FUR: Exploratory Design, Pt I

     Last week, I presented the research for FUR, a custom Magic: the Gathering set about a world of anthropomorphic characters inspired by the furry fandom. This week, we're exploring design space to find mechanics and themes that will fill

out the set. The two main takeaways from last week's research were a list of popular fursona species and activities associated with the fandom. For a refresher, you can find that article here.

Fursonas

    Fursonas are more than just anthropomorphic characters-- they are specific, personal creations that represent some aspect of their creator or their ideal self. Fursonas are characters that people identify with. 

    There are several approaches that we could take to represent fursonas. The first is something we're already doing: providing a wide variety of anthropomorphic creatures. This gives players the opportunity to pick their favorites to play with. This works especially well at common, where other means might not apply.

    Another is legendary creatures. By nature, legendary creatures represent specific characters. Dominaria paved the way by putting a legendary creature in every pack, at rarities uncommon and up. Legends are also often great build-around cards, encouraging quirky strategies that ask players to look at the game differently. This further supports players building personalized decks and playing the way that they want to play.

 

    In a similar vein, planeswalkers also represent unique characters, and War of the Spark demonstrated that planeswalkers can exist at uncommon. Planeswalkers present the issue of increased complexity, and not all players are thrilled about seeing one in every game, but the set was overall very well received. Otherwise, planeswalkers offer many of the same benefits of legendary creatures.

 

    Last week's research covered 13 activities that are associated with the furry fandom. They can be broken down into three main groups: creative expression (visual art, writing, roleplay, music, drama), community (community, acceptance, internet groups, conventions, local meets), and fursuiting (making and wearing fursuits). 

 Creative Expression

    Creative expression is fairly broad, but Magic sets have tackled aspects of it in the past. Kaladesh used artifacts to represent inventions as a form of expression. Strixhaven used Treasure tokens to represent visual art, small instants/sorceries in white and black to represent oration, and big instants/sorceries in red and blue to represent performance art. "Enchantments as art" is an unexplored avenue. There is also space to play with colors-- caring about permanents and spells of certain colors and changing colors as an effect. There's the option of a "multi-color matters" theme. Another approach that I've toyed with is a custom mechanic called vibrant. Vibrant is an ability word mechanic that triggers when you spend three or more colors of mana to cast a spell. In a similar vein, the custom mechanic vivid improves a spell if three or more mana were spent to cast it.

Community

    Community calls several mechanics to mind. Go-wide themes appear in many sets, usually with tokens for support. Another option is "creaturefall," a mechanic that MaRo discussed in an article on Guilds of Ravnica-- similar to landfall, this ability would trigger whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control. Tribal effects-- those that care about creatures of a certain type-- also apply, but I'll be digging more into that next week. I've created three custom mechanics for this theme: diversity, tradition, and tandem. Diversity counts the number of creatures you control with a unique creature type among creatures you control. This wording is specifically designed to avoid problems with changeling, a mechanic introduced in Lorwyn block that grants a card all creature types. Tradition is a special keyword that marks abilities that can be triggered when you enact a tradition. Tandem is a keyword ability on creatures that lets you tap another untapped creature for a benefit whenever the creature with tandem attacks.

 Fursuiting

    Fursuiting is probably the most well-known element of the furry fandom, although only a small portion of the fandom actually participates in wearing suits. The closest Magic equivalent is equipment, and "equipment matters" themes are fairly common. Aura enchantments can also play in this space. The problem with these kinds of archetypes is the balance of equipment/auras to creatures. A novel approach to this theme is the custom craft mechanic, which lets players choose one of three equipment tokens to create. Because the creatures create equipment without having to add an additional equipment card to the deck, this helps to even the balance out while adding additional value to the creatures.

 

    The Bestow mechanic from Theros allowed creatures to be played as aura enchantments; this could be repeated here, or an equipment-based version using MDFC's could be employed. (Hopefully the art would make it clear that the back side is inspired by the creature on the front, not made of it in a Michael-Meyers/Silence-of-the-Lambs-esque fashion.) 

 

     That's all for this week. 

    We've covered potential mechanics to represent fursonas, creative expression, community, and fursuiting. What are your thoughts on the mechanics above? What are some of your favorite mechanics, custom or otherwise? Let me know in the comments below!

 Next week, we'll continue exploratory design by looking at all of the different species in the set and brainstorming mechanical identities for them. Until then, check out r/CustomMagic for more fan-made cards and sets, or MTG.Design if you want to try your hand at making custom cards on the fly!