jynx316
2/2 Zombie
Luck? It's just a roll of the dice...
Posts: 107
Favorite Set: Urza's Saga or the entirety of Invasion Block
Color Alignment: White, Green
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Post by jynx316 on Jul 4, 2018 0:35:05 GMT
I came up with this for the current CotW contest. I think it has some potential.
Chant {param1} (When CARDNAME is placed in the Battlefield, put {param1} Chant Counters on it. When CARDNAME attacks, it gains +X/+X until the end of turn, where X is the number of Chant Counters on it.)
Here's the ability on a card (specifically, one of the cards for the CotW)
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Post by ThatDamnPipsqueak on Jul 4, 2018 2:54:13 GMT
So, this is basically an intersection of +1/+1 counters and bushido? I'm curious what unique design space it has, versus just +1/+1 counters.
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Post by Jéské Couriano on Jul 4, 2018 4:09:19 GMT
The ability needs reworded.
This seems... a bit overcomplicated. The comparison to Bushido is apt, and I would actually suggest instead making this similar to that keyword, like so:
One more thing: You NEVER use CARDNAME or LEGENDNAME in the reminder text. This is because reminder text is written to be as card-agnostic as possible to head off rules arguments at the pass. Instead, you refer to the card in the neuter ("this creature", "this spell", etc.).
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jynx316
2/2 Zombie
Luck? It's just a roll of the dice...
Posts: 107
Favorite Set: Urza's Saga or the entirety of Invasion Block
Color Alignment: White, Green
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Post by jynx316 on Jul 4, 2018 12:44:47 GMT
That’s all presuming it’s static. I want Chant to be dynamic, in that it can change. Should the number of Chant counters (or lyric counters, or Gregorian counters, or whatever I decide to call them) change, then the bonus that the creature receives becomes greater.
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Post by Jéské Couriano on Jul 4, 2018 19:15:26 GMT
The issue with this is that nonstandard counters (anything that isn't +1/+1, -1/-1, time, charge, or poison), especially on creatures, generally justify higher rarities because they make the board state harder to read. And given that these are conditional +1/+1 counters, it's not a good idea to include them so as not to confuse them with more reliable plain +1/+1s.
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Post by ameisenmeister on Dec 18, 2018 11:33:54 GMT
I have to disagree here. You can use whatever counters you see fit, even on common rarity. RoE's levelers proved that it is not a no-go. However, if you decide to use chant counters as your primary type, you really should not use +1/+1, -1/-1, or other counters, except for the occasional rare or mythic of course.
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Post by Jéské Couriano on Dec 18, 2018 22:49:52 GMT
I have to disagree here. You can use whatever counters you see fit, even on common rarity. RoE's levelers proved that it is not a no-go. However, if you decide to use chant counters as your primary type, you really should not use +1/+1, -1/-1, or other counters, except for the occasional rare or mythic of course.
In fact, levelers are Exhibit A as to the perils of mixing counters.
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Post by kefke on Dec 19, 2018 7:31:16 GMT
Seems pretty straightforward to me. It's a conditional buff mechanic that uses counters. Should have interesting interactions with Proliferate and other general counter shuffling mechanics. I assume it would be used in a set with its own support and counters, like cards that add or remove counters? Things that trigger the buff at nonstandard times or use the counters for other effects could also be a possibility. Overall seems like an interesting, if slightly redundant design space.
Personally, I've never understood this nonsense about different types of counters being confusing. Just use something different for each type of counter (with an index written on scratch paper if need be). Or use paper notes with what they are written on them for counters. Put a post-it on the card with counts written down on it "+1/+1 = 2, Chorus = 4, Charge = 1" if you have to. Just my personal opinion, but it shouldn't be all that hard to figure something out for anyone doing a minimal amount of thinking.
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Post by ameisenmeister on Dec 19, 2018 21:51:17 GMT
@ Jéské Couriano Ah well, didn't know that level up was so high up on the storm scale. Anyhow. the reason, apparently, wasn't with the counters but more with the card frame and how a level up creature could be three different creatures. This doesn't apply to the chant mechanic so I assume it's fine to use other counters, as long as you stick to just them. I even remember some GDS2 judgings that said the same about a contestor who used blight counters for his set...
@ kefke You can probably make different counters work if you put some effort into it, but a lot of players (like me for instance) use dice as counters and are not really keen on inventing color codes as to which die represents which type of counter. Furthermore, of course everyone here can design whatever they want, but as far as I understand it, the aim is to come up with cards that not violate the official "design rules" of wotc.
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Post by Jéské Couriano on Dec 19, 2018 23:45:13 GMT
arisenmeister ) As a general rule counter-centric abilities that don't use one of the standard counters are going to trend higher on the Storm Scale because counters by their very nature complicate reading a board. This was mentioned by MaRo when he discussed levelers in the article.
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Post by kefke on Dec 20, 2018 2:32:11 GMT
but as far as I understand it, the aim is to come up with cards that not violate the official "design rules" of wotc. That sounds like pretty much the opposite of the point of homebrew, to me. Even WotC don't shy away from changing the rules, when the situation arises, and some things that were real things in older environments would get shot down by today's standards ( Shahrazad, for instance). Putting so much constraint on cards that will never be official is just silly. Sure, I could come up with a dozen variations on a Bear, but that's not really being creative, is it? In an unofficial homebrew environment, I feel the only thing we should worry about is how balanced a card or mechanic is, not how well it follows guidlines it will never be held against.
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Post by ameisenmeister on Dec 20, 2018 10:19:10 GMT
but as far as I understand it, the aim is to come up with cards that not violate the official "design rules" of wotc. That sounds like pretty much the opposite of the point of homebrew, to me. Even WotC don't shy away from changing the rules, when the situation arises, and some things that were real things in older environments would get shot down by today's standards ( Shahrazad, for instance). Putting so much constraint on cards that will never be official is just silly. Sure, I could come up with a dozen variations on a Bear, but that's not really being creative, is it? In an unofficial homebrew environment, I feel the only thing we should worry about is how balanced a card or mechanic is, not how well it follows guidlines it will never be held against. Well, first off, Wizards does shy away from changing the rules, and even if just because the reflexoíve uproar of the player base. Sure, they did change some rules but these were never light hearted decisions just to make a new mechanic work, but mostly to simplify the game. The new combat rules of M10, the abolishment of mana burn, the new target rules for damage to planeswalkers... these weren't made to pull of something fancy but to address problems many players had comprehending the game. Throwing different types of counters all over the place is the exact opposite of that premise.
You might think that following explicit rules by wotc is too much contraint, and I'm fine with you thinking that, but I disagree. After all, this is the Magic Set Editor forum and not the made-up-game-with-mtg-card-frames Forum. I admit that it's a balancing act between being exploring new territories and sticking to old rules, and I am obviously on a more conservative side than you, but claiming that you can't come up with something creative without ignoring the rules is just wrong and thoroughly disproven by countless innovative desings here at this website that could fit into a real making product any day without any rules changing whatsoever.
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Post by Jéské Couriano on Dec 21, 2018 0:28:12 GMT
You might think that following explicit rules by wotc is too much contraint, and I'm fine with you thinking that, but I disagree. After all, this is the Magic Set Editor forum and not the made-up-game-with-mtg-card-frames Forum. I admit that it's a balancing act between being exploring new territories and sticking to old rules, and I am obviously on a more conservative side than you, but claiming that you can't come up with something creative without ignoring the rules is just wrong and thoroughly disproven by countless innovative desings here at this website that could fit into a real making product any day without any rules changing whatsoever.
I'm more conservative than you in this regard. I consider amending any of the rules outside the keywords section a bright line that should not be crossed, though for very pragmatic reasons (these amendments are at risk of being impossible as writ with a rules revision by Wizards).
Most of the time, I find that most everyone who's looking to amend the other rules are looking to do something that would ultimately complicate reading a boardstate.
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Post by kefke on Dec 21, 2018 8:45:09 GMT
Most of the time, I find that most everyone who's looking to amend the other rules are looking to do something that would ultimately complicate reading a boardstate.
Well forgive me for saying, but what's wrong with a more complex boardstate? I played back when Interrupts were still a thing and I don't remember anyone ever saying the game was too complicated to understand. If you ask me, all that the obsessive "simplification" from WotC has done is break older cards, and in some cases actually make things harder to understand, if not downright counter-intuitive.
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Post by ameisenmeister on Dec 21, 2018 11:08:08 GMT
Most of the time, I find that most everyone who's looking to amend the other rules are looking to do something that would ultimately complicate reading a boardstate.
Well forgive me for saying, but what's wrong with a more complex boardstate? I played back when Interrupts were still a thing and I don't remember anyone ever saying the game was too complicated to understand. If you ask me, all that the obsessive "simplification" from WotC has done is break older cards, and in some cases actually make things harder to understand, if not downright counter-intuitive. Here it again gets to the question which game we are trying to design here. I, for my tastes, like to design Magic cards that could be real today's cards printed in the next expansion, and I have fun designing cards with these constraints in mind because these restrictions on complexity and the rigid rules pose an interesting challenge. And I always assumed that this is true for most of the people on the forums here. You, kefke, are obviously different and I'm totally fine with that, but you probably should be prepared to face criticism whenever you bend or break modern magic's rules, even though these rules aren't important to you.
Also let me point out that just because nobody in your past complained about the game's complexity doesn't mean that it wasn't too complex. Back in the day when Interrupts were still a thing there was only a small hand full of players compared to today's numbers. And no doubt that a lot of these current players would turn their backs on Magic and/or stop starting to play in the first place if the old complex rules returned.
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Post by Jéské Couriano on Dec 21, 2018 21:43:38 GMT
Most of the time, I find that most everyone who's looking to amend the other rules are looking to do something that would ultimately complicate reading a boardstate.
Well forgive me for saying, but what's wrong with a more complex boardstate? I played back when Interrupts were still a thing and I don't remember anyone ever saying the game was too complicated to understand. If you ask me, all that the obsessive "simplification" from WotC has done is break older cards, and in some cases actually make things harder to understand, if not downright counter-intuitive. There's a difference between a complex boardstate and a boardstate that's complicated to read. The former has many moving parts on the field but being able to assess it is still an easy enough task to do because it's obvious what is what and what is going on. The latter is a confusing mess.
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