Firefly Online CCG by rklenseth

Well I play some CCGs and I would love to help create this game. I could help create the rules and some card text.

For the basis of the game I think each player should get a amound of credit points for playing cards. The credit point total could be determiand by a base number they get each turn and by their characters etc that would have a amount printed on them (For example a trasport ship would give a player X number of credits from trasporting cargo each turn). Also a player would get a one time bonus when compleating a "Job" (Better term for FF than Mission I think).

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 11:13 AM

So would there be only one "way" to win -- amassing credits? For some reason, I find myself more drawn to the model exemplified in the "Legend of the Five Rings" CCG. There are multiple ways to win there -- destroy all your opponents through military might, achieve sufficient amounts of "honor" that your political influence grants you command of your opponents, or reach an "enlightenment victory" where your mastery of philosophy/theology advances you to the front of the competition.

Along those lines, there might be multiple ways to win in this potential game.

What would the types of cards be? Perhaps there could be multiple "base types" -- each of which would be a class of transport, with a particular set of characteristics. Say, maximum range, speed, cargo capacity, hull structural value, those sorts of things. Probably you'd want no more than three or so characteristics to keep track of.

Cards you could attach to this basic card would include crew, unusual equipment (both for ship and for crew), and so forth. Additionally, there would be "job" cards (both legal and illegal), event cards (getting stopped by the Alliance patrols, ambushed by Reavers, etc), actions that could be performed either on yourself or on other crews (a bit of libel to downplay the reputation of a crew, or perhaps some sabotage while they're docked somewhere). Hell, arguably a ship could even try to go pirate and destroy/loot other ships in the game.

I find myself quite drawn in by this possibility. Anyone got other ideas they'd like to air in this forum?

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 11:17 AM

More thoughts.

Certain jobs would require a certain level of reputation for you to take them... either good or bad (i.e., are you well loved by the Alliance, or do you possess a solid rep in the black/grey market?). Most likely everyone would start the game with the same reputation, and the more reputation you got the better jobs you could pull, and the more credits you could amass.

Another type of card you might be able to put in would be contacts. You know, people like fences, or dependable sources of information, or a good mechanic at an out of the way repair facility.

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 11:19 AM

ASTRIANA

I'm not really sure... the only card game even remotely like this that I'm familiar with is Magic: The Gathering. Is that the kind of thing we're talking about here?

~A~

...I'm still free,
You can't take the sky from me.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 11:27 AM

Vaguely, though Magic is pretty simplistic in its game structure.

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 11:32 AM

I'm thinking more of a combination of card games but I think the best model that could work with Firefly is the old Star Wars CCG. There are multiple ways to play and win as well as tons of different types of card. The one thing I always liked about the old Star Wars CCG was that they weren't afraid to add new rules and more stuff to the game with each expansion. Magic is the opposite of that where every expansion is the almost the same as the next and the game gets redundant.

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 11:35 AM

The one thing I wouldn't do that the old Star Wars did was have sides (ie. the Dark Side and the Light Side). You can have any card in your deck. Obviously there would be advantages to playing an all Alliance Deck or an all Independent Deck ect...

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 11:36 AM

Just to clarify what I previously posted; I didn't mean that amassing credits would be the only way to win I was talking about earning credits as the main way to play cards.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 12:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
Just to clarify what I previously posted; I didn't mean that amassing credits would be the only way to win I was talking about earning credits as the main way to play cards.

Like what Force was in SW CCG.

I was thinking of a certain card type that allows you to gain credits (sort of like lands and mana from Magic). The card type could be something like jobs (ie. Train Job) and every turn so many credits get put into your bank. Unlike Magic, you won't have to use the credits at the end of your turn but let them amass to use when you like. Jobs could be something you do that has a limited effect. Lets say you have to do something in order to get the credits from the card while there would be other types that brings in credits for a longer time.

Just some thoughts that I thought would fit with a Firefly CCG.

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 1:12 PM

Here's a lot of thoughts that popped up over my lunch.

Three options for game victory which occurred to me were the military victory, the reputation victory, and the economic victory.

Military victory: Your ship turns pirate, outfits itself with weapons, and goes hunting the other competitors. Sure, you won't get a great reputation in the transport circles, but once you've eliminated your competition you pretty much control the trade in the sector. Of course, there's always the risk that the Alliance might come and knock you upside the head, you murdering dog...

Reputation victory: Everyone starts out with a certain amount of rep in the business. The more jobs you pull off successfully, the better your rep, and the more likely that big jobs will come your way. Simple jobs would have no minimum rep, and would benefit you substantially when you were starting off. More complicated or serious jobs would only be given to proven crews and vessels -- that is, they'd come with a minimum reputation that you had to meet to earn their trust.

And each job you take would carry some risked rep with it if you didn't successfully complete it. Remember Niska's commentary in "The Train Job"?

Quote:
NISKA
Yes. Good! You have reputation! Malcolm Reynolds gets it done is the talk.

MAL
Well, I'm glad to hear that.

NISKA
You know what is reputation? Is people talking. Is gossip. I also have reputation. And not so pleasant I think you know. Kroll?

KROLL swings open a door to reveal a man hanging by his feet, looking pretty gorram tortured to death.

NISKA
(to MAL)
Now for you, my reputation is not from gossip. You see this man. Eh, he does not do the job. I show what I do him, and now my reputation for you is fact, is solid. You do the train job for me, then you are solid. No more gossip.

Half money now, Kroll give you other half money at rendezvous point. Anything goes wrong, then, your reputation, only gossip, and things between us, not so solid. Yes?

Don't finish a job that you take on, and your rep could seriously suffer. Naturally, there would have to be cards that other players could play to prevent you from automatically completing a job and throw some obstacles in your path.

The better your rep, the more jobs will come to you, until at a certain point you're the big name and every major job will be under your thumb. And of course, the small jobs wouldn't give you much benefit when you're already pretty high in rep.

Quote:
INARA
Right. You're a criminal mastermind. What was the last cargo we snuck past the Alliance to transport?

MAL
We made a perfectly good piece-

INARA
What was the cargo?

MAL
They were dolls!

INARA
They were little geisha dolls with big heads that wobbled!

MAL
People loved those!

INARA
And what exactly was our net profit on the famous wobbly-headed doll caper?

Economic victory:

Quote:
MAL
Whitefall is the safest and the closest. Been a long time since Patience shot me and that was due to a perfectly legitimate conflict of interest. I got no grudge. She owns half that damn moon now. She can afford what we got and she just might need it.

Amass enough credits to buy your own base of operations, thereby controlling the shipping business in the vicinity.

======

Anyways, those are just the three that occurred to me over lunch.

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 1:36 PM

Yes, I like those alot, KURUKAMI.

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 1:41 PM

How about when you control a planet, like KURUKAMI said, it gives an income until another player takes the planet away from you.

And how about economic victory would work after you come to so many credits instead. Lets say that the first player to reach 500 Credits has an economic victory.

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 2:25 PM

I am seriously contemplating aiming my ideas at a real-world CCG... kind of weird how the inspiration just leapt almost full-blown into my head.

Are you going in the same direction, or are you focussing on the online version?

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 5:06 PM

TOMANTA

As a long time CCG player myself [and one who has played a vast number...], I'd be very interested in this project as well.

Decipher's Star Trek CCG could be mined for ideas as well, especially since it is a 'job'-based game. [I dislike parts of the game and don't think a wholesale ripoff would be the way to go].

Just a few general things... multiple victory conditions, support for more than 2 players, and a variety in cards [Star Wars did an excellent job at this] are all good things.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 5:56 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kurukami:
I am seriously contemplating aiming my ideas at a real-world CCG... kind of weird how the inspiration just leapt almost full-blown into my head.

Are you going in the same direction, or are you focussing on the online version?

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

That would be something to think about but we would have to buy the rights and such and find someone to sponser the CCG. If the movie does really well (if it ever happens) this could happen.

For now I would be happy to get a free online version to play around with

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 8:35 PM

WYDRAZ

Quote:
Originally posted by rklenseth:
How about when you control a planet, like KURUKAMI said, it gives an income until another player takes the planet away from you.

That sounds good. I think planets should be more than that though. Obviously, It should be very tough to 'control' a planet.

Job cards would be drawn at some planets, and if you didn't (or couldn't) take the job, others could travel there to try for it.

You generally need to land on a planet deliver your current cargo/collect payment. The landing player must pay its controller docking fees, or pull Rep (use a Bargaining card, a Stealth Landing card, etc.).

Perhaps an area in the center of the playing field can be the 'map', a grid of connected cards representing locations (mostly planets).

A planet becomes controlled if you buy it from its governor, or beat him (and all his defenses) in combat (which could effect your Rep). Each planet starts under the control of either a random character card, or it's default governor (both uncontrolled/unowned by any player, essentailly an NPC).

Most planets have tremenous defenses and cost more than any beginning player can pay, even after several turns.

Types of cards (?):
Character (Player/NPC?)
Planet (Location)
Event
Job
Item (Device, Weapon, etc.)

Other Game pieces (?):
Money
Player Ships?

Well, those are some of my ideas, anyway.

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Thursday, January 29, 2004 6:21 AM

Some great ideas. I think this is beginnging to look pretty cool.

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

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Thursday, January 29, 2004 6:29 AM

I tossed ideas back and forth last night with my partner in crime, and came to realization that the simpler the game is to grasp (while maintaining the flavor of the series), the better it will succeed.

Each "box" of cards you bought would be a base transport type. Firefly-class, older model Trans-Yu, or whatever. Each class of ship would have varying numbers for four values: Range, Maneuver, Cargo, and Defense.

Range: the farthest you can go for a particular job. Certain jobs will require a longer Range to complete.

Maneuver: your chance to outmaneuver or avoid a combat situation that might arise on a job.

Cargo: how large a cargo can you take on for a particular job

Defense: how well the ship class aids its crew in fighting off combat situations (like, for example, Reavers) that they aren't able to avoid

Cards (and other people have included some of these before) would include categories like:

Jobs
Crew
Actions
Equipment (for Crew)
Ship Upgrades
Contacts
Events

You could only play one Job on each of your turns. That way, players wouldn't be able to job-spam their way to a particular victory too easily. Jobs would be something you'd often have to have a certain amount of Reputation to receive, and if you didn't complete the job you'd lose Reputation.

Actions could be played on either your turn or someone else's -- particularly to throw obstacles into the path of another player looking to complete a job. Naturally, actions could be played in response to actions. For example, if player A tried to play a Job card that would give them a noticeable advantage, player B could play the Action "Compression Coil Burnout" (which prevented the job from being completed on time). Player A could then play the "Timely Maintenance" Action, which counteracted player B's action, and player B could respond with "Parts Shortage" that prevented any one Maintenance card...

... or something like that.

The pair of us are strongly considering dropping the military victory option, for three reasons. First, it doesn't really fit within the Firefly mythos -- that you're just out to make a name for yourself in the grey market trading, even if sometimes you do that through questionable methods. Second, the Alliance would probably come down pretty hard on would-be pirates. Third, going with ship-to-ship combat when each player represents just one ship would mean that it would be waaaaaaay too easy for someone to just get lucky early on in draws and wipe out their competitors quite easily.

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Thursday, January 29, 2004 6:31 AM

Locations would probably be somewhat limited -- not so much specific planets, more like a class of planets. The Core, where the Alliance is strongest but there are some great jobs. The Rim, where the Alliance is weak but solid jobs are harder to come by and riskier. And the area in between.

Each Job could either be available anywhere, or only in particular areas.

Events would be able to affect one area category, and would last from the time they were played until it was that player's turn again. For example, an Event which told of a shortage of particular goods within a particular galactic area would allow anyone playing a Job focussing on those goods to gain more than they normally would.

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Thursday, January 29, 2004 6:32 AM

Well, we can make it both simple and difficult. Kinda like what they try to do for Magic. Have the simple stragety/cards for newer players but allow the option for experienced players to play harder cards and strageties. And this could also include different card typesper level of difficulty or concepts.

Oh, and play Cantr II at www.cantr.net.

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Thursday, January 29, 2004 6:43 AM

Agreed. I'm actually kind of tempted to throw in "Story" cards, kind of like the Mythos game had, where if you could assemble a group of disparate cards you could put forth an overall picture of a great story, that would greatly benefit your Reputation/Prestige.

Reputation would be how powerful and/or influential you are considered to be within the business community, and could affect whether or not the Alliance would mess with you. Prestige would be how well people think of you, in general.

Example: Adlai Niska would be high in Reputation, low in Prestige. People fear him because he's a powerful presence in localized business, but nobody thinks he's a great, stand-up guy.

To expand on the whole Story idea, though -- think of how small elements combine to fuel a much greater myth than each of the small parts. (Key cards are in caps to emphasize that they would be needed for the Story card to be played.) Think of a daring THEFT, where the criminal tried to get away from a MAGISTRATE in a SHUTTLE but through circumstances beyond his control finally GAVE MONEY TO THOSE IN NEED.

Sound familiar? It should. That's the backstory to "Jaynestown" right there. The fact that Jayne didn't accomplish it on purpose does not lessen the fact that he gained a hell of a lot of Prestige among the mudders on that moon.

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Thursday, January 29, 2004 7:03 AM

Although it could be called something other than a "Story". "Epic", maybe. "Tall Tale"?

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Thursday, January 29, 2004 7:18 AM

ARIYA

Hello, just found this thread! I am actually looking to design table top games, RPGS, and CCGs for a living, so this is of some interest to me.
Having read through the ideas so far, here is my .02.

The game should have a fairly simple scope. The show's thesis was real people, in a real future, with real problems. I think the idea of having a ship card be the focus of your play area is good, and the idea of amassing credits to use to play cards is also good.
There should be a separate category of cards specifically designed to be played on your opponent's turn. These would be cards that have Reavers or the Alliance messing with your opponent's ship. That way there is some direct play vs. the players, but its not like their two ships or crews are just duking it out.
I think it would be neat to have a special "Character" card type (and of course some or all of the Serenity crew could be hireable) that represents who you have hired to be on your crew.
The idea about a reputation score is also very cool. Requiring a certain level of reputation in order to play a Job card is a great idea. I would suggest that the Job cards are only a one time gain though, and perhaps require some sort of challenge. Maybe there is a difficulty level of each Job, or the opponent has the opportunity to play cards that can mess up the job.

I have some more thoughts, but I will wait to see if anything here has been useful. I know most of it is simply addressing existing concepts, but that seemed like a good place to start. Cool idea, and I can help with the programming should this get off the ground!

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Thursday, January 29, 2004 11:28 AM

KINGOFKOINS

I generally don't like ccg's, but this sounds intriguing.

--------------------------------
It's sickening how comforting the privacy of the mind can be.
"Bible's broken; contradictions, false logistics. Doesn't make sense." - River
http://stripe.filetap.com

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Thursday, January 29, 2004 5:42 PM

Some ideas:
From what I gather you guys are saying that a player would only control one ship card at a time. I'm thinking that a player should be able to play a card (Effect: Shipping Firm is the name I'm thinking) where a player may "purchase" a license from the Alliance government allowing them to operate multiple ships to some limit.

I'm thinking that there may be a illegal license card that would add some negative effects, such as a penalty if your caught using it by the Feds.

As for systems and locations I think we could make a few plausible locations up. For example the Capital City of Shadow could be a planetary location thou we haven't see it its there.

I'll have a few more prototype cards namely Jayne Cobb, Jayne's Knife (As you can guess I'm a huge Jayne fan!), Job: Salvage from Transport, Interrupt: Local Color, and Interrupt: Grand Entrance posted soon.

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Thursday, January 29, 2004 7:33 PM

HAKEN

Likes to mess with stuffs.

I'll give programming the game a shot. Just write out the specs and I'll make it happen.

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Thursday, January 29, 2004 7:52 PM

MRGREEN

This is terrific. I needed a project to work on that combined Firefly, the Gimp, and some some creative collaberation.

An online version would be neat to test stuff out with, but I would MUCH rather have some real cards. I've delt with a printer that does custom playing cards. Both sides full color are like $7 per deck of 54 cards. I don't see why he'd have to do 54 card decks tho... could make 75 card 'starter' packs for around $10 each. I know I'd buy a couple!

Ok, here are a couple of things that I have identified as being, in my opion, ideas I'd want to see in the game, and also some ideas I have had while thinking about it.

1) Single Ship - As mentioned, the show was about real people, and thier lives aboard a ship. I think that it is something that should carry over.

2) Most of the card types are things that sounds good. Esp. ships with different attributes and crew/equipment modifier cards. I like the idea that you would need to use up some credits, or have a certian rep or some varying set of requirements to play certain cards.

3) My first major contribution/idea is that of different card decks. IE, planets, crew, ships, jobs, and then 'misc' have a different back-side designs so they could be easily sorted. That feeds into...

4) Layout - Each player would select a number of LOCATION/PLANET cards. (The number would be dependant on number of players). They would then shuffle them and lay them out randomly in a grid fashion, with each player on one side of a basically square shape so thier cards wouldn't get mixed up. This would create your 'verse.

5) Next you take your JOB deck and shuffle it. Each player would place a JOB under each location card they layed out. Finally, you would each pick a starting point and place your SHIP card on that LOCATION card. That would complete the setup.

6) You would then have a pile of CREW, extra JOB, and ACTION/EQUIPMENT/ETC cards. Your turn would be the act of moving up/down/left/right (not diagonal) thru the verse to new planets based on your ships, potentially modified, movement attribute.

You would have options once you landed on a planet... look for work (turn over the planets job card, and replace it with one a new one), recruit some crew members (draw a card from the crew deck), shop for gear (get a card from the MISC deck).

You could leave a planet at the beginning of your turn, or stay put and get some extra time to look for work AND recruit some crew, or some other combination.

There's ton more stuff to be worked out, but those were just some of my layout ideas. I'm going to draw something showing what I am visualizing and post it to a website shortly (*EDIT: ADDED A QUICK GRAPHIC TO ILLUSTRATE MY IDEAS http://firefly.infojunkie.net/images/layout.jpeg *), I think that with the number of people and ideas we have bouncing around that it might behoove us to move this to a yahoo group or something similar.

BTW, Haken, what kind of language/enviroment were you planning on coding the game in?

Good job on everything so far!

Rob

If you can't run, you crawl, and if you can't crawl, well, if you can't do that, you find someone to carry you.

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Friday, January 30, 2004 6:57 AM

I like your enthusiasm, and I do like your ideas... but I must argue for a simpler game overall. Look at the CCG industry -- what are the most popular games around? They're the simpler ones -- Magic, and Yu Gi Oh. Both of them work off of just one deck.

If we keep the prospective CCG fairly straightforward while preserving the overall texture of the 'verse, I believe it will have a wider appeal.

For ships, just sell the starter decks and have the stats for the ship on the box itself. I think that the planets idea, while interesting, could make things overly complicated and at the same time kind of, well, not as wide-open.

For example, if you've only got a one-on-one "grudge match", either each person will have to contribute a lot of Location cards -- cards they might not possess -- or you'll have a really small 'verse. Additionally, there might be duplication in location cards. "Um... so which Londinium are we supposed to deliver this cargo to?"

Keeping the location to general zones that are listed primarily on Job cards will simplify matters.

Another problem that might occur is one of ship Range. If we went with the grid model you propose, could you move a maximum of (Range) location cards in a turn? If so, isn't there the problem that a low-reward job (in either creds or Rep/Prestige) could take much longer than it would be worth, and thus certain jobs would stagnate under certain locations?

If the Job cards are simply another card to be placed in one's deck, then one can construct a deck around certain Jobs in order to achieve victory... and that's something that, in then end, people will buy more card packs to do. Particularly if certain (greatly desireable) Jobs are rarer in card commonality.

As for Crew and Gear cards, again, I think those should be in the single deck -- you come across them by happenstance as much as anything else, and you might have to sacrifice other important cards from your hand -- be they Jobs, Actions, or the like -- in order to successfully meet the requirements for a particular Crew card.

Hmmm. And I just thought of some more potential game mechanics/cards. Let's say you can only have as many Crew in play as, say, a portion of your Cargo space. You can discard Crew that you have in play to put down new Crew.

Quote:
"Hey Mal, whaddya need two mechanics for?"
"I really don't."

Following that logic, there could be an Action card that allowed you to hire Crew from someone else's discard pile.

I'd prefer to stick with the single deck idea. Multiple decks in a game seem like it would confuse the heck out of newcomers, and if the game's not relatively straightforward to learn it might lack in customer response.

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Friday, January 30, 2004 8:32 AM

FOFFILMS

Okay - I'll toss in my ideas, as I have a fully developed rules system for a firefly ccg of my own alreasdy, and I have been following this thread listening to the new ideas and I think they're pretty good.

As a 10 year ccg player - that's right, I was a Magic Alpha player!!! And later an owner of a CCG shop - this is where I stand on a firefly ccg.

Each player begins with a certain amount of credits, they then play out, one at a time their "core cards" - a boat, and crew and supplies (weapons etc..) they must use credits to purchase these core cards, the remaining credits are what they have to begin the game.

The base of a win would be to build reputation points to a certain value (say 20 - the standard ccg #). First player to reaches 20 rep points wins.

But losing is the far simpler prospect, a player loses the game if they exhaust their deck or if they have no cards in play (lose your ship and your crew and you're done)

This makes it a "simple" game with a variety of strategic options.

As for card types, I think the basics work well: Ships, Characters, Locations and Equipment.

Then more game intensive cards:

Jobs - play a job, complete all the requirements and add to your reputation (as well as any credits or bonus the card may have)

Events - Things that play on the table until their effect is used up (Ie... Shindig - the ball, Passenger Detention and Questioning (train job)

Obstacles - Play to prevent your opponent from completeing jobs etc...

Impulse - Cards with immediate effects on play, (like instants in Magic)

I think those basic card types open the entire series and keep play moving quickly but have a lot of strategy involved.

I have a full set of rules and some proto-card types already, but didn't want to post them , as I saw all these cards being posted and many rules ideas bantering around.

I was waiting to see if I might be spurred on to change my ideas, which I have a little.

Anyway, that's my thoughts.

I think the Star Trek CCG didn't work as well as it could because it was slow, had too many variables and didn;t capture the true flavor of the series (until some later expansions)

The Star Wars CCG (original Decipher release) to me really didn't at all reflect Star Wars in how it played.

I think a Firefly CCG would really need to capture the flavor of the show, rather than get bogged down in complicated rules, variables and semantics.

Anyway, I will keep an interested eye on this development.

And if you are seriously contemplating trying to put this into the market place as an ultimate goal, you will need a minimum of about $150-200k capital to aquire the rights, and produce play test sets, then go into production for a limited initial run, as well as a small amount of marketing at cons. ( I have done this homeowkr as I developed an ALIAS CCG and went through the process of looking into the first run production costs.)

Cheers all.

www.fof-films.com
Firefly Fan Film - Coming SOON

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Friday, January 30, 2004 10:01 AM

Whoa, that's a lot of startup cash. I admittedly hadn't quite thought that far ahead...

Still, I think the idea has real potential. I'm going to do some more investigating.

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it merely shouts "Weren't you listening the first time?!?" and lets fly with a club.

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Monday, February 2, 2004 8:27 AM

Just thoght I bump this.

Any progress on the rules?

I've still been working on some cards, and I'll post them soon.

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Wednesday, June 9, 2004 10:55 AM

HEDGEMON

Hi, new to this thread, not so new to CCGs, (Magic beta player, Star Trek limited player, so overall about 10 years now.)

I've been hashing out rules, and have been in discussion with Barclay and Gunrunner. The game I have in mind has four factions: The Independents, the Alliance, the Blue Sun Corporation, and the Reavers. Each faction has its own way to win, which add to the two universal victory conditions.

I've got the pregame phase about down, and, barring changes to it by my playtesting posse (I may play Deadlands too much,) and changes implemented by Barclay and Gunrunner, I'll be posting them onto this board for input. For actual gameplay, I'm working on blending the ideas expressed in this thread, and the other. Drop me a line at YIM: magehedgemon if you're interested in helping us.

And about market release: we're going on an eBay jag here in NM, trying to raise funds. I'm also talking to a friend of mine about building an unofficial Firefly CCG webpage with it's own domain name. www.fireflyccg.com, or something. As soon as we get that, we'll be posting a PayPal donation thing. If you want to help, and you got some cash burning a hole in your hull, we will need it! After we get the rules and the demo decks(and the rights to do this in the first place...

), my posse and I will talk to GAMA and the GenCon guys. I'm thinking that we'll need about 250 decks, and 250,000 promo cards. What do y'all think?

No, this must be what going mad feels like

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Wednesday, June 9, 2004 11:09 AM

HEDGEMON

GAMEPLAY FEEL FOR THE DIFFERENT FACTIONS:

Independents: Very much what you guys have started developing. The smuggling, everything.

Alliance: The jackbooted, authoritarian feel. With big guns.

Blue Sun: Mysterious. We want their player to feel powerful without giving them a license to win.

Reavers: Rape, eat, pillage, destroy. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Any ideas?

No, this must be what going mad feels like

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Wednesday, June 9, 2004 12:17 PM