Traps.

After reading this:

http://www.cardhunter.com/2011/10/dev-diary-12-story/

The second poster you see on the page mentions that he filled his house with traps and creatures to protect his treasures. This raises an interesting question to me: How do traps work/are there traps to begin with?

I can see two possibilities for this:

1) There's a narrative side for each adventure where the player could potentially participate by being given choices (Which path to follow, lever to pull, etc ) and the traps could come in to play here when you do something wrong/pick the wrong path or just get plain unlucky. I think this would be awesome. It would add depth to the adventure and give a feel that you're actually going through a dungeon on your own and not being "guided by the game." I don't know about you guys, but linear games bore me. I like to make choices about where I go (especially in dungeons) and what levers to pull and so forth.

2) Traps could be activated in battle sequences by setting off the right order of events. This could be as simple as stepping on a pressure plate to something as complex as casting the right spell near a certain location or even a series of spells in a certain order. This also sounds fun, and would make for some nasty surprises (potentially for friend and foe alike) so that the battles had some elements that weren't just about who had the better deck. NOW, I know what you're saying: "That would make it less about skill and battles could be determined entirely by luck." This is true, and I agree with you to some extent. But don't D&D battles come down to who had the better rolls-->luck-->not so much about character development. All battles have a luck element, and in card games that normally comes in the form of what you draw; however, the thought of being so close to death and then the enemy hitting a pressure plate and getting punch in the face by a spring-powered rock that knocks him out would make for some exciting game play and could potentially give players who draw poorly an extra chance.

I just thought of this as I read the article and don't remember anything about traps prior to this anywhere in the forums or other diaries.

Discuss.

EDIT: Upon further research of the forums, I apparently missed some intermingled discussion on potential trap elements. I apologize if this thread has been covered mostly, but I believe the knowledge should be condensed at any rate. This is at least a dedicated thread where ideas can be shared more easily. Continue discussion!

 

We thought the map here showed a Green Acid(?) Trap and a Spike Pit:



Interesting to see if the pit is a trigger, i.e. you walked on the wrong block and it opened and the second one is a spell / weapon effect.

 

1) I had been wondering if the creators would include branching campaign content. It could be great. To accommodate all players, though, they should probably allow a "just play" option where the game goes through one set version without choices. (Also, to accommodate the fact that after awhile you've played every single branch, and you might just want a quick game now.)

2) I'm really hoping for pressure plates! Think of that standard gaming idea where there's a trap dead center in the room (or an entire room that is itself a trap, but has some desirable feature in it) and you try to trick the enemies onto it. I'm recalling Unreal Tournament maps with this sort of thing. Imagine, if you will . . . Card Hunter Deathmatch. (Which would be different from normal Player vs. Player how?)

 

That's exactly what I mean! the possibilities for strategy go up ten-fold with the addition of environmental aspects that can affect more than just line of sight! Who knows. Maybe the creatures could try and get you to hit the trap too. <----(IDEA)

 

There would be rocket jumps, obviously.

 

On a conceptual level, I know that the "rocket-assisted jump" is a real thing. I've tried it, even. But I just can't get it to work. And then I'm bleeding.

 

Card Hunter Deathworld, where even the environment is out to get you.

 

Environment? Curse those hippies!

But I do like the idea of traps--do we imagine we will be able to detect traps? Lay our own? Or just try not to fall prey to them?

 

All of the above, I hope.

 

All traps involve the Admiral Akbar card. It's pretty much mandatory.

 

I'm hoping it will be a combination of all three. It would be pretty sweet. Maybe there could be "trap cards" (Not like yu-gi-oh. Don't even get me started there). They would act kind of like equipment or like what we've seen of the shields. You use the card to place a trap at the point where you're standing, and it's hidden from the enemy. They just know you played a card face-down somewhere, but not where exactly. Could make for interesting equipment ideas and use of the terrain like only certain traps work on certain terrain types.

 

The only real issue I see with being able to play down trap cards is their deckthinning capabilities. I'd really like to be able to have my thief or ranger be able to lay down traps at choke points, but if a trap card is placed out of your deck and onto the board, what would be stopping a player from having a deck that is full of traps and a few elite cards, then just laying the traps down in out-of-the-way places until only the best cards remain? The obvious solution is to limit trap cards to specific equipment, but if a deck can only have a small number of traps they may be too circumstantial to really be useful and therefore generally disregarded.

Maybe if there was some way for traps to be played as hybrid attack cards? You can either have the choice of playing your hybrid card as an attack card that fires an arrow, or be able to play it face down as an arrow trap?

 

I agree -- they could easily be abused. However I think that limiting the equipment may be the best idea. It wouldn't make sense to have a slew of traps in your possession. And a few would really change the tide of battle potentially without making every battle involve them.

I also like the hybrid attack/trap card idea, but I can see that being abused heavily. People would just go until they found a slot item and had a trap card for each one. That would probably stack the deck more than just having sole trap cards.

In regards to deck stacking, the traps would have very special circumstances for placement and for triggering. Some may be pressure plates, but they can only go in a square that had a wall on either side, or something like that. It would make them more difficult to use, but amazingly powerful if a deck could be tweaked to make the best use of them; however, it would take skill and not just shear luck and numbers to use them effectively.

 

Maybe there's a certain set of backfire cards which may mean you could potentially set off your own trap whilst laying it. That might put a crimp into the all-trap deck.

 

It occurs to me that a bunch of the trap functionality you're describing is already in-game: reaction cards. The opponent attacks, or moves, or whatever, and then you sting the opponent. Bingo.

Trap cards as you're currently describing might be different from that, yes, but maybe not different enough to merit coding. You could, perhaps, think about the similarities and try to create reaction cards that directly duplicate the trap effects you want. Maybe the creators have already done this, and taking the effects out of the "reaction cards" pile and moving them into a new "trap cards" pile would be annoying.

I'm just thinking.

 

With all due respect: no playing cards face down! The answer to A Bear's quandary is that the card itself is not the trap. The card has the effect of placing a trap, then goes to the graveyard as normal. Also, I believe every card played should be a card revealed. The opposition sees exactly which card - how strong, what range - and has to decide whether to risk stepping into the minefield.

Hmm... Maze of the Mind is basically a trap, isn't it? But one thing that reactions don't do is linger on the field of play after they've left your hand, which is how I would describe a trap: a card played in this turn but with its effect delayed until some second trigger happens later.

Another potential distinction is that (except for any drawbacks) reactions are designed to be beneficial, but traps could be indiscriminate. Once a trapdoor is set, its going to dump anyone who steps there into the spike pit. If you can't remember where you left a big pit of spikes, you deserve your fate! That would cut down on "abuse" - too many traps lying around limits your own party's mobility.

 

I saw a few episodes of that show before I was familiar with the card game at all, and the constantly shifting nature of the game due to the show's plot demands led me to believe it was outrageously complicated. "Ahh, my orc's belt buckle is reflecting the light from my Polaris Sun, and he's focusing it right in your Midian Cyclops' eye! Now you're powerless Yugi!" "Not while I can have my Cyclops use my Belt Of Smog trap card as eyeblack!"