Deadlands / Doomtown survey

[matgb]

Dude. Dude!. Pinnacale have switched to Wordpress as a CMS, and have a nice little survey going. What games have you played of ours, and, um, what would you like to buy next. One of the options is a CCG.

Pinnacle want to know if we'd like a Deadlands themed CCG.

Now, my ever humlbe and loving friends list. Don't all queue up at once. Go tell them yes. Now. PLZKTHX.

And for those wondering what the hell I'm talking about, and those wondering where my icons/personal avatar bloke come from, that'd be it. Doomtown. Best damned CCG ever released.

Which reminds me, really ought to mail them anyway to check out if they can give me any image files for the new DT site I'm sortof building in the background...

Comments

[mapp.livejournal.com]

Here's hoping that they go "let's remake Doomtown!" then, as it's just about the only CCG that I've managed to enjoy playing enough to really get into.

[matgb]

If they remade it, it would likely be a major remake, there are lots of things I'd do different, and I'm not a full on games designer.

Blessing and curse is David Williams is gone from the industry; great ideas man, but not the best at implementing rules wot make sense...

[granjero.livejournal.com]

Agreed, me and Laurence discussed the changes we'd make a while back. Down to six factions, unify all spells in to a single type, completely rewrite movement...

[matgb]

Um, was I in on that conversation, or have we got exactly the same plan without talking about it?

I'd also switch it so that most characters are non-unique, as the unique rules really mess up mirror matches in a bad way and can make the game Not Fun.

[shakalooloo.livejournal.com]

Even L5R has done away with Unique characters being one per game (each player can have a copy of each Unique in play), so I see no reason why Doomtown 2 couldn't do the same.

They just need to prevent any cards that make up a Dead Man's Hand from being any good - making a deck capable of pulling it off regularly should have disadvantages, not access to stuff like Jackelopes and Kidnapping...

[matgb]

That I didn't know, not been paying attention to L5R.

I'd not make DMH really bad, but nowhere near as good as it was for sure. I can remember when the game came out all the DMH cards were really sucky, which made it a bit dull; you want to see it doable, but you want to hurt it a bit as well.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Especially since a DMH deck is a shootout deck, by definition - gee, you've thrown in Out Of Ammo and Human Shield?

There were some cards that are so flatly broken that they're unofficially banned from the online version of the game - Start Again, and Lost Angels: Guardian Angels, for example. Flight Of Angels and Who Are You Again were flatly vicious, but could be worked around - but Jackalope Stampede was probably the nastiest "regular" card in the game. If you don't build your deck around avoiding Jackalope Stampede, you're dead- especially since when it comes up in a shootout, you lose the shootout AND all the cards that the Stampede makes you discard, and it also comes up on Lowball. Even with a mostly-legal deck, if you're not playing straight Kansas City Rules a Stampede will eventually hit a hand where you don't have a choice to go legal (like lowball) and a bit of bad luck will take out 2-3 cards in play - which is often half of what you've got.

(My playing group always changed Jackalope Stampede: Discard any card, pull the top 5, that's your new hand, period. That makes it nasty but much less broken.)

[matgb]

I've, actually, never had a real problem with Start Again, and I've seen decks that can do better playing against it (OK, it helps if oyu can card count when doing so, I can't).

OTOH, I liked Jackelope as is because it's a great limiter on excessive cheating decks. Once played an interesting person who had built a deck that consisted of only aces, 8s and jacks.

He had to ditch his entire deck. Fortunately it was a pre-tournament game, and I sat with him and rebuilt it, else he'd have died. He had the bunnies in his deck, he just didn't twig they'd also be used against him.

Weird how different groups develope; most I'm aware of think the two closest to broken homes are Sioux Spirit Warriors and the original Blackjacks, with most Sweatrock homes also in there, never been that worried about Angels.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Uh, are we thinking of the same Start Again? The one that annihilates your entire revealed hand, utterly and irrevocably?

The one that takes 5 cards out of your deck, either at randomly (lowball) or from your shootout hand, and makes them completely inaccessible?

I've *never* seen a deck that can expect to survive two or three of those in a game unless it's so completely dominant that the game is long over before that point, and the only defense is to *never* cheat.

And part of the problem with Jackalopes was that they were so random that it wasn't much fun - a good, usually non-cheating deck could still lose 3 cards in a row on lowball on turn 1, which is game over. Sure, they annihilated the "all-twos" decks, as it should be, but they were a card where if neither you nor your opponent used them, you were fine. If your opponent used them and you didn't, you either tooled to avoid them or lost - and if you tooled to avoid them, you got destroyed by an opponent who *didn't* tool to avoid them, because you didn't use them.

Finally, the problem is that they really were a relatively rare card, and not all the players *had* the cards to retool their deck to avoid this brand new cheater. If you didn't spend loads of money on cards, you were pretty screwed since you didn't have the alternates.

(Spirit Warriors: It came out after most of the Doomtown playing died, locally. Still, without things like Brawl, it really wasn't that bad. Blackjacks original: What the hell was wrong with that? Sweetrock: Yeah, nasty, but *nothing* like Guardian Angels.)

The Lost Angels home I'm thinking of isn't the original, it's the Guardian Angels add-on home - the one that buffs your blessed by a pile, and holds three cheating cards under it, to be played *from the home* any time you want. *ANY* three cheating cards - and since they don't go into your deck, you don't have to worry about them screwing up your hands.

[matgb]

Ah, right, never played GA properly, I just made sure the card was worded correctly, didn't get to balance it.

But yes, same Start Again. Major tournament in SoCal was won by a player who kept getting hit by it (if you got the Do Unto Others box it was Jason the Kid Young (but Chinese spelling)).

He knew his deck, and kept track of what went by, and rigged his cheatin' hands when he could to ace cards i the right proportion, eventually it came down to a cyclable, legal very high hand, reports at the time say it was very well played. I wasn't there, naturally, but I and others have managed similr tricks (I used to build degenerating decks for a laugh, Stagecoach Office won me so many games).

As for Bunnies, like I said, completely different play environment; it was designed to bring cheatin' down to nothing, and it did. Yes, it could be randomly unlucky at times, but generally it did what the game at thhe time needed.

Which meant that it filtered out of usage, and two years later a 50% aces deck won Origins. I seem to recall writing about it at the time (not here, unfortunately didn't know blogs existed), the way the metagame cycles around.

Unfortunately, only works in a 'perfect' environment, where all players have access to all cards and reports from previous games and events. Which is an advantage I've always had due to lending my cards all over the place and travelling to anything that happened in the UK (blew up a car driving to Kingdom Come)

Will have to play GA, get Chris to abuse it verily.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The really nasty thing is that it's *any three*, so you can play whichever of them you want, at any time.

I'm trying to remember the one - Plague of Locusts? - boot a blessed to ace a dude with a lower value. When you start Elijah and Guardian Angels, this means that you're guaranteed to ace the target of your choice the first time your opponent cheats, especially since GA adds Value to your Blessed.

And, of course, if you don't want to do that you can store a Start Again under that home and use that, or any other cheating card.

(As for the tournament: He's lucky he didn't have one of the critical cards for that legal hand show up in lowball before then, and that his opponent didn't have a That'll Leave A Scar to back it up. TLAS is *always* in any of my decks that use Start Again, to prevent that exact problem and to kill the critical cards from the legal hands)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

PS: Come play online, you'll see some nasty abusive decks.

[matgb]

Will be doing so when I'm settled into London, I hope. But not on this PC, not mine...

[emurphy42.livejournal.com]

The way I heard it, his deck was aced down to nothing - then he declined to pay the upkeep on five dudes, turning them into a straight flush.

[matgb]

That may have been it, I read a fair few reports at the time, but it was a few years back now.

*begins to wonder if everyone is on LJ...*

Did we meet at SoCal when I was over there? I forget.

[emurphy42.livejournal.com]

I think so.

Years back, when I was playing in meiczyslaw's Deadlands campaign, we discussed how some of the PCs would work as Doomtown cards. Mine was Obese and Thick-Skinned, which suggests the following

Reaction: Use this reaction when you take a casualty. Reduce your casualties by one (you shoot him once and it doesn't slow him down) and Billy Bob gains +1 bullet until the end of the shootout (but it does piss him off). If you have any other dudes in the posse, then reduce your casualties by another one (one of them hides behind him) and Billy Bob gains another +1 bullet until the end of the shootout (that pisses him off, too).

Billy Bob may be targeted as if he were Harrowed. (You shoot him once and it doesn't slow him down...)

When Billy Bob uses an ability on a non-gadget horse, discard it. (His horses are invariably named either Useless or Worthless.)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

So, basically, you'd be making the exact same changes to Doomtown that Pinnacle did to Deadlands with Reloaded?

(I'm not so sure I like dropping the spells to one type. This is Deadlands, a single caster shouldn't be able to get blast and barrier and healing and weather control.)

[matgb]

Can't comment on reloaded; it's these guys that play it, I never turn up on time.

But I'd drop it down to one spell type, and have some trait sopecific or bonus specific. Each spell type had an almost identical healing spell (Helpin' Hands, etc), merge them, same for a few other effects, and then have a smaller number that can only be cast by hucksters etc.

Need to reduce the number of card types down, CCGs can't survice a steep learning curve, you need new groups to pick em up out of the box, too many card types causes confusion and, more importantly, significantly limits limited play formats like draft and sealed, too much dross in the picks.

Stores need drafts to clear old stock, amongst other things...

[phatjoe.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't want Doomtown without the level of complexity it has though. That's one of the things that's so great about it. It's the CCG for the big kids.

Have you ever gone back and played with the Shootout at High Noon decks recently? Heh...

/joe

[matgb]

Didn't play it as such, but went through a card.

Thing is, to get new players, you need to streamline, and then you can add a lot more. I hated the loss of some tricks &c first few resets I went through in other games, now I like them, new challenge, what cards that were crap are now good &c.

It's a trade off. More games, new players, and then grwoing complexity, but this time without the silly mistakes and horrible imbalances.

[phatjoe.livejournal.com]

Actually, to go back to Magic again... you know, they are successful for a reason, and a large part of that reason is many years of experience, right? Anyway...

They have solved the problem pretty well by releasing "novice" core sets and "expert" expansion blocks. If you already know all about this, pardon me for wasting your time but... In the core set, all keyword mechanics printed on cards have little parenthetical rules reminders. In the expansions, they can just use the keyword and be free to use the rest of the card space for more unique and bizarre abilities.

I think there's a lot of value in this model. Imagine a base set for Doomtown which would have a lot of your standard Dudes, Deeds, Goods, and Actions. All of your staple stuff like New Hat, Pearl-Handled Revolver, Pistol Whip, Out of Ammo, Reserves, Bad Tequila, etc etc. Maybe even a handful of simple spells, but perhaps not. Make it so that if newbies just buy starters from the core set, they can play a fulfilling game, without a lot of the more confusing mechanics.

Then when they get into it, they start buying from those "expert" episode expansions, which have your more bizarre items like Oswald's New Chair, deeds like Lord Grimeley's, weird Dudes like Freddy Fast Hands or Ezzie, etc.

All of the above aside, I find when teaching new people to play Doomtown there are two major concepts that need to be emphasized (and this may just be a function of my play group glossing over them): movement and ownership/control. I've never played another game where the owner/controller mechanic was so important, and it can be confusing. Movement is actually pretty simple but not very intuitive. After those, I would say the next important thing is how shootouts work, particularly the stud/draw bullet bonuses and the idea of the shooter. That's frequently a sticking point, and usually the newbies just rely on us to tell them the totals.

/joe

[matgb]

Pretty much agree with all the above. And haven't played Magic for over ten years, but when you're on any part of a developement team for one CCG, you watch what the big one does.

AEG has learnt sheedloads since DT. And failed a few times as well.

Not that this discussion is anything other than academic, as tehy're not exactly in a position to be makig any investments in a new line currently...

[shakalooloo.livejournal.com]

Just make the spells better/worse for each type of caster, or ban certain of the 'classes' from using them on a case-by-case basis.

For example, a Shaman could cast the same healing spell as a Blessed only without having to boot to do so, while the Huckster wouldn't be allowed to use it (or have a higher TN to pull for).

Could even go so far as to put entirely different actions on each spell for each class, so each can do one or two different effects depending upon who it's attached to.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

That would make decks with more than one caster type extremely strong - all those cards are not only guaranteed to be useful, but I can pick and choose which version of the spell I get based on the situation at play-time? Yikes!

(And Shamen should be *worse* than Blessed at healing, not better, but I get your point.)

[shakalooloo.livejournal.com]

Way I recall it, Miracles were just plain not as good as the Spirits - having the same effects but higher TNs and booting costs in most cases. But I digress.

'Picking and choosing' rather depends on what cards are in play at the time. Los Ojos Del Dios, Noah Whateley and Christopher Hill never really set the world on fire, so I don't see a real problem in opening their playground up to a wider audience.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Miracles had a bunch of effects that the Spirits never touched, but the healing, specifically, made Miracles better, both in the CCG and in the RPG.

Los Ojos Del Dios, Noah Whateley and Christopher Hill never really set the world on fire

Los Ojos was always too expensive, and you've never seen a nasty Christopher Hill deck? Hill/Deluge Burnt Offering is a classic setup, especially once a non-crappy LA home got printed.

Besides, you're changing the situation entirely. Los Ojos meant that you could use any of 3 sets of cards on him. If he's your only Huckster in a Blessed deck, then all your Hexes are useless as soon as he's dead or discarded.

Your change will let you use one card on any of three different people, and it's a different card depending on which person you target. If you kill all my Hucksters, that's okay - my hexes are still playable and still work, maybe not as well, but I can still play them on my Blessed or Shamen and have them do stuff.

Additionally, having Los Ojos and Nick Whateley means that I have two places I can put my Shadow Man. Your change would mean that having Joseph Eyes-like-rain and Nick Whateley would theoretically mean that my Shadow Man could be either Shadow Man or Strength Of The Bear depending on who I wanted to use it on, chosen at the time.

[matgb]

Yeah, Laurence, you played Gareth's BO deck didn't you, Deluge/Burnt Offerin/Chris Hill? Best played out of the Flock deck that lets you search your deck, forget the name.

I think ultimately it would depend on the card pool; the ideal would be to limit magic (a lot) and have a small amount of capability, and try to keep that small, so mix/match becomes less of an option.

What, where and why I can't say.

[shakalooloo.livejournal.com]

Ih; I never agreed with the ruling on Deluge and the Burnt Offering. And making things that just don't physically exist enter the game is always a bad direction to go in.

Making spells more generally useful would go a long way to making the game more fun; it's never good to be stuck with dead cards just because some random thing aced the one person capable of using it. Opening the field up so that you don't have to play Whateleys to use a huckster deck, for example, would be A Good Thing.

Other changes we'd thought of were having each event only resolve once per game, to stop them having such a big impact (and leading to some very silly timelines), and being able to discard more than one card at end of turn, so that a player isn't screwed by a bad starting hand (or at least allow Jokers to be discarded alongside Events in hands, since they're also duds there). Having Harrowed powers attach instead of aced and remembered would be a neat simplification also.

[matgb]

I think more events that Ace themselves, and very few events that keep rotating, there were some that made sense to keep happening, as long as they're not too powerful.

But multiple election days turn after turn are always fun. Call them, um, primaries...

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

it's never good to be stuck with dead cards just because some random thing aced the one person capable of using it.

I will point out that if you only had *one* person capable of using it, you probably shouldn't have built your deck that way, but yes, I get your point.

Opening the field up so that you don't have to play Whateleys to use a huckster deck, for example, would be A Good Thing.

I've got a totally killer Maze Rats huckster deck, actually, and a Law Dogs blessed deck, and I've seen Maze Rats and Agency mad scientist decks, and my old Coalition deck started Bart Prospectus as it's only mad scientist but stuck in a few Gatling Pistols and the Magic Bus 2.0 anyway...

There are all kinds of good skill decks, even if there are a few factions that really specialise in the skills.

each event only resolve once per game, to stop them having such a big impact

Some events weren't big. Some were - and yes, more events should have aced themselves, or just not existed in the first place.

being able to discard more than one card at end of turn, so that a player isn't screwed by a bad starting hand

If you can't get rid of two out of any five cards in your deck from your starting position after losing lowball, then you've either built your deck badly, spent *way* too much on Dudes, or pulled the worst of all possible opening hands.

(or at least allow Jokers to be discarded alongside Events in hands, since they're also duds there).

Absolutely not. Jokers are an incredible advantage when they come up at the right time - they break all the other rules, so they *don't* get to lose their only disadvantage.

Having Harrowed powers attach instead of aced and remembered would be a neat simplification also.

You didn't play that way? We always attached them, and simply remembered that they were "aced" in case of things that caused characters to discard attached cards, or when you had to discard cards in play with Jackalope Stampede and the like. After all, there's no way to get them out of Boot Hill that I know of, and nothing that affects dead *actions*, so we just attach 'em and leave them there.

[shakalooloo.livejournal.com]

Got to remember though, that their last solo attempt at a CCG (Lost Colony: Showdown) sank without a trace.

[matgb]

Well, yes, but that was because a) the art was all done by one artist, never a good plan, especially because I hated it, b) the game sucked c) the background sucked d) they released the CCG first, so no fan base e) they didn't know what they were doing.

If they were to redo DT, then, um, they'd have a lot of stuff to build on, and could get away initially with reprints at least as far as art was concerned.

[phatjoe.livejournal.com]

I hate to be the pessimist here, and I really don't want to start an argument about this, but I'm of the opinion that no matter how great a new Doomtown might be, it will flop. I think we've really moved past the time where all manner of CCGs can flourish. Magic is pretty much the gold standard for CCG players, and then you have your kids' CCGs (Yu-Gi-Oh or whatever is popular by now) and your cult CCGs (Vampire, L5R). The best Doomtown 2 could hope to aspire to would be the cult status (which we arguably do have the base for). It's never going to be a serious money maker. Whenever a new CCG comes out these days, I think the general audience reaction is "So?"

/joe

[matgb]

Oh yeah, I agree, it's not going to be a major game, but if they knew that already and kept costs/expectations low, it could work.

I'd personally release a factory set for the base set. 2 of each card, with some preconstructeds to get starting and some basic deckbuilding ideas. Players buy it, if they like it, they buy a few more sets, then maybe a small expansio every 6 months or so. Nothing major, just something that can tick over in the background.

[shakalooloo.livejournal.com]

They really are interested in capturing the female market aren't they? Judging by their survey, I mean.

And it reminds me that I still need to actually try out Hell on Earth and Reloaded...

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Reloaded is brilliant. It's Deadlands, just much less crunchy when it comes to the mechanics. It's faster and simpler and my only objection to it is a side effect of the Savage Worlds mechanics: In Deadlands, where armor isn't useful and the weapons are very damaging, a starting character who isn't built to be super-tough stands a good chance of spending most of every fight Shaken and incapable of taking action, or of spending all their chips just avoiding that result.

And this problem goes away quickly as you gain a bit of XP, or if you just avoid ever getting shot, which I admit is totally a great plan, just not always totally practical.

Hell On Earth - meh, I'd skip it, myself. It never really grabbed me.

I suppose a big part of the problem...

[(Anonymous)]

...Is that if you do a full reset, it loses the depth of background and annoys old Doomtown players. If you don't, then it's absolute hell for new players to get into. If you do a "restricted" format with a new base set, then probably nobody's happy. As much as it pains me, with my 35 litres of Doomtown cards, I think only a clean start can possibly work- though crossover would be welcome, ie old characters in a new game.

I wouldn't see a totally unified spell system as a good thing. Even though a lot of the spells were interchangable all of the classes had their own definate flavours. I can see a lot of sense to the suggestion of having basic spells that anyone can use and some that are more restricted though, removes the need to commit a huge card base to basic spells.

It's very much a no-brainer to remove the uniqueness rules, they were very nice thematically but never really worked in game terms- when me and Steve Wallace ran into each other in the UK finals the game was more or less decided by uniqueness- and that was despite us going to great lengths to avoid starting posse clashes. (note: if it hadn't gone that way, Steve would most likely have ripped me a new one anyway!)

Personally I feel that most of the game mechanics worked. You could say that they were overcomplex or hard to get into, but that's why the game was so superior in play. I'd like to think that it could mostly be left alone.

The soul of Deadlands is the western setting. It has to have dust and grit and iron in its soul. The Lost Angels were an interesting faction, and in keeping with the Deadlands universe, but they stuck out like a sore thumb in the card game. Tim Meyer (was that his name? DFS cretin) had decided that the next faction in his Doomtown was to be the Masons. You don't need me to tell you that that was ridiculous. The game started with a cops and robbers story and was always best when it stuck closer to that, I felt. You didn't need backstory for the Sioux or the Blackjacks, you know as soon as you read the starter what they're about, and that gave them a real strength. That goes all the way through- bright primary coloured cards might attract the kiddies but it'd be glaringly wrong for an old west game.

And no HAUNTED trait, or cards that are useless for a half dozen expansions! And IMO, no accursed MRP. Especially not a large-scale MRPing so that nobody knows what their cards actually do.

Re: I suppose a big part of the problem...

[(Anonymous)]

Whoops, some would have guessed but I forgot to give my name. I clearly lose at the internet. It's Andrew Cunningham, 2 Pairs if you like, AndrewC if you read the right lists.

Re: I suppose a big part of the problem...

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

And IMO, no accursed MRP. Especially not a large-scale MRPing so that nobody knows what their cards actually do.

The alternative to MRP is Magic-style banning, and outright removal of entire older sets, or else you get broken cards that weren't seen to be broken when first released that completely dominate the game - and without MRP, you can't make those cards any weaker. The only thing you can do is print *more* cards that are equally as broken, or remove those old broken cards from play.

As much as I love my Pistol Whips, they point that they're too strong until the latest printing *is* well founded.

Re: I suppose a big part of the problem...

[matgb]

If they redid the same game, I'd hope they'd get the balance better.

Scratch that. I'd hope WE get the balance better. Because I'd be involved, I'd sic some precedent with no standing on em and point out the official website says I'm involved so I must be.

Small point it's my site is irrelevent.

But yeah, Pistol Whip is still a damn fine...

THAT's teh card I'm missing from my Collegium deck, I knew there were some 6 actions...

Re: I suppose a big part of the problem...

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

And Arson. Arson is a personal favourite.

Re: I suppose a big part of the problem...

[(Anonymous)]

I remember someone mentioning that they thought that one of the reasons the game failed was due to there being no real chase cards.

I play UFS and WOW currently, and in them and every other game i've played recently, theres a pile of cards that cost in excess of £10 as soon as they're available. This promotes bulk buying by people who can afford it, and the "Just 1 more booster box" way of thinking that sells much more cards.

Cheating cards, maybe it's just the way I play, or people I've played play, but I tended not to cycle through my deck in a game, it ending too quickly. Start Again I wasn't too bothered about, when you're not cycling your deck its just as bad as one of the other crappy cheating cards that discard your hand. The Stampede, I thought was a very good cards because it basically stops everyone making a deck full of 1 value, otherwise you'd make a deck with nothing by 3's in (Spirit Warriors?) and send random crap dudes into shootouts without caring.
Flight of Angels, only works very well in a long game, a normal game its just "quite good"

(Hangin' Judge Humphry)