Dominion Strategy Forum
Dominion => Dominion General Discussion => Topic started by: MattLee on April 14, 2018, 11:14:33 am
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If my wife is busy shuffling, or looking at her cards, or otherwise not paying attention I'll play my turn fast so I can buy a provence or attack card before she notices. She does the same. That's what you get for not paying attention! Do you guys do this IRL games?
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You're responsible for making your opponents aware of what you do during your turn. Legerdemain is not part of the game.
If your opponent is watching TV, or screwing around on their phone, or otherwise disengaged, I can see being frustrated. But if your opponent is shuffling or reading her cards--playing the game--it seems rude (or cheating) to deliberately conceal what you're doing. Clearly you have an understanding with your wife, so what you do at your table is between you, but I wouldn't be OK with that at my table.
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I have the exact opposite problem with my girlfriend. She gets annoyed that I announce whatever cards I'm buying/playing, but it's to make sure everyone in the game has the same information about what's happening.
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If my wife is busy shuffling, or looking at her cards, or otherwise not paying attention I'll play my turn fast so I can buy a provence or attack card before she notices. She does the same. That's what you get for not paying attention! Do you guys do this IRL games?
I don't do IRL games.
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I actually think it should be okay to do. Say, for instance, that you sneakily (or even not-so-sneakily) end the game on piles, and your opponent(s) want to do their turn over, since they didn't realize. Totally bogus, right? It's their fault for not realizing! Same thing here, in my opinion- if they're not paying attention, they can't really justify calling you out. I understand that others may have a different opinion, though.
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There's a big difference between not making sure everyone is 100% aware of every detail of the game state, and intentionally hiding the things you did to affect the game state.
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What about intentionally hiding things you do to determine game state?
To pick an example, is OK to count the Provinces surreptitiously while nobody's looking, instead of openly counting them and telling everybody how many there are?
(It's certainly not something I'd do. But I would look up a rules clarification for a card in my hand without letting people know what I was doing.)
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For that kind of thing I'd probably use Wheaton's Law ("Don't be a dick."). If someone notices and asks, you should explain what you're doing, but if nobody notices/cares, then clearly it's not a big deal.
FWIW when I do things like that, I'll provide the pile count to everyone, or say I'm checking a rule about cards in my hand. I don't know that anyone's wanted to know the specific rule I'm checking in that case, but I tend to say what it was when we get to the part of the game where it matters.
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I think the distinction is easier. You have an obligation to not affirmatively mislead others, but you do not have an obligation to affirmatively inform others of information you know that they would also want to know.
So:
* Counting piles silently in your head and not providing the count is fine, but if asked, responding truthfully with the count is required
* Playing quickly with the intent of concealing your actions is not fine, but you do not have to announce your updated score when you buy a Province
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If both you and your wife do this; then presumably you are aware that the other person will do this if given the chance. That makes it so that you are no cheating; but you are playing a variant. If you did this with an opponent that is not aware that this is something you do, then you are cheating.
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Its always interesting to me to see the little differences in playgroups. I'm not surprised most people don't play like this and wouldn't want to. We like it though, it adds an interesting element of interaction to what is a mostly non-interactive game. For us, lying about what was bought is not allowed, nor is playing while someone is not at the table. We don't pile count often, but both players will know the count if we do. When I play with other people I don't sneak anything, but I don't announce what I'm buying either. I don't know the official rules on that, but I don't feel like its cheating.
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I think I've done this, in a game that was not Dominion, when I thought my opponent would appreciate it.
I think we agreed some card was terrible, then I bought it when my opponent wasn't paying attention so it'd be more surprising when I played it later.
But yeah you can't do this en serio.
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There's also the fact that sometimes people make mistakes. If you're trying to play super quickly to conceal which cards you're buying, there's a chance you could accidentally miscount or misread something and get away with it.
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When I play boardgames I always narrativize my turn to make it easier for my fellow players to follow. And while I don't expect the folks I play with to do the same I often ask silent players what they actually did on their turns.
Dominion is not a complex game so it is usually easy to follow silent players. But intentionally playing superquickly for the sake of misleading or punishing slow shuffling or whatever seems just plain weird to me.
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Its always interesting to me to see the little differences in playgroups. I'm not surprised most people don't play like this and wouldn't want to. We like it though, it adds an interesting element of interaction to what is a mostly non-interactive game. For us, lying about what was bought is not allowed, nor is playing while someone is not at the table. We don't pile count often, but both players will know the count if we do. When I play with other people I don't sneak anything, but I don't announce what I'm buying either. I don't know the official rules on that, but I don't feel like its cheating.
Dominion is super interactive, I'd say it's roughly as interactive as chess.
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The rules of Dominion specify that you must announce Action cards as you play them. It does not say the same for announcing cards you buy and gain, but I think it’s implied.
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Pet niggle: when announcing they're buying or gaining something, that should be announced as "buying XYZ" or "gaining XYZ", not just "XYZ". The confusion otherwise is especially irritating with something like Ill-Gotten Gains.
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Here I thought this was going to be another strategic discard order debate
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Here I thought this was going to be another strategic discard order debate
Oh don't worry we have plenty of room to discuss how MattLee should secretly discard when his wife Processions her Soldier and starts looking at the cards she might gain with Procession while he is discarding.
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If my wife is busy shuffling, or looking at her cards, or otherwise not paying attention I'll play my turn fast so I can buy a provence or attack card before she notices. She does the same. That's what you get for not paying attention! Do you guys do this IRL games?
I don't do IRL games.
And you shouldn't, as you think an online game with three participants is excrutiatingly painful (presumably because of the enormous time-consuming nature of it?). IRL you wouldn't be able to put all the cards on the table before you fall asleep.
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And you shouldn't, as you think an online game with three participants is excrutiatingly painful (presumably because of the enormous time-consuming nature of it?)
No, it's because of accidental kingmaking. In a 2p game, I can maximize my odds of winning assuming that the other player maximizes their odds of winning as well, which makes for a super interactive competitive environment. In a 3p game, if I try to do the same, what usually happens is that player B plays worse than optimally and then player C wins as a result of that.
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And you shouldn't, as you think an online game with three participants is excrutiatingly painful (presumably because of the enormous time-consuming nature of it?)
No, it's because of accidental kingmaking. In a 2p game, I can maximize my odds of winning assuming that the other player maximizes their odds of winning as well, which makes for a super interactive competitive environment. In a 3p game, if I try to do the same, what usually happens is that player B plays worse than optimally and then player C wins as a result of that.
Aha, that explains a lot. I thought you didn't like 3+ player Dominion, but you don't like 3+ player card/dice/board games in general (most such games have this chance of accidental kingmaking). If that's the case, you'd probably like RL 2P Dominion. I can only speak for myself, but I love multiplayer games (not least because of the social aspect), and to me Dominion's the best of the lot (not including RPGs). I think 2P Dominion is a bit boring, compared to multiplayer Dominion, but I prefer Dominion at all player counts, to almost any other game.
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Aha, that explains a lot. I thought you didn't like 3+ player Dominion, but you don't like 3+ player card/dice/board games in general (most such games have this chance of accidental kingmaking). If that's the case, you'd probably like RL 2P Dominion. I can only speak for myself, but I love multiplayer games (not least because of the social aspect), and to me Dominion's the best of the lot (not including RPGs). I think 2P Dominion is a bit boring, compared to multiplayer Dominion, but I prefer Dominion at all player counts, to almost any other game.
I like RL 2P Dominion. The problem is my friends and family members don't want to play it against a top player.
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I'm a former semi-competitive magic player, and so I start by reasonable announcing:
"three, six, eight treasure, buy a province..."
and then because I want the winner to win by skill, not by forgetfulness I continue
"...5 provinces left"
I visibly count low piles too.
I try not to be obnoxious about it, and people don't seem to mind.
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I'm a former semi-competitive magic player, and so I start by reasonable announcing:
"three, six, eight treasure, buy a province..."
and then because I want the winner to win by skill, not by forgetfulness I continue
"...5 provinces left"
I visibly count low piles too.
I try not to be obnoxious about it, and people don't seem to mind.
That's more or less the same thing I do, except I don't often Count piles. When I do, I announce the amount, though.
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I'm a former semi-competitive magic player, and so I start by reasonable announcing:
"three, six, eight treasure, buy a province..."
and then because I want the winner to win by skill, not by forgetfulness I continue
"...5 provinces left"
I visibly count low piles too.
I try not to be obnoxious about it, and people don't seem to mind.
That's more or less the same thing I do, except I don't often Count piles. When I do, I announce the amount, though.
Huh, not sure I’ve ever seen Count pile. Could make sense with Obelisk I guess.