Firstly, props to the people who suggested the other Roleplay Gateway TCG.

Yes, that's right, a roleplay trading card game, initially planned to be a roleplay gateway trading card game until I realised I can't do that without offending people. Nothing is really set in stone, this is only th absolute basics, so onwards to the concepts!

Concepts So Far
Player Cards
Character Cards
Plot Twist Cards


The game is played between two people.
Each person gets several (1-5) Player Cards that begin on the field. Each Player Card can summon various characters to the field based off of their creativity. Characters are then set upon each other and as each character dies, the Player Card that owns the character loses happiness. When they lose all their happiness, they quit. When a player has no more Player Cards, they lose.

So, what the game essentially boils down to (in terms of concept) is two groups of jerks trying to kill of each others character to make each other quit.

Now, mechanics! So far, barely anything is decided and there are no values slapped on anything. This is what we have so far;

Player Cards
Happiness - The happiness of the player. When it reaches zero they quit.
Creativity - Their ability to create characters and plot twists.
Skill - Their skill in combat, which affects all of their character.
Emotion - The emotion of the player. The higher this is, the more Power their characters have, but the greater the impact of a characters death on the Player Card's happiness.

Character Cards
Skill - The damage the character can inflict.
Power - The energy of the character. Required to use powers and some attacks. When it reaches zero the character cannot do anything and can be killed if attacked.
Resolve - The determination of the character. When it reaches zero the character cannot do anything and can be killed if attacked.
Emotion - A stat affected entirely by Plot Twists. A high emotion means effects will be more extreme.

Attacks and Powers
Character cards will have attacks and powers listed on them. I'll use a few rough examples. A warrior might be focussed on physical damage, which looks something like;
Axe: Physical Attack
Greater Cleave: Physical Attack, 3 Power, +5 damage

Whereas a mage might have something like;
Staff: Physical Attack, -1 damage
Magic Missile: Arcane Attack, 2 power, +3 damage
Fireball: Elemental Attack, 3 power, +2 damage, deals 1 damage to one other enemy character

Attacks target Power of characters, unless it states otherwise.

Plot Twists
These are game effecting events. A couple of examples might be,
Evil Alternate Side: Creation Cost 1, After being attacked your character gains 10 power and loses 10 resolve.
Xanatos Gambit: Creation Cost 4, When a character is attacked, deal that much damage to attacking character
And so on.

Set Rules
Draw one character a turn.
Each character can only use one power or attack a turn (unless stated otherwise).


Other Concepts
Emotional effects between two characters. (The example being love, where two characters on the same team in love get a bonus and two characters on opposing teams getting negatives).
Different player genres.
Different character effects. (Ethereal etc)
Pets or toekn creatures

Potential Problems
Losing a Player Card will result in your opponent having more creativity overall giving them the ability to play more cards then you can.

For the time being, this is open to suggestions and interpretation as a result. Feel free to suggest stuff and contribute, or point out flaws in the system and ways to improve it.

Oh! I remember working on this with Eastep and such in its previous incarnation!
I don't have much constructive commentary, really, other than "Good job!" You really put thought into this -- definitely much more than I've done in making the cards myself. xD

There's a link in the old thread that links to a site where you can make your own 'cards'; it's very useful, really, and if you wanted to repost the link in this thread I think that it'd be helpful.
If you want any help making these cards, I'm very excited about the prospect of helping, so. Yeah. xD

Cards, I've already got a few, but I like this idea, and it's clear you've thought this out much better than I ever would have! But just to maybe start you off, I'll show you some of the ones I've designed. For example, my CelticCat card, Mid card, Foffy, CHain_way, DraconicArcania, Shoe, Taco, and Sato/ViceVersus cards are just some examples. Maybe you could use that template? If you have GIMP, I still have the templates I used for these cards for quick reference, so just get back with me! :)

It looks like great minds really do think alike! Sortof.

As Rigel_Lake said, we had a version similar to this, feel free to raid the topic for any resources you need!
I would love to join up on the team for this, as it was always a dream of mine to bring a card game from the forum to life. Your concept for the game is much better thought out than the previous ones, but I still feel that I could help inprove on the concept. Maybe modifiers that help shake up the cards a bit?

Such as: Cliche, it allows a Character card to gain skill with less emotion from the Player, but makes it prone to taking almost double the damage from Original cards;
Original, it boosts the Power and Resolve of a card, but Player cards lose more happiness upon the Character's demise.

This could mean that cards with almost the same Skill, Power, Resolve, and Emotion could be used in whole new ways than if they were just as they were.
This also allows for Plot Twist Cards to tag on various modifiers for a time, changing the battle considerably, even if there is a downside to the modifier.

Another thought that occurred to me is having the Players capable of some limited abilities. Some cards could flame a card, converting one of their stats into direct unhappiness for the targeted card. Others would be capable of self entertainment, which slightly raises happiness, but at the expense of being unable to play a card.

I hope you keep this up Patch! I like the idea for this, and would gladly play a round anytime.

Thanks for the support guys. I probably won't actually put pen to paper until this weekend on actual values, at which point I'll get to making some basic outlines of Player Cards and Character Cards. If anyone has some suggestions of common plot twists they've seen in roleplays or certain behaviours players have shown, feel free to suggest them.

Blargh, now you guys have made me start working on it now. Good job. :P

I like the idea of cliche and original cards. Would they be sub-types of Plot Twists or would they be their own individuals? Probably sub-types, as I'd have a hard time telling the two apart :P

I was also thinking world effects or location cards. Something like a change in weather, or moving to a forest or something that tweaks characters slightly.

One slight problem is I can't use actual people from RPG (D: I know!) because I don't want to offend anyone.

You could always ask people to sign up to have a character card made.

Ideas for common plot twists:

<> A character's ally is revealed to be a foe (Player looses one card, which is transferred to the opponent)
<> A character falls in love with an enemy character (killing this character does something bad to your players emotional value, or something)
<> The character is dreaming (the last turn of damage is undone)
<> The character discovers he is not normal, and indeed has special powers (add a value to a characters power/energy)

Those are a few off the top of my head.

I tried GIMP and after staring at it for five minutes I went, 'sod this, I'm using paint'.

Rawr paint!

This is the rawest basic form of the cards with nothing but information. Obviously they'd look lots more naturally nice later on, but for the moment you get the idea.



Lightning Bolt = Skill
Heart = Emotion
Thought Bubble = Creativity and Creativity Cost
Diamond = Power
Triangle = Resolve

Also forgot that we obviously totally have to have equipment.

Also also, along with original and cliche we could add in 'canon'.

Edit: And it can't fit on the page, and there could obviously be better symbols for everything. And flavour text. I love my flavour text.

Probably going to regret this, but I'm taking suggestions for cards now.

And now a proper example of the cards. This is for a concept deck or set called 'Playing With Your Heart', about players who are too attached to their characters and can have their roleplaying affected because of it.

With that in mind, I might make decks built around these themes, and there is no real way to tell which Player Cards owns which Character Card or Plot Device or whatever.



Great, now I'm going to be thinking about deck concepts all night.

Alright! I've done some stuff! Now to demonstrate it and explain the jokes attached!



The Modern Warfare deck would be based around NPC's.

NPC's are characters who can involve, fight and die and so on, but do not count as a character and do not cause happiness loss. Likewise, I'm planning to have a rule that players slowly lose happiness for not having a character on the field, to stop people from just biding their time.\

Stereotyped into this deck are Nation RPers, especially the gritty tough sort who show skills in combat and like the concept of war. They each have their own fields, but they have little happiness as they don't do much friendly interaction other then peace talks.

First is General Mayhem who is your usual nation RPer. He gets to call in artillery strikes for some reason. Not much thought put into this one.
Second is Admiral Effort, placed as a sci-fi RPer as admirals are associated with 'ships' like, space ships. Yeah? Yeah. Being into sci-fi means they can show more imagination with the technology they use, but sometimes their temper gets the better of them. I also threw in skill for no reason, which I think makes them the best in this deck.
Third is Major Disaster, the mech user and possible Gundam fan. Being a Gundam fan, they're here for the fun of it and don't quite have a sense for the tactics the others have, but like the Admiral they get to express a greater creativity in their characters.
Finally we have Corporal Punishment, a gritty serious soldier who likes the wide array of war and tactics.

On reflection, I should lower the emotion down to 2 for most of them, and probably 1 for Corporal Punishment, or you're going to lose half your Player Cards in a couple of deaths. Then again, this is comphensated by the use of NPC's and boosts they supply their characters/NPC's.


This brings us to deck number 2, Playing With Your Heart.


Playing With Your Heart is based around the concept of players who get too attached to their characters, and the various aspects of said characters. This is done with the Attachment quadruplets! A lack of skill but high emotion and high happiness is the prevalent trend in these sisters, due to them being too worried about losing their characters.

First there's Heartfelt Attachment, who should really have 1 more happiness then she does. Her ability is to simply negate other players Plot Devices so that it doesn't effect her characters.
Second is Fierce Attachment who gets upset when you do things she doesn't want, like targetting her characters with your smelly Plot Devices. Their second power is an extension of their influence, making them effect more people as they demand to!
Third is Gentle Attachment, the player who is deeply attached to their characters but is far too shy and polite to do anything about it if you target them. As a result, the most they can do is buffer the pain and try to keep their characters going through plot twists. Killing their characters or hurting them badly might make this player cry, so you should feel guilty!
Finally bubbly attachment is the player who insists roleplaying is about fun and is probably the happiest of the sisters because of it, making them the most likely to last until the end. But they can't do it alone! They need their friends to help them continue on.

So there we have it, Player Cards done for the first two planned decks.

If you have a deck you would like to see, suggest it, or if you want yourself or your character turned into a card ask, and I might do it some time.

I could probably get a few cards kicked out, full, finished, and glossed over.



Here's an example of an equipment card.

Okay, I figured out the resource system.

The creativity is a maximum amount. Each turn a player gets 1 creativity, capped at the creativity marked on their card. In addition, the rules for Player Cards quitting has changed.

When a Player Card quits, they can still contribute their creativity for characters and plot devices. However, they cannot use their powers and have 0 emotion and 0 skill. Their happiness can not drop below 0.


Barney, looks good to me. Did you make that card specifically for here or did you have it from something else? Also, did you use a card generator?
The background art on the cards might interfere with the text a bit, and it looks pretty stylised towards sci-fi.

If you could make cards I'd feel obliged to make a full Aschen Deck, but I'm planning to try to make 4 decks before I start making stuff on request. I want it to be playable first, then I'll muck around with it. :P


What else... If anyone else has a suggested design layout for cards, I'd appreciate it. If not, it'll be me working in GIMP and Paint. Woo, Paint!

Patch, we should seriously make a deck revolving around RPG. XD

I dun wanna offend people D:

EDIT: Characters can always do a basic Physical Melee attack, damage based off their skill with 0 power cost.

Well, i had the card background done to reflect the genre the card is in, I would use a fantasy-esque background for like a sword, scifi for tech, etc.

I did the entire thing in Photoshop, it took me ten minutes, and it was made specifically for this.

Can someone share an opinion on this:
Should characters that come from certain eras only be playable by player cards who have that roleplaying genre? Alternatively, should there be a skill penalty to characters from a genre they're not familiar with?

Not all characters will have a genre, allowing anyone to play them, but I'm just considering it as a gameplay mechanic.

Alright! Deck 1 finished!

I still don't have all the rules ready I would like (like rules to stop players from not playing characters so they never lose), but I have finished the first set and there is an outline for the rules.

And now I present the deck, Playing With Your Heart, focussed around the concept of damaging resolve, changing emotion and using buffs and negatives based off the emotions of characters and players.

Player Cards



Character Cards



Plot Devices



Card Numbers

Player Cards
Heartfelt Attachment
Fierce Attachment
Gentle Attachment
Bubbly Attachment

Character Cards
Thuggish Boyfriend x4
Girl Next Door x4
Protective Boyfriend x4
Alissa Glitterwing x2
Psychologist x3
Handsome Doctor x3
Michelle Ranger x2
Heartbreaker x3
Nice Guy x3
Blazing Phoenix x2

Plot Devices
Disagreement x4
Argument x4
Emotional Weakness x4
Love at First Sight x4
Undiscovered Power x3
Go Berserk x3
Dark Days x2
Losing Your Cool x2
Friendship Speech x2
Playing With Your Heart x2

24 cards later and I am pumped.

Er, did a last minute tweak, and I'm not sure if the numbers are cool anymore. I'll have to have a look over it.

Edit: Hooray Image Shack! Saviour when I am in need! Down with Photobucket!

Has this become a general tcg, or will there be chars from rpg?
I would like to know for card making.
Cause I was under the impression this was an RPG card game.

Sorry For the short and sweet I'm posting from iPod

No, its not a roleplay gateway card game, it uses roleplaying as the theme of the general TCG.

I've said it a couple of times so far, its because I don't want to offend people, because this is a serious game and making serious cards of real people will get them wondering why they got x value.

However, when I'm done with the basis, I will be doing requests.

I recall that the original idea took actual characters and users from the site and made them into cards, with the possibility of theme decks based around specific RPs being tossed around for a while. I like this direction a lot better, however. It abstracts itself from what people can come up with here, while still being heavy on the cliche stuff. As a bonus, it also sidesteps the "why didn't I get such and such" argument.

I'm not clear on the mechanics or terminology yet, but I imagine that a "cold and calculating" deck (in opposition to Playing With Your Heart, detailed above) would use lots of plot twists and emotion-draining effects at the start, buying time for the player to set up and unload a barrage of high-cost, high-power attacks to bring the hammer down. Instead of high starting creativity and happiness, the goal would be to derive happiness from destroying whatever your opponent puts into play, and leveraging that into a win.

It's meant to be more satirical of roleplaying trends and behaviour then an outright parody of people and characters. That is, if I'm using 'satirical' correctly. It also dodges clear favourtism I would have.

The mechanics I'll write out more clearly, maybe tonight. Right now I'm working on the Modern Warfare deck built around players who adore their NPC soldiers and military terms a bit too much.

That's why I want to make it clear that Admiral Effort is in no way meant to reflect barney_fife, but instead its meant to be a pun; 'admirable effort'.