[caps]

Okay, here is my promised post regarding design aesthetics.


There is a complexity spectrum in customs in Heroscape. It is actually more complex than just one spectrum*, but for purposes of our conversation it mostly works to call it a spectrum.


On one end you have cards like this:
Iron Man by Hasbro







and this Iron Man by Sherman Davies






And on the other end of the spectrum you have cards like this
Iron Man (Avengers) by C3G




and this
Iron Man (Mark IV) by C3G




A few more examples, for completeness...

Spoiler Alert!

Luke Cage by Sherman Davies



Luke Cage by Matt Helm




vs.


Luke Cage by C3G


Notice the presence of a bonding power, and the insistence on also having a terrain-related power (that would otherwise be fine IMO) instead of sticking to just two powers.



Batman by Sherman Davies



Batman by Matt Helm





vs. the increasingly complex Batmans of C3G





and finally...


Spider-Man by Hasbro



Spider-man by Sherman Davies



vs.


Spider-Man by C3G



Notice that the powers are essentially the same in the case of Spider-Man, but C3G has added a number of extra conditions and modifiers to all the powers.

I think one of our problems before was that some of us were trying to push more towards the C3G level of complexity (complex, detailed powers that tried to capture all the minutiae of a character) rather than the Sherman Davies / Matt Helm level of complexity (simple powers that cut to the core essence of the character). There's nothing wrong with the C3G level of complexity in itself (I like their cards and play with them sometimes), but they don't feel consistent with what we have in Classic 'Scape. Since the goal was to be compatible with Classic 'Scape I think there's a mismatch there.

We also had process problems, maturity problems, etc. but it seems to me that some of our conflict was over this kind of conflict around how we should be approaching the designs in the first place.


I'm curious to hear thoughts from others; maybe I'm way off-base here.


EDIT: I'm not sure how much of this describes why we were having conflict and how much of it describes where I would want to go with revisiting the project.