Basic TCG

A Community Driven Basic TCG · By Viditya Voleti

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A topic by Viditya Voleti created Mar 31, 2021 Views: 1,141

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Viditya VoletiDeveloper3 years ago (6 edits) (+2)

Here is where the more fleshed out, but still malleable, rules for Basic TCG will live that can't fit on the quick reference! As the game grows, plays, and evolves I'll update them so they stay simple but sturdy. While these will have a few more rules that can make the experience easier to jump into or design with in-mind, know that the condensed rules are all you need!

Text in Italics are notes or suggestions that I'm adding as insight into the choice

We have 1 Hard and Fast Rule here: NO CONTENT CREATED FOR BASIC TCG CAN ENDORSE ANY FORM OF BIGOTRY OR HARMFUL WORDS, ACTIONS, OR SYMBOLS. IF YOU DO ANYTHING THAT HARMS MARGINALIZED GROUPS YOUR CONTENT WILL BE DELETED AND YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE.

BASIC RULES

Take turns playing cards and using actions until someone or something triggers the Scenario Card's End Conditions
Card Text overrules Basic Rules
- Ex: A card allows you to play an additional level 1 card on your turn, even though the Basic Rules say otherwise.
Draw a card at the beginning of your turn
You may play one Level 1 Card for free a turn
You may play a card facedown from your hand to turn it into a blank Level 1 Material card. Materials have no effects and cannot have their Levels modified like normal cards. They can be sacrificed to summon cards, and once discarded they are flipped face-up in the discard pile.
- These are a way to create Levels to summon cards if you don't have level 1s or 0s that can be raised up. A card played as a Material is basically just sacrificing fodder and that's why their level can't be modified, but card effects that specifically target Material can still modify how they are played!
To play a card you must sacrifice your cards in play whose total levels equal to or greater than the level of the card being summoned. Sacrificing a card acts as discarding them.
Each of your cards can make 1 Action a turn.
A card can act on the turn it was played.
Level changes stay as long as that card is in play. Level reverts back to the printed number when discarded, in your hand, or anywhere not considered "in play"
- The idea here is that you can grow low Level cards or have higher level cards slowly chip away damage. I would recommend some kind of token or mark-making to track levels as they change

Fill in the blanks of more rules as you go. Always be playing to have fun!
- This game exists as a community collaboration and at your table, so don't sweat the nitty-gritty until it comes up and pull rulings from your favorite TCGs to fill in the blanks. Things like hand size and what to do when your deck runs out are things I find more fun to let either Scenario Cards define or at the moment!

Cards

A card has:

Levels: To play a card you must sacrifice your cards in play whose total levels equal to its level or more. If a level goes into negatives it is discarded. The Level is akin to health, so damage, healing, etc affects Level.

A card can have:

Actions: These are _underlined words_ followed by an effect that can be triggered once a turn, one Action per card.
- Most actions should affect levels, drawing, or playing cards. Actions are an active choice to make on the card, a single action card can choose to do the thing, while multi-action cards can only do 1 of those actions a turn.
Passives: These are (parenthetical words) followed by an effect. They are always active.
- Most passives should react to Actions, prevent them, change how they are played from the hand, or other general ways that shift how the card interacts with the game.

Character(s): This determines whether or not a card is a valid target for when an ability targets a "Character" or "Characters." A card is considered to be a Character if it is depicted as being the individual(s) the card is referring to in its illustration. For example: Baby Dragon and Rat Princet would be considered Characters, while Moon Cult HQ and Counterspell would not, even though Counterspell has a figure in its illustration. If there is ambiguity in whether a card is considered a Character or not decide amongst all players at the table or ask a third party "is this a Character?"
- Most Characters are generally self-explanatory. If it looks like a thing that can act on its own, a character in a scene or in the world, then it is! Some strange creatures or even inanimate objects with some sort of autonomy may or may not be considered a character, depending on the table. If a card refers to itself as a Character then you must respect that.
Evil Levels: These are an alternative to the regular Levels that a card may have. Evil Levels do not require Level sacrifices to be played. Instead, to play a card with an evil Level, you must select a number of cards from your discard pile equal to or higher than the card's evil Level, and then remove those cards from the game ("banish" them). Other than that, Evil Levels work the same as regular ones.
- Evil Levels were first created by Wellman. Evil Levels allow for an alternative to play cards that aren't dependent on a specific ability. This means there's space for very sudden comebacks if someone's cards in play have been almost completely wiped, but they have evil-level cards in hand. It gets rid of the discard pile's potential so it still has a tangible cost. Can be used as a one-off gimmick for some decks or the prime gear in the clockwork for others.

Scenario Cards and End Conditions

Before play, agree on what Scenario Cards you will be playing with. A minimum of 1 is needed, but you may stack multiple if they work together. These cards will set the End Conditions of when a round is over and who takes it. Scenario Cards may also alter the basic rules of the game and a Scenario Card always overrules a basic rule exactly like card text.

The Standard Scenario is Act Threshold: Players set an Act Threshold for the game (somewhere between 10-20 I'm guessing). This is a number that when one side has total levels at or over the Act Threshold they take the round. This Scenario is focused on accumulating Levels on your side while keeping your opponent's Levels down, a battle to cross the Threshold.