Odd Ducks - Where it's at & where it's going

 Odd Ducks Current Ruleset 10-6-22

Components

• 5 x 13 card decks, one per player, with the same layout (colored cards match the player's color)

• ?? x Shed out bonus cards (possible values being something like -2,-1,0,1,2,3,4, etc)

• 5 x Player bidding tokens

Setup

1. For each player in the game, shuffle their player deck together.
2. Deal the entire deck out to the players, they should have 13 card hands.
3. Place Shed-out bonus cards faceup (the number and types are still a big question, discussed later in this post)
4. Give each player a colored bidding token (to help remind everyone who controls which color).

Gameplay

Odd Ducks is a climbing-style shedding game where the strength of melds and point values for cards change from one hand to the next. The object is to play all of your cards while also gaining as many points as you can.

Playing A Hand

The hand is broken up into a number of tricks. In each trick, the starting player will play one meld to the table. Their opponents, in clockwise order, will be able to pass or play onto the current meld in order to take control of the hand. Players may only play onto the current meld if their played cards are stronger than the current meld. Once all players pass back to the last player to play cards, the trick will end and with the last player to play cards being the winner. The trick winner takes all scoring cards (non-white) that were played into the trick and puts them into a face-up scoring area. The white played cards are removed to a face-down discard pile. The previous trick winner will be the starting player for the next trick.

The hand will continue until all but one player has shed out. At this point, the last player with cards must discard their hand and then perform the Shedding Out procedure described below. The hand will now end, and players will score all the cards in their scoring area.

Legal Melds

• 1 or more cards of the same value
• 2 or more cards that are a consecutive run

Meld Strength

• Odd meld size = Higher is stronger
• Even meld size = Lower is stronger

Shedding Out

As soon as a player plays the last card from their hand, they have shed out. They take the highest value available shed-out bonus card, and place it face up in front of them. Once a player has shed-out, they must wait until the end of the hand in order to score the cards in their scoring area.

Scoring

All black cards in a player's scoring area are worth points to them equal to their shed-out bonus value. All cards that match a player color are worth points equal to that matching player's shed-out bonus value for whoever has those cards. Tally these points and then begin the next hand.

Game End

This is completely TBD at the moment.

Odd Ducks - Big Questions

All of my current uncertainty for the game relates to deck construction, scoring, and endgame. So far the actual process of playing cards into a trick seems completely solid, and I haven't made any revisions to that since its conception.

Deck Construction Questions

Currently, the deck is made up of sets of 13 cards (1-13) per player so that it fully deals out exactly 13 random cards to each player. I keep going back and forth about the number of scoring cards in the deck. In the last playtest, there were 2 player scoring cards and 1 neutral (black card that scores for your own shed-out value) card in each set, and it felt like there weren't enough neutrals. Neutral scoring cards seem key because they are the main motivator for a player to try and shed-out before their opponents. I worry having 5 scoring cards per deck could lead to a feeling of "this is too much to score" at the end of a round, but testing is necessary to see how that actually feels. 

Shed-Out Scoring Questions

This is currently the biggest set of questions that I have for the ruleset. In the last playtest the shed-out bonus values started at -1, 0, 1 (it was a 3p game) and we quickly realized these values were simply too low and that the zero value felt kind of boring due to it simply negating so many cards and not allowing for much score movement. We also tested -1, 1, 2 for one hand and this felt MUCH more interesting. 

That being said, one of the key pieces of feedback I got from those playtesters was that it'd be interesting to see those shed-out values change from one hand to the next. A bunch of ideas were thrown out, and none of them have been tested. Below are the ideas I specifically want to test:

• A static set of shed-out values, probably players + 3 options. Before any cards are played from a hand, players (likely in score order) must "bid" by putting a token of their color onto a empty shed-out bonus card. Once all bids are in, the player who bid the lowest (put onto the lowest value card) will be the starting player for the hand. All bidding tokens except for the highest bid are removed back to the players, then remove all non-bid shed-out cards. That highest bid stays on the shed-out bonus card and this becomes a goal for that player. If they shed out first and take the bonus card with their token then they get some big reward (potentially immediate points equal to the value of the bonus card) but if any other player sheds-out first then that player who bid the highest loses some number of points (maybe points equal to the value of the card) as a penalty for bidding so high but not going out first. I want this to be a way for players to show confidence in their hands, and to tempt players to bid up the values with a real downside for bidding too high. I think this could add a Tichu-call-esque vibe to the game but won't know without actually trying it.
• Each player starts the game with a full set of shed-out bonus cards (perhaps in their color?). At the start of each hand, all players simultaneously choose one of their remaining bonus cards and then reveal it. These are put into a scoring supply, in order of the bonus card values, and they become the bonuses that are given as players shed-out that hand. Played shed-out bonus cards are removed from the game after the round, so players have less options as the game goes on. This ties in with endgame questions, because using this the game could simply end after players have used all of their bonus cards. This could also be a way to have players show confidence in their hand, perhaps they throw out their biggest bonus card when they feel really good about a hand etc.
• Have a number or bonus cards equal to twice the player count. At the start of each hand, randomly deal out 2 bonus cards to each player. Everyone simultaneously selects one of these and reveals them. They will be the bonus values for the current round, and when setting up the next round, all of these are shuffled and health out again to the players. This gives players some amount of choice for what cards will be available, but not TOO much choice. I'm not crazy about this idea, but it could be interesting to try.
• Here's the last one, and it's the biggest change. Player card scoring is STATIC during the round, as in you know exactly what the blue scoring cards are worth from the beginning. This is done by having those player color values be set to the shed-out bonus that color got in the previous round or it is set by the overall player scores (highest current score has their stocks worth the most, and so on). In this way players know for sure what all non-neutral scoring cards are worth in the round. With this idea, players wouldn't score any points for their own color scoring cards. So the player who is winning (or just shed-out first last round) will get no points for their highest value bonus, which could offer some interesting rubberbanding to the scores. Also means the person who shed-out last (or is just losing the game) won't be able to take negative points for their player color scoring cards (they could still go negative due to shedding-out last and having neutral cards be worth negative points). I was super in love with this idea when it first came to me, but the more I think about it the more I worry it may simply not be interesting. I do want to test it because it's the biggest scoring change out of all these ideas.

Game End Questions

I currently don't know how the game should end. In one way, this is the most broad set of questions because I don't think I can really figure this out until the numerous scoring questions are locked in. The end game condition could well be wrapped up into them (for example having a diminishing player hand of bonus cards to play). The key thing I want to keep in the game is some form of tension that even the player who is winning (maybe even by a lot) could still technically lose the game before it is over. Because of this, I don't love the idea of playing X number of rounds by itself. I could come around to this as long as there was an alternate condition, perhaps "shooting the moon" type of thing that even a last-place player could do to immediately win. I don't have any other specific ideas here, I don't think it makes sense to focus on these questions until the scoring is more figured out.