Dominion Strategy Forum

Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: crj on December 18, 2017, 10:23:25 pm

Title: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 18, 2017, 10:23:25 pm
Nocturne has arrived in the UK. I got my copy last week, and took it along to play with friends this evening.

Often, I just pull out whichever cards seem cool, but not really knowing how the cogs would turn with Nocturne, I started with the first recommended kingdom in the rulebook.

The (four-player) game took two hours! )-8

The chief culprit was Fool. Once one player bought a Fool, another did; once two had done so, the other two did as well. And we were seeing those Fools pretty often!

Every time somebody plays Fool, they need to take Lost in the Woods, take three Boons, digest what they are, choose an order, receive them, keep track of which should be discarded at once v. which should be kept until Clean-up, and finally re-evaluate their strategy for the turn.

For added fun, sooner or later somebody takes the Earth's Gift and decides they would have preferred a different Boon. So in the middle of resolving Fool, they gain a Blessed Village. And try to work out whether to receive that Boon at once, or keep it until next turn. And then figure out how to represent in terms of table layout which Boons they've not yet received, which are being held until clean-up, and which are being held to receive at the start of next turn.

Meanwhile, with Fool in the kingdom, the Boons deck needs shuffling very frequently and every time that happens people need to stop and double-check the correct subset of the Boons has been discarded.

People also struggled, albeit to a lesser extent, with the inconsistency where some Night cards are gained to hand and others are not. And most of the players both in that game and a subsequent one where I picked the kingdom myself to go light on the Boons felt pretty strongly that Night was an unnecessary complication compared with Actions that had +1 Action and a deferred effect. Especially, they seemed to destroy the rhythm of the game because you can no longer begin playing as soon as the previous player has made their final purchase. A lot of turns had false starts, further adding to the confusion.

None of us found it our most enjoyable game of Dominion ever. Some of the players are soured to Nocturne entirely; most are at least vowing never to play another game with Fool.


This is somewhat startling and dispiriting. I assume that if playtesters had had this experience something would have been done about it, so why were things different for us. We're all experienced gamers, not especially slow, and everyone was already at least somewhat familiar with Dominion.

I'd be really interested to hear anyone else's experiences. /-8
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: William Howard Taft on December 19, 2017, 12:01:58 am
I had the same thing happen when I first bought the game. All the cards were new to us and everyone bought and played Fool constantly, making the game last forever.

Since we've gotten used to the cards we don't seem to buy Fool nearly as often, and when we do turns go much faster because we're used to all the Boons and can more quickly decide the best order to receive them.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: markusin on December 19, 2017, 12:10:23 am
The fact that the card's name is "Fool" makes it so wink-wink-nudge-nudge when it wrecks a game like that.

I honestly didn't think about the dynamic where Night cards make it so it is not so easy for the next player to spring off their turn from another player after the buy phase. Definitely when I play in person there is that rhythm where the next player is ready to begin their turn at around the buy phase of the preceding player.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: LastFootnote on December 19, 2017, 12:31:12 am
It’s my fault. I’m sorry.

Just to make sure, though, you are aware that if you already have Lost in the Woods and you play Fool, nothing happens. You only get the Boons if you took the State from somebody else. We’ve had long Fool games in testing, but 2 hours is nuts.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: GendoIkari on December 19, 2017, 12:48:18 am
Trying to figure out how Fool (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Fool) would play out in a game if only one player buys one. The card basically becomes a Curse in your hand, though you have something like a Prince (http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Prince)d weak card from then on. Maybe nice if you have trashing to easily get rid of the Fool; but otherwise it seems like it would just feel like self-junking.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 19, 2017, 02:00:51 am
Just to make sure, though, you are aware that if you already have Lost in the Woods and you play Fool, nothing happens.
Oh, indeed. But I think once the Fools started flying (after the second shuffle) a player only started their turn Lost In The Woods twice in the remainder of the game. With three other players, it was pretty likely one of them would have drawn their Fool each round.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on December 19, 2017, 02:18:10 am
Something like this seems to happen with my play group whenever we play a new expansion: "Ooh, new cards, I must try them all! ... Now what do they do, again?"
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ipofanes on December 19, 2017, 03:21:33 am
You haven't seen my then 11yo son and his three friends playing kingdoms with mandatory King's Courts and Possessions. They managed to play Possessions from their possessed opponent's hand, finally going full circle playing their own hand, still managing to keep track. Two-hour-games were not unheard of before Fool.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Aleimon Thimble on December 19, 2017, 03:27:50 am
A better option would be to just not play with 4 players. ;)

Everybody knows 4-player Dominion is kind of.. meh. Dominion is balanced for two players.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Accatitippi on December 19, 2017, 03:48:35 am
I haven't played nocturne irl, but I can see it being extra-heavy to get used to in a nocturne-heavy game.
It does add more new mechanics than any other expansion.
So maybe try to dilute it a bit?

Also, Fool is probably weaker than you think, so the game could have been faster with less fool-ish players ;)
It reminds me of the awfully long tribute wannabe-engine games that we imposed on ourselves back when intrigue was new.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Awaclus on December 19, 2017, 04:02:25 am
They managed to play Possessions from their possessed opponent's hand, finally going full circle playing their own hand

That's not how it works though. Possession only lets you control the actions of the player to your left until the end of that turn; if you make someone play a Possession while you're possessing them, that Possession turn takes place after the turn has ended, which means you don't get to control that player anymore. In other words, if you make your opponent play a Possession, you're just helping them out by giving them a free Possession turn.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Donald X. on December 19, 2017, 04:18:41 am
And most of the players both in that game and a subsequent one where I picked the kingdom myself to go light on the Boons felt pretty strongly that Night was an unnecessary complication compared with Actions that had +1 Action and a deferred effect.
I don't agree at all here; I think Night is clearly the simplest way to do those effects (not the ones that didn't have to be Night cards, like Cobbler, but you know, the other ones, like Monastery). Delaying effects is more complex and causes mistakes. And it's not like other players would remember you had that Monastery effect or whatever coming; they'd still be starting their turn.

I have seen people start their turn and have the previous player say, wait, there's more. I also see that with e.g. Smithy though. He's shuffling, his turn must be done. I never felt like there was a problem for the cards to solve here.

I'd be really interested to hear anyone else's experiences. /-8
As you can see in the secret history, I struggled to make sure that Fool did not slow games down too much, after having bad experiences with it. I blamed those games on the ability to Throne Room it, and as you can see that's no longer possible; you can't even play a Village and then two of them. However your experience suggests that the real problem is just, getting three Boons when you're new enough to the expansion that the Boons don't come automatically. The Boons themselves struggle to be simple and not slow things down even for new-to-the-set players. Three at once and ordering them is a bunch of that though.

So I mean, I think you simply experienced an actual problem; Fool is too slow when you're not used to the Boons. Everyone starts out not used to them, so it's too slow period. It's a bummer that it's in the first recommended set. We had the problem but it always seemed to be repeated plays in one turn that were the problem.

The Hexes are also too slow for new-to-the-set players. There, the effects aren't simple, so even with one, you have to stop and understand what it's saying. And a few even manage to say, "continued on next card." And of course being attacks means they slow things down further for that reason; they compound the problem. I am pretty happy with the Night cards and Heirlooms and Spirits and such. I think it was reasonable to do most of the Fate cards.

I'd like to think I've learned something. As Jack Handey says, "If you're a horse, and someone gets on you, and falls off, and then gets right back on you, I think you should buck him off right away."
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Donald X. on December 19, 2017, 04:19:51 am
A better option would be to just not play with 4 players. ;)

Everybody knows 4-player Dominion is kind of.. meh. Dominion is balanced for two players.
I have endlessly played with 4. Dominion tries to be balanced for 2-4.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Aleimon Thimble on December 19, 2017, 05:11:52 am
A better option would be to just not play with 4 players. ;)

Everybody knows 4-player Dominion is kind of.. meh. Dominion is balanced for two players.
I have endlessly played with 4. Dominion tries to be balanced for 2-4.

I acknowledge the fact that it tries to be balanced for 2-4. It just doesn't always succeed. Why do you reckon the 2-player option is the standard for competitive play?

It's cute that it's possible to play with 3 or 4 players, especially for casual players. But it just doesn't work nearly as well.

By the way, this is not meant as a criticism towards Dominion in general, because I still think it's the second best 2-player board/card game in the world (after chess).
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Awaclus on December 19, 2017, 05:14:46 am
A better option would be to just not play with 4 players. ;)

Everybody knows 4-player Dominion is kind of.. meh. Dominion is balanced for two players.
I have endlessly played with 4. Dominion tries to be balanced for 2-4.

I acknowledge the fact that it tries to be balanced for 2-4. It just doesn't always succeed. Why do you reckon the 2-player option is the standard for competitive play?

It's cute that it's possible to play with 3 or 4 players, especially for casual players. But it just doesn't work nearly as well.

By the way, this is not meant as a criticism towards Dominion in general, because I still think it's the second best 2-player board/card game in the world (after chess).

It's better than chess.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Aleimon Thimble on December 19, 2017, 05:16:14 am
It's better than chess.

To be fair, it's difficult to compare. But chess is pretty amazing.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Donald X. on December 19, 2017, 05:23:35 am
I acknowledge the fact that it tries to be balanced for 2-4. It just doesn't always succeed. Why do you reckon the 2-player option is the standard for competitive play?

It's cute that it's possible to play with 3 or 4 players, especially for casual players. But it just doesn't work nearly as well.

By the way, this is not meant as a criticism towards Dominion in general, because I still think it's the second best 2-player board/card game in the world (after chess).
People like to compete online with 2 players because it's faster and there's less luck.

I have endlessly played Dominion with 3-5, thousands of games. You aren't going to convince me that it doesn't work.

Chess is a great example of what not to do in a board game.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Awaclus on December 19, 2017, 05:26:24 am
I acknowledge the fact that it tries to be balanced for 2-4. It just doesn't always succeed. Why do you reckon the 2-player option is the standard for competitive play?

It's cute that it's possible to play with 3 or 4 players, especially for casual players. But it just doesn't work nearly as well.

By the way, this is not meant as a criticism towards Dominion in general, because I still think it's the second best 2-player board/card game in the world (after chess).
People like to compete online with 2 players because it's faster and there's less luck.

More importantly, there are fewer incompetent third players ending the game while your other opponent is ahead.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: faust on December 19, 2017, 05:33:33 am
It's better than chess.

To be fair, it's difficult to compare. But chess is pretty amazing.
I dunno, chess is not very great. It's simplistic and that can be good, but the rules are hard to memorize (there is not real thematic reason why the different pieces have their particular movesets), there are weird edge-case moves like castling that new players will inevitably forget about, it will frequently end in draws that can theoretically go on indefinitely (which will happen for new players that don't know when it is over).

There's something to be said about games with a lot of strategic complexity and little luck, but Go does most things better and is also more interesting gameplay-wise. (Even though Go still has an edge-case move that I would try to avoid.)
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Gazbag on December 19, 2017, 06:29:41 am
This reminds me a bit of the first game people play with Seaside; Pirate Ship  ruins the game and everyone forgets to keep out their durations. Now Pirate Ship is rarely bought and nobody has a problem with durations. I suspect a similar thing is going to happen with Fool and Night cards in your case.

 I really don't understand the problem with Night cards though. In games with multiple buys I assume you're okay with people buying more than one thing and waiting until they're done. E.g. I don't see how someone buying a card and then buying Scouting Party is fine, but someone buying a card and then playing a Night Watchman "destroys the rhythm of the game".
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: greybirdofprey on December 19, 2017, 06:47:49 am
I acknowledge the fact that it tries to be balanced for 2-4. It just doesn't always succeed. Why do you reckon the 2-player option is the standard for competitive play?

It's cute that it's possible to play with 3 or 4 players, especially for casual players. But it just doesn't work nearly as well.

By the way, this is not meant as a criticism towards Dominion in general, because I still think it's the second best 2-player board/card game in the world (after chess).
People like to compete online with 2 players because it's faster and there's less luck.

I have endlessly played Dominion with 3-5, thousands of games. You aren't going to convince me that it doesn't work.

Chess is a great example of what not to do in a board game.

I almost always play with 3 players (sometimes 4, rarely 2), and I can confirm that it works really well. I can understand that competitive is 2 players though, fewer decks means fewer stuff to track, fewer random factors, faster games and all piles are divisable by 2.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ipofanes on December 19, 2017, 07:51:18 am
(Even though Go still has an edge-case move that I would try to avoid.)

By Japanese rules. Triple kos should be incredibly easy to sort out rulewise, and one should be permitted to suicide a group as a ko threat.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: GendoIkari on December 19, 2017, 09:08:17 am
I acknowledge the fact that it tries to be balanced for 2-4. It just doesn't always succeed. Why do you reckon the 2-player option is the standard for competitive play?

It's cute that it's possible to play with 3 or 4 players, especially for casual players. But it just doesn't work nearly as well.

By the way, this is not meant as a criticism towards Dominion in general, because I still think it's the second best 2-player board/card game in the world (after chess).
People like to compete online with 2 players because it's faster and there's less luck.

More importantly, there are fewer incompetent third players ending the game while your other opponent is ahead.

While I enjoy 3 player Dominion, this is certainly a pretty big problem for me, and a clear factor in why there's more luck compared to 2 player. But it's not just a problem with the type of people you play with; it's built into the rules of the game.

In 3 player Dominion, if one player is generally weaker, or just less lucky, then it's quite often that someone can be in a position where they can no longer win. Delaying the end of the game by buying a Duchy instead of a Province just won't help them. And so, they default to what makes sense to them, get as many points as possible, even though that's not technically the object of the game. Plenty of points-based games have a thing where one player might not have a chance to win even before the game is over. But in most games, that player trying to maximize his score doesn't also prematurely end the game.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ObtusePunubiris on December 19, 2017, 09:36:09 am
So I mean, I think you simply experienced an actual problem; Fool is too slow when you're not used to the Boons.
My experience supports this "new-to-the-set" idea.  My first game (2P) included Fool and resolving the Boons did take a little while.  Since then, every game I've played has included Boons and a couple, Fool, so we've had time to get familiar with those cards.  It makes a huge difference.  We zip right through the Boons now.  I mean, Fool is always going to be slow (except when it isn't), but not painfully so once the Boons are familiar (please note the lower case "f").
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ObtusePunubiris on December 19, 2017, 09:48:39 am
A better option would be to just not play with 4 players. ;)

Everybody knows 4-player Dominion is kind of.. meh. Dominion is balanced for two players.

Everybody knows that some people think that, but not everybody thinks that.

Certainly, how Dominion plays varies a lot depending on player count, and you have to approach games differently with different counts.  But those games are still enjoyable, so that's a feature, not a bug.  Now, I have played Dominion with 5-6 players, and those games, I haven't really enjoyed.  Everything below that though, I'm on board.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Chappy7 on December 19, 2017, 11:12:21 am
Every time I play irl it is 3 or 4 player.  Dominion is fun, so people want to play.  I usually add 1 or 2 extra kingdom piles with more people though.  And I sometimes change the end game condition to 4 piles or provinces and at least one other pile.  (This also happily makes IGG more fun)
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 19, 2017, 12:44:56 pm
While we're digressing onto the subject of games that aren't Dominion for a number of players other than what we had sitting round the table last night, I'll put in a good word for Hive. It's the first game in centuries which I feel is a worthy competitor to Chess as a pure strategy two-player game.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Commodore Chuckles on December 19, 2017, 12:51:44 pm
The main way the Night phase can irritate me is if I know they're going to play a Werewolf or Vampire but have to wait until the end of their turn to see what unpleasant thing I get hit with. The name Torturer was possibly taken prematurely.

When it comes to wrecking the flow, though, I think Villa is much worse. "Yes, their turn is finally over- oh wait, they're buying Villa, never mind."
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 19, 2017, 01:30:17 pm
I don't agree at all here; I think Night is clearly the simplest way to do those effects (not the ones that didn't have to be Night cards, like Cobbler, but you know, the other ones, like Monastery). Delaying effects is more complex and causes mistakes.
I saw this discussed during the previews, and I saw your reasoning and it seemed good at the time.

But when we got it to the table, we all found Night far more fiddly to deal with than, say, Scheme. And it didn't just feel like the problem of getting to grips with a new mechanic: Reserve cards were a walk in the park by comparison.

Quote
And it's not like other players would remember you had that Monastery effect or whatever coming

Well, we seem to remember when someone has a Scheme to resolve, or needs to decide whether or not to upgrade Travellers. And the cards are on the table as an aide memoire.

I feel the problem may be self-perpetuating. The slower things are going, the more impatient everyone is to start their turn. The more often people start their turns prematurely and have to stall or undo, the longer everything takes and the more frustrated and impatient people get.

For Monastery specifically, it really feels like a "+1 Action. This turn, you may trash one card when you discard it." Action would have been a simpler starting point than the variant which relied on the Night mechanic.

Quote
It's a bummer that it's in the first recommended set.

Mmm. I think that may be a bigger problem than the Fool card's existence.

I'm also wondering if the density of Night cards in that first recommended set might be too high. We all felt a kingdom might be more comfortable and run more smoothly with just one or two Night piles. With hindsight, we should probably have brought out one of the previous sets as well as Nocturne and base cards.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 19, 2017, 01:33:30 pm
A better option would be to just not play with 4 players. ;)

Everybody knows 4-player Dominion is kind of.. meh. Dominion is balanced for two players.

Everybody knows that some people think that, but not everybody thinks that.
Agreed.

My preferred player count is 3. It feels quicker than four players, but more fun and interesting than 2.

The two-player game is clearly the tournament-grade variant, with less luck, no scope for kingmaking and no argument about how important it is to come second rather than third. But that's not necessarily the point of playing Dominion.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: trivialknot on December 19, 2017, 01:55:56 pm
But when we got it to the table, we all found Night far more fiddly to deal with than, say, Scheme. And it didn't just feel like the problem of getting to grips with a new mechanic: Reserve cards were a walk in the park by comparison.
I have the hardest time with Scheme and Treasury.  I'm like halfway through a turn and I'm like, wait shouldn't I have topdecked something last turn?  Oh well.

Honestly I think that Adventures was the worst for tracking.  I'm always forgetting to exchange Travellers.  And then there are beginning of turn abilities like Hireling and Guide.  The bonus tokens give you stuff that's not even written on the cards.  I'm constantly sad about drawing a bunch of estates before I remember I have Inheritance.

The biggest offender in Nocturne I think is Lost in the Woods.  I'm always forgetting to use it.

My impression of Fool is that Lost in the Woods > Fool.  So if all the other players load up on Fools, maybe you should get one of those other nice terminals like Navigator or Scavenger.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: weesh on December 19, 2017, 02:21:36 pm
if you have any interest in chess at all, and can wrangle four players, two boards and two clocks, bughouse chess is AMAZING
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess)

In short, your teammate sits next to you, with the opposite color as yourself.  during your turn, you choose to make a normal chess move, or to place a piece your partner has captured from his opponent onto any unoccupied space on your board.

First player to achieve a checkmate wins for their whole team.

For both dominion and chess, the difference between 2 players and 4 players is that the former is more strategic and calculated and the later adds chaos and uncertainty in just the right quantity to change the game into something very different.

I get the same joy from mistakenly discovering that I have four bishops, but all of them on the white squares, as playing a jester in a four player game.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: weesh on December 19, 2017, 02:39:46 pm
Quote
To be fair, it's also more interesting gameplay-wise. (Even though Go still has an edge-case move that I would try to avoid.)

Which edge case are you referring to?  the entire set of relevant go rules fits on half a page, and all the edge cases fit on the other half of the page.
ko isn't an edge-case, it's a core part of the game
triple ko is not something you have to try to avoid, because it is obscenely rare. 
I've only managed it once, and it saved me from a loss, and it took a lot of work to setup, so it felt triumphant.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Donald X. on December 19, 2017, 04:50:25 pm
But when we got it to the table, we all found Night far more fiddly to deal with than, say, Scheme. And it didn't just feel like the problem of getting to grips with a new mechanic: Reserve cards were a walk in the park by comparison.
Well I just don't see it. I don't think "fiddly" is the word you're looking for, either. Exchanging your Vampire for a Bat, or digging out Envious to see what Envy does, is fiddly. Night cards are no more fiddly than Action or Treasure cards.

- In your Action phase, you may play one Action card.
- In your Buy phase, before buying cards, you may play any number of Treasure cards.
- In your Night phase, you may play any number of Night cards.

Well, we seem to remember when someone has a Scheme to resolve, or needs to decide whether or not to upgrade Travellers. And the cards are on the table as an aide memoire.
The giant arrow is not enough to get players to always remember Travellers. Scheme, man, the way to do Scheme is as a Night card; much simpler. And I did one and it's Crypt.

For Monastery specifically, it really feels like a "+1 Action. This turn, you may trash one card when you discard it." Action would have been a simpler starting point than the variant which relied on the Night mechanic.
I continue to think it's much simpler to have the card resolve right when you play it, like most cards.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ObtusePunubiris on December 19, 2017, 06:03:19 pm
Forgetting to do stuff at discard is the mistake I make more often that any other, by a long shot, so I welcome anything that will help me not do that.  The Night phase fits the bill.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: GendoIkari on December 19, 2017, 06:43:53 pm
In my one Nocturne game, I found that Night phase is super friendly for newer players. I was playing with 1 person who hadn't played Dominion in quite a long time, and another who plays very casually. Neither of them ever had any trouble remembering Night Phase; quite often after someone bought a card the next player would ask "any Night stuff or are you done?"

This makes sense, as newer players won't be as trained to think of the buy phase as the end of the turn. So it's probably actually harder for more seasoned Dominion players.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Neirai the Forgiven on December 19, 2017, 06:54:38 pm
But when we got it to the table, we all found Night far more fiddly to deal with than, say, Scheme. And it didn't just feel like the problem of getting to grips with a new mechanic: Reserve cards were a walk in the park by comparison.

Correct me if I'm wrong (because I'm pretending I know what you are talking about) but my experience was that what I found 'fiddly' with Night cards was how I kept doing my Clean-up before my Night phase. Like, I'd discard all my cards from play, then play might Night cards, then be like, sorry, I need those cards to reference with my Night cards, I need to get them back out.
I'd do this regardless of whether the Night cards were Duration cards or not.

In practice, though, this isn't something bad with Night cards. This is a nigh-Pavlovian response to buying cards. I play Actions, then drop my hand of Treasures, then dump everything into the discard pile, often with the whole maneuver taking < 2 seconds. Then I have Night cards and have to rethink things.

Plus, I did this thing that a lot of people on Reddit did, where they/I assumed that Night cards that look like Actions play like Actions and the strategies of playing them are precisely the same. Then you play Night Watchman as a-dumb-clone-of-Cartographer-that-I-play-last and suddenly your brain comes to a screeching halt because you don't play Night Watchman the same as Cartographer, it means differently.

Anyhow, forgive me if I'm totally on the wrong path, but I think that the fiddly side of Night cards all comes from it defying deeply-ingrained time-saving moves. I think the solution will be to learn new time-saving moves? I currently am pushing to always have a person who reads the Boons aloud, rather than handing the cards around the table (unless they say "keep until Clean-up" -- same with Hexes.)
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 19, 2017, 07:14:07 pm
I think that the fiddly side of Night cards all comes from it defying deeply-ingrained time-saving moves.
Nicely put.

Though there's also another aspect that I'll try articulating more clearly.

In pre-Nocturne Dominion, the standard template for a turn was:
• Play Action cards until you run out of either cards you want to play or actions to play them with
• Play a whole bunch of Treasures
• Buy N cards, where N is often 1
• Clean up

The Action phase and the Treasure-playing part of the Buy phase were quite open-ended; you never knew how much people were going to do. But then they moved onto the second half of the Buy phase, and it was very clear to everybody how much money they had to spend and how many cards they could buy. Once they've done that, the next person can start playing while they clean up.

The Night phase comes after making purchases, and is open-ended. So now the current player has to remember to say explicitly when they've finished, and the next player has to remember to wait.

Quote
I kept doing my Clean-up before my Night phase. Like, I'd discard all my cards from play, then play might Night cards, then be like, sorry, I need those cards to reference with my Night cards, I need to get them back out.

That did happen to us, too. Not often, but when it did the next player really regretted starting their turn as soon as the previous began cleaning up.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 19, 2017, 07:21:51 pm
Forgetting to do stuff at discard is the mistake I make more often that any other, by a long shot, so I welcome anything that will help me not do that.  The Night phase fits the bill.
I'm used to paying attention to what I'm discarding from play during clean-up. There have been cards that behave specially during clean-up ever since Seaside. (Sure, you can put Durations somewhere special, but you can put Scheme/Herbalist/Treasury/Travellers somewhere special, too.)

Conversely, I just throw my hand straight in the discard pile. Or did, anyway.

As I say, there being all four combinations of Duration/non-Duration and Gain-to-hand/Gain-to-discard amongst the Night cards then adds to the confusion somewhat.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 19, 2017, 07:24:33 pm
Night cards are no more fiddly than Action or Treasure cards.

- In your Action phase, you may play one Action card.
- In your Buy phase, before buying cards, you may play any number of Treasure cards.
- In your Night phase, you may play any number of Night cards.
Now, you see, to me that's almost exactly 50% more fiddly than:

- In your Action phase, you may play one Action card.
- In your Buy phase, before buying cards, you may play any number of Treasure cards.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Donald X. on December 19, 2017, 08:03:43 pm
Night cards are no more fiddly than Action or Treasure cards.

- In your Action phase, you may play one Action card.
- In your Buy phase, before buying cards, you may play any number of Treasure cards.
- In your Night phase, you may play any number of Night cards.
Now, you see, to me that's almost exactly 50% more fiddly than:

- In your Action phase, you may play one Action card.
- In your Buy phase, before buying cards, you may play any number of Treasure cards.

It looks like your problem is that the expansion has anything new in it. They all have that problem. We can make those lists for whatever. It was so simple when Victory cards were always dead until the end of the game; Intrigue added Action - Victory and Treasure - Victory, three times as "fiddly using crj's definition of fiddly."
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: dz on December 19, 2017, 08:22:50 pm
Surely the black-bordered white-text cards sitting in your hand and in the Supply would be noticeable enough to remind you there's the Night phase, especially when they're contrasting with the white-bordered black-text cards.

And wait, was this thread supposed to be about Fool or Night?
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 19, 2017, 08:31:29 pm
It started out mainly about Fool, but it turned out that wasn't controversial.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 19, 2017, 09:07:59 pm
It looks like your problem is that the expansion has anything new in it. They all have that problem.
I arrived quite late to the Dominion party, but I've seen my playing group come to grips with Dark Ages, Guilds, Adventures and Empires when each of them was new. Nothing in any of those caused the trouble that Nocturne has.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Donald X. on December 19, 2017, 10:49:23 pm
It looks like your problem is that the expansion has anything new in it. They all have that problem.
I arrived quite late to the Dominion party, but I've seen my playing group come to grips with Dark Ages, Guilds, Adventures and Empires when each of them was new. Nothing in any of those caused the trouble that Nocturne has.
You have changed the topic there, from Night to Nocturne. I notice these things!

Night, I would have been happy doing in an early expansion. Seaside added the Duration phase, but because it says "at the start of your turn" (a time when previously nothing happened), instead of naming a phase, it didn't bother anyone. Somehow that's how perception works here.

After Night and aside from Boons/Hexes, what Nocturne has to offer is very similar to what Dark Ages does. Instead of Shelters it has Heirlooms, instead of Spoils and Ruins it has Spirits and Wishes, instead of Madman and Mercenary there are Bats. And your playing group did fine with Dark Ages.

So. When you say Nocturne there, you put down the whole set, but really you mean Night and Boons/Hexes. Well I'm with you on Hexes, and already knew we disagreed about Night. They do take up a lot of the set. I feel like it pays to be more specific here, not blame e.g. Shepherd because you don't like e.g. Monastery, but then I'm the one on the receiving end of the criticism here.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Donald X. on December 19, 2017, 11:16:45 pm
I should clarify that of course I'm not saying crj or anyone should like Night if they don't. Man you like what you like. And if lots of people have problems with a mechanic, or don't like it, well I blew it there, however well it worked for playtesters. I got into this conversation to agree about Fool and say, no, Night cards should not be "+1 Action do something later this turn." If people were destined to hate a new phase, then the move was to just not do those cards, not to try to do them without the phase.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ObtusePunubiris on December 20, 2017, 12:10:04 am
Forgetting to do stuff at discard is the mistake I make more often that any other, by a long shot, so I welcome anything that will help me not do that.  The Night phase fits the bill.
I'm used to paying attention to what I'm discarding from play during clean-up. There have been cards that behave specially during clean-up ever since Seaside.
I've been playing long enough that I should be in the habit of paying attention to what I discard too.  Maybe I'll make working on that my new year's resolution.  Still, I like the fact that we got the Night phase to give us some of that same functionality without exacerbating my shortcomings.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 20, 2017, 01:04:56 am
if you have any interest in chess at all, and can wrangle four players, two boards and two clocks, bughouse chess is AMAZING
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess)
My favourite Chess variant for 4-6 players is a somewhat tweaked variant of Penultima (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penultima). Hilarious fun, though admittedly more divergent from normal Chess than most variants. (-8<
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 20, 2017, 01:35:41 am
Nothing in any of those caused the trouble that Nocturne has.
You have changed the topic there, from Night to Nocturne. I notice these things!
Sorry. To be clear, the main thing I came here to post about was Fool and its inclusion in the first recommended kingdom, secondarily about Night. But the latter part is the one that's turned out to be contentious. When I say "the trouble Nocturne has [caused]", I mean mainly Fool, but also Night a bit.

Quote
Night, I would have been happy doing in an early expansion. Seaside added the Duration phase, but because it says "at the start of your turn" (a time when previously nothing happened), instead of naming a phase, it didn't bother anyone. Somehow that's how perception works here.

But you play Durations at the same time as other Actions (or whatever) in the same way. It feels to me as though a Duration-like Night card would be "+1 Action. At the start of your clean-up phase..." whereas a Night-like Duration card would be "If it is your action phase, set this aside. Play it at the start of your next turn."

It seems to me that the real issue is the size and timing of the cognitive load; perception is an important contributor to cognitive load.

Quote
So. When you say Nocturne there, you put down the whole set

Hmm. Two points:
• My talking about the trouble that Nocturne caused my playing group doesn't mean I think that all of Nocturne is troublesome.
• I liked the look of Nocturne and bought it. That first game was just painful, but the second one was fun despite my reservations. Trouble is, the other players were considerably more negative about it; I'm worried I may run out of people to play Nocturne with, here. )-8

To recap the end of the original posting: I'd be really interested to hear anyone else's experiences. It looks like there's a consensus to leave out Fool at least until everyone at the table understands Boons much better. But I'm still hoping someone will come up with an idea for how to construct more likeable kingdoms, or some other way to have them like Nocturne more so they'll keep playing it with me.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ipofanes on December 20, 2017, 05:29:51 am
if you have any interest in chess at all, and can wrangle four players, two boards and two clocks, bughouse chess is AMAZING
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bughouse_chess)

interesting. Some friends of me autoselect Black Market in every kingdom, and I have recently likened it to Bughouse Chess.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Donald X. on December 20, 2017, 08:13:20 am
But you play Durations at the same time as other Actions (or whatever) in the same way.
Yes, Duration cards and Night cards are different in all of the ways they are different. I do not think they are the same in ways that they are different. The point to Duration cards (originally) was to do something now and later, so they are phrased to do that. The point to Night cards was to happen at a particular time, so you play them at that time. Both types of cards are implemented in the simplest possible way.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: faust on December 20, 2017, 09:01:03 am
Quote
To be fair, it's also more interesting gameplay-wise. (Even though Go still has an edge-case move that I would try to avoid.)

Which edge case are you referring to?  the entire set of relevant go rules fits on half a page, and all the edge cases fit on the other half of the page.
ko isn't an edge-case, it's a core part of the game
triple ko is not something you have to try to avoid, because it is obscenely rare. 
I've only managed it once, and it saved me from a loss, and it took a lot of work to setup, so it felt triumphant.
But ko is an edge case. In that the game designer did not think "oh, this would be a cool mechanic" but rather, "crap, this has an infinite loop. Now what can I do to break it?". Go rules are "you may place your stone anywhere where there is no other stone already, except for this very strange particular case" - at least that's what it looks like to beginners. Having such exceptions is never a good thing.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Accatitippi on December 20, 2017, 09:58:12 am
I like Fool.
I like the implications of letting your opponent get the only one. I like the hot-potato Lost in the Woods and wish there were a couple more positive states in Nocturne. The three boons are nice, and unlike the other Fates you're pretty much guaranteed to get something nice.
I think that, paradoxically, the fact that it's coupled with Lucky Coin is what makes it so slow. In games in which you don't need to buy Silver, you are more likely to get Fool, even if you don't really need it. So a lot of the time you end up getting Fool because without Silver, it's the best thing to get at 3.
It's a slowish card, and everybody got it without really needing it, so everybody at the table is soured towards it. A bit like Scrying Pool, but worse if you don't know the Boons, and better if you do. And you generally want SP, while you get Fool for lack of better purchase options.

Or to make another example, Great Hall with Lucky Coin as Heirloom would be bought much more often.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: enfynet on December 20, 2017, 10:15:40 am
Is Fool any more random, fiddly, or slow than Black Market?
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 20, 2017, 11:19:27 am
Is Fool any more random, fiddly, or slow than Black Market?
Personally, I've never tried Black Market. A couple of friends do have it, and I mean to some day.

My hunch is that a play of Black Market will likely be as slow as a play of Fool, but it might advance the game more.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: markusin on December 20, 2017, 11:32:54 am
Or to make another example, Great Hall with Lucky Coin as Heirloom would be bought much more often.
You might be right, though it would have been cool if Great Hall just gave you a Silver if you bought it, or perhaps if it came with a $2 cost card when you bought it.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Jack Rudd on December 20, 2017, 01:13:04 pm
I've played competitive bughouse chess, as part of a chess festival in Qatar this year. My partner and I won the tournament. :D

My take on bughouse is that it's fun to have as a side-event at a chess tournament; it probably wouldn't be so good as the main event.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: allanfieldhouse on December 20, 2017, 01:29:30 pm
I played my first 3-player Fool game the other day. I was all set to ignore the card like usual, but then I saw how awesome it was for the other two players to get 3 Boons every couple turns. Seems like once the other 2 players get one, you almost have to get it yourself.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: markusin on December 20, 2017, 01:53:33 pm
I played my first 3-player Fool game the other day. I was all set to ignore the card like usual, but then I saw how awesome it was for the other two players to get 3 Boons every couple turns. Seems like once the other 2 players get one, you almost have to get it yourself.

Yeah, it's a total groupthink card. It's often foolish to get Fool, but it works out if another player gets it, and then it becomes foolish to not get Fool.

It's like the entire card is designed to be an elaborate prank or inside joke.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Donald X. on December 20, 2017, 04:48:06 pm
It's like the entire card is designed to be an elaborate prank or inside joke.
It was just, "receive 3 Boons," and then tweaked until I mistakenly thought it was no longer a problem. The name is referring to the classic fairy tale character, the youngest son who sets out to seek his fortune and things work out for him without him doing anything clever.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: JThorne on December 20, 2017, 05:02:00 pm
Additional note: Online, the message "[player name] plays a Fool" never gets old.

I almost always skip it. I love that Fool comes with a "lucky coin" that junks your deck with super-coppers. I love playing against opponents who play the coin every time they draw it and never trash it. (Also, props to Changeling. Again. For making Lucky Coin good.)

And while some Night cards aren't worth the extra mechanic (it probably wouldn't be worth creating the "Night" phase just for gain-to-hand durations) I really like the concept of cards that only work as night cards because they care about what you did on your turn, such as Monastery, Devil's Workshop, Changeling and Crypt. The others, well, would work just about as well as actions, making their "Night" designation often a drawback for the many, many cards that care about "Action" cards.

IRL players who plunk money down, grab their buys and clean up all in one fast scoop and complain that Night is slowing that down could probably benefit from slowing down their play anyway. Between durations, reserves, clean-up triggers, and just, plain looking at the cards in the play area for a second before scooping and making a mental picture of what's left in the deck, there's something to be said for playing deliberately. I rather like a night card at the end of a good turn. It's like a satisfying terminal punctuation mark at the end of a well-constructed sentence
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ObtusePunubiris on December 20, 2017, 11:21:13 pm
.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ipofanes on December 21, 2017, 04:23:35 am
.

It is said that JS Bach's sons, while he was taking a post-lunch nap, would improvise a tune on the clavichord and ended it on the major 7th dominant chord. Bach would roll around in his bed for minutes until he would jump up, rush to the instrument and complete the cadence.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 21, 2017, 01:27:25 pm
I rather like a night card at the end of a good turn. It's like a satisfying terminal punctuation mark at the end of a well-constructed sentence
However, by that analogy it could be argued that buying is the full stop to the turn, and Night cards are that annoying sequence of "PS" "PPS" ... from somebody who doesn't know how to structure a letter properly.

After what's gone before in this thread, I feel I need to make explicit that I'm not quite that down on Night cards. And I had a good game yesterday in which we used Werewolf, Raider and Ghost (Cemetery/Haunted Mirror); sparing use of powerful Night cards seems to be a lot more fun than piles of the cheap stuff.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: JThorne on December 21, 2017, 04:53:10 pm
Quote
sparing use of powerful Night cards

And this is perhaps my favorite thing about Night cards, and about Nocturne in general (for example, the proliferation of Gold-gainers.)

They're non-spammable. You don't want too many, but used sparingly are very effective. Anything that increases the subtle complexity of deckbuilding decisions is a big plus in my book. Too many games are decided by who wins the X split. Nocturne makes that less of a problem. Overall, an excellent addition to full random.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Asper on December 23, 2017, 06:21:19 pm
It's not a real solution, but you could reduce the percentage of players who run into the "Fool while unfamiliar with Boons" problem by replacing Fool with another Fate card in those recommended sets for future prints. Druid seems like a nice one to start, then have another regular Fate card for second, and introduce Fool as late as possible. It'll offer some kind of "learning curve" to players who look into the recommended sets for guidance.

Edit: I guess I formulated this in a way that makes it sound like this was some great new idea, but obviously it's just chiming in to agree, yeah, that could already help.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Donald X. on December 23, 2017, 07:07:28 pm
It's not a real solution, but you could reduce the percentage of players who run into the "Fool while unfamiliar with Boons" problem by replacing Fool with another Fate card in those recommended sets for future prints.
I think it's the move, at least for the first recommended set, but that change would be ~2 years away; a lot of copies are printed at once.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: popsofctown on December 24, 2017, 03:36:51 am
Nights are far closer to Treasures or Treasure Durations so I don't know why Actions with +1 action is being thrown out as the default thing. Treasures share nights' inability to cooperate with draw to X engines and to be eligible to be drawn dead.  If you made nights treasures, though, you'd still create an unnecessary gap between when the card is played and when you process its effect (a gap that is necessary for action durations with two effects).  And it would make the nights interact with Brigand, PShip, bandit, mint, mine, tragic hero, page, Black market, storyteller, and bank in ways you are likely not to want as a designer.
The actions implementation would mix the combinations with dead draw.  But it's really cool to be allowed to buy stuff your dead draw deck that's not almost vanilla.  Which can let you transition into engine easier.  And now that engines are increasingly the way to play dominion I want a variety of interesting different routes that get there.  I'll take the additional 8 minutes of learning the rules. 


Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Asper on December 24, 2017, 05:47:21 am
There are some Night cards, like Werewolf, Vampire and Exorcist, that could be Treasures like Horn of Plenty. But many can't. Ghost Town and similar cards for example would just become really confusing.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: popsofctown on December 24, 2017, 12:54:35 pm
It is definitely more confusing than adding a phase, I'm team night phase, but I don't think it's awful.  "Treasure duration: when you play this, at the start of your next turn, +1 card + 1 action.  When you gain this, play it.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: J Reggie on December 24, 2017, 01:07:15 pm
I think we're all forgetting the most important thing, which is that new types are really cool!
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Chappy7 on December 26, 2017, 11:46:47 am
There are some Night cards, like Werewolf, Vampire and Exorcist, that could be Treasures like Horn of Plenty. But many can't. Ghost Town and similar cards for example would just become really confusing.

True, but then you'd need a lot of different names of cards and the theme would be really difficult.  I mean, you can't have things like werewolf and vampire as treasures.  That makes no sense.  I love the night phase and I love how thematic it is.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Asper on December 26, 2017, 03:14:01 pm
There are some Night cards, like Werewolf, Vampire and Exorcist, that could be Treasures like Horn of Plenty. But many can't. Ghost Town and similar cards for example would just become really confusing.

True, but then you'd need a lot of different names of cards and the theme would be really difficult.  I mean, you can't have things like werewolf and vampire as treasures.  That makes no sense.  I love the night phase and I love how thematic it is.

Obviously nobody would make a Treasure called "Werewolf", but that doesn't mean that there isn't a good name for a card that does what Werewolf does while being a Treasure. It's also not like the name "Werewolf" wouldn't work with any other card, either. But there are cards in Nocturne that don't work (nearly as well) as Treasures, so you have to introduce a new mechanic anyway if you want those. Why not use the new mechanic for some more cards, even if they don't abolutely have to use it? It's already there. Better than having an expansion with 2 mechanics that achieve basically the same thing.

If Night cards didn't exist already and you were to make an expansion with only a single card that would work as a Night card, but also as a Treasure, it's the other way around, simply because the new stuff you want to do isn't worth the overhead of introducing a new type. You'd just make that card a Treasure worth 0$ and call it "Horn of Plenty".
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Chappy7 on December 26, 2017, 03:25:24 pm
There are some Night cards, like Werewolf, Vampire and Exorcist, that could be Treasures like Horn of Plenty. But many can't. Ghost Town and similar cards for example would just become really confusing.

True, but then you'd need a lot of different names of cards and the theme would be really difficult.  I mean, you can't have things like werewolf and vampire as treasures.  That makes no sense.  I love the night phase and I love how thematic it is.

Obviously nobody would make a Treasure called "Werewolf", but that doesn't mean that there isn't a good name for a card that does what Werewolf does while being a Treasure. It's also not like the name "Werewolf" wouldn't work with any other card, either. But there are cards in Nocturne that don't work (nearly as well) as Treasures, so you have to introduce a new mechanic anyway if you want those. Why not use the new mechanic for some more cards, even if they don't abolutely have to use it? It's already there. Better than having an expansion with 2 mechanics that achieve basically the same thing.

If Night cards didn't exist already and you were to make an expansion with only a single card that would work as a Night card, but also as a Treasure, it's the other way around, simply because the new stuff you want to do isn't worth the overhead of introducing a new type. You'd just make that card a Treasure worth 0$ and call it "Horn of Plenty".
Yes, I said you'd need a lot of different names.  I understand that.  I just like that they are the way they are as night cards rather than trying to find lots of different treasure-y names.   I'm pretty sure we're agreeing? I was just saying that it seems difficult to come up with that many treasure names. 
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Asper on December 26, 2017, 05:08:55 pm
There are some Night cards, like Werewolf, Vampire and Exorcist, that could be Treasures like Horn of Plenty. But many can't. Ghost Town and similar cards for example would just become really confusing.

True, but then you'd need a lot of different names of cards and the theme would be really difficult.  I mean, you can't have things like werewolf and vampire as treasures.  That makes no sense.  I love the night phase and I love how thematic it is.

Obviously nobody would make a Treasure called "Werewolf", but that doesn't mean that there isn't a good name for a card that does what Werewolf does while being a Treasure. It's also not like the name "Werewolf" wouldn't work with any other card, either. But there are cards in Nocturne that don't work (nearly as well) as Treasures, so you have to introduce a new mechanic anyway if you want those. Why not use the new mechanic for some more cards, even if they don't abolutely have to use it? It's already there. Better than having an expansion with 2 mechanics that achieve basically the same thing.

If Night cards didn't exist already and you were to make an expansion with only a single card that would work as a Night card, but also as a Treasure, it's the other way around, simply because the new stuff you want to do isn't worth the overhead of introducing a new type. You'd just make that card a Treasure worth 0$ and call it "Horn of Plenty".
Yes, I said you'd need a lot of different names.  I understand that.  I just like that they are the way they are as night cards rather than trying to find lots of different treasure-y names.   I'm pretty sure we're agreeing? I was just saying that it seems difficult to come up with that many treasure names.
Yes, we agree that the night type is better than weird Treasure things. My point was just that IF the mechanic you wanted were Treasures, you'd probably just make the set finance themed instead of Night themed.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 26, 2017, 07:07:21 pm
I mean, you can't have things like werewolf and vampire as treasures.
Werewolf would actually be simpler as an Action reading: "Choose one; +3 Cards; or each other player receives the next Hex." That also sorts out the minor wrinkle that people can react to a Werewolf being played in the Action phase, even though it's never possible for the attack component to apply then.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Gazbag on December 26, 2017, 07:20:16 pm
I mean, you can't have things like werewolf and vampire as treasures.
Werewolf would actually be simpler as an Action reading: "Choose one; +3 Cards; or each other player receives the next Hex." That also sorts out the minor wrinkle that people can react to a Werewolf being played in the Action phase, even though it's never possible for the attack component to apply then.

The big thing with Werewolf is that you can't draw them "dead" with other Werewolfs because of it's nightness, so it wouldn't really work the same as a choose 1 action (it would as a treasure though of course).
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: greybirdofprey on December 27, 2017, 10:40:36 am
I mean, you can't have things like werewolf and vampire as treasures.
Werewolf would actually be simpler as an Action reading: "Choose one; +3 Cards; or each other player receives the next Hex." That also sorts out the minor wrinkle that people can react to a Werewolf being played in the Action phase, even though it's never possible for the attack component to apply then.

The big thing with Werewolf is that you can't draw them "dead" with other Werewolfs because of it's nightness, so it wouldn't really work the same as a choose 1 action (it would as a treasure though of course).

Technically you could have "If you discard this from your hand during clean-up, each other player receives the next hex".
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Asper on December 27, 2017, 09:28:28 pm
I mean, you can't have things like werewolf and vampire as treasures.
Werewolf would actually be simpler as an Action reading: "Choose one; +3 Cards; or each other player receives the next Hex." That also sorts out the minor wrinkle that people can react to a Werewolf being played in the Action phase, even though it's never possible for the attack component to apply then.

The big thing with Werewolf is that you can't draw them "dead" with other Werewolfs because of it's nightness, so it wouldn't really work the same as a choose 1 action (it would as a treasure though of course).

Technically you could have "If you discard this from your hand during clean-up, each other player receives the next hex".

You can technically do this and people (incl. me) tried things like that. It's a poor fit for an attack, though. And again, when you have Nights already, don't also have pseudo-Nights.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: popsofctown on December 27, 2017, 09:53:10 pm
You could make Library "Draw until you have 7 cards in hand." It'd be so much simpler.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ackmondual on December 28, 2017, 02:48:58 am
A better option would be to just not play with 4 players. ;)

Everybody knows 4-player Dominion is kind of.. meh. Dominion is balanced for two players.
Better yet... play 6 player games.  Only by surviving that will you have a newfound appreciation of 4p Dominion ;):p
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 28, 2017, 10:06:02 am
And again, when you have Nights already, don't also have pseudo-Nights.
I don't think anybody's advocating that. I'm certainly not advocating that. If you have the Night phase, you might as well use it, and cards like Philosopher's Stone and Scheme could be converted. Maybe even Coin of the Realm could be a Night-Reserve in this way of thinking.

However, introducing Night to the game isn't free, in terms of rules complexity, cognitive load, etc. The question is: does the benefit of the simplification of each of those cards, in aggregate, offset the cost of introducing Night?

I'm not so sure. It doesn't seem to bring as much as, or be as intuitive as, Durations, Reserve, Coin Tokens or Debt. And, unlike the hilarious fun you can have with a kingdom that's a sea of orange, or a game where your entire economy is based on coins, it turns out a hand full of Night cards isn't great, and I'm not sure a kingdom full of them is either. A kingdom with a couple of valuable Night cards in it seems to work a lot better than one with heaps of the cheap Night cards.

Playing with a few valuable Night cards runs a lot more smoothly than trying to sort out a mess of Monasteries and Night Watchmen. But then the benefit of a whole new mechanic is less when you play with fewer cards that are using it.

I'll see how I feel once I've played a few more Nocturne games, but my "Ooh" at seeing the previews and eagerness to get my hands on the set has flattened to grudgingly accepting that Night probably on balance makes more sense than achieving the same effect with strange wording on each of several individual cards.

Returning full circle to the point of my original posting, I don't think the first recommended kingdom is at all a good showcase for Nocturne. And I don't think Fool is the only problem with it.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Asper on December 28, 2017, 10:42:29 am
I mean, Empires has already introduced a Treasure that's not worth any amount, not even the 0$ from HoP, so I guess that's something we could skip with "pseudo-Night"-treasures. Changeling, Vampire, Bat, Night Watchman, Exorcist Werewolf could just be Treasures like that, no issue. Cobbler and Raider do that + being a Duration. Guardian, Ghost Town and Den of Sin would have to be played on gaining them, but that's not such a big deal, either. I kind of feel they become slightly harder to grasp this way, though. Crypt would have to exclude itself, but maybe copies of it would be fine. Manastery and Devil's Workshop are where it becomes fiddly, as now you'd have Treasures that still wait for cleanup. That's meh.

I could do a mockup of a few of these and then you could decide for yourself.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 28, 2017, 03:45:46 pm
Monastery and Devil's Workshop are where it becomes fiddly, as now you'd have Treasures that still wait for cleanup.
Having previously (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18075.msg739150#msg739150) suggested "+1 Action. This turn, you may trash one card when you discard it." as a non-Night version of Monastery, I've just realised the mechanic is actually very nearly a post-hoc Haggler.

So what about a Treasure worth $1 which reads "While this is in play, when you gain a card, you may trash a card from your hand." That's a slight buff in that it gives you $1 even when you don't trash a Copper from hand, but slightly tarnished by ignoring action-phase gains. Those might or might not balance out.

For me, having experience of playing with Haggler and Triumph, I know I'd find playing "Monasteroids" in advance and trashing each time I gained would be easier to keep track of than gaining first then trashing later. I'm guessing Monastery was playtested, though, and I'm in a minority. /-8
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Asper on December 28, 2017, 06:24:16 pm
Monastery and Devil's Workshop are where it becomes fiddly, as now you'd have Treasures that still wait for cleanup.
Having previously (http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=18075.msg739150#msg739150) suggested "+1 Action. This turn, you may trash one card when you discard it." as a non-Night version of Monastery, I've just realised the mechanic is actually very nearly a post-hoc Haggler.

So what about a Treasure worth $1 which reads "While this is in play, when you gain a card, you may trash a card from your hand." That's a slight buff in that it gives you $1 even when you don't trash a Copper from hand, but slightly tarnished by ignoring action-phase gains. Those might or might not balance out.

For me, having experience of playing with Haggler and Triumph, I know I'd find playing "Monasteroids" in advance and trashing each time I gained would be easier to keep track of than gaining first then trashing later. I'm guessing Monastery was playtested, though, and I'm in a minority. /-8

I can just say that if Monastery wasn't around, I'd consider this a nice fan card idea. It's not quite the same of course.
Edit: I don't think I want to go any deeper into this subject, though. Not outside the variants forum.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on December 28, 2017, 06:45:06 pm
So what about a Treasure worth $1 which reads "While this is in play, when you gain a card, you may trash a card from your hand." That's a slight buff in that it gives you $1 even when you don't trash a Copper from hand, but slightly tarnished by ignoring action-phase gains. Those might or might not balance out.

A treasure worth $1 that lets you trash a card from your hand?

(http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?title=Special%3AFilePath&file=Goat.jpg)
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Accatitippi on December 28, 2017, 07:00:10 pm
It might be my impression, but the amount of confusion/rule questions generated by HoP when it first came out was higher than the confusion generated by the Night mechanic.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on December 28, 2017, 07:12:04 pm
A treasure worth $1 that lets you trash a card from your hand?
Monastery has that wrinkle whereby if you gain more cards, you can trash more cards, though. (And that can give counterintuitive outcomes. For example, with two Monasteries in play it can be worth buying an extra Copper in order to be able to trash two extra Coppers! In other news, my experience so far has been that two Monasteries turned out to be at least one too many.)

I figured the wrinkle was important enough to include in the the "Monasteroid" example of achieving something similar to Monastery without Night.Otherwise yes, sure, Goat.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: William Howard Taft on December 28, 2017, 08:10:50 pm
Monastery has that wrinkle whereby if you gain more cards, you can trash more cards, though. (And that can give counterintuitive outcomes. For example, with two Monasteries in play it can be worth buying an extra Copper in order to be able to trash two extra Coppers! In other news, my experience so far has been that two Monasteries turned out to be at least one too many.

All this. Monastery being the way it is also makes gainers more attractive.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ackmondual on December 29, 2017, 01:59:17 am
The fact that the card's name is "Fool" makes it so wink-wink-nudge-nudge when it wrecks a game like that.
In case folks missed such cues from other such cards like Torturer and Saboteur, I'd take a guess that it was fun for the Dominion team ;)

Otherwise, they can start injecting that into the recommended sets:
Kingdom on the Edge of Forever
Dom. 1E
Spy
Witch

Intrigue 1E
Great Hall
Saboteur
Torturer

Alchemy
Alchemist
Scrying Pool

Nocturne
Fool
Vampire
Skulk

Empires
Bandit Fort
Wall

I honestly didn't think about the dynamic where Night cards make it so it is not so easy for the next player to spring off their turn from another player after the buy phase. Definitely when I play in person there is that rhythm where the next player is ready to begin their turn at around the buy phase of the preceding player.
Interesting points that folks brought up with jump starting the next turn... I've met folks who refuse to start their turns until the player before them finishes their cleanup phase (after drawing 5 new cards).  Way to foreshadow that you have an Attack coming up :D
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Gazbag on December 30, 2017, 04:53:41 pm
So I've just played some drunk games of Nocturne with my Dad - they were his first games with Nocturne cards. We played the first recommended set of Nocturne a couple of times and when I asked his thoughts on Fool he said "Taking 3 Boons is weird and slows down the game."  So there we go, it's decided.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: pacatak on January 08, 2018, 04:02:07 pm
Donald needs no back up, but i play primarily with 4 players, and i love the game.  i've played over 200 games with the same group of guys, and it hasn't gotten stale yet. 

I acknowledge the fact that it tries to be balanced for 2-4. It just doesn't always succeed. Why do you reckon the 2-player option is the standard for competitive play?

It's cute that it's possible to play with 3 or 4 players, especially for casual players. But it just doesn't work nearly as well.

By the way, this is not meant as a criticism towards Dominion in general, because I still think it's the second best 2-player board/card game in the world (after chess).
People like to compete online with 2 players because it's faster and there's less luck.

I have endlessly played Dominion with 3-5, thousands of games. You aren't going to convince me that it doesn't work.

Chess is a great example of what not to do in a board game.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Aleimon Thimble on January 08, 2018, 05:06:38 pm
Donald needs no back up, but i play primarily with 4 players, and i love the game.  i've played over 200 games with the same group of guys, and it hasn't gotten stale yet. 

I don't like how especially 4 player games ruin strategies by making Action piles run way too low too quickly, making BM strategies way more viable in 4P (and I prefer engines by a long shot). I also don't like how there are only 3 Provinces per player in 4 player games.

If there were 15 Action cards per pile in 3 player games and 20 in 4 player games, as well as 16 Provinces in 4 player games, then I would be completely fine with 3/4 players. Of course, that would almost double the amount of cards in a set, which would be inconvenient as well as expensive, so the current solution kinda works. But it's not great and I strongly prefer just playing Dominion with 2 players.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on January 08, 2018, 05:48:26 pm
Donald needs no back up, but i play primarily with 4 players, and i love the game.  i've played over 200 games with the same group of guys, and it hasn't gotten stale yet. 

I don't like how especially 4 player games ruin strategies by making Action piles run way too low too quickly, making BM strategies way more viable in 4P (and I prefer engines by a long shot). I also don't like how there are only 3 Provinces per player in 4 player games.

If there were 15 Action cards per pile in 3 player games and 20 in 4 player games, as well as 16 Provinces in 4 player games, then I would be completely fine with 3/4 players. Of course, that would almost double the amount of cards in a set, which would be inconvenient as well as expensive, so the current solution kinda works. But it's not great and I strongly prefer just playing Dominion with 2 players.

I think that's the aspect of 3-4 player games I like the most. Resources are scarce and you may not be able to build what you want to build.

Sometimes I wish the 2-player game had more resource contention.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Aleimon Thimble on January 09, 2018, 05:47:30 am
Donald needs no back up, but i play primarily with 4 players, and i love the game.  i've played over 200 games with the same group of guys, and it hasn't gotten stale yet. 

I don't like how especially 4 player games ruin strategies by making Action piles run way too low too quickly, making BM strategies way more viable in 4P (and I prefer engines by a long shot). I also don't like how there are only 3 Provinces per player in 4 player games.

If there were 15 Action cards per pile in 3 player games and 20 in 4 player games, as well as 16 Provinces in 4 player games, then I would be completely fine with 3/4 players. Of course, that would almost double the amount of cards in a set, which would be inconvenient as well as expensive, so the current solution kinda works. But it's not great and I strongly prefer just playing Dominion with 2 players.

I think that's the aspect of 3-4 player games I like the most. Resources are scarce and you may not be able to build what you want to build.

Sometimes I wish the 2-player game had more resource contention.

If you can't build what you would build in a 2-player game with the same cards - that is, an engine - you will be forced to build some kind of half-assed BM-ish or 'good stuff' deck instead just because there aren't enough cards. That's not only demotivating, it also increases the influence of luck, since BM strategies are less reliant on skill than engine strategies.

The first game board in base Dominion - Village, Smithy, Market, Cellar, Militia, Moat, Workshop, Remodel, Mine, Woodcutter(old)/Merchant(new) - is a nice engine board with 2 players, but a mediocre BM board with 4 players, since there are not enough villages. Of course, even with 2 players you will be fighting for the Village split, but with 4 players everyone is guaranteed to have too few Villages to build the engine. No wonder the Silver test became a thing if everyone was playing 4P all the time.

Remember the 4-player Base campaigns on Goko/MF where Council Room-BM was the solution more often than not. The only way to beat those levels was to try them a million times until the stars align and you get perfect shuffle luck.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Asper on January 09, 2018, 10:41:12 am
Not everybody loves engines to death. Not everything that isn't an engine is Big Money. The space inbetween is much more interesting than people give it credit for and the assumption that it was tiny is pushed by people who barely have experience with those games.

I will agree though that the first edition of Base lacked support for anything except those extremes and perhaps Gardens. But Dominion isn't Base anymore. Not even Base is.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Holger on January 10, 2018, 09:54:23 am


I'd be really interested to hear anyone else's experiences. /-8
As you can see in the secret history, I struggled to make sure that Fool did not slow games down too much, after having bad experiences with it. I blamed those games on the ability to Throne Room it, and as you can see that's no longer possible; you can't even play a Village and then two of them. However your experience suggests that the real problem is just, getting three Boons when you're new enough to the expansion that the Boons don't come automatically. The Boons themselves struggle to be simple and not slow things down even for new-to-the-set players. Three at once and ordering them is a bunch of that though.

So I mean, I think you simply experienced an actual problem; Fool is too slow when you're not used to the Boons. Everyone starts out not used to them, so it's too slow period. It's a bummer that it's in the first recommended set. We had the problem but it always seemed to be repeated plays in one turn that were the problem.

May I ask why you chose such a complicated (IMO) nerf-boost (adding LitW) to fix that problem? Simply adding a "once per turn" clause (like Outpost and Fortune) would have fixed that problem, too, and would not have created an incentive for other players to join the bandwagon as soon as one or two players buys Fool, as Asper decribes in his OP. (Or one could increase Fool's cost, or even restrict it to receiving two Boons unconditionally.)


I admit I haven't played with it myself yet, but both Fool and LitW sound very strong "on paper" when comparing several Boon combinations to printed cards:
(Of course, the randomness weakens Fool substantially, especially not knowing whether it's nonterminal in advance seriously hampers GM and JD.)



Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: LastFootnote on January 10, 2018, 12:06:32 pm
I admit I haven't played with it myself yet, but both Fool and LitW sound very strong "on paper" when comparing several Boon combinations to printed cards:
  • Fool receiving the three "vanilla" Boons (Field, Forest, Sea) is a Grand Market. (Field+Forest alone is already a Silver plus a Market Square)
  • Fool receiving Field, Flame, Sea is better than Junk Dealer.
  • Fool receiving Flame, Mountain, Sea is similar to JoaT(and probably a bit better)
(Of course, the randomness weakens Fool substantially, especially not knowing whether it's nonterminal in advance seriously hampers GM and JD.)

  • LitW receiving Field is like having a Village and an Oasis in your starting hand.
  • LitW receiving Forest is Market Square+Oasis.
  • LitW receiving Sea is Fugitive.
  • LitW receiving Wind is Warehouse.

I think having not played with it yourself, maybe you should before making all these claims? A lot of them are misleading and some are just false. The big thing of course is that you underestimate how much the randomness weakens both Fool and Lost in the Woods. Yeah, receiving Field from Lost in the Woods is like having a Village and an Oasis in your starting hand (and Field is probably the strongest Boon across the board), but you don't know that you're going to get Field when you're deciding whether to discard a card. Your Sea and Wind comparisons are actually flat-out false. Receiving Sea is like a card that's [+1 Card, +1 Action, then discard a card, then +1 Card] and then Wind is like [+1 Card, +1 Action, discard a card, +2 Cards, discard 2 cards]. The first is far weaker than Fugitive and the second is at least slightly weaker than Warehouse. And again, they're both weak because you can't plan for them.

EDIT: I guess I should say, having played with Fool a lot, Lost in the Woods doesn't feel strong to me. I mean it's fantastic in really sloggy games, but marginal in a lot of decks.

For all you Fool haters out there, I'll take this moment to apologize for Fool. Sorry! Probably if it hadn't been for me, Fool wouldn't be in the set. I was constantly fighting to save it, because I really enjoy the "receive 3 Boons" effect. I regret that now, when so many people are complaining about it. Thanks to this thread, I am constantly kicking myself every damn day. In my defense, I did suggest "if this is the first time you played a Fool this turn", and Donald wasn't keen on it at the time. Although today I'd probably suggest making it a one-shot, which I pooh-poohed when Donald suggested it. That would (usually) put a real hard limit on how much it happened in a game, and you'd still get the experience. But of course it's an experience that this hardcore crowd doesn't seem keen on anyway.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ThetaSigma12 on January 10, 2018, 12:09:53 pm
I enjoy Fool and find it both a fun and mildly strategic card. Thanks for keeping it around, LFN.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Cave-o-sapien on January 10, 2018, 12:15:56 pm
For all you Fool haters out there, I'll take this moment to apologize for Fool. Sorry! Probably if it hadn't been for me, Fool wouldn't be in the set.

I've only played with it once in person (many times online), but I don't mind it.

I kind of like having a card that goads you into buying it because of a small benefit your opponent is getting every turn.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: O on January 10, 2018, 12:28:22 pm
Card comparison ("Village is just a two necropolises plus a smithy, minus the five hundred edge cases") always suck, but they especially suck when comparing to boons.

Take Warehouse. Warehouse is in your hand. This is -1 to your hand size before even having made the decision of whether or not to play warehouse. You don't get to choose not to have -1 card.

Lost in the Woods is optional. If you have 5 cards you like, you don't have to roll. So if you do get the warehouse-but-not-really-warehouse effect in the Wind's Gift, it's on the precondition that you had a card in your hand that you didn't mind pitching. This is a fundamentally different scenario and no amount of card comparisons can fix that. 
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Gazbag on January 10, 2018, 12:36:22 pm
I think I'm totally okay with Fool now. The speed of play isn't an issue online at all and after a few games with Boons it isn't too bad IRL either. I also don't mind the swing factor of it too much anymore either, which I think is what most "hardcore" or "competitive" players dislike about it. It's such a weak card in general that buying one when your opponent doesn't follow and winning because of it feels good and games where both players go for it were probably just going to be down to shuffles anyway so I can get over that too. I also enjoy Lucky Coin a lot, it's kind of like Cursed Gold except it's actually an interesting decision on whether you want to play Lucky Coin. Lucky Coin money decks can be fearsome!

I think Pixie and Blessed Village will end up being the most hated Fates cards, by "hardcore" players at least. Pixie is incredibly swingy, an early Flame or Earth can be game winning. Blessed Village just forces people to buy it because it's a village and then one player might just get a sizeable advantage over the other based how the Boons go.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: aku_chi on January 10, 2018, 01:27:38 pm
I recently spectated a game between DG and amoffett11 where both players Princed a Fool.  That was hilarious (and effective).
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Accatitippi on January 10, 2018, 01:57:31 pm
I do not dislike Fool. It's not even close to being one of the cards that I actually find annoying to play with (namely Cultist, Rebuild, Possession, Smugglers, Save, Scrying Pool, King's Court).

It does have a very steep learning curve, though, requiring you to learn 16 cards during the course of the first game with it, 12 of which are not openly available for you to read at all times. That's twice as much as the Castles, which are definitely not considered a newbie-friendly card. No other Fate card churns through the Boons that fast, and revealing one boon at the time, they require less imput from the player. Normally boons happen to you, but with Fool you really have to make a bit more effort to understand in what order to play the three you drew.

I've already said it elsewhere, but I think that the coupling of Lucky coin and Fool was unfortunate. It makes players more likely to get an early Fool even when they'd usually not, just because Silver is so much less attractive. This makes almost every Fool game a Fool game.

I think Lost in the Woods is definitely the most fun part about Fool. If they told me that Fool was being magically errataed into "If you don't have LitW, +2 coins, and take LitW", I would not object.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Donald X. on January 10, 2018, 05:02:11 pm
In my defense, I did suggest "if this is the first time you played a Fool this turn", and Donald wasn't keen on it at the time.
We did test multiple things that did that, e.g. "If you've already played a Fool this turn, do X, otherwise..." Among the many many Fools tested.

Obv. it was my call, it was my fault. I see it as a leadership problem; I had to be willing to make an unpopular decision, that would never be vindicated.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Donald X. on January 10, 2018, 05:05:28 pm
I do not dislike Fool. It's not even close to being one of the cards that I actually find annoying to play with (namely Cultist, Rebuild, Possession, Smugglers, Save, Scrying Pool, King's Court).
Smugglers, Save, and King's Court are all pretty sweet as-is. I would drop the attack from Scrying Pool, and use the fix someone here suggested of having Cultist either play another or hand out Ruins, your choice. I would not do Rebuild and Possession; I don't think I would try to fix them up, I would just abandon those concepts.

How much of a problem a card is though depends a lot on what kind of players you have, and whether or not they're online. For a typical casual group IRL, Rebuild isn't a problem at all. It's some card, they might buy it or not, it doesn't dominate. You have to say, no no guys, read these threads, to cause a problem. Whereas Fool makes that group's first Nocturne game painfully slow.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Accatitippi on January 10, 2018, 05:29:02 pm
I do not dislike Fool. It's not even close to being one of the cards that I actually find annoying to play with (namely Cultist, Rebuild, Possession, Smugglers, Save, Scrying Pool, King's Court).
Smugglers, Save, and King's Court are all pretty sweet as-is. I would drop the attack from Scrying Pool, and use the fix someone here suggested of having Cultist either play another or hand out Ruins, your choice. I would not do Rebuild and Possession; I don't think I would try to fix them up, I would just abandon those concepts.

How much of a problem a card is though depends a lot on what kind of players you have, and whether or not they're online. For a typical casual group IRL, Rebuild isn't a problem at all. It's some card, they might buy it or not, it doesn't dominate. You have to say, no no guys, read these threads, to cause a problem. Whereas Fool makes that group's first Nocturne game painfully slow.

I'm not saying that Smugglers, Save and KC should be any different. Of course you cannot please everybody.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: trivialknot on January 10, 2018, 05:42:14 pm
I haven't really had the problem where Fool is painfully slow, although part of it is that I saw this thread, and have been vetoing Fool for less experienced play groups.  Fool seems to be fine outside that context.  My main issue is that I keep on forgetting I have Lost in the Woods.

Over break we did play one game that was so slow that we all agreed to quit.  The culprit?  Haunted Woods.  Heh, my fault for playing one every single turn.  I think they just didn't know how to counter it (Forum was right there!), but regardless of the reason, it was still a thing that happened.  Dominion enjoys such a wide range of variation, I think it's inevitable that some kingdoms don't work with some play groups.  Resigning and quitting are valid options.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Asper on January 10, 2018, 05:59:27 pm
Fool gets better and better once you get used to it. It's not a Rebuild that breaks the game, and it has its fans for a reason. And even players who don't like Fool itself can be happy it's around, because it gives us an Heirloom (my personal favourite, actually). Sure, the card's not perfect, but nobody can strike gold 100% of the time. I feel that the more people get used to the Boons, the less will it matter.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on January 10, 2018, 06:16:51 pm
For all you Fool haters out there, I'll take this moment to apologize for Fool. Sorry! Probably if it hadn't been for me, Fool wouldn't be in the set.
Gosh. I misconstrued your earlier apology. I thought you were only claiming responsibility for it being in the first recommended kingdom!

These things happen, I guess...
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: Asper on January 10, 2018, 10:33:58 pm
I think Pixie and Blessed Village will end up being the most hated Fates cards, by "hardcore" players at least. Pixie is incredibly swingy, an early Flame or Earth can be game winning. Blessed Village just forces people to buy it because it's a village and then one player might just get a sizeable advantage over the other based how the Boons go.
But games with Pixie have Goat, either way.
I'm less of a fan of Blessed Village, but mostly because it has this timing thing going on. I guess that is meaningful to make sure nobody gets a useless Boon, though.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ThetaSigma12 on January 11, 2018, 01:03:11 pm
Of course you cannot please everybody.

Of course you can, you just need enough hitmen.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ackmondual on January 12, 2018, 05:39:09 pm
If you play enough, players will get familiar enough with Fool and the 12 Boons such that gaming time is reduced again.  Every now and then, it's nice to have some nice, "long term cards".  Cards that are fun when you exceed a longer term usage of it.
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: ackmondual on January 15, 2018, 03:27:56 am
It seems swapping the presets in the rulebook could've been in order?  It seems like Midnight would take less time if Fool really is THAT big a culprit.  At the very least, swap out Fool from Dusk with Druid.  That way, you only need to deal with 3 Boons at a time.  Blessed Village doles out Boons, but at least that's more "traditional", getting away from all that "State nonsense" that really seems to trip up newbies much harder than anticipated.

Dusk:
Blessed Village, Cobbler, Den of Sin, Faithful Hound, Fool,
Monastery, Night Watchman, Shepherd, Tormentor, Tragic Hero


Midnight:
Conclave, Crypt, Cursed Village, Devil's Workshop, Druid (The Swamp's Gift, The Flame's Gift, The Wind's Gift),
Exorcist, Leprechaun, Pooka, Raider, Secret Cave
Title: Re: The Fool is a pity
Post by: crj on January 15, 2018, 11:38:34 am
I'd agree that the Boons from Blessed Village are far more tolerable. After all, they only occur ten times in the entire game, unless something odd happens.