False God Competition: Forbidden Romance

[Essence]

You do not have to have a mechanical description of your deck. You just need to explain why it fits into the theme. And if you think you need an elaborate story for people to understand, then you are either underestimating your own abilities or the minds of everyone else. Almost everyone else here has perfectly good explanations of their deck.

Let's see about that:

Serket: "story later"  <-- thenewguy thinks he needs a story.

Collapse: "this may or may not be a placeholder" 

Sorrow's Blade: "Story to come soon"  <-- ddevans96 thinks he needs a story.

Arachnophilia: Has a story and a mechanical description.  Without the story, there's no connection to the idea of romance in the deck at all.

Ophelia: Fits your description, but relies on common knowledge of a story we've theoretically all read.

Crazy Eights: Fits your description.

Darkangel: Fits your description, but offers storylike elements as part of explaining the theme.

Kebechet: Has a story but doesn't explain why the cards fit the theme at all.

Agony: Fits your description.

Lotus: Relies on a story without any other explanation of why the cards fit the theme.

AI10v.3:  Relies on a story without any other explanation of why the cards fit the theme.

Xinef-Ra: Relies on a story without any other explanation of why the cards fit the theme.

Love Potion: Fits your description, but offers storylike elements as part of explaining the theme.

Nightingale: Fits your description.

Torch: Fits your description, but offers storylike elements as part of explaining the theme.

Spirit of Steam: "story to come"

Yearning: Fits your description, but offers strong storylike elements as part of explaining the theme.

Vengeance: Fits your description, but offers storylike elements as part of explaining the theme.

PlanetStar: Fits your description, but offers storylike elements as part of explaining the theme.

(I ran out of time here, I think I've made my point.)


So, if this isn't a storytelling competition, why are everyone's "perfectly good" descriptions of their deck almost all either partially or entirely story-based?

More importantly, you've avoided the key question: how can you connect a purely mechanical set of in-game items to a purely aesthetic concept without creating some form of story to explain the connection?  And, at that point, how is this not in some profound respect a measure of your ability to tell that story?

[Kamietsu]

You do not have to have a mechanical description of your deck. You just need to explain why it fits into the theme. And if you think you need an elaborate story for people to understand, then you are either underestimating your own abilities or the minds of everyone else. Almost everyone else here has perfectly good explanations of their deck.

Let's see about that:
*snip*


So, if this isn't a storytelling competition, why are everyone's "perfectly good" descriptions of their deck almost all either partially or entirely story-based?

More importantly, you've avoided the key question: how can you connect a purely mechanical set of in-game items to a purely aesthetic concept without creating some form of story to explain the connection?  And, at that point, how is this not in some profound respect a measure of your ability to tell that story?

I've never said once that a story is out of the question. I did say that you didn't need an elaborate story(see almost any submission with story like elements) to get the message across. And you do not need a mechanical description of how the deck works. You just simply need to show how or why it fits into the theme. You are more than welcome to write a small story about how that works. But I can just as easily write how many of these decks fit into the theme without using any story elements. Here's how my deck decription would look without any story elements:

Torch used the destructive power of Fire and the healing properties of Life. Individually they are a strong element, but together they use the best of both their worlds to create something fierce. Life focuses on adding more turns to a creatures attack, while Fire focuses on pure power. typitcally they are not thought of as going well together, having issues when they crossover. They both do almost the same thing when it comes to power, which makes them an ideal pair to show a forbidden romance between them. Increase the number of turns, or increase the raw power output, both individually strong, but when they come together on the same creature, it feels a little taboo.

[Essence]

OK, so really the point here is that you don't want people who take the time to craft an elaborate story and spend the effort to figure out how to use the forum's tools to add visual drama to their entry to have an 'unfair' advantage over the people who spit out a paragraph or two of plain undecorated text.   

Because it's not about the story or the visuals, it's about the cards.

The cards, and a theme that has no emotional or intellectual connection with those cards except through a seriously overreaching set of mental hoops to jump through that literally just led you to say that putting Rage Potion and Adrenaline on the same creature "feels a little taboo".


Gotcha.   I'll shut up and go follow the rules like a good little boy now.

[Kamietsu]

OK, so really the point here is that you don't want people who take the time to craft an elaborate story and spend the effort to figure out how to use the forum's tools to add visual drama to their entry to have an 'unfair' advantage over the people who spit out a paragraph or two of plain undecorated text.   

Because it's not about the story or the visuals, it's about the cards.

The cards, and a theme that has no emotional or intellectual connection with those cards except through a seriously overreaching set of mental hoops to jump through that literally just led you to say that putting Rage Potion and Adrenaline on the same creature "feels a little taboo".


Gotcha.   I'll shut up and go follow the rules like a good little boy now.

yeah, be a bit more of a jerk about it that will definitely work out well for you.

If you are having such a problem about it, just withdraw, or, do something smart like give a summary of your story and when you put your link to the FG proposal discussion topic, let the readers know the full story(with all of your decorations you so love) are in the discussion thread.

[Essence]

Sorry if I came off like a jerk, I didn't mean any personal offense to you.  I think the premise of your argument is a bit absurd, and I was trying to emphasize the absurdity, not imply that there was anything in the world wrong with you or your writing skills.  I think that you literally did the best job that could be done at describing a connection to a theme without using any story elements -- and that's exactly the problem with the notion that this isn't, in some way, a storytelling competition.

On a rules note, how about putting the whole spoiler thing in a spoiler tag, is that cool?  That way the visual emphasis is gone, but the story is there if people want to read it.

[Kamietsu]

Sorry if I came off like a jerk, I didn't mean any personal offense to you.  I think the premise of your argument is a bit absurd, and I was trying to emphasize the absurdity, not imply that there was anything in the world wrong with you or your writing skills.  I think that you literally did the best job that could be done at describing a connection to a theme without using any story elements -- and that's exactly the problem with the notion that this isn't, in some way, a storytelling competition.

On a rules note, how about putting the whole spoiler thing in a spoiler tag, is that cool?  That way the visual emphasis is gone, but the story is there if people want to read it.

I'm mostly alright with that, as long as it comes at the end, sort of like a little extra bit. But if SG, or the other 3 CO's disagree, then the full story will have to stay solely in the FG Proposal thread.

[Scaredgirl]

Sorry if I came off like a jerk, I didn't mean any personal offense to you.  I think the premise of your argument is a bit absurd, and I was trying to emphasize the absurdity, not imply that there was anything in the world wrong with you or your writing skills.  I think that you literally did the best job that could be done at describing a connection to a theme without using any story elements -- and that's exactly the problem with the notion that this isn't, in some way, a storytelling competition.

On a rules note, how about putting the whole spoiler thing in a spoiler tag, is that cool?  That way the visual emphasis is gone, but the story is there if people want to read it.

No. Please stop trying to find loopholes and tricks. If you want to add additional stuff, use the dedicated topic.

Another thing about your submission. I don't know if any of the CO's have talked to you about this, but since your FG idea uses the name of a well known community member, and the story itself is filled with all kinds of inside jokes, your submission will be classified as a "joke submission". This means that while you have a chance of winning the competition and getting an award icon for it, your deck won't be included in the final 4 that get sent to Zanz. Changing the deck name will change the situation.

That latter goes to all other "funny" submissions as well. We want to show Zanz that this community is capable of real game design, not just joke design, so we naturally want to offer "serious" FG decks to preserve the quality of Elements.

[Essence]

No, you're the first to mention that.  I appreciate hearing it, as it's certainly not intended to be a joke. 

[Zafari]

Cleopatra-Caesar

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744 744 744 744 744 744 744 749 749 74c 74c 74c 74h 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jv 7jv 7jv 7jv 7k5 7k5 7k5 7k5 7k5 7k5 7n2 7n2 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q0 7q9 7q9 7q9 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qc 7qk
Cleopatra - the last Pharaoh of the ancient Egyptian empire. Julius Caesar - the most famous ruler ever of the ancient Roman empire. These two had the most famous and critiqued romance ever in the history of man. This romance is what this deck is based on.
The deck is based on the Pharaohs conjuring Scarabs, which eat stuff. The Crusaders endow Titans, hopefully flying and blessed, and do massive damage to the opponent. As a finishing strike, the Trebuchet catapults flying Titans on you as a finishing blow. The Gravity Shield is for blocking anything that is too big for the Scarabs, and the Sundials are for drawing cards. The Golden Nymph also draws cards, as well as she does viable damage.
Thematically, you can probably see what most of the cards represent.

FG Proposal (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,19822.new.html)

[RavingRabbid]

Cyrano
 (http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,19832.new.html#new)

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6rk 7dm 7dm 7dm 7dr 7dr 7dr 7dr 7f2 7f2 7f2 7f2 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7jo 7ju 7ju 7ju 7ju 7ju 7ju 7k2 7k2 7k5 7k5 7k5 7k5
Cyrano loves his cousin, Roxane. He can’t declare to her, both because she’s his cousin, and because, behind his fiery temper, he is ashamed of his big nose. But no man in France can wield a sword like Cyrano. He’s a polite and loyal man, and his fame might come after his nose, but he will not give you his life easily.
After Icarus and MacBeth, this is my third literature work. I was going for Romeo and Juliet, but then, that would have been to easy and I had already done Shakespeare. The first that came to my mind was Cyrano de Bergerac. Cyrano, is, in my opinion, one of the best characters in French literature, if not the best.

[zse]

Prometheus

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74a 74a 74a 74a 74a 74b 74b 74b 74c 74c 7dl 7dl 7do 7do 7do 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7ms 7mu 7mu 7mu 7mu 7mu 7n4 7n4 7n4 7n4 7n4 7n4Gravity and Air. One of the most unlikely pairs, almost as if they only had opposite attributes. Yet there's some unexpected sparkle between them and it pulls them together, towards a common goal. Can you see it too?

http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,20057

[Kuroaitou]

NOTICE: Please do not use any cards that are currently "In-Development" in your False God proposals. The mechanics and themes of those cards are highly subjective to change, and thus, it would be very impractical to include them in a future possible deck because they are not finalized.


Now then, carry on with the submissions.