So, we recently had a few threads closed with combo players fighting with casual players. My intention here is not to re-invigorate that particular debate. Instead, I was wondering about a question I had posed there that got lost in the shuffle:
Given that your playgroup does not like certain things happening in the game, what specific, precise house rule can be employed to prevent them?
My logic in posing the question goes like this. If your group does not like watching Krenko make infinite goblin tokens, that's totally your group's choice to make. I like infinite combos, but I have no trouble adopting to a rule I know in advance when I build my deck. For example, I once attended an EDH tournament where there was an additional house rule: "Any card whose text includes the phrase "search your library" and allows you to find anything other than a basic land type is banned." That was fine with me.
When you know the rule in advance, you can simply accept it and build a deck that you feel maximizes your chances of winning within that restriction. Heck, you might even discover a new powerful deck that you would have overlooked without the restriction.
The magic, however, is in deciding what kind of rule to adopt. What sort of rules have people here used, and how have they gone over?
House Rule 1 of 1: No winning, ever, for any reason. The game ends when all participants are too tired/bored/drunk/stoned to continue. The end.
I think you're joshing around, but actually, this rule does fit the criteria of being very precise. "No player can win the game." it poses a very interesting question, though, and I'd like to know how you dealt with it:
What happens when someone's library is depleted? Are they SOL? If so, this suggests people run many Feldon's Canes, Phyrexian Furnace, Soldevi Digger, Elixer of Immortality, and the like. It also suggests that fighting over these critical cards becomes the whole focus of the game.
I believe that conceding is an action that no card can prevent, unless I'm mistaken -- you can even concede if you have a Platinum Angel out, for instance. So your goal would be to force a concession. I kind of think that if you had "no one can win" as a rule, you'd make a mill deck focused entirely on wiping out everyone else's library. You will aim to eventually lock everyone out of doing anything, at which point they will probably want to end the game and go to the next one.
Like, a rule that says "All cards with the phrase, 'counter target spell' are banned?" Or something like, "If a spell or ability would be countered, it is not instead?"
I think you're joshing around, but actually, this rule does fit the criteria of being very precise. "No player can win the game." it poses a very interesting question, though, and I'd like to know how you dealt with it:
Of course it's a joke, but after thinking about it, it would be kinda fun for everyone to build decks based around that rule and play a game once. I suspect the cards and strategies you suggested would be critical in your quest to "not lose."
My serious answer to your original question:
Our dorm tournaments had a singleton rule. Basically, every card was restricted (other than basic lands, of course). It worked out well, actually.
Want to play highly casual? Make weird rules and keep changing them so people dont have time to tune into the best options.
1) No cards worth more than $5ish dollars
2) No cards with a new border
3) Only use cards from a particular block or set
4) 15 of the cards in your deck must have morph
5) You may only use 2 of each card instead of 4
6) hand size is unrestricted
etc etc....
If you change up the rules in major ways constantly there is less chance of someone in your casual group "breaking" the format and even if they do... oh well there are new rules next week.
Sounds like you invented EDH before it was even a thing, then!
You know what else might be interesting, if you want to punish combo players? Rules like this:
The "Inertia" Rule
"If the total number of spells plus the total number of abilities that a player has put on the stack this turn is six or greater, then any spell cast or ability activated by that player costs an additional 2 colorless mana in addition to any other costs for each spell or ability that player has put onto the stack this turn in excess of six."
Not easy to say, but easy to grasp. Now, this only addresses infinite combos, and only makes them more expensive, but it seems like it would neuter most of the common offenders in the eyes of the casual: Mike'n'Trike, Kikki-Jikki, etc.
Want to play highly casual? Make weird rules and keep changing them so people dont have time to tune into the best options.
1) No cards worth more than $5ish dollars
2) No cards with a new border
3) Only use cards from a particular block or set
4) 15 of the cards in your deck must have morph
5) You may only use 2 of each card instead of 4
6) hand size is unrestricted
etc etc....
If you change up the rules in major ways constantly there is less chance of someone in your casual group "breaking" the format and even if they do... oh well there are new rules next week.
Huh. So, like, each time you meet to play, you come up with a new random variant for the next time? Thats an interesting way to do it. I like the idea; you're basically changing the card pool dramatically each time and just counting on the fact that people can't optimize in time. It makes each play session as much about innovative deck building as about playing. Interesting way to stop the netdeckers.
In a way, it's sort of like Planechase taken to an extreme.
The real problem with this discussion is that it really comes from two mutually exclusive viewpoints.
One group sees Magic as a game with rules. A logical challenge and entertaining competition for friends to enjoy. Much like I might play a game of chess with a friend and still have both of us have fun despite the challenging nature of the game. You can chat and have interesting conversations at the same time, but you are still competing no matter how friendly and casual that competition is.
The other group uses Magic literally just as an excuse to hang out. They are more or less throwing cards on the table just so they have something to do with their hands while they talk. They'll never give you a clear set of deck design restraints because the very idea of trying to win the game is a foreign concept.
Is it that hard to find a playgroup that plays the way you want to play?
Is it that hard to simply not play with someone who plays in a way or format that you find unfun?
Is it that hard to communicate to each other? Really?
We don't need more invented rules to "fix" the problem of casual/competitive players. All you need to do is find people that play with you the game you want to play.
Honestly I think threads like this and all the other related ones are just for people to blow off steam at imaginary strawmen.
Taldier, that's why I don't want to get into the snippy back and forth like that again. A good house rule would seem to satisfy BOTH sides of the equation, right? Those who want to limit the power of the game can do so, and those who like rules know what they're dealing with. No one has to be frustrated, everyone can win.
Honestly I think threads like this and all the other related ones are just for people to blow off steam at imaginary strawmen.
Please don't go here. You'll just get the thread locked again. I'm only looking to get people thinking about interesting house rules to keep everyone happy, not to take sides in this silly debate.
I think you're joshing around, but actually, this rule does fit the criteria of being very precise. "No player can win the game." it poses a very interesting question, though, and I'd like to know how you dealt with it:
What happens when someone's library is depleted? Are they SOL? If so, this suggests people run many Feldon's Canes, Phyrexian Furnace, Soldevi Digger, Elixer of Immortality, and the like. It also suggests that fighting over these critical cards becomes the whole focus of the game.
I believe that conceding is an action that no card can prevent, unless I'm mistaken -- you can even concede if you have a Platinum Angel out, for instance. So your goal would be to force a concession. I kind of think that if you had "no one can win" as a rule, you'd make a mill deck focused entirely on wiping out everyone else's library. You will aim to eventually lock everyone out of doing anything, at which point they will probably want to end the game and go to the next one.
No player can win and no player can lose are not the same thing - just for the record. Technically the winning thing, at least the way it was written, would only stop alt win conditions like Felidar Sovereign's ability, I think.
No player can win and no player can lose are not the same thing - just for the record. Technically the winning thing, at least the way it was written, would only stop alt win conditions like Felidar Sovereign's ability, I think.
Well, you could fix that easily enough: "No player can win the game and no player can lose the game."
Taldier, that's why I don't want to get into the snippy back and forth like that again. A good house rule would seem to satisfy BOTH sides of the equation, right? Those who want to limit the power of the game can do so, and those who like rules know what they're dealing with. No one has to be frustrated, everyone can win.
Please don't go here. You'll just get the thread locked again. I'm only looking to get people thinking about interesting house rules to keep everyone happy, not to take sides in this silly debate.
I feel like even having this debate is taking sides in a way. I don't mean to antagonize or lock the thread. I sincerely doubt you will come up with a single house rule that will solve the problem of "Make Everybody Happy."
But if you want my honest opinion on how to make everybody happy here it is: You can't. Eventually two players will have incompatible opinions with not enough wiggle room to agree. Maybe one of the players is wrong or ignorant or a jerk in that situation but no rule is going to fix it. The best solution is to simply not play with people you don't want to.
We all can be better players by being more open minded and having more empathy for our opponents and strive to make the game more fun for each other. But we also need to know our own limits and clearly communicate to our playgroup what we don't like and what we won't stand for.
It's not just combo/casual. Or competitive/casual. It's about millions of different ways people have fun and interact with other people and about the different expectations we're bringing to each game and whether they are being fulfilled or being broken.
In every playgroup you should know your own expectations and know what is fun and unfun to you and also know these same things for your other players. If you don't, you don't have a playgroup, you have a bunch of random people playing magic and some people are going to eventually disagree and dislike some aspect of the play.
Manage and communicate your expectations for your playgroup and play with those you want to play and you won't need clunky "casual" rules to enforce gameplay.
@Esc7 : What you say is probably the true state of the world today, but we're building bridges here. There's gotta be a way to put common gripes from casual players into rigorous rules, even if those rules vary from group to group. It's a productive discussion to have -- this is exactly how we get variant formats in Magic.
I guess there might be people who, when asked "exactly what do you not allow here?" would not want to even engage in the conversation. But most people would, I think, and thinking about their preferences in a rule-based way helps them all speak the same language.
Manage and communicate your expectations for your playgroup and play with those you want to play and you won't need clunky "casual" rules to enforce gameplay.
"Communicating an expectation" sounds pretty much the same as "effectively formulate a rule so that everyone understands it."
tl;dr: Let's all sing Koombaya around the camp fire!
For my casual playgroup, we pick a format. With that format comes certain restrictions and bans.
We either set a price limit house rule for most expensive card, or what we have been doing recently is agreeing to not use any deck that fits in "Proven" or "Established" here at MTGS.
So we just play really janky brews that are tournament legal in Modern, but disallow things like a matchup between a Jund deck and like, a tribal deck.
@Esc7 : What you say is probably the true state of the world today, but we're building bridges here. There's gotta be a way to put common gripes from casual players into rigorous rules, even if those rules vary from group to group. It's a productive discussion to have -- this is exactly how we get variant formats in Magic.
I guess there might be people who, when asked "exactly what do you not allow here?" would not want to even engage in the conversation. But most people would, I think, and thinking about their preferences in a rule-based way helps them all speak the same language.
"Communicating an expectation" sounds pretty much the same as "effectively formulate a rule so that everyone understands it."
tl;dr: Let's all sing Koombaya around the camp fire!
I completely agree with your sentiment, but I have to disagree that communicating expectations are not usually the same as a creating a rule and communicating that.
Usually the rules are created by using Magic's language to disallow/allow certain things and enforce a new "format." The problem with this is that Magic's language of its cards and mechanics are not able to fully articulate your own human expectations when you sit down to a game.
If my expectation is "we should all try to have fun and not do anything too powerful" how to codify that with Magic rules? You can certainly try and maybe even get close, but a much better solution would just be to communicate that and let us as humans work it out.
Certainly hard and fast rules are very easy for new players to pick up and understand and are vastly easier to comprehend and preform rather than "try to make people have fun" but if you ever encounter someone who is obtuse or not getting it, no amount of rules will fix the problem.
After all that though, I'm not against house rules at all. I have an EDH league where we routinely ban certain cards, and we have a semi-standard format that forces the winner to publish and bring the winning deck back for a rematch with no modifications (so we can stomp it with new sideboard tech).
I just want to people to understand that you can go one level higher than rules and get to the real crux of the matter: How the people you are interacting with feel. Once you realize the whole game rests on that you can play with people more effectively.
P.S. This is more important in pen and paper RPGs where you can almost do away with rules entirely. You realize that the game floats on top of your mutual social contract. Magic can also exist with no contract: hyper-competitive professional play is regimented enough to exist without it. Most magic games though don't exist like that.
This thread is really vague and confusing to me. You don't specify any actual disagreements, yet you're asking for specific solutions to disagreements, which you never actually told us????
What? This is like saying "Hey stranger, what exact size of nails should I buy to fix that one board in my house that is loose? You know, that one, in that one spot."
The "Inertia" Rule
Unrelated nerdy nitpick:
I would just like to point out that the rule is in fact the opposite of what inertia is. Inertia would imply that the first spells you cast are more expensive, and the more spells you cast, the cheaper they get, as inertia resists changes to the status quo.
This thread is really vague and confusing to me. You don't specify any actual disagreements, yet you're asking for specific solutions to disagreements, which you never actually told us????
What? This is like saying "Hey stranger, what exact size of nails should I buy to fix that one board in my house that is loose? You know, that one, in that one spot."
Well, no, I'm just asking for what house rules people employ, or could imagine employing, to allow everyone to understand community expectations. Those expectations differ from community to community, so you can't be more precise about them.
The problem (casual versus competitive) is vague, but not totally unfamiliar, and my hope is that we're getting juices flowing about ways to solve it that without everyone just barking at each other.
I would just like to point out that the rule is in fact the opposite of what inertia is. Inertia would imply that the first spells you cast are more expensive, and the more spells you cast, the cheaper they get, as inertia resists changes to the status quo.
Ah, true. How about the "Inverse Higgs-Boson Rule"?
No, we had a few threads, where people thought they could define fun. If you, and your playgroup do not like something, then make that house rule, and say "Don't play this, please" but don't come here acting high and mighty, saying that it's not a fun way to play the game, or that people that play it are mean, or start calling anyone that disagrees with you a troll.
Back when my group got into MtG, we all played creature based decks, and at one point we had a house rule that if you hit 500+ life, you won. Because the other deck couldn't win. (This was in response to my building a cleric deck based around me gaining life whenever creatures entered the battlefield, as my friend played Krenko goblins)
STATISTICS.
All of these "Let's eliminate bad cards" crusades are simply ignorant. And when they start to devolve into "WotC is conspiring to give us crappy cards," they just become embarrassing. MATH is conspiring to give you crappy cards.
Again, solve what? You just finished saying (correctly so) that every community is different and has different problems. So there's no "it" for the forum to solve. There's only an "it" for each playgroup to solve.
If you have specific issues in mind, write out one or more examples of these specific disagreements, and I can give you some specific house rules that might fix them.
Otherwise the answer is "anything and everything, depending" and nothing more.
Again, solve what? You just finished saying (correctly so) that every community is different and has different problems. So there's no "it" for the forum to solve. There's only an "it" for each playgroup to solve.
If you have specific issues in mind, write out one or more examples of these specific disagreements, and I can give you some specific house rules that might fix them.
Otherwise the answer is "anything and everything, depending" and nothing more.
I think he's asking if your specific playgroup has had different scenarios or "its" and how you might have solved them.
Right. There are as many variants of the "casual versus competitive" issue as there are groups of people, but by looking at different ways people have solved variations of this problem, people can get ideas for how to do so in their specific case.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Given that your playgroup does not like certain things happening in the game, what specific, precise house rule can be employed to prevent them?
My logic in posing the question goes like this. If your group does not like watching Krenko make infinite goblin tokens, that's totally your group's choice to make. I like infinite combos, but I have no trouble adopting to a rule I know in advance when I build my deck. For example, I once attended an EDH tournament where there was an additional house rule: "Any card whose text includes the phrase "search your library" and allows you to find anything other than a basic land type is banned." That was fine with me.
When you know the rule in advance, you can simply accept it and build a deck that you feel maximizes your chances of winning within that restriction. Heck, you might even discover a new powerful deck that you would have overlooked without the restriction.
The magic, however, is in deciding what kind of rule to adopt. What sort of rules have people here used, and how have they gone over?
I'll tell you how it ends. We're still playing our first game of MTG from January 1993.
I think you're joshing around, but actually, this rule does fit the criteria of being very precise. "No player can win the game." it poses a very interesting question, though, and I'd like to know how you dealt with it:
What happens when someone's library is depleted? Are they SOL? If so, this suggests people run many Feldon's Canes, Phyrexian Furnace, Soldevi Digger, Elixer of Immortality, and the like. It also suggests that fighting over these critical cards becomes the whole focus of the game.
I believe that conceding is an action that no card can prevent, unless I'm mistaken -- you can even concede if you have a Platinum Angel out, for instance. So your goal would be to force a concession. I kind of think that if you had "no one can win" as a rule, you'd make a mill deck focused entirely on wiping out everyone else's library. You will aim to eventually lock everyone out of doing anything, at which point they will probably want to end the game and go to the next one.
Like, a rule that says "All cards with the phrase, 'counter target spell' are banned?" Or something like, "If a spell or ability would be countered, it is not instead?"
Of course it's a joke, but after thinking about it, it would be kinda fun for everyone to build decks based around that rule and play a game once. I suspect the cards and strategies you suggested would be critical in your quest to "not lose."
My serious answer to your original question:
Our dorm tournaments had a singleton rule. Basically, every card was restricted (other than basic lands, of course). It worked out well, actually.
1) No cards worth more than $5ish dollars
2) No cards with a new border
3) Only use cards from a particular block or set
4) 15 of the cards in your deck must have morph
5) You may only use 2 of each card instead of 4
6) hand size is unrestricted
etc etc....
If you change up the rules in major ways constantly there is less chance of someone in your casual group "breaking" the format and even if they do... oh well there are new rules next week.
Sounds like you invented EDH before it was even a thing, then!
You know what else might be interesting, if you want to punish combo players? Rules like this:
The "Inertia" Rule
"If the total number of spells plus the total number of abilities that a player has put on the stack this turn is six or greater, then any spell cast or ability activated by that player costs an additional 2 colorless mana in addition to any other costs for each spell or ability that player has put onto the stack this turn in excess of six."
Not easy to say, but easy to grasp. Now, this only addresses infinite combos, and only makes them more expensive, but it seems like it would neuter most of the common offenders in the eyes of the casual: Mike'n'Trike, Kikki-Jikki, etc.
Huh. So, like, each time you meet to play, you come up with a new random variant for the next time? Thats an interesting way to do it. I like the idea; you're basically changing the card pool dramatically each time and just counting on the fact that people can't optimize in time. It makes each play session as much about innovative deck building as about playing. Interesting way to stop the netdeckers.
In a way, it's sort of like Planechase taken to an extreme.
One group sees Magic as a game with rules. A logical challenge and entertaining competition for friends to enjoy. Much like I might play a game of chess with a friend and still have both of us have fun despite the challenging nature of the game. You can chat and have interesting conversations at the same time, but you are still competing no matter how friendly and casual that competition is.
The other group uses Magic literally just as an excuse to hang out. They are more or less throwing cards on the table just so they have something to do with their hands while they talk. They'll never give you a clear set of deck design restraints because the very idea of trying to win the game is a foreign concept.
Is it that hard to find a playgroup that plays the way you want to play?
Is it that hard to simply not play with someone who plays in a way or format that you find unfun?
Is it that hard to communicate to each other? Really?
We don't need more invented rules to "fix" the problem of casual/competitive players. All you need to do is find people that play with you the game you want to play.
Honestly I think threads like this and all the other related ones are just for people to blow off steam at imaginary strawmen.
Please don't go here. You'll just get the thread locked again. I'm only looking to get people thinking about interesting house rules to keep everyone happy, not to take sides in this silly debate.
No player can win and no player can lose are not the same thing - just for the record. Technically the winning thing, at least the way it was written, would only stop alt win conditions like Felidar Sovereign's ability, I think.
Well, you could fix that easily enough: "No player can win the game and no player can lose the game."
I feel like even having this debate is taking sides in a way. I don't mean to antagonize or lock the thread. I sincerely doubt you will come up with a single house rule that will solve the problem of "Make Everybody Happy."
But if you want my honest opinion on how to make everybody happy here it is: You can't. Eventually two players will have incompatible opinions with not enough wiggle room to agree. Maybe one of the players is wrong or ignorant or a jerk in that situation but no rule is going to fix it. The best solution is to simply not play with people you don't want to.
We all can be better players by being more open minded and having more empathy for our opponents and strive to make the game more fun for each other. But we also need to know our own limits and clearly communicate to our playgroup what we don't like and what we won't stand for.
It's not just combo/casual. Or competitive/casual. It's about millions of different ways people have fun and interact with other people and about the different expectations we're bringing to each game and whether they are being fulfilled or being broken.
In every playgroup you should know your own expectations and know what is fun and unfun to you and also know these same things for your other players. If you don't, you don't have a playgroup, you have a bunch of random people playing magic and some people are going to eventually disagree and dislike some aspect of the play.
Manage and communicate your expectations for your playgroup and play with those you want to play and you won't need clunky "casual" rules to enforce gameplay.
I guess there might be people who, when asked "exactly what do you not allow here?" would not want to even engage in the conversation. But most people would, I think, and thinking about their preferences in a rule-based way helps them all speak the same language.
"Communicating an expectation" sounds pretty much the same as "effectively formulate a rule so that everyone understands it."
tl;dr: Let's all sing Koombaya around the camp fire!
We either set a price limit house rule for most expensive card, or what we have been doing recently is agreeing to not use any deck that fits in "Proven" or "Established" here at MTGS.
So we just play really janky brews that are tournament legal in Modern, but disallow things like a matchup between a Jund deck and like, a tribal deck.
THIS IS SO COOL
I completely agree with your sentiment, but I have to disagree that communicating expectations are not usually the same as a creating a rule and communicating that.
Usually the rules are created by using Magic's language to disallow/allow certain things and enforce a new "format." The problem with this is that Magic's language of its cards and mechanics are not able to fully articulate your own human expectations when you sit down to a game.
If my expectation is "we should all try to have fun and not do anything too powerful" how to codify that with Magic rules? You can certainly try and maybe even get close, but a much better solution would just be to communicate that and let us as humans work it out.
Certainly hard and fast rules are very easy for new players to pick up and understand and are vastly easier to comprehend and preform rather than "try to make people have fun" but if you ever encounter someone who is obtuse or not getting it, no amount of rules will fix the problem.
After all that though, I'm not against house rules at all. I have an EDH league where we routinely ban certain cards, and we have a semi-standard format that forces the winner to publish and bring the winning deck back for a rematch with no modifications (so we can stomp it with new sideboard tech).
I just want to people to understand that you can go one level higher than rules and get to the real crux of the matter: How the people you are interacting with feel. Once you realize the whole game rests on that you can play with people more effectively.
P.S. This is more important in pen and paper RPGs where you can almost do away with rules entirely. You realize that the game floats on top of your mutual social contract. Magic can also exist with no contract: hyper-competitive professional play is regimented enough to exist without it. Most magic games though don't exist like that.
What? This is like saying "Hey stranger, what exact size of nails should I buy to fix that one board in my house that is loose? You know, that one, in that one spot."
Unrelated nerdy nitpick:
I would just like to point out that the rule is in fact the opposite of what inertia is. Inertia would imply that the first spells you cast are more expensive, and the more spells you cast, the cheaper they get, as inertia resists changes to the status quo.
Well, no, I'm just asking for what house rules people employ, or could imagine employing, to allow everyone to understand community expectations. Those expectations differ from community to community, so you can't be more precise about them.
The problem (casual versus competitive) is vague, but not totally unfamiliar, and my hope is that we're getting juices flowing about ways to solve it that without everyone just barking at each other.
Ah, true. How about the "Inverse Higgs-Boson Rule"?
Back when my group got into MtG, we all played creature based decks, and at one point we had a house rule that if you hit 500+ life, you won. Because the other deck couldn't win. (This was in response to my building a cleric deck based around me gaining life whenever creatures entered the battlefield, as my friend played Krenko goblins)
Again, solve what? You just finished saying (correctly so) that every community is different and has different problems. So there's no "it" for the forum to solve. There's only an "it" for each playgroup to solve.
If you have specific issues in mind, write out one or more examples of these specific disagreements, and I can give you some specific house rules that might fix them.
Otherwise the answer is "anything and everything, depending" and nothing more.
I think he's asking if your specific playgroup has had different scenarios or "its" and how you might have solved them.