Is Dude Bashing Avoidable?

[Pedantic]

So I'm a Netrunner refugee, and still sad about its untimely demise, fan efforts to keep it running notwithstanding. This has led to an ongoing design question I've been mulling over with some other card game playing friends.

In the space of big deck customization games, can you make a game that isn't a dude-basher, without asymmetrical decks?

Most card games amount to "build board state, wreck opponent's board state, last board standing wins" with some variation on whether you wreck the board before or after it hits the table, and how much of that board you can hold in your hand instead of putting it down. Dude-bashing, in that you play dudes that either go hit your opponent until they die (or run to the point scoring zone, or get left alone to farm points or whatever) and/or trade into your opponent's dudes to stop them doing that.

Is there any way to build a game that doesn't do that, without an asymmetrical element? My definitions might just be too broad. I worry I'm just begging the question and we've been defining dude-bashing in such a way as to rule out the entire space of symmetrical decks.

[Username17]

You could make a game about building to win conditions rather than pushing your opponent to loss conditions. If you had a game where the goal was to build a civilization, playing barbarians to slow your opponent's growth down would be an optional playstyle. I could imagine a basic RPS system where Turbo Libraries was held in check by Barbarian Hordes which was held in check by Garrisons which in turn was held in check by Turbo Libraries.

Attacking your opponent with your cards is only mandatory if your win condition involves making your opponent lose. If your win condition is simply to build to a win state, interacting with your opponent is wholly optional.

Now I don't know if "competitive solitaire" is a thing you actually want to do. But you certainly could do that.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

Broadly, yes. The Sim City CCG had no dudes of any kind, and was so symmetrical that everyone played from the same deck, but it also might not have been a game.

You could have a game where all you did was put things into play, without removing anything, and the interaction was in things like '+1 Rebellion for each Oppression your opponent controls' and wrangle some actual gameplay out of it. I just happen to think that such a game would be ungood. Partly because when the board-state can only get more complicated, the game is probably going to become incomprehensible in short order; but also because dude bashing is really engrossing and you need something really good to replace it with.

[Omegonthesane]

I saw this title and thought it was going to be whining about "sexism against men" or some shit. Which says more about me than about you really.

You need things that interact with your opponent's things in order to have an interactive CCG. As angelfromanotherpin says, if you have things that stay on the board and don't leave the board, the board becomes unacceptably complicated after a while, so you'd probably have to have some hard limit on cards in play and design a lot of spell-type effects so the average deck is like 3/4 shit that does its thing and then goes away.

You could still have a main condition of "set enemy's victory points to 0", I say because I have Offworld Trading Company on the brain so am imagining having to buy all your opponent's shares to win.

Alternately, you're allowed to swap out shit on the board for other shit on the board. Sticking with Offworld Trading Company theming here, you could play a Steel Mill on turn 1 and then decide on turn 5 that you'd rather have a Chemical Factory or Offworld Market on that location. This would also open up design space around limiting how you can replace things, e.g. Mines could be something you can only replace with "anything but a Mine", the Geothermal Plant could just be impossible to replace at all or be built as a replacement (representing having to be built on a site that is suitable for nothing else). 'course that specific theme would need to be drastically simplified bcos the original game has way the fuck more than 4 resource types

[Pedantic]

I can see how "Eurogame, the deckbuilder" isn't terribly convincing. Is there some way to have a super interactive game without having players trade resources into each other? Going back to Netrunner, it works because you put down a threat, the opponent can answer, but generally not destroy it, and the timing of when your opponent can answer it (usually by getting the right icebreaker) is a big factor.

Is there some axis of interaction? We kept trying to come up with ways for players to build resilient tableaus or engines without directly smashing them together to see which one survives.

[angelfromanotherpin]

In the Babylon 5 CCG, the attacking mechanic wasn't used very much (at least in my environment). I could see implementing a variant of the engine where you didn't do that at all, and it was all about maneuvering. If you were less wholly committed to 'no bumping mans' you could have attacks only able to knock someone out for the current turn or something.

[Thaluikhain]

The Star Trek card game comes to mind, IIRC, it was about how many points you could get by doing missions, not directly attacking each other, though it's been a long time since I looked at that.

I saw this title and thought it was going to be whining about "sexism against men" or some shit.

That totally was not also what I thought when I saw that title, really.

[Username17]

I can see how "Eurogame, the deckbuilder" isn't terribly convincing. Is there some way to have a super interactive game without having players trade resources into each other? Going back to Netrunner, it works because you put down a threat, the opponent can answer, but generally not destroy it, and the timing of when your opponent can answer it (usually by getting the right icebreaker) is a big factor.

Is there some axis of interaction? We kept trying to come up with ways for players to build resilient tableaus or engines without directly smashing them together to see which one survives.

You could always just literally make a Eurogame that was also a deck builder. Like, you could build a space ship from your parts deck and fly it through obstacles from both player's space hazard deck and have a deckbuilder version of Galaxy Trucker. Or you could play destinations from your hand into a common area and then build train stations at those destinations and have a deckbuilder version of Ticket to Ride.

Like, if you really want to have a Eurogame but you also want to have a Deckbuilder, those concepts can certainly co-exist.

-Username17

[Omegonthesane]

Arguably there already is a eurogame deck builder, I only didn't just outright say Dominion because I assumed you wanted a CCG instead of something where all the cards are in the box and new cards are added an entire expansion at a time or not at all.

[Shadeseraph]

The old Middle-earth CCG had traces of this. Each player played as one of the wizards, and most of the interaction between players was through throwing hazards to others while you tried to reach mount doom first to destroy the ring. You could win either through wining first or by being the last man standing.

I could also see a game based around competing for disputing shared resources working, I guess.

It would still be eurogame-y in essence, but something like deckbuilding companies that try to max their stock price by using the resources and price available in a common market might be fun.
Basically, the deckbuilding part would be about defining the strategy you want to follow to get to be the most important company ("sector? in-house or contractor-based? does it aim for monopoly in a single area or diversifies?") while the competing aspect would be that the assets that allow you to build your company would be shared and limited (investors, resources, subcontractors, business permits, etc), so "attacking" the other side will in many cases be more about making the other players release the assets you need to further develop your own (lawsuits, corruption, trade agreements, espionage, etc) rather than just for screwing them.

As an aside, I feel that this kind of mechanic works better when you have more than 2 players, as it's basically CCGizied Agricola/Lorenzo.

[Blade]

You can have an external "opposition" deck that randomly plays a card each turn. The players can play cards that influence the effects or offer them protection against these events.

Back on the civilization building example. The opposition deck could have cards like "drought", "flood,", "barbarian hordes", etc. The "barbarian horde" would deal damage to all players unless they have garrisons. Players can have cards like "arming the barbarians" that make the barbarian horde stronger or that add additional barbarian cards to the opposition deck.

[Yesterday's Hero]

Maybe model it after the Civilization games. Those games have a non-0 amount of dude-bashing, sure, but dude-bashing ("Conquest”) is not the most optimal path to a win, though it is fully supported (and a decent compliment to other ones). You also have Culture, Science and Diplomatic victory conditions. You may even change the Win condition you are after mid game, if the one you were pursuing becomes more complicated or some other one becomes easier.

[Shadeseraph]

In the end, everything goes back to the idea of a win condition not based on crushing the other side. But I still feel that to a degree, if there is a some level of direct interaction between players, it can be reduced to "build board state, wreck opponent's board state, last board standing wins".

I mean, several classic CCGs already offer win conditions not linked to dude bashing, strictly speaking - cards like Simic Ascendancy from MtG last expansion offer ways to win without attacking the other side even once - but in essence you are still setting up your own board state and trying to avoid the other side from setting its own and wrecking yours first - in effect you are attacking a different life total, but a life total all the same. It's all a matter of presentation

Maybe a game in which both players need to build something together - like creating a story, building an empire or solving a murder plot - and the winner is decided based on the degree of contribution to the success of the overall goal. Players would not be able to "damage" the other side, but the interaction comes from the fact that you need to use whatever the competing player has already done before and react to that. But adjudicating the winner would probably be an absolute pain in the ass.

[deaddmwalking]

Like dominoes?

[Pedantic]

Maybe a game in which both players need to build something together - like creating a story, building an empire or solving a murder plot - and the winner is decided based on the degree of contribution to the success of the overall goal. Players would not be able to "damage" the other side, but the interaction comes from the fact that you need to use whatever the competing player has already done before and react to that. But adjudicating the winner would probably be an absolute pain in the ass.

So, in Netrunner you're trying to solve a variable puzzle from turn to turn. The corp player basically sets a problem for the runner to solve, the runner has to decide if it's worth solving (or if they have more benefit from taking a semi-random chance at the unknown deck or hand) and then how they can do it most efficiently. Plus there all kinds of temp concerns (the corp might try to win while you can't get in at all, you can't be prevented from getting in early, etc.)

The big differentiating point is that for the most part, at least in classic glacier play, is that the game isn't generally won by destroying the opponent's board state. The runner wins by solving the puzzle it presents at various points in the game enough times, and the corp wins by posing a problem you aren't prepared to solve and/or timing when to score (draining the runner's resources and exploiting the gaps in their ability to challenge, or setting up lose/lose forks).

That's all enabled by the asymmetrical decks. I'm definitely blinded by my experience, but the only way I can conceive of setting up something similar is by straight up creating two different games the players are playing at the same time, where they both set up and solve problems the other player is posing. If everyone is working with the same resource types, how do you have player interaction without that interaction being (at least primarily) knocking down what the opposing player is building?

The most interesting thing so far sounds like maybe you could do a shared pool of resources and victory conditions, and competition comes from racing for for who gets what, and styming growth toward a particular end goal?

[EightWave]

Maybe a game in which both players need to build something together - like creating a story, building an empire or solving a murder plot - and the winner is decided based on the degree of contribution to the success of the overall goal. Players would not be able to "damage" the other side, but the interaction comes from the fact that you need to use whatever the competing player has already done before and react to that. But adjudicating the winner would probably be an absolute pain in the ass.

Pretty much Carcassonne: the card game. Some of the expansions offer overtly aggressive moves (raiders, dragon) but in the base game there's almost no way to directly harm other players.

[jt]

You could do a Euro-style engine building game where you're also allowed to use cards from the opponent's engine. Then the strategy isn't bringing the deck that creates the strongest engine, but rather one for an engine that's hard for other decks to take advantage of, with tools to make use of other engines.

[OgreBattle]

Perhaps there's an "Event deck" that players have to react to?

Say you're all running a feudal village and events range from long winters to scandanavian attack to famine to a visit from royalty and whatnot