Hindsight: Alternate Universe

by Charlie Plaine, Chairman

29th January 2014

Welcome to Hindsight, my weekly series where I take a look back at previous expansions for the Star Trek: Customizable Card Games with a fresh eye. My goal is examine the decisions made in each of these expansions using modern eyes and design sensibilities in order to learn from those decisions. As mentioned in the announcement article, this is not an attempt to create a new game. Instead, I’m looking to better understand the game and how it can be improved in the modern era by studying its history.

Now that we've talked about the initial products for First Edition and Second Edition, it's time to move into the worlds of expansions. And where better to begin with the first Star Trek: Customizable Card Game expansion - Alternate Universe. This expansion introduced some interesting and important concepts that we still both take advantage of, and have to work around, today.

Alternate Universe (First Edition)
Released in November 1995
122 Cards (40 Common, 40 Uncommon, 41 Rare, 1 Ultra Rare)

Card Types Introduced
Doorway

Affiliations Introduced
None

Lessons Learned

1. Avoid rules overhead that causes complexity creep.
One of the constant struggles for a game, especially a game as old as First Edition, is against "complexity creep" and the barriers to entry. Point of fact, this is one of the main reasons why Decipher created Second Edition in the first place (as a new entry point). Every game has rules to learn, but it's the job of designers to make those rules as easy to understand as possible, and to make sure there is a curve to when you have to learn the rules. Built-in rules (i.e. rules that you have to "know" that aren't on the cards) are very dangerous and create a high barrier to entry, and none are more guilty of this than the icon rules.

In this case, the overhead is that you must have a card in play (Alternate Universe Door or similar) in order to legally play an card. It's a "loaded" rule because nothing on the card indicates this is a requirement, which creates a barrier to entry. Imagine how a new player might feel after, having learned the game from a friend, he or she builds a deck and learns in a tournament that some of his or her cards can't legally be played - this kind of "feel bad" moment is a good way to guarantee that players never return to your game. (Although to be fair, early CCGs were full of examples of things like this - nobody really knew better.)

But this particular case represents a bigger issues of the increase in complexity as a game evolves. There is only so much "mind space" that a player, especially a new player, is willing to commit to a game; the game has to have a barrier to entry that's lower than that threshold, or the player will lose interest and never (or very reluctantly) return. The more overhead you put into your game, the more information you require the player to know to just play, the less people you'll find that fall into that threshold. Keep in mind that every time you add a new rule or a new mechanic, you are increasing the requirements (even if only slightly). For veteran players or players that are already invested in the game, this is an incremental change - if it's even noticed. But for new players it can be extremely intimidating. Designers of new mechanics need to do everything they can to either "hide" these mechanics from new players - delaying when they need to be learned - or making them as intuitive as possible.

All of this being said, Design has been able to take advantage of this rule in recent times. Adding an icon to a dilemma or any verbs provides an extra "cost" for that card's use because players then need to seed an extra card to use those dilemmas or verbs. Of course, this can end up being a false cost because most decks run such a card anyway. Instead, this is most often used for flavor reasons, and it is very flavorful, even if it is an extremely difficult concept. But we have to make sure to avoid things like this moving forward, and keep the rules as intuitive as possible.

2. Don't force your theme.
Most players enjoy themes to their mechanics and to their expansions, and here's a secret: designers like this too. I can't speak for everyone, but I really enjoy building expansions or cycles of cards around a theme, like "bringing sexy back" for Shades of Grey or "early DS9" for Emissary. First Edition in particular tends to build expansions around a theme, starting with Alternate Universe themed around alternate realities.

The problem here is when you have to force cards to fit your theme; if that's the case, then I argue that your theme is either inappropriate or not your theme. The classic examples of this (and why it's listed here in this expansion) are Major Rakal and Stefan DeSeve. Neither of these characters should sport the icon, yet both do; likely done in order to increase the number of cards and the number of cards in the expansion. Unfortunately this leads to a major flavor/mechanical disconnect and works against the very idea of a theme.

Themes are great ways to create an emotional response in players, and to help connect mechanics to flavor. And you don't need to have 100% commitment to your theme in order to have a strong theme - after all, not every card in Alternate Universe has the icon. But if you are forcing cards to match your theme, like putting an icon on non-alternate personnel - you do more harm than good to your expansion and its theme.

Good Stuff

1. Dual-affiliation personnel.
Introduced with Alternate Universe is the idea that personnel can represent multiple affiliations. Although there is some rules overhead with this, the advantages and design space it provides are significant, and still taken advantage of today. After all, dual-affiliation cards provide "two cards in one." (Note that we will revisit this point in a different context in the future.)

2. Alternate personas.
There are several new versions of existing characters introduced in Alternate Universe. However, since these versions represent the alternate versions of the characters (marked with the double-edged sword of the icon), they can co-exist with the originals. This is a nice way to provide additional "star power" for players and provide additional usable characters. In addition, I suspect this idea lead directly to the idea of personas introduced later in the game.

Conclusion
Alternate Universe was an important step for First Edition, providing new cards and addressing issues revealed after the release of Premiere. There are several cards that still show up in modern decks, and design is still using many of the concepts and technology introduced. However, this expansion pushed the game into a very complex direction, and one that the game would struggle to correct for the remainder of it's production - and still struggles with today.

In the next edition of Hindsight, we'll examine the introduction of the Maquis into Second Edition as we discuss the first expansion for that edition of the game, Energize. Thanks for reading!

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