Board 8 > Anyone here play deck-building games?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I made a topic like a year ago about how I made a deck-building game (basically a game where you start with almost no cards and have to acquire your deck as you go along) about video game characters, directly building off Cryptozoic's engine (most known for the DC Comics Deck-Building Game)

well I've had a ton of fun playing it with friends, and even though it's not quite as balanced as I'd hoped it hasn't really impacted the enjoyment. I want to make a new game, but don't really want to just copy that exact formula

so essentially my question for anyone who plays them, what do you like to see in card games like that (either deckbuilders or otherwise)? Any in particular you think work well?

shooting for something that's fairly competitive but still easy to pick up and play without being overly complex
---

i bought slay the spire and am excited to get into it

some day
---

Copy Legendary this time, lol
---

Copy Dominion this time imo imo imo

but mainly tag for when I'm awake

---

also this reminded me to stop pbworks from deactivating the mercs deckbuilder I got to a somewhat playable state
http://mercsdb.pbworks.com/w/page/112055431/Rules

---

I've only played the Harry Potter one and had a blast. I loved that it was co-op.
---

I love deck builders. For me the main thing is minimize randomness in availability of options.

Dominion does it right, imo. All options are equally available to all players. Compared to like Ascension where you can make completely optimal decisions and employ perfect strategy and lose because the card that turned up after you bought yours was the exact card your opponent needed. That sucks all the rewarding parts of deck building out of it.

An alternative to counterbalancing the randomness of drawing cards somewhat is like Clank where the deck building portion is literally identical to Ascension, but you also have this whole aspect of having to move your pawn around a board with certain objectives which are fluid throughout the game based on what other players are doing. So it's not quite as obvious if someone lucking into a good card actually just wins them the game outright.

I feel like another big decision is whether or not to have trashing cards from your deck be a thing. A.k.a. deck thinning.

Like in Quest for El Dorado, (another one that is deck builder + moving around a board, like Clank), there's just no question about it that taking advantage of the trash mechanic early on is optimal. Basically whoever can trash their whole starting deck first is gonna win, because they'll get their deck down to the size where they automatically draw their whole deck every turn, and every card is amazing. I get that that's kind of "the dream" in a deck builder, but if you make it too easy to achieve, then you've failed imo.

If I was designing one I might consider leaving out any sort of trashing mechanic. Because I've yet to encounter a deck builder with that mechanic where abusing it wasn't optimal. Voiding cards in Ascension is basically auto win as well if you get it turn 1.

In fact I think it would be cool if players didn't have to start with the same base deck as each other. Let them draft or somehow decide for themselves their starting deck.

Asymmetric opening decks is definitely really cool. Like the character packs from Hero Realms.
---

turbopuns3 posted...

I love deck builders. For me the main thing is minimize randomness in availability of options.

Dominion does it right, imo. All options are equally available to all players. Compared to like Ascension where you can make completely optimal decisions and employ perfect strategy and lose because the card that turned up after you bought yours was the exact card your opponent needed. That sucks all the rewarding parts of deck building out of it.

I agree with this. I love the idea of a rotating supply (like Ascension) on paper, but I have yet to see it ever pulled off as well as Dominion's stable supply.

turbopuns3 posted...

Because I've yet to encounter a deck builder with [trashing] where abusing it wasn't optimal.

There are times in Dominion where the trashing strategy is beatable, but usually it's because the trashing card is weak or slow somehow. I'd miss trashing if it wasn't a mechanic but yeah it's easy to break

Asymmetric starting decks is fun, but a good bit of work on the design end to balance. I did that in another game I made by making like 40 crappy starting cards that were all crappy but could maybe nudge you into an overall plan for your deck.

I think I saw @trdl23 post recently

---

My Favorite Deck Builders in no particular order -

Dominion
Trains
Clank in Space
Legendary
Quest For El Dorado
---

I've played dominion and splendor

They both can feel pretty punishing if you play casually for one or more early turns. So if there's no way to come back, at least make the game short so players can get back in the next game

Randomness can help with that, but some other players hate all randomness

Splendor has some good randomness in that it can be played around somewhat

If both people need a blue gem but there are none on board, you can find this funny stalemate situation where no one takes anything and just keeps optimizing their chip counts

One thing to decide is how much players can gang up on each other. There's probably somewhere happy in the middle. I don't like it when games come down completely to king making, and also don't like it when I can't do anything to screw over the lucky or early first place person

I recognize that might mean I just don't like anything, but hey
---

banananor posted...

One thing to decide is how much players can gang up on each other.

player interactivity is overrated imo imo imo

Personally I don't mind being hopelessly behind if there's still stuff I can do- if I can still work towards doing some sorta cool engine I don't mind being in a position where it won't come together in time. That's a cool thing about deckbuilders I think- you're rarely in a position where you can't even pretend to be accomplishing anything- compare something like Monopoly or Catan where if you fall far enough behind all you really do is go through the motions until you're done.

---

I havent played any other deckbuilders in a while, but if we consider Splendor a deckbuilder, then that takes the crown from Ascension for me.

I do like having an element of randomness even though it makes the game not as skill-intensive because otherwise, it becomes insufferably dull. I wont even play Dominion anymore because it feels like every game goes exactly the same; certain cards are just infinitely better than the rest, and instead of being a slave to the center row youre a complete slave to your draws. If you fall behind you usually cant catch up because the person whos ahead is just going to storm combo out of control. At least in the randomized games you arent guaranteed to hit all the combo pieces that exist on the board.

I do like a modicum of player interaction, but Cryptizoic games go a bit too far for me. The goal should be to disrupt the engines other people have, not to potentially neuter their strategy outright.
---

Is your game playable online?
---

so I haven't played many deck-building games that weren't actually made by Cryptozoic? What distinguishes others from the Cerberus engine?

Played Legendary a while back and don't remember it well and haven't played Dominion

Tom Bombadil posted...

also this reminded me to stop pbworks from deactivating the mercs deckbuilder I got to a somewhat playable state
http://mercsdb.pbworks.com/w/page/112055431/Rules

I'd definitely be down for this being a thingturbopuns3 posted...

I love deck builders. For me the main thing is minimize randomness in availability of options.

I'm not really against randomness to an extent. I should mention, the game I'm looking to make (and the one I made) are pretty simplistic. More strategy than a straight party game, but also something that's very easy to pick up and play. Games of nature are the ones my friends have come back to more often than not

turbopuns3 posted...

I feel like another big decision is whether or not to have trashing cards from your deck be a thing. A.k.a. deck thinning.

I haven't really had much of an issue with this when I played. The game I made and the games it was based on all feature deck-thinning in a limited amount (certain cards do it but not a ton of them) and I've only had one time where getting a couple deck-thinning cards early on led to a big early lead

I like the idea of deckthinning as an option, because after a while still having the starting cards can get to be a drag and if I can employ it in such a way that it keeps up the pace without wrecking the balance, I'd want to

turbopuns3 posted...

In fact I think it would be cool if players didn't have to start with the same base deck as each other. Let them draft or somehow decide for themselves their starting deck.

I like this idea, but I also wonder how easy that would be to balance
---

IfGodCouldDie posted...

Is your game playable online?

no unfortunately, I'm not sure of any way to do that, otherwise I would.

I also ran into the issue with the first game of not really playtesting before I played. I've tried using Vassal but can't get it to work and didn't feel like making flash cards of the ~200 cards I'd need to playtest. That led to some balance issues as well as small mistakes (writing "discard" instead of "destroy," etc.) that I've had to just write down as edits to note. Fortunately the group of people I play this with is pretty small, so they all remember the issue cards pretty easy, but it would make putting it online tougher
---

all of this trashing talk gave me a cool idea.

What if instead of a small 10 card deck you started with a 25 card deck, but every purchase replaced a card in your hand when you bought it (ie basically buy=trash), also make it easy to buy multiple cards per turn.

So then you have to determine whether you want to rotate your cards faster for less powerful cards (ie trash-heavy) or keep the weak cards around for longer but only get high quality cards.

---

I played the RE one, Ascension as IIRC.
---

There's a game called Space Base that has a really cool trashing mechanic, although it's not a deckbuilder, but has some structural similarities.

Basically, you have twelve numbered slots, roll two dice, and then you can activate the abilities in either the two slots whose numbers you rolled, or the slot corresponding to the total. Every time you replace the card in a slot, you flip it round and tuck it under the board, and it continues to provide a smaller benefit every time your opponents roll its result. It can be a good strategy to ditch not just the starter cards, but their replacements too, because the 'flipped' effects stack, so if you keep replacing the low-numbered slots, you can gain big benefits on each opponent's roll, then aim for the high-numbered 'big' effects on your roll.

Not sure how you'd apply something similar to a traditional deckbuilder, but the concept of "Do I keep this card in my deck and get its great ability once per shuffle, or ditch it and get a lesser ability more frequently?" could be a neat idea.
---

Anyone here played millennium blades?

If we're including "tableau building" games, Valeria Card Kingdoms is an all-time favorite of mine. Machi Koro is up there, too.

They're similar to like Catan, where on every person's turn they roll two dice, and everyone collects based on what's rolled and which numbers they've invested in.

Dice Forge is similar as well and super fun. It's a "dice building" game where you each have your own dice and you literally upgrade the faces of your dice as opposed to having cards.

I think one of the key things for me is valuing a win and making it feel earned, and personally I've found that clear win conditions really go a long way with that. Ascension always made me feel dirty when i won because of the card randomness, and the obscurity of how far along someone is with the win conditions.

Path to El Dorado does a really good job with this in my opinion. Different strategies are valid, but getting to the end is a really clear win con and it's pretty obvious to evaluate how close the different players are to winning.
---

Peace___Frog posted...

Path to El Dorado does a really good job with this in my opinion. Different strategies are valid, but getting to the end is a really clear win con and it's pretty obvious to evaluate how close the different players are to winning.

I'm really curious to hear further input on this.

I _love_ Quest for El Dorado. It's great.

But, when you say

Peace___Frog posted...

Different strategies are valid

What exactly are the strategies you reference?

If someone spends a couple turns at the first trash spot and turns in all their starting cards for 4 or 5 move cards...what other strategy is competitive? I'd love to know.

Anyone ever played Witch's Brew?

It's not really deck building...more like hand building? And bluffing/strategy

impulse bought Arkham Horror: The Card Game while at Barnes and Noble today

here's hoping I don't regret that
---

turbopuns3 posted...

What exactly are the strategies you reference?

I guess what I mean is more for a casual scene. There are multiple cards to buy, multiple paths to go.

In an in-depth competitive analysis, sure. You're absolutely right. But I'm not playing these games at anything close to the highest level, my friends and I go to games with just enough strategic depth to be varied and feel like choices matter, while still making the wins feel earned.
---

Yeah that's fair. At my work we do board games one night a week. It's a handful of people who are pretty competitive. One guy in particular...I can't even fathom what his collection of games looks like. He has a designated bag for carrying 8+ board games, and packs it full every week and constantly rotates the games.

Johnbobb posted...

impulse bought Arkham Horror: The Card Game while at Barnes and Noble today

here's hoping I don't regret that

Did you regret that? I love the board game (the previous edition; new edition suuuuuucks) so I am quite curious.
---

Star Realms
---

trdl23 posted...

Johnbobb posted...

impulse bought Arkham Horror: The Card Game while at Barnes and Noble today

here's hoping I don't regret that

Did you regret that? I love the board game (the previous edition; new edition suuuuuucks) so I am quite curious.

Haven't actually gotten to play it yet :|

Reading through the rules seems more complicated than I expected
---