Trading Card Game

What is The Dresden Files? The Dresden Files is a series of fantasy/mystery novels written by Jim Butcher. He provides a first person narrative of each story from the point of view of the main character, private investigator and wizard Harry Dresden, as he recounts investigations into supernatural disturbances in modern-day Chicago. Butcher's original proposed title for the first novel was "Semiautomagic", which sums up the series' balance of fantasy and hard-boiled detective fiction. Wikipedia Description

What is The Dresden Files? TVTropes Description A horror/fantasy/mystery series of novels, twelve and counting plus associated short stories and comic miniseries and the like, by Jim Butcher. Harry Dresden is a wizard and private detective operating out of modern day Chicago, and reluctantly hired by a special police task force as a consultant on supernatural crimes. A cross between urban gothic fantasy and Film Noir, the Genre Savvy main character cracks jokes about the various tropes it uses.

Why a TCG? I wanted to learn what it goes into making a playable card game that’s more complicated than the standard 52- card deck Played card games most of my life, and most recently CCGs and TCGs An amazing RPG had already been created Ease of adapting the setting to a game

Deck Rules Decks are created with cards you have collected (hence Collectible Card Game). You may not have more than 4 of any one card. You must have between 40 and 60 cards, plus 1 extra card designated the “Hero.” It is suggested that Resource cards take up at least 1/3 of the deck (13-24 cards).

Types of Cards Resources –Magic, Investigation, Influence, Assets Evocation –Quick and dirty “boom” magic Thaumaturgy –Slow and powerful ritual magic Creatures –Nameless frontline beings and named characters from the series

Types of Cards, cont’d Quests –Side goals for long-term gain Equipment –Items to be used by creatures Events –Occurrences that affect the game once

How Do You Play? 1)Draw a card 2)Place up to 1 Resource card from your hand into play 3)Play up to 1 mundane and 1 magic card from your hand (must be able to pay the cost, if any) 4)Pay for, and activate, the abilities of any cards in play 5)Attack with creatures

The “Hero” One creature is designated the “Hero” of the deck. This protagonist card is set aside at the beginning of play. At any time, the player may pay the Hero’s cost to bring him or her into play. If a protagonist is reduced to 0 HP, they are set aside again and may be brought back for an increased cost (2 extra of any resource). This additional cost is cumulative. At any time the player has at least 2 Protagonist cards in play, they may designate any one of them to be the “Hero.” Any protagonists that have been the “Hero” before may not become the “Hero” again.

Other Rules Each player begins the game with 10 Hit Points (HP). Players may only take damage if no Protagonists are in play. Attacking players choose which creatures to attack (defaulting to the player when no that player controls no creatures). Defending players have the option of not bringing a creature or Protagonist into combat, but suffer the attacker’s damage to their HP instead.

Other Rules, cont’d Creatures or Protagonists that die, any cards that have instructions to “discard,” or any card that is killed, destroyed, or anything similar, is sent to the discard pile and may not be played again (excluding cards that say otherwise, as well as the “Hero,” as described earlier). At the beginning of your turn, you gain resources equal to the number and type of resource cards you have in play, as well as any abilities you activate to give you more. These resources last until the beginning of your next turn.

Other Rules, cont’d To “pay” a card or ability’s cost, you lose the resources you gained equal to the cost. For example, if you have 2 magic and 1 investigation card in play, you begin your turn with exactly that. If you wish to play a card with a cost of 1 magic, you may do so, and you continue your turn with 1 magic and 1 investigation resource remaining. If that is all you do for the turn, you retain those resources during your opponent’s turn (for potentially being used to interrupt your opponent). Additionally, you may pay 2 resources in order to gain 1 of any resource until the end of your turn.

Game Development Initial creation of the cards for the two decks. Play-testing. Introduction of new/modified rules. Player-testing. Final editing of cards.

What Did Play-Testing Reveal? The card game was inspired by another CCG/TCG, Magic: The Gathering. Thus, a lot of the initial rules were similar, if not copied from, MTG. Play-testing revealed that the created cards, as well as some rule changes that had been introduced, slowed the game down to a much slower pace than is present in MTG. Arguably a good thing, this largely embraced and a few rules were removed or modified to allow the game to progress a little bit quicker. Additionally, it was found that preventing the player from being hit until his creatures were destroyed made any amount of damage to the player trivial. Thus, player health was lowered to make damage more significant.

Modified / New Rules 2-for-1 Resource exchange Card abilities may be activated upon playing card, rather than 1 turn later (as happens in MTG) Players have 10hp instead of 20hp

Other Changes Many cards were adjusted to better support the deck they were designed for. Other cards had values modified in order to better reflect their costs.

Questions?