Designing a Drafting Set

[endgame]

I still have a pile of my old cards kicking around, and the obvious thing to do is make up several preconstructed decks that are balanced relative to each other and play it like a board game. But what if I wanted to give my friends the deckbuilding experience as well?

A drafting cube seems like a really good way to get that experience into a single sit-down event. Have 4 players (one each of Rogues, Marines, Predator, Aliens), draft decks, build something and then play. Being able to adjust the power level of the game by controlling the card pool is also interesting to me, because it doesn't mean double-camo-double-caster predators every game. Weapons like the Collapsible Spear and Throwing Disk become much more interesting. I found this pair of articles on draft cube design (for Android:Netrunner) to be really good reading:

• Cube Drafting 101 describes the basic idea of how the cube works and describes a few different types of draft, and
  
• Cube Drafting 201 talks about card roles, power levels and how they fit into the cube.
  

Aaaand... that's where the wheels come off. Because so many cards are tied to specific species, I don't know how to design the draft rules to work well.

The obvious first step is to create starter packs for each race. These would have low-power cards that guarantee you can at least make a legal deck. Cards like Rogue Mercenaries and Zip Guns, Marine Privates and Garrison packs, Young Tusk and a Scattergun or Young Queen and Alien Warriors.

Open Question: What's the best way to handle other main characters? The choice of Marine main characters in particular determines a lot about the deck you're trying to play (Lt. Campbell or Bishop give you CP or research points, whether or not you bring a smartgunner, etc.). This suggests that they should be in the draft somehow, but they have zero relevance to the Alien or Predator players. A card like Cpl Hicks is so good that even though it's totally useless for other players, I can still see it being a first pick just to shut down Marines. Cards like Pvt Distephano are good because he's interesting for both Rogues and Marines. Some possible solutions:

• Allow the Rogue player to use non-Marine human main characters (Kane, Parker, etc.). Stretches the fiction, but makes them more useful.
  
• Allow the Alien and Predator players to find human main characters at certain locations (Barracks for Marines?)
  
• Set up a pick/ban system: put a fixed set of Marine main characters into the marine starter. Before the main draft begins, the Marine player sets them out on the table and picks one. The other players then ban one main character (each? as a group?) and the process repeats. The Marine player is not obliged to use all the characters he selected, but he goes into the main draft knowing what cards to look out for. This might work not work so well for Rogues, as they are very synergistic with each other by name (e.g., Hillard/Elgyn), but it seems like it might be an acceptable mechanic for Predators.

Open Question: How to fit in Human Items (Weaponry, Prohibited Weaponry, Equipment, Military Arms)? There is some interesting overlap here in that there are cards that apply to both Humans and Rogues, but there are cards that apply to only one or the other. Cards like Johner and Ripley 8 expand the range of cards the Rogue player is interested in. And again, the Aliens and Predators don't care at all. Some possible solutions:

• Allow the Predator player to include human items in his deck and to evacuate human items from the shuttle/ship/mothership as trophies, scoring honor.
• Set aside fixed decks of Weaponry, Equipment and Military Arms. When a character uses the ability of the Weapons Locker or Equipment Warehouse, they may take the first card from that item deck as the item they find, instead of searching their deck. When a character uses the ability of the Armory, they choose which deck to take items from.
• If the Marine player drafts Pvt Distephano, allow him to take a Lacrima 99 without drafting it separately.
  

Open Question: How to fit in Predator Items? The Marines MIGHT care, IF they have a way of generating research points, AND IF they draft a Predator item, AND IF they draft New Era in Science. That's a lot of ifs. Nobody else is interested. But on the other hand, the other players really don't want to see yet another big predator & camouflage suit & plasma caster like every other game. I don't like the item deck solution here because the predator player need to have control over what items he brings into the game, especially if playing for an honor victory. Maybe the predator player should have a pick/ban system like the marines do, but players pick and ban across a pool of Predator main characters & Predator Items? So if the pred player picks plasma caster, the other players might ban camouflage suit or sharp eye. Allowing the Marine player to include items banned from the predator's pool allows New Era in Science, but it might just be easier to not include any Research Point cards in the cube - it's quite an underdeveloped mechanic anyway.

Observation: The main cards that are interesting for multiple species are Events, Locations and Supporting Characters. Maybe it's best to build the cube from those only?

Open Question: How should locations be handled? I can see the Armory being a first pick for any species because it shuts down Marines so hard. Possible solutions:

• Add a deckbuilding rule: If you draft a location, you have to include it in your deck. If you're playing Marines, you at least know that the Armory is going to show up somewhere, even if you didn't get it.
  
• Add a separate location deck: Provide a set of starting locations for each player, but shuffle all the other locations into a big deck and reveal one per turn? A deck consisting of 20 singleton locations, and an Elevator every 5th card could make for an interesting battlefield.

I'm writing this mostly to clarify my own thinking, but if there's anyone else out there who wants to chip in, I'm all ears.

-- END TRANSMISSION --

[endgame]

I've been reading the custom STACKS scenario RogueThirteen posted a few years ago at ( boardgamegeek.com/thread/692614/custom-stacks-scenario-posted-under-files / boardgamegeek.com/filepage/69816/stacks-custom-avp-ccg-scenario ), and there's a lot I like that could fit in here:

• I'm considering setting up a colony with a Marine and Alien presence, with the Rogues raiding and the Predators dropping by to hunt.
  
• Rogues start with their custom starting location, The Betty.
  
• Rogues and Predators can move their ships between Entry locations (though the Rogues need a pilot to do this). I'm thinking that I'll continue to start the Marines at the Barracks, because there are only four entry locations in the game (Airlock, Hived Airlock, Landing Pad and Docking Bay), and having three of them tied up in starting locations will make it too crowded for moving around.
  
• As much as I like the fixed locations in STACKS, locations are one of the most important types of card in the draft: they're usable by all species. Option: Give each player a fixed set of 5 starting locations, and then have them draft 5 more, before the main draft? So each player would have a pack of 5 random locations, choose 1, pass left, repeat for 10 locations in total (5 fixed + 5 drafted)? Then they choose how to distribute their locations between their two levels of the complex.
  
  
• The other option is to stop overcomplicating things, and give each player something like 20 fixed cards and draft five packs of ten build 40-card decks. This could be really bad, because if you get a pack that massively skews to one species, they'll get screwed, but I think that's rare enough that gain from having more card types that can be drafted across players will make it worthwhile.
  
  
• I think the general power level of the fixed cards is going to end up higher than I first thought. For example, I think I will have to put at least two Field Packs and the Armory in the Marine starter for them to stand a chance. They are such a gear-dependent faction.
  

[endgame]

In this post, I'm going to set out the scenario structure I plan to use, and the starter decks I've sketched out.

The scenario layout I'm using is inspired by the STACKS scenario    . Each player will start with 10 locations set out as follows:

X - X - X - X - E
A - B - X - X - O

X = Any Location
A = Start Location 1 (Airlock, Barracks, Predator Shuttle, Breeding Chamber)
B = Start Location 2 (Cargo Bay, Armory, Landing Pad, Hived Cryonics)
E = Elevator
O = Operations

(Characters can move between Operations and any Elevator for one movement point.)

Players can replace the locations in their starter (except for A, B, E, O and the Docking Bay for Marines) with locations they pick up during the draft.

10 locations per player may be too large. I may cut this down to 8 or switch to a location deck system (see the official Countdown scenario).

For victory conditions, it's the usual "kill all opposing main characters or..."

Rogue - Steal 10 data tokens
Marine - Evacuate 5 civilians
Pedator - Meet honor requirement and evacuate
Alien - Hive everything

I'm also using a modified version of the "colonist deck" from STACKS. Each search round, one supporting charater is taken from the colonist deck and placed into play at their specific location. If their location is not in play, they are discarded. Here are the 10 characters that I've chosen for the colonist deck:

1x Black Marketeer (Tavern)
1x Company Official (Corporate Office)
1x Corporate Agent (Operations)
1x Dockworker (Docking Bay)
1x Engineer (Engineering)
1x Mechanic (Machine Shop)
1x Pet (Living Quarters)
1x Security Chief (Security Station)
1x Quartermaster (Equipment Warehouse)

Here are the starter lists I'm planning to use. When I set these up, I had the following objectives in mind:

• Each starter should be 20 cards.
• Each starter should have a location with the Hi-Tech resource. I'm going to include Electronics Tech in the draft for players who want more supporting characters.
• Each starter should have a location with the Hive resource to allow Aliens to pressure early. This should incentivise drafting other locations.
• As many starters as possible should have a non-Operations location that is Central. This means that drafting Main Corridor gives you additional connections.
• Each starter should have three locations (including Operations) that are referenced by the colonist deck.
• Each faction should be able to get their gear (or food) without having to draft additional locations.
• Each starter should have an Entry location. Because I don't have a copy of Conestoga Class and lack the art skills to proxy up The Betty (custom card from STACKS) I'm considering using a variant of STACKS' pilot rules: A Pilot who spends their entire movement phase may move between entry locations and take any number of friendly or controlled characters with them.
• Each starter should have cards from Premiere only. This provides visual consistency and Resurrection tends to have crazier effects which make the draft more exciting.

    Rogues:

1x Airlock
1x Cargo Bay
1x Operations
1x Elevator
1x Stairwell
1x Hived Corridor
1x Machine Shop
1x Equipment Warehouse
1x Weapons Locker
1x Power Plant

4x Rogue Mercenary
1x Zip Gun
1x Thermos Gun
1x Collapsible Shotgun
1x Wrist Guns
1x P.T.V.
1x Portable Data Drive

I have gone with 4x Rogue Mercenary to incentivise drafting of other rogues, but I may swap one for Hillard. (The pilot-move rule may make Rogues too rushy?) P.T.V. is in there so Vriess is useful without needing to draft it separately, and there's a good variety of prohibited weapons. Weapons Locker lets them use drafted shotguns, ammo, etc., but I'm not sure about Equipment Warehouse. Having Quartermaster as a potential hostage could be very swingy if the marines get a hold of him. I had to go with Hi-Tech locations to give everyone access to a common supporting character, but that means that Rogues can do data theft without leaving their part of the board. Not sure about this, especially if they draft Call.

Marines:

1x Barracks
1x Armory
1x Operations
1x Elevator
1x Stairwell
1x Hived Storage
1x Computer Center
1x Docking Bay
1x Meeting Hall
1x Isolated Corridor

1x Cpl Hicks
3x Marine Private
2x Field Pack
1x M41a Pulse Rifle
1x Shotgun
2x Garrison Pack

Marines need their gear and some good characters to not suck, hence the Armory, Hicks and 3 Pulse Rifles. There's enough stuff in there to armour everyone if necessary, but I'm thinking it might be worth switching out generic privates for some of the 2/4 characters. A smartgunner (Pvt. Rogers?) might be good for the same reason as P.T.V. in the Rogues starter. Meeting Hall and Isolated Corridor are filler locations, but I want to save the interesting locations for the draft itself.

Predator:

1x Predator Shuttle
1x Landing Pad
1x Operations
1x Elevator
1x Stairwell
1x Hived Lounge
1x Corridor
1x Atmosphere Processor
1x Infirmary
1x Engineering

1x Young Tusk
1x Gray Stripe
1x Eager Youth
1x Camouflage Suit
1x Mask
1x Ceremonial Armor
1x Melee Claws
1x Throwing Disk
1x Predator Medkit
1x The Hunt

I've put in a range of predators for different styles: Eager Youth for a quick hunt, Grey Stripe for a strong but risky pick (so you'll want to replace him), and Young Tusk for something in-between. Every other ranged weapon seems strictly superior to Throwing Disk, so it's a good starting item. Darts are just too weak on their own, and I can't see a compelling reason for complicating the rules with binding and attacks-to-capture or Neuro Toxin.

Alien:

1x Breeding Chamber
1x Hived Cryonics
1x Operations
1x Elevator
1x Stairwell
1x Hived Airlock
1x Hived Main Corridor
1x Hived Plant
1x Living Quarters
1x Communications Center
3x Coocooned Victim
3x Sleeper
1x Alien Queen
3x Alien Warrior

Pretty straightforward, but I may have given the aliens player too much easy food. We'll see. I could cut back and add Face Huggers, Chest Bursters or events like There's Something In Here to the starting characters for the scenario.

[whiteumbrella]

I read the cube drafting articles, and the idea is really interesting.. I'll try to correlate my responses to internal relevance:

The initial species/faction cards should be just he starting cards: Characters, Items, Locations. Locations would half of that (ten basic Locations, so that if you don't draft any, you still have everything needed) means there's 10 spaces for Characters and Items.

The Rogue/Marine starter sets look good as far as I'm concerned, though I would suggest a hot errata on the Marine Privates to have the text/stats of the Resistance Private from Terminator. This gives Marines the ability modify their strategy mid-game by "evolving" into a Marine with an ability that fits their opponents strategy. It would also be a Marine-specific function, since no other species or faction has that capability.
If I remember correctly, when Terminator first came out, it was suggested that the Resistance MC's be used for Marine starter characters, since Premier Marines were so...lackluster.

For Predators, I would suggest two different starters for them, unless you intentionally don't want to allow Hunting Packs in the draft. A Pack set might have four low-Honor MC's, and two each of Ceremonial Armor, Mask, and Melee Claws. Possibly swapping out one Armor for another Melee Claws, so that not all of the Preds are protected in the same way, but all of them have a bite to 'em.

As for Aliens. Now, I love playing Aliens, really do, but giving them Cocooned Victim might be going a little overboard. They already have a definitive power-up simply because other SC's enter play automatically, so things like Carpe Corpus are unnecessary. Without playing, I can't say that the Sleepers would be too much free food as well, but part of me thinks that ALL Supporting Characters should be in the SC Deck. It would make it a more tactical game, and the Aliens would still get the advantage with both SC's, since they would break the "No SC at starting Locations" rule.
As far as replacing those cards, I'd suggest more Alien Warrior cards, so that the Aliens forces can be spread out more, instead of being restricted to just three hulking groups of them, and a bunch of tokens at the Breeding Chamber. No amount of tokens in the Breeding Chamber is safe from a Predator with a Plasma Caster and a Long Range Shot.

[whiteumbrella]

Making a new post, rather than turning the old one into a bigger wall of text...

Now, as for the drafting cube itself... personally, I'd want to have an all-in draft, meaning that each player, regardless of Species and Faction, is drafting from the same pool at the same time as the other players. So that means a basic cube of 240 cards representing Events, Locations, and SC's that are useable by everyone. The basics, staple-stuff. For card counts, I'd suggest double or even quadruple the values given for the Netrunner cube articles: remember, these are cards that everyone can use, so only having two or three really limits their viability. Double the copies (four copies of staple Events, for example) if you aren't concerned about your group hate-drafting too much. Double this again if its a real problem. Just doubling once should be enough, as there should be enough variety in the pools with 40 four-ofs and 40 two-ofs that it should always be a strategic move about getting a new card for your deck, versus taking one away from your opponent.

With the basic cube out of the way, the next step is to create Faction (not Species) cubes, 80 cards each should be good. This time, no doubling. These cubes are where any Faction-specific or Species-specific cards should be included. Items, special SC's (Ambushed Predator, Avery G., Cocooned Victim, Security Chief, etc), restricted or particularly useful Events (Formations for Marines, Body Slam for Aliens/Predators, etc). This is important, and I'll explain in a bit why I think it should be like this. For each of the Factions involved in a game, add their 80 card cube to the mix. If you have the time and people, a massive 7-person free-for-all would be an 800 card cube, FYI.

Now, a bit on deck construction. Draft games like this need an expanded array of decks. By that I mean Equipment and Weaponry Items (for the Humans) would be their own deck. Non-Faction SC's would be their own deck. Predator Items of Honor 7 or less (the "standard" limit for Outcasts) would be their own deck. The reason for this is two-fold:
---a) The generic stuff, which those cards represent, are what anyone could find by nosing around a complex, therefore EVERY PLAYER could search Locations for those Items, even if they can't use them. Special Rules for Predators/Aliens will follow.
---b) The Supporting Character deck works the same as in the STACKS scenario: These are generic, out-of-luck, "How did this happen?!?!?" people. They have no special skills, and will probably run around with their heads cut off as soon as they hear gunfire.
---c) The Good Stuff (tm) requires knowledge and planning to get access to. Quartermasters are not going to just show up and wander around with their Shotgun just waiting to get face-hugged. They are smart enough to wait for the Marines to call them up to service, or have to be sniffed out by a Predator or Alien player. The same goes for Items. A Predator is going to know the security codes and footlocker ID of where his favorite Camouflage Suit or Plasma Caster is. Marines either brought with them, or know the armory location of, any Military Arms they want to use, etc.

What the above also means, is that Decks should only be thirty cards. By removing the "generic stuff" from a deck, along with the Locations from it, you open up a lot of card slots that you might have issues filling with anything worthwhile.



Now, back to drafting itself. Different Species draft certain cards in different ways.

ITEM DRAFTING:
Humans drafting:
-) General Human Items: These cards go into the Human Armory deck, always. This will typically be Equipment and Weaponry.
-) In-Faction Human Items: Choose whether these go into your draft pile, or into the Human Armory deck.
-) Out-of-Faction Human Items: Choose whether these go into the Human Armory deck, of if you want to Ban them from the current game.
-) Predator Items: Choose whether these go into the Predator Armory deck, or if you want to Ban them from the current game.
Predators drafting:
-) General Predator Items: These cards go into the Predator Armory deck, always. This will be any Item worth 7 or less Honor.
-) In-Faction Predator Items: Choose whether these go into your draft pile, or into the Predator Armory deck.
-) Out-of-Faction Predator Items: Choose whether these go into the Predator Armor deck, or if you want to Ban them from the current game.
-) Human Items: Choose whether these go into the Human Armory deck, or if you want to Ban them from the current game.
Aliens drafting:
-) Human Items: Choose whether these go into the Human Armory deck, or if you want to Ban them from the current game.
-) Predator Items: Choose whether these go into the Predator Armory deck, or if you want to Ban them from the current game.

With the above in mind, this allows each player to gamble a little with drafting. Any Item in the cube should be useful in some way, so if you choose to put a card in the Armory instead of your deck, you risk an opponent finding and using it before you do. By the same token, you can put excess cards in the Armory deck of your opponent, in a hope that they'll get a dud draw when they search.

CHARACTER DRAFTING:
-)If you draft a character of the same Species and Faction you are playing, it does into your draft pile for your draw deck. These are the characters that are (typically) smart enough not get caught by dumb luck.
-)If you draft a character of the same Species but not Faction you are playing, choose whether it goes into your draft pile, of if you want to Ban that copy of that card. Most of these characters will be one-ofs in the Faction cubes.
-)If you draft a character that does not match your Species, place it out of play: it is Banned from the ensuing game(s).

EVENTS DRAFTING:
You can only draft cards that are playable by either:
-) Everyone. These are the events from the General Cube, as well as a select few Events from certain Faction cubes.
-) Your Species. These are only included in one of the Faction cubes related to your Species.
-) Your Faction. These are only included in your Faction cube. Opposing players cannot hate-draft these from you.

LOCATION DRAFTING:
While there are no special rules for drafting Locations, the Colonist Deck changes based on the Locations on each players includes in their line-up. If you replace an [X] Location in the line-up, replace any Colonist Deck character that could only be found at that Location with one that can be found at the new Location.


This would also require a conversion of the Colonist Deck to include specific characters based on the Locations in each starter deck. It could also be modified to include, instead of just 10 characters, 6 characters per Faction in the game. This may not be feasible.

Now part of me wants to try setting up a Cube Draft standard for Terminator...Think I will, just to see what kind of baseline I can come up with as an example..

[vixsundown]

This is all good info. I've been wanting to build some starter decks so I could get some tabletop gamers to give AvP a try. But the problem is, how to do that and still make the decks fairly balanced? I want to make a good deck for every faction (we have 5 players, so plenty of faction choices), but it's hard to make decks that all work well together, especially for newbies.

[endgame]

Okay, session report time!

So I got a chance to test the cube out over the holidays, when I caught up with old friends from high school. I was the only one who had recent AvP experience, but two of the other three players played regularly in high school and were in a game I set up a year before, with preconstructed decks.

I decided to go with a simpler draft, using a single cube with a roughly balanced complement of cards for each faction. I'll put up the cube list, starters and rules summaries in subsequent posts.

The draft itself was a bit of a shambles. We used 5x13 card packs, with 9 picks per pack (discarding the last 4). 45 cards is the same number of picks as a booster draft in Magic, but by the second pick most species didn't have anything left that they cared about, and five packs made it feel much more exhausting.

I was the only person who really knew the cardpool, and managed to pick Display of Skill, Chapel and Heat of Battle. The other players felt like there were very few difficult choices, so picking the most appropriate card from each pack was just boring.

The actual game itself was a blast. Given the picks I'd got, I decided to rush low-honour and chose Eager Youth and didn't pull items. I drew Heat of Battle and Chapel very early on, and hit 10CP with Display of Skill in hand. Except that nobody else had connected to the central locations and cheesing out the win would have been a poor test of the game. So I took Eager Youth through the Access Space and went after the SCs to threaten the win.

While Eager Youth was showing off, the Aliens had been steadily consuming Sleepers and Cocooned Victims, and had a stack of doom online. As the second species to connect, the swarm overtook Eager Youth and shredded him in one attack.

The humans, now equipped, were next to connect up, and for a short time Marines and Rogues stood shoulder-to-shoulder to try and stop the Alien menace. As soon as it looked like the Aliens wouldn't make it, the Rogues turned their guns on the Marines.

The Aliens had a few more tricks and took down the Rogues. Meanwhile, the last Marines snuck off to the Security Station and recruited the Security Chief. A final showdown between the Warrior Queen and the last remaining humans hung on a couple of key dice rolls, but in the end the Aliens were the superior species.

So overall, the game generated some cool moments, but as a way of combining a deckbuilding challenge and a gameplay challenge in a one-shot package I consider it a failed experiment. A group of four AvP veterans might have different results.

While the cube had interesting locations and gave players the ability to control how quickly they connect up (through cards like Access Space and Found 'Em), connection still took too long and there were many dud turns while everyone kitted up and cycled their decks.

For the effect I'm trying to achieve, I think I will borrow the system from the Star Wars LCG: deckbuilding is a set of pods and shuffling them together, instead of individual cards. Maybe providing each faction with 10 5-card pods, and have them choose 6 to make a 30-card deck?

I may also have to look into doing some house-ruling, because the combat steps drag the game to a screeching halt once there's a big punch-up. The way outnumbering works and the impact of wounds on characters also seems to trap people into big confrontations, and that defeats the purpose of so many of the cool locations in the game.

[endgame]

I've attached the rules for the draft scenario and the cube list itself to this post. You'll need a PDF reader for the scenario, and LibreOffice for the cube list (though Excel might open it too? I don't know).

Attachments:

Draft Scenario.pdf (109.02 KB)

Draft Cube.ods (73.58 KB)

[nynax]

Yeah, cubing such an asymmetric game is difficult at best. You spend more time counter-drafting then getting things that you will actually use.

Some suggestions:

Every player has a primary and secondary deck (Marine/Alien, Alien/Rogue, Rogue/Predator, Predator/Marine) and they have to draft for both (the cards they get can go in both decks). Then you play with your primary decks, then secondary decks, then either the two winners 1v1, or you play to two wins, or a win with each deck, something like that. This gives you more options to draft and harder choices per pack - which deck do you strengthen? Also, you know that at least one other player will want the cards you want, and more picks reduces the times where you have to counter-pick. Should make the drafting aspect a lot more interesting and challenging, plus being able to play different factions can also be fun.

Another option is to make a draft pool that consists only of cards every/most factions can use (Adrenaline Rush, Dodge, Good Shot, etc.), and that is what you fight over. Then you get the rest of the cards from some other method. For example, you get random cards from your "faction" pool, and then draft based on what you get. Or, you can have each player choose a "packet" of cards based on a strategy (which can include both faction and non-faction cards) which fits best with what they drafted. For example, "packets" a Predator player would choose from may include close combat, ranged combat, mixed combat, stealth, combat pool oriented, and/or honor win oriented themes. This method should lead to a faster draft and quicker play experience, too.

One suggestion for the rules, let the Rogues be able to start with regular Weapons (or even a Lacrima 99 or Draco Double Burner). Otherwise, Distephano and the Nostromo crew would not start with a Weapon they can use (since you need the Rogue resource to use Prohibited Weapons), which makes them less likely to be used. Or just give all of the Rogue's Main Characters the Rogue resource.

[endgame]

I agree with just about everything you've said, but my playgroup would be exhausted trying to get through all of that. I need to set up something much simpler. It's got to be possible for them to make a few deckbuilding choices, shuffle up and play either a 1v1 or a big 4-way rumble.

I don't think I'll be putting any more work into a single cube, but if you do I'd be interested to hear how it turns out.