Cartoon Calamity Rulebook #1: The Basics of the Basics
(The start of my series of posts trying to make sense of how this card game concept of mine would play)
Cartoon Calamity is a card-based fighting game meant to be played with multiple people [4-10, more if you so wish] but can also be played with fewer, just expect matches to be much quicker, that involves picking a character deck of your choice and duking it out!
So, how exactly does the game go? Simple..
Each player chooses a Character Deck (which will be fully explained later, but for reference are just specific decks each with a different playstyle) and the whole game is just to beat all other players, once your the last one standing you win! Each player starts with 10 Health, and turn order can be decided through the players and the usual "rock paper scissors" bout for who's goin first
There are two ways to win a game technically, the standard is the Brawl Victory which is being the last contestant who hasn't been Knocked Out, but their is also the Attrition Victory. Think of it as the "Ensure games don't go on for too long" victory, after 25 (or whatever number everyone gets bored at) turn loops you instead count up who has the moth health and that person is considered the victor! If it's a tie, add on the amount of cards current in either's hand to their health. If you somehow still have a tie, hope your good at arm wrestling..
| How Turns Go |
When it does become your turn
.1 || Draw a Card from your deck and add it to your hand, you can do this even if your turn is skipped or you are unable to play any cards
.2 || Whenever it’s your turn, you always start with 3 Moxie to be used to play your cards. Play whatever cards you choose according to such, spending the Moxie Cost of any card when you put them down until you can’t spend any more (You can choose to leave Moxie unspent, but it won’t transfer to your next turn, it just doesn’t go to use)
.3 || If any cards played activate other trinkets like Dice Rolls, Call-Ins, or Specialty Cards then you do them after playing all your Deck Cards for that turn. This rule is only not applied if such is required to actually play any cards due to character-specific rules and such (actions will specify if this is the case, don’t worry)
.4 || Discard all the Cards played unless they actively say otherwise like (..Keep on the Field) or (..This stays in effect until..), or are Call-Ins deployed in since they stay until destroyed
.5 || Pass your turn to the next player
These will often stay the same through any game, the only times these change is when a player is skipped or can't play during their turn in which it's more Step 1 straight to Step 5
Burnout - If whenever playing and during your turn you end up using all the cards currently in your hand (meaning your hand is empty), you suffer Burnout. This means you take 2 damage and then draw 2 cards, but can still continue playing if you have the means too, often acting more like a risk to playing too quickly. Also occurs if your hand is reduced to empty by means of other players too
Ailments - These are usually only in play if using an Inflictor deck in a game, since these are negative effects often played and placed on other contestants. They can do a many range of things, but importantly are only activated once it becomes the affected's turn, so if someone plays a card and gives another contestant something like a poison status it then means they only become damaged by it once their turn commences
Head-On Duels - An optional ruleset, whenever a game becomes just 2 contestants left the rules change up to both make things trickier but also give a climatic bout at the end. This forces players who skip their turn without play a card to take 1 damage, as well as giving both players 4 Moxie at the start of their turn instead of 3 for more options
(These are just the basics so far, next rule post will be explaining the cards and the workings of Character Decks. This is also still an 'in progress' thing, so their might be changes to such.. just keep that in mind, I am nowhere near a proffesional)