An idea - Creature Quest
Posted: 03 Jan 2010, 09:20This is an idea of an alternate form of quest mode.
The basic idea is that you, and all your opponents are represented by Magic creatures.
How it works:
1. Deck construction
You start with a randomly constructed deck. You win cards and you can use them to upgrade your deck.
2. Power and toughness
The greater power you have, the greater is your hand size. It is (power+5). Playing a creature with power four gives you (or opponent) a 9-card hand.
Your toughness determines your life total. This is 10*toughness.
3. Mana cost
Your converted mana cost determines the size of your deck. Basically, the minimum size (for CMC <= 2) is 60 cards, for CMC > 2 it's CMC*30. 4-card rule still applies. This means that if you play as Enormous Baloth, you will have impressive 12-card hand and 70 life, but also a 210-card deck. Your mana cost also determines how hard is to level up.
4. Mana and levelling
Apart from cards, you earn mana by beating other creatures. By beating a colorless creature, you'll get one colorless mana. By beating a colored creature, you get one mana of any of its enemy colors.
I.e. by beating a black creature you get one green or white mana. This is to encourage you beating on your natural enemies. Beating a creature of two allied colors can give you one mana of any of the other three colors. Beating an enemy-colored creature or an arc-triplet creature gives you a choice of four colors. Wedge-triplets, four-colored and five-colored creatures give you a choice of any color.
You can spend your mana on levelling up. Level-up costs your current level times your mana cost. For example, Grizzly Bears has to pay 1G to get to level 2, 2GG to get to level 3, 3GGG to get to level four, etc.
As your level increases, you will meet stronger opponents. Also, on each level-up you can choose an additional color to play in your deck.
For example, playing a Goblin Glider starts you as monored. On level 2, you can choose one of the other four colors to add. On level 3, you choose a third color, on level 4, a fourth, and from level 5 onwards you can play any colors. You can start with multicolored deck. For example playing Boros Swiftblade starts you with red-white - in that case, you won't be able to choose a new color until level 3.
Your level also affects quantity of card drops and number of possible targets to attack.
Some creatures can also spend mana on their abilities.
5. Key cards
Although the decks are constructed randomly, every creature always plays full 4 copies of its own card. These are the "key cards". However you edit your deck, you cannot break this rule. In addition, your starting hand will always contain a guaranteed key card. (This only holds for your first hand. If you mulligan, etc., you are no longer guaranteed you'll have your key card.)
You never win additional key cards. On a level divisible by 5, you get a new one, and the limit of their use is increased by one. (So on level 5, you can play 5 copies in your deck, on level 10, six copies, etc. - whether this is desirable is left to your deliberation.)
Every creature will drop its key card after you defeat it. They can also drop other random cards.
6. How the quest works
Every day, you have an option to travel or stay.
Travel: You get a random list of three lands, and choose one of them to move there.
Stay: You stay at your current land.
Every land has a level. This number represents both your level before this land can appear in your list, and number of enemies you have to defeat there to clear it.
After your land is picked, you can attack an enemy. A list of three creatures appears. Creatures will be appropriate for a given land - green creatures in a Forest, Goblins in Goblin Burrows, multicolored creatures in Pillar of the Paruns, etc.
If you play a creature with some special abilities, the option to use them will appear as well. You also have the option to pass.
At night, you might be attacked by another creature. You HAVE to fight if you're attacked.
Evasion abilities:
Basically, the evasion abilities determine who you can attack, and who can attack you.
For example, if you don't have flying or reach, you can't pick a fight with flying creatures - they, however, can still attack you.
Playing AS a creature with flying has opposite effect - you will never be attacked by a creature without flying or reach.
Similarly for other abilities: fear means only black and artifact creatures will attack you, protection protects you from attacks of certain creatures (as well as making you lose nothing when you lose a fight with such creature), horsemanship protects you from non-horsemanship attacks, etc.
If you play a creature who can't block (like Aesthir Glider), you won't get any option to attack creatures, and you will have to rely sorely on attacks of other creatures. This makes for a harder game.
If you play a creature that is unblockable (like Phantom Warrior), you are completely safe from attacks of other creatures. This has its disadvantages as well. In case of Phantom Warrior, you cannot encounter flying creatures at all, and might therefore have some trouble getting their cards.
A special case is landwalk. If you play a creature with landwalk, you cannot be attacked as long as you are at the corresponding land. (Shanodin Dryads cannot be attacked in Forest, etc.) On the other hand, you can never attack such creatures in their environment - either they attack you, or you must get them at a different land.
Clearing the land: If you defeat enough enemies at one land, you cleared the land, and you get its card. Basic lands are cleared after 1 fight, but as you already have unlimited amount of them, you won't get anything for it. As for snow-covered basic lands, you HAVE to clear them to get them, but you get 5 of them for clearing, not just one.
You can stay at a land after clearing, if you want, but you can only clear it once.
7: Other abilities
A creature is added to this mode only after it's agreed on how its abilities will work here.
First strike and double strike:
In fight of two creatures with the same strike level (normal/normal, first/first, double/double), the first player is selected randomly.
In first/normal or double/first fight, the better striker automatically takes the first turn.
In double/normal, the double striker takes TWO first turns (i.e. starts the game by taking two turns in a row).
Defender:
A creature with defender cannot move to other lands. It has to stay at a land until it clears it. After it's cleared, you are randomly teleported to another appropriate land. Defenders make for harder game mode.
8. Loss
When you are defeated, you lose one mana. Enemy takes one mana of your random color if available, one mana of random other color, if not, and one colorless mana if you really have nothing else. If you don't have any mana and you're defeated, you die. Based on selected difficulty, you get some mana in the beginning to be protected from random losses.
9. Parties (add-on idea)
At level 10, you will get a "companion ticket". After clearing a land, you get a choice between taking a land card or using the ticket. When you use it, three creatures that can appear at that land are selected randomly, and you can take any one of them as your companion. You can refuse to take any - in that case, you won't lose your ticket, but you can't go back and take the land card either.
A companion is level 1 creature that comes with its own random deck. When you travel in a party, you can use any of your cards to edit any of your creatures' deck. Each of them can attack, and each of them can be attacked. Each creature amasses mana on its own, however.
Your original creature is the leader, and it gets an additional companion ticket on each level divisible by 10. No other creatures earn the tickets.
If a companion dies, it's dead, and there's not much to do about it. You won't get your ticket back just because your companion died.
10. The Marketplace
The Marketplace is a special land that appears with roughly 1-in-5 frequency when you travel. At the Marketplace, you can trade-in your cards for benefits.
Unlock Shop
This game mode starts with just a handful of creatures to play. To unlock more, you have to assemble some amount of copies of their cards with one character (maybe 5*CMC?).
The Unlock Shop allows you to unlock a creature for this game mode by trading in those copies. Only unlocked creatures can appear as companions.
Weapon/Armor Shop
By giving the shopkeeper certain amount of copies of a single equipment card, he will make you a real-life equipment to wear. For example, giving him Leonin Scimitars will improve your hand size by 1, and adds 10 more life to your starting total.
Aura Shop
Similar, but for Auras.
The total sum of CMC of your Auras/equipments can't exceed your level. The Weapon/Armor Shop can take your equipments off and turn them back into cards. The Aura Shop can take your Auras off, but they disappear permanently in that case!
Spell Shop
By trading in certain number of spell cards, you get an effect. For example, trade in Ressurections to ressurect a companion you lost, or trade in Giant Growths for a one-use ability to get +3/+3 before a battle.
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This is a rough draft. I am interested in whether something like this would be fun to play. All the numbers, of course, can be tweaked.
The basic idea is that you, and all your opponents are represented by Magic creatures.
How it works:
1. Deck construction
You start with a randomly constructed deck. You win cards and you can use them to upgrade your deck.
2. Power and toughness
The greater power you have, the greater is your hand size. It is (power+5). Playing a creature with power four gives you (or opponent) a 9-card hand.
Your toughness determines your life total. This is 10*toughness.
3. Mana cost
Your converted mana cost determines the size of your deck. Basically, the minimum size (for CMC <= 2) is 60 cards, for CMC > 2 it's CMC*30. 4-card rule still applies. This means that if you play as Enormous Baloth, you will have impressive 12-card hand and 70 life, but also a 210-card deck. Your mana cost also determines how hard is to level up.
4. Mana and levelling
Apart from cards, you earn mana by beating other creatures. By beating a colorless creature, you'll get one colorless mana. By beating a colored creature, you get one mana of any of its enemy colors.
I.e. by beating a black creature you get one green or white mana. This is to encourage you beating on your natural enemies. Beating a creature of two allied colors can give you one mana of any of the other three colors. Beating an enemy-colored creature or an arc-triplet creature gives you a choice of four colors. Wedge-triplets, four-colored and five-colored creatures give you a choice of any color.
You can spend your mana on levelling up. Level-up costs your current level times your mana cost. For example, Grizzly Bears has to pay 1G to get to level 2, 2GG to get to level 3, 3GGG to get to level four, etc.
As your level increases, you will meet stronger opponents. Also, on each level-up you can choose an additional color to play in your deck.
For example, playing a Goblin Glider starts you as monored. On level 2, you can choose one of the other four colors to add. On level 3, you choose a third color, on level 4, a fourth, and from level 5 onwards you can play any colors. You can start with multicolored deck. For example playing Boros Swiftblade starts you with red-white - in that case, you won't be able to choose a new color until level 3.
Your level also affects quantity of card drops and number of possible targets to attack.
Some creatures can also spend mana on their abilities.
5. Key cards
Although the decks are constructed randomly, every creature always plays full 4 copies of its own card. These are the "key cards". However you edit your deck, you cannot break this rule. In addition, your starting hand will always contain a guaranteed key card. (This only holds for your first hand. If you mulligan, etc., you are no longer guaranteed you'll have your key card.)
You never win additional key cards. On a level divisible by 5, you get a new one, and the limit of their use is increased by one. (So on level 5, you can play 5 copies in your deck, on level 10, six copies, etc. - whether this is desirable is left to your deliberation.)
Every creature will drop its key card after you defeat it. They can also drop other random cards.
6. How the quest works
Every day, you have an option to travel or stay.
Travel: You get a random list of three lands, and choose one of them to move there.
Stay: You stay at your current land.
Every land has a level. This number represents both your level before this land can appear in your list, and number of enemies you have to defeat there to clear it.
After your land is picked, you can attack an enemy. A list of three creatures appears. Creatures will be appropriate for a given land - green creatures in a Forest, Goblins in Goblin Burrows, multicolored creatures in Pillar of the Paruns, etc.
If you play a creature with some special abilities, the option to use them will appear as well. You also have the option to pass.
At night, you might be attacked by another creature. You HAVE to fight if you're attacked.
Evasion abilities:
Basically, the evasion abilities determine who you can attack, and who can attack you.
For example, if you don't have flying or reach, you can't pick a fight with flying creatures - they, however, can still attack you.
Playing AS a creature with flying has opposite effect - you will never be attacked by a creature without flying or reach.
Similarly for other abilities: fear means only black and artifact creatures will attack you, protection protects you from attacks of certain creatures (as well as making you lose nothing when you lose a fight with such creature), horsemanship protects you from non-horsemanship attacks, etc.
If you play a creature who can't block (like Aesthir Glider), you won't get any option to attack creatures, and you will have to rely sorely on attacks of other creatures. This makes for a harder game.
If you play a creature that is unblockable (like Phantom Warrior), you are completely safe from attacks of other creatures. This has its disadvantages as well. In case of Phantom Warrior, you cannot encounter flying creatures at all, and might therefore have some trouble getting their cards.
A special case is landwalk. If you play a creature with landwalk, you cannot be attacked as long as you are at the corresponding land. (Shanodin Dryads cannot be attacked in Forest, etc.) On the other hand, you can never attack such creatures in their environment - either they attack you, or you must get them at a different land.
Clearing the land: If you defeat enough enemies at one land, you cleared the land, and you get its card. Basic lands are cleared after 1 fight, but as you already have unlimited amount of them, you won't get anything for it. As for snow-covered basic lands, you HAVE to clear them to get them, but you get 5 of them for clearing, not just one.
You can stay at a land after clearing, if you want, but you can only clear it once.
7: Other abilities
A creature is added to this mode only after it's agreed on how its abilities will work here.
First strike and double strike:
In fight of two creatures with the same strike level (normal/normal, first/first, double/double), the first player is selected randomly.
In first/normal or double/first fight, the better striker automatically takes the first turn.
In double/normal, the double striker takes TWO first turns (i.e. starts the game by taking two turns in a row).
Defender:
A creature with defender cannot move to other lands. It has to stay at a land until it clears it. After it's cleared, you are randomly teleported to another appropriate land. Defenders make for harder game mode.
8. Loss
When you are defeated, you lose one mana. Enemy takes one mana of your random color if available, one mana of random other color, if not, and one colorless mana if you really have nothing else. If you don't have any mana and you're defeated, you die. Based on selected difficulty, you get some mana in the beginning to be protected from random losses.
9. Parties (add-on idea)
At level 10, you will get a "companion ticket". After clearing a land, you get a choice between taking a land card or using the ticket. When you use it, three creatures that can appear at that land are selected randomly, and you can take any one of them as your companion. You can refuse to take any - in that case, you won't lose your ticket, but you can't go back and take the land card either.
A companion is level 1 creature that comes with its own random deck. When you travel in a party, you can use any of your cards to edit any of your creatures' deck. Each of them can attack, and each of them can be attacked. Each creature amasses mana on its own, however.
Your original creature is the leader, and it gets an additional companion ticket on each level divisible by 10. No other creatures earn the tickets.
If a companion dies, it's dead, and there's not much to do about it. You won't get your ticket back just because your companion died.
10. The Marketplace
The Marketplace is a special land that appears with roughly 1-in-5 frequency when you travel. At the Marketplace, you can trade-in your cards for benefits.
Unlock Shop
This game mode starts with just a handful of creatures to play. To unlock more, you have to assemble some amount of copies of their cards with one character (maybe 5*CMC?).
The Unlock Shop allows you to unlock a creature for this game mode by trading in those copies. Only unlocked creatures can appear as companions.
Weapon/Armor Shop
By giving the shopkeeper certain amount of copies of a single equipment card, he will make you a real-life equipment to wear. For example, giving him Leonin Scimitars will improve your hand size by 1, and adds 10 more life to your starting total.
Aura Shop
Similar, but for Auras.
The total sum of CMC of your Auras/equipments can't exceed your level. The Weapon/Armor Shop can take your equipments off and turn them back into cards. The Aura Shop can take your Auras off, but they disappear permanently in that case!
Spell Shop
By trading in certain number of spell cards, you get an effect. For example, trade in Ressurections to ressurect a companion you lost, or trade in Giant Growths for a one-use ability to get +3/+3 before a battle.
---
This is a rough draft. I am interested in whether something like this would be fun to play. All the numbers, of course, can be tweaked.
