The Pro’s Guide To CCG Flavor Text Writing
There are a lot of considerations that go into writing engaging, lore-driven flavor text. I’m extremely grateful for the experiences I’ve had that have given me years to hone my craft. I’ve gotten hundreds of pieces of CCG flavor text through the selection process, starting as a junior game designer, and all the way up through becoming the lead designer on many TCG releases. I’ll get you oriented on what to expect and then share advice for success.
Usually flavor text writing starts when the card set is largely complete, but may still be in testing and tuning. Each card has several pieces of flavor text written for it and the creative director or design team picks the best one.
Steps of The Flavor Text Process
The process typically works like this:
- The list of cards that need flavor text is given to the writers.
- Each card has a limit, such as “100 characters” to work within. Usually there is some flexibility on the character limit. For example, it might be possible to get 110 characters if we are clever with line breaks.
- Each card’s abilities, name, and art (or the art description given to the artist) are available.
- There is some amount of lore and worldbuilding reference material to build from.
- Each writer is assigned a bunch of cards and writes multiple submissions for each. Different people write for the same card, making the selection process competitive.
- The creative team or team lead reviews submissions and selects the best one to go on each card.
Three Rules of Flavor Text
In my experience, there are three major points your piece should hit if you want it selected.
1. Show, don’t tell.
Describe the results of what’s happening, not what’s happening itself. This can be challenging when you are forced to be brief.
Bad: He seethed with contempt and incredible demonic anger.
Good: His lips curled and fists clenched. “You utter fool.” He snarled.
Good: No mortal had ever received that gaze and lived to see the next sunrise.
2. Be evocative, emotional, or surprising.
Engage the senses or emotions in some way. Or approach the situation from an unexpected source.
Bad: The sun shone on the meadow as nature recovered from the fire.
Good: Chirping insects filled the air and the scent of grass drifted above the ash.
Good: A freshly healed wound with its bandage first removed, the land now soaked up the warm sunshine.
Good: The land felt the warmth of the sun. Bees began to buzz. The winter of ash was over.
3. Be true.
Do a reality check that the text fits with the world, style, and characters. Can werewolves control when they change? Better find out for sure if you mention it. Is your text creating canon events that will have story-relevant effects? If so, get approval from the story team first.
Additional Tips For Good Flavor Text
- Leave something to the imagination. Just describe a small part of what’s happening and let the reader fill in the rest.
- Example: With stabbing claws, the first bat latched on his face. Then a second and a third. He couldn’t see what happened next.
- Example: With stabbing claws, the first bat latched on his face. Then a second and a third. He couldn’t see what happened next.
- Quips, cute sayings, jokes and reversals can be great, but use them sparingly. Fun wordplay is memorable, but a little goes a long way.
- Example: “Brain, brain, go away. Come again another day.” Chant of the Zombie Cult
- Example: (on a card with lightning and thunder art) “Ready for the shocking twist?”
- Quotes are good if it’s clear who’s saying them and what the context is. It’s best to use them on characters so you learn something about the speaker.
- Example: “Only sixteen heads chopped today. Gonna bring down my average.”
- Example: “Only sixteen heads chopped today. Gonna bring down my average.”
- Cycles or related cards can have related flavor text, filling in parts of the lore.
- Example: If there are 6 lands with cities you could make their text parallel.
- (on Elsinore) The city of power, whose wealth crushes those in the way.
- (on Skybreeze) The city of markets, whose winds bring travelers from unheard-of lands.
- (on Orehold) The city of iron, whose engines are fired by chained dragons.
- Example: If there are 6 lands with cities you could make their text parallel.
- Advice or warnings, as if from a guidebook, can be another good option if used sparingly.
- Example: “First you feel the rumble. Then you hear the crashing. Then you start running.”
- Example: When feeding a Toebiter, remember they greatly prefer human fingers to all other food.”
- Add a small twist or surprising snippet to what the player already knows about the card.
- Example: (on a venomous insect) “One sting is enough to kill a person. And the undertaker if he doesn’t use gloves.”
- Example: (on a venomous insect) “One sting is enough to kill a person. And the undertaker if he doesn’t use gloves.”
Now that you have a good understanding of the ins and outs of flavor text writing, check out our Community Flavor Text Contest and submit your flavor for the chance to get it printed on one of the chosen revealed cards in our Existence set!