Simplified rules

Only post if you have actually read them and the design document(s) in the Wiki.
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Peter
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Simplified rules

Post by Peter » Sat Mar 26, 2016 20:50

As two of you said, reducing the rules should make it easier to get a start on the game.

Here are my suggestions what to remove from the Quick Rules.
Important: They can be implemented in later and more complete versions. So they aren't lost! :)

Region
Mulligan
Gold and resources
Loyalty
Discipline
Creature types
Kingdom
Drop and Take
Events
Assigning
Some of the turn phases
Abilities
Quests
Mounts
Rituals

It's only a suggestion. Just think it over.
Kind regards and happy coding :)
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Ravenchild
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Re: Simplified rules

Post by Ravenchild » Sun Mar 27, 2016 10:47

We certanily still need to do a lot of experimenting to find a good ruleset. So any experiment, no matter how radical, can potentially lead to a better ruleset.

You list of things to remove is pretty long. I wonder what is still left if we remove all of that. Especially with no gold and resource limitations, the game will play very differently.

It would be helpful if you could also make a list of all the central stuff that stays.
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Peter
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Re: Simplified rules

Post by Peter » Sun Mar 27, 2016 13:59

The game is won by being the first to be the first one to achieve a pre-defined amount of Victory Points.

In the rare case where all remaning players both get 0 or less the player with the highest amount of victory points is the winner. If that is also equal then the game is considered a draw.

Basic play requires two players.

Make sure you have the following materials for each player before you start a game:

20x Tokens
Something that can help to keep track of the points

Game layout:

Front (1)

Creatures that will help launch an attack or defend against enemies must be placed in the Front face up.

Army Deck (2)

The player comes to the game with carefully selected cards put in a pile, face down. That pile is called the army deck. This area is where the army deck resides and from where the player draws new cards every time it becomes his/her turn.

Grave (3)

The area where all the discarded cards go, like for instance dead creatures and used Event cards. All cards in the grave are face up.

Card Layout

Faction Logo: The Faction logo - in this case a leaf for the Gaian faction - shows which faction the card belongs to.

Card Art: The illustration has no impact on the rules of the game or anything else. The card art is of purely aesthetical value and also helps the player to quickly identify and remember cards in addition to give the game a nice theme and setting.

Card name / types: Every card has a unique name. Each part of the name also doubles as a subtype.

Additional Card subtypes: This line contains the types(s) of the card. Each card type is governed by specific rules found in this document, while subtypes are usually associated with rules found on other cards.

Coloured border: The border around a card reveals what faction it belongs to. Our Elvish Sorceress has a green surrounding border, revealing - together with the faction logo in 1 - that this is indeed a Gaian card.

Combat Statistics: The first red value is the units attack (ATK). Second green shield value is it's defence (DEF). These values are used when being part of a combat.

Footer: Contains info about the cards collectors number and version, rarity and the game.


Card Types

WTactics provides the players with different card types that have their own associated rules:
Creatures

Creatures are the backbone of every army, they are the courageous forces that will bring a player glorious victory (or a miserable defeat that is best forgotten).

Unlike other cards, creatures have specific and distinct values that show their fighting skills in combat:

Attack (ATK): The skills a creature has in combat. This is the number of damage the creature will inflict on it's enemies if they should stand in the creatures way.
Defense (DEF): How much damage a creature can take before it becomes wounded and dies.

When other cards manipulate these combat values they are often paired and written in the form of x/y, where x is ATK and y is DEF.

Example: +5/-2 would mean that a creature would gain 5 more to it's ATK and lose 2 of it's DEF.

Creature Types

All creatures also belong to one or more creature type. Creature types are words separated by spaces in the creatures name and subtype line. An example of a a couple of creature types a creature could have is: Leader Beast Caster. Leader would be one, Beast another type, and Caster a third creature type. They don't necessarily relate to each other in any way even if it may look like it in some cases.

Creature types have no function by themselves. They are however relevant in many situations when other cards interact with the creature cards.

Front

Creatures located in the Front may both attack or defend.

Life & Death

If all damage has been resolved in a battle and the result is that a creatures defence (DEF) was equal to or smaller than the attacking creatures attack (ATK) then the creature dies.
Creatures that die are placed in the Grave. Any and all cards attached to it go to their owners grave.
Exceptions to this is the Equipment pickup rule, discussed in a separate paragraph further down in this text.
There are several cards and creature abilities that can affect the outcome of battle by manipulating what happens.

Equipment

Cards with the Equipment cardtype are considered to be Equipment.
A creature can carry an unlimited amount of Equipment but may only use the effects of one Equipment card from each Equipment subtype at the same time: Equipment effects only stack if the Equipment cards either lack subtypes or have different subtypes.
Example: A creature has an "Equipment - Weapon" card called "Damocle's Sword". The sword gives the creature +5/0. Giving the creature an additional "Equipment - Weapon" card will not add any of it's effects while Damocle's Sword is being used since both cards share an Equipment subtype.
If a Creature is attacking and has multiple Equipment cards with the same subtypes the creature's controller should clearly state which Equipment the creature will use during that turn. This must be announced when the creature is declared to be an attacker, before the defender's are appointed by the opposing player. When the creature is a defender instead the announcement of what equipment is used does not have to be made until after the creature has blocked an attacker.
When equipment is put into play it is given, attached, to a specific creature. That creatures is from then and thereafter an Equipped creature. A creature is unequipped if has no equipment cards attached to it.
Equipment stays attached to an equipped creature and follows it wherever it's carrier is going. This includes, but is not limited to: Another front, the graveyard if sent there by some other effect than combat, and back up to hand. The equipment stays on the creature until a) the equipment it's somehow removed by an effect or b) the creature dies.
Equipment that came back into a players hand by following the creature that carried there becomes, when it reaches the hand, unattached from that creature. The equipment is then considered to be like any other card in hand, and has to be paid for and attached to a creature again in order for it to come into play once more.

Magic

Magic can only be played during the player's own turn, during the play phase, and only in a front where the player has a caster around.
Magical effects stack.
Once a magic card has been played it is discarded.

Enchantments

Enchantments are scrolls or magic based on reading from a book. They can only be played during the player's own play phase and only in a front where he/she has at least one unassigned and unmarked creature around.
Enchantments are always targeting something or someone,
are always attached to it's target,
and are permanently in play on the table until some effect removes them.
Enchantments that don't share a name stack.
Example: If a player casts two Enchantments that share a name and they each give the target creature +1/+1 then only one of them will benefit the creature.
Example: Same scenario as in the above example, but in this case the opponent removes one of the enchantments. There is then still one Enchtantment left on the creature, and in contrast to earlier, it now becomes activated.


Prerequisites

In order to play a card one has to be able (if any) meet all the conditions it requires to be true for it to come into play or it's effect to be activated. The more powerful the card is, the trickier the prerequisites become.

Sometimes a card has other conditions that have to be met for them to enter play that go beyond the Loyalty Requirement. In such cases the prerequisites are printed in written text on the card, as a part of the card text field. These kinds of prerequisites are often custom, straight forward and vary highly depending on the card.

Examples

This card can only be played if you control less creatures than your opponent(s).
This Equipment can only be attached to a Northener.

If a card can not get any of it's demands met, it can't be played. If it has got all it's demands met, the player may choose if he/she wants to play the card or not.

Marking & Unmarking

Creature cards in play are always in either a marked or an unmarked state. All other card types lack the ability to (un)mark.
Cards always come into play in their unmarked state unless it's clearly specified otherwise.
The marked state is normally used to show that the card has been exhausted/used somehow.
Examples of when a card becomes marked: When a creature attacks, moves or uses an activated ability that requires it to mark.
An unmarked card is considered to not be exhausted.
A card can only be marked once per round unless an effect or rule unmarks it.
There is no limit on how many times a card can become marked or unmarked if it happens as a result of an effect.
During every new turn the player gets all of his/her marked cards unmarked during the players own unmark/unassign-phase.

Mark me (The Mark Me symbol)

Different actions, abilities and rules require a card to mark when the player wants to use it in a particular way. Marking should be seen as a kind of prerequisite, an action that needs to happen in order for an effect to happen. Whenever the mark me symbol is shown (a horizontal rectangle with a symbol within, MarkSmall.png ) it means that you have to mark the card itself if that is a part of the pre-requisite for whatever you're trying to accomplish.

Hints:

"Mark me" symbol is abbreviated as just (M) when being typed out as plain text.
In wiki you can input the Mark Me symbol inline in any text to create a 17x10 px symbol like this MarkSmall.png by writing {{M}}


Mark allies
The mark allies symbol, here showing that 3 allies have to mark.
Should the mark symbol contain a number inside it instead of the symbol it means that you have to mark that amount of other local creatures instead othe creature itself. The creature that has the Mark Allies-prerequiste can not mark itself for that reason.


Hints:

"Mark me" symbol is abbreviated as (MaX) when being typed out as plain text, where X is the number of allies that are supposed to become marked.
Example: (Ma3).
In wiki you can input the Mark Allies symbol inline in any text to create a 17x10 px symbol like this M2.png by writing {{Ma|2}}. Replace the number two with any number between 1 to 7 to get the proper symbol.

Marking is done by turning the card 45 degrees. (Is that, too, patended by WotC?)

Round Structure

WTactics is played using individual player turns, that are divided into different game phases.

The player who is currently taking his turn is named the active player. All other players are considered to be passive players even if they would do something (i.e. play Event cards) during the active players turn. When we refer to "the player" we most often refer to the "active player". In cases where we don't refer to the active player, we use the "passive" or "any" player terminology.

Turn Structure

A turn is made up of the following phases, where each name is followed by the postfix "phase":

Unmark
Draw
Play
Move or Attack
Play
Move or Attack
Discard

The phases that are mandatory are the Unmark, Draw and Discard-phases. The Play, Move or Attack and Entrance phases are all optional phases and can all be omitted by you if you choose to do so. Notice that you can't use a Play or Move/Attack-phase once you have Played your entrance or Discard-phase: The phases must be played in the strict order that's specified above.

Turn Phases
Unmark/Unassign

During the unmark and unassign phase a player must unmark all his/her cards that are marked. This replenishes them for future use and is normally a very good thing.
In contrast, assigned cards do not automaticllay become unassigned: During the unmark/unassign-phase a player may unassign target ally creatures.

Draw

The player must draw up to 2 cards each turn if there are cards available in the Army Deck. The player decides him/herself if 1 or 2 cards are drawn and may look at the first drawn card before deciding if another one should be drawn.
This applies even if the player already has the maximum number of allowed cards to his/her playing disposal in hand.
If a player can't draw a card during the draw phase due to his/her Army Deck being depleted he/she loses the game.

Play

The play phases allows the player to use creature abilities & play any non-creature cards if he/she wants to.
The inactive player always gets a play phase after each one of the active players actions, i.e. to play Event-cards or use abilities.
The number of things a player can do during his/her play phase is limited only by that player's resources and cards.
Though eventually the player will run out of options, as there should not exist "infinity-combos" in WTactics.

Move / Attack

This phase is not mandatory - the player chooses if he/she will use it.
The move/attack phase allows the player to either move or attack with any number of the creatures.
It does not allow the player to do both and let one creature move and let another attack.
Whatever is done in the first move / attack phase can not be done in the second move / attack phase.
Each turn there's only one attack phase per player and/or one move phase per player.
Example: If you decide to move creatures in the first MA phase, then no creatures can move in the second.
Please see the relevant sections for movement and attacking for more details on how to execute those actions properly.


Discard

If the player has more than 7 cards (≥8) in his/her hand the playermust select and discard any excess cards down to 7.
A player may notdiscard cards from hand in the discard phase if he/she has 7 or less cards in hand.

Conflicting rules & effects

As in many card games, some rules & effects in WTactics may seem to contradict themselves or even do so. Always use the following two rules to resolve such situations.

Cards vs rules

If a card contradicts the core rules found in this document, the card wins over the core rules.
That cards can change the core rules or supersede them is an intentional feature in CCG:s. It's what makes this genre interesting and modular. Whatever a card says, it will be the case, even if the rules forbid it or lack coverage of the topic.

Effects vs effects

If an effects forbids something to happen while another allows it, the forbidding effect wins.
Example: A creature has the effect "Can not fly." printed on it as card text. Playing a spell on the creature with the text "Target creature can fly." will not make the creature able to fly. The "not/no/can't" etc always outweigh what "can/could" happen.


--------------------------------------------
Don't forget: It's to get started. All those excellent ideas that have been removed can and should be added later step-by-step.

It's discussable if and which features should be in the first simplified rules.

But the less complex the rules the easier the start.

There may be logical inconsistencies. So please help solving them.
Kind regards and happy coding :)
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snowdrop
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Re: Simplified rules

Post by snowdrop » Sun Mar 27, 2016 20:58

"Quck rules" are usually around games that have a steep learning curve in order to not turn off players, get an easy introduction and so on. With that in mind, whatever fills the purpose and is as short and clear as possible could be considered to be good quickrules.

Look at them as a summary of the real ruleset, but, only of what is needed to start playing and grasping all the core mechanics.

In the original post a lot of the core is actually removed from the quick rules, and it is pretty much impossible to play/learn the game at all if one would do that. Nevertheless, I think Peter is correct that there really is a need for quick rules to be around, and be "quick". I fathom they will once the ruleset is "done".
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Peter
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Re: Simplified rules

Post by Peter » Sun Mar 27, 2016 21:36

So, this means you prefer the Quick Rules as they are currently in the Wiki?

But it is not neccessary to grasp all core mechanics of the "real"/full version in the start version. Why playtesting can only start with the full version? (I will ask something about playtesting in a different thread.)

I would like to hear the software developers' opinion on that, because they know what is possible to be put in a tiny start version.

So the developer is Xarn? Or someone else, too?
Kind regards and happy coding :)
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Re: Simplified rules

Post by snowdrop » Sun Mar 27, 2016 21:51

Aha, Peter, I think I understand where you're coming from now: The "quick rules" in the Wiki are actually not quick rules at all. That page should/will be renamed.

It also states in the very start of the document that:
These rules are, in their current state, only intended for developers that work on the same ruleset as snowdrop, which is dubbed "the Original Rules Concept", or ORC in short. Their primary purpose is to function as a concept rules for concept testing done by the developers of ORC. This means that it doesn't matter much if a wider audience and the public understands them or not as they're internal. This document will exist in an additional and more extensive version and also in a very short quick-start version once it's been more finalized after playtesting.
So to answer your question - no, I really don't prefer them as quick rules. A person that would suggest them as quick rules is making a huge mistake :)
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Ravenchild
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Re: Simplified rules

Post by Ravenchild » Mon Mar 28, 2016 14:01

Peter wrote:The game is won by being the first to be the first one to achieve a pre-defined amount of Victory Points.

In the rare case where all remaning players both get 0 or less the player with the highest amount of victory points is the winner. If that is also equal then the game is considered a draw.
[...]
Looks like a reasonable collection of rules. On the positive side I noticed nothing where I would say that this does not make sense. I am actually surprised how complex this still is. But you also went into great detail and gave additional explanations. This ruleset is something we can certainly try out.

I was inspired by your post and also put together a simple ruleset.
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