Battle Plan TCG

[Hungerwolf]

Hey there, I'm Hungerwolf, co-creator of a start-up tabletop TCG.

My team and I grew up in the age of the NES, rambled through elementary school rocking pokemon cards, awkwardly shuffled through high school playing Yu-Gi-Oh and MTG, spent our young adult lives playing DnD, and are currently awkwardly shuffling through the world of business. We're avid gamers, and we decided to take our shot at creating a game of our own- The kind of game we would like to play.

Battle Plan is unique in a few critical ways- Unlike most TCGs, in Battle Plan a player begins with a preselected team of three units. Each unit fits into one of three archetypes, which determines the types of cards that can be used by the unit. The makeup of your team is entirely up to the player, and the specific archetypes can be modified with Conscriptions, which makes for a huge amount of customization right off the bat.

We also utilize a grid-based movement system for tactical positioning. Planning and moving properly is the difference between a winning strategy and a losing one. Battle Plan places a lot of emphasis on player choice and decision making.

We believe that variance should be fun, not game-shaping. Therefore, unlike DnD, we do not include die rolls to hit or perform actions, and unlike MTG and the Pokemon TCG, we do not include resource cards which often determine the success or failure of games. The random chance comes from what you draw from your deck of cards, which are typically skills and abilities your units can use. Essentially, it's like a DnD rulebook specified for your team, but you never know exactly which abilities you will find each game.


We're going to start playtesting in our local area soon to work out the bugs with a bigger group of play testers. Once we have the mechanics perfected, we're going to set up a kickstarter to help raise funds for our first print of cards.

In the meantime, if you're interested in keeping an eye on us, here's a link to our subreddit- So far, we have a few sample images and a slightly more detailed breakdown of the core rules. We'll update as we come closer along.

http://www.reddit.com/r/BattlePlan/

[Liquidor]

Hungerwolf

My team and I grew up in the age of the NES, rambled through elementary school rocking pokemon cards, awkwardly shuffled through high school playing Yu-Gi-Oh and MTG

I don't know / care about how your game does but I'm calling BS on your background.

I grew up in the age of the NES. Pokemon wasn't even a thing until middle school for me and the cards only came out when I was in high school (along with yugioh). If you claimed N64 (circa 1996) or Game Cube (circa 2001), I wouldn't have even batted an eye. I'm mean sure you can claim to have a SNES but who bought a 3 year old a video game system back in those days?

[Hungerwolf]

Liquidor

Hungerwolf

My team and I grew up in the age of the NES, rambled through elementary school rocking pokemon cards, awkwardly shuffled through high school playing Yu-Gi-Oh and MTG

I don't know / care about how your game does but I'm calling BS on your background.

I grew up in the age of the NES. Pokemon wasn't even a thing until middle school for me and the cards only came out when I was in high school (along with yugioh). If you claimed N64 (circa 1996) or Game Cube (circa 2001), I wouldn't have even batted an eye. I'm mean sure you can claim to have a SNES but who bought a 3 year old a video game system back in those days?

No need to be rude.

I was born in 1989. Being the age of two, I was shamefully unable to hold down a job to purchase the newly released SNES, but I was playing nintendo (Primarily Super Mario Bros 1, 2 and 3 from the age of around 4. Also, the low-quality gems of the early 90's, such as Darkwing Duck). When I was around 7-8, my father bought me a Super Nintendo. Again, shamefully, I was unable to finance my own gaming at that dark stage in my life, so I was a bit late to the party. I do remember looking on amazed as my older cousins (who owned a SNES system before I did) as they played Super Mario World.

By 5th grade, pokemon was in full swing. This was around the time most schools had banned pokemon cards.

To commemorate the millennium, my parents decided to buy a Nintendo 64 console. Once again, as I was still half a decade from a drivers license, I was unable to transport myself to the midnight release.

Then High School happened. My younger brothers had gotten into Yu-Gi-Oh, so I played it to have something to do with them and also other friends who played it. Around this time I DID have a job, and purchased a Nintendo Dolphin- Sorry, Gamecube when it went on sale for what amounted to half a week's pay. That's when Electronics Boutique was a thing.

I assure you, everything I have said was true. Apology accepted.

[LiaThistle]

Gotta ask, because my guess is rude and I'd rather not voice it: how many other card games have you played? Just in case, I mean games aside from Poker, Blackjack, Gin, and other games played with a standard deck.

[Hungerwolf]

LiaThistle

Gotta ask, because my guess is rude and I'd rather not voice it: how many other card games have you played? Just in case, I mean games aside from Poker, Blackjack, Gin, and other games played with a standard deck.

I've played Pokemon- admittedly not very well, I was in elementary school.

I played Yu-Gi-Oh through High School, and as I understand it still has a following in some areas, it hasn't really been active here in years.

I currently play MTG and Hearthstone - MTG is pretty solid, but I'm not a huge fan of the resource system, and how mana screw can effectively doom an otherwise solid deck from the first turn. I play EDH mostly, because it affords more of an opportunity to build with flavor rather than turn-3 dominant strategy whatever.


So, four.

[LiaThistle]

Okay, I kinda thought so.

You should probably take a look at a variety of other card games, everything from Rage to Doomtown (esp. Reloaded) to Netrunner to Love Letter.

These games will help you see different mechanical styles (of which PokeMon and Magic have very little, and Magic and YGO don't exactly have much variety, either) that can be used by cards. Cardfight Vanguard is another game you may want to take a look at, but it has a parent game that I can't remember and I'd rather point you towards that.

Once you know the different mechanical styles, you might be able to further improve your game. In particular, I recommend looking at Rage, as it seems to line up closely with what you've described above.

[Hungerwolf]

LiaThistle

Okay, I kinda thought so.

You should probably take a look at a variety of other card games, everything from Rage to Doomtown (esp. Reloaded) to Netrunner to Love Letter.

These games will help you see different mechanical styles (of which PokeMon and Magic have very little, and Magic and YGO don't exactly have much variety, either) that can be used by cards. Cardfight Vanguard is another game you may want to take a look at, but it has a parent game that I can't remember and I'd rather point you towards that.

Once you know the different mechanical styles, you might be able to further improve your game. In particular, I recommend looking at Rage, as it seems to line up closely with what you've described above.

I appreciate the tip, but we're pretty far along. We are actually going to start playtesting within a few months, and we have evolved a lot since we first started writing up concepts.

Our intention is to kind of bridge the gap between games like MTG and DnD. While DnD is fun for the RP interaction, we have found that, as working class folks, it is very difficult to put together a schedule for a full playgroup. Some of us work nights, some of us work mornings, some of us have kids-

Our idea for feel and theme is similar to a MOBA, though in this case I suppose it would just be an MBA. We've foregone the die-rolls of DnD in favor of a lighter form of variance which punishes players less for poor luck. Matches tend to last 10-15 minutes. We really wanted to streamline the battle process, make a snappy and fast-paced game that still provides a lot of challenge and complexity. If Dungeons and Dragons were like World of Warcraft, Battle Plan plays something like DotA or LoL.