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1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games?

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 10:57 am
by MidnightLich
Welcome to today's First Edition Friday Question, where you get a chance to answer questions that will help shape the future of First Edition. If you'd like to catch up on previous entries, here's a list of all of my previous Friday Questions:



There are a lot of games in the world, and I'm willing the overlap people people who play First Edition and people who play lots of games is high. We're in a great era of video games, board games, and other tabletop games. Today's question is about things you like from those other games.

What concepts (mechanics, rules, components) would you like to see 1E "import" from other games?

This is a vague and broad question by design, but I'm curious what answers you'll have. Obviously, the closer in scope and nature to First Edition, the better. It's easier to import a mechanic from Magic that it would be from Monopoly, but that doesn't mean you can't suggest a "pass Go" mechanic for 1E.

Are you a fan of Starfleet Battles or Federation Commander? Then maybe you'd like to see a Kzinti affiliation - suggest it! I'm a huge fan of Gloomhaven, and I'd love to see some variant on the "upgrade/unlock" mechanics of that game added to 1E. Lots of video games these days have a "mastery" system to unlock rewards - perhaps that's something you'd like to see, either in game or as part of organized play?

The sky's the limit here folks. What concepts should 1E "import" from other games? Suggest it all - rules ideas, game components, mechanics, concepts - it's all valid, and we want to hear your thoughts.

It was a tough week for fandom, with several Trek veterans (and their loved ones) passing away. Take this as a reminder to be kind, and to tell the people you love and care about how much they mean to you. Be kind and be grateful, as much as you can as often as you can.

See you next week.

-crp

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 11:32 am
by Slayer07
I think it would be neat to see a 'refresh' system of some sort. Something that would likely require card discards, shuffling or something that would let your stopped personnel become unstopped. This wouldn't effect ships though so while it might help if one of your vital personnel were stopped during a mission attempt so you can still try to finish the mission on the first turn it wouldn't restore the used range of a ship for that turn.

That would mitigate things like RBM and Unshrouding Jem'Hadar and could allow planet based dilemmas where you have to have a small personnel battle to get past it.

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 11:44 am
by KazonPADD
Spoiler Alert: Niall made a card for G’Kar based on Cards Against Humanity. It’s an interrupt just called “A Bigger Blacker Dick”.

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:00 pm
by Armus
KazonPADD wrote:Spoiler Alert: Niall made a card for G’Kar based on Cards Against Humanity. It’s an interrupt just called “A Bigger Blacker Dick”.
:lol:

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:08 pm
by AllenGould
I was going to skip this one, but I was reminded of an idea in another thread.

Ships that contain personas of people.

(As an example, Scotty and Enterprise).

Oddly, we're not that far off those already, since we have ships that come with skills.

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:13 pm
by Iron Prime
AllenGould wrote:
I was going to skip this one, but I was reminded of an idea in another thread.
Ships that contain personas of people.
(As an example, Scotty and Enterprise).

Oddly, we're not that far off those already, since we have ships that come with skills.
SWCCG would like to have a word with you:
Image

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:14 pm
by AllenGould
Iron Prime wrote: SWCCG would like to have a word with you:
Uh, yeah - isn't this the "import from other games" thread? :D

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:18 pm
by Iron Prime
Yup. But you never said where you were importing it from. I feel that is important context for the concept.

Plus I needed to rib you a little... :wink:

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:21 pm
by Armus
AllenGould wrote:I was going to skip this one, but I was reminded of an idea in another thread.

Ships that contain personas of people.

(As an example, Scotty and Enterprise).

Oddly, we're not that far off those already, since we have ships that come with skills.
Are you thinking something along the lines of SWCCG's Red Leader in Red One?

Image

... interesting concept. I'm not sure we have the game text real estate to make this work though.

You'll need more gametext or more rules cruft.

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:22 pm
by Data's Socks
Release a giant 7 7/8" x 5 5/8" card for legal play, NOT release a regular-sized version, and chuckle merrily at the thought of people having to figure out what sleeves to use or how to store it nicely. At least, that's my understanding of just one thing that happens with Transformers TCG, which is amazing, and also I'm joking about wishing it on 1E.

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:23 pm
by Iron Prime
Armus wrote:
AllenGould wrote:I was going to skip this one, but I was reminded of an idea in another thread.

Ships that contain personas of people.

(As an example, Scotty and Enterprise).

Oddly, we're not that far off those already, since we have ships that come with skills.
Are you thinking something along the lines of SWCCG's Red Leader in Red One?

Image

... interesting concept. I'm not sure we have the game text real estate to make this work though.
You'll need more gametext or more rules cruft.
Or a very cleverly written objective or incident...

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:28 pm
by AllenGould
Iron Prime wrote:Yup. But you never said where you were importing it from. I feel that is important context for the concept.
I'd disagree (although really, any Decipher player likely can ID the source - I didn't even play SWCCG and I knew about those), because if the idea is good, who cares where it came from? Sadly, a lot of older games end up being "let's learn from their tragic mistakes"

AniMayhem - proofread your dang cards!
X-Files - leave yourself expansion room
SimCity - players don't like *that* much math. Also, no-one is setup to carry wacky sized cards
Hecatomb - no, seriously - no-one wants to carry around special boxes for your wacky shaped cards.
(I could go on, and if other folks were interested in deconstructing old games, that's probably a podcast right there.)

Plus I needed to rib you a little... :wink:
Now that I totally understand. :thumbsup:

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:29 pm
by Iron Prime
More and more card games seem to be adopting "soft" faction groups. For example in the Transformers TCG you can freely mix factions (Autobots and Decepticons) - this keeps the rules shorter/simpler and opens up some options. But many cards entice or outright require you to be "faction pure". In that game there are cards that give you a bigger effect if you have only one faction or the other.

We have a few cards like this in 1E already, but I would like to see more cards that reward you for a "mono build". Perhaps the game is simply has too many moving parts to do this any more...


I would also like to get more meaning behind missions that just points. Sorta like the branching stories or dialog in some video games. Maybe would could stack missions under an Incident like how Bluegills does...

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:32 pm
by Iron Prime
AllenGould wrote:
Iron Prime wrote:Yup. But you never said where you were importing it from. I feel that is important context for the concept.
I'd disagree (although really, any Decipher player likely can ID the source - I didn't even play SWCCG and I knew about those), because
if the idea is good, who cares where it came from?
Sadly, a lot of older games end up being "let's learn from their tragic mistakes"

AniMayhem - proofread your dang cards!
X-Files - leave yourself expansion room
SimCity - players don't like *that* much math. Also, no-one is setup to carry wacky sized cards
Hecatomb - no, seriously - no-one wants to carry around special boxes for your wacky shaped cards.
(I could go on, and if other folks were interested in deconstructing old games, that's probably a podcast right there.)

Plus I needed to rib you a little... :wink:
Now that I totally understand. :thumbsup:
You're totally right - it just seems that knowing the source can bring extra knowledge along "for free" if you already know of the source game. I did play SWCCG back in the day, so knowing that's the inspiration I 'automatically' know the pros and cons of this and what we might want to try to avoid when designing cards in this vein.

:twocents:

Re: 1EFQ - What concepts should 1E "import" from other games

Posted: Fri Dec 13, 2019 12:34 pm
by Iron Prime
Data's Socks wrote:Release a giant 7 7/8" x 5 5/8" card for legal play, NOT release a regular-sized version, and chuckle merrily at the thought of people having to figure out what sleeves to use or how to store it nicely. At least, that's my understanding of just one thing that happens with Transformers TCG, which is amazing, and also I'm joking about wishing it on 1E.
I don't know... I kinda want an over-sized promo of black hole to use now (and be tournament legal)!