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The CCG Issue
By Corvus | April 2, 2008
As promised, I’ll be building a “House of Cards” on Man Bytes Blog this week, focusing on the potential for storytelling with these thick, wax-coated bits of paste-board. To start off, I’m going to take a tongue in cheek look at a trend of card games I just can’t wrap my brain around…
I don’t like collectible card games. Not at all. Loathe and detest are two words that define my reaction to them quite nicely and frankly, I get a little angry just thinking about them. The problem is–this emotional reaction is completely at odds with my current philosophies on story, play and community.
Magic: The Gathering always struck me as a protest against the evolution of RPGs as a storytelling medium. White Wolf was making a splash with the World of Darkness, the diceless Amber RPG wasn’t getting a lot of attention, but it existed and that “soft” approach to RPGs bothered a few people. The dedicated dungeon crawling elite were frustrated by this move towards character development and plots involving more than killing things and taking their stuff. The need for granular rule sets, compulsive collecting of narrative artifacts and power-leveling was slowly being taken away from them and they didn’t like, not one bit.
And then suddenly… here was Magic. You could almost hear the sufferers of Asperger’s Syndrome around the world sigh in relief, like a drop in barometric pressure immediately before the cooling rain begins. Magic contained all the flavor of AD&D and none of the pesky plotline nonsense that was suddenly infecting the RPG world. Even better, the collecting of artifacts was no longer represented by line items in a notebook somewhere, but an actual physical thing–a card. And cards were such a better metaphor for the acquisition of power because they weren’t strictly an imaginary item that anyone could claim they’d acquired. They were actual items that could be safely stowed away in boxes, or UV protecting vinyl sleeves in an impressively massive three ring binder. Plus, the better cards were in limited supply. This means if you had one in your possession, fortune either smiled on you or you had the actual balls to fork up big money for it down at the local game shop.
The community didn’t stand a chance–rampant consumerism, compulsive behavior, rules mongering and smug feelings of superiority based upon something other than your actual accomplishments in life would rule the day. Magic was an impressive phenomenon and it swept the gaming community away like a four color papery tsunami.
And I tried to give it a chance, really I did. Even then I bought a few packs of cards and tried to play the game as if I were a powerful mage assembling my thematically consistent forces against incursion… but I couldn’t find anyone to play with that regarded the events unfolding on the table before us as anything other than an array of cards, a mathematic distribution of points with which you could offset your oppoent. The fact that I suffered crippling losses at the decks of those willing to spend more money than I didn’t inspire any charitable feelings for the game either. After all, I was a young man–there were packs of cigarettes and pints of Guinness to buy–not to mention computer games, which I felt were a far better investment of my time.
Before long, I dumped my meager deck back into the market–giving away the cards to the addicts I knew–and turned my back on the CCG. I grudgingly gained some respect for the genre in the late 90s when a parent told me that his kids were rapidly absorbing math skills because of their love for Pokemon cards. When I talked to the kids, they never referred to the stats of the Bezzleborger card, but only of the Bezzleborger character himself. I found that encouraging, but it didn’t go a long way to offset my general distaste for the concept as a whole. After all, Pokemon’s narrative structure was propped up and propagandized by a cartoon, Gameboy titles, etc. It was these other mediums that taught the kids to regard the card game as a metaphor for another reality, not the CCG itself.
Over the last few years, I have looked in on the CCG now and again and seen some things that interest me. Most notably, the Pirates CCG, in which the first ‘C’ could be said to represent constructible as well as collectible. But I find myself without a lot of disposable income left over to spend on such things and the people I associate with locally don’t tend to be drawn to CCGs, so I haven’t dipped a toe into those waters just yet. I know there’s a group in Minneapolis, MN that uses the core gameplay mechanic of the Pirates CCG, and larger model ships, to teach kids about historic maritime combat, which is awesome.
So,the long and short of it is this–while CCGs ought to be an ideal storytelling medium, utilizing strictly gameplay mechanics to convey story, they aren’t presented or structured in such a way as to generally encourage this type of use. Perhaps it’s the need to invest a large amount of personal resources, both financially in acquiring cards and mentally in memorizing card-specific rules, that overrides their ability to transport the players to another storyworld without the added benefit of animated series and digital versions that take place within a virtual landscape.
What do you think? Am I wrong? Have I only played with the wrong people? Am I missing the fundamental appeal? Let me know in the comments!
Tagged:card-games, ccg, storytelling. | 11 Comments »
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:32 am
“Magic contained all the flavor of AD&D and none of the pesky plotline nonsense that was suddenly infecting the RPG world.”
Well, there’s no doubt at all that the success of Magic hurt tabletop role playing games in a financial sense – the arrival of the trading card games sucked money away from tabletop RPGs and quite savagely decimated the market. But that market was already quite weak from the rise of videogames, let not forget, and – crucially – the players who stopped playing D&D to play M:TG *weren’t* playing for stories. They were playing to level up their characters and earn loot.
The trading card games were a more appropriate home for these obsessive-compulsive tendencies, frankly, (as is Steve Jackson’s Munchkin) and since revenue from trading card games helped keep hobby game stores open I find it hard to hold this against them.
The problem for the RPGs was that most people were playing for these other reasons, so the trading card games culled the fanbase for tabletop play. But interest in narrative play (you cite Amber, which is a good example of this) was always a minority concern. Trading card games didn’t change this – they just brought it abundantly into perspective.
As a tabletop RPG player and designer, I found myself getting sucked into the trading card games not as a substitute for role playing, but as a revived interest in board games spread to a wider audience. I had always enjoyed trading cards, and here was trading cards “levelled up”. After a while, I came to resent the money that was being farmed from me and I quit never to go back, but I enjoyed it while I played.
The most successful trading card game in narrative terms is probably Mythos. It suffered from awkwardly restrictive deckbuilding mechanics and from being slightly overlong, but there was a sense of storytelling embedded in this game which worked nicely.
But I don’t think trading card games ought to be or are a major narrative medium at all – but they kept computer games from destroying the hobby games retail marketplace, and in that regard, I can’t help but feel a little grateful.
Best wishes!
April 2nd, 2008 at 10:59 am
Corvus,
Magic doesn’t have strong narrative components, and it isn’t supposed to. It’s still an excellent game for those who like the strategic challenge, and over the years it has become more and more balanced.
There are ccgs which are more story-oriented: Legend of the Five Rings springs to mind. Its storytelling elements, at least in principle, were sound. The way you competed and the cards you used in your deck could have an actual effect on the story, and the developers often picked up player initiatives and incorporated them into the canon storyline, which unfolded with every expansion. I stopped playing it a few years ago due to overwhelming mechanical problems which unfortunately overshadowed everything else.
April 2nd, 2008 at 11:14 am
But what I find most interesting is that I can, with a pretty straight face, talk about the storytelling inherent in a game like Tetris, but I find I have a difficult time doing the same thing with a CCG like Magic. If, as I theorize, game mechanics are a valid narrative component, why does Magic not hold up?
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I think that M:TG tried to incorporate a story element into the world, but it has largely failed because it lacks coherence. This is partly due to the random structure of the game and deck building.
Firstly, M:TG has always had meta-story elements. Each successive expansion has been centered around not only a theme, but a loose storyline. An invasion, the rise of a sorcerer, etc. The cards introduced contained themes that built upon this meta-story. Also, the individual cards themselves tend to exist within this larger story-world. Most of them have flavour text that relates to other cards, fictional characters within the M:TG universe, or other meta-story elements.
So I would argue that if you tried, you could use M:TG to tell stories. However, you would have to build your decks with this intent. Build them around a theme, and play them against each other to create conflict and struggle. This even happened to me once, unintentionally, many years ago. It was shortly after the introduction of an expansion (I don’t know which one) that debuted an enemy type called Splinters. Splinters came in many types (covering all the mana types), and the more you had in play, the stronger they all got. My magic playing friend (I never actually owned a deck myself) built a Splinter-centered deck. Playing it was very much like trying to fight off an invasion of hostile creatures. It was never his intent, but it generated a story experience for me.
However, I believe that this is an exceptional case. Most players are building decks for power, or specific combos, or general colour theme. Few are building with story in mind. And the deck building mechanic encourages you to pick, choose, swap, and jumble the various cards around a lot. This makes it very hard to develop a consistent feel to any deck. It also hinders the story elements that beyond providing the initial story flavour, Wizards of the Coast has provided no additional push for story telling. There are no pre-built story decks, no further insight into the world of M:TG, and no incentives to roleplay while playing. They have themed it, but choose to orphan the storytelling in favour of tactical play and the cash cow that is obsessive collection.
And I think that is where most CCGs fail to create a story world. They are geared to be bought and collected, but not to be used in a way that develops any sort of narrative consistency.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:29 pm
If, as I theorize, game mechanics are a valid narrative component, why does Magic not hold up?
(don’t know if that html will mark that as italics)
You’ve said before (and I’m coming to agree) that story formed the narrative components merge inside the mind of the player. Only then do you have a story that can be related.
I’m sure that there are “game moment” stories about Magic (the popular tale about the guy who tore an expensive card up to win the tournament is one such). But I know you’re not really talking about game moment stories, but stories in which the game mechanics and other narrative elements drive a collective story.
Continuing your comparison to pen and paper RPGs, in order for that to stay in the storytelling, character-focused world, everyone at the table has to be in agreement for this to happen. If you have, as I have recently, someone who is primarily focused on the game mechanics and the stat-based finagling of combat, then even the storytelling of a traditional RPG can break down. You have to have the willing participation of everyone at the table in order for it to work and to work well. (IME, it can work without, but then the gamist gamer has to back off and let the story happen around them.)
With Magic, you’ve got to have the willing participation of both players to become the dueling wizards that the game casts you as. And the game is very gamey, and attracts the more gamist type of player. Add to that the truth that card games don’t really tell stories very often (the Tarot being an exception, and, conversely, I know very few people who use it to play games).
I’m interested in this, and story in general. But I know I’ve never convinced anyone to play Nanofictionary with me, even.
April 2nd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
These are good-no, scratch that-great responses, folks. Keep ‘em coming!
@Joe I actually don’t know anyone who doesn’t use the tarot for storytelling purposes. After all, what is foretelling the future, but an effort to get a peek at your life’s story before it happens?
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:21 pm
@Corvus: I gave a few readings for friends, and the “fortune telling” I’ve done has always worked better when I tried to compose a story about it. But maybe that’s because we, as humans, are susceptible to story;)
(Don’t think I’m knocking the Tarot, as an intuitive device for everything for guidance and writing, it helped guide me on to decisions I felt good about. I just don’t think it predicts the future any better than the person using them can)
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Hmm… Perhaps it is the fact that you are dealing with, in Magic, the true gooey essence of D&D stats tracking that is throwing off your narrative sense, Corvus. I agree with you that what I’ve seen of most CCGs is merely OCD-inducing foil fluff drawn over a canvas of ultimately simplistic random numbers game play.
It’s particularly bad because the halcyon, the exemplar, Magic obviously appears to be an attempt at consolidating D&D mechanics in card game form rather than an attempt to do truly suitable for the form factor. I’ve played several games ultimately similar to Magic in terms of some raw game mechanics,that lacked the story potential of the CCG in terms of collect-ability and unique items, but due to the simple fact of their nature beginning and ending ensconced in the very media of card game were much more narratively interesting games. Basically I do think it’s obvious that Magic was arrived at not by “what would make an interesting card game mechanic” but “how best do we integrate some particular D&D mechanic”…
CCGs ultimately, like several other game genres I know, have a lot of potential for narrative that simply has gone unexplored, or weakly explored.
I use CCG analogies often in describing narrative ideas for MMOs (another genre fraught with relatively narrative-free D&D mechanics without much of the heart or soul of storytelling), as I think there are a number of interesting story telling to be had simply in the politics of moving rare (“foil”) items from the hands of collectors and people economically well off into the hands of those that might benefit best from a story perspective or who might actually know how to use an object. (Did you see the Sci-Fi miniseries “The Lost Room”? Some of it played very much like my wild descriptions of some of the “CCG-based story MMOs” that I’ve talked about at great length to people that like listening to me jabber about potential storytelling apparatuses…)
So yes, I do think that as much that Magic has been the father of the genre of CCGs, it hasn’t been a very good example for game play mechanics, much less story-telling.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:25 pm
From what I can see, there seems to be just one factor that prevents storytelling in CCG, the mayority of players are only interested in the mechanics of battles combined with their bragging rights and feeling of importance that rare cards bring.
But what if the collectible part of CCG games is taken out? They would certainly loose a lot of their appeal to most snobs of the game and probably would evolve into a board game like chess.
This change would even cripple the storytelling ability of the game somewhat, since now there will be much less variety of cards. Although this is not necesarily true, since you can have a narrative in a game like chess. At least I did some days ago when our DM brought this crazy idea of an un-dead mage that played chess with adventurers. The mage would fuse our souls with some of the pieces and made us play for our lives.
I have to say, I have never had so much fun playing chess; the DM even described every move with details of the actions and motifs of every piece. It was crazy, but it worked.
April 2nd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Nice! If you guys keep this up, I won’t have anything to write about tomorrow!
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I’m very surprised to see so much animosity towards mtg from various commenters. Magic is a game of tempo and resource management. Nothing to do with D&D, at least not at its core.
As a competitive game, Magic is very balanced. At high levels of play the collectible part is in fact taken out of the equation, it’s a given that a serious player will have the entire card pool available to build from, just like a high level tennis player is assumed to have the best equipment to choose from, making actual skill the only significant variable. Luck is a much smaller factor than you’d think.
Corvus, you use Tetris as an example in your first comment, but completely ignore that fact that any narrative in it comes from the player and not the game itself. It’s the same with Magic. As a storytelling medium, it provides a setting (barely), and nothing more. Ignore the fancy artwork and “flavor” for a moment, and think of each card as nothing more than a Tetris block. The storytelling doesn’t come out in the cards themselves, but in the experience of playing. It’s a setting ripe for creating fabula, for weaving one’s own stories in between the cards, external to the world portrayed on them. Storytelling out of pure mechanics, just like Tetris. Unlike Tetris, however, it’s an experience shared between two (or more) players.
The interactions happening, unlikely ways you won or lost a game, topdecking card X in the last possible turn to save you, defeating a creature that is feared in your group (despite not being all that powerful), discovering quirky interactions and combinations, the silly variants that can be played… it goes on and on.