Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Snares are a new class of enhancement (both good and evil, though moreso evil). Snares are a subset of Territory-Class enhancements in that they are primarily played outside of battle. If I was more artsy I would have come up with a card icon for them (so that they don't all have to have the "Snare" identifier) but for now I just used the TC icon as a filler.

-All constructive criticism is welcome as always!

Snare Gameplay Rules:
-Snares are played on a character of matching brigade and are placed face-down in territory.
-Snares are a subset of Territory-Class enhancements so they can be played during Prep/Discard on a character in territory.
-Face-down Snares are still considered "active", just not triggered.
--This allows a Snare with an instead ability to work when its trigger is met (or at least that's the way I intend it to work, haha).
-You can have up to THREE (3) face-down Snares in play at once.

-Each Snare has a Trigger: keyword followed by a condition and then a - to separate the condition from the rest of the special ability.
-All Snares are optional, you CAN trigger the special ability anytime the trigger is met/being met, but you don't HAVE to.

-If the trigger is met/being met you can activate a Snare's special ability regardless of initiative (but, of course, not during the resolution of another special ability).
-If a Snare causes special initiative during battle it can be interrupted/negated just like any other enhancement (barring CBI/CBN on the Snare, of course).

-Much like regular Territory-Class enhancements, Snares activate their special ability and are then discarded unless they specify otherwise (some Snares place themselves in different locations).
-Since Snares are face-down until triggered they can only be targeted by things that specifically target Snares or face-down cards in territory.


Card Examples:
-I've created 13 cards to demonstrate the new Snare mechanic, 9 actual Snares and 4 cards referencing them.

-Please also note the individual comments about certain cards within the Dual-Alignment Snares, Evil Snares, and Other Evil Cards spoilers.
--These are just general ideas I had for this theme. I haven't done any testing for balance so I tried to make a range of seemingly weaker to seemingly stronger abilities.

Spoiler: Good Snares (hover to show)

Spoiler: Dual-Alignment Snares (hover to show)

I thought about making it a blanket "regardless of protection" but I wasn't sure if that would be too powerful.

Spoiler: Evil Snares (hover to show)

For Unknown Righteousness, the 3 cards must be from hand. I assumed that was the default (since adding "from hand" would have bumped the ability down another line and into the verse) but realize now it might be confusing.

Spoiler: Other Good Cards (hover to show)

Spoiler: Other Evil Cards (hover to show)

Much like the plethora of ways to activate multiple artifacts, Women as Snares holds a Snare which lets you have an additional one to the 3 you can have in territory.

As admiral ackbar would say.  IT'S A TRAP

Yes, well, that name is already taken in the TCG world.

Plus I found more useful verses with "snare" in them than "trap" when I was making these cards.

Whats stopping people from using lost souls as snares?

Its more  obvious?

I'm not sure if I am in favor of adding a new card type.  A lot of the effects could be better handled with existing card types.

Part of my issue come from playing them off of characters, which means that you have to be able to verify when it is flipped that way back when you played it, it was the correct brigade (mistakes happen all the time, and people will just play them forgetting what is out).  Most of my issue comes from adding more face-down cards, as I am generally opposed to that due to the rules and targeting implications.  Some other problems come from the fact that, in order to make this viable and impactful, you'd have to print a lot of snares and cards that interact with them, and that the abilities on these cards seem to get very lengthy all on their own.

More specifically to these cards, I don't like TC battle-winners that cannot be targeted normally pre-battle, as you have suggested.

Also, just from rules perspective, you could not have them activate during SI, those enhancements must come from hand (Gam's Speech and our existing covenant/curse combo with negates don't work either during SI) and triggered events cannot happen until SI resolves (including flipping/activating these cards).

I think I'd be more in favor of a Snare identifier on TC enhancements, which let them play face-down (without being revealed) on a character of matching brigade.  Makes them a bit more squishy and play more like enhancements while making rulings easier.  However, battle-winners would not be something that I would be willing to print for those, even if we went that route.

I could have said the same about TC Heroes.

TC Heroes just combine existing card types and symbols; snares are not quite the same, in ease or simplicity, as it is a completely new thing and not an extension of existing concepts.

To the rest of your post about the 'ease' of playing, sounding like Solitaire, I feel like you need to play T2 more (and against some more Alstads ).

I won't go into whether  think these cards should be printed or not. Browarod is posting a possible idea for a potential addition to the game. It may need to be tweaked or tested to make it less of an overpowered set of enhancements, but I think that new levels to the game could be fun. However, I believe Redoubter is correct in that some of these are too good in the fact that you can just use a single snare and that's a battle winner. Perhaps all snares have to be played face up so they are easier to verify that they are being played correctly, and are easier to counter. Or perhaps only selected snares can be placed face down so it still provides that mind game aspect, but you still will have a good idea what it is. While there may be a lot of kinks to work out I'm not going to discount it out of hand. While it may need more changes like the ones Redoubter says is up to the game designers/testers.

I think it's a cool idea.

On the Unknown Righteousness card you might want to change the ability to: If a player just made a successful rescue that would result in him winning the game, instead convert a lost soul to a crimson 6/6 heretic with the special ability: protect a N.T. Lost soul from rescue.
However I would suggest instead of giving a lost soul and converting it, giving him your evil character(s) in battle and converting them instead of rescuing a lost soul.

Ok, that's my two cents, thanks for bearing with me. If anything is confusing I apologize. If anything came off as rude or disrespectful that is not the intent. (I don't think I wrote anything that did, but just in case )

I find the new technique quite interesting, but can they still be D/C'd like normal Enhancements is my question?

Not normally, no.  Face-down cards have special targeting rules.