Disclaimer: This blog is merely my opinion. You may have better solutions, but the purpose of this is for people to try and spark their imaginations to find bigger, better designs for their games.
Card Drawing.
It happens in all games that have cards. It's the bread and butter of these games; it's even in my game. Wholly constructed, but beautifully randomized, drawing cards gives a sense of strategy, but puts it in a package of pure randomness. It's the marriage of thought and chaos.
But what is the practical reason for drawing cards?
I mean, imagine a fantasy battlefield. Two magicians are fighting each other with magic. They have this book of spells they've constructed themselves and they use it, one page at a time, front to back, and for some reason it's arranged randomly...sounds weird.
If you're a wizard in a battlefield, you should have all of your spells at your disposal. It doesn't come out in pages randomly, but we've come to think that a random draw is somehow practical.
But is there a way to make card drawing practical and not make it feel weird?
Let's explore this.
Mage Wars is a game that takes spell casting to a practical level. All your spells are at your disposal...in fact, you cast it straight from a "spell book" that you create. You control which spell is cast, there is no randomness.
But this is not Mage Wars...and I'm certainly not trying to promote that game. I'm just mentioning this because it's an example of a different, yet practical solution to card drawing...which isn't really card drawing at all.
So...what does drawing mean?
Let's break it down. Drawing is a random gain of information from a deck to which you know everything inside (considering you've either constructed the deck yourself, or have played/examined the deck enough to know the cards).
We don't work in a way that draws information on a random basis. We either have to 1) adjust the way gain information to fit drawing randomly from a deck or 2) we have to adjust the mechanic to match our way of thinking.
1) Adjusting how you gain information:
-What if you had amnesia? As you played the game, you gain parts of your memory back and therefore drawing cards actually makes sense; your "pulling" represents the random acquisition of your memories and your brain is essentially the deck. Maybe making a game about escaping a facility and you start off with amnesia...gaining parts of your memory as you try to escape.
-What if you're in a post-apocalyptic world and drawing cards represented finding items as you're wandering the land? Essentially the "land" would be the deck and "drawing" represent your findings as you wander it.
-Change the theme a bit and now you're a new captain on a messy ship. You don't know where anything is at, but your ship represents the deck, the items inside it represent its cards, drawing represents you "finding" these items as you search your ship looking for stuff as you're being attacked. You could even separate the decks into levels of the ship ("decks" representing "decks").
-What if the deck were commands from an authority and you had to adjust your strategy to the events?
2) Adjusting the mechanic to match our thinking:
-Just like Mage Wars, putting all the spells in a spell book that you construct and you have control over which spell you cast. It takes the randomness out of the equation, but the gameplay seems more practical.
-Stacks of cards. Imagine a fighting game. When you're in a fight, you're thinking of what to "do". You look at their position and you plan a strategy. Imagine each deck as a body part (arm, head, legs, torso, etc.). You draw from the deck...or you draw 2 or 3, then choose the strategy you want to execute. It..."feels" more realistic. At least it is to me; I've practiced Jiu Jitsu and I'm always thinking of particular strategies when I'm fighting someone; but it comes kind of randomly depending on my training.
-Same idea as stacks, but simplified. Imagine wizards on a battlefield. Your spell book is the deck, but separated into "offensive" and "defensive" spells. The problem is that you're also fighting with swords (or something really fast), so much so that you're frantically trying to cast spells; all you know is where the offensive and defensive spells are at. This gives the player the choice on which spell to find, but because the battle is so fast, you're just taking the first spell that you can find.
-Actually "constructing" the deck. I mean you literally place which order your cards are in. Sounds a little too random as far as interaction with an opponent doing the same thing, but it does make the deck more of a "program", and the randomness of the interaction of cards can create a semblance of fun (more like chaotic fun). Think "Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magical Carrot", but far more random and complicated. You can really get deep with "if/then" statements, "while", and "condition" cards. Hmm...
Of course, you can just say, "Just draw a card" and that's that. But to put card drawing into a more practical setting makes it easier for new players to "get" and makes it a more immersive experience for the advanced player.
Whatever you decide is up to you. Happy designing!
