[I]FIRST[/I] Trading Card Co.

[Kevin Leonard]

Well this is certainly an interesting idea, and one I think could be epic if executed well. I have reservations, suggestions and ideas.

Is scouting data the best way to determine the stats for robot cards? And how exactly would they work? How would the data being entered be verified? The data entry could be run like the FF league on Delphi somewhat. Or you could contact a team or two going to each regional for data.
Or you could use OPR if that's applicable (or accurate) for the year.

Will the cards be cross-year? I'd love to have cards for this year's game and next year's game be able to mix somehow. In which case, it would have to focus less on the specific game from that year and more on the general aspects of FRC. I'd love to see someone have a 2011 deck and someone else have a 2013 deck and they go at it somehow.

How would the cards be distributed/purchased? What if you created some sort of template that one could use to make their own cards and share them possibly on Chief Delphi. And there's a list of cards that are "officially approved" for use or something.

Is there a better way to do voltas? (Also a better term- voltas is kinda funky.) I like the idea of using a set supply that you use to activate robot cards, strategy cards, and stuff, but it's a bit clunky as is.

If you're going to call this the FIRST Trading Card Game, it can't only involve FRC. It should have cards relating to FTC and FLL. Unless you were to rename it the FRCTCG. But I think it'd be cool to somehow include the smaller programs.

I'd love to see this pan out. Imagine going to CMP and playing FTCG with some kids from other teams during an official break.


Now here's another idea, and it would be a considerable change from what you currently have laid out.
Have you ever played a deck-building game? You should try one sometime (i.e. Dominion, Ascension, etc.)
The premise of a deck building game is that everyone starts with the same few cards, and then you can use your in-game money (perhaps voltas) to buy other cards. Your money cards and the purchased cards are shuffled back into your deck after your turn basically. The goal is usually to purchase as many of the "Victory Cards" as possible, but in order to do so efficiently, you have to buy other cards to create combos that allow you to purchase more of the victory cards. It's less complicated than it sounds, and they're very fun to play.
What if your FTCG became a deck-building game? Everyone starts with say three "Plowie" cards, and seven "Student cards". Then, every turn you draw a hand of 5. Using your student cards you can purchase robot cards, strategy cards, mentor cards, etc. And then every time you place a combination of three robots whose "point value" exceeds a certain number, you receive a "Match Win" card. The highest value robots have the highest cost in students, and higher value students can be purchased with other students as well (i.e. Experienced Student, College Mentor) Different student cards can also have different effects (CAD Student increases the value of any one robot card by 3, etc.) The mentor cards can have similar effects, or have a larger role in causing your values to have different multipliers, etc.

I don't know if it would work as well as it is in my head, but it would be cool. It would also easily allow for the integration of multiple years of robots.
I don't know if that's the sort of feedback you were looking for, as that's basically a completely different game, but I decided to go for it anyway.
Anyway, good luck!

[cmrnpizzo14]

Sounds crazy. I like it. I'm currently in limbo in terms of mentoring. If my college schedule allows it I will try and mentor a Boston area team this winter. I agree with the deck building idea since a "standard style" game, as with most other TCG's, creates the problem of he who spends the most wins the most.

I think that instead of a trading card game you would almost be better off with instead creating a catalyst league or something electronic of that sort. Costs would be less and the access would be about as wide.

If you would like any information about 3173, my former team, message me and I will let you know anything you would like.

Good luck!!

EDIT:

I also started a Fantasy FRC league this year for my team during CMP. Each person picked teams and then earned points based off of that teams robot and team performance using a scoring system loosely based off of the FiM point system. We set up the draft on a google doc and then I was the commissioner and live tallied up the scores for each person while watching CMP or at night after most of the action was over.

This is the thread on it. I believe that I made quite a few changes to it since I originally posted it.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...=Fantasy+FIRST