Pair Complex One-Shots With Simple Passive Effects

When understanding the state of a game, the greatest mental burden is parsing unique, complex text effects. Yet these effects create some of the most interesting content. One way to reduce the attention cost of text effects is to make them trigger only once, usually when they enter play. The issue with one-shots is that they do not provide a strong sense of progression. The solution is to pair them with simple ongoing bonuses shown by standardized symbols.

The easiest ongoing bonus to add to a one-shot effect is a tag. Tags show that something belongs to a certain group, which can boost other effects that depend on how many of that group you have. For example, in Oath, you can recruit up to three denizens as advisors. Each advisor is part of one of six NPC factions and affects how much you get when trading with their group. Some advisors have abilities that only happen when you recruit them, like giving you four warbands or making you a citizen. Even though these abilities only happen once, the advisor's suit still helps you by improving trades with that faction.

Adding numbers to stats also works well with one-shot effects. In Star Wars: Unlimited, many upgrades you play on other cards have a 'when played' effect and boost the card's attack and defense. These increases are shown at the bottom of the card. After you use the effect, you can slide the upgrade under its target and ignore the text that no longer matters.

Normally, attachments are an expensive place to put text effects because each time you parse them, you must parse both the effect and how it interacts with what it is attached to. By making the text effect a one-shot, you let players ignore it going forward.

Both Oath and Star Wars: Unlimited use one-shots for only a few of their cards, while others still have complex ongoing effects. Mixing effects like this is okay; complexity is a scale, not a binary. You do not need to make all of your cards one-shots to benefit from reducing complexity, and the more cards you do make into one-shots, the more attention players will be able to pay to the remaining ongoing effects. One-shot effects and generic ongoing bonuses are a flexible combination that your game can benefit from at any level of usage.