Pirates + Card Battles

[ThisAdamGuy]

I mentioned yesterday that I want to write a pirate story. I've also wanted to write a card battle story for a long time, but haven't been able to come up with a system that 1. feels like an actual card game, and 2. is fun to read about.

I just had an interesting idea, though. What if I combined the two? What if ship captains were card wielders, and they crewed their ships with creatures they summoned out of cards? So battles with other ships would be a balancing act of choosing whether focus your creatures on destroying the other ship or manning positions to keep your own ship operational.

I probably won't use it. Every system I've ever tried to make for a card battle story has always fallen apart. But assuming I can get around the initial rule development stage, do you think people would want to read about it?

 

[foxoftheasterisk]

Sounds neat. I would play that game, certainly—it sounds like FTL with a deckbuilder aspect.

It sounds fairly suitable to a narrative too, cause all the crew cards could have their own personalities.

 

[Empress_Omnii]

do you think people would want to read about it?

It'd probably do well on RR. Personally, I'd find it especially enjoyable if isn't an isekai.
Though it depends a lot on the actual story, card battling pirates will have a lot of options.

 

[MatchaChocolate69]

Sounds cool.

As for the card game concept, it’s an idea I’ve also aspired to bring to life for a long time.

Unfortunately, I think a novel is one of the least suitable media for representing battles through a collectible card game.

The first challenge is creating the game itself, its rules (quite a hurdle), and then the various cards. The game must be functional, balanced, and allow for diverse strategies. Imagine the difficulty of conceptualizing something like that without real playtesting; you’d need to print the cards and recreate the battles. (I've been stuck at this point for months.)

The second challenge is describing the battles in an engaging way. There’s a risk it could turn into a dull chronicle of stats and numbers—essentially, hardcore geek material that might interest a very limited audience.

The third difficulty ties back to the previous point. The audience is limited; it’s a narrow niche unless you decide to use an existing game like Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, or Pokémon. In that case, you could attract fans of those games, but your story would essentially become fan fiction. For inspiration, you could look at Yu-Gi-Oh fan fiction as I have, but I’ve noticed that many of these stories get abandoned after a while. It’s a tough genre to write with few rewards.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

There was a collectible card/board game hybrid with a pirate theme about six, seven years ago. Cards were either ships (with punch-out assembly), crew, or weapons (I think some of the later expansions also added events and terrain, but only played the first two and never really got into it much). Might be able to get some inspiration from that - with the captains pulling repairs, calling up whirlwinds, summoning extra ships or specialist crewmen at need...

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

The second challenge is describing the battles in an engaging way. There’s a risk it could turn into a dull chronicle of stats and numbers—essentially, hardcore geek material that might interest a very limited audience.

That's been my biggest problem. A card game needs the players take turns, but coming up with a way to force the characters to take turns without it devolving into "Character A played card B which used attack C on card D, then ended his turn, and then Character E played card F on..." is harder than you'd think.

Trying to make the battles feel more organic makes it feel less like a card game. Sure I could just have them summon monsters and then fight in real time, but then why have them use cards at all? I'm essentially writing Pokemon at that point, and that's not the kind of story I want.

This system is still in the early stages of development, but I feel like having both players on their own ships will help me make the battles turn based without making them boring to read about.

 

[beast_regards]

The biggest problem with the card game is that the spectator (one who observes the game) must deeply understand the mechanic of the game to appreciate the moves the players make.

In LitRPG, this is simply not possible, as you would need to force your readers through the entire encyclopedia to understand the story, which is a problem. The readers won't go through the encyclopedia, and if they do, they would call you up on the decisions within the story. You could base the story in the known mechanic of popular game, like Magic the Gathering or Yu-gi-Oh, but that won't be pirate themed, and attracting the fans is equally bad as alienating them.

That's why the most LitRPG choose the different type of game, or if you go for the cards, they turn it something else than you expect them to.

You could check the "All the Skills: A Deck-Building LitRPG" ...

It is the Royal Road originated story.

 

[2wordsperminute]

"Character A played card B which used attack C on card D, then ended his turn, and then Character E played card F on..."

Yugioh style overly dramatic dialogue after every card. Works every time.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

Yugioh style overly dramatic dialogue after every card. Works every time.

The problem there is that you let the characters narrate exactly what they're doing, what does the narrator have left to say? The story turns into nothing but nonstop cheesy overdescriptive dialogue.

 

[beast_regards]

The problem there is that you let the characters narrate exactly what they're doing, what does the narrator have left to say? The story turns into nothing but nonstop cheesy overdescriptive dialogue.

How are the readers going to find out how the rules work if not from the protagonist screaming atop of their lungs?

 

[CharlesEBrown]

In LitRPG, this is simply not possible, as you would need to force your readers through the entire encyclopedia to understand the story, which is a problem. The readers won't go through the encyclopedia, and if they do, they would call you up on the decisions within the story. You could base the story in the known mechanic of popular game, like Magic the Gathering or Yu-gi-Oh, but that won't be pirate themed, and attracting the fans is equally bad as alienating them.

Yu-Gi-Oh was originally meant as a parody of ... well, Pokemon in the first issue, Dungeons & Dragons in either the second or third, and comic book stores in another one, before they wound up having to make the game to honor their contract (and had to keep the story going past the parody point). Heck, one of the guys behind the series even commented that "If we had any hint that we would have to make the actual game, we would have done a lot of stuff very differently in the first two issues"

 

[2wordsperminute]

The problem there is that you let the characters narrate exactly what they're doing, what does the narrator have left to say? The story turns into nothing but nonstop cheesy overdescriptive dialogue.

Perfect.

 

[beast_regards]

Yu-Gi-Oh was originally meant as a parody of ... well, Pokemon in the first issue, Dungeons & Dragons in either the second or third, and comic book stores in another one, before they wound up having to make the game to honor their contract (and had to keep the story going past the parody point). Heck, one of the guys behind the series even commented that "If we had any hint that we would have to make the actual game, we would have done a lot of stuff very differently in the first two issues"

So, the OP would have their story about the guy screaming a random incoherent rules about the game and it would be enough. That's actually simplify it a little.

"Err, matey! You triggered my trap card, I used the pirated images to board your thread!"

"No, you couldn't. I use Summon the Mods counter!"
"I counter your card with the It's pirate game! So it's on topic!"