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Greetings once again Dakka. After thinking long and hard about creating my own game and running the numbers on the potential to create a business I think I may have come up with a concept for an entirely new kind of game that combines the best aspects of a TCG and a wargame. The result is what I like to call: Dragon’s Gambit. I can’t really get into the depths of the rules right now due to pending copyright but I can give you an example of what the game plays like to give you a feel for it:
Example of Play
(Game starts, both players draw five cards from their deck and place their exarchs on the table)
Player 1’s turn: player one does not draw a card because he went first. Then he places a creature card from his hand into his Channeling Zone. Now player 1 moves to the main part of his turn, generating one magic power for the card he put in the channeling zone. He uses that MP to play a skeleton card from his hand, placing the associated skeleton mini next to his Exarch. He then moves his exarch it’s full speed forward. Player 1’s turn is now over because all his units that can activate have done so and he is out of MP.
Player 2’s turn: player 2 draws a card and adds it to his hand. He then places that card in his Channeling zone. Before he activates his Exarch he uses his 1 MP to play a spell “arcane scrambling” that destroys the summoned skeleton. The skeleton card is sent to the Graveyard and the miniature is removed from the tabletop. However the skeleton has a special ability: “reassemble” so as soon as it is sent to the graveyard from the field it returns to its controller’s hand. Player 2 keeps his Exarch where it is.
(later in the game)
A few turns later both players have a variety of creatures on the field, two of which are engaged in combat with each other. Player 1’s Zombie is fighting player 2’s Orc. It is player 1’s turn. He attacks the orc with his Zombie. To attack he first needs to beat the orc’s defense with an accuracy test. The Zombie has an accuracy of 5 and the orc has a defense of 10 so player 1 needs to role a 5 or better to hit the Orc. He rolls a 3 meaning he did not hit the orc.
Next turn player 2 attacks the Zombie with his orc. He hits the zombie and now must make a damage roll using his strength and damage type. The orc has an axe that does slashing type damage, meaning that player 2 is rolling against the slashing type armor of the zombie, which is 8. The orc has a strength of 5 so he needs to roll a 3 or better to defeat the zombie, which he does. The zombie is destroyed, the mini is removed from the tabletop and the card is sent to the graveyard.
The game continues on like this until one player defeats the other player’s Exarch enough times to bring its health down to zero to win the game.
And that’s what play is like.
I’ve also been developing some fluff to go with the game:
Fluff summary:
While the dragons may not sit on any throne, anyone will tell you that they reign supreme on this world. Ever since the mortal races discovered the potent power source of Dragon’s Breath crystals they have been addicted to the magical power that it provides. Dragon’s Breath powers everything from keeping forges burning to powering great ships that sail through the sky. For their part the dragons have provided the precious crystals to anyone willing to help them in their constant preoccupation: the Great Game. The Dragons are divided into six flights each representing a prime element and these flights compete with each other in a mysterious game that is merely sport for the dragons, but who’s moves last decades and whose pawns are entire nations. Only a few mortals know the secrets of this game’s rules and goals, they are the exarchs: vessels into which a particular dragon pours its power to act as a piece in this game. Exarchs are often selected from beings of great magical power, and some whisper that they are in fact dragons in training. Whatever the truth this simple hobby of dragons has written and rewritten the world of mortals to suit the whims of the dragons.
The Six flights:
Flight of the Grave (black dragons)
Unique race: undead
Specialty: graveyard manipulation

Flight of the Depths (blue dragons)
Unique race: orcs (because in this universe they are amphibians)
Specialty: iron walled defense

Flight of the Wind (green dragons)
Unique race: elves
Specialty: hit and run

Flight of the Forge (red dragons)
Unique race: infernals
Specialty: glass cannons
Flight of the mountain (brown dragons)
Unique race: dwarves
Specialty: hits hard but moves slow

Flight of the Sun (white dragons)
Unique race: unique constructs
Specialty: specialist slayers


That's all I've got for now, this game is about 2 years out, but I wanted to know what people thought of it before I really got going on this. I'd love to hear any questions, comments or criticisms you may have about this game.

You're probably going to hate to hear this, but it needs a lot of work.

1) You're wall of texting, badly. I finished reading to give you advice, but most potential customers would have lost interest before finishing the first paragraph. You have 1-2 sentences to sum up your idea and convince someone that it's awesome before they decide to go do something else. Make those sentences count. Or, even better, post an awesome picture from your game and show people that they should be interested.

2) Your example is hard to follow. There's a reason why rulebooks don't start off with a play-by-play. Either you need to include a summary before the example (what the different zones are, etc), or you need to greatly simplify the example. Focus on what is important to get people interested in the game, not the precise details of what stats each model has.

3) You haven't done anything to convince me that the card/miniature pairing is necessary or appealing. What does this add to the game that can't be done by a pure card or miniatures game? Remember that there are already plenty of fantasy miniatures and card games in the market, and simply having different rules isn't enough to get anyone to buy yours. You need to convince people that yours is better, not just different.

4) Unlike most new game ideas your fluff is actually a reasonably good start and has a distinct idea to sell it. But you still need a lot of work. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words. Right now I know that there are dragons playing games, but what is the feel of the world? What kind of art style will you be using? Is this a cartoony WoW-style world? Is this a grim world of hard realism and oppressive grays and browns everywhere? Is the scope of the game all about the epic struggles between the dragons and their nations, or is it the personal stories of the exarchs? Again, this is where pictures help significantly. A single good picture can answer these questions and tell people whether it's the kind of game they're interested in.

 Peregrine wrote:
You're probably going to hate to hear this, but it needs a lot of work.

1) You're wall of texting, badly. I finished reading to give you advice, but most potential customers would have lost interest before finishing the first paragraph. You have 1-2 sentences to sum up your idea and convince someone that it's awesome before they decide to go do something else. Make those sentences count. Or, even better, post an awesome picture from your game and show people that they should be interested.

2) Your example is hard to follow. There's a reason why rulebooks don't start off with a play-by-play. Either you need to include a summary before the example (what the different zones are, etc), or you need to greatly simplify the example. Focus on what is important to get people interested in the game, not the precise details of what stats each model has.

3) You haven't done anything to convince me that the card/miniature pairing is necessary or appealing. What does this add to the game that can't be done by a pure card or miniatures game? Remember that there are already plenty of fantasy miniatures and card games in the market, and simply having different rules isn't enough to get anyone to buy yours. You need to convince people that yours is better, not just different.

4) Unlike most new game ideas your fluff is actually a reasonably good start and has a distinct idea to sell it. But you still need a lot of work. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words. Right now I know that there are dragons playing games, but what is the feel of the world? What kind of art style will you be using? Is this a cartoony WoW-style world? Is this a grim world of hard realism and oppressive grays and browns everywhere? Is the scope of the game all about the epic struggles between the dragons and their nations, or is it the personal stories of the exarchs? Again, this is where pictures help significantly. A single good picture can answer these questions and tell people whether it's the kind of game they're interested in.

yea it definitely needs work, that's why it's 2 years out
1) yea I know, I just didn't know how to sum it up in a few sentences so I guess now that I think about it that few sentences would be: it's a more tactical TCG where you actually need to use tactics instead of just pointing your monsters in your enemy's general direction. or for a Hollywood version: Warmachine meets MtG
2) I didn't add the actual rules because that would take up more space than the example.
3) necessary? maybe not, appealing, heck yea! I've been getting some of my buddies who play MtG to give this a go and they thought it was better and had more depth. as for why they aren't "pure" this is more a TCG with minis added than a wargame with cards added, it's supposed to have the depth of a minis game with the pick up and play of a card game.
4) right now i wish I had some artwork to show you, but like I said this game is about 2 years out and all I've got at this point is the fluff and the rules, kind of wishing I had some artwork though, give it time.
EDIT: actually the idea I had for the art was kind of like the animation from that old history show "ancients behaving badly" so the art style will probably be something like this:

as far as the scope of the game: that's the fun part, you'll get to see the stories from all angels, in one story you'll see a villager who's crops have been burned, then the next you'll see the exarch as he burns them, then finally you'll see the dragon ordering him to do it without batting an eyelash. I call this approach a "3D" method of storytelling, because you'll be able to view the story from multiple dimensions.

 yeri wrote:
1) yea I know, I just didn't know how to sum it up in a few sentences so I guess now that I think about it that few sentences would be: it's a more tactical TCG where you actually need to use tactics instead of just pointing your monsters in your enemy's general direction. or for a Hollywood version: Warmachine meets MtG

First of all, you're trying to sell a product and first impressions count. If you can't post something professional and complete you probably don't want to post at all.

Second, I'm not sure why you think that card games don't have tactics. MTG is far more than just pointing your monsters in the enemy's general direction.

2) I didn't add the actual rules because that would take up more space than the example.

Then simplify the example. You don't want someone's first experience of the term "channeling zone" to be in a play-by-play involving it, that's just really confusing. Before you use game-specific terms that aren't intuitively obvious (to give a 40k example everyone knows what a ruin is even if they don't know 40k's specific rules for how ruins work) you need to tell the reader what they are. Consider an example from MTG:

"Player A casts a spell, player B responds to it with a counterspell". Intuitively obvious, even if you've never played MTG you can follow at least generally what is going on.

vs.

"Player A taps lands and adds mana to their mana pool, then puts a sorcery on the stack and passes priority. Player B now casts Force of Will targeting player A's spell. Player A has no response, so the spell is countered and placed into the graveyard with no effect." Same exact sequence of events, a lot less understandable if you don't already know the rules.

3) necessary? maybe not, appealing, heck yea! I've been getting some of my buddies who play MtG to give this a go and they thought it was better and had more depth. as for why they aren't "pure" this is more a TCG with minis added than a wargame with cards added, it's supposed to have the depth of a minis game with the pick up and play of a card game.

Again, card games can have plenty of depth. Nothing about the card game format inherently limits the depth of the game, and nothing about miniatures automatically includes depth. For example, I'd say that MTG has far more depth than 40k. Likewise, miniatures games are not inherently hard to pick up and play. For example, X-wing is extremely easy to pick up and play, probably easier than MTG. So instead of applying broad generalizations about each genre you need to explain how the card and miniatures elements in YOUR game interact and why that interaction is better than making a pure card or miniatures game.

as far as the scope of the game: that's the fun part, you'll get to see the stories from all angels, in one story you'll see a villager who's crops have been burned, then the next you'll see the exarch as he burns them, then finally you'll see the dragon ordering him to do it without batting an eyelash. I call this approach a "3D" method of storytelling, because you'll be able to view the story from multiple dimensions.

Sorry, but that means you're going to have an unfocused mess. You can't have all of those elements be the core of the story at once. Obviously you're going to show them all but, for example, you want to focus on the exarch as the heroic leader and show them receiving orders from the dragon then show the villager crying in despair as the exarch lights the torch. All of the events are there, but the point of view is from the character the reader/player is supposed to identify with.

Also, you can't count on your players reading your fluff and seeing all of those levels. If your story requires careful attention to keep up with it you need to simplify it to make it appropriate for a game.