Yesternight what has always been apparent struck me: There are really not so many ways to keep track of how many HP:s a creature has in a CCG. After having an uneasy feeling for several months now about the subject, but never really wanting to accept it, I have somehow managed to distance myself from confronting the topic. Not any more.

I’ve come to a conclusion for the rule set I’m currently working on, and I’m fairly confident it’s a global design issue that is in direct relation to how the attack system works/is resolved in a CCG. But before we look at the resolution, let’s have a quick recap of what we’re looking at here:

  • In most combat orientated CCG:s creature have a number that equals thier HP/Life.
  • If they do, that number is usually greater than 0.
  • In most good CCG:s, that number is easy to keep track of and is between 0 to 10, in contrast to 3459.
  • This is where we now continue: How should one keep track of a creature’s HP in a CCG where that variable changes often on each individual creature?


Tokens
The most straight forward thing to do is to keep track of a creatures HP by placing tokens on it. Either to add a token each time it’s damaged, or, to remove a token that happens. The most logical thing to do for most games, from a designers perspective, would be to add tokens on the card.

This is not as straight forward as one might think. Consider what the implications are and what we’re doing: When we keep track of the HP and remove a HP we do indeed take away one HP for every token we remove from the card.

When we do it the other way around – add a token – it becomes clear that we’re not actually adding a HP: Why would we add a HP when a creature loses combat? In most cases we want to deduct one, we want to remove life to show us that we lost comabat, not reward the player by giving him/her more HP for playing crappy. Thus, it’s apparent something else is happening implicitly, something that most players already know: We’re adding a wound/damage. This however, has direct effects on everything from wording to mechanics in a game.

My personal dissatisfaction with a HP system that relies on using tokens is that it requires constant management, especially in a game that focuses on combat. Add to that the span of the HP: if we have creatures that have everything from 1 to 10 HP, or even 1 to 5 HP, it could mean plenty of token handling.

Pen & paper
Scribbling a cards name and changing it’s stats while playing, and doing it for every card in play under your control, is out right a stupid solution. While viable in an RPG that is not as heavy on variables changing as often as a normal CCG is, it simply doesn’t cut it in a CCG.

Meters
Using some kind of custom solutions, usually by creating a type of meter/counter system, is an interesting touch. For a CCG this would, I think, always mean that there should be some kind of “termometer/HP-meter” printed somewhere on the card and something attached to the card or placed on the scale that indicates how much HP the creature has. Compare this with what HeroClix do in the world of semi-minis: They have added a dial on the base of each mini, that can be easily used to keep count of a units life as well as other stats depending on life.

Here’s a sloppy mock-up I did to illustrate the principle and how it might have looked like in WTactics:

Drawback that come to mind with my way of doing it in the above is wear-and-tear: Remedied maybe by sleeves & sturdy photlab paper & the fact that all our cards are free. Not sure if this is a serious issues, especially with plastic paper clips being less harsh to the cards than metal ones. In any case, it really makes sleeves and/or sturdy photo paper a requirement, raising the bar, unless of course, one would use a token instead of a paper clip.

Other more common meters instead of built-into ones are dies: d6, d12, d20 etc can all be used as cheap and effective meters, available in all local game stores.

In any game that would have more than 2-3 HP to keep track of, I would definitely prefer to go with a meters solution instead of a free-form token-placement solution. It seems very much more appropriate.

Using meters in WTactics is, at least from my own viewpoint, to tempt the general design criteria for the project: We either add more adminstration to the player, or, we add more administration and also more parts and preparations required to play the game (getting hold of proper dies, having sufficient amount of them, always carrying them around along with your deck etc).

I’m not suggesting it is a clear breakage with the general design document and the criteria we have that state that WTactcis, no matter what rule set it uses, should be easy to setup, take with you, demand minimum preparations and have no overhead administration while playing it. I’d place the need of meters in the twilightzone.

Rotating cards
An apparent and pretty good way to keep track of a creatures health is to rotate the card. This means that each creature could have 4 HP at most, as indicated on it’s own variable on the card.

Tha drawback of this system is that all players have to be very consistent in how they lay out the cards on the table, but that’s really not a big problem and likely self-fixable once they realize the importance of it.

The real issue is that this HP tracking system suggests that we can’t rotate cards to indicate other status changes to the card. I.e. how do we mark that a creature has already attacked this turn? Or used it’s other abilities?

We could of course create a game where no such abilities or attacks demand that the card is marked thus resolving this problem. :) Most CCG:s would however not be satisfied with that solution, and I for one wouldn’t be with WTactics.

Or, we can… bring tokens back into the picture: This time around we only need two different types of tokens probably – one type for marking that abilities have been used, and another for marking that an attack has been done. Again, this could make sense in some games, but it still seems bulky when all comes around.

HP tracking goodbye
To me, what meets the design criterias for this project to an apparently greater degree is to simply get rid of HP tracking altogether. This does not mean that creatures have no HP. They could still have. It could simply be either 0 or 1. You’re either dead or alive. You are never wounded after battle has been resolved.

Now, what does this bring or take away from the game? I think plenty. It has major and direct effects of how would design the battle system, among other things.

My feeling this far is that systems that allow the attacking player to point out the targets tend to go with a system where HP:s are usually greater than 1. Vice versa also applies, combat systems where you’re not allowed to select your target (i.e. Magic the Gathering’s) can totally remove HP tracking and use a system where all creatures have 1 HP since the defending player has the privilege of select if/which creature will engage the enemy.

As WTactics is designed for the table top primarily and we can’t rely on automation in real life I think that ditching HP tracking is probably what I’ll go with on the rules I’m working on.