T
Thallid Ice Cream Man
Guest
(CT or Spidey: Could you make an announcement on the main page with the next update? If you choose to do so, thanks very much. 
)
I was thinking recently about the fact that I've had a lot of trouble designing cards these past few months.
I just didn't have any ideas for ways to start a flow, if you know what I mean, a group of card concepts that could give ideas for further cards with little twists on them... those of you who design a lot of cards might know what I mean.
I was also thinking about how when we have worked on sets together in the CPA, the efforts always came down to one person (usually FoR or, more recently (although it's mostly his set), Shiro) posting a bunch of cards from time to time and the occasional contribution from someone else.
Then I remembered the Sliver set, which was probably the longest running effort (well, maybe Casualties of War was longer)... but still petered out at the end.
It seemed to me, though, that while we ended up with about as many cards for the Sliver set as we did for Subterfuge (our most recent attempt at this... which has basically been abandoned, not that it's any one person's fault), the sliver cards came much more quickly. The reason for this, I soon realized, is that there was a mechanic - slivers - on which people could easily build, because it's simple and a duality; that is, either you're a sliver, or you're not, and it's far easier to build cards based on how they deal with one group or another than with nothing in mind. This prospect, combined with artifice, another mechanic made up for that set, seemed to bode well for it.
I propose, therefore, that we start a new set with some sort of extra ability - one which, in and of itself, is fairly meaningless, but which means a lot when taken in the context of other cards. For example, there could be a continuous ability for permanents called "pure" or "impure" (or whatever you want to call it, I don't care much about the name) ... permanents that are it or aren't are affected by other cards designed to work for one or the other.
Preferably these abilities would not be distributed too much along color lines; that would make the ability less meaningful.
Here, for example, is a perfectly bland sample spell, but one which could get ideas going.
____
1R
Instant
____ deals 3 damage to target impure creature or to target player.
"But wait!" I hear you ask. "Why will this set not just fail like the others?"
Well, we have lots of experience with these sets, our membership has changed since the last time we tried setting up one of these things (about a year and a half ago, if I recall) , and so if we make sure to structure this one differentl we should be fine.
(And if nothing else, we could hype the kweh out of this one.)
To those who would ask, no, you don't have to give up on your own sets, and we aren't necessarily giving up on Subterfuge. If we instead carefully plan this out we won't have to end up with a formless mass of cards, and we might go back to Subterfuge later...
Anyway, please post with any comments you may have.
)I was thinking recently about the fact that I've had a lot of trouble designing cards these past few months.
I just didn't have any ideas for ways to start a flow, if you know what I mean, a group of card concepts that could give ideas for further cards with little twists on them... those of you who design a lot of cards might know what I mean.
I was also thinking about how when we have worked on sets together in the CPA, the efforts always came down to one person (usually FoR or, more recently (although it's mostly his set), Shiro) posting a bunch of cards from time to time and the occasional contribution from someone else.
Then I remembered the Sliver set, which was probably the longest running effort (well, maybe Casualties of War was longer)... but still petered out at the end.
It seemed to me, though, that while we ended up with about as many cards for the Sliver set as we did for Subterfuge (our most recent attempt at this... which has basically been abandoned, not that it's any one person's fault), the sliver cards came much more quickly. The reason for this, I soon realized, is that there was a mechanic - slivers - on which people could easily build, because it's simple and a duality; that is, either you're a sliver, or you're not, and it's far easier to build cards based on how they deal with one group or another than with nothing in mind. This prospect, combined with artifice, another mechanic made up for that set, seemed to bode well for it.
I propose, therefore, that we start a new set with some sort of extra ability - one which, in and of itself, is fairly meaningless, but which means a lot when taken in the context of other cards. For example, there could be a continuous ability for permanents called "pure" or "impure" (or whatever you want to call it, I don't care much about the name) ... permanents that are it or aren't are affected by other cards designed to work for one or the other.
Preferably these abilities would not be distributed too much along color lines; that would make the ability less meaningful.
Here, for example, is a perfectly bland sample spell, but one which could get ideas going.
____
1R
Instant
____ deals 3 damage to target impure creature or to target player.
"But wait!" I hear you ask. "Why will this set not just fail like the others?"
Well, we have lots of experience with these sets, our membership has changed since the last time we tried setting up one of these things (about a year and a half ago, if I recall) , and so if we make sure to structure this one differentl we should be fine.
(And if nothing else, we could hype the kweh out of this one.
)To those who would ask, no, you don't have to give up on your own sets, and we aren't necessarily giving up on Subterfuge. If we instead carefully plan this out we won't have to end up with a formless mass of cards, and we might go back to Subterfuge later...
Anyway, please post with any comments you may have.