1 hour ago, jmswood said:You’re right that once flavor text has a function, it is not technically flavor text anymore.
Meeting adjourned. Good work, gentlemen.
Flavor Text
On 11/4/2017 at 3:23 PM, Darth Meanie said:
A lot of those aren't canon, by the way.
Just now, Captain Lackwit said:A lot of those aren't canon, by the way.
but he is
Just a reminder that canon is not the end all to be all.
I wish all flavor text was in Aurebesh.
1 hour ago, ObiWonka said:Meeting adjourned. Good work, gentlemen.
This comment has all the grace of a diplomat and all the class of a troll. Attempts to silence people who have a different opinion are completely unwelcome. I appreciate your prior honesty in explaining your position. Your objections are noted, and in some cases agreed upon. Apparently a simple concession isn’t enough for you. You’re going to be disappointed, I won’t be silenced just because you want a notch in your pointless argument champion belt.
I’m going to continue this very specualtive topic with anyone who is willing to participate on equitable footing. You are welcome to participate and offer your criticism of my ideas. I value counterpoint. If you continue to try to bully an end to the discussion just because you disagree with the subject, then I’ll just ignore you.
Back to the subject of keywords and flavor text. I’m not totally attached to the idea of blending those two things together, but I would like to see more of both in X-wing.
A great place for flavor text in X-wing would be the back of the card. I doubt anyone would be opposed to printing a pilot bio in a place that it doesn’t detract from the functional portions of the card.
I started out talking about flavor text and keywords for unique characters, but that would require a complete reformat of the pilot cards. One way keywords could be introduced to X-wing without reformatting is on generics. Generic pilots could have keywords like sauadrons in Armada, using space on the card that is currently used only for flavor text.
Replace the flavor text on Academy Pilots with a keyword like swarm from Armada. A swarm keyword in X-wing could have an ability like this: “When attacking, if there is another friendly ship with SWARM at range 1, you may reroll 1 attack die.” Suddenly the Howlrunner swarm is tempting again if the generics get 2 rerolls (1 from swarm and 1 from Howlrunner.)
Upgrades and unique pilot abilities could reference keywords to make those ships better. You could have upgrades limited to ships with a specific keyword, in the same way that upgrades can be limitted to ship types. This could encorage more synergy and variety instead of the boring spam lists many generics are stuck with.
14 minutes ago, jmswood said:
Upgrades and unique pilot abilities could reference keywords to make those ships better. You could have upgrades limited to ships with a specific keyword, in the same way that upgrades can be limitted to ship types. This could encorage more synergy and variety instead of the boring spam lists many generics are stuck with.
An obvious use of keywords would be to place unique pilots in a squadron for the introduction of squad mechanics.
3 hours ago, Marinealver said:but he is
Just a reminder that canon is not the end all to be all.
Except it kinda is. If we're gonna use the worst example to demote canon, how about we use the best example to counter-promote canon? (What a f***ing sentence.)
13 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:Except it kinda is. If we're gonna use the worst example to demote canon, how about we use the best example to counter-promote canon? (What a f***ing sentence.)
For years and years, Darth Vader's suit canonically had some of the most ridiculous, least interesting details about it and what each button did and the special "woodoo hide" wax that the emperor himself had to manufacture to put on his helmet, etc. I like movie Vader. You like movie Vader. Everyone should pick and choose their own personal canon, because the official stuff can often be "bantha poodoo".
59 minutes ago, HammerGibbens said:For years and years, Darth Vader's suit canonically had some of the most ridiculous, least interesting details about it and what each button did and the special "woodoo hide" wax that the emperor himself had to manufacture to put on his helmet, etc. I like movie Vader. You like movie Vader. Everyone should pick and choose their own personal canon, because the official stuff can often be "bantha poodoo".
Yeah a lot of that was never official.
What should have tipped you off is that it was called a modified version of a fairly standard medical suit.
I don't understand why people think what's legends was ever canon, spoiler alert:
It never was. Disney changed absolutely nothing.
Nothing! They changed nothing! All that extra crud in the expanded universe you're talking about is and always has been, "Legends"- flat out. Y'know why?
Levels of Canon. The
dumbest
concept to stratify the canon so things had deniability but could also be canon when it was convenient, and by god am I glad most of that crap is gone, because so,
so
,
so
much of it was just... Dreadful.
LIKE THE
WOODOO HIDE.
I'd personally prefer to keep flavor text and rules text/keywords separate. It's far cleaner, and doesn't have the potential to cause odd conflicts later. When I want to look at all of the rules-relevant bits of a card, I want all of it in the same place every time.
There is a processing overhead to consider when adding rule-giving keywords to cards as well: if you have a "swarm" rule that is simply printed as a keyword on a card, with a reference card that shows the details, that is probably fine. If you have another dozen keywords that all have their own reference cards, you are starting to have a problem. Keep that up over a dozen waves and it gets prohibitively complex for many - there is a very real reason why all but the most basic and constant of keywords used in Magic have the rules spelled out right on the card.
Remember that one of the appeals of X-Wing for many players is how simple it is to grasp and pick up without a lot of rules they have to go read/find on other cards or in the reference manual. Even adding in a number of keywords that don't have any inherent meaning but only act as reference markers for other cards is still creating a processing overhead for people who are trying to parse what the car in front of them means and does. The impact of that overhead may be minor for many, but can be a large hurdle for certain learning or cognitive disabilities.
I would love more flavor text in X-wing. I would be over the moon if there was a small printed insert in each package that gave a little background info about each ship and pilot in the pack.
As far as printing flavor text on the back of cards, that's a nice idea, but from a number of articles and talks about double-sided cards that Wizards of the Coast has produced, we know that making sure that the right backs end up with the right fronts can be more expensive to produce (more QA checking throughout the printing process, extra restrictions on how the sheets are laid out, etc.). Cost increases are pretty likely to shut the idea down out of hand.
2 hours ago, Captain Lackwit said:I don't understand why people think what's legends was ever canon, spoiler alert: It never was. Disney changed absolutely nothing. Nothing! They changed nothing! All that extra crud in the expanded universe you're talking about is and always has been, "Legends"- flat out. Y'know why?
Levels of Canon. The dumbest concept to stratify the canon so things had deniability but could also be canon when it was convenient, and by god am I glad most of that crap is gone, because so, so , so much of it was just... Dreadful.
So. Much. This.
Also, can we take a moment to appreciate the category of "legends"? What a perfect way to allow everything to still exist, without interfering with telling new stories, and without saying that things are wrong or bad. All those EU stories you love might still be true, there's just no confirmation one way or the other. The legends are stories told in a cantina over a strong drink or two, or shared over a squad's card game between missions. Maybe those things happened, maybe they didn't... maybe (probably) the stories are exaggerated.
It's a brilliantly elegant solution (for a more civilized age).
35 minutes ago, Aaron Foss said:So. Much. This.
Also, can we take a moment to appreciate the category of "legends"? What a perfect way to allow everything to still exist, without interfering with telling new stories, and without saying that things are wrong or bad. All those EU stories you love might still be true, there's just no confirmation one way or the other. The legends are stories told in a cantina over a strong drink or two, or shared over a squad's card game between missions. Maybe those things happened, maybe they didn't... maybe (probably) the stories are exaggerated.
It's a brilliantly elegant solution (for a more civilized age).
You're like, my new favorite person. That's the single best interpretation of the "Legends" subtitle I have ever heard.
1 minute ago, Captain Lackwit said:You're like, my new favorite person. That's the single best interpretation of the "Legends" subtitle I have ever heard.
It was the first thing that came to my head when I heard they were using the word "legends" to classify all the old EU stuff, and I've been a huge fan of the idea since.
Legend (n.) a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated.
5 hours ago, jmswood said:Back to the subject of keywords and flavor text. I’m not totally attached to the idea of blending those two things together, but I would like to see more of both in X-wing.
A great place for flavor text in X-wing would be the back of the card. I doubt anyone would be opposed to printing a pilot bio in a place that it doesn’t detract from the functional portions of the card.
I started out talking about flavor text and keywords for unique characters, but that would require a complete reformat of the pilot cards. One way keywords could be introduced to X-wing without reformatting is on generics. Generic pilots could have keywords like sauadrons in Armada, using space on the card that is currently used only for flavor text.
Replace the flavor text on Academy Pilots with a keyword like swarm from Armada. A swarm keyword in X-wing could have an ability like this: “When attacking, if there is another friendly ship with SWARM at range 1, you may reroll 1 attack die.” Suddenly the Howlrunner swarm is tempting again if the generics get 2 rerolls (1 from swarm and 1 from Howlrunner.)
Upgrades and unique pilot abilities could reference keywords to make those ships better. You could have upgrades limited to ships with a specific keyword, in the same way that upgrades can be limitted to ship types. This could encorage more synergy and variety instead of the boring spam lists many generics are stuck with.
Imperial Assault, Armada, 40k and Age of Sigmar, and for that matter Magic The Gathering* all use this approach. I've no problem with keyword-based rules (you could argue that we have it already, just limited to stuff like 'small ship', 'large ship', 'enemy' 'friendly' and so on)
I'd have no problem in including keywords in a reformat, but it would be only doable in a complete reformat because the current flavour text hasn't been designed with this in mind.
Making keywords rules and vice-versa does give more scope for abilities. I'd like to see mechanics for mutual support (one thing generics and 'fluffy' squadrons need to improve their odds against "that one top pilot you use from ship types X, Y and Z"), but I suspect given the way a second edition would require a 'smash it and start again' approach to bring in something fundamental like that, that you'd be more likely to see that brought in from bolt-on-able 'squadron upgrades'.
* This is the earliest game I can think of doing this with a structured but open-ended system; any creature card has a rules text line of 'summon [a thing]', and a lot of cards exist to give bonuses to 'all soldiers you control' or whatever.
27 minutes ago, Aaron Foss said:It was the first thing that came to my head when I heard they were using the word "legends" to classify all the old EU stuff, and I've been a huge fan of the idea since.
Legend (n.) a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but unauthenticated.
Exactly. This is why the "pick and choose your Star Wars" aspect of it works so well. Thankfully, a lot of the old and new stuff is astoundingly consistent as a coherent universe. Sure, there will always be some truly outrageous things, but now these are for us to decide which to ignore.
As for flavor text- I truly enjoy stuff like the little quotes below the effects of Magic cards, for example, but I don't see a lot of space for FFG to put even more on a card without it looking ridiculously cluttered. That's why things like Aurebesh text are so great for alternative card arts, where they can temper around with just about everything. I'd say that's precisely where it can stay, it's an amazing way of rewarding players.
OK, my two imperial credits
1. Flaver text is cool, though I don't care much about it.
2. Keywords and/or Traits are a good thing and X-Wing should have been designes with them.
3. Mixing up flavor text with keywords (and traits) is a terrible idea cause you set yourself up for a terrible mess when it comes to translations.
Edited by Hannes Solo3 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:Making keywords rules and vice-versa does give more scope for abilities. I'd like to see mechanics for mutual support (one thing generics and 'fluffy' squadrons need to improve their odds against "that one top pilot you use from ship types X, Y and Z"), but I suspect given the way a second edition would require a 'smash it and start again' approach to bring in something fundamental like that, that you'd be more likely to see that brought in from bolt-on-able 'squadron upgrades'.
I think keywords could be added to generics in X-wing without making X-wing 2.0. The only existing game components that need to change to make this work are pilot cards. FFG could print new generic pilot cards and sell them in boosters. Then future waves could incorporate keywords into new pilots and upgrades.
Not every generic pilot in the game needs to have a keyword. I would start with ships that form the basis for a faction or mechanic.
Here’s a new example:
Bomber: You may replace one of your missile or torpedo upgrade icons with the bomb icon.
Add it to Y-wings and TIE Bombers. Those ships gain the ability to actually be bombers by equipping more than one kind of bomb or a Bomblet Generator. The TIE Bomber gets to be better at bombing than the Y-wing and live up to it’s name because replacing a missile slot allows the TIE to have 2 bombs and extra munitions.
8 minutes ago, jmswood said:I think keywords could be added to generics in X-wing without making X-wing 2.0. The only existing game components that need to change to make this work are pilot cards. FFG could print new generic pilot cards and sell them in boosters. Then future waves could incorporate keywords into new pilots and upgrades.
That's still a fairly fundamental shift, though.
I don't think it's a bad Idea, I just think it's unlikely that they'll do it, because it invalidates everyone's collection to date
9 minutes ago, jmswood said:Here’s a new example:
Bomber: You may replace one of your missile or torpedo upgrade icons with the bomb icon.
Well, this already exists for the Y-wing, doesn't it? It's what the Bomb Loadout upgrade is .
Equally, rules referencing upgrade card types - effectively keywords - also exist; Captain Jonus' rerolls for anyone using secondary weapons, for example.
50 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:I don't think it's a bad Idea, I just think it's unlikely that they'll do it, because it invalidates everyone's collection to date
Except existing cards could still be permitted through errata. The boosters are for players who care.
52 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:Well, this already exists for the Y-wing, doesn't it? It's what the Bomb Loadout upgrade is .
Bomb Loadout is limited. Y-wings are supposedly bombers, but they can only get 1 bomb upgrade. This keyword would give them 2, at the expense of both torpedo slots; 1 exchanged through bomb loadout, and the other with the keyword.
On 11/5/2017 at 10:24 PM, jmswood said:This comment has all the grace of a diplomat and all the class of a troll. Attempts to silence people who have a different opinion are completely unwelcome. I appreciate your prior honesty in explaining your position. Your objections are noted, and in some cases agreed upon. Apparently a simple concession isn’t enough for you. You’re going to be disappointed, I won’t be silenced just because you want a notch in your pointless argument champion belt.
I’m going to continue this very specualtive topic with anyone who is willing to participate on equitable footing. You are welcome to participate and offer your criticism of my ideas. I value counterpoint. If you continue to try to bully an end to the discussion just because you disagree with the subject, then I’ll just ignore you.
I'm not trying to silence you. We agree upon the fact that it's not flavor text and disagree beyond that. I consider it bad design because it's just more game text, you don't because it doesn't matter if the keyword is written on a tattoo in the artwork. Feel free to ignore me, though, because I don't have anything further to add anyway.