Category Archives: Game Design

Sorcery Speed and Other Subtle Teaching Tools

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For clarity: When I’m talking about discard in this context, I’m talking about effects where the target makes the selection, such as Disrupting Scepter, Raven’s Crime and such.

Ever wondered why discard is generally sorcery-speed? There are some exceptions (such as a couple of charms), but this seems to be the rule. It probably started as a safeguard back in the day, but the rule has remained.

Think about it this way: In most cases, you are better off using it on your turn, when the opponent has less choices. Assuming your opponent has four cards in hand. One of them is the worst card. If you let your opponent draw another card, that might be the worst card and he will discard that. If it’s better than the worst card, you’ve gained nothing. Only your opponent has something to gain here.

Of course, if your opponent has no cards in hand, it would be better to force him to discard during the draw phase, since that would deprive your opponent of his only card for the round, but that would be both unfun and it’s a not a common situation anyway.

I’m not saying discard effects are better at sorcery speed than they would be at instant speed. What I’m saying is that keeping these effects at sorcery speed helps newer players. Seems to me, this is not the only place where Wizards tries to help newer players.

Let’s take exalted, a mechanism most recently seen in M13. It’s not the best mechanism for this, but it encourages attacking. A problem with many less experienced players is that they will often play as defensively as possible. Perhaps they’ve seen a haste-creature once or twice and are willing to exchange doing a few points of damage to possibly evade a few points themselves. But exalted says, maybe you aren’t willing to go all out, but at least this one creature should attack. After all, most decks can’t win without being proactive. Although exalted doesn’t really change that much, it has a psychological effect which might make a difference for those who are not accustomed to thinking ahead and planning ahead to victory.

Of course, at some point, this kind of strong-arming into playing well becomes unnecessary, but I’m willing to bet most players have never thought about why using discard is better during your own turn. On the other hand, once you learn to attack, you’ll never go back (says the aggro-player in me).

ROLEplaying Games vs. Roleplaying GAMES

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For a very long time, my approach to roleplaying games was that I tried to balance the role and the game. To me, it was the combination of having the character and making tactical decisions. However, in the last few years, my personal interests have changed.

Perhaps the major reason for this is the rise of board games. Board games used to be shit. They would sometimes have great themes, but they never delivered. You could never get the experience you wanted. They always fell flat. Then came the German or European games, whatever you want to call them. They had a completely different approach to the way games are designed. Theme was no longer the king. In fact, often the game was designed first and the theme added later.

Now, after a few years of development and evolution, board game technology has reached a point where designers no longer need to compromise theme and mechanics. Games like Lords of Waterdeep are fun as games and incorporate the theme in a great way. Often the games are easy, but deep, with enough variance to keep them interesting.

Then, last year, I rediscovered Magic: The Gathering after 13 year hiatus. I had thought the game had all but died around 2000, but apparently it is more popular then ever. The design of the game is now great. Like board games, there has been huge strides, which actually make the game much more fun and manages to steer the game back into what it was supposed to be. The top-down design is both making cards very flavorful and more interesting from a tactical perspective. With MaRos lead, Magic seems to be on the right course. Mistakes are still made, but they are fewer.

All this has taken care of my need for tactical thinking. RPGs are not the best outlet for that kind of challenge any more. At least for me. Therefore, my emphasis has changed. Now I’m thinking they are primarily ROLEplaying games. Interest in the life of the character has risen above the tactical concerns. Now when I’m looking at how I’m going to use experience points, I’m no longer looking at how to optimize the character for future challenges. Instead, I’m more interested in how I think my character would progress. How does he or she change over time? I do like the added options whenever I can get them, though.

Another reason is the evolution of RPGs. Like board games, design has moved forward. Like most arts, the mainstream has only moved a little, while the fringes are taking risks and covering new ground. Therefore games like D&D are better than they used to be, but not as much as they could be. One important change is the role of the GM. It is now better defined. In games like Agon, the GM has a clear job of presenting challenges so that the players can see who can best step up to them. In some games, such as tremulus, the GM is more like the director in a improvised story.

In any case, GMs don’t have the same kind of ownership of a game they used to. Now games seem more like a group effort. I have never enjoyed GMing in the style where players are there mostly as spectators to my grand design. I just couldn’t identify the problem before this new generation of games, where I can just let the players take a big part of the creative process. After all, I’m no more creative then they are. In fact, my bias based on my thinking probably makes me less creative regarding the material.

This emphasis on the group effort has changed how I perceive games. When the story is a group effort, I no longer feel that I have to somehow compete with the GM. I know this was always a poor way to look at things, but the secretive nature of what GM was doing, would always have me on edge and therefore not trusting of what the GM was doing. Now I’m more open to letting my character have ups, downs and often the inevitable final fall. Again, this is partly due to the aforementioned MtG and board games.

I’m still not willing to go fully freeform. Random variables make games more interesting. When you can’t decide when you fail (and of course there is the fear of players who are not willing to fail), you won’t be ready for it.

All in all, we are living in a wonderful age of discovery for games. I can’t really say how long this will last, but than again, we are now in a very good place. The change has been so radical, the roles different games play in my life has changed.