Verse Database: Joshua's Stand
ID: PRO-SM-013 BSC SM2014 Learning
Verse: OT, Joshua 24:15
Text: “Choose you this day whom ye will serve… but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
Verse Rule: EFFECT: Seek: "Serve/Service/Servant"
Sacrifice Cost: 1
Markers: Strength
Icons: S F T
This is another really good seek verse. It could play really well in a preconstructed deck, as long as you make sure there are a lot of “service” texts available, like Helping Man, Helping God, or Which to Serve?
Seeker’s Quest! It’s the most fun you can have with your scriptures! To get the game, and get in on the fun, go to https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/seeker-s-quest-scripture-mastery-set
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
Verse Database: God and Moses
ID: PRO-SM-009 BSC Learning SM Legacy
Verse: OT, Exodus 33:11
Text: “And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend”
Verse Rule: EFFECT: Seek: "Man/Men"
Sacrifice Cost: 1
Markers: Histories
Icons: H L
We, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day saints believe that God has always spoken with prophets. He did so in ancient days, and he does again, now.
Combos, tips: This is a great verse to use to fetch up The Work of God or The Glory of God. If you have both of these in a chapter, you can close it up as a book, regardless of the icons. Having a verse like this one to get those two verses into your hand can speed up that process!
Rulings:
Errata: Revised, verse rule previously read: EFFECT: Keyword: "Man/Men"
Seeker’s Quest! It’s the most fun you can have with your scriptures! To get the game, and get in on the fun, go to https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/seeker-s-quest-scripture-mastery-set
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
So, this week, I was all excited to start working on the Title of Liberty cardset, printing them out and getting them cut and sleeved, ready for playtesting. By the way, if you want to help playtest, just email me!
Then my son and I were talking about decks from the Scripture Mastery set, and he started wondering out loud if he could make a One-Turn-Kill deck. In Yu-Gi-Oh, that's where you kill off your opponent in, obviously, one turn. In this case, it would be a One-Turn-Win, since nobody dies in Seeker's Quest.
I thought, No way. It can't happen. I've set all of the verses where you receive blessings to have high sacrifice costs. But he thought that he could get enough draw verses going to overcome that. I was still skeptical, but I was, honestly, scared.
Well, to shorten the long story, he did it. It was a wicked deck, filled with verses that allowed him to draw blessings, and verses that allowed him to draw verses, both from his deck and the discard. Three games in a row, he won before I even got a chance to freeplay my first verse.
In the game design world, this is known as "Breaking the Game". I would have been thrilled if we had discovered this in the early playtesting phases of making the game. Instead, it came to light after the cards were designed and already available to the public! Yikes!
Seriously, I was quite dejected.
But, soon after, I regrouped, and he and I started talking about ways to "nerf" the verses in question.
Let me explain that. In his video/online gaming circles, if a game company makes a facet of a game weaker or harder to use, it has been "nerfed". To understand this word, think of a real sword, and next to it, a Nerf sword. That should clear up any confusion.
So, we had to nerf the blessing draw verses, and we did that by setting it up so that after receiving the blessing, you end your turn. That way, the other guy gets to play. We also nerfed the verse draws, so that they're not so many, or for greater cost. And, the few verses that pull from the discard, like "Judgement Day" don't pull quite so many, so easily.
That meant that I had to rework the graphics of the verses, and re-upload them into The Game Crafter's website. It took me a while to do all that, but it's done, now. Anyone who buys any of the Seeker's Quest products (Full games, boosters, or pre-con decks) will all contain the new versions of the verses.
There are a few of you who have bought the game already, and for you, if you contact me, and tell me which game set you bought, I'll make up a special booster with the right cards and get it sent off to you.
Here are a few of the "new" verses:
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
Text: “Thou shalt go to the house of prayer and offer up thy sacraments upon my holy day;”
Verse Rule: none
Sacrifice Cost: 1
Markers: Strength
Icons: S
There have been times in my life when I just didn’t want to go to church. I think everyone goes through that a time or two. At those times, I often would try to talk myself into staying home by telling myself that I didn’t have to actually GO to church, I could just stay at home and study on my own, and that would be just as good. Maybe even better, on a day when the High Councilman was speaking.
Even at the time, I knew that was wrong. I knew I was rationalizing. I knew that I would go back to sleep or get distracted or something and not end up studying.
I also knew that I would miss out on the connectivity, the camaraderie of church. I know that church should be a personal spiritual experience, and we don’t go to just to socialize, but interacting with each other and strengthening each other is a very important thing, too.
I think that’s why we’re commanded, in this verse, to go to church.
Now, this particular verse, in game, isn’t particularly powerful. It only has one icon, Strength, and it has no verse rules. I think it’s very important to include a lot of these kinds of verses in a constructed deck. It’s nice to have cheap verses to fill in a chapter and allow you to close up a book. It’s also good to have sacrificial fodder. If you want to play something really big and cool, it’s good to have small, weak verses to sacrifice to play it. If your hand is filled with power verses, you’ll be less eager to sacrifice any of them.
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
Verse Rule: DISCARD: Discard this verse and up to two other chosen verses from your hand to retrieve that many other chosen verses from your discard to your hand.
Sacrifice Cost: 1
Markers: Histories
Icons: Faith, Histories
This week, we continue on our quest for verses to help make our “Glory of God/Work of God” deck the most amazing deck ever. This one is a great helper verse.
The verse itself is all about asserting the reality of the resurrection. What is amazing, of course, about Christ’s resurrection is that it sets up the gift of our own resurrection when the time is right. Resurrection is a gift that the Lord has given to us all, regardless of our choices or our circumstances. We are all saved from physical death. The atonement in the Garden makes it possible for us to repent and be saved from spiritual death.
The beauty of this card in the Glory/Work deck, is that it can fetch those two verses back to your hand. Once you’ve played them and closed a book, of course, they go to your discard. But then, you can play Live Again! as a discard and retrieve them back to your hand to play again. Notice that you don’t retrieve Live Again! The wording on the verse means that you have to chose other verses, as it can’t fetch itself.
So, the fact that Jesus has set us all up to resurrect is a part of the “combo” that allows Heavenly Father’s Work and Glory to move forward!
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
So, last week, I had a brilliant idea! The game mechanic that we had previously named “Keyword” should be named “Seek”! This is the mechanic that allows me to search through the verse texts in my deck for a particular keyword, then to put that verse into my hand. Since you’re seeking through your deck, it should be called “Seek”.
It was such a clever stroke of genius! It would tie the game play even closer to the name of the game, The Seeker’s Quest, and it’s more descriptive of the action of the mechanic.
What wasn’t quite so brilliant or such a stroke of genius about it was the fact that it meant that I had to spend lots of hours changing the graphics on about 1-2 dozen cards, a couple of which I had to recreate from scratch. THEN, I had to fix the rules booklets!
*sigh*
So, to celebrate the change, the Verse of the Week is one of the ones that changed, The Marvel. It’s built on the verse in Isaiah that talks about the “marvelous work and a wonder” that is about to come forth. That verse is requoted several times in the Doctrine and Covenants as well.
The work and wonder that it refers to is the restored Gospel, of course. LeGrand Richards used the phrase as the title to the book used as an introduction to the church, written when he was a mission president.
This verse rule used in this card is to seek out another verse with the keyword “Work”. The idea is that the “marvelous work and a wonder” is “about to come forth”, so playing the verse allows you to seek through your deck and fetch a “work”, so you can bring it forth. It’s especially useful when you construct a deck using “The Work of God” or “The Glory of God”, http://chapterandversegame.blogspot.com/2015/06/card-of-week-work-of-god.html
This is a great way to seek out these two powerful cards and getting them ready to play so you can close up lots of books!
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
Text: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption;”
Verse Rule: EFFECT: Exchange a chosen verse in one of your personal chapters with a chosen verse in your discard (its abilities are applied).
Sacrifice Cost:
Markers: Trials
Icons: W, F, T
Basic verse, Learning game
This verse, in its context in the New Testament, is teaching us about the Resurrection. It talks about how we all, being corrupt and mortal, will rise again, resurrected, perfected, and immortal.
This whole chapter talks about the reality and universality of the gift of the Resurrection. Verse 55: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
In the game, I worked the verse rule so that you could "resurrect" a verse and swap it out for another verse in your tabletop. The abilities of the verse thus brought forth are then applied.
This is particularly cool if there's a combo you've got going and you need a verse from your discard to trigger it. Maybe you've already done the combo, closed the book, and now you want to do it again in another chapter. For example, what if you've got The Work of God and The Glory of God in a chapter. You close it up and receive your blessings. But now those two key verses are in your discard. If you get another copy of one of them in your hand, you can use Perfected in the Resurrection to swap it out from the graveyard and there you have another quick book!
In addition to this, It's quite flexible with its icons, and it's only a 1-sac cost to play it. Quite a useful card!
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
John 10:16 “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold... and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” Sacrifice Cost: 2; Markers: Wisdom, History; Themes: WHH; EFFECT: Choose two Histories verses from your deck, add them to your hand, and reshuffle your deck.
I remember this one from way back in the day in my own seminary class. It was always used, both then, and later, in my mission, to show evidence of the need for God to be God of the whole world, not just of Palestine or the Middle East.
When Jesus visits America, after His resurrection, He says, “And verily I say unto you, that ye are they of whom I said: Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.”
The point was, to prove that the Bible references the Book of Mormon. Of course, if you didn’t already believe the Book of Mormon, it was really a meaningless argument.
Still, in the game, I wanted to capture the sense of gathering and binding together, so I used the fetch mechanic to represent the “one fold” feeling. If I were playing this one in a constructed deck, I’d probably fetch “The First Vision”, which lets you fetch two more Histories verse and set them right away.
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
Today, Brendon spoke in Sacrament Meeting. It was very different from the previous times he’s spoken. In the past, we worked together on his topic, and we pretty much wrote out everything he would say. This time, he researched his topic on his own, compiled his quotes and citations, lined them up in the order he wanted to, and just spoke from his notes and his mind.
Watching him up there, it made me feel really proud. Jodi said that he looked like a missionary. The talk flowed pretty smoothly all along, without any big gaps or stumbles. He didn’t even look all that nervous, even though I knew that he was feeling it that morning.
His talk was on the Godhead, and he showed some good research and understanding of the quotes and scriptures he cited. It was well-done, especially for a 15 year old.
The whole reason I’m mentioning it here is because, at the end, he cited one of my favorite scriptures: Moses 1:39 “This is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man”.
And, of course, since that’s one of my favorite scriptures, it was turned into one of my favorite cards. Two of my favorite cards, in fact: “The Work of God” and “The Glory of God”. One’s rule reads: “ABILITY: If this verse is in the same chapter as “The Work of God”, the chapter may be closed as a book.” The other is similar: “ABILITY: If this verse is in the same chapter as “The Glory of God”, the chapter may be closed as a book.”
So, all you need to do is to get these two verses into the same chapter, and you can close up a book. I did it this way because I felt it was interesting to think of how the Work and The Glory of god are so intertwined.
Here’s another interesting anecdote that I DIDN’T think of when I was creating the card. I made a deck with three copies each of these two verses. Then, I added in a lot of verses with the “Prayer” ability. That allows me to look at so many verses on top of my deck and pull one of them into my hand. It basically allows you to cycle through your deck faster. That way, you can get to these three verses quicker and make your short books, winning the game!
It didn’t occur to me until much, much later that I was using “prayer” to bring about “the work and the glory of God”!
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
In Collectible Card Games, balance is a very interesting concept. I mean, you want to have some stronger cards in your set, and a few really tough ones so that people get excited about collecting and playing those cards in their decks. So, how is it that a game can be balanced if some cards are so powerful?
Achilles heels
One way to impact the powerful cards is to instill some weakness in the card itself. Make the special rule such that it’s powerful impact only comes into play in certain circumstances. This is the limit on “The Work of God” and “The Glory of God” Their Ability only triggers when they’re together.
Other Powerful Cards
Another way to temper the power of a big bad card is to have other big bad cards that can stand up to it. In Magic or Yu-Gi-Oh, the biggest baddest monsters always have to deal with other bigger, badder monsters.
High costs
In the economy of the game, more powerful cards should be harder, or “more expensive” to play. Pearl verses, for example, all cost a sacrifice cost of at least 3 to play, one even costs 4.
Rarity
One simple way to balance out powerful cards is to make them rarer. This can be done either in the game itself, by using the “Unique” special rule, or in the meta game, by including fewer of the powerful cards in the sets or packs.
Ultimately, it takes a lot of playtesting to determine if a set of cards is balanced.
Brendon and I made decks tonight and played a game or two. I’m very pleased that both of our constructed decks played very well against the other. Neither one felt to be too overly powerful. I don’t mind if a deck is powerful, as long as it’s not an automatic win every time. As long as something can bring it down, it’s good by me.
Last week, we also playtested some games with random decks made from a set of one of each card. That played out pretty well. Then, we added an extra set of “normal” (not powered) verses (so there were two of each of those, and one each of the strong verses). Those games played out pretty nicely as well.
I’m still finding verse with ambiguous wording, or other errors, but those are becoming fewer, and I’m getting more and more confident in the balance of the verses. It’s exciting.
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
I had a great weekend. My family went up to Park City, UT to just relax and enjoy. We invited another family to go with us, some great, long-time friends. The dad and I ended up playing Chapter and Verse, and he really liked it. He kept jumping in with suggestions for graphics.
I made an amazing deck, and even took on Brendon's "Quote it!" deck. Brendon's deck is all based on using the Quote mechanic to play lots of verses for free. Then, he also has some fluff cards that he can discard to make me quote things. It's a tough deck to beat.
But "The Work and The Glory" did it! It's based on two cards: The Work of God, and the Glory of God. These two cards share an effect and a combo. If the two are played into the same chapter, you can close up the chapter into a book no matter how many icons there are or of what kind.
Two cards, one book. Boom.
So, every other verse in the deck is geared toward putting those two verses in your hand. It turns out that there are, like, three verses that have a keyword effect that can pull those verses forward. Then, I added a lot of verses with the prayer effect, so that I could dig through my deck quicker and get to those two verses.
Here's the deck:
"The Work and the Glory" (3 copies of each verse)
4 - God and Moses
10 - Job's Testimony
13 - Talking With God
14 - The Marvel
33 - Stephen's Sacrifice
42 - The Word of God
45 - Show Me
51 - The Work of Satan
56 - Helping Man, Helping God
57 - A Child's Humility
68 - Kindness and Love
79 - Don't Wait
96 - The Glory of God
97 - The Work of God
98 - The Heart of Zion
It's a pretty cool deck! Maybe here soon, I'll post up Brendon's "Quote it" deck. It's pretty good!
If any of you out there reading this has had any deck ideas, just post a comment, and tell us all about it.
Mark has a lifelong testimony of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormon Church). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his Dutch Oven blog.
Brendon and I just barely finished playing the two new decks against each other. Wow. What fun, to see two planned decks go head to head. It showed me a bunch of cool things:
1. "Quote" isn't as powerful as I thought it would be. It is cool, and it did help Brendon bring out lots of verses, but it wasn't as uber-powerful as I was afraid it would be.
2. The two decks really were pretty evenly matched. If he hadn't won when he did, I would have won the next turn. And the only reason I didn't win was that I didn't have enough verses to sacrifice to throw down the final combo and pull my last blessing.
3. After this game and some of the other games I've played, I feel like there needs to be some limits on the turns. Brendon, in his turn, kept drawing and playing. Then, in my turn, I kept drawing and playing. It makes for long, drawn out turns. I'm flirting with the idea of a rule that would say that when you close out a book, the play phase of your turn ends, and you move into the end phase. I dunno. I'll have to play with that. Another idea is to make more verse effects that can be played instantly instead of only in your own turn. That way the turns can be more interactive instead of so long. Maybe even some verses that can end an opponent's turn.
Anyway, these are just some thoughts. Tell me what you're thinking when you play your games!
Wasn't that the hook of some silly song from the '80's? If not, it probably should have been.
Brendon and I played a game of Yu-Gi-Oh and I lost miserably. That's pretty much par for the course. The games are still fun, though. I just don't put that much effort into collecting cards making killer YGO decks. That's more Brendon's obsession.
Then, after that, we played a game of C&V. That was really fun. I love watching him try and quote the verses. He's only 9, so he struggles with some of the words, but he gets them close enough. He won that one, too, but it was a much closer game. I was down to two blessing cards when he finally went out. He threw down some good strategies, too.
We were just playing with random decks. After the game, I started playing with some deck building. I don't really have any ideas in mind, I just thought I'd start with similar themes. I started with the idea of a strength deck. But I didn't have enough cards to do that fully, so I'll have to print up more. The thought occurred to me that because of things like the "Quote" ability, and the extra draw effects of the Faith cards, a Wisdom/Faith deck would probably do quite well.
I'll play with these ideas and then post what I come up with.
