How to handle explaining the rules of a fictional TCG?

Nogetsune · Aug 18, 2014

As the title says. I have a story idea that centers around a TCG or rather trading card game along the lines of magic the gathering or yugioh. However, due to legal reasons I cannot use an actual trading card game in this story, so I have instead crafted my own fictional trading card game, complete with it's own rules set and a bunch of planned out cards in a word doc.(In fact, my frustration with yugioh is what pushed me to create the game, which I made before I even had the story idea, which in turn was created as a more "novel friendly" alternative to the extremely anime/manga-esc story that originally was meant to go with the game)

Anyway, my delima is that, since the game is 100% fictional, nobody will know the rules going in, which means that, somehow, I have to explain them. However, flat out just having one of the characters info dump the rules on the reader right at the start of the book may lose some people, especially if it gets particularly wall-of-text-y, so my question is what would be the most elegant solution to explaining the rules of the fictional game to readers?

Would it be best to have an -apendex- or possibly a section in the very front of the book that explains the rules of the game to readers, or would having the characters explain it to them really be the best way? If the latter, how would I go about doing this without -losing- readers to long-winded explanations? Would it be best to do it slowly, with the a more experienced character teaching a total new player and breaking up the rules explanation with action(such as the video/holo/VR displays of the monsters battling) and the emotions/reactions to the game the characters(especially the new player) have?

Finally, and most importantly, how do I prevent a agent or publisher who rejects the work from taking the card game idea and using their corporate ties to go to somebody like, say, wizards of the coast(who has a patent that prevents anybody from actually producing a real TCG without first paying them royalties) and being like "hey...I have an idea for a TCG..." and making money off my idea.

If anybody has advice for me on any or all of these concerns, I'd be grateful!

robjvargas · Aug 18, 2014

Trading card games have three basic rules that everyone familiar with them starts from:

Some cards defend, others attack
You start with some number of cards
If your attack is larger than their defense, you hurt them.

So first of all, you need to utilize spell-checker. If you weren't trying to write a story, I wouldn't bring this up, but you've got a fair number of misspellings, and those could hurt hurt you.

Secondly, you could have an appendix describing the rules of your game, but what does your story *really* need to tell the reader? If you have (for example) tournament rules, but your characters are all playing informally, why bother? Let the story decide what you need to reveal. Readers who will be interested in a card-game story will already know the basics.

Finally, idea-stealing. When push comes to shove, there is no concrete protection. But ask yourself, why would they? Because it's a card game and others have succeeded? Do you know how much work there is still in taking that idea from idea to product? An agent or publisher is destroying their future by stealing your idea, and they have no guarantee that your idea is even going to be successful.

If you intend to publish this, you're going to have to put your idea into the possession of people whom you've judged to be professionals. And professionals don't steal. Could it happen? Yes. Will it happen? Not likely.

Maryn · Aug 18, 2014

I debated between Trusted Computing Group and Tongan Crip Gang, but I finally figured out what you were talking about.

On potential agents or publishers stealing your idea: Submit it only to agents and publishers with proven records of success in their fields. Do your due diligence in terms of research on anyone before you submit. Successful agents and publishers are not interested in stealing and marketing your game idea, so they're not going to rip you off.

I suppose there are probably ways to legally protect your idea, but like filing your copyright registration, that's working on a basic platform of distrust. Instead, do your homework on who you can utterly trust and let only those people have a shot at your manuscript.

I can't speak for other readers, but I will not refer to an appendix to learn the rules of the game in your book. If it can't be understood from the text, I'll probably stop reading instead. That's just me--and probably many other readers.

Rather than an infodump, can the basics be presented early, then the fine points as it's being played? I'd be able to tolerate that.

Maryn, fussy reader

Buffysquirrel · Aug 18, 2014

The easiest way to convey the rules to the reader is to have characters playing the game and talking about the rules.

Katrina S. Forest · Aug 18, 2014

My last novel was based heavily around a magical sport I invented. I opened on the tail end of a game, showing how a ball was moved into the goal and how a player won. Further games expanded on the rules from there. My MC was a big planner, so that helped. A lot of inner thoughts along the lines of, "I wish I could just XYZ, but that's against the rules..."

I don't know about the Wizards of the Coasts' patent, but Fantasy Flight Games produces games they call "living card games" which act the same way as TCGs. So I don't think that avenue is as closed off as you think it is.

As to your concerns about people stealing, ideas are only the first part of creating anything. I've had tons of ideas for games. I never went so far as to hack out the rules, or create the pieces, or play test it, or any of the other stuff that's actually hard. If you've done all this, and if a game company truly loves your game, the cheapest and easiest way for them to get a final product is to pay you to share what you've already created, not to pay someone else to take your idea and make the game from scratch.

Edit: Also, to echo what people have said in your many other threads, maybe it's time to put aside worrying about the details and just write the book, however it comes out. At this rate, you're going to wear yourself out from the project before you even put pen to paper.

DoNoKharms · Aug 18, 2014

Nogetsune said:
Finally, and most importantly, how do I prevent a agent or publisher who rejects the work from taking the card game idea and using their corporate ties to go to somebody like, say, wizards of the coast(who has a patent that prevents anybody from actually producing a real TCG without first paying them royalties) and being like "hey...I have an idea for a TCG..." and making money off my idea.

If anybody has advice for me on any or all of these concerns, I'd be grateful!

Oooo, oooo, game designer here!

First off, game design and mechanics are actually impossible to copyright. They require a patent, as they're considered a technological innovation, which is vastly harder to get. That means game mechanics are stolen and copied all the time. This is why Flappy Bird had a million clones within the week, and why Words with Friends makes millions of dollars despite just being Scrabble. The art, story, universe, etc. of your TCG are all yours and copyright... but the game itself can be stolen at any time, by any one. Even if you sold this book, got it published, and became an NYT Best-seller, Wizards could STILL theoretically take your mechanics, reskin it, and release the game.

What I'm saying is... don't worry about it. It's out of your hands basically no matter what you do. And the millions of Flappy Bird clones didn't keep Dong Nguyen from making absurd volumes of money off a quickie project.

The other thing to consider is that TCG games are currently incredibly hot in mobile. The best ones make hundreds of millions a year. Even mediocre ones make big bank. TCGs are cheap to develop (the cost is overwhelmingly art) and have very high yields. Most of the top mobile developers are working hard on getting out their own. And the potential money and acclaim you'd get for putting out a successful one vastly exceed what you'd get for all but the most ludicrously successful novels. Not to mention it would probably only take a year to get out, as opposed to years to write, query, and subsequently publish.

What I'm saying is, if you genuinely think you have a TCG idea so good that Wizards would want to steal it, I would immediately try to find a mobile startup and pitch them your idea. You'll either have it torn down from a product standpoint (thus relieving your worries about someone stealing it, and letting you focus on your book), or you'll get them on board and have a TCG in development.

Nogetsune · Aug 18, 2014

Yeah, admittedly the reason I fear stealing the idea is that it has a very innovative feature that, as far as I know, has NEVER been done before. I don't want to go into detail on what that feature is, but I will say that it makes the game itself both more difficult and more fun to design for....and very unique. Beyond the innovating feature, it borrows some from the WoW TCG, Pokemon TCG and even a small piece of the Naruto TCG, without being a direct clone of any of them....and it also has a resource system that's fairly unique too...so the whole thing is just really different from whats out there that I've seen while still being rooted in some familiar conventions(It borrows enough from the WoW and Pokemon card games that there is that sense of familiarity that's good to have.) That's why I want to be all hush-hush. I'm still playtesting it right now, mostly in games vs. myself due to the need for absolute secrecy, though I'm considering asking some IRL friends to help me on this front since our homes seem thief-proof enough.

As far as mobile is concerned, I'd need to know if they do tablet-only mobile releases, as the game's cards would, visually, require a lot going on and thus would not be practical to display on the very small screen of something like an Iphone. A decent-sized tablet, however, would display them fine, as would IRL cards. So if there are tablet-only mobile releases then it's an option. I don't know anything about the mobile market, though. I am just an old fart who will always take the big clunky 90s keyboard over the tiny touch screen with it's microscopic keys. Always. So I don't do any phone gaming.

As for the book, well, it's a special project....I figured that if I was going to go for an anime-esc novel I may as well go full bore and use my TCG in it. Honestly, my plan was to use the novel as a way to generate interest to actually get the TCG produced by a gaming company, like, say, wizards of the coast, or possibly some smaller company, in the same manner that Kazuki Takahashi managed to use the manga of Yugioh to generate enough interest to get his once-fictional TCG made into an actual game.

ShaunHorton · Aug 18, 2014

Anime fan here. I dunno if you've ever actually watched the YuGiOh cartoon, but they had a pretty good layout of it I think. They never actually dump the rules of the game on you, but you pick it up by the players explaining their moves, usually out loud, but sometimes in thought.

"Your card does this, but my card does this, which makes THIS happen! And, Bam, Bam, Bam. I win because..."

DoNoKharms · Aug 18, 2014

Nogetsune said:
As for the book, well, it's a special project....I figured that if I was going to go for an anime-esc novel I may as well go full bore and use my TCG in it. Honestly, my plan was to use the novel as a way to generate interest to actually get the TCG produced by a gaming company, like, say, wizards of the coast, or possibly some smaller company, in the same manner that Kazuki Takahashi managed to use the manga of Yugioh to generate enough interest to get his once-fictional TCG made into an actual game.

So, your life, your choices, but as someone who has both released hit videogames and is trying to sell a novel, I should point out this is a logistically backwards approach; writing a novel to generate interest for your TCG is a bit like becoming an internationally celebrated rockstar to become your high school's Homecoming King. The challenge of successfully writing and selling a novel at all are very high, much less the challenge of it being successful enough to attract the interest of a company like Wizards. On the other hand, the challenge of creating and releasing a digital TCG are vastly lower, in no part because they require passing far fewer gatekeepers. A team of 8 people could easily release a hit TCG, especially if you're going for an anime style (DeviantArt is full of great anime artists willing to work for extremely cheap). You'd be vastly more likely to make a hit TCG to raise interest for your book than the other way around (a good friend of mine did basically just this to get two books published by a Big 5!).

And yes, there are many successful games that are tablet only.

Bicyclefish · Aug 18, 2014

Since one of the questions raised is the importance of the game is to the plot, see this closely related thread by the OP: Fictional Trading Card Game...will it lose readers?

VeryBigBeard · Aug 18, 2014

Some reference reading where I can remember game mechanics being described in prose:

Iain Banks, Consider Phlebas uses a rather complex game. He describes it, but only about 2/3s through when it's relevant and he uses some POV tricks to keep it relevant. That's the key. Keep the gameplay relevant to the character. Wall-of-text won't just lose you some readers. It will lose all of your readers. Describing game mechanics is documentation, not entertainment.

Douglas Adams outright states the rules for Brockian Ultra-Cricket. In this case, he gets away with it because a.) the Guide interjects with random, useless trivia all the time and it's a large part of the appeal of the books, and b.) the rules for Brockian Ultra-Cricket are hilarious and also a pretty decent satire on English cricket.

And since I'm also a game designer: when you playtest, strongly consider testing beyond yourself and friends. You're not going to get honest critique even if your friends really try. It's too small a sample size. Most larger cities have indie game meet-ups that can be used as impromptu testing sessions. Every idea is unique until somebody who hasn't seen it/heard all about it tells you it's not.

And I'd second Katrina, with an addendum: write the book, if you want to write a book. From the various threads it kind of seems like you don't want to. That's perfectly OK. Don't write it. Do an anime. Do a TCG. There will be different challenges. No more or less difficult, mind, just different. Doing an anime requires some networking with artists--this seems daunting but if you can get them excited about your project (i.e., you pitch it and actually share some of the idea with them) you'll find collaborators. If you want to do a TCG, same. You'll have to find artists, you'll have to do some testing, you probably need a prototype. I really don't know much about how publishing/marketing works in TCGs but you need to do some research in that area, too.

Best of luck.

How to handle explaining the rules of a fictional TCG?

Nogetsune

robjvargas

Maryn

Baaa!

Buffysquirrel

Katrina S. Forest

DoNoKharms

Nogetsune

ShaunHorton

AW's resident Velociraptor

DoNoKharms

Bicyclefish

Pedaling Pescado

VeryBigBeard

Preparing for winter