Incompatible Design Goals

[Username17]

Why the hell would you tie complexity to power level anyway? So if a DM with experienced players wants to run a gritty low-level game everyone gets to be bored? Or if a DM with newbie players wants to run a high-power "heroes of legend" thing everybody is confused?

So what do you get for going up in levels, if not more choices of actions? Just another +1 or +10% damage, like an AD&D fighter?

The idea of a complexity "sweet spot" is fairly unfortunate, but it doesn't make it untrue. Advanced Magic or Shadowfist players do not start the game with larger hands, because adding complexity like that simply does not improve the game.

Now, you can throw in some stuff at higher levels that takes more experience to evaluate. A low level option might be Power Attack: it's an inaccurate attack vs. dodginess that does a lot of damage. If the target is helpless or just really shitty at dodging or is very resistant to damage you'll use it, and otherwise you won't. So if it comes up against a Golem you'll use it and if it comes up against an imp you'll use Basic Attack instead. That's simple and newbies can jolly well make that tactical choice. At higher level you won't even have a basic attack option so you'll be deciding whether you want to do a Rising Dragon Strike or a Meteor Smash, and that in turn has to do with whether you'd rather knock your opponent far away or hit every square around the square that your target is in.

But the actual number of cards in your hand shouldn't change much over time. Because whatever the optimal number is for the game, that is the optimal number!

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

So are you talking sort of like a tiered approach? Something like Basic Attack and Power Attack being tier 1 attacks and Rising Dragon Strike and Meteor Smash being tier 2?

This is nice in that at any given tier, the options available when you gain a level are the same as at any other tier, so it cuts down on complexity.

[Zinegata]

Or you could do something like Magic's Core Sets.

Magic is a fairly complex game, but its complexity is highly dependent on what cards you're playing with. If you're just playing with the Core Set, the game is a lot simpler to learn. There are fewer keywords to memorize, and a lot of creatures and spells are of the "vanilla" variety.

And even though the cards are simpler, many of the best cards still reside with the Core Set due to their sheer efficiency. Wrath of God for instance has been a tourney staple until it was finally removed from Core.

By contrast, if you play something with mechanics like say, Morph, things can get very complicated very quickly.

It still doesn't help with the overly Analysis Paralysis people. But it should be fairly effective with more "normal" players.

[RandomCasualty2]

I thought trades were allowed as part of the core rules? That's how we play it.

Surprisingly trades aren't directly allowed in the core rules, though they aren't prohibited either. This is speaking from about 10+ years ago since I last played, so the rules may have changed in that time.

I know my parents never played with trades back when they were growing up. Their games were also dreadfully boring. I was actually the one who introduced trading rules to our games when I was younger, since like even at around 10 years old, I could still see that the game would be horrible without it.