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Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2025-07-07 19:28:34)
| Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2025-07-07 19:28:34)
I looked at answering the questions as I looked at writing essays at school. I just found my schoolwork had been more enjoyable.
I made a habit of doing do 2,500 to 3,500 words bi-weekly, so this was just another week for me. But when I first started writing, cranking out something coherent of that size was a real challenge. The first step sure does favor writers, true enough.
That's.. wow, that's quite a lot for a job interview process.
Yeah, the 10 page essay is probably a dealbreaker for a lot of applicants.
I was going to, but I'm just not really in the mood to answer all of the questions. I mean, I guess I 'll see what I can churn out.
Once the answers have been submitted and the deadline has passed, we can probably post them then.
@Jack: Thanks!
@Vitenka: Each stage isn't public until the stage is complete. So posting the questions (and/or my answers to them) would be a breach of the game rules and result in elimination. I'm sure part of this is to just eliminate both plaguerism, and crowdsourcing for answers.
Oh; GDS3 isn't public? Huh.
Good luck!
Hey! The GDS3 questions were just sent to me in the mail!
...
And that's all I can legally say about them. 🤐
I can't wait until the superhero movie fad dies out. Then Wizards might ride a different hypetrain and focus on their settings rather than their "cinematic universe".
@Vitenka: I'd almost think it would be best to get the obvious idea out of the way, so we can see some non-Watch plots.
That said, a set with 12+ Planeswalkers in it would be kind of neat. I'd like to see what could be done with that from a mechanical perspective. From a story perspective, however, it would require multiple blocks to set up (which, let's face it, we might be in the middle of the 'multiple block set up' right now.) I agree that I don't know if players will have the patience to deal with two years of Planeswalker jockeying.
Ayup. It's been a popular fan idea. People have been calling it the "Hatewatch". E.g., e.g., etc.
Please don't encourage them.
Quick list of obvious choices for characters:
- Ob Nixilis
- Tibalt
- Nahiri
- Garruk
- Tezzeret
Five planeswalkers, five colors, each with their own gripes against members of the Gatewatch (Except Tibalt. Guy just seems like he's happy to cause mischief.)
So... what are the gambling odds on this sort of thing?
The best way to understand dice roll cards is to look at coin flip cards and what they get shifted out for.
Magic is a game with an inherent randomness due to the shuffled library. This randomness is quiet subtle and kept outside the player's mind by happening in an entirely hidden zone (the library being face-down and cards within mostly indistinguishable unless the game allows to manipulate that state).
This means that the forefront of the game is about game pieces that interact with each other in a deterministic manner. On the spectrum of randomized and deterministic outcomes at its base Magic has established itself around allowing a randomized initial game state which can be explored (through e. g. card draw) and otherwise resolved in a calculatable manner.
This is attractive in a competetive game since it rewards (trainable) skill over (unknowable) luck - allowing players to "learn to get better" and understand to discern favorable game actions from unfavorable.
As mentioned this is a spectrum and individual cards can use randomization to create interesting effects. But you only need few of those to make those that want them happy.
Knowing your psychographics and what amounts of cards are necessary to cater to sections of the target audience is important here. Those that like randomization can be served with a few of those cards, while those that favor deterministic gameplay require more different game pieces to get an appropriate variance in their game states.
With less cards required to actually be random it becomes advisable to be more selective about the ways you can achieve impactful randomized events. Any additional required material - no matter how commonly available you imagine it to be - is an additional burden to the players that need to come prepared.
There is some historical momentum from back when coin flips were originally introduced into the game, but strictly speaking they are just a variant on dice rolls (two-sided die) and got grandfathered in - but are gradually phased out in favor of cards that do not use additional game pieces to achieve randomization e. g. that use shuffling of the already present game pieces (cards).
I'll consider from here on dice and coins equally Un-serious for that reason.
Outside of the game materials dice rolls introduce other problems into card design. Often you have to decide between
> A: Dice rolls with a favorable/unfavorable spectrum of results (i. e. "Draw d6 cards." generally favors high results). These are a balance problem and can be disappointing when properly balanced or be "too fair".
> B: Dice rolls where you avoid a clear delineation between "good" and "bad" results, but often invest more words into it, i. e. you create more wordy cards. This results in complexity.
The balance between A and B is something you have to consider not only in dice rolls, but also in other areas of design, but they come quiet pronounced here. In a cost-reward consideration the cost to get a good dice roll card done can easily not be met with a rewarding outcome, because you either made the randomization to influential for tactical players (favoring more deterministic gameply), or not influential enough to actually please those players of the audience that favor randomization in the first place.
A very big aspect of dice rolls not yet mentioned is that they are noninteractive compared to other forms of possible randomization (once again the default favorable method is using the inherent randomization of the library like seen on e. g. Commune with Dinosaurs or clash).
There are games that use dice as a major component of their gameplay, but also often being ways to meddle with dice. (Unstable just brough us some squirrely examples of how Magic could handle dice meddling in an environment including more dice rolls). These cards seem like a pay-off for dice, but they are actually necessary crutches to add some control to this game mechanics which is in a vacuum outside of a players control.
And that's important: Using dice in a vacuum just means adding variance to an effect that could be deterministic instead. Without crafting the environment this just means the gameplay is not calculated with the same ease - predictions about the game state after a game action is taken become less reliable and your "Deal d6 damage to target creature." game action may very well turn out to just deal nonlethal damage and be a waste od resources.
With these mechanics players now have to take into account more possible game states and more complex decision trees - but without actually having deeper decision opportunities. The unknown varaible is no longer a consideration of an opponent's counterplay, but the unknowable luck of the roll.
As stated above you cannot learn to be better at getting a random outcome - at best you can learn to cheat at dice.
So some issues of dice are:
And while these are not all absolutes of game design, they apply to Magic as
I've designed four or five cards (one was a split card) using dice, with only two actually appearing in sets. Like Vitenka said, die rolls favor luck over skill. There's some design space, but I feel its predominantly red.
I would imagine whatever you want the die roll for to be limited to the number of sides on the die. I would guess d6 to be the most practical. D4 may be more balanced, but I don't know if as many players would have those. After imagining what you can do with a die roll, it being limited to a number, you have to think ways to make that feel fresh or unique with each appearance.
They did studies; most players dislike them - and especially most players who play 'seriously'. Because they prioritise luck over skill.
They also tend to be a bit fiddly and slow to actually do. Still, I agree there's potential for them.
I guess it'd want to be a world with weird and different magic rules, strong enough to force the planeswalkers to kowtow to those rules rather than the magic they know. Or storywise, giving them a very good reason to do so.
Probably the latter, since you also want a reason for this foreign magic to sipill out and change the rules of the multiverse and.. that way lies badness. How about just not doing that?
> Would Shrines from New Phyrexia be listed as Shrines or Hymns?
Neither since they are artifacts and both Shrine and Hymn are enchantment types. The issue here clearly is that Shrine - the only canonical among these beside Arcane, Fortification and Treasure - should thematically never have been an enchantment type. But being an actual printed type it is the hardest to shift.
(As a side-note Hymns also were supposed to be used for "Anthem" cards. But that's just because I had a system that would make an enchantment without subtype about as common as a creature without subtype. :) )
I think I have clasified them as Monument - my catcha-all type for artifacts representing large structures not a sufficient fit for other types with a deeper mechanical definition.
Back when I made the list Ixalan treasures were not yet a thing, but technically Treasure is now an official artifact type tied to something valuable you sacrifice for an effect that New Phyrexia shrines could fall into. Otherwise Totem is an option.
You also seem to miss that Fortification is an official artifact type with associated rules.
To adress the actual world... well, I always assumed that I would not have a singular world introducing all concepts at once e. g. I would have a "land tribal" world (I thought about a return to Rabiah that would give us returning Desert and new Market etc.).
That would be followed up by maybe a Might & Magic world where the distinction between arcane mages and physical warriors is pronounced (establishing the "nonmagical" subtypes like Tactic, maybe Assembly and Monument etc.).
But more generally a good idea is usually to have a thematic underlying social system that can give meaning to the distinct types e. g. a society of actual guilds - but not (necessarily) the color-coded type of Ravnica. There would be a builder's guild for Monuments/Fortifications as opposed to an alchemists guild brewing Potions, an explorer/adventurer's guild that uses Traps/Tactic combat tricks on their Quests, a thaumaturge's guild which builds Shrines and hands out Charms and casts Wards (divine), a scholar's guild that offers Tutors and can cast Arcane magic.
I actually brain farted with that sphere cosmology thingie since that's closer to a new color pie distribution if even applicable for mtg as it is in practice. "Entropy" sphere (not the quotation marks) could be when traversed in reverse from symmetry to material known as "entropic animancy" which would be necromancy. Specifically doing a "symmetry skip" by combining "entropy" + void/mind would be the thing, but whatever. I would need to a wiki for that system to explain it properly.
So yes, these functionally related types are good and I recall referring to them before when brainstorming this block concept - specifically to that post SecretInfiltrator linked to. That contains a very good list already so I think the thing would be to formulate a proper composition for a setting.
So just parsing that specific list, I would consider filtering them somewhat as I see fit
> Enchantment: Circle, Font-Seal, Hymn-Quest, Law, Leyline, Shrine, Siege, Ward-Mark
> Spells: Arcane (splice onto instant/sorcery?), Beacon-Zenith, Cantrip, Charm-Command, Pact, Primal, Psionic, Ritual, Skill-Tactic (warcast/during combat), Summon, Trap, Tutor-Wish, Ultimatum.
> Artifacts: Assembly, Banner-Signet-Borderpost, Bauble-Bomb-Implement, Fortification, Gem, Monument, Potion, Stone, Totem, Treasure, Trigon.
Would Shrines from New Phyrexia be listed as Shrines or Hymns? Anyway...
Perhaps initially I would go for a smaller number - trying to get a handle for "tribal" themes/archetypes by choosing two or so from each of those categories.
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What kind of world/setting would have those and be specifically focused on them? How do they map to colors? etc
I'm going to go against the grain here: I think that the subtypes should not be equivalent to 'schools' or 'types' of magic (i.e. Necromancy, Conjuration, Abjuration from DnD; or, 'Fire', 'Water', 'Poison' from PokeMon and a million other such works). I think the subtypes should be defined by an identifiable / associated card text, i.e. Aura always has Enchant [X] and Cantrip always has 'Draw a card'.
As for actual subtype ideas, well... I've mentioned Charm (for spells with modal effects, so this would include cards with Entwine, Fuse, and Escalate, etc) and Ritual for Sorceries that would generate mana (i.e. Rite of Flame, Seething Song, Dark Ritual, High Tide?, etc.) and maybe Tutor? could be on cards that said, "Search your library for a card, reveal it, and put it into your hand."
You mean like this? It's a little out-of-date, but contains some ideas.
I had a whole list of noncreature types for spells in my "Turn Magic into an LCG" project that will probably never see the light of day, but for the most part it's hard to make them have relevant tribal support -AND- include enough spell domains that each spell could reasonably belong to. Though I had something like 20-30 spell types, with only a few having tribal synergies.
I think the cosmology you listed would be fine for a standalone block, though some of them feel a bit abstract - entropy including necromancy, for example. Is Raise Dead really entropic? It seems more like Memory/Spectral or Energy to me. Which would make it weird when Zombify is something else. Any block with noncreature types would have to have more grounded types that people can look at and go "Oh, I guess I see how that's a Fire spell" or "Oh, I can tell it's a Martial spell because it involves dudes punching stuff harder".
Interesting how many of the mechanics in GDS 2 later got printed in real magic. It looks like
was designed there, not long after the first zendikar/worldwake block (??)
I agree a cardset here for discussion and such is a good idea - this one can do it nicely for the questions.
For the actual card design - would we all want to create our own sets; or all in a big messy set? There's interesting possibilities either way.
rip im 14 and canadian
To me, the first questions are
For another project, I've been thinking of this kind of elemental/sphere/"spell school" cycle/cosmology:
Generally, I consider a race to be "human-like" if they're the default for the setting, can exist in most roles/colors, and aren't necessarily tied to a mechanical theme. That's why I'm okay with Innistrad - instead of humans being the -default- race of many races, they're the origin race (with every other tribe represented in Innistrad just a various form of human - ghost human, undead human, furry human, pale human). I'm okay with human-like beings as races as long as they have a relatively cohesive mechanical or color identity to them.
Dwarves in Kaladesh, for example, didn't do much to differentiate themselves from humans. Aerial Responder, Fairgrounds Warden, and Consul's Shieldguard, for example, didn't need to be dwarves. If all of the dwarves were similar to Depala, Pilot Exemplar or Gearshift Ace, that would be less of an issue.
Conversely, if you had a setting that had Elves in all colors, with most of them eschewing their green, mana-producing, tree-hugging, swarming ways, you're probably just better off using humans as the default race. You're not necessarily impressing anyone with that aspect of your setting unless you do something meaningful with it. I feel the same with Orcs - too often they're easily replaced by the more MTG-default Goblins or Ogres, depending on the size. They don't really do much to separate themselves from those races. Orcs in Khans of Tarkir only felt like they were included because Wizards needed some alternate races to spice up some of their designs and world, not because they had any want for them mechanically. The same with Aetherborn - they look cool, but for the most part, they do stuff that can be covered by humans or vampires (if they existed in Kaladesh) in the setting.