MTG Cardsmith Community Forums
Music-Themed Enlightenment Based Set- EXPLORATORY DESIGN PHASE
Hello MTG Cardsmith friends, Ral here. This introduction will not be nearly as good as that of experienced set makers on this site, however I wanted to give you all a brief understanding of the project which I am currently working on. Before I begin, I would just like to say that a huge inspiration for this set came from @ningyounk and their tremendous work on the custom plane Rezatta:(https://forums.mtgcardsmith.com/discussion/comment/153912/#Comment_153912)
WHAT IS EXPLORATORY DESIGN?
OK, I have to admit: I'm totally cutting off the rules of Exploratory Design, having already partially designed some of the concepts and mechanics that will be going into the set. However, I am in desperate need of feedback, and it would be a long and boring road without you guys. That said, I will share what I have with you today, and I will be happy for any and all feedback anyone has to offer. Remember: This is only the first stage. Anything can be changed with reason. Now, allow me to introduce you to my unnamed world.A WORLD OF MUSIC
While the Rezatta thread was based around the amazing architecture of the Italian Renessance, my plane is going to have it's roots at the Enlightenment that took place a hundred years after. However, this was a huge event that took place all across the world, and encompassed many different skills and professions. So it's time to narrow it down.When I was looking into knowledge categories for the Enlightenment period, I came across the fact that art and architecture took hold as important improvements. But that just wouldn't work: Rezatta was art. I needed something new: A fresh slate. That's when it hit me: Music. Many famous composers including Bach, Mozart and others lived in this time, improving upon music for a hundred years.
I eventually settled on a fantasy themed world in which musical enlightenment was just beginning to show its face. In this world, the music is alive, quite literally, thanks to a rare type of eather that enchants and awakens. In this world, music is both a thing to love, and a thing to be afraid of.
IDEAS AND MECHANICS
Here are a few rough mechanics I have been experimenting with thus far. Remember, these are just ideas. Anything can be edited at this phase.Harmonize: (Create a 0/0 colorless Song creature token with "This creature gets +1/+1 for each Song you control.")
The idea behind this mechanic is the fact that, on the plane, each different harmony of music supports each other. The songs created will create new creatures, but also overlap to make each one richer than it was before. Here are a few exploratory examples:
The second mechanic:
Compose (Look at the bottom card of your library. You may put that card onto the top of your library. If you don't, put it into your graveyard.)
I thought it would be pretty interesting to introduce something we have never seen before: Bottom deck manipulation. I'd be happy for any and all feedback, as this is certainly not nailed in.
I have been looking into a few other ideas, but for now, these two are the main and central ones.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
Well, that's a good question. Luckily, there are many things you can do to help:
-Help with editing these mechanics if there is something wrong with them. (If you want to help with this, please state the problem and a possible solution in your comment.)
-Help design a set symbol. I am desperately in need of one of these right now, and it would be greatly appreciated if someone who knows a bit more could help.
-Help come up with new themes for the set. These could be anywhere from X to Y, so be creative!
Thanks for taking the time to read this and I would be happy for anything anyone has to offer!
Peace,
Ral
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Haha xD Well that one is easy: Go to the html view by clicking on the </> symbol at the top of your comment box on the right of the alignment options. Find your image in the block of text (you can ignore the <div> boxes, <br> are line breaks, if it helps). Your image should start with the code <img>, somewhere inside the brackets you need to insert the code width=300. The number will be the width of the image in pixels. I advise 300px for one or two images on the same line and 236px if you want to put three images on the same line. To leave the html view and visualise the result, click on the </> icon again. Note that, if you put three 236 pixels-wide images next to each other the third image will appear as if it doesn't fit on the same line in the preview mode, until you actually post the image.
For instance, if you type :
<img width=300 alt="" src="https://mtg.design/i/vcfv28.jpg">
you get:
On the mechanics:
Otherwise, I'm really interested in seeing how Harmonize is going to play out, have you tried to playtest it yet? Compose is a pretty unique variation over Scry, do you intend to have them coexist in the set, or does Compose replace Scry entirely?
On the name of the plane and set icon:
For the name of your and logo of your set, have you considered a word play on do re mi fa sol la si do ? And maybe a stylised sol, fa, or ut key as the icon?
I haven't playtested any of the cards yet, but I will try to figure that out soon, and get back to you about the harmonize mechanic. I do mean for compose to replace scry in the set, similar to discover in Rezatta. Do you think it is not a potent enough scry replacement?
About the name and icon: Thanks for the ideas, I will start playing around with the names there. For the set symbol, I assumed one of the common music symbols would be in order, but I don't think it's a good idea to just have it be a plain treble clef or bass clef without any variations. I would like to start experimenting with those symbols on the cards, but unfortunately I have no prior experience with transferring the image URL's into mtg.design. Perhaps you know something more about this?
I normally double click on the images then press "Copy image address" then paste that into the "custom set symbol" on design.
Hmmmm Something seems wrong...
I do think Compose is just as potent as Scry, I'm asking the question because they have some interesting interaction. For instance, mulliganing lets you store cards on the bottom of your library for later which is pretty cool.
For the set icon, I totally agree you need a stylised variation of whatever you choose to represent ^^ However I never used mtg.design so I can't help you with the transparency problem, sorry
Here's an example of stylised bass clef (I found that the treble clef doesn't work as well for a set icon because it's too elongated so it appears too thin):
What did you use to create those symbols? I would like to experiment with something similar, but i don't know where I can find the software.
The common icon is not thinner, it's just on a white background but it's exactly the same size as the others
For the software, I used Photoshop, mostly because I'm bad at Illustrator and I don't understand how people draw on this xD You can use whatever software really, my best advice would be not to try drawing it yourself unless you're an artist that's used to draw this kind of stuff, instead find a cool logo and modify it a bit (for this example, I used an existing image and draw over it to get a nice-looking swirl) ^^
Yeap but you can use any software you like, the GIMP for instance is free and very powerful, or even simpler softwares will do the trick just fine. If you're uncomfortable, just share a photo of a drawing with your idea or even just a description and I'm sure someone on the forum with the right tools will try to make it work. I can try myself if it's not too crazy x)
•Syncopate — bonus effect if it’s your second spell. example —
•Signature — Bonus effect if your life total is divisible by a certain number. “Signature” after “Time Signature”, though it could use a better name. example —
Waltz of the Fae || 1uu
Sorcery
Create two 1/1 blue Faerie creature tokens with flying.
Signature — If your life total is divisible by 3, draw a card.
Thanks for the feedback! I'll consider these for sure, and almost definitely come up with a way to use one of them in the set structure. i really appreciate all you guys jumping to help me with this so fast! (Posted it this morning WOW)
I think it would be pretty cool to do some kind of a common cycle with this mechanic, but I don't know exactly how that would work yet.
@ningyounk:
I honestly really do like the original symbols you designed, the only issues were that they were pretty thin; Would it be possible to make them thicker? If not, that completely OK, as well.
Sure! I'd advice not stopping there and exploring other options though, but here's a bolder version of the swirly bass clef. This time I made sure it actually was visible on a card XD
Thanks so much for doing this! I certainly will explore some other options, but I really love the way these ones stand out. I'll start testing them on cards now, and see if they fit in. Thanks again!
I've been thinking over this design process, and I've come up with a few things. I think it's probably a good idea to establish some themes now, so we can start building a story line for the plane. Here are some interesting ideas that I think we could build upon:
-Bear Tribal. I think it would be pretty cool to bring bears into the story, as we've seen them in past magic sets but not for quite a while. While green is definitely the main color for the bear tribes in general, I fell that it's necessary for us to adopt a new color as well. I was thinking that black could be a nice addition for the bears, perhaps making them a little more aggressive and dark. Let me know what you think!
-Music School. We've certainly seen schools in magic's past, such as Minamo from Kamigawa. If we make the bear tribe Green/Black, I was thinking we could use the Jeskai colors for this school (White, Blue, and Red). This would provide some balance to the color base, as well as further enforce the general music theme of the set. I was thinking this would be a school for humans, but perhaps other tribes could participate as well? Let me know what you think!
Overall, I'm happy with the general turnout for this set, and I'm glad to have a hearty support team as we get things going!
I think you're right about the school colors being Grixis, especially because I am planning on using a mechanic called "enlighten" to be associated with it. For the bears, my goal was to make them a little more dark than we've seen in the past, but that might just have to go as we adjust the color pie to make them Seleznia.