Make it So Challenge #4: Mission Accomplished

by Charlie Plaine, Make it So Host

3rd January 2014

Missions are one of the most difficult First Edition card types to design, but not for the same reasons as the other card types. The real challenges in mission design come from the extremely limited template space - two (2) lines is not much to work with! They are also a highly visible and highly polarizing card type, and the definition of a "good" mission has changed often over the course of the game and will likely continue to change as the game evolves. Yet they are one of the most important card types, and they are one of the card types in any expansion that quite a lot of players can look forward to.

Mission Design
As mentioned above, the biggest hurdle for designers is the limited space on the template. Missions have two (2) lines for both requirements and game text, and this is not a template that can be broken. As a designer, you get two lines to express not only the mission's game text, but the requirements as well. And unless you're making an asymmetrical mission, your game text and requirements have to fit on that side of the template as well. This is further complicated by the length of your requirements: if they take up more than the first line, there is no room for game text at all! In short, while we have some ability to put game text on missions, they weren't designed for it; thus, it's very limiting. (But as I like to believe, limitations breed creativity!)

Outside of the template issues, there are other "mini" guidelines that design keeps in mind for mission design. Here are some of the more important ones:

Story Based - Like objectives, missions are a very story based card type. You are much more likely to need to approach mission design from a top-down perspective than a bottom-up. Requirements in particular are tied to the story. While it's possible to design a mission with specific requirements (and let the creative team find a match), more often good missions come from starting with the story.

Lots of "Cost" Wiggle Room - There is a big spectrum of opinion about what makes a mission "good" - and this spectrum has moved throughout the game's history. Even in the CC era of design, we've made missions that have turned out to be above and below the curve. Finding the right balance of requirements and points can be difficult. Precedent isn't terribly helpful here, either, because of how much the spectrum has moved over the last twenty (20) years.

There is a chart that serves as a guideline, but it's not definitive. Here it is:

 

# of Skills	Points	Attribute Requirement
1	10	20+
2	15	25-30
3	30	30-35
4	35	36-42
5	40	43-50

 

In essence, this chart tells you the number of skills your mission needs to require based on the number of points. In addition, it gives an attribute requirement range for the same point value. It is possible to substitute an attribute requirement for one - maybe two - of the skills and not affect the points. Please note that this is not a hard and fast rule.

Federation Creep - Because Star Trek is a human television show, and so many of the character and stories are based on the adventures of those humans, the Federation tends to get the lion's share of the stories, and many of the best stories. This means that missions tend to want to have the Federation icon on them. However, this isn't always a good thing, because too many Federation missions means fewer opportunities for other affiliations to have diverse mission selection. Keep in mind there aren't many good ways to keep one faction of the Federation from attempting a mission "meant" for another. This is a difficult problem to avoid, and perhaps it can't be avoided (or shouldn't be avoided). But design is always looking for ways to include non-Federation affiliation icons on missions. and especially for missions that don't carry the Federation icon at all.

Non-Aligned Creep - The Non-Aligned icon was meant to be a rarity on missions, and the proliferation of this in The Next Generation block is one of the reasons Non-Aligned battle decks became so powerful. The more Non-Aligned icons on missions, the more options the decks have for seeding facilities and for solving missions. When a battle deck can switch from destroying the opponent to solving a mission on a dime, it can cause power problems in the environment. While some Non-Aligned missions are okay, it shouldn't be used recklessly on First Edition missions; in other words, it needs a strong story connection for it to appear. 

Facilities - One "hidden" aspect to missions in First Edition is the need for affiliation icons. Remember that according to the rules, a facility may only seed at a mission with a matching affiliation icon. This means that "Any Away Team" and "Any Crew" missions have an extra element of risk to them, because in most cases they can't host a facility.

Mission diversity is also a key issue, especially in block format. One of the biggest complaints about block through the first year was the lack of mission diversity, meaning that almost every game had multiple shared missions. The chance of a shared mission is a good way to promote interaction in games, and is welcome. However, when three or four missions are shared, the game quickly degenerates from strategy to frustration. One of the key objectives of Homefront IV was to add many missions to the block format and help mitigate this problem. In addition, missions are one the card types that can expand every tournament card pool equally. A new mission can be just as valuable in the Block as it is in Complete, and missions can appeal to players of multiple different affiliations.

Boom Goes the Dynamite
A brief side note: one of the most frequent tasks assigned to assistant designers (other than research) is submitting ideas to fill holes. Sometimes an expansions Lead Designer feels that something is mission from his or her expansion; that there is a span that needs to be filled. If there isn't a clear need for an expansion, often the Lead will ask his or her team to brainstorm ideas for a card type, and use some of those cards to add substance to the expansion. This is the case for Project Boomer, but we're taking things one step further and giving the Make it So contestants the chance to pitch their ideas for filling one of these holes.

Dan Hamman, Make it So judge and Lead Designer of Project Boomer (which is in development now), thinks there aren't enough missions in his file; he would like to see one more. As Boomer is the Maquis-themed expansion, Dan is particularly looking for a mission to fit within that theme. This means a mission that the Maquis completed in the show, a mission inspired by the Maquis, or even any mission constructed around sabotage, terrorism, or similar themes. One such mission, Destroy Secret Buildup, already appears in Boomer and you can see it below. (As a side note, don't reuse the story on this mission for this challenge.) The challenge for the contestants this round is to make a mission - and the winning mission will go into the Project Boomer design file for testing.

Challenge #4: Mission Accomplished

Your challenge this week is to design a mission for Project Boomer. While you can design any mission, Boomer is an expansion based around the Maquis, and the most appropriate themes of sabotage, terrorism, or The Maquis may provide the best fit. The judges will be looking for a card that embraces both the philosophies of overall First Edition design, and that provides a mission that is fun, compelling, and likely to see play. Remember that missions have at most two (2) lines of game text, and can carry a maximum of five (5) affiliation icons.

The judges will be rating your missions on how likely they are to make an impact in the play environment. In addition, we will be looking for elegance of implementation, respect of precedent, creativity and understanding of the state of the game. Hopefully the community will use this challenge's discussion thread to let you know what they're looking for too, but beware: it's impossible to please everyone!

Your entries are due by 11:59 PM server time (Eastern Standard) on Wednesday, January 8, 2014. Entries must be sent via PM to MidnightLich on the forums and not posted anywhere else. Voting and judging will be done anonymously so you may not talk about your cards during the judging period. You will have the opportunity to discuss them after voting is complete. Late entries may be accepted, at a penalty, at the discretion of the judges.

In addition, the winning mission (as determined by total score for this challenge) will be added to the Project Boomer file for testing. This is not a guarantee that your mission will see print, or that even if it does, it will do so unchanged. It just means your mission will go through the normal testing process that happens for all cards, but that it does have a chance to appear in a finished product.

Good luck, and may all your missions be worth attempting!

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