Magic as a D&D Edition Setting

[Whipstitch]

Prak, I sympathize with the notion that people have a lot of taboos that are actually stupid and result in needless cruelty, but strictly speaking Zug is right insofar that evil is often broadly defined as having a disregard for moral behavior. Which, you know, kinda makes your description read like a pile of gobbledygook. Just swap out the word evil for sadistic, vicious, or cruel instead and emphasize that black characters are ruthless egoists with moral codes of their own design at least as often as they are mere sociopaths.

[zugschef]

Having a firmly defined ethical code that restricts your actions is in fact a different beast to showing minimal human decency and having no desire to cause unnecessary bloodshed.

you're mixing up ethics with morals.

and what whipstitch said.

[Prak]

Whipstitch- Evil is often defined as such because religion, ie, the source of stupid self-restrictions because "big guy upstairs says no," that is to say, morality, is the one defining it. Evil is a religious concept, and it's generally used to mean "people who do things we don't like," which can be anything from "mixing textiles" to "eating babies" to "not eating the flesh of our saviour" or even "electing to have removed a growth that has the potential for eventual sentience."

[zugschef]

What happens when a Red character is played as logical, thoughtful, and cautious?

no problem, the character can generally be thoughtful and cautious but impulsive and instinctive when cornered. but a multicolored build (RU) would be very appropriate for this type.

[DSMatticus]

totally and utterly unethical is the correct term for black

This is not true. The canonically correct term for black is amoral, and like all of the other descriptors even that is rather optional in any individual card or ability provided it's got enough other black things. Black describes antiheroes (disregard for morals in pursuit of a goal) and well-intentioned necromancers (because they'll use tons of abilities that are clearly black) as well as Evil McNotNice.

[Username17]

Color philosophies are really extremely fluid, and to the extent that they apply at all they are factional rather than something that applies on an individual basis. Guerilla tactics are red, Diversionary tactics are white, and Scare tactics are black. But actual Tacticians are generally either White or Red. And the fact that they are White or Red has more to do with whether they are Goblins or Halflings Kithkin than it does what their tactics actually are. If you're a general, you're Red if your faction is Goblins or Barbarians, not because you personally do not have subtle plans or a careful methodology.

And remember that some of the Red Factions are Red simply because they live in the mountains, rather than because of any specific predilection towards chaos. The Dwarves leap immediately to mind.

Being a Red knight simply means you have the abilities of a Red Knight and that you have the available skill set of a Red Knight and are affected by things that boost or harm Red creatures or Knights. It does not imply a personal code of any kind.

"Let no one say we did not fight until the last . . . ."
—Headstone fragment from a mass grave found in the Crimson Peaks

That sort of attitude would normally be expected on a White character. But it's on a Red Character because he happens to have the Red Soldier ability set rather than the White Soldier ability set because he is trained by the Dwarven army and they happen to channel Red Mana despite the fact that they specialize in tricky traps (blue tactics) and stalwart underdogging (white tactics).

-Username17

[zugschef]

in essence, color only provides abilities, the rest is fluff and fluff is adjustable?

[Prak]

Well, to be honest, the colour pie is constantly being tinkered with. Originally, Dwarves were red because they lived in the mountains, and the colour pie wasn't really solid yet. They stayed red for some time, early 2000s or so. The most recent dwarves come from Lorwyn, late 2000s, and are specifically called "Duergar"--but they are still typed as dwarves, and they are 75% hybrid white/red. There is a single pure red duegar, which still has an activated ability which is hybrid (r/w: +1/+0 until end of turn).

But at it's base, each colour has a personality, and those within it exemplify at least a part of that personality.

I wrote about it here and here as fodder for my (abysmally failed) attempt at doing a bit of writing each day. You can also look on mtgsalvation.com for an article on the colour pie as a whole, each individual colour (wubrg, which draw on a variety of articles from Magic's website.

Honestly, anyone who wants to talk about this stuff, I urge to look at those articles. I don't care if you read mine (I mean, of course I do, but whatever), but you should at least look at what's being said by the people who actually design the game, and unlike the D&D side, they know what the hell they're doing.

[Username17]

in essence, color only provides abilities, the rest is fluff and fluff is adjustable?

That's a big part of it. The other part is that the colors aren't really all that consistent in terms of their RPG elements. The Dwarven Lieutenant is a Red Card because he has a Red Tribe (Dwarves), and synergizes with Red strategies (the ability to pump attack power on other Dwarves after blocking is declared). The RPG elements that make him different from a White lieutenant are... somewhat opaque.



Another issue of course is that the card lists aren't comprehensive as to what exists in the game world. The armies of Diregraf and Stromkirk have captains with their own cards, but no other ranks. We can infer that there are Sergeants and Lieutenants of Stromkirk, but there's no actual card to indicate that specifically. Sometimes, that actually leaves out details crucial enough that we have to make shit up out of whole cloth.

For example: there are no Green Knights. I mean yes, there are sixteen Green Knights, but all of them have either a White or Red element in addition to their Greenness. We can infer what an archetypical mono-Green Knight would look like (presumably something like this, an Elf lancer riding around on one of those crazy beasties that Green loves so much), and they obviously exist, but the lack of a specific card example means that the class name has to come out of a thesaurus. It's no problem to figure out what such a character can do, since they are basically a D&D-style mount-focused paladin who specializes in riding crazy monsters like griffins and shit. Or in short, a Golden Axe Character. But the fact remains that you have to make up a class name is an unfortunate reality. Beast Rider or Hussar or something (though not specifically Hussar, because that is already the name of Blue Knights).

Color	Knight	Shaman	Scout	Cleric	Rogue
White	Paladin	?	Vanguard?	?	?
Blue	Hussar	?	Explorer	?	Spy
Black	Blackguard	?	?	?	Bandit?
Red	Dragoon	?	Adventurer?		Thief
Green	?	?	Ranger	?	Bard

Now you'll note that there are big question marks on all the casters. That isn't because those classes don't have available names. It's because they all have a lot more than one. A Black Shaman might be a Blood Speaker or a Ruin Sage or a Witch or a Diabolist. A Black Cleric might be a Priest or an Exarch or a Zealot or a Necromancer. Or of course many many other options. Black Scouts exist, but "Trailblazer", "Scout", and "Interloper" aren't great names for a class. Well, "Scout" is, but that's already the name of the base class. There's a question mark under White Rogue, not because they don't exist (there are several Halfling Kithkin Rogues), but because "Dodger", and "Skulk" are fairly weird names for a White Rogue class.

-Username17

[Prak]

Frank, please stop using old cards as if new cards are still designed in exactly the same way. I'm not saying everything has been fixed, but I am saying that colour flavour has gone through nearly 19 years of further development since those two cards were printed.

[Username17]

Frank, please stop using old cards as if new cards are still designed in exactly the same way.

First off: No.
Secondly: Go fuck yourself.

Imagine if you would that there was a card whose quote was:

"No longer can we allow our human populations to be mindlessly slaughtered by ghouls. Slay all who trespass."

Now imagine that this character is a Soldier, whose primary effect is to give +1/+1 and First Strike to the members of their army. What color would that be? How long ago was this printed?

If you said "Black and Red" and "February, 2012", then you remember the specific quote as being the Stromkirk Captain. Because you sure as fuck didn't get that from your bullshit "the RPG elements of the colors are totally nailed down now even if they weren't earlier" idea.

The Stromkirk Captain is Red and Black because he's a member of the Stromkirk Army, and Stromkirk as a faction is Red and Black. He personally is a dutiful soldier who fights to protect humans from zombie uprisings, but he's still Red and Black because he is the leader of the house guard of a Red and Black vampire aristocracy.

This is basically the same point as you can make with the Red and White lieutenants, but it's not quite as perfect to put up the Stromkirk Captain and Bold Defense or the Field Marshall. Although I will anyway as part of my ongoing program to tell you to go fuck yourself.



-Username17

[zugschef]

concerning green knights:



sure, one is a legend, but both are a kind of warlord, giving bonuses to their allies. both wield a spear, so an elvish beast riding warlord would be fitting.

[Username17]

Oh sure, there is no shortage at all of Green Knight characters. Just a decided lack of unambiguous class names for the Green Knight. Obviously a class can't be called "Lord of Leaves", and "Champion" is almost certainly the name of a White Class. On account of the fact that there are 2 Green cards that are "Champions", 3 Red cards that are "Champions", 4 Black cards that are "Champions" and eight White cards that are "Champions". Champion is probably the name of the White Soldier. Even though only 3 of 8 of the White Champions are "Soldiers", that's still more than any other subtype; and even though only 3 of three hundred and twenty six White Soldiers are "Champions", that's still tied for best name with "Hero". It's not unclear that the Green Knight class exists, or even what it does, it's just unclear what the title you write down on your character sheet is supposed to be. My provisional suggestion would be "Warden", even though most cards that actually have the word "Warden" on them are Soul Wardens and Heart Wardens and shit who are Clerics or Druids or something.

Anyway, in addition to Base Classes that don't have an obvious class name for each color, there are also class names that do not fit obviously into a single class. For example: Witch. It's clearly a class, and it's clearly a Black class, because of the 21 Witches in Magic, only three of them are not Black. But it's not at all obvious what the base class should be, because there are "Black Witches" with several base class appellations. Shaman? Cleric? Wizard? Spell Shaper?

Answering these kinds of questions probably requires a table or a pile of index cards or something. "Necromancer" is a Black class, but is it Cleric or Wizard? "Warlock" is a wicked awesome class name, but only one card in all of M:tG is a Warlock, and it's a single Black Wizard card from 2010.

Personally, for the Black Spellcasters, I'd probably choose "Necromancer" for Cleric, "Witch" for Shaman, and "Warlock" for Wizard. But with 94 Black Wizards to sort through, I could see a perfectly valid argument for many other configurations. For fuck's sake, there are two "Augermancers".

-Username17

[Almaz]

I believe "Diabolist" is more evocative as a Black Wizard name, and should in general be preferred over Warlock, especially if you're going to use Witch for Shaman, because we're not so far past Complete Arcane that people don't remember that warlock has been misappropriated, also, as a term for "male witch" even though it isn't and technically the warlock is someone who BREAKS deals not makes them and...

I'm ranting.

Diabolist both fits better as a definition, and also suggests, something, well, diabolical. A much more evocative word, I believe. In fact I am going to say diabolists evoke twice as many demons as warlocks do.

[Username17]

I believe "Diabolist" is more evocative as a Black Wizard name, and should in general be preferred over Warlock, especially if you're going to use Witch for Shaman, because we're not so far past Complete Arcane that people don't remember that warlock has been misappropriated, also, as a term for "male witch" even though it isn't and technically the warlock is someone who BREAKS deals not makes them and...

I'm ranting.

Diabolist both fits better as a definition, and also suggests, something, well, diabolical. A much more evocative word, I believe. In fact I am going to say diabolists evoke twice as many demons as warlocks do.

That's reasonable. Although in the Magic-verse, there are no Wizard-Diabolists, the Diabolists are Shamans. So then you'd make Witch the Wizard type and Diabolist the Shaman type. Which is fine, there are plenty of Witches who are Wizards. There are a lot of Witches is I guess what I'm saying.

-Username17

[Whipstitch]

Whipstitch- Evil is often defined as such because religion, ie, the source of stupid self-restrictions because "big guy upstairs says no," that is to say, morality, is the one defining it.

I'm glad you noticed that religious people also use words that mean things. The second step is to quit pissing directly into the wind.

[Almaz]

That's reasonable. Although in the Magic-verse, there are no Wizard-Diabolists, the Diabolists are Shamans. So then you'd make Witch the Wizard type and Diabolist the Shaman type. Which is fine, there are plenty of Witches who are Wizards. There are a lot of Witches is I guess what I'm saying.

-Username17

Acceptable. I really don't mind Warlock as a word, in fact I've bandied it about for "implicitly evil, rogue wizard" but diabolist is just so much better and I prefer leaving the door open for calling anyone a warlock.

For Green knight, I think we have some good candidates in Steward and its synonymous Warden, as well as an argument for it being some kind of Beast Rider but technically so is everyone who gets on a horse. BeastMASTER perhaps? Beastliege? Cavalier has a nice ring to it, as does Paragon.

[Whipstitch]

Technically he's an elf warrior and there's more white cards who go by the name but I still suspect that Outrider is the best option out of a bad lot given that the job in practical terms basically means "Ranger on a horse."

[Prak]

Frank, please stop using old cards as if new cards are still designed in exactly the same way.

First off: No.
Secondly: Go fuck yourself.

It was a polite request, because you constantly make incorrect assumptions and conclusions based cards almost 2 decades old.

Imagine if you would that there was a card whose quote was:

"No longer can we allow our human populations to be mindlessly slaughtered by ghouls. Slay all who trespass."

Now imagine that this character is a Soldier, whose primary effect is to give +1/+1 and First Strike to the members of their army. What color would that be? How long ago was this printed?

If you said "Black and Red" and "February, 2012", then you remember the specific quote as being the Stromkirk Captain. Because you sure as fuck didn't get that from your bullshit "the RPG elements of the colors are totally nailed down now even if they weren't earlier" idea.

Never said that, I said that colour flavour is constantly under development. A lot of cards made in the first few years of MtG would never be made now for a number of reasons.

The Stromkirk Captain is Red and Black because he's a member of the Stromkirk Army, and Stromkirk as a faction is Red and Black. He personally is a dutiful soldier who fights to protect humans from zombie uprisings, but he's still Red and Black because he is the leader of the house guard of a Red and Black vampire aristocracy.

This is basically the same point as you can make with the Red and White lieutenants, but it's not quite as perfect to put up the Stromkirk Captain and Bold Defense or the Field Marshall. Although I will anyway as part of my ongoing program to tell you to go fuck yourself.



-Username17

I will point out that Stromkirk Captain is actually RB because he's a fucking vampire printed in Innistrad where vampires were red and black. Granted, he's also RB because his faction is.

I'm not saying that you're completely incorrect when you say "red and white have tons of overlap and the only distinction is faction," because that's true in cases.

The thing is, there is a psuedo-card type called Lords. Lords grant all members of their army an ability, a boost, or both. Elvish Champion, Lord of Atlantis, Goblin King, Lord of the Undead and Captain of the Watch all do the same thing- give creatures of their type +1/+1. They also give a separate ability (the first three give landwalk for their own land type, LotUndead can return zombies to your hand from the graveyard, and CotW gives vigilance). If the first three were printed today, they would probably give Deathtouch, "When this creature deals combat damage to a player, draw a card" and haste, respectively.
In fact new lords were created recently, in Onslaught block, which did have more unique abilities. Undead Warchief gave all zombies Unholy Strength (+2/+1), Mistform Warchief could change to any creature type (and make creatures of that type cheaper to play. All the warchiefs reduced cost to play of their faction by 1), Krosan Warchief regenerated beasts, Goblin Warchief gave haste, and Daru Warchief handed out Holy Armour (+1/+2).

Yes, there is overlap, it's kind of designed that way. But, perhaps aside from soldiers-because men at arms can only be represented so many ways-each colour does have distinct abilities and identities.

[Username17]

So anyway, Spellcasters. There are Clerics, Druids, Monks, Shamans, Spellshapers, and Wizards. And that's before we throw in obscure caster classes like Mystic and Monger or classes that are arguably casters like Artificer or Assassin.

In any case, there is not much of a limit as to generating class titles in general. Six (or eight) caster base classes only requires thirty (or forty) class titles, and that could be found in just one color's Wizard complement. Seriously, there are over three hundred Wizards in Blue alone. There are Augers, and Adepts, and Mages, and Maguses, and Beguilers, and Conjurers, and so on and so forth. Actually deciding which titles go where is somewhat challenging, as the Black examples above demonstrate. Primarily because like Witches and Champions, many titles are spread among many classes - but also because most magical titles are available in many colors. While the "Priest" and the "Heretic" are clearly Clerics, it's not at all obvious what color either should be since they are available in many colors.

The big issue though is casting mechanics. We had suggested two: Shamans getting mana recharge each turn and being able to save some from turn to turn to allow them to splurge if they saved up last turn, and Clerics drawing a hand of mana and reactions each turn. Clearly, at least one class is going to want to deal out cards of actual spell options each turn (given the source material, that is probably the "Wizard" base class). Are there any other pet resource systems people want to see used? I really see Artificers as having to use Preparation (they put stuff in their utility belt and then they use their gadgets during the mission).

-Username17

[Username17]

It was a polite request, because you constantly make incorrect assumptions and conclusions based cards almost 2 decades old.

No. It was you being an entitled little shit who is making stupid hipster claims based on having no real idea of the history of the shit you're talking about. 2 decade old stuff is totally valid to bring up, and the fact you think it isn't is because you're a snot-nosed little ass-goblin who has no idea what he's talking about.

The thing is, there is a psuedo-card type called Lords.

Take your herp-derp and stuff it up your ass. I know what a Goblin King or a Zombie Master is, I knew what those things were before you learned how to read. That last sentence is probably literally true. The point isn't that the Stromkirk Captain is a 3-mana character who is a 2/2 that gives two global tribal bonuses, the point is the RPG elements of how he's supposedly doing that.

He's a soldier who is giving an inspirational speech about how they have to protect the human villagers from zombie uprising, and then leading a determined line of halberdiers to defend the gates at all costs. That's not just a White effect, that's a White role playing element. If you didn't know that the gates in question were Stromkirk Castle and thus in the Red/Black nation for that set, you'd have no problem at all assigning the action to White.

I mean, let's not beat around the bush: granting +1/+1 and First Strike is mechanically a White thing to do. The Stromkirk Captain is just the second Red card that does that, after the Fencer's Magemark. White has... many examples. Even the colorless artifact that does that is thematically White in the same way that an Ivory Cup is.

The point here is simply that if you want to make the same point with the new cards as with the old cards, you can totally do so. I just happen to have seen a fuck tonne of Fallen Empires cards because they were overprinted to the point that the game store used to hand them out instead of Halloween candy. So if I want to make a point that a Fallen Empire card happens to be good for making, I'm very likely to use it, because I don't have to look through card databases to call them to mind.

So your petulant demand that people not use "old stuff" is denied outright. And I mock you and deride you as a pimple faced little fuckwit for even suggesting it. The old stuff still exists. If people want to play a Magic inspired game, they are as likely to want to play Vodalians and Kjeldorians as they are to want to play Thrabenites or Drogskolians. And if that makes your underwear chafe with rage, that's a problem with you, not a problem with anyone or anything else.


Don't be this kid. Or more accurately: Stop being this kid.

Anyway, on to the specific horseshit you're trying to peddle about color morality: No, that's still horseshit. Rosewater may be a pretty good developer, but he's an awfully shitty philosopher. His color philosophy articles are just there to fill up space because he has a column to write, they don't actually hold up as the philosophical underpinnings of anything. Let's consider "Red", because the presented philosophy is the simplest and thus you would expect it to be the easiest to defend.

In valuing emotion and adventure so greatly, what Red truly prizes is freedom. To live life the Red way - passionately and imminently - Red must be able to act on its impulses, doing what it feels each moment without delay. It doesn't want to be censored or controlled, because when one's passions are shackled from action, a person cannot be who he is. To disallow him to be who he is, is to destroy him; in Red's view, censorship is death. As such, the idea of rules, of pinning someone to one course even if his emotions urge him down another, is atrocious to Red.

Now, just like with real world libertarians, there is the fundamental issue that "Freedom" is inherently nonsense. My freedom to do something comes at the cost of your freedom to have me not do it. Every freedom to necessarily removes a freedom from. But even if we accept the idea that freedom is an actual thing you can have more or less of, what would the opposite of freedom be? Could it be... tyranny? Why yes, yes it would.

Rosewater's "Following Your Heart" article was written in December of 2008, want to take a guess at how many "Tyrant" cards Red has had printed since that article? Four. Six if you count multi-color cards that include Red. Want to take a guess at how many Tyrant cards have ever been printed that don't have Red? One. One fucking non-Red Tyrant, and it's from before the article you're jerking off to was even typed up. Even if we ignore the fact that "pro-emotion, pro-freedom" is just an empty set of platitudes, the designers can't even pay lip service to those platitudes.

The bottom line is:

• You're a Dragoon because you're a Knight who uses the techniques of one of the Red Nations' knightly orders, which makes you Red because of tautology club.
• There is no code of conduct or consistent philosophy for any color, and even if there was one an individual player character would be under no compulsion to live by it.
• Such that there are philosophies within colors, they are specific to groups and nations that happen to have those colors. Bladehold and the Annex are both White, but they have obviously incredibly different philosophies. Which is why they are trying to kill each other.

-Username17

[...You Lost Me]

Ass-goblin. That is definitely a new one for me.

[zugschef]

The big issue though is casting mechanics. We had suggested two: Shamans getting mana recharge each turn and being able to save some from turn to turn to allow them to splurge if they saved up last turn, and Clerics drawing a hand of mana and reactions each turn. Clearly, at least one class is going to want to deal out cards of actual spell options each turn (given the source material, that is probably the "Wizard" base class). Are there any other pet resource systems people want to see used? I really see Artificers as having to use Preparation (they put stuff in their utility belt and then they use their gadgets during the mission).

i like the preparation mechanic for artificers, but how exactly would the mechanic for wizards work?

[Red_Rob]

No. It was you being an entitled little shit who is making stupid hipster claims based on having no real idea of the history of the shit you're talking about. 2 decade old stuff is totally valid to bring up, and the fact you think it isn't is because you're a snot-nosed little ass-goblin who has no idea what he's talking about.

Whilst it is valid to say that old cards still exist and are part of the game, it's also totally valid to say that the designers have stated that some of the things done back then were mistakes and shouldn't be taken as indicative of the game as a whole. I mean, they literally reprinted a blue card from the original set as a straight up Red burn spell and no-one batted an eyelid. That's a fair bit beyond a Red/Black creature granting First Strike (Which is an ability found in both White and Red).

Now, just like with real world libertarians, there is the fundamental issue that "Freedom" is inherently nonsense. My freedom to do something comes at the cost of your freedom to have me not do it. Every freedom to necessarily removes a freedom from. But even if we accept the idea that freedom is an actual thing you can have more or less of, what would the opposite of freedom be? Could it be... tyranny? Why yes, yes it would.

The thing about the colour philosophies is that they aren't presented as a universal truth, just as the point of view that the colour embodies. Most of them have internal contradictions or flaws, but that just means you can have different factions or schisms within a colour that emphasise different aspects of the same general viewpoint.

For example, a Tyrant is essentially someone who says "My freedom to do whatever I want is more important than your freedom to do what you want. And as long as I have the strength to make my wants happen I'm going to act on my desires." That seems fine as a Red viewpoint to me - and it completely goes against the Red Anarchist view that everyone should have as much freedom as possible all the time. But that's not really a problem because the Red viewpoint isn't supposed to be a monolithic belief system, just a set of guidelines that different groups interpret themselves. Of course, this does mean that you can almost end up justifying anything under any colour if you try hard enough, but that seems pretty true to real world belief systems in my experience (see the Christian Right). A rigid alignment system based on this isn't going to fly in an RPG, although I could see some amusement from having to explain how your character extrapolated his moral code from his colours.

Such that there are philosophies within colors, they are specific to groups and nations that happen to have those colors. Bladehold and the Annex are both White, but they have obviously incredibly different philosophies. Which is why they are trying to kill each other.

Basically, two characters of the same colour are no more guaranteed to want to work together than any other two characters. Although in some worlds, being certain colours means you are almost certainly from certain factions, which will predispose characters to have the same value system.

[Prak]

It was a polite request, because you constantly make incorrect assumptions and conclusions based cards almost 2 decades old.

No. It was you being an entitled little shit who is making stupid hipster claims based on having no real idea of the history of the shit you're talking about. 2 decade old stuff is totally valid to bring up, and the fact you think it isn't is because you're a snot-nosed little ass-goblin who has no idea what he's talking about.

Fuck you, Frank. True, I may eight years younger than you, but I have been playing Magic the Gathering for almost it's entire history, from 1994 to present with a couple of recent breaks because the tournament scene where I am is full of douchebags. Yes 2 decade old cards are valid, but using only 2 decade old cards is like trying to have an intelligent fucking conversation about Dungeons and Dragons while only referencing the original pamphlets, or about the US Government while only referencing events circa 1800. I have a far fucking better idea what I'm talking about here than you do Frank. Go fucking cure cancer, that's your area of expertise, but while my life may be pretty meaningless, in this area, I fucking know what I'm doing and talking about and your the know nothing shit-goblin.

The thing is, there is a psuedo-card type called Lords.

Take your herp-derp and stuff it up your ass. I know what a Goblin King or a Zombie Master is, I knew what those things were before you learned how to read. That last sentence is probably literally true.

For your fucking information, Magic didn't exist before I knew how to read.

The point isn't that the Stromkirk Captain is a 3-mana character who is a 2/2 that gives two global tribal bonuses, the point is the RPG elements of how he's supposedly doing that.

He's a soldier who is giving an inspirational speech about how they have to protect the human villagers from zombie uprising, and then leading a determined line of halberdiers to defend the gates at all costs. That's not just a White effect, that's a White role playing element. If you didn't know that the gates in question were Stromkirk Castle and thus in the Red/Black nation for that set, you'd have no problem at all assigning the action to White.

I mean, let's not beat around the bush: granting +1/+1 and First Strike is mechanically a White thing to do. The Stromkirk Captain is just the second Red card that does that, after the Fencer's Magemark. White has... many examples. Even the colorless artifact that does that is thematically White in the same way that an Ivory Cup is.

The point here is simply that if you want to make the same point with the new cards as with the old cards, you can totally do so. I just happen to have seen a fuck tonne of Fallen Empires cards because they were overprinted to the point that the game store used to hand them out instead of Halloween candy. So if I want to make a point that a Fallen Empire card happens to be good for making, I'm very likely to use it, because I don't have to look through card databases to call them to mind.

That's all fine and relevant, I get that. And I'm not saying that of that is invalid.

So your petulant demand that people not use "old stuff" is denied outright. And I mock you and deride you as a pimple faced little fuckwit for even suggesting it. The old stuff still exists. If people want to play a Magic inspired game, they are as likely to want to play Vodalians and Kjeldorians as they are to want to play Thrabenites or Drogskolians. And if that makes your underwear chafe with rage, that's a problem with you, not a problem with anyone or anything else.

Frank, I don't deny the old things exist. I am telling you that nearly twenty years ago, they were still figuring shit out and nailing it down, and now while not everything is nailed down and figured out, they have more things figured out.

Don't be this kid. Or more accurately: Stop being this kid.

Stop putting words in my mouth and read what I actually write.

Anyway, on to the specific horseshit you're trying to peddle about color morality: No, that's still horseshit. Rosewater may be a pretty good developer, but he's an awfully shitty philosopher. His color philosophy articles are just there to fill up space because he has a column to write, they don't actually hold up as the philosophical underpinnings of anything. Let's consider "Red", because the presented philosophy is the simplest and thus you would expect it to be the easiest to defend.

...Why the fuck are you even working on this if you don't buy the colour philosophy at least as a game construct???