## Idea for an LCG: The Game of LIFE--Rational Edition! * Author: u/Sailor_Vulcan *Champion of Justice and Reason** * URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2s39b2/idea_for_an_lcg_the_game_of_liferational_edition/ * Score: 4 * Created: 2015-01-11T20:25:59 ### Post: This was an idea I had today for a customizable strategy living card game: a rational version of the Game of Life by Milton Bradley. Well, not so much a version of as inspired by. ---------- How to play: I). Choose a scenario. The rules of the game are modified by the scenario. II) Design your character: A. Roll a D20 to determine your characters base stats: Intelligence Charisma Dexterity Strength Constitution B. Roll 1D6 to determine how many levels of hindrance you have. Then roll 1D6 to determine how many levels of edge you have. 6's count as 0's. Now you must spend all your levels in hindrance on hindrance cards, and all your levels in edge on edge cards. A hindrance is a stat penalty that is applied under certain circumstances, depending on the hindrance. An edge is a stat bonus that is applied under certain circumstances, depending on the edge. C. Choose at least three main objective cards for your character, and place them in your objectives zone in order of their importance to the character, face down. Players are not permitted to view the objective cards of other players. Players are permitted to view any one of their own objective cards at any time, but can only view one at a time, and must place it back in their objectives zone face down immediately after looking. Objective categories -Occupational (projects, life's work, of and relating to careers) -Social (relationships, interpersonal interaction, reputation, etc.) -Leisure (Fun, games, competition, humor, jokes, pranks, puzzles, arts and crafts, etc.) -Altruistic (helping others/making it easier for others to reach their objectives) Many objectives will belong in multiple categories. You cannot reveal any of your objective cards to anyone at any time. That would be like letting them read your mind, which you cannot do without technology that (at least for now) doesn't exist. You can tell people what's on your objective card(s) WITHOUT revealing the card(s) themselves, but you do not have to. You can lie. III) Begin the game. Each player starts with a certain value of money and social support cards, which are determined at random by shuffling them all into a deck and dealing them out clockwise. There are money and social support cards with a positive value, a negative value, or a value of zero. Players take their turns, called “actions”, simultaneously. During your action, you can either use a resource card or activate an ability/effect, or do nothing. All resources have an action cost in order to attain them. To gain a resource card, you must spend X actions discarding/revealing/trading/giving away/receiving/taking Y #of resource cards of Z type(s) in order to add it to your resource pool. When you have completed one of your main objectives, you can choose another main objective card from the objectives pool, and place it in your main objectives zone face down. When an objective has been reached, main or otherwise, it oftentimes will have an extra effect that activates when you reach it. This effect resolves at the end of the action, but before event cards are drawn. Between actions, if the current macroscopic event card is resolved, draw another macroscopic event card from the macroscopic event deck. Then, if any personal event cards have been resolved, their controllers draw another personal event card from their personal event decks. Macroscopic events are things that happen in the wider world of the game and oftentimes involve distant and larger numbers of non-player characters and their resources and situations/settings/scenarios. Personal event cards are the same as macroscopic event cards, but are more immediate and involve fewer NPCS and smaller or more local settings. The game lasts as long as the scenario says, or simply as long as you want to play. Golden Rule of Customizable strategy games: If the text of a card would conflict with the rules of the game as written, the card text trumps the rules as written. --------------- What do you think? Also, I was debating whether to have some sort of calendar/schedule shaped board to keep track of time passing in-game. ### Comments: > **u/None** [+3] (37 minutes later) > > Sounds fun, but can I have a Gosper Gun? >> **u/Sailor_Vulcan** [+2] *Champion of Justice and Reason* (4 hours later) >> >> Um. Maybe? Not sure how virtual resources would work in this game. Like if your character liked to play roleplaying games, and wanted to trade money for a virtual item in the game within the game, with one of their objective cards being related to that roleplaying game in the game. But there will have to be some way of conducting "metagames"? "Minigames"? Not sure what to call them. Minigames are as good as any name. >> >> And if one of your objectives is to be a math professor, and after reaching that objective you drew a new objective card that said, "Increase the number of students who pass your class to at least X%, where X is determined by the standards of the college you teach at (roll a D20 for that when you are first about to get a job as a math professor), and you drew a resource card named "Conway's game of Life", I suppose that could be a resource with the "data" subtype. >> >> I suppose the main types of resources could be objects, concepts, and connections? Data resources could be considered concepts that must be attached to object resources rather than directly to a character. >> >> Of course, then there's the issue of cards that produce more copies of themselves or other cards. Like if you taught another player's character the knowledge of "Conway's Game of Life" the card couldn't just disappear from your own resource pool, you'd have to use a connection resource like "Learning/Teaching" to represent the knowledge that has been copied to another character's resource pool. >> >> And of course, connection resource cards would have to be double sided, so they can be used to connect resources and/or characters under more than one player's control. >> **u/Sailor_Vulcan** [+2] *Champion of Justice and Reason* (4 hours later) >> >> Also, thanks for introducing me to "Conway's Game of Life" with that comment. > **u/CeruleanTresses** [+2] (4 hours later) > > Even if it's not realistic, I would give everyone an equal number of hindrance and edge cards at the start. Nobody wants to roll max hindrances and no edges and then have to play through the entire game at a disadvantage. >> **u/Sailor_Vulcan** [+2] *Champion of Justice and Reason* (4 hours later) >> >> Well, I think that depends on the scenario, and on what yours and the other players' objectives are throughout the game. If you're playing with a time limit or a turn-limit, and enough players have conflicting objectives, that could be a problem. I think it might also be a good idea to have ways of gaining more edges and hindrances. Like say, if you gain 2 levels in solving puzzles or riddles, it could give you an edge that adds +2 to intelligence rolls before multiplying the roll by your base intelligence stat, or something like that, to determine whether your character successfully solves a riddle or puzzle, and maybe +1 for success in endeavors similar to riddle or puzzle solving. >> >> For some scenarios, that kind of disadvantage could present a fun challenge, though. >> **u/None** [+1] (12 hours later) >> >> >Nobody wants to roll max hindrances and no edges and then have to play through the entire game at a disadvantage. >> >> Yeah, and nobody *wants* to be born in a Third World country, either. >>> **u/CeruleanTresses** [+1] (18 hours later) >>> >>> >Even if it's not realistic >>> >>> Nobody wants to spend months recovering after being shot, but you don't incorporate that into an FPS because it would ruin the fun. >>> >>> A game should be balanced and enjoyable for all players. Including that type of realism sounds great on paper, but the end result is people having shitty experiences and not wanting to play anymore, and the game gets shelved. >>>> **u/None** [+1] (a day later) >>>> >>>> So realistic! >>>>> **u/Rouninscholar** [+1] (3 days later) >>>>> >>>>> If you want realism just go /r/outside. I've heard decent reviews of the game. ---