Opinions on Text-Based Tabletop RPGs

Hey everyone! Today, I'd like to talk about something I've tried out a few times in the recent past, that being text-based tabletop RPGs, such as D&D. Through the use of websites like roll20.net, it's super easy to run an entirely text-based game - you, as the GM, simply write out whatever you would normally say in the chat window, and your players can respond at their leisure. Plus, any die rolls would go right into the chat window along with the descriptions and dialogue, so it's easy to see everything all in one place.

The question is, how well does it work?

Obviously, there are going to be some pros and cons to a purely text-based game, when compared to the usual group-of-friends-sitting-around-a-table sort of game (or, to bring it into the digital age, group-of-friends-on-Skype).

Con number 1: fewer snacks during gameplay.

Well, I guess not, if you play in your kitchen.

I think the first upside to a text-based game should be obvious - people can respond whenever they choose. It's like texting versus a phone call. With a phone call, you need to devote a block of time - you can't just talk on the phone for 30 seconds, wait twenty minutes, then talk for another two minutes. No, a phone call is a time commitment, just like your usual D&D session. But with a text-based game, you can run it so that players can answer at their leisure.  As a side bonus, this gives players (and the GM!) the opportunity to really think out what their character would do or say in a given situation, so in some ways, it makes roleplaying as your character much easier. For me, I like to leave the game open in a separate tab, so I can periodically check on it and see if I need to bang out a quick response. I think it's a good system...

...as long as people respond in a somewhat timely manner. With the flexibility to answer whenever you'd like comes a tendency to hold off on responding, whether that's due to forgetfulness or a thought of "Eh, I'll respond to him later, I don't feel like it right now." There's not as much accountability when your GM is staring at you from across the table, threatening to drop a tarrasque on your character's head if you don't make a decision sometime in the next ten minutes. Plus, simple conversations and encounters can get dragged out over longer periods of time. Because consider the following hypothetical exchange:

"I would like to attack that goblin. How far away is he?"

"Hm, he's about forty feet from you, but there is a bonfire between you and him, so you probably won't be able to charge at him."

"Ok. Could I move around the bonfire and attack him?"

"Well, you could get much closer, but not into melee range."

"What if I moved around the fire, right by that boulder there, and threw a dagger? Would that work?"

"Yeah, that should work well! Is that what you want to do?"

"Yep."

"Ok, roll me the attack roll for the dagger."

In an ordinary setting, that exchange would take all of thirty seconds to accomplish. But in a text-based game, in which people aren't necessarily responding immediately, it could drag on for quite a lot longer than that. Of course, it also depends on how punctual and how involved your players are, but there's no denying that converting spoken conversation to text slows things down a fairly significant amount.

Pictured: the approximate speed of a text-based game.

Another thing I find beneficial about text-based RPGs is that they're great for situations in which you want to run a one-off session with a player, but for whatever reason, you don't want to have to schedule another session just to go through this side thing. It tends to be a more convenient way to play in many situations. Again, setting aside time for a full session can be tough, so this all just goes back to the whole "you can answer whenever you'd like" point I made earlier.

But on the flip side, there are definitely situations in which a text-based game would be detrimental. I personally have never run a text-based game with more than one player at a time, but I can only imagine that with some of the difficulties that come with it, adding more people can get... chaotic. I feel that some of the "people don't respond in a timely manner" issues would only get exacerbated with more than two or so people playing. It'd be easy for the player with the quickest response time to completely dominate play, unless you put some significant regulations on your players - for instance, "no one player can respond twice in a row." Still, that could cause some frustration between players, too, so it's ground you'd have to tread lightly.


I think that one of the greatest benefits to a text-based game, though, is inclusivity. Not everyone is quick on the uptake when they play, and can have trouble getting into character at a moment's notice. Some players adapt quicker than others. I think reducing the game to text evens the playing field for your players, so they can all participate in the ways they do best. And if you have a deaf friend, it allows them to participate too, where a normal game obviously would not. (Fun fact - the reason I tried out a text-based game to begin with was because a deaf friend of mine really wanted to play, but couldn't participate due to her disability.)


This was a short post, but that's pretty much all I had to say on the topic. I think there are some real benefits to running a text-based game, especially when your players have different availabilities or different strengths that otherwise might not make it to a traditional sort of game. But it could also drag on for a much longer time, and unless you really lay down the law on when your players can respond, it might be tough to include more than two or so players in the game. Basically, I wouldn't try to run a full, five-person campaign completely over text, but I think there are ways to make it work. But give it a try! It's certainly a very interesting experience, regardless.

The Design of Dark Souls

Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Makings of a Nerd, that blog where I'm finally done going over every Magic color in excruciating detail! Today I want to talk a bit about a game that has become pretty popular over the past few years, even spawning several sequels since its release in 2011. That game is Dark Souls, and in my opinion, it's one of the best-designed games I've played.

Yeah, this is pretty much the tagline. It's accurate.

Now, if you've never played Dark Souls, let's just put it in the following manner - it is not a game for beginners. (On that note, if you ever want to laugh, take your friend who has never touched a video game before, and tell them that "Dark Souls is really easy, you'll get the hang of it in no time.") The game and its sequels are designed around the idea that only a truly difficult challenge will leave you feeling satisfied when you finally overcome that challenge. As such, Dark Souls is no stranger to strong monsters, nefarious NPCs, and convoluted traps that will quickly kill you over and over again until you finally master that section of the game. Even after having beaten the game, I can go back to one of the beginning areas, and if I'm not careful, I can die within seconds.

But at its core, even though Dark Souls is a difficult game, it is ultimately a fair game (usually), and this is a large part of why I say it is one of the best-designed games I've played.

As an aside, before I delve into the topic in more detail, I don't know if I'd say Dark Souls is one of my favorite games. It's not something I can play casually - if I'm playing, my heart and soul have to be in it or it will get incredibly frustrating, sometimes to the point of not being fun. But you don't have to like Beethoven's music to agree that he's one of history's great composers. Dark Souls is a fun game, and a well-designed game, but I've had more fun playing other games.

Anyway, let's dive right in!

The setting

The first thing that should jump out at you when you play Dark Souls is the atmosphere. The general premise of the game is that in this world, undead exist, and while they retain their humanity for a time, they slowly become "hollow" and are driven mad. You are an undead who is trying to avoid that fate. As such, you begin the game in an asylum for the undead, and the asylum is crisscrossed with dark corridors, flickering torches, and rotting undead who have long since become hollow. It's a tough thing to describe through text, but it feels like a long-neglected asylum, in which the normal people of the world throw their undead and try desperately to forget about their existence. Every location in the game world is simply atmospheric, and I think a big part in this is played by the lack of music. Music only plays in about two locations in the game (not counting boss fights - more on music later), and as such, the game can't rely on music to set the mood. Ambient sounds, monsters and NPCs, and the setting itself need to provide that atmosphere.

Each location has its own quirks, and its own enemies, that

really work to set it apart.

Plus, very little information is actually told to you, as the player. NPCs give limited background, and what little they do tell you is often flavored by their own goals and motivations. The first NPC you meet upon escaping the asylum, a crestfallen warrior, will gladly tell you about some of the initial locations in the world, but the information is limited and given to you with more than just a hint of pessimism, as if he knows you're just going to fail at whatever it is you intend to do. If you want to learn more about the background of the world, you need to work to piece together what little information you glean from NPC conversations and the information obtained from reading item descriptions, and even then, you're given little more than a piecemeal account of the lore of the world. It's something that was done very well, and I think it is a fabulous way to tell an intricate story without shoving hours of exposition down the player's throat.

My other favorite thing about the setting of Dark Souls is that in general, if you can see a place, you can go to it. For instance:

This screenshot is taken in an area called the Tomb of the Giants. Far below, we can see what looks like a lake of magma, as well as some ancient buildings. That area is the Demon Ruins, and it's another location within the game. Of course, to get there requires traveling through about six other named areas, and would probably take about 15 to 20 minutes of just running, but they are connected. Plus, except for specific locations (like the Undead Asylum and one or two others), there are no loading screens between areas - everything is actually interconnected in the exact way it looks to be interconnected. Which I think is just a really cool thing about the design of the world.

The gameplay

What sort of discussion of a video game could I have without talking about the gameplay itself? As I said earlier, while Dark Souls is difficult, it is also fair - the game simply doesn't coddle you. If you die, it's essentially your own fault. Either you mistimed a dodge, or you blocked an attack poorly, or you attacked when you should have defended. Very rarely is a death actual unavoidable bullshit - the closest the game comes to that is the Anor Londo archers, and anyone who has played the game knows what I'm talking about there.

There's a lot to be said for the gameplay of Dark Souls, but I really just enjoy the checks and balances that are present throughout. Heavier armor slows down your movements and dodgerolls, but you won't get staggered as easily. Lighter armor allows for quicker movements, but you can't take a hit. A scimitar combos attacks really well but doesn't stagger opponents easily; a dagger is excellent for backstabbing but has terrible reach and deals little damage otherwise; a halberd has great reach but leaves you exposed after some attacks; a zweihander hits like a truck but takes an hour to swing. Nearly every decision in the game has an upside and has a downside, and despite the dozens upon dozens of potential weapons and armors in the game, very few of them can be said to be strictly better than any others.

Besides, you can wield silly weapons like this.

This is one of the smaller ones.

And of course, the last thing to mention is that Dark Souls really takes that "harder challenge leads to greater satisfaction" idea and runs with it. The bosses in particular can be insanely difficult, and can even feel like a game of "find the exploit," but once you do manage to beat them, there's little else like it. If you can get past the feeling of dying 17 times in a row to Ornstein and Smough, first.

Thunder and Thighs.

Snorlax and Pikachu.

Biggie Smalls.

Fatboy and Slim.

You get the idea.

The music

The last thing to mention about the design of Dark Souls is, of course, the music. Dark Souls has an epic, orchestral soundtrack... that really only plays during boss fights. And it makes the fights feel appropriately large-scale and, well, epic. Especially since you're typically fighting against giant animal-demons, grotesque dragon monsters, and ancient war heroes gone mad. Most fights have their own themes, and each one feels appropriate and on-point.

The rest of the time, the game is silent. There are only two locations in the game, and one is essentially a secret area. The other, Firelink Shrine, has one of my favorite music tracks in any video game soundtrack. Firelink Shrine is the first location you see after leaving the Undead Asylum, and you (as well as most NPCs) often return to it as a sort of base of operations. And the area is filled with somber, almost sad music. It's hard to describe in words, but in my opinion, it really embodies the sort of despair and melancholy but also the hope that pervades the game, not only in your own character but in the NPCs as well. There's not much more to say - have a listen!

So there you have it! There's a lot to say on the subject, of course, but for the sake of my poor typing fingers, I'll leave it there. Overall, a brilliantly well-designed game, for quite a few reasons!

...In my opinion, at least!

The Magic Color Series - Green Thumb

And now, ladies and gentlemen... the moment you've all been waiting for... the post where I finally stop talking about Magic: The Gathering colors every other week!

Probably. 

Three weeks ago, I wrote the second-to-last post in this series on the color red, which is a very simple color, all about passion and emotion and fire and dealing as much damage as physically possible in the shortest amount of time! This week, we'll be talking about green, which is another fairly simple color. Also, my favorite. But more on that later!

And we finally come full circle, to the top left!!

I won't bother with another description of the color pie and what it means - let's just hop right into it!

What does green represent?

In case you couldn't tell by now, the picture on a color's mana symbol often coincides with what the color represents. Red had a fireball, and was focused on fire and passion and emotion. Black had a skull, and was focused on death, especially as a tool to further one's own goals. So, let's take a moment and look above. 

Any ideas?

How about now?

If you guessed "nature," "trees," "plants," "growth," or anything like that, you'd be pretty spot-on. The biggest thing that green represents is growth, whether in a literal sense or in a more metaphorical, personal sense. That being said, green typically approaches growth through the lens of nature (although this isn't always true, especially when combined with one or more other colors). Green represents life - which overlaps slightly with white - as well as instinct. It's a pretty simple color, in all honesty - it's similar to red in that regard. You can sum up green, mostly, by saying that it represents life, nature, instinct, and growth. It does get slightly more interesting when we get to the gameplay, though.

What does this mean for gameplay?

I'm glad you asked! So when you think of nature, what's the first thing you think of? Is it bountiful land, full of trees and plants and whatnot? Well, seeing as green uses forests as its mana source, you wouldn't be too far off on that one. And with that, green is the color that's most focused on ramping up its mana base, whether through getting as many lands onto the field as possible or through the use of creatures that help produce mana.

Like this guy. Or the weird plant-person thing in the last picture.

If, instead of lands, you think of creatures when you think of nature, then you just hit green's favorite card type in the game. Green doesn't really care so much about spell-slinging with instants and sorceries - it's perfectly content just slapping some creatures onto the field and letting them have the run of the place. Green doesn't care for blue's machinations, or black's underhandedness. That's not green's style. If green is going to kill you, you'll see it coming from a mile away, but you just won't be able to do anything about it. It's like the inevitability that nature will reclaim all things, if you like analogies.

So, there are two general categories to how green plays with creatures. Option 1 is big armies of small creatures. Perhaps "armies" isn't quite the right word for it - green isn't as organized as, say, white is. But don't fret, green can easily have dozens of creatures on the field, all helping each other grow in strength (see what I did there?) and overwhelm the enemy. The most obvious creature type for this option is elves, of which green has a metric ton. Option 2, on the flip side, is small groups of big, stompy creatures. This is where you find your elephants, your hydras, and all other assorted beasts. Green is all about instinct and growth, like I said, so it plays very intuitively - build up your mana base early, maybe throw out a few weaker creatures to fend off an attack, and then end with some big monstrosities that'll show your opponent the brute force of nature.

Pictured left: Elves.

Pictured right: Beasts.

You get the idea.

However, like I said earlier, green doesn't play a manipulative game. Green doesn't use underhanded tactics to win. Its simplicity and its reliance on instinct can often be its downfall. It is very good at removing enchantments and artifacts (which can be seen as nature reclaiming what rightfully belongs to it), but it is comparatively terrible at removing creatures from the board. When it comes to creatures, green will always attempt to simply have the biggest ones around, and hopefully that will be enough. When it does come to targeted removal of opponents' creatures, this is where the "fight" mechanic comes in, of which green is the most prolific user. When you cast a spell that causes one creature to "fight" another, they essentially just damage each other as if one had just blocked the other in combat. It's a much more limited form of creature removal than, say, black's tendency to just murder things, but it suits green just fine.

Finally, to go right along with green's focus on growth, green is where you'll find the most cards that simply make your creatures bigger than they already are. This can take the form of temporary, "until end of turn" effects like the one seen on Giant Growth, or it can be a more permanent effect, such as a +1/+1 counter. Green likes both of these methods, and uses them both extensively. As long as its creatures are getting bigger, it doesn't much care how it happens.

I won't lie. I just love the picture from this card.

My opinions on the color:

As I mentioned in the red post, my preference is to play a creature-heavy game, and if that's the goal, there's no better color than green for the task. It sure as hell has the creatures to smack your opponents around, and it also has the mana manipulation (via land retrieval and creatures that produce extra mana) to get those big creatures on the field. And the other reason green is my favorite color in Magic is because of its directness. There is little more satisfying than watching a blue player attempt to control a green deck, only to have his attempts foiled by an ever-expanding barrage of giant beasts.

Also, hydras are probably my second-favorite creature type in the game (behind krakens, which are frankly the most green-like blue creatures around). 

I mean, look at that thing. How could you not just want, like, 

twelve of them?

But, as with many colors, green can be a bit boring on its own. In fact, I'd argue that green is one of the weaker colors on its own, too. White and black can absolutely hold their own in a mono-colored deck, while mono-red just kills you before you have a chance to play. Mono-blue can be tough. But while mono-green has the potential to be very strong (generally speaking, most green cards work at least somewhat well together), it does have some serious drawbacks in that it has little in the ways of control - especially for creatures. Plus, it is heavily reliant on mana, so if you target a green player's mana producers or simply destroy his lands (something that we in the MTG community generally refer to as "a dick move"), you can slow or halt a green deck's momentum. The other problem is that green has the fewest flying creatures in the game, so it can become quickly overwhelmed by a flyer-heavy deck if it doesn't have a creature with reach.

Overall? I'm a huge fan of green. To me, the only reason I don't like red is because when it comes to creatures, green does the same thing, just better. Personally, my favorite color combination is green/blue - use the blue to keep the opponent under control, until your big stompy green creatures can sweep in for the kill. Plus, it lets me use krakens and hydras in the same deck. Which is always awesome.

That's all for the Magic Color Series! To read more about green's place in the color pie, a series of articles was written by Mark Rosewater, Magic's current head designer, on the subject of the color pie. Which is really where I got a lot of my information about the colors anyway. You can find his article about green by clicking here.

Star Wars - [Insert Clever Title Here]

(I realize that the text size is tiny for some reason. I apologize for that - I'm trying to fix it as soon as possible.)

Hey everyone! I had spoken to many of my friends, family, and coworkers about the topic of today's post before finally realizing that I would need to make a post about it. Because really, how can I claim to have a blog about all sorts of nerdy topics without discussing my thoughts on the latest Star Wars movie?

Now, there are a lot of things to be said about the new movie. It broke new ground in a lot of ways, while also staying true to the characters and setting established by the previous six movies. (Some people would say "the previous five movies," but we'll allow Episode I to be considered, if only because Darth Maul was a badass. Also, Liam Neeson.) What I would like to do for this review, then, would be to discuss some of the specific things I liked about the movie, as well as a few of the specific things I didn't like as much.

I do want to mention, though, that overall, I greatly enjoyed The Force Awakens. I only got the chance to watch it once in theaters, but I would have happily gone to see it multiple, multiple times if I'd had the opportunity.

In case you couldn't already guess, there will likely be a ton of spoilers as we move forward. So if you haven't seen the movie yet for whatever reason (yeah, some people haven't seen it yet - they're out there), you should probably stop reading now. Also, I would like to point out that these are simply my opinions, and should be taken as such. Feel free to disagree with me!

So without any further ado...


Pro: The lightsaber fight

One of my biggest complaints about Episodes I, II, and III - a complaint that is shared by many people with whom I've spoken on the topic - was the lightsaber fights. (For now, let's ignore the complaints about characters, plot, and dialogue in the prequel trilogy, because otherwise, we'd be here until Episode VIII is released.) The choreography was always very well done for those fights - look at the Darth Maul/Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan fight in The Phantom Menace as an example, or the Anakin/Obi-Wan fight in Revenge of the Sith. But to me, those fights were always extraordinarily over-the-top. The Jedi involved would always flip and twirl and make about seventeen unnecessary movements for every one legitimate swing of the lightsaber at their opponents.

Exhibit A.

Also, this just in - I can use .gifs! So many possibilities.

Of course, looking at the original trilogy, we often see the opposite issue. While I understand that the special effects were not as good in the 1970s and 1980s, the lightsaber duels in Episodes IV, V, and VI could sometimes be bland affairs, with the two opponents just whacking away at one another until somebody lost. This wasn't always the case, either, but it tended to be a running theme with those duels.

So now we get to The Force Awakens, and we have a climactic lightsaber duel between Kylo Ren and Finn, which is then continued between Kylo Ren and Rey once Kylo incapacitates Finn. (It's really weird calling him just "Kylo," but I think it's better than calling him "Ren." So we're sticking with Kylo.) And in my opinion, this is the best lightsaber duel in the entire Star Wars saga, or at least in the top three. It struck a good middle ground - it was a largely story-driven fight like the majority of those seen in the original trilogy, while also being exciting and well-choreographed. Plus, it never felt over-the-top in terms of its choreography. And the other thing I enjoyed about that duel is that it demonstrated the characters' personalities very well, especially Kylo's. But more on that in a minute!

By the way, many of my above assertions apply to the special effects in the movie as well, I feel. Which I also thought to be a positive part of Episode VII.


Con: A New Hope 2.0

Probably my biggest issue with Episode VII was that, after watching it, it felt as if I had just seen Episode IV all over again, just reskinned. Droid with important information is lost on a desert planet after a stormtrooper attack and gets picked up by a local, who then flies away in the Millennium Falcon to bring the droid to the Rebellion/Resistance. The local, who is actually Force-sensitive and turns out to be more than they appeared at first, is assisted by an older companion, who was an important figure in the war of the previous trilogy. A few fights later, the protagonist's party meets up with the Rebellion/Resistance, who then take the fight to the Empire/First Order. The old sage is killed by the villain, who happens to be directly related to a few of the main characters. The movies culminate in the protagonist destroying the Empire/First Order base of operations/weapons platform, which was demonstrated to have destroyed at least one planet earlier in the movies. Plus, there's another mysterious villain who appears by hologram, and there's a scene at a bar.

And the aforementioned droids are awesome.

I realize that a) I left out a metric ton of differences between the movies, b) I'm oversimplifying significantly, and c) I'm not really mentioning that having callbacks to the original trilogy seems to be what J.J. Abrams was going for. But the similarities are hard to deny. And while I appreciated the callbacks, and I understand why they were done the way they were (I feel that they were done in order to help establish the new characters in the setting, while keeping things familiar and showing, perhaps, that history is doomed to repeat itself?), I felt that it was done just a little too much.


Pro: Kylo Ren's character

This will probably be the most controversial point of this whole post. People who have watched The Force Awakens seem to have one of two reactions toward Kylo Ren as a character - either they loved him and thought he was very well-acted and well-written, or they hated him and thought his character was terrible. I haven't really spoken with anyone who fell in the middle ground. Generally, there is a consensus that Kylo was established as an intimidating, fearsome villain in the beginning acts of the film, but once he removed the helmet, all pretenses were lost and he became an emotional trainwreck.

If you haven't seen it yet, please go look up Emo

Kylo Ren on Twitter.

But really, I liked Kylo Ren for that exact reason. I think that some people were disappointed because they were expecting Darth Vader 2.0, and instead they got Anakin. I felt that his character was very well thought-out and fleshed out, and you could constantly see the inner turmoil that defined Kylo's actions throughout the movie. You see him as an intimidating badass, but you also see him as a child on a temper tantrum. You see the nigh-successful attempts to emulate Vader, but you also see his very real flaws. I also felt, as I somewhat mentioned earlier, that the lightsaber duel was an excellent insight into his character. He fought relatively skillfully for someone whose training was cut short (and someone who just took a bowcaster shot to the torso and walked it off), but you could actually see the rage and inner conflict in Kylo as he attacked Finn and Rey. 

Kylo Ren was absolutely one of my favorite new characters in The Force Awakens, and I'm very interested to see how his character continues to develop over the course of the next two movies.

Con: The comedy

Not much to say here, really, since my argument is essentially the same as my earlier statements about similarities between Episode IV and Episode VII. Basically, I really enjoyed the comedy that was included in The Force Awakens - it was funny without being goofy (looking at you, Jar Jar), and it rarely felt forced. That being said, I felt that there was just slightly too much comedy added into the movie, especially in the first half. It's a pretty nitpick-y complaint, but I guess I expect a pretty serious tone when I go into a Star Wars movie, and while The Force Awakens was certainly a serious movie, I felt that the comedy was slightly overdone.

Pro: This guy

'Nuff said.

Con: Not enough of this gal

Also 'nuff said.

But yeah, that's most of what I had to say on the topic. There were other high points and low points in The Force Awakens, but these were the major ones that I wanted to discuss. Like I said before, I thought that overall, the movie was excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, most of my complaints were simply "this was done very well, but they went too far with it." Which is not a very bad complaint at all, I feel.

That's about that! See you all next week!

Whappity whappity whappity

The Magic Color Series - Caught Red-Handed

Welcome back, for the penultimate installment of the Magic Color series!

Two weeks ago, I wrote the third post in this series on the color black, which is a fairly well-defined color in terms of its identity, but also a color on which I have many mixed feelings. This week, we'll be talking about red, which is a much simpler color in most respects.

Bottom left of the color pie!

I know I've described the color pie in most of these articles, but one thing I neglected to mention is that the positioning of the colors on the circle is actually relatively important. For any color - let's take red, for instance, for obvious reasons - the two adjacent colors are known as its "allied" colors, while the other two would be its "enemy" colors. So red's allied colors are green and black, while its enemy colors are white and blue. This is representative of similarities and differences in terms of gameplay, but more importantly, in terms of theme. Black is allied with blue because omnipotence (black's main goal) and omniscience (blue's main goal) are often two sides of the same coin. However, black is enemies with white because black has a focus on selfishness, while white typically espouses selflessness. It's not a super relevant idea when I'm just talking about each individual color, but if we were to discuss multicolored decks, then it becomes much more important.

So with that, let's continue on and talk about red!

What does red represent?

I mentioned in one of the earlier posts that the colors often (but not always) coincide with the classical elements of earth, wind, fire, and air. As you could probably guess by now, red is most closely related to the element of fire, and many of the things that fire represents. Fire is often a powerful element, but it also is the element of emotion and passion and chaos, which are all pretty close to the heart of what red represents. Red doesn't like order, and red doesn't like restrictions. Red prefers to have no limits, and to do whatever comes naturally to it. It's a whimsical color, and I mean that as "capricious" and not "fairies dancing in a meadow."

See? Whimsical.

While red is most closely related to fire, it also represents lightning and earth in many cases - both of these in a rather violent sense. Lightning is represented in terms of its powerful and capricious nature, while earth is usually depicted in an explosive sense. It's never stability and durability with red, but rather explosions and earthquakes and volcanoes. Along with these ideas, as you could imagine, red does have many ties to nature, probably second only to green. But where green focuses on growth and the ferocity of nature's creatures (more on that two weeks from now), red is focused more on nature's capacity to be violent and random.

What does this mean for gameplay?

So how does red represent these themes in-game? The most important thing to remember about red is that it's the color of emotion, and it craves freedom and doing whatever comes naturally. That means that for red, the simplest solution is usually the correct one. How does one win a game of Magic? Generally by reducing the opponent to zero life. How does one reduce an opponent to zero life? Well, the simplest way is by dealing damage. Just... damage. Red is the biggest proponent of just throwing out spells that deal some amount of damage to a creature or player - or perhaps more appropriately, dealing some amount of damage to all creatures or players. It's also the color that most enjoys destroying artifacts. Essentially, red can be summed up with "Is it annoying? Do we not like it? Let's blow it up." 

Again, red is a simple color. It doesn't need much explanation.

In terms of its creatures, there are a few trends that red follows. First off, like white, red is prone to having a lot of very small creatures charging at the enemy, whether that takes the form of an angry mob of ordinary humans or a horde of reckless goblins. Larger creatures in red often have very high power with a low toughness - in other words, they deal a lot of damage (read above), but die quickly. Elementals, minotaurs, and giants often fall into this category. These creatures often come with the haste ability, meaning they can attack on the turn they are played. Just like with red spells, red creatures are violent and capricious, and if you're playing against a red opponent, you're just as likely to be hit with a fireball as to be attacked by a rock elemental without warning. But as quickly as they appear, they're gone - if something red has decided to kill you, it's probably not thinking about its own survival.

And of course, we can't forget red's signature creature. Where black has the support of demons (if it can truly be called support), red has the power of dragons at its command. Dragons are like the epitome of red's philosophies, especially those regarding the violence of nature. So while a red deck's early creatures often focus on a horde of weaklings, it's not uncommon to see such a deck finish off the opponent by swooping in with a powerful dragon or two.

If you were looking for a sign to play a red deck...

...this is it.

Finally, another thing red is really known for is its randomness and chaos. As such, red is often where you'll find cards that ask you to flip a coin to determine which of two possible outcomes will occur, or you'll find a creature that attacks an opponent at random (which is really only applicable in multiplayer games, but still). This isn't really a majority of red cards, but it happens significantly more in red than in any other color. My favorite is Possibility Storm, which essentially replaces any spell you cast with another random spell of the same type from your deck.

Yeah, as much as red is a "simple" color, things can get

real complicated, real fast.

My opinions on the color:

So red is actually one of my less-preferred colors in the game. Not because I don't like it, per se, but personally, I like to play a very creature-heavy game. If I can swing with a creature for 20 damage at a time, I'm happy. And when it comes to big stompy creatures, my preference is for green over red, if only because I like my creatures to have a high toughness in addition to a high power. Red certainly has more options than green in terms of its non-creature spells, but I'm not as big on non-creature spells.

The other thing I don't really like about playing red is that it can be pretty boring on its own, at least to me. I like red with other colors, but not really on its own - to be fair, though, I have that complaint about most colors. Oftentimes, a mono-red deck is concerned only with winning the game as quickly as possible, and it can be a very polarizing game - either you have a good start to the game and win in about 5 turns, or you don't have a good start and there's nothing you can do to come back from it. To me, it's just not as interesting of a game as if you were playing, say, blue or black, and even if you have a rough start, you have the tools to manipulate the game to your advantage.

So overall, I personally am not a huge fan of playing red. However, I do quite enjoy the color when I do choose to play it, especially when making use of the chaotic and random cards like Possibility Storm or when combining it with colors like white or blue. And besides, who wouldn't want to dominate the game with a dragon or several, when it comes down to it?

The last article should be coming up in two weeks! To read more about red's place in the color pie, a series of articles was written by Mark Rosewater, Magic's current head designer, on the subject of the color pie. Which is really where I got a lot of my information about the colors anyway. You can find his article about red by clicking here.