Interactivity in Card Games

Interactivity.

It's a funny concept isn't it? Games are interactive. You interact with the game. You interact with the other players. Fun games are often more interactive than rubbish games. Let's have a quick look at two games:

Game 1:
1 I roll a dice.
2 You roll a dice.
3 The person who rolled highest wins.

That's a rubbish game. It might be fun if you're five, but no self-respecting gamer would enjoy that game for very long. Let's try another one:

Game 2:
1 Both players has a set of polys. (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20)
2 Both players secretly chooses one of their dice.
3 Both players roll their chosen dice.
4 The player who rolled highest gets a point.
5 Repeat 3 and 4 until all the dice are gone
6 The player with the most points wins.

Now this one is much more interesting. It's still rubbish (obviously), but it's so much better than the first game. Why? Interaction! There's interaction between the player and the game (Which dice do I choose). There's interaction between the players (Which dice is my opponent going to choose). There's a (small) element of strategy; a degree of psychology; and most of all, a way to influence whether or not you win the game.

Let's face it, lads. Snakes and ladders is no fun. Not for me. Not for anybody. Seems dead simple, right?

So, how come people print rubbish CCGs?

Let's take L5R in the early days of Gold Edition. There are two cards:

Sneak Attack (Action, 0g): [I take the first action in a battle]
Deadly Ground (Action, 0g): [The battle ends]

If I'm lucky enough to draw those to cards (note: "lucky", not "tactically superior") then I pretty much win. We see it replicated through a great deal of card games. In the early days of Lord of the Rings, the decks that won were the decks that permitted the *least* interaction (Elf Archery comes to mind). Even in the dying days of LotR decks are still trying to deny their opponents any chance to prevent them winning.

Now. Why can't someone design a card game where the person who invites the *most* interaction upon themselves wins? It's been done with RPGs ("Capes" comes to mind, I don't usually rate Indy RPGs, but this one stood out), it's been done with computer games (If I'm in a position to headshot you, you're in a position to headshot me), so why not CCGs?

Hmm...

Iain "The Web Ninjerrer" Galloway