Multiple Choice Magic Design Questions of the Day 33 & 34

33) What causes complexity creep?
 a) new mechanics
 b) balance
 c) resonance / flavor
 d) variety
 e) clarity
 f) set needs / factions
 g) variance

34) What increases complexity?
 a) new mechanics
 b) balance
 c) resonance / flavor
 d) variety
 e) clarity
 f) set needs / factions
 g) variance

Click through to see the answer and my rationale.

New mechanics always increase the size of the rules because keywords and ability words get an entry there. They can make a set more complex (like energy, bestow, and transform did), but just being new doesn't make them or their set complicated (enrage and prowl are pretty simple). The interaction between a new mechanic and an old mechanic can sometimes be tricky, but such mechanics are never printed in the same block. A is a fair answer for #33 and weak for #34.

Sometimes 2 (power, toughness, damage, mana, cards, whatever) is too little and 3 is too much. In these situations, Development often has little choice but to add text to a card to get it to the right power level via conditionals or riders. Sometimes card A is perfect for its environment except for card B, which is also perfect, and so you just add an exception to one of them to prevent that negative interaction. Balance is often achieved by adding words to cards. B is the best answer for #34 but a weak answer for #33.

The best resonant cards just have one little ability that encapsulates an important aspect of the concept the card represents, but cards like Form of the Dragon need multiple abilities and a lot of text to do the job, and sometimes there's a perfect bit of trinket text that will delight Vorthos but doesn't particularly impact play. New designers are particularly prone to add complexity for flavor. C is unacceptable for #33, and fair for #34.

Magic reinvents itself every 3-6 months. No matter how functional or elegant, players get bored seeing Naturalize and Plummet in every set. There is a very real expectation from the audience to see new forms of old classics. One of the best ways to show off a new mechanic is to put it on an old staple. Sometimes you can achieve this by removing words (as Murder did), but the majority of the time it requires you to words and complexity. D is the best answer for #33, and a fair answer for #34.

Because Magic supports a robust, world-wide tournament scene, there is zero tolerance for ambiguity in a card's function. This requires text to be templated in a way that's more awkward than most games. Some abilities are very easy to express in plain English but very difficult to express in Magic-ese. Although templating does often increase the word count on cards, and word count correlates to complexity, disambiguation can only prevent complexity even if it slows reading. E is a weak answer for #34 and unacceptable for #33.

Some sets can be satisfied with 2.5 mechanics (like Kaladesh or Amonkhet) while others require 5-6 (usually factioned sets like Shards of Alara, Return to Ravnica, or Khans of Tarkir) and some want 10-11 (Dragon's Maze). Maybe a set comes along with a premise that requires exactly 1 (really versatile and interesting) mechanic. Future Sight wanted 40+. Some of those are looked back on as mistakes, but the point is that the nature of a set dictates what kinds of mechanics are in it, and that has an impact on complexity (and not all sets need a complexity of mechanics). F is a weak answer for #34 and unacceptable for #33.

When every card in your set has just one mode and just one use, games will tend to play out more similarly and players will get bored sooner. When cards give you choices, or their effects are contextual, or include some random element, they play out differently in different games, and the format feels deeper and lasts longer. Adding modes, choices, conditionals, and random factors adds complexity to cards. G is a good answer for #33, and a good answer for #34.

The difference between these two questions is that one is looking at complexity in a snapshot of time, while the other is looking at it over time. There are many factors that can make a given set complex, but most of them don't compound over time and affect future sets.

#33 Complexity Creep: D > G > A > B > C ≈ E ≈ F
#34 Complexity: B > G > C ≈ D > A ≈ E ≈ F > Ø

This question tests your knowledge the sources of complexity, and which forms of complexity compound over time.
Complexity Creep
New World Order