Magic: The Gathering Camp

[Hyena Dandy]

Hey, guys. So, those of you who've known me on CS know that every summer I work at a D&D camp. The money's good, kids are great, I love it. I just got called back this year.

But the head honchos at the Lexplorations office (who set up and run these camps) suggested that we do a Magic: The Gathering camp this year instead of one of our D&D weeks.

I talked to Mr. G (who runs the D&D camp) about it when he called, and my thoughts boiled down to 'This would be a bad idea'

Then I thought... Is there any way it could work? Is there any way we could run a Magic: The Gathering summer camp in a manner that all the little kiddlywinks could have fun at it?

[siead_lietrathua]

the problem with MTG is there are some people who are very hardcore into it, that ruin the fun for everyone else. i wont even go to the gameclub on MTG night because of their behaviour :/
i think if you kept it casual and maybe added it as an optional night activity to the dnd camp it might not be too bad but for a full week? i could see shit going down.

[Andara Bledin]

The difficulty with M:TG as a camp idea is that it's rather expensive, and, much of the time, the one with the most money wins. There's just no way to make it fair unless you restrict everybody to starter decks, and that takes a lot of the fun out of it.

^-.-^

[siead_lietrathua]

draft-decks work too but that's alot of money for the camp to be outputting.

[Kheldarson]

Alternative idea: A MTG night/day. Make it a draft tournament or three headed giant or have tournaments for various levels of play.

We used to do a night at the Boy Scout camp I worked at. It usually had good turnout for just casual play. But hardcore players always played together. The guy in charge usually ensured that. Or if there were few casual players, he'd let those kids use his decks (I should note this guy plays regularly and works at, last I heard, Star City games so he's got the cards) to give an equal playing field.

But a whole week would either cost the camp a fortune or have a lot of hard feelings by the end of it.

[Hyena Dandy]

Exactly my concern. D&D is co-operative. M:TG is competitive.

[Kheldarson]

I wouldn't be to concerned about the competitive edge of the game as much as the fallout from it. Given a fair starting point that's reasonable (draft tourney) and equal opportunity to do well (everybody offered tutoring by counselors if wanted), you'll have fun and learn and not have too many hurt feelings. Given unfair starting points (be it using your own cards or forced to start from a starter deck) and unequal opportunities (build by yourself), then you're going to have frustration and turn people away.

[Gravekeeper]

Being a game designer and having come up with a few such events myself in the past:

You'll need to use starter decks ( outside decks would just ruin this utterly ;p ). Sort them out into basic prebuilt decks based on colour. Divide kids into three teams: White, Blue and Green ( The Hogwarts approach. White, Blue and Green Wizards ). Give yourself and the counselors Red and Black ( The ebil colours ). Now run it similar to D&D, but use M:TG as the combat system.

IE have story lines and quests you would run as a normal DM ( even use D&D modules just snip the combat for M:TG ), but they have to use their decks for combat. While you guys use your decks to fight them with house rules limitations ( IE for encounters you guys can put out 4 creatures and use 1 spell per encounter and they only have to kill your creatures to win the encounter ). Then the "last boss" would be taking one of you guys on as a team/party. You can stack your own decks and start with an army of creatures already out, but you have to face all the kids in one group at once. So they will eventually kick your arse, and you can adjust your ruthlessness level accordingly so you aren't crushing dreams and hurting feelings.

That way they can compete indirectly with other teams by how well they do in the day's events/modules/quests. Also, new cards can be "found" in place of treasure during modules and the gold they earn during modules can be used to "buy" new Magic cards from a pool of reserve cards you guys have. So they can build and customize their decks, but you have full control over the card stock in the camp.

They can also trade with each other of course.

[Hyena Dandy]

I wouldn't be to concerned about the competitive edge of the game as much as the fallout from it.

Yeah, these kids tend to be a little EW-y... They don't like the idea of LOSING.

Being a game designer and having come up with a few such events myself in the past:

You'll need to use starter decks ( outside decks would just ruin this utterly ;p ). Sort them out into basic prebuilt decks based on colour. Divide kids into three teams: White, Blue and Green ( The Hogwarts approach. White, Blue and Green Wizards ). Give yourself and the counselors Red and Black ( The ebil colours ). Now run it similar to D&D, but use M:TG as the combat system.

IE have story lines and quests you would run as a normal DM ( even use D&D modules just snip the combat for M:TG ), but they have to use their decks for combat. While you guys use your decks to fight them with house rules limitations ( IE for encounters you guys can put out 4 creatures and use 1 spell per encounter and they only have to kill your creatures to win the encounter ). Then the "last boss" would be taking one of you guys on as a team/party. You can stack your own decks and start with an army of creatures already out, but you have to face all the kids in one group at once. So they will eventually kick your arse, and you can adjust your ruthlessness level accordingly so you aren't crushing dreams and hurting feelings.

That way they can compete indirectly with other teams by how well they do in the day's events/modules/quests. Also, new cards can be "found" in place of treasure during modules and the gold they earn during modules can be used to "buy" new Magic cards from a pool of reserve cards you guys have. So they can build and customize their decks, but you have full control over the card stock in the camp.

They can also trade with each other of course.

Very... Interesting idea. I'll send this along to Mr. G.

[Gravekeeper]

Very... Interesting idea. I'll send this along to Mr. G.

We only did weekend events in the summer using a home brew system that was half cards, half dice. Out in the woods in the nature trails. The staff running the event would dress up and be the monsters, store keepers, etc. While the kids wandered around "adventuring" trying to find treasure and what not that was hidden about the trails. Combat was handled with dice and cards ( picture cards represented your equipment, items and treasure ), so "monsters" would run up to you and roll dice at you. >.>

The troll was the worst. Big hairy bastard and if he was "killed" he came back into play 15 minutes later in a rage with two other "trolls" that ran around the trails screeching and chasing kids.

[Mytical]

Now I want to sign up to help out in this camp! Sounds like a load of fun if done as GK suggests.

[gremcint]

I think that Gravekeeper's way would be best, set aside a spot for people to play whatever they want just as fun games outside the main events. You will probably need to impose rules about selling cards, but trading should be allowed.

One suggestion I may make is the final boss also uses archenemy cards.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_...ring_Archenemy

and maybe similar to the current video games they unlock new cards as they go along, because like a roleplaying game they should have their characters acquire stuff as they go along and get better equipment.


Be prepared for games to take a long time.

[siead_lietrathua]

also if trades are going on, make sure you can have a computer somewhere with the trade value of the cards up. i've seen players scam newbies out of rares for lands before because they didnt know it was a valuable card

EDIT

Even making house-trade rules could work. assigning diffrent levels of cards (land, common, rare, shiny varients, etc) into numbers 1 and up from lowest (land) to highest (shiny rare). then they can just trade based on value. so if someone wants a common(3) but only has land(1) they need to trade 3 land for a common. or a common and two land for a rare (5) or commons straight across for common.

[Hyena Dandy]

We're looking into it.

[Fire_on_High]

I'm gonna go against what the first few posters said. It isn't ALL about money, or at least didn't used to be.

I used to wail on opponents with a deck I put together for around $7. It was tourney legal at the time, about 10-12 years ago, and absolutely pounded the crap out of a number of decks that had proven themselves at regionals. White weenie, with shadow, flying, first strike, and as a last ditch, banding. It was fast, it was ultra aggressive, it was cheap, in every sense of the word.

Later on I threw a few more bucks at the deck bringing the total spent to around maybe $25, most of the addition being 2 Serras. I still have it, and hubby still hates when I play it.

All of that said, GK's idea rocks and I'd love to see something like that myself.