Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Variants and Fan Cards => Topic started by: Gubump on December 31, 2015, 01:11:54 am
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I'm probably not going to change the name of Cronies, but I need a better name than the current "Leader." Anyway, here are the two cards!
Ringleader:
+$2
Choose any number of the other players. The chosen players discard their hands and draw 4 cards.
When you gain this, gain a Cronies from the Cronies pile.
Cost: $5
Action - Attack
Cronies:
+1 Card
+2 Actions
Each other player reveals his hand. (This is not in the Supply)
Cost:$0*
Action - Attack
So the Cronies help you make a more informed decision about whose hands to discard and whose to let them keep. Of course, to make them more useful, Cronies also act as Villages.
EDIT: GeeJo came up with a better name for what is now Ringleader.
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I don't think there is any reason for Cronies to be an attack.
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Ringleader? Mastermind? Maybe Capo if you're going with a Mafia theme.
This is to be balanced against Militia, really. It's got a bump in price and *generally* lower effect (though it evens up towards the end when Militia will leave Gold Gold Silver and this forces a complete redraw), but comes with a free village. Border Village and Port are reasonable evidence that "Free village" costs +1 as a rule of thumb.
So it seems fine as a starting point.
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This is pretty much the definition of the kind of 'political' attack that DXV deplores. Any reason you're departing from common wisdom?
Also, probably the Cronies, being villages, will enable the leader, rather than the reverse, which thematically is odd.
But as for a name, probably the best Leader for some cronies is a Boss.
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This is pretty much the definition of the kind of 'political' attack that DXV deplores. Any reason you're departing from common wisdom?
Also, probably the Cronies, being villages, will enable the leader, rather than the reverse, which thematically is odd.
But as for a name, probably the best Leader for some cronies is a Boss.
2) I guess I could switch their effects, if you think that makes more sense thematically.
1) I guess I could change it to "you may have each other player discard his hand. Each player who does draws 4 cards," to make it less political.
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This is pretty much the definition of the kind of 'political' attack that DXV deplores. Any reason you're departing from common wisdom?
It's not more political than Spy — you can choose to help some opponent and hurt some others, but why would you ever do that if you can just hurt all of them?
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This is pretty much the definition of the kind of 'political' attack that DXV deplores. Any reason you're departing from common wisdom?
The attack is not political as you can choose several players. You will only make them discard their hands if they either have 4/5 cards (and rarely when they have less) or when you have some info about their hand due to Cronies, Spy, Scrying Pool or whatever and the hand they do have is good.
Not that anything would be wrong if the attack were political (just because Donald X thinks so doesn't mean that a fan card does have to obey this narrow design principle). Games with political components do make it easier to hurt the leader which punishes skill but makes the game more attractive to inexperienced newcomers.
So whether a political component in a game is an asset or a liability partially depends on your gaming group (whether it is static or dynamic).
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This is pretty much the definition of the kind of 'political' attack that DXV deplores. Any reason you're departing from common wisdom?
The attack is not political as you can choose several players. You will only make them discard their hands if they either have 4/5 cards (and rarely when they have less) or when you have some info about their hand due to Cronies, Spy, Scrying Pool or whatever and the hand they do have is good.
Not that anything would be wrong if the attack were political (just because Donald X thinks so doesn't mean that a fan card does have to obey this narrow design principle). Games with political components do make it easier to hurt the leader which punishes skill but makes the game more attractive to inexperienced newcomers.
So whether a political component in a game is an asset or a liability partially depends on your gaming group (whether it is static or dynamic).
I know I'm being a devil's advocate here, but I usually try to follow the same design principles that Donald X does.
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This is pretty much the definition of the kind of 'political' attack that DXV deplores. Any reason you're departing from common wisdom?
It's not more political than Spy — you can choose to help some opponent and hurt some others, but why would you ever do that if you can just hurt all of them?
Agreed. Just because a card allows you to be political doesn't make it in the category of problematic. The cards that DXV avoids are ones that MUST be political. "Choose a player. That player gains a Curse" is a problem. "Choose any number of players. The chosen players gain a Curse" is not.
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Maybe I'm not understanding something, but what does 'Choose any number of players' even mean?'
Your standard attack is something along the lines of 'Each other player suffers X effect' (e.g. Witch) or 'Each other player who meets X condition suffers Y effect (e.g. Minion).
But if my opponents are Alice, Bob, and Carl, and I 'choose one,' does that mean I can choose Carl, even if he happens to be the leader or I have a non-Dominion-related grudge against him? Or can I choose Carl and Alice, because I personally hate them but personally like Bob?
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Just because a card allows you to be political doesn't make it in the category of problematic. The cards that DXV avoids are ones that MUST be political. "Choose a player. That player gains a Curse" is a problem. "Choose any number of players. The chosen players gain a Curse" is not.
While I agree with you in principle, this is perhaps the worst example you could have chosen. Unlike e.g. discarding the top card of your deck, gaining a Curse is bad 99.9% of the time. And also unlike discarding the top card of your deck, a cursing attack eventually stops working. So the only purpose of allowing you to choose which opponents gain Curses is to enable politics, even if it's just: there are three other players and only one Curse left in the pile, who gets it?
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Maybe I'm not understanding something, but what does 'Choose any number of players' even mean?'
Your standard attack is something along the lines of 'Each other player suffers X effect' (e.g. Witch) or 'Each other player who meets X condition suffers Y effect (e.g. Minion).
But if my opponents are Alice, Bob, and Carl, and I 'choose one,' does that mean I can choose Carl, even if he happens to be the leader or I have a non-Dominion-related grudge against him? Or can I choose Carl and Alice, because I personally hate them but personally like Bob?
Well, you can do all of those things, but my intention is that people would use it to attack people who they know have good hands and ignore those who they know have bad hands.
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That is political, then.
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That is political, then.
Just like Spy is political because people use it to attack people who have good cards on top of their decks and ignore those who have junk.
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You need to take care that Ringleaders don't make it possible to kill another player's turn. Assume a player has a fair bit of bad cards in his deck for whatever reason. If i repeatedly play Cronies and Ringleaders, i can basically swap his hand until he gets the worst possible one.
I myself ran into a similar problem with one of my own cards, and sadly didn't find a solution that was all decently strong, pin-free AND easy to understand. In my case i decided to have each player reveal their hand, optionally discard it, and then have everyone draw to 5 and discard to 4.
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You need to take care that Ringleaders don't make it possible to kill another player's turn. Assume a player has a fair bit of bad cards in his deck for whatever reason. If i repeatedly play Cronies and Ringleaders, i can basically swap his hand until he gets the worst possible one.
I myself ran into a similar problem with one of my own cards, and sadly didn't find a solution that was all decently strong, pin-free AND easy to understand. In my case i decided to have each player reveal their hand, optionally discard it, and then have everyone draw to 5 and discard to 4.
Can't you also give Ringleader the Minion treatment and allow for only players with 5 or more cards to be chosen? Or does this defy the intention of the card?
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Maybe I'm not understanding something, but what does 'Choose any number of players' even mean?'
Your standard attack is something along the lines of 'Each other player suffers X effect' (e.g. Witch) or 'Each other player who meets X condition suffers Y effect (e.g. Minion).
But if my opponents are Alice, Bob, and Carl, and I 'choose one,' does that mean I can choose Carl, even if he happens to be the leader or I have a non-Dominion-related grudge against him? Or can I choose Carl and Alice, because I personally hate them but personally like Bob?
If it helps, Spy could have just as easily have been worded:
"Each player reveals the top card of their deck. Choose any number of players. The chosen players discard the top card of their deck."
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Maybe I'm not understanding something, but what does 'Choose any number of players' even mean?'
Your standard attack is something along the lines of 'Each other player suffers X effect' (e.g. Witch) or 'Each other player who meets X condition suffers Y effect (e.g. Minion).
But if my opponents are Alice, Bob, and Carl, and I 'choose one,' does that mean I can choose Carl, even if he happens to be the leader or I have a non-Dominion-related grudge against him? Or can I choose Carl and Alice, because I personally hate them but personally like Bob?
If it helps, Spy could have just as easily have been worded:
"Each player reveals the top card of their deck. Choose any number of players. The chosen players discard the top card of their deck."
True, but the effect is less/lower.
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Maybe I'm not understanding something, but what does 'Choose any number of players' even mean?'
Your standard attack is something along the lines of 'Each other player suffers X effect' (e.g. Witch) or 'Each other player who meets X condition suffers Y effect (e.g. Minion).
But if my opponents are Alice, Bob, and Carl, and I 'choose one,' does that mean I can choose Carl, even if he happens to be the leader or I have a non-Dominion-related grudge against him? Or can I choose Carl and Alice, because I personally hate them but personally like Bob?
If it helps, Spy could have just as easily have been worded:
"Each player reveals the top card of their deck. Choose any number of players. The chosen players discard the top card of their deck."
True, but the effect is less/lower.
How? As far as I can tell, it does the exact same thing.
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Guys, Spy allows acting political, and so does Ringleader, but that doesn't make them political in the sense Dominion avoids being political. Obviously you can play political in any game. "Hey, why did you buy the last Village instead of the last Oracle, you know Catie is in the lead and she wants that Oracle, damned now she'll win because of you!"
The point is that neither card forces a political decision on you: You can, and will, still give each other player what you think harms him most. It's not like Ringleader said "pick one opponent". You always can pick any of them. Yes, your Jester can give out Golds, but you never have to decide between harming John or Francois, you have to decide between harming or not harming each. And: Dominion gives you no reason at all to not harm. You may get a choice, but that choice is to make sure you don't help unintendedly.
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Maybe I'm not understanding something, but what does 'Choose any number of players' even mean?'
Your standard attack is something along the lines of 'Each other player suffers X effect' (e.g. Witch) or 'Each other player who meets X condition suffers Y effect (e.g. Minion).
But if my opponents are Alice, Bob, and Carl, and I 'choose one,' does that mean I can choose Carl, even if he happens to be the leader or I have a non-Dominion-related grudge against him? Or can I choose Carl and Alice, because I personally hate them but personally like Bob?
If it helps, Spy could have just as easily have been worded:
"Each player reveals the top card of their deck. Choose any number of players. The chosen players discard the top card of their deck."
True, but the effect is less/lower.
Either you've misread something, or I've accidentally mistyped something. My effect does the exact same thing with a different wording.
*Edit* There is a very minor difference actually, which makes my wording slightly stronger. With my wording, all cards are revealed before you make any decisions about what to discard. With actual Spy, cards are revealed and then kept or discarded one at a time. Only in extreme edge cases will this make any difference.