For over a year, I didn't even consider DoE for any deck. It's not just because my wife hates the card, but also because he comes with a trade-off. If you use him too much, you will never have enough success tokens to win. If you use him to speed up getting a fat character out (a la transient resources) then you short yourself in the long run. I happen to put him in a Jamberg/Yog deck because he finally fit somewhere that made sense.

The fact of the matter is, he's a good card. He's not broken (anymore). He doesn't belong in every deck. I treat him like any other good card; I'm wary of him, but I make sure I can handle him if I see him. Last I checked he still dies to a Shotgun Blast, A Small Price to Pay, Sacrificial Offerings, A Single Glimpse, Many-Angled Thing… He still gets bounced back to your hand with LJF or IoHH…

Hes not broken, but he does have best set of icons + willpower and auto recycling, maybe not that cheap, but often you can use 2 sucesses on story your opponent is winning in order to prevent it or to fight on other one. I think having him in most top decks proves hes worth it - i think it would be more interesting to see more variety. Nerfing him more so hes more situational rather than generally really good might help… but i guess all decks would just switch to rats and some fractions who have weaker chars would be put even more behind without him on table.

Glimpse seems to be more of a problem, but here i wonder how it will develop after players get used to id and find some solutions. The idea i think is fine, it just needs to be checked how much a "normal" deck needs to fight Glimpse and maybe give some cards that can deal with glimpse to fractions that have too much trouble. Its actually interesting as there are effects that put successes not in the story phase etc, maybe there are some unorthodox deck ideas that will shine against this. If not maybe some kind of errata like "put glimpse on bottom of the deck" or sth like that that would hurt recursion. idk…

KrissS666 said:

Basically, unless one of the other restricted cards is central to your deck, the Descendant is a very good choice. If you look over recent tournament decks, the Descendant is not the #1 choice, it's just one choice among many. And that is how it should be.

Ok, it was just my feeling and i explain why !

It's just when all decks you make, you auto-remove this card because it's an unfair card… maybe restricted isn't enough because in tournament you don't compete always with fair players, but if this card don't bother majority of players, keep it

The idea of fair strategy in competitive game is really stupid:

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-1.html

If there is a legal strategy that wins the game its good. Not cheep or unfair, good, just play it. If it turns out to be unbeatable it needs fix, if players adapt its not broken.

With less competitive players just don't use cards that you don't like. (I still think some external list of "too easy to use by new players cards" would be nice for semi-competitive play)

My suggestion of factioned costs to put characters into play was to preserve flavor and theme and was not meant to address balance issues. I put 'cheat' in quotation marks to indicate I did not mean literally 'breaking the rules'. In the CCG there were cards designed specifically to help marry certain factions. It was effective and quite flavorful. I share your outlook on 'fairness' in competitive gaming Zephyr and jhaelen your evaluation of Descendant. Thank you Magnus Arcanis and Penfold, without the reason your posts bring to these forums I would have fled long ago!

Penfold said:

.Zephyr. said:

God I hate how often this article gets quoted. It is flawed on a fundamental level and should pretty much be ignored. Case in point. He goes on and on about how winning is the only thing that matters at any cost that is not directly in contradiction to the rules, and then goes on about how Akuma is given a soft ban, despite the fact he is a playable character, because he is so powerful. You can't spend 90% of your article railing on a single point and then completely contradict it using the very reasoning you've been declaring as flawed.

I'm not claiming its perfect article. I just think that "unfair" etc are really ambiguous terms and game has to defend its balance without players enforcing some non ruling based honor code to fix balance. If given card/character is officially banned by tournament organizers it is the rule of this torment that is clear and enforceable. The point of this article is not paying much attention to whining that certain tactic is cheap etc when it works and is not banned by the rules.

I was referring mainly to Apeirophobia being called cheap - if its too powerful it needs fix not community labeling it as cheap and not playing it or worse allow playing it but only in a "honorable way" whatever that would mean.

You seem to have missed the point: the point is no vague rules of fairness that cant be defined and have not much sense. If TO decides to ban one character it is clear and enforceable rule of the tournament. It is much different from claiming some undefined type of play is cheap and dishonorable etc stupid names.

Player should focus to do as good as possible constrained by clear rules. Ograniser is to ensure those rules make good play fun. Banning one character is Organiser decission and player just follows it. I don't see how it contradicts anything… The orginiser just finds Akuma vs Akuma game not fun and decides to play a different game with no Akuma, also this paragraph clearly states its "limit of Play to Win", a situation where its clear a game is broken without adding some rule, and adding this clear rule makes the game good again.

Penfold said:

As jhaelen says, the difference w/ Akuma is adequately explained so that there is no major contradiction in my mind. I'm not sure the article is that valuable, mainly it just says "stop whining, *****" and tells you it's OK to ruin people's fun who are less experienced than you or don't know the cheap tricks you do. If you're the sort of person who gets their jollies off beating up noobs, this is of course exactly what you want to hear - and so you're going to think Sirlin is the greatest dude ever. The article applies well to high level gameplay but I feel is used inappropriately far more often to apply to ANY level of gameplay. ie - it's too often used as an excuse for obnoxious behavior.

I agree that beating up players weaker than you and claiming Sirlin made me do it doesn't make much sense. But what "should" a better player do is still an interesting question. I think some kind of handicap like intentionaly weaker deck or a play designed to teach like setting up some play riddles is better than just playing badly so your opponent can beat you - this way new player might win, but will not improve in the game much as hes playing against something that doesn't make much sense, its also hard for better player to decide what moves are "cheap" whatever that means. There's probably no one size fits all answer, but some tips might be useful. One thing i found interesting is swapping decks and checking is one sided play more of a deckbuilding issue or play issue.

That is hogwash. It was clearly designed to be a playable character. To use an honor code of "no Akuma" or have an organizer ban the character because it is "cheap" is a complete violation of his entire thesis. He cannot "explain it" well enough. If this were a scholarly paper needed to be defended he would have been laughed out of the room at my Uni.

And it isn't like the Ythian deck at all. The Ythian deck was specifically designed to NOT be a player deck. It's sole purpose was to be used by the tournament directors as the "boss" to fight at the end of the tournament. It was never a player deck, nor were its cards ever able to be used in a players deck.

The equivalent was the Silver Gate, Large Man, A Better Offer deck capable of winning turn 1 or the Endless Interrogation, Magah Birds, Seventy Steps deck.

You can attempt to defend it, but it rings as false and manufactured as his own. It is a legal character any player can choose. That it is clearly better than others actually supports his point about skill and doing what it takes to win and making no excuses. You want to determine the best player, give them all Akuma. The player with the best fast twitch muscles and able to anticipate his opponents first action will win. Everything else is a conceit. And that is the thing. He was the best in a truncated format. Who knows if he would have made it to the top if everyone were using Akuma. His game doesn't involve luck at all (outside of random pairings). Ours does. Even the most broken deck with the most abusive cards can get the wrong shuffle.

But I can see there will be no changing anyone's mind so I stop here.

Cheap tricks should probably be in quotes there, they aren't necessarily cheap - but often appear that way to a less experienced player. For instance, a new player here first thought Huang Hun was ridiculously broken. Now with more experience he understands the drawbacks better and no longer believes this.

Anyway… I have a lot of experience in minis wargaming and have more experience dealing with it in that context. Swapping decks/armies is a useful thing to do to show people that something isn't as overpowered as they think, but can be more problematic with decks because a deck really CAN suck tremendously if the player has no idea what they're doing yet. So, you swap, the "OP" deck still wins over the crappy one despite having a veteran player, and you've just reinforced their perception that that faction or card is overpowered. So be careful if you do this that they understand the intent and don't draw the wrong conclusions.

In a minis game I'd be pointing out threats before they happen, ranking them, showing them their options and explaining the pros and cons of each. But that's much harder in a card game that relies so much on hidden information. You can't just say "Hey look, these swordsmen are about to charge you next turn - you'd better do something about it". When the cards that will be attacking you aren't on the table yet, it's harder to see the threat. So, I think with new players you want to start out emphasizing that they shouldn't leave stories with no defenders, to assume that 1-2 new characters will appear and to make guesses based on the opponent's factions and how their domains are laid out on what sort they might be, stuff like that. Surprises are common, but you may at least know some general things about what could happen. You shouldn't be too surprised if Cthulhu destroys something, or Syndicate exhausts your dudes, or if Miskatonic has more Investigation than you do, etc…

You can however point out what the cards on the table can do and talk about cards they've seen in prior games that haven't come out yet but which might complete a combo or otherwise build on what already exists. Your opponent likely has some sort of goal in mind - a card he's saving up to play or some situation he needs to fulfill in order to unleash an Event. Can you recognize them before they happen rather than walking into them?

So basically with a new player I think you want to do some coaching. If their deck isn't working well, help them identify cards which aren't pulling their weight and go through the binder with them to look for possible replacements. Talk about how certain cards can work together, or options for dealing with a card they currently are having trouble with. It's really important to explain the reasons WHY you suggest changes in cards or play or else they won't get the right lessons from it. Stress that in most cases it's not about this card being better than that one, it's that the new card fits better into the deck concept and in a different deck the original card might be the better choice.

I do believe that you want to give weaker players some challenge. You will improve faster by playing someone stronger than yourself or a deck stronger than your own. But you also want to give them the tutoring that goes along with it to help them understand how to better meet that challenge rather than just rubbing their face in how badly you can beat them.

If you are playing in a serious competition and everyone there is aware that the purpose is to win playing the game fairly (i.e. not cheating by failing to properly randomize your deck, or swapping out cards or intentionally not resolving passives or forced effects) then there is no problem with everyone showing up with their "A" game and their most killer deck. I know players who say if your opponent is having fun under these conditions you are doing it wrong.

But social play and local tournaments against a mix of casual and serious players those decks are more likely to destroy your meta rather than elevate your own play.

There is such a thing as handicapping yourself, and thereby still allow you to play at your own personal highest level but it also decreasing the gap between you and your opponents. "Fun" decks that are based on crazy ideas or wild combos or Lovecraftian themes eschewing efficiency and synergy as the primary and secondary objectives of a deck in favor of attempting to create a more balanced game between you and your opponents makes plenty of sense. If I play a deck based entirely on The Dunwhich Horror the deck is capable of winning (it contains enough cards in the right proportions that it is statistically capable of winning) and I play it against a newer players semi-tuned deck made from three or four sets I've greatly reduced the gap between our play level. We can both enjoy the game, I'm challenged playing a deck that is sub-optimal and he has a fighting chance because the game doesn't end the first time he makes a play mistake or draws a card that is simply too inefficient to be put in a competitive deck where it is not part of a killer combo, and thereby falls behind in tempo.

I've played one of Hata's killer Cthulhu decks… it was a brutal game where the only thing I learned back then is he was WAY better a player and deck builder than me. I didn't enjoy the game at all (except being able to say I was smoked by James). I've played one of Damon's competitive decks and was also beaten. Badly. He then put it away and said lets play a game for fun. IT was some crazy Miskatonic, Syndicate, Agency deck. It was fun to play against and did some outlandish things. I beat him 3 out of 5 and I learned a lot from that round of games. The atmosphere was more relaxed and the game wasn't over turn three. I'm sad I won't be able to make Gencon because I was hoping to play him again. Not his tier 1 deck but his fun decks.

The Sirlin article devalues playing games for reasons other than just winning, which is problematic considering that the vast majority of consumers play with those other reasons as their priority.

Penfold said:

Yes, this is a big part of the problem. The other part is that too many people won't admit they are casual players. Far too many people want to pretend to be championship contenders and strut around mocking fun play and acting like in THEIR world only the top decks/armies/cards/whatever need apply.

The fact is, only a very few players can be at the top and if the question even comes up - you're probably not one of them. Then too, even the top players are only playing in a high level tournament a few times a year and spend a lot of their time playing more socially too.

Playing fun decks is a great way to help even up the odds, as well as learn something new yourself. Not always, but sometimes you might discover a new idea that actually works fairly well or can be taken to a higher level with some tuning.

dboeren said:

Having read almost every article by Sirlin I mostly admire his grasp of 'game design' and I'd wish every game developer knew his articles. Too often I'm seeing game designers repeat design mistakes of others, unfortunately sometimes also in FFG's games.

There are other websites and blogs worth reading if you're interested in game design, but I definitely see Sirlin's as one of them, and imho, it's one of the more accessible.

@Penfold: "That is hogwash. It was clearly designed to be a playable character." Of course it's designed as a 'playable' character, just like the Yithian deck was designed to be 'playable'. But it also 'clearly' wasn't designed to be used in a (serious) tournament of any kind.

I agree, though, that unless someone manages to dig out quotes from the game's actual designers this boils down to a clash of opinions, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Hmm i guess we see something completely different in this article. It is for competitive wanabies who need to decide do they want to improve and play more competitive or not. If youre not trying to play at competitive level this article is just a curiosity not a guide how to play. If you want to compete in tournaments you need to change approach and play game everyone plays not your houserule with no cheap moves. If you keep labelling problems as "cheap" and dont try to solve them or dont use efficent tactics because you dont like easy way it will make learning much harder for no good reason.

To me this article says "stop whining something is OP, when you learn the game better you'll see it has it weak points and the game will change" and "enforcing your rules of fun is something that can seriously prevent you from doing better at a game because you spend efford not on playing the game but on playing a different game". I do not thing playing for fun is bad in any way, but it is not competitive play and such play just has different criteria. For example balance is something that cant be really preserved by designer in a fun game as thouse rules of fun vary for each group and you dont know what will be "unfair chaep move".

Its also important to say competitive spirit needs equal chances. So if your opponent has limited pool and doesnt want to play as good as possible its not really a competitive game.

Akuma case: yes, playing to win means you pick Akuma. The point is not "play to win by not choosing Akuma". Point is "Akuma vs Akuma is a not fun game no one wants to play it". Ppl decided as a competitive community to play a different game without Akuma and it is a clear rule added by community. If you want to be competitive there might be some rules outside of game rules that are there. They still are not vague "unfair" rules but rather like magah birds that was banned because its not interesting competitive game if there is only one type of deck viable. The fact that game creators dont label Akuma as untournament and community did it instead shows lack of creators engagement in competitive scene. (or Akuma is not broken and whole community is not competitive enough to find its weak points, but that seems absurd)

We don't use Decendant Eibon and Rats in my group. I dont think it makes play less fun and still can be competition here, but it is not in competitive spirit of playing a game that is official tournament version and finding Decendants flaws. If i played my no decendant version, got good, and then wanted to start in tournaments i would have to learn how to deal with this guy or use him myself. The more rules like this that constrain you the more different game youll end up playing. And it doesnt help to get better at the tournament game.

btw Fun decks are also essential for competitive players as stated in part 3 of this article series. Exploration is also important, not only perfection in what already works.

jhaelen said:

Except it is not. The deck and every card in it is illegal for play and was clearly said by FFG as such. The decks existence was purely a Boss for a specific tournament. It had no legality for play and was never intended for play by players but as a challenge deck to be played against. It is clearly a different thing entirely, and if you don't believe so 'd recommend asking FFG.

For a while last year Damon was running around with one at tournaments he attended based on the Comedia del'Arte that had symbols marking it as illegal for play.

Penfold said:

I'm not sure what your intention behind this post was, so I'm going to assume there's some kind of misunderstanding here. Let me try to explain my argument again:

Here's what the Wikipedia article is saying about the Yithian deck:

"The Yithian deck was a purposely unbalanced deck, ignoring normal deck-building rules and featuring overpowered cards representing Yithians. Since these cards are so overpowered, they are illegal in normal tournament play. "

I believe this to be accurate. Do you agree, Penfold?

Now, what I'm saying is that "the Akuma character was a purposely unbalanced character, ignoring normal character-creation rules and featuring overpowered abilties."

Notice the similarity?

If you also agree with this, then it's quite easy to see why I believe that Akuma was never intended to be legal "in normal tournament play" .

It was a hidden character for a reason. I doubt anyone would believe using god-mode in doom was allowed in a tournament because it was 'part of the game'.

So, if anyone wants to convince me otherwise, I'd like to see a quote from one of Street Fighter's developers, designers or producers, that they indeed intended that character to be tournament-legal.

The deck is not legal at all in anyway. It was designed to be illegal. That is the difference. The rules of the game at the time included a statement making the deck illegal for play, not just tournament play, even casual play. The only way this could be equivelent was if Akuma was not a playable character and someone hacked the game pre-tournament so they could play him. Akuma was always intended to be able to be played by the games manufacturer, you just had to work at it. That is the fundamental difference.

Penfold said:

You say: "Akuma was always intended to be able to be played by the games manufacturer, you just had to work at it."

I say "Akuma was never intended to be played at a tournament by the games manufacturer."

Since neither of us can apparently prove their point, just let it rest. You're just trying to dodge the issue by playing word games:

It doesn't matter if the Yithian deck is technically illegal. Every deck created using the guidelines in the Call of Cthulhu Core Set is illegal! So following your reasoning the core set is unplayable - and that's a ridiculous claim.

I'm done arguing here - the thread's completely off-topic, anyway.

jhaelen said:

They aren't word games. They are completely different things. UCan you point me to a statement from Capcom where they say Akuma was not meant to be a playable character in or out of tournaments? I haven't play SF in a long time so I may have missed it. If you want you can always ask FFG themselves via the rules link posted whether or not the Ythian deck was meant to be a player deck or to have its cards used in player decks. I already know the answer because I was playing during those days and the rules were explicit.

Your second to last paragraph makes no sense what-so-ever. I never made a claim about the Core set cards. I reject this straw man. My statements about the Ythian deck are easily verifiable from a third party (which also happens to be the representative of the game which should carry some weight). Ask. You'll get your answer. I'm more than willing to believe there is symmetry between Ythian/Akuma if you can provide me with a verifiable third party source (ideally from Capcom itself) that clearly states Akkuma was never intended to be used in casual or competitive play.

To get this back on the previous off-topic off-topic… Sirlin apparently "stole" the base system for Flash Duel from En Garde. I guess doing whatever it takes to win includes taking marketshare and profits from other designers for their work without licensing or royalties. *sigh* Yay free-market capitalism!

While i think Ihtian vs Akuma discussion doesnt make any sense no matter the result i do think argument about official statement is quite stupid. CoC is LCG/LCG so you gen many different cards and you need to state clearly whan you make cards that are not intended for normal play otherwise ppl will run them in their deck. SF has no customizable and if character is available by a secret code its quite clear indication its not normal. If Capcom really has not said did they want it to be tournament viable its sad they dont care enough to clarify that, but it still doesn't matter as competitive community decided to ban him anyway and thats the version every competitive players play as the other version degenerates to playing akuma only… why would Capcom statement matter… the point is playing a game that competitive scene plays not some houserule version…

About stealeing en garde i think it's really interesting topic regarding core of intelectual property problems that needs a real dabate, not simply labelling creators as thieves. Sirlin didnt just steal En garde, he did change some stuff in basic mechanics that make it a bit different game and then added a whole assymetric one time powers layer that makes it completely different game. I really want good ideas to be developped, not whole branches of new genres shut down because somone made something similar. All creation needs inspiration and base in mechanics. If the first game to use dice banned this mechanic we would have only Sorry and no D20, Elder Sign, and Descent… On the other hand cloning someones hard work is not fair so there has to be some protection, but boundaries are not that easy to define.

I see you dont like Sirlin but this remark makes no sense. I would never buy En Garde as its not that interesting and assymetric powers made Flash Duel quite a fun filler i added to my collection.

Zephyr… you have no idea what you are talking about. If I taught you En Grade and then set Flash Duel down in front of you to play by its basic rules, I would not only not have to teach you any new rules, I wouldn't even have to explain the cards to you. This isn't a case of one game using cards and the other game using cards. It. Is. The. Same. Game.

Make believe with rolling of dice which use entirely different systems to generate characters and to simulate fate and fortune are not the same. I can't teach you how to play GURPS and then put a World of Darkness character sheet in front of you in front of you and the dice for that game and have you roll up a character let alone play through a story.

That he added some additional rules for alternate play means it is an expansion not a new game. But the IP Laws in the US are clear you cannot copyright or trademark game mechanics. The industry standard though is to license them Call of Cthulhu is licensed to FFG by Chaosium. Why? There is no mechanically similar elements, and the Lovecraft mythos is in the public domain, but because it is the right thing to do. When your game owes its core mechanics to another designer or your theme/subject was greatly influenced by or builds off the work of another game designer I believe you owe them some of that money you are bringing in.

A lot of people don't. I am well aware of it. But that was how I was raised.

As to Yithians and Akuma, as I said, Capcom made the character a playable character on purpose and then created no rules that forbid its play. FFG created the Ythian deck and in the tournament kits they sent out included rules making it unplayable as a player deck and each card in it illegal for both social and tournament play. It was only useable in that tournament, by the T.O. The deck became the prize/trophy for beating it, but was still illegal to actually use. Apples and Oranges.

I don't know, perhaps I am taking crazy pills, or maybe I'm the only one who actually played at one of the Ythian tournaments, but the are no parallels between the two that I can even stretch my imagination to see.

Does En Garde have dashing strike?

[edit ]The rules i browse have, didn't know that. So basic mechanics is en garde. With very little change of making board smaller and moving up to X spaces and open discard pile, thats not really much of a diference.

I agree that there should be some money given to the base game. The problem is how to do it. Especially as Sirlin games doesnt look like a big company (or is it bigger than i think it is?); Flash duel doesnt seem very popular (so is it worht the trouble); en garde isnt really a recognisable trademark like CoC and game is published by 3 different publishers. Also should you pay publisher or designer of base game? I agree its not fair not to give credit, but i still think the solution is not that easy.

Flash duel is the closest to cross the line of clone. But i still think characters make it a considerably different game. Playing without characters is more of a tutorial than actual game. The problem is that base game is En garde and the game is so simple it's hard to change much there. And with 2nd edition there is co-op mode vs boss (with traitor variant) so its definitely not like there are no new ideas here. And i really like that ideas can be developped. Wasnt IPs supposed to protect creators? Is Knizia worse off becouse of Flash Duel?

Same goes to stuff like dominion inspired games Nightfall/Thunderstone/Rune Age/Puzzle strike etc. But here basic mechanics was easier to change so they don't have another game as a subset.

Yhtian vs Akuma is analogy. Analogy is something not strictly defined. If you dont see the analogy because you look at different aspect than so be it. Its not like it can be proved or sth.

But i still dont get your problem with Akuma and "playing to win" mindset. Where do you see a contradiction?
Do you say that community cannot decide on tournament rules if developer doesn't state it themselves?
Maybe thats the difference. I think that its community that sets the tournament rules, not developer on their own.
If developer supports community its best to follow his statements, but if developer doesnt care community can decide on their own that game is better off without Akuma on tournaments.

The article is all about only limitting yourself by actual rules not personal biases. Akuma is an example where rules mean community stated rules and not game code. Their still clear rules, but quite wierd ones, hence paragraph is labelled as an exception.