Card wording: Card referencing itself?

[snowdrop]

< crossposted elsewhere offsite >

I would be grateful for help with this one: How would you express, in the shortest, clearest and most casual way, that a card is referencing itself? Check out the spectre text in the attached image. ( http://www.bgdf.com/sites/default/files ... TToRDD.jpg )

In MtG for example they usually put out the whole name. For example for a card called "bird's revenge" the card text could say "When bird's revenge comes into play then bird's revenge gains bla bla..." To me that sounds too clunky, not natural or smooth, and it can at times also eat a lot of space.

Sometimes I have seen people write {this} when typing up card text in forums etc, but it also looks strange and isn't formal. My only idea this far has been to start using an abbreviation for "this card", simply TC, and just ask the players to learn it., but I'm sure there are better solutions as I'm not a native English speaker...

(Btw: We need people that like wording and this side of development. If you happen to be interested please send me a message at snowdrop at wtactics dot org)

[aspidites]

As long as you can reveal a Ghost card in you hand or the top card of your
discard pile is a creature, Spectre Madji cannot be dealt combat damage.

I'm not saying that this wording is perfect, but I think it's concise and minimizes the repetition of the card name.

[Ravenchild]

Formulation proposals in quote-tags:

Spectre is immune to combat damage if your top deck card is a unit or if you can reveal a ghost in your hand.

So I don't talk about the event of taking damage, just about the fact that he's immune to combat damage.

But that doesn't answer the original question. So what about this:

When a unit deals damage to spectre, ignore that damage if ...

ew, that doesn't answer your question either. Maybe it's a defect of the english language that makes this difficult? I recall that you were talking about programming languages earlier where everything is cleanly defined. This may be true, but still you can use the same name for a variable in totally different situations.

And there is also the "this"-hell in JavaScript

[aspidites]

@Ravenchild: yours is rather similar to mine (or rather, it addresses the issue from the same point of view), but cleaner. I like it.

Honestly, if a card's name is only stated once in the affect text, I don't see much of a problem. An expansion of the "this card" idea might be to make card types proper nouns. For example, in this particular case:

When an enemy creature deals damage to this Spirit....

Combining Raven's text with this idiom, we get:

This Spirit is immune to combat damage if your top deck card is a unit or if you can reveal a ghost in your hand.

And a minor edit:

This Spirit is immune to combat damage if the top card of your graveyard is a creature or you can reveal another Spirit in your hand.

Emphasis intentional.

about abbreviations: While I'm all for brevity and conciseness, I think there is a such thing as too many abbreviations. I'm sure "This card" (or my proper noun idea) are concise enough not to warrant the 'saving' of space. I'm not sure how to put it tactfully, but "TC is immune to..." just looks tacky. I'm not sure an icon would solve the issue either. I think icons should be reserved for identifying marks (abilities) and user actions (mark).

[snowdrop]

Spectre is immune to combat damage if your top deck card is a unit or if you can reveal a ghost in your hand.

This wording suggests that the players have an understanding of what "immune" is and how we define "combat damage" and separate that from other types of damage. (For example if I attack you, and you defend with your creature, and I then activate another creature that deals damage to you without being involved in that combat, did you just receive combat damage? ; )

I think having to define those two will be impossible and unwise to avoid anyways, so yeah, that wording could work. Or not, since it only says "Spectre" and that's a partial name, while no real card has that name. Doing partials only will create chaos eventually. Take "Elvish Rider" as an example

When a unit deals damage to spectre, ignore that damage if ...

This is a re-phrase of "combat damage" since combat damage implies(?) that a unit dealt it and did so udner what we'd define as "combat". Or...actually it isn't: This just meas that any damage dealt by a unit, no matter if while in combat or not, will be possible to ignore. So it alters the ability and makes it more powerful than in your first wording.

Honestly, if a card's name is only stated once in the affect text, I don't see much of a problem.

I agree. However, the problem is there if we in some cases use the name (when it's mentioned once only) and in others use something else. It would be totally inconsistent and a mess. We need to have a system that can cover every scenario, so it has to be based on the worst cases and what clarity it brings to them.

When an enemy creature deals damage to this Spirit....

So, say a creature has 3 types: "Elvish Rider (Scout)" for example. By what standard would you choose which type to use in the card text? There's a problem with that choice no matter how we do it if the types are flexible, and they are. This "Elvish" doesn't work. This Rider works, and so does This Scout. But why choose one over the other? And, depending on the types in question, wouldn't it lead to the payers having to read in different places? Sometimes it would be the title, sometimes the first subtype with small letters, sometimes the second one.

"This card" (or my proper noun idea) are concise enough not to warrant the 'saving' of space. I'm not sure how to put it tactfully, but "TC is immune to..." just looks tacky. I'm not sure an icon would solve the issue either. I think icons should be reserved for identifying marks (abilities) and user actions (mark).

Agree. We'll avoid icon and also TC. I still lean towards "this card" though...

[aspidites]

I'd say that the last type present should be used. Rationale:
* I can't say first for the reason you already showed
* I could say first non-adjective type, but aside from being cumbersome to say, it forces players to have to scan from left to right until such an occurrence is found. While consistent, it isn't immediately obvious that it is.
* 9 times out of 10, this will be the last word in the title anyways, so not much scanning is required
* I said so

That said, I'm fine with *this card*, so long as it doesn't get bastardized to "TC".