Science: The Gathering (?)

[fjafjan]

fjafjan, I was proposing math and philosophy as one set (artifacts equivalent) together. I agree that philosophy is not a science, I wasn't asserting that, I was asserting that it has had major impacts on the development of science, and as such should surely be included with mathematics as a set.

What about all the work in epistemology, methodology and philosophy of science? You surely can't say that this has not had active bearing on the development of scientific and mathmatical method? Positivism? Empiricism? a priori/a posteriori? Reliablism? Justification? Socratic method? Logic? Occam's razor? Scepticism? Induction/Deduction? Scientific realism? Reductionism? Falsifiability? All of these have or have had impacts on the scientific community. All are philosophical concepts.

You make a good point, However, I suggest that Philosophe be the "artifacts" class, as it's essentially "outside" of science, yet an instrmental part of it.

I think the big question is what "lives" are to correspond to, perhaps "the truth"?
All scientists want to find out the truth, or rathe,r truths.
So you have 20 truths to start with, you try to find out the truths of your opponent?
Walls are ignorance or problems?

and I don't think I should be some ultimate authority cause I made the thread.

SERN, enchantment: All Physisist gets +x/+y or x?
Global warming - Enchantment all biologists gets -x/-x
High precision weighting scale Enchant Scientist target Chemist gets +2..

Keep going folks!

[Solt]

and I don't think I should be some ultimate authority cause I made the thread.

Then there will be endless squabling and we'll get no where. Someone needs to be Guardian of the Cannon.

Global warming - Enchantment all biologists gets -x/-x

Wouldn't global warming = an explosion of life?

[SpitValve]

Someone needs to be Guardian of the Cannon.

hehe, boom.

[ArchangelShrike]

Working off of what fjafjan said, have the goal be "truths" rather than dealing damage, with direct hits getting "truths." Now you can add in FUD and such, patent/"truth" stealing and more!

I've only played M:TG a few times a long time ago, and I profess to be no master, but here goes a sampler...

Physics Cards/Deck:

[# and Name - Type - Cost/Mana (if any) - Effects - Strength/Weakness - Flavor Text]
18 Physics Labs - Land - Tap for 1 Physics Research Point
1 CERN - Legendary Land - Tap = 1 Physics Research Point; 3 Research Points & Tap: Gain one "Truth" - "YOU stand in front of the Large Hadron Collider..." -Random Physicist

2 Published Papers - Enchantment / Aura - 2 Research Points - Targeted Scientist gains 1/1 - "I have papers to back me up!"
1 Calculus - Artifact - 3 Research Points - While in play, all Research Point Costs are reduced by 1. - Calculus - The bane of every undergraduate student's existence, although it comes in handy when working on science.
1 Computer - Artifact - 2 Research Points - Tap = Gain two Research Points, Discard from play afterwards.
1 Spring - Enchantment/Aura - 2 Research Points - Target creature gains 2/1 - "It bounces! Oh!" -Mad Scientist

1 Professional Typist - Creature/Civilian - 1 Research Point - Tap = Add 1/1 to debating Scientist - 0/2 - "Because they do the research doesn't mean they're so smart."
2 Lab Assistants - Creature/Civilian - 2 Research Points - 2/1 - "They know not what they do, but they do it well." -Remarking Scientist
3 Grad Student - Creature/Scientist - 2 Research Points - 2/2 - "Grad Students - The cheapest manual labor known to academia."
3 Physics Professors - Creature/Scientist - 5 Physics Research Points - 2 Physics Research Points & Tap = Discard one Grad Student from play, search deck for Physics Professor and add to hand. Shuffle deck afterwards. - 3/3
1 String Theorist - Creature/Scientist - 2 Physics Research Points, 4 Research Points - Tap = Opponent discards one card from his/her hand - The ravings of the the string theorist caused others to question his sanity, and their own.
1 Issac Newton - Creature/Legendary Scientist - 6 Research Points & 2 Physics Research Points - Clout (First Strike) - 8/8 - "Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night; God said "Let Newton be" and all was light." -Alexander Pope
1 John Stewart Bell - Creature/Scientist - 5 Research Points & 1 Physics Research Point - 5/6 - Clout - "It is difficult for me to believe that quantum mechanics, working very well for currently practical set-ups, will nevertheless fail badly with improvements in counter efficiency ..." -John Stewart Bell


And so on and so forth. None of this is canon, mind you.

[electoralfraud]

Well, if we're going to stick the gameplay as near as possible to magic we need equivalent card names for the major types, can't keep saying Enchantment/Creature/Whatever:

(semi-ripped out of the 9th rules)

Creature - Permanents that can be used to attack and block; can only be played during your main phases (Includes walls).

Enchantment - Permanents representing specific resources; can be played only during your main phases. Aura Enchantments can only be in play when attatched to target permanents. (Never used to have this nancypants aura guff back in the day...*grumble*kids*newfangled*)

Instant - Spells playable at any time. Do not stay in play after effect (returns to owner's graveyard).

Sorcery - Spells playable only during your main phases. Do not stay in play after effect (returns to owner's graveyard).

Land - Permanent with mana abilities (abilities that make mana)

Artifact - Colourless permanent either creature or enchantment type.

Them's the basic definitions.

Truth for life and Research points for mana then? Sound good to me.
Bugger me if I can think of anything for creatures at the moment though; I bet someone will be wanting robots or viruses or fruit flys or rats or some other bloody thing... is 'general entity' a wide enough term?



*grumble*and this stack stuff? jeez, we used to play it like MEN! play 'em as you read 'em 6th ed. (or was that 5th) frozen shades: 1 black - +1/+1 (ZOMG PERMANENT! KILL IT, KILL IT!) Didn't move fast enough you just got paper cuts*grumble*

[ArchangelShrike]

For Sorcery I was thinking of moving that to Experiments, those both common (ball drop experiment) to the famous (Photoelectric effect, Milikan's Oil Drop.)

For Creatures... I like creatures. Either that or "beings," to give it a "enlightened" sound. But I agree that we'll probably have Pavlov's Dogs, lab rats and fruit flies, which is why it's hard to stick it to something specific.

Enchantments... dunno. IF we are going to have FUD, it's gonna fall in Enchantments, Sorcery or possibly Instants, which will make it hard to pull off if the FUD is something like "Slashdot Trolling." Maybe Instruments for Enchantments(?) though I'm not too sure on what. Instants have the same problem as well, maybe leave Instants?

Land and Artifact can stay the same, or Land could switch to Facility - Facility MIT, Legendary Facility CERN, etc.

What was the official ruling on the Colors/Disciplines right now? Was Philosophy an Artifact, or one of the Primaries?

[el sjaako]

I've been thinking about this most of yesterday (although I wasn't home) and I thought of some things INDEPENDENTLY!!! Although many were though of while writing this and inspired by the rest of the thread.

They are different to some of your suggestions but I think it might be a fun game.

The goal of the game is to get the biggest recearch grant from the goverment. how do you do this? You have the best recearch papers!

These are like creature's in magic, they can be compared and the one that dies gets forgotten/ignored/dies. Every paper has some value, this could be the defence, attack, or a combination of the two (sum/product/difference?).

the recources used te create these are students and scientists. Every scientist can do something else also. The colors (and even number of colors) could be anything, I'm partial to blue- chemestry, green-bioligy, red physics, white math, black social sciences. It might be fun to have only three or maybe like 10 different colors. These could all have special abilities, social sciences could for instance be good with the goverment and thus good in legislation. Green could be good at getting rid of scientists and students permenantly (diseases) and blue at disabling them temporarily (drugs). I'm not sure what math and physics would do, but I'm sure we could come up with something.

Enchantments would be in this game legislation, and experiments would be instants and sorcories. Artifacts would be schools and research institutions.

Winning would be having the most points, as previously stated, the higest value of recearch papers. When these would be counted I don't know. Maybe you have to be the first to get to a certain point? Maybe when the first persons cards run out? (then we shouln't require 60 card decks, but whatever)

One more thing: In magic, you can only use mana in the turn you generate it. Maybe it would be cool to be able to lay your cards down face down, and stack the research points on top of it, until you have enough at wich point you can turn it over and play it. I happen to have poker chips in exactly the right colors for this, and I think they are the norm.

If any type of noticle consensus appears, I just got a bunch of cards for the game of 1000 blank white cards. With those I can make playtesting cards, and my friends are the type that would be happy to help me playtest.

[ArchangelShrike]

Bump, because this is still an awesome idea and should be in the games section.

Edit:
Gravedigger - Tap to reincarnate thread.

2nd Edit: Thank you!

[Insignificant Deifaction]

First of all, we're limiting ourselves with scientists. The way it's going at the moment, all creatures are legends. You need insignificant cards. Since Sociology is my field of choice, I will be using it for all examples herein.

Also, I am not collaborating with any post further up in the thread, this is just some stuff I thought up. It's not terribly different from magic, I'm starting there and spreading out with later ideas.

Power=Importance (as of theory/contribution to science)
Toughness=Repute

Further, this need not be accurate, as what's more important is what each card can do.

Spells can become Research
Enchantments=Breakthroughs
Tap=Work
Land=Institute/University/other place
Fold=Destroy a 'land'
Scapegoat=Sacrifice a creature
Life=Theory Pieces (each piece of your theory is refuted, the more important the refuter, the more pieces of your theory fall apart)
Option=Card
Cancel=Discard

Acronyms:
number=Unspecified Funding source
B=Behavioural Science Funding
P=Physics Funding
etc.

Sociology example:

Card: Survey Lackey
Cost: 1B
Stats: 0/2
Type: Grunt
Ability: B, and work: target sociologist you control gains +0/+2 until end of turn (the survey gives the scientist some irrefutability)

Card: Erich Fromm
Cost: 2BBB
Stats: 3(Did some good work)/5(Has yet to be significantly attacked)
Type: Legend Critic
Ability:
Constant ability(like trample)-Criticism 1, whenever Erich Fromm is blocked, defending scientist gets -0/-1
3BB, fold a (whatever land becomes): All scientists belonging to target opponent get -1/-1 until end of turn

Card: Carl Jung
Cost: 3BB
Stats: 4(very important man)/3(damaged several times)
Type: Legend Psychoanalyst
Ability:
When Carl Jung comes into play, choose a field, Carl Jung has protection from that field.
Create one scapegoat: Carl Jung gains +1/+2 and gains Unstoppable Argument(read: trample) until end of turn

Card: Psychoanalysis
Cost: BBBB
Type: Breakthrough
Ability: Whenever a scientist comes into play under the opponents control, they must pay an additional 1 or scapegoat that scientist.
B, work: Until end of turn, the price that must be paid is increased by 2. Play this ability only if you control a psychoanalyst.

Card: Mob Theory
Cost: BB
Type: Research
Ability: If you control a Sociological Institute, you may fold any institute under your control instead of paying Mob Theory's funding.
All non-legendary sociological scientists under your control gain +1/+0 and Collaboration until end of turn.
Gain two options, then cancel three options.


Just some bemused ideas.

By the way: My magic history, Portal had just been created, I have tons of arabian nights and mirage cards, I've played off and on ever since, my colors are Blue and Green.

[QuantumTroll]

I like this idea. Haven't read the entire thread, though, since it's at 4 pages.

Would people be interested in a wiki for this project? As in, would people contribute to it until the game becomes playable?

It'd be hella more organizable than a forum thread...

[Lester :P]

I'm going with:
Black-Physics
Blue-Chemistry
Green-Biology
Red-Engineering+CS+Math
Yellow-Social Sciences in general (anything from linguistics to psychology)

Shouldn't that be white?

Anyways, I think is the best so far, most other things can be fit into this, the only thing in question is engineering it seems.

Philosophy as Artifacts is a great idea, technically all science is just logical induction, which is part of logic, which is part of philosophy.



WOW, great idea, we put physics in red, and make black stupidity, so we can fit stuff like religon and microsoft in there, in magic it's death, in science, it's death also!

Religon>A circular Earth

[b.i.o]

I just found this thread and think it's an awesome idea. We could actually make up the cards and the game in a program like Magic Workstation or something like that, too.

[Sasha]

Necro'd because I think this thread is nifty.

[diotimajsh]

I'm too lazy to think about any specific game details (rules, card types), but I like the idea.

Philosophy is very appropriate as artifacts. I would further argue that math/logic more properly belong in that same category rather than as a color, since all of the sciences draw upon math and use math, yet math does not directly investigate the state of the world in the way that sciences do.

However, if we're insistent about its inclusion, here's my proposed scheme:

• Blue = mathematics (including logic, computer science). Yes, the social sciences take the mind as their subject matter, but math is appropriate as a mind-oriented color because its structures and objects are exclusively within the mind. (Arguably, anyhow; depends on if you're a Platonist or not, I guess. At the least, we can agree that access to and manipulation of mathematical structures seems to occur completely within the mind, right?). Also, the rigid and controlled nature of how blue actually played in M:tG fits the rigid and absolute nature of maths.
  
• Red = chemistry. Red is fire and destruction; chemicals explode!
  
• Green = biology. I don't think anyone's really disputed this earlier in the thread. It's a pretty obvious choice. Biology, life.
  
• Black = physics. Well, the death connotations don't really fit here. How about decay = entropy increasing; physics makes us all aware of the inevitable death of the universe? Its laws' symmetry with respect to time explains the undead? ... I don't know.
  
• White = social sciences. Maybe "healing" isn't appropriate here, since I don't know that social sciences are any more geared toward helping people than the harder sciences – psychology is often studied to be applied therapeutically, but then, so is biology as a precursor to med school. Mostly, I just always had the impression that white was the most "human" color from Magic: the Gathering, I think partly because of the creatures I associated with it. Red had goblins, orcs, fiery dragons; Blue had water spirits, merfolk, krakens, deep sea creatures; Green had elves, sprites, pixies, plants; Black had rats, undead, demons. For white, though, I remember angels, clerics, avatars, townsfolk.

There were occasionally mixed color cards in Magic. What if psychology cards were a mixture between blue and white, and medicine a mix between green and white? Applied mathematics a mix between black and blue? Dunno.

[Toeofdoom]

To be honest I think engineering fits best as "artifact" in many ways. Like that it isnt exactly a science, just like artifacts arent exactly a type of magic, but almost any field of science can contribute to engineering. And by engineering I mean pretty much the less research related things, anything tried and tested whether it's aerospace, genetic or civil engineering, whatever. Indeed you could call a creature a "researcher" and artifact creatures "engineers" to make it clearer. The rules dont have to exactly match up.

Plus I propose calling planeswalkers either Theorists or possibly Geniuses or something.

Also, someone who can set up a stable website please set up a wiki


And physics works as black, because physics undercuts everything else, meaning you can kill something of another colour by finding out that their theory is not based soundly on the laws of physics. Unlike maths which isnt directly applied in the real world?

[EdgarJPublius]

This game is clearly about Mad, or otherwise Anti-Social Scientists, battling for reasons clearly and ineffably their own.

[Office_Shredder]

So if life is replaced by truth, there's one card every deck needs

Spoiler:

"You Can't Handle the Truth!"
2RR

Sorcery
Target Player loses the game. You lose twenty dollars and my self respect. This card can only be played in a game beginning with three or more players.
Kaffee: Did you order the code red?
Jessep: (quietly) I did the job you sent me to do.
Kaffee: Did you order the code red?
Jessep: You're goddamn right I did!!

[Plasma Man]

Physics should be blue, because blue is the colour of sneaky unblockable creatures. Obviously physics can make things unblockable by sending them through one the umpty-umph dimensions that make up string theory.

[Plasma Man]

Okay, but blue is also the colour that gets the spells like flight / jump / updraft / whatever that make creatures fly. And only physics can make a frog fly.

[Allenr]

I found a fun game!

Spoiler:

on page 14!

Why not have chem be red, it would explain how you can use the stored energy in bonds to hurt people.

edit: how did I end up in gaming? lul

[Phrozt]

As a long time player of Magic, I think a lot of you have the relevance of the colors mixed up.

Bio - Green. Pretty obvious, everyone agrees.
Physics - Black. Most resource intensive, has the most physical "presence" in terms of both creatures and abilities.
Chemistry - Red. Red people! Red is highly sorcery based, involves a lot of direct damage. Disintegration? How do you think that is accomplished? By a chemical breakdown of the target. No other science comes close to it.
Psychology - Blue. Again, as a long time player of magic, blue has always been associated with psionics and the power of the mind. To me, blue fits Psychology like green fits biology.
Math - White. Yes... math is a science. However, math is fairly weak unless it's applied. It's more of a support science, which is exactly what white is in M:tG.

Philosophy - artifact. Perfect fit for multiple reasons. It's abstract, it represents stages of development in sciences and it's completely unbiased towards all of the other sciences. All sciences need logic and reason, so philosophy is the perfect fit for this task.

[Indon]

That's still true today.

I don't think they make new cards with banding anymore, though.

But this game would have to, in order to have Erdos as a card.

Since his ability would be "1:Grant target Scientist Banding until end of turn".

That would fit in with math being white, too, since banding was traditionally a white-oriented ability.

[Grave]

Psychology - Blue. Again, as a long time player of magic, blue has always been associated with psionics and the power of the mind. To me, blue fits Psychology like green fits biology.
Math - White. Yes... math is a science. However, math is fairly weak unless it's applied. It's more of a support science, which is exactly what white is in M:tG.

I think these should be switched. MTG has the whole allied/enemy colors thing going on, and psychology has much more in common with biology than physics, while math has more in common with physics than bio. This leaves the only real disconnect in the "science wheel" as between Psychology and Math, but I don't think there's any way to get around having at least one disconnect.

[paledragon64]

How about: Physics-Mathematics-Chemistry-Biology-Astronomy?
You'll notice they all have some sort of correlation with each other, like the actual card game. i.e. Physics is linked with Astro and Math; Chem with Math and Bio. Not sure Bio's relation with Astro, but whatever.

Creatures and spells should be concepts. I'd totally use the card "Divide By Zero-remove all cards on the field of play from existence/play."