I'm more on Reuben's side on this one. Between distribution issues, the number of casual players that would get negative reactions out of opening it, and fitting it into an overall set's design goals Admit Defeat isn't all that practical to print. Sure, in a vacuum it's a solid (albeit narrow) uber-johnny card, but eh. I can't be excited about it. It doesn't mean cards like this shouldn't exist, but I would look for a card that has more potential outlets then forcing your opponent to cast it for the design goal you proposed.
An article were Maro discusses one with nothing, why it was printed, and a bit about Uber Johnny can be found here for his point of view on the topic.
Auction Magic is a lot of Fun. Stairc and I had a couple games, and even though I was extremely rusty on the Cockatrice interface we had a good time. I recommend it.
I will say that for someone who hasn't already given it a whirl, the way you described it on your podcast may turn out confusing because not all the core rules were laid out up front. It sounded like you got ahead of yourselves a few times. You'll have to wait on feedback from someone who hasn't tried it yet. Best post those rules fast!
I think the shorter broadcast time will lower that barrier of entry nicely though. Enjoyable as always.
There seems to be a severe misconception about what a johnny likes. Playing a terrible card for the sake of it being terrible is not enough - in that case Eager Cadet would be enough.
If this is what we communicated, that's our mistake. Johnny doesn't specifically enjoy winning with terrible cards. However, there is specific subset of Johnny called the Uber Johnny that specifically enjoys winning with terrible cards - including extremely linear ones. Rosewater gives an elegant explanation in his article Designing for Johnny - excerpt below.
Quote from Mark Rosewater »
The thumbnail version of this lesson for designers is this: when creating a Johnny card, make sure it is open-ended enough that it allows maximum opportunities. If everyone is going to do the same thing with a card, it simply isn't going to excite Johnny. (Well, except for über-Johnny who lives to do things like find other uses for linear cards.)
Which brings us to a completely different kind of Magic card—the "bad" card. Whether the card is low-powered or very narrow or clumsy in its execution, there are many cards that are shunned by the majority of players. For some Johnnies, these cards are great motivators as they are eager to show that they can do things differently. What better task than making use of things deemed worthless?
The classic example of this card comes from Saviors of Kamigawa. One with Nothing was famous for stirring up a big segment of the audience who was offended that we printed a card that was so obviously worthless. What most of them failed to understand was that it was the majority's rejection of this card that made it so much fun for the Johnnies who used it. Anyone can win with a good card. These Johnnies enjoy winning with bad ones.
The uber johnny is a strange version of Johnny. His self-expression and creativity comes from finding uses for the seemingly useless, or finding new ideas when the card seems extremely straight-forward. Honestly, I feel like the Uber Johnny fits more the domain of a Spike subtype than a Johnny, because it seems to be about proving yourself in the challenge of finding a use for the useless - and it violates many of the normal rules about what Johnny enjoys. However, Rosewater has termed it the Uber Johnny - which I think is also misleading because it implies taking the normal Johnny psychographic and turning it up to 11 - and so that's the term we used.
There surely is a very specific subtype of a Johnny that would enjoy the card, but it's such a tiny minority and the argument that you could have printed a card they would like more still stands.
This is both a great point and simultaneously misses the point. That's what's so weird about the Uber Johnny psychographic. As rosewater says, the more that other players dislike the card, the more the uber johnnies love winning with it. We did briefly discuss other ways to make the card negative for you, but still open-ended, in the podcast - and that could be legitimate. A card that deals 20 damage to yourself has more possible interactions, but it doesn't create the same pure disdain for the card as this one - or seem as elegant in its terribleness. As Reuben says, you can always concede the game. You can''t always deal 20 damage to yourself. It's quite easy to imagine redirecting that damage somehow.
Ultimately, I think Reuben is correct that putting the card in booster packs would be a negative experience for too many players to justify the narrow appeal. However, in terms of the specific design goal of making an obviously terrible card that the majority of players will disdain - I'd say the dislike of this card by so many non-uber-johnnies here shows it's a solid design. It's similar, though a much more extreme version, to the infect problem. Loosely, infect was designed to make the phyrexians feel violating and ensure players hated it when the phyrexians hit them or their creatures. Is that something you want your players to feel? If that's your design goal, infect pulls it off pretty darn well. However, like the uber johnny cards, it's a very dangerous design goal.
What's important here is to recognize that Admit Defeat is an excellent card for its design goal. Whether the design goal is something you want to support is something else entirely. If wizards decided they wanted to put an Uber Johnny card in a set, I would think Admit Defeat to fulfill that design goal elegantly. However, after the talk with Reuben, I'd also strongly caution against putting the card in the set to begin with. Figuring out another way to get the card into players' hands, such as the consolation prize Reuben mentions, would be nicer than working it into booster packs people paid money for.
It is not even worth making that card because the deck that forces "you lose" spells onto opponents already exists (as you identified with the pacts).
The pacts don't serve the Uber Johnny psychographic. The problem with the Pacts is that they are good. Many players love them, many of them are very expensive to represent this and simply reading the cards is enough to excite many people. The moment a card becomes popular or is considered good, Uber Johnny has no interest in it. The pacts are excellent design due to their use for the majority of all three ajor psychographics (Timmy likes doing something new and flashy like playing a "free" spell, they have cool open-ended combo options for the majority of Johnnies and they provide powerful interactions and interesting decisions for Spike). However, this means they don't serve the Uber Johnny psychographic.
As a Johnny, I see cards like Admit Defeat and immediately my brain starts spinning. I played the Star Wars TCG competitively back in the day, and I was best known in the area as the guy who beat the meta, at a qualifier no less, with Cliegg Lars in my deck - a card universally held to be the worst WotC ever printed. I'm not saying Admit Defeat is a good design (and I haven't had the opportunity to listen to the podcast since I'm at work), but I can see the argument for it appealing to the small subset of Johnnies out there who like goofy stuff like that.
We'd love to hear your suggestions here. I also really enjoyed this week's segments. Normally we agree on card designs within 1 or even half a point of each other. It was a lot of fun to have a detailed design discussion on the air, where both of us ended up seeing something we hadn't noticed before. I was absolutely wrong to rate it so highly at the beginning without consideration of the experience of getting the card in a booster pack. I've been spending way too long on projects with non-randomized distribution models, where this wouldn't be a concern. It was great to have Reuben point that out.
As for the auction magic length, we just decided to have fun talking about the format and sharing our cool experiences. We actually had to rerecord this segment, because the first time we went on about it for almost 40 minutes. Then we stopped recording and went off to play it again. It's hard to control the fanboy in ourselves sometimes.
By the way, there's now a thread explaining the auction magic rules in the custom card creation forum. Here's a Link.
Splitting the podcast into two segments sounds like a good idea and should make it much easier to listen to. I hope the new format works out for you guys as well.
The discussion on Admit Defeat was surprisingly interestingly. I'm not a fan of uber-Johnny cards, so I was impressed when Dan was able to convince me that there might be some good reasons to print the card. I agree that using it as some sort of "bad promo" would probably be the best way to go.
Auction Magic sounds like a lot of fun. I have a friend that I haven't been able to get into Magic and I feel like this format circumvents a lot of the issues he has with regular Magic, so I going to see if I can use this as a "gateway format" . I'm going to start working on a stack soon and hopefully I'll get that done today. I'll share it in the Auction Magic thread when I do.
That seems like it might be a good idea. Like, "The Winner is Judge", only we critique the most interesting one(s) on the air and still award a winner?
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http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/creativity/custom-card-creation/581491-interest-in-a-custom-mtg-card-podcast
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
I'm more on Reuben's side on this one. Between distribution issues, the number of casual players that would get negative reactions out of opening it, and fitting it into an overall set's design goals Admit Defeat isn't all that practical to print. Sure, in a vacuum it's a solid (albeit narrow) uber-johnny card, but eh. I can't be excited about it. It doesn't mean cards like this shouldn't exist, but I would look for a card that has more potential outlets then forcing your opponent to cast it for the design goal you proposed.
An article were Maro discusses one with nothing, why it was printed, and a bit about Uber Johnny can be found here for his point of view on the topic.
Auction Magic is a lot of Fun. Stairc and I had a couple games, and even though I was extremely rusty on the Cockatrice interface we had a good time. I recommend it.
I will say that for someone who hasn't already given it a whirl, the way you described it on your podcast may turn out confusing because not all the core rules were laid out up front. It sounded like you got ahead of yourselves a few times. You'll have to wait on feedback from someone who hasn't tried it yet. Best post those rules fast!
I think the shorter broadcast time will lower that barrier of entry nicely though. Enjoyable as always.
EDIT - Done! Here's a Link.
If this is what we communicated, that's our mistake. Johnny doesn't specifically enjoy winning with terrible cards. However, there is specific subset of Johnny called the Uber Johnny that specifically enjoys winning with terrible cards - including extremely linear ones. Rosewater gives an elegant explanation in his article Designing for Johnny - excerpt below.
(Emphasis added on the last sentences). Source - http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/50
The uber johnny is a strange version of Johnny. His self-expression and creativity comes from finding uses for the seemingly useless, or finding new ideas when the card seems extremely straight-forward. Honestly, I feel like the Uber Johnny fits more the domain of a Spike subtype than a Johnny, because it seems to be about proving yourself in the challenge of finding a use for the useless - and it violates many of the normal rules about what Johnny enjoys. However, Rosewater has termed it the Uber Johnny - which I think is also misleading because it implies taking the normal Johnny psychographic and turning it up to 11 - and so that's the term we used.
This is both a great point and simultaneously misses the point. That's what's so weird about the Uber Johnny psychographic. As rosewater says, the more that other players dislike the card, the more the uber johnnies love winning with it. We did briefly discuss other ways to make the card negative for you, but still open-ended, in the podcast - and that could be legitimate. A card that deals 20 damage to yourself has more possible interactions, but it doesn't create the same pure disdain for the card as this one - or seem as elegant in its terribleness. As Reuben says, you can always concede the game. You can''t always deal 20 damage to yourself. It's quite easy to imagine redirecting that damage somehow.
Ultimately, I think Reuben is correct that putting the card in booster packs would be a negative experience for too many players to justify the narrow appeal. However, in terms of the specific design goal of making an obviously terrible card that the majority of players will disdain - I'd say the dislike of this card by so many non-uber-johnnies here shows it's a solid design. It's similar, though a much more extreme version, to the infect problem. Loosely, infect was designed to make the phyrexians feel violating and ensure players hated it when the phyrexians hit them or their creatures. Is that something you want your players to feel? If that's your design goal, infect pulls it off pretty darn well. However, like the uber johnny cards, it's a very dangerous design goal.
What's important here is to recognize that Admit Defeat is an excellent card for its design goal. Whether the design goal is something you want to support is something else entirely. If wizards decided they wanted to put an Uber Johnny card in a set, I would think Admit Defeat to fulfill that design goal elegantly. However, after the talk with Reuben, I'd also strongly caution against putting the card in the set to begin with. Figuring out another way to get the card into players' hands, such as the consolation prize Reuben mentions, would be nicer than working it into booster packs people paid money for.
The pacts don't serve the Uber Johnny psychographic. The problem with the Pacts is that they are good. Many players love them, many of them are very expensive to represent this and simply reading the cards is enough to excite many people. The moment a card becomes popular or is considered good, Uber Johnny has no interest in it. The pacts are excellent design due to their use for the majority of all three ajor psychographics (Timmy likes doing something new and flashy like playing a "free" spell, they have cool open-ended combo options for the majority of Johnnies and they provide powerful interactions and interesting decisions for Spike). However, this means they don't serve the Uber Johnny psychographic.
Uber Johnny is a tricksy beast.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
My custom sets:
Caeia Block (Released - Beta)
Generals of Dareth (In Design)
As for the auction magic length, we just decided to have fun talking about the format and sharing our cool experiences. We actually had to rerecord this segment, because the first time we went on about it for almost 40 minutes. Then we stopped recording and went off to play it again. It's hard to control the fanboy in ourselves sometimes.
By the way, there's now a thread explaining the auction magic rules in the custom card creation forum. Here's a Link.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
Splitting the podcast into two segments sounds like a good idea and should make it much easier to listen to. I hope the new format works out for you guys as well.
The discussion on Admit Defeat was surprisingly interestingly. I'm not a fan of uber-Johnny cards, so I was impressed when Dan was able to convince me that there might be some good reasons to print the card. I agree that using it as some sort of "bad promo" would probably be the best way to go.
Auction Magic sounds like a lot of fun. I have a friend that I haven't been able to get into Magic and I feel like this format circumvents a lot of the issues he has with regular Magic, so I going to see if I can use this as a "gateway format" . I'm going to start working on a stack soon and hopefully I'll get that done today. I'll share it in the Auction Magic thread when I do.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane