What would you do if you had a really good game mechanic, but that mechanic can't really be justified as existing in the world?
An example of this is the initial hand drawn in a card game. The initial hand is a random subset of your total abilities. I think it's a superb mechanic for games, as it makes each game slightly different, depending on your draw.
It's a great mechanic if you can accept the metaphor that your powers/abilities are cards in a deck. On the other hand, there's no reason that your powers should act like cards in a deck. It's a pure game mechanic that really cannot be justified in real-world terms. It's really hard to find a similar mechanic in games which do not use a deck of cards.
So what are your thoughts about mechanics like these? Are they acceptable in RPGs?
(More on this can be found at http://blessingofkings.blogspot.com/2008/07/initial-hand-in-ccgs.html . Rather WoW-centric, though, so I thought I'd bring it here to see other RPG player reactions.)
An example of this is the initial hand drawn in a card game. The initial hand is a random subset of your total abilities. I think it's a superb mechanic for games, as it makes each game slightly different, depending on your draw.
It's a great mechanic if you can accept the metaphor that your powers/abilities are cards in a deck. On the other hand, there's no reason that your powers should act like cards in a deck. It's a pure game mechanic that really cannot be justified in real-world terms. It's really hard to find a similar mechanic in games which do not use a deck of cards.
So what are your thoughts about mechanics like these? Are they acceptable in RPGs?
(More on this can be found at http://blessingofkings.blogspot.com/2008/07/initial-hand-in-ccgs.html . Rather WoW-centric, though, so I thought I'd bring it here to see other RPG player reactions.)