---
tags: Design, Trading Cards, Economy
title: TG TGC Design Doc
---

# The TG TGC

The TG TGC is a playable, fully featured TCG within the scope of Space Station 13. Players will collect cards from a variety of sources, build up a collection, and construct decks.

# Sources of Cards
Cards will be obtainable from a number of sources.
* Booster packs will be integrated with the in-game economy, allowing players to purchase packs. *This will require extensive balancing.*
* Booster packs may rarely spawn as maintenance loot.
* Megafauna on Lavaland will drop Lavaland specific booster packs.
* Cards may be "traded up" at a special vendor, at the cost of 5 lower rarity cards to one higher rarity cards (subject to change/balancing).
* Admin specific booster packs may be awarded to players at admin discretion.

# Implementation of Cards
Cards are implemented as json files, one for each 'series' of card. Each json file comes with a template which is applied as default to the cards in that file, this is used to specify the icon directory and series.

{
	"templates": [
		{
			"template": "default",
			"icon": "icons/obj/tcg.dmi"
		}
	],
	"cards": [
		{
			"id": "example",
			"name": "Example Card",
			"desc": "This card does not exist. Or does it?",
			"rules": "",
			"icon_state": "runtime",
			"power": 0,
			"resolve": 0,
			"faction": "",
			"summoncost": 1,
			"cardtype": "Creature",
			"cardsubtype": "Glitchy Mess",
			"series": "coderpack",
			"rarity": "common"
		}
	]
}

A brief description of these variables follows:
* ID: A unique ID (within the series) for the card. Used for spawning cards and persistency.
* Name: The name of the card.
* Desc: A flavour description of the card.
* Rules: Additional information for the ruleset. Can consist of both attributes (single word keywords that are common to multiple cards and grant a specific ability such as taunt) or longform rules specific to one card (e.g. "Draw a card when summoning this creature.").
* Icon State: the icon state the face of the card will use.
* Power: The damage dealt by the card when it attacks.
* Resolve: The health of the card for combat.
* Faction: The faction of the card. This is important for deck building, as there are restrictions on factions being used together.
* Summon Cost: The mana cost to summon this card to the battlefield.
* Cardtype: The variety of card, such as Creature, Equipment, etc: important for the ruleset, as it determines how the card acts.
* Cardsubtype: Mostly flavour for creature cards, but for equipment/spell cards this determines the behaviour of the card.
* Series: The series of the card. Determines the booster pack the card will spawn from.
* Rarity: How commonly/rarely the card will appear in booster packs.

# Persistency
Persistency will allow players to maintain their collection and deck between rounds. Cards obtained within a round are considered unsaved until 'banked' at a terminal within the library, or via a modular computer fitted with a card holoscanner. Unsaved cards will be lost upon round end, and can be destroyed or stolen by other players. Upon being banked, the cards will be saved to the player's persistent collection and can be used for deck building. Cards can be withdrawn from this collection in a hologram format, in which case they are considered safe, or as physical cards which can be lost. In order to trade cards, they must be withdrawn physically.

Players can view their collection via a second terminal in the library, or via an app on modular computers.

Additionally, oldschool card gamers may opt instead for a physical collection- this works similarly to photo albums, giving a set amount of storage for a physical card collection which can be affected by events within the round. This may be used in tandem with the virtual storage.

# Ruleset and Gameplay
Arcane's version of the rules 6/3/2020 Edition:
**Also check out the wiki rules, all subject to change by EOB:**
https://tgstation13.org/wiki/Tactical_Game_Cards
(*The wiki rules has things like what effects keywords have!!!*)
Quickstart rules:
* Each player has a deck of 30-60 cards. Starting hand is 5 cards.
* There are 4 kinds of cards, Creatures (Can attack and defend, backbone of your deck), Equipment (Adds effects/buffs stats of cards), Events (Instant spell-like effects, alters the field), and battlefields (Act like field spells, they alter the effects of the field and overarching play conditions).
* There's a 6 stage play cycle (think yugioh or magic), in this order, the Draw, Effect 1, Play, Battle, Effect 2, and End Phase. Card effects can only be used once per cycle *unless otherwise stated.*
* Each player starts with 20(Or 10, for faster games) lifeshards. Lifeshards are your health, and if a player drops to 0, they lose.
* Some cards cost points to play. Cost points can be either obtained by card effects, or by sacrificing cards from your hand equivalent to the cost to play that card. At the end of your turn, you lose all points.
* When a card attacks another card, it declares a target. If it attacks a creature, both subtract the opposing creature's attack from it's resolve. Card effects can alter how much damage is taken in or from combat. Cards are sent to the disposal pile (Think like the graveyard) when they have 0 resolve after combat.
* At the start of every turn, that turn's player draws one card in the Draw phase.
* When building your deck, you can have no more than **3 of the same card** in a single deck.

# Effect themes on cards per cardtype
This is all subject to change, as cards branching out into different design spaces is fun and makes the game fun to play!

### Medical
Statbuffs on play, and graveyard effects. Sounds just about right for medical. Either plays as an MTG white for buffs, or as a regenerator deck.

### Cargo
Centered around gaining extra mana for playing big cards, or spending big mana for card/field advantage. Think MTG Green or HS Druid.

### Engineering
Cards centered around battlefield effects. Either making them immune to their downsides, or amplifying their upsides.

### Security
Cards come packed with agressive or defensive keywards for protecting themselves, or enabling other cards to deal more damage. EG: Blocker, Squad Tactics, First Strike.

### Service
Think of these as your non-faction, faction cards. No real trends as they tend to fill their own self-serving role in your deck.

### Science
Event cards, isntants, nerd cards with low health but can call upon or increase the power of events. Possibly burn damage as well.

### Pets
A subset of most faction cards, pets make it easier to summon cards for the faction they belong to, one way or another, but lack the stats to be used well outside of their own faction.

### Traitors
High damage, high acceleration, rushdown cards. Heavily stacks power on their creatures, or attempts to remove opponent's cards.

# Roadmap for Changes
* Basic implementation of cards: complete
* Ruleset update- event, battlefield and equipment cards, silver/gold cards: in progress
* Persistency update, persistent card binders, holocards and collection tracking
* OOC browser game: pipe dream, may never happen :white_frowning_face: