The Magic: the Gathering: the Campaign System is based on a simple desire;
I want to play a game of Magic with a larger scope and different victory
conditions. Last weekend, Terry and I play-tested the first edition of Magic: Clash
Across Planes (Hereafter, CAP).
CAP Overview
1. 60 location cards representing various
locales across twelve different planes. Players can come to control and use
locations.
2. Each
player has three different decks, referred to as characters. Each campaign round,
players play a standard game of Magic using one of their characters.
3. Each
game is held on a location pulled from the deck of locations (known as The Blind Eternities. The winner of the
game gains control of the plane.
4. Life,
poison counters, cards exiled, and the number of cards in graveyard are tracked
for each character between rounds. A player who ends a game with 16 life and
five cards in their graveyard will start the next game with 16 life and five
cards in their graveyard. If a player's final life is above 20, their life
total becomes 20.
5. Locations
grant many abilities, depending on whether the player who controls them Explores, Defends, or Ravages
them. Locations and their abilities rarely affect games of Magic, but they
commonly affect the rounds and actions
of characters not playing.
6. The default
actions for a non-playing character are Heal,
which allows a character to heal 2 life (to a maximum of 20), Recall, which reduces their starting
graveyard size by six, or Relearn,
which returns an exiled card to their library.
7. If
damage would reduce a player below 0 life and kill them, excess damage is
converted into starting graveyard size. If the cards drawn from an empty library
or put into a graveyard from the library exceed the library size, the excess is
converted into damage. This allows for decks performing overkill to further
impede an enemy.
8. Players
can win the campaign with victory conditions on location cards they control.
9.Some
location abilities allow one character to challenge
another. If the other character accepts, the two play against one another next
turn. Some abilities allow penalties for refusing a challenge while others
offer rewards for the winner of the match.
-Players
can concede from a game of Magic at any time. This isn't a special rule, it's
merely more important here.
The play testing
went well. We got a few average decks together and battled over and on planes.
It took around an hour or so, but we got some good data and uncovered a number
of issues.
Problems
Aggro/Quit
Archetype – The additional penalties for going negative on mill/draw/life
resulted in some decks quitting once their opponent's slower deck stabilized.
This allowed for lightning raids that could wear down an opponent before they
could amass enough locations to a threat.
Tracking
Stats – Determining which of a player's characters controlled a specific
location or how that location was controlled was problematic enough. Tracking
starting graveyard levels, life, poison, and exiled cards made logistics even
more difficult.
Direction
and Goals – I overlooked the original goal of providing alternate victory
conditions with locations. Locations are very random, eliminating any strategy
on the campaign level and with it, any sense of narrative flow. Challenges
didn't come up much, and when they did, they were easy enough to decline.
Boring
Locations – In addition to not pushing gameplay forward, the locations weren't
very evocative. None of them felt like the locations they were trying to
represent and it was easy to forget about them during setup.
Solutions
A revised
set of location cards and rules would have to address these issues. The easiest
fix would be to have location cards controlled by players instead of characters
and simplify control to do away with the alternative control types.
Changing
locations to provide additional effects on games of Magic runs the risk of
unbalancing game play, but it's worth it for the chance of defining locations
better and providing an upswing in location potency. Such an upswing would make
surrendering a location just to bloody another player a much more difficult
decision to make. The only problem is ensuring that swing speeds gameplay
instead of prolonging it with healing bonuses.
Examples:
[Alternate
Win Condition]
Location –
Wild
Whenever a
player controls five or more creatures, they win the game.
[Campaign
Win Condition]
Location –
Grave
Whenever
you control 5 Grave locations, you win the campaign.
[Alternate
Win Condition with Triggers]
Location – Ancient
Whenever a
spell, ability, or creature a player controls deals 4 or more damage to a
player, that player puts a control counter on [CARDNAME]. Whenever a player has
3 or more damage counters on [CARDNAME], that player wins the game.
[Challenge
Location]
Location –
Tempest
For a
character's action, if an opponent controls target location that shares a plane
with a location you control, one of your players may challenge one of theirs.
If they decline, gain control of that location.
[Find a
Location]
Location –
Throne
Whenever
you gain control of Throne, you may look at the top three cards of The Blind
Eternities and put them back in any order.
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