darkdeal said:

darkdeal said:

I only refer to Master Rune of Valaya as a "fog" if I am playing it in response to my opponent playing a Waaaagh! As in, "I Fog the Waaagh!!!" And, of course, when they play the trump card: "I Fogged the Waaagh!, and the... Mob won."

LOL...awesome. I wonder how many people will get the song reference there.... Nice one.

HA!!! C-Funk, that's freakin' great, man! I may have never noticed that little musical punnage. (Even did the ellipse after "and the" for a pause effect.....classic!)

Yeah, it was yeeears ago, but I worked in the Organized Play dept. at WotC before the Evil Empire came in and crapcanned half the company. Top Deck magazine, marketing, Regional Reps - nobody was safe. Peter's little gaming family became a multinational conglomerate almost overnight, and nothing's been the same since. That's why I'm so clear on all the rules for pretty much all the games I play, because of the experience of having had input on card design and game mechanics in the past. I'm not one of the "know-it-alls" referenced earlier in the thread, I've just been around R & D for a lotta years and, like anything else in life, familiarity brings understanding. Truth be told, I don't really care to talk much about my days at WotC, partially because of the way we were unceremoniously jettisoned (I was 500 miles from home on a store visit when I got the "Dear John" call) and partially because I don't want to annoy anyone. I'd much rather help out where I can and be a part of building a true community for this surprisingly fantastic game, y'know?

(And if you hate emoticons, I may be a little tough on the eyes.....I love the things!)

Wow, so sorry to hear about the Hasbro take-over. I felt the same way, ironically, back in the day when WotC came in and took over TSR. I had just secured a job offer from TSR (back in 1996 as an Associate Editor there) and hadn't signed my hiring contract yet when the word came down that the "Evil Empire" (same term we used back then, LOL) had bought out TSR. All new hires were put on hold unless they were working in the building. So I lost my dream job. Ended up joining the Navy so it all worked out (as that turned out to be a great thing for me for that time period, all things considered) but I still wish I could have had a shot at working there.

PS. I like emoticons too.

My playgroup has adopted "hammers" and "shields" as power/hitpoint terms. I made the mistake of using "hammers" in a Magic setting, resulting in some puzzled looks. I've actually overheard W:I players using "hammers" at a local store.

My point with this whole issue is that, as in life, it is always better to be inclusive than exclusive. As for "tap" vs. "corrupt", every Magic player I have taught this game to started out by using "tap"; however, after several plays (and reading of cards with "corrupt") the player adapts. The point is it does not require force.

To get into W:I, you typically need gaming experience. It is not a gateway-game like Ticket to Ride. I don't know of anyone going from Monopoly -> W:I. So it is much easier to sell W:I to the Magic community than not.

I personally think it would be great if the Magic community stormed in and bought product. I have never been into the tournament scene, but it is the reason why Magic has survived.

Well, this thread seems to be covering a lot of topics. That said, here goes. Comparing Magic and WH:I:

Magic is an extremely good game, and I expect to always love it. It's also phenomenally expensive to play at a competitive level to the point where it approaches the cost of a hobby like golf or skydiving.

WH:I is also an extremely good game but it is an awful lot cheaper to play at a competitive level (where effectively your deck construction is not restricted by card ownership). That makes it an easy sell to ex-and-current-Magic players and I would say that they are a major if not even the dominant share of FFG's market for this game. If you have played a lot of Magic, WH:I is very easy to pick up although it will take a while not to get tripped up by some of the finer rules details.

People in the industry:

I do not work in the hobby games industry but I know a lot of people who do, since my wife worked in WotC R&D for 10 years.

Non-Magic players vs. Magic players, and Sneetches:

I have a belly-star machine available for rent at very reasonable prices.

On sideboards:

dormouse said:

Dormouse, the way that I regard sideboards is pretty much the opposite of the way that you think of them. A game without sideboards makes it much easier to play narrow strategies that are easily countered by "silver bullet" cards. For example, the unitless bolt thrower deck types roll over to Mob Up! but unless people are maindecking Mob Up!, it actually can have pretty good matchups overall since it will beat the non-rush decks in the field. However, playing "silver bullets" against a deck that has a range of paths to victory is a whole lot less effective. So overall not having sideboards pushes the game more towards narrow strategies and "combo" plans, not less. It also tends to introduce a lot more pairing luck. WH:I certainly supports maindecking narrow cards that are useless in most matchups more easily than Magic due to the development mechanic, but the point still stands.

Vernacular:

On the actual topic of the thread *gasp*, here's a link to some common Magic terms. Concepts like card advantage and tempo are easily applicable to WH:I and provide a useful way of analyzing the game.

Yeah, I don't mind terms like "Card Advantage" or "Tempo" as they actually seem to explain themselves based on the word itself. That's at least reasonable to toss around in these forums, imho.

I definitely agree that Magic players could be one of the key markets for W:I - I'm not against that at all, never have been, and it makes great marketing sense (in some ways) to court that sales demographic.

Another one that I haven't seen here (that definately doesn't apply for W:I) is "swinging" for when attacking. For example: "I swing for for 8" when declaring attackers. This originated from the fact that you rotate (or swing) the attacking creatures 90 degrees when you tap them to attack.

I think the majority of MTG terms that have been used in posts have translated over well to W:I. The game directly lifts the spell stack, some of the card language templates (you may play %name% anytime you could play an action), as well as the old combat system from M:TG before m2010 came out and simplified the combat rules (other than there is only first strike in the form on the defensive counterstrike).

The fact that combat system was like the old magic system was a big part of the reason why I was interested in this game to begin with. When Magic simplified the rules for combat they removed a big chunck of the timing tricks that made the game so interesting to me. My guess is that it was part of the design process of the game to including this timing issues to tap into the older magic players as a part of their larger audience.

Since so many of the mechanics are the same it is only natural that that many of the terms will carry over. This is a good thing! It allows gamers to easily explain the game mechanics to others that have experience with ccgs and provides no bigger entry barrier to new players. Either way new players have to learn new terms if they become more involved in the community and it makes since to use common terms that other ccg players will understand instead of W:I only terms exclusively. If we got rid of all common terms because W:I is not a ccg, is deserving of better, etc. then lets go ahead and rename cards to living game pieces and decks to kingdom piles. At some point you have to draw a line and the most logical one to draw is the one that will include the biggest group understanding the terminology.

Most ccg terms come from other areas or are based off of the nature of the mechanics. Lets keep the ones that make sense. For example, wrath doesn't really make since it is named after a mtg card but sweeper or board clearer to explain a group of cards like judgement does because it is explained by the mechanics. I does support new terms where they make sense. I have found myself calling power 'hammers' like some other people have mentioned in this thread.

All this being said, I feel that W:I is a deeper and more interesting game than magic and not trying to downplay it at all. They have given players more control over resources and card draw and removed the resources from the deck as well. Because of these improvements, it is a much more modern and streamlined feeling game. while I do feel this way, I just don't think it makes sense to try to avoid all CCG/MTG terms since so many of them transfer over to W:I so well and it fits into the same family of games.

A Game of Thrones does not have side boards and what you end up with at the top levels are decks that use a lot of synergy, multiple ways of gaining and maintaining card advantage, and answers to most of the main tactics to shore up your own potential weaknesses.

Empirical evidence shows that the LCG line is designed for larger concept decks, that benefit most from synergistic effects rather than combo locks. Because of the draw and resource mechanics these games allow for far more flexibility than linear games like M:tG. I predict if they do not implement a sideboard here you'll see the same kind of deck development and increase in player skill in strategic building and tactical playing.

i've got another term i've not seen used yet, again this is one mainly from raw deal but i've sen it used elsewhere...

Scouting: a deck that lets you see your opponents hand or deck construction and allows you to remove specific cards from both. In raw deal this was always a worry for a while then Bobby the brain heenan came out and it became a massive mechanic, i think magic has something similar but it's been so long since i played that i have no idea any more, cards in WH:i that would do it would be caught the scent for the now.

Personally i'm not against other card games vanacular it's something that's quite natural for people to associate things that they've experianced elsewhere with terms they're familiar with

deviant-dj said:

Well, Magic had a lot of things when I last played it, including a deck in which the entire point was to get your opponent (under the floor rules) to de-sleeve his entire deck and then just riffle shuffle his deck (upwards of 20-30 times in a game) till he submitted and couldn't take it anymore.

Yes, a deck in which the "kill mechanism" was the opponent crying and giving up, as you bent and battered the corners of his Lotus, moxes and other peices of cardboard worth $300 each. Never played the deck myself, and given the fact that the guy who did nearly didn't walk out of the tournament, I don't think it would have been a wise idea to either.

As for scouting, yes, in general, that happens quite a lot in most card games, and it can actually be a real annoyance to anyone playing a very specific strategy that can be countered by playing in a specific way. To take WH:I as the example, if you find out through scouting that the Dwarf or Elf deck you're playing against is running Judgement (as opposed to an Empire deck in which you'd *expect them* to run judgement) you'll be dropping developments from the start, and theres not much you can do about it.

Bobby in Raw Deal took that to another level (still can't believe the card made it through playtesting, that said, I can say that about many cards Barron pushed though) as it allowed a player to go through card for card the opponents deck. Now some people who played Raw Deal had exceedingly good memories, and I 've seen someone, quite literally, on one pass, memorize and repeat, ad verbem, the names of all the cards in the opponents deck to his friends.

That starts to show the difference between simply playing a card game, and playing to win in a tournament though. Some people would say that thats just part of being a tournament player

i'd agree, half the legends that got into raw deal were by far too powerful! I refuse to become the kind of player that memorises entire decks and all possible combinations, to me it's far too much time and effort for something that's just a bit of fun for me, but then again it's horses for courses in that respect

Oe of the problems with bringing in specific vernacular from other games is that the term without context has no meaning and you end up having to explain it to people who never played that game and in the process probably have to explain why it is called that. Fogging something is an excellent example. In some cases it makes perfect sense though and the vernacular used in that card game is simply a slightly modified version of the way we would use that word anyway. Agrro or Rush are excellent examples.

I try and avoid references to cards in other games. IF I'm going to reference something by card name for this game I'll use this games cards. No wrath of God for me, I'll say Vomit.

Scout however does work for various forms of card pulling for this game since the discard from hand mechanic is tied to the Scout keyword, and pulling a card from an opponent's deck could easily be seen as an extrapolation of that mechanic.

I would say 'scouting' doesn't work well for this game because it is too close to the scout keyword while having not having the same effect (at least with the definition in this thread). The scout keyword is about not seeing your hand and random hand destruction while the term scouting is about tactical removal of cards based on the knowledge of what is in their hands. I would say that while they are they are both parts of greater hand destruction, they go about it in the exact opposite ways. That would make the term a bad match for W:I in my book since people would think you are taking about to the scout keyword when you are actual talking about something that is very functionally different.

Hhhhmmmm...

How about the word: RECON?

I think it fits the bill here.

I tought of a few Research & Development terms from magic that you guys might find interesting:

Card Cycle - a group of related card that are built often with a common word in the name, theme, or cost. These are often released with one card per faction. A good example of this in W:I is the relics from the last battle pack. They are all 3 cost attachments with the relic key keyword and every faction (including skaven) got one. I think per pack cycles will be rare but i would like to see more that span an entire battlepack cycle. This term might be confusing for W:I since the battle pack sets are called cycles

Functional reprint - this refers to a card that has the exact same cost and abilities as another card but with a different name. this is normally a ploy in ccg's to make your older version of the same card in CCGs no longer tournament legal but we have seen this concept in warhammer invasion already as some factions have different copies of the same unit. if we ever do see functional reprints in the same faction I am sure it will be to allow for more than 3 of a card in a deck single race deck.

Interesting stuff, Beserko. I'd agree that using the term Card Cycle would probably be too confusing due to the naming scheme for Battlepack collections in W:I. One quick note, the recent Relics only cost 2, not 3 (I'd say you can't really count the 1 Loyalty costs since you'd only be using them if you were running that particular Faction due to their wording and thus for the 0-cost of having the Capital loyalty symbol, you wouldn't have to pay anything for their Loyalty icon requirement) - just clarifying your remark.

Good point Wytefang. As a long time magic player it is a hard habit break to not include the loyalty cost as part of total converted cost of playing the card. It is not a good idea too include it in the cost for sure since loyalty payment is variable depending on your capital and what you have in play. oddly enough, I sort my cards by fixed cost, loyality, and then when there is overlap alphabetically so I when I am looking for a card I already have broken the habit but I find when I describe a card often just convert the loyality into the cost number if it is a one or two loyalty cost.

On that note I was wondering how you guys like to do shorthand for the printed costs of cards. I like the format that is generally used in the spoilers (3DDD for example) but I don't like that there is overlap with dwarves and dark elves. The other time I am not a big fan of it is when there is cards with huge loyalty costs (6CCCCCC). I am not sure I have a solution for either problem though. Using another letter for dwarfs might work but could be confusing as well. It makes me wonder what format FFG uses when they are designing the cards on paper before playtesting them.

Having posted no small amount of the spoilers here myself I would like to point out that only a few folks seem to use that notation style. I prefer the easier to type out (and imho, clearer to understand) 2R, 3L (R= Resources, L=Loyalty).