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Author Topic: Theme in deck building games  (Read 14748 times)

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Omer

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Theme in deck building games
« on: October 18, 2012, 08:02:38 pm »
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I've seen reviews for a lot of deck building games (Thunderstone, Ascension, Arctic Foragers, Eminent Domain, Rune Age and more) and while I'll admit Dominion is the blandest theme-wise, none of the others seem to feel very thematic. Sure, the theme on some of them seem quite stronger than Dominion, but again, seeing gameplay of them doesn't make them feel thematic to me. Only exception is Mage Knight, but of course deck building is but a fraction of the game. I wonder why it's so difficult to make pure deck building games feel thematic? The first publisher to release such a game would surely have my money.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2012, 08:04:23 pm by Omer »
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popsofctown

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2012, 08:56:48 pm »
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Puzzle Strike is terrible at theme, and you didn't mention that one!  I don't know why it's so hard :(
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Grujah

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #2 on: October 18, 2012, 10:04:09 pm »
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What about Quarriors?
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Davio

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #3 on: October 19, 2012, 02:28:44 am »
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What about Quarriors?
That's just a horrible game, theme or not.

Theme in deckbuilding fails because in the end, you're still playing cards. And the cards you play have an effect on the other cards and at this point all hope for theme is lost. This means that the actual intricacies of the cards are much more important than their flavor and while you may start out with some logical choices (+2 Actions, +1 Card = Village-y) you'll end up with weird ones: Wandering Minstrel.
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Omer

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #4 on: October 19, 2012, 04:37:02 am »
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What? there are card games that are thematic (non deck building but you're still playing cards in them too) like Lord of the Rings LCG and hell, even Magic the Gathering.
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ipofanes

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #5 on: October 19, 2012, 05:28:42 am »
+2

A Few Acres Of Snow, about the British-French conflict in North America, is the best example of a thematic game. Granted, it needs a board and money chips and meeples, but then Dominion "needs" Island mats and Embargo counters :-).

The great thing about A Few Acres Of Snow is that the deckbuilding thing *is* thematic in the sense that cards gained don't affect gameplay until redrawn, which mimics the long time decisions taken in London or Paris took to affect the colonies.
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Davio

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #6 on: October 19, 2012, 05:55:53 am »
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What? there are card games that are thematic (non deck building but you're still playing cards in them too) like Lord of the Rings LCG and hell, even Magic the Gathering.
I guess it depends on your own immersion.

When I play LOTR LCG it feels more thematic than Dominion for sure, but in the end I'm still playing cards.
When I draw Gandalf I'm happy that I've drawn a very good card, but I don't feel like Gandalf himself has come to my aid!
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ipofanes

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #7 on: October 19, 2012, 07:47:58 am »
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Granted, a LARP environment lends itself better to imagining the real thing. But if you are trying to say the very mechanic of card games is more abstract than, say, dice-rolling fests, I would have to disagree. There are card games with sport themes which catch the sport element quite well. Here's an example from The Netherlands: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/37284/de-ronde-van-frankrijk
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Davio

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #8 on: October 19, 2012, 09:05:19 am »
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Okay, maybe not card games in of itself.

But what I means is that with Dominion specifically the cards constantly reference other cards and abstract things you can do with the cards: +1X, +2Y, get a card of this type, etc....

This already makes Dominion quite abstract and I don't know if there's an easy way to fix this.
You could add flavor text, but, well, yeah, that's just that.

I wonder how many MTG players feel like actual wizards.
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ipofanes

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #9 on: October 19, 2012, 09:27:28 am »
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I think that the concept that a M:tG creature card has "hit points" and can "take damage" introduces a lot of battle atmosphere. And if I am left with no meaningful card in my hand and two lifes left, I feel like a wizard who has exhausted all the useful spells he has read on.

On the other hand, the concept of money is very thematic in Dominion and I think most players think of "money" and "value" when they play a game of Dominion. So while a game like M:tG has a simple, but thematic mechanic for battles (attacking, assigning blockers, amassing hit points), Dominion has a straightforward money mechanism. I grant that I don't feel like employing a Smithy when I draw three cards, but I feel a bit like spending money when I do. If only my real money would come back after the next reshuffle.
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Captain_Frisk

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #10 on: October 19, 2012, 12:19:11 pm »
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The closest I can think of actually tying deckbuilding theme are:

A management game - where the cards in your deck represent people that you can boss around.  You only have a limited amount of time per day (representing your actions).  Extra layers of managers would allow further bossing (+actions), while productive workers would produce resources.

A sports game - where the deck represents plays / actions available.  The deck represents the training that you've done for your team (what plays they know etc.)   As they get tired - exhaustion is added to the deck, but subbing in new players might be a way to combat it.  You might have limited control of rebuilding your deck during timeouts / halftimes.
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DStu

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #11 on: October 19, 2012, 02:28:31 pm »
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Captain_Frisk

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #12 on: October 19, 2012, 02:31:24 pm »
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A Few Acres Of Snow,
/summon theory

I need to get this to the table, even if it is allegedly broken.  Don't read the strategy folks!
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jotheonah

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #13 on: October 19, 2012, 11:25:13 pm »
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This seems like a really good opportunity to link a blog post that may or may not have been written by a regular poster in these forums.

http://theanalyticalcouchpotato.org/wp/return-to-ravnica-and-the-marriage-of-mechanics-and-flavor/
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Donald X.

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #14 on: October 20, 2012, 12:53:49 am »
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This seems like a really good opportunity to link a blog post that may or may not have been written by a regular poster in these forums.

http://theanalyticalcouchpotato.org/wp/return-to-ravnica-and-the-marriage-of-mechanics-and-flavor/
For a few of my games flavor comes first. I started with flavor and then worked out the rest of it. For most of my games flavor comes second - mechanics, flavor, data. The mechanic is the good idea that the rest of the game is hung on; I pick flavor to fit the mechanics, then pick data to fit the flavor. For Dominion, flavor comes third - data, mechanics, flavor.
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Davio

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #15 on: October 20, 2012, 08:59:48 am »
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This seems like a really good opportunity to link a blog post that may or may not have been written by a regular poster in these forums.

http://theanalyticalcouchpotato.org/wp/return-to-ravnica-and-the-marriage-of-mechanics-and-flavor/
For a few of my games flavor comes first. I started with flavor and then worked out the rest of it. For most of my games flavor comes second - mechanics, flavor, data. The mechanic is the good idea that the rest of the game is hung on; I pick flavor to fit the mechanics, then pick data to fit the flavor. For Dominion, flavor comes third - data, mechanics, flavor.
Lucky for us, because it turned out to be such a great game.

I would rather have a good game with less flavor than a game with lots of flavor and "shoehorned" cards and mechanics.
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ftl

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #16 on: October 20, 2012, 03:10:06 pm »
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There's room in the world for all kinds of games! No need to choose which you prefer. I love some flavor-heavy games and some mechanics-heavy games.
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Archetype

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #17 on: October 20, 2012, 03:24:43 pm »
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There's room in the world for all kinds of games! No need to choose which you prefer. I love some flavor-heavy games and some mechanics-heavy games.
I agree. With a hardcore gaming group, mechanics heavy games are preferred, but with casual gaming group flavor heavy games are the best.
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Lekkit

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #18 on: October 20, 2012, 04:34:48 pm »
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I play games for fun. And I expect almost everyone else does that too. For me fun in gaming is first the social part and second the game. So when I play games that the other players like. Although if the game is too bad, I'll probably sit it out. I tend to like games with good mechanics, and fortunately for me so does my friends. I don't really care if a game has theme or not. I would like Domimion even if Village was called 1 and only had +1 card +2 actions on it. There are games I like for flavor reasons though.
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Davio

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #19 on: October 20, 2012, 04:36:50 pm »
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There's room in the world for all kinds of games! No need to choose which you prefer. I love some flavor-heavy games and some mechanics-heavy games.
What? There are other games than Dominion?  :o :)

Nah, also in regards to the other topic about game collections, mine is a bit light on the storytelling RPG-types like the ones they feature on the Watch It Played series on YouTube. I would love to have a game like that in my collection, but no budget at the moment. :(
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Omer

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #20 on: October 21, 2012, 02:27:55 pm »
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That new Marvel Legendary game looks pretty thematic...
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Grujah

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #21 on: October 24, 2012, 08:40:03 pm »
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There's room in the world for all kinds of games! No need to choose which you prefer. I love some flavor-heavy games and some mechanics-heavy games.
I agree. With a hardcore gaming group, mechanics heavy games are preferred, but with casual gaming group flavor heavy games are the best.

This, though one doesn't exclude the other.
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ipofanes

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #22 on: October 25, 2012, 03:57:32 am »
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There's room in the world for all kinds of games! No need to choose which you prefer. I love some flavor-heavy games and some mechanics-heavy games.
I agree. With a hardcore gaming group, mechanics heavy games are preferred, but with casual gaming group flavor heavy games are the best.

This, though one doesn't exclude the other.
Disagreement here. Popular games like Scrabble, Chess, Poker, Mah-Jongg and Dominoes aren't flavour heavy. I, for one, am not imagining a flock of sparrows when I'm shuffling Mah-Jongg tiles. And even your typical Spiel des Jahres winner (for me this is a litmus test for "suitable for casual gamers") isn't necessarily thematic. Does the main player in Dixit really impersonate an oriental storyteller? What's the theme of Quirkle? And this one card game, where you try to collect green cards which do nothing for you during the game, I don't remember the name at the moment, do people really experience the acquisitions of territories when they pick up a green card?

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Davio

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #23 on: October 25, 2012, 05:10:35 am »
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There's room in the world for all kinds of games! No need to choose which you prefer. I love some flavor-heavy games and some mechanics-heavy games.
I agree. With a hardcore gaming group, mechanics heavy games are preferred, but with casual gaming group flavor heavy games are the best.

This, though one doesn't exclude the other.
Disagreement here. Popular games like Scrabble, Chess, Poker, Mah-Jongg and Dominoes aren't flavour heavy. I, for one, am not imagining a flock of sparrows when I'm shuffling Mah-Jongg tiles. And even your typical Spiel des Jahres winner (for me this is a litmus test for "suitable for casual gamers") isn't necessarily thematic. Does the main player in Dixit really impersonate an oriental storyteller? What's the theme of Quirkle? And this one card game, where you try to collect green cards which do nothing for you during the game, I don't remember the name at the moment, do people really experience the acquisitions of territories when they pick up a green card?
It's even weirder with VP Tokens, what is that?
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ipofanes

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Re: Theme in deck building games
« Reply #24 on: October 25, 2012, 05:42:57 am »
+1

There's room in the world for all kinds of games! No need to choose which you prefer. I love some flavor-heavy games and some mechanics-heavy games.
I agree. With a hardcore gaming group, mechanics heavy games are preferred, but with casual gaming group flavor heavy games are the best.

This, though one doesn't exclude the other.
Disagreement here. Popular games like Scrabble, Chess, Poker, Mah-Jongg and Dominoes aren't flavour heavy. I, for one, am not imagining a flock of sparrows when I'm shuffling Mah-Jongg tiles. And even your typical Spiel des Jahres winner (for me this is a litmus test for "suitable for casual gamers") isn't necessarily thematic. Does the main player in Dixit really impersonate an oriental storyteller? What's the theme of Quirkle? And this one card game, where you try to collect green cards which do nothing for you during the game, I don't remember the name at the moment, do people really experience the acquisitions of territories when they pick up a green card?
It's even weirder with VP Tokens, what is that?
Anyone who acknowledges the concept of financial derivative products in the housing market should be able to wrap his head around that.
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