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Global or Local decks?

6 replies [Last post]
Sat, 01/21/2017 - 14:04
Tbone
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I am starting to pull away from the "build your own decks and duel" type of card games. Don't get me wrong, I like them a lot and it is interesting, but it does have it's limitations.

For some of my current projects I have players drawing, not from a local deck (they can only draw from their deck), but global decks (decks everyone can choose from).

My argument is that global decks allow players to have a chance at tasting all of the game they have bought during any given game. This is contrasted to games where you have a local deck and almost never use the cards from the other players' deck.

Which do you prefer?
Draw backs (PUN!) to Global drawing?
Draw backs (Another PUN!) to Local drawing?
Is a hybrid of the two better?
Are there any games you know of that do a good job of incorporating both?

What are your thoughts team?

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Sat, 01/21/2017 - 18:34
#1
questccg
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I'll give you one example

Originally "Tradewars - Homeworld" was going to be sold using a 1 Player Game Set business model. The game was Deck-Building with Set Collection and a bit of Take-That. The thinking was that Kids could bring their own sets and play the game together... In this case all cards would be LOCAL and would always remain a part of your play area - and opponents could not touch your cards.

Well the business model was "flawed".

Now the new model is a four (4) Player Big Box Set. It's the more familiar business model for one to four players. Since you are buying ONE (1) Big Box, this changed the rules about "sharing" cards. As such we were able to open up the game a little and allow players to intermingle cards from their sets.

Of course the game is fundamentally the same and uses the same cards, but it is different in that up to four (4) players can play and "share" cards among the players.

So even if we are preserving the "local" area for cards, we have extended this into allow intermixing of cards because of the four (4) Player Big Box Set.

In a way, we are doing both:

1. Local for most aspects of the game (since this was how it was originally)
2. Global for allowing "sharing" of cards during a game

Therefore the NEW "Tradewars - Homeworld" Big Box Set is a HYBRID (mostly local with a little global). The "sharing" of cards is different and also sort of a breaking of the original rules. But in this new business model, sharing is possible and it can occur when using the "Smuggler" Role!

Just some cause and effect - and how the game has changed...

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Thu, 01/26/2017 - 01:43
#2
Bylhyllaz
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Joined: 12/28/2013
The local deck can serve 2 roles

I definitely see what you're saying about not having "wasted cards" in a sense that a given player isn't using, but I think the local deck can serve 2 purposes.

First, it can give the game variability - you see this in any game that has a "pick X out of Y options" scenario, which includes most deckbuilding games. If you have all the cards in every game, you have the potential for the game to get old faster.

Second, I think having at least some local cards accomplishes the same goal as having player powers - it lets each player feel special.

I think that because of these, having at least a component of local can be beneficial, and is something I haven't seen in as many games. One that comes to mind as doing a good job of combining these is Nightfall, a deckbuilding game in which a certain number of cards are public and can be bought by everyone, but each player also has 2 cards that only they can buy.

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Thu, 01/26/2017 - 08:03
#3
JohnBrieger
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Deckbuilders

I would argue the hybrid of the two is the deckbuilder genre. Players build their own personal (local) deck during the game by buying cards out of a public (global) market. At the end of the game, all the cards go back in the game box. I can own an expansion that we might put in the market during our session, but I take my cards all back with me, and our experience is the same whether I own the expansion or if you own it.

I don't know your level of familiarity with different games, but if you haven't played any deckbuilders before I would recommend playing Dominion (as it popularized the genre) and Star Realms (which is a more conflict heavy, newer take on deckbuilding).

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Thu, 01/26/2017 - 10:54
#4
Havok12
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Joined: 01/17/2016
Resident Evil Deckbuilding

Resident Evil Deckbuilding game works along those lines Tyralis. You buy cards from a global market to build your own deck iteration for that particular game. It's a good economic solution, i.e. an easier sell to convince one person to buy a 4-player game then to convince four to each buy a 1-player set so they can play together.

Of course games where you buy and maintain your own cards, like Magic, are probably a lot more lucrative if you can overcome that convince 4 vice convince 1 problem. They strike me a lot like in-app purchasing in today's tablet games, you always need boosters of the latest sets to stay current, so every player continues to be a revenue stream as long as they play as opposed to making one purchase and then owning the "game" from then on.

I prefer the global deck option myself, but I have spent no shortage of cash on Magic over the years, so I have to caveat that those games can also be really interesting.

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Fri, 01/27/2017 - 08:03
#5
Daggaz
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Tyralis wrote:I would argue

Tyralis wrote:
I would argue the hybrid of the two is the deckbuilder genre. Players build their own personal (local) deck during the game by buying cards out of a public (global) market. At the end of the game, all the cards go back in the game box. I can own an expansion that we might put in the market during our session, but I take my cards all back with me, and our experience is the same whether I own the expansion or if you own it.

This is also my preferred setup, and it has the marketing advantages already outlined in this thread that you aren't hamstrung by the requirement that all your players have bought into the game individually; it is hard enough with the board game market in general, but good luck breaking in on MTG's market share following the same business model.

The mechanical advantages are also nice. At the same time that you allow all players equal access to the full spectrum of the deck, you can control the distribution to varying degrees to the individual players, this can be a corner piece of your game mechanics or a more subtle method simply to enforce game balance.

I think psychologically this works better as well. One player owns the game, but is already consigned to the fact that other people will hold his property if he wants to play. On the other side of the spectrum, I've seem MTG players who encase their cards in resin and would probably prefer to play behind safety glass before they ever deigned to allow another person to so much as pick up one of their cards to read the text.

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Sun, 01/29/2017 - 03:44
#6
radioactivemouse
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Joined: 07/08/2013
Imperial Settlers

Tbone wrote:
I am starting to pull away from the "build your own decks and duel" type of card games. Don't get me wrong, I like them a lot and it is interesting, but it does have it's limitations.

For some of my current projects I have players drawing, not from a local deck (they can only draw from their deck), but global decks (decks everyone can choose from).

My argument is that global decks allow players to have a chance at tasting all of the game they have bought during any given game. This is contrasted to games where you have a local deck and almost never use the cards from the other players' deck.

Which do you prefer?
Draw backs (PUN!) to Global drawing?
Draw backs (Another PUN!) to Local drawing?
Is a hybrid of the two better?
Are there any games you know of that do a good job of incorporating both?

What are your thoughts team?

Have you played Imperial Settlers? It not only has a global deck that all players draw from, there's also a specialized deck for each player they draw from as well.

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