Hanging around - I can't get rid of cards?

StoryNexus
1

In StoryNexus, there’s no way to get rid of a Sometimes card other than playing it*. This is intentional, but has some design implications for creators, so I’ll go into some detail here:

Firstly, you might not be able to a play a card because you don’t qualify for any of the branches. So it’s going to stay in your hand forever. This shouldn’t happen - but it’s up to creators to stop it from happening. You do this by ensuring that the first branch on each Sometimes card doesn’t have any requirements - so it can always be played. The technology doesn’t enforce this - it’s up to you to make sure that players will always be able to get rid of a card once they draw it.

Secondly, the players may no longer qualify for a card because their qualities changed between the time they drew the card into their hands and the time they want to play it, and they no longer qualify for the root-level requirements of the card. So, if a card has ‘Hounded by the Neighbours Minimum 1’ on the root, a player could draw the card, and then play the ‘Neighbourhood Apocalypse’ Always card, which removes that quality. When the player doesn’t meet the root requirements for a card already drawn, the card cannot be played - even if there are branches with no requirements on them. It will hang around in their hand forever, unless their qualities change again so that they meet the requirements.

This is obviously bad, so the rule is: ‘For Sometimes cards, ensure that any quality changes that makes the card unplayable are on the card itself’. Doing this will mean that the card will never be stuck in the player’s hand.

There being no auto-discard is a design decision, but it’s different from Fallen London, so it might take a bit of getting used to. But it does enforce a design principle that we think will help creators make better games:

In Fallen London, there are an awful lot of Sometimes cards (well, they’re called opportunities, but you get the idea). Hundreds of the things, usually with one or two branches. But take a look at Cabinet Noir, which is built with the StoryNexus engine. There are fewer cards (for example, 24 in the Day deck) but there are more branches on each one. You can get round some of the difficulties caused by the lack of an auto-discard by adopting this design.

If you have a set number (let’s say 24 for argument, but any number beyond 12 or so should work) of Sometimes cards, you’ll have a good idea of how often each one will come around. Which is good when planning new stuff. And when you want to add more Sometimes content, you should add more branches to existing cards rather than creating more Sometimes cards. This means that you can have cards that have that necessary no-requirements first branch easily (because you only have to write 12 or 24 or however many cards you have of the things, rather than having to write an extra branch each for many cards), and you can control the requirements for your new content on the branches rather than the root events.

It does mean that your root text has to pull a lot of weight - it has to introduce a lot more branches. So you could make each card a location or a person or an event (like a festival or a night out) where you could conceivably bump into a lot of different stuff or find out different things or whatever. Again, check out Cabinet Noir to see how we did this.

*There is an exception - the whole hand is discarded whenever the character changes settings, but that’s a special case, and not something to rely on when building most content.

Edit: Clarity
edited by Goatdance on 8/6/2012
edited by Goatdance on 8/8/2012

2

It makes sense to me, though I am a little put out by the idea that essentially there can be only one card to terminate a story. And I suspect that root text is going to become pretty bare.

Of course, my concerns are theoretical, since I’m still waiting for the Beta to open up.

Would it make sense to structure a game so each story essentially gets a single card, with various branches becoming visible/invisible as qualities change?

-Erik

PS: When will Cabinet Noir open up so we can see examples?

3

Erik - note that this all just applies to Sometimes cards (the equivalent of opportunities). Always cards (like Fallen London Storylets) are unaffected.

And yes, it would make sense to structure a story that way. It’s how we’ve done most of the stories for Cabinet Noir - although they’re on Always cards in the main.

Cabinet Noir will be more available very soon.

4

That makes sense. Though that really does put a lot on the root text. It seems like it could take a lot to manage in a game that grows to larger size. Granted, that’s also if they get there and would be a good problem to have, in some ways at least.

5

Thanks for the in-depth explanation, Nigel.

In working within this system, I’ve been forced to be much more efficient in my own design. Instead of ten sometimes cards, each with their own specific scenario, I now have two Always cards with five different branches each. One card gives allows the player to choose from any branch as much as they like, and the second only displays each branch once in turn and attempting the last branch removes the guard. It’s so much tidier and I feel I’ve learned good design methodology from these restrictions.

6

Jeff:
We know that it’s a lot to put on one root event. We have a solution in mind to this, but it’s a bit radical and it likely won’t be seen for a little while.

lily:
I’m glad you like the new methods. :)

7

Does moving the character to a new Setting clear the current cards (like going insane in Fallen London)?

8

Ah yes, that’s a special case.

Moving between settings does empty your hand out. It has to, though. There is no content that is common between settings - storylets have to live in one setting or another, not across both.

So any content that is in one setting would be unplayable in another. Thanks for mentioning that - I’ll make a note in the reference doc.

9

If sometimes cards are expected to have a lot of branches, will there be a way to close down the branches, so that it would be possible to quickly browse for the branch that we’re looking for?

Right now I am looking at an event like “Wander the Streets” that has just 2 common events, but also have plans out for events that will reflect looking for certain people out on the streets for storylets, trying to find certain buildings, or any number of other tasks. It’ll certainly be one of my ‘go to’ story cards.

10

Jeff - Branches can be hidden with a quality check. There’s a tick-box when adding a Required Quality and un-checking it will cause that branch not to be shown if the player doesn’t have the specified quality.

11

I meant for the view when editng the story. That way I can try to quickly find which of the eventually 20+ branches I am looking for for high usage events.

12

Hm…I understand that this is a deliberate design decision, but I think there may be a solution for cards with unplayable requirements: Would it be possible for the engine to automatically remove cards from the player’s hand if they become impossible to play? Or would that be problematic?
edited by Little The on 9/3/2012

13

Little The:

It’s technically possible, but problematical. It’s not something that will happen in the shorter term.

14

Hey there. I’m having a concrete case of “stuck” cards being a problem and I’d like some help.

I have the player start in an “introduction” area where quite a few things can happen until they can get out. In a sense, it’s similar to New Newgate. I followed a pattern similar to Cabinet Noir, I think, and use Pinned cards for big goals with high requirements and Opportunities for “random things you find during your search”. A few of them could be pinned too (they’re specific rooms in that introduction area), but some can only work as randomized events (àla “random encounters” – you don’t go to them, they come to you whether you like it or not).

My problem happens when the player has met the big goal requirements and is moved to the next area. As New Newgate, you are not meant to return there, ever. Yet, Opportunities can still be in the hand. But these cards just can’t logically be played afterwards… it would make no sense whatsoever, so I have them linked to the intro area, so they cannot be played at all from that point on and we get one or more “dead” slot.

Trying to find a solution by myself, I’ve used a change of Setting to clear the hand. It does work. The problem is I planned to have more of these “exclusive areas” and while I could use multiple Settings, it means I’m locked out of universal Pinned cards and Opportunities (whereas it can be done with areas – “Any”)

Things that would unstuck me:

  • A design solution that retains narrative logic without changing the system
  • Having a “clear the hand” exotic effect which I could simply use whenever an area change should clear the hand
  • Being able to assign Pinned and Opportunities to Any Setting (retains the same freedom we have with areas now, and can use Setting changes to clear the hand)
  • Letting players Discard Opportunities they don’t meet requirements for. That way they can’t get out of “bad” cards on a whim, can keep cards they can’t play but might want to play later and can remove cards they can’t play and don’t want anymore.
15

The two ways I’ve found personally to get around this:

  1. Very basic root text (as suggested upthread) that can apply in many areas, with area-specific branches. So, for example, a card called “A Chance Encounter” with the root text “Who’s that coming towards you?” could be used in just a ton of areas; the specific people one might encounter gets changed in the branches.

  2. Less elegantly, an “only a memory” option. For example, I have a Sometimes card called “The Gardens” – but there’s only Gardens in Area 1. If the player moves to Area 2 with Gardens in her hand, then tries to play it, there’s a single branch saying something like “Only a green memory now, alas; there are no gardens here.” I haven’t playtested this very well yet, because I’m still mucking about with my areas and settings and haven’t gotten around to restarting my character and playing the whole mess from ground zero again, so use at your own risk. And then tell me what screws up. :)

16

Thanks for the tips katastrophe. While I considered option 1, as officially suggested, I didn’t quite look at it the way you present it. I guess it could work, but I’m still not sure I like it. Seems like it will be a pain to design or will make all Opportunities very generic looking from the outset.

In that sense, I like the idea of adding a custom “discard” option ourselves, as option 2 suggests… thinks… except you can’t test the current area that way. It would need to be a Quality! Huh… I’m starting to wonder if “moving around” should be dealt with in a very custom way, as a Quality too, then…

I’ll look into it. In the meantime, feel free to suggest other solutions :)

17

@ katastrophe

“Less elegantly, an “only a memory” option. For example, I have a Sometimes card called “The Gardens” – but there’s only Gardens in Area 1. If the player moves to Area 2 with Gardens in her hand, then tries to play it, there’s a single branch saying something like “Only a green memory now, alas; there are no gardens here.””

For what it’s worth, I think that’s very elegant indeed. Great idea.

18

That’s what I thought too!

… but you end up needing both.

As I’m currently understanding the system (my playtesting tends to be interspersed with things like convincing the one-year-old it’s ok to have something besides peanut butter for breakfast, so when I make dumb mistakes, please correct me, it was probably a peanut butter moment), it goes like this –

  1. Qualities can be used to test anything. They are insanely useful for controlling Always cards and branches. However, if a Sometimes card root is tested against a quality, that quality should only change on that card. If some other card changes it, any cards tested against that quality will stay in the player’s hand, but the player will be unable to open them, access them, discard them, do anything but stare at them in annoyance.

  2. Areas cannot be tested against. However, if a Sometimes card and is dealt in one area and the player moves to another while it’s still in hand, the card can still be played.

So what you need for my solution is both an Area and a Quality. The Sometimes card is assigned to an Area. Whenever the player moves areas, the storylet also changes the Quality – call it Where Am I?. Branches on the Sometimes card test against the Where Am I? quality; if the player’s not in a sensible area for this card, it throws the “memory” branch (or something like it.)

Hope that helps!

19

[quote=SmyJohn]
For what it’s worth, I think that’s very elegant indeed. Great idea.[/quote]

Thank you!

I’ve also toyed with the idea of related content – so the memory of the gardens triggers a thought about the area you’re in, or you get a branch like “There are no gardens here – but isn’t that the Gardener? What’s she doing in this desolate place?” But there are play issues with that, since as it stands the player would only run across that branch if they happened to move areas with that specific card in hand. So it needs to be essentially flavor text (a nice touch, but not plot-relevant) or the card needs to live in both areas after all.

I’m finding the whole “no discard” thing a bit like writing sonnets. You spend a lot of time counting syllables and swearing, but what you come up with in the end is far better than what you would have done on your own. :)

20

@ Katastophe

“I’m finding the whole “no discard” thing a bit like writing sonnets. You spend a lot of time counting syllables and swearing, but what you come up with in the end is far better than what you would have done on your own.”

Heh, well put. It’s certainly forced me out of my comfort zone, hopefully with good results.

“1) Qualities can be used to test anything. They are insanely useful for controlling Always cards and branches. However, if a Sometimes card root is tested against a quality, that quality should only change on that card. If some other card changes it, any cards tested against that quality will stay in the player’s hand, but the player will be unable to open them, access them, discard them, do anything but stare at them in annoyance.”

The way around this is not to impose upper limits on Sometimes cards. Put them on branches instead. And be careful when reducing Qualities. My main Qualities can be reduced by some failures, but only by a little. At worst, you’d have to play a Storylet or two to boost the Quality back to where it needs to be to play the card.

“2) Areas cannot be tested against. However, if a Sometimes card and is dealt in one area and the player moves to another while it’s still in hand, the card can still be played.”

I’ve done two things to address this:

  1. my game has a briefish opening section set in a small, safe Area. There is a small deck of cards specifically designed for this Area: some of them make no sense once you leave it, and they test Qualities at a level that would be ridiculously low later in the game. So I put that Area in its own Setting: once you leave, the deck and your hand is wiped. The rest of the game allows you to travel freely between several Areas (or will once I’ve built them), but share the same deck. So these cards are designed to be things you could bump into anywhere. Plus…

  2. You can’t test against Areas. You can, however, create a “Location” quality and have it update every time you move Areas, hence tracking which Area you’re in in a testable way. So you get Location: 1 when you enter the first Area, Location: 2 when you enter the second, and if you go back to the first Area your Location is set back to 1. I’m experimenting with this at the moment. One of my cards describes a chance encounter. The card text is generic (“You meet a stranger on the road” or something like that). But the card has a different branch for each Area, visible only in that Area. So the card turns up everywhere, but depending on where you are, you meet a different person.