How to write your card effects properly - A PSCT guide

[jackachu100]

How to write your card effects properly - A PSCT guide

PSCT (Problem Solving Card Text) is the way Yu-Gi-Oh! cards are written. It is done in such a way to keep cards consistent, so you know exactly what the card does from reading it.

In this guide I will talk about how cards are written, so you can write your own card effects in this style, making it easier for people to understand the effects of your cards.

How card effects are constructed

First simple thing is that each effect of a card is a sentence (in the OCG it's the numbers with a circle around them that show each effect (which is how I write cards I've made)).


Most of the time a card effect will either have a cost, or an activation requirement (or both). You can tell which of these are in an effect easily. In a card effect everything before a ";" (semicolon) is a cost and everything before a ":" (colon) is an activation requirement.

One example of where this is useful is using an activation requirement (or not using one) to make sure people know if the card you have wrote is one that starts a chain or a built-in special summon.


The part after these are the actual effect part. If the effect does more than one thing there will be conjunction words between each part that shows how the effect will resolve.

These words are:
then - Thing before happens before thing after. If you can't do the thing after you can still do the thing before. If you can't do thing before you can't do thing after.
and if you do - Thing before happens at same time as thing after. If you can't do the thing after you can still do the thing before. If you can't do thing before you can't do thing after.
and - Thing before happens at same time as thing after. If you can't do the thing after you can't do the thing before. If you can't do thing before you can't do thing after.
also - Thing before happens at same time as thing after. If you can't do the thing after you can still do the thing before. If you can't do the thing before you can still do the thing after.

If you want to do additional reading, I'll link a resource that I use quite often when thinking about conjunctions (Yugiohblog PSCT).


There are some other things to help you work out how a card operates from reading it.

An obvious thing being cards saying you can do something, as opposed to it being mandatory.

Other examples include If/When... you can (whether or not a card "misses timing"), you can only activate the effect of ... once per turn/you can only use the effect of ... once per turn (whether or not you can use a card effect again this turn if it was negated) and this card can only be Special Summoned/must first be Special Summoned (whether a card is nomi or semi-nomi).


There are also some small things that won't change how your card works, but will make it look more like an officially made card.

Examples of these are, knowing what words to capitalise (words after ;/:s are capitalised/certain words like Graveyard or Normal Summoned are capitalised), that when referencing things (e.g. "X-Saber") you put quotation marks around them, knowing when to use bullet points on a card, knowing how to reference types/attributes (e.g. Warrior-Type and WATER) and knowing when to put things in brackets (for things like saying (max 1) when talking about counters).

Conclusion

That's pretty much it. I'm sure there's some more things I didn't touch on, but if you follow this guide your card effects will start looking like official ones in no time!

[Kiernan]

I'd suggest more separation and headers. You have like 2 headers and one of them is for your conclusion. Also, you might want to consider spacing a bit more between the "Then, and if you do, also, etc." stuff. Makes the conjunction section a chore to read. Overall though, no complaints about the actual content. Good work C=

[jackachu100]

I'd suggest more separation and headers. You have like 2 headers and one of them is for your conclusion. Also, you might want to consider spacing a bit more between the "Then, and if you do, also, etc." stuff. Makes the conjunction section a chore to read. Overall though, no complaints about the actual content. Good work C=

Yeah, i spent a bit of time trying some stuff to separate it better, but it all looked weird so I just ended putting 2 line breaks between separate parts. Could've put subheaders, but eh.

I also tried putting line breaks between the conjunctions, but it looked weird so I left it without.

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