TV Tropes Trading Card Game

I have the beginnings of an idea for a TV Tropes Trading Card Game!

Some basic mechanics I stole from other games:

Character Card: Your basic "monster"-type card.

Genre: Genres are your Elemental Types. I don't know yet if they will be represented in card form like in Pokemon and Magic The Gathering.

Troper Card: These are like the Magi Cards in Magi Nation. You only have a few of them, and no duplicates! Once they're dead, you lose. They're protected by the Characters you have in play.

Setting Card: Pretty much like Field Cards from Yu Gi Oh. Extra bonuses go to cards of the same Genre as the setting, and perhaps detriment to certain other Genres, perhaps as part of an Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors with the Genres.

Plot Card: Similar to a Setting Card, but I figure that these will only last x turns, where Setting Cards will stay up until you replace it, or some other card effect makes it be discarded or something.

Trope Card: These will represent anything that isn't already covered by the previous kinds of cards. These would be your basic effect cards, like Magic Cards in Yu Gi Oh or Trainer Cards in Pokemon.

edited Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:09:22 by Matrix

If you draw Chekovs Gun on the first turn, you have to play it on the third.

*rubs chin*

Difference: They're just making stuff up for fun.

I'm trying to make something here with rules and such that can actually be played.

Looking at all the Genres... Damn...

We can't very well have 49845778395 Genres. The Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors would be mind boggling...

I think most things could be lumped into some basic Genres though, ne?

Adventure
Romance
Horror
Action
Comedy

That's all I can think of right now.

If I'm missing something, tell me.

edited Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:36:44 by Matrix

Speculative Fiction

Ah, right. Okay, that's two more Genres.

SF
Fantasy

edited Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:02:15 by Matrix

I have some Magic The Gathering cards up on my contributor page; they might spark some ideas.

edited Wed, 11 Feb 2009 13:52:47 by Ununnilium

Nice!

If this thing gets up and going we'll have to have someone with Photoshop or something draw the cards.

What about Tragedy, Slice of Life and Historical Fiction?

Ooh, Tragedy, Nice! I needed an eighth Genre. The other two, however, I won't use.

Eight is enough, ne?

Just a suggestion: maybe Action/Adventure could be one genre (since the two are similar and very often go hand-in-hand) and Slice of Life could be included? Because that way, you could probably cover every work of fiction under the sun, providing you use the terms broadly. With the eight you currently have, you leave out stories that just deal with everyday life - such as most soap operas and numerous "literary" novels - which don't fit into the other genres.

Ah, point taken, Bobby G.

Alright, I finished formulating the Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors.

• Slice Of Life
  • Strong Against: SF
  • Weak Against: Action/Adventure
• SF
  • Strong Against: Fantasy
  • Weak Against: Slice Of Life
• Fantasy
  • Strong Against: Action/Adventure
  • Weak Against: SF
• Action/Adventure:
  • Strong Against: Slice Of Life
  • Weak Against: Fantasy

• Romance
  • Strong Against: Horror
  • Weak Against: Tragedy
• Horror
  • Strong Against: Comedy
  • Weak Against: Romance
• Comedy
  • Strong Against: Tragedy
  • Weak Against: Horror
• Tragedy
  • Strong Against: Romance
  • Weak Against Comedy

As you can see they form two squares.

For Setting, Plot, and Troper Cards:

These three give bonuses to Character and Trope cards of their respective Genre. Each card has one Genre. Cards of the Genre that the Setting and Plot are Strong Against recieve detriments instead of bonuses.

For Example:

If one player has the Hell Hotel (a Horror setting) Setting Card in play, their Final Girl (a Horror character) Character card recieves some kind of benefit, while their Ahnold (a Comedy character) Character card is detrimented in some way. Also, if the other player has a Love Hotel (a Romance setting) Setting Card in play, the first player's Final Girl recieves a detriment, while the second player's Gaussian Girl (a Romance character) gets some kind of bonus.

edited Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:08:11 by Matrix

Hey why not make it have chess elements like in Chaotic?

I've never played Chaotic, so you'll have to explain.

Okay, time to think up the card templates.

I'll probably need help with this, and I'm just pullin these out of my ass right now, so feel free to give input, especially if you know card games better than I do.

Character Card:

For the Character Cards I'm imagining something like Pokemon.

Name Life(Genre Symbol)
————————-
————————-
——Picture———
————————-
————————-
Abilities



Flavour Text

Characters will probably have various abilities and attacks.

Troper Cards would have the same format, but they have their Genre bonus, a special Troper ability, and an attack.

Also I'll need to think up some kind of battle mechanic, too, like how much life Characters and Tropers should have and how much damage attacks do. Again, input is welcome.

Nice idea! I do feel like the Setting/Plot/Troper cards having effects on the other player's cards would make things kind of complicated to calculate, though.. Depending on how serious this is supposed to be, maybe the Setting effects could stay, but if a player comes up with an explanation for how their character fits in with a new Plot point, the character doesn't suffer detriments (or even benefits from it)? For example, Final Girl, though a Horror character, could fit into the Action/Adventure trope Chased by Angry Natives because the natives are actually crazy disease zombies? As for life points and such, my only real frame of reference is Magic: The Gathering, where 20 life and 60 cards seems to work pretty well. Plus, considering that a bunch of tropers are probably nerdy enough to know about Magic, it'd make it easier to figure out whether cards are over/underpowered or not. Of course, figuring out your own system would be fine, too- it just might make it more difficult to figure out which abilities work and which are Game Breakers.

Your idea about making players explain how characters fit into new plot cards is valid and makes sense, it being based on this wiki, so while it makes my creative kitties side smile and want to hug you with rainbows, my "Stop Having Fun" Guys Rules Lawyer side is twitching and foaming at the mouth at such an abstract and possibly Game Breaking mechanic.

T_T

You broke Matrix!

Hmm.

Here is some example card info:

Matrix

Life: 500

Genre: Fantasy

Troper Card

Genre Bonus: Defensible:
Matching Genre Character Cards you play recieve +40 maximum Life. Matching Genre Defensive Trope Cards you play are in play one turn longer than normal. Matching Genre Plot Cards you play are also in play one turn longer than normal.

Troper Ability: Namesake Genre Shift:
If the Plot Card Lotus Eater Machine is in play, switch this Card's Genre to SF.

Fetish Fuel: Fairy, Catgirl:
Fairy and Catgirl Character Cards you play recieve this Card's Genre Bonus if they do not match this Card's Genre. If they do match, they recieve double the bonus.

Nightmare Fuel: Insect:
You cannot play Insect Character Cards or Trope Cards while this Card is in play. If your opponent has at least one Insect Character Card in play, reduce this Card's Attack's damage by 10.

Attack: Scratch:
10 Damage. If the Setting Card Mons is in play, this Attack does 20 Damage.

The sexual deviant filled with love and cuteness and kitties!

Yeah, I added Fetish Fuel and Nightmare Fuel to the Troper cards. I think it would give more variety to the game.

Though that might be too much writing on one card, unless pictures are eschewed, at least on Troper Cards.

I might add some kind of energy requirement for attacks like in Pokemon.

I'm reasonably familiar with Magic The Gathering, so I suppose that'll help.

The first rule of Magic is that whenever a card contradicts the rules of the game, obey the card. In we also apply this rule, we can go all Rules Lawyer without too much worry...at least after some beta testing.

Anyway, a few random late-night thoughts. (I promise I'll help more after a bit of rest.)

• If I am recalling correctly, Magic has damage dealt small multiples of 1, Pokemon in small multiples of 10, and Yu Gi Oh in large multiples of 10. It has been shown that people care more about a change in a small number more than they care about a proportional change in a large number. In other words, by setting your troper life to 500, you're already setting up the player up not to care about the first hundred points or so of life loss. (Contrast with Magic, where not stressing over every point of damage is actually a learned skill for most people.) This may or may not be a bad thing—just something to think about.
• Card length needs to be trimmed down a bit. Considering that a lot of the card information may be standardized somehow, I suggest using keywords or something. For example, "Defensible" could be a standard keyword that always means the same thing, thereby removing the need to include more than three words on the Genre Bonus line. Perhaps the Nightmare/Fetish Fuel effects would be set to what you have them, or we can keyword those effects as well. For example:
  • Fetish Fuel (Genre Bonus): Fairy, Catgirl
• It might be cool to allow multiple genres. Additionally, we could have an "understood" Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors without making it explicit (and thereby removing the need for the the ERPS to be perfectly balanced like it is now). After all, some tropes/characters/plots would fit multiple genres, while some other ones quite clearly fit one or even hate on a particular genre. Examples:
  • Doing In the Wizard is clearly a SF (I keep wanting to read that as "Speculative Fiction". Perhaps change it to Sci-Fi?) card that is anti-Fantasy.
  • Cool Airship can feature in both Fantasy and SF, particularly when they overlap with Action/Adventure
  • Maybe this is all just my bias towards all Spec Fic showing
• Perhaps we could divide up the "Plot" cards into Twists, Developments, and Arcs (or something like that). Arcs would hit the table and stay there for a certain amount of time, till certain conditions are met, or until replaced. Developments would either have a one-time effect, only last one turn, something like that. Twists would have an immediate effect, and perhaps have the bonus of being playable at times when Plot cards generally aren't.
• Another split: Setting cards. Locations and Features (there has got to be a better name). Locations are, well, obvious. The catch is, you can only have one. Features would be stuff like Mons, which have no intrinsic limit on how many can be on the table at once.
• Flavor text like you put is definitely a must (strong personal bias)

Bah, this got waaaayyyy longer than I thought it would be. Looks like I'm trying to take your Pokemon-esque baby and make it look more like Magic. Sorry bout that. Thoughts of increased rationality will come tomorrow afternoon.

The Adversary: Random idea: how about Chekhov's Gun lets you search for any card from your deck, reveal it, then put it into your hand.

Wow, I love making card games, so I'd love to get involved. As long as the rules slowly finalize themselves, this could be good. I really like the way it's set up, with Tropes and such. I'd just be worried about assigning genres to things like Large Ham.... Also, keywords are definitely a good idea, I think.

edited Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:03:18 by Hikari no Kaze

We could always have the "universal" type that works equally well in any genre.

Giving a card the ability to override the rules sounds good to me. There was also the other rule that says that a card that tells you that you can't do something wins against a card that says you can. Should help settle a few disputes.

What kind of casting cost are we going to have, if any? Just to toss off ideas, I can imagine tapping the characters the way you tap lands in Mt G so you can play a certain card (example: tapping the Ill Girl and the Determinator to play the Power of Friendship card). The rationale being that you're using the characters you have to invoke a trope. Or something.

Yes, tropes must definitely be "invoked" into play.