner of a match. Matches are played for wagered cards, and each win gets you a +1 rating to your deck. I thought tracking individual cards would be too much of a hassle. No skill affects it directly, but it was suggested that there be a new skill created specifically for the game. I thought that was too much.

Thoughts?

Mods can move this to house rules if you think it's more appropriate. It's pretty general but does involve new creation...

 

[arscott]

Does it have to be a trading-card game? Three-Dragon Ante is a fixed deck game but it's specifically designed to be a "Game withing a Game" and has optional rules supporting that style of play.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

I like the suggestion above (3 Dragon Ante).


Another option would be to use Tarot cards, but have them "add up" to values. They could also be semi magical in foretelling the future (i.e. give a bonus or penalty to future events)...

Like if you lose a Tarot game, you will have a "difficult time" fighting the thing you asked about (-2 to hit). If you win, you will have an "easy time"..(+2 to hit).

Balance it out for different players, and your item doesn't actually make the party better, but it makes it so different players gain and lose for the upcoming battle. If they avoid the battle, then it doesn't matter.

 

[Asmor]

Each deck gets a starting rating of 5. After each game, the winner rolls a d6 (or 8 or whichever); if the roll is (strictly) less than the rating of the loser's deck, the winner has won one of the 'good' cards; the loser's deck drops down a rating point and the winner's deck goes up a rating point.

When you play, shuffle a deck of playing cards and give each player a hand of a size equal to their deck's rating. Give them each an intelligence check; for every 10 points they make, they can discard a card. Then they draw as many cards as they discarded.

Best hand using poker rules wins.

 

[arscott]

Asmor's suggestion is nice, but I'd advise either starting with bigger deck rating (say, seven), or drawing enough cards to have at least a five-card hand in the draw phase, even if your deck rating is lower. Never having enough cards to get a flush or a straight would be a bad thing.

 

[NMcCoy]

Here's a game design off the top of my head, for a D&Dish milieu. Completely unplaytested, but simple and sounds playable. A rough first draft...

THE CARDS:
Each card represents a creature. The card has three values on it: Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. The total of these three values equals the card's level. The maximum level allowed is 30.

To begin play, each player shuffles their deck, draws four cards, places one of them face down on the table, and reveals them simultaneously. The player with the lowest-level monster goes first. If there's a tie, flip a coin.

TO TAKE A TURN:
On a player's turn, that player can either choose to attack one of their opponent's monsters, or play a new monster from their hand and draw a card to replace it (so that their hand size remains 3). To attack your opponent's monster with one of your own, compare each monster's Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. If two of the attacker's scores are higher than the defender's corresponding scores, the defender is killed and put into its owner's discard pile. If the attacker was lower level than the defeated monster, the player who attacked earns points equal to the difference in levels.

First player to 15 points wins.

 

[Arkhandus]

If you're going with the sort of simple setup you suggested, I'd say a rating between 4 and 10 (2d4+2) for each deck would be good, and use a d20 roll with that rating to determine the match. If the players roll a tie, neither wins and they get their anted cards back (no change in decks). Otherwise, higher result (roll + rating) wins. Say that a deck can go down to a minimum rating of 1 and up to a maximum rating of 20 (from losses or wins, respectively).

Say that the Profession (Gambler) skill can provide a +2 circumstance bonus on the deck's roll, if you make a check with that skill as part of the match and your check beats the opponent's Profession (Gambler) or Wisdom check (if untrained). An Intelligence check could be substituted for either (one or both players could choose to use an Intelligence check instead of a Prof.(Gam.)/Wis. check). Maybe just allow a separate opposed Int check to contest a separate +2 circumstance bonus.


For a more detailed alternative......

Say each deck is 52 cards, so you can use normal playing cards to represent them. Assign each card to a monster from the Monster Manual, of CR equal to the card's value, treating Jacks as CR 11 monsters, Queens as CR 12, and Kings as CR 13 or whatever. Each player shuffles their deck and draws a card from it as ante, placing it face-down off to the side. Have each player draw a hand of 4 (maybe 3?) cards from their deck at the start of a match, then they each take turns drawing a card and playing a card.

After each has played 4 cards, total up the value of their played cards. Highest total wins that round of the match; first to win 4 rounds (maybe 3?) wins the match. Discard the played cards at the end of each round and continue play with the remaining cards in the deck and in hand. If someone's 4 cards are of the same value or the same suite (all ones, or all hearts, or whatever), add 4 to that player's total value for the round. If a round is tied, the tied players discard their 4 played cards and continue play until the tie is broken with a new set of 4 cards from each of those tied players.

If a player runs out of cards in their deck, they turn their discarded cards face-down and shuffle them to refill their deck. Whoever wins the match gets the ante cards and adds them to his or her deck, but replaces those cards with ones they choose from their deck (frex, if player A won the match against players B, C, and D, getting the king of spades, ace of hearts, and 5 of diamonds in ante, Player A would have to give players B, C, and D each one card from his or her deck in return, but Player A chooses; he might give back the ace of hearts to one of those players if he wanted, and given his own original ace of hearts to another of the players and his own ace of spades to the other).

So deck size never really changes (any extra cards a player may obtain can only be swapped one-for-one with other cards in the deck, and not during play). The game can only be played with 52-card decks. Probably associate each suite with an element (heart = fire, diamond = air, spade = earth, clover = water) and call the game Four Element Face-Off or something.....? The decks that the players found would probably be somewhat irregular from the previous owners' earlier games; swap a few random cards between the two initial decks.

Say that the decks are made uniquely by someone that ensures each card is slightly unique and that people can't just make their own copies of cards to artificially improve their deck (the 'fakes' would be easily identifiable as such). How doesn't matter; some silly gnomish archmage or something, using a silly epic spell he devised, maybe.


QUICK EDIT: If you use that alternative, you might integrate skill checks by letting the players each roll a Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma check (whichever each player prefers) at the start of each round, and if any one player wins the opposed check, they can swap a card from their hand at the start of that round for the bottom card of their deck (they won't know what that card is until they make the swap, if they choose to make the swap). This could represent a bit of legerdemain, a sneaky trick or distraction, a sneaky set-up in shuffling the deck, or the results of a strategy (since the game rules are supposed to be an abstraction). Knowledge (local) could be substituted for an Intelligence check, Sleight of Hand for a Dexterity check, Sense Motive for a Wisdom check, or Bluff for a Charisma check. So character skill or talent could play a role.

 

[ppaladin123]

Why don't you take an adapt, "triple triad," from Final Fantasy 8. It's a pretty good example of fun card game with easy rules and relatively complex strategies. In the game players use cards that depict real monsters from the world. Lots of NPCs in that game were looking to buy specific cards or to collect sets of related monster cards.

By the way, for an example of what not to do, check out the card game included in Final Fantasy 9. That thing was an absolute mess.

Edit: you should be able to find a guide detailing the rules and strategies in triple triad at the gamefaqs.com page for Final Fantasy 8.

 

[Asmor]

Here's a game design off the top of my head, for a D&Dish milieu. Completely unplaytested, but simple and sounds playable. A rough first draft...

THE CARDS:
Each card represents a creature. The card has three values on it: Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. The total of these three values equals the card's level. The maximum level allowed is 30.

To begin play, each player shuffles their deck, draws four cards, places one of them face down on the table, and reveals them simultaneously. The player with the lowest-level monster goes first. If there's a tie, flip a coin.

TO TAKE A TURN:
On a player's turn, that player can either choose to attack one of their opponent's monsters, or play a new monster from their hand and draw a card to replace it (so that their hand size remains 3). To attack your opponent's monster with one of your own, compare each monster's Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. If two of the attacker's scores are higher than the defender's corresponding scores, the defender is killed and put into its owner's discard pile. If the attacker was lower level than the defeated monster, the player who attacked earns points equal to the difference in levels.

First player to 15 points wins.

Interesting idea, but mathematically unsound.

Consider a creature with 1s in two of its defenses. It is impossible for this creature to defeat anything, therefore no one would ever put one in their deck.

Now consider a creature with 2s in two of its defenses. Since no one plays any creatures with 1s in two of its defenses, it's impossible for this creature to defeat anything in an actual game so no one would ever play this either.

Basically, this argument shows that logically every creature with less than the maximum in each defense is a poor choice.

Also, consider that if I build a deck with nothing but lowest-level creatures, it is impossible for my opponent to gain points because by definition they have no creatures lower than my own with which to attack and score points.

You could remedy that by having some system of vulnerabilities and damage types, e.g. a paladin is radiant typed and a zombie is vulnerable to radiant so the paladin has a bonus against the zombie.