BSG

Here is something that I've been considering and would like to bounce it off the group. When playing BSG in person I have found that it is much more difficult to track every single card being played and as such people are trying to rely on their memory and impressions a lot more and I actually like that dynamic. Online the game play seems to be tilted towards players who are very keen on keeping track of how every single card is played in and out of a deck. I'm wondering if there is a way we can tweak how cards are shuffled to obfuscate the deck contents a little more, or if anyone else would even be interested in that.

Just a thought.

BSG

Online the game play seems to be tilted towards players who are very keen on keeping track of how every single card is played in and out of a deck.

Dum dee dum dum dum...

The only thing I could think of that would balance this out is if, for instance, billytea edited his posts after a certain amount of time so we couldn't go back and verify everything that had been played when.

As far as relying on memory, though, it's different when a game takes a few hours as opposed to a few weeks. So the online record of actions and cards played is sort of a balance in itself.

BSG

Yeah, it didn't start out that way, but it's certainly seeming to be that way now. My downfalls were failures to calculate destiny deck stuff, etc. All that is stuff I could never do in an in-person game.

I'm not in this round, so my opinion is moot. But I also agree with Laga's thing about the IC. Which is the other side of obfuscation.

Loved Magic back in the day. Oddly enough, although I never took it very seriously, the fact that I have a complete Revised set still makes me inordinately happy.

Do you have any plans to sell it, or are you just keeping it for sentimental value?

I wish I'd started earlier (or, more accurately, had some of the older cards), but in order to get in on the ground floor (Alpha/Beta), I would've had to start at the tender age of 4. A smart-ass child I may have been, but I think the concept of resource management would have entirely eluded me in Pre-K.

Do you have any plans to sell it, or are you just keeping it for sentimental value?

I don't think I'd sell them, only because filling in the remaining gaps took a bit of time.

And it has a bizarrly morbid sentimental value as I completed the collection by doing ebay auctions from the hospital where my Dad was dying. I had time to fill, and Dartmouth Hospital provided computers with Internet.

At that time I had the first French cards (which is where I got into playing), which I did sell off to pay for the more expensive dual lands and such.

BSG

I don't have the skills to track which cards are played from turn to turn, but I appreciate that others do. Unless I'm a cylon. Then I hate it.

I have 6 3-ring binders full of M:tG cards that I haven't touched in years.

After a certain point, deck creation became "paralysis by analysis" and we stopped playing.

I haven't played Magic except when cajoled and I don't own any cards but two of my housemates do and there are currently Magic cards in at least four different rooms of this house.

BSG

Here is something that I've been considering and would like to bounce it off the group. When playing BSG in person I have found that it is much more difficult to track every single card being played and as such people are trying to rely on their memory and impressions a lot more and I actually like that dynamic. Online the game play seems to be tilted towards players who are very keen on keeping track of how every single card is played in and out of a deck. I'm wondering if there is a way we can tweak how cards are shuffled to obfuscate the deck contents a little more, or if anyone else would even be interested in that.

PBF does differ from F2F play in that it creates a paper trail, which makes things easier for humans generally, and card-coutners specifically. Conversely, Cylons don't have to worry about their body language giving them away, and can think more carefully about what they reveal. In practice it doesn't seem the Cylons are suffering too much.

However, there is one small variant that would at least make Destiny less predictable. Here's how it would work: I create a Destiny deck using three cards from each deck (so 18 in total). Whenever the deck gets down to 6 cards, I shuffle in another two cards from each deck. Makes Destiny harder to predict, and it never gets to the point where a card counter can say "there are two cards left and I know what they both are".

Would people like to try this?

BSG

That actually sounds like a pretty cool variant to me.