# RPG trading card Games..  How to play?



## jeff.s.p (Nov 30, 2011)

I've been scouring the internet for several hours trying to understand the concept (Rules) behind "Trading Gard" Games.
There are countless games out there, but I've yet to find a single site/  you tube video which actually explains how to play... in simple basic  terms.

Every game, no doubt has their own rules, but surely there must be some common threads among them.

I grew up playing computer quest games,  ie Dungeons and Dragons, etc..  so I'm somewhat familiar with the genre, but the Card Games seem to be 
quite different.

Is there a book, or website out there that can direct me to a simple explanation / breakdown.?

Sorry for the noob question.

Thanks

Jeff


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## Quokka (Nov 30, 2011)

I played a bit of Magic the Gathering when I was younger (and a bit of  the online version later) and as far as I know, they mostly follow the  same idea that the cards are broken up into different groups of options  ie. monsters, spells, enchantments etc and they all have a type of  rock-paper-scissor relation with other cards.

So one deck might use a lot of fire monsters which will be great if the  opponent has forrest animals not so good if the opponent likes water  animals/spells.

Often the different cards will reward you with some type of bonus based  on the amount of the same group you use. Encouraging you to play a  certain way and not just use random cards. In magic at least these were  called 'themed' decks, you could play with any cards you wanted but  themed decks gave you a lot of advantages... and usually left you weak  against a different themed deck. 

There will be some type of a cost system to use the cards so you also  can't just stack the deck with super tough kill everyone spells and lay  them all on the table come round one (... oh, there are also rounds).  There will usually be heaps of rules about what beats what and who can  use what cards when but in the end you basically end up with one  opponent attacking, all the cards he/she uses create a certain attack  number and the other player tries to use their cards to defend, counter attack  or keep enough health to survive until their turn to attack.

This link has the basic rule book to magic and will probably explain it a lot better than me .

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Article.aspx?x=magic/rules


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## TheTomG (Nov 30, 2011)

Each would be different, from what I've tried though it goes like this.

You have certain cards representing physical things (creatures, artifacts, pokemon, etc)

You have certain cards representing certain actions (spells, etc)

You have certain cards representing energy.

It's turn based, so you play energy each turn, ready to use once it's in play. Usually only one energy per turn can be placed out, so you gradually accumulate more and more energy to use as you take more and more turns.

To bring a creature or into play, or take an action, you need to have enough energy out to do that as there is a cost. You "tap" the energy to take the action or bring out the item.

Once in play, creatures or items can do various things, usually attack and defend (they have a rating that shows their attack and defence power) and they may have special abilities too which may or may not cost energy.

And that, in a nutshell, is it. The rest is all variations in what the energy is called, fine details on how attacks are resolved, and so on.

Hope this helps!


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## jeff.s.p (Dec 1, 2011)

Thanks for the detailed replies..


I've been familiarizing myself through some You tube videos.
Didn't realize trading card games (Magic) were so complicated.

thanks again..

Jeff


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## phineusbright247 (Mar 1, 2012)

well same here.....i thought these couldn't get any tougher than the pokemon trump card game we used to play at school...........this is complicated stuff.......








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## Warren_Paul (Mar 3, 2012)

It's not hard to play Magic: The Gathering, or competition games. 

The rules are simple.

What is hard is learning how to make all the cards work best together. Developing winning strategies is the hard part. 


<--- Played in local tournaments.


With MTG you have a deck of 60 cards, following a particular theme/strategy. You start the game with 20 health and a hand of 7 cards, and draw 1 card per turn from your deck, but you are not allowed to have more than 7 cards in your hand when you finish your turn.

There are three types of cards:

Mana - you are allowed to play one of these cards per turn. You 'tap' mana cards to draw power from them, enough to cast spells or summon creatures. Each card will specify how many mana cards you need to tap to afford it. If you do not have enough mana cards in play you cannot cast that spell.

Creatures - These cards have attack and defense values. Each turn you have to option to attack the other player with these cards, but if you use the creature to attack, you will not always be able to defend yourself when it is the other players turn to attack you back. The defending player can use their own creatures to block your attacks. If one creature's attack value is higher than the other creatures defense value, it will kill that creature. If a creature's attack is not blocked you deal damage to the player.

Spells - These cards are where your strategies happen. They can do many things, like dealing damage directly to your opponent or their creatures. Weakening your opponents creatures, or strengthening your own. Preventing the opponent from being able to block your attacks, and much more...


Most players create 60 card decks based around a particular theme, or colour. In MTG there are 5 different colours: White, Black, Red, Green, Blue. Each of the colours have their unique types of creatures and spells that the other colours cannot do. 

When you pick a colour, there is matching mana cards you have to use to be able to play cards of that colour. Some players pick more than one colour for their decks, so they have to split the mana cards, picking a bit of both colours.


The player wins when they get their opponent's health down to 0.


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## Patrick Mahon (Mar 3, 2012)

I must admit that the first time I came across Magic: the Gathering, it sounded really complicated. However, I got hold of a starter deck, which had an instruction leaflet with it that showed, turn by turn, an illustration game to follow for the first few moves. Once I'd played through that once, everything was clear - at least as far as the basic rules were concerned.

So I'd recommend getting hold of a starter set and learning by doing. After that it can get a lot more complicated, but you can happily play at a relatively basic level for ever, if you want to.

Good luck!


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## Keldaris (Mar 3, 2012)

The thing that makes learning magic hard is they keep changing the bloody rules, I've played from alpha onward to the torment/judgment sets. they revised rules with almost every bloc(3 sets of cards)>.< 

A turn is made up of several phases:
1:untap phase(untap your all "tapped" cards)

2:draw Phase: draw one card

3:main phase(lay land, cast creatures/enchantments/artifacts/sorcery)

4.1:attack phase: declare attackers(creatures have summoning sickness and can't attack(or use abilities that require tapping them) the same turn you cast them), tap all attacking creatures
       4.2 Block: opponent declares blockers(or takes the hit to their life total)
       4.3 combat: all damage is resolved as well as any effects caused by the     attacking/blocking creatures
5:second main phase: same as first main phase
6:end turn(opponent may use any untapped land to cast instants, or activated abilities on creatures before their turn officially begins)


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