Mechanics vs. Aestheticians -- Playing the Game

[Kael Hate]

I used to play L5R a hardcore ccg. It had a very good mix of Aesthetics and Mechanics such that a player could say he was X clan and the cards that he used swung the story. It was only when the Story ruined a competiton by having a higher authority come in and change the result of a mega-game campaign that ruined it for me. Different games have different balances and for an Aesthetic player to be given the power to overrule all the effort made by the Mechanical aspects of the game was intolerable to me.

Elements to me is 90% Mechanics and 10% Aesthetics. Skeletons are risen from dying sparks and I'm cool with that. Naming a new weapon card Machine gun or a new spell Tax Hike is not cool and kills that 10% Aesthetic. The Elementals that you represent are not bound to a single element any more than the mark they have and nearly all of the AI in the game uses Multiple Elemental cards. Even the deck you are issued upon starting the game has cards from at least 2 elements. I think the whole Mono-typing issue is anti-aesthetic when it comes to elements the game.

In all, until a canon exists that contradicts your point of view you should be able to see it as freely Mechanical or Aesthetic as you wish. For me I'm anti-monotyping and 90% mechanical.

[Eleazar]

I'm a mechanic person too. I used to play another card game in the past (for about 5 years), and I always wanted to know every single aspect of the game mechanics, to make them work for my benefit. But, I did make some "themed-decks" for aesthetic purposes. But, still, mechanics are far more important than aesthetics.

[CelestrialDreamer]

I am an Aesthetician in RPG games, who will focus more on appearance and stuffs like that...

But in elements i am an mechanic person, i believe. I cant find much aesthetic things i can do here.

[Xinef]

I guess my case is a bit complicated. I like designing my own games, creating new rules and mechanics, changing rules I don't like... (for example I don't like how defense works in D&D, so if I were to be a DM, I would change the rules to something more reasonable)
I also like to find out 'what strategy is the best', 'how to develop a character as fast as possible' etc...
And when I create my own RPG game, it is much easier for me to think of mechanics and rules, than to create world settings, history, people, events etc... or at least the less significant ones, usually I only create the epic ones, and leave the rest for later.

But on the other hand, even if I know the best strategy, or the 'optimal' way of playing, I do not use it, but instead I play the way I find to be most fun. For example playing Fallout the 'martial arts' way, or preferring magic in games where weapons are technically better, or playing 'samurai-style' in games where it is not necessarily the best.
And I like games where every playing style (with enough effort) can lead to victory. I don't like it when the 'best strategy' is the only one that can be successful.
And I do not like when game mechanics are against common sense (unless it has a good reason, like making the game more epic), or discourage aesthetics (for example when using one type of attack all the time is better than combos and cooperation of different attacks), so I like it, when magic+archery+sword is better than sword+sword+sword, or magic+magic+magic, but all three are viable options.

Anyway I like both playing with people who play aesthetically, as the aspect of role playing is usually better and makes playing fun, and people playing the logic-mechanic-not-aesthetic way, as it usually leads to a nice competitive gameplay.

[akromat]

I'd venture to say that almost every playgroup changes some rules of D&D. As an example, in 3.5e my playgroup added a fumble confirm when rolling a natural 1 because to critically hit you have to threaten and then confirm but fumble you only have to roll a natural 1.

[Scaredgirl]

I think you spent a lot of time explaining something everyone already knows. Everyone knows that Flying weapon is basically 'Other' because all elements can use it, and I doubt anyone will refuse to use the card only because of aesthetic reasons.

Elements has 12 different "sets" (+'other'). When building mono-decks, it's natural that each mono deck uses only one of these 12 "sets". If you were allowed to take cards from other elements as well, that would seriously hurt the balance between different elements by giving an advantage to elements that have no zero cost cards like Flying Weapon.

As for having different deck categorizing rules depending on where you are using your deck.. that's just silly, not to mention confusing to new players.

[Kamietsu]

One thing that I see that hasn't been fully mentioned, though, is that the mono deck, duo deck, etc sections and rules governing them are aesthetics, no one can really dispute that accurately. So yes, that isn't so great when you can concentrate on the gameplay mechanics and build great decks that use whatever cards you want. But, it is said here, talking about themes and such, the deck sections follow this perfectly. No one is really trying to force mechanics into the deck section, because the deck section is basically 60% aesthetics, 40% mechanics. Decks are built under the rules of a certain deck aesthetic and then mechanics are built around that to make the deck function. So, I guess I don't understand why people were getting their panties in such a fit back on other threads. Sure, no one really mentioned that aesthetics were a main part of it, instead, shots were taken at the idea of aesthetics. That was all rather stupid.

That being said and going somewhat off topic from my previous paragraph, Aesthetics are important, very important actually. While yes, the gameplay mechanics are what really make a game good and playable, without good, or at least decent, aesthetics, the demographic sort of goes out the window, the eye grabbing factor that makes you suddenly interested in a game go away, and that all hurts the value of a game. If the newest FF game has old school 8bit graphics, but brand new mechanics, mechanics that would eventually change the gaming world as we know it, do you think that game would really be so popular? It might for some people like me or jmizz who played the old school graphics and know just how awesome they are, but to newer generations, aesthetics are extremely important.

I know where I went with that paragraph kind of goes parallel to this thread and not exactly a response to it, i was just making a note. Mechanics are great, and that's the kind of person I am, but that being said, without some kind of aesthetics that appeals to my eye, I will probably glance over the game until I one day come across a glorious review of it.


tl;dr: The deck sections focus on aesthetics, as they are there to have decks that fall under their theme. Aesthetics are important to bring in new people to a game, but without good mechanics, good aesthetics are pointless.

[Scaredgirl]

I'm closing this thread before it turns into trolling (which seemed like the plan from the start to be honest).