Icons, Keywords or Text

[Malagar]

hey all,
While working on my project i noticed that there are various abilities that repeat on several cards. so, i thought it would be a good idea to keyword them in order to remember them better, maybe even visualize the keywords with an icon. this brings me to a general question:

Do you prefer plain Icons, Keywords with short explanation or detailed text on trading cards?

Furthermore, do you think there should be a limit to the amount of "information" on a card?

And finally, is there a trade-off between amount and quality of information? (like many abilities that are keyworded without description compared to only a few abilities but fully explained on the card).

because when keywording abilities, designers tend to add too many special rules to a single card. but i remember a magic the gathering card that featured something like: 1. flying, 2. first strike, 3. vigilance, 4. protection from demons, 5. protection from dragons, 6. likelink and 7. protection from farts! AND they printed that thing without batting an eye!

thanks
yours
-Malagar

[Dragoon]

In general, keywords are good if the keyword is overused. For example, magic has fear. For a long time, this ability has popped up a lot, but eventually the keyworded it.

The biggest advantage of keyword is opening space on a card, secondary, you can refer to keywords. There are many cards that refer to flying creatures, and those that don't fly. Flying is thus a great example of keywords done right, as it still allows interaction.

Mostly, having a lot of keywords isn't an issue, as long as they all make sense on that card. However, mostly this means that the power of the card will also rise, and thus you'll need to do about something (increasing costs or drawbacks.)

Lastly, Icons often don't feel right, unless they are featured on nearly any card. For example, in your gods & minions game, you have weapon types on many cards. These would be good if they are iconized. Similary, flying could be an icon on magic cards. It pops up often enough to be something like that.

Lastly, when introducing keywords, make sure that you write them out fully on most cards in the core sets and when introducing them. That way new players will have to opportunity to learn about them.

[Malagar]

thanks for the valuable reply dragoon (as always!),
Thanks to your post I just had an idea regarding my game: the weapon types always affect the "melee" combat attribute (currently symbolized by two crossed swords). It would be so easy to exchange those swords with an icon appropriate to the weapon type of the card.

well this was the off-topic part. On to the on-topic part:

Do you really think many keywords don't matter? Of course the power of the card will rise, but also the complexity. The problem I am running into most often right now is that the really mighty cards are not too strong - but too complex!

thanks for additional thoughts!

[Typherion]

Since Dragoon has already mentioned the main benefits of keywording mechanics, I'll just tell you why I personally dislike them.

Keywords can limit your potential design space. Here is an extreme example:
Say a mechanic is keyworded "Fluffy". You are trying to design a cactus card and for some reason the mechanic covered by the Fluffy keyword would be perfect. But everyone knows that cacti aren't fluffy and so the "Fluffy" mechanic can't be used without creating flavour issues.

But I guess this isn't a huge problem if keywords are used with care.

Icons are tricky imo. When I see a new card game that has cards overloaded with icons my brain tells me to stop reading. However, for experienced players I imagine icons would allow them to pick up a lot of information at a glance.

Finally, I believe the card from Magic you are talking about is Baneslayer Angel. Recalling from the designer's columns, I'm pretty sure it was created specifically to blow people away with the sheer number of keywords. According to their player archetypes, it was a card aimed at "Timmies" while also pushing the limits of power creep.

[Malagar]

@Typherion I like your thoughts about fluffy cacti.

usually i design my keywords from ground-up: first the rules are written and as a final step i add a name to it. this way i keep all artistic freedom and am still able to keyword all abilities. its absolutely not recommended designing keywords top-down: creating a name first and then building a rule around it.

personally i like icons, i always wondered why they did not add a nice set of icons to the Magic power/toughness values. In one of the portal editions they did by adding a sword and a shield icon - simple and very effective. of course, there are only 2 attributes in M:TG, so its not necessary to iconify them.

on the other hand, there are a few games out there that use 4 or 5 attributes. i dont think this is too much, after a while you easily remember them. but, I don't like to play games where cards have their stats printed like this: 5/3/4/1

if you translate this into 4 nicely drawn icons, it just makes remembering much easier in my oppinion and would more likely keep people interested.

[Turonik]

I don't mind Keywords but often times they become over used, where each new set would have a handful of cards that have the keyword only to have just a handful of cards use it. So if the list is kept down it's not a problem to me.

As to icons, i only like them if they are there to show what type the card is or to symbolize a part of a card, otherwise I typically never liked them. Lord of the Rings (and many other decipher games) loved just using the symbol instead of the word. I hated it. sure it saved space on the card but you had to go online and memorize the names of the symbols.

[Dragoon]

Attributes should have icons. (health, strength, defense, etc.) While keywords often shouldn't. Unless you make a very conceiving argument to make a keyword an icon, don't do it. Same goes for making keywords themselves. If you make a keyword, you should use it often, not put it on 5 cards and then abandon it.

oh, and make sure you avoid fluffy cacti. They are sneaky bastards.

[Malagar]

I remember there was a cactus in final fantasy...it wasn't nice at all!

[dboeren]

Thing that are on every card (or every card of a type, like Character cards) should generally have icons I think.  These are usually basic stats.  I would not use icons for much else than that, maybe faction icons or icons for game phases, things like that but even these are easy to replace with a word in most cases.

For abilities that need text to describe them, they should have text unless they are very basic and common in which case a keyword is good.

If an ability has no text, that is - it's merely a tag for other cards to refer to, then it's just a keyword.

[Malagar]

thanks to you all for the feedback

the final solution sounds reasonable (dboeren said it): icons only for repeating basic stats. abilities and everything else that requires rules text is without icons, but instead bold keywords and explanation text. there are also bold written keywords used as tags.

PS: saw a game lately that uses icons in the text.
lets assume they use <F> for flying, <A> for attack, <D> for defense. the text was like:

"If this is <F> it gains +1 <D> while attackers get -1 <A>."

Does not look good in the textbox, very cryptic...

[Cyrus]

I find that when I read text boxes with icons my brain tends to make sort of a blank sound when going over the icon instead of translating it to the word it stands for, even if I know the symbol and term very well. So in your last example I would read it as "If this has hmm it gains +1 mmm while attackers get -1 hhrmm." I dunno if anyone else has this problem but for me I say keep icons out of the text boxes!

Anyway, I think keywords should, unless they are a key element to many strategies in your game, come naturally and at the end portion of designing a set. If you're looking over your list of cards and you see the same phrase many times, you can probably safely keyword it. I feel like too often people think of a cool keyword when it should really just be a cool ability for a couple cards.
If you hold off til you've got a nice pile of cards to create keywords you'll also be less tempted to throw keywords on cards and more inclined to design cards correctly and on a case-by-case basis, I think. Say you have a card that you want to be a lower-end evasion unit. If you already have flying as a keyword you'll most likely go straight to that, when in reality the case may be that you actually need a completely unblockable unit in that card slot. Of course you may figure that sort of thing out in play testing so it might not matter. I'm tired and sick so maybe none of this matters and I'm just rambling

[Gargoyle]

I think it's pretty unanimous that icons in text boxes are a bad idea and my 'vote' maintains this(partially because they end up tiny or not fitting in the line of text properly, which bugs me). I also agree that icons should be used only where the trait is universal for cards of that type, with the exception of use for added flavour(eg, if there is generic Damage Over Time mechanic, units that apply DOT effects could have a fire emblem for 'burn', cobra symbol for 'poison', etc). Giving stats a relevant icon is always good, for the same reason, and because it makes things easier while learning.

In regards to Keywords, the key to getting them right is remembering they're words(not just token names), and their definitions should always be reflected. This can mean making them general enough to work in various contexts, or potentially only using them for things that relate to the unique structure of the game itself.

I think the real danger is letting the keywords limit creativity. In writing, when you're using a particular phrase too often, you don't just say 'hey, let's abbreviate it', as this sort of thing really just become's more stale each time the recipient reads it. What you do is modify it's use wherever possible, keeping it only where it is the best way of describing/explaining a particular thing.
I think a similar approach should be considered first if you look through your list of created cards and find a repeated phrase. Instead of immediately defaulting to 'let's label this for ease of play', first challenge whether the function should be standardised at all. Perhaps things could be varied in some way, so that each card of that trend has a different spin. If it is, in fact, so simple that diversity isn't possible, then you give it a keyword. Keyword's are great for concepts that require no real explanation, but when you end up with lists of keyword's that influence the uniquity of new cards you really have to stop and ask yourself whether convenience or creation is king.
I've found some CCG makers feel a necessity for each expansion to have a certain number of keyword's introduced, rather than being defined by a more fluid interpretation of the theme. This is counter-productive in my view. If they happen in later expansions at all I believe you're treading on thin ice; once a new keyword comes into existence you're going to want to re-use it, and if you're not sure it will have an ongoing relevance in the development of the game, then I wouldn't bother with a keyword. A good rule would be to hold off until after the expansion has been tried and tested, to see if you still want the function to be an integral part of your game, rather than jus something that fitted into one expansion.

In regards to complexity of card description, there are obvious boundaries due to text space and learning curve(if an experience player ends up reading most of their enemies cards to remember their effects, then I believe you have an issue). Generally I believe less is more; I stand by the premise that the interaction/combination of cards is what should create complexities, not the card's themselves. For example, Yu-Gi-Oh has it's structure based on archetypes rather than restrictions, and I found that when I played a wordy archetype that was unfamiliar to me I spent more time reading their cards and trying to grasp the ins and outs of their deck than I did actually strategising. I believe learning a set of rules which are a bit complex is much more worthwhile then playing games with a small learning curve but with a bunch of complex cards.
In general, any given card only really needs one of two things: an effect. The second thing it might have is a cost, which depends on the system and the power of said card. I think you should limit your use of multiple effects per card, except where those effects have common ground(in which case you can likely simplify the wording) and, when using drawbacks, keep them simple. As cardgames evolve they tend to become more complicated in terms of the new cards that are released; against this trend I would say that less is more and truly innovative concepts don't hide behind complexity.