I’ll be blatant: this is another one of those “I’m writing an article in order to write out my thoughts on a decision I’m trying to make.” The decisions this time around? I’m making a game with drafting, and I’m having trouble deciding whether to make a lot of things to draft with, or just a few things to draft with. Which direction should I head?

Minimizing Pros

If there are only a few types of cards in the game, it’s easier for players to understand their choices. It makes it easier to make any specific decision, and with drafting, the breadth of your choices being too large can often be very confusing and overwhelming. The strategy can also be helped. With limited options, you can have a clearer idea of what’s going to exist later in the draft. Cards themselves can reference others a lot easier, rather than having to refer to stated qualities or tags. The game can also be a lot speedier, because players can more easily keep what’s going on in their mind.

Minimizing Cons

The biggest concern I have is replayability. Normally I don’t care much about this, but for a game as quick and snappy as the game I’m thinking of, it can be problematic. If a game is played in rounds, then those rounds can already start to feel repetitive. There’s also a higher likelihood of repeats even in a single draft hand, meaning that players might end up with a hand of multiples of the same exact card, or pass a hand of cards only to get another extremely similar hand passed to them. This is hopefully less of a problem if the cards themselves are unique enough that so long as there is at least one different card there’s still a meaningful choice.

Maximizing Pros

The more cards there are, the more unique each playthrough is. You might see cards you’ve never seen before each time you play. You might see combinations of cards you’ve never seen before. The randomness inherent can also be appealing to some players. The fact that you have less of an idea of what’s going to happen means you have to take some risks, or play the game in a way where you’re looking for broader synergies rather than simpler ones. More cards also allows the designer to put in more options and have less of an impact on the game. Any one card could be strong or weak and have less of an impact on the game as a whole, and could also indirectly become someone’s favorite.

Maximizing Cons

Making a lot of cards has diminishing returns. Eventually, as a designer, I start making sub-standard designs. There’s only so much I can do. If I make a game where having a bunch of cards is part of the appeal, then the continuing creation of cards becomes part of the demand of the game’s existence. That’s a tough order. More cards also heavily increases confusion, especially for first time players, but even for experienced players it can lead to analysis paralysis.

Conclusion

After typing it out, I think I decided to go for a minimalist approach, especially since my game has other elements to keep it exciting outside of novelty. It’s got a hidden role element and a push your luck element that’s hopefully exciting.