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Double sided cards in a draw deck

7 replies [Last post]
Mon, 03/28/2011 - 11:32
ecfitzgerald
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Joined: 12/11/2010

My game has "Event" cards. These used to all be "screw" cards with a few relief cards and come victory points.

I have a need to have more relief cards, but I need them to also come up more frequently, and I don't want to have a huge event card deck.

I was thinking of having the cards double sided, with relief effects on one side, and the "screw" and victory points on the other. Then the cards would be left with the relief side up and the "screw" VP sides face down.

The cards have to be bought, so you would know half of what you are buying, and when you cards are fanned, one side would be visible to all the players, should be the same side that was up.

Does this seem to confusing?
Any other drawbacks?

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Tue, 03/29/2011 - 03:34
#1
kos
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Joined: 01/17/2011
Double-ended?

Having a "hand" of double-sided cards seems a bit odd to me. Astute players could memorize the combinations of good/bad sides, so by looking at your hand they would immediately know what was on the other side too.

Could you make the cards double-ended rather than double-sided?
That is, put the positive effect on the top half and the negative effect on the bottom half; when you play the card you place that end at the top to show which effect you want to activate.

Regards,
kos

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Tue, 03/29/2011 - 09:36
#2
ecfitzgerald
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Joined: 12/11/2010
That was my first thought

That was my first thought too, but it will mean getting ride of the theme text, or going to a very small print. But it is less weird to do double ended.

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Tue, 03/29/2011 - 10:02
#3
Markus Hagenauer
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Joined: 12/04/2009
Trigger the event on top of the pile

As long as there is a good mixture and no easy conclusion can be made about the "screw" side by seeing the "event" I´d say it is ok to have double sided cards.
If you want to make the "event" random instead of influenced by the player, don´t trigger the event it a player busy the card, but if the "event" is revealed when the card about it is bought / removed from the pile.

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Tue, 03/29/2011 - 18:40
#4
CloudBuster
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Joined: 04/14/2009
Two piles?

Since you don't want a huge event deck, would it be feasible to have two, decks? Either split the event deck into two piles, OR have a "Screw Deck" and a "Relief Deck". Since the players are buying the cards, you can buy from whatever deck you want and the other players will know where you're purchasing from. This might suck, or it might be interesting...I can't decide. I like the idea of just splitting the event deck into two piles.

Putting the screw or relief on each end of the card is also a good idea.

Hmmm.. You could also mix the event and relief cards into a giant pile, shuffle, and then deal out a certain number of event cards for the game you're playing. The ones you dealt are the only ones you use for that game, while the others go back into the box and are not used until you shuffle and play again.

-CB-

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Sun, 04/03/2011 - 00:13
#5
InvisibleJon
InvisibleJon's picture
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Joined: 07/27/2008
Buy "relief" with screw (or vice-versa)

Another option: Keep the uniform back and add a "relief" value to the face of the card that has the "screw" text on it. You can use a card for its screw value, or you can cash in one or more cards for their "relief" value. When you cash in for relief, you could:

a) Roll on a chart and add the relief value you cashed in. You can take any one result at the level you rolled or lower.
b) Reference a chart of relief effects and buy one relief effect that costs as much or less than the value of relief you cashed in.
c) Spend those points to buy one or more relief effect(s) from a chart of relief effects.
d) Spend those points to activate relief effects from items you control, powers you have in play, or that are a function of the space you're in.

All of the above effects focus on creating a parallel economy of "relief effects" that the players have access to in one way or another. Things you can play with for this are:
* Do all players have access to the same relief effects or are some effects limited to some players?
* Do players start with access to relief effects? (like character powers)
* Can players "earn" or "lose" access to relief effects during the course of play?
* Is there a limited supply of one, some, or all relief effects during play? Can they be exhausted? If they can be, does each player have a pool of effects, or is it a shared pool?
* If relief effects are limited to players, can they swap them?

If you go this route, you could go the same route with the "screw" effects and build a "screw" economy. At that point, your cards become kind of plain with text like, "3 screw, 7 relief," on them. However, you can still put special effects on the cards or give them bonuses ("4 screw, 6 relief, +2 if used on the player on your right").

Time for bed. I hope your game turns out the way you want it to!

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Sun, 04/03/2011 - 12:10
#6
hulken
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Joined: 04/18/2009
if you only have ahandfull

if you only have ahandfull of double sided cards why not turn them into counters/tiles, that way you can put them in a cloth bad and draw them.

Having onley a fue double sided card I think have the drawback of giving the player who have memoriced the backsides of the cards an distinct advantage.

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Mon, 04/11/2011 - 19:42
#7
ecfitzgerald
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Joined: 12/11/2010
Well I think I m going to try

Well I think I m going to try the double ended cards. Though I think the ideas here all have their points. The game is space based, so I think the tiles/bag is anti-thematic, but in another setting could be very thematic.

As for the memorization issue, what I have, even though they are double-ended so not as important is this. 6 relief and 6 screw cards, and made 6 sets, so 36 cards with all the screws and relief combos paired. Though if this were double sided card counting would be pretty easy.

This is costing me theme on the cards aside from background graphics, but I could probably go to a smaller font.

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