Decks : option to not show originating decks for cards in player's hand

I try to use decks to manage resources. Several decks of cards, each one with only one type of card (resource). I deal cards to players : 3 stone cards for you, 2 wood cards and 1 food card for you, and so on. But there is something annoying : above each player's avatar, you can see one back of card for each deck from which he has drawn cards. So you know the number of different resources he has. In my case it will be great not to show this ...

In the deck settings remove the "number of cards" checkmarks. Also, perhaps you can use the same back for each deck. - Gauss

I did : checkmark unchecked, same back for each deck. I don't see the number of cards, but i see a little back icon for each deck the player own a card from. For exemple : Player A : 3 stone cards (from the "stone" deck) => i see one little back card icon above the player's avatar (without the exact number of cards). Player B : 2 woods cards (from the "wood" deck) + 1 food card (from the "food" deck) => i see 2 bad cards icons above the player's avatar. So i don't know the exact number of cards the players own, but i know that player A has 1 type of resources, and player B has 2 types of resources. It is what i would like to avoid.

tontione, ahhhh, I see. Well, here are a couple possible workarounds: 1) Create a number of extra decks. The players can decide to put any number of extra 'decks' into their hand to confuse other players trying to decipher how many types of resources are in the hand. Example: I have 2 resource decks and 3 (out of 6) 'spoof' decks. You don't know if I have 3 resources or 5 spoofs. 2) Create a number of 'spoof' cards and put them into the resource decks. At the start of the game have players draw and discard cards until they draw a 'spoof' card. Repeat for the other resource decks. Then shuffle all the resource decks (without shuffling player cards back in). The spoof cards never leave the player's hand. They are there only to keep the appearance of holding (or not holding) resource cards constant. Any 'spoof' cards drawn during game play are simply discarded. Let me know if either of these will work for you. I think #2 is probably the better idea but that is just me. :) - Gauss

Riley D. said: So just to clarify, all the resource cards already have the same back image? Yes, the problem is that i see 1 back of card icon (same icon) for each deck the player has a card from. I presume it's sometime useful, but in my case no. In fact the best for me should be to have 1 single back icon, with the total number of resources cards owned. Perhaps the idea could be to group decks depending of their back ? So if you want to group decks (for display purpose) you give them the same back, otherwise you choose different back pictures ...

Gauss said: tontione, ahhhh, I see. Well, here are a couple possible workarounds: 1) Create a number of extra decks. The players can decide to put any number of extra 'decks' into their hand to confuse other players trying to decipher how many types of resources are in the hand. Example: I have 2 resource decks and 3 (out of 6) 'spoof' decks. You don't know if I have 3 resources or 5 spoofs. 2) Create a number of 'spoof' cards and put them into the resource decks. At the start of the game have players draw and discard cards until they draw a 'spoof' card. Repeat for the other resource decks. Then shuffle all the resource decks (without shuffling player cards back in). The spoof cards never leave the player's hand. They are there only to keep the appearance of holding (or not holding) resource cards constant. Any 'spoof' cards drawn during game play are simply discarded. Let me know if either of these will work for you. I think #2 is probably the better idea but that is just me. :) - Gauss Good ideas by the way... I thought about 1), and perhaps i will use it. 2) is too complex to use in my case. In fact i'm trying to make a roll20 version of boardgame Mare Nostrum ( <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3931/mare-n" rel="nofollow">http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3931/mare-n</a>... ) The main mechanic of this game is a trade phase, where you trade resources cards. Each player collect cards depending of his situation (then in roll20 draw cards from corresponding decks). After that they trade cards, the goal is to have most possible different resources ! So it's very important not to know how much different resources each player has. But the total number of resources cards owned is known.

The players can always state how many they have. Not knowing how the game is played: At the kitchen table how is it people do not know how many resources the other players have? Example: If you can see them drawing from the stone deck you can count that out and know how many they have. - Gauss

At the kitchen table you know how much cards each player have (you can ask them to be sure). And theoricaly you can memorize each card each player draw, and each exchange during the trade phase too. But Each player has 10-15 cards. So it's impossible (except if you are "Rain Man" ) to memorize each card specially during the trade phase. So At the end you can't say exactly how many different types each player has because of the many exchanges. Not knowing this is very important, because it's one of the way to win : if you have 12 different cards at the ends of the trade phase, you win the game by buying the final goal "pyramides" monument.

Considered putting all the cards in one deck? Then as the GM draw them all at the start. Hand them out as appropriate during the game via the card trading mechanic.

It will not work : 1) i want each player to be able to draw himself the cards, for exemple to draw easily 3 woods + 2 stones. 2) at the end of each turn, the cards go back to the deck(s). So if there is only one deck, you will have to sort again the cards. I thought to put all cards visible on table at the start of the game, but it will not work better because you loose all the clever functiunalities of the deck, mainly the deal and recall. You will have tot take each card by clicking on it, and at the end of the turn to regroup the cards by type.

tontione , Im curious why my second option wouldn't work for you. It sounds like it would work pretty well. Perhaps something Im missing? - Gauss

Gauss said: tontione , Im curious why my second option wouldn't work for you. It sounds like it would work pretty well. Perhaps something Im missing? - Gauss Hmmm, i misunderstood what you said... Interesting but ... "Any 'spoof' cards drawn during game play are simply discarded" &lt;= i don't like this. So the idea could be to give players all spoof cards of several decks at the beginning of the game. (Not one from each deck i guess because they are 14 decks !!! ) . So there will not remain any spoof card in the decks. Then play , keeping spoof cards in hands. So i have to check if it's possible to recall all cards except this poof cards. I think we will have to put all other cards to the table before. But it could work !

Let me know if you have any issues getting it to work. - Gauss

It works, but with 14 cards icons above each player avatar, with a 4 players game, near 1/4 of the screen is used just for that. :(

tontione, if you want to invite me to your game I can take a look and see if I have any suggestions. - Gauss