Hearing the descriptions of Ogre really took me back. I really liked that game. Although, as I recall, Richard was deadly at it. When Richard pulled out the game I could almost see him. It was really visceral when Steve described how in that version the pieces were too big to fit on the hexes.

My apologies if this isn’t relevant – also, my apologies if it isn’t clear.

However – I have not thought about this for a while and there are many new mechanics that the deckbuilding genre is bringing to the table, which may make solid additions to my thinking. All my games took far longer than the deckbuilding genre takes, which is okay if you think of the experience as a tournament or league, but probably less okay for a board game. Your stab at what it looks like is interesting, I look forward to hearing if someone can make it work well!

Richard

I’m very glad you did this podcast on deck building games, that was clearly the most identifiable trend at Essen this year. And well, it’s been some years I’m working with some friends on a card game mixing strategy board games and deck building elements … To sum up, I think deck building games are coming back in a great way. I hope to the trend will grow up until we see what the next Magic is. But that can happen on paper as well as on digital support, there is room for a very succesful digital CCG right now. I know Richard has tried to bridge card games and digital with Spectromancer but I think it lacks some depth and really misses the deckbuild aspect. This is my personal feel about Spectromancer even though I enjoyed discovering and playing it.

Speaking of the game we make, we have included a mechanic that originates from Netrunner and I think it deserves a bit of discussion : it’s the action points. You get 3 of them every turn and you can spend 1 action point to either draw a card or create money to play the cards you’ve drawn. There was a third way to spend your action points I think but what’s importabt is that these 2 abilities represent the engine of the game. I mean, you don’t have to play lands AND wait to draw cards to keep doing something in the game : drawing or making money has the same value/cost and is something you can repreat thrice in a trun.

The reason we have included this mechanic in because it makes “mana dead” and “mana flood” impossible. Even though managing your land count becomes an interesting aspect of Magic when you’re experienced, the possibility to draw too few or too many lands is something about which any newcomer has complained.

But now that we have played a lot with our game, and that mechanic being central, I’m afraid there’s something wrong about it. Like in fact, there is less room for some types of meaningful cards because 1 card and 1 gold have the exact same value (gold is like colorless mana in Magic). Thus imagine you have a card that makes you draw once each turn. This card is almost the same as one that produces one gold every turn, because you have 3 action points with which you can choose any combition of draw/gold. Most of the turn, you draw 0 or 1 card. Thus if a card gives you an extra card every turn, it will nullify the interest to spend your action points in draws. Thus if that extra card every turn would have been an extra gold, it would be almost the same.

It feels like there is something to fix.
If someone here has experienced that mechanic somewhere else, or if you have some thoughts to share on it, I’d be glad to hear! THANKS.

Cheers from Belgium.

Setup: A random stack of Magic cards with the top 7 cards laid out face up next to it (The lineup) ; basic lands, sorted by color
Starting decks: Each player begins with a deck of two of each basic land.
Objective: Reduce all opponents from 20 life to 0.
Game Play: Each player begins with a hand of four cards from their deck.
Most of the game follows Magic rules, with the following turn structure: Upkeep, Main phase, Attack, Main phase, Cleanup, Draw

During a players turn they may do the following:
Discard a land for mana: Discard a land to produce one mana of the given color. Basic Land’s can’t be played to the battlefield unless a spell puts them there specifically (IE rampant growth)

Trade in a land: You may return a land from your hand to the land pile. You may pick up another land of your choice and put it into your graveyard. This includes nonbasic lands that may be revealed in the lineup.

Match lands: You may discard two of the same basic lands to draw three cards from your deck. You don’t get mana from this.

Purchase a card: You may spend mana equal to a cards cost to take a nonland card from those revealed and put it into your graveyard. Replace the card from the line up with one from the deck. If that card was a creature card, you may put it onto the battlefield under your control instead.

Play a nonland card from your hand: You may cast cards from your hand for free.
Draw phase: at the end of the turn, that player draws two cards. There is no maximum hand size.

Attack phase and Upkeep phase follow normal magic rules.
Follow normal Magic rules otherwise.

If at any time a player is unable to draw a card, shuffle all non-creature cards from that player’s graveyard into their library.

This variant may be horribly broken, or depend on the right mix of random cards, but on the whole it seems like an interesting place to start. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

Any update is always welcome, don’t get me wrong. I’d just rather hear riffing on the pros and cons of a mechanical approach than a genre survey.

I’m actually working on a computer game that uses a deck building mechanic – The Trouble With Robots – so podcast is particularly relevant to me.

Glad to see the podcast has returned!

Supposedly Donald Vaccarino was quoted as saying it was the first truly original variation on the theme Dominion had set.

(Actually, “Double the Entendre” sounds like an intriguing name for a game.)

I think the logical extension of Skaff’s idea is obvious: hidden cameras. Get game designers drunk and ask them leading questions “off the record.” That fills the requirement that they’re uninhibited and don’t know they’re going to be panelists.

But I take a little issue with his requirement on opinion sources, or at least the way he phrased it. Personally, I think I’m capable of evaluating a statement based on its own merit. Once I’ve heard it, knowing who it’s from doesn’t sway me. Now certainly the name helps me filter inputs. (I don’t listen to every game podcast ,but do follow Three Donkeys.)

But if I hear a critique of FPSs it either makes sense or it doesn’t. I don’t need to re-weight it for Sid Meier, John Carmack, Shigeru Miyamoto, or Richard Garfield. Or for that matter, John Smith, random user.

- We are eliminated when we say 9.
- If you say 1 and 8 in the same round, you win.
- When there are only 2 players left, if you loose, you win…. (doesn’t include errors) So, at the very end, you want to say 9 for example!
- Number 3 is replaced by Bob.
- You have to say Zero before 1.
- Number 7 is replaced by any color. Cannot say the same twice.
- Zero is now replaced by Adrien (one of the player).
- After a player said his numbers, he can say “it’s your turn”.. if he does, the next player has to repeat the last number/word said. Ex: “2,bob, it’s your turn…” “bob, 4″
- You have to say “ehhhhm” before Zero. You cannot say “ehhhhm” at any other moment.
- Number 1 is replaced by “is the most ______(adjective)”. One different adjective each time.

Very curious.

Nicely done.

Keep droning!

(On a side note, is there any slim chance you might appear on the MTGCast interview series “The Men of Magic”? I know you’re a busy man, but it would really validate the whole effort.)

Keep up the good work.

It’s great to have these back. I enjoy the Game Glimpses, and the Jason Kapalka interview stands up to a good 6-7 listenings, but having new group podcasts is just the best. It sounds like they’re fun to do too, so unless they’re a ton of work don’t feel you need to wait for a game release or interview opportunity.

If I can offer one bit of constructive feedback: I know Javier does heroic work making you guys sound professional. But with podcast I think it’s possible to go too polished. Case in point, when Jessica asks “So Richard, you’ve been doing these Game Glimpses…”, it’s obvious that there was a cut to a prompted or scripted question. And podcasts by nature have a conversational feel so that over-sanitized question feels phony and jarring. The verbal pauses, losing your place, prompts, etc – these are natural and so we accept and expect them. Obviously don’t fake it but don’t feel you need to clean those out either.

Regarding Werewolf and politics, I think it does have some – by your definition – in effect if not by design. I have absolutely seen people say “don’t vote for me, I died early last game.” For some it’s legitimate. For others it’s a tactic but still a political one. Sure, by the rules the team wins or loses, but if an individual an still feel picked on (or claim such) then the strict rules maybe aren’t what matters.

Anyway, one quality you might consider is “interaction,” which is to say, the degree to which you make decisions that affect other players’ mechanisms, collections, or strategies.

I saw a talk from K. Robert Gutcschera at GDC 2009 about how arbitrary targeted interaction in 3+ allegiance games tended to produce depreciative political situations, and it really resonated with me. But there are two ways to solve the problem: You can take away meaningful interaction *almost* completely, creating a “social solitaire” game like Race for the Galaxy, or you can eliminate the ways in which targeting is arbitrary in a creative way such that the targeting player doesn’t feel oppressed, like Smallworld does remarkably well. An example of an oppressive-feeling solution might be “attack-only-to-the-left” Magic.

In other words, player interaction doesn’t necessarily imply politics, if the game is creatively designed.

I would guess that while you dislike politics, you might value interaction highly.