Mr Pickles of Botolph Lane - the Card Game

[Jubal]

MR PICKLES: THE CARD GAME

Backstory
Mr Pickles of Botolph Lane is a kindly old wizard who lives with his cat, Snoozleby, and a number of other companions and occasional guests.

For more details on how on earth this was created:

Spoiler

The full story behind this starts with a time when someone knocked on my door and asked if I was Mr Pickles. I sadly had to inform the delivery guy that I was not, whereupon two things happened. Firstly, the guy went to try the next house. Secondly, I realised that there was, or had been, a Mr Pickles of Botolph Lane. I informed a friend of this, whereupon it was swiftly decided that he was a wizard with a cat called Snoozleby. Added to the family was soon the pre-existing character of Harold the Buntopus, and then it sort of spiralled out of control...

The Game
In the Mr Pickles game, the secrets of one of the artefacts of Botolph Lane must be uncovered. The artefacts will often not make this easy, however, and so it's a race against time to work through the house's various challenges and gain "curiosities" and items that can be used to unravel the mystery. The game consists of drawing and playing cards and using items to attempt quests, which allow the win conditions to be met. It is played collaboratively.

There is a deck of ARTEFACT cards; each artefact has

Also selected at the start of the game, there are CHARACTER cards. Each character card has a number of stats - MAGIC, DREAMS, VIGOUR, and FRIENDLINESS - which may be tested throughout the game. A stat test is usually done by attempting to roll less than or equal to the number on 2d6. Each character also has a bonus special ability.

Each player starts with one ITEM card and can gain more from quests. Usually only one item card can be played each turn - playing a card can have significant benefits, though item cards may also be needed in order to be used to complete quests or fulfil win conditions. There is a large range of items in the deck.

To gain items or curiosities, the QUEST cards are needed. These will give a set of conditions to be met, which a player can attempt. All conditions are effectively attempted simultaneously. If the quest conditions are met, certain gains will be made.

~To Be Completed~

[Glaurung]

I think the Spoons of McCoy should be somewhere in the game (if they're not already), though I don't know whether they are an item or an artefact.

[Jubal]

They're an item card that allows you to automatically complete one quest, regardless of the requirements

(The exception being the quest "Why?"which cannot be completed under any circumstances)

[Pentagathus]

Sounds bitching.

[Glaurung]

They're an item card that allows you to automatically complete one quest, regardless of the requirements

Glad to hear it.

(The exception being the quest "Why?"which cannot be completed under any circumstances)

Something in me says that there should be an item "Because" that is the only thing allowing the completion of "Why?", but I don't know how this would work with the game dynamics.

In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing this in action, and I can probably be persuaded to do some game testing.

[Jubal]

The joke with the "Why" card would then, alas, be ruined, given that its quest reward is not actually included in the game (being, in fact, a trained performing elephant shrew. I'm not sure if you even can train elephant shrews, so I'm keen not to have to provide anyone with one).

[Jubal]

I ran a couple of testing games at the Birmingham tabletop soc yesterday.

Game 1
Artefact: The Extradimensional Mirror (essentially, alt-versions of the players race them to get 12 curiosities)
Players: The Spirit of Aethelflaed, Mr Pickles, Phlogisten Pickles, Mrs Mollish
Results: In the event, a comfortable win for the players, though only with a bit of luck on the way. The players had a well tooled up team for getting bonus curiosities (Phlogisten can exchange items for curiosities, Mr Pickles can duplicate them, Aethelflaed cannot use items and gains curiosities instead if she would gain any), which was a good start for this artefact. Team Mirror, on the other hand, had a very effective start, with Aethelflaed's two perfect stats meaning alt-Aethelflaed got them rapidly up to six curiosities when we still only had one or two. However, two fortunate things occurred; the alt-team are obliged to attempt all three of the top quests on the deck, and one required discarding three curiosities, thus radically reducing their lead whilst giving them a bunch of items (which they can't use). At this point, the game stalled; both teams were confounded by the fact that we were Out Of Milk, a quest that prevents any other quests being attempted until it is solved. All the players AND the mirror team failed to complete it running; fortunately on the second round of milk-hunting Mrs Mollish (played by myself) successfully obtained milk; the reward, a curiosity each, gave us a very significant leg up and put us close to winning. A bit of trickery from the wizards and a couple more quest completion sealed the victory.

We started game 2 with the Barometer of Aeolus, lost in 1 turn, and concluded that the Barometer may need work.

Game 2
Artefact: The Swirling Maze (Time Limited, get 8 curiosities then complete a "bonus quest" that increases in difficulty)
Players: The Adorable Eldritch Horror, The Attic Spiders' Autonomous Collective, Johnwise Cribbins The Even Shorter, The Meepasaur
Results: A very slow start for the players; many of the early quests required combinations of stats that were difficult, especially as the noisy baby next door quest was in the initial pile, which made dreams-related quests nigh impossible. The neighbours caused significant problems, with the "noisy baby next door" driving Johnwise to enquire about the possibility of baby-eating (the character gets bonuses on food related quests), and after it was solved by Johnwise the "noisy cat next door" showing up soon thereafter. Once the Adorable Eldritch Horror had calmed the cat down, things started to look up a little; but by this stage we were five turns through the game and hadn't even gained the curiosities we needed. Johnwise successfully inviting a deity to tea certainly helped matters, and finally we had the necessary curiosities - but time was running out. Fortunately, the Attic Spiders were ready to help out with ensuring someone had a good chance of succeeding, making a series of item swaps. Johnwise soon had a soul and a bottle of port; as turn eight drew to a close (now needing four rolls running of each stat to win, Johnwise took a deep swig of the port, and our last plan went into action. Firstly, discarding three precious curiosities (though still just holding eight between us, the Meepasaur had got us to eleven in total), Johnwise investigated symbiosis - during these investigation, he found the friendly, snuffly face of Harold the Buntopus, whose friendliness and strength neatly complimented Johnwise's port-addled, dream-infused state. Together, buntopus and halfling entered the maze; dice roll by dice roll, they passed through each twist and turn, finally completing it. Success!

Player feedback:
"That's adorable" - player, referring to the Meepasaur
"So we're adorable, adorable, adorable, nopenopenope?" - referring to the Meepasaur, Eldritch Horror, Johnwise, and the Spiders, in that order.
"This is even more fun than Chrononauts" - I was particularly chuffed at this feedback; we had played Chrononauts just before game 1, in a game that mostly consisted of people repeatedly murdering JFK and was eventually won by me via a total fluke involving John Lennon abolishing the Second Amendment.

[Tall Guy Productions]

Sure sounds like you guys are having a blast! Would like to see some of the card design / texts etc when you feel like it

[Jubal]

The cards are currently just paper with the basic details scribbled on - I need to start thinking about art but don't know what style to go for...

> Pixel art has the very big advantage that I wouldn't need to hire an artist, though it would still take me a while I suspect. I think it might work quite well, too, though I'm not sure as it's not a very "computerish" setting necessarily...
> "Realistic" style could look very cool, but would probably cost most for an artist to do. Given the number of cards it would easily require a fairly successful kickstarter to even get someone to have a go at that.
> "Cartoonish" characters could be cute but I'm not sure it would work so well somehow. Almost because of how surreal it all is already, I worry that making the images too surreal would push that too far.

Any thoughts, anyone?

[Glaurung]

I'm sure good artwork of whatever sort would be nice, but I don't know that it's necessary for getting the game launched, at least for an initial small distribution. You could just have text on the cards, or indeed provide descriptions of the characters etc., and invite the players to do their own artwork.

[Jubal]

Possibly, it just depends on distribution & production method & strategy I suppose. It's quite a competitive market now so I feel like anything that didn't look pretty polished would be less than competitive for any sort of distribution.

[catty_big]

Lovely idea. I really enjoy games that play on various traditional British tropes, such as old country houses, cucumber sandwiches and country vicars etc. Will look through all the info at some point and may well come up with some (probably totally useless) ideas for you that can accept or reject as you please .

[Jubal]

Yes, sure I can send you a full copy of the card set if you'd like a better browse through it?