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Legend Lore says 'story not rules' (3/4)
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<blockquote data-quote="Ratskinner" data-source="post: 6096960" data-attributes="member: 6688937"><p>I believe that a big part the problem was putting the flavor text first, rather than last, int the power descriptions. Many folks coming to it traditional mindsets will see the flavor text as "what happens" and the rest as "how the rules represent this" in stead of the rules as "what happens in the mechanics-level" and the flavor text as "one way to narrate this." The role and usage of flavor text as strictly "one way to narrate this" didn't help any, because it makes it sound less like flavor text. If some of the powers had used more abstract flavor text, it might have helped break that mentality.</p><p></p><p>It may seem strange to say now, but I remember people having difficulty with this in the early years of MtG. I would run into folks trying to use the "feel" of the card to adjudicate it. (I don't play Magic currently, but this problem seemed to fade over time.) I think it helped that some Magic cards' flavor text was simply a quotation and nothing to do with the cards' functioning. (It <em>did not</em> help that the original wordings weren't very clear in many cases.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ratskinner, post: 6096960, member: 6688937"] I believe that a big part the problem was putting the flavor text first, rather than last, int the power descriptions. Many folks coming to it traditional mindsets will see the flavor text as "what happens" and the rest as "how the rules represent this" in stead of the rules as "what happens in the mechanics-level" and the flavor text as "one way to narrate this." The role and usage of flavor text as strictly "one way to narrate this" didn't help any, because it makes it sound less like flavor text. If some of the powers had used more abstract flavor text, it might have helped break that mentality. It may seem strange to say now, but I remember people having difficulty with this in the early years of MtG. I would run into folks trying to use the "feel" of the card to adjudicate it. (I don't play Magic currently, but this problem seemed to fade over time.) I think it helped that some Magic cards' flavor text was simply a quotation and nothing to do with the cards' functioning. (It [I]did not[/I] help that the original wordings weren't very clear in many cases.) [/QUOTE]
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Legend Lore says 'story not rules' (3/4)
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