Thread 96893012

What are some interesting, original, or smooth-working elemental interaction systems in card-based games, be it TCGs or boardgames?

I'm not talking about just sorting game assets in various elements/factions that are sometimes used by card effects (like in Yu-Gi-Oh), but the way the elements themselves interact and play off eachother. For example, in Pokémon attacks of a certain type do more/less/double/halved damage to other types depending on the Type matrix.

The question might or might not be related to my shitty homebrew MtG clone game, but don't mind that.

>>96893012 (OP)
>original,
uhhh none.

However one thing I rarely ever see when elements are brought up is the reach past the elements themselves, the humors and the hot/cold/wet/dry system and how plants, disease, and stuff were folded into that.

>>96893012 (OP)
Dinosaur King just uses rock/paper/scissors as it's base combat system, with elements playing a minor role. Although, it's only a TCG conceptually, considering the cards are used to play an arcade game
https://dinosaurking.fandom.com/wiki/Attribute

>>96893319
I was thinking more of the originality in mechanics, not necessarily in the element pool. Although a different enough take on which elements to use would probabily encourage a more novel approach. Also, I'm using the term "element" here in a broad sense (again, because I'm more interested in the mechanical aspect of the matter and not the flavour per se).

>>96893012 (OP)
it feels like I'm doing too much work for you OP

>>96894079
The original Digimon card game did this as well. Kinda. The attack you used and its power were determined by the type of digimon you were fighting (data, virus, vaccine).

>>96893012 (OP)
YGO side material explored this. In the manga it gave bonus damage and sometimes field advantage worked like a SRPG and a card could move to different fields (see Duelist of the Roses). In one early variation, a card automatically wins against the opposite element. No matter if you have a Blue-Eyes, a dark monster might kill it.

Chinese elements are hard to develop into a playable game format. There are two types of interaction since an element can be supported by/destroy another. An early chapter ventured into it and did this. It's hard to do this without card-specific effects. In Pokemon, grass monsters have absorption moves which would be the closest you can get.

>>96894976
>I was thinking more of the originality in mechanics
ok...how about you come up with the core mechanics that you want to accomplish...things, then how do the elements alter that?

>>96893012 (OP)
This is something i've noticed about the elemental systems I like the best
having 4-12 equally important elements is a lot less cool than having 2-4 major elements and 4-8 minor ones

Frenopolis? It seems pretty relevant to the thread topic. Not the dev btw, just a curious anon.

>>>96660880

>>96893012 (OP)
Anything with mechanics like this?

>>96897819
It's ok anon, you can say you just want to shill your little autistic game, I won't tell anyone.

>>96900188
kinda cringe that seethe beats yikes though

>>96902823
Have sex.

>>96903316
dilate

i accept your concession

>>96893012 (OP)
of course, there's the genshin impact digital card game where different combinations of elements have different effects! (like wind + fire, electro, ice or water spreads the second element to the entire enemy team, or fire + electro explodes and forces the enemy character to switch out)
the game is very bad btw

>>96893012 (OP)
No one has suggested MtG yet? Wow.

>>96905471
op said they're making an mtg clone you dumbass

>>96905471
mtg doesn't have any elemental interaction mechanics

>>96907443
ACKSHUALLY when I use three Fire manas, you are absolutely fucked (in any color).

>>96893012 (OP)
>For example, in Pokémon attacks of a certain type do more/less/double/halved damage to other types depending on the Type matrix
Wouldn't you be making your game unbalanced? Pokemon has the excuse of a preexisting game, why would you do it on purpose and make a fire deck weak to water deck from the getgo?

>>96910969
>fire weak to water
In what fucking world? Water gets BOILED by fire and literally disappears

>>96910974
>and literally disappears
Anon, I.... It's the fire that disappears, the water just changes shape

>>96910974
Water puts out fires anon.
On that note some RPGs classify ice as water for simplicity, plus ice would just melt into water and snuff the fire. But it's also fun to think of it behaving like reverse water cause I don't think ice conducts electricity very well but is melted by fire.

>>96911356
>Anon, I.... It's the fire that disappears, the water just changes shape
Water gets boiled, changes shape into AIR (no effect on fire, but actually fuels it in some cases).
Why do you think they dump dirt on forest fires from helicopters and not water?
>Water puts out fires anon
Wrong-o. That's why fire extinguishers aren't just canisters of water. Because it doesn't work. Water just makes the fire spread in your kitchen, it doesn't contain it.

>>96893012 (OP)
While not from a card game itself, if you are looking for elemental interactions its worth playing one of the Persona games. They are videogames, but the mechanical interactions could be translated into card game terms very easily.

Essentially, the elemental interactions exist across two layers: the first is elemental weakeness/strength, and the second is interaction chains.

The first layer is basically what you could expect from any game where elements matter. Some enemies take more damage from a specific element type, or are immune to that element, or actively heal when hit by that element, or reflect that element back at the attacker. Finding the right attacks that take advantage of their weaknesses (or, at bare minimum, avoid their strengths) is vital to doing damage to win. Some elemental attacks have a chance of doing a secondary status effect as well. Fire can Burn, Ice can Freeze, Electricity can Shock, etc. There are also non-elemental attacks that can try to do a status effect directly without doing damage as part of it. So far, we are still in pokemon logic territory.

The second layer hinged on what the game calls Technical attacks, which are essentially attacks that take advantage of a condition you have placed on the enemy. There is where things get interesting.
Did you Ice attack land Freeze on the enemy? Good news, they can't act on their next turn. But while they are Frozen, you ALSO get a Technical attack on them from 'heavy hitting' damage types, like Physical or Nuke. Did you land Burn on an enemy for some damage over time? If you follow that up with a Wind attack, you will put out the fire on them but they also take a big spike of fire damage when it does. Used a mind effect like Forget on an enemy? Their brain is scrambled, making them take extra damage from Psi attacks. And so on.

This asks players to think not just of immediate attack power, but what it sets up for next turn based on mechanical interaction.

>>96912343
>every fire is a grease fire

>>96913278
OP here. First actually useful response in this thread, thanks anon.

I have indeed not played any Persona game. So, apart the pokémon weakness/resistance part, it basically boils down to element+elemental status unique interactions, and unique combos on chained attacks based on the elements sequence in the chain; did I get that right? That is indeed interesting, it would encourage chaining actions together to create a combo and reward planning. I'll have to think of a way to translate this into an analog card media thought, it's harder when the machine doesn't keep track for you of the chain and of what each possible combo could do.

>>96900188
So an asymmetrical loop of interactions. This is also interesting.

>>96914601
What I would do is make attacks work something like this:

--

Card effect: Flame Jet - 20 Fire to target creature. On damage roll 1d6, on a 5 or 6 and target also gains 3 Burn tokens.

Burn Mechanic: After this creature takes any action or makes an attack, remove 1 burn token and take 10 fire damage. Upon taking Wind damage, remove all remaining Burn tokens and take 15 damage for each burn token removed this way.

--

The important bits here are that the wording emphasizes that damage must be taken to trigger (you never roll the Burn chance against an enemy that negated or reflected your fire damage based on their natural resistances or any other defense that reduced the damage taken to 0) and status effects are tracked by tokens. If you were in a position to make physical props, I would personally do this with funny dice where each side had a symbol for a different status effect so you can just have whatever status effect is applicable at the moment face up. But bits of cardboard work just a well, you'll just need more of them.
By making the Technical attack layer part of the status effect mechanic text itself, you remove it from needing to be restated on each card and make it the default for how those status effects work no matter where they come from. You'll want to have a cheat sheet of status effect text for easy reference to keep things easy, like how boardgames have little cards that remind players what actions they can take on their turn.

And things like elemental resistance/weakness would just be listed on the creature card itself. You probably don't need as many different ones as Persona has itself, but you want enough different elements for it to be nontrivial.

>>96913718
grease, electricity, same difference.
the POINT is that WATER is a PUSSY that CAN'T FUCK WITH ACTUAL FIRE.
You all pretend like a fire is a little candle or a match that has a definite lifespan and inherent power when instead of little bitch flames, fire, as an element, consumes and grows to an infinite extent as long as there is nourishment, fuel to feed it. It's not just the flames, it's the power behind it creating flames.

I often struggle with whether someone is just really dumb or trolling. I think you fall into the former camp so I'll try and help you out.
>>96912343
>Why do you think they dump dirt on forest fires from helicopters and not water?
They do use water. To the point that the most states I'm aware of that heavily deal with wildfires have laws that allow these copters to take water from outside pools in the case of emergency and water shortages.
>That's why fire extinguishers aren't just canisters of water.
There are water canisters but you wouldn't want to use them when chemical fires or when electricity is present (at least in close proximity, see pic related). That's why there are multiple types of extinguishers available, because there are different types of fires and different substances best suited and safely used to put them out.
>Water just makes the fire spread in your kitchen
That's a grease fire.

>>96919095
So you admit that fire interacts with water and defeats it by superheating it to make it disappear.