Wikipedia talk:Trading card game/Rules proposal 6

Object
To win with a decided number of points or by promoting a decided number of articles to featured status.

Setup
Prior to play, each player constructs two decks using starter sets and expansion cards they have purchased at approved WikiMedia Trading Card Game selling locations.

Starter sets include two "good" decks and two "bad" decks. Expansion cards are either "good" or "bad" and may only be added to the appropriate deck.

Certain rules for constructing a good or bad deck must be established, such as limits or minimums on certain types of cards, so as to keep the game reasonably balanced.

Good cards may include, but are not limited to:


 * Entity cards (anonymous IP, user, administrator, etc)
 * Article cards
 * Edit cards (which are played on article cards to enhance the articles or to counter bad articles)
 * Ability cards (which are played on entity cards to grant a user rollback privileges, adminship, etc, or counter bad users)
 * Event cards (such as drawing another card or doubling points for a turn)
 * Instant cards (usually events, but other forms are possible. These may be played at any time, even during another person's turn)

Bad cards may include, but are not limited to:
 * Entity cards (vandal IP, vandal user, rogue admin, etc)
 * Article cards (these are bad articles that cause the player to lose points)
 * Ability cards (for strengthening bad articles, vandalizing good articles)
 * Events cards (requires another bad card to be played, or causes some other undesired effect)
 * Instant cards (same as in good cards, only with negative effects)

Players exchange bad card decks with the player to their right. A player with a better good deck has an advantage against his opponent's bad deck, so this encourages players to collect both good cards and bad cards (maximizing fundraiser profit, of course!).

Because there are multiple specialties (the number has yet to be decided upon, but this could be as few as four, or as many as twelve), it is wise to create a deck focused on two or three specialties rather than trying to cover every single specialty. Also, by announcing in advance "I'm playing with blue and red good cards", the opponent knows to construct his bad card deck with blue and red bad cards for the best possible effect.

Each players starts with his good deck and the bad deck from the player to his right in front of him and draws a decided number of good cards to form his hand. Players start with 0 points.

Play
A player starts his turn with a minimum number of cards in his hand (to be determined). If the player does not have this many cards, he should draw good cards until this number is reached. Once the number is reached, draw a good card and place it in your hand. Turn over one bad card from the bad card pile per bad entity in your playing space (i.e. if you have two Trolls and one Drama Monger, draw three bad cards) so all players can see it. The instructions on these cards must be followed immediately. If any bad card drawn is an entity or article, it must be added immediately to the playing space. Enhancements and abilities, if possible, must be played immediately or discarded if it is not possible to play them. Before a player can continue with his turn, any special instructions on bad entity cards must be followed, and any bad entities who have not already acted as a result of the played cards must make one edit or vandalize once (certain abilities added to vandals, such as one called "sockpuppet", may increase this minimum to two). This forced vandalism at the beginning of every turn causes a point loss for the player (see scoring).

Once the "bad" part of the player's turn has ended, he may play any good entities in his hand, and may play any enhancements or abilities in his hand if there are articles or entities they may be played upon, and may make up to one action per entity, including (but not limited to) article creation, article improvement for points (see scoring), rolling back vandalism, banning a bad entity, bot creation, etc.

Special text
Most cards will have special text on them giving additional instructions, such as "this article is immune to all sockpuppets" or "on each turn, this vandal vandalizes not only your own articles but your opponents' as well" or "draw two good cards when this card is played".

Scoring
There are two scores to keep track of. The first and easiest to keep track of is the number of featured articles. The second and more difficult is the number of points gained from editing. Each article and entity card, card bears a number, and many ability and edit cards do as well. When an editor edits an article, add the number on the editor card to the number on the article to determine the number of points scored for that edit. Ability cards and edit cards may increase this edit score.

When vandalism or bad editing occurs, subtract from the score the numbers on all cards involved in the vandalism (the entity, the article, and any ability or edit cards).

Entities
An entity requires no prerequisites. Once played, the entity remains in play for the rest of the game unless some card requires it to be removed from play. An entity's abilities are listed on the card (article creation, editing, rollback, bot creation, etc.). Each entity (both good and bad) is given one opportunity to act per turn (edit, create, vandalize, ban, rollback, etc.).

Some entity cards may have special instructions on them that should be followed as appropriate.

Article cards
An article card may be played as an entity's action on a turn. Each entity (both good and bad) exhibits one or more specialties, as indicated on the card face. Likewise, each article belongs to a certain category which matches up with a certain entity specialty (for example, an entity may specialize in geography and history, and he may edit only geography and history articles).

Edit cards
Anonymous IP editors, it should be noted, may only make minor enhancements. Each edit card indicates what abilities are required to make that edit. Edit cards may be designed only for certain topics or for all topics. To play an edit card, an entity with the proper abilities must be in play, and an eligible article must also be in play. Some edit cards will generate one-time points, and some edit cards will promote an article to the next quality (for example, stub to start), which has long-term benefits. Bad edit cards typically cause the player to lose points or demote the article's quality. Good edit cards may also be targeted at either improving articles or reverting vandalism, and bad edit cards are targeted at either worsening good articles or making bad articles worse.

Ability cards
These cards may be played on entity cards. They may grant the entity new abilities or they may offer a temporary ability. Examples include promotion to administrator, the ability to improve more articles at once, an additional topic specialty, etc. Bad ability cards do the same for bad entities; examples may include promotion to rogue admin, an additional vandalism specialty, or the ability to cause more damage at once. Special ability cards might also include bots and sockpuppets (which give the entity a bonus action opportunity per turn).

Event cards
These cards have instructions such as "draw two good cards" or "all your good entities may now edit geography/history articles". Event cards may also impact other players, such as "on your next turn, all vandalous activity is directed toward each of your opponents", which would mean each bad entity in your playing space gets to vandalize one article in each opponent's playing space.

Instant cards
An instant card may be played at any time, be it during an edit or during another player's turn. This card has special text on it that tells what instructions to take, such as preventing an edit, banning a vandal IP, etc. Instants are often used to change the outcome of another card, e.g. an instant may be used to ban an IP before it has the chance to complete a vandalous edit to a good article. Bad instants, such as server crashes or edit conflicts, could prevent an article enhancement.

Expandability
A starter set would be made available for purchase. This starter set would include two good decks and two complimenting bad decks, each specializing in two areas (a total of four specialities would be available in the starter set). Since most players will already have these four colors of bad cards in their starter set, it would be advantageous to invest in expansion cards, available in foil packs of a decided number (around 10 or so). Expansion sets would include intermediate to advanced ready-to-play decks. The possibilities for article cards are endless, and enhancement cards might have specific descriptions, such as "Access to Paleontological Documents" with special text indicating prehistoric articles could be edited for extra points.


 * Proposed by Bob the Wikipedian (talk • contribs) 23:44, 1 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Discuss this proposal at Wikipedia talk:Trading card game/Action plan/Phase 1:Rules.