Should more cards be location-specific?

Fallen London
#1

I’ve been thinking lately about opportunity cards, after a discussion in another thread about useless cards. I also recalled when the multiple action storylets went in, there was some discussion on what should cost an action, and something was mentioned about moving between zones costing actions in the past (Or possible future, I can’t be bothered to dig the thread up right now), and I reached a certain disconnect of sorts.

I think it’s a good thing to have various sections of the game actually feel like different areas. At the moment, outside of the storylets offered it really doesn’t seem to matter to me what area I’m in. Oh, there are a few location-specific cards at the moment: Getting your sign at the carnival, the salt weasel at ladybones road, and maybe some others I’m unaware of, but for the most part I can get such odd examples as going to a ball while I’m in the middle of the flit, or having some zailor offer me some dirty fighting tricks in the middle of the shuttered palace. Going to a new location hardly feels like a change of scenery, no different than simply picking another storylet to grind on in the area I was already in.

Now, mechanics-wise, there’s a plus and a minus to this. The bad side for players is that you’d have to be in a specific zone if you’re trying to pursue a given card, and this may cause someone to potentially miss a story that they’d currently be expected to run across sooner or later, such as the Cheesemonger’s. However, on the plus side a given location could have cards more tailored to the kind of person who’d go there: persuasive cards for Veilgarden and the Shuttered Palace, dangerous cards for Watchmaker’s Hill and Wolfstack Docks, and so forth (Though, not neccessarily ONLY cards for the area’s stat: Stealing wine from the shuttered palace is a shadowy storylet, but of course assumes the player is in the shuttered palace). This could even alleviate the problem mentioned earlier, since a card that shows up commonly, like the aforementioned gold story cards, would be more common in this case simply due to a lack of drawing other common cards.

Of course, there’s plenty of cards that would work best popping up in any location as it is. Recurring dreams, any card that doesn’t really specify where you’re likely to be. Arguably cards that assume you’re at your lodgings could be independent of location, since I’m fairly certain not many folks besides myself regularly chill out there: There’s nothing to grind at home, so there’s not much reason to stay there any longer than to do whatever brought you there.

Anyway, what’s everyone else’s thoughts?

#2

I am worried about cards being specific to Court though. We can return to the University anytime, even when unwelcomed - but you can’t get back to the court at all, so if there are any interesting cards implemented there, a lot of people will have to rely on the not-yet-banished players.

#3

My opinion is…no. I dislike the opportunity card system in the first place, having to camp out at a specific area just to see a certain card sounds like a nightmare to me. It was bad enough trying to get my sign read.

#4

I already dislike having location specific opportunity cards because of how infrequently they appear it’s easy to miss them entirely. Particularly since at no point while learning to play is it indicated there even is such a thing as a location specific opportunity card.

#5

I actually like the idea. The increased customisation would certainly help every area get a specific feel. I think it works out well story-wise. Also it would give players the opportunity to manage their opportunity deck more actively. If certain cards were only available in certain areas you’d go to these areas when you need them and thus have an increased chance of getting them, while they wouldn’t clutter up your deck when you weren’t looking for them (especially useful, now that connection cards are so useful that you’d seek them out, but appear a bit too frequent since the requirement was lowered to 5)

Of course it would mean some changes to how location-specific opportunity cards work, to make it run as smoothly as possible. For example I think it would have to be clearly stated on cards that they’re location specific (and not just if you move while the card is in your hand so you no longer meet the requirements). Some cards could also be linked to more than one place (breaking into the palace cellar might be connected to both the palace where it takes place and the flit, amongst the criminals, where it was propably conceived - other examples might be better but this was the one I could come up with off the top of my head), which would also eliminate the problem of being banished from court, since court really is a subsection of the palace it would only be logical that the opportunity cards would overlap.
Perhaps your lodgings could be a special place (since the location isn’t really fixed or at least changes depending on which one you chose and since this is where people would most likely come to find you), where you’d have a full deck, so you could always find cards you weren’t sure where to get, but with a longer wait because of the larger deck.
Another way of making sure people don’t miss out on content could be to add more storylines to the acess storylines already present in your lodgings.

All in all I think it could work :)

(sorry if the post isn’t as cohearent as it ought to be, been a long day)

#6

I think semi-common location opportunity cards would work just fine. Or cards location linked cards that appear when you work on specific storylines, for example. And I quite like Sir Malt’s write-up so I shall leave it at that.

I honestly find that I enjoy the newish opportunities I gain access to as I increase my skills an areas traveled. (Why I am still beating about the man who stalked the artist, I know not). Storylines from storylets and arcs are fun and interesting but less common opportunities (but not a 3-4 camp) feel more like random happenstance.

~MF
A Lady who enjoys opportunities.

#7

I like the idea of location-specific cards. Because I’m slow and blundering, my main four qualities are still in the 60-80 range even though I’ve been playing for ages. So at the moment Spite, for instance, is pretty boring for me - I’m sick of the coffin smuggling thing, but nothing else has unlocked for me lately. Having some cards that only turned up in certain locations would give me a reason to travel around and stay interested while I grind my stats up.

#8

I’d like to address some of the concerns folks have brought up in this thread: Namely that it may be possible to miss these storylines entirely, and about not wishing to camp out in a given area.

1: This idea is for cards of about the same rarity as your average card. Think about how many times you may see the same card while grinding a quality: You may see the same card dozens of times, so I do not think it’s very likely that you’d never see a card of that rarity. In addition, I was thinking these would be more along the lines of your average card, where you have a few choices of action with a stat check, and you get your loot when you’re done. Things that wouldn’t matter at all if they were missed.

2: Part of the idea is that existing cards may be moved to a zone where they make more sense, possibly even moving the vast majority of a given quality’s cards to a zone where it makes sense: For example, making the higher end dangerous cards come from Wolfstack Docks. A side effect of this is that they would not appear in other areas, so any cards that still exist in those areas would be more common.

The idea is partly to give each area its own flavor, but it serves a secondary purpose as well by making the player more likely to pull a card that’s relevant to what they’re doing. If you’re grinding shadowy in Spite, for example, I imagine the player would be more excited to see a shadowy card so they can continue working on their stat, instead of a persuasive card. By that same token, cards that raise/lower Society would probably be of more interest to someone currently running about the Shuttered Palace, as they’re gaining/spending that connection anyway.

A lot of my inspiration for this was actually from the places of menace. Each of those places is pretty much dedicated to one goal: Lowering their menace. Just like how normal areas are frequently tied to a given stat. The opportunity cards in the places of menace are all unique to the area, and further the goal of the area for the most part: The vast majority of cards for a place of menace are dedicated to lowering your menaces. This would simply add the concept to the normal places of Echo Bazaar by asking “Why does a player come to this area?” and then adding unique cards for that goal.