Elf Quest Card Game, a "Magic" variant.

G0lden wrote:

Shakes head still trying to make sense of this whole thing.  Give me time and I'll figure it out eventually (I think).

Sorry about that, is there anything I can do to help?

In basic terms, "Magic" the card game is somewhere between roll play and a board game. Instead of building a character profile, though, you build a deck from a pool of cards that best describes "you" as you want to play. Another player (or more) does the same, and it becomes mind of a wizards duel between you, pretending the table is a world, the creatures (character cards) areyour minions, and your deck is a library of spells you use to cause changes in that world. You use the spells to summon creatures, change the rules, and ultimately drain your opponent(s) or otherwise win the game. Attacks with your creatures, spells that damage an opponent, and other things can drain your opponents life points. Another way to win the game is to cause your opponent to discard all of his cards from his draw pile, have a card that sets conditions for winning, complete saga cards (which would be replaced with Quest cards for us), and other things I dont know about it.

The interesting thing about Magic is that there is a huge set of rules with finite details... BUT one of the main ones is that cards can rewrite the rules, contradict the rules, and basically do what they want. The rule set is there simply to help figure out major conflicts between two cards, sequence of a turn, and other things at a high level that beginners dont really need to worry about.

Otherwise, its like RP, is that each card is ideally written to be flexible and interpretable, so you can play things out like a story that can change each time its played.

What Im doing and would like whatever help with that anyone wants to help with is to make a card pool, or set, of cards based on Elf Quest.

Once a set of cards is roughed out and I can build aplugin for Lackey, we can learn to play online for free, instead of trying to get them printed, then buying them at $4/15 cards, and then trying to find someone to play locally.

It was intended to be a social game fir the EQ community, a last ditch effort in mh frustrating attempt to breath new life in the community.

Well, puckernuts. Melt my hammer and call me slag if there isnt already an endorsed game in the works I didnt know about. Oh well. Ill probably just tidy up a few cards, throw in some hand drawings and whatever else anyone wants to pitch in, and put together a Lackey plugin just because Im curious if I ever would have been successful with how I saw it in my head as an online game. Fortunately, I hadnt invested in any card making materials or tools yet.

Its not necessarily quits, per se. If there is any strong interest Im still fully willing to keep putting some effort into it, but I dont see how two card games can coexist in the current fanbase, especially of one is backed by thr Pini's and is funded.

I opened a new forum for the card game at eqccg.forumotion.com

All who wish to participate are encouraged to join and participate.

I'll put major updates here, everything else there.

It was just started so there isn't much there, I hope to add content over the next week.

I am also using that forum for discussion about a drinking game set of cards that can be added to both Elf Quest or Magic the Gathering, under the working title of Tragic the Smashening.

I have to admit it, I cant seem to let this one go. I'm still playing with it, poking around and trying to come up with something playable.

However, with the... ahem, environment... for which it was inspired, I'm assuming that anything I did come up with would be fairly difficult to have progress beyond a thought experiment, what with complex rules for fan art and internet timy-wimys... SO... what if there just happened to be a 'world' that was fairly familiar, but pretty much all 'made up' that the set was based on?

Yeah, I'm meaning a spoof or RP type made up thing. It occurs to me that this would make it so that we, the fans, can interject how we wish the world to be, instead of it being dictated and inflexible.

So, if anyone is even reading this, does this seem like it would be fun for anyone?

Basically, it would be developing a world with tribes and characters, items, events, and so on that, for now, doesn't really have a set storyline except (perhaps) the general outline of an indigenous species (or more) coming into contact with an alien species (or more) and somehow involving time travel, in that there are several distinct time periods, however the characters from each time period may move between time periods. (if that makes sense.)

Any thoughts?

There are several ways I've tried to break down the facets of Elf Quest so it fits in with Magic the Gathering. The races are not defined well (well, except for the preservers), and individuals are quite dynamic, but tribes (clans, what have you) are a pretty good place to start, small enough to be like-minded, but large enough to generalize.

It is OK to mix colors, however, it should be kept to two or less for simplicities sake. Almost all 'round' characters are a mix of all 5 traits as are real people, however, in a story, at a moment of time, a character is usually only defined by one or two major traits. Cutter is extremely rounded for all colors, but if you focus on just Cutter as a slave to the Trolls in his youth, his intentions were Blue, and a bit White. For that reason, some or all of the examples I'm making here are either for an instance in time, or for the 'well known' version of the respective thing.

Wolfriders: If there was ever anything that was a truer Green, I don't know about it. The 'now' of wolfthought is slightly Red, but inspired by natural Green tenancies.

Gliders: I had a hard time with this one. Flight and other aspects of Gliders on the surface are White traits, but I realized that this was how they were viewed by others, not their true aspects. As such, I looked at it again. The gliders basically break down into three groups: the Chosen 8, the Rock Shapers, and Winnowil (and Vol gets thrown under a bus, I mean Winnie). The Chosen 8 are pretty much self indulgent, quick to attack, and believe in a pecking order, which are Black traits, IMO, with a sense of justice and striving toward purity that blends them as White as well. The rock shapers are absorbed by their pursuit of rockshaping lore, which is Blue, and Winnie is mixed, being mostly Black in intent, and Blue in her pursuit of experimentation.

Go-Backs: Their strive for the palace is technically White, but their impulstiveness, protectiveness of family and whatnot is Red, I feel.

Hoan G'ta Sho: these are pretty much pure White creatures based off of their worship of the Gliders.

Gotara Tribe: Mostly red, I feel. I suppose their worship of Gotara is a White trait, however it seems that only the Shaman and his small crew are the main instigators and continuers of the 'god', whereas the rest of the tribe would rather not deal with anything more than just hunting and gathering. I guess Im' not justifying Red very well, but I don't have my notes here to post, I'm going from memory. If not Red, I'd say the tribe might be considered Green. Definately not Blue, as they do not persue any sort of furtherance of the mind, and not really Black, other than they want the forest for themselves (which is not purely selfish: Selfishness focuses to the person, but their intentions are for the good of the tribe, which shows up in Green and Red.)

Frozen Mountain Trolls: Pretty Black, in my opinion. Slavery (isn't covered in Magic) seems like a highly Black trait in that it's selfish, establishes a pecking order, and tends to accompany paranoia (whether you're the slave or the enslaver). Additionally, the intentions behind the grudge that sent them back into battle with the Forest Trolls is mostly Black, as it isn't driven by protection, competition, or holistic things.

Wavedancers: I don't know enough about them. Blue is Water, but the ambitions are not water.... I don't know. There are 5 papers written on Color over at the official Magic the Gathering website which might shed light on it, but I can't make that decision without some better information.

Sun Villagers: I have often placed them in White, both because of the symbology and because of what drives them. They are pretty unimaginative, have a fairly strong view of the focus on the High Ones, nearly worshiping Savah, and they also have individual religions, worshiping weather, the sun, and other things.

I guess I'll leave it at that for now. Nit-pick away!!!!

Here's a link to the thread over on the card maker program's website: http://magicseteditor.sourceforge.net/node/10589

The set is coming along. Im sitting at 660 cards (400ish of them are characters) and have a plan to subdivide them down... but if you want to you can supply your input on what you would like to see.

I have tenitively settled on dividing it into ten time periods, such as Wolfrider and Two Spear. These time periods will represent more than just the wolfriders, though, and would have characters from all tribes in existance at the time (well, at least a fair representation thats roughly balanced between tribes. Itll make it easier to get art work and stuff done that way.

Currently Im combing the first issues of OQ for additional cards. Im thinking this will end up being the first set. If others would like to help out, let me know and Ill run down what is needed.