View source for If your theme isn't common, it isn't your theme

During the creation of Champions of Kamigawa, Mark Rosewater was part of the developers team. He felt that the cards that were made during the design phase had a lack of focus. There wasn't a strong thread to follow and he decided to focus on legendary creatures. Kamigawa had an ongoing theme of legendary cards in all card types, which included many legendary creatures. Mark thought that it'd be a good idea to make all the rare creatures legendary. To push even further some uncommon cards would be made legendary as well. ''(in case you don't know the game, magic is sold in boosters and rarity is about how common or rare a card is. Every pack is going to have more common cards, some uncommon and one rare).''

The lesson here is that legendary cards in magic aren't done because they are pretty or just because they are cool. Legendary means something special. By making too many legendary cards there can't be room for too many special cards competing with each other. Some of them are going to be worse than others and with too many legendary this multiplies the problem. The worst part is that they had a conflicting goal. Legendary cannot be set at common rarity because it's self contradictory to be legendary and common at the same time. The net result is that there were many many legendary cards, but by being rare or uncommon at best the players wouldn't notice that thread because most cards are at the common rarity.

I can see parallels to that in level design and game design in general. In Tomb Raider, Lara can run, jump and grab onto ledges. Every level has to be designed around those core gameplay features. If we add a certain skill that is required in just one level, it's going to feel off to not use that skill anywhere else. That's very hard balance to achieve in games. In one extreme we make a level or a mechanic that feels disjointed from the rest of the game. In the other end we repeat the same patterns over and over and bore the player. In Jedi Knight games for example, every level has its own set of challenges. There isn't room to make use of all powers in the same level or to place every type of challenge in one level.

'''We have to ask ourselves:''' this game is about horror, in how many different ways we can make the player experience it? Each level has to present its own challenge and own view on horror, while at the same time every level has to be connected with a strong thread.

I can get a life lesson here, although it's hard to make the connection. There are lots of common habits that we have that we could change, but the challenge begins in noticing them in the first place. For example: to check your smartphone for messages right before going to bed is an habit that is unhealthy for your sleep. Mark himself admits that he often feels guilty of assuming what others need or want before asking them. Coincidentally I'd say the same about me. That's the hard to see connection that I'm trying to make. Are there things that we'd wished were common but aren't? An example from everyone's lives: to recycle or to save water. That's something that we easily forget to do but once we make some effort, they can become part of our lives without much trouble. In fact, we could live better by adopting new habits. I think that there is some hypocrisy related because I've once listened to the news on the radio and they were talking about saving water and electricity. Some people were taking baths in the gym to save them from taking baths at home. However, if you take long baths at the gym you are saving water at home at the expense of the gym's water bills. That's the connection I'd make between Mark's lesson and turning something into a common habit in our lives.

= References =
* https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/resolutions-2009-01-05