https://wiki.gi7b.org/index.php/Open_PVE_CS_Draft_Version_0.1_260111
I’m thinking aloud again.
If you’ve followed my journey, you know I often wrestle with a specific tension: the battle between the Dreamer and the Technician. The Technician in me runs the numbers, manages responsibilities at Comfac and our family’s renewable energy and automation projects, and knows exactly how much a bad investment costs. But the Dreamer? The Dreamer remembers what it was like to be a kid in a Third World country, eating rice and gravy just to save up enough pesos to buy a starter deck, hoping to find that one rare card that would let me compete.
That struggle gave me the skills I use today—math, probability, negotiation, storytelling. But looking at the state of the industry now, I see a wall. Collectible Card Games (CCGs) have become intensely capitalized engines of exclusion. They are designed to extract money through artificial scarcity and power creep. If you can’t afford the new “chase card,” you can’t play at the top level.
That doesn’t sit right with me. I want the next generation of gamers to learn those same skills I did, but without the financial gatekeeping. I want them to focus on the strategy, not the price tag.
Enter the OpenPVE Card System (OPCS)
I am proposing a radical alternative: an Open Source, Player vs. Environment (PvE) Card System.
The vision is simple. The rules, the mechanics, and the card templates are Creative Commons. Anyone can print them. Anyone can play them.
- No Artificial Scarcity: Rarity doesn’t determine power. A card is powerful because it has strategic trade-offs, not because it costs $50 on the secondary market.
- Proxy-Friendly: Go ahead, print it on your home printer. The value of the game is in the method of play and the time spent with friends, not in the cardboard itself.
- Meritocratic & Collaborative: If the game design heads in a bad direction, the community can correct it. In open systems, if leadership fails, people migrate or fork the project. It forces us to be better listeners and problem solvers, rather than relying on capital to force a meta.
A New Ecosystem for Artists and Makers
This isn’t just about the players; it’s about the supply chain.
My uncle owns MG Printing, and through him, I’ve seen the challenges the traditional printing industry faces. I was once a struggling artist myself, and I know how hard it is to monetize creativity in the age of AI.
OPCS is designed to create a decentralized market:
- Artists can sell their art directly to players to use on card templates.
- Small Printers (like my uncle’s shop) can offer “Print on Demand” services for high-quality decks.
- App Developers can build deck-builders and AI narrators to handle the “fluff” and rules enforcement.
We aren’t funneling money to a single corporation; we are building a playground for creators.
The Reality Check
Will this be made? Is this just another distraction?
I have to be honest with myself and with you. I’ve poured about $4,000 USD into my TTRPG aspirations in the past, and I’ve only made about $1,000 back. The Technician in me knows this is a bad P&L statement.
But I am at a point in my life where I have accumulated significant responsibilities. I have the network to talk to people, but I cannot be the full-time technical lead. I can realistically invest maybe a thousand dollars into this—seed money to get the wiki up, commission some initial art, and finalize the math.
I am pursuing this in the arguably futile hope that it works out, not because it makes business sense, but because giving in to the cynical reality of the industry is too depressing.
The Goal
I want to build a system where the barriers are intellectual and social, not financial. I want a meritocracy where abilities and EQ matter more than your wallet.
I want the future gamer to obsess over the statistics and the storytelling techniques without having to starve themselves to afford the tools to do so. I want them to play with proxies, run simulations, and hack the system to make it better.
This is an invitation. If you are a designer, an artist, a coder, or just a player exhausted by the grind, the OpenPVE Card System is for you. Let’s see if we can build something that belongs to everyone.
Status: In Development
License: CC BY-SA 4.0
Wiki:https://wiki.gi7b.org/index.php/Open_PVE_CS_Draft_Version_0.1_260111
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