Jade Sabre

Well, here's the Jade Sabre.  I tried to give it abilities reflective of what was in the Vector Prime book.

I'm going to start putting a period after the unique letters so as not conflict with WOTC or IDC lettering.

Nom Anor

Well, here's the first Yuuzhan Vong card.  I added a new side symbol despite my statement that I intended for the Vong to be played as Neutral units.  This is for the adventurous out there among you who might want to play the Vong as a totally different side.  I have thoughts on that if you wish to discuss.  Obviously, I'll have some Red Knights of Life units for this card to have an affect on.  Either way, when you first encounter Nom Anor in Vector Prime, he is fomenting conflict on Rhommamool heading the Red Knights of Life.  This card was made with that in mind.

Which one of you did this to your house?!

Well, this isn't at my house.  So which one of you did this??

Ladies First

I know, I know.  I create a Yuuzhan Vong set and the first finished card I post isn't a Vong.  Well, all I can say is that similar to masses of cougar women to teenage girls who are either on Team Jacob or Team Edward, I'm on a team too.  To protest the vile vampire creation I joined Team Leia (in the slave outfit of course), so its fitting that she lead off this set. 

I had a few misadventures with templates and compatibility with Photoshop.  The ones that were hanging out there on the web from awhile ago didn't get along with my Photoshop software.  So, I found a post on Rebelbasers that had a link to some, but they were for Corel.  Downloaded a free version, converted to Adobe, but a few things were lost in the translation, but it'll work.  Might not be as precisely perfect as the IDC, but c'est la vie.

So, here it is...the first card of my Vector Prime SWTCG set.  It is "Leia Organa Solo (A)."  If you've read the book, you might remember she had some run-ins with various nefarious characters on the diplomatic/political front.  That inspired a card that gave Leia an ability to negatively affect an opponent's diplomats as a reflection of her skills in the political arena.

First Card

I'll probably have a first card out by the end of the weekend...maybe.  I have to stretch my Photoshop muscles first.  I found a sybol to use as the set icon.  I've got the fonts or the ones closest to the real thing that I can find. 

Card Texts Done, But...

Oops...something I didn’t consider when creating this blog posting files other than pictures or videos. Can’t be done...so far as I can see at the moment. Otherwise, I’d post the Sywlkr spreadsheet version of the cards and a MS Word doc with a listing of the cards with some flavor text and some notes on what I was thinking with a particular card or just random notes here and there on the cards. I’ll place a teaser card text at the bottom of this post. Otherwise, I’ll get on Rebelbasers (http://rebelbaser.proboards.com/index.cgi) and people can exchange email addresses in a slightly more discreet manner than me posting mine here.

The big question I pondered with this project is what do I do with the Yuuzhan Vong since they are “outside” the Force? My initial thought was to make them a separate faction; that is Light Side, Dark Side, and then the Vong (well Neutral I suppose as well). Which faction then becomes the trump? Meaning, Dark Side goes first, wins all ties, etc. Should the Vong move into that position? They way the Vong tore things up through the first 16 or so books of the New Jedi Order would seem to indicate that this would seem a reasonably possibility. But what of all the rules implications of making that switch and introducing a new faction to the game in such a manner. Thinking about that made my head hurt. Although, it be new element to the game to help keep it fresh. Still figuring all the rules implications out would cause me to buy a Costco size bottle of aspirin or spend many hour partaking of “cultural beverages.” So, I went with my other idea...play them as Neutral cards. I thought this eased their integration into the game. There’s still some complications...they’re not really neutral per se in the Star Wars universe. So, to play the Vong, I’m thinking you’d have to build it as a Vong deck as opposed to a Neutral deck with a few Vong mixed in. If I had time to go through and figure out all the implications on the rules, I’d make them a separate faction.

Another major issue with the Vong and SWTCG is the Force. The Vong are outside the Force so how can they legitimately use the Force for activated abilities, etc.? Initially this concept didn’t click in my head and I wrote up some Vong cards saying pay x Force to get result y. But I went back and changed all that. None of the Vong cards (unless I missed something when reviewing them) use the Force, they use build points instead. This puts them at a bit of a disadvantage I thought then in terms of game mechanics. Well, along comes Resource cards that weren’t around when I started this project a while ago. Although, I suppose I could have done this with Location cards. Either way, I redid one of my Location cards and made a Resource card that generates a couple of build points each turn and can be used as a bit of a build point bank to compensate for losing use of the Force generated for each side during a turn. Not sure if I overcorrected for the imbalance of the Vong losing the Force game mechanic...will probably only know through playing with the card in a Vong deck.

I ended up with 254 card ideas for Vector Prime. It is definitely low on Ground units and, given the story line of the book, nearly absent of Dark Side cards. Ignore the card version letters for now on the unique units who have already appeared in SWTCG. I didn’t adjust them for IDC expansions that came out in between the time I started this and now. I also didn’t fill out the unit abilities/actions portion of the spreadsheet yet.

Teaser Card:

(Battle) (Common) (Neutral) “Patang Scale of Aero-Techno Advancement” Cost: 0 Pay 3 Force -> Your Space unit with the lowest speed gets speed equal to your opponent's Space unit with the highest speed or your opponent's Space unit with the highest speed gets speed equal to your Space unit with the lowest speed. Flavor Text: “Perfectly ridiculous scale.” – C-3PO

Vector Prime Notes

The Genesis.  The main catalyst to my efforts to create a Star Wars Trading Card Game (SWTCG) expansion came from poking around on the internet one day trying to see what kinds of decks other people were building.  That led me to several places including Rebelbasers.com.  It also yielded another website: Star Wars TCG Independent Development Committee (IDC). 

After looking over the IDC’s expansions they had out at the time, I thought there is only so much the IDC could do in terms of expansions.  There are only six movies.  There are the cartoons and video.  Essentially there were a finite number of sources for imagery for the cards, which therefore limits the number of expansions.  I thought to venture into the infinite…well…quasi-infinite at any rate.  My thought was there was a tremendous amount of material to inspire cards contained in the multitude of books. Ah, but there is one big problem relative to making SWTCG cards with that idea…no images to put on the card.

Well, I intended to not let that bother me.  So, onward I marched into the world of SWTCG card creation.  The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back was the finding of the Star Wars Artists Guild website with a treasure trove of artwork there to use as images for the cards.  Not to mention there’s a good deal of Star Wars images out there on the ‘net to begin with.

Card Creation Methodology.  My initial plan was to simply gather a notebook, Vector Prime, and a pencil and start taking notes on potential cards.  If I may get truly Star Wars geeky, I intended let the “force” guide me in regards to card ideas.  Meaning, I did not set forth with some grand plan in mind to develop new game mechanics or create new abilities that were thematic throughout the set.  I simply wanted to read a passage and translate what I read into existing SWTCG game mechanics if it seemed worthy of doing so.

            Initially, I failed on both of those intentions.  When I started, I neglected to remember a certain fact about the Yuuzhan Vong (YV): they are outside the Force for all intents and purposes.  Hmmm…how do I treat them then?  They certainly aren’t from the Light or Dark Side of the Force.  So neutral right?  That gave me pause to think as well.  Neutral still implied (to me) that you are part of the Force, where as the YV are not.  My first potential departure from my original intent was to possibly add something (the YV) outside the existing SWTCG rules, abilities, etc. to the game.  In the end, I decided against adding a fourth faction to the Light Side, Dark Side, and Neutral factions.  Instead I thought it better to treat the YV as Neutral.  However, later I’ll put out a possible tweak/addition to the rules for the SWTCG community’s consideration on the use of Force in regards to playing YV card/decks.  The big thing is that YV cards won’t be able to use Force for any activated abilities, etc.  I’m fine tuning my idea on how to handle that loss of a resource that the Light and Dark Sides can use so as to keep game play on even footing.  I also may use a different symbol instead of the Neutral icon on the card to designate it as a YV card when the name doesn’t make it blatantly obvious it’s a YV card.

            My second almost failure in regards to following my intentions was I created a new ability, but I decided against it because I remembered I didn’t want to create any new abilities and it was a bit of a hybrid of two existing abilities.  I may save it for later expansions.  (Yes, later expansions…whether people use this or not, I had fun doing it.)

     Back on track…so that’s what I did.  I sat down with Vector Prime and took notes on potential cards.  I then created another sheet within my copy of the IDC’s Skywlkr Deckbuilder and translated my notes into actual text to be used on the physical cards.  After I did that, I then took up the task of creating the visual cards.  That was, as I said in my first post, about four years ago.  I thought I had lost some of the work I had done on the actual cards from file migration from one computer to another, but found the initial cards I created just this morning.  Looking at them, however, I’ll need to recreate them.  Mainly because I found the proper fonts (I didn’t have them before.) or, at least, fonts that are closer to the real thing than what I had used before.  And, for whatever reason I cannot recall, I saved them in a format where I can’t simply go in and change the font.  Go figure.

The Result.  What I ended up with is a 255ish card rough draft of an expansion of the SWTCG called Vector Prime…so far.  In the intervening time, the IDC introduced Resource cards.  So, I’m going back through to see if there is a way to use those in this set.  What the expansion is not: balanced.  I did not go in with any goals for creating a certain number of cards, card types, etc.  As I mentioned before, I just re-read the book and let the book make the cards, so to speak.  If it was in the book, it could potentially be a card.  That left me with a rather unbalanced expansion especially in terms of Ground units.  Most of the action of the book took place in space, so that left the Yuuzhan Vong short when it came to ground units.  There also was not a whole lot of variety to draw upon when it came to Yuuzhan Vong Space units.  So, a Yuuzhan Vong deck would have to be heavily supplemented with Neutral cards.

Welcome

Well, the SWTCG has been out of publication for a few year now, but I still like it and miss it.  Not that I got a chance to play it all that much, yet it stuck with me.  Then when I thought all was lost when WoTC dropped SWTCG, along came the Independent Development Committee (IDC).  What a tremendous group to put so much work into a game to keep it alive.  As I'm sure with  quite a few folks who play TCGs, we think we can make cards too.  Well, I joined the ranks of those folks and this is my blog regarding my efforts.  Although, unlike some folks I see in forums, I just don't have a "dream card" or two to post.  Nope, I went out and developed a whole set...numbering 255 cards at the moment.  I'm reviewing them now and I may nix a few cards and add a couple.  This effort started about four years ago, but life and kids always seemed to prevent me from returning to the effort.  Perhaps the some of the same reasons the IDC took a hiatus.

Either way, not only am I in the process of completing a whole set, I decided to go where no man has gone before...to card material where there was no readily available graphics to put on the cards.  Yes, the set I'm making is called "Vector Prime" and is based upon the first book in the New Jedi Order series of books published in the Star Wars realm.  How can you do this you ask?  Well, first I'm stubborn.  Second, it isn't exactly an original idea.  WoTC used non-film clip graphics in their cards and it seems in the interim between when I started this effort and am now revisiting it Fantasy Flight Games entered the Star Wars card game arena and they're not using film clips at all.  They're using all original art.  Still the question remains, how can I do this...it's not like I'm an artist.  Well, there is plenty of Star Wars art out there on the web.  There's even a Star Wars Artists Guild out there.  I will first search the web for a graphic, then I will go to the Star Wars Artists Guild if I get stuck for a graphic.  Now, it's not going to be a perfect effort in that I'm not necessarily going to find the perfect graphic for each card, but there will be a decent graphic for each card.  At least, that is my intent. 

In a later post, I'll discuss how I plan to handle introducing the Yuuzhan Vong in to the SWTCG environment.

Of course, I, like the IDC, do not claim, nor ever has claimed, any rights to the legal ownership of Star Wars: The Trading Card Game, its rules, ideas, production or designs. I, likewise, do not intend infringement on the properties of Wizard of the Coast or Lucasfilm, Ltd., with the intention of making a profit. Any virtual card sets or rules will be developed for the TCG fan, with no charge for services or products rendered.

(Sorry IDC.  I saw no reason to reinvent the wheel on a such a well written legal disclaimer, so I used yours.)

P.S.  Yes I'm mixing some Star Trek phrases into my blog, but I was inspired by George Takei's mediation of the Shatner/Fisher feud to make peace and focus on the real enemy: Twilight!