The CPA Expansion Project, Phase Three--Overview Brainstorming

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Notepad

Guest
Alrighty, so we're still figuring out our roles in this project, but we can at least brainstorm on the overall project right now. Of course, this is a "throw out anything you think of" session about the project, so don't feel afraid to speak your mind on anything.

Were this a business project, this is the point where some maniac with a marker and a giant eisel writes down everything frantically while people in the room shout out any crazy idea they can think of.

Keep in mind, though, this isn't card suggestion time. This is for us to vent our ideas on what the project should be, card mixes, goals with the cards, storylines, settings, etc.

Once we have all that thrown out, we can start collaborating on what ideas are the best to take and run with on this grand project. :D

Rather than double-post, here's some ideas that have been tossed around already:
-No overall set mechanics. (Duke and I talked about this on another thread). Have mechanics be per-card, to foster creativeness in each and every card.
-Make a new base set. (I believe TCO said this in another forum). Granted, we might just end up with some staples from Magic's many sets, but this idea takes it further with more reprints and an attempt at making a type of casual core set.
-Make it draftable. (Istanbul's previous dream card set article and thread made it clear balance for limited can be something to aim for).
 
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DÛke

Guest
I double major in Philosophy and Psychology. I am naturally fascinated by subjects like dreams, reality, existence. Imagine a hyper-futuristic world (which doesn't depend on Artifacts!) in which a civilization has reached its pinnacle and creature-kind has finally reached the point where it satisfactorily believes that it is the creator and has forgotten that, essentially, it is the created. There are few, however, who can "sense" the existence of something long forgotten...long disregarded...essences...which they envision in dreams, which they hallucinate. At times...these unorthodox monks, prophets, and in some cases, regular people wake up to their days facing a reality that is half-real and half-otherworldly...signs of approaching spiritual collapse and disaster fill their minds at times, while the world itself, to them, seems to shift between its present condition and a condition far more primordial in which life has not been touched by the hand of civilization. The great conflict in here is between 2 possible realities, which later mounts into a conflict between 2 ideologies, and later...becomes so strong that it becomes a plane-wide war between 2 beliefs, meanwhile the signs and wonders fill the air, or are they not even signs and wonders...who's to say that they're not the product of ill-founded minds? Or is there more to the world than simple existence and invention, progress and finally demise?

Those are just general outlines, of course. My tendency, like always, tries to make the usually "bad" guys the good guys. In here, Black, Red, and even Blue to an extent are actually the unorthodoxy - they innocently disrupt the order of the civilized world and its progress, inspire fear and disbelief, maybe truly for a great reason that's worth considering by anyone who listens, or maybe for no reason at all. Of course nothing is black and white…there are those that are “in between”…who don’t know what to believe…who experience the most sublime visions but on a level so subconscious that they fail to “wake up.” Of course general society would not say they need to “wake up,” but that they need treatment and enlightenment. Here there could be no right and wrong…only shades of grey…

And this, of course, is one of a million themes and ideas I have for a possible storyline...
 
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Captain Caveman

Guest
my two cents:

goals with the cards: Remove the "color" wheel theme. Make some of the cards have a lot of synergy with the number of players in the game.(some effect that grows with number of players)
 
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DÛke

Guest
Magic wouldn't exist without the color wheel. It is Magic. We can't disregard it, though we can modify and even reinvent it, within reason.
Make a new base set. (I believe TCO said this in another forum). Granted, we might just end up with some staples from Magic's many sets, but this idea takes it further with more reprints and an attempt at making a type of casual core set.
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I like this idea...though even our core set should be unique, though it should surely have reinventions of the "basics," like Disenchant, for example. But they're all reinventions. I do like the idea of not having these staples in the actual set because they take room; we want the set to be as far from generic as possible, right? :)
 
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TheCasualOblivion

Guest
Originally posted by DÛke
Magic wouldn't exist without the color wheel. It is Magic. We can't disregard it, though we can modify and even reinvent it, within reason.I like this idea...though even our core set should be unique, though it should surely have reinventions of the "basics," like Disenchant, for example. But they're all reinventions. I do like the idea of not having these staples in the actual set because they take room; we want the set to be as far from generic as possible, right? :)
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There is an innate problem with this concept. That is that making the new base set while reinventing the "basic" cards in a new core set will make the new core set somewhat incompatible with the existing magic cards. There are core cards that would not do well to reinvent with just a new name. 8 Terror, 8 Wrath of God, 8 Lightning Bolts, think about it.
 
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DÛke

Guest
Well, I for one would want more flavor even to our "core" cards.

Instead of this:

Disenchant (1W)
Instant
Destroy target artifact or enchantment

We get something more flavorful and in tune with what the actual set is, but not with disregard to all other Magic cards.

Within reason. All within reason.
 
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Captain Caveman

Guest
2 more cents:

I think an important question would be:

Do you want to build a "core" set or a Stand Alone expansion?

I think you should focus on a Stand Alone Expansion. Without any "core" cards. We(all of us)have a card pool to pull those cards from.

Some more random thoughts:

It would be nice if each color was given the ability to draw cards. In the past, it seems that most of the good card drawing was given to Blue.

With a Stand Alone you could build a complete block. Probably something similiar to how WoTc does there blocks(350+150+150)


I don't know I'm just rambling on now......:D
 
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DÛke

Guest
It would be nice if each color was given the ability to draw cards. In the past, it seems that most of the good card drawing was given to Blue.
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I'm working on that. :) But within reason.

As for Core set versus stand alone...I think we're doing both...
 
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Notepad

Guest
Originally posted by DÛke
What? is the project dead before it began?
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Personally, I had a lot of work over the weekend. Will be that way now thanks to a request for a schedule change. More money for me (more stress, too). My boss is happeir. It's win-win, baby! :D

Anyway...sorry for the absence...

A few personal ideas (more to come as more spring to mind):
-I'd like to see a stand alone with few reprints, but am fine with reprints.
-We should definitely avoid basic stuff. Why do Grizzly Bears and Shatter? Why not stuff with flair? Try to avoid the vanilla as much as possible. This isn't to say make everything super wordy. Just, make it interesting, even the junk cards. Stuff that makes you want to think about where to put it in your decks or collections, not just go "eh, another boring kill spell, slap!"
-Complete lack of set mechanics. Try to do a lot of top-down where possible, and have mechanics be per-card as the first editions of Magic.
-As far as storyline goes, it would be nice to see something like the return to the old days, where it was more like "One big world, a million possibilities" type things. No main set heroes, no main story going on with a few heroes and baddies fighting it out. When you have that type of melodrama, what's the point of all the other 300+ cards? They don't mean crap to the storyline, even if they happen to be a moose the hero hunted for lunch in the first chapter of the set novel (okay, dissing Mirrodin's book here). Interesting characters, yes, but no major plot overwhelming the cards.
-No melodrama. No melodrama. No melodrama. Please? :D :D :D No world coming to and end. No world being killed by spirits. No big invasion coming. Treat the story less as an exploration of some major scheme or war, and much much more as a visit to a zoo. "Wow, look at that!" little type of short stories. Much like WotC's "Meet the Champions" and "Meet the Betrayers" is in line with the style, with each card telling its own story. Forget the melodrama of Kamigawa's Kami War.
 
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