Apocalyptic Card Game

[WritersPanic]

Wow!
I love how you wrote that out!

I mean, I don't expect an apocalyptic shanty town to have that kind of set-up... but a post-apocalyptic DragonCon?
That I could totally imagine.

But irregardless of how and where such a system could be used, I just wanna bask in the vivid (and amusing) descriptions of your illustrative story!

Well, I am actually a writer! I spend my days writing boring shit, so there's a bounceback when I have a moment of free expression.

The scene I painted is a future in modern time when the game has grown to ridiculous fame, even without an apocalypse. As much as I lament apocalyptic themes, I can't deny the popularity and cash it generates. Not that greed is my motivation, but I can see how greed could build just about anything into a phenomenon.

On one hand I present the fishing village, doing their best with 3-eye'd flounders, happy to see any traveler with a can of cards. On the other, the purely decadent world that evolves when we don't have a war on. Where the heroes wear other worldly costumes and play a card game based on events that never happened.

The game itself won't likely suffer much. It's not driven by greed, it's just a potential greed regulator. As are most games.

I used to play a drinking game where we bounced a quarter into a beer mug and designated someone to drink it. If the coin bounced off the rim and didn't land in the mug, the player got another chance. It it doesn't go in, he has to drink it. If it does go in, he designates someone to drink it and the turn becomes theirs. That's it, simple rules. So I carried this game from Georgia to Florida, San Francisco and finally Hawaii. When I got out of the Navy and returned to Georgia, people playing the game had attached all kinds of weird rules that destroyed the purpose of the game (to get your opponent(s) so drunk they can't play). The game had morphed as if MADD made the rules!




Now, how does anyone manage cards like these:







I never knew there was a She-Hulk!

[Kick Frenzy]

*motherfuckingdumbassmeclosingthewindowwithabuncho stuffwrittenandlostitall*
*breathes*

Ok, so, to recap what I just lost that had been written here:

She-Hulk is awesome.
She's a lawyer, funny, and breaks the 4th wall.
Debuted 11 years before Deadpool.

It would be awesome if you wrote a novel wherein this game was played, just as an aside.
(Yay, they'd sell each other.)

And then....
I was writing stuff about what to do with card numbers, then I had a flash of an idea and there was a mess of sentence fragments and stuff here.
But I was about to start figuring out another possible way to look at cards.
Also, the variety in your example is great for considering the weird shit people could show up with!!

Ok... *breathebreathebreathe* ...and all caught up.

So, now I'm gonna just brainstorm out loud for a minute.

-- Idea 1
Noun - picture, no number, no text
Verb - any action type card
Adverb - Cards that instruct card play
Adjective - effects
---

-- Idea 2
Number cards in hand, playing to determine Draw Number (rules tbd)
- Draw Number determines which card you count down to in Draw Pile (character, effects, etc)
- place top cards in pile next to Draw Pile, use after draw pile exhausted
- drawn card goes into an Active Pile
Active Pile used for "informed" play, effectively creating traditional/battle hybrid (rules tbd)
- "battle" is a loose term here, meant to convey some sort of competition based on Active cards rules as opposed to traditional "battle" of Poker, etc
---

The more I think about it, the more it seems like cards with a prominent number will just have to be number cards.
If there's text, that may allow for something else, but things like the Marvel cards, that fashion game up there, or tarot cards, would all just be numbers.
People could always make their own house rules, but you're right that the standard game would need to reduce a lot of cards to simple terms.

[WritersPanic]

*motherfuckingdumbassmeclosingthewindowwithabuncho stuffwrittenandlostitall*
*breathes*

Ok, so, to recap what I just lost that had been written here:

She-Hulk is awesome.
She's a lawyer, funny, and breaks the 4th wall.
Debuted 11 years before Deadpool.

It would be awesome if you wrote a novel wherein this game was played, just as an aside.
(Yay, they'd sell each other.)

And then....
I was writing stuff about what to do with card numbers, then I had a flash of an idea and there was a mess of sentence fragments and stuff here.
But I was about to start figuring out another possible way to look at cards.
Also, the variety in your example is great for considering the weird shit people could show up with!!

Ok... *breathebreathebreathe* ...and all caught up.

So, now I'm gonna just brainstorm out loud for a minute.

-- Idea 1
Noun - picture, no number, no text
Verb - any action type card
Adverb - Cards that instruct card play
Adjective - effects
---

-- Idea 2
Number cards in hand, playing to determine Draw Number (rules tbd)
- Draw Number determines which card you count down to in Draw Pile (character, effects, etc)
- place top cards in pile next to Draw Pile, use after draw pile exhausted
- drawn card goes into an Active Pile
Active Pile used for "informed" play, effectively creating traditional/battle hybrid (rules tbd)
- "battle" is a loose term here, meant to convey some sort of competition based on Active cards rules as opposed to traditional "battle" of Poker, etc
---

The more I think about it, the more it seems like cards with a prominent number will just have to be number cards.
If there's text, that may allow for something else, but things like the Marvel cards, that fashion game up there, or tarot cards, would all just be numbers.
People could always make their own house rules, but you're right that the standard game would need to reduce a lot of cards to simple terms.

What we have too is a whole class of cards that function as jokers. So the real key to this is solving for the really weird. Multiple classes of wild cards. but a specific limit to how wild it can be. A pikachu card is worth less than a dragon card which is worth less than a card with multiple beasts or a beast with multiple heads. So all of the cards that fit that sort of parameter are counted up and the range determined. It would be unique to each bucket of combined cards.

The numbers make sense to be only numbers. The down side is that a few games in and cards, and their value, will be remembered. So the number cards may toe an odd line between liability and benefit to the holder.



Also, I have indeed thought it would make a good story. But instead of a book, an animated series like Heavy Metal used to do. One of my favorites was Ranxerox, the psychotic cyborg with Reagan's face. It made sense in the 80s!

[Kick Frenzy]

What we have too is a whole class of cards that function as jokers. So the real key to this is solving for the really weird. Multiple classes of wild cards. but a specific limit to how wild it can be. A pikachu card is worth less than a dragon card which is worth less than a card with multiple beasts or a beast with multiple heads. So all of the cards that fit that sort of parameter are counted up and the range determined. It would be unique to each bucket of combined cards.

The numbers make sense to be only numbers. The down side is that a few games in and cards, and their value, will be remembered. So the number cards may toe an odd line between liability and benefit to the holder.



Also, I have indeed thought it would make a good story. But instead of a book, an animated series like Heavy Metal used to do. One of my favorites was Ranxerox, the psychotic cyborg with Reagan's face. It made sense in the 80s!

Ooh, I love the Heavy Metal angle!
That would really fit the whole vibe.
It'd be freakin awesome.

Ok, so that first part about each bucket having a unique range, as well as counting up cards to determine the range of wild/creature/character cards, makes sense.
But, they would have to be evened out, without knowing the range of the games they come from... somehow.
Like, Pikachu and BEWD shouldn't be considered as ranging from 30 - 3000.
The ranges would have to be equalized somehow.
Unless those numbers would be ignored in favor of some details satisfied by any given creature/character/object.

[WritersPanic]

Ooh, I love the Heavy Metal angle!
That would really fit the whole vibe.
It'd be freakin awesome.

Ok, so that first part about each bucket having a unique range, as well as counting up cards to determine the range of wild/creature/character cards, makes sense.
But, they would have to be evened out, without knowing the range of the games they come from... somehow.
Like, Pikachu and BEWD shouldn't be considered as ranging from 30 - 3000.
The ranges would have to be equalized somehow.
Unless those numbers would be ignored in favor of some details satisfied by any given creature/character/object.

Yea, finding a way to deal with this for unseen cards is really more complicated than I considered. It's very taxing. But, I do this for humanity. There's at least the slightest possibility this game will be needed. And having it in place will likely prevent a lot of deaths since they will not have to prototype it in their real world. We'll be doing it in ours. Where death at a card game is kinda rare.

Think about this game in the greater context. People will exchange fortunes, food, booze and sex, using this card game!

On the issue of Heavy Metal, Gorillaz would have fit right in.

[Kick Frenzy]

Oh wow, yeah... Gorillaz and Heavy Metal?
Makes me wish a new movie was being made!

But, for the card game, maybe we should just give a can o' cards to these guys and see how they play...

[WritersPanic]

Oh wow, yeah... Gorillaz and Heavy Metal?
Makes me wish a new movie was being made!

But, for the card game, maybe we should just give a can o' cards to these guys and see how they play...

Probably a lot of fun with a few snorts of Nyborg~

[neonspectraltoast]

How about a game where we throw the cards in the air and I roll around on the ground and one of you gives me a piece of cheesecake?

[Din Djarin]

Would there be a dresscode?

[Kick Frenzy]

Well, now I just wanna name this card game, Cheesecake.

[WritersPanic]

Well, now I just wanna name this card game, Cheesecake.

I still think it will just be called "Cards". Those with a full deck of conventional cards will just call the game, Poker, Draw Poker, 5 Card Stud, Go Fish.

The face cards still have my interest. I thought about valuing them with a really simple measure; Pretty/Ugly/Funny/Sad. Nothing more. Keeps the game simple. What I'm banking on is all the humans that seem to end up on cards. Non-humans are another matter. How do we reconcile a card with a horse on it against a card with a dragon on it?

One thing I did consider is that after a nuclear holocaust, the cards with fantasy critters on them may not be so far fetched. So sorting between real and unreal animals might not be black and white.

[Kick Frenzy]

Hmm... maybe instead of battling (traditional or modern), maybe the answer is a building game instead.
Something where you need to build a stable of some kind or ecosystem or ... something.
Doesn't have to be exactly that, but that idea.

And honestly, the answer to how you would decide about drawing cards on how to pace it and make it competitive would be to bring cards back into it.
You could play a round of traditional cards, whatever you want to play, and have something like whoever wins a hand gets to draw a card.
This would also facilitate the social component of the game, allowing for everything from small talk to negotiations while playing.

Of course, that might mean a new name was in order.
Even if it was just, Cards and Cards. ?