There one was of my NCCG design where each player had a custom deck of 15 tarot size cards. The cards can be played on the table at various location. Each card has a different effect at each location. There is also a few other ways to use a card. In general, there should be around 5 unique rules for each card according to position or the way of playing it. There is also 1 or 2 ways to use the card that does not require unique rules. And there is also 1 or 2 situation where the cards are face down.
The goal of the game would have been to use the cards placed on the table to attack your opponent's cards. Now I am not sure, but since the game did not have any random element I tought that it would have been too much obvious that the opposing player was going to use this card combined with another card ability against that cards since most of the time you use face up cards on the table ( so no surprise).
So I tought of using a hidden rule system. Which mean that the rules of each card does not appear on the card but only in an instruction book that cannot be viewed by the players ( before using the card ). This will force you to learn your cards, and the cards of your opponents. It will make sure that the tactic your opponent will use is not obvious. It will also create some situation where your opponent does not know what your card can do, or that you do not know yourself all the abilities of your card cards. So you might not use the unique rules of the card.
1 - Now do you think that the hidden rule technique is a good idea? (Probably not newbie friendly and might need a referee for checking the rule book )
2- Since the cards has many possible usage, do you think that the situation, where the opponent strategy is too much obvious ( no surprise), will really happen.
For the reference book, if you want to play the hard way, you can hide it to all players. This is why you need a referee to determine what effect occurs. The idea is that you have to learn the cards to play. And the opposite player can have a surprise effect he has not yet used.
Now just to give you a list of the usages I come up so far so that you can have a better look of the game's idea :
First there is the position, which can be in diferrent place around the deck
-Front of the deck : Protect all other cards
-Each Side of deck : Used for attack
-back of the deck : Channel ability in the attack
-Top of the deck : Seal the deck but gives special power/ability
All the placement aboves has unique rules. Now there is 3 other way to use the cards :
- Flip up effect : Place a card face down (location indicated above), flip up in reaction to activate ability.
- Card battle : A card duel another card, played face down, highest card strength wins. ( no unique rules )
- Sacrifice : You destroy your card which create a major effect on all players including yourself.
There is always a cycling of the cards you have, so played cards can go back in your deck and be played later. But destroyed cards are removed from the game.
You have also some tactical manuvers like fliping down played cards to deactivate them but give you the chance to benifit from a flip effect. Or rotate your card position around the deck. Which mean for example the front card goes on the side and the other card circle around changing your defense and attack configuration.
As you can see, there could be many move possible, so maybe the strategy has now become really unpredictable. ( probably more predictable in the first version of the game). As for the hidden rules, the surprise effect is cool, but since we are playing a board game, not a video game, well it can hinder the playability.