thread: 2007-02-20 : Four Oracles
On 2007-02-20, Vincent wrote:
Hey Ralph!
I wouldn't really call them problems, but there where three pressures on the old oracle that made me change it:
1) The big dice table was a pain in the butt. This was a problem for laying out and dealing with on paper, not for any computerized thingies. This table is smaller, plus broken into four even smaller, more manageable pieces.
2) Occasionally the one-big-table would give you a mix of elements that just plain didn't fit together; they couldn't meaningfully interact. These thematically-grouped tables will do that less (probably still occasionally).
3) The whole game was moving toward cards anyway. It made sense to switch to cards for the oracle too.
Four oracles is how many I could conveniently make out of the elements I'd already written. Maybe I could've made a fifth; four was more convenient.
THESE four oracles because these four themes already existed in the big oracle. I just had to spot them and pull them apart.
And why no crossover? That's an important question about my design, actually. "So I rolled four things, do we like them? Should I roll more? Do we vote? Should we mix and match? I like these two but not this one, let's swap that for this-" is a dynamic that I DON'T want for the game, especially at the beginning of play.
