Adam Blinkinsop
United States
Bothell
Washington
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Shaman is a card game for two to five people where you pull elemental power
from the aether and use it to destroy your opponents.
I've made three levels of rules, so you can start playing at "Apprentice" level
and work your way through "Journeyman" to "Master" level. The more hard-core
of the BGG crowd could potentially start with all the rules at the beginning,
but for the purposes of teaching it to the younger crowd, I wanted a nice
learning curve.
For playtesting purposes, you'll need to build yourself a deck. The Shaman
deck is built up of sixty cards: twelve each of five elements. The only real
requirement is that they're indistinguishable from one side, and the other
side is readily recognizable as a single element: wood (green), fire (red),
earth (yellow or brown), metal (white or silver), and water (black or blue). I
am using Magic: The Gathering lands for my playtesting, but any cards that you
can divide into these five should be fine.
Theme note: The five elements are taken straight from Wu Xing, and quite
a bit of the mechanics are inspired by their characteristics and relationships.
Once you have your deck, you can shuffle it and start right in on the
Apprentice rules:
-- Apprentice --
Object: Be the last player with cards on the table.
Setup: Shuffle the deck and deal five cards to each player, face down. These
cards should be arranged on the table in front of each player in a nice row,
and not moved thereafter (though each player may look at his or her cards).
The rest of the cards form the deck, face-down in the middle of the table.
Flip the top card into a discard pile next to the deck.
Play: Players take turns attacking. When attacking, choose one of your own
cards and slide it over to an opponent's card. The defending opponent then
looks at both cards and determines which one is victorious (see below). The
winning card goes back to its owner, and the loser goes (face-up) in the
discard pile.
Each element beats two others and is beaten by two others. There are two
cycles to remember.
* Wood parts Earth.
* Earth absorbs Water.
* Water quenches Fire.
* Fire melts Metal.
* Metal chops Wood.
* Wood absorbs Water.
* Water rusts Metal.
* Metal breaks up Earth.
* Earth smothers Fire.
* Fire burns Wood.
For example: I might attack your Fire card with my Earth card. You look at
both, and since Earth smothers Fire, you discard your Fire card and return my
Earth card to me. At this point, all other players know I must have been
attacking with either Water or Earth (since these cards defeat Fire). In this
way, players can work out what cards each player has.
Note: If the attacking card and the defending card match, both return to the table unharmed, and the attacker may continue their turn.
Design note: I would like to design cards with these cycles drawn on the backs
in some stylized way, and have the fronts dominated by their own element. Red
lines would be drawn to the elements that defeat it and green lines to the
elements that it defeats.
Each player on their turn attacks until defeated, and draws a card at the end
of their turn to replace whichever card was lost attacking. This card may
either come from the deck (unknown to both player and opponents) or from the
top of the discard pile (known to both player and opponents).
When you have destroyed all the other players' cards, you win!
-- Journeyman --
After a few games with the Apprentice rules (or none, if you're hard-core),
the Journeyman rules add a twist: you don't have to attack until you lose.
Instead, you can choose at any time (including before you make any attack, but not after you attack and lose) to end your turn by revealing or discarding one of your elements:
* Wood: Reveal Wood and draw 1.
* Fire: Discard Fire and draw 2.
* Earth: Reveal Earth and all other players reveal 1 (their choice).
* Metal: Discard Metal and all other players discard 1 (their choice).
* Water: Discard Water and draw 1 into the Dark (see below).
Elements in the Dark: When you are attacked, you may redirect the attacker to
your Dark element instead. At this point, your Dark element returns to the
table to become one of your five. Remember: at most five elements on the table
and one in the Dark.
For example: You discard your Water card and draw an Earth card into the Dark.
The next player attacks your left-most card (Wood) with a card that you
think is Fire. You can pull your card out of the Dark and make your opponent
attack it instead. If you're right about it being Fire, you'll save yourself
a card. Either way, your card comes out of the Dark and onto the table (or the
discard pile).
Note: As usual, when you draw a card, it may come from the discard pile or the deck.
Theme note: These card abilities come from the "energy" of each element in the
Wu Xing system. Wood grows into an extra card. Fire has expansive energy,
consuming itself to produce two new cards. Earth has stabilizing energy,
providing information to everyone at the table about everyone else. Metal has
contracting energy, chopping through other cards. Water has conserving energy,
lying dormant until needed.
-- Master --
Once you're comfortable with the Journeyman rules, there's one more step that
you can take. In the Master rules, you use multiple discard piles: one for
each player. Whenever a card of yours is discarded, you get to choose which
pile it goes on top of. Whenever you draw a card, you can draw from any
discard pile (or the deck). If the deck runs out of cards, it is not
replenished. Each discard pile starts with one card, as before.
Also, when attacking, you can make multiple attacks at once. If you have three
cards left, you can attack the player on your left with one, the player on your
right with another, and the player across from you with the third,
simultaneously. Of course, if you lose all three, you draw (once!) to replace,
and you're down to one card. Either way, you get to choose which order the
losing cards get discarded. Note: each attacking card must have one and only
one defending card, although each player could be defending multiple attacks. Benefits here are subtle -- you get a lot of information, even if one of your attacks would have failed, and the chaos may make it difficult for other players to deduce what cards you have. Use at your own risk!
Finally, when a player loses his last card, he's not out of the game. Every
time his turn comes up after that, he can attack once with any discard pile's
top card. For example, Anne loses her last card to Bob, but knows that the
card that attacked her was Fire. If she can find a Water card on the top of
a discard pile, she can attack Bob's Fire and put it out. Of course, Bob could
have something in the Dark to handle this contingency... 
I'm interested in any and all feedback, especially from games of more than
three, or with younger players. I think that it would be good for as young as
ten or so, but I'm not sure. Even if you don't get a chance to playtest,
thoughts on the rules would be useful.
Thanks for your time!
Edit: I'm a coder/hacker/software guy by trade, so I'm recording all changes in a Git repository: http://github.com/blinks/shaman You don't need to know what that means other than I'll be able to keep track of every change I needed to make, and that link will always go to the most recent version of these rules (just scroll down).
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Brad Johnson
United States
Crystal Lake
Illinois
-
Re: Shaman (alpha): Request for Playtesting and Feedback
Sounds interesting! (I'm a sucker for the elemental theme....)
A few questions, if you don't mind clarifying:
1) Apprentice - I assume if 2 cards match (Water attacking Water, for example), they both go back to their owners face down? And that would *not* count as being defeated?
2) Journeyman - Can you opt to make *zero* attacks on your turn and do only the special action?
3) Journeyman - If you do attack until you are defeated, do you still get to do a special action to end your turn? Or do you just automatically do the normal draw 1 to replace as in the Apprentice rules?
4) Master - What would be the benefit of doing multiple attacks at once rather than doing those same attacks sequentially? Is it just that if you're uncertain about all or some of them, you still get to make them all before ending your turn? Or am I missing another more subtle benefit?
Thanks!
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Adam Blinkinsop
United States
Bothell
Washington
-
Re: Shaman (alpha): Request for Playtesting and Feedback
tempus42 wrote: Sounds interesting! (I'm a sucker for the elemental theme....)
A few questions, if you don't mind clarifying:
1) Apprentice - I assume if 2 cards match (Water attacking Water, for example), they both go back to their owners face down? And that would *not* count as being defeated?
That's correct. Yay, principle of least surprise! 
tempus42 wrote: 2) Journeyman - Can you opt to make *zero* attacks on your turn and do only the special action?
Absolutely.
tempus42 wrote: 3) Journeyman - If you do attack until you are defeated, do you still get to do a special action to end your turn? Or do you just automatically do the normal draw 1 to replace as in the Apprentice rules?
The latter -- this way, there's a bit of brinkmanship as you try to get as much information about the other players as possible, but still remain able to use your special action.
tempus42 wrote: 4) Master - What would be the benefit of doing multiple attacks at once rather than doing those same attacks sequentially? Is it just that if you're uncertain about all or some of them, you still get to make them all before ending your turn? Or am I missing another more subtle benefit?
That was the only benefit I had in mind -- a last ditch effort to hit a bunch of players at once. It might also have the side effect of making it more difficult for people to remember what cards you might have (chaos!). In any case, it makes the game a little more complex, and allows people to go for a little more risk if they want, which is something a cousin of mine enjoys.
I'll update the original post with errata. Thanks!
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Tiger Wiccan
United States
Florida
-
That sounds like a completely awesome game idea! I bought a game that sounds similar to it but with just the standard western four elements and with a capture mechanic.
Elements
But yours sounds really cool nonetheless. You said you were a coder, so is there any chance of you making a computer version of this game?
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Adam Blinkinsop
United States
Bothell
Washington
-
tigerwiccan wrote: That sounds like a completely awesome game idea! I bought a game that sounds similar to it but with just the standard western four elements and with a capture mechanic. ElementsBut yours sounds really cool nonetheless. You said you were a coder, so is there any chance of you making a computer version of this game?
It's definitely possible -- wouldn't be too hard to get up and running. I playtested with my wife a couple of nights ago, and it ended up needing a few major rules changes that I have not yet incorporated here.
Here are my notes (directly copied) from the playtesting session:
me, playtesting wrote: Apprentice is horrible for second all but the first player.
Change: one attack pert turn! With 2 players, always know one card on opponent's side.
Change: three, not five cards. Attacker looks.
Very difficult to concentrate! Hard to remember opponents' cards.
Attacker looks, Journeyman rules are pretty good. Apprentice is too slow, not enough meaningful options.
Metal might be too powerful with opponents even at a slight card disadvantage.
Perhaps reveal FIRE to cancel METAL (turns it into just reveal), EARTH to cancel FIRE, etc.
Drawing from the discard pile is unintuitive.
Intriguing, but not quite "fun."
Hold 2 "in the light"?
As you can see, lots of changes over a short period of time made quick-turnaround playtesting extremely useful. The night after we played, I came up with another variation I'd like to try:
Instead of on the table, hold cards in hand. When attacked, defender chooses defending card from their hand. This gives more options to the defending player, and makes it easier to think about special abilities and cancelling. It also gets rid of Water's special, though.
The reason for the change to one attack per turn was to reduce the massive advantage given to the first player. It also had the side-effect of making multiple-attacks-at-once a useful (and potentially necessary) strategy.
More playtesting notes coming as I have a chance to play. I'll update the rules again when we get to an interesting point.
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August Larson
United States
Utah
-
Well, Shaman sounds like fun! I'll have to raid my Rage game and see if I can put a deck together with that and play it!
I do have one important question, though. How many cards of each color should we be having in the deck?
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Adam Blinkinsop
United States
Bothell
Washington
-
I'm currently playing with 60 cards; 12 each of the five colors. If you do end up playtesting, feel free to make changes as you feel like it, and post here what you find.
Note the earlier change, too: play with the five cards in your hand, attacker chooses attacking card and defender, defender chooses defending card, attacker compares and discards loser.
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Dylan Kirk
Philippines
Makati
NCR
-
Not that it matters, but in the classical Chinese 5-elemental system:
Constructive cycle:
Water constructs wood
Wood constructs fire
Fire constructs earth
Earth constructs metal
Metal constructs water
Destructive cycle:
Wood destroys earth
Earth destroys water
Water destroys fire
Fire destroys metal
Metal destroys wood
So while you have the cycles correct, I think the function is kind of inverted. Fire makes earth stronger and metal weaker.
For your symbol, you can simply use the traditional 5-elemental wheel.
Five spheres in a circle (constructive cycle) with a five-pointed star in the middle (destructive cycle).
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Adam Blinkinsop
United States
Bothell
Washington
-
dnjkirk wrote: So while you have the cycles correct, I think the function is kind of inverted. Fire makes earth stronger and metal weaker.
My worry is that adding another mechanic for the constructive cycle would make things too comlex and difficult to remember for the casual player. The rules-as-written say that a meeting of fire and earth leave only earth (think of it as fire creates more earth, which remains grouped in the same card). {ire and metal leaves only fire (this is magical fire, so it weakens the metal until it's destroyed).
Either way, it's the universal problem of The Theme.
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James Hutchings
Australia
Unspecified
Unspecified
-
'Shaman' doesn't sound very Chinese, unlike the rest of the theme.
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Adam Blinkinsop
United States
Bothell
Washington
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apeloverage wrote: 'Shaman' doesn't sound very Chinese, unlike the rest of the theme. Very true. It's really the inspiration for the theme, and not so much the theme itself. I'm pretty sure Wu Xing was never actually used for casting spells, so I transposed the elemental system into a fantasy setting. The description is somewhat lacking for this, but I was trying to focus on mechanics here for playtesting.
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James Hutchings
Australia
Unspecified
Unspecified
-
Maybe you oould call it 'Five Dragons'? That sounds Chinese to me (not that I know much about it).
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Adam Blinkinsop
United States
Bothell
Washington
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apeloverage wrote: Maybe you could call it 'Five Dragons'? That sounds Chinese to me (not that I know much about it). Again, true, but the theme sort of centers around a shaman/wizard's duel. Everything is still fluid at this point, though -- perhaps the players can be magical dragons?
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Posted Thu Jan 8, 2009 4:27 pm
