dragonadvice

[dragonadvice]

It's night. They've clocked out. They're no longer in their work clothes and just want to kick back and relax.

Some Werewolves on Innistrad have additional creature type on front. (Bruthal Cather is a "Human *Soldier* Werewolf" on front, and "Werewolf" on back.)

Is there a reason why they lose the class subtype ("Soldier" in the case of Brutal Cathar) on the back face?

Would we ever see something like "Werewolf Ninja" or "Werewolf Pirate"?

I think the idea is that’s no longer their job when they turn into a Werewolf.

[dragonadvice]

So... wizards can't change the basics of Commander. Got it. But wizards also can't make a format called Eternal or Everything or something, simply state that it has all the cards from all time, and then let Commander decide if it wants to build on that skeleton rather than the skeleton that is Vintage? Actually... there's no rule that I can see in commander that states that a card -must- be Vintage legal, only that it cannot be removed from constructed magic. So make a greybordered Constructed format, and Commander has it legal if it wants. Seems you guys actually CAN solve this problem.

The problems with sticker and attractions were extremely predictable and were pointed out by many people as soon as it was announced that they were legacy legal and I hope in future more thought will be put into the logistics of any similar mechanics that may appear in the future

The motive behind the decision was simple. Commander is a casual format, and Un-sets are our most casual product. We wanted players to have access to the cards that worked within the rules. All the wacky stuff was kept opt-in only.

The only reason the cards were legal in eternal constructed formats is that's the legality rule as set up by the people that run Commander. It was never our intent for the cards to be relevant in high-end tournament play. The deck construction rules for stickers and Attractions were designed to be high variance specifically to keep them out of tournaments.

At every step in design, we changed mana costs to keep them from being high powered cards. If a card was questionable, we made it acorn. Obviously, we missed on one card. It was a common aimed at limited. That was our mistake. We missed on one card.

I would love for there to be a way to have cards legal in Commander without having them be legal in eternal formats. We just aren't the body that determines Commander legality.

[dragonadvice]

To be fair to Melancholy, an Aura that tapped and then kept a creature tapped started with black in the color pie (with Paralyze) and only later migrated to blue, so this was less of a 'give them something new but in the spirt' but rather 'revisit something they did once' which Planar Chaos had a bit of.

Hi Mark! Hopefully third time is a charm :) While reading the preview columns for Planar Chaos, I saw you wrote this: "Every choice we make has a firm grounding in the philosophical underpinnings of the colors". However, some cards clearly don't have that "firm grounding". Do you remember what made you think that Harmonize was green or Melancholy was black? It surprises me because it's so obviously not the case. Did you maybe get too carried away by the conceptual side of your idea? Thanks!

Sometimes when you mess in space you’ve never messed in before, you can have problems in understanding the scope of what you’re doing. Every effect we shifted colors in, we thought a lot about, and it was based on precedent, but sometimes we missed the forest for the trees, as the expression goes.

Take Harmonize. It’s not as if green didn’t have access to card draw. What we missed is how shifting it away from being creature dependent fundamentally shifted how it got used, and allowed green to fill in a weakness in a way that was subtler than we understood at the time.

Look, there’s a reason “hindsight is 20/20” in an expression. There are a lot of decisions that seem glaringly wrong looking back, but it often comes with knowledge you simply didn’t have at the time.

Planar Chaos taught us the danger of playing with fundamentals. They’re a lot harder to work with than it seems at first blush.

[dragonadvice]

With all due respect, that sounds less like a 'We don't control Commander' problem and more of a 'We don't communicate with the Commander council about cards that shouldn't have never been in Legacy but we'd not mind being in Commander' problem. It just seems like a lot of problems could be solved with a bit of communication there. I just have trouble understanding why the decision to make a card set legal or not in Commander by an external group needs to force formats Wizards -does- control to take those cards.

Hi Mark, long time listener, long time player and we've met a few times.

I just read the Banned and Restricted announcement and I'm a little annoyed at the banning of ____ Goblin because I enjoyed playing that deck.

However, the thing I find more upsetting is the refrain of "...[it] could be played in Commander, but there's no existing way to make a bunch of cards legal in Commander and not Legacy."

You made the rules and you can change them. Claiming to be handcuffed by them doesn't make sense to me. The legacy community has asked for this rule to be changed specifically. Cards that are released in Commander decks don't need to be automatically legal in legacy.

We (aka Wizards) don't control what makes cards legal in Commander. That legality being tied to eternal legal cards is something decided by another group.

[dragonadvice]

Do you think players being able to get shield counters would make for compelling gameplay?

I do not.

[dragonadvice]

I'm interested on the 'Joins Up' cards and the decision to make what appears to be a massive set of 'villainous' Oaths that are all legends-matter. ...actually... Jace putting together a posse that works like an 'Evil' Gatewatch is so Jace..

Card-by-Card Design Stories

I am writing my card-by-card design stories from Outlaws of Thunder Junction.  What cards’ design would you like me to talk about?

[dragonadvice]

To add to this, Ravnica's original story was a crime/conspiracy drama, centered around a grizzled old cop 'one day from retirement' discovering something way above his head while he was walking his beat, in Argus Kos (glad to see the OG Ravnica Detective return). While Return to Ravnica and Guilds of Ravnica/War of the Spark didn't really delve into that noir aspect, the original block had that kind of vibe to it as its initial undercurrent.

Also, I wanted to call out the previous asker's reference to "pre-MKM Ravnica". Does it seem to anyone else that some people simply don't understand that MKM was a set that was focused on a particular slice of Ravnica: detectives and crimes? To hear these people tell it, one might think that every creature on Ravnica is now born wearing a fedora, rather than their abundance in MKM merely being a logical result of the focus of the set.

Yes, it was a focus of a part of Ravnica, much like War of the Spark was focused on an event that occurred on Ravnica.

[dragonadvice]

Whenever a creature you control with flying and/or haste attacks, you gain an emblem named "20% Cooler" with no abilities. T: If you have 5 emblems named "20% Cooler" draw a card, and exile all emblems you control named "20% Cooler".

You had already answered the question in 2023 about Rainbow Dash being more rules obediant. I had asked about tracking coolness the same way you track levels on class enchantments because proliferate shouldn't affect coolness so counters are out. Your response at the time was that while this was doable, the silliness was the cheerful silver bordered design of the card. (Paraphrasing)

To be rules compliant, we would have to have something to track. If counters were off limits, I’m not sure it could be made in an eternal form.

[dragonadvice]

[dragonadvice]

The best course of action:  Hire a powerful cleric.  Their ability to turn undead has saved many an adventurer from shadows.  Alternatively, enlist the aid of a paladin. Otherwise, I’m sorry to say, your only recourse is to turn evil, worship your death god of choice (I suggest Orcus), and learn how to command the undead.

[dragonadvice]

My cousin unwittingly insulted our new professor and caused bad blood. How do I survive this semester without making things more awkward?

I'll keep this as short as possible.

My cousin Mike and I are in the same computer science program at our university. We didn't grow up together and I actually met him while at university. It was only after being friends with Mike for a few months that we discovered that we are cousins, since he was adopted and had no clue who his father was. We also frequent one of the local gaming shops and love to play tabletop RPGs. A few weeks ago, a new woman came into the gaming shop and wanted to get involved with the local gaming community. I invited her to play with us since we were about to start a new DnD campaign and I try to reach out to new members as much as possible.

To make a long story short, Mike was a jerk to this woman and caused her to quit midgame and vow never to return to the game shop. While making small talk, the woman told us she worked with computers and loved to code. Mike proceeded to test her knowledge in the most nit-picky fashion possible, trying to get her to slip up and reveal a lack of knowledge. I told Mike numerous times to quit it, but he ignored me. Eventually, the woman snapped and told him to cut it out herself, Mike asked her if she had PMS. Naturally, the woman left and called us a bunch of unwelcoming misogynists. I don't blame her for thinking that after the way Mike acted, as no one else in the group besides me stood up for her.

The new semester started this week and much to my surprise and embarrassment, this woman is the new professor they hired to teach one of the advanced coding classes. Mike and I are both enrolled in this class and were sitting next to each other when the professor walked in the room. She gave us both a dirty look when she saw us, but ignored us for the rest of the class.

I don't want this professor to associate me with Mike and think that we are made of the same mold. I also do not want to cut Mike out of my life because I am the only blood relation he has contact with. We do not have class again until next week. Any advice is welcome.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I confronted Mike afterward and as misguided as he was, he acted that way because he thought our professor was cute. He had no idea that his behavior would be perceived as antagonistic, since he normally does not talk to women.

tl;dr: Cousin and I game frequently. Cousin insulted a new female patron of our gaming shop in a misogynistic fashion. I stood up for the patron, but she still quit. The patron turned out to be our professor and she saw us sitting together in class. How do I survive this semester without the professor hating me? Regardless of this person’s status, you need to ensure you’ve apologized to her sufficiently.  In Dragon Culture, a proper apology must consist of the following: A show of empathy to show you understand the harm caused. A show of regret to show you wish the harmful action was not taken. A show of action to show that you wish to correct the behavior All three are necessary for a truly sincere apology, according to Dragonkind.  I firmly believe that this is transferable to human experience as well. The first two, you clearly understand and feel, and so I strongly urge you to focus on the third step: How do you show her willingness to correct the behavior?  The simplest matter is to ask her for help.  Explain that you’re his only family in town and so you don’t feel right ostracizing him.  But you also know his behavior is unacceptable; ask her for advice in handling the situation. And look, if he’s treated her this way, he’s probably treated other women this way as well.  He needs to learn it’s not acceptable to do to anyone.  Explain that not only does it make them uncomfortable, it makes you uncomfortable.  It’s not just this one time; this one time he might have jeopardized your academic standing, what happens down the road when it’s his job or worse? And if he makes the excuse that he’s lonely or whatever, just be blunt.  “Maybe if you weren’t a douche they’d want to stick around long enough to get to know the REAL you.  Douchey you isn’t cool.  Real you is awesome.  Why not just be that guy and chill with this douchebro bullshit.”

[dragonadvice]

I caught my son having sex with a guy and I think he might be gay. Is there a definitive way I can tell?

Yes.

[dragonadvice]

What if the girl that thinks I'm the dad isn't the mom?

This entirely depends on who this girl is.If the girl in question happens to be a girlfriend of yours, then you might have trust issues in your relationship.  If the actual mom was, in fact, coitus’d by you, then those trust issues are not entirely unwarranted.If the girl in question is not your partner, and is instead, say, a family court judge, a magistrate, or perhaps the Queen-Knight of The Empire of Dromankia, then her belief in your parenthood with the alleged mom could result in legal obligations.  I strongly suggest seeking an attorney or your local version of an advocate; you require expertise of a more specific variety than a fire-breathing dragon can provide.

[dragonadvice]

My girl swallowed after oral now I'm worried she get pregnant. i bought her laxtives but don't know how to ask.

The answer depends entirely on whether or not your partner is a succubus. If your partner is a succubus, then they may actually successfully reproduce from this.  Having ingested your seed through one of myriad orifices, they may then shapeshift into an incubus, corrupt said seed, and then use it to impregnate one of their side-chicks.  Now, this would mean that giving her any sort of post-coital treatment would be pointless, because they aren’t the prospective mother.  In such an instance, I would seek out their side-chick, and discuss post-coital contraception with them.  If your partner succubus does not have a side-chick however, then you need not worry, because they aren’t using your seed to create evil nephilim to destroy the fabric of time, space, and morality. If your partner is not a succubus, then there’s no way for your sperm cells to reach their uterus through their digestive system, and they’d be destroyed by their stomach acids/firekiln/gizzard rocks.  Don’t worry about laxatives, instead, enjoy the blowie.

[dragonadvice]

There's a section called 'Proficiencies' which covers all the weapons, skills, and tools you are proficient in.  As well, some versions of the sheet have a seperate skills section which splits the ability checks up into individual skills. Hope that helps!

My girlfriend and I are trying to make characters for 5e but we're a little confused? We can't seem to find anywhere where exactly to put feats and spells and attacks (she's unsure where to put Rogue skills exactly) and what to do for skills and saving throws and their modifiers. I wanted to ask since I figured you guys would be somewhere best to ask for help? I'm sorry if it's just that we aren't reading the resources correctly!

Hey! So you aren’t alone. When I was fashioning my 5e toon I was confused too. I am using the three part character sheet, so if you are using one of the variants this may be moot.

Feats:

There are two boxes. One on the first page, third row lower half- it’s labeled Features & Traits. The other is on the second page, second row middle box- it’s called Additonal Features and Traits. This is where I’ve been telling my players to put their feats. This is also where I’ve been telling them to put their skills (like your girlfriend’s rogue skills) and where I told my Cleric to put his domain information.

Attacks, Spells:

This is on the first page, second row middle box. Right where you put your weapon information. There is no handy formula sprawled along the page. Do the math and write in the available space! For your spells, there is a third sheet that contains all the spells and a blank to fill in how many spell slots you have per level.

Skills, Saving throws, and their modifers:

I’m assuming you don’t need a location. “What to do” is vague but I’m assuming you’re wondering the math? The skills tell you what ability they are. Dexterity [Acrobatics]? Put your Dex mod there. If you’re proficient in that skill, add your proficiency bonus to it. Saving throws are exactly the same.

Hopefully this helps! If we can clarify anything at all let us know.