When I design morphs, I tend to look at it from three perspectives: a) is it useful? b) does something else already fill its role? c) does it fit the setting? A new morph needs to be useful because otherwise people won't use it. A morph that does something that nobody (or an extremely narrow niche of people) wants will not see use, and to design one would not add much to the setting. A new morph needs to do something vaguely unique, because if it does something another morph does, is is either worse, in which case you'd just pick the other morph, or better, in which case you'll never want to use the other morph. There are some exceptions to this, but they are rare; the Flat, Splicer and Exalt can co-exist because the Flat represents the "unique" niche of "baseline morph" while the Splicer represents early gene-fixing and is a cheap biomorph. "Cheap" can in fact be a niche! Particularly good examples here are the Liquid Steel (Sunward), Shaper (Panopticon), and Mimic (Transhuman); despite all being "disguise morphs", they all cover distinct niches of "any humanoid synthmorph", "any humanoid biomorph" and "household object or small robot". Hence, the introduction of the Shaper and Mimic did not reduce the value or uniqueness of the Liquid Steel. The Bruiser, meanwhile, is a bad example because it intrudes heavily on the Olympian. When designing morphs from this perspective, several sub-questions can be useful: "Does this non-biomorph do something that only biomorphs should be able to do?" (high Aptitude bonuses), "Does this non-synthmorph doe something that only synthmorphs should be able to do?" (radical shapes and mechanical possibilities), "Does this give something to the Group X that Group X doesn't have?", etc. For example, the Takko gives octopus uplifts access to an octopode synthmorph, and the Flying Squid gives them access to a pod (and flight!). A morph that violates either of the first questions should probably have a downside; the Savant is a pretty similar to the Menton, but at least it costs 25 CP more and comes with a Social Stigma. The Hyperbright likewise intrudes on the space of the Menton, but has Uncanny Valley, an Addiction, and a Fast Metabolism. The Pleasure Pod and Sylph are both social morphs, but the Pleasure Pod trades off significant stat bonuses in return for low cost and a social stigma. A morph must also fit the setting, both on the genre level and the societal level, as well as the technological level. Hence, no orcs or elves (these also fail criteria #a above) because these have no place in a game of transhuman conspiracy and horror, and no egos stored as flocking patterns of doves (too technologically advanced). I consider a morph well-designed when it to a large extent fulfills all these criteria. One technique I've found is to identify where there's an empty niche, and then fill it. For example, there are no uplifted elephant morphs, so you can add uplifted elephants without fear of intruding on another morph's territory. There are no COG-adding neo-simians, so a Monkey-Menton (hampered with a higher point cost and the Uplift social stigma) can fill an empty niche. There exists a combat synthmorph, a combat biomorph, and a combat pod, so another general combat morph would probably not be a good idea. Furthermore, there are some general patterns I like to obey: [list] [*]+10 to any Aptitude except SOM is a biomorph thing, and in general so is aptitude bonuses. Synthmorphs should probably not have +10 or more to any Aptitudes unless they're heavily specialized for that and that alone, and also have downsides compared to the equivalent biomorph - see Menton/Savant [*]Nothing gets +15 to any Aptitude unless it costs at least 70 CP, has at least two downsides, and makes you pay an arm and a leg to have access to that bonus; see the Hyperbright. [*]Nothing gets +15 to any Aptitude [i]ever[/i]. [*]Nothing gets +10 to [i]two[/i] Aptitudes unless it costs at least 60 CP and comes with some significant downsides, like Uncanny Valley or "everyone thinks you're a murderous sociopath" (Reaper). [*] If there's an obvious relationship between a biomorph and a pod, or a biomorph and a synthmorph (Splicer -> Worker Pod, Splicer -> Synth), that relationship can also exist for uplifts; see Neo-Homonid/Hypergibbon and Octomorph/Takko. [*] Morphs should only have the bare minimum of gear and aptitudes to fulfill their designated role, sometimes even less (within reason); Furies don't get high COO bonuses, and Sylphs only have Striking Looks 1. [/list] The purpose of this design philosophy is to allow a wide variety of morphs to exist while also not invalidating each other, such that when players look for the right tool for the job, they have access to it without having to dredge through useless morphs.