cross-posted from: https://mastodon.social/users/MrLovenstein/statuses/111862356629002380
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You do not play for fun. You do it to inflict pain.
this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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I've never been able to get into TCG. I'm too reluctant to spend money like that, especially when you don't know what you're getting unless you spend a lot of money on a specific card. TTRPGs I get. Everyone is on an even playing field and you don't have to keep buying things for everyone to enjoy playing the game unless you want to buy expansion sets.
I'm not trying to put down anyone who enjoys them. Obviously they are fun games or people wouldn't spend the money or play them. But I just can't do it. Buying things blind hasn't been something I could bring myself to spend money on once I stopped buying Garbage Pail Kids.
Another thing that turned me off on the whole idea was when Steve Jackson Games turned Illuminati into a TCG. Taking a perfectly good game you could buy for $20 and turning it into a money machine where you potentially never stopped spending really irked me.
You're talking about two entirely different types of games, though. TCGs are typically quick. RPGs take hours per session, and a campaign covers multiple seasons. This means you need to have a dedicated group that's willing to meet regularly to complete the campaign. If you're playing Magic, you can find players anywhere there are game shops, as they're always holding events to draw in players, because it's so lucrative. To find a group for RPGs, you basically have to go headhunting. Put up ads. Interview people. None of that work is done for you.
That's not even getting into the inherent differences in the gameplay (cooperative vs. competitive, etc.)
I did mention TTRPGs, but my main example was the SJG card game Illuminati, which was basically the same gameplay when it was turned into a TCG, it just expanded the deck in a way that required you to keep spending money if you wanted a remotely even playing field. Before it was a TCG, it (and the similar SJG game Hacker) were in regular gameplay rotation in my social circle. The gameplay of card games is fine. I have no issue there. And if, say, MTG had a standard deck everyone played from, I might even play it. It's the 'keep buying more' thing which I just can't justify spending my money on.
As far as finding a group to play with, I've always gamed with at least one or two people in the group I already knew, so I guess that's not an issue I've personally had to face, but I can see why that could be an issue.
If everybody played from the same deck, it would be a different game. They could sell it in non-randomized boxes instead, though. It would still be expensive, just much, much less expensive.
For example, the modern version of Netrunner is like this. Each player still builds their own decks, but the cards aren't blind buys. Every box of cards has the exact same cards.
But that's sort of built into the game, isn't it? The idea that the playability depends on continued purchases. But you can have similar games with similar playability that you spend $30 on or whatever and they might have expansion sets for it, but it's not all based on either spending a small amount of money and having good luck or spending a large amount of money.
Think about arguing that loot boxes were necessary for a video game. That might be true for that game, but it's because the game was designed around buying loot boxes. And there are probably games which have at least relatively similar gameplay but don't have the loot box thing. And maybe you're okay with paying for those loot boxes. They wouldn't have loot boxes in games if people weren't willing to pay for them. That's fine if that's what you want to spend your money on, but it is not something I can personally justify with my own money.
No, I don't think it is, and the reason why is because nothing in the gameplay necessitates random purchases. That isn't part of the game. In fact, several CCGs have gone from a blind-buy model to a fixed-distribution model and the gameplay has not changed at all. They did this with Netrunner, Call of Cthulhu, and some others. Fantasy Flight has a whole line of these called "Living Card Games".
It's easy to imagine Magic being sold in a similar way: instead of randomized boosters, you buy boxes of cards that contain 4 of each card, you build your decks, and off you go.
At the highest levels of play, money isn't a factor. The players who win Magic tournaments aren't the ones with the most money. If that were true, it would obviously be a broken game, and nobody would be playing it anymore. Instead, wealth is a gatekeeper. You have to have a certain amount of expendable wealth to be able to play at the highest levels. If you made all of the cards equally accessible, it would change nothing except lowering the bar to entry.
I think the big element you are missing is local shops and online resources. I started playing magic the gathering at the start of last year and one of the things I bought at the start was a box of 1000 cards of all varieties from eBay. It cost me $25 and was an excellent jumping off point to get started with creating decks. Especially when you compare it to the official blind packs that you are referencing that give you 15 cards for $8.
On a similar note there are dedicated platforms for buying specific cards online like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom, and eBay of course. Your purchases aren't always blind even from MTG itself. When you buy a preconstructed deck it'll be a specific list of cards that are included in that.
There are also platforms specifically dedicated to building decks which admittedly takes some practice to be good at but is part of the fun. I personally use a free platform called Archidekt but there are others like Moxfield and Manabox. These platforms help with deck creation by providing suggestions and measuring cost as well as having an easy view of the overall cards chosen. Archidekt even allows you to import your collection of cards info it so you can specifically build decks only with the cards you already have. Using these websites I've very quickly managed to build competitive decks to play with.
Lastly the greatest element that has added significant value to Magic as a hobby has been comic book shops. These shops very often are more like nerd superstores. The ones local to me have plenty of comics and a huge catalog of cards and related accessories. You can buy the official Magic card packs but I prefer to go through their cataloged collection of loose individual cards. My local store has literally thousands of cards that are sold individually. You can go through the organized boxes for the cards you are interested in and at the end you pay for the exact cards you want. Very often the pricing for such cards is in the $0.01-$0.25 range unless it's a card that is very coveted in play. Yes there are cards in the hundred or even thousand dollar range but those generally are of the vintage variety and are that price because of their age not their usefulness in game. These comic shops also serve as hubs for local tournaments and play which makes them great places to meet new people.
After about a year of playing I've probably spent about $250 on cards but I now have a collection of over 4000 cards that Archidekt values at significantly more than what I've paid. But that's not the point of course. For my $250 I've built roughly 10 individual decks that I've played hundreds of games with. Long story short TCG doesn't have to be expensive to be fun.
I realize that is cheap as hell, but I still personally have a problem with a game I have to keep paying for once I've already bought it if I want to remain competitive on principle.
The rest of what you said makes sense to me though.
There are a few games like this that are non-collectible (in other words, no random packs of cards). It's pretty rare, though, and most of them are out of print. I recommend Arkham Horror: The Card Game and Lord of the Rings: The Card Game, especially since you like RPGs. They're very similar to RPGs, but they're played with cards, and you're playing against an encounter deck instead of a game master.
I understand what you're saying, but Illuminati didn't have a GM or a plot. The gameplay works fine as a TCG because of the way it's structured. And from what I've seen of MTG, the way it's structured is fine too. Honestly, card gameplay is fine with me, as are both competitive and co-op games. It's literally just the "you have to keep buying" thing. It's the same reason I hate things like in-game purchases. I like even playing fields.
You might enjoy games like star realms instead: it's a self contained game (like regular board games) so you buy the game once and it comes with all the cards for two players to play and anyone who buys the game gets the same set of cards. Also, instead of having to build a deck before playing, all players start the game with the same cards and build their deck throughout the game.
Yes! That is exactly what I was talking about with Illuminati! It's not the card game concept I have a problem with, it's the "keep buying more" part. So yes, I probably would enjoy Star Realms. I'll look into it. Thanks.
When I was a Pokémon Professor for our local meetup, I kept two sleeved decks that were just off-the-shelf, specifically for teaching new people. I’ll never understand bringing the same brutality to a teaching game that you would to a world championship..
If the games are playable with an off-the-shelf deck, I'd give it a try, but the second you get even one card where it's something someone is unlikely to get unless they buy a lot of card packs? That turns me off. And that's what really turned me off about Illuminati. It was originally a game with a set number of cards in a box and it became something that your ability to win the game was highly dependent upon either spending lots of money to get lots of packs or getting really lucky.
It just turned me off on the whole concept of TCG.
You might think that's a little silly of me considering that game came out in 1994, but I've just never quite gotten over the idea. That and my wife's cousin spending something like $1000 on Yu-Gi-Oh cards and then giving them to my nephew after maybe 5 years because he got tired of playing the game. If I spent $1000 on TTRPGs, I'd have a bookshelf's worth of different games. I'd consider giving them away as a present, but not within 5 years after spending $1000 on them.
I'm absolutely not judging anyone else if that's what they enjoy playing or spending their money on or whatever. If you want to spend $1000 on Yu-Gi-Oh cards or on baseball cards or on commemorative spoons, it's not my money to spend and people should do whatever makes them happy as long as no one gets hurt.
That's why I don't mind mtg arena online. The starter decks are a good building block to add and remove cards without feeling like you need to spend a lot of money. Then as you play and learn more you get tokens to turn into other cards you want.
Yeah, for sure, all of this. It’s one of the reasons I got out of the game myself. When I played, it was encouraged to have four copies of Shaymin EX in a deck, which ran for $60-70 apiece at the time.
Nowadays I keep a couple decks just for friends and I, but trying to keep up with a meta that’s designed to keep your spending money isn’t really tenable imo.