6/20/2023 0 Comments Gimme a break![]() So how did I get in? I signed myself in as a guest. I solved the problem by convincing Karl that although I needed an ID card to enter, procedure didn't require one for a resident to sign a guest in. This conversation went on for thirty minutes. Karl: (pause) But I really need an ID card. The point is to keep people who don't live here from getting in. ![]() The only reason we have ID cards is because it's impossible for every guard to memorize every resident. Me: And isn't the whole point of the guard stations to keep people that don't live here from getting in? One day, I enter the dorm and reach in my pocket for my ID. Sometimes when I was bored, I'd even walk over to Karl's guard station to chat. Karl was a nice guy and over time he and I began getting to know another. As such, you saw the same guards again and again. ![]() For the guards, this was a full-time job. To accomplish this, each resident is given a student ID that identifies them as someone who lives in the dorm. As BU is in the heart of the city (my dorm was in Kenmore Square – Go Miles Standish!), there are guards inside the entrance of every dorm to make sure that only residents of the dorm enter the building. ![]() I attended Boston University (the College of Communication for anyone who cares). My favorite example of this happened to me at college. One of my pet peeves is people who follow a rule so stringently that they start to turn against the reasoning for the rule's creation in the first place. Rule #3 – Check The Reason For The Rule You're Breaking Yeah, it technically gave red something it's not supposed to have, but the spell in a larger sense gave red something it is supposed to have. This is the reason we let Form of the Dragon get printed. If you're a dragon, you can't be attacked by non-flying creatures.īeing turned into a dragon – now that's red. But if you step back look at the card as a whole, you see that the Moat fits into a larger theme. One of Form of the Dragon's abilities is essentially a Moat (you can only be attacked by flying creatures). For this example, let's take a look at Scourge's Form of the Dragon (also designed by Brian Tinsman – he does love breaking them rules). It's to allow a card that feels right to exist even if technically it's doing something it shouldn't. The idea behind breaking the rules isn't shock value. Rule #2 – Broken Rules Have To Feel Natural Breaking rules is fine, if it's for the right reasons.īy this, I mean that we only break a rule when the rule breaking doesn't feel jarring. In order for it to exist, it needed to stretch itself beyond the normal constraints of the game. The rule breaking was a product of the Rat's creation. How could you recreate the feel of the early Plague Rat decks if you could only have four? (The early Plague Rat decks preceded the little “only four in a deck” rule.) So Brian let the card break the rule. Instead, he was trying to come up with a new version of Plague Rats.Īs Brian worked on the card, he started feeling that it was missing something. When Brian created the Rats, he wasn't thinking about what kind of card could break the four card limit. As an example, let's take Fifth Dawn's Relentless Rats (despite Adrian Sullivan's hint that I designed the card, the Rats were actually the work of Brian Tinsman). What do I mean by that? In order for us to even consider breaking a rule, we have to first have a card that seems cool and feels right yet somehow still breaks a rule. Rule breaking does not generate cards, rather cards generate rule breaking. Why didn't I look it up? Because I instead wasted the time writing this parenthetical aside.) Cards generate rule breaking, not vice versa I think a lot of players think we sit around thumbing through the Comprehensive Rules going, “Hey rule 301.15 hasn't been broken yet!” (I just made up that number by the way, so please don't write in saying hey, Card X and Y break rule 301.15. One of the most common misconceptions about rule breaking in design is that we use rule breaking as a means to generate cards. Rule #1 – Rules Should Be Broken Only When A Card Demands It Didn't see that one coming, did you? Today, I'm going to share the rules about rule breaking. So how can Magic design have strict rules yet still allow rule breaking? Simple, there are rules for rule breaking. Let me see if I can explain why those two rules don't actually contradict. I apologize for the harsh tone but I figured it would spice up the column. Magic's success is owed to its constant evolution and willingness to break its own rules.ĭon't those two rules contradict one another? Huh, Mr.The health of the game depends on the designers sticking to them. Proper Magic design requires a strict set of rules.Your column tends to have several recurring themes. Ithought I'd use my column today to address the following letter:
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