Need suggestions for playcost in a CCG.

My first thought relates to the idea of a foundation, like the foundation of a ministry. The game would include some kind of "building blocks," like knowing people in the community, performing community service, what have you.

The "power" you would receive from this would have to do with how these building blocks connected together, building on each other to form considerable more power.

Here's a very rough thought about how it might work. Your deck might include some, say, cornerstones, the rock (upon which you'll build your house, as found in Matthew). These are the base level of power, and might represent making friends and meeting people in the community. They would be played on the lowest level of your foundation, in game terms as a horizontal row. They might provide 1 "power" of whatever kind each.

Then you'd be able to lay keystones on top of (above) them. These provide 3 "power" for your ministry, and might represent good works in the community, like feeding the hungry or building a shelter. In order to play a keystone you must have two cornerstones to lay it on.

The last level, the top, would be capstones. These might provide 6 or even 7 "power" each, and could represent things like building a church or school or orphange.

In building your foundation in the community, the end result would end up looking like a brick wall of sorts, with decreasing width as it rose, like a trapezoid. Something like:

<br />
    |Ca |<br />
  ---------   ---------<br />
  | K | K |   | K | K |<br />
-------------------------<br />
|Co |Co |Co |Co |Co |Co |<br />
-------------------------<br />

Where Co is Cornerstone, K is Keystone, and Ca is Capstone. You'd want to build your deck so that you had a good mix of these, as Cornerstones aren't all that powerful but a Keystone without two Cornerstones to support it would be unplayable, and a Capstone without two Keystones would be unplayable.

There might be different types of stones that matched or didn't match in various ways, to make it a bit "richer," but the idea, anyway, is to both provide some gameplay deckbuilding challenge as well as it being somewhat thematic.

So, then the person's power is used to bring their other cards into play, like most CCGs. Get your foundation built in the community and go forth in ministry.

Anyway, that's what popped into my head when I read your question.

-- Matthew

Hi and welcome to the forum.

- Why a CCG?
- Are you using anything else then cards (do you have markers, dice, miniatures or something else)?
- Will all players playing the same side (cooperative game?)? If not, what is the opposite side? What is the goal?
- You have to be very careful when you are using a religious theme. A lot of people wants to have there opinion about the game. On the other hand, there are very few religious themed games. In this forum I have only seen one and that is The 12 disciples by jwarrend. Outside this forum we have Hellgame (on the other side but still in the same mythology) and Anders Fager did a lot of research to get it right. 10 years ago I did see a Christian RPG but it disappeared directly (One bishopric episcopate in the Swedish church has created a RPG, that are used during the confirmation. That is fantasy based).

- One way could be to use the souls as mana (don’t use mana, try to find another word). Then the players has to sacrifice the soules they have saved to save new souls (could be a interesting mechanism ;) ).

- Dice in a "combat" situation feels wrong in a CCG. Still, dice could be used to see how many souls you fighting for this turn, or random events, but not in combat. You should try to limit the number of random sources in a game (at least for the same action). For every random source you add to the game, the player get more the feeling that they are out of control (the game is running it self).
Still, the right use of dice could work.

// Johan

Yeah, Cactus games' "The Mission" popped into my head when I heard your idea as well. I haven't played it, so I don't know anything about it. You should definitely check that out to see how someone else approached a similar idea.

I agree with Johan; why a CCG? What is it about CCG's that you like and want to replicate? Is it really the collectibility, the buying lots of booster packs hoping to get good cards, and "Mr. Suitcase"? (from a recent Steve Jackson interview) Or is it aspects like deck building, etc? If it's the gameplay aspects, you might consider a standalone game with CCG concepts. Games like Reiner Knizia's Scarab Lords have done this.

As for ideas on how the game should work, I have two comments. First, while I haven't played "The Mission", I can't say I have a lot of desire to, either. It sounds like it's just a simulation of real life, and who wants to play a game about that? Why not just live your life instead? On the other hand, if it inspires you to live a more fruitful or meaningful life, perhaps it's worthwhile, but it still doesn't mean that it's going to make for an interesting game. So that's a big hurdle you'll have to leap over -- making the game engrossing and worth playing.

Second, I agree with Johan that you have to handle this very delicately, even if you are yourself a believer. A game about getting people saved has to start from the premise that salvation is entirely in God's hands, and that you yourself cannot actually "save" someone. In that sense, the game should be more about trying to remove barriers that people have to hearing the gospel message. Presumably, these would be based on real situations (e.g, materialism, narcissism, etc), and in that way, if done well, the game could have a big impact in helping people to learn to minister more effectively in real life. But, it will probably hold little appeal for non-Christians. That's not a bad thing at all, just something to be prepared for.

Good luck with your game!

-Jeff

Also of note: it's very unchristian to try to keep someone else from helping to save someone, and incredibly unchristian to try to "unsave" someone (to retard the other player's progress). Both are natural types of things to do in a CCG, but would be incredibly inappropriate for the theme.

Creating a good Christian CCG is quite a challenge. I wish you luck!

-- Matthew

Part of the problem, I think, is that games are competitive by nature, and Christianity isn't (or isn't supposed to be). I was thinking a game like this, instead of earning souls, could earn glory for God, but even then, that's not something real-world christians are supposed to be competitive over. And to be true to the theme, you'd have to give all your glory back at the end of the game anyway :-).

Maybe it could be a cooperative game? Like Knizia's Lord of the Rings? The goal could be to earn glory for God -- partly by reaping souls, but also by other things.

Given the eternal/timeless nature of God, this game could have elements from all different points in history, even. Doesn't have to be just modern day.

Maybe some other aspects from the Bible can be brought in here instead of reaping souls -- rebuilding jerusalem's wall, the Ninevites repenting, Israel's journey to the promised land, Noah gathering the animals, Jacob wrestling God (or whatever that was), the 12 tribes prospering in Egypt, Sampson hacking up the Philistines (maybe not a family game), Daniel interpreting dreams...

After rereading, I guess I'm just rehashing what everyone else has already said. My bad. I'm still new here.

As for a resource mechanic, maybe each player can have a bunch of different attributes (Strength of WIll, Biblical Knowledge) that are each worth so many action points (or whatever). A player discards/turns over an attribute to use those points, and they can't use that attribute again until they've used all their others. Maybe certain attributes (biblical knowledge) can be more effective at removing certain obsticals (like intellectual objections).

Good luck with it.