Magic Systems that encourage diversity

[Man_Over_Game]

Let's look at MtG as an example.

The vast library of spells allows for nearly limitless build variety. And, in casual games, that variety shows. However, in top tier competitive games, the metagame usually limits players to only a few valid builds.

MtG makes up for this with various formats, like draft and sealed, where you are all but forced to play with otherwise unplayable, suboptimal "trap" options. Formats like Commander or 2-headed giant where the relative values of certain cards change. And formats like community deck, where the deck's builder can sculpt the metagame.

In play, some decks are very… formulaic. Probably most are. They play one specific way, with little variance. The randomization via shuffling of the deck has some effect, but, depending on the deck, it's often just "works or doesn't" rather than any significant amount of "works differently".

Amechra (another Playgrounder) and I talked about this in great depth, and it's one of the reasons I don't like MtG despite playing it for years, but MtG's always valued the concept of denial as an important mechanic. In MtG, the most powerful mechanics are not ones that necessarily enable the owner, but remove options from the opponent. Things like:

• Trample
• Flying
• Hexproof
• Shroud
• Indestructible
• First Strike

Compared to some more interactive mechanics that simply change your opponent's decision-making process, such as:

• Monarch
• Menace
• Reach
• Echo
• Rampage

Most of the powerful cards that people'd regularly use are almost always in the first group of keywords, while most in the second you wouldn't see much of outside of niche or low-budget decks. Note that Menace is weaker than Intimidate, Rampage is weaker than Trample, etc.

Problem is, the more denial you have, the fewer decisions you're allowed to make. As a result, the better you get at MtG, the less "game" there is to play past the deck-building stage, as the game centers around denying your opponent his chances to play the game. But Denial is almost always going to be the most powerful choice, which cuts down on diversity. If you had to choose between "Enemy is bad at attacking" and "Enemy cannot attack", the denial is almost always better, regardless of how expensive it is, because you know it'll never be too weak. But on the other hand, an effect that said "the target's damage is halved", and you have 10 HP, and they deal 30 damage, having that power won't matter. Having Denial is more powerful, but it also means that you can't have any real balance. You can have different powers that say "The target deals 25%-50%-75%" less damage, but you can't have any real diversity on "The target deals 100% less damage". You can't really control how effective Denial can be, and players will always pick the most powerful choices (as they want to play their best). The winning solution is to never introduce hard denial, at least not in a way that's guaranteed to be beneficial for the caster (more on that later).

DnD and other tactical games follow the same trend. Spells like Invisibility, Fly, and Wall of Force wouldn't be as well-known if they were fair. If the most powerful spells in DnD had the range of Touch/5ft, Wizards and other casters probably wouldn't be as highly regarded in the DnD series. Not because they'd be weaker than anyone else, but because they'd be fair.

Back to MtG, when it comes to effects like Monarch, these can definitely have a bias for their originator but their inclusion actually adds more decision-making for both sides of the board. It makes the game less predictable, with more decisions on both sides. It's more fun.



That's the trick behind good mechanics:
Don't have effects that say "Target can't do X", but instead have "Target is worse at doing X". Now X is just a worse choice, but still a choice, and one that the target may actually decide is worthwhile. You made certain actions less efficient, which really just makes his decisions more difficult, rather than more limited.
Or when it comes to power benefits, don't have "I usually do Y, but this effect makes me do Y better", but instead have "I usually do Y, but this effect lets me sacrifice Z to do Y better", since that weakness is giving more options for your opponent since he's guaranteed to lose if you're allowed to keep using Y. It also becomes an active choice for the user to decide when exactly is it a good time to sacrifice Z for Y, allowing the player to make calls based on what's happening right now instead of what happened during the character-building stage.

Unfortunately, finding a tabletop RPG that takes the "boardgame" element a bit more seriously is pretty hard, although I'm really looking forward to any responses that address both of our concerns.