System: The Customisable Hacker Card Game!

- Variables no longer have the Quick and Normal Sub-Types.

- All Variables are to be activated from the player's hand and can do so any time during either player's turn (except for the Call Phase) unless stated otherwise.

- Creatures called to defend are no longer discard to the discard pile and are now instead returned to the defending player's hand if the attack was unsuccessful. If the attack were successful all defending creatures along with the original target creature are destroyed.

CCG = MTG = Social Stigma! :P

Anyway,

It doesn't make use of resources in the same way as M:TG, Pokemon or a few other games where they exist as an external entity (Lands, Energy, Locations). Your creatures in this game are your resources (as well as your creatures) and are therefore much more liable to destruction.

There is no limit to how many (Positive) resources you can play per turn unlike in other games where you can only play 1 Land/Energy/Location per turn creating a quite slow-paced game, which sometimes can drag.

There is a risk involved in using up all the resources (positive value) in Libra. In M:TG if you are to have all your lands end up tapped during your opponent's turn, you end up relatively defenceless. This isn't true for Libra, I can still defend myself if my BV is at 0 during my opponent's turn through the use of calling creatures to defend or the effects of variables, however Libra then punishes that player for leaving no room in his BV to pay for Variables by destroying a number of his offensive creatures. Essentially giving a high-risk to full on aggressive strategies and forcing players to conserve resources and Spare BV until it is really needed instead of spending it to swarm, or to use a derogatory term "derp" their creatures out onto their field.

M:TG uses Spell Speeds of Sorcery, Instant and Interrupt, My game has done away with Spell Speeds. They seem to me to be quite unnecessary in the over-all scheme of things, I'm not saying it is bad concept, just that it is unneeded. I would like the players in this game to be able to react at given time if needs be, I don't want players to be constricted outside of the BV System. There is the exception of course, were neither players can activate any variables during the Call Phase.

This point isn't overall relevant to M:TG but in other games, you can choose to attack a player or a creature and the defending player can call creatures to defend or so I believe. In this case, the defence of the called creatures are added to the attack creature usually, however in my game if I were to block a negative creature with one of my Positive creatures, the negative creature's value would get deducted (instead of added) from the defending creatures value, this essentially making the stronger your offensive/negative creature is, the harder it is to defend, once again forcing this situation on players where they should conserve them until needed.

As for why someone would want to play this over M:TG. It is intended for both the new comer to CCGs with the use of simple rules and the hard core gamer with complex card interactions (especially due to the lack of Spell Speeds, which I believe gives it somewhat of a unique edge)

I want people who have never played card games, be able to play this game, I've seen many people interested in CCGs before only to be scared away by the over-abundance of information they had to learn. I want to keep it simple, Easy to learn & hard to master is the motto I'm working from.

So is it unique enough from M:TG? or should I try to find more to prove that?

Simply, Risk. This is a question that really comes down to Player interaction, punishing each other for over-extension.

For example, a large positive with many small negatives, in this case the player's balance value is more inflexible than flexible and is suspect-able to attempts of their opponent trying to force a remedy (such as using the card Bounce*)

Whereas with the risks in strategy with many small positives and one large negative are

- Larger the (negative) creature, the harder it is to defend, so provided your opponent has enough BV, they could call a creature of equal or greater strength and attack it. Of course the defending player may choose to defend it but with the risk of losing many small positive balance creatures and therefore possibly being forced into a position where he would have to perform a remedy on his field, which could very well mean taking out the big Negative creature(s) in the end anyway.

As a card game, It has it's problems with luck, just as in MTG you could draw all or no lands (possibly for turns on end.) Overall, I'm trying to debate this game with a small deck size, of maybe 40/30 to improve general consistency.

Well one, your opponent is allowed to defend with any of their PBV's of their choice, which wouldn't get destroyed after successful defence but would return to the defending player's hand after that battle. This should slow down game play relatively enough without creating some form of invincible wall.

Generally I'm going to work on the basis that all creatures can inflict 1 Critical damage to a player, regardless of their BV.

On another note, changing to Hacker/Data theme offers plenty of options for flavour such as

Players = Hosts
Decks = PCs (Personal making so much sense)
Play Zone = Matrix
Calling Creatures = Loading Data or Programming Code
Discard Pile = Spam Folder or Recycle Bin

We also have some icon uses such as
Cursor = Target/Select
Del/Thrash Can = Destroy/Discard

Any other thoughts?

This is where Negative Balances coming up, you also bounce for defending (successfully) so you'll have to choose between defending, activating variables or sacrificing your offensive negative forces to do both. Like Mana in MTG it's is intended to be a recurring resource.

I'll refer to the two points in the above post;

Reason to play Positive 1's is for Flexibility in playing Variables.

Reason to play negative 1's is for overwhelming defence forces. (You have 4 NBV 1's and your opponent has 3 PBV, your opponent will still get 1 hit in to your life)

This is an area where playing conservatively is rewarded with the Negative aspect (save your offensive critters to launch an ambush at once)

I have been thinking over the whole Bouncing = Tapping thing and I could probably use the idea of tapping them but I would have to add rules about how tapped creatures can't attack, defend or counts toward the owner's BV. The Bouncing, while effectively only to show exhausted cards, helps simplify the rules in general.

Thank you, the theme is only a general idea for now and it isn't really a huge deal. This game was created with only the system in mind and that's been my main focus throughout.

Are you suggesting like Negatives that slow me down? (Once per turn, I'd have to discard something to keep one alive or That I have to hit my opponent twice before landing 1 Damage on him etc;?)

Yes. This is where conservation comes into play, where players build up there PBV first until they can swarm/overwhelm the opponent with their NBV. I don't understand why you think I suggested to drop your attacking forces before doing anything else.

This is where Variables and other such cards come in as a means to extra defence. As well as PBV's defending other PBVs. I could probably change the frame work of the game to gives PBVs a generally stronger power then NBV's (eg. NBV being a range of -1 to -3 whereas PBV being a range of 3 to 5.) Again though, Conservation & Variables should help deal with it.

Again, Conservation is key, your assuming everything the defending player had was laid out on the field, which is in most games generally a bad idea. The system here isn't just to restrict players but also to punish players from moving too fast and risky. There's a good chance he had other creatures in hand waiting to be played

This post is unclear and contradictory because

The problem here is more likely to be attributed to Card Design, rather than Game design, giving a lower range to the offensive creatures and a higher range to the defensive creatures might hopefully create some balance. In the evolving game, there should be more powerful cards that, well blow a lot of stuff up and their existence hopefully would be used to keep players playing conservative and smart. Instead of risking everything on one move.

5, 30, 3, 0.20-1.00

I only referenced MTG on a theme-based level, not a game-based level. I'm somewhat versed in MTG but only as a Casual Player.

Anyway, with all of the above said and really and truly don't know anything till I get some play testing in.

Thought about it a bit; Here is one idea draft;

What this new thought was each player starts off with Core's or Chip cards. That have some form of X Balance Value themselves and that you have to aim to decrease the BV of that Core to a negative value, at which point you control it. Your opponent can of course reclaim it by returning it to a PBV. Then basically, the game goes on like that, whoever either has the most Core's by the end of the game or has overtaken all of the Core's wins. (The Core's might have effects themselves, maybe even two, one active under the owner and the other active under the opponent, who then, keeping in line with the theme, has some influence over your opponent's actions.

Of course this is just one idea but I wonder if there is more I could look at.

Original Post updated with Revised Game Play. Also with more thematic terminology.