Designing Kruth games - hordes of them

[Avril]

Over the next few days, I'll try to write up a few Kruth games that may or may not work smoothly at all. Consider them fits of the mind, mutant thoughts left for the gaming environment to decide whether they're suitable or not. I just hope people will be interested enough to figure out their faults, and thus, help me make them into real, sturdy games. While I'll be designing them without much consideration for their rules, how much skill needs to be placed into them and how much social factors influence the game, I'll try to apply unique rules and approaches to gaming whenever I can.

Theoretically, a card game doesn't really need to use cards exclusively. If we consider a Kruth card to be a set of two numbers, one of them ranging between 0-3 and the other between 0-5, we can reasonably assume that these cards are nothing more than two-dimensional numbers. We need only ask ourselves, then... Why can't these cards receive a third, or indeed, any number of dimensions? There might be a few limitations, but not so many as people think. For instance, suppose the table is divided in a grid of "slots", each of whom may hold any number of both cards and coins (assume that coins become game elements). You suddenly have five dimensions to a card: its element/sphere, its position and the number of coins stacked upon that position. The game might not allow such complexities, and it would be tedious for players to run a third-party java program just to see what happens to their cards, but some games can get away with a simple third dimension such as the order of the cards dealt, since that dimension exists in-game as the inventory order (note, however, that other players would have no way of knowing which cards belong to who without peeking). Other constraints of the game engine include the fact that you can't hold cards face-down (to my knowledge) or empty/refill a deck like a container object (which, as I understand it, means you can get an unlimited number of cards of the same type).

Come to think of it, the code is so simple and buggy, it might be worth designing a Kruth game for VassalEngine (or some other board-game engine). Nonetheless, there's still a bit of room to work with in-game. Some of the principles below might spring up, and if they don't, I'll simply figure out a variant of my games in which they do.
-multiple victory: players can "win" in more than one way, or perhaps just one way that's determined before or during the game (for instance, players might declare they plan to win in a certain way before attempting it, and might have to pay a great price to pull out of their attempt). Players can "win" many times, and/or perhaps still take part in the game after having "won".
-multiple places to deliver cards: To referees, on one or more discard piles or into the hands of your fellow players. I'm also assuming some cards can be used without being discarded. Cards cannot be insterted back into the original deck at specific points, however.
-complex turn-based systems: instead of rounds in which a player simply lays down one of his cards, I could include symultaneous actions, joint moves, orders based on the last card played or in-game ways of modifying the system in use.
-limited interaction: essentially, some actions can only be performed in certain groups of players. There might be ways to "seal yourself off" from the game or dissolve the barriers between two other players. This might be an interesting way to play championships, where players can influence each other's games either while they play, or upon winning (in some cases, such as when given the ability to affect all remaning games simultaneously, this could mean the earliest winners will have the greatest impact on the game).
-metagaming: the use of charisma and various gambling appliances, such as dice and darts, to determine whether/what someone has won, or generally influence play. The game's never played for its own sake, so anything that brings it closer to the needs of the players is a good thing.

Consider a moderately wealthy bunch of commoners coming together to play their favourite game. For the occasion, each of them brings in a variety of prizes, and rather than establish a single "winner" among many "losers", the game simply determines what sort of prizes everyone wins. Thus, the game must offer as many ways to win as there are players, and ensure that loss could only come from not getting the appropriate mix of prizes. I would imagine that this sort of game would be quite popular within longneck tribes, since its members wouldn't find such great a need to compete against each other. In any case, the game might require players to "interact" with their own hands as much as they do with other players, providing rules that affect a specific combination of cards (such as the simple "life and death cannot belong to the same hand") or make particular cards present a vulnerability while they're inside the deck. As a social game, it might require that players help out each other, perhaps in ways that make those assisted vulnerable to the helpers later on. One thing to be remembered is that if a player is made omnipotent over his cards -that is, if he can discard any of them at any time, or otherwise remove any malicious effects they might have- the game will suffer for it. Allow players to give their enemies a bad card that they can't otherwise get rid of, and things will suddenly become a lot more interesting.

As a social game where everybody wins a single portion of some big prize, cooperation matters... You don't want people to get together and decide what each wants, then bypass the game completely, but you don't want frantic competition, either. Diplomacy should matter to the player as much as his cards. We'll assume that everyone wants every type of prize, but can compromise to get the most of a specific type... Then, so long as each of the prizes can be broken up into four parts (or multiples of four, when more than one 24-card deck is used), we can assume six (or four) types of prizes are available, each related to a different rank (or element). Here's one way of determining who gets what prize: each player owns a "stash" of cards, placed face up on the table, and at the end of the last round (which can be the tenth or the fiftieth, anyway), the persons with X out of Y stashed cards belonging to a certain rank get X/Y of the corresponding prize. Stashes can be affected by a variety of actions, and are thus more vulnerable than the player's hand. However, as I understand it, it would be impossible to differentiate between stashes on a gaming table without either a good memory or a text document, so another method might be needed. The players might never have stashes, but instead play their hands at once at the end of the game, effectively creating their stashes on the spot. Since the players are all looking to grab the right cards off each other's hands, there have to be some means of telling who has what cards, as well as the possiblity of giving cards to someone just to make his hand weaker (but at the same time, more valuable if he wins).

An easy way to identify cards is to give them abilities whose use does not cause them to be discarded. Complicating this, players could "sacrifice" (secretly discard) a card in order to give the effect of another card more power, thus creating some confusion as to which cards still exist. If giving away cards doesn't show their rank and element to everyone in the room, even better. I'm thinking of allowing each card to use almost every "common" ability available, to varying degrees of success, as well as (perhaps) include a special ability of its own.

Actions taken during a turn consist of playing a single card offensively or defensively (normal turn/round system), passing a card to someone else, and "engulfing" an offensive card played at you once (see below). You can't play both a defense and an offense. Players may not draw a card unless they choose to forfeit both playing a card and "engulfing". Cards usually remain in one's hand for a long time, which makes drawing one quite valuable on certain occasions.

The following abilities are listed according to the rank that can perform them without penality (that rank will, from now on, be called "positive"). The related element determines what sort of penality there is for using them with only a partially suitable ("neutral") rank (the penality is always determined by the rank of the ability, not the rank of the card), what sacrifices they require, and what element could "engulf" the card (see below). Some ranks can never play the action of a certain other rank - these are considered "negative" towards that action. Life and death, truth and deceit, kings and fate are obviously "negative" to each other.

Each card has an offensive and defensive ability. If the element of a card played offensively "engulfs" the element of any cards in the target's hand, all of these cards, plus any other cards normally affected, will suffer the consequences. This is regardless of any defenses the player might have up. Furthermore, if a defensively played card is removed from the hand during the act, its defense is ignored for any other cards.

Life
Offensive - prevent the target from using non-sacrifice-powered offensive abilities for three rounds, minus one per every death card in your hand.
Defensive - discard the played card and draw as many as four cards, minus one per every two death cards in your hand (ignoring the ones being drawn).
Neutral Penality - discard the next card you draw or take from someone else's hand.

Truth
Offensive - Force the player to show you four cards, minus one per every deceit card in your hand
Defensive - Force every player attacking you for the next four rounds, minus one per every two deceit cards in your hand (rounded up) to show you four of his cards (minus that same ammount).
Neutral Penality - reveal one of your cards that has not already been revealed. If no such cards exist, reveal the next one that enters your deck.

Fate
Offensive - force the target to skip two turns, minus one per every king card in your hand.
Defensive - prevent your cards from being "engulfed" by enemy offensive cards for two turns, minus one per every two king cards in your hand, rounded up.
Neutral Penality - Force yourself to draw a card, rather than performing an action, next turn.

Kings
Offensive - Pull two cards from the target hand, minus one for every two fate cards in your hand, rounded up. The cards pulled may be random or selected.
Defensive - Force any offensive ability used on you to take effect on the aggressor's deck as well, for two turns minus one per every fate card in your hand.
Neutral Penality - discard a card other than the one being played.

Deceit
Offensive - Prevent the target from using defensive abilities for four rounds, minus one for every two truth cards in your hand, rounded up.
Defensive - Force the target to hand over four cards, minus one for every truth card in your hand, if he plays an offensive ability on you next turn.
Neutral penality - hand over the played card to the target, or (if no target exists) the last person you targeted. Defensive deceit may only be played by "positive" cards.

Death
Offensive - force the target to discard three cards, minus one per every two life cards in your deck, rounded up.
Defensive - force anyone using an offensive ability on you to discard the card being played, for three turns minus one per every life card in your deck.
Neutral penality - discard the card being used

These rules aren't hard to memorize - four cards for truth/deceit, three for life/death and two for death/kings; life, truth and fate are defensive (two cards of  cut down the effectiveness of an offensive ability by one card), while kings, deceit and death are offensive.

Sacrifices may only be used to boost the power of an ability delivered by a "positive" card. Rather than affecting a single target, it will affect everyone, excluding the player himself. The player must still choose a target for it. Note that anyone can engulf a card affected by sacrifice, which downsizes it to a regular "positive" - the sacrifice-powered ability still affects the target, as expected. The sacrifice needed depends on the type of card in use, but always takes place after the ability is used - in other words, only if everyone refuses to engulf the card. The sun demands that both the boosted card and another card are to be discarded. The wind demands that the player reveal his whole hand. Stone demands that the player skip a turn. Water demands that you play a defensive or offensive ability (without using sacrifice) in favor of your target next turn.

Alternative rule: Sacrifice requires the player to target more than one adversary, with one adversary being the "main target". Only the targets can engulf his sacrifice-powered card. The sun demands that a number of cards equal to half the targets (no rounding up or down - the number of targets must be even) are to be discarded. The wind demands that the player reveal one card for each target he selects. Stone demands that the player fall behind in the turn order by n "rounds" (n players normally behind him will take their turns before he does, and this effect will remain permanent until he makes another stone sacrifice). Water demands that you hand one of your cards to your main target for every two targets (and the number of targets must be even).

Engulfing is a special action played on a card that's about to be played; it downgrades the card's rank from "positive" to "neutral", or from "neutral" to "negative". This essentially means that the target is penalized for playing a card of the wrong element, or rendered unable to play it. Only the target of the card may engulf, and (in some variants of this game) he might suffer some penality himself. Also in some variants, cards that possess both the correct element and the rank negative to the target card's may engulf it, regardless of who it's being played on. Stone engulfs fire; sun engulfs water (nobody in their right mind would think to use water for taking out a fire); water engulfs wind and wind engulfs stone. After someone's card is engulfed, he must skip the turn.

This game might be too complicated for casual players to enjoy... I'll prboably be writing a few that are much more simple tomorrow.

[Avril]

Oh, yeah... Here's a simple one that can be tailored directly from "engulfing". Ranks are completely ignored - all that matters is the elements. Each of the three, four or six players draws cards until none remain. I'm assuming a Kruth deck can get "emptied" of cards, and must be reshuffled to get "filled" - this is important, because if players can't guess when the game's run out of cards of a certain element, it might make the game less manageable.

The game uses a traditional turn-based approach. Every round, each player reveals a card in his hand and gives it to a target; if the card's element "engulfs" the element of any card in the target's hand, he must discard that "engulfed" card and keep the "engulfing" card. If, however, no cards can be engulfed, the player simply gets his card back (after everyone else has gotten to see it). The objective is to be the first to remain without any cards. If six cards of a certain element have been discarded, engulfing is said to "leap over" that element, so that, for instance, if water engulfs wind, which engulfs stone, and no wind cards exist, water is considered to engulf stone.

Special rule: If a Kruth deck just deals a random element/rank, add in a rule that, whenever someone tries to "engulf" and fails, the person after him may "engulf" the card used in the failed attempt with any card of his own, regardless of element. This makes the game a bit awkward by the end, but allows it to be played with any number of cards, by any number of people.

[Delirium]

I'm assuming a Kruth deck can get "emptied" of cards, and must be reshuffled to get "filled"

Not to my knowledge, no. Cards are simply 'junk'ed and the deck is limitless.

Which can lead to some very lengthy games that depend on having only a certain number of a certain type of card, heh.

[UnderSeven]

Heh, I created topple!  And it's a simple concept anyone could of come up with, but *I* am the one who did come up with it and is responsible for one of the most played kurth games in game.  What's my point?  None, just patting myself on the back.  Actually I did have a point.  From my experience of trying to create kurth games (I've made about four) and seeing which of the four I made that are actually played (only one) what I've concluded from these is that since the one that is played is also the simpliest of the four, that simplicity rocks.  Lets face it, armageddon is a game, not too many people are likely to want to login to armageddon just to learn how to play a complex game within a game.  With kurth, since we can't acatually see the cards, the more complex the rules the less likely people are to actually put the time in to learning and playing it.  Gambling and kurth does add another page to the game, but I think if you're going to make kurth games you should remeber K.I.S.S.

[Avril]

UnderSeven, keeping it stupid has a lot of unpleasant side effects. Besides, stupidity isn't the word you're looking for - it's familiarity. Some very stupid rules can be hard to describe to someone who's used to a particular way of playing cards. I was surprised to find that someone even claimed Izdari is complicated... I can't quite think of an appropriate comment, other than that I would've liked to see M.A.X. and Planescape: Torment get bigger sales compared to, say, Warcraft 2 and NWN.

If I were to create a professional gambler character, I'd want to play some real games. Poker championships or other competitions sound about as silly as playing dominos for cash, because there's simply very little skill involved. People have been mentioning how some forms of role-play get easily overlooked... If there are bards roaming the taverns, why not gamblers who choose to make a living out of their hobby?
Probably because there's not much fun in doing that, since every game designed so far relies purely on operant conditioning.

Three games came to mind yesterday night... Two of them exceedingly straightforward. They're so simple, your character would have to be an idiot to truly enjoy them. Still, they might need some fine-tuning and patching in order to work well (particularly the first one).

Passageway
Best played between two players. Everyone's hand must start out with, and remain with, four cards throughout the game. If one card is discarded or placed on the stack, the player must draw another. One card is also placed on a visible stack at the beginning. Each turn, a player can discard one of his cards, play a card on the stack (if that card has either the same rank or suit as the last card placed on the stack) or simply skip his turn. At the beginning or the end of his turn, a player may declare that he won; if his enemy also declares victory, the player about to end his turn always takes precedence. In order to win, you must have a set of cards appropriate for the rank and element on the stack.

Life: All four cards must belong to the stack card's element.
Truth: Two cards must belong to the element of the SC. Each of the other two must belong to a different "neutral" element.
Kings: Each element must be represented in your hand.
Fate: Two of your cards must belong to the SC's element, the others to the element opposite that
Deceit: Two cards must belong to the element opposite that of the SC; the other two must each belong to a different "neutral" element.
Death: All four cards must belong to the element opposite that of the SC.

Note: It turns out something with the same basic domino-style concept already exists. Ah, well.

Ceremony
Each player gets four cards. In order to draw cards to replace one of these four, everyone must be in consensus over the draw, and everyone gets to swap one of his cards. Victors are decided in the order in which they have won; a player wins if all his four cards belong to the same element. If anyone still has cards of that element, they automatically discard them and draw others, and cannot accept to draw such cards in the future. Each player (even those who have already won) may either swap one of his cards with a card from an adversary's hand (provided the whole thing can be done invisibly), or demand that two other players perform a similar swap. The adversary (or adversaries, in the second case) decides which card he trades, though he does this before seeing what he receives. It becomes interesting to keep track of which cards might have gone where, and subtle feelings of trust have as much influence as the cards themselves. Best played between five people, though three or four have been known to work.

Auction
Using a rough version of Passageway's winning scenario, this game takes everything about a merchant's life and squeezes it into a deck fo twenty-four cards. Each player must bet a usually equal ammount of coins, and the total coins invested in this bet (minus twice the cost of every purchased card) will be divided among the players who have either four of the same element, two of an element and its opposite, or one of each element in their hand.

The idea is to make yourself and, if that can't be avoided, one or more of your opponents "win" by trading visible cards from your "stock" and receiving them into your hand. Every one of the (usually three or four) players receives an equal ammount of cards, some of which they must place into their stock until only four remain. Technically, the game can be played with multiple decks, and any number of players may draw any number of cards, but the rule remains: only four cards may exist in a player's hand.

The players set a value for each of the cards in their stock. The sum of these values must be no greater than the ammount they've bet. In order to buy any of these cards and replace a card in their hand with it, other players will have to pay the card's value; the owner of the card will also withdraw the ammount of coins he placed on the card from the game, which means he'll get double what he paid for, and make sure the betting pool from which winners will draw their coins becomes dwindled (thus keeping some of his own money safe). All cards in stock are considered for sale; if no price is set on them, they are considered free. If two players wish to buy the same card, they must hold an auction for it.

(I don't much like the idea of forcing players to diminish their winnings so much when they buy a card; it pretty much assures that only one or two cheap cards will ever be bought in a game. If I add more cards to the stock without increasing the hand and tightening the rules as to what can be bought, I'll make sure everyone will end up winning with a bit of trade. This might not be a bad idea, but still... Maybe eight cards in one's hand and six in every stock would work better? Maybe make the betting pool and  separate? I think I'll use this latter option.)

In a refined variant of this game, players may also use up one card (or, if the game uses a turn-based introductory phase, several) from their auction blocks to perform certain actions: life gives the player two new cards for his stock, truth shows everyone the cards in someone else's hand, kings allows a player to replace a card in his hand with one from his stock, fate allows him to replace *all* the cards in his stock (no less) with fresh cards drawn from the deck, deceit protects the player against truth and death removes two cards of the stock, giving the owner back the price he placed on them.

An even more refined version allows players to set one of their stock cards aside and keep it hidden. This hidden card may still be bought and sold, usually at a low price, but threatens to prove worthless for the buyer.

[Avril]

Two more, off the top of my head:

Mercenaries:
"Englufing" rules apply. Each of the four players chooses an element, and sits at the table so that the elements engluf each other anti-clockwise. Everyone draws an equal number of cards until the deck is left empty (or thereabouts - in-game, eight cards each would be enough). Cards are played clockwise, although the order of rounds isn't always the same: the first player starts the first round, the second player starts the second round etc. Everyone plays a sum of coins (a wager of sorts) along with a single card which, if it belongs to a different element than the player's, must either be payed for (with a number of coins equal to a quarter of the wager itself) or handed over to its element's "owner" at the end of the round. After the wager is first set, every other player is invited to meet the it, raise it, or hand over one of his cards to the player who brought up the highest wager. A player's wager and his card must be played at the same time.

Any card that "kills" another card and survives will pull back with its wager at the end of the round, and keep its own wager (minus the cost of "renting" the card from its element's owner, if any). If a card fails to kill any others, but still survives, it simply withdraws. Players remaining with spare cards at the end of the game, when , can trade them for five 'sids (or some other predetermined ammount) from every other player.

The following rules take precedence over engulfing when deciding who kills what:
-death kills life.
-truth kills deceit.
-life kills truth
-deceit kills death
-If a Kings card fails to kill anything, but survives, its owner receives a number of 'sid equal to half his wager from each of the other players.
-Fate kills all other cards at the end of the round if all three others are left standing. The first fate card to be played gains this privilege, though in some variants of this game, other fate cards are immune to this effect.

Obsidian Mines
Designed for two players, who must place equal ammounts of coins into a betting pool. Every round, each player may perform two actions, which can be either playing offensively, playing defensively, drawing cards, or a combination thereof. Both start out with six cards. By playing a card defensively, a player sets it either on his side of the table, or (in some variants, for which playing a card defensively constitutes two actions) over another card he has already played defensively. Defensive cards may not be brought back into a player's hand or used offensively. (In the variants mentioned, players have to break through each other's stack piece by piece, which makes a lucky lineup of cards particularly difficult to fight against). At the end of every round, each card played defensively will pull a minimal number of coins (called a "chip") from the other player's half of the betting pile. The objective is to end up with three quarters of the betting pool or more, at which point you can declare victory. Typically, losing a defensive card means having to pay the attacking player three "chips", but one variant has it that chips simply pile up on each of the cards, and upon losing one of the cards, one also loses the "chips" it had collected.

"Engulfing" rules apply, although when one card engulfs another, they must both be discarded. If the player opts to use a card offensively by playing its rank against the target defensive card's rank (fate against kings, for instance), he will keep his card upon successful use, although  attacks of this sort may be intercepted. "interception" does not count towards the two alloted actions every turn; it uses any card in the defender's hand that can engulf the attacking card, and results in the attacking card being discarded. Nothing happens to the intercepting card.

Kings and fate, truth and deceit, life and death are considered to oppose each other. Cards that both engulf another card by element and oppose it by rank automatically succeed in their attacks.

[Delirium]

K.I.S.S. means 'Keep it Simple, Stupid'. Not 'Keep it Stupid.' The basic premise of which I agree with - simple does not have to mean boring, and it's easier for everyone to grasp quickly.

Now, while those games above look interesting at first glance, I think that Kruth decks would need to be made a bit more elegant (we would need coded discard piles and a command to reshuffle the whole deck, plus the ability to 'pre-arrange' a deck for those gambling cheaters out there) before anyone could really begin seriously playing detailed Kruth games.

[dolores]

I imagine this has already occurred to people ... but just to make it explicit:

I suspect much more complex games can be introduced in-game than over the GDB. Assuming a scheme has potential, given the way decks are currently coded, there are probably bored tavern sitters who could be interested in a fun, role-played lesson.

--Dolores

[UnderSeven]

Actually I meant it as 'Keep it Short and simple'  So.. stupid didn't really enter in there  anywhere.  But I guess there are other meanings for that too.

[Dakurus]

There are many other things to factor in.
One is the increased passage of time in the game.
Unless the game is designed to be fairly simple, too much time can often pass in game before completion.
This can happen just as often with conversation and what not.
Many characters have other responsibilities that will conflict with a huge continuous block being taken up by a card game.

Another is for those that are interested in gambling.
It's more difficult then you would think to actually get players to risk their obsidian in games of chance and opportunity then it seems.
And it's difficult to decide upon the right betting amounts that will leave both players feeling at the end that it was something more then just passing the time.

These are not show stoppers, but I've always felt they add to the overall difficulty in making card games more popular.

[Anonymous]

What would be nice is some two player gambling games.  Each player gives the dealer 25 sid, the dealer keeps a couple and deals out the cards, winner takes the loser's sid sans the dealer's cut.

This avoids having to go through the trouble of explaining the rules to someone to play a little bar game against them.