Traveller card game and trading cards
- Thread starter Enoff
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Is it worth mentioning the obscene amount of money HearthStone has made for Blizzard?
There area couple of options here - a card based game, an app based game or both.
If I were MWM I would be looking into this.
There area couple of options here - a card based game, an app based game or both.
If I were MWM I would be looking into this.
Blizzard isn't making an obscene amount of money on Hearthstone because it's a TCG.
Blizzard is doing well with HS because Blizzard can do games like this really well, plus they have the entirety of the Warcraft universe to enrich it. It just happens to be a TCG.
HS is a great game. It's absolutely gorgeous, it's fun, it's very casual. I've played it a bunch, but never spent a dime on it. Just leveling the classes.
Everybody and their brother was spitting out TCGs back in the day when MtG took over like kudzu and single handedly tilted the axis of the game world. But, as they made evident, a TCG does not success make. Even Munchkin is not a TCG.
We had a wave of MtG sweep through the office, but it's crashed on the beach about a year ago.
Blizzard is doing well with HS because Blizzard can do games like this really well, plus they have the entirety of the Warcraft universe to enrich it. It just happens to be a TCG.
HS is a great game. It's absolutely gorgeous, it's fun, it's very casual. I've played it a bunch, but never spent a dime on it. Just leveling the classes.
Everybody and their brother was spitting out TCGs back in the day when MtG took over like kudzu and single handedly tilted the axis of the game world. But, as they made evident, a TCG does not success make. Even Munchkin is not a TCG.
We had a wave of MtG sweep through the office, but it's crashed on the beach about a year ago.
Otto Harkaman
SOC-12
The Traveller Universe is so rich in ideas I am sure it would lend itself to endless cards and variants. Even if it just broke even it would more than pay its investment, it would be a fantastic vector for self promotion.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
MtG worked because WotC found the sweet point of what the consumer was willing to spend, the frisson of mystery, apparently getting something for comparatively nothing (our version of the Ponzi scheme), and great art. Plus glimpses into a greater universe through short narratives on the card.
It's also a very generic universe. It's "just sci-fi", using common tropes. The Imperium is a unique asset, to be sure, but high level nobles and mega corps do not really blend well with the tactical field of a card game.
That said, I can see a game where the combat cards are ships and fleets (and perhaps assassins, nobles, and mis-jumps for "action" cards), but the resources are star systems to fuel the sector spanning campaign.
All that said, in either case, who ever was going to do this would have to license it from Marc. It has been aptly demonstrated that Marc struggles to publish black and white text, much less hundreds of art pieces with subtle mechanics to balance. So, someone else would have to do the actual work on the game. At that point, it's a question of whether the value of the OTU is actually worth the licensing cost to the creator, vs just going with something generic. Not sure if a Norris, Vargr, SDB, or Tigress card is really that compelling of a sale point to the market overall.
There were (apparently) Star Wars and Star Trek TCGs, much better developed and popular universes, but they're 10 years dead.
All that said, and I am not an MtG player -- beyond buying two original decks Back In the Day, the MtG game play is pretty interesting and deep. Some get caught up in the collectors part of it, others take it so far just to play the game well. I find the collector part specifically off-putting myself, but that's my personality. At the same time, I find it borderline exploitive of certain personalty types.
We see that today in many "free to play" games, where the bulk of the revenue comes from a tiny minority of the players. The F2P games are far worse than MtG ever was.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Someone has to pay for the internet.
I always thought that a "railroad tycoon"-style boardgame is lurking around there in the subsector maps.
Not that anyone asked for it, but here are my 2 credits on the topic. But first, to make sure people are on the same page, some definitions. 
Collectible Card Games (CCG): Are games like Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-gi-oh, and so on, are where players will build decks from their collections, which are all different. When you purchase cards, with the exception of pre-built decks, you get a random bunch of cards. Usually the best cards are more rare and harder to find. This type of game usually has a high cost for anyone who is more than a casual player as they try to find the best cards.
I personally am not a big fan of these types of games.
Living Card Games (LCG): Are similar to the CCG in that players build decks from their collection of cards, but they differ in that you know which cards are in the package you are buying. The A Game of Thrones Card Game is an example of this type of game (I know there are others, but I actually play this one). These games usually have a base set and then add-ons in the form of "chapter packs" or "expansions" which expand the card base. The advantage is that everyone has the same pool of cards to work from to build their decks. Of course as the game "grows" not everyone may purchase every add-on, but at the very least they have the opportunity to.
I like this type of game, but it requires a lot of planning, testing, and can (in the long run) get expensive for players.
Deck Building Games: Are games where there is a pre-defined deck that players will draw/buy cards from to add to their "hand". They have a starting hand that is always the same. Games such as Star Realms (pictured in Enoff's post), Ascension, EPIC, and Core Worlds are just a few of the popular ones. These games are the easiest of the three types I list to play and afford. I assume they are also a bit easier to design but I will leave that to people who have done that to comment on.
So with that said, I think that a Traveller themed card game would be pretty darn cool, but I don't think a CCG would be the way to go. Traveller has enough story and history to make a LCG (like Game of Thrones) but I don't think there would be nearly enough of a market for something like that to make it worthwhile.
However, a deck building game that is like Star Realms should be pretty doable. And you can add expansions to the game to broaden the story in the future. These types of games also lend themselves very well to being done on a computer/tablet as well.
So there you have it. My 2 credits would be a deckbuilding game and I would be happy to contribute or help out any way I could.
Collectible Card Games (CCG): Are games like Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-gi-oh, and so on, are where players will build decks from their collections, which are all different. When you purchase cards, with the exception of pre-built decks, you get a random bunch of cards. Usually the best cards are more rare and harder to find. This type of game usually has a high cost for anyone who is more than a casual player as they try to find the best cards.
I personally am not a big fan of these types of games.
Living Card Games (LCG): Are similar to the CCG in that players build decks from their collection of cards, but they differ in that you know which cards are in the package you are buying. The A Game of Thrones Card Game is an example of this type of game (I know there are others, but I actually play this one). These games usually have a base set and then add-ons in the form of "chapter packs" or "expansions" which expand the card base. The advantage is that everyone has the same pool of cards to work from to build their decks. Of course as the game "grows" not everyone may purchase every add-on, but at the very least they have the opportunity to.
I like this type of game, but it requires a lot of planning, testing, and can (in the long run) get expensive for players.
Deck Building Games: Are games where there is a pre-defined deck that players will draw/buy cards from to add to their "hand". They have a starting hand that is always the same. Games such as Star Realms (pictured in Enoff's post), Ascension, EPIC, and Core Worlds are just a few of the popular ones. These games are the easiest of the three types I list to play and afford. I assume they are also a bit easier to design but I will leave that to people who have done that to comment on.
So with that said, I think that a Traveller themed card game would be pretty darn cool, but I don't think a CCG would be the way to go. Traveller has enough story and history to make a LCG (like Game of Thrones) but I don't think there would be nearly enough of a market for something like that to make it worthwhile.
However, a deck building game that is like Star Realms should be pretty doable. And you can add expansions to the game to broaden the story in the future. These types of games also lend themselves very well to being done on a computer/tablet as well.
So there you have it. My 2 credits would be a deckbuilding game and I would be happy to contribute or help out any way I could.
David Johansen
SOC-12
So why not do cards that are actually useful for Traveller?
World Cards with a random UWP and a map.
Character Cards with a random UPP and a picture.
Equipment Cards with illustrated equipment.
Vehicle and Ship cards with stats.
Cargo cards with randomly generated cargos.
It might not even be hard to envision a game that uses them. Deal out a hand to everyone. Everyone takes a turn playing cards. Characters are played in front of the player, worlds are played to the map in the middle of the table. Ships can only be played once their crew requirements are met and are played onto the map. Once a ship is on the map cargo cards can be played on the ship and moved from one world to the next. Combats are fought over cargos using 2d6 rolls. The player with the most cargo cards after a set number of turns wins.
World Cards with a random UWP and a map.
Character Cards with a random UPP and a picture.
Equipment Cards with illustrated equipment.
Vehicle and Ship cards with stats.
Cargo cards with randomly generated cargos.
It might not even be hard to envision a game that uses them. Deal out a hand to everyone. Everyone takes a turn playing cards. Characters are played in front of the player, worlds are played to the map in the middle of the table. Ships can only be played once their crew requirements are met and are played onto the map. Once a ship is on the map cargo cards can be played on the ship and moved from one world to the next. Combats are fought over cargos using 2d6 rolls. The player with the most cargo cards after a set number of turns wins.
Reading this out of context, I got a vision of a starport commodity exchange, with brokers haggling over newly-delivered cargo. That could make a nice part of something larger, but what? What happens when you win a bid for cargo?
Well THAT makes me think of speculation by trader captains, and now the hustling on the commodity exchange becomes an endpoint for free traders.
I also like "building" games, so I also think about things like "build your trade line" game. That also ties in nicely to the free trader angle.
Fledgling Lines
In this game, you compete with others to grow your fledgling line into a subsector line.
- Your hand size is limited based on a handicapping model. Higher skill = fewer cards.
- When a Cargo or Ship card is drawn, everybody bids on it. High bid buys it.
- Four kinds of cargo: Food, Radioactives, Luxuries, and Life Support.
- When a World card is drawn, players may sell any or all of their cargo cards there. Worlds pay a stated value (RU 1, 2, or 3) for any cargo card, plus a bonus if it matches a world feature (purple=Luxuries, desert=Food, industrial=Radioactives, asteroid=Life Support). Interdicted worlds pay a bonus for ANYTHING.
- When a Corsair card is drawn, players lose their cargo unless they have a Route Protector card... or break into actual combat if they have weapons from the Corsair Kingdom Expansion Pack.
- When the deck is depleted, the game is over.
World cards would be straightforward all-purpose Traveller world cards, and have the world name (all caps if high pop), planetary circle (water world, green world, desert world, vacuum world, industrialized, asteroids), bases, and interdiction status.
Simulate with a poker deck: 2-8s are cargo. 9s are anti-corsair missiles. 10s are Beowulfs. Jokers are corsairs. Aces are Route Protectors. J,Q,K are worlds that pay RU 1, RU 2, and RU 3 respectively for cargo. Suits are "characteristics" - when cargo and world suit match, get a bonus RU+1.
Asteroid Mining
This one is a variation on the "Mining the Asteroids" mini-game from JTAS. The cards themselves are mainly for the mining process, but also have events or contacts which help or hinder the venture.
- Draw cards, trying to get as many-of-a-kind of strikes as you can before a bad event happens.
- Lay down strikes when you want to "sell" them off. If you're risk-averse, you lay down pairs as you get them. If you want to score big, you wait for a four-of-a-kind Rare Earths strike.
- Catastrophes (Hull Leak) have mitigations (Hull Patch).
- A "pass the trash" rule can let players interact.
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Maybe. I think of these events as either you're prepared, or you're not, rather than having more detail. But it could certainly go down the customization route and even involve character cards and some sort of one-roll-determines-it-all combat.
That could be pretty fun. That means Q-Ship becomes a valid strategy. It also means you're spending time bulking up your ships rather than speculating. But that could be a nice added dimension.
Ooooh! Maybe an expansion pack.
OR: a couple of rare, Advanced cards which represent weaponry and require the beforementioned combat roll.
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you could also draw destination cards to build trade routes - trade destination cards to build more reasonable and less random routes. each player lays destination cards face down in order of intended trade route, each destination turned up each turn, see if players are in same system for 1) trading goods or 2) combat.
I feel inspired to work on this over the weekend ....
I feel inspired to work on this over the weekend ....
Actually, just musing here, you could the player draw market and load cards.
When it comes time to play, they pull out market cards from their hand to lay out a route. Each market has a distance, say. So, showing how far away they are from "anyone else".
So if you play 3 market cards, one is 2 parsecs away, the other 1 parsec away, you have a 4 parsec "J-2" route. Then, ideally, the player has "loads" that match with those markets.
Then they navigate from market to market with their loads, drawing more markets (rumors?), more loads, as they arrive to each one.
Each play can be a new market for their new destination.
There's little interaction, since you're not on a map per se. Or you could have the same markets mixed in the deck (say, 10 markets, with 30 cards, some markets more popular than others). Then if another player is at the same market as you are, there could be some interaction perhaps.
Just musing.
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