Editing Round 10/Proposal Ideas (section)

=== Booster Pack ===

With this proposal I want to make the game more competitive. As it stands, you can somewhat easily expect to collect a five-of-a-kind by winning a couple of auctions and trading a bit. I want to remove this strategy as a viable option because it's boring. I will do this by adding  and reorganizing a whole bunch of stuff.

* Add a bunch of suits.
** I was thinking that we could take inspiration from other European card decks.
** The cards we currently use are the French deck. We have Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, and Spades.
** The [[w:Spanish-suited playing cards|Spanish deck]] and the [[w:Italian playing cards#Italian-suited decks|Italian deck]] use Swords, Cups, Coins, and Clubs.
** The [[w:German-suited playing cards|German deck]] uses Acorns, Leaves, Hearts, and Bells.
** The [[w:Swiss-suited playing cards|Swiss deck]] has Bells, Shields, Roses, and Acorns.
** Combining these all together we can create a full twelve-suited deck with Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs, Spades, Swords, Cups, Coins, Acorns, Leaves, Bells, Shields, and Roses.
* Add a bunch of ranks.
** It will be to get N-of-a-kind hands if it's less likely for any given card to be chosen.
** We could also pull from real-life decks for this, specifically the royalty.
** Spanish decks have ''Sota'', ''Caballo'', and ''Rey''. The Sota is a Page or Jack character, but the Caballo is a Knight. We can steal that.
** Swiss and German decks have the ''Unter'' and ''Ober'' -- two servants instead of one servant and a queen or one servant and a knight. I'm not too big a fan of this, but we could take it anyway.
** [[w:500 (card_game)#Six-handed 500|Some variations]] of the card game 500 use a French-suited deck that has numbered cards going up to 13. Only red 13s are found in this version.
** Very strange idea: chess pieces? King, Queen, and Knight are already attested. Could we bring in Bishops and Rooks? Pawns can just be the pip cards. --[[User:CodeTriangle|CodeTriangle]] ([[User talk:CodeTriangle|talk]]) 05:58, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
** The biggest source for new ranks is probably [[w:Major Arcana|the Tarot deck's Major Arcana]], which can provide 22 new ranks.
*** These should probably be treated a bit differently than most other cards.
*** Real life Tarot decks don't assign suit to the Major Arcana. It may make sense to follow.
*** If we do that, we could make them less probable to appear and have several hands to create just out of the different Tarot cards.
*** This could potentially complicate the act of drawing cards. Having a split between the normal cards and the major arcana could also complicate rules-writing to a messy degree.
* Change hands to be variable-size.
** This will lower the commitment for the average player trying to join in on the bidding round.
** It will also allow us to create more complicated hands.
** You should be able to just submit the number of cards that make up the hand you're submitting. 
* Change the hand rankings and add some.
** In a departure from poker, we will want to change the rankings to reflect what hands are actually the hardest to create.
** We may want to dip into [[w:Non-standard poker hand|Non-standard poker hand]]s.
** I think we should focus on combinations of specific ranks and/or suits as trading for particular cards rather than any random card adds more strategy.
*** I have no ideas for this. Maybe a lot of jokes about the roles the cards play? Things in the vein of Nyhilo's suggestion of "So only 1 Klink, Rose, and Zeph is needed to create a Modteam. 3 card hand"
*** They don't have to be unique types of hands, though. Like a Royal Flush is just one kind of flush, some of these can be a specific version of another, broader type of hand. A king plus two or more knights could be a round table, for instance. --[[User:CodeTriangle|CodeTriangle]] ([[User talk:CodeTriangle|talk]]) 05:58, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
** Hand ideas:
*** Regional hands: include every suit from one of the four decks that we pull suits from (French, German, Swiss, or Spanish). For example, a Spanish four-of-a-kind could be the tens of Clubs, Swords, Cups, and Coins. This makes Hearts, Clubs, Bells, and Acorns the most valuable cards since they can be used in multiple regions' hands. This works best for four-card hands.
*** Same-suit N-of-a-kind: it will no longer be trivial to collect a lot of cards of the same suit and rank. If you have five kings of swords, for example, that would rank much higher than a normal five-of-a-kind.
*** Even longer sets and runs: Drawing inspiration from rummy, what if you can put out any set or run of cards, as long as you want (up to some reasonable maximum; for runs this is clearly just the number of distinct ranks, for sets the number of suits seems appropriate). To make this work, we might need to switch to a system where hands are scored based on multipliers rather than ranked from a table -- that would also allow us to implement the other set variants described above on lots of different hand types with maybe a little less overhead. --[[User:CodeTriangle|CodeTriangle]] ([[User talk:CodeTriangle|talk]]) 05:58, 8 July 2021 (UTC)
* Idea for a muliplier-based hand ranking system ([[User:CodeTriangle|CodeTriangle]] ([[User talk:CodeTriangle|talk]]) 19:29, 15 July 2021 (UTC)):
** Your final hand ranking is equal to ''bnm'' + ''r'' (''b'' = base rank, ''n'' = number of ranks in deck, ''m'' = multiplier, ''r'' = high rank in hand)
** A hand with a greater ''bm'' will always beat out a hand with a smaller ''bm'', and ''r''  is only important for distinguishing between two hands with equal ''bm''.
** Base values of different hands:
*** High card: 1. This means that your hand's rank is from 21-40. Probably no multipliers will be added to this.
*** ''X'' sets of ''Y'' cards (where ''X'' >= 1 and ''Y'' >= 2): ''XY''. I think this is fair. One set of two cards (one pair) has a base value of 2. Two sets of two cards (two pair) is double that, and something ludicrous like two sets of seven cards or seven sets of two cards has a base value of 14.
*** Run of ''X'' cards (where ''X'' >= 3?): ''X'', probably. Theoretically, one run of ''X'' is exactly as difficult to collect as one set of ''X'', even though we've had far more sets presented so far.
*** Flush (''X'' cards of the same suit): Probably something low, maybe even less than ''X'' since the Perfect bonus is going to be ridiculously valuable on its own.
*** Full House: Do we care about this one for reasons outside of the fact that it originated in Poker? In any case, probably not much higher than sets.
** Multipliers:
*** Natural: Hand consists of leaves, acorns, and roses.
*** Shiny: Hand consists of diamonds, bells, and coins.
*** Warring: Hand consists of clubs, swords, and shields.
*** Regional: Hand has exactly four suits and they form the suits of one regional deck.
*** Perfect: Hand has exactly one suit.

I'd love to hear everyone's ideas on this. Make sure to sign your name if you make any comments on the above. --[[User:CodeTriangle|CodeTriangle]] ([[User talk:CodeTriangle|talk]]) 23:36, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

==== Current Draft ====

<blockquote>
Amend rule '''Auctions''', subrule '''Lots''' by removing the sentence starting with "Each card is generated" and the tables following that sentence. 

Amend rule '''Items''' subrule '''Cards''' so that it reads:

:Cards are items. Each card has a rank and a suit. Cards with the same rank and suit are fungible. The values in the suit and rank table below are the only possible suits and ranks for cards. Ranks are sequential according to their ordering on the rank table; in particular, Ace is lower than 2, each number is lower than the number higher than it, 13 is lower than Unter Knave, and so on. Suits are sequential according to their ordering on the suit table.
:
:Cards belong to a tradition based on their suit:
:
:{| class="wikitable"
|+ Traditions
! Suits !! Tradition
|-
| Hearts, Diamonds, Spades, Clubs || French
|-
| Swords, Cups, Coins, Clubs || Spanish
|-
| Leaves, Hearts, Bells, Acorns || German
|-
| Bells, Acorns, Roses, Shields || Swiss
|}
:
:Cards belong to a color based on their suit:
:
:{| class="wikitable"
|+ Colors
! Suits !! Color
|-
| Hearts, Diamonds, Roses || Red
|-
| Spades, Clubs, Swords || Black
|-
| Leaves, Acorns, Shields || Green
|-
| Coins, Bells, Cups || Gold
|}
:
:To generate (draw) a card is to randomly choose a suit and rank by doing the following:
:# First, rolling a d12 to determine the suit of the card. The suit is the corresponding entry in the Suits table below.
:# Then, rolling a d20 to determine the rank. The result is the corresponding entry in the Ranks table below.
:
:{| class="wikitable"
|+ Suits
! d12 !! Suit 
|-
| 1 || Leaves
|-
| 2 || Diamonds
|-
| 3 || Cups
|-
| 4 || Clubs
|-
| 5 || Acorns
|-
| 6 || Roses
|-
| 7 || Bells
|-
| 8 || Swords
|-
| 9 || Shields
|-
| 10 || Hearts
|-
| 11 || Coins
|-
| 12 || Spades
|}
:
:{| class="wikitable"
|+ Ranks
! d20 !! Rank
|-
| 1 || Ace
|-
| 2-13 || 2-13
|-
| 14 || Unter Knave
|-
| 15 || Ober Knave
|-
| 16 || Knight
|-
| 17 || Bishop
|-
| 18 || Rook
|-
| 19 || Queen
|-
| 20 || King
|}

Amend Rule '''Auctions''', subrule '''Submiting a Hand''' by replacing "five distinct cards" with "a set of cards".

Amend Rule '''Auctions''', subrule '''Scoring''' to read:

:A hand's priority is defined as ''crm'' + ''h'' where ''c'' is the number of cards in that hand, ''r'' is the number of rules-defined ranks for cards, ''m'' is the product of the value of all multipliers that hand qualifies for, and ''h'' is the number associated with the highest rank in that hand.
:
:The following are multipliers for hands. A hand qualifies for a multiplier if everything in the ''Conditions'' column is true of the hand.
:
:{| class="wikitable"
! Name !! Conditions !! Value
|-
| Paired || The hand is composed wholly of cards of ''x'' distinct ranks, and there are ''y'' of each such rank in the hand (where ''x'' &ge; 1 and ''y'' &ge; 2).
| ''x'' + ''y''
|-
| Running || All cards in the hand are in sequential order and the hand is at least 3 cards in size.
| ''h''
|-
| Senatorial || Among the cards of the hand there is at least one Knight, one Bishop, and one Rook.
| 3
|-
| Regional || The suits of the cards in the hand include at least one of each suit in one particular card tradition and no other suits.
| 2
|-
| Monochrome || The suits of the cards in the hand include at least one of suit in one particular card color and no other suits.
| 3
|-
| Flushed || The suit of each card in the hand is the same and the hand is at least 4 cards in size.
| 4
|}

For each Jack that a player had before this proposal passed, give that player an Unter of the same suit.

If there are any Jacks, destroy them.

</blockquote>

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