Fall of the Republic: Design Notes - Part 1
Card Development
By Brian Weeks
IDC Card Development Chair on FOTR

First of all, I just want to thank all of the loyal SW:TCG players from around the world that support the IDC and love this game. Thanks for your positive comments and your support. Secondly, I would like to give props to my Card Development team for doing such a great job! And last but not least, a big salute to the other members of the IDC for making this first set come together so well.

Now that the IDC expansion, Fall of the Republic, has been out for a few weeks, I thought I would present some insight this new set. In Part 1, I will describe to you the process Card Development followed to produce this set, from the initial set development to the creation of the Master Developmental list. I'll also discuss some cards that almost didn't make the set.

In Part 1a, I will share my personal vision for this first IDC set and how closely the Card Development Sub-committee stayed within that vision. I'll also discuss some of my favorite cards and the cards that "almost were" but didn't quite make the cut.

Initial Set Development
March 2006, in the initial stages of development, the CD committee knew that the first set produced by the IDC would have to produce the units we expected to see in the canceled WOTC set, Rise of the Empire. We also wanted to have the previously previewed and WOTC developed ability, Parry, be the new ability for the expansion. Thus, the title Fall of the Republic was decided upon and work began on creating the cards for this first set.

The next step of development was to brainstorm some cards ideas. I had a developed a list of predetermined cards types that I wanted to include in the set, but didn't share this with my Workgroup Leaders. I'll share this list with you in the next article. We basically decided to base the expansion on the second half of Revenge of the Sith. There was so much material that wasn't even touched in the previous expansion. I just let my leaders go crazy and develop whatever cards they wanted. The more cards suggested the better. After about three weeks, we had a 'Preliminary Development List (PDL)' which consisted of 280+ cards. My workgroup leaders did a great job and probably 75-80% of the cards had the text and abilities in preliminary development.

Fall of the Republic Set Development.
I then needed to make a decision on the size of the expansion. With the amount of cards available on the PDL, we could have easily made a 180 to 210 card set. But I wanted the first IDC expansion to be a quality set, not just a bunch of Dream Card fillers. Also, the IDC had decided to release ten promo cards in order to test the IDC development processes for each committee, so we had to immediately pick ten 'basic' cards that could speed through the IDC Committee process.

Each Leader (including myself) reviewed the PDL and made a list of 110-120 cards that they would like to see in the set. I looked them over and based off the list of predetermined card types I mentioned earlier, picked 120 cards I wanted to see this set include. This began a lengthy discussion regarding those promo cards. Would we create a 110 card set (which would include the promos) or a 110 card set plus the ten promos? Arguments against were primarily that WOTC had never released a 120 card set before, but I kept reminding other IDC members that we're not WOTC and that we didn't have to stick with the existing WOTC expansion sizes. After much debate, I made the command decision on making the FOTR expansion 120 cards. The ten additional cards to the set were ones I fought hard to include. Finally, my leaders conceded and agreed to include these ten cards and to make FOTR a 120 card expansion.

The ten cards that "almost" didn't make the set were:
1. Barriss Offee (A)
2. Cin Drallig (A)
3. Luminara Unduli (A)
4. Parjai Trooper
5. Star Corps Gelagrub Rider
6. DD-13 Medical Droid
7. Delta Squad (A)
8. Obi-Wan's Defense
9. Vader's Aggression
10. Felucia Battlegrounds

Sub-Committee Reviewing
The next several stages were, in my opinion, the most time consuming. In sequential order, each sub-committee reviewed the "Master Developmental List" (MDL), made their suggestions and/or rewordings and then sent it back to us for revisions. Then that modified list would be forwarded to the next committee for review. This process was still continuing on about five to ten cards two weeks before the scheduled release date.

I hope you've enjoyed the first part of a behind-the-scenes look at the card development of Fall of the Republic. In the following weeks, the Chairs of these ub-committees will be providing their thoughts and input on the design of the first IDC expansion, Fall of the Republic.

Next Up: Individual Card Design

Thoughts or comments? Visit the message board thread for this article here.

About the Author
Brian Weeks (aka Skywlkr) has been playing the Star Wars TCG since its introduction at Celebration 2 in 2002. After playing the demo game and introducing it to RedneckJedi and Darthwalls, Team 'Dude Where's My Card' was created. He competed in three qualifiers, yet the closest he ever ranked was eighth. As a member on Rebelbasers, SWDuelist and a writer for the now defunct Diehard Online, he has tried to promote the game through information and interaction.

He is married, has a three year old son, is an architect, has been the Treasurer and Newsletter Editor for five years for JediOKC (an Oklahoma City based Star Wars Fan Club), was the IDC Card Development Chairperson for "Fall of the Republic" and is now the IDC Public Affairs Chairperson. Despite all that, he still has time to introduce the game to new players…KEEP THE GAME ALIVE.