Cactus Game Design Message Boards

A great way to teach can be to play with no special ability cards.

A good way to bribe your kids to read is to tell them they can’t play Redemption until they can read.

FTFY 

The way I introduced the game was the objective is to rescue 5 lost souls and Son of God is the best card in the game. Tons of interest there sold a ton and had two great tournaments with almost all new players :-)

Then you were like "Training wheels off kids...!" *enters battle with a character holding 30 placed enhancements*.

Why not continue down the path laid out by Unity and do keywords? Heck if we want to be less complex like MtG just name the search/take ability after some old-timey card that did a search.  So instead of including all the text in the SA like Search your deck for a prophet and add it to hand or Take a prophet from your deck, you would just have the shorthand Battle Prayer: prophet.

Unity is probably the start of more keywords in the future.  Redemption will ultimately have to go down that route I think, because there's simply not enough room on the cards for awesome long abilities.

Quote from: EmJayBee83 on March 20, 2018, 05:21:44 PM

Why not continue down the path laid out by Unity and do keywords? Heck if we want to be less complex like MtG just name the search/take ability after some old-timey card that did a search.  So instead of including all the text in the SA like Search your deck for a prophet and add it to hand or Take a prophet from your deck, you would just have the shorthand Battle Prayer: prophet.

Unity is probably the start of more keywords in the future.  Redemption will ultimately have to go down that route I think, because there's simply not enough room on the cards for awesome long abilities.

I don’t understand why there isn’t a lot of room on the cards for SA wording. I’ve seen other cards that have plenty of room for the SA. All that’s needed is to restructure the card some. For example, reduce the picture size as the picture isn’t that important. Then increase the SA box size and either leave the scripture reference in the same box or move it to a separate one underneath the SA box.

Quote from: jmhartz on March 21, 2018, 08:55:10 AM

Quote from: EmJayBee83 on March 20, 2018, 05:21:44 PM

Why not continue down the path laid out by Unity and do keywords? Heck if we want to be less complex like MtG just name the search/take ability after some old-timey card that did a search.  So instead of including all the text in the SA like Search your deck for a prophet and add it to hand or Take a prophet from your deck, you would just have the shorthand Battle Prayer: prophet.

Unity is probably the start of more keywords in the future.  Redemption will ultimately have to go down that route I think, because there's simply not enough room on the cards for awesome long abilities.

I don’t understand why there isn’t a lot of room on the cards for SA wording. I’ve seen other cards that have plenty of room for the SA. All that’s needed is to restructure the card some. For example, reduce the picture size as the picture isn’t that important. Then increase the SA box size and either leave the scripture reference in the same box or move it to a separate one underneath the SA box.

I think it’s easier to add meaning to a word that is also compatible logically and grammically while also reducing space. 

It's not that Take is counterintuitive grammatically. The problem I have with making Take replace Search is that it conflates two already existing Redemption terms. That's really it. With all the possible other words we could be using, we shouldn't be using words that we've already used to mean something else, and a lot.
Revelation of John finally pinned Take down to gaining control of an opponent's card; let's just keep it that way.
Revelation of John used add to put revealed cards and such into hands; let's just keep it that way.

And for the record:
Redemption's complexity is one of the big reasons why it's my favorite C/TCG. There are so many ways to play this game, so many angles to approach the game from. And by not phasing out old sets, we can keep old strategies while making new ones and even breathe new life into old cards. The complexity may make it hard to pick up, but like Jesse said, that's part of the reward for sticking with it.

Pokémon is simple. Very very simple. And sets are phased out of legal play in only a few years.
The result? Pokémon is dull.
Yeah, you could learn how to play in 15 minutes flat and know everything there is to know, but it has stagnated the 3rd oldest trading card game into an expensive, uninspiring, pile of mush that has undergone no real change for well over a decade.

Redemption, on the other hand, has let itself grow and flourish. It's pruned itself without cutting whole branches off, and 23 years of brambles inevitably leaves a few unflattering angles. But the thought and care behind this game surpasses that of any other card game I've ever played. I've never seen such a seamless meshing of theme and gameplay.
Building a sandcastle is easier than building a house. Building a sandcastle is fun and rewarding in its own right, but building a house leaves an impact. Sometimes putting in that extra effort to do something a little harder gives you something that the easier things can't offer. You can apply that to life, but you know, you can apply it to a card game, too.
I think Redemption's quality speaks for itself. It stands out from its competition as a truly unique and gratifying experience. Card games I helped make don't mean as much to me as Redemption, and I think that sentiment is here to stay.

I didn't see this thread before posting here https://goo.gl/NviCtU. I tried to condense it even further. For the full text please see the original one.

For what it's worth, my two cents are that in general it's better for the game to keep barriers to entry low. We aren't as established as something like Warhammer where the complexity is half the draw; we can't afford to turn away players who try the starter decks and enjoy them but get overwhelmed by all the crazy and complex abilities in the more recent sets.

I totally agree!

[Changing "search" to "take" is] just like how abilities that used to say "remove from the game" now say "banish".

Which to me as a newcomer was totally confusing too! "Remove from the game" is pretty straightforward. Everyone get's that. Why say banish instead? It's just unnecessary and makes the game more complex than it already is. If we want the community to grow we can't have that because it will turn away potential new players. One challenge I'm facing is how to introduce teens to the game. Especially if their English is bad. A real scenario I am facing right now. They don't know words like "banish". Memorizing keywords is fine but having use a dictionary a lot isn't fun. So this group is already excluded from the game except maybe someone translates this material which is a lot of work!

Newcomers' life will get even harder when trying to get into the game! (Playing I/J starters is still fun and easy and complex enough for newbies - but the next step becomes more and more hard to take!)

For me that transition is only possible because of:
a) Good resources like "Real Rulings" and "Welcome to Redemption"
b) A pretty good understanding of English on my side
c) More seasoned players that come alongside and explain the different concepts and how they work to me.
That's not a low entrance level for people outside of the US.
I wonder if it will be possible to design new one's that are rather easy to understand but yet take you closer to where the current meta is at. I feel like I'm learning the concepts of Redemption rather well by I/J but "the next step" is a giant leap as the cards from the new sets just are so much stronger.

A few days ago we had a long match basically using RoJ Angels where we nearly spent as many time reading REG, Rulebook, forum and ORDIR as we spent playing. (of course we are no experts but when considering newcomers do know much less this raises barriers!)

Yeah we "played" 3 hours and in the end I was tired, discouraged, confused and had a headache...
Bad experiences like this one will turn players away that don't have to be turned away...
I object to every change that is unnecessary and complicates that provide no real benefit.

I was listening to a podcast and the subject of LCG/CCG game design came up with a person who has been a playtester and designer of multiple xCG games. There was one thought that seem really pertinent to this discussion...

Quote

So card text isn't actually written in English...

...and every single card game does this. They always have a kind of loose rules template and a terminology template that they start with. They break it in about two cycles. And then they bumble along trying to fit the game into those rules until eventually...they can..they uh..they usually end up rebooting the game and rewriting those rules to a much tighter definition because they now know they need to.

If this is correct the "complexity" of Redemption is that it never had the reboot, and so we keep bumbling along trying to force some cards into following rules that the cards were never meant to fit within.

Redemption has actually been in that reboot process for the last couple years. It's not an instant thing that changes in one set most of the time.

Quote from: Kevinthedude on March 23, 2018, 11:03:27 AM

Quote from: EmJayBee83 on March 23, 2018, 10:46:02 AM

I was listening to a podcast and the subject of LCG/CCG game design came up with a person who has been a playtester and designer of multiple xCG games. There was one thought that seem really pertinent to this discussion...

Quote

So card text isn't actually written in English...

...and every single card game does this. They always have a kind of loose rules template and a terminology template that they start with. They break it in about two cycles. And then they bumble along trying to fit the game into those rules until eventually...they can..they uh..they usually end up rebooting the game and rewriting those rules to a much tighter definition because they now know they need to.

If this is correct the "complexity" of Redemption is that it never had the reboot, and so we keep bumbling along trying to force some cards into following rules that the cards were never meant to fit within.

Redemption has actually been in that reboot process for the last couple years. It's not an instant thing that changes in one set most of the time.

The difference is that Redemption can never really do the kind of "reset" that will simplify things enough for casual players if you insist on keeping all the cards in the pool. You have a bunch of older cards that kick and scream against being dragged into the strictures of the new terminology and rules.

One of the many reasons card games have set rotation.