CCG Combat Design

Well, to kick things off, Gizoogle is funny as shit. Or would that be shizzle?

Anyway, I would like to welcome you to another topic on card game design: Combat

Combat occurs in virtually every collectable card game ever made. Sure there are plenty of card games that are based around locations and plots and situations, but all of them (that I can think of anyway, or have read about) feature character or avatar-based combat.

Combat can generally be broken down to its barest bones by the following: Combat is when two card-based avatars compare stats. Based on whomever is favored, the loser is then discarded or suffers some ill effect.

God, that was a lame definition.

The point is, whether you?re dueling with superheroes or space machines, combat defines how most of your game will be determined, as a huge chunk of the gameplay itself is just combat. Now combat can be determined as to who ?wins? and who ?loses?, but other games take a different approach. Here is how some games use combat:

? In Bang! you are represented by a character type avatar, such as sherrif, etc, complete with life points. Players directly attack you with effects from cards in their hand.

? In Mechwarrior you attacked your opponent?s deck instead of their characters. The strategy here is not so much destroying an opponent?s characters but shutting them down or out-racing their abilities.

? In Legend of the 5 Rings there are multiple combat steps including challenges/duels along with ?regular? combat. The strategy here is the ability to single out two characters to battle, along with the detractors/benefits of being able to choose whether or not to do so.

? VS System has the ?Initiative? marker to help with its everyone-takes-the-same-turn system, allowing each player to choose what characters to attack with and which to leave behind to use as blockers + special abilities. ?Tapped? characters may block, so it?s not really a question of do they attack or not in regards to not leaving an open alley for your opponent to smash through.

? Magic has your basic turn-based system, and Tapped characters cannot block unless an effect lets them do so. The strategy here is deciding whether an attack is ?worth it? as your opponent may have a trick to let them win thanks to your greed.

So we have multiple combat steps, we have a different way to go about combat (e.g, deck destruction), and we have combat tied into how the game itself is structured. The point is that when creating a combat phase, you want to have more than a single number determining who wins and who loses. I was mired in this just the other day.

You see, there are plenty of stats that you can rely on in terms of combat. One of the reasons I absolutely hated Cyberpunk 2025 was because it had a TON of math in terms of combat. Add these figures. Subtract by X. Multiply by X. Then divide based on mission number. Etc etc. I didn?t play this game to learn algebra, I play to have fun.

Say it with me peeps: Any combat math beyond simple addition and subtraction is no fun.

Doubling/tripling a number is fine (ie, ?Target creature?s power is doubled?), but any division, multiplication, and god forbid fractions, are ridiculous and have no place in a card game beyond Unglued/Unhinged (Magic ?fun? sets that can?t be used competitively).

So with that said, if you wish to design a CCG, one of the first hurdles you must face is combat. Don?t worry so much about creatures or personalities or entities in the game. What you must worry about is combat and/or any phase that requires a lot of back-and-forth involvement from the players of said game. As combat is usually the most involved both players get during a single game (otherwise they?re basically playing Really Tough Solitaire), you want to make sure that it is as enjoyable and interesting as possible.

I learned this lesson the hard way: after hundreds of cards I designed, I still wasn?t 100% on my chosen combat method, and are now forced to rewrite a huge amount because I changed my mind. It is a lesson I will never forget. Combat could be the single biggest design hurdle, after winning conditions, that any card game faces.

Tomorrow: How to approach combat, what some card games have done (beyond those examples shown), and perhaps an exercise in creating a combat system.