Cactus Game Design Message Boards

(I wrote all this after having reread the 2011 articles and Gabe's post, so I definitely adopted that tone for this. I'm really, really excited about this card, since I never this kind of creation inspiration, and I felt the need to type up an article-esque explanation for each part of the ability. If this accidentally came off as arrogant or presumptuous, I apologize; it's just a card I sort of fell in love while making it.)

Peter is probably the most glaring omission from Redemption's library of playable cards. While he does see play from Four Drachma Coin and The Garden Tomb (as well as being one more Disciple for Thad), not having a reprint that would be usable as more than just a tool for other cards is something I think a lot of people would like to see, provided it's handled correctly. I received the inspiration for the first part of Peter's ability earlier today while browsing the forums. It occurred that while Peter was known as "The Rock" and is in general the most well-known Disciple (except perhaps John), Peter also arguably made the most recorded mistakes in the Bible among the Disciples, aside from Judas. Denying Jesus three times is the most prominent example, but at one point, Jesus even goes so far as to call Peter Satan (Matthew 16:23). Thus, having this first part (setting him aside for 3 turns) illustrates his faults. From a gameplay prospective, it allows him to have what I hope is a relatively powerful ability without making him overpowered. The wait will play to Disciples' strengths (speed and getting cards out quickly), but will also force players to play more strategically. I don't think it's something I've ever seen with a Peter remake idea before, and I think that if nothing else, this particular idea for Peter could easily be implemented into the actual card.

The second part of the special ability was almost as natural as the second. Jesus did indeed call Peter the rock upon which He would build His church, and was within the "inner circle" of Disciples (Peter, James, and John). All signs point to Peter being the second "favorite" (for lack of a better term) Disciple, behind the "Disciple whom Jesus loved," commonly thought to be John. Jesus' special connection to Peter made me think that giving Peter the ability to search for SoG wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. By the time one gets Peter out and through the three turns of being set-aside, the search won't really be that overpowered, and in fact, may end up not being useful at all if Peter gets drawn in the mid-to-late game.

The third part of the ability is the one I struggled with the most. While brainstorming for ideas for this card, I wanted to try to avoid references to clichéd stories like Jesus walking on water. The one thing that kept popping into my head was the allegedly unique way in which Peter was executed. While this cannot be confirmed for sure, common belief holds that Peter was crucified upside-down, so that he would not be killed in the same way his Lord was. I could not come up with a special ability that utilized this concept without becoming overly wordy, so I abandoned the idea and had the original special ability end with Peter gaining the ability to band to any Disciple, CBN. This didn't sit right with me, as it gave Thad (along with Phil/Bart) a boost, and in general seemed too overused and cliché. I also wanted Peter to lend more legitimacy to a straight Disciples offense, and banding didn't seem to do it. I eventually got the idea to, instead of focusing on Peter's specific execution, focus on the martyrdom of the Disciples as a whole, and thus, this new special ability was born. It gives Disciples solid late game power if the game has gone abysmally for them, or a minor boost if things have gone good with few Disciples discarded, or if Peter is drawn early, and the player prefers to get SoG early rather than use his ability to it's fullest potential.

In essence, the card gives Disciples a big push, but I don't think it's an overpowered one. A player can choose to discard his Disciples to use Peter, then use Chariot, but of course, at that point, the game is probably over anyway. In the meantime, decisions like that (as well as being forced to keep Peter in hand until you decide to use him) gives Disciples more strategy, something they don't really have a lot of right now (being relatively idiot-proof). Being set-aside keeps him from being entirely speed based, and I think it off-sets him really well, and is a good example of how territory class heroes could possibly work to add a layer of balance. I don't actually know how interesting any of this is (it probably isn't at all), but if nothing else, I had a lot of fun designing the card and writing all this up. I hope you appreciate the card as much as I enjoyed creating it, but of course, if you think there are flaws, I'm eager to improve it.

I'm not entirely sure if it would even work how I'm thinking, but imho he should be able to be negated by Peter's Curse (seeing as it was his experience and whatnot). You could word it like: "Cannot be negated, except by a black Curse."

Maybe I missed something, but why does your hero have a territory class insignia?

His ability activates when he enters play.

Great idea I like the Hero class and the thought you put behind. I have a few thoughts though. First, I don't see it as a good idea to have a TGT character be able to clear territories. Second, I think you would be fine in putting something small in the indentifier if they came up with a special keywarsd for these types of characters like bold, or agile, etc.. Also you should limit the uses to once pergame as to avoid abuse in type 2.

Well, I specified black curses so that CoM and CwD wouldn't negate him, but specifying Peter's Curse would work, too. It was just my since I like Biblical accuracy and whatnot. I can see the reasons for not including it.

Also, "may be used once" is not the same as "once per game" just to let you know. Unless it specifies "per game," restrictions only apply to that specific copy of a card.

I don't think you can enter play from anywhere other than hand or deck (unless I'm missing something obvious), so you could reduce the wordage to something like this:

"Once per game, set Hero aside for 3 turns: Protect Hero from opponents. On return, you may search deck for Son of God and negate and discard up to X evil cards. Cannot be negated."

I used negate rather than interrupt because it's shorter and accomplishes the same thing since Peter would be returning from set aside during upkeep phase (in which case there's no battle going on). On return is shorter than upon return. "In play" is not needed since abilities default there anyway (so you only need to specify if you're including places other than in play (such as set aside)). Also, the identifier can use # rather than "number" so it doesn't extend past the art frame.

I plugged my shortening above into the RC card designer, and it cuts the ability by 3 lines down to 6 total, so that's a pretty good cut, I think.

Quote from: soul seeker on January 13, 2012, 11:00:57 AM

Maybe I missed something, but why does your hero have a territory class insignia?

Territory class heroes is an idea that's been thrown around this board for a while now. Some people like the idea, some people don't like it, but many people seem to view it as an inevitability. To make Peter's ability work, he'd have to be territory class (until the identifier line was extremely long).

I wasn't aware of that discussion about territory class heroes.  Thanks for the info.  Maybe I should be less of a lurker and more of a reader.   

browarod, I appreciate the better wording; that will definitely improve the flow of the card I think. The thing is though, the way Peter is worded now, Peter's Curse still won't target him until after his ability completes, which makes it a moot point.

Right, which is why I left it as plain CBN in my shortening. I made the shorter version to be helpful, not to prove a point or anything, haha. Sorry if that was confusing.

I don't think so; especially not with browarod's rewording to reduce the wordage.

Edited the original post with the new wording, thanks to browarod. Currently working on an Andrew to go with Peter.

Just a thought: Why mention 'Unique' Disciples? All Disciples are Unique as far as I know.

To prevent abuse in T2, where instead of having a maximum of 11 Disciples in the discard pile, one could theoretically have 47.