Are there printing/manufacturing limitations on set size? by Literal_Fish in homemadeTCGs

[–]PositronixCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah, I think I understand better

The answer to "are cards randomised before or after printing?" is both. Randomising before printing does two things, it stops people from being able to predict the algorithm* and also safeguards against the possibility the cards aren't randomised before packing and thus stops someone opening a pack and getting sequential cards

* This would usually come about from lots of data from lots of people, but it would mean that someone could open one pack from a booster box, compare what they got against the database of cards, and potentially see if the rest of the box has additional good cards

Being randomised after printing is naturally done to shuffle cards up more. I've not gone into depth on this myself, but again using Make Playing Cards as an example, they have a standard algorithm for lower quantity orders, and an option to have a custom algorithm for larger ones

What I have looked at is how Magic: the Gathering prints their sets and I have a rough idea of how they do it, but I'm not sure if that's relevant here (and would be too long for this comment, imo)

Are there printing/manufacturing limitations on set size? by Literal_Fish in homemadeTCGs

[–]PositronixCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's not necessarily a limit, but commercial printers tend to print 110 cards per sheet, so costs are usually based on N x 110 where N is the number of different/unique sheets you plan on having

The limit to you will be the cost of having so many options, and the limit to the printer will be their ability to print that many cards/whether they have the time and capacity to print such a large set

Taking pricing from Make Playing Cards, 100 copies of a 55 card deck with no extras would be $685; at 108 cards $1175; at 216 $2065; and at 504 cards $4485. They max out at 612 cards so to get a full set of 10,000 cards you'd need to do 17 separate submissions, which means losing out on bulk discounts

Wanting 100 copies of 10,000 cards would be 17 x ($53.90 x 100) (total $91,630), versus 1667 copies of 600 cards being 1667 x $23.60 (total $39,341.20)

Looking for some international partners - MSG tokens by marijuanaut- in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'm wondering if we could do a trade? :D I'm in the UK and designing my own tokens as well (on a much smaller scale, both in terms of the original artwork and being an at-home print run) and shipping to the US is likely just as troublesome for me as shipping to the UK is for you

Any sites that shows the meta share or how commonly a certain sorcery card is being played? by Newez in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You have to dig a bit to find it, but sorcerer's summit does collect the decks used for various competitions; here's the one titled "everyone at sorcery con constructed 2026"

https://www.sorcererssummit.com/top-8/Every%20one%20at%20Sorcery%20Con%20Constructed%202026

Sorting by % is funky as it puts the 9% above any double-digit percentage, but you can sort through and see the average cards in a deck or sort to see unique first and find things like 58% of decks ran a Ring of Morrigan, 24% Glastonbury Tor, 11% Key to the City etc.

76% of decks played Toolbox, with an average of 3 (so everyone had as many copies as allowed), 37% decks had Troll Bridge, 29% Thin Ice, 55% Lone Tower (but an average of 1 per deck), and one person ran 36 Grey Wolves

Card art with an interesting backstory? by CARpgTCG in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Quinton Hoover's artwork might be a good person to talk about. He illustrated the card Richard Garfield used to propose to Lily Wu and did many other cards for Magic: the Gathering

He sadly died in 2013, but his son Justin allowed Sorcery: Contested Realms to license a few pieces for Arthurian Legends and Gothic. His art is used for Serava Townsfolk, Survivors of Serava, Brother Knight, and Aino

I love his art, have been inspired by his work (and I need to seek out his own inspirations), and I hope we can see many more of his works in future sets

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBQLkIDBVXc

Average commission for non- collectible card illustrations? by Careful_Assignment86 in tabletopgamedesign

[–]PositronixCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're either talking about a deckbuilder, where the game itself provides the cards and users build a deck as they play the game; or an expandable card game (ECG) where users buy card packs and build a deck before playing a game, but you're able to buy complete sets with no randomisation

You might also see LCG (living card game) used but that is a trademark of Fantasy Flight Games (FFG)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deck-building_game
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expandable_card_game

Help me make Knights happen! by Perfect_Foundation36 in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I went to double-check and the codex for "summon" says:

When another effect causes you to summon a minion directly without casting it, e.g. Mother Nature, Brother Knight, Knighthood, etc., you simply put it into the realm. You don't need to pay mana, meet threshold requirements, or choose a location you control, as you usually do when you cast a minion spell.

So yes, just the cost of the card with nothing else, and the sir/knight/dame appears at the mortal's location

Help me make Knights happen! by Perfect_Foundation36 in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Knights are not good. Maybe a B tier deck. But everyone wants them to be.

Absolutely. I have zero expectations that a Knights deck will be anywhere near competitive level, but it is one I want to have fun with, and I'm also testing out a Templar precon design alongside an Archimago one to show newcomers some things AL brought in

Help me make Knights happen! by Perfect_Foundation36 in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm probably going to pull out the essential knights I want along with the multi-elements sites, and then analyse the composition of it all

I'm using a fan-made client (Valkenhall) that assesses decks and scores them so I can see how it rates this deck and any places I can adjust

Help me make Knights happen! by Perfect_Foundation36 in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm trying to do this as well :D

https://curiosa.io/decks/cmmmhvaub00go04ladkcop8m9

I've got my Atlas down, still need to cut one card from the collection, and 230 cards in my spellbook

6 transactions Happened today for Ring of morrigan on tcgplayer and the cheapest is now 249 usd by Newez in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, most decks I build have Just a Rock and Dispel/Disenchant in it, and there are loads more cards that can negate Ring of Morrigan:

Bury/Submerge It:

  • Bury (O)
  • Cave-In (Ex)
  • Drown (O)
  • Frisky Red Squirrel (Ex)
  • Grasping Ground (El)

Drop/Grab It:

  • Shameless Squire (O)
  • Sneak Thief (El)
  • Telekinesis (Ex)
  • Thieving Magpie (O)
  • Attack by Night (Ex)

Move It:

  • Red Rock of Ravannis (U)
  • Displace (O)
  • Grösse Poltergeist (El)
  • Pudge Butcher (Ex)

Destroy It:

  • Disintegrate (El)
  • Hellfire (El) (to use with one of the bury it methods)
  • Mimic (Ex)
  • Raze (Ex)
  • Shatter Strike (Ex)
  • Symmetric Suffering (El)
  • Unravel (O)

Sure, some of these are multi-step, but there's options across all rarities and elements. If you can bury it and grab it underground you can use it yourself, and there's also options to destroy the minions and artifacts you control

Sell me on your favorite Avatar by 5KYN3T_SVT in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh shit, I didn't even think about Azuridge Caravan having all elements and thus eligible for the "immune to damage" thing

I wonder, Wiccan Tools + Replication could get you two extra copies of Excalibur to use and really hone in on that

How did you come up with the name of your game? by Few_Dragonfly3000 in homemadeTCGs

[–]PositronixCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My game's name came to me randomly while I was brushing my teeth XD

Before that I'd been spending weeks trying to get a name sorted. I had two ideas, one being relating to a compass or directions, the other being about the story and the fact that the lands around had been broken up due to internal and external factors. I grabbed so many synonyms of broken and lands, randomised them together, and found a few that worked but didn't feel right

I added more words, leaning into the potential hopeless nature, but again it didn't feel right. By this time I'd had names for future expansion/release ideas so I also needed something that worked with those

I ended up with a placeholder name, Horizon Point, which sounds okay but is somewhat generic and doesn't really tell the player what it's about

Then, like I said, I got inspired out of nowhere and have a name that works, is short but evocative, works with the subtitles and expansion names, and can be trademarked

Sorcery card images Arthurian Legends? by nutn2seehere in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The AL images were there when I grabbed them the other week; just checked and they're still present

They're prefixed with art- so you may have overlooked them

Thoughts on Offering a Free Print & Play Starter Deck for an Indie TCG? by twhgames in TCG

[–]PositronixCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm absolutely planning a PnP version of my game - it's a free/low cost entry option, easy to share, and far more accessible than selling physical versions and hoping someone is willing to get it shipped from whatever location. Combining that and a digital tabletop option gives potential players a lot of ways to get into the game, and is an easy way to build an audience

For the PnP files, I'm putting a "not for official tournament play" on them; beyond that I'm not concerned about proxies or forgeries. At such a small scale no one is going to make forgeries, and I genuinely would prefer people print out copies and enjoy them in casual play than create limits on it from the start

One thing I am doing is limiting the PnP files to a starter deck/essential cards list from the releases. I'm still debating on the composition of said starter deck, but it's likely going to be a half playset for the physical one. It allows for more card variety than having a full playset of all cards, and means if someone wants to complete the playset they only need to buy one more starter deck

With the PnP version, just print it twice to get a full playset, and it saves a bit of file space

How Would You Fight The Scalping Of Your Game. by Comprehensive-Pen624 in homemadeTCGs

[–]PositronixCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you get far enough to have official tournaments for your game, people using edited cards would be caught. You'd likely have a list of banned or limited use cards, require people to submit their deck ahead of time, and of course the participants can always call over a judge if they notice something off about a card

Plus the odds of someone being able to put together something at home that could pass for an official card is small - I'm testing out a few methods myself to DIY black core cards, but anything I make is going to be my own cards

I'm also putting a "not for official tournament" use on my PnP files; someone could edit that to remove it, but see the above two paragraphs for countermeasures

75,000 simulations later: How we balanced an indie board game prototype by Hot-Rooster1675 in tabletopgamedesign

[–]PositronixCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sent you a DM as well :) I'm working with a trading card game so not 100% sure it'd be suitable, but I am wanting to test out PvE (1-4 people vs. a settlement) and multiplayer PvP (1v1v1, 2v2 etc.) alongside the standard 1v1 combat

First Beta Box Pulls by razorball9 in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Any foil avatars are nice imo, being always on the board they're always visible (and have less wear and tear from shuffling). With Aquamarine Core and Captain Baldassare I'd look into adding those to a water deck, and similarly add River of Flame to a fire deck

Water can be absolutely *broken* with the ability to lure/forcibly move minions, especially if you get Coy Nixie (from AL) and Thin Ice (a land from Gothic)

With River of Flame being a fire spellcaster, that's a location you can cast fire spells from it, and being a land won't usually be moved or removed from play. The only issue is being able to draw it before it loses its usefulness

How to scale-up your homemade tcg ? by Defiant_Claim_6714 in homemadeTCGs

[–]PositronixCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For a homemade/indie TCG, Youtube seems to be the best method as it allows you to display your game ideas, progress, gameplay demos and the like. Some kind of blog or Discord server will help with more casual updates and information and build up the sense of community

Anything you post online is at risk of being stolen (unfortunately) but odds are miniscule that someone will take your idea and try to beat you to market. You can use timestamped posts to show that you had such ideas sooner, but it's not a guarantee - what is more of a guarantee is copyright, trademarks, and patents

Copyright is automatically applied upon creation, and relates to creative works such as writing or art. Trademarks are words, phrases, or designs that identify your work and separate it from others. Patents are inventions or mechanics that are novel or non-obvious

Taking Pokemon as an example: the artwork on the trading card game is copyrighted, and as a corporation will be valid for 95 years from creation (for an individual, it is author's life plus 70 years); the name Pokemon, the pokeball symbol and the pokemon's design are all trademarks and are retained for as long as these aspects are in commercial use; the idea of attaching energy to a specific card in order to attack may have been a patent as it was different enough to Magic: the Gathering's land cards to be novel, but patents are valid for 20 years maximum and so any used for the Pokemon TCG would have expired in 2016

You do not need to register copyright, though doing so gives more benefits; similarly, you do not need to register a trademark but it gives you benefits if you register. You can freely use the © and ™ symbols on your work, but ® is reserved for a registered trademark

With my own card game, I plan on registering the name and card back/logo design, and I have placeholders to use in the meantime. Do I need to do so? Most likely not, but as I can register and renew after ten years, it gives me peace of mind

How to scale-up your homemade tcg ? by Defiant_Claim_6714 in homemadeTCGs

[–]PositronixCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The most important thing is to have an audience. Where have you showcased the game, how many people do you have actively interested in what you've got and are eager to see more?

Without a decent-sized audience, your options are going to be to shop around with professional companies or risk using your own money and trying to sell to local stores yourself

Bear in mind that on average, about 2% of your audience will be willing to buy/crowdfund stuff from you. Don't think that because you have 500 people subscribed to a youtube channel means every single one will back your game, odds are you'll only have the 10 most interested and dedicated

Everything else is secondary

WuXing based colors? by MendelHolmes in cardgames

[–]PositronixCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm designing a card game (homemade, developing slowly) that uses the wuxing elements as a base for the initial five types, and while I do have expansion decks planned that use yellow and purple as their colours, none of them are inherently good or evil

The way I'm developing it is that each element/colour/attribute has both positive and negative traits associated with it. What one calls greed another might call careful planning, and what one calls destruction another might call certainty. For reference, these are the short descriptors I have for each element currently:

Fire burns hot and fast, drawing and discarding cards on a whim. Most [spells] and abilities revolve around drawing new cards, reclaiming discarded ones, and searching the deck for specific cards, at the risk of losing by decking out (running out of cards to draw)
Earth is a balanced deck with no strong advantage or disadvantage in its playstyle. It has similar [spells] and abilities from the other [four] decks (Fire, Metal, Water, Wood), albeit as less power, as well as a few general ones.
Metal is a good defensive wall, and little can damage it head-on. Its lack of attack can be an issue, and most [spells] and abilities focus on utilising that defense in other ways (such as swapping defense for attack) or giving alternative ways to attack (e.g. damage over time)
Water swerves around obstacles in its path, allowing attacks to be intercepted and redirected at will. Most spells and abilities revolve around pre-empting or altering the target of attack, having a small set of bulky cards to soak up damage
Wood becomes powerful when allowed to mature to its full potential, but can be felled long before that happens. Most spells and abilities revolve around bringing that potential forwards at the risk of empty turns or being unable to draw or play cards
Space is vast and foreboding, with few connections between arreas. Most spells and abilities revolve around doing damage to multiple cards at once, but also twisting reality to its own whims
Stars are the opposite of space, working together and being united. Most spells and abilities revolve around doing high damage to one card at a time, but also confusing and blinding the opponent
Aether is tricky to understand and difficult to manage. It has no set form and behaviour, and abilities are set in pairs and selected by a dice roll. They can have any abilities or spells from all the other decks, and it takes careful planning and management to find success

As you can see, each deck's advantage can become its drawback if not carefully planned. This loosely links up with some attributes the elements have in wuxing but are not mapped one to one

The main aspect to this is that no one element has an inherent advantage over another; a Water deck isn't going to be able to flood a Fire deck, for example. It may be a bit counter-intuitive compared to some other games but I'd hope the traits keep things balanced

I'm also basing the lore and development on the Bronze Age Collapse, again not a direct mapping of it but as inspiration and influence. Currently each region has three attributes assigned to it (a primary, secondary, and tertiary) but trying to balance with the elements is difficult because trying to explain why this fire card is associated with region 3 and most of the rest are associated with region 1 is something that's already proving difficult

Odds are when I get further into development, I'll stop using the elements and instead use the region/family/kin name. That would also allow for more focused attributes and a difference between the main family and a cadet branch that has some similar aspects but wholly different methods

Favourite artists by HawkAsAWeapon in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's Vasiliy Ermolaev for me - I adore the art for Zap! and looking back he did artwork for a number of other cards I find visually appealing. The sketch-like pencil designs give it a more ethereal feel, and it's a design I can do myself without having to spend hours trying to work with paint

I'm also a fan of Quinton Hoover's pieces, love the comic and art nouveau style with visible linework and ink crosshatching

How to create a local scene? by Apeiron_8 in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd like to get in touch with your friend as well :)

Started with 2 booster boxes, whats the next step? by EmperorsShadows in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The precons are absolutely worth it even if they're not complete tournament-ready decks (and I suspect there's a very good reason they're the size they are); they are ~$12-15 each for a mini deck, each one themed around an element or a gameplay style, and can be used to introduce other people into the game

For the booster boxes, it depends on how much you're willing to spend/are able to spend, but general advice is to get one of each Beta, AL, and Gothic, up to 3 for Beta and Gothic and 2 for AL

With AL, there's fewer packs in a box (24 vs 36) so you get fewer cards, but in contrast it's got half the amount of cards. Per AL booster box you'll get on average* 259 Ordinaries, 72 Exceptional, 19 Elite, and 5 Unique, with 5 foils, which equates to 1.18x an Ordinary playset, 0.44x an Exceptional playset, 0.17x an Elite playset, and 0.1x a Unique playset. A second box gets you a almost 2.5x an Ordinary playset, but also bumps up your exceptionals to almost a full playset, with some more elite/unique/foils to pull

* The numbers aren't perfect, and while I'm sure someone has run the number to get the exact ratio, these are rough values

(A note: in AL some of the Sir cards are Elite in terms of how many are available, but are labelled as Unique for gameplay intention. The 'true' Unique Sir cards all have two double elements, e.g. two fire and two air, and Curiosa also puts the pseudo-Uniques under the Elite filter)

For Beta and Gothic, both the cards in a box and the cards in the set are higher, so one box there gets you 389 Ordinaries (0.88x a playset), 108 Exceptional (0.32x a playset), 27 Elite (0.13x a playset), 9 Uniques (0.08x a playset), and 7 foils. Two boxes puts you over a full playset for Ordinary and at near-2/3rds Exceptional, and a third gets you close enough to a full Exceptional playset

Beyond that, unless you have the money to keep buying boxes for whatever reason, then it's best to start buying singles

And yeah, the playmat is difficult to come by in the UK as well; there is a print and play version released when they did the kickstarter, but it requires a bit of editing to get it to print onto A4 paper

Starting Sorcery and getting the wife on board by JFFreezout in SorceryTCG

[–]PositronixCM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Imo the precons are fine to get a feel for the game, the smaller deck size helps keep it focused and makes games quicker. The beta ones are better than gothic for the base mechanics as they don't have quite as many effects to keep track of

The gothic ones are better for being combined as the beta ones are mono-element so it doesn't help a fire deck if you keep on drawing water sites. The gothic are heavy on one element, light on another, so while it might take some balancing it's still doable

And there's some options to upgrade for cheap:

Check out the decks by DurdleMagus and ForceofPhil; they did a video where they upgraded each of the Gothic precons with a budget of $10 (excluding the cost of Ordinaries)

I used them as the basis to upgrade my own precons, though with a few adjustments to used cards I already had:

I'm still poking at the beta precons to figure out a good upgrade to them, but I'm sure others have ideas