Getting the Most Out of Your Theme
Make things relatable. Relatability is where something in your game evokes something the player already knows. The player can relate to the item, event, or character, and they can feel like they're really in the story.
However, this is only half the picture. The object has to actually behave like the real thing. The mechanics must match the theme/name of the object.
Radlands has Wounded Soldier — an excellent warrior, who starts out damaged, and you have to heal him, if you want to use him. Cult Leader sends your other people off to their doom, to destroy the opponent's stuff. Catapult lets you hurl your own people. In game terms, it destroys one of your people, and can hit anything. This matches the theme closely.
In Magic, there's a treasure-guarding dragon. Because the concept of a "creature" exists in Magic, the dragon is a creature. Because the concept of flight exists in the game, the dragon also flies. Because there are artifacts, they can be used as treasures. This all means that this card actually feels and behaves like a treasure-guarding dragon. It's very cool. It's not just a card with the art and name of a treasure-guarding dragon.
Wingspan is a hugely successful game about birds. However, it's just a pretty theme. It's almost impossible to connect hundreds of different birds to their abilities. What's a Canvasback anyway? (Seemingly some kind of duck.) And why is its ability "all players draw a card?"
Relatable things aren't just cool, they also help players understand gameplay. If things work in obvious ways, it's much easier to remember. An axe that cuts down trees, and gains you wood, is relatable. The Charm of Kroznor, that swaps two resources, is not relatable. (Don't get it confused with the Charm of Grozbat, which rearranges the top four cards of the deck!)
Use the theme more
Try to drench almost everything in your game with the theme you've chosen.
In my pirate game, you had to bring three cubes to a certain space, to win the game. What were these? I made them assorted goods, and later, pearls. But what's the most well-known theme that matches this mechanic? I made the cubes represent pieces of a map, and the place you take them to is an island with buried treasure.
In Radlands, Roxley rethemed citizens to punks, and power to water.
My pirate game also has a die face that allows you to spend fish to move more spaces. I made it a dolphin. There's another one that causes you to lose a cube. It's a giant octopus.
Entities
Most things in your game should be entities: people/characters, places, and objects, in that order. These categories are full of well-known and relatable things.
I do use events, actions, states of mind, etc, but in smaller numbers. They're much harder to make relatable and distinct. It's also harder for artwork to clearly depict and distinguish them.
I've played many game prototypes about elemental magic duels. Everything is an abstract spell of some sort. It's all meaningless and indistinct.
In my gangster game, I gave each player a "Big Dreams" card, which was a unique and expensive thing that only they could do. I later changed this to each player being a different criminal character. They could be a catburglar, a biker, a scientist etc. These were people, and they were much more relatable than the concept of a "dream."
In Star Realms and Space Base, the cards are spaceships. Each card's theme only loosely relates to its mechanics. Spaceships have no character, and they all seem similar.
In Lords of Waterdeep, you gather adventurers, and complete quest cards. These quests are unrelatable nonsense like "Protect the House of Wonder" and "Establish Harper Safe House". I would've themed these to be different monsters that you fight, not "quests".
Names
I don't like creative names.
Radlands uses very simple card names like Scientist, Exterminator, Holdout, Sniper, Arena, and Blood Bank. These names all tie in closely to the actual function of the cards.
Some names have to be strange, because there's no simple and good name that matches the function of the card (or other game object).
However, most names should be a "real thing". This could mean something that exists in the real world (like "Hitman", "Mosh Pit", or "Flamethrower"). This could also mean a known fictional thing (like "Portal", "Time Travel", or "Magic Wand").
The Radlands expansion had a card called "bivouac". Unfortunately, half my playtesters didn't know that word. Some even thought it was "bio-vac". It had to change.
If a name is two words, they should be a known phrase, not simply adjective-noun. "Rabid Dog" and "Fuel Tanker" are relatable. "Silver Axe" and "Immortal Angel" are not.
Also, work backwards from the theme. Come up with the best-known and most thematic characters, items and events, from the theme of your game. Then, make cards for them.
Magic made a set of cards set in a gothic horror world. It was filled with cards designed backwards from the theme. The cards included Bump in the Night, Cellar Door, Boarded Windows, and Jar of Eyeballs. They introduced double-sided cards, so that some townsfolk cards could "flip over" to a werewolf side at night.
In other sets, Magic cards are just random two-word names. No one knows which one is the Woodland Acolyte is, and which is the Forest Harbinger. I see many new players simply ignore this nonsense, and read the type line instead: e.g. Creature — Elf Warrior.
Not everything has to have a name. Very simple decks of resource cards, or other highly abstract things, do not all need names. If you're struggling to name things, then they may not need names at all.
In Wingspan, there are dozens of objective cards you can draw. You reveal them at the end, and if you meet the criteria, you get some points. Some of these have sensible names, but many are a stretch. "Citizen Scientist" gives you points for having bird cards tucked under your other birds. Mechanical Engineer gives you points for having sets of different nest types. What? Also, they have no art.
In my farm game, I also have these kinds of goal cards. I intentionally have no art or names on these cards—just icons and numbers of the resources required. To name the 3 Wood card "cut down a tree" is nonsensical clutter. It's better to just have these things be themeless. Board spaces, on the other hand, do have names, as it helps connect the theme and function of the space, and they actually make sense.
Proper names
For proper names of characters and places, the name should:
- Have obvious pronunciation, regardless of accent/dialect.
- Be short.
- Be clearly different from each other.
In Radlands, I included characters Magnus Karv, and Molgur Stang. Those first names are too similar, and players can get them mixed up.
Flavour text
Flavour text is a bit of story or information at the bottom of a card, that has no impact on gameplay.
For heavily theme-driven games, and real-world and real historical settings, flavour text is a good idea. Otherwise, it's usually irrelevant. I don't really want to hear about the great war between the Earth and Water tribes.
Radlands was too mechanical, and the players see the same cards all the time, so flavour text would've been boring.
For my gangster game, flavour text let me add humour to the game. For my adventure game, which is even more theme-driven, it let me tell interesting stories.
Theme bending
Don't be hemmed in by your theme. If you need to do something for mechanical reasons, just do it. You can make anything work, thematically. Theme is important, but much less important than mechanics.
I made a game where the players were trying to survive as shipwrecked castaways. That's an amazingly relatable theme, in my opinion. However, the theme didn't exactly translate to good mechanics.
I didn't want the players helping each other, so I made the castaways selfish criminals. I didn't want player elimination, so I just decided that you would lose points if you failed to sustain yourself, rather than die. But what was victory, in this game? I decided that the player who survived this experience best (by having the most points at the end) was the winner. This was all a bit strange, but none of it impinged on the feeling of being a castaway, which was well-supported by the other game elements.
Sometimes the mechanics just make no sense. Don't bother trying to justify it, if it's too hard.
In my pirate, game, you can fire a cannonball at another ship. However, I wanted this to steal things from the ship you attack, not destroy them. It made no sense that a cannonball would steal things, but gameplay is more important than theme. I tried renaming the ability to "Fire & Salvage", but the playtesters didn't like it.
Also in my pirate game, you can "banish" an adjacent player to another space. It's great for gameplay, but what's the thematic justification?
Humour
I almost always like to allow humour, even in dark games. Humorous theme is still theme.
In my farm game, you can fight the bandits with rocks, spears, or "fertiliser". Throwing poo at them is fair, and it's amusing.
In my farm game, the goat can eat anything. That makes sense for crops or wood, but what about a goat eating rocks or spears? It's much simpler if he can eat anything. Also, a goat eating rocks or spears is funny!
In my pirate game, there was an ability that gives you two extra cannonballs, crew, or sails, if you have one. But what was the theme for this? Crafting? Finding them? What possible theme makes sense for this ability? I liked the simplicity of calling it "Split". That explains why you need the first one, to get two more. It's plausibly thematic for sails and cannonballs, but what about for crew? I came up with the perfect answer. I did use "Split", but its icon was a pirate, in three pieces: a torso, legs, and a grinning head.