So I lost 5% on my last comp 2001 assignment for something that, to the best of my knowledge, actually works.

On the other hand, I lost nothing for all the other “features” I managed to include. So I think it’s best not to argue the point.

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I mainly wanted to post the above image, but thought I’d flesh out the post a little with a story. So here’s the deal with the above card, which will make a lot more sense if you’re familiar with the source material. The blue and green icons on the side indicate that the character can participate in Intrigue battles and Power battles, respectively. “Renown” means that a character has a lot of political clout - whenever they win political power for your faction, you get more than normal. I’m not so sure about the effect on non-unique characters, but it’s the final ability that really stands out for me.

“After Lyanna Stark is killed, stand (untap) all Lord characters in play. Those characters gain deadly until the end of the round.”

This is so perfect if you’re familiar with the source (both the books and the game), but I’m going to give you a rundown of what the mechanics are saying. After a number of fierce battles (offence and defence lead to kneeling, as well as using other abilities), the death of a well-loved (in more than one sense) Lady leads all the Lords in play to surge up and seek deadly vengeance. For the rest of the round, they shoot to kill, so to speak. The catch here is that few abilities outright murder a specific character - when a player loses a military battle (or any challenge that includes a deadly character), they get to choose who dies. So generally speaking, this will be a strategic sacrifice.

Moreover, the way the deadly keyword works is that it only comes into effect if the attacker has more deadly characters than the defender. If your opponent has two Lord characters, who are now deadly, and you initiate a battle with three Lord characters, the fact that everyone gets the benefit of the card is irrelevant. Everyone rejoins the fight, but that doesn’t mean they can win. “But this is an outrage! Lyanna’s death won’t go unavenged!” And so on.

Anyway, I know this is probably uninteresting unless you share my interest in card games and Game of Thrones. But I think it’s important to appreciate good design in any kind of game, even if you only play video games. With keyword systems to cut down on the text for individual cards, a lot of the heavy lifting is already done to sum up the mechanics and communicate with the player. If every single card simply said, “During a challenge, if the attacking player controls the most participating characters with this text, the defending player must choose and kill a defending participating character after the challenge resolves.” it would never occur to (most) players that this mechanic means the same thing as what the deadly keyword communicates.

It’s a definite strength of the format, and I don’t necessarily have ideas for how to adapt it elsewhere. I know memorizing keywords is a challenge whenever you’re learning a new CCG - we’ve always had to play AGoT with a keyword cheat sheet. So taking the benefits of the system without the negatives could be a challenge. But it’s something worth thinking about in terms of ways to communicate mechanics more effectively, and (if you’ll forgive one pretentious sentence in this whole endeavour) how to situate them in the overall narrative context of the game. Stay tuned for a post in a week or two that might make this a bit clearer.